Why the Welsh Tory leader has to go

For a party that is so obsessed with bursting the ‘Cardiff Bay Bubble’, the Welsh Conservatives certainly enjoy the Senedd’s tearoom. This week reports emerged that Tory members of the Senedd, including party leader Paul Davies, drank alcohol on Welsh parliament premises, days after a ban on serving it in pubs took effect. A Senedd commission report confirmed today there was a ‘possible’ breach of rules and referred the incident to Cardiff city council and the standards commissioner. It's miserable timing for the Tories, coming four months before an election.

All parties involved insist they haven't broken any Covid rules. But while Labour's Alun Davies has been suspended by his party, the Tories involved have not. A statement on behalf of Paul Davies, chief whip Darren Millar and chief of staff Paul Smith told of how they were 'profoundly sorry' for their actions. But it’s an odd thing to apologise if you insist you haven’t broken the rules.

Calls for the Welsh party leader’s resignation have not stopped growing this week, and have picked up pace today among party officials and candidates following the initial investigation’s findings. The Welsh Conservative board has been in ‘tense’ meetings throughout the day. So it was left to the wise and seasoned members of the Welsh Conservative group in the Senedd to come to a decision on the matter. They delivered their verdict this afternoon: a declaration of 'unanimous' support for Paul Davies. Really. This is despite BBC Wales reporting that ‘several sources’ had told them that the leader said himself that he had considered resigning, and that it was understood the group hadn’t seen the Senedd commission’s conclusion when they made the declaration.

Surely things can’t get any worse, though? Unfortunately for Paul Davies and Darren Millar, they can. Guido Fawkes reported this evening that the two most senior politicians in the Welsh parliamentary group were involved in a ‘second night of drinking’ on the Senedd estate (this is denied by the Welsh Conservatives). It doesn’t bode well for Davies, in any case. Whatever the findings of subsequent investigations, it is difficult to see how he can run an effective election campaign in the next 100 days.

The bigger issue here is one of principle, of course. ‘Is it one rule for those in power, and another for us?’, many people asked after Dominic Cummings’ escapade to the north. The episode badly damaged trust in Boris Johnson’s government and it is still trying (and failing) to recover the public’s support. As summed up by first minister Mark Drakeford, who probably cannot believe his luck to have such incompetent opposition at this moment in time, no politician can be both 'lawmaker and lawbreaker'.

To Cummings’ credit, at least he sat in the Rose Garden to face the media. There are still several questions over the events on 8 December that have not been answered by Paul Davies and his team. The Prime Minister hadn’t spoken to Davies yesterday, but his spokeswoman Allegra Stratton emphasised that he 'expects everybody, no matter their standing, no matter their status, to be sticking to the rules as well as they are able'. 

And remember: these were the same Welsh Conservative politicians that lambasted Welsh health secretary Vaughan Gething for supposedly breaking lockdown rules in May. The alleged crime that time around? Eating chips on a park bench with his five-year-old child.

In truth, the Welsh Conservative leader is facing too many battles on too many fronts already. This week the party noticeably shifted to embrace devo-scepticism, selecting several candidates who pledged to scrap the Senedd, abandoning its previously progressive and pragmatic role in Welsh society. Paul Davies was losing his grip on the party before, but now it is gone for good. 

'We deserve better', Davies declared in a recent political party broadcast on the state of the nation. He is right about that, at least. The Welsh Conservative party – and the people of Wales – certainly do. So he should do the right thing and grab one for the road: it’s time for him to go.