Johnson's man in Wales should have been quizzed more

The less confrontational style of interviewing on Radio Wales' Sunday Supplement is more likely to provide information about the various parties' programmes to the voter than the methods employed at BBC HQ. The major reason for my giving up listening to Today was the interview technique which was about as fruitful as a pig's bladder on a stick. Last Sunday's programme was a good example. Without labouring the point, Vaughan Roderick established, from non-answers, that Andrew RT Davies would not stand in the way of the Tory government in Westminster legislating to overrule decisions which were within the competence of the devolved Senedd. The main case in point, of course, was the M4 relief road for which the only clear benefit was to the road-builders who are traditional Conservative party donors.

However, Davies was not asked to explain his assertion that tarmacing the Gwent Levels had environmental benefits, nor to expand on "hitting the party's environmental objectives", one of Davies's three bullet points early in the interview. Green and ecological policies are clearly increasingly important in UK elections, and it would have been illuminating to hear the party leader's response to questioning on those issues. 

Another bullet-point was "improving the National Health Service in Wales". The Tory manifesto pledges to "build five new hospitals and provide extra funding for the NHS every year, with 3,000 more nurses and 1,200 doctors by 2026". Davies was not given the chance to explain where the necessary extra funding was coming from, given that his party's actions in Westminster in extending the "hostile environment" post-Brexit had actually driven away EU doctors, nurses and technical support staff. 

Yes, I know that I promised not to blog on the Senedd elections, but there had to be a calling out of the easy ride given to one of the major contestants. Nor is the Conservative party alone in being hypocritical on the environment or resisting giving further power to Wales.