Action plan for Wales’ post-Covid recovery
OUR future prosperity, security and social wellbeing will largely depend on foreign investors’ money, American technology and trade deals negotiated in an increasingly hostile global economic market.
Boris’ plan to create a post-Brexit economy based on low taxes, privatisation and deregulation is dead in the water, torpedoed by Covid-19, a mountain of debt, political incompetence and a failed economic model that caused the credit crunch.
The UK is in a financial black hole that will threaten its political, economic and social stability. Quantitative easing, disrupted supply chains and factory closures could lead to rampant inflation and a recession.
So what should the next Welsh Government do? In my opinion, the situation is so serious that party politics should be put to one side and a coalition Welsh government formed to create and implement a recovery plan designed to ensure that Wales is equipped to meet the demands of the post-Covid world. For example:
1. Invest in infrastructure for electric and hydrogen transport systems and energy supply.
2. Establish worldclass internet and WiFi coverage.
3. Encourage public and private sector organisations to adopt a total quality management culture that involves all employees in a process of continuous improvement.
4. Create a Welsh Youth Service that ensures all young unemployed people participate in community projects and education and training programmes covering core skills.
5. Integrate NHS and social services provision.
6. Create a Welsh Development Agency to attract foreign investment and restore Wales’ tarnished image as a place where projects fail.*
7. Impose a levy on medium to large companies that poach skilled people rather than train to meet their own needs.
8. Identify global best practices that could be applied in Wales, for example, pollution, climate change and pandemic control.
9. Establish drop-in and mobile diagnostic and Covid test units in supermarkets and pharmacies.
10. Maximise the enormous global marketing potential of Welsh culture, language, myths, legends, castles and landscape.
(* I wrote many letters supporting the Circuit of Wales project. Unfortunately, the goose that could have laid the golden eggs was killed. It could have become a global centre of excellence for research, development and testing of a range of battery and fuelcell transport. Alas, it was not to be.) Bryan D Prescott Caerphilly
The UK is in a financial black hole that will threaten its political, economic and social stability
Bryan D Prescott
Tories seeking to marginalise Wales
RECORD-BREAKING numbers of people in Wales are in favour of independence, a new poll suggests. Conducted for ITV News Tonight by Savanta ComRes, the new survey found just under 40% of Welsh citizens to be in favour of separating from the UK, representing the highest levels of support for Welsh independence ever recorded. With 39% of participants favouring independence, with the exclusion of “don’t know” answers, the poll found that one in three residents would sup
port a referendum on the issue in the next 10 years.
A new Parliamentary map outlining plans to cut the number of Welsh MPs by more than a quarter has been published. The number of Welsh seats in the House of Commons
would fall from 40 to 29, with the size of Westminster constituencies increasing. Labour – which won 25 Welsh seats at the last election – is likely to feel the biggest impact. The Tory party is gerrymandering the next election in favour of the Tories, this would secure a Tory win and marginalise the Welsh people even more. The Tory party is now the antidemocratic party.
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