All focus in the UK may currently be on Westminster, but news from Wales shows politics across the rest of the nation is not exactly plain sailing, either.
Mark Drakeford, the leader of Welsh Labour and the country’s first minister, announced on Wednesday that he is stepping down in March. The news came exactly five years and one day after he took office. Drakeford said his decision was based on the fact he never wanted to hold the post for more than half a decade, though reports have highlighted that the timing of his announcement was a “surprise.” Next year’s Welsh spending plans, which ministers say will be “extremely difficult,” will also be unveiled this month.
The outgoing first minister is unlikely to be well known on the Continent. In fact, he only became a household name in the rest of the UK during COVID, when his approach to lockdown was even more extreme than that chosen by Westminster.
Upon learning of his departure, UnHerd Editor-in-Chief Freddie Sayers posted photos of measures forced upon Welsh citizens during this period, including the blocking off of aisles in shops displaying gift cards, clothes, and other ‘non-essential’ items.
Writing in Spiked, Austin Williams added that Drakeford “quickly became a lockdown fanatic”:
He chose to impose abstemiousness on the nation during COVID, even banning the sale of alcohol in pubs and insisting they close by 6pm. It was his management of the COVID lockdowns that earned him the sobriquet, Kim Jong-Drakeford.
More recently, Drakeford has received a heavy backlash over new 20 mph speed limits across the country. He denies this has had anything to do with his departure. National papers on Thursday said the first minister’s impact on Wales could also be seen through increased waiting times for NHS patients, an increase in crime (greater than the increase experienced in England), and a shrinking economy.
But Williams joked that Britons must not “crack open the champagne just yet, as [Drakeford] has ominously added that ‘no firm [departure] date is set.’”
