Hiraeth - Welsh Politics

The 'England and Wales' justice system has already been in the news for all the wrong reasons in 2024. Many years of underfunding and uneven and unsuccessful policy have left it creaking. Against a backdrop of underfunding, crumbling court estate, and widening legal deserts, the new UK Government's first major act in the sector has been to engage in widespread early release in prisons to manage capacity. It is a sector on the brink of crisis.

Of course here at the Hiraeth Pod we call it the 'Wales and England' justice system and in the latest of our pods examining the reality in Wales, we're delighted to be joined by The Law Society to discuss their latest report 'From Caernarfon to Caerdydd: Re-imagining Justice in Wales 2030' that takes a Wales-centric view of these issues.

We discuss the fundamental issues here, ongoing debates about devolution to bring Wales into line with Scotland and Northern Ireland, the total absence of separate data for Wales's justice sector, the legal aid crisis, and the barriers to entering the profession for poorer students.

You can find a copy of the report on the Law Society's website: https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/about-us/law-society-wales/reimagining-justice-2030The Law Society Wales: https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/about-us/law-society-wales/And on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-law-society-wales-cymdeithas-y-cyfreithwyr/

Previous podcasts about the justice system in Wales:The Welsh Criminal Justice System, on the Jagged Edge: https://youtu.be/wNBjmkh8NFEJustice and Youth Justice for Wales: https://youtu.be/RyLbtSjclcM

As always, you can find the latest from us @hiraethpod on most social media, including Twitter/X here: twitter.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: www.patreon.com/hiraethpod

We kick off September in the same way that political parties and campaigners all across Wales are doing, with eyes on the new proposals for Senedd 'super constituencies' that will be contested in the 2026 Welsh general election.

The Democracy and Boundary Commission Cymru's remit from the Senedd has been to find a robust way to pair off our 32 UK Parliament constituencies and create 16 'super constituencies', from which six Senedd Members will be elected on a PR list system, similar to our current regional list system.

But this is not an easy task, and the timeline is extremely tight for this kind of work. So we're delighted to be joined by BDCC CEO Shereen Williams to introduce the proposals and discuss the details of the project.

- Find the proposals here: https://www.dbcc.gov.wales/

- Follow the DBCC on socials: https://linktr.ee/democracycymru

- And Shereen is here: https://x.com/ShereenWilliams

As always, you can find the latest from us @hiraethpod on most social media, including Twitter/X here: twitter.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: www.patreon.com/hiraethpod

It will have escaped nobody's notice that the UK Government is 'under new management' and has indeed changed, following the UK General Election in July.

One of the most Wales-facing roles is, of course, the Secretary of State for Wales. A role whose value has been questioned in recent times and was certainly used by the former administration to provide a vector for attack on the Welsh Government and the Welsh Labour Party. However, now that it is a Labour-led government in Westminster, it means that for the first time since 2010 the role is held by a politician looking for partnership with party colleagues in government in Cardiff. So it is time for a reset.

Leading that reset and fronting much of the UK Government's operations in Wales is Cardiff East MP Jo Stevens and in this interview we discuss many of the pressing issues in Wales. We discuss the economic situation, the looming impact of the changes planned by Tata Steel for its Port Talbot plant, the return of structural funds to Welsh Government, and the ongoing intra- and extra- party debates about the future of devolution.

You can find out more about Jo's work as Secretary of State here: https://x.com/WalesOffice

And as Cardiff East MP here: https://x.com/JoStevensLabour

As always, you can find the latest from us @hiraethpod on most social media, including Twitter/X here: twitter.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: www.patreon.com/hiraethpod

We are one month (or in Welsh units, two First Ministers) on from the 2024 General Election, and finishing our mini-series of analyses into the results in each of the constituent nations of the United Kingdom with a look to the North to try and understand more about the people and priorities of Scotland.

For well over a decade the central debate has revolved around the country's constitution future inside or outside both the British and European Unions. However, the emergence of a successful UK Labour Party in England has been mirrored by a resurgence of the Scottish Party, while myriad forced and unforced errors have weakened the once all-powerful SNP.

So how did Labour make such a comeback, where next for the SNP, how will the Scottish Tories build on their remaining support, and what future the Greens, Lib Dems, and Reform? And at the heart of it, what are the Scottish people looking for in their national and union leadership? To discuss we are joined by Dr Fraser McMillan of Edinburgh University and the Scottish Election Study.

You can find out more from Fraser here: https://x.com/frasmcm

As always, you can find the latest from us @hiraethpod on most social media, including Twitter/X here: twitter.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: www.patreon.com/hiraethpod

In the aftermath of the 2024 General Election, we are taking deep dives into the results in each of the constituent nations of the United Kingdom to try and understand more about the peoples and priorities of each part of the union.

England, of course, barely featured in the campaigns, the manifestos, or indeed in the statements and portfolios from its new government. With Britain and England being largely synonymous for many political parties and campaigners, its presence is mostly implied with or inferred from euphemisms such as 'the country' even when specific policies being discussed are decided by the Westminster Parliament for England alone. The only real mention came thanks to a successful run to the Euro 2024 Final (Rishi Sunak take note!).

So to take a look at the way England voted, how its new government plans to respond to its challenges, and to discuss the patchwork of regional devolution that now defines England differently to the other home nations is John Denham, Professorial Fellow on English Identity and Politics at Southampton University, Director of the English Labour Network, and former Minister in the last Labour UK Government.

- John can be found here: https://twitter.com/JYDenham

- The Centre for English Identity and Politics: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/research/institutes-centres/centre-for-english-identity-politics

- His blog is here: https://www.theoptimisticpatriot.co.uk/

As always, you can find the latest from us @hiraethpod on most social media, including Twitter/X here: twitter.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: www.patreon.com/hiraethpod

Following the 2024 UK General Election, many Labour MPs are grappling for the first time with the challenge of becoming a government minister. Of the 111 appointments made by the new Prime Minister, only 18 have held ministerial roles before and only 4 are returning to the roles they previously held.

Of course our own national government in Wales is currently poised to begin its third (and hopefully final) iteration of 2024 as the "Labour’s first female head of state in the UK” will reshuffle the government once she is confirmed as new First Minister. With some new members of the government such as Sarah Murphy and Jack Sargeant barely months into their roles, they too will be trying to learn quickly.

So what does it take to become a good minister, whether at national or union level? Well, thankfully Prof Leighton Andrews has just written a book on this very subject and we are delighted to be joined by him to discuss not only this subject but also the recent events in Cardiff Bay that ultimately led to the resignation of former First Minister Vaughan Gething.

We recorded this in the period overlapping the embattled end to Mr Gething’s tenure and ahead of the commencement of Eluned Morgan’s so Leighton has kindly recorded an updated final segment to reflect this.

Leighton can be found here: https://x.com/LeightonAndrews

Leighton’s Substack is here: https://t.co/AplBOByve3

And his book can be found here: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-50008-4

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: www.patreon.com/hiraethpod

The UK General Election results across Great Britain have been pored over by almost every media outlet on this island. However, there has been an air of the inevitable that the results for Northern Ireland have been largely ignored despite its recent cohorts of MPs having played a crucial role in the twists and turns of the UK's seperation from the European Union since 2016.

Due to the enormous majority of the new UK Labour Parliamentary Group, the 18 seats from the 'nation' / 'province' / 'region' (delete as preferred) of the UK across the water, were never likely to be pivotal for the government of Britain. But for the people, parties, and governeance of Northern Ireland, these small number of individuals could be very influential.

So here at the Hiraeth Pod, we take a deep look at the results and what we have learned from them. To guide us, we are joined by two great friends of the pod, who last joined us to discuss their book "A Troubled Constitutional Future: Northern Ireland After Brexit".

Mary C Murphy in a Professor of Politics, formerly based at University College Cork and mid-transfer across the Atlantic to become Director of the Irish Institute at Boston College - https://x.com/MaryCMurphy

Dr Jonathan Evershed completed his PhD Queens University Belfast and has since moved to Wales to become a policy and research advisor to the Plaid Cymru Senedd Group - https://x.com/jevershed01

Mary & Jonathan's book is available here: https://www.agendapub.com/page/detail/a-troubled-constitutional-future/?k=9781788214117

And our podcast about it is here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/15G4Zp0ihshXS5SNUCjC9g?si=FrXcmCHVRMmjaNopChrByA

As always, you can find the latest from us @hiraethpod on most social media, including Twitter/X here: twitter.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: www.patreon.com/hiraethpod

Another momentous day in Welsh politics, and another bonus pod from us.

After much speculation and division, Vaughan Gething has announced his intention to resign as First Minister and Welsh Labour Leader. Dogged by issues surrounding campaign donations, and the sacking of Hannah Blythyn from government, Vaughan has found the one way, and often brutal direction of political gravity too much as he has finally succumb to pressure from the Labour Senedd group to resign, following the resignation of four of his most senior cabinet colleagues this morning.

So in this bonus pod, Hiraeth's own Matt Hexter talks us through the events that led us to this day, as well as details of the cabinet resignations that led to Vaughan's announcement this morning. He also focuses on the process to become the next leader for Welsh Labour as well as who is in the discussion for Wales's top job.

The Welsh Government written statements about the now infamous iMessage group can be found here: https://www.gov.wales/written-statement-statement-first-minister-1

You can find out more from Matt here: https://twitter.com/hexter101

As always, you can find the latest from us @hiraethpod on most social media, including Twitter/X here: twitter.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: www.patreon.com/hiraethpod

2024 was a truly catastrophic election campaign in Wales for the Conservative (& Unionist) Party, where it lost all its MPs for the Westminster Parliament. To happen once would be a short term blip for the party, for it to happen three times inside 25 years is a sign of far deeper issues.

Thankfully the historian and author Dr Sam Blaxland has recently published the most significant work on the history of the party in Wales (link below) and joins us on this pod to discuss the complicated relationship the party has had with Wales since the Second World War and into the era of national devolution to Wales.

Sam can be found online here: https://twitter.com/SamBlaxland 

Sam's excellent book can be found here: https://www.uwp.co.uk/book/the-conservative-party-in-wales-1945-1997/

And finally, Sam delivered a presentation on his book hosted by Cardiff University's Wales Governance Centre, which can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/-1_CsvIUyXc

As always, you can find the latest from us @hiraethpod on most social media, including Twitter/X here: twitter.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: www.patreon.com/hiraethpod

Change has arrived in the UK in the shape of an incoming UK Labour UK Government. However, the picture in Wales is one of both change in terms of our relationship with the wider union but also continuity in that Welsh Labour have extended their run as the democratic world's most successful election-winning machine.

However, this election has brought electoral firsts for Labour, another voter-imposed blanket ban on Conservative MPs in Wales, a strong showing for Plaid Cymru, an unrewarded stronger showing for Reform UK, an improved performance for the Greens, and a foothold once more for the Welsh Liberal Democrats.

So to review the results and their impact on the Welsh political landscape, we're joined by:

Matthew Hexter, Podcaster and Political Commentator: https://twitter.com/hexter101

Keira Marshall: Senior Research and Plaid Cymru Candidate for Cardiff West: https://twitter.com/Kiera_Plaid

Alex Williams:  former Wales Office special advisor to Sir Robert Buckland and advisor at Edelman Global Advisory: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-w-b38604140/

Thanks for your support and engagement over the election period. We've tried to add an independent voice to the coverage in Wales. If you have feedback on our coverage, please be in touch!

As always, you can find the latest from us @hiraethpod on most social media, including Twitter/X here: twitter.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: www.patreon.com/hiraethpod