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Our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry performed numerous shifts on UK newspapers, including on the Daily Mail, so looks with interest at how that paper, and all but one of those based in London NOWHERE reported on their front pages how the First Minister of Wales (FMW) Vaughan Gething, had been forced to resign.
It is interesting to watch how the media at the London end of the M4 report important news.
The First Minister of Wales (FMW) Vaughan Gething, was forced to quit after only 118 days in office, following a succession of scandals, losing a no-confidence vote, and hard on the heels of several of his senior ministers resigning.
But the news on Tuesday coincided with the England football manager Gareth Southgate saying he was leaving his job.
Clearly this was deemed more significant, so several UK newspapers therefore led on that.
The latest announcement from Sir Keir Starmer was also thought critical. A fresh controversy concerning ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ was viewed as essential for readers as well. We had, too, as the lead story in one UK newspaper that Boris Johnson had urged Donald Trump to support Ukraine.
The exception was The Guardian, which, while the picture was of Mr Southgate, splashed with: “Turmoil for Labour in Wales after Gething resigns as first Minister”. Even this, though, appeared to be in the context of the problems it posed for Labour.
Obviously the latest announcement from Mr Southgate, the construction policy of the UK Government, news about ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, as well as the meeting between Messrs Johnson and Trump, are important, yet it seems odd that not considered worthy of a front page slot is the news that the only black leader of a country in Europe, had been forced out of office after leading a major part of the UK for such a short time!
Let us then remind ourselves of the background to this extraordinary story which did not feature on front pages.
Mr Gething lost a no-confidence vote less than 12 weeks after taking office, following a series of scandals that called into question his judgement and transparency.
This was on June 5, but until Tuesday he had clung on, indeed campaigned for Labour in the General Election (GE).
As the resignations of senior ministers showed, it was clear that Mr Gething had lost the backing of some in his own party.
He has said he regrets the “impact”of his decision to take £200,000 from a company owned by a man convicted of illegally dumping waste, but at the same time appeared to blame the way this issue has been reported by the media.
However he has crossed swords with the media before.
In August 2017, Mr Gething walked away in the middle of an interview on ITV Wales, when questioned by journalist James Crichton-Smith over his decision not to hold a public inquiry into Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board (ABMUHB), following allegations that an employee had sexually assaulted vulnerable patients.
He was in tears before the confidence vote was held in the Welsh Parliament/Senedd Cymru (WP/SC) last month, and commentators said they had never seen anything like it.
It was only in March that Mr Gething had made history when he succeeded Mark Drakeford as the FMW, yet after a series of controversies it seemed that MSs (Members of the Senedd) had had enough.
The main issue (although certainly not the only one), has been his connection to the man with a questionable past.
There have been months of rows over the donations to Mr Gething’s leadership campaign from the company owned by a man previously convicted of environmental offences.
The firm is owned by David John Neal, who was given suspended sentences in 2013 for the illegal dumping of waste, and in 2017 for not cleaning it up.
It emerged during the recent leadership contest that Mr Gething had lobbied on behalf of one of Mr Neal’s companies, before his first run in 2018.
In a separate row, Mr Gething found himself having to defend a message he sent during the pandemic, where the then-health minister told colleagues he was deleting texts from a ministerial group chat.
He later sacked Hannah Blythyn, alleging she was the source of a leak to Nation.Cymru (NC) (which, perhaps ironically in the circumstances, is partly funded by the Welsh Government [WG] meaning that its journalism is compromised).
Opposition parties demanded evidence, which Mr Gething has declined to provide.
Two MSs were ‘off sick’ during the no-confidence vote, and this would not have been unhelpful to his opponents.
They were Ms Blythyn herself, and Lee Waters, the former transport minister who had previously called for the donations at the centre of the main scandal to be returned.
Perhaps if they were Editors of UK papers they may have put Mr Gething’s resignation on the front page.
But of course, there was also the news about Mr Southgate quitting…
The memories of our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry’s, decades-long award-winning career in journalism (including his shifts on the Daily Mail), as he was gripped by the rare disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now!
Regrettably publication of another book, however, was refused, because it was to have included names.
Tomorrow – how alarming news that the police are alleged to have placed bets on the timing of the General Election (GE), highlights actual failings by them in other areas, especially in Wales.
