Wales’s election is finally heating up

You could be forgiven for forgetting that there is an election happening in Wales. The looming possibility of an SNP majority in Scotland, violence on the streets of Belfast and the death of the Duke of Edinburgh have led to a somewhat lulled campaign in recent weeks. Thankfully, last night’s ITV Wales television debate got things going, to a point. First Minister Mark Drakeford was at the crease to defend his government’s performance throughout the pandemic, as well as Welsh Labour’s record over 22 years in Cardiff Bay. Snapping at his heels was Andrew RT Davies, the Welsh Conservative leader, and Plaid Cymru’s Adam Price, regarded generally as the most impressive debater.

The first question put the leaders on the spot, asking what they would have done differently in handling the pandemic. Drakeford, in Welsh Labour election tradition, was on the defensive. The First Minister asked the public to trust his approach to the Covid-19 regulations. Price agreed with this ‘slow and steady’ strategy and relished attacking Downing Street’s ‘shambolic flipflopping’. Rather predictably, the Tory leader seemed to lament the fact that Wales had used its own devolved powers over the last 12 months.

It was a rather mixed affair thereafter. Questions on introducing a Universal Basic Income, mental health, support for disabled people and second homes were welcome but mainly unexcepted features of the evening’s agenda. After all it is quite hard to see striking, election-deciding differences between the parties on some of those policy areas: who doesn’t want better mental health provision, support for disabled people in the workplace, and for young Welsh people not to be priced out of their communities?

However, there was an explicit election battleline that came up time and time again: Welsh Labour’s record. When the First Minister outlined his policies on helping people with a disability, both Price and Davies shot back, asking: what have the party been doing for 22 years? Where is the accountability? ‘If they were better at winning elections, they would have had a chance’, the First Minister shot back with a pointed finger.

Mark Drakeford knows that these kind of attacks are only going to get worse for Labour. They are damaging to him and the Welsh Labour brand, as recent opinion polls show his seat numbers dwindling. But it’s not all doom and gloom for the party; what works in Drakeford’s favour, and has benefitted Welsh Labour for over two decades, is the incompetent Welsh opposition.

When the debate moved onto housing, for instance, Price and Davies unveiled their building projects: 100,000 homes built over the next decade under the Welsh Conservatives, half of that in affordable housing from Plaid Cymru. Fantastic. How will they do it, though? Neither were convincing. It was ‘pie in the sky’ stuff, Drakeford argued. He knows the game: aim low and you’ll never disappoint.

For the most part, Drakeford avoided the most stinging confrontations, letting Price and Davies clash repeatedly. On expanding the Senedd’s size, the latter said money should be spent elsewhere not on politicians. Price happily accepted the challenge, reminding him of the Tory peers that continue to be ennobled by Downing Street. Although the Welsh Conservative leader compared Welsh independence to giving your car keys to a ‘drunk driver’, Price had ample room to slate how Westminster was ‘rotten to the core’ – with plenty of recent examples to support his argument, including the behaviour of a certain former Prime Minister.

It captured how Davies was uncharacteristically off form throughout the evening. He looked tense and rigid, speaking so quickly that one live blogger struggled to note all of his comments. At times Davies also failed to engage properly with the question at hand, and was reprimanded by the moderator as he regurgitated party messaging on Welsh Labour’s failures, jobs and the economy, and the need for a ‘new chapter’ in Wales. It might appeal to his base – who I doubt would have been watching anyway – but for the average viewer it sounded a bit, well, dull.

Price by contrast was in his element. Not for the first time he brought his personal life into the debate by referencing how his mother now cares for his father, who suffers with dementia. Welsh Labour have not made the most of its devolved powers, he added, as Mrs Price is an example of people ‘waiting for a national care service free at the point of care’. He turned to the First Minister: ‘How can you look my mother in the eye and wait for a Conservative government to deliver?’ Drakeford was on the backfoot.

Perhaps the last question was most telling: ‘Who are you looking forward to meeting down the pub for a post-lockdown pint?’ Once again, Adam Price had his family in mind: he would take his mother and father out for lunch. A nice touch. Andrew RT Davies, frantically racking his brains to sound relatively normal, said the creator of Colin the caterpillar. Really? That’ll go down well with Red Wall voters. And the First Minister? A group of doctors and nurses, he said, ‘because they have kept Wales safe.’

So as ever with these debates, much of it is symbolic. It is unlikely that an election has been won or lost. All leaders stayed in second or third gear, struggling to land heavy blows. But it was some skill for the First Minister to remain relatively intact; to be able to deliver his lines with sincerity and charm. He and Welsh Labour continue to limp along, with no existential threat from Plaid Cymru or the Tories. For now.

In short, nobody won this debate. And when the votes are counted on 7 May, it’s increasingly likely that no party will win this Welsh election either.