Labour have been here before
I SUPPOSE for those of us who are Labour stalwarts it was appropriate that the day after the outcome of the local elections was made known the rain poured and poured.
For let’s face it, the results were not good for our party.
But as my fellow councillor Matt Patrick put it (May 8), the Tories had a “free pass given the national picture”.
Indeed Councillor Jackson admitted that his Tory group were “helped by the national swing and the lead in the polls”.
Yet a question has to be asked, namely why did Labour do a lot better in Wales? And to me the answer to that poser explains an awful lot. You see Wales has its own Parliament, the Senedd, with its own First Minister responsible for much of the principality’s governance. Including taking what measures were necessary to try to stop the spread of Covid 19. Thus with Labour being the ruling party in the Senedd it was their First Minister, Mark Drakeford, who kept popping up in the media telling voters what was being done. Then when the vaccine was rolled out he got the kudos for the prompt actions of the NHS.
In England, of course, it has been Johnson and his Ministers to the fore, flanked by medical experts to give them the authority and gravitas they would otherwise lack. And with announcements being made through the TV rather than in the House, the chances of any opposition party to speak in reply were very much reduced. So Labour’s new leader found it far harder to get the coverage he’d have obtained had it not been for the pandemic. He also wasn’t helped by the restrictions on political campaigning.
As though normality returns to ordinary life, the same will apply to the political scene. Nationally we must challenge the Tories over the lack of NHS funding (including the derisory 1 per cent pay offer to staff), and a continual failure to find a long-term solution to the problem of paying for adult social care.
Locally we must do as Matt says, continuing “to hold the Conservative group to what they say they will deliver” on issues such as waste disposal. For Labour have been here before, dropping to a mere four seats less than a generation ago. Yet it wasn’t long before we were in (overall) control of NELC once again. Let us hope that history will repeat itself!