» Debate analysis:
Wales’ major party leaders went head to head on ITV Wales in the first televised debate ahead of next month’s Senedd election. Political editor-at-large Martin Shipton gives his verdict
THOSE looking at TV debates between political leaders at election time are usually wrong to expect a gladiatorial contest with an outright winner and loser.
But there was a moment during the ITV Wales Senedd leaders’ debate when Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies was utterly flummoxed by Plaid Cymru’s Adam Price.
Mr Davies thought he’d have an easy populist win by rejecting plans to increase the number of Senedd Members.
“I don’t think we need more politicians in Cardiff Bay,” he said.
“We need to focus on the job in hand, which is delivering quality jobs outside of politics, such as the 65,000 jobs we’ve committed to deliver, 15,000 of which will be green jobs.”
But Mr Price was ready with a killer riposte: “A quick question. How many Lords has Boris Johnson created in the House of Lords since he took over as Prime Minister?”
With no answer forthcoming from Mr Davies, Mr Price supplied the statistic: “Fifty-six.. You say you don’t want more politicians. Fifty-six in an unelected chamber where you’ve already got 800.”
Realising he had to say something, Mr Davies responded: “Considering your fascination with the House of Lords, why don’t you go over there and join it?”
Which in missing one point made another: a political leader always needs a credible answer up his or her sleeve.
But apart from this one gaffe, the debate was predictable in that it conformed to expectations.
First Minister Mark Drakeford played the experience card as someone who has developed a trademark cautious approach throughout the pandemic.
At the start of the programme he jettisoned conventional wisdom by admitting that Wales – together with the rest of the UK – hadn’t locked down quickly enough. But what could have been a dangerous admission went nowhere because the other two leaders were brought in to ask them the same question.
Perhaps rather oddly, the Covid issue came down to whether there should be a Wales-only inquiry or one that looks at the handling of the issue across the UK as a whole.
Surely the correct answer is that there needs to be an inquiry that looks across the UK, but with attention given to any variations and specific issues affecting the four individual nations.
Some of the debate’s questions seemed almost designed not to produce enlightenment.
If you ask a series of party leaders in general terms how they will help a particular interest group if they win power, none will say they’d do nothing for them.
All will put on earnest facial expressions as they acknowledge that more needs to be done for the group in question.
Such was the inevitable collective response to questions about spending more money on mental health and disability.
The truth none of the leaders would utter is that if people want world-class public services – as in Scandinavian countries, for example – society as a whole has to be prepared to pay for them through higher taxes.
Otherwise they’ll have to settle for less than world-beating services somewhere lower down in the league table.
The debate only touched tangentially on the crisis confronting devolution as a result of two linked events: Brexit and the arrival in 10 Downing Street of Boris Johnson.
In fact the word Brexit wasn’t mentioned once throughout the whole debate, and Mr Johnson not much more.
It was as if the consequences of Brexit – with longstanding EU trading links ruined for many companies – didn’t exist or weren’t worth mentioning.
Anyone who thinks Brexit won’t be a shadow that looms over Wales for many years is deluded.
For the moment, though, even those parties that campaigned hard for Wales and the UK as a whole to remain in the EU seem reluctant to mention it.
Mr Davies had clearly decided to make a number of points over and over again: that Labour had failed over its 21 years of continuous government, that handing power to Plaid Cymru would be akin to giving car keys to a drunk.
He tried to sneak in the abandoned M4 relief road, even though no question about it had been called, but moderator Adrian Masters was having none of it.
Perhaps the party manifesto which is launched today will reveal more detail about his policy ideas, as Mr Davies wasn’t giving much away on Sunday night.
The Tory leader does want to see more houses built, but he seems reluctant to contemplate restrictions or increased charges on second home owners, many of whom may be his voters.
There is clearly a lot of mutual respect between Mark Drakeford and Adam Price, and that was evident during the debate.
It’s interesting to speculate how they might work together as First Minister and Deputy First Minister – a by-no-means unlikely scenario after the election.
Based on their interaction in the socially distanced studio, it’s easy to imagine Mr Price proposing a plethora of new initiatives, only for Mr Drakeford to bring him down to earth with a warning about their lack of practicality – or at least the lack of practicality of some of them.
Perhaps it would have been interesting to explore coalition scenarios during the debate, rather than trying to pretend that each of the leaders is in a zero-sum game with just two potential outcomes: wholesale victory or wholesale defeat.
Politics always has its nuances – but leaders’ debates aren’t perhaps the best way to tease them out.
TODAY, the Welsh Conservatives launch our manifesto ahead of the most important Senedd election in a generation.
Over the past 12 months, the coronavirus crisis has tested our communities and public services beyond recognition, but we’ve seen the very best of Wales when everyone has worked together in the national interest.
As we move out of lockdown the next big challenge awaits, and we will need to undertake another critical national mission to get the economy on the road to recovery and create new jobs.
The pandemic has created an array of economic challenges, with Wales likely to be worst hit, and it has exposed what 22 years of Labour government has done to our country.
It’s a relatively unknown fact that the Welsh economy was in decline before the pandemic hit – at the start of 2020 GDP fell by 2.4% in Wales.
In 1999, a Welsh worker took home the same wage as their Scottish equivalent. Today, an average worker’s annual salary in Wales is £2,600 a year less than a worker in Scotland or England.
Scandalously, ten Welsh towns are in the top 20 most economically vulnerable in the UK, because under Labour while we’ve been in a hard and fast lockdown for the past year, we’ve experienced a slow and deliberate lockdown for the last two decades.
That’s why it’s imperative we change course. There must be a ruthless new focus on job creation and business expansion, supported by the right physical and information technology infrastructure.
We must grow our economy at a pace that Labour has never been interested in and never achieved. Our recovery plan for Wales will deliver more jobs, hope and security for everyone in Wales.
It will rebuild and rebalance our economy, so that we can level up across the whole of Wales with new technology and new investment.
At the heart of our manifesto will be the creation of a new “national mission”, which aims to deliver 65,000 new jobs to power our economic recovery, with Welsh and UK governments, businesses, entrepreneurs, and education providers working together to achieve it.
Like our fight with coronavirus, our economic recovery will require a truly national effort, and if we are successful in delivering on our commitment of creating 65,000 jobs it will be down to a true Team Wales approach.
For our part, the Welsh Conservatives will stop at nothing in our drive to create the first business-friendly economy in Wales for a generation and ensure we recover from the pandemic and 22 years of Labour rule.
We will implement our roadmap to recovery with a clear timetable and ambitious vaccine targets for the full re-opening of our economy and society, with a joined-up UK-wide approach.
We will prioritise the survival and revival of vital tourism businesses by subsidising a VAT cut, as well as creating business rate-free zones and scrapping business rates for small businesses.
We will boost opportunities for workers hardest hit by the pandemic with our Covid “Retrain and Gain” programme to get people into key sectors to kick-start the economy.
And we will urgently review and start funding businesses immediately based on need, ending the firstcome-first-served nature of current Labour government support.
After two decades of failure in the halls of Cardiff Bay, Welsh Conservatives will place delivery at the heart of our manifesto and when we meet our commitments, we will ensure hard-working people in Wales benefit with a cut in income tax at the end of the next Senedd.
Providing we have grown the economy through this national mission by 2025, we will implement a cut of at least 1p in the pound to the basic rate of income tax to support hard-working families.
Nothing in this Senedd election demonstrates the difference between Welsh Conservatives and Welsh Labour more than this policy.
Labour’s manifesto gears it to introducing a tax hike once the pandemic is over.
They talk about tax rises once the time is right, without daring to spell out exactly or by how much – they don’t even know that any changes in tax will be necessary, they just feel it’s the right thing to do.
Wales has a huge economic challenge in front of us and working people can’t afford tax rises and another five years of Labour propped up by the nationalists.
It’s time to turn the page on the same old Labour Party that has allowed Wales’ economic problems to fester over the past two decades and have no plan to fix things.
We will put an end to Labour’s plans for a tax offensive on staycations, on driving and on parking your car at your workplace, all of which are not in Wales’ best interests.
Instead, the Welsh Conservatives will get Wales on the road to recovery with a relentless focus on growing our economy so we can deliver a better Wales that benefits hardworking people and their families in Wales.