Opinion
After the new revelations about his donor, Vaughan Gething cannot survive
Martin Shipton
Things have just got even worse for Vaughan Gething.
It was bad enough that he accepted donations totalling £200,000 from a convicted criminal for his Welsh Labour leadership campaign.
It was shocking when it became clear that he had lied to the UK Covid Inquiry and deleted iMessages because he feared they would be subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.
What we now learn is that the convicted donor has been accused of breaking not just environmental laws, but of failing to pay tax due to the Welsh Government for the dumping of waste in a controversial landfill site.
The donor at the centre of the scandal, David Neal, hasn’t, of course, been charged, let alone convicted, of evading the payment of landfill disposals tax. But the fact that his waste group is being looked at by regulators as a potential transgressor is a very serious matter.
People who have worked for his companies have come forward to allege that the law has been broken. They deserve to be listened to and action must be taken if there are irregularities or worse to pursue.
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Withyhedge
What has been established is a potential link between the noxious smells emitted from the Withyhedge landfill site near Haverfordwest and the alleged “mischaracterisation” of waste dumped in it.
With landfill disposals tax currently at around £3 per tonne for inert waste, like soil, and more than £100 per tonne for all other waste, there is a clear financial motive for waste companies to be cavalier in their approach towards their environmental responsibilities and economical with the truth with regard to their financial obligations.
The landfill site’s neighbours in Pembrokeshire, who have had to put up with a horrible stench for more than six months, will certainly be interested in the outcome.
Investigations into Mr Neal’s activities in the waste industry will doubtless continue, as they should. But for Mr Gething, the consequences will be political rather than legal.
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Weakened
Already weakened by his association with Mr Neal, it’s inevitable that the First Minister will be dragged into any and every development concerning Mr Neal and his business interests.
Mr Gething and his adherents may consider that unfair, and an unreasonable example of guilt by association. But one of the essential requirements for a successful political career is to avoid being dragged into someone else’s mess.
When Vaughan Gething decided to accept a huge donation from Mr Neal, he signed up for whatever consequences transpired. Given Mr Neal’s well documented criminal record, it was a particularly reckless decision.
To think otherwise demonstrates a lethal combination of arrogance, entitlement and naivety - none of which are desirable qualities for a politician of any kind, let alone a supposed national leader.
Advice
It also suggests a deficiency in the quality of advice offered to Mr Gething.
We are not privy to whose counsel he sought as he considered whether it was appropriate for him to accept such a huge sum from a donor. It’s safe to assume, however, that one of those consulted was his agent, David Costa.
Mr Costa is a former deputy general secretary of Welsh Labour. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of the Labour Party’s rulebook, and is regarded by many insiders, not without affection, as the apparatchik’s apparatchik.
For Mr Costa, Mr Gething did nothing wrong when he accepted Mr Neal’s £200k because there was no clause in the party rulebook that he had contravened. Such a view has constantly been trotted out by Mr Gething and his supporters ever since NationCymru was the first news outlet to reveal the “dodgy donations”.
What the promotion of such a narrative displays, however, is a dearth of political judgement.
Mr Costa would doubtless achieve a record high score if he appeared on Mastermind and chose the Labour Party rulebook as his specialist subject. But he would score badly if marks were awarded for political good sense.
The negative reaction to Mr Gething’s decision to accept Mr Neal’s money was quite predictable - but for Mr Costa and his ilk the crucial factor was that there was no party rule to exclude it. It seems reasonable to conclude that Mr Costa, locked in his rule-dominated mindset, was not the best person from whom to take advice.
Care
This leads on to another requirement for political leaders: that they should choose their advisers with care and wisdom. Mr Gething’s tendency to surround himself with those who tell him what he wants to hear is another trait that makes him a poor leader.
If he had a good set of advisers, the message he would be receiving is that now is the time to resign. As Labour prepares to take over the UK Government, Wales needs a First Minister who will stand up for its interests at the new seat of power.
As Shadow Welsh Secretary Jo Stevens revealed in her condescending interview with Newyddion’s Catrin Haf Jones how she will be inclined to treat aspirations for more devolved powers that have been Welsh Government policy for years. They will be rejected as unnecessary “tinkering” by Ms Stevens and the Starmer-led UK Government, despite expert backing for constitutional reform.
It seems likely that Ms Stevens is intending to play hard ball. During the interview Ms Jones made the astute point - and I paraphrase - that a wounded and weakened leader like Mr Gething is precisely the kind of First Minister Starmer’s centralist government would like to have in Wales.
Other manoeuvres like the imposition of Labour London lawyer Alex Barros-Curtis on Cardiff West as its new candidate have swept away at a stroke 25 years of “clear red water” brought to Wales by Rhodri Morgan and Mark Drakeford.
Vaughan Gething was always going to be a creature of UK Labour, just like Alun Michael before him, whose fragile power base was centred on the same Cardiff South and Penarth constituency.
Getting rid of Gething is a desirable aim for more than one reason. He will forever be associated with David Neal and his continuing controversies, which will constantly haunt him and, if he is still First Minister, pose a threat to Labour’s leadership of Wales at the next Senedd election in 2026.
And as a result of this and other deficiencies, he cannot be the strong leader Wales needs in the UK’s new political dynamic that will come into being after July 4.
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