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.