The King of the North for Wales

Alun Smith

As I write, Andy Burnham is speaking at The Great North Summit. He’s pitching to become the new Member for Makerfield, and plausibly, possibly, the next Prime Minister of the U.K, when and if we get a Labour leadership run in.

Andy’s waxing lyrical about his many successes as Mayor of Greater Manchester and how the devolved powers he had the privilege to administer, have done so much for the people of that region.

You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone on the left or even the centre-left, to disparage or deny his achievements.

He’s not the only speaker today, of course. Other northern mayors, business leaders and investors are due to speak in an effort to garner investment for the north of England, all backed by the chancellor, Rachel Reeves.

Both Reeves and Starmer have said they’ll back Burnham in his By-Election ambition, should he be chosen to represent Labour…..which he absolutely will be.

Other than the fact that Wes Streeting is sans spectacles, if you put him on Richard Osman’s House of Games next to Burnham and Starmer, the silhouettes used for them would be very difficult to tell apart.

Suit-check, side-parted hair-check. Glasses… On the ground though, one of these men is not like the others. Burnham.

Starmer has been accused of briefing his ministers that they could go against the wishes of Welsh and Scottish governments.

It was spun as a positive, of course. We were told that money would be spent on devolution, even if it went against the wishes of the Celtic administrations.

But, frankly, it was disrespectful and it just about did for Labour in Edinburgh and Cardiff at the recent elections. Another weighty straw on an already shaky camel.

I suspect then, that the phone call the PM shared with Rhun ap Iorwerth a few days ago, would have been more stilted than has been widely reported.

Today, Liz Saville Roberts has outlined that Plaid Cymru will be asking for amendments to The Kings Speech to include a new Wales Bill.

Glaring omissions

She, and Plaid Cymru, believe there were some rather glaring omissions in the speech, since there was no mention of further devolution on policing or income tax, no mention of recompense for the HS2 debacle or an overhaul of rail infrastructure in general, no mention of The Crown Estate, and why Wales should have control over that, as Scotland does.

Wes Streeting has been known as mini-me to Starmer for some time now. He’s the continuation candidate for PM in terms of England and Wales, even if he’s recently undergone some sort of ‘conscious uncoupling’ from his hero.

He’s been in the Westminster bubble for a very long time, as has Starmer. Burnham hasn’t. He’s been out in the ‘real world’ of Greater Manchester. A region that enjoys far more funding than Wales does.

So, listening to him today, as he spoke in Leeds, talking of how de-centralisation of government has worked for the North, it would be rather churlish of him, should he, in the coming months, become Prime Minister, to then treat Wales with anything other than the same enthusiasm.

Brexit

Burnham also spoke today of the need to start bringing people together and discuss ways to heal the wounds of Brexit. That is going to be a mammoth task, especially against the backdrop of what we saw on Saturday in London.

Happily, Wales, in it’s rejection of the divisive policies of Reform, have already started that process. Rhun ap Iorwerth would have been aware of those protests as he chaired the first cabinet meeting of the new Senedd today.

When Starmer came to power in England he said that Labour was a party of power not protest. He was referring, of course, to Corbyn and the Momentum project.

I wonder if Keir has seen the photograph circulating social media the last few days. The one showing a young Rhun ap Iowerth protesting in Cathay’s in Cardiff, outside the Welsh Office, 30 something years ago.

I wonder if Keir has seen the one taken last week of Rhun standing in the same spot, not in protest, but in power.

More and more the stars seem to be aligning for Wales and it’s an exciting time to be alive.