Those expecting (hoping ?) for an honest and open debate on
eCigarettes by Welsh Labour will do well to look at how Welsh Labour actually
respond to criticism. This week in particular will have opened the eyes of many
into how the Welsh Labour hierarchy respond to criticism from within its own
ranks as the First Minister promptly sacked one of his own AM’s – Jenny Rathbone
– for simply daring to question the expenditure on the M4 relief road.
With behaviour like this, is it any wonder that Labour AM’s
are afraid to go against the Health Minister on the subject of eCigarettes ?
Over the past few weeks, we have witnessed evidence being
presented to the Health & Social Care Committee that completely eviscerated
each and every piece of ‘evidence’ introduced by the Health Minister in his
quest to ban eCigarettes from public enclosed spaces. Furthermore, a study by
the Welsh Government itself failed to find a single vaper who was not an ex-smoker.
So what did the WelshLabour do ? Why they chose to ignore it of course, even
trying to bury the results (unsuccessfully) and instead pointed to evidence
from the USA – evidence that Welsh Labour and attempted to misrepresent and
which was comprehensively shot down by Profs Linda Bauld, John Britton and
Peter Hajek when they appeared before the HSCC.
Put on top of that the decision by the First Minister to
discontinue access to ministerial decision reports, the constant number of
times that supposedly open scrutiny/evidence meetings that are suddenly held in
closed session and the evasive way that the First Minister answers any direct
questions in First Minister Questions then is it any wonder that there is
public distrust ?
Welsh Labour’s answer to any criticism is to close ranks and
adopt the “La-la-I’m-not-listening’ attitude.
Yet next May, these same Labour politicians will be asking
us to vote for them in the Assembly Elections and trying to tell us that they
are the only people we can trust.
It’s about time that Welsh Labour realised that AM’s are
elected to represent the PEOPLE, not toe the party line and hide in shadows
anything that they don’t want us to know.
The words ‘Transparent Government’ and ‘evidence-based
policy making’ appear proudly on the Welsh Government AND Welsh Labour
website. Those two statements are the biggest lies being told in UK politics.
It’s about time the Welsh Public woke up to this fact and
voted these charlatans out come next May or else Wales is doomed to be forever
a third-world country hanging on the coat-tails of England !!
