You will always pay the price for meeting your heroes. When it comes to Mark Drakeford that is literally the case. Bill and Hilary Clinton paid a visit to Swansea University last November to chat about “Leadership for Future Generations” with the university’s vice-chair, Drakeford himself, and some sixth-formers. Guido’s readers would be forgiven for thinking that the university would foot the bill….
A Freedom of Information request has revealed that the Welsh Government shelled out a whopping £75,000 of taxpayer cash for the university to host its event with the couple. That’s a hefty price tag for Drakeford to get a picture with the Clintons for his mantelpiece…
Welsh Tory leader Andrew RT Davies got in touch to say “the Welsh taxpayer has been fleeced enough already by Labour without having to fork out for Drakeford’s photo-op.” Guido is glad to see taxpayer cash being treated with respect in Wales…
Welsh Labour has been keen recently to claim the UK is in recession for some reason. Even their official 2023-24 budget document twice featured the words prominently: “The UK economy is in recession”. A good enough excuse for the Welsh Government’s £900 million budget shortfall – if only it were true…
The Welsh Government has today been forced to admit their recession was a fantasy, admitting that GDP statistics “suggest that the UK economy did not enter recession“. They argue instead that “growth was still very low by historic standards and over the whole six month period the UK economy exhibited zero growth“. So, not a recession…
Welsh Tory leader Andrew RT Davies tells Guido: “Labour ministers need to put their faulty crystal ball away and get on with the job of delivering for the people of Wales instead of blaming their vanity project-shaped budget hole on a recession that only they can see.” The socialist doomsayers got it wrong again…
Welsh Labour is dealing with a fiscal headache. It has now been revealed that their free prescriptions policy cost £14.5 million in the last year alone. In the last five years pharmacists’ dispensation of free Paracetamol tablets has picked up a price tag of a whopping £13,469,802. A bitter pill to swallow…
Meanwhile, among outgoing First Minister Mark Drakeford’s lasting achievements is a £900 million budget shortfall that has accumulated while Senedd politicians spaff cash on woke jobs and 20 mph speed limits. Appealing to the ghost of Nye Bevan with free prescriptions will always cause a headache…
Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford has just confirmed swirling rumours of his stepping down and laying out the timetable for a leadership election. The hope is a new leader will be in place by January…
Drakeford has said previously that he would resign around the middle point of the Senedd term. Welsh Tory leader Andrew RT Davies said he wishes Mark well though it’s “important, however, with this announcement that there is no distraction from the really important job of delivering for the people of Wales. Labour politicians jockeying for the role of First Minister must not detract from this“. Mark says he doesn’t want any political obituaries yet – that’s not up to him though…
New polling shows Drakeford’s popularity has dipped below Sunak’s for the first time to an 18-month low. No wonder Guido hears the national Labour Party want him gone by the time the election comes around…
Mark Drakeford had a numerical nightmare at First Minister’s Questions today over Wales’ maths PISA score. Attempting to put a positive spin on Wales’ less-than-stellar performance in youth math, he perfectly embodied the statistics, claiming, “just for the record to be clear, the maths scores in Wales fell, they fell by the exactly same number as the English maths scores fell.” The problem is, his own numbers don’t add up…
While England’s math score took a dip of 12 points from 504 to 492, Wales suffered a more dramatic plunge, plummeting by 21 points from 487 to 466. Mark might need a crash course in basic arithmetic – unless he’s trying to redefine subtraction as a creative art form…
Mark Drakeford has been forced to correct the record after telling the Welsh Assembly he did not use WhatsApp. After it emerged yesterday that Welsh Government officials may have deleted their WhatsApp messages, he claimed had never deleted anything, as he didn’t use WhatsApp. Turns out the Welsh leader does in fact have the app…
Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies received a screenshot of Drakeford’s WhatsApp profile, prompting the First Minister to write a letter to Elin Jones, the Senedd’s speaker, saying:
“I have reviewed my exchange with the leader of the Welsh Conservatives during First Minister’s Questions (FMQs) yesterday (7 November) and I would like to clarify that I have WhatsApp downloaded to my Senedd-issued mobile phone. I do not use it regularly to send messages. I would appreciate it if the Record could be amended on this particular point.”
Oops…
