Drakeford urged to Downing Street in
THE left-wing group that helped Mark Drakeford win the Welsh Labour leadership has raised serious concerns about his government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.
The steering committee of Welsh Labour Grassroots, the Welsh affiliate of Momentum, has released a letter it sent to the First Minister last week, in which it urged him not to be afraid to do things differently from Westminster.
The letter said: “The past month has seen the Welsh Government administer public health policy largely in lock step with the UK Government. Collaboration is no bad thing, especially in extraordinary circumstances.
“... However, for a proud, socialist and also comparatively vulnerable nation our national response should instinctively be different from the one defined by Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings, who will undoubtedly return to their neoliberal ideology as soon as it is politically expedient.” The letter lists areas of special concern:
■ The lack of a clearly-defined and unified regime of testing and personal protective equipment (PPE) supply across all Welsh health boards; ■ Shortcomings in the communication of public health messages: absolute clarity and urgency is required to have an impact on the social behaviour of people i n Wales;
■ The lack of protection for tenants in private rented accommodation, as reflected by the derisory suggestion that renters seek to negotiate their payments with landlords;
■ The situation of the self-employed, who are a huge part of Wales’ economy, requires a coordinated response as soon as possible: many selfemployed people are falling through the gaps in the Tories’ Self-Employed Income Support Scheme.
The letter states: “We are concerned that the approach to policy-making appears at times to be indistinguishable from that of Downing Street. We urge you to consider a more distinctive and ambitious response of our own, reflecting our democratic socialist values, and that puts saving the lives and protecting the well-being of people in Wales before all other considerations.
“We would commend to you the approach and evidence expressed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) report and the recent editorial of the British Medical Journal, which said: ‘The WHO’s mantra of ‘trace, test, and treat’ must be followed. It is not too late to adopt WHO guidance. A second and third wave of the epidemic is likely. Contact tracing must recommence. This means immediately instituting a massive, centrally coordinated, locally based programme of case finding, tracing, clinical observation, and testing. It requires large teams of people, including volunteers, using tried and tested methods updated with social media and mobile phones and adapting the manuals and guidance published by China.’”
Welsh Labour Grassroots said: “We are concerned that failure to follow such advice, and additional guidance such as physical distancing, can only lead to more deaths. Should the Welsh Government be prevented from taking all such necessary steps by the UK Government or by the existing devolution settlement this should be explained to the people of Wales at every step.”
The letter states that public testing should be at the very top of the Welsh Government’s response; that the manufacture of PPE should be placed on a wartime-like footing; that private