'Is everyone in Wales excited to see England play?'

It has been a very busy week...

You can only imagine my delight that within minutes of sending the last newsletter Plaid Cymru announced they were ending the cooperation agreement thereby making the First Minister vulnerable to a no-confidence vote.

Since then we have had Rishi Sunak give Vaughan Gething some much needed cover by waterboarding himself to the sounds D:Ream. 

I am going to do things a little bit differently. As so much has gone on I am not going to do a deep dive into one or two things. Instead we will take a look at several issues/stories in Wales and also make some predictions for the upcoming election.

UK Labour visibly distancing themselves from Vaughan Gething

On Wednesday Mr Sunak announced the date for the next election. That evening I was to appear on the BBC TV show Wales Live to discuss the key battleground seats. Also appearing on the show was Nia Griffith (Labour MP for Llanelli who has held senior roles in the party) and Ken Skates (Labour MS who co-ran Vaughan Gething’s campaign and is now the transport minister in the Welsh Government). 

That day it was announced that the money Mr Gething had left over from his controversial donations would not be going to the Labour Party as the rules had previously stated. Instead a Welsh Labour spokesman said Mr Gething would be “donating surplus funds from his campaign to wider progressive causes".

This saves Sir Keir Starmer a headache about whether to accept the money donated by a man who has repeatedly shown utter disdain for the law. 

But while I was in the BBC studios it was obvious that there was a significant disconnect between the UK Labour and Welsh Labour accounts. Nia Griffith was asked about the money and she said:

“We are not taking the money. We have been very clear about that. We are not going to touch it."

When asked if Vaughan Gething was a "blueprint" for Labour she said:

"This is a race between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer.” 

Now it would have been easy for her to say: “Vaughan has lots of causes he is passionate about and he wishes to support them” but instead she opted to say: “We are not going to touch it”. 

Contrast this with an interview with Mr Skates that was shown later where he said:

"I should be absolutely clear, Vaughan asked the Labour Party to pass the remaining money onto progressive causes. This is not a case of the Labour Party saying 'we don't want the money'."

Hmmm. Okay. We can all imagine what exactly went on here. UK Labour didn’t want the albatross of the donations hanging around their neck for the next six weeks of the election campaign. There was no way they were going to take it and Mr Gething was told to find another home for the money that has tainted his entire premiership thus far. I find the idea that Labour were happy to take this cash but Vaughan Gething lobbied for it to go elsewhere incredibly hard to believe.

Another point I would make is that the reaction of UK Labour really does sum up their general position regarding Wales. They don’t appear to care a great deal about what actually happened with Vaughan Gething’s donations. They don’t seem to have any real qualms about where the money came from in principle. Indeed we saw that shadow Welsh secretary Jo Stevens repeatedly showing support for Mr Gething in the wake of the scandal. The only time it bothered them was when it might affect the wider party - then it became: “We won’t touch it”. 

If you want to see a breakdown of what a no confidence vote would mean for Vaughan Gething you can see it in the video below. It was also my first attempt at a TikTok (give me strength):

Exclusive polling - “Give the money back”

While UK Labour oscillates between not caring about the donations to wanting to pretend they are nothing to do with them, the Welsh public seem more clear in their views.

Exclusive polling for WalesOnline by Redfield & Wilton Strategies found 70% of those asked felt that the money should be returned:

There were similar levels of support into having an independent inquiry into Mr Gething accepting the donation:

Considering Mr Gething has previously said that it wasn’t “serious” for anyone to critique his donations he will be presumably shocked that 38% of those polled felt he should resign over the issue. 

Rishi Sunak’s failed p*ss-up in a brewery

Our wet Prime Minister became the first person to have a bad time in a brewery when he visited Wales this week. Rocking up in Barry he asked Welsh fans if they were looking forward to a European Championship this summer which their nation hadn’t qualified for. 

Tory MP Alun Cairns, who I really need to a separate newsletter on one of these days, tried to jump on the grenade the PM had just thrown at himself by saying “people in Wales will be supporting whoever England are playing” before clearly panicking that he sounded like a Welsh nationalist and adding: “I am not one of those people”. 

Where is the evidence against Hannah Blythyn?

It isn’t exactly clear what the evidence was underpinning the decision of the First Minister to sack Hannah Blythyn for allegedly leaking to the media. It’s an accusation she strongly denies. 

Mr Gething was asked in the Senedd about whether he will produce the evidence or the results of the investigation into her. Mr Gething categorically denied this saying:

“I won't give a running commentary and I won't publish information because no government in this position would do so, of any shade, in any part of the UK.” 

Apart from Mark Drakeford literally did exactly this after an investigation into Dawn Bowden.

Former Plaid leader Adam Price said of Mr Gething: “His continued refusal to publish the findings of his investigation into Hannah Blythyn, despite there being clear precedent in doing so by his predecessor Mark Drakeford, is clearly to avoid scrutiny.” 

TV debates

On the subject of Plaid and Labour accountability it is worth noting that the smaller parties are currently embroiled in a battle to be heard in the coming campaign. 

The Plaid, the Lib Dems, Greens, and SNP face being cut out of televised leadership debates as it was revealed ITV is working on a debate featuring only the leaders of Labour and the Conservatives. This is apparently the format Labour demanded (wouldn’t want those pesky smaller parties mentioning Gaza or that there are other alternatives to Labour now would we?). 

The BBC aren’t able to exclude the smaller parties entirely but I can see a situation where both Labour and the Tories send representatives other than their leaders to those debates to limit the damage that can be done. 

One solution would be to give the leaders of smaller parties airtime on a Question Time Q&A in front of a live audience as happened at the last election. There could also be a wider BBC debate involving as many as seven parties - although at the last election the major parties did not send their leaders to this event.

Plaid have called for Stamer and Sunak to come to Cymru to debate specific Welsh issues but I am highly sceptical about whether this will be agreed to. 

Predictions

Okay – I want to hear your best predictions as to what we can expect in the coming election here in Wales. I am looking for your best guesses when it comes to seats but also things that will come up over the course of the campaign. 

I will go first though mine are fairly bog standard (don’t want to ruin my record after the Welsh Labour leadership % prediction):

• The Tories will be down from 13 seats to just two. They will comfortably hold Montgomeryshire (we covered in previous newsletters and how much money has been donated to keep that seat blue) and secretary of state for Wales David TC Davies will win in Monmouth (though I reckon there will be fewer than 200 votes in it). 

• Plaid will win Ynys Mon but the Tories will push them surprisingly close in it. Though she isn’t everyone’s cup of tea the current Conservative MP Virginia Crosbie has been a very visible figure on the island. Plaid Cymru are going to throw everything at this (as they have no chance of making gains elsewhere especially with the boundary changes).

• Three former secretaries of state for Wales – Simon Hart, Alun Cairns, and Stephen Crabb will lose their seats – and two of them will attempt to get a seat in the Senedd in 2026.

• Several Tory councillors will be found repurposing 20mph campaign groups on Facebook to be nakedly supportive of the Conservatives.

Would love to hear yours!

That’s all for this week.

Take care,

Will