Starmer’s pledge to govern Britain like Wales is beginning to sound like a threat
When Keir Starmer described his party’s record in Wales as a “blueprint for what Labour can do across the UK”, he probably didn’t intend it as a threat.
But as the western principality is subjected to the latest in a long line of Left-wing experiments – tourists may be charged for the privilege of visiting Wales in future, according to a new policy published today – it might be regarded as such. Wales has become a petri dish for social anthropology students curious to see what might happen if the more extreme elements of the students union is given free reign in at least one corner of the country.
The Welsh Government has already courted controversy by allowing various strands of Welsh civic society to press ahead with its ludicrous obsession with the “decolonisation” of Welsh history. Not previously known for his membership of the Ku Klux Klan, David Lloyd George, one of Wales’s most celebrated political figures, has nevertheless been targeted by publicly-funded “anti-racist” consultants.
The former war-time prime minister’s home in Llanystumdwy in rural Wales, which has been turned into a museum, will in future “promote a multicultural, vibrant and diverse Wales”. Think red non-binary dragons against a rainbow background.
But it’s the tourist tax that is worrying leaders of the country’s beleaguered hospitality industry. When visitor figures have yet to recover from the Covid pandemic and skills shortages are already pushing up wages costs (not to mention the new UK government’s recent increase in employers’ national insurance contributions), there could hardly be a worse time to impose further disincentives on tourism.
The tax is envisioned as being relatively modest, added to visitors’ bills for overnight accommodation. The money raised would be spent – so ministers tell us – on improving facilities for tourists and hence increasing revenue as part of a virtuous economic cycle. And if you believe that, I have a talking steam engine with a baby dragon resting in its furnace to sell you.
The policy was part of an agreement between the ruling Labour administration and their nationalist rivals in Plaid Cymru, which should surprise no one. Welsh nationalism in its more extreme forms has a history of cultivating a warm welcome in the valleys for English incomers: remember that “Not The Nine O’Clock News” sketch from the 1970s? “Come home to an open fire – buy a cottage in Wales.”
Rather than make Wales a vibrant, forward-looking part of the UK, devolution has turned it and its politicians inwards, fixating on dictating how people should lead their lives.
Of course, devolution was always intended by its enthusiastic and naïve promoters as an opportunity to do things differently at a Welsh and Scottish level from the way things were done at Westminster. It was just never explained why “different” must always mean “better”.
Any Welsh citizens tired of being constantly used as the subjects of clever experiments by academics and activists who wouldn’t get a foot in the door in Whitehall might, therefore, blame the principle of devolution itself for their plight. After all, wasn’t the devolution project supposed to improve the standard of living for those lucky enough to live in those areas?
Yet in key areas of public policy – health, education, transport, etc – it is at least a challenge to produce empirical evidence that the promise of devolution has been realised.
Confirming the Labour Party’s role as the nation’s Human Resources Department and its instinct either to make everything free, forbidden or compulsory, the Senedd has already subjected Welsh motorists to a nationwide ban on driving above 20 mph (since adjusted to allow local authorities to decide on speed limits), a policy that was conceived and imposed by over-mighty climate change activists-turned-government advisers. The same minister who imposed the 20 mph policy also opposed scrapping tolls on the Severn Crossing on the dubious basis that it would be too car-friendly.
The Welsh Government’s anti-car strategy and its new plans to charge visitors (mostly from the UK) to visit Wales are two faces of the same philosophy. Economic growth and a healthier environment for business are essential to improve standards of living for ordinary people. But under devolution, Welsh Labour sees both as disposable, depending on the political fashion of the here and now.
Keir Starmer take note: Wales under Labour is no blueprint; it is a warning. If he doesn’t heed it, the rest of the nation will.