Welsh Political Landscape and Future

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You've got a number 10 battling to get through each day and you have ill discipline , gossip, chattering and plotting . Honestly Harriet, that was as as tribal goals, that was pretty good . People are entitled to have an electoral system that they can actually understand . Hello and welcome to Electoral Dysfunction with me, Beth Rigby Me Harriet Harmon and me Ruth Davidson. And it's safe to say it's been a marathon week. Do you see what I did there? For both me and the Prime Minister. I'm not sure who's Sora at the moment, who's endured a more set of bruising moments, whose toenails are falling off or heads falling off, who knows? Because the speculation is: can he make it to the finish line uh post these May elections? I did make it to the finish line. I'm delighted. In fact, I wanted to bring my medal in today because um I only got to wear it on Sunday and then I thought it would be a bit over the top to just wear it all week, which is what I want to do. And then I thought I can wear it for the pod. You two would allow this. And then I forgot it. I haven't even got my medal. Just because you won't tell the the listeners this, but I want to tell the listeners this smashed your time did it in under five hours I did it in four forty five there were a lot of dysfunctioners that were either at the marathon or watching the marathon and they were sending messages on the marathon app to me. Oh, brilliant. Which was and I just saw them all uh last night, which was absolutely glorious. I'm gonna try and find some. And Sarah, who was our who's uh one of our pod listeners, who was also running the Marathon Marathon, she finished as well. Well done, Sarah. Yes. She finished well and she raised loads of money for a charity. Oh Sarah, that's so nice. I'm so glad. Um I hope you're feeling on top of the world now because it is it is absolutely gruelling and brutal. And at mile 17, I said to myself, Beth Rigby, when you finish this marathon and a couple of days after you're going to enter the ballot and you're going to do it again. Don't do that.. This is hell This is living hell. And what have you done? Remember, you remember this moment now. You're absolutely hating it. You feel broken and you want to stop. Uh oh, I've emptied the ballot again, obviously. As much as I would love to keep talking about the marathon, uh. Uh and I can't say my my uh training is going very well for the one that I want to do in about two and a half years time and sneak in before my 50th. But uh, if you remember, in a previous pod we did a deep dive on Scotland at the election. Uh we're going to do a deep dive on Wales today. So we've got plenty coming up. Luke Trill, the polster, is back. He's from Moorin Common. He's been talking to people from the south to the north, to the valleys, to everywhere in between. And we're Now look, this is my last chance to chat to you both before these are crucial elections next week. So we're gonna discuss what might they mean for the Prime Minister? We're going to get into all of that. Will they prompt a reshuffle? I've been uh shuffling around the uh the corridors of the commons in recent days, trying to get some answers on that. And does the Prime Minister have the political capital uh to pull it all off? And as a reminder, we always love hearing from you, the number to ring is O seven nine three four two hundred triple four or you can email us at electoral dysfunction at sky.uk and I hope you'll do that. So look, Starmer this week has avoided being referred to the privileges committee. And if you're thinking what the hell is the Privileges Committee? Basically, it's a body in Parliament that if there is concerns that a Prime Minister has misled the House of Commons, that is investigated by a group of parliamentarians. And if it turns out that they think looking at the evidence he or she has, then they are held in contempt of parliament. It's the highest sanction you can get. And it can result in a prime minister uh losing their job so it doesn't get a bigger deal than that. Uh but the Prime Minister avoided uh that function uh thanks to Labour MP s who were whipped to vote down that Tory-led vote. He won reasonably comfortable with just 15 Labour MPs rebelling. But I think it's fair to say that quite a lot of political capital was burnt through over that vote. I mean, one MP told me that they saw, and I won't say who it is, but a female MP from the Red Wall in the T rooms quite tearful after that vote because they said, I didn't want to vote for it, I've been forced to vote for this by the wits or vote against it, and I'm gonna go back to my constituency and reform are gonna absolutely smash me up for this, uh, accuse me of a cover-up, and they were very unhappy. And that I think was quite a lot of the mood that number 10, meanwhile, were overjoyed to have just avoided uh what could have been a very long drawn-out uh inquiry that just kept Mandelson and the Prime Minister's reputation, if you like, in the news. But Harriet, let's start with you on this because you once ran one of these committees. You were the chair of the Privileges Committee investigating uh Boris Johnson. So you know. In fact, it was my was my description I just realized I've described it in front of Harriet Harmon is who is the oracle on this. How embarrassing. Did I do all right, Harriet? You certainly did. So I think actually Kemi Baden ok, um, the toy leader, jumped the gun on this because what she did is she asked for Parliament to have a vote on whether Keir Starmer should be investigated by the Privileges Committee for effectively misleading Parliament, telling lies to Parliament. When currently all the issues that the Privileges Committee would be asked to look at are being examined anyway by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, which is being very well chaired by Emily Thornbury. And they're looking at all the same issues that would have been looked at by the Privileges Commit tee. And in particular, was due process followed with the appointment of Peter Mandelson. So the very issues that would have supposedly being looked at by the Privileges Committee were already being looked at. The point was why have another committee when you were already having one looking at it? And also because it was a bit of an open and shut issue whether Boris Johnson had lied about the rules being broken in number ten during COVID and that was the party gate. Whereas it was much more nuanced the suggestion of misleading that was levelled at Keir Starmer. So I think what happened is that it did cause a big distraction for Keir Starmer. It meant that the whips had to be phoning round MPs saying, I know you want to be campaigning in Scotland, Wales and all round England in the council elections, but you've got to come back down for Parliament because you've got to vote down this privileges committee inquiry. By calling it a stunt, which is what Labour called this attempt to refer it to the Privileges Committee, it's rather been rude to the speaker . So having alienated the civil service by sacking Ollie Robbins and creating bad relations with the civil service, there's now bad relations with the parliamentary authorities. So in one way it's been very bad, very distracting, and reformer no doubt gonna put it all over their leaflets that Labour MPs have voted for a cover up. But on the other hand, it did have a little bit of a rallying effect on some, but a demoralizing and divisive effect on others. But it's just more of the long tail of the Mandelson saga interfering with what the Prime Minister wants to be getting on with, which is doing foreign affairs well, doing the economy well, getting on with the domestic agenda and also campaigning in the local elections. Honestly, Harriet, that was as as tribal goes, that was pretty good, 'cause if you cast your mind back to when you were chair of the privileges, Standards and Privileges Committee. The idea that you would have quite happily said, No, it's okay, chaps, a different committee that doesn't have the power of sanction, that is chaired by a Tory, can look into Boris Johnson, that'll be fine. We'll be totally grand with that. And also, I think you just said that it was very obvious before we started that it was an open and shut case. So way to have due process. And that I'm saying that's somebody that was severely critical of Boris Johnson and his behaviours during COVID. I do think that the difference between the Privileges Committee and other committees is that power of sanction. And the fact that something is in dispute is why you have a committee investigation into it because we haven't uncovered lots of things about it yet. So um so yeah, I uh I was just having a chortle there in the background. I think it was more of an open and shut case that it should go to the Privileges Committee. Obviously, it wasn't an open and shut case, which is why the Privileges Committee had to take all the evidence, because you don't decide that. But the point about this is that you won't you don't know whether there's a strong case to refer Keir's Darmer to the Privileges Committee until you've heard all the evidence that's come out and still coming out before the Foreign Affairs Committee and also all the documents that are going to be proved, which could show that he's absolutely not misled Parliament, or it could show that there's a case for him to answer. Presumably once all the documents , because part of this is they are there is a mid-process here in that we've got this humble address, and that's a mechanism whereby Parliament compels the government to release lots of confidential information around uh the veteran of Mandelson. So that process is ongoing. So we've got more documentation to come out uh via that. And then also the foreign affairs select committee hearing. But if we get to the end of that two tranches or or in you know th those other tranches of evidence. And there is contradictions in the Prime Minister's uh version of events, and more evidence suggesting that perhaps he did mislead the House. Presumably, uh there could be another vote on whether to refer him to the Privileges Committee, right? There could, but there also could be an opportunity if there is a conflict of evidence. And the stuff that comes out in front of the Foreign Affairs Committee looks as though the Prime Minister has misled Parliament. At that point, he can just do a written statement correcting the record. There's a lot of annoyance and concern amongst uh people, Labour MPs in particular, that all of this is underway because A, it's the original bad decision to appoint Peter Mandelson, and B, uh precipitating the problem by sacking Ollie Robbins, which means that there's loads more there's been fire fuel that's put on the f fire. So in a way it's like people are feeling this is an unforced error, this is an own goal that uh Keir Starmer's done. And why are we discussing all of this when we want to be campaigning in the local election? So so I think there's two things in there. And I think you're right, Harriet. I and I think that normal people at home that are looking at this going, what the heck was he doing firing that civil servant on top of all of the other stuff. Like what a known goal. And we we wouldn't have had all of all of the evidence that we've had and all of stuff that's come to light. And I think people that aren't involved in high-level top line politics don't understand how hard it is to make decisions under the sort of pressure that you're under. And pressure leads to bad decision making. People, you know, if they it and everything feels rushed, everything feels like it's on a deadline. But but there is still coming back to the point we made in last week's pod, there is the sense that other people are paying the price for Keir Starmer's mistakes, and that's quite a difficult track to be on, whether that's Ollie Robbins, whether that's Morgan McSweeney, whether that's any of the other people that have been sacked on here, and it all comes back to his original error of judgment. And then the errors of that have compounded that. So the errors of execution. So errors of things like firing Ollie Robbins, going too far in PMQs about saying there was no pressure at all and then having to to then send everybody out to say well what he meant was time pressure, not pressure on the decision and and having to like other people are being sent out to fix the problems that he's creating and and most of these problem s are because of the intense pressure that he's under, and it it does make you do funny things. So my life at the moment is uh one in which I am having to make lots and lots of calls to lots and lots of people every single day. And the reason I say that is because it is so uncertain, it's so uh febrile at the moment in terms of what uh is the predicament of the Prime Minister? Will there be a leadership challenge? Will there be a reshuffle? Uh, are the MPs going to support him or not support him in this vote? The feeling I have reporting is the feeling I've had a number of times in the past with different prime ministers where they enter, you know, what you would describe as the end game, and things are beginning to really fall apart, and then it becomes very, very unsteady and unstable , and you have to keep uh keep across a lot of potential moving parts and check everything all the time. And times it's felt like this in the past was the end days of Boris Johnson. It was when Theresa May was uh constantly under this speculation about facing a vote of no confidence from her MPs. And it's that kind of survival mode where you've got a number 10 battle in to get through each day and you have increased ill discipline, gossip, chattering and and plotting. And the other day someone said to me, uh, what's gonna happen after the local elections? And I said, I don't And apparently as a political journalist, you're not meant to say you don't know because you're meant to know everything. And the fact is, the reason I said I don't know is because as quite a wise, very senior Labour figure said to me the other day, uh they said there's a settled view that Keir Star mer won't fight the next election as Prime Minister. And actually, when I talk around his top, top team, and I'm talking about the cabinet, that is the uh sort of framing you get , but this person said to me, ask ten different people what's gonna happen next, you'll get ten different views. And it's just very, very unstable. If Labour does really badly in the elections on May the seventh, that will be a moment of jeopardy for the Prime Minister. But on the other hand, I don't think it directly can tell you what might happen in a couple of years time in the general election, all sorts of things might have changed. It might be that J.D. Vance has been elected as the new president of the United States, and therefore people might look across and think, well, we're certainly not going to vote for reform because we don't want to be like that. I mean, I'm just posing that as a scenario to show that really it's very unpredictable what might happen before the next general election. And the truth, I think, about these elections is firstly that they are important in their own right. You know, you're talking about who's going to be running Scotland, who's going to be in government in Holyrood, and running all those services. So it's not just an indicator of what might happen in two years' time. It's actually important for the services and the running of Scotland. And it's the same with the council elections. You know, they're not just an opinion poll. So they're not like the midterms in America. They are actually choosing an administration in the council, in Wales and in Scotland. So I you know, the long and the short of it is, I think that you know it is a moment of jeopardy, but I still don't see an alternative proposition. I just wonder if it hits as uh some sophologists s,ort of election watchers, people that study elections are saying that Labour could lose 1,800, 2,000 counsellors. I mean, when I say that to you, and you've done this a long time, I say Labour could lose Well I think it's bad for the administration of those councils of Scotland and Wales. It's bad for those individuals, and they will all protest and no doubt. But if it's Labour like. a trade I mean, this is what I mean. That the morning after, when the party's reeling and they're like, We've lost hundreds and hundreds of seats, maybe up to two thousand. At that point, does everyone just have a collective breakdown uh of any sort of discipline and just begin to call for the PM's head? I mean it is a possibility, isn't it? Well there's a lot of people saying, oh it's one thing looking at the opinion polls, but it's quite another hearing council leaders who have not only lost their leadership of the council, but aren't even councillors anymore, and there will be a big emotional impact. But that doesn't necessarily make it sensible to change the Prime Min ister. It might it it's right that there'll be a lot of political pain on it, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the right course of action following it is to have a leadership challenge. So it's not just that you're going to lose some council seats. It's the fact that you're also going to lose Wales for the first time since devolution. There was a sense a year and a half ago that you would take Scotland and you're not going to do that. You could lose about 500 council seats in London to the Greens. So to the left, that's the citadel of Labour now. Like London is a really strong so much of the Labour membership is in London. Quite a lot of the Labour MPs are from London. You know, it it this is the the kind of psychological wounds as well as the physical ones in terms of who's being lost, where it's being lost, what the implications of that are. I mean it's gonna be really hard for a prime minister that even had goodwill in the bank and capital in the bank, and and this Prime Minister doesn't have that. I I think that the shudder um on the eighth or ninth by the time we've done all the counting of May is going to be quite difficult. And I think the problem again that Labour has is that partly because everybody just got elected in 2024, there are so many new MPs for Labour. More than half of your MPs have have won for the very first time. They're what I call summer babies. You know, they haven't had to toil in the trenches when it's been very hard, when you've been losing elections. They're not used to this sort of pressure. They've grown up looking at Labour and opposition where it's you just go out and shout at the government, you're not making tough decisions, you're not getting blamed for the decisions of the government. Like the kind of psychological difficulty that the top team are going to have to calm down. I mean, I think it's going to be really febrile. And I think he's going to have to do things to move the narrative on as quickly. And we had a conversation off air about whether you'll have a reshuffle or not. I think he has to. I don't think he'll necessarily want to. I think in the long term it might be damaging. But I think in the short term to get through it, he needs to just have a sense of momentum. So yes, a king speech, yes, new legislation, but yes, also uh, you know, uh a a a reshuffle. Just try and show that the party's moving. I think on the pod last week or the week before I was, talking with some confidence that the Prime Minister was going to do a reshuffle because that's what I'd been told by sources that he was going to have a bad set of local elections, and part of the way they were going to get through that was to have this phase two of the Starmer administration, reshuffle the top team, get into the King's speech. That's when the government sets out their legislative agenda for the next session of parliament and try and project momentum. And then uh the Manderson Vettin scandal happened uh and stopped dead all of that momentum and threw the Prime Minister into yet another crisis that has been particularly painful. And so I was, you know, as we started to come through the the mandals and because it's been going on for days about the different select committee appearances and the House of Commons and the referring him to the Privileges Committee vote So coming out of that, I was kind of like, well, where are we on the reshuffle? And then I discovered, having made a lot of phone calls and bothered a lot of people, that um there was a split in number 10 about this reshuffling. You had, as I was told, on the one hand, Vidya Alexon, who is his acting chief of staff at the moment, uh, with Darren Jones, who's the chief secretary to the Prime Minister. I understand that they were on one side saying a reshuffle's a bad idea, and then you had a more the more political operation of his team, the likes of Johnny Reynolds, the chief whip, and his political director, Amy Richardson, going, you y need to do a reshuffle and there is this split at the top of uh government about whether he should or shouldn't. And I guess Ruth that the political uh arm of the Starm Operation want it for a party management uh motives to try and kind of uh keep everyone a bit in line. And then and then the others and then on the other side there's a sort of sense of uh don't you haven't got the political capital to do it, uh, it's very risky, and you need to be talking to the country. Um, but the fact that you're even in that position about a prime minister weighing up whether he can or can't, I think tells you a lot. Uh one of his uh allies has also made the point to me, uh, actually this morning, um, that Keir Starmer hates doing reshuffles anyway. So I guess what they're implying to me was given that he doesn't like doing reshuffles, if he could avoid doing one, uh maybe he would . But it's look the point is it's really uh up in the air because of all of uh the uncertainty around himself and his predicament. And when I ask cabinet ministers, what's it going to be like on you know after the election Well it also means they don't have a plan. You know, they don't have a plan to stick to. And I think the that cause they s they are in two minds and and I can see both sides of it. I really can because one of the things that you want to do is you want to move the story on from bad news as quickly as you can and a reshuffle you can do that. However, reshuffles are inherently dangerous because you sack people and they're upset. You don't promote people into jobs that they want. They get something that's less than they think they're worth, which upsets people. Some people don't get on the ladder at all. They get passed over and they think that they should be and their neighbor gets on it. But but even worse than that, you also have the idea that everybody that walks into the room knows whether it is a weak or a strong prime minister and whether he's doing a reshuffle out of strength or out of weakness. So if, for example, and I know I like to use him a lot, but I'm gonna use him again. If Ed Miliband walks in there and he doesn't particularly want to move for energy and he's asked to move from energy, he can just say no, Prime Minister, I'm not moving, or I'll resign. And it won't it'll be in his interest to resign because he, like everybody else in the Labour Party, or most people, think that this Prime Minister won't be fighting the 2029 election. And he thinks that he can be recruited back into the top team of somebody else, or he can run himself from outside of the group, and it will strengthen rather than weak en his hand to be outside of the group. And I'm I'm not surprised that Keir Starmer doesn't like uh reshuffles because he's shown that, you know, he's not very good at being strong in a room. He's not good at telling people no. You know, there's the famous case of Angela Raynor walking in having been briefed that she was going to get sacked, and she walks out with three more jobs. Her job becomes an enhanced position because she she faced him down in the room and got, you know, all of this other stuff on top of what she was doing. I can absolutely see why it's a political necessity for half the cabinet to say, look, you have to do this, Prime Minister, and the other half going, it is a long term, it is more dangerous than the short term advantage. Just on that, Ruth, a couple of things I want to pick up on what you just said because it really resonated with a conversation I was having the other night with a minister. When they said first on the issue of weakness, there's a sort of growing sense amongst some in government that starmer doesn't have the authority to get anything through anyway. So they're almost discounting, which I think's really dangerous zone if you're a leader when you can't command uh a sense of um being able to to drive things through and your your team it's not even that they're angry at you or frustrated but they just think you're irrelevant that is just like not the place you want to be and the second point just on what you were saying was this man said to me, W ifhat he phoned up? Imagine he phoned up someone and said, I want to move you and they just said, No, and I'm resigning from your cabinet and uh I'm gonna call for your resignation. And it could be the match that lights the tinderbox. So I think it's it's it's high stakes here. And I think the fact we're even talking about this is a reflection of the precarious predicament. Certainly for me it fe,els that the Prime Minister is in at the moment. I've done this for a long time. I've done this sort of, you know, the fates of Prime Ministers. I've watched a few come and go through number 10. So when I say that, I'm not saying it uh to be inflammatory or to be sensationalizing. I'm saying it because actually, having made a lot of phone calls, that's kind of when I weigh things up. That's where my sense that is things are. I mean Harriet, reshuffle, what do you think? I just feel a bit dispirited because I feel it's unwise for number ten to have put into your mind and therefore into the public domain, the idea that if there's a bad election result on May the 7th, the solution is going to be a reshuffle. Firstly, because if he decides that he doesn't want to do a reshuffle after May the 7th, because all the speculation has been running that there's going to be one, it will look as if he hasn't done a reshuffle because he's just not strong enough. So instead of it being a positive thing, actually my reset is going to be coming forward with a new set of bills, a king's speech which is gonna really pave the way more positively for the future. Instead it looks like he's not done the reshuffle, so that's a problem. There's also a problem with reshuffle specul ation because it makes secretaries of state and ministers feel insecure. So, for example, if you're Liz Kendall, who there's been speculation in the paper that she's no longer going to be in her job, then she's going to feel very demotivated and anxious. But also her diary secretary's gonna think, why should I bust a gut to get all these appointments in her diary for the second half of May or June, because she's probably not going to be in her job. And outside organizations who've been planning conferences or meetings with her, they'll think, well perhaps we should just hold far for the moment, because it might not be Liz Kendall in that job. So I think that the reshuffle speculation, which has been initiated by Downing Street, is very unwise. It's unwise even if they were planning to do a reshuffle and we' absolreutely certain on it. But it's even more unwise if it's actually not yet decided. So this is another handling issue. It undermines morale and perception. There's already been a narrative, which is that Keir Starmer fires people if he's in difficulty. So if it is Keir Starmer's in difficulty after the council elections, therefore he's going to fire ministers in order to shore up his position. Surely the reason for a reshuffle is because you think somebody's been doing a bad job and you should get rid of it. Or you think there's somebody better. But just to do it for your own interest, it plays into this idea that he sacks people to save himself. So that's not a good vibe either. Okay. So Reith, you think he is going to do a reshuffle? Uh yeah, I'd say I I think he would, yeah. I don't think he will. And I'm not sure he can. I guess that's where I'm at. But just to give you we're gonna move on, but just to give you a little flavour of um you know, the the the Beth Rigby bat phone and and how it's pinging at the moment. I mean three different cabinet ministers, you know, this these are the sorts of three different views. I've got one saying that they think you'll get through it, that it's going to be difficult elections, but Stam will uh get through it. There's another one saying to me there will be definitely a lot to weigh up after those elections. There's another saying he needs to get out and talk to the country. There is a lack of of of of message discipline at the moment because there is a lack of control in number ten. The one thing that plays in his favour is that a catastrophic election has already priced in. So anything that just looks desperate rather than terminal looks like a partial success. Hello, I'm Hannah George. And I'm Taylor Glen n. And together, we are the award-winning true crime comedy podcast, Drunk Women Solving Crime. Each episode, we invite a celebrity guest to discuss a true crime case. And we do it a little differently than most. We've covered cases like the lottery fix that have We've had amazing guests like Katherine Ryan, Ricky Lake, and Rosie Jones. We even give the guys a chance. James A. Castor, Romash Ranga Nathan, and Richard Osman have all joined in on the fun. So listen to Drunk Women Solving Crime every Wednesday wherever you get your podcast. Drunk Women Solving Crime . The new Burger Buddies box from Burger King features three snackable icons: the Whopper, Big King, and Barbecue Steakhouse burgers. Perfect for you and two best friends. As for your third best friend, the one who lent you their season ticket when they moved abroad, when they could have given it to their own dad, the man who clothed them, bathed them, gave them life, but no, they chose you. Well, try to break it to them gently. The new Burger Buddies box from Burger King, made for sharing. Sort of. At the third stroke, the time from BT will be 6 o'clock precisely. Today in the UK, 100,000 people will call 999. 3,000 will say fire service. 4 65 will say I think she's gone into labor. And one will say the cat is stuck up a tree again. And every second a BT employee will answer and connect those calls to the emergency services. At the third stroke the, time from BT will be brilliant. BT, behind brilliant things . Alright, we're back and we're joined by our very good friend uh Luke Trill. Welcome to the show, Luke. Great too. You're looking very parky for a man that's been very busy uh focus grouping various uh voters on elections. Yeah, no, I I get a lot of energy out of people. Uh in fact I was in uh North Berw ast where I met the the Ruth fan club, it's fair to say in uh in in North Berwick. It's a lovely part of the world. We're not talking about Scotland today, although we do love talking about Scotland, we're talking about Wales. And let's start with a bit of the basic stuff because one thing that's gone under the radar, the voting system has changed in Wales. And we have a voice note to explain a little bit about that because I struggled to do this. No. Laura McAllister, because she knows a lot more about it than I do. She's the professor of public policy and the governance of Wales at Cardiff University. Let's let Laura explain to us what's going on. eight percent increase and the rationale for that was very much around improving scrutiny because it was very clear by any international standards and by hard evidence that there was insufficient resource to actually scrutinize government and other agencies properly. We have a new electoral system, so closed list proportional representation, a system that was favoured by nobody when I led the expert panel on assembly electoral reform back in twenty seventeen. We've ended up with that system based on a kind of coalition of negativity I'd say within Welsh Labour and a deal with Plate Cymru which meant that Senate enlargement was contingent on agreement that they would go for that voting system. The arithmetic of it is interesting and potentially problematic because it's counted through the De Haunt system. DeHont favours the larger parties. And of course DeHont does punish um the parties that can't reach the threshold of anything between twelve and fifteen percent. And even at its best, it looks at the moment like uh Labour's polling around the twelve to sixteen percent. So it's a it's be careful what you wish for really in terms of how seats Can I just pitch in there first to say I think there's a real problem with these voting systems? I mean people don't know what DeHont is. There's a different voting system in Wales than there is in Scotland, than there is in councils, that there is from the general election. And I think basically people are entitled to have an electoral system that they can actually understand. And I think it's part of dam pening turnout that people don't really feel like they know how to vote or how their vote's going to be counted. I mean certainly from doing focus groups across Wales, no one understands the system. I mean it is it it it is like like genuinely the you would do focus groups not even one person would be able to explain people thought it was still the old system. They were talking about having um you know different votes for different areas. You know I think the Welsh Gernovment has done a poor job of explaining the change. But as you say, because there are so many different systems, it's hard for you know the public who don't follow this stuff like we do to keep track. Well Laura McAllister, uh who is the expert on this, clearly does not like the system either. I mean she could n't be in more scathing in a kind of prophesyal way. But Luke, do you agree with her assessment there? She says that the new system not only hurts smaller parties, but it could actually hurt Labour. Could backfire. It could very definitely backfire. And when we've done our modelling, Labour is at a tipping point for lots of those last seats. So very small margins could make the difference between Labour being probably a reasonable third, um through to being a much smaller party. So yeah, absolutely. And there is a danger that that system magnifies this as applied reform split. Not least as well, because you do also have that Cafilli effect. You've still got people thinking, well Let's go to big picture on Wales, Luke, because obviously ever since the Senate uh was created, since devolution came to Wales, it has run red. It's been a Labour-controlled uh Senath. Wales has always been run by Labour administrations. That could all be about to change. I mean Farage, Nigel Farage and I did that interview with him a few weeks ago, uh, was talking very clearly about how they were going to take out uh labour in some of those old mining towns, those traditional labour strongholds. Well, what's it looking like? Is it really going to be nasty for Labour Oh, I I think it is gonna be a very bad result. That's one thing I do feel confident uh in uh saying. And I think Labour are being really hurt by that double incumbency factor, the fact that they're in power in Westminster, they're in power in Cardiff Bay. And when you've got a time for change mood, it's really hard to push back against those headwinds. And there is you know, on some projections, the first minister is losing her seat. Um you know, it is it is going to be seismic. But what I also think is interesting is when you chat to people who are voting for Plied, it's very different to chatting to SNP supporters. So chat to S<unk>P supporters and the constitutional question is often front and centre. Chat to applied supporters, and it's much more, I don't mean this dismissively, I actually think it's quite, you know, it's quite a good thing for a party, it's more of a change vibe. It's they're going to do something different for Wales, they're gonna stand up for Wales, that they're you know, people say things like everyone knows applied candidate uh and so it is different. But you know, th the flip side is this system makes it very hard for any party to get a majority. That's okay. If you look across projections, it looks hard to see any viable way for Plyde to get in without relying on Labour. Okay. So are people going to get that change? You know, if it's Plied propped up by Lab our, how different is it gonna be? Do you know what's really interesting about that, Luke? Um is that quite recently in in the part of the election campaign in Scotland, you had John Swinney, who's the SNP First Minister of Scotland, coming out saying that, you know, after these elections he was going to work uh with Runap Bjoreth, uh when Plydewin in Wales, he's going to work with with Shinn Fein, uh, who are already the largest party and a part of the coalition uh in Stormont to break up Britain. And what was really, really interesting was actually you heard nothing from Sinn Fein and nothing from Plyde to come in off the back of that and to back him up on it. And there was a time where you know Nicholas Durgewin with previous played leaders was very close and they would do joint stuff together and you would you would see them uh do things together and they would try and magnify themselves quite often. They would do stuff in London together to magnify it back out into Wales and Scotland. There was almost a sense that in in Scotland, the SNP has to talk up independence because independence is more popular than the SNP party. And that gives them the biggest caravan of votes. Whereas actually in Wales, my sense of it as as from being outside of Wales is that if if you slightly dampen down that but talk up being strong for Wales, but not talk up breaking up the United Kingdom, that's how you build a bigger caravan of voters. That's where your happy hunting ground is and and it is a different nuance. Absolutely that. It's just a totally different tenor of conversations. And you ask people uh in Wales, do you think Wales is ready for independence? And you know, even people voting for Plyde say, you know, n not really, but we'd like to be a bit more like Scotland and have a bit more of our own independent voice, have a bit more power, have something uh a little bit different. And I think that that's the sort of kernel of it for lots of uh Welsh voters. One of the things which struck me doing recent Welsh focus groups was how often HS two came up uh as a sign of neglect of Wales, the second the fact that it was billed as being something good for Wales, and people would say in folks would say, Yeah, but not one inch of track is actually being laid in Wales. So just this sense of not getting their fair deal from Westminster. And interestingly, saying but, we used to get loads of money from the EU. And that kept coming up with plied voters. Because of course there were lots of projects in Wales which have EU funding, like the head of the valley's road. So it's just this sense of not getting a fair share, and maybe Plyde will help us get that. Interesting. I mean, the other thing that I find fascinating about Wales is that certainly at the turn of the year, uh the big story about the Senate elections was kind of the rise of reform. And there was lots of chatter, wasn't there, about whether or not reform uh would take control of the Senate. And actually, uh, Farage sort of did say to me in an interview we did recently that they thought they were going to come out on top in Wales. What what's happened to reform in Wales? Has the has the kind of momentum slightly slowed? Has Plyde come and eaten a bit of their lunch So I think it's a couple of things. And look, th there is still you know a good chance that reform do top the vote, um, but it's very it will be very hard for them to form uh a government um because of who would work with them to do that. But in my latest focus groups in Wales it w it was a couple of things. It the momentum did seem to have slightly come out of reform in Wales. I think in Wales the ex Tory charge hurts them much more than it does in England from talking to people. Because the Tories have never been that popular in most of Wales, although in some parts they have. So I think that's part of it. And the Trump factor seem ed to really hit home in Wales as well, this sense of gosh, we've seen what happens, you know, when uh n you know uh Farage's friend is elected in the US. It you know, we don't want that for Wales. So I think that that combo and Plate positioning themselves as that, you know, change vector uh as well. That said, I still expect reform to do very well uh in Wales, but I think they're a little bit down off their peak. I mean Harriet, what about what about Labour and Wales? Because lay I mean Wales has always been a place uh that had such a strong identity with Labour. Like when you hear Luke saying that the uh the first minister, Elon Ead, could lose not only her job as first minister, but also could lose her seat, does that sort of make your stomach churn a bit? I think it'd be devastat ing for Labour people in Wales, not least because Welsh Labour is so much part of Labour history. European elections when the popular vote was won by the Tories in Wales. And I remember when whole swath es of North Wales we didn't have any Labour MPs. So it's very deep in our hearts as part of our heritage. But sometimes Aaron Powell Across the models it's really hard to see how reform can enough given the only people who haven't ruled out working with them and I don't think they've said they would work with them, but only the Welsh Tories have said have not ruled out working with them. And, you know, look, if you look across the projections, Welsh Tories are barely on the field. So you're looking at some combo of is it a minority government? And I think it's really interesting. Plyde have said that's their preferred option. I think precisely because they want to say we are change, and they know that if they hint they might go in with Labour, you know, it would ruin that uh or dampen that change edge um or plied labour. Or there's an outside world if everything went right for Plied and the Greens, that it could be a Plied Green coalition. Is there a legitimacy question here though that if reform come out as the winning the most votes being the biggest coming coming fast in the in the voting system , and yet the party that got the biggest vote share ends up uh not running the government. I mean, isn't there a kind of a bit of a legitimacy question though? I can see that being quite loud, noisy politics, right? I think there is. And I look, I think a lot of reform supporters again from Talking to Mills will feel quite aggrieved um if that is uh the case. As a world in which, you know, Nigel Farage that outcome might actually be optimal because you can say, you know, we've done the well, but we don't have to uh do the governing ahead of the general uh election. Um and of course there is precedent for a party which came ahead in the popular vote but well short of a uh a majority, which is the SNP in Scotland in two thousand and seven when there was still and Ruth will correct me if I'm wrong, there was still a unionist majority in the uh Scottish Parliament when the SNP took power and I think I think they had one more seat than Labour uh and there they went on to run it. So so I don't think we've had a situation before where the largest party in any of the parliaments hasn't gone on uh to provide uh the first minister um there. So it would be uncharted territory. I think in terms of what the public will wear, they do get used to stuff pretty quickly. They you got used to a Tory Lib Dem coalition pretty quickly. And in terms of the election that you talk about, uh, Luke, yeah, in 2007, it was a an SMP minority. Um, and it was just that that kind of single seat, but they owned the stage really quickly. They got salmoned in a helicopter Minister, it will once again cause people to be feel aggrieved about the actual voting system. Messing about with the constitution like this um is qu is qu is quite problematic and undermines people's confidence in democracies. There is a question too, Harriet, about who is my MS? Who is my member of the Senate? Well actually we all have six of them now. I mean under this new system. It's not like you have a constituency one and then some list ones as well, uh in the same way as you have in Scotland. So so r there is that question about that. And and I think the thing that really surprised me looking at the polling in Wales, uh, Luke, is that uh Ipsos, I think it was, was the polster, that said that over half of people, so 52% of people, thought that they would be open to changing their mind about who to vote for. Do people normally this close to an election say they're open to changing their mind? It is unprecedented, but I think it is the trend as well. In fact, um we um w we're doing some work uh yesterday actually looking at kind of voter loyalty and then you know our conclusion was that actually you know voters have become much more promiscuous uh in there. They are much more willing to range across different parties and you've got both within bloc changers, that is, you know, Tory or reform, Labour-plied or green, and you've got the people that then flip between blocks as well. So you've got all of these different axes of compet