ANDY Burnham has been panned for a “copy and paste” and “error-filled” opinion piece where he outlined his plans for devolution for Wales, it has been claimed.
The Labour MP, who is expected to become prime minister later this month, provided an article for WalesOnline that was similar to essays written for London and Scotland, but with the change of place names.
In the article, Burnham laid out his pitch on how his government would tackle housing, business rates and education, which are all, just like in Scotland, devolved powers and are controlled by the Plaid Cymru Welsh government.
WalesOnline said it initially refused to publish without a disclaimer that much of the article was misleading. However, the publication has since published it along with an opinion piece.
The political editor of WalesOnline, Ruth Mosalski, penned her own article alongside Burnham’s pitch to the Welsh people, where she claimed that devolution to the Labour MP “may well be more of a slogan than a principle”.
“Devolution to him may just mean shifting power around England – to his beloved north – and not mean surrendering more power to the governments in Cardiff Bay or Edinburgh,” Mosalski wrote.
She also pointed out that the Scotsman printed a “tartanised version” of the article, with the London Standard also given their own “metropolitan take” of the piece.
Although there are some changes in the three pieces — Burnham wrote about energy and shipbuilding in his Scottish version while he focused on steel and manufacturing in the Welsh version — many paragraphs are the same.
Some sentences are the same in all three but with just the names of places changed.
Both the London and Wales versions said: “Everyone can feel the country is not where it should be. People feel it in their bills, their rent, their high streets, their transport, and at the end of every month when there is less and less left over.”
The WalesOnline version continued: “In Wales, that feeling has its own shape. It is felt in Merthyr. It is felt in Rhyl. Port Talbot feels it. It is felt in towns like Wrexham, communities like the Valleys, and places that have waited too long for politics to work for them.”
With the London version saying: “In London, that feeling has its own shape. It is felt in Newham. It is felt in Brent. Croydon feels it. It is felt in towns like Barking, communities like Tottenham, and in places that have waited too long for politics to work for them.”
When he wrote about young people getting jobs in Scotland, the piece said: “In Scotland, that means young people in Fife, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Dundee and Lanarkshire should see a route into skilled work close to home. They should not have to leave to get on in life.”
In the Welsh version, the same paragraph replaces Fife, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Dundee and Lanarkshire with Newport, Swansea, Wrexham, Deeside and the Valleys.
Plaid MS, Carrie Harper, hit out at the articles as she called it a simple “copy and paste opinion piece”.
Burnham promised to “speak soon” to the first ministers of all three countries “to agree a positive way of working to this end” with all three pieces stating that he will set out a 10-year plan “to bring down the cost” of essentials, including housing and transport.
Three out of the four areas the Labour MP suggested he will give Scots more power over are already devolved to the Scottish Government. The only area he outlined that is not controlled by Holyrood is energy.
Similarly, the same powers he promised for Wales, like housing, transport and business rates, are controlled by the Plaid Cymru government.
Last week the SNP criticised the Scotsman’s version as they called it a “tartanised cut and paste” job, with the First Minister adding that the Labour MP is not in a “strong position to lecture”.
Mosalski shared similar concerns as John Swinney as she wrote: “He [Burnham] has already displayed an indifference to Welsh priorities twice.
“These two examples together show that in the earliest of days, the man who claims he is speaking for all those place outside of London isn't speaking for the devolved nations.”
