Figures from the ONS suggest that 28.4pc of 16-64 year olds in Wales were economically inactive in the three months to April, compared to a UK average of 22.3pc. According to the latest data, 160,000 people are long-term sick, the most in 17 years accounting for 34pc of all economic inactivity.
Is anyone surprised? In addition to driving its economy to the brink, the devolved Labour administration has slowly and deliberately destroyed the culture of work. It has promoted four-day weeks, only to then decree that they might be racist because they “discriminate” against ethnic minority groups working in frontline public sector roles.
It trialled a Universal Basic Income scheme, paying £1,600 each to a group of 635 care leavers, only to concede it cannot be continued after the initial pilot ends in 2025 due to cost.
No wonder seven local authority areas saw falls in population in 2021 compared with 2011. What hope is there for the hard-working and aspirational in a country which has, at government level, given up on growth and prosperity?
Across the UK, talent and capital flight is becoming a clear and present danger – there was a surge in the number of wealthy people leaving last year.
Investment migration consultant Henley & Partners estimated that the UK last year experienced the third-largest exodus of millionaires in the world, with more than 3,000 moving to places where they can keep more of their hard-earned cash – instead of watching it be wasted by the state.
It is true that Wales’s predicament is a hangover from the decline of heavy industry in the 1970s and 80s, compounded by a lack of skills and infrastructure. But the show-boating, virtue-signalling and litany of government failures has entrenched this sorry situation.
Only under Plaid Cymru, which in its manifesto has proposed accelerating towards Net Zero by 2035 and rejoining the single market, could matters conceivably deteriorate further.
In 2022, Starmer said that the Welsh Government provided a “blueprint for what Labour can do across the UK”. What’s happened in Wales may be the future of the whole UK just weeks from now.