The competition to find the stupidest politician in the age of Coronavirus is fierce indeed. Up until now, it was the leader of Bournemouth Council who declared a “state of emergency” when her socially distanced public lavatories could not cope with a Bank Holiday weekend. At that point, I wished a plague of locusts on her town to let a woman who made Matt Hancock look like Albert Einstein know what a real emergency looks like. But now the lady from Dorset has been trumped by a congenital idiot closer to home, the First Minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford.
In many ways, Drakeford is the right man to lead this rain sodden principality, which survives only thanks to huge handouts received, with no grace, from an England for which it blames anything unfortunate that befalls the nation. That is to say he is a little man of limited intellect with pretensions of grandeur. Mark Drakeford is no Owain Glyndwr.
But today our great leader has proclaimed that he is going to keep us safe from Mr Covid by closing our borders with the accursed English. As it happens, that border is 30 yards from where I write, at the end of my garden and fields, that is to say the River Dee. As a loyal citizen, I should probably be installing machine gun posts and searchlights along the banks right now.
It is clearly critical that we act at once to keep the plague ravaged English at bay so Drakeford is not bringing in his new rules until 6 PM on Friday. I assume that Mr Covid is having the next 48 hours off. And it is not clear what the rules are. The Welsh Government website states that under Drakeford’s plan:
“people living in areas with a high-prevalence of coronavirus in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland would not be able to travel to Wales for the time being”
What is high? Liverpool, 30 miles away, is termed a “very high” prevalence area so the scousers can feck right off. But most of the North West, including the area on the other side of the river, is, according to the clown Hancock, a “high risk” area. Are friends of ours in Farndon on the other side of the bridge and where Joshua goes to nursery not allowed to cross the bridge now? And if I do, and pop into the chemists in Farndon to get a scrip, having picked Joshua up from his nursery, surely I may bring the plague back to Wales?
Of course there are exemptions. If you are an English resident who needs to come to Wales to work you can still do so. I assume that Drakeford has checked with Mr Covid that he is not attaching himself to those in gainful employment. I gather that asylum seekers from France are also allowed in if they have first navigated the Channel to England. There is no chance of them having Covid, I guess.
Under Drakeford’s existing rules we, in this part of Wales and most of the rest of the country, cannot leave our district except to work or for schooling or, as the Mrs will do in a few weeks, to give birth or, indeed, for numerous other reasons. Of course, Mr Drakeford has checked with Mr Covid that all folks legally leaving Wrexham do nothing to spread the disease while those of us leaving for other reasons are reckless and feckless spreaders of the plague and so must face huge fines.
Drakeford is like one of those part time traffic wardens now offered the chance to get a new high visibility jacket and become a Covid Marshall terrorising not just motorists but everyone. For the first time in his life, he feels he is really important and that everyone will respect him. In reality, we will increasingly laugh at him. The Drakeford plan is as pointless and ludicrous as it is unenforceable.