One of the more complimentary descriptions
of the current Secretary of State for Wales that I’ve seen could be paraphrased
as ‘affable but impotent’. From the reports this
week that he only found out about the asylum-seekers being moved to Penally as
a result of comments made on Facebook, he seems not even to have read the job
description. The role of the Secretary of State isn’t to be consulted over
decisions made by his masters, or even necessarily be informed of them, and I’m
surprised that he thought that either of those in any way applied. His job is
purely to defend and explain decisions when they eventually become public. To suggest
that he needs to understand the decisions or be aware of the thinking behind
them in order to do that is to suggest that he should be in a more knowledgeable
position than the people making them. If he needs ‘facts’, he should invent
them, that’s what the rest of the government do.
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1 comment:
Since 1999 that job should have been redundant. However devolution was a half baked event that turned into an undercooked process never looking like a palatable dish to anybody other than those who conspired to have it turn out that way. The Sec of State needs to be a guardian and advocate of Welsh interests but with one or two notable exceptions the job holders have created a tradition of compliant yes men on their way to something bigger or falling off the wire because of their personal defects. No signs at all that this grim pattern will be broken.
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