DOUBLING DOWN ON 20

Of all Labour's oppressive nanny state laws throughout the history of our nation, there are seldom few more unpopular than the blanket 20mph mandate in Wales.  Although the policy did feature in their 2021 Senedd manifesto, the reality for drivers when it was introduced two years later has been insufferable.  Longer journey times, increased traffic, an even greater threat of speeding fines and all round frustration.

As Labour looks set to fall from its 27 year grip on the Senedd, its politicians are beginning to reflect on the inevitable.  Of course they are not issuing any apologies, in fact quite the opposite - the narcissist control freaks are doubling down.  Ex-first minister Mark Drakeford told WalesOnline last week that he had 'no regrets' over Labour policies, including the 20mph mandate.  He said:  "We know from the latest figures there are people alive today who would not have been alive if we hadn't changed that."

He goes on to say that there have been '100 fewer life-changing accidents' as a result of the policy.  His colleague Julie James echoed the claim in a defence of the policy last week.  Addressing the Senedd, the minister said people opposed to the policy 'should be thoroughly ashamed', while making the bizarre claim that 'women and children' were now safer (apparently men's lives don't matter).  However, what Drakeford, James and their comrades conveniently fail to factor in is that ambulance times - in fact response times of all the emergency services - has increased thanks to growing congestion and heavier traffic resulting from the policy.  How many lives has that cost?

And what about the claim that the policy has 'cleaned up the air'?  James made the claim twice in her speech, without zero evidence to support it.  Repeated studies have found that the policy has had virtually zero effect on air pollution.  We would argue that increased road congestion, with engines idling in stationary traffic, cannot possibly result in 'cleaner air' - in fact quite the opposite.

Watch the clip below (one minute watch)

Of course the saddest thing about the outcome of the 2026 Senedd election is that despite Labour's demise, nothing will change.  Welsh voters look set to replace Labour with an equally damaging leftist successor - Plaid Cymru.  Worse still, Plaid will probably have to reach out to other leftist parties in order to form some kind of coalition government.  This could include Labour, but there will also be an option to include the Greens.  All three parties strongly support the 20mph policy, while the Greens want even tighter restrictions on motorists in order to get them off the road entirely.

Both Reform and the Conservatives have pledged to scrap the 20mph policy.  Hopefully, Welsh voters will wake up before May, but the likelihood suggests they face yet another five years of nanny state policies.  Vote better next time!

TOON TUESDAY #78

Andy Davey of The Daily Telegraph has been on good form and dominates this week's selection, which includes Red Rachel's looming budget, Labour's Caerphilly car crash, the election of Lucy Powell and the scandal of asylum hotels...

Andy Davey for The Daily Telegraph

Ben Jennings for The Guardian

Andy Davey for The Daily Telegraph

Matt Pritchett for The Daily Telegraph

Peter Brookes for The Times

Nicola Jennings for The Guardian

Andy Davey for The Sunday Telegraph

Nick Newman for The Sunday Times

Andy Davey for The Daily Telegraph

Andy Davey for The Daily Telegraph

Morten Morland for The Sunday Times

Andy Davey for The Daily Telegraph

Matt Pritchett for The Daily Telegraph

BY-ELECTIONS 23.10.25

Plaid Cymru have taken the Senedd seat of Caerphilly in a crucial indicator of how next May's Senedd elections could pan out.

Labour's red wall in south Wales has never fallen, not even in the 2019 Brexit election that saw many seats in the red wall across northern England turn Tory blue.  However, recent council by-elections had seen Reform taking several Labour seats in the Valleys that make up the sturdiest red wall of all.

Reform were also expected to take the Senedd seat of Caerphilly on Thursday, but polls and bookmakers called it wrong.  The most recent poll conducted in the constituency found Reform leading on 42 per cent, closely followed by Plaid Cymru on 38 per cent.  Labour were way back on just 12 per cent.  Bookies put even more faith in Reform gaining this seat, making them odds on favourites, considerably ahead of Plaid, but miles in front of Labour who were languishing way back on 33-1.

It would have been a colossal victory for Reform, having previously finished last in 2021 with less than two per cent of the vote.  They still surged past every other party in this by-election - except for one.  Plaid Cymru emerged victorious with a fairly comfortable margin over Reform of 3,848.  Labour finished a distant third, as predicted, but they will take solace in the fact that their left-wing comrades in Plaid were the victors and not the dreaded Reform.

Labour had held Caerphilly since the dawn of what was then known as the Welsh Assembly.  Its first AM (now termed MS) was Ron Davies, the leader of Welsh Labour who led the charge for devolution back in the late 90s, before an infamous incident on Clapham Common in London brought him down in disgrace.

The most recent MS for Caerphilly was Hefin David, who was found dead in a suspected suicide two months ago.  In the 2021 Senedd election he secured Labour's biggest ever majority in the constituency, which has now been overturned by the fake nationalists of Plaid Cymru.  And check out that huge swing from Labour to Reform...

Caerphilly, Senedd

Lindsay Whittle (Pld) 15,961 (47.4%) +19.0%

Llŷr Powell (Ref) 12,113 (36.0%) +34.2%

Richard Tunnicliffe (Lab) 3,713 (11.0%) -34.9%

Gareth Potter (Con) 690 (2.0%) -15.3%

Gareth Hughes (Grn) 516 (1.5%) New

Steven Aicheler (LDm) 497 (1.5%) -1.2%

Anthony Cook (Gwd) 117 (0.3%) New

Roger Quilliam (UKIP) 79 (0.2%) New

Previous result

Hefin David (Lab) 13,289 (46.0%) +10.7%

Delyth Jewell (Pld) 8,211 (28.4%) -1.1%

Steven Mayfield (Con) 5,013 (17.3%) +8.4%

Stephen Jones (AbAs) 1,119 (3.9%) New

Steven Aicheler (LDm) 787 (2.7%) +1.3%

Tim Price (Ref) 495 (1.7%) New

There were also seven council contests taking place on Thursday, with Labour defending two seats - one each in south Birmingham and Colchester, Essex.  They were defeated in Birmingham by the Lib Dems, who were very much in the ascendancy overall.  The Moseley ward was previously contested for two seats, which is why the vote shares look a little off.  It is very much a left-leaning 'progressive' ward, which is why Reform and the Tories were nowhere to be seen.

Labour managed to cling on in Colchester, holding off a Lib Dem challenge, but saw their vote share plummet.  The Labour vote share was down in every seat contested, with the exception of Glastonbury in Somerset, where they were newcomers.

Reform made a gain in Portsmouth at the hands of an outgoing independent, garnering more than five times the vote of the second placed Tories.  Overall, Reformers would probably be disheartened by this election night, but the truth is that they are still taking the electoral landscape by storm.  From the other six council seats contested, they finished second in four at the first time of asking.

The Tories held a seat in Cambridgeshire, but lost a seat to the Lib Dems in Somerset.  The Lib Dems really were the success story of these council by-elections, gaining three and holding another.  There is still little evidence of a Green bounce, as per opinion polling, although they did marginally increase their vote share in three of five seats contested.

Moseley, Birmingham City Council

LDm: 1,634 (34.7%) -11.9%

Lab: 1,149 (24.4%) -14.1%

Ind: 923 (19.6%) New

Grn: 474 (10.1%) +1.5%

Ref: 345 (7.3%) New

Con: 101 (2.4%) -4.1%

Ind: 80 (1.7%) New

LDm GAIN from Lab

New Town & Christ Church, Colchester City Council

Lab: 800 (29.7%) -27.6%

LDm: 657 (24.4%) +12.1%

Ref: 600 (22.3%) New

Grn: 401 (14.9%) +5.3%

Con: 200 (7.4%) -8.9%

Ind: 38 (1.4%) -3.1%

Lab HOLD

Whittlesey North West, Fenland District Council

Con: 483 (47.5%) -9.8%

Ref: 346 (34.1%) New

Ind: 127 (12.5%) New

Lab: 60 (5.9%) -16.2%

Con HOLD

Paulsgrove, Portsmouth City Council

Ref: 1,770 (64.2%) New

Con: 311 (11.3%) -4.0%

Lab: 289 (10.5%) -4.1%

LDm: 239 (8.7%) +5.7%

Grn: 143 (5.3%) +1.9%

Ref GAIN from Ind

Glastonbury, Somerset Council

LDm: 882 (36.4%) -0.7%

Ref: 523 (21.6%) New

Con: 506 (20.9%) -9.7%

Grn: 480 (19.8%) -7.5%

Lab: 35 (1.4%) New

LDm HOLD

Dunster, Somerset Council

LDm: 1142 (49.6%) +8.4%

Ref: 666 (28.9%) New

Con: 449 (19.5%) -22.8%

Lab: 44 (1.9%) -4.2%

LDm GAIN from Con

Milton & Tamarside, Torridge District Council

LDm: 428 (37.5%) New

Ref: 355 (31.1%) New

Con: 191 (16.7%) New

Ind: 101 (8.8%) New

Grn: 67 (5.9%) -23.9%

LDm GAIN from Ind

Abbreviations

Pld = Plaid Cymru

Ref = Reform UK

Lab = Labour

Con = Conservative

Grn = Green

LDm = Liberal Democrat

Gwd = Gwlad

UKIP = United Kingdom Independence Party

AbAs = Abolish the Welsh Assembly

Ind = Independent

GETHING REPLACES DRAKEFORD

Vaughan Gething has won the contest to become Labour's next leader in Wales, inheriting the role of First Minister in the process.  Gething narrowly defeated his opponent, education minister Jeremy Miles, with 51.7% of the vote.  Welsh Labour are very secretive about their membership numbers, so the exact number of votes was not released.  This was Gething's second punt at the leadership, having contested the previous leadership contest, in 2018.  Gething finished second of three candidates and some way behind the victor, Drakeford.

There was little to choose between the candidates, with both dedicated to the net zero plan to enslave humanity.  Both acknowledged the widely despised blanket 20mph policy during the campaign, but both stated they would not reverse it.  The war on the motorist in Wales will continue with pay per mile technology, to be implemented by the end of the decade.  There is nothing to suggest Gething will waive this policy either.

The media heralded Gething's victory as 'the first black leader of Wales', or 'the first black leader of a European country'.  Racist twaddle, which ignores the fact that Gething is the product of a Welsh father.  Born in Zambia and raised in Dorset, Gething joined the Labour party in 1992 and later studied law at Aberystwyth University.  Despite qualifying as a barrister, Gething decided to follow a career in politics.  He was an unsuccessful Labour candidate in the first Welsh Assembly (as it was then known) election in 1999.  He later became a councillor on Cardiff City Council, before successfully entering the Welsh Assembly in the 2011 election.

Gething would become a mainstay of the Welsh government, under the leadership of Carwyn Jones and Mark Drakeford.  He was minister for health during the scamdemic and recently appeared before the UK Covid Inquiry, where he described missing WhatsApp messages as a 'real embarrassment'.  Like their Scottish counterparts, Welsh government ministers - including Drakeford - could not provide their WhatsApp messages to the inquiry.  As for Gething, he claims that his messages were 'wiped' when he handed his phone in for maintenance in 2022.

Gething's missing WhatsApps are far from the first controversy to afflict the minister.  During the first lockdown in May 2020, he was photographed with his family eating chips at a picnic table in Cardiff.  This act contravened Gething's own lockdown rules, but Drakeford's government defended him and declared that as this was a 'takeaway meal' it was permissible.

During the same period, Gething was also caught swearing about one of his own colleagues, MS Jenny Rathbone.  Gething failed to mute his microphone during a video call and was heard to say: "What the f*** is the matter with her?", much to the amusement, bewilderment and horror of the participants (video below).

In 2017, Gething was being interviewed by ITV Wales and walked away after the reporter asked him about his failure to hold an inquiry into allegations that a hospital worker had sexually abused vulnerable patients.  Background checks had not been carried out prior to the man's employment and he would later go on to murder his next door neighbour.

More recently, Gething was found to have received a £200,000 donation towards his leadership campaign from controversial businessman David Neal.  Neal had been convicted twice of illegally dumping waste and Gething had earlier lobbied on his behalf, namely to get regulators to ease restrictions on Neal's company, Atlantic Recycling.  The whole affair stank of more than just waste.

Gething Walks Away Mid-Interview

Gething Swears During Video Call

Vaughan Gething is expected to be sworn in as First Minister next week, but will not face the electorate until 2026, when the next Senedd elections are due to be held.  With all three of Great Britain's main political leaders now from a non-white background, it remains to be seen whether the hysterical left will continue to portray our nation as 'institutionally racist'.  Of course they will!

DRAKEFORD ANOTHER MASK HYPOCRITE

A week after Twitter had a meltdown and the media ran wild about Boris Johnson's mask-free hospital visit, there has been a relatively minor fuss in Wales about Mark Drakeford prancing about mask-free in a crowded Diwali celebration.  While many will argue that a hospital is a different ball game to a religious knees-up, it should be duly noted that the PM masked up upon meeting patients and was only photographed mask-free in a corridor.  However, the double standard was not Johnson's on this occasion.  There is no mask mandate in England and there has not been since July.  Wales is different.

Although Wales was the last place in the UK to install a mask mandate, it has never relinquished that mandate.  Drakeford likes to pontificate about such measures in the same way that his Labour colleagues in England do, but like them he does not consistently practice what he preaches.  His bizarre Diwali dancing video asides (see below), Drakeford and his colleagues appear to mask up only when they feel like it.  Unlike their Commons counterparts, Welsh Labour MS's only mask up in some Senedd sittings.

When the topic of Drakeford's Diwali knees-up was raised by a Conservative MS in the Senedd last week, Drakeford was sat there unmasked.  Click below for that video and note the response of Labour's health minister Eluned Morgan who deems the issue 'not appropriate' for a statement.  Do as we say peasants - not as we do!

Labour MS's were also unmasked when the Senedd re-opened last month, in fact the only people in the chamber who appeared to be masked up on that occasion were Prince Charles and the female harpist.  On that same day Drakeford tweeted a series of photos from the ceremony, including two in which he meets the Queen and Prince Charles.  Again, no consistency on masks.  He wears one when meeting Charles, but not when meeting Her Majesty.

Note also the complete lack of reference to Her Majesty in Drakeford's message.  As a hard left socialist it was clearly no honour to receive her and as a hard left socialist he preaches to the proletariat while not leading by example.

VAX PASS EXTENSION IN WALES

Senedd members have voted to expand the use of vaccine passports in Wales to include theatres, cinemas and concert halls.  The vote passed easily by 39 votes to 15, with Plaid Cymru backing Labour.  The sole Liberal Demcrat MS voted against as did all but one of the Conservatives.  It is not clear which Tory failed to register a vote this time.  In the previous Senedd vote on vaccine passports, Tory MS Gareth Davies infamously gifted Labour victory.

During Tuesday's debate it was argued by Tory MS Janet Finch-Saunders that vax passes would discriminate against the poorest in society, to which a Labour MS responded with a disgusting, sneering remark.  Jenny Rathbone, who represents Cardiff Central, said that people on low incomes could not afford to go to sports matches anyway, 'so let's get real on this one' she added.  Rathbone couldn't contain her amusement at the remark, watch below.

A protest was held outside the Senedd as members debated the passport extension.  Alan Miller, co-founder of the Together declaration, spoke to Tory MS James Evans outside.  Watch below.

Mark Drakeford has threatened to expand the passport scheme to all hospitality sectors if infection rates in Wales don't come down.  That would mean people would have to present their papers in order to go into a pub, restaurant or cafe.  Infection rates are already falling in Wales, but Drakeford has not rescinded his threat.

In a sick twist Tuesday's passport debate was followed by another on forthcoming Remembrance events in Wales.  Remind us again Mr Drakeford what it is that our ancestors fought for?

WELSH MINISTER DROPS F-BOMB

Wales health minister Vaughan Gething

While today's main event at Westminster went relatively smoothly, less can be said about events over at the virtual Senedd.  Health minister Vaughan Gething had been addressing assembly members, but forgot to mute his microphone after he'd finished and was caught swearing in reference to one of his own Labour colleagues.  "What the f*** is wrong with her" he is heard to exclaim in reference to AM Jenny Rathbone (a 70-year-old woman).  Watch below for the full clip and look at the shocked reactions, including a clearly gobsmacked Leanne Wood, former leader of Plaid Cymru...

The leaders of both the Welsh Tories and Plaid Cymru have called on First Minister Mark Drakeford to dismiss Gething, but at the time of writing an apology is all that's been forthcoming...