There are few people that have been at the centre of Welsh national politics for as long as Mark Drakeford. As a councillor, special advisor, Assembly Member, Cabinet Secretary, Minister, and First Minister - as well as leader of Welsh Labour - his experience is unrivalled.

In this session recorded at Labour Party conference Mark is interviewed by friend of the pod Jess Blair (of the Electoral Reform Society) about his thoughts on Welsh democracy past, present, and future, the key debates around redesigning the electoral system for the Senedd in 2026 and beyond and some of the big challenges he faced bringing the legislation through both our national parliament and the Labour Party itself.

Mark also takes questions from the floor about widening representation in the Senedd, republicanism, House of Lords reform, and expanding the franchise.

You can follow our speakers here:

- Mark Drakeford MS: https://x.com/MarkDrakeford

- Jess Blair: https://x.com/JessBlair7

- ERS Cymru: https://x.com/ERScymru

As always, you can find the latest from us on the socials @hiraethpod, including BlueSky here: https://bsky.app/profile/hiraethpod.bsky.social

We hope you find this podcast interesting and useful. Please do send feedback, it's always great to hear what our audience thinks.

Thank you for listening to the podcast. If you have enjoyed it, please leave us a nice rating or comment on your podcast app or on YouTube and, if you are able to do so, please consider supporting our work from just £3/month on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/hiraethpod

We're closing out the year with a few pods that we couldn't quite find a way to squeeze in the feed earlier in the year, including this one which is an interview with Dr Rowan Williams and Prof Laura McAllister who co-chaired the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales.

Recorded in October 2024 at Cardiff Business School and chaired by Sarah Lethbridge of the Executive Education team, the pod invites both Laura and Rowan to reflect on the work that they did on the commission, the progress on the recommendations they made in their final report, and to answer questions from an in-person and virtual audience about their work.

They also address the new context of recently-formed Labour Governments in Wales and the UK (a long way from the Mark Drakeford- and Liz Truss-led governments when the commission was announced!) and answer questions in relation to local government and the new Senedd electoral system.

You can read the Commission's Final Report here: https://www.gov.wales/independent-commission-on-the-constitutional-future-of-wales-final-report

Find out more about Rowan here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowan_Williams

Find Laura here on X: https://x.com/LauraMcAllister

And Sarah here: https://x.com/sarahlethbridge

with the Cardiff Business Executive Education team here: https://x.com/CbsExec

As always, you can find the latest from us on the socials @hiraethpod, including BlueSky here: https://bsky.app/profile/hiraethpod.bsky.social

We hope you find this podcast interesting and useful. Please do send feedback, it's always great to hear what our audience thinks.

Thank you for listening to the podcast. If you have enjoyed it, please leave us a nice rating or comment on your podcast app or on YouTube and, if you are able to do so, please consider supporting our work from just £3/month on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/hiraethpod

We've touched on the subject of religion in politics before but we thought we would round out 2024 specifically looking at the role of Christianity in Welsh politics. In some ways it could be argued that Welsh politics only really exists thanks to Welsh nonconformist campaigning that led to the first Wales-only legislation since the 1500s with the Sunday Closing (Wales) Act 1881, followed by the disestablishment of the Church of England in 1920.

In much more recent times we have the famous referendums on keeping Sundays wet/dry, we have the national and union parliament votes on assisted dying, and we have perpetual questions about how free political representatives and leaders should and can be to carry their faith into their political lives.

To discuss, we are joined by:- Hannah Rich, Director of Christians on the Left and Senior Researcher at the Theos Think Tank: https://bsky.app/profile/hannahmerich.bsky.social- Ben Phillips, a researcher in music, religion and culture at the University at Durham: https://bsky.app/profile/liturgicalben.bsky.social

The pod also features a special sign off from our own Matthew Hexter! Nadolig Llawen i chi gyd - Merry Christmas to all!

As always, you can find the latest from us on the socials @hiraethpod, including BlueSky here: https://bsky.app/profile/hiraethpod.bsky.social

We hope you find this podcast interesting and useful. Please do send feedback, it's always great to hear what our audience thinks.

Thank you for listening to the podcast. If you have enjoyed it, please leave us a nice rating or comment on your podcast app or on YouTube and, if you are able to do so, please consider supporting our work from just £3/month on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/hiraethpod

In recent years transport - and especially rail infrastructure - has been among the most hotly debated policy fields in Welsh politics. Following the disastrous franchise awarded to Arriva Trains Wales, the creation and subsequent nationalisation of the rail operator under Transport for Wales, longstanding under-investment in the network, and the infamous decision to decline full devolution of rail in the 2000s - one that has seen Wales miss out on hundreds of millions, if not billions of pounds from the UK Treasury in the years since - we are finally seeing some of the Welsh Government's investment paying off.

So we're delighted to be joined by Professor Mark Barry to discuss his own contribution as the instigator and campaigner for the South Wales Metro and core valley lines electrification, as well as his recent book on the matter. We also discuss the 'missing billions' from the HS2 project, the ongoing injustice of the UK Government's refusal to devolve rail in Wales as it is in Scotland, the debate around building Cardiff Parkway station, and the Welsh Government's plans for reforming bus services in Wales.

You can find Mark on BlueSky here: https://bsky.app/profile/swalesmetroprof.bsky.social

And Mark's book is available here: https://cardiffmetro.wales/book-navigation/

As always, you can find the latest from us on the socials @hiraethpod, including BlueSky here: https://bsky.app/profile/hiraethpod.bsky.social

We hope you find this podcast interesting and useful. Please do send feedback, it's always great to hear what our audience thinks.

Thank you for listening to the podcast. If you have enjoyed it, please leave us a nice rating or comment on your podcast app or on YouTube and, if you are able to do so, please consider supporting our work from just £3/month on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/hiraethpod

Although most Welsh eyes will only have been focussing on one result from Ireland over the last week - that of the Welsh Women's football side defeating Ireland in the play off for a place in the 2024 European Championships - there was a big result in the general election too!

To discuss the results, campaigns, and political significance of the 2024 Irish election, we are joined by independent researcher and author Lila Haines and researcher at the Wales Governance Centre, Dr Alexander Fitzpatrick.

You can find Lila here: https://x.com/LilaEilis

And buy her excellent book on the political parties of Ireland here: https://welsh-academic-press.shopfactory.com/contents/en-uk/p128_Political-Parties-of-Ireland.html

You can also find Alexander here: https://x.com/AlexanderFitz_

As always, you can find the latest from us @hiraethpod on most social media, including Twitter/X here: https://twitter.com/HiraethPod and BlueSky here: https://bsky.app/profile/hiraethpod.bsky.social

As always, you can find the latest from us on the socials @hiraethpod, including BlueSky here: https://bsky.app/profile/hiraethpod.bsky.social

We hope you find this podcast interesting and useful. Please do send feedback, it's always great to hear what our audience thinks.

Thank you for listening to the podcast. If you have enjoyed it, please leave us a nice rating or comment on your podcast app or on YouTube and, if you are able to do so, please consider supporting our work from just £3/month on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/hiraethpod

In the devolution era, Wales has invested (or has had to invest) at a national and local level in new and better approaches to community development. Designed to ensure that communities are able to express their own interests in projects, campaigns, and democratic institutions, these initiatives are sometimes backed by institutions, or grow out of ground-up community activism.

Community Development takes many varied forms and with the years of applied experience in Wales in this field, we have literally written the textbook on the subject - Community Development, Social Action and Social Planning: A Practical Guide, by Alan TwelveTrees and Russell Todd. And we're delighted to have tempted Russ away from the microphone at Podcast Pêl-Droed to speak with us about his experience in this field, along with Jan Huyton, programme director of MA Education at Cardiff Metropolitan University.

You can find the book here: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/community-development-social-action-and-social-planning-6e

More about Russ here: https://russelltodd.cymru

And Jan here: https://x.com/MinnieKeats

As always, you can find the latest from us on the socials @hiraethpod, including BlueSky here: https://bsky.app/profile/hiraethpod.bsky.social

We hope you find this podcast interesting and useful. Please do send feedback, it's always great to hear what our audience thinks.

Thank you for listening to the podcast. If you have enjoyed it, please leave us a nice rating or comment on your podcast app or on YouTube and, if you are able to do so, please consider supporting our work from just £3/month on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/hiraethpod

It's one of - if not the - most widely recognised histories of Wales. Irrespective of language, religion, or region, almost every child in Wales will have learnt about the infamous Welsh Not. How could a simple board on string, of which few actual examples persist, continue to be a touchstone subject for so many in modern Wales?

Friend of the pod, and Professor at Swansea University, Martin Johnes has just published the definitive analysis of this disputed object. More than just cultural or educational history, the story is one dipped in politics and wrapped in religion and challenges common ideas of who the protagonists and the antagonists were in the ongoing story of keeping yr hen iaith alive.

We're delighted to be joined by Martin to discuss the Welsh Not, and you can find out more from him here: https://x.com/martinjohnes

The book is available to buy here: https://www.uwp.co.uk/book/welsh-not/

Or read for free in PDF form here: https://www.uwp.co.uk/app/uploads/9781837721818_WEB.pdf

As always, you can find the latest from us on the socials @hiraethpod, including BlueSky here: https://bsky.app/profile/hiraethpod.bsky.social

We hope you find this podcast interesting and useful. Please do send feedback, it's always great to hear what our audience thinks.

Thank you for listening to the podcast. If you have enjoyed it, please leave us a nice rating or comment on your podcast app or on YouTube and, if you are able to do so, please consider supporting our work from just £3/month on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/hiraethpod

As we come to the end of 2024, we thought it would be a great idea to catch up with friend of the pod and leading independent journalist in Wales, Will Hayward.

We catch up with Will about his own latest developments in terms of addressing an under-served Welsh news space, his outlook on the public and political mood across the country and take a look at the state of the political parties as attention inevitably turns to the Senedd 2026 election.

You can find Will pretty much everywhere on social media but try starting with the below:

Will Hayward Newsletter: https://substack.com/@willhayward

For Wales, See Wales Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/36K7BSmczcZywwqmGT8ALq

Will's website: https://willhayward.co.uk/

As always, you can find the latest from us here: https://x.com/HiraethPod

We hope you find this podcast interesting and useful. Please do send feedback, it's always great to hear what our audience thinks.

Thank you for listening to the podcast. If you have enjoyed it, please leave us a nice rating or comment on your podcast app or on YouTube and, if you are able to do so, please consider supporting our work from just £3/month on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/hiraethpod

One of the less well known but perhaps more significant outcomes of the Welsh Labour - Plaid Cymru Cooperation Agreement following the 2021 national election in Wales, was a commitment to "Commission independent advice to examine potential pathways to net zero by 2035...".

Shortly afterwards an expert group was assembled with former Pontypridd Senedd member Jane Davidson chairing, the Wales Centre for Public Policy (WCPP) providing the research supported by a secretariat from Welsh Government.

Three years later, the work has been completed and the 'pathway' reports received by Deputy FM Huw Irranca-Davies. So, what next? What will happen with the reports and what were the key recommendations made?

To discuss, we are joined by Jane Davidson and Dr Jack Price of the WCPP.

To find out more about Net Zero 2035, head to:

Net Zero 2035 Wales Challenge Group: https://netzero2035.wales/

and the Wales Centre for Public Policy: https://wcpp.org.uk/publications/?select-programme-type%5B%5D=economy-decarbonisation-and-skills

As always, you can find the latest from us here: https://x.com/HiraethPod

We hope you find this podcast interesting and useful. Please do send feedback, it's always great to hear what our audience thinks.

Thank you for listening to the podcast. If you have enjoyed it, please leave us a nice rating or comment on your podcast app or on YouTube and, if you are able to do so, please consider supporting our work from just £3/month on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/hiraethpod

Many of our listeners will share our interest, concern, and confusion about the state of politics in the USA. After the extraordinary times of the pandemic, chaos, and ultimately violence of 2020 Presidential campaign, many hoped for a return to 'normality' if not 'stability' in 2024.

However, it was not to be. We arrive in early November with one of the most extraordinary campaigns coming to an end. The return of Donald Trump as a likely winner, one of the most consequential TV debates in history, the Democratic candidate dropping out mid-race, assassination attempts, hurricanes, the return of Hulk Hogan... the list goes on.

So what to make of it all? Thankfully we have some excellence expertise in the field of American politics here in Wales and our two guests - Dr Joseph Phillips of the Wales Governance Centre, Cardiff University, and Black Hawk Hancock for DePaul University in Chicago - help us to understand the political trends and polarisation beneath the headlines.

Our guests:

Dr Joseph Phillips: https://x.com/polpsychjoe

Black Hawk Hancock: https://blackhawkhancock.com/

As always, you can find the latest from us here: https://x.com/HiraethPod

We hope you find this podcast interesting and useful. Please do send feedback, it's always great to hear what our audience thinks.

Thank you for listening to the podcast. If you have enjoyed it, please leave us a nice rating or comment on your podcast app or on YouTube and, if you are able to do so, please consider supporting our work from just £3/month on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/hiraethpod