Conservative Senedd candidate says it’s time to ‘rebuild trust’ after ‘botched job of devolution’
Nicholas Thomas, Local Democracy Reporter
It is time for politicians to “rebuild trust” with people who so far feel “let down” by devolution, according to the Welsh Conservatives’ lead candidate for the Casnewydd Islwyn constituency.
The Tories are framing May’s Senedd elections as a chance to “fix Wales” with economic growth and investment funded by cutting taxes and “waste”.
Natasha Asghar, who held shadow cabinet positions in transport and education during the last parliamentary term, said her party wants to undo a freeze on new road building and would also support the reversal of 20mph default speed limits.
Both policies would lead to economic benefits for Wales, she argues, saying that “ultimately if you don’t have a strong infrastructure, how can the economy grow?”
Within the Casnewydd Islwyn constituency, she said she would push for the A&E department to reopen at Newport’s Royal Gwent Hospital, better transport connections, and a freeze on business rates to “rejuvenate” high streets.
The Welsh Tories spent the previous Senedd term as the main opposition group, but recent opinion polls show they could face a tough test this time, with Reform UK likely to seriously challenge them for the support of conservative-leaning voters.
Ms Asghar dismisses “baffling” polls that place her party in fourth or fifth place, however, and said those indicators “are showing me something completely different from what I’m hearing and seeing on the streets of Newport and Islwyn – it’s anyone’s game right now, as far as we’re concerned”.
The upcoming election comes at a time when “the tide has turned” for Welsh Labour after 27 years in power, she said, arguing voters are “more attuned” to the Senedd’s responsibilities because of rows over Covid regulations and 20mph.
She says decision-makers – including other parties who have helped Labour pass budgets – have “lacked ambition and lacked drive, and that’s led to a decline in services for people here”.
She claimed previous governments had “done a botched job of devolution”, leading to poor public opinions of the Senedd itself.
“We hear about people wanting to abolish it all the time, which is a real shame because I was always in support of an assembly”, she said, while adding she was less enthusiastic about a rapid expansion of powers.
“I believe that you should learn how to crawl properly before you can walk, and then before you can run you need to be able to walk properly,” she added. “I don’t think that they have shown that they can crawl properly, and they’ve started running.”
So what makes the Tories a credible alternative? In the history of Welsh devolution, the party has failed to win a national election.
“We’re a reliable bunch of individuals who worked tirelessly for the last five years, and I strongly believe that we will be the change that Wales needs to see,” said Ms Asghar.
However the biggest threat to the Tories’ election chances this year is arguably from Reform, a new player which has ridden a surge of momentum and is tipped by opinion pollsters to do well in May.
Reform has also proved an attractive party to some Conservative politicians, and in the past Senedd term the party’s two MSs were both Tory defectors.
Ms Asghar said she was not worried about the new challenger’s potential to threaten or even replace the Tories, describing her own party as a “broad church” while Reform’s “main focus” was on immigration – a policy area not devolved to Wales.
“We need to focus on the bread and butter issues that we are responsible for,” she said.
Labour ministers in the most recent Senedd term didn’t shy away from contextualising policies and budget decisions in the wider picture of Treasury funding, and “14 years of Tory austerity” was a regular complaint when it came to the impacts on Wales’ public services.
Similar arguments have been put forward in the Casnewydd Islwyn constituency’s two council chambers – Caerphilly and Newport – where Labour representatives have blamed real-terms funding cuts for their own controversial savings plans.
Ms Asghar said it was “not fair” to always point the finger at David Cameron’s Westminster government, which she claimed “did not want to bring in austerity” when it won power in 2010 – but had to because of the finances it inherited.
However, she distanced her party from pursuing austerity under similar circumstances if they win power in Wales in May.
Natasha Asghar says in her pitch to the voters of Casnewydd Islwyn: “I’m a local girl – I was born here, I’ve worked here, I’ve served the region of South East Wales to the best of my ability for the past five years.
“I know the local issues, I know about potholes, I’m fully aware about transport issues, I know about education, I know about the health crisis that is out there.
“And I will do everything in my being to make sure we deal with those issues to the best of our ability, reinstate public trust, and go on to build a better Wales for absolutely everyone here.”
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Rebuilding trust starts with apologies for the blanket 20 lie, being part of a gathering outside Y Senedd which featured someone insulting Y Ddraig Goch by holding it upside down, calling the whole of Plaid Cymru ‘racist’, turning back on Cymru to chase London Mayoralty and being part of an anti Welsh organisation increasing in volume about shutting down the same national Parliament one is standing to enter.
Natasha Asghar put herself forward in the Conservative Party selection process to be mayor of London. Here is a video of her being swiped by a No94 to Piccadilly Circus during her previous election campaign.
https://x.com/i/status/1660686909343973381
Now, back in Wales, she wants you to vote Conservative to lose your bus pass and cancel services. However, it would be wrong to suggest she puts London as more important than Wales. She gives herself more priority than both.
20 rate next to zero on my reasons list for worry and Wales governance.
It is because of people like the Conservative that I worry. Wales has many issues and I doubt Plaid will fix it but let’s see. The Cons want to follow orders and are a fag paper away from Reform.
Devolution is hard, and sitting there screaming “blanket 20mph…grrrr” when you should have been “OK, let’s see how this works”. There is the problem. The Cons didn’t want to work to help, they want to break as per orders from HQ in London.
Firstly, there’s no such thing as “Welsh” Conservatives. Yes, some may be of Welsh origin, but the Tories never have and never will have a genuine interest in Cymru.
The Tories are responsible for starting to drive Cymru into the ground in the early seventies.
The only place Tory politicians belong is on the scrapheap of politics, the history books or prison.
They’re basically just a version of reform who can hold a crayon properly without eating it.
What is it with to this fixation on the 20mph speed limit? As someone pointed out on the Cardiff edition of Question Time, last week, it’s not a big issue with the public. They primarily want the high cost of living addressed. The right also hate devolution and more power to Cymru but attachment to Westminster has never been in our country’s favour but they’ll never understand that.
Conservative cuckoo Natasha Asghar MS is deluded if she thinks the Welsh Conservatives will have any Senedd members, let alone form the next Welsh Government after May’s Senedd election. Yes, Labour botched devolution in 1997—I agree—but don’t you dare omit your party’s malicious input and constant interference in the running of the Senedd since 1999. You claim you want to “rebuild trust” and “fix Wales,” yet your party, in both Cardiff and London, has spent the last 27 years talking Wales down. You are part of the problem not the solution. And since 1997, the Welsh Conservatives and their pernicious… Read more »
The Tories are framing May’s Senedd elections as a chance to “fix Wales” with economic growth and investment funded by cutting taxes… looks like oxymoron-logic.
Reform too. Somehow they’re going to cut taxes without cutting services and invest. Presumably Capita Dan plans to give his old outsourcing buddies a call to overpromise and underdeliver on their behalf.
If those English councils run by Reform UK are anything to go by you can expect broken promises galore. It’s easy to promise harder to deliver.
I’d emphasise the “moron” in oxymoron-logic. The Welsh Conservatives don’t want to fix Wales they prefer to break it. They are destructive force rather than constructive. Always will be.
Time to talk about the botched governance from central government.