Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:02 pm on 25 October 2022.
Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, you quite rightly complained that the last Tory Prime Minister failed to pick up the phone to you, and indeed treated yours and the other devolved Governments with contempt. How do you intend to approach relations with the latest Prime Minister? Will you perhaps decide to change tack and try and pick up the phone to him, as leaders of other national Governments are set to do over the next few days? If you do speak, you will no doubt want to congratulate him on being the first British Asian to be elected as Prime Minister, which is indeed a historic event and all the more fitting that it's on Diwali. But will you also want to underline that the one thing he must not do in his Halloween budget is to usher in a new era of austerity and plunge the economy into recession, people into poverty and our public services, including the NHS, into yet a deeper crisis?