WALES’s economic development as a nation was essentially cancelled this week.
Thanks to Welsh Labour’s decision to scrap all major new road developments here as part of their Roads Review published yesterday.
Modern European nations, including our close neighbour Ireland, have prospered over recent years because of targeted investment in road and rail infrastructure, which has both attracted investment from elsewhere and allowed the domestic economy to thrive at the same time.
But for some reason, Welsh Labour believes that Wales can ignore this fundamental economic principle entirely.
It seems Wales now has to be repurposed and re-designed to meet a much loftier goal than the economic well-being of its people i.e to “save the planet” – a policy which can allow their politicans to grandstand and virtue signal to their heart’s content.
And pat themselves on the back with the narcissistic notion that they are helping Wales to be a world leader.
But then, perhaps it’s not that much of a surprise that Welsh Labour have given up on trying to improve economic well-being here. It was very fitting that this week’s announcement was made by Lee Waters AM, the same minister, who in a rare bout of candidness, once confessed:
Stephen Morris, Gwlad’s Policy Co-ordinator said it was high time for Welsh voters to realise the Labour Party simply does not have their interests at heart. “The party is equally bankrupt of ideas and principles and all that remains is for it to bankrupt Wales along with itself” he said.
“Secure in power with their fat government salaries and propped up by their little helpers in Plaid – they’re just laughing at us and saying- ‘you tolerated the last thing we said – OK, what about this then?”
As part of Welsh Labour’s Roads Review announced yesterday, three major projects are being scrapped: a third crossing to Ynys Môn, Deeside’s Red Route and a £14 million by-pass for Llanbedr.
All three northern communities will have reason to feel aggrieved, although Llanbedr seem to be hardest done by, in view of the mayhem experienced there almost all year round because of gridlocked traffic through the village.
The community are arranging a protest walk through the village to draw further attention to their plight on March 25.
This slap in the face for economic well-being came hard on the heels of another report published this week showed that almost 29% of the people of Wales are not in work.
There may be many reasons for such a figure, but even so, it’s a scathing indictment on Welsh Labour’s economic failures for so many years. With Welsh GVA per head still stuck at the same level it was in 1999, when Devolution began to all intents and purposes.
That 29% is hardly likely to be helped by a freeze on major road projects, especially when you also consider the complete lack of an alternative transport infrastructure, especially in rural Wales.
You also have to ask yourself, how many would-be investors are likely to choose Wales now in view of such a regressive no-new-roads mantra?
This ideology further adds fuel to the notion that Wales is fast now becoming a trial ground for all kind of social experiments.
From 20 mph restrictions on road, to tampons in male toilets at Y Senedd, wanting to be the most LGBTQ+ nation in Europe, and Mark Drakeford planning to bring in Gender Self-ID here as well, you have got to ask what on earth is going on in Cardiff Bay right now.
Is it the case that the UK Labour Party are in fact trialling contentious issues out here in Wales first, with Drakeford and his colleagues just the useful idiots in all this?
Whatever the answer, it seems to be a captured government entirely by now serving the interests of organisations and ideologies whose loyalties are elsewhere.
With the real needs of the Welsh people considered to be secondary to all the above.
The people of Wales have been too patient, too tolerant and too forgiving of Welsh Labour for far too long. Perhaps this economic suicide note can wake them from their slumber at long last.