'Divided' and ‘sorry': Telegraph article gives predictably damning verdict on Drakeford legacy'

Many nonsensical statements in the Torygraph article. They tend to overlook the fact that tourist levies, council tax premiums and 20mph zones exist also in England. But then why focus on facts when ad hominem forays are the the way of the Tory world?

Seems that the Daily Trashgraph thinks that Drakeford period must have been successful otherwise why deflect from it by writing such garbage.. Every criticism raised could and should be directed at the London Government whose total failure under 4 Prime ministers is abhorrent and in many cases immoral. Incidentally, who is Ben Wright and Gwyneth Rees?

Ignore who the source is and look at the content of the article for the moment There are sadly elements of this article that ring true. 'Dismissive of criticism and scornful of legitimate scrutiny.” This was a hallmark of Mr Drakefords time in office .His dismissive response to the 20 mph petitioners no matter if you disagree with them was poor. As far as his 'most insidious legacy', again this appears correct. The country is still divided between North and South with the South appearing to get all the attention. The North still does not have a third bridge linking the mainland with Anglesey.

Torygraph is the attack dog for the Tory party. Tear into small pieces and stick on the nail in the privy. This is the same paper that pays the likes of Hannan and Pearson and Moor lurked around there. The UK has a few issues with press impartiality, this rag is one of the issues.

The Tory supporting Torygraph Daily Mail and Daily Express use Wales as a political football because labour is in charge a distraction from the mess the whole of the U K is in FAR FAR worse than anything Drakeford has done the Daily Mail write something about Wales the comments that come on there about Wales and Welsh people are Racist if they wrote things like that about people of a different coloured skin or different religionthey would be in the Dock

Aren't some Tory-run councils in England adopting their own 20 mph zones. Yes they are. One in particular comes to mind is Harrogate council that coincidentally is in Rishy Sunak's own constituency. Also, in didn't our very own Conservative Welsh Secretary David TC Davies argue he was in favour of a 20 mph zone in his Monmouthshire constituency, as reported in the South Wales Argus. Well hit me with a feather. Yes he did. South Wales Argos: https://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/23212754.welsh-secretary-monmouth-mp-david-davies-backs-20mph/ West Cornwall Conservative MP Derek Thomas has said he is backing “the growing campaign to introduce 20 mph speed limits in communities across West Cornwall and the rest of the county” as reported in 2021. Conservative website link: https://www.derekthomas.org/news/momentum-growing-20s-plenty-speed-campaign-says-derek-thomas And there are many more examples of Tory councilors & MPs arguing for their own 20 mph zones while attacking Wales default speed limit because Welsh Labour are in power. And the Telegraph talks about division. Oh really. So the Tory party is a united front lol. National Front more like. There's nobody plotting Rishy Sunak's downfall the closer the general election fast approaches is there. And if you believe that bull#@#* vote Conservative. The Conservative party are so damn united they since David Cameron's exit in 2016 after Brexit have installed like a Conservative computer virus to infect society four prime ministers. Theresa May. Ousted. Boris Johnson . Ousted. Liz Truss. Ousted. Rishy Sunak. Pending. Enough said

This sounds like just the latest chapter in anti Welsh rhetoric in the anti Welsh devolution propaganda campaign, playing upon the relative weakness of support for devolution. This rather lazy technique seeks to divide opinion, linking decisions and events that are not really linked. Mark Drakeford made some bold decisions that were never going to play well with the mouth-breathing readers of the right-wing press, the unofficial propaganda arm of the Tories. The much derided decision to cancel the M4 relief road was a brave decision taken in the knowledge, (that everyone by now should be aware of) that building relief roads doesn't work - all that happens is that traffic expands to fill the road infrastructure and the problem remains. There is a problem with the M4 often being beyond capacity, but it's probable that the reason behind that is the insane notion that people all have to start and finish at the same time, thus creating not only gridlock, but also responsible for the number of accidents that further add to the congestion. The congestion needs to be tackled, of course, but surely a wiser route would be to eradicate the need to commute in the first place and attempt to persuade those who need to commute or shift goods to change mode wherever possible. In the more congested south east surely the development of work hubs nearer to where people live in the Valleys would be a far more sensible approach than expecting people to commute to Newport and Cardiff, and would boost the local economies where such hubs were built substantially. Why the obsession with PISA ratings when perhaps the focus should be on why those ratings are so bad. It's likely that poverty contributes to that low rating, as it's nigh on impossible to perform well when you're 15, hungry and on top of that going through some of life's biggest changes. However, too close scrutiny would expose the reasons for the level of poverty, and a look at the history of Wales over the past 50 years would point clearly to who is responsible for that poverty. The social security system is a 'reserved power' and thus the UK Government's DWP is entirely responsible for the predicament of the very poor. Not to let the Welsh government off the hook, nor give the Senedd a clean sheet, but even with the best will in the world, the Welsh Government does not have sufficient resources to effectively deal with the poor education and poor economic performance of Wales. Most of the resources the Welsh Government possesses comes in the form of a UK Government block grant insufficient for Wales' need. Basically the Welsh Government is a franchisee of the UK Government, and has been deliberately set up to fail. Criticism of Wales' moves to curtail and control the monster that is mass tourism is really below the belt. Much should of course been done sooner in shaping the industry to the maximum benefit of the communities: instead of allowing development by outside entrepeneurs, community interest groups should have been encouraged and supported so that tourism was not only managed, but brought maximum benefit to local people. The recent imposition of higher council tax on second homes and the introduction of stricter criteria for holiday lets are a welcome, if very belated development and a daily tourist tax something that's been needed for decades. Let's not forget that the current emphasis of Wales being a holiday destination is relatively recent, only dating from the 1970s. Of course, previous to that period there had always been tourism, but on a far less impactful level that was far more beneficial to local economies. Perhaps a system of levies on everyone entering Wales who is not domiciled in the country could be developed using similar technology used to administer the London Congestion Charge? The system could be further refined to control access to hot spots like Eryri, varying the charge relative to the numbers visiting, with perhaps a zero charge at times when visitor levels are very low. The whole thrust of the article is to take attention away from the mess the Tories are leaving England in. The criticism of Mark Drakeford is uncalled for, and even though not everyone agrees with Mr Drakeford in his stances,s most in Wales have come to hold him in high regard as a decent politician who stands head and shoulders above anyone the Tories can currently muster, especially in Wales where they have had to wheel out the odious ARTD. Does this mean that we should go easy on the Welsh Labour Government? Most surely not, but do we really need to take lessons from Daily Telegraph peddling the usual half-truths and smears about Wales? Wales needs imaginative government now more than ever, and it's up to the Welsh political parties to deliver this, listening to the people and working with them to deliver what is possible, recognising that in the long term, only self determination without being beholden to Westminster will deliver for Wales and its people. Within Westminster's realm Wales will continue to fail despite the best efforts of any Welsh government.

‘Conservatives unable to escape the long shadow of Margaret Thatcher’. With this statement, the authors of this article destroy their whole argument and with countless shorter shadows of continuance down the decades, the voters of Wales are standing firm with their long memories and will certainly never turn to RT for his opinion. ‘One party state’ is the slur they resort to to cover the inconvenient truth that there is one party we don’t want in our state. I am proud of my countrys’ people that they stand firm on this but like any football team that constantly flirts with relegation, eventually, they will go down. This can only be averted by moving on to the next stage of rejection which will be the autonomy that will rule out this dictatorial interference permanently. Merely rejecting the Tories in every election will not be good enough to get rid of them in the end. Oh, finally, this article refers to us as a ‘country’ and a ‘state’. Ooh! Down with that sort of thing surely. How did that get past editorial control? Thanks for your recognition though despite it being unintended and a monumental blunder.

There is little point focusing on what many of the London rags print, it's a favourite way of the establishment there to keep us divided. The articles aren't written for our benefit - best to ignore them. Yes, Labour has been in power too long and Drakeford has made some debatable decisions - but that is for us, the people of Cymru, to ponder on and make changes to, if necessary. It has nothing to do with the billionaire run toilet paper in England.

But the Tory party here have been saying for years we should follow England in our policies.

I think there must come a time when we accept that the PISAC results are meaningful and are telling us that something is missing in Welsh education. Also it may be the case that WG in their zeal toshow how environmentally friendly they are are putting restrictions on motoring without putting anything in their place. Bus routes continue to be axed in my area. And does anybody think that imposing a 20 mph limit on the whole of Wales was a good idea? This decision should have been delegated to local authorities. Wales is being held back because of its abysmal transport links, and new roads are an important part of transport infrastructure.

Putting the anti Tory sentiment to the side, personally can't disagree with the majority of the article. I'd rather spoilt my ballot paper than vote tory or labour Question for Labour supporters - where would you rank Drakeford iand the current AMs performance in the history of the Senedd? To me he's by far the worst FM in our history performance and policy wise. Alas I have even less faith in VG. In education we are the worst in the UK. Solution = create our own qualifications to make it harder to compare. PISA rankings will still see through this. In health we are the worst performing part of UK. Solution= blame austerity and 1970s industry yet we have the highest rate of obesity in UK. Economy on its knees so increase business taxes, destroy the livelihood of farmers and introduce 20mph to slow productivity. The tourist tax makes sense in Cardiff on event days and weekends but not in the rest of Wales where tourism benefits the local economy. All in the name of the Destroy our Future generations act.

So let them go abroad, that's fine with me. And before you cry 'anti-English racism' I wouldn't mind betting that there are plenty of people in Cornwall and the Lake District with similar views to mine.

Negativity regarding Wales from the Torygraph, surprise surprise. They ignore the fact that some of the poorest areas in the UK are in London and other parts of England. Having said that I cant disagree with the fact that Senedd politicians and Welsh MPs do no favours for Wales. No vision

Yes and england is thriving, NOT.

There will be even more money wasted on building a nuclear power station on Ynys Mon with no plan for the nuclear waste created. What is needed is more wind farms (we have a lot of wind, mostly when people use energy for heating). Then solar farms and tidal power. These can be installed quickly and much safer and cheaper than nuclear.. The problems in Wales stems before devolution and back to the failure of the UK government and others to invest in alternative industries when the coal industry closed in the 1980s. UK governments have always wanted to keep the people of Wales poor and having to always wait for their next salaries. The solution is Wales must have its own sovereign wealth. The UK will never give us that as they do not really have it themselves – wasting all the income from North Sea Oil rather than investing it as Norway did.

Anyone making comments Whoever you vote for. Be true to yourself All doctors surgeries are over subscribed with patients it is very hard to get an appointment. This is because the extreme shortage of doctors and will mean having less qualified being engaged especially that doctors are being paid less than other parts of the UK. This is the same in our hospitals. The situation will get worse there are more leaving.than coming to Wales. Teachers are fed up with the continuous changes And this has also created teachers leaving . With main subject professionals leaving The Transport system in Wales has been left to run down and public transport not fit for purpose. Twenty plus years of devolution has not worked every public service has declined. The whole Administration of Wales is not financially affordable this is created Unaffordable council tax Councils are given huge amounts of money without any control and they waste public money . There are far to many Councils in Wales They all duplicate the same services with huge overheads All with executive's and managers and they all have huge overheads. And they are all in a close proximity it would be easy to reduce the number of councils With today's technology. If major changes are not made the people of Wales will suffer Even More.