Vaughan Gething's exit the start of Labour's leadership problems

The Labour run Government in Wales has imploded today after four senior members of that Government resigned en masse. Counsel General Mick Antoniw – the Welsh Government’s chief legal advisor – Economy Secretary Jeremy Miles, Housing Secretary Julie James and Culture Secretary Lesley Griffiths posted separate letters on social media demanding the immediate resignation of beleaguered first minister Vaughan Gething.

Within an hour of the ministerial resignations being announced, Gething bowed to the inevitable and stood down, Wales now faces another contest to find a new first minister, the country's third since the resignation of Mark Drakeford in March this year.

When Humza Yousaf resigned, Sarwar defended his demand for immediate Holyrood elections although he had not called for elections in Wales following Drakeford's resignation as he insisted that the Labour administration in Wales was stable. It's not looking too stable today, is it?

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The resignations come following months of increasingly heated controversy surrounding Gething, who had accepted a substantial campaign donation during the contest to replace Drakeford from a businessman who had been convicted twice for environmental offences.

Gething later refused to return the donation and refused to allow an investigation into the circumstances surrounding it.

The ensuing scandal saw Gething sack Welsh Government minister Hannah Blythyn for leaking a text message damaging to him although no formal leak inquiry had taken place. She insisted that she had not been the source of the leak, which was backed up when nation.cymru, the Welsh digital newspaper which published the leak, took the unusual step of confirming that Blythyn had not been their source.

Amid mounting anger Gething then lost a vote of confidence in the Senedd, but despite this he still refused to stand down, and even received the fulsome backing of Keir Starmer, who was obviously unconcerned about the democratic travesty which had taken place under the Labour Party in Wales.

In Scotland Sarwar was silent. Had an SNP first minister lost a vote of confidence in Holyrood and then refused to resign, Starmer would be leading the call for their immediate resignation and Sarwar would be all over BBC Scotland loudly condemning the SNP for disrespecting the Scottish Parliament.

The questions in Scotland now are: Will Sarwar be demanding immediate elections to the Senedd, and; Will BBC Scotland be hounding him to clarify his apparent hypocritical double standards? We all know that the answer to both those questions is no.

(Image: Jane Barlow/PA)

In his letter Antoniw wrote: "Wales needs confident and stable government. I do not believe you are capable of delivering that. You have lost a vote of confidence in the Senedd. That is something I regard as being of major constitutional importance.

“It is clear that you no longer command a majority, that you will be unable to enter into the agreements necessary to pass a budget, and for all intents and purposes the Senedd is rudderless."

It now seems that Gething's Labour colleagues were merely biding their time until the Westminster General Election was done and dusted in order to minimise the potential damage to the electoral prospects of the Labour Party in Wales.

READ MORE: Anger as BBC news prioritises English football over Welsh government

Rhun ap Iorwerth, the Plaid Cymru leader, has demanded that Keir Starmer should take his share of responsibility for what is happening in the Welsh Labour Party. He said: "Seldom have heads of government in a democracy disregarded the will of its legislature by carrying on despite losing a vote of confidence.

"The Labour Party has thrown its weight behind Vaughan Gething and Keir Starmer has acted as his main cheerleader. The ministers who resigned today are equally culpable, they should have acted far sooner than their eleventh hour intervention when it was a case of one bad headline too many."

Starmer gave Gething his fulsome backing only weeks ago. When Humza Yousaf backed Michael Matheson Scottish political commentators loudly called the former first minister's judgement into question. Starmer's judgement is being questioned today as it appears that the chaos, lack of willingness to be held to account, and revolving door of leadership which we witnessed under the Tories is set to continue under the Labour Party.

King's Speech won't scrap two-child cap

In a particularly bitter case of the we told you so's, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has confirmed that the King's Speech due tomorrow, in which the Starmer government sets out its legislative programme for the parliamentary session ahead, will not include a commitment to abolish the abhorrent two-child cap on benefits.

Rayner insisted that Starmer's government plans to concentrate on boosting economic growth as a means of lifting children out of poverty and has no plans to abolish the cap, which was introduced in 2017 under Theresa May.

Rayner avoided answering when she was asked if she was comfortable keeping the two-child cap in place considering that she had previously described it as "obscene and inhumane" when the Tories were in power. It's not "obscene and inhumane" when Labour is doing it though, it's just one of those "tough choices" that we keep hearing about.

The decision is an arrogant kick in the teeth to the Labour Party in Scotland which insists that it is opposed to the cap and claimed during the recent election campaign that Labour MPs from Scotland would have significant influence in shaping policy under a new Labour government. Whaur's yer significant influence noo Anas?

Is this the "change" we were promised then? Keeping kids cold and hungry while refusing to countenance a wealth tax or increased taxes on the wealthy who did very well under a decade and a half of Tory rule while foodbanks sprang up across the country and child poverty grew explosively.