The most miserable cabinet in politics and how do you solve a problem like Plaid Cymru?
Plus what we learned from the race to be First Minister
Hello from the least serious journalist in Wales,
It has been a historic week. Wales (and Europe) has its first ever black leader Vaughan Gething. I want to start by saying that this is a hugely symbolic moment and a testament to an inclusive and diverse Wales. The fact a black man, born in Africa to a white Welsh man and black Zambian mother, is now leading our nation signals to people of all backgrounds that Wales is a place where you can dream big and be ambitious.
But 10 years from now people in Wales need to remember Vaughan Gething for more than the colour of his skin. Wales doesn’t just need a First Minister who is historically significant, it desperately needs a First Minister who will be successful. Schools and hospitals are on their knees and the economy is stagnant at best. Whether the man who, for the past decade, has been at the heart of the Welsh Government overseeing health and the economy is the best person to bring the change needed in those areas remains to be seen.
I think it is vital that we properly understand the challenges that Wales is facing. I have therefore made this previous newsletter looking at these issues free to all.
The leadership election sums up so much that is bad about Welsh politics
When the result of the Welsh Labour leadership was announced two thoughts struck me. The first was a rather smug “bloody hell I can’t believe I guessed the result” (this was far more a case of a stopped clock being right twice a day than any prophecy powers on my part).
The second was that this leadership election sums up many of the issues that Welsh politics faces. Let’s go through them:
A lack of ambition and an inability to acknowledge the mess we are in
There was barely any difference between either candidate when it came to meaningful policies to improve Wales.
When you are presiding over a country with the highest child poverty rates in the UK and the worst performing schools, tinkering around the edges is simply not an acceptable strategy. Anyone watching this leadership election and feeling like anything will change is, in my view, deluding themselves.
Neither candidate even came close to acknowledging how bad things are. Of course, why would they? They have been in power in Cardiff Bay for over 20 years and Welsh Labour love to tell us it is “the most successful democratic party in history”. But when they are not even willing to acknowledge the scale of the problems we face how can they possibly truly tackle them?
Wales is seriously underrepresented in UK wide media
When the stories about Vaughan Gething’s donations emerged it was barely even mentioned by most UK media. Imagine if the favourite to be the next Scottish First Minister had taken £200k from a known criminal, lobbied for that man's company and on the same day the donation was made the same company had submitted a bid for a large development that would require ministerial approval. This would have been huge news.
But as it is Wales, which is treated as just a little bit less of a country, there was barely a peep. What summed it up for me was that the likes of the Mail, Sun, Guido Fawkes etc couldn’t even bring themselves to use it as a stick to beat Keir Starmer. Given that they never miss an opportunity to do so suggests to me that that Wales is seen as so irrelevant that it isn’t even worth using it to attack an opponent (or more likely they didn’t even realise it was happening).
Wouldn’t it be lovely if the issue received UK wide attention simply because it was something highly controversial directly relating to the man leading over 3 million people?
The lack of media focus in Wales allows these issues to disappear
One of the hardest parts of reporting on issues in Wales is the lack of a wider media ecosystem. When a publication breaks a big political story in London, you have a dozen other newsrooms all looking into it. This keeps the story in news and means the story gets taken on. This in turn leads to greater pressure on politicians to explain themselves and, most importantly, more scrutiny.
This just isn’t the case in Wales. WalesOnline, BBC Wales and Nation all made huge contributions to this story but when you can count the number of journalists banging this drum on one hand it is easy for it to fizzle out.
Politicians can, and do, just ignore until they can move on.
The power of the unions
The backing of Mr Gething by the big six unions represents a serious issue IMO. There are some big questions that remains to be answered. What are the links between Vaughan Gething and the unions that led them to back him so uniformly? Why did Unite in Wales stitch up Jeremy Miles? Is this a Welsh story or a UK one - are we seeing here the influence of UK union leaders on Welsh politics? And, most importantly, is it right that union members are so dominant in choosing the leader of Welsh Labour who, given the nature of politics in Wales, is almost certain to be our First Minister. When you have 118k potential voters and 100k are from affiliated unions, their sway is huge.
Welsh Labour - bitter, divided and ready to go again?
I spoke to several people from Jeremy Miles’ campaign in aftermath of the result and I was struck by just how furious they all were. If Vaughan Gething had won by a large margin I think the anger over the donations would have dissipated. But when the vote is decided by hundreds of votes rather than thousands it is hard for those on Miles side (who comprised a majority of MSs) to not feel embittered about the huge mismatch in funding. Especially when Mr Gething dismissed people who were asking questions about this issue as “not serious”.
One of them told me that the feeling was very “oh well, we will be doing this again within two years”. They think he will not be in post for long. This is not a united party.
I had to laugh at a picture the Welsh Government posted on Twitter (fight me Musk) showing Vaughan Gething and his new cabinet.
Now clearly you can’t read lots into a single picture. If you had seen many of the pictures of me at university you would have thought I was a nerdy loner who couldn’t handle their drink and nothing could be further from the truth. But this picture is gold.
First things first, only two of the people who backed Vaughan Gething are even looking at him.
Of those who are looking at him, one is Hannah Blythyn who looks furious. The other is Jeremy Miles himself who looks like a man that just endured a hard fought leadership election for three months only to lose by a few hundred votes by a man with five times the resources.
Lesley Griffiths in the dark blue suit is surrounded by supporters of Mr Gething and seemingly can’t bear to look at him and instead has the demeanour of a Premier League footballer who has been told by their coach to stand in the wall for a freekick.
Elsewhere Mick Antoniw can barely contain his delight that the man he backed lost and Julie James (who said after the result the rules around donations would need to be changed) looking like she has just come out to intimidate a contestant and be a Chaser on The Chase.
Even if Mr Gething had a united party behind him he faces a monstrous task. But unless he can get these people back onside and all pulling in the same direction he has no chance.