Yesterday, in a
demonstration of the growing chaos within the Tory Party, the outgoing
Secretary of State for Wales, David TC Davies, launched a truly astonishing attack
on his cabinet colleague, the outgoing Chief Whip, Simon Hart. It’s true that
he didn’t actually name Hart directly, disguising his assault instead as an
attack on the Labour candidate for Monmouth, but the nub of his complaint could
equally be applied to his colleague. And he wouldn’t want to apply different
standards of honesty to different parties, would he?
Fighting a General
Election for Westminster on the basis of devolved issues is, to use Davies’
words, “…appalling that they’re deliberately misleading the public by
claiming they can improve the NHS and other devolved areas”. Yet according
to Hart’s latest missive, voting for him will “Save Glangwili”, a
hospital which the Welsh NHS is planning to replace with a brand new hospital
in the west of the county. It's harder to find a clearer example of a devolved
policy over which no MP will have any influence, or of “…trying to con the
people of Wales by claiming” that they can sort out devolved issues.
There is, of course,
one way in which it makes sense for the Tories to state that they will ‘solve’
all the issues which, in their view, the Welsh government has handled badly.
That is, of course, to undo devolution. Well, to use the Sunak approach to politics,
they haven’t specifically ruled it out, so that must be what they are planning.
Alternatively, it could just underline the fact that it’s now every man for
himself, and say whatever might work, for a party facing wipeout.
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