Jawad Iqbal Jawad Iqbal

Welsh politics is in a terrible state

Outgoing First Minister of Wales Mark Drakeford (Credit: Getty Images)

The contest to be the next leader of the Welsh Labour Party, and more importantly First Minister of Wales, has been something of a snooze fest. The race kicked off in December, when Mark Drakeford, first minister since 2018, announced that he was stepping down. There are two candidates – Vaughan Gething and Jeremy Miles – vying to succeed him. Voting, which began last month, has now closed, with the result due tomorrow. Only Labour members and those who belong to an affiliated organisation, such as a trade union, are allowed to choose, with an estimated 100,000 people allowed to vote. Everyone else, in a country of three million people, doesn’t get a say. Is it any wonder there is such widespread public indifference?

Devolution in Wales has led to indefinite one-party rule

It has been a soporific race of mind-numbing dullness because there is very little of real substance dividing the two contenders.

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Written by
Jawad Iqbal

Jawad Iqbal is a broadcaster and ex-television news executive. Jawad is a former Visiting Senior Fellow in the Institute of Global Affairs at the LSE

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