First Minister is calm and measured
IT IS important our First Minister is open to account and public scrutiny. In the public interest it is to be welcomed that DC Stroud (“Covid panic to mask Labour incompetence”, WM letters, January 11) has the freedom to air his displeasure of Mark Drakeford via the public media. However, it does sadden one that he makes no attempt to objectivity when doing so and seems to cast any semblance of fairness aside.
In the context of his written discourse, he uses inflammatory terms such as “tirade”, “arrogance”, “superior”, “crippling the economy” and “dictatorship.” This suggests he is aping the outbursts currently being made in the Tory press who in desperation are seeking a distraction from the self-inflicted problems bedevilling their Government. They perceive our First Minister, rather than the Scottish and Northern Ireland equivalents, as an easy target to aid them in this distraction.
The expressions “tirade” and “rant” are being attributed to the First Minister, ad nauseam, by this Tory press. On close examination of these alleged utterances purported to have been made by the First Minister, it can be revealed that nothing is further from the truth. In the first place what he is reported as saying to the media is not unsolicited. When required to explain his policies in answer to provocative questions such as “Why do you not fall in line with England?” he gives full answers (no ducking and diving like Boris) and his answers do not in any shape or form amount to a rant or tirade. His delivery, with well-reasoned answers, is done without faltering, in a calm and measured way.
In contrast to the First Minister’s briefings, DC Stroud seems impressed Boris is mostly supported at his briefings by two recently knighted government scientists. He condemns the First Minister for managing his briefings without the assistance of such important “crutches”. Does it not occur to him that the First Minister doesn’t need them because he has taken the trouble to master his brief and has done so in two languages, thereby saving the taxpayer this extra expense? And think on it, if our First Minister also sought support from two local scientists in similar circumstances what would be their prospects of being knighted?
Dewi Williams
Rhoose