A report in today’s Daily Post gives a fascinating glimpse into the psyche of Mrs Edwina Hart, one of the candidates for leadership of the Labour group in the Welsh Assembly:
Labour leadership candidate Edwina Hart last night promised a minister for North Wales in her Assembly Government.
The health minister revealed the pledge as the three hopefuls gathered in Rhyl for the first of five official hustings meetings with party members.
Ms Hart, AM for Gower, would hand the responsibility to a Labour minister.
“Having spoken to party members and others in North Wales I have clearly gained the impression that a minister with special responsibility for North Wales would be widely welcome by those who feel they would have a voice in the cabinet.”
It is revealing that there are clearly those in the Labour party who share the view, widely held by many outside it, that North Wales presently has little or no influence in the Cardiff corridors of power.
It used to be the case that Welsh ministers would protest that this was merely perception and not reality. Mrs Hart’s offer tends to confirm her acceptance it goes deeper than that.
Of course, nothing could have done more to encourage a feeling of marginalisation on the part of North Walians than Mrs Hart’s own ill-judged decision to require North Wales neurosurgery patients to travel to Cardiff or Swansea for treatment. Many felt that Mrs Hart manifestly regarded the northern counties as a remote and inconsequential province whose people had a lesser claim to convenient medical services than the residents of the more populous south.
That Mrs Hart subsequently repented did little to ease the opprobrium she attracted to herself. I fear that the olive branch she is now extending to the people of North Wales will probably be received with a mixture of scepticism and scorn.
