The Conservative MS who handed Labour victory on vaccine passports in Wales has been avoiding scrutiny over the scandalous vote. Earlier this month Gareth Davies (pictured, above) missed the crucial vote on domestic vaccine passports, meaning they passed by one vote. Davies, who was at the Conservative conference in Manchester, claimed that he could not log into Zoom. However, despite being given the Senedd speaker's phone number to call his vote in - he did not call.
Davies released one statement following the controversy, in which he confirmed that he was in telephone contact with his chief whip throughout the vote. The speaker's phone number had been passed to the Tory chief whip. Davies said he would make a personal statement before the Senedd, but this didn't happen. In a statement seen by WalesOnline, Davies claims that he could not call the speaker as he was already on the phone to his chief whip. That is confirmation that he did have the speaker's number, but absolutely no reason why he couldn't hang up and call her - or, as is possible with most smartphones these days, he could have opened up a separate line.
As we alluded to in our previous article, this all stinks of an establishment stitch-up. When Davies posted a video of himself speaking before the Senedd five days later - via Zoom - he was inundated with negative comments from people furious about his conduct. Davies responded by blocking all comments on the post. He now routinely blocks comments on all of his Twitter posts.
Furthermore, he has been blocking Twitter users who have dared to raise valid questions about his missing vote. Silkie Carlo, the director of libertarian group Big Brother Watch, was blocked after she publicly addressed several questions to Davies. She had posed five questions, one of which dealt with the missing phone call to the Senedd speaker.
Twitter user Owen Williams tweeted evidence of others who Davies had blocked.
Seeing as Davies was at a party conference alongside Westminster colleagues, we suspect that a senior Tory had a word in his ear and instructed him to miss the vote. It is pretty clear that the UK government wants domestic vaccine passports rolled out across the country. The Plan B scenario for England has such measures as part of the package. If it doesn't happen then we've got this wrong, but with media pressure growing to a crescendo in recent days we sense that a decision is just around the corner.
We cannot and must not allow digital IDs to become a part of daily life. It will usher in a dystopian apartheid, initially on medical grounds, but in the future it could be expanded to include aspects of social behaviour. Think China.
