Welsh Conservative MP: Attending Wales v Scotland ‘just not clever’
A Welsh Conservative MP has said that she will not be attending the Wales v Scotland match which is going ahead tomorrow, saying that it is “just not clever”.
Today Public Health Wales reported 13 new cases in Wales, taking the total to 38, including first cases in Anglesey and Flintshire.
However, the Welsh Rugby Union confirmed that the game would be going ahead, saying that they had been in dialogue with Welsh Assembly Government minister for Health and Social Services Vaughan Gething.
The WRU said they had followed the scientific advice of government, Public Health Wales and medical experts and determined that any game would be held based on that advice.
The UK Government have also said that sporting fixtures should go ahead, although other Pro14 Rugby, The Premier League, and the Football League have suspended all matches.
Despite the reassurances, Fay Jones, the MP for Brecon and Radnorshire, said she would not be attending Wales v Scotland.
“I was super excited about going to Wales v Scotland but I won’t be going,” she said,
“The Premier League is suspended and no other 6 Nations fixtures are going ahead. No one loves the rugby more than me but it’s just not clever.”
‘Action’
Yesterday Plaid Cymru Leader Adam Price called for the Six Nations match to be postponed to a later date.
Mr Price said that “social distancing” could “smooth the curve” and delay the spread of the virus and suggested a package of contingency measures the Welsh Government could adopt which would be to instruct people to work from home where possible, close schools and colleges, and ramp up testing and set up temporary care units.
“All mass gatherings and events should be postponed or cancelled with immediate effect – that would mean no indoor gatherings larger than 100 and no outdoor gathering larger than 500,” he said.
“The Six Nations match in Cardiff this weekend postponed to a later date. Testing should be ramped up and temporary care units need to be set up.
“All political leaders must realise that the actions we take now, today, could mean the difference between life and death later on. We owe it to our people and our communities to do the right thing. The public will expect nothing less.”
But Welsh Health Minister Vaughan Gething said advice cancelling events would not make a difference in saving lives.
Mr Gething told a press conference that politicians, including those in the opposition, should take a “responsible approach” and should not try to suggest “there is public health advice to take a step when actually it does not exist”.
“The challenge about larger events is that the science doesn’t tell us it really makes a difference either in significantly delaying the peak of the outbreak or indeed in terms of saving life,” he said.
However, he said a recommendation the Scottish Government has made, that large events should not go ahead from next week, is also being considered in Wales.
Yesterday Welsh Labour announced they were cancelling their own party conference, following the cancellations of the Plaid Cymru and Liberal Democrat conferences.
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Please change “Welsh Assembly Government” to Welsh Government. the name was changed in 2011. (3rd Parah)
Sites like this should be champions of explaining the difference between the government and the legislature. 🙂
If I understand the situation correctly education in Wales is one of the delegated matters. If that is correct is there any reason why the Welsh government should not go ahead irrespective of the inaction of the UK government and close schools and universities to avoid the further spread of the virus? Is the inaction further evidence of the failure of the Labour government in Wales to come to grips with the problem themselves? Incidentally and on a slightly different topic I am told that the cleanliness of Penglais school in Aberystwyth is so deplorable that some of the teachers… Read more »
The Welsh government, along with all the devolved administrations on the whole, seems to be accepting the line recommended by the UK’s public health establishment as to the best strategy to adopt. Only the Scottish government, which is banning mass gatherings of 500 attendees or more, has shown a readiness in part to depart from that consensus.
The Welsh Labour Government are acting like the mayor from Jaws when he refused to close the beaches. Putting profit before lives
And for good ‘social distancing’ they’re gonna need a bigger stadium!
Reading the news today, Mr Gething advice appears based on someone (Patrick Vallance) who just declared that his aim is to broaden peak of epidemics to reach 60% of the population to create “herd immunity*”. The fact that a thousands of people will die in the process seems like a tiny secondary effect. Maybe the plan is to start by getting rid of a good amount of those annoying Welsh and Scottish people?
*I’m no expert, but from what I read this is not even certain, since in China some people have caught the virus twice…
Virology absolutely isn’t my expertise, but what I’ve understood is that in general you can’t ‘catch’ the same bug twice because the body’s reaction to an infection builds a defence system which ensures that we all become immune to it when we encounter it second time around. But there are exceptions: for instance, catch ‘chicken pox’ – and in childhood most of us do – and you’re stuck with the bug as long as you live because you never get rid of it. It lurks dormant in your system for life, ready to reawaken and give you shingles in –… Read more »
Made even more difficult to understand by the possibility there may be an S and an L version of Covid-19 that cause milder and more severe illness respectively! It’s possible the S version has been infecting us for longer but it took the L version for scientists to take notice. It was mainly the L version that was identified in the Wuhan outbreak by Chinese scientists. However, researchers at the MRC unit in the university of Glasgow disagree with the Chinese researchers and say they misinterpreted the data. At least nobody is suggesting a cull of bats and scaly anteaters… Read more »
I just take the line that you have to die of something. And as I’ll be 75 this coming summer I can’t dodge the reality that, relatively speaking, for me it’s likely to be sooner rather than later!
It seems both the Labour and Conservative parties will nearly always follow the UK line because they do not want to seem out of step with their English electorate which they want to win over for the Westminster elections. In Scotland government is by a fully Scottish based party – The SNP. If Wales wants the same and they are entitled to the same benefits that Scotland now enjoys they should vote for the best Wales based party with no party electoral interests outside Wales : Plaid Cymru is the party to provide this leadership. Adam Price has provided this… Read more »
‘Just not clever’ was the decision by Brecon & Radnor voters to elect Jones as MP in the first place. Anyone who describes something as ‘super’ this or ‘super’ that is deficient in linguistic capablity.