King of Fortress Wales: an interview with Mark Drakeford

Mark Drakeford sits opposite me in a small conference room on the third floor of Cathays Park, the nucleus of Welsh government operations during Covid-19. The First Minister of Wales is in bullish mood. Last month, he almost single-handedly delivered a thumping election victory for Labour in Wales – securing 30 seats in the Senedd and extending Labour’s 22-year-grip over the devolved parliament. The party in Wales enjoys starkly different electoral fortunes to its comrades across the border, with Drakeford now Labour’s only leader with experience winning national elections across the UK.

I meet him a few hours after the first devolved Covid summit, where he and other devolved leaders spoke with the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and Michael Gove. The First Minister tells me he circulated his government’s 2019 constitutional paper to attendees beforehand, which has a 20-point plan for transforming the relationship between the four nations. ‘I went on to say that I want the United Kingdom to succeed’, he says.