Welsh Labour’s double disaster in 24 hours

Given the ongoing leadership race, it’s easy to forget that the current SNP government isn’t the only devolved administration which is seemingly hell-bent on embarrassing itself. Over at Cardiff Bay, Welsh Labour are still merrily fiddling while its public services burn – as two incidents within the space of 24 hours have neatly demonstrated.

First, there was the farce of a vote in the Senedd in which Labour politicians voted for a parliamentary motion criticising, er, their own roads review which has recommended that the bulk of upcoming roads projects be scrapped. In a debate in parliament on Wednesday evening, successive members of the Senedd stood up to detail the impact of cancelled projects on their constituents. During the debate, climate change minister Julie James defended the scheme but when it came to voting, she and First Minister Mark Drakeford both voted for an amended Tory motion which criticised a ‘lack of engagement’ with the public. Whose fault was that, eh?

Then the following morning came the news that Lee Waters, the deputy minister for climate change, had been caught on tape slagging off the nurses’ union. Speaking at a Labour party meeting in Llanelli, Waters moaned that the Royal College of Nurses as ‘extremely militant’ and ‘unrealistic’ in its ongoing industrial dispute with the Welsh government. According to Herald.Wales, Waters said of the nurses’ union that:

They are determined to have a fight and aren’t seriously committed to negotiate. They came up with a demand they knew was completely unaffordable, five per cent above inflation, which was just not – in any reasonable way – something we could do.

They can’t deal with the unions and they vote against their own reviews. Good old Welsh Labour…