Ep21: Have Welsh Labour given up?

While the lads are devastated to be missing their (frankly) Welshest member they do their best to keep calm and carry on.

Robin and Will take a look at how Wales has been really creative when it comes to sending young people abroad before taking a look at the latest waiting list data.

Elsewhere they look at where Labour are currently at in Wales as well as asking the question of whether the Lib Dems have negotiated a good deal in the budget.

Plus Will explains how an old man named Stavros took all his money. 

Tickets are still available for the For Wales, See Wales Live Show at Cardiff’s Glee Club: https://booking.glee.co.uk/21914?. 20% discount with the code: FWSW20

Big thanks to our sponsors ACT Training and  Lion Containers

For Wales, See Wales is a HayMan Media Production.

About FWSW

100 years ago if you had picked up the Encyclopaedia Britannica and looked up “Wales” you would have seen four words - ‘For Wales, see England.’

This implied that Wales was no different to England. Not worthy of its own description. Second fiddle. Frankly, it implied that Wales was simply less of a country.

That is why we have launched our podcast: For Wales, See Wales.

It is a weekly look at Welsh politics looking at the issues that matter to people here.

There are so many people who are passionately Welsh, who care about Wales and want to better understand what is happening here.

The more informed people are on Welsh issues, the more they are able to hold politicians and decision makers to account for the things that affect their lives.

Just as importantly, we want to have a good laugh talking and learning about the country we love.

Plus we have some great merchandise which you can buy here: https://for-wales-see-wales.teemill.com/

Get in touch at ForWalesSeeWales@gmail.com

For Wales, See Wales is a HayMan Media Production
https://www.haymanmedia.co.uk/

Transcript

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 Hello and welcome to another episode of For Wales, See Wales, sponsored by ACT Training. My name is Robin Morgan. I'm Will Hayward.



We have no Mel. Where are we going to say she is? We're Mel-less. Well, last time she was here she was celebrating a Donald Trump victory. Yeah. I imagine she's over there trying to be in the cabinet. All right, you know like Elon Musk has been in the office. Yeah, she's doge. I think, yeah, she is so doge. She's so doge. Yeah, or she's fighting for the Russians against Ukraine. Sure, yeah. I think that... Do we want to say she's complicit in genocide? I don't think we do. Yeah, again.



 Fool us twice. Yeah, well, indeed.



 Mel is sadly not with us, but will be in a few days time. At the live show. At the live show. So this is the final episode that you can listen to before we do our live show. It's on Sunday the 2nd of March at the Cardiff Glee Club. There are a few tickets available. It's sold very well. It's going to be a really nice big bunch of us.



 And you can get tickets on the Glee website if you use the promo code FWSW20. I always panic out not being able to say I have to look at the name of our bloody show. You can get 20% off and it's going to be fun. And also, if you are now, if you're catching up on this episode later, we're sorry about all of the controversies that came out of the live show. Yes, absolutely. We apologize in advance. You can't cancel us if we apologize in advance. Yeah. And what's the classic kind of apology? Like, yeah, I've got no memory of it. But if I did do it, I'm sorry. Oh, yeah, that's good. Always posted on social media from the iPhone Notes app. Yeah, absolutely.



 We've done some listening. We've done some learning. I've grown as a person. We're all works in progress. Yeah, absolutely. I'm a work in progress. Spending time with my family.



 We're going to come back better. Yeah, bigger message. Muscle emoji.



 We go again.



 We go again. Yeah, so what have you been up to? What have you been up to? Because we're recording this early. We're recording this on a Sunday because on the Lord's Day, we love Welsh politics. Even on the Sundays. We will do anything to disrespect Darren Miller. Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah, I know. He's going to hate this, isn't he? Yeah. Well, presumably his state side. So maybe that's very, very true. Yeah, but it's, you know, it might be Monday. His time. That's very true. Fingers crossed. I'm obsessed. You know, he sort of goes to the Bibles. Yeah, that's how they sneak sort of like shanks into prison and stuff, isn't it? Like inside like a hollowed out Bible. Yeah. I think that's what he's been doing.



 I'm thinking about Darryl having to edit this. No, I don't think that's what he's doing. Fair. Fair. I hope that's what he's doing. Yeah. What have I been doing this week? I could not tell you. I think I've been gigging. I think, oh, I went to a lovely event in London for Wales Week. Wales Week London. Nice. That was very nice. Lots of-- What happens at Wales Week? It's about selling Wales to the world, my friend. OK. It was delightful. Joe Ledley, the footballer, was there. Former Cardiff City and Wales footballer. And the FAW were there. The National Museum of Wales were there. Gave them a big shout out. I said they were sat right next to the auction items. And I said that was very suspicious. And if the Woolley Mammoth is replaced by a signed picture of Shane Williams, we know what's happened. And I suggested that they were doing an Elgin marbles with it. Did it go down well? Yeah.



 Yeah, buddy. And I think so. The joke that I wrote about Joe Ledley didn't go down particularly well because I gave him a shout out. And he wasn't at his fucking table. Oh, I'm so excited. He's gone to the toilet. Are they quite fun to do corporate gigs like that? It depends. Does anyone care? No. No one cares at any of my gigs. But no one cares about anything. That's not a gig. That's a pleasure.



 Corporate gigs, they can be fun. I've started doing them as basically like mini roasts now. When I started out, no one cares about me. I'm not Michael McIntyre. Nobody cares. I'm not Michael McIntyre. And no one knows who I am. So they're not going to sit down and listen to me. Whereas if I write bespoke jokes about every business in the room, the amount of feedback I've had where people have said, "Oh, he really does his research. They haven't said I'm funny." But you've done your research. Really Google who's in the room. But then I think it also keeps people's attention because they're like, "Oh, they might mention our company in a second." So kind of like... They need to... And also they need to like... They need to laugh at what other people are doing and then be ready to laugh at themselves. Oh, yes, for sure. Like I wanted one where I was like the warm-up corporate host for Rylan coming out. Oh, okay. And... Is Rylan a nice guy? I've only met him once and yes. Because he seems to start off, I was like, "Oh my God, he's everywhere. But actually, he seems like just pretty all right bloke." I think very delightful, very hard worker. Very good teeth. Very good teeth. But no, he was the host, host, host. So he came out and as the warm-up post of this event, they were talking through me continuously. Like just no one was listening in any way. Like 500 people just talking around tables. And I was just like basically got to the point where I was just like, "Shut the fuck up. We're about to start." And in my ear, the producer was like, "Don't swear." And I was like, "Shut up."



 And then I was like, "Please welcome to Sage National Treasure. Rylan." Rylan comes out. They just talk over Rylan. I was like, "What?" Oh, that just felt good though. Oh yeah. I was like, you know, slash, I didn't do my, you know, I felt a bit guilty that I didn't do my job properly.



 If they booked you again? They did try and I turned it down.



 I'm bad at saying those things. That's the one. And why? Because I was going to the Wales football game. Nice. I went to the Wales rugby match yesterday. Did you? I did. How was it? Do you know what? I went and me and my panel were saying, "All I want it to be is like, not a horrific walkover." Yeah, for sure. If you'd have said to me, "Wales, we'll get a try. I don't know, we'll get two or three." I'd have just taken that. Yeah. But it was so competitive. So close, right? It was so fun. So close. I was pretty close to where, do you see it where he jumped over to? It was a beautiful try. Epic. First international try for him. Yeah. It was good. I had some pretty pissed up boys behind me. Yeah. But once I engaged them in banter, they turned on me. But yeah, you're now on a stag to with them. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But yeah, it was fine. It was good fun. Yeah. Yeah, I enjoyed it. I do love the principality though. It's a good stadium. Roof closed. Do you call it the principality? I still say the millennium. I call it the millennium. Yeah. I refuse to call it the principality. Same with the Prince of Wales Bridge. Yeah, I call that the Charles.



 The Charles. Going over the old Charlie. Going over Chazzer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chazzer. Oh, Chazzer's closed. It's windy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chazz doesn't like the wind. He hates the wind, man. Famously. Should we talk about watch politics? Yes.



 When you were at university, did you know or go on the Erasmus scheme? I didn't know. I was aware of it and it kind of felt like it was something I kind of wanted to do. There was also a boy in my ear called Tom Erasmus.



 Is that relevant? Probably not. Sure. I don't want you to not feel included in this discussion. Thank you very much, Will. I appreciate it. Yeah, so the Erasmus scheme, now called Erasmus Plus, was a scheme that the EU had whereby students from different parts of the EU could go and study for a year. In other parts, it was primarily university students, but it could be staff as well. And it was a way of creating links between different parts of the EU. Sure. For like academics, but all from a business perspective, but also the inherent enriching thing that comes with travel. When we decided to leave the EU at the end of the negotiation, all the stuff done, the Tories had taken us out of everything and gone, "Yeah, this is great. This is a really worthwhile endeavour." And the EU said, "Do you want to stay in Erasmus? You're welcome to stay in Erasmus as an associated country. So you won't be part of the EU, but your students will still be able to do this." And the Tories said no. Right. Because control. Control.



 And just dogmatic ideology. It was a bit of an extra bit of self-harm on top of the major self-harm. Yeah, sure. It was the paper cut on top of the like, slitting our own throat. The groting, yeah. Yeah, the groting. Yeah, exactly. The paper cut on top of the grot.



 And they decided they were going to do their own scheme, which in England was called the Turing Scheme. Now, the Turing Scheme, named after Alan Turing. You know, you've seen The Imitation Game. I have, yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, it was in tribute to Benedict Cumberbatch. He was a great hero, a maritime. Yeah, sure. And also a closeted homosexual. Darryl, take that out.



 Fuck it, don't take that out. I like it. What's he gonna do? Sue us? That's just more publicity.



 And Vave started that in England, and it was quite a complicated application process.



 People... What a lovely tribute to Alan Turing, that the whole thing was like cracking a code. Really, really, really complicated. That is perfect. Yeah, unnecessarily, like completely complicated, and you needed to be a genius to navigate it. So what they also found is that those from disadvantaged backgrounds had received less funding because under the schemes, monthly stipend, they would have under Erasmus Plus. So one of the reasons that the Tories said that they were leaving Erasmus was because it didn't help disadvantaged people much, but then the scheme they brought in didn't help them. Right. So not a great piece of policymaking, really. But what it also has done, a different one. Now, I'm super conscious. We're quite miserable on this pod sometimes. I think so. I am. Sure.



 Your array of sunshine, Mel just wants to see the world. She just wants to see the world. Fire. Yeah.



 But I think it's important. We talk about issues in Wales because it's important we talk about them and because we care about Wales. But I think it's also worth occasionally giving a shout out to things we do well. And I think we do this scheme, our version of the scheme very well. So it's called Taith. Taith. T-A-I-T-H. Do you know what Taith is in Welsh? I don't. Mel. No, Mel's not here.



 Mel! Mel!



 It is Journey. Journey. Yes. Lovely. That is fitting. Journey.



 So Wales did its own version and actually it's gone really, really, really well. Well done. So it's got a fraction of the budget compared to Erasmus. But what it's done is it's focused a bit more on youth and it's had been really successful in kind of the three years since it's been going. So some of the data, if you compare it to Erasmus, there are slightly fewer people doing Tith, but there's still 18 months to go. So they estimate that actually when it finishes, quite a lot more people will have used this over three years than they did in the last three years of Erasmus. Right. So actually in Wales, it's more effective. Sure. So what it's also done is help people from disadvantaged backgrounds. So it's included like homelessness charities, a charity supporting individuals with addiction, mental health, people who've been in the criminal justice system and organizations that help disabled people. So actually it's been more enriching for people who would otherwise not get these opportunities. Yeah, sure. And how does somebody go about getting past this game? So it's you apply through organizations. So Taith has had much more schools and youth organizations take part than Erasmus. Erasmus was massively further education and higher education focused. Was it like only there? Like there was a cut up on it. There was a little bit with youth. There was a fair bit with schools, but Tith has been much more focused on youth and schools. And that's really good considering the levels of child poverty we've got. And I think it's just something that's worth celebrating that we've done well in Wales. Yeah, for sure. So if, what, is there a minimum age that someone can be? I'm asking questions like I'm trying to send my seven year old to Barcelona. But I am and he'd love it. I don't know if there's a minimum age, I think, because there's certain groups where adults will be sent with for young people. Sure. And some of the stays aren't quite as long. So you might not be going away for a year because if somebody's kind of 15, 16, they're not going to go away for a year like you would if you were a university student. But yeah, overall, I think it's been a success. What is also concerning is they originally got given a budget of 65 million. But that's actually, at the moment, they've only had 28 million of that. And it looks like their budget might be cut further. They don't really know yet until all the budget is done. But I think it'd be a real shame if someone like this, which Wales has done well, Yeah. Was to then be like, cut, because actually, we're doing this really well for a fairly small amount of money in the grand scheme of things. Yeah, that's really impressive though, isn't it? And as you say, kind of like, just travel is enriching culturally, emotionally, everything, in terms of growing up. This is why gap years are a good idea. It's just the people who do gap years are bad people. Did you do gap years? I didn't. I'm a good person. Did you do a gap year? You're a bad person.



 Where did you go? I went to Finland for three and a bit months. Finland's a curveball. Why did you go to Finland? I said that like, why did you go to Finland? I went to Finland in winter when it's dark for like 20 hours. Yeah, you okay?



 It was actually, I went to Finland and within two weeks they had their only ever school shooting. Fucking hell. I wasn't involved. Yeah, sure. But it was, you know what, I loved it. Everyone was about a foot taller than me. Finland's a weird one because you think of it as Scandinavian. And I found the women there looked Scandinavian, the men looked properly angry Eastern European. Interesting. Yeah, because they're not like, they're not like the kind of very pretty Swedes. They're like, they're kind of a mixture of the Scandis, but also the Russians will kill you. Yeah, yeah, fun. With us. Yeah, it was great. I had a great time. Nice. And then I backpacked around. Good. Europe. Yeah, I did inter-ailing in my second year of uni around Europe. Who did you go with? I went with my friend Louise, who we did politics and history together. And she had a boyfriend. And I had no girlfriend.



 And nothing happened. She's a lovely lady. Married now.



 But when we went out in Paris, I think we once went out on like a bar crawl. And there were a group of lads hitting on her. So we said as we entered this bar that like, oh, just pretend that I'm your boyfriend. So like, they don't hit on you. And then that night I kissed someone in that bar. And some of these boys came up to Louise threatening to kick my head in. Because I was cheating on my girlfriend in front of her and they bent the bar. Like, this is why lying never works. Yeah. I never lie, kids, even if you're trying to be a gentleman about it. I lost lots and lots of money in Greece because I played backgammon for money against. In the 16th century. This old Greek men who just sit outside to Verna's playing backgammon. And I bet 40 euros that I'd win. And do you know how to play backgammon? No, do you? Yeah. Well, I thought so. But these guys, this is all they do. So I was playing backgammon against this guy.



 Okay, this is going to look like I'm making up. I think his name was Stavros. Yeah, sure. And we went, I'd had a couple of rackies, a bit of Uzo. And I got to the end and I lost. And I was like, oh, well, 40 euros. What's the price? Can't put a price on culture. Turns out it was a price. So in backgammon, you have to take out, you have the same amount of counters you'd have in checkers. Right. But you're trying to remove them and whoever removes all of theirs first wins. But he was playing that it's 40 euros per thing you had left. Sure. And I had like seven left. Dude. Yeah. So, yeah, it was, it turned pretty nasty. Yeah. Yeah. Stavros. Shout out to Stavros. When was this? This would have been in 2007. It's probably dead now. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Hope so.



 Very beautiful funeral there. A lot of flowers paid for with your money. Yeah. It was. It should be. I know. Well, what was annoying is like, he also charged me for all the drinks I'd had while I was there playing with him. Was it his bar? Yeah. Oh, right. That makes more sense. Yeah. It was.



 And give me money for that as well, actually.



 Yeah, we kind of came to an accord. I was like, I basically ended up giving him like 80 euros. And he was like getting annoyed, but he didn't really speak any English. Sure. And my Greek wasn't amazing.



 And he, his son came out and we basically negotiated. Oh my God. Yeah. I think the son was a bit like, my dad's such a nod. Yeah. It's embarrassing. I know. That's really funny. So Finland, where you found culture so enriching. Yeah. Travel's important. Yeah. Defund Tife, I think. Defund it. We're not going to use it well. No, that's very good. Well done, Wales. I think the interesting thing with Tife, just before we move on, is that it, what's always annoying about covering Wales is we always seem to have like the best, the worst bits have been a small country. Like you don't get the economies of scale. You tend to get buffeted by decisions made in other parts of the world more. But we don't get all of the advantages, which are you can make quite tailored specific things. You haven't got as many people to govern, so you can be a bit more specific and targeted in how you produce policy.



 And we saw that a little bit, the advantages of that during COVID when we had contact tracing. Right. So contact tracing in Wales was much, much better than in England, mainly because we didn't outsource it to like companies, which didn't give a shit, but also because we used councils, which actually had strong links with the local area. They knew that if like, if you're covering the valleys, that people are much more likely to operate within a particular valley than although it looks geographically that they're next to another town, they're actually not very close to it. And that was an advantage of being a small country. But we very rarely as Wales do that. But I think with Tife, it seems to me, obviously it's still ongoing, that we've kind of had the best of both worlds where we've managed to use the kind of agility and I hate the phrase agility. It's so management speak, isn't it? But that comes within a small country. So I thought we should give that a shout out. Nice. Nice. Fuck you, Star Wars.



 Don't want to spend too long on this, but as to the people on NHS waiting lists.



 So latest NHS waiting list data's out. It comes out every month. I think it's usually the third Thursday, I think.



 So there are, it's broken down in different ways, the data. So these are people that are waiting on the Welsh NHS. So there's those that are waiting over two years. So that is the longest waits. These are like the mega waits for an appointment or procedure. In England, there are almost no two year waits. In Wales, we were still over 24,000. But in the, because the figures are a bit delayed, between November and December, they went down by 740, which obviously when it's 24,000 isn't massive, but it's the first time it's gone down by 740. It's gone down by that much or barely at all for the last year.



 Yeah. I mean, and it's easy to sort of say, you know, these numbers are going down and, you know, in the grand scheme of things, it's not many, but that's 750 people, human beings who are potentially getting further in their, you know, health journey, right? Exactly. And also, I mean, these are, these are open pathways. So they're basically, if I was waiting for a, I don't know, a PIP replacement and a hernia operation, I would be on there twice. So maybe it's just one person who's been treated for 740 different days. Sure. Stavros. Yes. Stavros. God. But while it's good, so the current total is 24,000. Leonard Morgan has said that by May, that number will be 8,000. Sure. So that means that between now, well, between when the next figures are out, which cover January and May, they need to go over by, down by 3,000 a month. Yeah. They have done that in the past. They did it between March 2022 and January 2023, like straight after like peak COVID. They did see drops of kind of three, four, 5,000. Yeah. But I don't want to kind of, because I know there's a lot of work going on within the Welsh Army, just try and get these down. They've created like specialist hubs, but straight after COVID, there was a lot of people that hadn't been treated essentially because they weren't treating anyone. So there's a lot of quite easy things to deal with. You could rattle off lots of fairly simple procedures really quick. Whereas now people that are still on it, a lot of the low hanging fruit in terms of clearing this backlog is gone. Yeah, sure. And because people have been on them so long, they've got more complicated. So it's quite, I'm really hopeful that they'll do it. But do you know anyone on a waiting list? Yes, I do. Yeah. I know people on waiting lists, I think pretty good charts. If there's 800,000 people, well, there's 800,000 waits in a nation of 3 million. Yeah. There's a pretty good charts. You know someone. Yeah, it's a very bleak six degrees of Kevin Bacon, right?



 Exactly. Yeah. Exactly my thoughts. Forgive me for asking this, but it's very much what I'm here to do. If say one of those people on the two year plus waiting list gets a call tomorrow and says, "We've booked you in Friday." Do they go off that waiting list now they've got an appointment or is it after the appointment that then that goes?



 It's a very good question. I would imagine it will depend on, because every health board does stuff slightly different. Every department within the health board will do stuff slightly different in terms of how they declare things. As I understand it with some of them, once the appointment has been sent out, sometimes that just comes off. But I think with procedures, I don't think it does. I'm happy to be corrected on that. And I'll come back next week, but I'm pretty sure. What is frustrating though is for some people, they might be waiting for like an initial assessment before and up. And so if they've waited like two, three years, and then they get that appointment, and they get it, they then go back to, "Oh, they're not waiting anymore." Even though you're actually still waiting. Sure. This is when it's tricky, right? When you sort of go, because you could build a hub and go, right, here are 24,000. A thousand people, call them, book them in for this week. Let's get the numbers down. But is that actually helping them? You know, that was the reason I'm asking. Well, that's what we saw during COVID with Matt Hancock, which I'm in. Yeah. Loves a group. What's he doing now? Who's he doing? Sure. Don't know. Same lady?



 They're in love. Didn't he say that he broke the rules because he was in love? Yeah. Because you can't... That's not a crime. Love is not a crime. Love is not a crime. I think he should be forgiven. Like Dominic Cummings loves testing his eyes. Yeah, yeah, true. Very passionate about ocular health.



 Do you remember when it was, we've got to have these 100,000 COVID tests a day by the end of April. Yeah. That was the big test. They love numbers, don't they? They love numbers. They weren't that close to hitting it, but what they did was, on the kind of the last day before the end of that time, they just banged through loads and loads of tests, even if they didn't need tests in order to hit that target, which actually meant in the weeks following, they didn't have much reagent or the chemicals they needed to do more tests. Sure. So they did it just to hit that test. This is when arbitrary numbers become, and this is an issue with Illinid saying, we're going to get these numbers down. I know you need to say that you're doing something and it's good to have goals and all this kind of stuff, because you can't just be saying, we're going to get them down by how much, but it always feels very reductive to base policy and to base politics on that. I think you're right.



 They are aware of it because, I mean, say you've got somebody who is living with a need to hit replacement. Hit replacement is incredibly degrading and painful thing to wait for. It really limits your mobility, it affects your health. But ultimately, if someone's waiting three years for that and there's a child who needs an eye operation in order to see who's waited three months, there is an argument for prioritizing need over prioritizing speed.



 So it is a tough thing. They have to balance. We need to stop training surgeons to be so good at hips and eyes only. Yes. This is the issue here, I think, Will. Exactly. I'm happy to be quoted on that.



 Get that on a t-shirt. Absolutely. We won't. Much. Much. Much. Okay. Let's go on. I think we've covered everything to do with health policy there. Let's move on.



 Robin, we're going to do another apprenticeship myth. Hit me. Do you think that apprenticeships are only for small companies?



 Yes, I imagine so because you need to keep track of who's doing them and make sure that they're... Yes, you imagine it being someone, a small company with like they've got an apprentice in, they work with them. Yes. That actually isn't the case. I actually only found this out, which is a bit embarrassing, when I was at the apprenticeship awards. ACT did an award ceremony for their apprentices. Nice. And well, the good ones.



 And some of the companies that were really small, but some of them were like really, really large companies or organizations. So like, kind of counsel, like won awards. Oh, wow.



 Come to have health board, won awards.



 Apprenticeships are actually really good for companies of all sizes. I think ACT have like 5,000 apprentices in different places. So it's not just kind of a one man band. Okay. So yeah, but I suppose that, yeah, that does make sense because I guess if you've got a ton of different roles, any of those roles in theory could get somebody in to sort of learn on the job, right? Yeah, yeah. And exactly. And I think often larger companies are better placed because they are able to absorb that thing while people are learning easier than if you're a company of three, it may be it's a bit trickier, although a lot of small companies also do have a practice.



 I spent a lot of the last week speaking to lots of people within Welsh Labour.



 Why? That's my job, Rob. Sure. But does it ever call you Rob?



 You know what? My dad calls me Rob and a couple of school friends call me Rob and the majority of listeners on BBC Radio Wales who call in to me on the show, call me Rob. Right, Rob. Yeah. And I don't know whether it's because my dad's proper run the valleys. I don't know if it's a Welsh thing. Yeah. Strange, isn't it? Old men in my family sometimes call me Billy. Billy. Yeah. Oh, Billy Hayes. Yeah. One of my bosses at work, shout out Sean Morgan.



 I apparently was quite cocky when I started. No. No.



 But he used to just shout Billy Big Balls every time I came in, which I can testify is inaccurate. Sure. They are. God bless the NHS. God bless it.



 (Laughter)



 Two years we've been waiting for that, mate.



 So I spend a lot of time speaking to politicians. What I try and do, like I've got, as every journalist has, I've got contacts who I speak to really regularly. So there's people in each party who I speak to quite a lot. The problem is if you just, if you're a journalist and you just speak to your specific contact, or you wait for people to contact you, you tend to just end up being a kind of, although it's useful, you end up in a conduit for their particular gripes. Interesting. And I think that's a tricky thing we have now because people who come into politics now, partly because they're new to it, but also because you tend to be a bit more like trained to be the media is dangerous. Be careful. Whereas older politicians will chat to you. They'll drop you a text. They'll be like, oh, this is a bit shit. Or keep an eye on this or this just happened. Or, you know, they'll come and have a cup of tea with you in like the canteen, or they'll just chat to you in a corridor or something. Or they'll just say, do you want to come in and talk about some of the work I'm looking at at the moment? They're really like kind of street wise and they'll talk to you and they'll be like, look, can we speak off record? I try not to do much off record stuff because I don't want to report stuff. I feel like that's like chicken shit journalism in a way, but sometimes you want to do off record. Sorry, what was you going to ask you? Just that my understanding of off the record is probably based off films and television. If I was a politician, I said, this is off the record.



 I've killed a man and not that. But like, you know, the X or Y is going to do a reshuffle or something. Are you then not allowed to report on that or do you then need to just say an unnamed source? Say an unnamed source. What a lot of new politicians, well, people don't realize they think if you say off a record, they think this is not for reporting.



 Off a record just means not attributable. What I do hate is politicians say, this is off a record. Blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, you don't decide what's off a record. Yeah, sure. You say, can we speak off record on this or I offer that. Right. It's interesting. Because what you don't want is someone to, what really pisses me off is, a few people have tried this over the years where I'll have got a story because someone's I've got a leaked report or I've gone through the data and I found something like the small print or something like that. And the politician, I've said, I want his comment on this and they've gone, look, off a record, it's this, this, and this. And I've gone, no, no, no, no.



 You can't put something off a record, which I've already got. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah. That does happen sometimes.



 So what I will normally say is they'll say, can we speak off a record? I'll say, we can on X, Y, and Z.



 I'm much more likely to use off the record with press officers. So especially when I was a general reporter, and we do this all the time, especially with police and councils. So when I was at Wales Online, and this is a good rule of thumb for all journalists, we don't report suicide. And if we do report suicide, we don't report details of how something has happened because it's more likely to cause other suicides. Actually, I don't even like the phrase commit suicide because the phrase commit suicide implies you've broken a law and it's not actually against the law anymore. If someone takes their own life, we won't report it in that way. But when you see things like, oh, it's a police incident,



 Veronie's closed because of a police incident, quite often, it can be something like that, especially if both sides of a carriageway are held. And so I would ring a press officer and I would say, look, off a record, can you just tell us what this is? And they would say, yeah, someone's, you know.



 And that's good because that just informs our reporting. And that's a good trusting relationship. That's what a good press officer will do. With politics, off a record is quite interesting because it can be really useful because often you are dealing with human beings.



 So say somebody's partner's died or their kid is ill. They might say, look, it's a personal thing. Off a record, it's X, Y, and Z. And then, you know, that might impact how we report something. We wouldn't be like, oh, he didn't attend three votes in the Senate, but actually it's because of this. Where was I going with this? Oh, yeah. So, so off a record is actually a really useful tool, but I think journalists, and I'm probably getting this well, have a thing of overusing it and it allows politicians to essentially push their own agenda without being accountable for it. Interesting. And that really, really pisses me off when it's like governments because I'm like, don't off a record this. Come out and say it. You're the government, fucking own it. Yeah. Anyway. So I've been speaking to quite a lot of AVer politicians and staff off the record. And the reason I was doing that is because I want to get a feeling for where they're at. And I want them to feel like they can speak candidly. Yeah. Some lay, some within labor have been, I think, more focused on applied than they have been on reform in terms of the threat for 2026. Okay. Apart me gets that because actually you more likely take most reform voters have already left labor. But reform could still be a threat to labor because they could win more votes, but it's not like the necessary taking their votes. And do you think that is because that is their logic or is it just because before reform did so well in the Westminster election, applied was the... Yeah. Yeah. They just haven't changed. A lot of politics is muscle memory. Sure. Like, like, applied to the threat. And I was speaking to a few people and one of them said to me, he was like, we don't need to worry about applied because they're our life raft. Like, they're basically a few people saying, we might not be the biggest party here. Applied to kind of an alliance with them is our only real way to have any power in government. Yeah. And that is a big change for a party that's been the largest party for over a hundred years. Yeah. That's huge. It's massive.



 A few people have actually said to me kind of privately,



 maybe we need a bit of time in opposition, you know, just for some fresh ideas. Yeah. What is, I don't know, have you seen how many labor MSs are stepping down? Oh, yeah. No, it's proper.



 Yeah. Twelve of the thirty have announced they're not running again. Yeah. Next time. It's very, the band is playing on the Titanic type vibes, isn't it? Yeah. Exactly. Like, people like Gethin and Drakeford, we understand, but also people like Julie James, really big, like hitters within the party. Jane Hut, who is the longest serving female minister in the UK.



 She's been in a pretty much a parliamentary office in 1999.



 She's going to be going, I can't tell you how many people, because the problem is Welsh labor have just been stuck with the same faces at the top. Some of them really good. Some of them absolutely dogshit. I know that's a horrible thing to say about dedicated public servants, but... Off the record, who? No. I'll tell you as soon as the mics are off.



 But I've just watched them all speak and see who you think it is.



 It's fucking obvious. They're just rubbish.



 But that kind of has created a bit of a bottleneck and there's a lot of people lowering the party who think, oh, this could be our time. People have already started maneuvering and politicking and trying to get on the party lists to run. It's now a good time to be doing that when, obviously, like 10, 15 years ago, you'd be quite likely if you got a ballot, you'd get in as a labor candidate. I mean, labor are likely to do the worst they've ever done in the Senate, but also there are more MSS. Yeah, of course. So they'll have a smaller share of something bigger. So if you're an individual, you've still got a decent chance. If you can get on a list in the top, if you're in the top two as labor, you got a really good chance if you're in the top three. Probably not that likely, but you could. Interesting. And the people who say someone who has not run as a candidate before, who is that person? Where are they in the party? They're obviously a party member who has worked for labor in the past, who has then gone, I want to stand as an MS. Like, who is that kind of person? It will be, it depends. General elections are a bit different because general elections, you tend to get more of the parachuted MPs. Sure. So there's a lot of controversy because labor brought in people like to the ballot and just dropped them in and said, right, they're the new candidate.



 For Senate elections, it tends to be people who have either been staffers for MSSs, advisors for MSSs, or people who have maybe working like public affairs. Maybe they've been lobbyists for like a charity or something, but maybe they've now started to, but they also help with like,



 politicians, election campaigns in the past, or they'll go out and leaflet with someone. Sure. Stuff like that. So it's people who you've got to kind of, or they might be councillors. councillors are really, because councillors often have a local profile. They're used to campaigning, stuff like that. Sure. They'll go out and leaflet with MSS. You've got to be able to track record, but it's somebody who is adjacent to the party and to politicking rather than some... If it's a really big name, say someone with a profile who's a bit of a select. Like when Susie Izzard. Did it a few years ago, right? Yeah. Yeah. Like, okay, if Mel decided to run for play, they'd probably let her. Is that why she's not here? Why didn't we say that? That's much better. Stupid. Yeah, yeah. She's gonna usurp the Rhunicorn.



 But I think it begs the question. Labour, some people, it feels very 2010 when Gordon Brown was like on his last legs, people thought, "Oh, do we need a bit of time in opposition?" And I think the problem with that is, in an ideal world, yeah, a party should renew. The problem is, from a Labour perspective, who is who will come in if they don't? Because if you get a reform in government who frankly don't have much... Their track record is they don't really care about governing.



 It's a springboard to future success. If you ever got back into power, would you be coming back to? Well, I mean, arguably, you've got that with what UK Labour have now, right? It's great that you've had a time to reinvent the party and try on some different hats. But the country was decimated in terms of cuts and things in the meantime. So it's a very privileged position to be like, "No, we can have some time on the... I've got to sit on the benches." Opposite where I used to sat now, that feels a very privileged position to be in. But yeah, what are you gonna come back to? Because the world changes, right? If you're away for 15, 20 years. And being in opposition is hard. You get much less profile, you get much less funding. And you've got less staff. They need to go to America, man, to these breakfasts. What I will say, speaking to people, I don't think most people have... I think most people in Labour realise this is probably going to be their worst performance. But I wouldn't say the overwhelming view was, "Let's give up." I think there's a lot of people fighting. I think the fact that a lot of people are stepping down is actually good. Sure. Because it's brought in some people with energy who are like, could be fighting for like their first seat. And also, I think, optics wise, you can go in and say, "Look, you want to change? Yes. The government might have been stale, all these kind of things. Whereas I'm coming to this with a bit of like, boom, I can be the fresh voice to try and change things and make things work for you." Yeah, definitely. I actually had lunch with a Len of Morgan accidentally this week. So I was in the center of Canteen. And it's quite funny, where I sit in the center of Canteen, I don't sit in the press room. Do you have your own place? Like Mean Girls? I try and sit in a particular spot because I want to be able to see the whole room. And I want them to have to see me when they come in. (Laughter) Only because I want them to talk to me, not because I'm like, all eyes on Will. That's so funny. Oh, God, I sound like such a wanker. I don't mean it like that. You don't say. Such a sake. No, I mean it in a way that I want them to come talk to me for stories. I get it. It's not like, "Hit me!" Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've got your own like, name tag in front of you. Yeah. Your beef brisket. What am I saying yes to that? Fuck off.



 But what I tend to find is, "Plaid will come talk to me. They'll happily come sit with me." Yeah. Older Labour people will. Younger Labour people, Labour MSs will kind of be like, because obviously I've had to criticize them more because they've been in government, but they'll still come chat to me. The Tories don't want to talk to me. No. And I've got some really, really good stories about this at the live show. I've got some exclusive stories. And I really hope they're listening to this because they'll know exactly what I'm about to tell people at the live show. So, you know. But what I also find with a lot of the conservatives is they will blank me completely in the... Because they don't want to be seen to speak to me. Because the Tory is like, leak and brief like a sieve.



 But they also don't want to be seen talking to me because they don't want it to look like they're doing it. And what? They just like message you afterwards? Yeah, they'll just message you afterwards saying, "Oh yeah, sorry, I didn't have a chance to catch up, but have you seen this?"



 But I was sat there and Eluned Morgan came in and... Who's the first minister? I have people first time.



 Imagine someone's stumbling upon this podcast and not knowing who the first minister is. She's a classy example of an old school politician who will happily have a conversation with you. Like she'll never like leak anything or give you anything juicy, but she will have a chat with you and say, "Oh, this is things we're looking to do in the future, you know, give you a kind of thermometer of the feelings in the Senate."



 And she gave in and there was like, it was really busy. And there was like, loads of pride, loads of Tories. There's a few Labour people as well. And she looked around and I'm obviously, I'm sat on my own because no one wants to sit with me. And she went, "Can I sit with you?" I was like, "Yeah, of course. Yeah, no problem." First minister. And she was like, "Don't interrogate me.



 Let's just have a nice chat." So we had an interesting chat.



 And what my impression with her that I think is interesting is that she, she's been in politics a long time and she's got a lot of, under a hell of a lot of pressure, she did health before this. She still has got the energy. Like, I think she's pushing, you know, treacle uphill, but she has still got the energy. I mean, every Thursday and Friday, she goes out and about around Wales, like meeting and speaking to people, which is an easy thing to avoid doing if you're a first minister. But also we talked about this maybe a month or two ago about, in this wave of people getting information on Facebook, the actual door, you can't argue with people online, getting out and about and speaking to people face to face. That's one of the things we said is important, right? So the fact that she is doing this, huge. So I think she's still on her way to quite a bad defeat compared to other years. But what I was, I think, well, what I think labour should be heartened by is the fact that they still drive at the top. It wasn't this, oh God, we're just counting down time now. She still seemed to have some umph. She did a radio elves show, the phone-in. She sat in with Jason Mohammed and took calls from people. And I don't remember another first minister ever doing that. Doing that kind of LBC, Siddiq Khan. She's very personal. Yeah, she came across very well on it. Yeah, she's funny. I'm skeptical about how good she is at governance because she ran the Welsh NHS. But I mean, nobody's run that well. Sure. What was she using for lunch?



 She was having a, I think it was a curry pie.



 Woman of the people. Yeah. Problem was. She's got my vote. I was eating this super spicy wrap. So my nose was just like pouring. So I was there just like, yeah. Not smelling her.



 That's the classic Billy Heyward interview. Billy Big Ball sitting alone wanting everyone to look at him. Sniffing at the canteen. Girls over there. I sound like fucking Gollum. No, I like it. Cool.



 I think, yeah, I think it's interesting. Those insights. Yeah, yeah, 100%.



 Guys, I imagine you guys thrived at school. Did you?



 I was a pleasure to teach. I bet you were. How about you? Academically, yes, socially. Oh, bless you. Well, guys, would you have felt more comfortable being taught in a shipping container? Do you reckon? I don't know. I have no answer to that. Why do you ask? Well, funnily enough, our concert, Lion Containers, do fabricate some container classrooms, which are like, you know, extra learnings. They call them learning spaces now, I think, in schools. They're shipping container learning spaces. Really well-lit, because you can have all these French windows in. They're just a more comfortable learning environment for a lot of children who find the classic classroom a bit restrictive. Because I actually, I can't believe I'd forgotten this. I was taught in a shipping container in year four in North Hamptonshire for the year, because there was an issue with our school. And the problem with the shipping container, it wasn't designed for teaching. It was they kind of repurpose it themselves. But Lion Containers actually will tailor it to people's specific needs. Exactly. They've got expert engineers who can help modify the shipping container to suit your exact needs. So if you're a school who needs a learning space for people to perhaps be a little bit more comfortable learning in a non-classical environment, then maybe a shipping container classroom is exactly what you need. And to get one of those, you go to www.lioncontainers.co.uk.



 Obviously, next week is the budget. So Welsh Labour have come to an agreement with the lone Lib Dem Jane Dodds. Jane Dodd. Jane Dodd. Jane Dodd. Poor Jane Dodd.



 And she has agreed to back their budget, which means it will get through the Senate. This has been six months of tension until Dara Miller went to America.



 And yeah, so shall I read you what she has got as part of the deal to back them? Yeah, but also I really would love it if Dara Miller obviously is going to be present to vote if he's wearing like an American, you know, like Uncle Sam uniform, like he's got it from my. Yeah, I'd love it if you really made it. So wearing a cowboy hat. Yeah, I was given to call him Tex and stuff.



 These are the things that she got. Yeah. So she got an extra 30 million for childcare. The hourly rate for provide childcare providers will be increased to £6.40 an hour. There'll be 30 million more for social care targeted laid hospital discharges because a big problem is you're not able to get people out of hospital into care homes. So people aren't able to leave hospital beds. A guaranteed 3.8% funding floor for all local authorities. This will increase the funding for nine local authorities, including her own one, Powis.



 She was instrumental in the ban on Greyhound racing. Yeah. Yeah, you see that? Yeah, they got a lot of headlines, didn't they? The one Greyhound track in Wales. Yeah. Yeah. And obviously it's, I imagine it's being used. And I know that locals don't like it. Is that the vibe of it? It depends on the local, but I think they argued that it should be abandoned on animal welfare grounds. This is the thing that Jane Dodds was very passionate about. There was 5 million to improve playgrounds and play facilities for kids. An extra 5 million to support leverage centers to be more energy efficient. A £15 million to fund a pilot scheme for young people aged 21 and under to pay only £1 for bus services. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when we were talking about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 100%. Yeah. Funding to restore the fifth train service on the heart of Wales line. That's very much her local area. 5 million to tackle water pollution and an extra 10 million for rural investment schemes. So just over £100 million of extra funding in exchange for her support. Yeah, Jane's wishlist. Do you think she's got a good deal? I mean, all those things sound very good and will benefit Wales. I, as a Luddite, don't really understand where that, you know, £5 million for playgrounds. That's going to be a fucking good playground. That's going to be men. Did you ever watch Fun House? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. It's going to be like Fun House with Pat Sharp. Well, exactly. Yeah, they're just going to hire Pat Sharp. We've got Pat and Retain now. We can't afford him. We definitely can. I went to the TV run through and he was free in the afternoon. Really? Yeah.



 I don't know if we want to keep that in. I think we do as well. I think we're going to be in the fun car. He was very nice though. He was very nice and I'm sure he's busy.



 Do you know what? If he's so full of free time he's able to find this podcast and listen to it. Our joke is fine because it was true.



 Fuck it. Sorry, Pat. Sorry, Pat. Turns out we don't hold politicians, can't we hold? But loves 90s kids TV presenters. Oh, God. Good hair though. Good hair. Yes. So I don't know. It seems all very beneficial and £100 million going to causes that you're passionate about. You'd feel like Billy Heywood. You know? Do you know what I mean? This is not the coming of thing. So, but logistically, will that make much of a difference? I think the way you've approached that is a really good way to look at it because Mark Drakeford had budgeted £100 million to negotiate to get their budget through. So if they had or it labored already had a majority, that £100 million would have already been budgeted. So I don't know how much we can argue this is extra money. Rather Jane Dodds has kind of roughly pointed them where they should put it. Yeah, because they allocated £100 million. So she hasn't really gained extra funding for Wales because this was Plaid's point was that Wales was getting enough money and they wanted more in order to support it. So I asked her, I said, can you talk me through the negotiations? How much of this stuff was that the Welsh government didn't want to do? Because these all just sound like labour policies. I mean, the £1 bus fare was something they'd been discussing previously. Yeah. And she said that they were shared priorities. Mark Drakeford was very clear. Had there been something there that Welsh Labour did not want to fund, then there would have been other negotiations, which I think would have been tougher. There are some things that we had to push for. And I was like, well, what did you have to push for? And she said, rural investments. We certainly had to push on that because obviously the Welsh government had already committed to the sustainable farming scheme. So it kind of plays into that thing that Welsh government, which sometimes comes from M moments of the farming union, that Welsh government isn't for them. Yeah. I think she's massively underplayed how powerful she's been. So Labour are one short of a majority. Since 2021, they've been one short of a majority. And so they entered into the cooperation game with Plaid Cymru. And that was stuff like free school meals, things like that. Jane Dodds could have actually said, well, actually, you only need my vote. Give me a spot in cabinet and you don't even need to go to Plaid at all. That is something she could have said. Right. And I asked her, I said, did you ever think about doing that in 2021? Is that an idea you had? And she genuinely just seemed to surprise her, but that could have been an option. So she said, I never thought about that. I'll be honest. When I came in 2021, I wasn't an experienced parliamentarian. I was a sole member. I didn't have a huge team behind me. You've got no one behind you, mate. You're the only member. I felt there was some learning. I did think about how can I make a difference here.



 But no, never. I never really thought about that. What she said. Yeah. Which in a way is quite nice that she wasn't politicking and in Machiavellian. Yeah, sure. But you're there to sort of make Wales better, right? You're there to sort of represent your people. And I suppose this wish list, you know, she's obviously doing things that she's passionate about. I imagine her constituents are as well.



 If this money, as you say, at the bottom of Drakeford's budget was like 100 million for like negotiating. I feel like I said like that. Negotiating. Negotiating. You sound like it's like being back playing backgammon. Yeah. Stop that. Give me 40 euros for saying that, actually.



 If there's 100 million that couldn't apply or the Tories or reform basically say, Jane has taken 100 million pound from my own NHS. Because that money could have, could have feasibly been into the NHS budget. God, imagine if they just went really aggressively after Jane Dodds. Jane Dodds, why am I not? I don't know if it's Jane Dodds. Stop making it Jane Dodd. It's Jane Dodds. I think it's, the Lib Dems need to find a way to become relevant in getting Wales. They've been like, she was on her own and the term before that, Kirsty Williams, was on her own. Kirsty Williams joined and was education minister throughout the last term, the previous term. The Lib Dems, like we saw this with Nick Claggan, the coalition. They're really bad at like politicking, even though they are the people who advocate more than anything for like proportional representation, which will produce these coalitions. I did say to her, what does success look like for the Lib Dems in 2026? Now bear in mind, the polls at the moment put them potentially behind the Greens on 5%. The Greens are hoping to get maximum three seats, probably two, almost certainly one in Cardiff.



 But I said to her, so, you know, is one or two seats success? She said, oh no, I'm very ambitious. I'm looking at double figures. Definitely. If we look across Wales in terms of the new paired constituencies, we've got real activists there. I'm really clear that we're going to achieve significantly more seats than we've achieved in the 26 years of devolution. We've got really good activists and the PR system is going to help us. It's going to be challenging. We know reformer, biting out of heels. I don't think reformer know you exist. But we are up for it. So to be clear, she wouldn't put a number on it, but she said double figures. So at least 10. 90. The most they've ever had is six. Yeah. I mean, that is very ambitious.



 But, you know, if if playing, you know, fair play.



 The Greyhound vote. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is exactly it. All those three Greyhounds stacked on top of each other in a trench coat, putting an X in a box for a livedem. She's just getting like rabbits to run to polling booths. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.



 It's going to be really interesting. I mean, the fact that it's a new system and so many more seats, you know, it's it's going to be the new normal, right? So we're going to a lot is going to change. Well, I said to her, where are you targeting? And she's like, oh, all over. And I think the problem is, if you target all over, they're going to come. They could end up with very, very few. They need to be really aggressive. And what the Dems did so well in the Westminster election is that they really targeted hard on those seats that were flip-flopping from the Tories. Right. Yeah. Yeah. They offered a non-labor alternative for people in like rural, like, and, you know, lowercase, liberally minded. Yeah, exactly. And by flip-flopping, I mean, David was wearing flip-flops because he was underwater. He was running down a hill in flip-flops. He's crazy. He's crazy.



 I think that's, we've covered a lot there, but you know where we're going to cover more? Live show. The live show. So then in the second of March, Cardiff Glee Club, you can get tickets with FWSW20, 20% off. Mel will be there. She's promised that she's going to be back from the States slash the Gulag in Russia. As the new Plaid Cymru Canada for Cardiff, whatever it's with. It's going to be great. We've got a lot of fun plans. We were, before recording, we were giggling our little faces off about our stupid plans. So yeah, come along. We really appreciate you guys listening and sharing. And it's been nice to chat to people about them listening. So yeah, it'd be lovely to sort of meet you all in person. We can have a little chat afterwards. The other thing we'll say, guys, when you arrive and you go up the stairs into the Glee Club, there will be some paper and a ballot like box. If you've got questions you would like us to answer in it, you can scribble your questions on there and we will take, we'll take the ones that are interesting and not live less or obscene. Yeah, I'm going to write all awful ones. Yeah. Also, if you want to do a funny, like, obscene drawing, it might help your chances of getting in. Yeah, because Mel is a pervert. Yeah, she is famously. This is why she's not here. Three strikes.



 Three strikes, you miss a week.



 I can't believe what she did to producer Daryl.



 Huge shout out to Hey Man Media as per they edit this, they record it, they do our beautiful shots, they are the best in the business, they're based here in Newport. I just had lunch at Newport Market. Was it nice? It was very nice, very, very pleasant. Yeah, it is good in there, isn't it? Nice. So shout out to Newport. Especially after we slagged off a transport bridge next week. Oh, also thank you to all the people who told us they're obscene, obscure art installations in Wales. We've got a few, we're going to go through them in a future episode, so keep them coming. If there's art, bits of art in Wales, you think we should look at, send them in at 24 Wales, see wales at gmail.com. And finally, big thank you to ACT Training, you can find more about them at actretraining.org.uk. They provide apprenticeships. So if you're a young person looking to get on an apprenticeship, you're an employer looking to upscale your workforce or hire young people and equip them for skills for the modern workplace, go to acttraining.org.uk.



 We'll see you at the live show. We will. See you later.