Whether Guilty Or Innocent Carwyn Jones Has Revealed Himself To Be Incompetent

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

You may remember earlier this year the political fallout from the suicide of Assembly Member Carl Sargeant. Something I discussed at the time.

Well amongst the various enquiries that were instigated was one as to whether the sacking of Mr Sargeant was leaked to the press. That report has been completed and the Conservatives have sought a debate today (Wednesday) in the Senedd to force the Welsh Labour administration to publish this report.

So what does Carwyn Jones do? He writes a letter to the presiding officer asking for the debate to be postponed or else he threatens court proceedings. He states that the reason for doing this is to protect the confidentiality of witnesses to that enquiry. At time of writing the Presiding Officer has rejected his request.

Now whether or not he has a case I don't know. But it's worth pointing out that he writes this letter a day before the actual debate and without any notice beforehand to the other political parties that this could be an issue.

Obviously the other parties were unhappy about the governing party of a major Parliament in Britain using the courts. What was telling watching the news reports was the sheer silence of the Labour AMs as Jones was trying to defend himself. Tellingly at the back of the chamber the look of the man who replaced Carl Sargeant as AM, his son. You felt that here was a man who was keeping his powder dry....for now.

Now whether or not Carwyn Jones is trying to cover up something I don't know. Clearly there are two scenarios here. One is that he is using the notion of witness confidentiality to save his own skin from some damning evidence in the enquiry report. The other is that he is completely innocent and the actions are being from a genuine concern.

The trouble is, even if he is innocent, his authoritarian, undemocratic methods to muzzle the Senedd was always likely to make people suspect a cover up. If protection of witnesses was an issue then this last minute heavy handed approach will not help these people as it has only made the other parties assume he does have something to hide.

In other words. Whether guilty or innocent Carwyn Jones has made a delicate situation worse by his actions.

It would be laughable....if we were not talking about the loss of life.

Until Mr Sargeant's death, and for all of his faults Carwyn Jones was a smooth political operator. Since that tragedy though. The First Minister seems to have lost his touch (note my comments on his Syrian Statement Of Nothing).

Until the next time