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During 23 years with the BBC, and a 42 year journalistic career (when he was trained to use clear and simple language, avoiding jargon), our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, has conducted numerous interviews with senior politicians, and presented any number of election programmes (with several, hosted by others, to be broadcast today), and if the polls are correct we could be about to see a historic change – Labour losing its dominance in Wales.
Usually they are incredibly boring, and hardly anybody watches or listens to them.
The results of elections are given live through the night, to a tiny audience of sleepy people interested in politics, who can be bothered to stay up.
I am talking, of course, about election night programmes, but this time it could be different.
The counting is for the first time through the day, not the night, so more people will be tuning in, and the result could actually MEAN something!
In fact it may be HISTORIC (which is invariably an over-used word, although not in this case), because Labour might lose its dominance in Wales for the first time in over 100 years!
The state of the health service in Wales (management of which is devolved) may have been a significant factor in bringing down Labour (if it happens), although it seems that Sir Keir Starmer’s poor showing in opinion polls is being blamed by the Welsh Labour leader.
Baroness Morgan of Ely declared that he “comes up as an issue on the doorstep”, and could be held responsible, rather than her own administration.
The phrase “a bad workman blames his (in this case HER) tools” comes to mind!
One pressure group (Llais) found that there were: “…challenges like understaffing, long, uncomfortable, undignified waits, and poor communication (which) too often overshadowed positive experiences”.
Professor Medwin Hughes, the chair, declared: “Emergency care in Wales is at breaking point. What we heard from patients and staff across the country exposes a system under extreme and unsustainable pressure where the wellbeing of both patients and healthcare professionals is at significant risk. People across Wales are asking for timely, dignified care, and they deserve nothing less.
“People need urgent answers: what will make things better, and who will make sure real change happens? The Welsh Government and NHS Wales have set out strong principles but principles alone will not fix a system in crisis.
“Now is the time for action. Strong leadership and collaboration are essential to deliver real change for people and communities. A national conversation, involving both patients and professionals, must take place to rebuild trust and confidence in the NHS. The situation demands nothing less”.
Meanwhile in the recent past ambulances have been waiting nearly two hours on average to hand over patients outside Welsh hospitals, and in one month there were more than 6,500 ambulances which spent at least an hour outside A&E departments – the second highest figure on record.
This is a backdrop for possible big changes, because Labour’s past supremacy is unquestioned.
Political scientists at Cardiff University (CU) reckon that Labour have dominated Wales longer than any party has dominated any democracy.
Labour have won a plurality of Welsh seats in every General Election (GE) since 1922, and have won every Welsh Parliament/Senedd Cymru (WP/SC) election since that body was created in 1999.
For historical consistency, the party beats the Christian Social Union (CSU) in Bavaria, the South Tyrolean People’s Party (STPP) in Italy and the Democrats in the American ‘solid South‘ (who cheated by disenfranchising black people).
But Labour’s run may end today.
The Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru (Plaid), are expected to win. and the right-wing populist party Reform UK (Reform), might come second.
That would shake Labour to the core, as well as worry the UK Prime Minister (PM).
Remember that Labour’s first leader, Keir Hardie (after whom the present PM is named), represented a Welsh seat, and so did the party’s first Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald.
Labour consistently dominated the South Wales Valleys even as the party’s fortunes have fluctuated elsewhere.
The former Welsh Labour leader and First Minister of Wales (FMW) Rhodri Morgan used to talk of “clear red water” in a strategy of distancing Welsh Labour from the UK lot, but to add another analogy of which he would have been proud – if you could cut the Labour party in half, it would bleed Welsh red.
So, for once, I won’t be involved directly in this election (not as a presenter anyway), but unlike all the vote-counting programmes I hosted, this one could actually be quite important!
The memories of Phil’s decades-long award-winning career in journalism (including his time hosting political programmes), as he was gripped by the rare disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now!
Next week – cyber crime has been put centre stage by the Iranian war, as all parties try to destabilise the foundations of institutions, and this highlights once more how The Eye too have been targeted by hackers.
