Welsh Labour’s Red Wall is crumbling

For a long time, Lord Mandelson’s famous quip that the people of south Wales ‘will always vote Labour because they have nowhere else to go’ rang true. The party dethroned the Liberals in 1922 to become Wales’s voice at Westminster and have won every general election since. In more recent times the onset of devolution presented a new opportunity for Labour to dominate in a new seat of power in Cardiff Bay. They have done just that: the party has been in government in Wales without serious challenge for over two decades.

The coronavirus crisis has been a relatively successful period for Welsh Labour too. First Minister Mark Drakeford has developed a substantial media profile over the last 12 months by putting Cardiff at odds with London on pandemic policy, taking a leading role in debates on the future of the Union, and establishing a cult status as a professorial-cheese-loving-allotment-tending grandfather to the nation.