Shock to many as it is revealed Welsh First Minister is making Welsh lockdown decisions

Many people appear confused as to who is setting laws in the place they live, with the Welsh Government keen to point out the difference in some media headlines and the reality of the situation in Wales.

Across the UK many media outlets have been reporting on how Prime Minister Johnson will be making decisions over the future of the lockdown. Such reporting is being cited locally either as an indicator that things could be loosened soon, as well as Johnson’s Government making decisions for the people of Wrexham.

The lockdown is still fully in place, with two separate regulations on the statue books one for Wales and one for England. The documents are different, reflecting the difference in laws in both countries.

The ongoing issue has come to a head during the pandemic, with Welsh Government using social media at the weekend to call out incorrect education stories:

Welsh Gov calling out Reach PLC for duff reporting – the article itself reports what the Telegraph Media Group said, who also get it wrong. https://t.co/VRyiS8mux0

— Wrexham.com (@wrexham) May 2, 2020

The headlines in some newspapers overnight has prompted a sharper reaction today, with a specific statement released this lunchtime directly targeting the reports.

A Welsh Government spokesperson has said today: “The Welsh Cabinet met this morning to discuss the lockdown restrictions and will meet again this evening.

“It is crucially important that the people of Wales are informed clearly and accurately about what, if any, changes are made to the current stay-at-home restrictions.

“Some of the reporting in today’s newspapers is confusing and risks sending mixed messages to people across the UK.

“The First Minister of Wales will announce the outcome of the Cabinet’s decision in due course.

“Our message for this bank holiday remains, stay home, protect the NHS, Save Lives.”

Even in Wales the cookie cutter style of news provision, where centralised news feeds are farmed out to ‘local’ titles means the cross border differences are sometimes not noted despite being branded ‘trusted news’.

‘Locally’ we have previously pointed to UK and worldwide Press Association feeds being farmed out to tens or hundreds of titles across the UK, without a note that topics such as education and health are devolved and the information could be irrelevant to the titles that they are published on.

The issue has been picked up on social media with people now logging the problem:

It looks like all Reach publications have just been sent the Mirror article and instructed to adapt it, regardless of how relevant it actually is… pic.twitter.com/Yn9Y3urPaC

— Chris Roberts 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 (@ObsrvntPheasant) May 7, 2020

“Locally” the Reach PLC product the Daily Post has continued the trend, tweeting this afternoon:

Health was was devolved to Wales in 1999, with the people of Wrexham and Clwyd South going to the polls several times to decide who gets to represent them while forming such policies.

This morning we tweeted about the problem again, and had a range of replies which you can view on twitter here.

Lockdown is NOT over and changes in Wales get decided by the First Minister. Lots about this morning from Westminster etc. Locally there is a correlation between vocal people on social media and those who don’t know who sets what law for where they live.

— Wrexham.com (@wrexham) May 7, 2020