Gwlad Beirdd a Chantorion, Enwogion o Fri
When Mark Drakeford won the 2018 Labour leadership election, it was clear that his aim was to drive Welsh Labour closer to Labour's superstar, Jeremy Corbyn. While this enabled him to pick up some seats to get Welsh Labour back to a majority in 2021 as Theresa May's Brexit proved harmful to Britain as a whole, it would prove his doom
Under Adam Price, Plaid Cymru drove itself on a much more passionate, much more
radical line. With Price's working-class background as the son of a coal miner, he fought to continue Wood's aim at "cracking" the Welsh Valleys - the bastion of Welsh Labour. But in 2021, he only managed to win 14 seats. A clear improvement, but still disappointment. But he did drive Plaid to second place benefiting off the woes of the Tories
When Corbyn won a majority in 2022, Mark Drakeford unhesistantly declared that Welsh Labour was "behind our Prime Minister 100%". And at first, this seemed like it was a wise decision, after all Wales voted for Corbyn's Labour by a strong margin. But as the Brexit recession continued to dog Britain and Corbyn became more and more unpopular, the Tories under Tom Tugendhat gained a lead that would hold. Meanwhile in Wales, Mark Drakeford's pledge would bite him hard as it was used extensively in Plaid campaign literature to portray Welsh Labour as merely "Corbyn's puppet"
When the Northern Ireland situation worsened with years and years of no responsible government, Corbyn entered in negotiation with Leo Varadkar that ended up with Varadkar laughing Corbyn out of the room and leaks suggested that Corbyn would approve a border poll. This angered unionists in Northern Ireland and while Britain as a whole didn't care about NI, the "patriotic working class" demographic did. And they were appealed to by the military man Tom Tugendhat who pledged to "fight for Britain, non stop". And in Wales, well, it helped the Tories, but mainly by embarrassing Labour
Much more persistent, was the rumours that in exchange for the SNP voting for several of his more... controversial bills, that he would approve a change in the funding formula to give more money to Scotland. Mark Drakeford's warning to Corbyn to "not forget Wales" came across as desperate, while many increasingly felt like Labour did not stand for Wales any longer. And who would? Well, there was this loud, passionate socialist leading a Party of Wales that certainly would. And so in the few polls that people bothered to do for the Assembly, Labour went down, Plaid went up
But Wales has voted Labour for a century! There was to be a steep hill if Adam Price or David Melding was to shatter it. The Welsh Tories' new leader was their most prominent "intellectual", the ideas man for many Welsh Tory policies. And he hammered home that even though Tugendhat and the national Tories were popular, that the Welsh Tories would do Welsh Tory policies, not national Tory policies. Some in his party fretted that this would fritter away a possible victory by disassociating Welsh Tories with national Tories. But Melding held firm
The last poll before the impact had Labour on 28%, Plaid on 25% and Tories on 23%. Not bright for Drakeford, but still with a lead. But then... it happened. The British economy, always stagnant due to Brexit, crashed once more. Corbyn turned to McDonnell, and McDonnell responded rather unorthodoxly. The Labour Party signed off on a new budget that sought to, while still punishing the banks, reduce the deficit even more and pay off the national debt. The backlash was considerable. The Pirate Party surged to 2% of the vote as the "more left than McDonnell" vote grew. As Corbyn spoke to the left, people saw McDonnell as holding the purse strings and firmly looking at balancing the budget, and they didn't like what they saw
Mark Drakeford was caught in a bind. With national Labour suddenly embracing "fiscal responsibility" rhetoric, his firm view that Welsh Labour would do what national Labour would do persisted and he put forward a budget that would focus on ensuring that the deficit would be reduced. This led to protests from his side as more "independent"-minded people like Vaughan Gething condemned the move, arguing that instead Welsh Labour should focus on improving social services instead of the deficit. The man elected as the most radical leader has became the most conservative
And then the elections came. Drakeford, aware of his budget's unpopularity, argued that it was only temporarily and that spending on social services would increase shortly, that it was mainly Plaid and Tory spin that made it look as bad as it was. With Adam Price's energetic campaign and Plaid gaining with disillusioned radical-left voters, Mark's shift to try to persuade them to come back made him seem weak and alienated moderate voters to David Melding and the Tories' soft-spoken campaign that pledged for "sensible policies for a safe Wales"
In the end a very high turnout of Welsh voters went to the polls and...
History was made
Welsh Labour, by being too radical for the moderates and too moderate for the radicals, imploded. Valleys seat after Valleys seat turned green. Or in some cases, blue. The Lib Dems under Joe Carter gained and won three more seats, while thanks to a high regional vote in South Wales Central, David Elston won a seat for the Pirates. David Melding drove the Tories to their highest amount of seats yet, cementing his "Welsh Conservatism" as the leading principle of the party. Humiliating for Welsh Labour, Mark Drakeford lost his own Cardiff West seat to a Plaid challenger
And the man of the hour, Adam Price, emerged victorious. Sending Plaid to its highest percentage yet and managing to win a dizzying million voters for his radical firebrand nationalism, the future of Wales was his