Challenging the narrative

h/t David Cornock

Hywel Williams take on Welsh leaders and the Gleision mining tragedy doesn’t pull its punches and on the day after the Welsh Government outlined it’s Programme for Government his final paragraphs have a real resonance on the consequences of those failures by the Welsh political class over the years.

'The limp sentiment that 'a sense of community still survives' is really just a reflection of the fact that no one knows what to do with large areas of industrial Wales. Those tightly terraced villages came into existence to serve just one purpose- the housing needs of those who worked in the pits. Now that coal has gone nothing really has taken its place. Development agencies and light engineering plants come- and then go- talking of little apart from grants given and subsidies taken. This is a reflection of the larger picture in Wales- a country where a ruinous two-thirds of the national income is accounted for by government expenditure.

Having chosen to be governed locally by just one party for most of the twentieth century Wales has limped into the twenty-first century burdened by a public and official class which is bereft of ideas and ambition. Talk about the wonder that is 'community' is both banal and hypocritical. Those who indulge themselves in this way are comfortably placed public sector professionals who invoke the ghosts of the valleys of the past in order to avoid thinking about how to solve the catastrophe of the valleys of today. Communities - real and living ones-evolve in order to serve an outside purpose. Take that meaning away and all you end up with is a community centre, that infallible sign to a dead end.'

It's harsh but true because nothing will change, Labour will still be the largest party at the next Assembly elections in 2016, they will have the most Welsh MP’s even after the boundary changes and most pundits expect Labour to do very well in the local council elections next year. Carwyn’s new found talk of delivery is no more than spin his government couldn’t deliver a letter never mind decent jobs, a good education, an efficient health service or a better transport network for Wales and yet voters will continue to back Labour and the party will happily keep exploiting that fact.Any source