CARDIFF AM’S BID TO BE LEADER
FINANCE Secretary Mark Drakeford will today confirm his intention to stand as Welsh Labour leader in succession to Carwyn Jones.
The Cardiff West AM has already been installed as the bookies’ favourite to take over from Mr Jones, who announced at the weekend his wish to step down in the autumn from the post he has held since 2009.
Mr Drakeford has already been endorsed by a number of leading Welsh Labour figures.
Darren Williams, a Cardiff-based member of Labour’s National Executive Committee who jointly founded Welsh Labour Grassroots, which serves as Wales’ branch of the Corbyn-backing Momentum group, said: “I can think of no-one who would make a better Welsh Labour Leader and First Minister than Mark Drakeford.
“As Rhodri Morgan’s chief special adviser, he was the architect of the ‘Clear Red Water’ policy programme, which protected Wales’ public services from free-market dogma and put a commitment to equality and social justice at the heart of the Welsh Government’s agenda.
“Thanks in large part to Mark’s clearsightedness and rock-solid socialist principles, Wales was spared the financially ruinous PFI, our NHS has been protected from the incursions of grasping privateers and our education system has stuck to comprehensive principles and local democratic accountability, rather than descending into the same mess as England, with academies and free schools.”
Mr Williams said that as Health Minister, Mr Drakeford had introduced the “historic and life-saving” Organ Donation Bill and skilfully defended Wales’ achievements from “the malicious propaganda of Cameron and Hunt”.
He added: “As Finance Secretary, he has striven to deliver the best deal possible for public services in the context of the Tories’ austerity.
“Mark has a formidable intellect but also the rare skill of being able to communicate his ideas clearly and persuasively to any audience.
“He works tirelessly as a Minister – including his efforts to represent Wales in the Brexit talks with the UK Government – but is equally conscientious in representing his own constituents in Cardiff West.
“He is respected and admired throughout the Labour movement and by many in other parties too – I have rarely heard a bad word spoken about him.
“Yet despite all this, he remains one of the most modest and self-effacing people you could wish to meet and is courteous and respectful to a fault.”
Mr Drakeford is also supported by Vale of Glamorgan AM Jane Hutt, Cardiff North AM Julie Morgan, Swansea West AM Julie James, Pontypridd AM Mick Antoniw, Cardiff Central AM Jenny Rathbone, Swansea East AM Mike Hedges, Newport East AM John Griffiths and Islwyn AM Rhianon Passmore.
Ms Hutt, who served continuously as a Welsh Government Cabinet member from the outset of devolution in 1999 until last November, told BBC Wales before Mr Drakeford signalled his intention to stand for the leadership: “I don’t mind saying now that, if he puts himself forward, Mark Drakeford has my vote and I think he would be a blessing to Wales.”
Ms Hutt said she and Mr Drakeford “go back a long way”, having both served as members of the former South Glamorgan
County Council. Subsequently, he also served as Ms Hutt’s special advisor when she was health minister.
The Vale of Glamorgan AM said a future leader would need “integrity”, “experience” and “intellect”, all of which Mr Drakeford had.
Mr Drakeford scheduled media interviews for this morning, before which he would not comment.
But during an interview in January we put it to him that some senior politicians were trying to persuade him to stand for the leadership when Mr Jones stood down.
He responded: “First of all, I feel that I’m in the luckiest position you could be in politics, in the sense that I’ve no ambition in politics at all.
“I’ve had an incredibly good run through it. If I didn’t do the job that I’m doing today, tomorrow, there are still lots of things that I’d want to get on and do. Things that when you’re a minister you’re not able to talk about because they’re someone else’s responsibility and so on ... I’m not driven like some people are by ambition.”
He added: “Do I want to be First Minister? No, I don’t. Am I ambitious to be First Minister? No, I’m not. Am I doing things to plan to be First Minister? I’m certainly not.
“Does that mean I’m saying in absolutely no circumstances would I ever think of doing it? Well I think that’s foolish as well in politics, to be as definitive as that.
“If there were circumstances when, because it was the right thing to do, that somebody needed to step in and help out, and do things, I’m not going to say I wouldn’t be willing to ... I’m ruling all of that out. But those are the circumstances when I’ve said I would be willing to think about it. And I’m not willing to think about it in any other set of circumstances.”
Told that people had said he could be a good successor to Mr Jones, Mr Drakeford said: “That’s very nice of people when they do say that. People do say that to you.”
Also before Mr Drakeford’s intentions became clear, former Secretary of State for Wales Lord Hain told the BBC that Welsh Labour’s next leader would need to be “radical” as the party had been in power in Cardiff Bay for almost 20 years.
He said: “The Assembly administration needs a big shake-up and we need a leader who is going to do that: to really drive the Welsh civil service to be more innovative and more optimistic.”
Carwyn Jones has been under considerable pressure since the apparent suicide of former Cabinet Minister Carl Sargeant, four days after he was sacked in the wake of unspecified allegations of sexual harassment which he denied.
A formal inquiry into the First Minister’s treatment of Mr Sargeant was announced within days of his death, but has yet to get under way.