Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru
Lockdown Wales — How Covid-19 Tested Wales
Lockdown Wales — How Covid-19 Tested Wales
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Disgrifiad Cymraeg / Welsh Description
Yn ystod cyfnod y 'Clo Mawr', profwyd trasedïau dynol a phwysau nas rhagwelwyd ar ein bywydau yng Nghymru. Sut wnaethon ni ymdopi? Beth oedd y gost i'r bobl ac i'r wlad? Beth ddywed ein hymateb am y lle rydym yn byw ynddo? Mae Will Hayward yn cynnig golwg llaw gyntaf ar golledion personol a strategeiddio llywodraethol, ar arwriaeth gweithwyr allweddol a chanlyniadau negyddol gwleidyddol.
Disgrifiad Saesneg / English Description
Like the rest of the UK, lockdown in Wales meant human tragedies and unforeseen pressures on our lives. How did we manage? What was the cost to people and to the country? What did it say about the place we live in? Will Hayward has the insider account of personal loss and government strategizing, key worker heroics and political fall-out.
Manylion y cynnyrch / Product details
- ISBN 13
- 9781781726013
- Gwales Code
- gwales.com.9781781726013
- Gwerthwr / Vendor
- Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru
- Long Title
- Lockdown Wales — How Covid-19 Tested Wales
- Sub Title
- How Covid-19 Tested Wales
- Awdur / Author
- Hayward, Will
- Current Price ex VAT
- £9.99
- Current Price inc VAT
- £9.99
- Availability Status (EN)
- Available
- Availability Status (CY)
- Ar gael
- Dyddiad cyhoeddi / Publication Date
- 2020-12-11
- Cyhoeddwr / Publisher
- Seren
- Media Type (EN)
- Paperback / softback
- Media Type (CY)
- Clawr meddal
- Pages
- 292 pages
- Size
- 135 × 208 mm; depth 19 mm
- Language Code
- English
- Categori / Category
- CY: Athroniaeth, Gwleidyddiaeth, Cymdeithaseg, Economeg a'r Gyfraith (yn Saesneg) | EN: Philosophy, Politics, Sociology, Economics and Law (in English)
- Is-gategori / Subcategory
- CY: Gwleidyddiaeth (yn Saesneg) | EN: Politics (in English)
Bywgraffiad yr Awdur / Author Biography
Will Hayward was Welsh journalist of the year in 2019, and is currently WalesOnline's political editor.
Adolygiad y Cyhoeddwr / Publisher Review
Will Hayward was looking forward in February 2020 to a new job as the political editor of the Western Mail and its accompanying website WalesOnline. He anticipated that most of his work would centre around the impact of the end of the Brexit transition period. But virtually every story he would cover from March onwards would be dominated by the advent of Covid-19. Hayward is a multi-award-winning journalist and was proclaimed Welsh Journalist of the Year in 2019. He follows in the fine tradition of other notable Western Mail political commentators, including Martin Shipman and the doyen of all correspondents, the late David Rosser, who served the paper for almost 35 years. Lockdown Wales is divided into two sections. The first is a chronological diary of events, and occupies the first 191 pages in thirteen chapters. It concludes with the end of the first wave on 6 July 2020, when Wales reported no further deaths from the disease. The remaining 80 or so pages, in six chapters, take a thematic approach and offer a more in-depth analysis of some of the major issues raised during the preceding six months. Hayward has, of course, the advantage of hindsight when analysing the performance of both the UK government and the Welsh government during the first six months of the pandemic. However, his honest appraisal and willingness to examine in detail the day-to-day activities of both the Boris Johnson government and that of Mark Drakeford require little adjustment as he delves in detail to examine a catalogue of issues such as PPE provision, testing, the desirability of wearing face masks, care-home provision, BAME inequality, and the headline-grabbing digressions of Dominic Cummins to ‘test his eyesight’, and more humorously those of Welsh Health Secretary Vaughan Gething, caught swearing ‘off camera’ at a colleague, and enjoying a bag of chips with his son in a public park, breaking in all probability his own guidelines. The performance of the opposition parties is also assessed, as they occasionally looked for political advantage, which sometimes misfired spectacularly. The tension between the UK government and the Welsh administration is certainly palpable as the more cavalier approach of Johnson contrasts starkly with the style of Drakeford, the ‘kindly librarian’ who treads far more cautiously, leading in the end to a serious breakdown in communication when Wales decides to tighten its measures, taking perhaps far more notice of its scientific advisers than the London government. No one envies the intense pressure on all politicians as they try to balance the need for public safety with the damage inflicted by lockdown on the economy at large. The author makes every effort to get behind the endless stream of daily statistics recording deaths from the pandemic by humanising the data. The tragic stories of many victims of the disease are related, as are other more practical problems relating to providing reasonable access to online shopping. Hayward’s chronology and well-documented and footnoted analysis will be useful whenever the inevitable public enquiry into the pandemic is held. But it is difficult not to agree with his overall assessment that both the UK government and the Welsh government were largely ill-prepared for such an eventuality, although forewarned – in a damning indictment he calls it ‘a completely predictable disaster’. The pre-Covid NHS, he argues, was a system with serious underlying health conditions, and was struggling well before the pandemic, and had been largely starved of adequate funding for many years. Its internal organisation, with a plethora of health boards and health trusts, add up to an organisational nightmare which was found seriously wanting when staff needed to be transferred to assist in neighbouring Covid hotspots. The concluding chapter provides an insight into the state of the union of UK nations. The pandemic has certainly been a challenge to devolution, but public opinion has largely endorsed the actions of the Welsh government. Some legitimate questions now gaining credence are: Will this lead to calls for more devolution, or even independence? Latest opinion polls seem to indicate a sharp growth in that direction of travel. Hopefully Mr Hayward will soon issue a sequel to this volume discussing the second wave, thus providing more food for thought, while compiling an important record of a year like no other in living memory. I would anticipate that it will be as valuable and as readable as this volume. We all certainly owe Mr Hayward a huge debt of gratitude.
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