Free prescriptions now!
Oh, if only Edwina Hart had seen this press release before she headed to London yesterday to give evidence to the Welsh Affairs Select Committee.
Not only might it have cheered her up. It would also have given her a come-back to the MP who welcomed her with the words: "Good to see you here, Minister. We didn't think you liked us, took you so long to get here."
Martyn Jones, MP for Clwyd South, has put out a press release calling for free prescriptions for people in his constitutency with long-term conditions. Mr Jones says he is backing a campaign urging Gordon Brown to keep a promise he made over a year ago, to abolish prescription charges for people with long-term conditions.
That'll be in England, then.
Mr Jones says "I'm concerned about the number of people with long-term conditions in my constituency who may be choosing to go without vital medicines as a result of the recession and the rising costs of fuel and other bills. Gordon Brown was right to promise free prescriptions for people with long-term conditions, but he must now follow through and implement this promise as soon as possible."
As Mrs Hart would no doubt have loved to point out, the people of Clwyd South haven't had to pay for their prescriptions for quite some time now. Devolution and all that.
Oops.
UPDATE
Plaid MP Hywel Williams responds like this:
"Oh dear, it appears that someone has not been paying very much attention. I'd be the last to suggest that, in the Christmas rush, he may have put his name to a ready made press release but it is rather an embarrassing oversight!
"On a positive note, I am glad to see him supporting a policy that the Plaid driven One-Wales government is rightly very proud of - and something that he feels Gordon Brown is playing catch up with Welsh policy over."
While Plaid AM Janet Ryder responds like this:
"It appears that the MP has not been paying very much attention to what is actually happening in Clwyd South. I'd be the last to suggest that, in the Christmas rush, he may have put his name to a ready made press release but it is rather an embarrassing oversight!
"On a positive note, I am glad to see him supporting a policy that the Plaid driven One-Wales government is rightly very proud of and something that he feels Gordon Brown is playing catch up with Welsh policies. Next year voters will get a chance to vote for someone who will put the people of the area first and not lose touch."
No question of Plaid MPs and AMs ever putting their name to ready made press releases of course.
I'm Betsan Powys, BBC Wales' political editor. I'll be blogging the inside track on 
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~27~RS~)
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I'm sure someone will tell me if I'm wrong but didn't free prescriptions precede the One Wales agreement with Plaid?
Hywel Williams and Janet Ryder may not have been paying much attention.
Oops!
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..... the concept of free prescriptions did pre-date Plaid, it was a Labour Party project; if you have the time check the Plaid website, you will find a contemporary version of Nineteen Eighty-Four with its very own Nationalist Newspeak, lies, damnable lies etc.
All very juvenile, though it has a certain appeal to the disaffected West of Offa's Dyke.
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Good old Welsh Labour party - those East of Offa's Dyke don't know what the 'West Wing' are up to...
It just makes it so obvious the Westminster lot are so out of touch with their constituencies - might as well scrap these MPs as surplus to requirement.
Think of all the money then saved that could be put to good use in the Welsh NHS - it would pay for the free prescription service by itself!
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Betsan:
That is good news, and, here is the problem; Who is going to finance it?
=Dennis Junior=
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Of course free prescriptions was a Plaid policy before it was adopted by the National Assembly and by Labour. Voted on and supported by Labour. If you want real new speak try the True Wales website.
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If Plaid were a genuinely left-wing party, its members wouldn't be so keen to claim the 'credit' - but what else can one expect from a nationalist party whose socialism is so newly, conveniently and cynically adopted as a means of poaching disillusioned Valleys Labour votes.
I'm sure most socialists - myself included - who can afford to pay for their own prescriptions would prefer the money to go on cancer research and treatment or neurology or some other life-saving aspect of the NHS. Prescriptions should be free for those on low wages or benefits, for the elderly and for the long-term sick, not for those who can happily afford to pay.
It's an expensive WAG gimmick for which we will all pay dearly in the end.
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Of course, "Free Prescriptions" is a lie, it is all paid for by the taxpayers.
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Just in case anyone wants to check out the True Wales website, as Lyn suggests, try: www.truewalesnocampaign.org.uk
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As is Free education Stonemason, and I know you oppose that too
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I will tell you what I do oppose ......
..... paying my taxes in the expectation they will be used with care. I did not expect the WAG to penalize Welsh children to the extent that £500 a year is deducted or diverted from the education budget to who knows where....
.... might it be considered criminally incompetent, or just ...... the WAG way.
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How about taxes spent on disastrous military adventurism in Iraq & Afghanistan? Not only money wasted, but lives as well
'might it be considered criminally incompetent, or just...' the British way.
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Re 11
...add to that, the various scroungers dotted around these islands living in 'royal palaces'?
However, back to the thread. It is incredible that Martyn Jones could be so ignorant. And that ignorance shows how irrelevant, and indeed damaging, Westminster has become.
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