‘But Wales is a land where nothing succeeds like failure’

The quote sums up Wales perfectly, failure has been the defining narrative of Wales and welsh politics for so long we’ve forgotten what success is or that there is even an alternative to the endless misery. But saddest of all is the knowledge that it won’t change because those who fail Wales time and again are continually rewarded by the electorate.

The quote was from Adam Price’s Western Mail article on Saturday about the state of the Welsh economy and picked up on these themes

He writes ‘The conventional narrative is to see this as part of a century-long process of economic decline as oil replaced coal as the dominant energy source worldwide.

While this is undoubtedly a big part of our history, the Welsh economy managed to recover from the deep trauma of the inter-war years and by the 1970s and ’80s had stabilised around 85% of UK output per capita.

As can be seen from the chart (inset) the slide into the low 70s is a recent phenomenon which has little directly to do with coal as most of the industry had already disappeared to all intents and purposes by the time it had begun.

Looking back, the ’70s and ’80s were in actual fact a period when the Welsh economy held its own with the rest of the UK.

It’s only in the last two decades that the familiar story of Welsh decline has emerged with a vengeance.

In the 20 years to 1990, Welsh output per head grew by 46.3%, just 1% shy of the UK figure.

In the two decades since then Welsh prosperity has grown by 20 percentage points less, while the UK has continued to lodge a perfectly respectable figure of 42%.

Something really big and really awful has happened to our economy, but we seem to have adopted an air of quiet acceptance. The Welsh Government once had a target of reaching 90% of UK GVA by 2010. We missed by 16%.

One might have expected a resignation or two.

But Wales is a land where nothing succeeds like failure.

While all around have been losing theirs, a Labour First Minister’s job seems even more secure than ever.

And when Carwyn warns of the dangers of a race to the bottom if Wales is given the power to vary corporation tax, he can be pretty sure that no-one around him will have the temerity to point out it’s a race we’ve already won.'
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