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In early June this year Nigel Farage held a press conference in the South Wales steel town of Port Talbot. He announced Reform UK’s commitment to the re-industrialisation of Wales, including the re-opening of Port Talbot’s blast furnaces and a return to coal mining in the South Wales Valleys.

His controversial announcement was the opening shot in Reform UK’s campaign for the Welsh Senedd elections in May next year. Those elections could be a watershed moment for British politics. In a startling and far-reaching “perfect storm” of circumstances, Reform UK may become the largest party in Wales and could even, conceivably, end up forming the government.

Whatever the outcome, a substantial Reform presence in the Senedd would be a major step forward for a party which didn’t even exist just a few years ago. It could also be a significant indication of what could happen across the UK as we look ahead to the next general election in 2029.

Political journalist Will Hayward has been watching and reporting on Reform’s rise in Wales. Now he explores how Wales could become the setting for their biggest breakthrough yet.

Current polls show Reform neck-and-neck with the Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru and the Labour party currently in a distant third place. This is potentially a seismic shift in Welsh politics. Labour have dominated Wales not just in the last 26 years since devolution began, but for over a century. From the general election of 1922 onwards, Wales has always returned a majority of Labour MPs, making it the most successful democratic party in history. Yet this run of success could be about to come to a crashing halt.

To understand how next year’s elections might play out, Will speaks to politicians from across the spectrum in Wales, including current and former Welsh party leaders, and to Reform’s man in Wales, Llŷr Powell. Will explores Reform's ambitions and policies for Wales; he considers whether this is really a right-turn politically for a nation that’s famously left-leaning; and he asks what a Reform victory in the Senedd elections could mean for the rest of the UK.

Presenter: Will Hayward

Photo credit: Rob Norman

Is a radical political philosophy guiding the actions of the Trump administration?

Curtis Yarvin is suddenly all over American media. A computer engineer turned political blogger, he's known for writing long screeds that advocate for a radical reform of governance - dismissing America's democratic values and instead calling for the return of an absolute monarchy.

For years, these ideas were buried in the blogosphere, but they began to gain traction after Donald Trump was first elected to the White House. With Mr Trump back in the oval office, some observers think this once niche school of thought is what's inspiring some of the president's more controversial policies - from Elon Musk's DOGE to attacks on elite institutions like Harvard University to the widespread dismantling of DEI programmes.

How did Curtis Yarvin's ideas become so influential - and how important is he, really?

ARCHIVE:

Triggernometry podcast, The Case Against Democracy, Youtube, July 23 2023.

Presenter: Mike Wendling

When a parcel delivery goes awry, Polly Weston does what every angry person in 2025 does... she searches the internet for similarly angry people to bask in the shared experience of being annoyed. Naturally, she finds countless groups on social media devoted to people complaining. There are posts from people furious about the delivery which never turned up at the designated time; or the parcel strewn on a doorstep, or with a photo in a mysterious unknown location; or, most annoying of all, the message to say "sorry we missed you" when they were absolutely, undeniably, incontrovertibly in the house and poised by the door waiting for the parcel at the time... But hidden in amongst the social media fist waving, she notices surprising posts from another group of people - delivery drivers themselves. On these groups, the delivery drivers explain the reasons why customers have the experiences they do, and the reasons why things go wrong. A single phone call to one delivery driver who she tracks down is more enlightening than any AI customer service chatbot could hope to be, and it sparks weeks of recordings with many people who have worked across all the different courier companies over the past ten years.

As the proposed merger between EVRi and DHL hits the headlines, this is the story of the multi-drop parcel courier industry and its recent history, as told by the drivers.

In 2013, 1.7 billion parcels were processed annually in the UK, in 2023, it was 4 billion, and it's projected to climb to 5.6 billion by 2028. How does an industry deliver that kind of growth? What does it mean for the people doing the work? And how exactly do you deliver to 270 locations in a single shift?

Produced and presented by Polly Weston in Bristol

In the years since Brexit, British businesses have had to constantly adapt to ever changing rules and regulations about trading with the EU. The current government is making moves to make some of that process easier.

To find out more about the consequences of (almost) a decade of Brexit, we catch up with three very different businesses to find out if they've been thriving, surviving, or downsizing.

Presenter: Adam Fleming

Louise Lancaster - approaching 60 - received one of Britain's longest ever jail terms for peaceful protest, in July 2024.

She served part of her sentence in HMP Bronzefield, the UK's highest security women's prison, alongside some of Britain's most notorious killers.

Louise was one of five Just Stop Oil activists involved in bringing much of the M25 to a standstill in November 2022, and has taken part in several other high profile acts of direct action climate protest.

The judge, in sentencing Louise and a number of co-defendents, told them:

"Each of you has some time ago crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic.

"You have appointed yourselves as the sole arbiters of what should be done about climate change, bound neither by the principles of democracy nor the rule of law."

Journalist and producer Patrick Steel has been following Louise's story for several years, and has intimately recorded access to Louise, and her family and friends.

In this documentary, Patrick explores Louise's transition from law-abiding Middle England mum and special educational needs teacher, to law-breaking direct action eco-activist, and criminal.

Has Louise indeed 'crossed the line'? Are her actions a heroic self-sacrifice for the greater good of tackling climate change, or are they damaging and reckless fanaticism?

Presenter: Patrick Steel

The daily realities and private thoughts of a young woman living through war.

Every morning, Hanya Aljamal sees the same man from her balcony. “He has this tiny garden in the middle of all this concrete stuff,” she says. “Just across the road, there’s a blown-up building. Yet he’s cultivating these little herbs and plants. And I look at that and it just looks like the purest form of resistance.”

Hanya has been living in a war zone for 20 months. In daily audio diaries, she describes what she sees and hears from her balcony and in her work for an aid organisation, from drones and kites to funeral marches and sun rises. Her insights and reflections offer a window into life in a place devastated by conflict.

Producer/presenter: Simon Maybin

As the UK Treasury grapples with a massive financial ‘black hole’, its once impoverished neighbour, the Irish Republic, is grappling with the dilemma of how to spend a bounty of €14bn.

It’s a 'pot of gold' which the Irish government didn’t expect – and surprisingly didn't want - but was eventually forced to accept by a European Court ruling that the mighty US corporation, Apple, had underpaid taxes on its extensive Irish-based operations. Added to a mighty windfall from other companies, taking advantage of its low corporate tax policies, Ireland is now one of the richest countries in the European Union.

Dublin's River Liffey waterfront, once a depressed, neglected area, has been transformed into 'Silicon Docks’, a gleaming hub of high rise offices, housing American tech giants including Google, Meta, Airbnb and Docusign.

While other western economies haved struggled and stagnated Ireland has attracted new, dynamic American firms. It's estimated that 700 multinational tech and pharmaceutical companies have bases across Ireland, employing more than 150,000 people. Politically, the country may be tied to Europe but economically it straddles both sides of the Atlantic.

Despite these riches, Ireland has a severe housing crisis, a crumbling health system, weak transport and energy infrastructures and a myriad of other demands on the public purse. While the politicians argue over how the money should best be spent there are growing concerns that Donald Trump's arrival in The White House, could bring these lucrative tax benefits to an end.

For a country so dependent on global trade and the American multi-nationals in particular, it's a moment of serious economic jeopardy, as the BBC's Ireland correspondent, Chris Page, reports.

Presenter: Chris Page, BBC Ireland Correspondent

Permanent exclusions from schools in England have risen over the last decade. Neil Maggs explores why this might be happening - and what happens to the children who are excluded from the classroom. He visits a pupil referral unit where children are sent if they are excluded from a mainstream school; a school in the North East of England that excluded just one pupil last year to see what it's doing differently, and speaks to experts to see what factors lie behind school exclusions.

The beautiful Atlantic island of Madeira has a chronic problem with a cheap synthetic drug imported through the post.

The drug - nicknamed Bloom - is so easy to get hold of, so cheap and so addictive that authorities are struggling to cope.

Helen Clifton has spent time with police and frontline services to get an idea of how big a problem Bloom now is across Madeiran society. She comes face to face with addicts, and hears about the desperate social impact of a drug more addictive than heroin.

With authorities trying - but failing - to stop the supply, Bloom addicts are in full sight on the streets amongst locals and tourists.

So how can Madeira get a grip on its Bloom problem, before it grows out of control?

Presenter/Producer: Helen Clifton

On a cold night in January 2024 a dog walker finds a baby in a bag - a foundling. She's named Elsa, after the Frozen character.

Reporter Sanchia Berg begins to follow the case, gaining rare access to the Family Court and to the police investigation. DNA tests reveal Elsa is the sibling of two other babies found abandoned in the same area over recent years. What has happened to the mother?

Produced by Lucy Proctor