TROUBLE-HIT BORIS IN WALES
BORIS Johnson has said “things in the Welsh NHS are not as good as they should be” as he criticised health, schools and transport in Wales during a campaign visit yesterday.
The Prime Minister made the comments during a trip to Wrexham ahead of next month’s Senedd election.
The visit was overshadowed by explosive claims that the PM had said he would rather “bodies piled high” than enter another lockdown in England.
Asked what he thought would be a good result for the Conservative Party in the forthcoming election, he said: “A good result... I’m the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and so it hurts for me to say things like Welsh schools could do better or that things in the Welsh NHS are not as good as they should be.
“It hurts for me to say that, but it’s true, and transport in Wales could be better... it hurts for me to say that, because I’m the PM of the UK, but it’s true.”
Mr Johnson said this was “because of the failings of Welsh Labour” and cited the improvements his party wanted to make to the A55 and the M4, “the improvements we want to make down in the south near Cardiff, all those sorts of projects – what we want to do with Welsh railways – it would be so much better if the Senedd, if the Welsh Assembly, was run by Conservatives.
“I’m not going to hide it from you. That’s what I think. I think... we would work together better as one country.
And that’s what I want to see,” he continued.
During his visit Mr Johnson also said the Welsh Government response to the pandemic when compared to that of the UK Government had “been much more in sync than you might think.
“If you look at the way the UK has proceeded in the last year, there’s been quite a lot of self-differentiation, perhaps sometimes for political purposes,” he said. “But the overall pattern of progress has been very similar.
“And we’re all really working togeth
er. If you look at – I mean, again, the vaccination programme, mass testing conducted by the NHS, by the Army, you can see the whole of the UK working together to beat the pandemic.”
He added that the UK was “starting to get some some very encouraging results” and that it was “partly thanks to a great Welsh effort”.
A Welsh Labour spokesman said: “Boris Johnson has hopefully come to Wales to learn lessons from the fastest vaccine rollout combined with some of the lowest coronavirus rates in the UK, being delivered by the Welsh Labour Government.
“He should’ve taken the opportunity to apologise for his north Wales Tory MPs who have repeatedly undermined the collective effort to keep Wales safe.
“After that, he should’ve explained why the Tories in the Senedd have voted multiple times against measures to limit the spread of coronavirus.
“People in Wales know the Tories never put the interests of Wales first. They have acted irresponsibly throughout the pandemic and are now consumed by Downing Street leaks and allegations about repugnant comments attributed to Boris Johnson in the media.
“Contrast the vacuum of moral leadership from Boris Johnson and the Tories, with Mark Drakeford’s cautious and compassionate leadership and it’s clear that why people across Wales are saying they will support Welsh Labour on May 6.”