August 10, 2023 - 10:00am
It’s all change on the Home Nations beat. After Nicola Sturgeon stepped down as Scottish First Minister in February, Mark Drakeford, who has led the Welsh Government since 2018, has just announced that he is to quit the Senedd at the next election, due by 2026.
Drakeford, though, leaves his party in much better health than his longtime Scottish counterpart. Nearly 70, and still struggling with the loss of his wife, there is little mystery as to why the First Minister might choose to step back from public life.
His record poses an interesting challenge to Labour. Politically, it has been a success: he has maintained its position as Wales’s hegemonic party, co-opting both Plaid Cymru and the residual Liberal Democrat (yes, singular) into propping up his government.
Yet on policy, Drakeford failed — or, rather, showed no interest in trying — to break out of the rut carved by his predecessors since the advent of the Welsh Assembly in 1999, which saw Welsh Labour use devolution to indulge its worst instincts.
Education results have tumbled, with Labour ministers reduced to accusing Michael Gove of “colonial attitudes” when he pointed this out. It’s a similar story with health, which saw David Cameron brand Offa’s Dyke the line “between life and death” in 2014; the Betsi Cadwaladr NHS Trust was in special measures for five years from 2015 to 2020, a state to which it returned in February. Whoever succeeds Drakeford will have to decide if all that is good enough — so long as (south) Wales keeps dutifully trooping out to re-elect Labour — or whether the Principality deserves something bolder.
Then there’s the broader constitutional question. Credulous critics of the Government’s occasional flirtations with so-called “muscular unionism” often held up the outgoing First Minister as a model unionist; that even Mark Drakeford was criticising a policy was taken as proof that it was beyond the pale.
Yet his is a decidedly anaemic sort of unionism, long on demands for fiscal transfers but decidedly short on any enthusiasm for Britain or British governance. Under Drakeford’s leadership, Labour has run pro-independence candidates; its most recent election manifesto falsely described the United Kingdom as a sort of voluntary confederation, in the European Union mould, rather than the actual state that it is.
Drakeford’s defenders say this is all in aid of holding off the Welsh nationalists, who have indeed failed to make the sort of breakthrough achieved by the SNP. But Welsh Labour’s steady nationalist evolution poses dangers of its own.
Too many see what they want to see: the good, reasonable, pro-Union politician, the last holdout of the old more-powers, fewer-strings New Labour consensus. Gordon Brown counts Drakeford an ally of his proposals to entrench devolution and gut the British state.
Should Sir Keir Starmer become Prime Minister next year, will a Labour government properly scrutinise the failures of its friends in the west? I fear instead they will invite Drakeford, and whoever succeeds him, into their innermost counsels — and make them a problem for all of us.
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SubscribeIt is difficult to believe that Starmer sees Welsh Labour as a failure.
Success: being in power for 25 years.
Failure: The NHS in Wales is leading the way to doom.
South Wales is Labour through and through – people keep talking about Margaret Thatcher closing the mines. It will take another generation to change. At the next election the number of Senedd seats is increasing from 60 to 96 – most of the new seats coming in the populous (Labour) areas. Labour looks set for ever and this is hardly a failure.
There is no opposition in Wales. The Tories are invisible and Plaid Cymru only talks about the Welsh language. The language is only really pure (and popular) in the west, which doesn’t have many people. Labour also happens to be pro-Welsh language, which is another success point.
To summarise, the weakness of the NHS seems to be only a minor weakness to the voters.
An interesting distinction, which both you and the writer make: a politician and his party can be a political success and at the same time fail utterly in governance in the two main devolved matters (health and education). We saw the same in Scotland. It makes one doubt the value of democracy.
Democracy works for people who want to use it. If you only want a one-party state (and some people do) then if enough of you vote for it, then you’ll get it and everything which accompanies it. That’s what happened in Scotland and Wales even before the more recent nationalism of the last few decades. Democracy is working perfectly well. This is what they want and this is what they are getting.
I think talk of one-party states is a bit rich coming from the other side of Offa’s d**e.
Labour in Wales has never won an overall Senedd majority and has only ever governed in coalition/cooperation with other parties.
In Scotland, the SNP has only once won an overall majority (of 9 in 2011) and has otherwise been in coalition/ cooperation with other parties.
Contrast this with England, where the Conservatives have been in government since 2010 and won a majority of around 160 in England at the last general election. In fact, only 3 times since 1918 has a party other than the Conservatives won an overall majority of English seats.
If any country in the UK can lay claim to being a one-party states, I’d suggest England has better credentials than either Wales or Scotland.
I think talk of one-party states is a bit rich coming from the other side of Offa’s d**e.
Labour in Wales has never won an overall Senedd majority and has only ever governed in coalition/cooperation with other parties.
In Scotland, the SNP has only once won an overall majority (of 9 in 2011) and has otherwise been in coalition/ cooperation with other parties.
Contrast this with England, where the Conservatives have been in government since 2010 and won a majority of around 160 in England at the last general election. In fact, only 3 times since 1918 has a party other than the Conservatives won an overall majority of English seats.
If any country in the UK can lay claim to being a one-party states, I’d suggest England has better credentials than either Wales or Scotland.
There is little value in democracy when its population has been rendered uninformed, incapable of independent/critical thought and blinkered by prostration to a political ideology that has taken the place of religion for the majority. It could be argued that seeding the belief that there was no value to be found in democracy was indeed the goal.
In Gramsci’s own words, he viewed the task thus: “Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity. … In the new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches, and the media by transforming the consciousness of society.”
Democracy works for people who want to use it. If you only want a one-party state (and some people do) then if enough of you vote for it, then you’ll get it and everything which accompanies it. That’s what happened in Scotland and Wales even before the more recent nationalism of the last few decades. Democracy is working perfectly well. This is what they want and this is what they are getting.
There is little value in democracy when its population has been rendered uninformed, incapable of independent/critical thought and blinkered by prostration to a political ideology that has taken the place of religion for the majority. It could be argued that seeding the belief that there was no value to be found in democracy was indeed the goal.
In Gramsci’s own words, he viewed the task thus: “Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity. … In the new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches, and the media by transforming the consciousness of society.”
Then they’re getting what they want. Elections are a tool in a democracy. If you just keep handing over your vote to the same people election after election with no questions asked and you get nothing back from that then don’t moan. They have taken you for granted and they’ll be working hard in a marginal somewhere where people have decided that their vote is worth something. You have the option to make politicians and parties work for your vote individually and collectively. Leaving quantum mechanics aside for the moment, Einstein was correct. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is one definition of insanity. More stupidity in this case.
An interesting distinction, which both you and the writer make: a politician and his party can be a political success and at the same time fail utterly in governance in the two main devolved matters (health and education). We saw the same in Scotland. It makes one doubt the value of democracy.
Then they’re getting what they want. Elections are a tool in a democracy. If you just keep handing over your vote to the same people election after election with no questions asked and you get nothing back from that then don’t moan. They have taken you for granted and they’ll be working hard in a marginal somewhere where people have decided that their vote is worth something. You have the option to make politicians and parties work for your vote individually and collectively. Leaving quantum mechanics aside for the moment, Einstein was correct. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is one definition of insanity. More stupidity in this case.
It is difficult to believe that Starmer sees Welsh Labour as a failure.
Success: being in power for 25 years.
Failure: The NHS in Wales is leading the way to doom.
South Wales is Labour through and through – people keep talking about Margaret Thatcher closing the mines. It will take another generation to change. At the next election the number of Senedd seats is increasing from 60 to 96 – most of the new seats coming in the populous (Labour) areas. Labour looks set for ever and this is hardly a failure.
There is no opposition in Wales. The Tories are invisible and Plaid Cymru only talks about the Welsh language. The language is only really pure (and popular) in the west, which doesn’t have many people. Labour also happens to be pro-Welsh language, which is another success point.
To summarise, the weakness of the NHS seems to be only a minor weakness to the voters.
Mark Drakeford – good riddance!
Mark Drakeford – good riddance!
Mark Drakeford is a unionist. He is widely respected here in Wales, by his opponents as well as his supporters, in sharp contrast to the dross who have inhabited Downing street for the last decade.
He is certainly not respected in north Wales! In fact, I have friends in the south who don’t have a good word for him at all.
If that is true then it is mere proof that the people have been rendered incapable of critical thinking thanks to its impoverished education system.
I don’t know anyone who has a good word for him. His management of the Covid lockdowns was tyrannical, and many of his other policies (like the 20mph speed limit imposition) has shimmied around democratic norms.
He is certainly not respected in north Wales! In fact, I have friends in the south who don’t have a good word for him at all.
If that is true then it is mere proof that the people have been rendered incapable of critical thinking thanks to its impoverished education system.
I don’t know anyone who has a good word for him. His management of the Covid lockdowns was tyrannical, and many of his other policies (like the 20mph speed limit imposition) has shimmied around democratic norms.
Mark Drakeford is a unionist. He is widely respected here in Wales, by his opponents as well as his supporters, in sharp contrast to the dross who have inhabited Downing street for the last decade.