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‘Dear me, he really, really is awful’ – Mark Drakeford responds to call with Boris Johnson

07 Mar 2021 2 minute read
Prime Minister Boris Johnson (left) in yesterday’s speech broadcast on BBC One. Mark Drakeford (right), picture by the Welsh Government.

The First Minister Mark Drakeford was heard saying “he really, really is awful” following a call with Boris Johnson in a fly on the wall documentary of his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the programme Prif Weinidog Mewn Pandemig (First Minister in a Pandemic) on S4C Mark Drakeford is seen dialling into a COBRA conference call to discuss the closing of the border between the UK and France on 21 December.

It was the first meeting between the First Minister and the Prime Minister in three months.

Boris Johnson is heard saying: “Thanks everybody for joining this call. I think we must urgently look at the implications of the travel ban that some of our European friends have imposed.

“We will hear from Mark Drakeford and… various others.”

Mark Drakeford is heard to scoff and then say “Dear me, he really, really is awful,” as the meeting comes to an end.

“Imagine that some deadly new variant of the virus had been discovered in France and they were trying to persuade us that there was no need to take any action to stop French lorry drivers from driving across the continent!” he says.

An aide then asks him: “Do you need any minutes from that meeting?”

To which he replies with contempt: “No, I don’t think there’s anything at all. Other than wringing our hands in a sense of despair.”

Mark Drakeford is asked earlier in the programme about his relationship with Boris Johnson and says they have nothing in common apart from having studied Latin.

“The government in London, they see the world, and they see the UK, through the eyes of London,” he says.

“Sometimes that doesn’t work for us. If we have to do what they want us to do in London there’s no point to the Senedd here in Wales.


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