The pandemic really was an awakening of the idea that Wales can do things differently. The prevailing narrative was that Wales did well.
This is something I would agree with. But when people say “Wales did well”, there are often different definitions of what people mean when they say “Wales”. To me, when I say that Wales handled the pandemic well I mean the people of Wales.
The people of Wales were dealt a c**p hand going into the crisis. They were on average poorer and sicker than other parts of the UK. They were older (not least because people often move here to retire) and, because of their higher levels of employment in manufacturing, their jobs were more vulnerable (production lines can’t be shifted to go through living rooms). Yes, the people of Wales did bloody brilliantly throughout the crisis.
But others mean something different when they say “Wales did well”. They mean that the Welsh Government did wel l. Or perhaps, more broadly, that the Welsh political institutions like the Senedd did well. This is where I have to disagree with them. Starting with the Welsh Government, much can and has been done to assess the myriad of failings the Welsh Government had throughout the crisis. This isn’t to say that they weren’t facing a challenging situation or that they didn’t make good decisions at times. But to look at Wales in an international context and think that this was a job well done is to look at the situation through rose-tinted glasses. This is made all the more outrageous by the fact that we won’t be getting a Wales-specific inquiry into what happened.
But the Welsh Government has at least been subjected to a substantial level of scrutiny over the last two years. Not as much as they should be – see the above line on a Wales-specific inquiry, for example – but at least the spotlight has been on them in a way not seen since the start of devolution.
But, there is one part of the Welsh political landscape which has managed to avoid proper scrutiny for what was, in my view, an utterly pathetic and abject performance since the virus first arrived on our shores more than two years ago – opposition parties. Right when Wales really needed a strong, intelligent, forensic and driven opposition, what it got was a weak, out-of-its depth and anaemic opposition which utterly failed the people of Wales when they most needed them.
For the sake of this discussion let’s ignore the Ukip, Abolish and Reform politicians in the Senedd at the time. Ukip politician Neil Hamilton spent his time during a respiratory virus-driven pandemic calling for smoking to be reintroduced to pubs. He is not worth discussing.
However, against Plaid and the Tories there are real questions to answer. Let’s start with Plaid. I watched every single First Minister’s Questions in the first two waves of the virus. Adam Price spoke like a man who had lost his mojo. Presented with a government which had spread the virus through care homes leading to catastrophic loss of life, he failed to land any punches at all. He seemed unwilling to criticise the Welsh Government strongly on any particular issue. Why was this? Welsh independence.
Painting Wales as performing better than England when it came to the virus appeared to be a bigger priority for the Plaid leader than actually scrutinising the Welsh Government. This is ridiculous on so many levels because the best thing he could do for Cymru was to ensure its government (who were making the vast majority of pandemic-related decisions) were held to account. Seeing YesCymru’s buoyant and growing membership, he then entered the 2021 Welsh Parliamentary elections with independence front and centre of the campaign. This was an election where Labour had presided over a mismanaged pandemic and Mr Price himself had said that “anything less” than him being First Minister was a “failure”. Wales needed a credible opposition that could shine a light on Welsh Labour’s shortcomings and instead he bet the farm on a Welsh independence horse that failed to get out of the blocks.
The Tories are no more deserving of praise. Spending almost the entire election just saying “things are better in England”, as the largest opposition party they utterly failed to offer consistent scrutiny. When they did try to offer alternatives they were so ridiculous it was like they hadn’t paid attention to anything that was actually happening in the country they supposedly represent. I will give you one example.
When the virus was massively taking off in the late autumn of 2020, there was huge pressure on the Welsh Government to lockdown again. Sage had actually called for a ‘fire break’ more than a month before action was taken and, as Christmas neared, it was clear to everyone that the situation was totally out of control. What was the Conservative big idea? Hyper-local lockdowns. This has to be one of the dumbest ideas in two years full of people being dumb. The Tory plan was to use the hyper-local data to lockdown specific council wards. This is ridiculous on so many levels it almost doesn’t deserve taking apart. For one thing, the data at that level changes almost every 48 hours. At the start of the week a ward can have loads of Covid and by the end none at all. The idea that you could lock down Adamsdown in Cardiff but not Splott is insane. Imagine if you locked down Grangetown but not Riverside? With the insanity of this policy in mind, consider the fact that the Conservatives were calling on the Welsh Government to ignore the growing catastrophe in Wales’ hospitals in favour of this. It’s a joke.
Not to mention the fact they could have done something useful and have used their influence to get Chancellor Rishi Sunak to extend furlough for Wales when we were going into the ‘fire break’ (which, lest we forget, had been recommended by Sage).
The pandemic was the time for people in Wales to realise how the goings on in the Welsh Parliament can affect their lives. It was a chance for opposition parties to be relevant. Even when they had a chance to defeat the Welsh Government on the dubious Covid passes, they failed because one of the Tory MSs failed to log on remotely from the party conference! Now I should stress that I am not targeting individual MSs. There were many opposition politicians who themselves were diligent and relentless in holding the Welsh Government to account – whether that be in the chamber, in committees or on social media. But the parties as a whole were weak and anaemic. Don’t get me wrong, it’s hard to be a constructive opposition at a time of national crisis. Toeing the line between opposition and opportunism is a fine balance. But this was their time to matter and make a real difference – and they failed
