THE SECOND-RUNNER for the post of First Minister came under sharp attack at the Assembly press briefings, writes Clive Betts from the Assembly press gallery.
Edwina Hart is usually reckoned to be trailing Carwyn Jones.
Opposition politicians have normally kept their mouths shut about the strengths and weaknesses of the trio bidding to replace Rhodri Morgan as leader of the Labour group in the Assembly – and thus as First Minister of the coalition government.
But for not the first but the second time, Lib Dem leader Kirsty Williams has decided to start taking Mrs Hart, the health minister, apart.
The Gower AM had earlier come under severe criticism from sections within her party – and also from the North – about the presumptuousness of some of her proposals and/or decisions.
Mrs Hart takes some pride in her decisiveness. Thank goodness something happens under her stewardship, many people will say.
But Ms Williams takes a slightly different tack. She focuses on those areas where nothing happens in Mrs Hart’s department.
Last week it was the £50m which the department has failed to spend.
This week it was about a linked series of official reports – including one from the Wales Audit Office – on the health department’s failure to maintain key mental health services for children.
Perhaps Ms Williams and her fellow-speaker Peter Black (South West) went a touch overboard in their criticisms of the minister.
But what is more important is that space was left by the administration for the criticisms to be made, and that the minister had little to say in response. Carwyn Jones, leader of the house told plenary that no government could be expected to respond in full to every report containing criticisms that was published.
Indeed. But a report from the Audit Office is a bit different to most other reports that are produced by the Assembly and its linked organisations.
Another leading Lib Dem said yesterday that the success of Elin Jones as agriculture minister was that no-one had heard anything about her ministry recently. In other words, the minister was so much on top of her job that nothing was being allowed to go wrong.
On that basis, Mrs Hart isn’t doing too well. Which SHOULD carry a message for those voting in the current party Labour Party leadership battle.
