Hooray! 2025 is to be an election-free year. That’s what’s promised for Wales anyway, although who knows in the current political climate? Nothing would surprise me at a time when the political terrain is as unstable as a drunk on an icy pavement.
In any case, the absence of elections doesn’t mean no politics. The early weeks of this new political year emphasise this.
On Monday, President-elect Donald Trump will be inaugurated as US President. This time round, an emboldened Trump will be brimful of macho bravado in matters domestic and international, especially after his lieutenants in the social media world have handed him back the freedom to vent in capitals with scant regard for facts or fairness. Greenland and Canada are already in his sights, it seems.
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In Trump’s words: “The people of Greenland would love to become a state of the United States of America. Now, Denmark maybe doesn’t like it. But then we can’t be too happy with Denmark and maybe things have to happen with respect to Denmark having to do with tariffs” or “Canada should be our 51st State”.
Meanwhile, Keir Starmer is just over six months into office after a peculiar landslide election victory which appears to have made him a less imperious Prime Minister rather than more so. Starmer is now discovering that a ridiculously over-cautious, safety-first election campaign whilst maxing out on the need for “change” – with little explanation of what change actually means – brings more than a few difficulties. Ultimately, playing an electoral system that is fundamentally broken is likely to come back to bite you on the posterior. In July, British voters were faced with the ridiculous first-past-the-post system offering slim pickings for choice of PM, while guaranteeing to translate unimpressive vote shares into whopping majorities. Fourteen years of Conservative governments, culminating in the past seven years of political omni-shambles, meant change was the most appealing prospect for the majority of voters. But there’s a critical difference between the narrative of change and its expression in politics, and the actual substance of policy change in practice.
We are about to find that out in Wales. The Senedd has returned with focus firmly on the Welsh Government’s draft budget published just before the Christmas break. The budget debates will expose matters of policy, economics and especially politics, given Labour has insufficient numbers to get the budget approved. And following the budget last autumn, this year is predicted to be one of the best of the cycle. If this budget is difficult for the Welsh Government to get through, how will they manage when things tighten up and spending cuts or tax rises loom again in 2025-26?
In scrutiny of the budget, the language of change again features prominently from every party represented in the Senedd, as well as those aiming to be there after May next year. There’s no doubt in my mind that those who best harness the rhetoric of change and give it some meaning will fare best in next year’s Senedd election. But, as UK Labour has already discovered, without substance to the notion of change, there are almost always backlashes.
That’s why Wales’ new(ish) First Minister’s proudly managerialist stance to her approach to governing seems strangely misplaced.
It’s a very big year for Eluned Morgan, indeed mainly because it might actually be her only full year in power. In truth, few envy the gig she’s got. Morgan made much of her listening tour around the nation last summer, but it’s not overly cynical to imagine that a) she heard nothing she didn’t already know, and b) anything she did hear contained little that was even moderately positive about Welsh Government performance. Using political speak, her two “takeaways” from this listening tour seem to be first, that she must be even more managerial than Starmer, focusing on smallish practical changes while utilising a more natural communication style than either of her two predecessors as FM were capable of. Second, the need to sell the as yet intangible benefits of two Labour governments in power in London and Cardiff. The problem with that is that the partnership of governments is not reciprocated, and Welsh Labour’s lack of independence and political clout is exposed every time the UK Prime Minister or the Secretary of State for Wales open their mouths.
And the HS2 funds announcement is almost certainly likely to underwhelm. UK Government Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander may have conceded that Wales has had “low levels of enhancement spending in recent years” but, whatever materialises, a £4bn cheque it will not be. No fair funding formula for Wales, micromanagement of Welsh Government budget spend, ignoring serious Welsh-based evidence and research on much-needed constitutional improvements for Wales in favour of lightweight partisan froth on the same subject – the promised dividends of a strong relationship between the two Labour governments hasn’t amounted to much thus far.
Politics is as much about systems and context as it is about personality. Not all of this comes down to who is FM, as the truth is that anyone would have faced an uphill task to preserve Welsh Labour’s remarkable historic hegemony. Long periods in power without a break breed a culture of entitlement and lack of internal challenge and critique. Plus, the heady cocktail of fatigue within incumbent governments and fatigue within electorates at the fatigued governing parties creates a trend for blame-based elections and a vacuum for the narrative of change. 2026 won’t buck this worldwide trend.
Ultimately, the next Senedd election won’t be about how competent or likeable Eluned Morgan is seen to be. She is too closely associated with a party that looks tired and increasingly fractious after a quarter of a century in charge. Longevity has its advantages, with an ability to show competence and experience vis a vis political opponents starved of governing experience. But the problem is the stats on key Welsh public services tell a different story and, in 2026, Welsh voters will have alternatives on both left and right.
If there was an appetite for self-refection, Welsh Labour should ask itself what success it can claim to try to buck the trend of political incumbents worldwide. It can’t simply rely on its famed election machine’s old muscle memory of “keeping the Tories out” or “bashing the nats”, when it could be that neither Conservatives nor Plaid Cymru are its main opponents.
Populism is the dominant global force right now. If you don’t believe that, take a look at any of the elections held during 2024, and there’s more to come this year in Canada, Germany, Norway, as well as a swathe of local elections east of the border.
Enter Reform UK. Some argue that the absence of a Welsh leadership or a clear, comprehensive policy platform will be a problem for Farage and co. But I suspect it’s the opposite – less could well be more here. It’s unlikely many choosing to vote for Reform will be doing so based on a specific policy platform, nor will they have strong opinions on the candidates placed on the new closed lists. What’s more, calling Reform “far-right” is both meaningless impact-wise and factually incorrect voting base-wise, especially regarding self-perception from most casting their vote for the party. Either way, Reform will be influential in the Senedd election campaign over the next 16 months, as well as the outcome and potentially who governs Wales.
However, the lack of citizen engagement with Senedd elections and the public’s limited interest in matters Cardiff Bay might help or hinder this. Next year’s election will likely see a superficial campaign conducted on an increasingly fractious and easily misappropriated social media. The arithmetic of vote shares and seats is limited, true. But, even so, Welsh Labour will need to pull a pretty big rabbit out of the hat if it is to lead another government after 2026.
As the Senedd expands to 96 members – making it fit for purpose in terms of structure and capacity at least – urgent impetus must be given to boosting the calibre of politicians. An injection of diversity is fundamental of course, but that is not a separate agenda as diversity must include cognitive differences too. That’s a posh way of saying we need fewer MSs rewarded for local hard work (however important that is) but with limited skills to either scrutinise or govern effectively. Fewer politicians tethered to their party lines and more who will get under the skin of politics and policy, asking the tough questions regardless from where the proposal emanated.
Former Deputy Transport Minister Lee Waters has decided to stand down next year. Like him or not, Lee is a serious thinker, a proper disruptor, especially now he’s back on the backbenches. In my book, it’s a damn shame that someone who’s been prepared to think independently and creatively, to publicly challenge and to ask the difficult questions, won’t be present in an enlarged Senedd after 2026.
To change the Senedd for the better, we need a few things to happen. First, the political parties must actively decide to capitalise on the free pass they’ve been handed with the dreadful Closed List PR system. They should use the management control baked in to this electoral system to select candidates who are independent, less identikit and more quirky, but always intelligent and free-thinking. In every party, for those who’ve had a very good innings it’s time to think about moving on to free space for fresh blood, a priority especially for those parties whose groups are unlikely to grow much in raw numbers.
Otherwise, there’s a danger is that the Senedd reform project will be undermined by an increase of another 36 politicians who think, look, sound and behave like the majority of those already there. I know parties are institutions and loyalty to the institution is always a part of that, but it is not loyalty that should be rewarded in this round of candidate selection.
Internally and externally, this requires political leadership and all we are being presented with is managerialism. In his recent blog, Lee Waters questioned “the perennial dilemma of the progressive left – what is the balance between leading and following public opinion?” Or to put it another way, what appetite is there for politics to be about change and radical economic and social shifts, or is it all now condensed into alluring but insignificant “visions” with little substance but a heavy emphasis on savvy comms? Fiddling while Rome burns is unforgiveable, especially given the structural problems that our nation faces. These merit serious questioning of the dominant economic and social models, not tinkering around the edges.
Last week, my dad and I watched the fabulous production of Hamilton at the Wales Millennium Centre. It got me thinking of George Washington’s role in setting the precedent for limiting presidential terms to two. Washington’s decision to resile from power and stand down after the wars of independence out of both public interest and trust in the democracy he’d helped create was famously described as “one of the highest moral lessons ever given to the world”.
With a Donald Trump presidency and Nigel Farage setting his sights on becoming a meaningful force in Wales en route to No. 10, morality is unlikely to feature highly in the new political climate. But we should listen very carefully to the reasons why they have won support. In essence, it’s the public’s dissatisfaction with politics as it currently is and a widespread impatience for change. But all parties seeking to oust Labour in Wales (as well as the incumbents themselves) need to add substance and meaning to the arguments for change. Otherwise, they risk playing further into the hands of populist rhetoric that is appealing but essentially misleading and dangerous.
* Laura McAllister is a sports-mad academic from Bridgend. She is Professor at Cardiff University’s Wales Governance Centre and former captain of Wales Women’s international football team.