After the Prime Minister, Liz Trust, resigned earlier today, Ogmore MS, Huw Irranca-Davies has issued a statement calling for change.
We share his statement in full below:
Local residents and businesses are sick to the hind teeth of the pantomime that is currently the Conservative Government at the UK level. In meetings and my regular surgeries and on the streets, people are telling me they do not want another change of Prime Minister decided by a few Tory MPs. They do not want another turn of musical deckchairs on the Titanic and more ministerial pay-packets and pay-outs. The people of Ogmore and Bridgend are demanding their say in the ballot box in a General Election.
Because local people are sick of the instability of an incompetent and chaotic Tory government; sick of soaring inflation and mortgages and a cost-of-living crisis turbo-charged by a reckless mini-budget; sick of Conservatives prioritising lifting the cap on bankers bonuses over helping low-paid families and pensioners; sick of public services and health and social services across the UK (because Wales can only invest what we get from Westminster) being starved under the last decade of Tory austerity, and the threat of more to come; sick of rising numbers of poor and homelessness and food banks; sick of how the UK has declined socially and economically over the last 12 years of Tory misrule, and the international laughing stock we have become.
What has really struck me are the sheer numbers of former Conservative supporters locally who have spoken to me quietly – or sometimes more loudly – at the margins of a meeting or a community event to explain how they do not recognise the party they once admired any more, and can no longer support them. They believe that this Conservative government has long outstayed it’s welcome, and that the country needs change.
Their mood was summed up by long-serving Conservative MP Charles Walker yesterday, who looked like a broken man after another chaotic day in parliament when he said “I think it’s a shambles and a disgrace. I think it is utterly appalling. I’m livid.” He continued “I’ve had enough of talentless people putting their tick in the right box not because it’s in the national interest but because it’s in their own personal interest to achieve ministerial position.”
That about sums it up and sums up the anger of local residents right now. At the very time when they need competent government and stability, they have chaos. When they need government which puts the interests of householders and business and people facing a cost-of-living crisis first, they have Tory MPs serving their own interests. When they need decency and integrity and values in their representatives, they see shallow self-interest and Tory party interest instead. To quote our First Minister who rightly said in the Senedd this week “What sort of world do they belong in?”
Local people are telling me that this is not time for another Prime Minister chosen by a few hundred Conservative MPs. It is time for another government, chosen by the millions of voting public across the UK. It is time for change.