Lazy Labour not fit to run a whelk stall

YOUR correspondent Chris Lewis, in a recent letter to the Western Mail, criticises Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns because his success in getting a “floor” put into the Barnett formula, to protect Welsh Government funding, is not as good as the deal offered to Scotland.

I would remind Mr Lewis that Labour made no moves to reform the Barnett formula during its 13 years in government – and that no protection was offered to Wales despite the fact that Labour held a majority of the seats in Wales then – as now.

The truth is that Labour did nothing to alter the Barnett formula, under which Scotland is allocated a greater share of funding than anywhere else in the UK, because for ten years of the time Labour was in power its Chancellor was Scottish MP Gordon Brown.

And when he became Prime Minister in 2007, he was succeeded by another Scottish MP – Alistair Darling.

At least the Conservatives under Mr Cairns have attempted to reduce the innate unfairness of this funding formula by introducing the floor which stops the Welsh Government’s finances dropping below a certain level.

Labour was content to let this happen – complacently believing that it could count on people voting Labour regardless of how the party treats it.

Welsh voters need to wake up and smell the coffee and kick out a lazy Labour Party from power in Cardiff Bay when the next Assembly elections come around. Labour in Wales has proved that it’s not fit to run a whelk stall – never mind a country. Jayne Isaac Maesteg