It's all a bit too eclectic for me

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Whether it’s entirely reasonable to describe the leader of the Conservative group in the Senedd as an idiot, as Martin Shipton has done on Nation.Cymru recently, is a matter of opinion. There is plenty of evidence to support the hypothesis, and some might regard it as simply a ‘harsh but fair’ judgement; but there is a broader question as to whether direct insult is ever a worthwhile tool in political debate, even if the evidence is both categorical and overwhelming. That again is, of course, a matter of opinion. True and fair or not, it’s unlikely that Lenin would have seen him as a ‘useful’ idiot, and not just because there is no evidence that Lenin ever actually used the phrase.

What is less contentious is that Andrew RT Davies and his not-so-merry band do seem to be somewhat obsessive about some issues, most recently about the widespread introduction of 20 mph speed limits in Wales. It’s an obsession which has led them to brand it as part of a ‘war on motorists’ (a war which, apparently, also includes ‘eclectic’ vehicles, and it wasn’t even April 1st).

They’ve even invented a few policies which Labour aren’t proposing to implement (such as reintroducing tolls on the Severn crossings) in order to inflate the extent to which Labour hates anyone who drives a car. In fairness, in doing this one might point out that the Welsh branch of the English Conservative and Unionist Party are merely aping the approach of their supreme leader, who has himself axed a good number of policies which never existed either.

Given their own previous support for the introduction of 20 mph limits, it would be hard to describe their current opposition as being in any way principled, but then that’s not something which one would really expect of them. They have interpreted the result of one by-election as an indicator that voters will support pro-car measures and are trying to apply it more widely in the forlorn hope of avoiding a wipeout; but the evidence that it will work is sketchy to say the least. They are, though, (last time I looked) still in favour of 20mph limits outside schools, hospitals and playgrounds in order to protect users of those facilities from the dangers of vehicles. Presumably, it is assumed either that people will get close to those locations by car rather than on foot, or else will have to just take their chances on pavements further from said premises where there are fewer of them to get run over.

And that leads me to wonder: if it is fair to describe Labour’s approach as a war on motorists, it is surely equally justifiable to describe the Tory approach as a war on pedestrians – and the environment. A demand for more road-building and fewer traffic control measures necessarily implies a degree of environmental damage and a change in the balance of priorities between vehicles and people in our villages, towns, and cities. If changing the balance in favour of pedestrians is equivalent to a war on motorists, isn’t changing the balance in favour of motorists equivalent to a war on pedestrians? The truth, of course, is that it’s a silly argument. Either way. It isn’t a simple question of balancing conflicting interests, even if such dramatic language added anything to rational debate. Most of us are sometimes motorists, sometimes pedestrians, and sometimes users of public transport. Striking the right balance is a good deal more complex than the simplistic Tory obsession suggests, but a party which stands no chance of ever having the responsibility for implementing its policies in Wales can feel free to ignore that. It’s hardly as though anything they do or say can do much (more) damage to their future prospects. Whether the leader is an idiot or not.