Covid recollections - five years on

We recently had a 'National Day of Reflection' about the Covid-19 Pandemic, marking five years since the first lockdown orders were issued. The week after the day of reflection, I met up with my former work colleagues Heather and Tracy, and we talked about the last week we worked together, as in, together in the same office. 

We were a team of three who worked in an office tucked away under the Children's Hospital. I used to refer to the room as the bunker, because although we had a window, we were well below street level. The window looked out onto a concrete area surrounded by high walls. We were located below a ward that acted as temporary housing for patients from various wards as wards elsewhere in the hospital were being renovated. In the time we were there, the ward was a cardiac ward, then a renal ward, then something else.

In early 2020 it got turned into a respiratory ward. Patients admitted with breathing difficulties caused by the new virus were being cared for there. I found this out in an inter-departmental meeting on a Tuesday morning. I also knew the kitchen serving that ward was located just down the corridor from our office and staff were preparing food for the ward and transporting food trolleys along the corridor without any protective gear. 

I went back to the office and said to Heather and Tracy that we needed to pack up our things, take our laptops and work from home for the rest of the week until we got some clear answers. Within an hour the three of us had left the office... and that was the last day we worked there. 

Just before I moved to a new job the office was permanently requisitioned for another team and I went in with Heather to clear it. I threw away so many half-completed to-do lists! 

Covid hit our wider network hard. Many of the teams we worked with had staff redeployed. There was a huge shift to virtual consultations and home working. Most of our teams had tried to start virtual consultations but had always been frustrated by a lack of support from IT and sometimes point blank blocking by Information Governance. Suddenly, everyone was on Microsoft Teams and encouraged to talk to patients that way. As one consultant said to me 'For years we have been trying to go virtual, and all it took was a global pandemic...!"

I feel a bit guilty, really, talking about my experience working in healthcare during the pandemic. I recognise that I got off very lightly. I know people who ended up in Nightingale Hospitals and others who were given minimal training handling needles and were launched into vaccination centres. One former colleague worked in ICU and talked about having to intubate people she worked with who had caught the disease. 

But my experience was being at home, locked away. Cathy and I spent more time together than we had done for years. It was nice eating lunch together every day. Yes, it was all a bit scary. I was flicking through an old journal and for a long time I was noting the covid death statistics that were being published daily. 

Along with journaling, I got into blogging a lot more. One of my lockdown projects was launching my (now sadly neglected) blog about baseball cards featuring Tony Gwynn. That was one of several Lockdown Projects, which I wrote about in May 2020.

I didn't blog excessively about the pandemic, but I did record some things, which make an interesting read now, with the benefit of hindsight. (That Lockdown Projects blog post was the first mention of the pandemic on my blog.)

In the first few months of the pandemic, lots of people put home made rainbows in their windows as a message of hope and solidarity with each other. Blog post: Grangetown Rainbow Art

Shortly after the Covid-19 lockdown began my Uncle Malcolm and my good friend Ben both died, although not from Covid. I wasn't able to go to their funerals, which added to the pain. Blog post: The fractional losses, being human in a viral world

A bit like the Rainbow Art thing, we joined in the first Grangetown Zoo. 

In the October, lockdown had been eased a bit and then suddenly returned. Blog post: Lockdown freedoms (a "Fire Break" post)

At the end of 2020, I listed five positive things from the year. One of them was being at home for Christmas - yes, it was another lockdown but it was still nice. That was the Christmas my mum went to Edinburgh for Christmas at my sister's and wasn't allowed back into England for four weeks due to emergency travel restrictions.

By February 2021, I was really missing going to football matches. As a result it felt like the 2020-21 season never really happened at all. 

But then in March I got called for my first covid vaccination, in the repurposed former Toys R Us building in Cardiff Bay. It wasn't long before it was known as Jabs R Us. Blog post: Jabbed

I really remember that day. Firstly, when I walked in I met my colleague Nick who worked in the Service Improvement Team in the health board. He had helped design the mass vaccination centre and was there checking it was all running smoothly. 

The second thing was just the feeling of tearful relief when I got back into my car after being vaccinated and suddenly feeling like I had some protection at last from this awful thing that had been threatening me for so long. I have such a strong memory of that emotional response, but I didn't mention it in my blog post at the time. 

That year there was a weird anti-lockdown party in the Senedd Election. Blog post: Senedd 2021 Election Leaflets Review & Ranking

I had a surprise when I cleaned out the detritus from my car. Blog post: Mundane markers of pandemic life

In June 2021 we went to the cinema for the first time since before lockdown. We saw In The Heights. 

And in July 2021 I was able to go to my first football match since early March 2020. Blog post: Back to football after 16 months away

I posted several review posts of 2021 at the end of the year. One of them was all about the pandemic. Blog post: Reflecting on 2021 – the second year of the pandemic

In early 2022, I wrote about how Covid-19 was a good example of how sincerely held beliefs - however strongly they are held - are no protection against reality. This is a lesson that has become ever more apparent politically since I blogged about it. Blog post: The boat of belief and the rocks of reality

I also noted how the pandemic had left it's mark when I took part in the Keep Grangetown Tidy litter pick in January 2022. 

In May 2022 I caught Covid-19 for the first time. I was due to start my new job and had to spend the first week of it attending virtual meetings and apologising to people. It was a key part of my blog post review of the month that month.

In September 2022 I had my fourth covid vaccination and was very pleased to finally get a sticker! (Cathy got one the very first time she got vaccinated.)

And in October 2022, we went to our first gig since before the pandemic - a postponed Counting Crows gig in Manchester

Covid was still around in 2023. I caught it again in March, as mentioned in that month's round up post. (And yes, I might have caught it off a giant rabbit!)

Happily, I have managed to stay free of the virus since then. 

I hoped that after the pandemic settled down the world might be a more reflective and kinder place. Sadly, that hasn't happened. We have had two years of war in Ukraine now, and a year and a half of atrocities in Gaza. The USA seems to be spinning apart, headed up by a destructive narcissist. It seems like the chaos caused by covid wasn't enough and some people just want more. 

Reflecting on 2021 – the year in politics

Another review post, of yet another year that's been interesting politically...

In January the UK officially left the European Union. This was Boris Johnson’s promise that won his party a majority in the 2019 General Election – that he would “Get Brexit Done”. Except, of course, it wasn’t as simple as that. There is a general reluctance to honestly assess the problems the UK is facing as a result of Brexit. Instead the government line seems to be that everything is going fine and if it’s not going fine, that’s the fault of those pesky Europeans.

But there are loads of things that aren’t going fine. Earlier this year there was a lot of coverage about the shortage of lorry drivers, due to Brexit. There has been a steady stream of different businesses that have been badly affected by new import and export barriers. More recently, a trade deal with Australia looks like it is going to be a disaster for Welsh farmers. We still don’t know what is going to happen with regards to Northern Ireland where the peace agreements signed in the mid-90s are dependent on open borders with the Republic. It’s all a mess and the people who are meant to be sorting it out keep quitting.

Throughout the year there have also been revelations of government sleaze and corruption at an unparalleled level. From Boris Johnson purloining funds to pay for expensive flat furnishings, to preferential treatment for political donors when emergency contracts related to the pandemic were awarded, through to the media breaking story after story of government ministers and advisors flouting covid restrictions and partying while the rest of the country suffered, it seems to have been a non-stop train of grubbiness, pilfering and backhanders.

This has led to an interesting phenomenon of a succession of Tory ministers going out onto the interview circuit to peddle the official lie (sic) to try and mitigate public anger, only for new evidence to be presented, which then prompts an admission that, yes, they have been naughty. The Prime Minister doesn’t seem to care that he is making his loyal acolytes look like chumps time after time. And yet he still seems to have a ready list of people willing to go out and lie for him and then be exposed as liars themselves. Clearly they aren’t that smart, that they keep doing it.

In comparison to the never-ending corruption circus in Westminster, the Welsh Government looks stable and boring, even. We had a Senedd election this year and everybody was surprised that Labour did as well as they did, retaining governmental power again. 

Senedd election leaflets

The Conservatives made gains too, at the expense of the various warring factions that used to be UKIP. I interpret that as evidence that the Tories are now very right wing, because they seem to have hoovered up those votes and hollowed out their opponents to the right.

Plaid Cymru didn’t make any gains in the Senedd, which was disappointing for people with a preference for Welsh Independence. It feels like much of the energy has been lost from the Independence movement. That may be due to lockdowns and living through the pandemic perma-crisis, but there has also been a lot of nastiness within the big independence organisation, Yes Cymru.

As the UK Government lurched from embarrassment to embarrassment in 2020, Yes Cymru membership grew to 17,000. However, it had dropped to less than 9,000 by the time of the vote on the future of the organisation in early December 2021. There have been some long-running toxic rows on Twitter. None of these rows are about the big questions of independence; instead they have almost all been focused on trans rights and opinions held by some people within the movement.

This seems to have completely derailed Yes Cymru as an organisation. I have heard some mutterings that the whole trans rights issue blew up after the UK Government formed a ‘Union Task Force’ to look at countering the growing independence movement. I feel it’s an overreach to claim the trans rights issue was a false flag used to splinter a progressive movement. Similar debates have taken place in the Green Party and in other movements, so it’s not unique to Yes Cymru. But it has damaged the organisation, taking away impetus and causing it to stagnate. Back in March I was planning to start blogging more on issues related to Independence, but the toxicity in the movement kind of put me off. I’m still a member of Yes Cymru, although I’m not really sure why.

So it has been an interesting year, politically. One more outcome of the Senedd election is a change of health minister, which in turn seems to have delayed work starting on some behind the scenes changes that will have an impact on my job. It’s one of those rare occasions when a politics news story has an effect on me personally. Or at least an effect I notice.

May 2021 End of Month review

Yes, it's my monthly review of the month just gone, which serves as a both an online journal and an announcement that I'm still alive. The pandemic seems to have abated somewhat and places are opening up. However, attending a football match is still off-limits in Wales (unless your team plays in the English system) so I wasn't able to go to Barry Town's final game of the season - the post-season play-off for a Europa League qualifying place.

This actually marked the first time where I really disagreed with the restrictions. 150 people were allowed in the Barry Town clubhouse to watch the game live on TV, but none of them were allowed to go outside and stand on the terraces to watch the game. I have been supportive of the rules restricting movement throughout the pandemic, but this just felt arbitrary and stupid. 

But anyway, that's enough about what I didn't do in May. What about the things I did do? Well, the month kicked off with an election. Here we are outside our local gorsaf bleidleisio, having voted. 

The election returned more than expected Labour Senedd Members, with enough to form a workable government. I blogged about the result here. There was a shift away from the more reactionary right wing parties, which either indicates a decline in popularity for that sort of politics, or that the Conservative Party has regained the support from that wing of society. (I think it's more the latter.) 

One additional aspect to the new Government is that there was a reshuffle in the cabinet and we have a new health minister. It's not yet apparent whether that will mean any changes in health policy, or knock-on effects for the NHS, but at least it means that things that have been on hiatus for ages can progress now. 

We also made the most of easing travel restrictions to visit family, including timing a visit to Shrewsbury to see my sister and family for the first time since Christmas 2019. My twin niece and nephew were 6 on the day we saw them - we hadn't seen them the entirety of the year they were 5!

Due to the changeable weather we had to shelter under some gazebos, but at least that meant we got a pic!

I also showed off some of me back garden football skillz in true 'cool uncle' style. 

No children were harmed in the displaying
of these skillz

The second time we went up, we actually stayed the night. It was the weekend when it would have been my dad's birthday on the Sunday. It was nice to be with mum and the rest of the family for most of that day. We also had a little walk out to a nearby pool, where we saw a gazillion tadpoles.

I have almost stopped reading anything during the pandemic, but I did finish one book in May. It's a very short collection of op-ed pieces by George Orwell.

As ever with Orwell's take on contemporary issues, there are several pithy comments, many of which resonated with me. I'm planning to get around to blogging some of them soon.

I'm still writing, though. This month marked the one year anniversary of my blogging project about baseball cards. 

In an exciting development I sampled McVitie's latest foray into different flavoured jaffa cakes. Personally I didn't like these as much as some of the flavours I tried earlier in the year. But I did like the purple-hued packaging.

And that wasn't the only exciting purchase I made. Right at the end of the month, Cathy and I called into the newly reopened Firestorm Games and I bought something I'm very excited about. But that's going to wait for a post all to itself!

Senedd 2021 post-election review

Well the election took place last Thursday. Most of the results came in on Friday and the final couple of regional lists were counted on Saturday. We had one more leaflet arrive after I published my review last week. It was from Labour and took them into the outright lead in terms of literature. 

The updated graph looks like this now:

For the first time in my chronicles of election bumf there were more leaflets from "other parties" combined than from the main contenders. That included the Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party who were trying to become main contenders. 

There was an uptick in leaflets from all the main parties compared to the 2019 General Election when it feels like nobody was really trying. UKIP reappeared on the radar this time, although that might well be a 'dead cat bounce'. In fact, that is one of the most interesting aspects of this Senedd Election - the absolute failure of the right wing parties to score seats.

In 2016, UKIP gained 7 seats, mainly off the regional lists. The EU referendum was the big thing that year, with a month to go. However, since then those 7 Senedd members have fallen out with each other multiple times, sitting as 'Independents' or representing other parties. Hence why there were sitting MSs from Abolish the Assembly and the Brexit Party when the Senedd dissolved for this election.

The funniest comment I saw on Twitter about the right wing collapse was that Abolish the Assembly wanted to get rid of Welsh democracy, and then Welsh democracy turned around and voted to get rid of Abolish the Assembly. They claim they will be back but it's hard to imagine them surviving five years without a base in the Senedd. Meanwhile UKIP did incredibly poorly, and Reform UK, which was the Brexit Party two years ago, similarly made little impact.

UKIP, Reform UK and, to an extent, Abolish, were all pushing the same main policy point - get rid of the Welsh Parliament. But the original primary reasons that drew people to UKIP and Reform UK, the push for Brexit, have been robbed from them by the Conservatives. If people aren't happy with devolution and Wales governing itself within the current limits established by Westminster, then the Welsh Conservative Party are firmly Unionist and the natural home for the regressive right given their current stance on immigration, the EU, foreign affairs, and London calling the shots in the United Kingdom. 

Certainly, I would interpret the rise in seats for the Conservatives as hollowing out the hard right wing party vote, and combined with the infighting and rebranding and, let's be honest, toxic personalities involved in those hard right parties, those Conservatie policy shifts were enough to capture the voters they had previously bled to the right. 

So will any of these parties be sending me bumf in the next election? I wouldn't bet on it. But who knows? The regularity of elections these days mean we are probably due a General Election soon enough. We will definitely be getting one in 2024. The next Senedd election will be in 2026 unless something totally unexpected happens. 

Meanwhile, a wad of leaflets are going in my recycling bin tonight!

Senedd 2021 Election Leaflets Review & Ranking

With less than a week to go to the Senedd Election, here is a review of the political literature we have recieved so far. I introduced the scoring template in a preview post, but to recap, parties earn points for SMART goals, the number of leaflets, being bilingual, contact details, candidate photos, and endorsements. Parties are docked points for vague objectives, throwing shade - 1 point per target, photos of politicians from other parties, photos of the area that don't include the candidate, stock photos, and typos. I'm also going to list "pandemic points" as a possible tiebreaker.

As of this post we have received 20 pieces of post so I am going to list them by most leaflets then alphabetical order, which means we start with Labour.

Party: Labour

Number of items: 4. 2 of them are general for the list votes and 2 were from Vaughan Gething, the constuency candidate. Only 2 were bilingual, so 6 points

Quite like this design

SMART goals: 3 points - not many, as the leaflets tended to focus on what "Welsh Labour has delivered" rather than making promises. I like the idea of a new national forest - and that's a measurable goal. We will either have one or we won't.

Contact details: a total of 10 ways to get in touch with either generic Labour or Vaughan himself.

Relevant photos: 10, including lots of Vaughan in the consituency. All 4 regional list candidates had pics. Including the one called Mr Death. (He's never going to be health minister, is he!)

Endorsements: 6 different ones. Vaughan got an endorsement off Lynda Thorne who is one of my local councillors who has been very helpful in the past.

Vague objectives: -7. Including to make Wales "a greener country".

Shade: -2. Main targets are the Tories who get unfavourable comparisons across a lot of policy areas. Plaid Cymru apparently "want to put up barriers to our neighbours just over the border".

Irrelevant photos: 0

Typos: -1

TOTAL = (35-10) = 25. I think this is the most points Labour have ever scored in one of these rundowns. True, they racked up the easy points with the contact details, but overall their literature is a lot more positive than it has been in previous campaigns. If there was more detail to their goals they would have scored even higher.

Pandemic Points: 10! Vaughan Gething mentioned it a lot in his 2 leaflets. But then he is the health minister so I think that's reasonable. 

Party: Liberal Democrats

Number of items: 4. These all came like letters in proper envelopes. We had 2 from the local candidate, Alex Wilson, and 2 from the regional list candidate, Rodney Berman. All 4 mailings were a letter and leaflet, so 8 pieces of literature in total, all bilingual = a whopping 16 points.

Comms note: one of the leaflets is a CV of the candidate, which is quite a nice piece of literature. Given the lack of space I'm not sure why they needed to include his hobby of running a theatre group, though.

#TopTip: Only include necessary information on a CV

SMART goals: 3 - not much really that could be measureable. A lot of space on the regional list leaflets is used up explaining how to vote tactically and "lend your vote" to the Liberal Democrats. 

"Pssst! Lend us a vote, mister..."

Contact details: 3

Relevant photos: 9

Endorsements: 2

Vague objectives: -7. Things like "better schools and hospitals" are laudable, but not specific.

Shade: There's a personal swipe at "our current MS", ie.e. Vaughan Gething, but they don't mention his name. In it's own way that's extra-insulting. Plus "The Conservatives simply don't have the answers for Wales' future" while Labour "is a wasted vote" and "Plaid are focusing on consitutional issues ahead of the COVID recovery." While asking Labour voters to lend a vote to them, they say that could have kept UKIP out of the Senedd last time. I'm going to count that as shade too, so the total shade points are -5.

Irrelevant photos: -1 for a stock photo.

Typos: 0

TOTAL = (33-13) = 20, a respectable score

Pandemic Points: 3

Party: Plaid Cymru

Number of items: 4. 2 general ones and 2 for the local candidate, Nasir Adam. All bilingual, so 8 points.

Is it just me, or is this Labour's colour scheme...?

SMART goals: 11. Lots of these including specific numbers. 1000 more doctors for the NHS. 5000 more nurses and other healthcare professionals. 50,000 new homes. And a promise of an Independence Referendum before 2026.

As a note, just because a goal is SMART doesn't actually make it smart. I have grave doubts an extra 1,000 doctors could be recruited in just 5 years.

Contact details: 4

Relevant photos: 10 - lots of photos on Nasir in action including on a community litter-pick wearing a t-shirt that riffs on the cover of Straight Outta Compton by NWA. An interesting photo choice. Judging by these leaflets, Plaid have one approved photo of party leader Adam Price, which must appear on all their literature. Just that one photo. No others.

Endorsements: 0

Vague objectives: -10. Lots of aspirational stuff like "a fair deal for families". What does that even mean?

Shade: The thing about encouraging tactical voting is that you end up throwing shade on parties by just saying they can't win. That's said about the Greens and the Lib Dems. Generally though they don't really go after anyone. -2 points.

Irrelevant photos: 3 stock photos! -3 points. 

Typos: It's not a typo but on the leaflets from Nasir, he lists 4 pledges on one leaflet and 3 pledges on another leaflet and the pledges are different. So I'm going to ding a point for inconsistency. -1

TOTAL = (33-16) = 17

Pandemic Points: 1

Party: Conservative Party

Number of items: 2 bilingual leaflets = 4 points.

SMART goals: 5. Promises of 1,200 more doctors but only 3,000 extra nurses. 5,000 more teachers and lots of big new roads, all heading out of Wales, incidentally. Also a very cunningly phrased promise about council tax - constituency candidate Leighton Rowlands will "vote to fund a council tax freeze".

Contact details: 2

Relevant photos: 3

Endorsements: 0

Vague objectives: -5, including "more police on our streets". How many more?

Shade: Just the one reference to Labour failing Wales before the pandemic. -1 point.

Irrelevant photos: -5. Stock photos of policemen, a hospital, a motorway.

Typos: 0

TOTAL = 14-11 = 3 points

Pandemic Points: 1

Party: Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party

Number of items: 1 (saes yn unig)

SMART goals: 0, unless you count the name of the party

Contact details: 0

Relevant photos: 0

Endorsements: 0

Vague objectives: Do we count hashtags? #SaveWales #SavetheUnion. They reckon a vote for them will bring about one education system, one health service and one government. No real detail on what that would look like. I'm going to give them -2 for the hashtags.

Shade: This leaflet doesn't say anything beyond slogans.

Irrelevant photos: 2 stock photos, one of the Senedd with a red cross through it and a landscape. -2 points

Typos: 0

TOTAL = (1-4) = -3

Pandemic Points: 0

Party: Freedom Alliance 

(This appears to be some kind of anti-Lockdown party. There are also are a few conspiracist-tinged phrases in their literature, like "the current political structure and its controllers".)

Number of items: 1 (saes yn unig, although it does say "For the love of Cymru vote for freedom")

SMART goals: I guess "no lockdowns, no curfews" could be measureable. A generous 2.

Contact details: 3, including a QR code.

Relevant photos: 1 photo of the constituency candidate, Alan Golding.

Endorsements: 0

Vague objectives: This whole screed is a vague objective, starting with "a new way of doing politics is needed". Alan promises to return Wales to a position "where people matter more than our politicians". This will be through "honest conversations" and asking "difficult questions that need to be asked". To be honest by the time I got to the appeal to "common sense solutions", I had checked out. However, a quick run through brought me to a tally of 19 vague objectives. A new record. 

Shade: All other policial parties and "career politicians". And their controllers too I guess. I'm going to just give -1 point as he is the only candidate to throw shade on the controllers. 

Irrelevant photos: 0

Typos: 0

TOTAL = (7-20) = -13

Pandemic Points: doesn't actually mention the pandemic, despite claiming "Lockdowns have plunged the Uk into unimaginable debt, caused a national mental health crisis, devastated our children's education, and have been directly responsible for many avoidable deaths from cancer, heart disease and suicide." Still, 0 pandemic points. 

Party: Independent (David Rolfe)

Number of items: 1 (saes yn unig) - the smallest leaflet received so far.

SMART goals: There was no room for any on the leaflet.

Contact details: 4

Relevant photos: 1, of the man himself, David Rolfe.

Endorsements: 0

Vague objectives: David listed 3 bullet points, but with no details, they all count as vague objectives so -3 points.

Shade: David claims to be "An independent voice among the political chaos of mainstream parties" but he doesn't actually throw shade on anyone. 0 points.

Irrelevant photos: 0

Typos: there's a word missing in the legally required text on the leaflet. -1

TOTAL = (6-4) = 2

Party: Propel

Number of items: 1 bilingual leaflet = 2 points

SMART goals: "We will end Welsh lockdowns". OK. Well I guess that's measurable. It also mentions that Propel candidates have signed a "Contract with Wales" to introduce 10 Acts in the Welsh Parliament. The leaflet invites me to look them up online, but I'm not really that invested. So there may be details there that would turn them into SMART goals. I'm only giving 1 point though.

Contact details: 3 social media channels

Relevant photos: 1, of leader Neil McEvoy. And his signature. Which potentially gives graphologists a deeper insight into Neil's personality.

Don't need to ask for his autograph

Endorsements: 0

Vague objectives: the summary of the Contract with Wales lists 4 vague objectives. There is another vague objective listed as part of their proposed Coronavirus Recovery Act. So a total of -5.

Shade: Nothing. 

Irrelevant photos: 1 landscape stock photo, so -1

Typos: 0

TOTAL = (7-6) = 1

Pandemic Points: 0

Party: Reform UK 

(This used to be the Brexit Party)

Number of items: 1 (saes yn unig)

SMART goals: The one measureable goal is to halve the number of councils in Wales from 22 to 11. They are also promising no more full scale lockdowns. 2 points.

Contact details: 3 social media channels

Relevant photos: 2. There's a photo of the local consituency candidate Alan Pick, and one of party leader Nathan Gill (who was previously elected to the Senedd as a UKIP candidate and then quit that party).

Endorsements: 0

Vague objectives: They want to reform a lot of things but don't say how. I counted 5 vague objectives.

Shade: They accuse Welsh Labour of keeping children out of schools without good reasons. Otherwise, they use a good chunk of the leaflet to claim that 50% of people don't vote in Welsh elections so seem to be trying to cultivate people who don't vote rather than steal voters off other parties. So that's just the 1 shade point for the Welsh Labour reference.

Appealing to people who normally can't be arsed

Irrelevant photos: 0

Typos: 0

TOTAL = (8-6) = 2

Pandemic Points: 0

Party: UKIP

Number of items: 1 (saes yn unig)

SMART goals: They want a referendum to scrap the Senedd. They also want to cut alcohol duty and scrap business rates for small companies. I'm going to give them 3 points.

Contact details: 0

Relevant photos: 6 of their list candidates and Neil Hamilton who is the party leader (and is beginning to look like the Emperor Palpatine), so 7 points in total.

Endorsements: 0

Vague objectives: Lots of comments like "UKIP Stands against the knee-taking cultural vandals who want to erase Wales' history by removing statues to its fallen heroes." Talk about fighting imaginary enemies. 

Culture warriors screaming at clouds

There's other stuff too like ending illegal immigration and funding the NHS instead of sending foreign aid, which has echoes of the lies told during the Leave campaign about all that money that could be spent on the NHS and which then disappeared. I counted 9 vague objectives.

Shade: Lots of it. The Tories and Reform UK "are desperate to keep their snouts in the trough", the Abolish the Assembly Party weren't nasty enough to displaced people in a migrant camp, Mark Drakeford "cosies up to Plaid Cymru who want to destroy the UK and drag Wales back into the EU." They mention the EU a few times. It's clearly a bogeyman for them. The only people they don't mention are the Liberal Democrats, which must be quite demoralising for them in a way. -5 points.

Irrelevant photos: 0

Typos: 0

TOTAL = (11-14) = -3

Pandemic Points: 0

Party: Worker's Party

Number of items: 1 bilingual leaflet, so 2 points

SMART goals: 1 (free bus travel for kids)

Contact details: 3

Relevant photos: 4. (3 photos of the people I think are the named candidates and 1 of George Galloway, party leader, who is also on the regional list.)

Endorsements: 0

Vague objectives: 8, at least. But a lot of statements that aren't anything, like, for example: "There should be no homelessness in Wales... Affordable housing projects are not affordable for normal people." There's no actual commitment to do anything.

Shade: there's a swipe at "big business" but no mention of any other parties. 0.

Irrelevant photos: 0

Typos: 0

TOTAL = (10-8) = 2

Pandemic Points: 1

And that, dear readers is it, for now. Well done if you have made it this far. Hopefully you will get your strength back in time to vote on Thursday.

Senedd 2021 election comms review preview

I've been reviewing election leaflets since 2007 - here's a page with links to my previous reviews. I didn't do the general election in 2019 because I was profoundly depressed with politics at that point and I couldn't face it. But I did count up the leaflets and record them on my chart of election bumf.

Retroactively, we can see that Labour gave out a lot fewer leaflets in 2019 than they did in 2017, the Liberal Democrats reappeared and UKIP was still flat-lining.

Anyway, this year I'm picking up the reins again and will soon be reviewing the leaflets we have received. However, I am changing how I review these leaflets this year by reviewing what the parties promise as SMART Goals versus Vague Objectives. A SMART Goal is something that has specific, measurable promises that can be assessed as being delivered. So, for example, "we will build 20 new schools in Wales by 2025" is a SMART Goal. In 2025 we will know whether or not that promise has been met. Saying something like "we want every child in Wales to receive a high quality education" is a vague objective. Yes, that's very nice, but how will you know that's happening?

Alongside points for SMART Goals, I'm also going to award points for the following:

- number of items (double points for leaflets that are bilingual)

- contact details (a point for each method)

- points for each candidate photo with a bonus point for photos with the party leader

- a point for each "endorsement" from someone else on their leaflet

And I will ding points for each Vague Objective and the following: 

- throwing shade (basically who do they slag off? A point for every target regardless how many times they go for it)

- photos of politicians from other parties, photos of the area that don't include the candidate, and using stock photos of people (photos of news events don't count)

- any typos I spot 

Plus there will be a bonus category of "Pandemic Points" for how many times the pandemic gets mentioned (directly or indirectly), which could be used as a tie-breaker if the points equal out.