Sunday 30 June 2024

Every man for himself

 

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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