Why is Wales jumping on the self ID bandwagon?

That's not what I wrote at all, is it?

"the terrifying thing is the realisation that there is nothing to stop them. In more mature democracies there are second chambers (House of Lords on Westminster) which holds the government to a higher standard of account."

I'm not so sure about this. The Lords did nothing against Brexit, for example.

This is not being led by the will of the people of Wales, but a tiny group of decision makers in Wales.

And the terrifying thing is the realisation that there is nothing to stop them. In more mature democracies there are second chambers (House of Lords on Westminster) which holds the government to a higher standard of account. But because Wales and Scotland are small a lower standard of accountability seems to be required of them. For example, the Welsh government has listed the LGB and TQ+ groups they consulted in the recent trans action plan — and they are all funded/ supported by government, Stonewall and the councils who are hand in glove with the government and Stonewall. LGB Alliance Cymru and a coupe of other totally independent LGB groups weren't consulted. The Welsh government isn't even attempting to work within the Nolan principles of good governance and there's nothing and no one to hold them to account. This should worry everyone, whatever their politics.

And 'non-essential' included children's winter coats.

There may be a hope in the Senedd that Labour will bring Self-ID in if they win the next UK election. So they're trying to make it 'their' policy before it becomes a Westminster thing.

But they really do not seem to have noticed that the Self-ID ship has struck a few rocks lately.

Some people, including some Welsh posters here, need to stop looking at everything through English eyes.

And there we go. If you're not for independence and not fully behind Labour or Plaid, you're wrong and you need to think differently. This is Wales' Achilles heel.

I'm not sure why anyone's surprised by this crap,these are same fucking idiots who told us we weren't allowed to purchase 'non essential items'.

I think it’s something along these lines. A desire to be seen as left wing and progressive without really thinking through the implications in terms of individual policies.

Plus the third sector and is utterly captured on gender ideology.

Plus MD et al have only been listening to one side. They probably are genuinely captured themselves and don’t understand the issues. Because they don’t want to. Because if they did, they would have to become less ‘progressive’ and some of their mates and Allie’s might be mean to them. So tribal allegiance combined with a big dose of moral and intellectual

Plus the ego of not wanting to ‘back down’ or admit they got this wrong.

Plus working in partnership with Plaid who are just copying the SNP. I mean, they haven’t even bothered to get their own graphics for their ‘yes’ stickers - they just copied Scotland.

I have become convinced NS et al are genuinely captured, especially after seeing recently that their current arguments are to call the opponents to self ID names and slurs. Which is straight out of the TRA handbook. I suspect MD and Jane Hutt are genuinely captured too. Which you’d expect being as the people they work with in the third sector are too. It’s a very small country and the government and third sector world is even smaller and very close.

This is not being led by the will of the people of Wales, but a tiny group of decision makers in Wales.

They genuinely think they are ahead of the curve. Read the LGBT action plan for Wales. Just the intro gives you a good idea of how much they buy into this:

www.gov.wales/lgbtq-action-plan-wales

Along with the fact Welsh Labour are even more impregnable than the SNP are. There is little separate Welsh media and what there is generally will not ask tough questions. With Plaid and Welsh Labour both all in our only hope is powerful grass roots movement alongside with resistance inside the parties. We have some good groups but they are still way too small. The Tories are too weak in Wales to do anything and I can't see them getting that much stronger.

It does not look good at all right now. I think we are waiting for some horrific scandal to break.

"Thank you for confirming what I had been told by trusted WG insiders. I know people who work in NHS finance and also a number of GPs working in Wales and I know what the knock-on effects have been for them — they haven't been good."

If we have a health service free at the point of delivery, then prescriptions should be free too.
I remember reading that most prescriptions are free in England too because most of the people who get the most prescriptions are on benefits or otherwise entitled to free prescriptions anyway.
The cost of providing free prescriptions is claimed not to be so high because so many prescriptions are free anyway.
GPs, particularly in deprived areas, complain about it because they claim people make an appointment to get something they could get over the counter free of charge. I think this has been clamped down on to some extent now, but I also think it's fair enough if someone is so poor they are willing to make an appointment just to get some paracetamol and the problem of GPs' time is a wider one than that one.

Some people, including some Welsh posters here, need to stop looking at everything through English eyes.

Covid measures were stronger in Wales than in England, but that was not 'to be different from England'. That's a silly accusation.
I think there were two reasons:

1. Left wing politicians generally having a more restrictive attitude. You can see this all over the world, not just in Wales.
2. Genuine concern about the impact of Covid in Wales where we have an ageing and less healthy population than many other countries plus an NHS that was already not working very well

Thank you for confirming what I had been told by trusted WG insiders. I know people who work in NHS finance and also a number of GPs working in Wales and I know what the knock-on effects have been for them — they haven't been good.

This. They want the “young” vote (remember you can vote at age 16 in Scotland now purely because the SNP think that youngsters are more likely to vote for Independence). Sturgeon wanted to be seen as progressive to the rest of the world too. She got in with the Greens to cling on to power and it’s now blown up in her face spectacularly………such a shame 😆

I also agree that it’s anything to be different to England and probably the same with Wales. It’s one of those times I thank my lucky stars that although I was
misguided enough to vote “Yes” in 2014, others had far more sense.

Yes sorry Gwen I had missed the renaming. Apologies.

Also not being allowed a support bubble to help with a baby for far longer than in England. And when they did allow it, iirc they called it a clarification, the gaslighting so and sos.

In answer to the original question, equal parts wanting to be different to England, "be kind", and a vindictive hatred of anything that could be called right-wing (i.e., terfs, even though it's not in any way an accurate description of most terfs) IMO.

Wales has fewer devolved powers than Scotland and my Welsh Labour MS has told me I'm just wasting my time making a fuss about Drakeford's self-ID plan because it will never happen. My MS is technically correct, but I don't think telling women to go home and be quiet because it'll never happen here is a good look. My MS is totally, genuinely, TWAW. Also — worryingly — in charge of a one of the most important ministries.

And see also covid policies that had a disproportionate bad effect on women, too such as not being able to exercise with another person. That was the case in England in the first lockdown but not subsequently but it was continued in Wales .

Being able to go out with someone is important when it's dark.

Wales has a Labour government and people in the Labour party as well as PC and Lib Dems have been persuaded by some trans arguments

They're not Tory though so the argument that they want to get one up on Westminster still stands. See also covid policies.

2 reasons to be different to England and to attract the younger voters

And so what if it throws women under the bus. Like so many policies.

The Plaid leader Adam Price is firmly TWAW too. He and his same sex husband have had a child via surrogacy. I wonder how many trans women they considered for that role 🤔 Perhaps biology does matter after all.

I was very closely involved with the free prescription policy. Jane Hutt was Health Minister and Mark Drakeford was her SPAD. There were absolutely talks about how it would never happen in England and the need to find the money to do it at all costs.

They didn’t protect the border in the first iteration meaning that people would travel from England to fill their scripts, costing the Welsh budget. It got revised pretty soon afterwards to needing it to be prescribed by a Welsh GP.

@OneLongSmorgasbord i think you are right that does seem to play a part. I also think that it is largely driven by a woke be kind bubble in Cardiff. There is certainly no grassroots support here further west along the M4.

"I also agree with the previous poster. Wales is determined to be different to England, which has its occasional benefits — free prescriptions and free parking at hospitals —"

Oh dear. Free prescriptions are not there to be 'different from England'. It's a socialist policy that makes sense in a national health service free at the point of use. Do you think that if England had free prescriptions that Wales would suddenly make theirs paid?

The whole point of devolution it to be able to make different decisions, where relevant (and possible).

Wales also has a Parliament, but yes the powers are different.

I completely disagree with this.
Wales has a Labour government and people in the Labour party as well as PC and Lib Dems have been persuaded by some trans arguments.