- Speaking truth unto power… - 16th January 2026
- I predict a riot - 15th January 2026
- Police clown car - 14th January 2026
In a 42 year journalistic career our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry has often seen politicians avoid telling hard truths publicly because they are afraid of the inevitable economic dislocation, and facing bad headlines about families suffering, with this now put centre stage by disturbing news concerning economies around the world, including Wales’.
It is very rare that the reality is spelled out to us by our politicians.
In my long journalistic career after a factory or steel works closes (devastating the community), I have heard them time and time again proclaim that action will be taken, yet nothing (beyond tinkering with benefits) concrete can actually be done. These, unfortunately, are very sad examples of victims of global economic forces.
Do you hear that though from our politicians? No.
I remember very clearly interviewing the late First Minister of Wales (FMW) Rhodri Morgan after a paper mill in his constituency had closed, when he declared in effect: “Something will be done”.
But, of course, nothing was ‘done’, because it couldn’t be, and this salient truth has been brought home to me by what is happening now.
Last November the jobless figure rose.
But in Wales it was a slightly higherer increase – 5.7 per cent in the three months to September, 0.7 per cent greater than in the rest of the UK.
In other words TINY, and it could, anyway, have been to do with changes in the way that people are counted.
The Office of National Statistics (ONS) itself, has highlighted the quality of its data, and pointed to a different set of statistics which gave a lower unemployment rate for Wales.
Yet of course, this became a source of political knock about.
Let me give you more examples.
In January 2024 the disgraced then Welsh Economy Minister Vaughan Gething attacked the then UK Conservative Government, by arguing that in real terms Wales had been ‘short-changed’ by almost £1.3 billion in unreplaced EU structural and rural funding between 2021 and 2025 due to inflation.
The reality, of course, is that everyone is affected by inflation, the cause may, or may not have to do with UK Government policies, and dishing out funds which reflect the inflation rate is perfectly normal.
But did you hear about any of this from Mr Gething?
Of course you didn’t – it was pure political theatre.
This isn’t just a Welsh phenomenon either, we can see this in politicians around the world.
For instance, continental European manufacturers now struggle to compete with Chinese carmakers and electronics firms.
However closing plants on the continent is anathema to politicians, so they invariably claim they can ‘do something’, when in reality they can’t.
In China there is a vast surplus (in traded GOODS not services) because of issues like this, yet the country has fundamental economic problems of its own.
Hiring is weak, consumers lack confidence, and the property market has entered the fifth year of a seemingly intractable slump, with the central bank worried that lower interest rates will hurt banks’ margins.
This is the truth of the situation, but as far as what we are told by the people in charge everything is hunky dory, so the government is reluctant to do whatever it takes to turn things round.
They do not allow a free media either, to tell the public the truth.
It is obvious today, then, that the politicians need to, but won’t, SPELL OUT THE TRUTH!
The memories of Phil’s astounding, decades long award-winning career in journalism (when political knock about was reported, even though the reality meant little could be done about the problem), as he was gripped by the rare neurological disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A Good Story’. Order it now.
Next week, why during that career for him those political stories have always been central, and he looks at how the Greenland saga is a prime example of the real story being missed!
