Patiently awaiting your take and your take only on the election.
Haha, I don't have much yet, but:
I mean I know things are much bleaker in Scotland and particularly in poor England and there are certainly caveats to what I'm about to say but lads I personally am fucking delighted
Plaid Cymru have literally never in history done anything close to this well. And this is a big fucking deal, because they were one of the only two parties remaining in Welsh politics that are left of centre, so even if you take the Wales-specific aspect away, this is a staggering development
That is an absolute wipe out for Labour. The Tories had barely clawed in their seats in recent years anyway, not surprised they've lost them, but you cannot imagine the stranglehold Labour has had since Thatcher decided to girlboss our economy into oblivion. This is huge fucking news. All the more so because the First Minister lost her seat, and so is having to resign as party leader, even! I found her outgoing speech to be interesting. She's very party loyal, and she refused to answer any questions about Keir Starmer, but she did say she hopes the national party will correct course; which, from Eluned Morgan, is damning.
Reform, meanwhile, were doing better than this in the polls. Most polls suggested they'd either come out on top or be close to the top, but in the end only Clywd hit the projected numbers; people wanted Reform out, and they united behind Plain to do it, by and large. I was concerned about Greens splitting the vote, but it was actually not too bad in the end.
So, now, Plaid need to enter a coalition. This'll be the first test. They only need 6 extra seats to form a majority, so the logical choice is Labour, since they still have 9, but the historical relationship between Plaid and Labour is, um, Quite Bad, so lol we'll see. I suspect they'll have to, though
All of which means, we have a Plaid-led coalition Senedd, with Reform in opposition. That worries me a bit, because in spite of prevailing opinion, the opposition is actually a vitally important role in politics. I think Keir Starmer is fucking awful, and an absolutely dreadful Prime Minister, but he actually shone in opposition because he's a details -oriented former lawyer who knows how to Cross examine, and that's the opposition leader's job.
Meanwhile, in Wales, for ages that was Notable Clown Andrew RT Davies, former leader of the Welsh Tories. The death of Welsh democracy is on his fucking idiot head. He has been incompetently failing to hold Labour accountable for years. Like... I like Mark Drakeford! I do! I absolutely do not see eye to eye with him on many things, but I think he means well and he was a competent politician who knew how to get the bins collected!
I also think there were many things he needed to be challenged on. Take the NHS, for example. It's on its fucking knees in Wales, and yes, absolutely, that's true across the UK thanks to underspending and understaffing. It's also true that Wales' budget is terrible, but that's true of the Scottish NHS, too. So; why is it that the Welsh NHS is doing so much worse than the others? Even accounting for all those factors, something is different here, and we need to know what.
It's the opposition's job to ask that. Andrew RT Davies tried. But he's such a fucking idiot that rather than asking that normally, he decided to do that stupid Westminster thing of attempting a zinger and trying to say that Labour is shit. He described the Welsh NHS as being "like a third world country". He did so in 2022, at the height of Partygate and the COVID enquiry, when we were still clapping NHS workers.
Drakeford's response has gone down in history, because I cannot stress enough that this kind of chest-thumping slanging match is not actually normal in the Senedd. If you see that video, look at Drakeford's hands. Look how he's so angry that they're vibrating. He was such a mild-mannered man normally. But Davies fucked it so badly that this was the response. Drakeford atomised him. He might as well have just gone "How fucking dare some worthless stray dog bark at me." The speaker had to halt proceedings and calm everyone down; again, normal in Westminster, but very much not in the Senedd, as was the subject of academic study as far back as 2009, a mere 10 years after its creation
And the problem is, every single Reform representative here is a fucking joke. I do not for a second believe they'll be any better than Andrew RT Davies, a guy who once compared the American January 6th riots to people who voted Remain in Brexit, lied to the press that innocent white children were being forced to eat halal food in school, and then made repeated populist lying statements that broke Senedd Code of Conduct until his own party got so sick of him that they held an open vote right to his face to force him to resign. We will not even get THAT standard.
But, on the bright side, Reform IS a joke, and so far nationwide we've seen repeatedly that people lose enthusiasm for them very quickly once they realise what it's like to be ruled by a circus juggler that doesn't know where the balls are kept and keeps trying to fuck a lion. So, if that holds true, it's good for them to get it out of their system now, before the next GE
Anyway sorry this is rambling
