- Labour pains - 28th October 2025
- Hack attack - 28th October 2025
- Playing politics - 27th October 2025
After the shock victory by Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru (Plaid) in Caerphilly on Thursday, the focus is today on Labour, with an increasing number of the party’s politicians saying Sir Keir Starmer’s position now looks untenable.
The by-election was widely regarded as a two-horse race between Plaid and Reform UK, with the result marking a considerable blow for Nigel Farage, but for Labour too it was a crushing defeat because the party had won every election there for more than a century.
A backbench Labour MP proclaimed: “We are all pretty clear. We can’t carry on as we are…”.
Even before this stunning failure by the party, Labour backbenchers were uneasy, because they were faced with the possible prospect of the party coming THIRD at next years elections to the Welsh Parliament/Senedd Cymru (WP/SC), and one declared that Sir Keir was “in a dangerous position”.
The victor was Plaid’s Lindsay Whittle who cried as the result was announced that he was to return to the WP/SC .
Meanwhile pollsters have predicted that Sir Keir could struggle to recover from Caerphilly.
Important Labour politicians in Wales have told our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, that Sir Keir’s position is shaky.
As this extraordinary win by Mr Whittle was becoming clear, Labour’s Deputy First Minister (DFM), Huw Irranca-Davies, said the Prime Minister (PM) must “get back to bread and butter things” such as the cost of living, instead of focussing on immigration.
He added: “There’s been a lot of Reform politicians, including the candidate, who wanted to talk about nothing but small boats et cetera.
“Now that’s interesting because even in next May, small boats and immigration are not on the ticket in the Welsh general election for the Senedd“
“So we’ve got to get better.
“If … a really good campaign with a really good Labour candidate in Richard (loses), then we’ve got to talk about how do we get back to bread and butter things: cost of living, the state of the local community, the high street, the green spaces, the money in people’s pockets
“And that’s a task for both Welsh Labour and UK Labour as well.”
The Labour First Minister (FM) Eluned Morgan congratulated Mr Whittle and said: “We take our share of the responsibility for this result. We are listening, we are learning the lessons, and we will come back stronger”.
Plaid leader Rhun ap Iorwerth announced: ‘The result couldn’t be more damning of Labour. Eluned Morgan and Keir Starmer’s brand of managerial politics does not speak to Welsh voters any more. Labour once claimed to be the natural party of Wales. “Natural” parties die when they stop standing for something. In Caerphilly, decades of complacency caught up with them’.
Perhaps endorsing this comment, we may see change at the top in Labour if the pollsters and backbenchers are right…
The memories of Phil’s, remarkable decades long award-winning career in journalism (during which major political stories were often reported) as he was gripped by the rare and incurable neurological disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’.Order the book now!
Tomorrow – how in that career, he almost becomes used to the abuse he suffers when he exposes huge official mistakes or bewildering bureaucracy, and this is now highlighted by a glaring error in a Welsh Government (WG) statement…
Also on The Eye – why disturbing revelations that China accessed “vast amounts” of sensitive information, including intelligence briefings, and accusations that Russia is behind internet hacking too, which is designed to subvert key continental European elections, highlight once more how The Eye as well have been targeted by hackers.
