To think all those people calling the Welsh first minister a dictator can go eat their words...

[Allthestarsarecloser]

National lockdown looming next week:
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/30/save-christmas-with-covid-lockdown-in-england-experts-say

There have been several threads on here calling Mark Drakeford a dictator, slagging off the welsh firebreak lockdown, commenting on the rules in wales.

Not looking quite so stupid now is he?

Aibu to think that the tories who criticised him can go eat their words? Boris has been missing in action again during the worst crisis in living memory, test and trace has failed etc

@Allthestarsarecloser

OMG do people actually read thread titles? Drakeford got slated by the tories in the press for calling a firebreak lockdown & he’s been proven right in his actions

Yes, and when I read them I noticed your OP title and text were rather different. The shop rules were idiotic and still are. Boris has always been a piece of shit and still is.

What I am saying is that there have been several posts on here criticising MD plus a whole heap of shit in the media about it - more than I have ever seen actually - but yet the WG were right in their actions all along.

Id this a thread about twitter posts?

How were they right? Just because BoJo is considering a national lockdown doesn’t make a difference; the restrictions were not right and will never be right.

Well it was about MN threads, but when it turned out that wasn't what they were about it seems to be twitter posts.

I do live in Wales. I agree with the breaker and happy to avide by all the rules, which I have followed consistently. I do not think he is a dictator, but the non-essentaials rules less than two days before the lockdown were too much. It took till Monday that the Health minister said in exceptional circumstances you could buy non-essentials, like children's clothes....
Just a bleep in the way.
Otherwise, they are doing the best they can in these times. They came up as too cautious at some points during the easing of the first lockdown, but I do not think they are too cautious now at all, quite a god balance.
I just hope that there are no extensions to the 17 days.......

@BedknobsNoBroomsticks

The Welsh government were slated because of what you could and couldn't buy not because of the lockdown.

This. His rules were petty and peevish.

@Allthestarsarecloser

What I am saying is that there have been several posts on here criticising MD plus a whole heap of shit in the media about it - more than I have ever seen actually - but yet the WG were right in their actions all along.

That assumes first of all that the UK government are right in what they're doing, and second of all that them being right to have a national lockdown somehow justifies the batshit, laughable essential items guidance.

I don't think some people commenting on here actually read the MN threads on Mark Drayford? He was called a dictator several times by multiple posters. We then had a variety of increasingly bizarre potential scenarios of malfunctioning irons, tin openers and kettles leading to visits to A and E - and also one quite odd comment that in addition Mark Drayford was deliberately targeting products women buy.

Again OP I think you are quite correct. the Welsh Government made the right decision. the circuit breaker has covered half term, Holloween and Bonfire Night and will have prevented crowds of people mixing. It isn't great to be doing this whilst the weather is so lousy, but I still feel safer here that I would if Boris was in charge.

@noideaatallreally the comments about women’s products were because of Tesco wasn’t it? They mistakenly tweeted that women’s products had been deemed non-essential by the government because in one branch they had sectioned them off and stopped women from purchasing them. So whilst it wasn’t MD who had declared that, Tesco mistakenly made out it was which caused confusion...

I think I have been pretty clear. There have been several threads on mumsnet calling Drakeford stuff like a ‘dictator’ and also multiple news items about it. My point being that it’s been a narrative and language about about his covid response that been really awful. Even using the word ‘dictator’

You could argue that if England had the circuit breaker too sooner, we might not be facing a potential month long lockdown.

No - the comment about the women's products was before the ridiculous Tesco fiasco. One poster here thought that as lottery tickets and beer could be sold but socks couldn't it was affecting women more than men. very odd.

You could argue that if England had the circuit breaker too sooner, we might not be facing a potential month long lockdown.

So is this what it's actually about? As you've ignored all points about the non essentials

One of the things that Drakeford has been complaining about in the media is that Boris does not talk much to him.
Now you would expect Boris to speak several times per day to the PM for each part of UK. Check how they are doing, which measures they are considering, and you know coordinate themselves.
I am from a country with a central goverment and 17 parlaments deriving from it. Yes 17! Now these guys are in constant contact with the central goverment (equivalent of Boris). They all MUST attend regular programmed meetings. But in reality, they actually talk more often. They do have lots of issues, as you can imagine with so many. But in crisis.... well they can coordinate.
In the case of covid, the central goverment has set rules, and handed the reins to the 17 parlaments to implement. But said rules, the 17 guys will be in that table when they are being discussed and finalised.
I cannot understand for the sake of me why UK has tiers in one part, more tiers in the other, and so on....

I'm in Wales. Local FB page is full of rants about the non essential items rules, but they're always ranting about something. MD's statement immediately after announcing the firebreak (put your energy into helping the situation not picking holes in rules) basically translated as 'grow up everyone'- quite.

The point is, with an exponentially spreading virus acting in a timely way is much more important than the rules being perfect. And having a leader who is present, explains his reasoning and engages with the fallout (I think they have probably learned that the rule wasnt worth repeating) is priceless.

@napody quite and yet his clarity & decision making has been ripped apart by a lot of people

@Allthestarsarecloser another major difference is because England waited for Rishi's latest support scheme a lot of employees are better off. Drakeford went headlong in to this, and any employee who started their job since 1st March is left with nothing even if their employer was forced to close. So no, I don't think it's a direct comparison. What you also forget is most of Wales had already been under tighter restrictions than England which had already hit businesses and employees very hard - particularly accommodation providers & hospitality.
On top of that the much vaunted ' every business will get up to £5k' was actually total bollocks as they missed off the 51k rateable value cap which scuppers many rural midsize (by HMRC's calculations) businesses out.
So yes he is power mad and he's hung many businesses and employees out to dry. People don't realise the costs of being closed OR how much furlough contributions cost businesses - employer's NI & pensión contributions etc.
The supermarket rules just show him up as not thinking things through. He's hit the poorest hardest, same as every policy so far has.

@Allthestarsarecloser are you in England or Wales?

I'm still wondering how Westminster announcing another lockdown would make the essential items guidance 'not look quite so stupid now'.

@Orcus because my point isn’t about essential items. It’s about the general commentary around Drakeford as I have clearly said. Why is being called a dictator ok? He was called a dictator on mumsnet & in the media for his covid response & now it’s a shit show in England.

He was called a dictator on mumsnet & in the media for his covid response & now it’s a shit show in England.

So would it have been less of a shit show if he wasn't called a dictator?

Well, calling anyone a dictator is somewhat excessive. But so is calling someone a cunt, and people seem to do that with impunity. To most people it’s just a term on here rather than an actual belief that someone is a dictator.

I see that MD has nicely set himself up to extend the lockdown though, announcing that all restrictions will be national after Wales comes out of its lockdown. IMO wales will extend their lockdown until the middle of December because if they don’t they will be the ones being criticised when the figures in Wales rise.

And anyone saying that politicians criticising other politicians for not doing what they would is because they care about the people is naive. It’s all about political point scoring, Both MD and NS do it and announce exactly the opposite of what the government do and invariably do a u-turn a couple of days later.... All to headline grab....

I don’t have time for any of them.

[quote Allthestarsarecloser]@Orcus because my point isn’t about essential items. It’s about the general commentary around Drakeford as I have clearly said. Why is being called a dictator ok? He was called a dictator on mumsnet & in the media for his covid response & now it’s a shit show in England.[/quote]
But essential items has been the primary reason for the criticism of him on here. There has been a great deal more discussion of that than the few, I agree idiotic posts calling him a dictator.

So this is information that should really have been in your OP, rather than clarification that had to be extracted from you dozens of posts in: you haven't been clear about this at all. Your message being so confused is why you're getting a bit of a pasting. If you were referring only to certain criticisms and wanted to exclude others, you should have said so in the OP.

But the main reason why there have been comments about in MN and what I see in the local media is about the non-essential items

I think what we have on this thread is another example of derailing. The OP said quite clearly that the likelihood of Boris calling a national lockdown shows that Drayford made the right call. It was directed at the many posters who had called a democratically elected government dictatorial.

Rather than take that on board some posters then decided to make this about the selling essential goods debate. For what its worth I still support that aspect of the circuit break - it was designed to protect shops that have had to close for two weeks and also speed up the time shoppers spend in the supermarket by cutting down the time spent on browsing. I also suspect some supermarkets may have deliberately stirring this up because of course they would have welcomed the opportunity to up their sales of non essential items a this time. However, I digress.

So PO - once again - you are not being unreasonable. Mark Drayford is not a dictator, nor should he have been called one. He followed the advice of SAGE, and now it seems that Boris is going to do the same - nearly two weeks too late.