Bob Hart, Edwina Hart's husband has now entered the anti- Blair camp in the run up to the National Assembly elections in May. He has hit out against criticisms of the hypocritical nature of Labour AM's who supported the PCS Civil service strike. He laments that AM's 'do not share the free market zeal of disdain for working people which characterises Blairism', and that there are no plans for job cuts by the Government in Wales.
Bob Hart's attack on Blairism( what about Brownism?) may be justified, but as Jeff Evans of PCS emphasises in today's Western Mail, the fact of the matter is that job cuts in Wales are inevitable. The strategy is, after all, a Westminster based strategy. The reality is that Labour in Cardiff Bay cannot merely opt out of the implementation of this policy without taking the fight, with more strength, to their colleagues in Westminster.
In fairness, there may be a divergence of policy opinion between London and Cardiff, but if this is so, then Labour AM's should not only take part in Civil Service strikes across Wales, but they should put much more pressure on their fellow Party Members in London to put a stop to this privatisation agenda. The very fact that they have so far failed to do this shows that Labour AM's are still bound by New Labour's centralisation agenda. Until there is a change in attitude amongst Labour AM's- until there is an obvious readiness to stand up to Blair and Brown alike, this latest attempt to shrug off the Blair affect on Wales is just another sign of panic from Labour AM's.
The angry reaction by the public to Labour in Wales's double standards in supporting the strike, but failing to stop the job cuts shows that Labour will not succeed in pulling the wool over their eyes. When jobs are slashed, they will know that it was their own 'socialist' Labour Party that took such a decision, and nobody else.
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