Wales watching - The midweek briefing

Reporting by the Newsletter Team

Hi everyone,

Here is your latest midweek update. We have lots for you this week including some concerning early signs from Andy Burnham regarding devolution and some more declarations of interest from Welsh politicians. Let’s hope they don’t quit to avoid scrutiny…

The dead cat strategy is the political tactic of deliberately making a shocking announcement to divert media attention away from problems or failures in other areas.

The Reform leader was Pussy Galore yesterday as he announced he was going to resign his seat in Clacton, to trigger a byelection in Clacton, so he could run in Clacton, to avoid the parliamentary standards watchdog investigation into his £5m gift, which could force a byelection in Clacton if it found he committed wrongdoing

Make sense?

In a naked attempt to seize the narrative, Mr Farage and Reform went deep into the Donald Trump playbook, entering full victim mode by claiming there was a campaign against him by the “establishment”.

Reform in Wales posted:

It’s worth bearing in mind that since 2016 two MPs have been murdered.

Obviously this newsletter is focussed on Wales so at the weekend we will look at what impact the Farage situation will have on Cymru.

There has been a bit of furore this week over an article from Andy Burnham.

Mr Burnham had written several opinion pieces about devolution in different parts of the UK. Versions were sent to titles in Scotland and London who published them.

A Welsh version of the piece was sent to WalesOnline last Monday (June 29th). However, WoL were concerned that the article appeared “confused” over where power and responsibility lies in Wales. Basically, it didn’t reflect the reality of devolution.

So they approached the author telling them that they’d have to include a disclaimer if they ran it and asked if Mr Burham’s team would correct it.

WalesOnline chased it up again on Thursday but got no corrected version.

By Friday, WalesOnline were getting queries from other journalists asking whether they had a Welsh version. We understand that WalesOnline, having given Burham’s team five working days to correct the piece, decided to run their own story titled: ‘An error-filled Andy Burnham opinion piece about Wales raises questions.’

Fair play to WalesOnline for not simply publishing the piece - it was misleading in how it reflected the realities of devolution in the UK.

When you read it, you can clearly see they wrote basically the same piece for each nation.

This is what Burnham wrote for the WalesOnline article:

“In Wales, that feeling has its own shape. It is felt in Merthyr. It is felt in Rhyl. Port Talbot feels it. It is felt in towns like Wrexham, communities like the Valleys, and places that have waited too long for politics to work for them.”

Another piece for the London Standard said:

“In London, that feeling has its own shape. It is felt in Newham. It is felt in Brent. Croydon feels it. It is felt in towns like Barking, communities like Tottenham, and in places that have waited too long for politics to work for them.”

There are also commitments to do things in Wales that are already largely devolved, such as:

• “greater public control of essential services such as water, housing, energy, and transport”

• “Number 10 North overseeing the biggest council house building programme since the post-war era”

• “reform business rates to support pubs and high street businesses”

• “more 45-day work placements and apprenticeships for young people”

These are the responsibility of the Senedd, not Westminster.

There are questions emerging whether when Mr Burnham says “we need to strengthen devolution”, he really means “Westminster is going to focus more on devolved issues”.

We have been covering the MSs’ register of interests as they have started being published on the Senedd website.

It means we now know a bit more about Reform in Wales leader Dan Thomas, whose interests have been revealed to include four rental properties in England co-owned with his spouse - two in London, one in Oxfordshire and one in Somerset - all with a “substantial value” over £76,000. It also includes a family home and four acres of land in Sardinia which is “occasionally rented out.”

To be clear Mr Thomas is breaking no rules by simply owning and renting out multiple properties. The annual income he gets from these is more than £21,000.

The basic salary for every MS is £79,817 per year, but if you are leader of a Senedd Group - which Dan Thomas is - you get an extra £16,212 plus £1,248 per Senedd member up to a maximum of £44,896. So all in all Mr Thomas’ role is worth £124,713 to him.

Last week we reported that sources had told us Mr Thomas is considering running to be an MP. This would actually be a salary cut for him unless he gets a senior role in a future Reform UK Government, as an MP’s salary is around £93,000.

The minority Plaid government is facing its biggest test to date as a vote on its supplementary budget looms next week (July 14).

Plaid’s plans include £100m to tackle NHS waiting lists and £40m for repairs to schools, as well as £246m held back as unallocated cash to manage further costs that may come up during the coming year.

The extra cash mainly comes as a consequence of extra money being spent in England to pay off debts of English councils that were built up through supporting young people with additional learning needs.

Gaining the support of Welsh Labour’s nine members will be key to Plaid passing its budget. But last week Plaid lost a vote on a motion tabled by Welsh Labour calling on the government to spend more of that cash on pupils with additional learning needs in Wales as well.

The motion is not binding but does indicate feeling among other parties.

Pressure was maintained by interim Welsh Labour leader Ken Skates at FMQs on Tuesday, who asked the First Minister why there “is not a single single extra penny allocated towards additional learning needs in your supplementary budget” even though “it came as a result of increased investment in ALN, or SEN as it is in England”?.

The FM said he was keen to work on ALN but “we work within tight constraints, including the hundreds of millions of pounds of overspend that this Government inherited from the last, as well as aligning budgets with the people’s priorities”.

Senedd committees are often where politicians put in the long hours and do really important work scrutinising specific issues, producing reports and holding the Welsh Government to account.

It seems that just weeks after forming, a member of the Environment and Rural Affairs Committee (which covers climate change) is already getting hot and bothered over being contacted by… climate change groups.

Committee member Andrew RT Davies posted on social media complaining that members have been emailed by Climate Cymru.

Mr Davies said:

“We can’t let groups like Climate Cymru dictate the agenda. I certainly won’t be going along with it. I hope my fellow Committee members follow suit.”

Looking at Climate Cymru, it is a varied network of academics and volunteers whose goals are Wales achieving Net Zero and its climate justice goals. On their website they say “the climate and nature emergency requires urgent, fair action. We believe that action should be guided by science and the voices of people across Wales.”

The politician chairing the committee is Reform’s James Evans, whose party have actively promoted climate misinformation and repeatedly called for doing away with what they call “net stupid zero.”

When you are a wheelchair user, are pushing a pram or have sight issues, people parking on the pavement is a nightmare.

A recent survey from charity Living Streets has revealed that 9 in 10 (91%) councillors in Wales said they had received complaints from constituents about vehicles parked on the pavement.

In May, the UK government announced more powers for local authorities in England to restrict pavement parking, but no such legislation yet exists in Wales. In Scotland, pavement parking has been banned since 2023.

Ruth Billingham, Head of Campaigns, Living Streets said:

“For too long, Wales’s pavements have been no-go zones for people with wheelchairs, guide dogs and pushchairs. Blocked pavements force people off the safety of the pavement and into oncoming traffic. It also stops thousands of us from enjoying the benefits of walking more.

“The new Welsh Government has the opportunity to take action against pavement parking and avoid getting left behind Scotland and England.”

Reform have announced their party conference in Birmingham in September.

Some of the prices to attend are what you’d expect (£55 for a Reform member) but others are pretty eyewatering.

Take a look at this:

For the princely sum of £3,000 you can buy a ‘Platinum’ pass that includes a “champagne breakfast” with Farage himself along with priority access and “premium hospitality” throughout the event.

If attending the three-day conference isn’t enticing enough a prospect, you can also buy a ticket for the ‘Official After-Party’ on the Friday, which promises “an unforgettable evening of drinks, dancing and entertainment in great company.”

The dress code? “Dress to impress.”

Back in April 2024, former First Minister Carwyn Jones was appointed by Vaughan Gething to lead an internal review into Welsh Labour’s campaign finance and leadership election rules. This came after the controversy around the £200k Mr Gething’s campaign took from a man convicted of environmental offences.

Yet it wasn’t until April 2026 that the work actually got going. This newsletter understands that people within Welsh Labour expected at least the interim findings to be published before a new leader was officially announced.

This makes sense. If the aim is to learn lessons from the Gething/Miles leadership race, it would seem bizarre that Welsh Labour would have gone through the process of getting a new leader before that process is done.

There was an expectation that the interim findings would be discussed at a meeting of the Welsh Labour Executive Committee today. However, sources within the party tell us that it’s unlikely that any findings from the review will come out before a leader is selected.

We are now a couple of months out from the election and the reality of the ridiculous electoral system introduced in the last election is still making itself known to people in Wales.

Given everyone now has six MSs, there is confusion about who constituents should approach with issues. We have had a lot of messages about this. Here is a good example:

Another issue with this is that it allows lazy MSs to coast when it comes to case work while diligent Members pick up the slack.

When we have been in the Senedd recently, some of the new MSs have told us they are spending more time in meetings than they are implementing what has been discussed in those meetings. Lord knows how they are navigating constituency work on top of it all.

A Welsh Restore councillor told his Facebook followers “Islam is not compatible with western civilization” after sharing a video circulated by Tommy Robinson.

Owain Clatworthy, Bridgend County Councillor for Pyle, Kenfig Hill and Cefn Cribwr, was elected under Reform UK’s banner and was named among the party’s Senedd candidates. But he stood down from candidacy following a row over Reform’s selection process and defected to Rupert Lowe’s Restore party.

The councillor shared a video last week clipped from the swearing-in ceremony of Birmingham City Council’s Lord Mayor, Zaker Choudry, which took place in May. During the clip, an Islamic prayer is read out – a longstanding tradition where each Lord Mayor asks a religious leader of their chosen faith to deliver a blessing at the start of their term of office.

The video had been widely circulated by far-right activist Tommy Robinson.

Cllr Clatworthy captioned the video saying:

“This is not integration. This is Replacement.”

In a later post, he claimed: “Attempts are already underway to silence me. My crime? Speaking the truth about mass illegal immigration, failed integration, and the defence of British values in a Christian country.”

Adding:

“I don’t care what they call it. We’re taking our country back.”

We asked Mr Clatworthy if he had anything else to say about his posts but he didn’t respond.

You might remember Vale of Glamorgan Cllr Brandon Dodd. We covered him in our special report on Reform last year.

He was elected in the Vale as a Reform councillor in September 2025 and through the campaign promised to be a “real voice” for local people.

We reported that he then went months without speaking and missed crucial votes relating to his local ward.

Mr Dodd has now seemingly found his voice on social media calling for the death penalty to be introduced. It seems that on the rare occasions the voice of the people does use his voice, it is publicly calling for people to die.

Last week we brought you a glut of by-election results in Wales to replace councillors who had been elected as MSs.

Since then there have been even more.

On July 3rd, Reform held onto one in Torfaen Council where Jonathan Hollins was elected to replace Jason O’Connell, who became an MS in May (worth noting he was previously elected to Torfaen council as an independent, and was formerly a Tory member.)

There were also three held in Powys to replace Plaid’s Elwyn Vaughan, and Claire Johnson‑Wood and Iain McIntosh from Reform. Plaid held onto their seat while Reform successfully defended one but lost the other to the Lib Dems. Incidentally, the Reform candidate who lost was Mr McIntosh’s wife, Dawn McIntosh.

Tomorrow (Thursday, July 9th) is another bumper by-election day, with no fewer than seven taking place. They are:

• Cardiff

• Flintshire (2)

• Gwynedd

• Neath Port Talbot

• Pembrokeshire

• Vale of Glamorgan

A man who spent £500,000 to clear his name after he was wrongly jailed for sex offences has had his claim for compensation turned down.

Brian Buckle from Fishguard in Pembrokeshire was convicted of historical child sex abuse back in 2017 and given a 15-year sentence but was found not guilty at a retrial after a five-year legal wrangle when new forensic evidence and witnesses were brought forward.

The BBC reports that Mr Buckle has had his second appeal for compensation rejected by the Ministry of Justice.

In 2014 a law change now means compensation is only paid to those wrongly convicted if they can prove beyond reasonable doubt that they did not commit the crime, which Mr Buckle’s barrister says is impossible as no DNA or CCTV evidence exists to prove his innocence.

Seven projects have received a share of £540,761.

The Welsh Gov funding supports oyster restoration, marine monitoring, harbour improvements and seafood trail development.

The projects - spanning Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Conwy, Flintshire, Gwynedd and Ynys Môn - range from establishing a purpose-built native oyster spatting pond in Laugharne to a new community-led marine observatory programme across the Menai Strait.

The funding supports work that includes citizen science monitoring in Cardigan Bay, a sustainable seafood trail in Conwy, harbour safety improvements at Connah’s Quay and Amlwch Port, and enhanced marine mammal monitoring in Gwynedd under the Clust i’r Môr initiative.

As this lands in your inbox, the newsletter team is on a train to London to attend The Publisher Newsletter Awards where we have three nominations.

We are not holding out much hope. Our little team of three is up against the FT, Economist, Channel 4, Reuters and the BBC.

However it’s lovely to be nominated and it is a testament to what we (and I include all of you in this) have managed to build here in just 20 months.

On Sunday we looked at income deprivation across Wales, especially for children. A new mini documentary from ACT has looked at young people across South Wales and the barriers they face, giving them a platform to share their experience. It explores themes of digital safety, community, role models and lack of opportunities.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading and please do consider becoming a paid subscriber. We can’t do this without you.

Will and the newsletter team.

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