The Welsh Politics Pod

The dust has settled and the work of the new Senedd and the new national government for Wales has begun. In our final pod of this run we review the astounding election result across the political picture and what we've learned about the country and its political changes. Of course we also look forward to the challenges for the new Plaid Cymru government, the new parliament, Reform UK's lead opposi...

It’s all getting very real for the parties, just days away from the 2026 Welsh Parliament election. The landscape doesn’t seem to have changed much, if polls are accurate reflections of how people across the country will vote on Thursday. Plaid and Reform continue to jostle to lead the next government or lead the opposition - we discuss who really wants to do what. And elsewhere, is there a sense...

What does winning mean anyway? With no party likely to be able to govern alone after May's national election in Wales, the lead contender to form a government - Plaid Cymru - has a job on its hands to wrangle internal and external coalitions in order to form a stable government. This will fall against a backdrop of a party learning how to govern in real time and an increasingly challenging economi...

In recent shows we've looked at the working of Welsh politics from inside the Welsh Government. But how do these same forces look from Westminster? In this pod we're delighted to be joined by Glynne Jones who worked inside the Wales Office for 20 years and was Director for the decade before retiring in 2025 and explore the role the institution plays in Whitehall, the role of the Secretary of State...

Recorded in the week of the Labour Party's Manifesto launch for Wales, we take a look at the outline of how the party is seeking to win over over voters. We also look at the credibility of the approach and prospect - and mechanics - of how a manifesto can open the door for coalition or collaboration in the subsequent parliamentary term. Of course we also cover the latest polling, the ongoing const...

We've always said that we're trying to get under the surface of Welsh politics and there are few guests we could find that that can truly say that they have been at the heart of events like Des Clifford, who has, in one form or another - from Head of News to Head of the First Minister's civil service team - been inside Welsh Government since 1997. Des joins us to discuss preparations for a new gov...

This week we're looking beyond the election. Whichever party leads the next government is going to face a spectrum of difficult decisions that will come as a shock after the 'hopey changey stuff' of the campaign. We're helped in our debate by two detailed reports examining the reality of government in Cardiff Bay: - The Wales Fiscal Analysis team at the Wales Governance Centre published 'Setting t...

As we close out a week of launches for manifestos, election pledges, and plans for the first 100 days of government, we check in and debate the Senedd campaign and pick the bones of the Gorton and Denton by-election and touch on the impact of global events and espionage revelations on domestic politics. #Senedd26 #Wales #cymru Your hosts: Prof Laura McAllister of the Wales Governance Centre at Car...

The Senedd has a turnout problem. Since 1999 no nationwide election has seen more that 50% of eligible voters cast their vote. Will 2026 be the year that all changes? With the leading contenders to lead the next government providing radically different visions of Wales's future, could partisanship or negative partisanship drive engagement. Will we see a surge of young voters or previous non-voters...

While Wales continue to struggle on the field of play, there have been high profile and repeated problems with the WRU's institutional governance that are playing a significant role in the malaise about what was once unquesionably the national sport of Wales. It is, of course, not just the WRU that is struggling. Parliamentary scrutiny in both union and national parliaments is troublingly weak muc...

With the Senedd election campaign beginning and parties choosing their lanes and their leaders, we answer some audience questions about what to expect next. This week we discuss how the Reform group will perform inside the Senedd - will they play an active role in the parliament or will they disrupt and challenge convention? Also we ask whether the First Minister Eluned Morgan is going to lose her...

Without using *any* Traitors metaphors, we discuss the beginnings of the Senedd 2026 campaign for all parties with 100 days to go until the election as some candidates begin to make headlines for all the wrong reasons. What is repulsing voters from some parties, bringing in support to others, and where are the current - and future - internal tensions in the party coalitions? We also take in the ra...

The UK Government's announcement that it will be scrapping the roles of directly-elected Police and Crime Commissioners has - perhaps inadvertantly - reopened the longstanding debate about devolution of policing and justice to Wales that would bring it into alignment with Scotland and N. Ireland. With PCC powers to be given to regional mayors in England, there is uncertainty about what will happen...

Following our interview with Dr Ed Poole, an expert in the finances of Welsh Government, Laura, Lauren, and Lee get stuck into the politics of how Welsh Government is funded and address questions like: Why are some tax powers working and others not? Why is the UK Govt not scrutinised on its spend in Wales? Could a Plaid Cymru First Minister squeeze more money out of the UK Treasury? And many more....

In the first of our Explainer Pods, we're taking on a big subject - money! Our first guest is Dr Ed Poole, who leads the Wales Fiscal Analysis team at the Wales Governance Centre and takes on the mighty challenge of explaining how - and why - Wales's finances are the way they are, where the problems are, and what could be done to fix them. On our next pod Laura, Lauren, and Lee will look at the ot...

We wrap up our series of Q & A pods with a question about why the UK can't be a 'normal' European country with rules and structures underpinning its different levels and territories of government. It's complicated! Also, we close with a discussion of the potential risks of Plaid Cymru being too closely aligned to the SNP as both parties appear set to lead respective national governments after May...

In our final Welsh Politics Q & A pod before Christmas, Lauren, Laura, and Lee tackle 'horribly male' politics in Wales, the fabled 'consensual politics' of Cardiff Bay, and, inspired by the conviction of former UKIP Senedd member Nathan Gill, express preferences of which countries would offer the best bribes... #Senedd26 #Wales #cymru Full Pod here: https://youtu.be/wnlWwGyye_o Your hosts: Prof L...

We continue our season of Welsh Politics Q & A pods with a debate about the merits of political parties parachuting candidates into constituencies, especially in short election campaigns as we infamously saw from Labour in Cardiff West (Alex Barros-Curtis) and Swansea West (Torsten Bell) in the 2024 UK election. We also discuss the absence of progress on developing north-south links inside Wales d...

We begin our season of Welsh Politics Q & A pods with a massive question from a listener - Is there any justification for not having a specific Covid Inquiry for Wales? Needless to say opinions and experiences differ here and we discuss the approaches governments took to the pandemic, media coverage, and relations between the different governments of the UK. #Senedd26 #Wales #cymru Your hosts: Pro...

It's time to focus on the two 'main' parties of of British poltiics, who between them struggled to reach 14% of the vote in the Caerphilly. What can they do, if anything, to arrest their decline in Wales and maximise their result in May? And where does the power lie to make those decisions - London or Cardiff? We also map out the scenarios that the Welsh Government can use to get its budget passed...

With two weeks of dust settling and bad takes crumbling under scrutiny following the dramatic by-election result in Caerphilly, we look at the consequences of the resounding victory for Plaid Cymru, a bitter defeat for an ambitious Reform UK campaign and catastrophic losses for Labour and the Conservatives. And as we start to turn our attentions to May 2026 we look at what the new numbers in the S...

Wales has two governments, a national one in Cardiff and a union one in London. How they work together is crucial to improving the economy and public services. However, since national devolution in 1999, the formal structures of working between governments have yet to be built and the former territorial offices still act as a conduits or blockers to progress, depending on your point of view. The r...

So we know that the voting system for the 2026 Welsh Parliament election is new, moving to a full proportional list system that is the same as the 'top up' lists used since 1999. But how are the parties choosing who can stand on these new regional lists, and in what order? And importantly, what type of person puts themself forward for the arcane and arduous process of candidacy in the first place?...

In this pod, we take a look at the package of reforms that mean the Welsh Parliament is expanded to 96 members in 2026 and has a significant - and universally unpopular - new voting system. No party seems to like it, academic researchers don't rate it, and electoral reform campaigners didn't want it. So how did we end up with a system like this?! #Senedd26 #Wales #cymru You can learn how the new v...

It's October 2025, there is an absolutely crucial Senedd by election on the horizon that Welsh Labour has to win to retain a governing majority and pass a budget. But there's an unprecedented election on the horizon using a new voting system and new constituencies. Welsh Labour is trailing in the polls to a buoyant Plaid Cymru and an insurgent Reform UK, its links to a struggling UK Labour Govt ar...