Month: January 2026

  • Politics

    Why Wales Needs A Political Education

    Why Wales Needs a Political Education

    By Kaiesha Page

    If democracy is devolved, understanding it should be too

    Wales has its own parliament, its own laws, and growing responsibility over everyday life. Yet for many people, how Welsh politics actually works remains unclear.

    Turnout in Senedd elections continues to lag behind Westminster contests. Responsibility for decisions is frequently misunderstood. Public frustration often targets the wrong level of government. These are not signs of apathy alone — they are symptoms of a deeper problem: a lack of political education that reflects Wales’ devolved reality.

    Democracy cannot function well if citizens are expected to participate in systems they do not fully understand.

    Devolution Changed Power — Not Knowledge

    Since devolution, political power in Wales has expanded significantly. Decisions about health, education, housing, transport, and local government now sit largely within Welsh control. But public understanding has not kept pace with that shift.

    Many voters remain unsure what the Senedd does, how it differs from Westminster, or who is responsible for specific policy outcomes. This confusion weakens accountability and distorts debate. When blame is misdirected, scrutiny loses its force.

    Political education is not about telling people what to think — it is about giving them the tools to know who to question.

    The Welsh Baccalaureate: A Missed Opportunity?

    Wales is not starting from nothing. The Welsh Baccalaureate includes elements of citizenship, community engagement, and ethical awareness. At its best, it encourages students to think critically about society and their role within it.

    But political literacy within the Welsh context remains uneven. Understanding devolution, voting systems, and the division of powers is often treated as peripheral rather than essential. For many students, Welsh politics is encountered briefly — if at all — before being overshadowed by UK-wide narratives.

    If the Welsh Bacc is meant to prepare young people for life in Wales, then a clearer, more confident engagement with Welsh democracy should be central to it, not optional.

    Why Political Education Matters

    Political education is often misunderstood as partisan or ideological. In reality, it is practical.

    It teaches people how decisions are made, how to influence them, and how to recognise when systems are failing. It equips citizens to engage critically rather than emotionally, and to challenge power without disengaging from it.

    In a devolved system, political literacy is not a luxury. It is infrastructure.

    Beyond Schools: A National Responsibility

    Wales does not suffer from a lack of opinion. It suffers from a lack of shared understanding.

    A stronger culture of political education would not guarantee better outcomes — but it would create fairer debate, sharper scrutiny, and more informed engagement. It would help voters distinguish between structural limits and political choices, between inevitability and failure.

    If Wales wants a healthier democracy, it must invest not just in institutions, but in understanding.

    Education as Democratic Infrastructure

    Devolution gave Wales power. Political education must give people access to it.

    Strengthening civic understanding — through the Welsh Baccalaureate and beyond — is not about defending the system or promoting a particular vision of Wales. It is about ensuring that democracy here is something people can navigate, challenge, and shape with confidence.

    A devolved nation deserves a politically literate public. Without it, power risks drifting upward — and trust drifting away.

  • Podcasts, Politics

    Talking Wales: Why Welsh Voices Still Struggle to Be Heard

    Talking Wales: Why Welsh Voices Still Struggle to Be Heard

    By Kaiesha Page

    Visibility, power, and the quiet marginalisation of a devolved nation

    Wales is talked about often, but rarely on its own terms.

    In UK political debate, Welsh issues tend to surface only at moments of crisis — when waiting times spike, floods hit, or an election threatens to disrupt expectations. Outside of those moments, Wales is frequently treated as background noise: referenced briefly, summarised loosely, then folded back into a broader “British” conversation that rarely fits.

    This is not a problem of absence. Welsh voices exist, speak clearly, and engage deeply. The issue is that they are still struggling to be heard — or taken seriously — within national political, media, and cultural spaces.

    The Media Filter

    Much of the difficulty lies in how Welsh stories are filtered.

    UK-wide media remains heavily London-centric, both in outlook and infrastructure. Editorial priorities are shaped by Westminster rhythms, English policy debates, and assumptions about what constitutes national relevance. Welsh politics, operating on a different timetable and within a different constitutional framework, often fails to cut through unless it mirrors those concerns.

    As a result, Welsh stories are frequently flattened — stripped of context, framed as regional curiosities, or reduced to comparisons that obscure more than they explain.

    Devolution Without Visibility

    Devolution was meant to bring decision-making closer to the people. In many ways, it has. But visibility has not followed power in equal measure.

    Welsh policy decisions often receive limited scrutiny outside Wales itself. When they do attract attention, they are frequently misunderstood or misattributed, feeding confusion about responsibility and accountability. This lack of clarity weakens public understanding and reinforces the perception that Welsh politics is either peripheral or derivative.

    A system that operates out of sight struggles to command confidence — even when it is functioning as intended.

    Who Gets to Speak for Wales?

    Another persistent problem is representation.

    Welsh voices that do break through are often those that fit pre-existing expectations — familiar accents, predictable positions, or narratives that align neatly with wider UK debates. More complex, critical, or locally grounded perspectives are less likely to be amplified.

    This creates a narrow public image of Welsh political thought, one that underrepresents dissent, diversity, and internal debate. Wales becomes a place that reacts rather than initiates, responds rather than leads.

    The Confidence Gap

    There is also an internal dimension to this struggle.

    Years of being overlooked can erode confidence — not just institutionally, but culturally. Welsh politicians, commentators, and institutions are often more cautious in asserting authority, conscious of operating within a UK framework that still centres power elsewhere.

    This caution can read as modesty. But it can also limit influence. Voices that hesitate to claim space are easier to ignore.

    Why It Matters

    The marginalisation of Welsh voices is not simply a question of pride or recognition. It has practical consequences.

    When Welsh perspectives are absent from national debates, policies are shaped without full understanding of how they land across the UK. When Welsh governance is poorly understood, accountability weakens. When Welsh experiences are treated as secondary, inequality is quietly reinforced.

    Being heard is not about volume — it is about legitimacy.

    Beyond Being Spoken For

    Wales does not need to shout louder. But it does need to be listened to more carefully.

    That requires change on multiple levels: media institutions that take devolved politics seriously; political leaders willing to assert autonomy without apology; and a cultural shift that recognises Wales not as an afterthought, but as a nation with its own political logic and voice.

    Until then, Welsh voices will continue to speak — but too often into a space that still isn’t fully prepared to listen.

  • news

    Why we’ve deleted our x

    Why we've deleted our X

    By Kaiesha Page

    Talking Wales is leaving X because we no longer believe it is a platform for healthy political discourse.

    Talking Wales has made the decision to leave X, formerly Twitter, after concluding that the platform no longer supports responsible, constructive political debate. This decision follows sustained concerns about moderation, platform governance, and the deployment of artificial intelligence tools without adequate safeguards.

    There was a time when X — formerly Twitter — sat at the very centre of the political ecosystem. For years, it acted as a primary source of news, commentary and real-time debate, connecting allies and opponents alike in ways that had never before existed in the digital world.

    It was also where I first stepped into politics myself. I joined in the platform’s early days bright-eyed, eager and full of optimism. Back then, X was genuinely eye-opening — exposing me to political ideas, movements and schools of thought I may never otherwise have encountered.

    Debate existed, but it was largely constructive. Discourse was possible without voices being drowned out or deliberately silenced.

    That all changed in 2022, when Elon Musk purchased the platform for $44 billion. What followed was not simply a rebrand, but a fundamental shift in how X operates — and in the type of discourse it now rewards.

    Changes to moderation, the amplification of provocative content, and an increasingly adversarial culture have reshaped the platform into something markedly different from what it once was.

    Where debate had previously been challenging but constructive, it has increasingly become hostile, polarised and performative.

    "This was not simply a rebrand, but a fundamental shift in how X operates — and in the type of discourse it now rewards."

    This shift alone is deeply concerning. But when viewed alongside recent stories involving Musk’s latest venture, Grok, it became clear that remaining on the platform was no longer compatible with our values.

    This shift is concerning in itself. But recent reporting on the misuse of Grok — including its use to digitally undress and sexualise women — marked a clear line for us.

    What is Grok?

    Grok is an artificial intelligence chatbot and image generator developed by xAI, the company founded by Elon Musk. It is embedded within X and positioned as an alternative to other large AI models, marketed as more irreverent, less constrained and more willing to engage with controversial topics.

    The lack of meaningful constraints is a consistent theme throughout Musk’s politics.

    While some critics have gone as far as to label Musk a “Nazi” — particularly following a widely shared hand gesture after Donald Trump’s election victory — the more relevant concern lies elsewhere.

    What is evident is a growing alignment with fascistic tendencies — hostility towards regulation, contempt for institutional oversight, the concentration of power in private hands, and a recurring portrayal of dissent as illegitimate censorship.

    When such tendencies are paired with ownership of a major communications platform — and the deployment of loosely constrained artificial intelligence tools — the implications extend far beyond personal ideology.

    They shape whose voices are amplified, whose safety is compromised, and whose humanity is treated as collateral damage in the pursuit of “free speech”.

    If these values shape the platform itself, it is reasonable to ask why we would expect his AI to operate any differently.

    The most recent controversy centres on freelance journalist and commentator Samantha Smith. In an article for the BBC, she described feeling “dehumanised and reduced to a stereotype” after Grok was used to digitally remove her clothing from a fully clothed image of her.

    After sharing her experience on X, Smith was met with a wave of responses from other women who reported having experienced similar forms of AI-generated sexual abuse — underscoring that her case was not isolated, but part of a wider and deeply troubling pattern.

    Another instance saw a 14-year-old actress have her image digitally nudified.

    Against this backdrop, the British government has announced plans to criminalise the use of so-called “nudification” tools.

    These measures were confirmed in the long-awaited Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy, published in December 2025 after multiple delays.

    The strategy outlines a range of actions the UK government intends to take in response to technology-facilitated abuse, including AI-generated sexual exploitation.

    Talking Wales has explored this strategy in greater detail in a recent podcast episode, including specific implications for Wales and how these measures may be implemented at a devolved level.

    Legal experts have been clear that this harm is neither inevitable nor unavoidable.

    Clare McGlynn, a law professor at Durham University, told the BBC that X or Grok “could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to”, adding that they “appear to enjoy impunity”.

    "The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any action, and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators."

    This assessment is particularly striking given that xAI’s own acceptable use policy explicitly prohibits “depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner”.

    The issue, then, is not the absence of rules, but the apparent lack of will to enforce them.

    In response to the BBC’s reporting, Grok’s media team was contacted for comment.

    At the time of publication, no direct response had been provided. Instead, the BBC reported receiving an automated reply stating simply: “legacy media lies”.

    If concerns over the misuse of AI are not taken seriously — even when they involve non-consensual sexual abuse — it surely begs the question: is AI safe in Musk’s hands?

    Based on the evidence, the answer is increasingly clear.

    When artificial intelligence is deployed without effective safeguards, meaningful oversight or a willingness to intervene when harm occurs, it cannot be considered safe.

    That risk is magnified when responsibility is concentrated in the hands of individuals and organisations that repeatedly resist regulation, dismiss criticism and frame accountability as censorship.

    For Talking Wales, this leaves little room for ambiguity.

    Political discourse relies on trust — trust that platforms will act responsibly, protect users from harm and take concerns seriously when those protections fail.

    X no longer meets that standard.

    Our decision to leave the platform is not about disengaging from debate or avoiding challenge.

    It is about refusing to legitimise an environment where harm is normalised, safeguards are inconsistently enforced, and serious concerns — particularly those affecting women and children — are met with indifference or hostility.

    We remain committed to robust political discussion, scrutiny and accountability.

    But we will pursue that work in spaces that align with our values, respect consent, and recognise that technology deployed at scale carries real-world consequences.

  • Politics

    2025: The Year Wales Took Stock​

    2025: The Year Wales Took Stock

    By Kaiesha Page

    Not a year of upheaval, but one of reckoning

    2025 was not meant to be a defining year in Welsh politics. There was no Senedd election, no dramatic constitutional moment, and little expectation of disruption. Yet events had a way of intruding. Flooding hit communities across Wales, exposing long-standing vulnerabilities in infrastructure and emergency preparedness. In Caerphilly, a by-election punctured assumptions about political certainty, drawing attention precisely because of its timing. Just one year before the most important election that Wales has faced. 

    Together, these moments cut through the relative calm of the political calendar. They forced Wales to confront not future promises, but present realities — about governance, resilience, and trust.

    Public Services Under Sustained Scrutiny

    Pressure on public services remained one of the most persistent features of Welsh public life throughout the year. NHS waiting times continued to dominate public concern, alongside workforce shortages and delayed treatment. In education, debates around attainment gaps and funding pressures resurfaced with renewed urgency.

    Local authorities were increasingly open about the limits of what could be delivered within existing budgets. What felt different in 2025 was not the nature of these challenges, but the public response. Familiar explanations carried less weight, and patience appeared thinner.

    The Cost of Living Never Really Left

    Despite a shift in national rhetoric, the cost of living crisis continued to shape daily life across Wales.

    Food prices remained high, rents continued to rise, and energy bills stayed well above pre-crisis levels. Demand for food banks and local support services showed little sign of easing. For many households — particularly in lower-income, post-industrial, and rural communities — financial pressure remained constant rather than temporary.

    The gap between economic indicators and lived experience became harder to ignore.

    Flooding and the Question of Preparedness

    The flooding that affected parts of Wales during the year brought these pressures into sharp focus. Homes were damaged, transport disrupted, and communities left dealing with both immediate loss and longer-term uncertainty.

    Beyond the physical impact, the floods raised uncomfortable questions about resilience. For communities already stretched by rising costs and strained services, extreme weather events felt less like anomalies and more like warnings. The issue was no longer simply response, but readiness.

    Caerphilly and a Moment of Political Attention

    Against this backdrop, the Caerphilly by-election took on significance beyond its local context.

    By-elections are often treated as isolated contests, shaped by circumstance rather than wider mood. But in 2025, Caerphilly was closely watched precisely because it disrupted a year otherwise defined by political continuity. It served as a reminder that voter loyalty cannot be assumed indefinitely — and that performance, not history, increasingly shapes engagement.

    The result did not herald immediate realignment, but it did underline a growing willingness among voters to scrutinise rather than defer.

    Labour, Power, and Uneasy Alignment

    The year also exposed subtle but persistent tensions within Labour, particularly between the UK leadership under Keir Starmer and the Welsh Government.

    Differences in tone, priorities, and political positioning became more visible over time. While not amounting to open conflict, the divergence highlighted an ongoing challenge for Welsh Labour: balancing devolved autonomy with alignment to a UK party focused on winning and governing at Westminster.

    For voters, this tension fed into broader questions about where power sits — and whose priorities ultimately shape decision-making in Wales.

    Devolution as a System, Not a Symbol

    As Wales moved further beyond the 25-year mark of devolution, debate increasingly shifted away from principle and towards performance.

    Devolution was no longer discussed as a fragile achievement in need of defence, but as a mature system open to scrutiny. Questions of accountability, transparency, and delivery surfaced repeatedly, driven less by constitutional theory than by everyday experience.

    With permanence comes expectation — and less tolerance for underperformance.

    A Change in Mood, If Not Direction

    What set 2025 apart was not dramatic change, but a shift in tone.

    Voters appeared less deferential, more sceptical, and increasingly willing to question continuity for its own sake. Community resilience remained strong, but so did frustration at being asked to absorb repeated shocks — economic, environmental, and institutional.

    It was not a year of political upheaval. But it was a year in which assumptions loosened.

    Conclusion: Taking Stock Before What Comes Next

    Wales did not reinvent itself in 2025. But it did pause — and take stock.

    Of public services under strain. Of communities tested by rising costs and extreme weather. Of a devolved system that has matured into permanence and must now answer harder questions about delivery and trust.

     

    If the years ahead bring sharper choices, 2025 may be remembered as the moment Wales stopped coasting — and started looking more closely at what it expects from those in power.

  • Poverty

    The Cost of Living Crisis Isn’t Over — Wales Is Still Feeling It​

    The Cost of Living Crisis Isn’t Over — Wales Is Still Feeling It

    By Kaiesha Page

    As headlines move on, households across Wales are still counting every pound

    It Didn’t End — It Just Stopped Being News

    The cost of living crisis didn’t end in Wales. It simply slipped out of the headlines.

    Energy bills have stabilised but not returned to pre-crisis levels. Food prices remain stubbornly high. Rent, transport, and basic household costs continue to rise in ways that outpace wages. For many people across Wales, particularly those on fixed or low incomes, “recovery” feels like a word used by someone else.

    What has changed is not the pressure itself, but the public conversation around it.

    When Wages Lag and Prices Stick

    Wales entered the cost of living crisis from a weaker starting position than much of the UK. Average wages are lower, a higher proportion of workers are employed in the public sector, and many communities have limited access to well-paid, secure work.

    Pay increases, where they have occurred, have often failed to keep pace with everyday costs. A weekly shop that once felt manageable now requires calculation. Small, once-ignored expenses have become decision points. The cumulative effect is exhaustion — financial and emotional.

    Different Places, Same Strain

    The crisis has not landed evenly.

    In post-industrial areas, long-term economic fragility has left households with little financial buffer. In rural communities, higher transport costs and limited access to services compound the pressure. Coastal and tourist areas face rising rents and seasonal employment patterns that make stability difficult.

    The geography of Wales matters here. Where you live often determines not just how much you earn, but how much it costs to exist.

    Public Services Under Quiet Pressure

    As household finances tighten, reliance on public services increases. But those services are under strain themselves.

    Demand for food banks, mental health support, and local authority assistance remains high. Schools and healthcare providers are increasingly dealing with the knock-on effects of financial stress — from poor nutrition to burnout.

    This is where the cost of living crisis becomes harder to measure, but no less real. Its impact is not always immediate or dramatic, but cumulative and corrosive.

    When financial pressure becomes normalised, its damage often goes unnoticed until it is deeply embedded.

    Why Wales Feels It Longer

    The cost of living crisis has lasted longer in Wales not because of a single policy failure, but because of structural vulnerability.

    Lower wages mean less resilience. A smaller private sector limits flexibility. A higher reliance on public spending ties household stability to political decisions made elsewhere. When inflation hits, Wales absorbs the shock for longer — and recovers more slowly.

    This reality is rarely acknowledged in national debates that treat the crisis as a uniform experience.

    Moving Forward Without Pretending It’s Over

    The danger now is complacency. When politicians and commentators talk as though the crisis has passed, they risk disconnecting from lived reality.

    Addressing the ongoing impact of rising costs in Wales will require more than short-term relief. It means confronting low pay, insecure housing, and regional inequality — problems that long predate the crisis, but have been sharply exposed by it.

    Still Counting the Cost

    For many households in Wales, the cost of living crisis is not a chapter that has closed. It is a condition they are still managing, day by day.

    As attention shifts elsewhere, the risk is that those pressures become invisible — accepted as the new normal rather than recognised as a policy failure with real human consequences.

     

    Wales is still feeling it. The question is whether those with power are prepared to respond as if that still matters.

  • Politics

    Is Devolution Delivering? Wales, Power, and Public Trust​​.

    Is Devolution Delivering? Wales, Power, and Public Trust​​.

    By Kaiesha Page

    Twenty-five years on, voters are asking harder questions about power, accountability, and outcomes

    When Wales voted for devolution in 1997, it did so narrowly, cautiously, and with limited expectations. The creation of a devolved parliament was less a declaration of national ambition than a pragmatic step towards greater self-management. Power, it was hoped, would move closer to the people — and with it, better decision-making.

    More than two decades on, devolution is no longer new, experimental, or fragile. It is embedded in Welsh political life. Yet as pressures mount across public services and trust in institutions continues to erode, a more difficult question is emerging: not whether devolution should exist, but whether it is delivering what voters were promised.

    From Principle to Practice

    The case for devolution rested on a simple idea — that decisions made in Wales would better reflect Welsh needs. Over time, the Senedd has acquired significant powers, particularly in health, education, housing, and transport. With those powers has come greater visibility, but also greater responsibility.

    In practice, however, the relationship between power and outcomes has proved uneven. While devolved governance has allowed for policy divergence and cultural recognition, it has not always translated into clear improvements in everyday life. For many voters, the distinction between devolved and reserved responsibilities remains blurred, making accountability harder to pin down.

    Public Services as the Measure of Success

    Public services have become the primary lens through which devolution is judged. Health and education, in particular, carry symbolic weight — they are areas where Welsh control is clearest, and expectations are highest.

    Persistent waiting times, workforce shortages, and uneven educational outcomes have weakened confidence, even among those broadly supportive of devolution. While defenders argue that Wales faces structural disadvantages and long-term underinvestment, critics point to a lack of innovation and urgency.

    The result is a growing disconnect between the promise of local decision-making and the reality experienced by service users.

    Power Without Trust

    Perhaps the most significant challenge facing devolved governance is not constitutional, but relational. Trust — in politicians, in institutions, and in the political process itself — has been steadily declining.

    For some voters, devolution now feels distant rather than empowering. Decision-making appears centralised within Cardiff Bay, with limited transparency or meaningful engagement beyond election cycles. When scrutiny feels weak and outcomes disappoint, power can begin to look insulated rather than accountable.

    This erosion of trust matters. Without public confidence, even well-intentioned governance struggles to command legitimacy.

    The Problem of Political Comfort

    One of devolution’s unintended consequences may have been political comfort. Long-term dominance by a single party has created stability, but also reduced pressure for reform. When power feels secure, the incentive to take risks, challenge assumptions, or radically rethink policy diminishes.

    Opposition scrutiny exists, but rarely feels decisive. For voters, this can reinforce the sense that politics operates within a closed loop — responsive to itself, but not always to public frustration.

    What Delivering Devolution Might Actually Mean

    The question facing Wales is no longer whether devolution has symbolic value, but whether it has practical impact. Delivering devolution may require less focus on defending the institution itself, and more on confronting its limitations.

    That means clearer accountability, sharper scrutiny, and a willingness to acknowledge failure alongside success. It also means re-engaging the public not as passive recipients of policy, but as active participants in shaping it.

    A Settlement Under Scrutiny

    Devolution is not collapsing, nor is it universally rejected. But it is being tested.

    As trust frays and expectations rise, Wales faces a choice: treat devolution as a settled achievement, or as an evolving system in need of renewal. The future of devolved power will depend less on constitutional debates than on whether it can regain public confidence by delivering tangible, visible improvement.

    In that sense, the real challenge for Welsh politics is not defending devolution — but proving that it still earns its place.

  • Elections

    Wales on the Brink: What the Next Election Could Mean for the Nation

    Wales on the Brink: What the Next Election Could Mean for the Nation

    By Kaiesha Page

    A nation shaped by continuity, facing mounting pressure for change

    Since the dawn of devolution, Wales has remained reliably red, returning Labour governments election after election. While Scotland broke from Labour and England spent much of the past decade under Conservative rule, Welsh politics settled into a pattern of continuity that came to feel almost immovable.

    For some voters, that stability offered reassurance. For others, it bred complacency. Either way, it has shaped a political culture in which change has often felt unlikely, if not unnecessary.

    Yet beneath that surface consistency, pressures have been building. Public services are stretched, economic inequalities remain entrenched, and confidence in political institutions has worn thin. As the next election approaches, the question facing Wales is no longer simply who will govern — but whether the political settlement forged at the start of devolution still reflects the country’s needs today.

    A Political Landscape Defined by Continuity and Strain

    Welsh politics has, for much of the devolution era, been shaped by the steady dominance of Labour within the Senedd. That dominance has not always meant outright majority control, but it has ensured Labour’s central role in government, either alone or through cooperation agreements, for more than two decades.

    This continuity has brought institutional familiarity and predictability. But it has also limited the space for genuine political disruption. Opposition parties have often struggled to position themselves as credible alternatives to government rather than permanent critics operating on its margins.

    In recent years, however, that settled picture has begun to fray. Voter loyalty feels softer. Turnout remains uneven. Frustration with the pace and quality of change is increasingly visible across communities.

    The question is no longer whether Welsh politics will shift — but how, and whether it is equipped to respond.

    The Economy: Cost of Living and Uneven Recovery

    Economic pressure now forms the backdrop to almost every political conversation in Wales. While rising costs have affected the whole UK, their impact has been felt particularly sharply in a nation where wages remain lower on average and reliance on public sector employment is higher.

    For many households, talk of economic growth feels distant when affordability dominates everyday life. Housing pressures, insecure work, and stagnant local economies have made long-term promises harder to believe.

    Regional inequality continues to shape political experience.

    • Post-industrial communities remain sceptical of regeneration plans
    • Rural areas face housing shortages and declining services
    • Coastal towns struggle to balance tourism with sustainability

    Together, these pressures have reinforced a sense that economic policy is often reactive rather than transformative.

    Public Services and the Limits of Devolution

    Public services sit at the heart of the Welsh political debate. Health and education — two of the most visible devolved responsibilities — are frequently used by voters as measures of whether devolution has delivered.

    Long waiting times, staff shortages, and uneven outcomes have weakened public confidence, even among those broadly supportive of devolved governance. This has sharpened scrutiny not just of policy outcomes, but of accountability itself.

    Devolution allows Wales to chart its own course. But it also removes the ability to deflect blame. As pressures mount, voters appear increasingly willing to ask whether long-term control has produced the innovation and improvement they were promised.

    Public Services and the Limits of Devolution

    Welsh political identity has long been quieter than that of its neighbours. Support for independence remains relatively low compared to Scotland, yet attachment to devolution and cultural autonomy is strong.

    Language, history, and national pride continue to inform political debate — particularly among younger voters — but they coexist with a deeply pragmatic instinct that prioritises stability.

    What has shifted is confidence. There is a growing sense that Wales knows what it is, but is less certain about what it wants to become. That uncertainty is reflected in political messaging that often looks inward, focused on managing decline rather than articulating ambition.

    Opposition, Alternatives, and the Question of Change

    Opposition parties face a familiar challenge: how to persuade voters that change is both necessary and safe.

    Plaid Cymru has positioned itself as a national alternative, but has struggled to turn cultural resonance into sustained governing authority. Smaller parties and independents have tapped into dissatisfaction, yet rarely offer a vision that resonates beyond protest.

    For many voters, the choice does not feel like one between competing futures — but between continuity and risk. Historically, that calculation has favoured Labour. Whether it will continue to do so remains an open question.

    Political Fatigue and the Risk of Disengagement

    Perhaps the greatest threat facing Welsh democracy is not electoral upheaval, but apathy.

    Turnout in Senedd elections has remained stubbornly low, and political debate often struggles to cut through public disengagement. When outcomes feel predetermined, participation becomes harder to sustain.

    This fatigue reflects more than boredom. It speaks to a deeper unease about whether politics is capable of meaningful change at all.

    Without renewed trust and clarity of purpose, disengagement risks becoming the norm rather than the exception.

    Conclusion: A Quietly Consequential Moment

    Wales is not on the brink of collapse — but it is approaching a reckoning.

    The next election will test not only party loyalties, but the durability of a political settlement that has shaped Welsh life since devolution began. Continuity alone may no longer satisfy a public facing rising pressure and diminishing patience.

    What happens next will depend less on dramatic shifts than on whether Welsh politics can rediscover a sense of purpose — one that acknowledges past achievements while confronting present realities.

    In that sense, this election may prove to be one of the most consequential Wales has faced in years — not because it promises transformation, but because it asks whether the nation is finally ready to demand it.