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Our satirical writer Edwin Phillips reads a Press Release from the Labour Welsh Government (WG) denying that the early ‘minor’ tinkering of the lockdown in Wales was to upstage the Conservative Prime Minister’s announcement yesterday evening.
FROM: Wales All News Knowledge (WANK)
TO: All Regional Staff Editorial (ARSE)
TIME: Before Boris Does It
We WANKers would like to reject firmly suggestions that our highly-acclaimed enormous change to the lockdown in Wales on Friday, was in any way posing that we were doing something before the Conservative UK Government.
The fact that it has been called ‘political posturing’, ‘purely designed to upstage the Tories’ and ‘showing devolved governments do things differently’ simply reveals how shallow are the political commentariat in the UK.
The esteemed First Minister of Wales Mark Drakeford in fact announced sweeping changes to the lockdown, including saying that exercise will be allowed for more than once a day, but must start and end at home.
These have been criticised as “small” adjustments to the lockdown restrictions, ahead of changes for England which were due to be announced by Boris Johnson two days later.
But they were nothing of the sort.
It is enormously important that garden centres and some libraries will be allowed to open from today, with the two-metre social distancing rules observed.
The importance of these changes is underlined by the fact that Mr Johnson also made an announcement later.
The kind of decisive action Mr Drakeford has shown is only to be expected from a man who apologised and said there would be an “urgent meeting” after patients at Tawel Fan Mental Health Unit in Ysbyty Clwyd filmed their loved ones crawling across floors (shown by an intrusive UK newspaper) before it was demolished.
A report into the so-called ‘scandal’ in 2015 said there was “institutional abuse”.
Mr Drakeford was the Welsh Government Minister for Health and Social Services at the time, so everyone applauds the fact that his star has risen since he showed such quick action by calling for a meeting after it all distressingly hit the news.
He went on to become the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, before being appointed FMW because his track record was so good.
As health minister in Wales Mr Drakeford stood firm as that trouble-making website The Eye were given supposedly ‘exclusive’ details of how whistleblowers who had worked at Brecon War Memorial Hospital knew an elderly stroke victim had been slapped in bed by a carer, and that visiting families were forced to bring in food to keep their starving relatives alive.
The WG was of course made aware of the fact that falsification of notes at the hospital was “routine practice”.
But we are happy to dismiss reports in The Eye that the whistleblower had allegedly said: “The night culture at Brecon hospital is amateur at best, dangerous at worst. (Staff were) drunk on duty, nurses (were) put to bed as they were drunk, then woken up before days-staff turned up. A convicted sex-offender was working as a care assistant”, and that a police investigation had apparently followed which lasted several months.
The leadership skills displayed by Mr Drakeford in making the announcement of lockdown changes described as “minor”, were also much in evidence when he rose above another supposed ‘scandal’ at the NHS in Wales during his time in charge.
At Ysbyty Cwm Cynon in Mountain Ash, 10 hospital workers were suspended following the death of an elderly woman who was found with “unexplained and serious injuries” on a ward.
Meanwhile nurses at a hospital in Bridgend were investigated by police after elderly and difficult patients were drugged and a quiet night shift was enjoyed, so Mr Drakeford ordered other meetings to be undertaken.
One nurse talked about what was happening at the town’s Princess of Wales hospital before the unfortunate death of 82 year old Lillian Willams.
She had one of her legs amputated but died in 2013, in a part of the Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University (ABMU) health board when Mr Drakeford was at the helm as health minister.
In total two deaths occured at the hospital, but Mr Drakeford again showed his authority because it came following a review which recommended changes in practices to ensure “patient safety”.
Mr Drakeford’s reputation as a health minister in Wales is unblemished despite opposition parties trying to make political capital out of unfortunate facts.
It is regrettable that the number of patients waiting 12 hours or more in A&E units went up from 2,235 in October 2015, to 5,581 in October 2019.
The percentage who had to wait more than four hours to be treated, admitted or discharged sadly rose as well, to its highest on record at 26.6 per cent – meaning just over one in four patients attending A&E had to endure having the start of their treatment delayed by more than four hours.
Yet it is not simply as health minister that Mr Drakeford’s record has been so fine, but as FMW too, after all he rightly abandoned plans for a relief road for vehicles queueing to go through the Brynglas Tunnels on the M4 near Newport.
He was also the only member of his Welsh cabinet colleagues who backed the extreme left winger Jeremy Corbyn as leader of Labour, when his excellent election strategy in December unfortunately failed so ‘spectacularly’ (as the critics claim) that the Tory party gained more seats over Labour since 1987, and when the former Labour minister Roy Hattersley said the party was, we were told, in a far worse state than during the ascendancy of Militant in the 1980s.
Mr Drakeford has, WANKers stress, said he is “standing up for Wales” and he has shown he has done this by announcing “minor” changes to the lockdown before the Prime Minister…
Tomorrow – more disturbing revelations about a South Wales conman exclusively exposed by us.
Our Editor Phil Parry’s memories of his astonishing lengthy award-winning career in journalism as he was gripped by the incurable disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major new book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order the book now!
If you need something to keep the children entertained during these uncertain times (in Welsh) try Ffwlbart Ffred about the amusing stories of Ffred and his pet