Wales is starting to resemble a tinpot socialist state, with Mark Drakeford its dictator

The ability to work is a human right. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly states: ‘Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.’

So I am horrified at the most recent development in Wales. First Minster Mark Drakeford has made it unlawful to go to work ‘without a reasonable excuse’. The guilty employee can be fined £60 for the temerity to leave the house to earn a living. The employer can be fined £1,000, rising with repeat offences to £10,000.

But why on earth should healthy people be forced to stay in their homes and banned from going to work? And how are the police to determine whether someone is working ‘unreasonably’ anyway?

We work to earn a living and access essential goods and services, including the ones deemed non-essential earlier in the pandemic by Drakeford – such as books and baby clothes. But going to work is also an important feature of our social identity and self-confidence – it boosts our physical and mental health. These are just a few of the many ‘reasonable’ reasons to work, and who are the Government to tell individuals otherwise?

Drakeford and his defenders may argue that working from home is entirely possible, and that the workplace is not a ‘just and favourable’ environment while Omicron cases rise. He might claim that he is protecting workers from unscrupulous bosses and unsafe scenarios.

But where is the evidence that the benefits outweigh the harm? I haven’t seen any. Far from providing a cost benefit analysis of this onerous new law, Drakeford has even made spurious claims about Omicron, claiming it is ‘probably’ as severe as Delta, despite studies concluding the opposite.

Sadly, this is not the only bizarre and contradictory draconian rule in Wales. While you cannot go to work, you can go to a restaurant. Sporting events must be played behind closed doors – even though transmission of Covid is very unlikely outdoors – but you can watch sport in a packed pub!

Park runs and traditional festive swims were cancelled – again they are outdoors and sport is beneficial to health. On October 11, Wales introduced vaccine passports for nightclubs, without offering scientific evidence for how this would ‘help prevent people spreading and catching coronavirus’. On December 27, Wales shut nightclubs. Clearly, vaccine passports didn’t work.

Drakeford might think his tough actions flaunt his independence from Westminster, as he condemned the ‘paralysis of UK Government’, mocking Boris Johnson’s more measured wait-and-see approach, but this latest grotesque rule has earnt almost universal condemnation – even from unions. It is un-evidenced, illiberal and disproportionate. It will not crush Covid, but it will crush businesses and our country’s spirit. However, it will serve the purpose of creating a depressing counter-factual for England’s more rational reaction to Omicron.

In one part of the United Kingdom, it is illegal to go to work. The principality of Wales is beginning to resemble a tinpot socialist dictatorship, and the people of Wales will not thank Drakeford for this horrifying show of power.