If the Labour government in Wales wanted to ease its onerous financial burden so badly, why, oh why, did it waste £30 million pounds over the summer on reducing speed limits in residential areas?

And no sooner than they will have read that sentence, the safety brigade will be up in arms, writing letters and sending emails and telling this publication that the new 20mph speed limit will save lives over the next five years.

Well, a heck of a lot more lives would have been be saved right now if the NHS was properly funded all along.

Some 600,000 were waiting for some 750,000 procedures in Wales in October alone, according to the latest NHS data.

In the summer, the priority of the Welsh Government was firmly set on changing our road signs, painting road surfaces and educating us all that ‘twenty is plenty’.

Climate change was part of that reasoning too.

But judging by the budget that same Welsh Government has now brought down, its priority is the NHS.

Funding for health and social services will be increased by £725m — about six per cent.

That increase is recognition that the service most of us rely on is broken.

Our ambulances find it difficult to off-load patients, our A&E staff are overworked and underpaid — doctors will soon be on strike over pay and conditions in Wales — and too many seniors are in medical wards when they should be in homes receiving appropriate levels of care.

Here’s the thing. To pay for that six per cent increase in NHS and social care funding, Labour has stripped £50m from rural affairs, £41m from the economy ministry, social justice contracts lost £7.5m, and the education and Welsh language budget falls by £65m.

And every other area of government spending is slashed.

Well, guess what? A heck of a lot of the extra funds for the NHS could just have easily come from that 20mph speed limit project. That’s a lot of extra cash for cancer care, hips and knees, scans and scalpels.

And that precious climate change priority? Yep. Slashed in the budget too.

Isn’t it funny how priorities change?

And how so much cash was so wasted.