REFORM UK Senedd member Cai Parry-Jones today ducked discussing his attack on copies of the Morning Star being available in the Senedd.

Mr Parry-Jones took to social media to question why the Star was available in the Senedd and, bizarrely, suggested it was one of the reasons for the country’s poor economic performance over the last three decades.

His social media post said: “One of the five newspapers provided in the Senedd’s Members’ area was founded by the Communist Party.

“A signal of why economic growth in Wales has been so abysmal for the last 27 years?”

Despite only being available in the Senedd for less than three years, the Star is supplied to both the dining room and the Welsh Parliament’s library.

I replied to Mr Parry-Jones that four of the other newspapers in his photo did not cover Wales on a regular basis.

I pointed out that the Star is the only newspaper produced outside the country that employs a journalist in Wales and offered to meet him today to discuss his attack.

Many other members of the public replied to the post in defence of the Star, with one saying: “Ownership of the paper was transferred in 1945 to its readers and is now run on a cooperative basis.

“Wonder who owns the rest, eh, and their political leanings. Shall we all have a look?”

Mr Parry-Jones has taken to social media on a number of issues that has irked him about the Senedd, including notices on hand-dryers in the toilets warning about their loudness, foreign flags hanging outside and an inaccurate estimate of the cost of IT equipment supplied to him.

Reform UK banned the Morning Star, online news outlet Nation.Cymru and the Will Hayward newsletter during the recent Senedd election campaign.

The National Union of Journalists took this up with the far-right party, saying democracy meant they should not exclude members of the press they disagree with.

It has written to Huw Irranca-Davies as the Senedd’s Llywydd (speaker) about the ban, saying it was a matter of press freedom.

The union asked Mr Irranca-Davies to tell Reform UK that if it wanted to use publicly funded Senedd facilities and resources for media work that all sections of the media had to be included.