This Welsh government non-essential items situation is a good idea poorly executed. I’ve avoided a hot take but it keeps playing over in my mind how frustrating the whole thing is. 1/

We’ve had seven months to plan for what these firebreaks might look like, ideas like these could have been raised at any stage - surely it wasn’t a last minute thing? 2/

Now, people are divided and angry. They think they’ve had something taken from them, even though they probably don’t need anything in the next two weeks. 3/

When Art came, I had to get extra supplies urgently. New parents are already facing a traumatic time - see #butnotmaternity. I can’t imagine the stress this change would cause. 4/

But the real missed opportunity is creating competitive local small businesses. We could be building innovate last mile/5 mile delivery services to compete. 5/

We’ve got assets like @veezugroup, @UrbanFoundry, @NearMeNowApp, @Veeqo and plenty of others in Wales ( @mapledirector, @carwynedwards, @kate_m25, @NikiPilkington) who could advise a taskforce on making SMEs more competitive and efficient online. 6/

And it all missed the point - the main winner here will be Amazon, again. And people who don’t have Prime or good connectivity will be the ones who suffer. 7/

This could have been a great move for the environment, for our communities, but now I fear we will have lost ground by creating so much anger and resentment. 8/

How can we enable conversations about what we can and can’t do in future firebreaks? It’s been made clear this probably won’t be the last one, and most goodwill seems to come from people thinking this sacrifice means Christmas isn’t cancelled. 9/9