Theo Davies-Lewis | The Spectator columnists & writers

As Britain toasted seven decades of the Queen’s reign outside Buckingham Palace, the Welsh basked in their 1600-year survival. Dafydd Iwan, the republican nationalist folk singer, bellowed Yma O Hyd around the Cardiff City Stadium as Wales took on Ukraine in their World Cup qualifier. A simple title – We’re Still Here – makes you want to weep and, then, fight. What was once a marginal protest tune, composed at the height of Thatcherism after Wales rejected devolution in 1979, is now an apt anthem for spurring on Welsh footballers. Until recent years they were not a celebrated or well-known species but Gareth Bale, Aaron Ramsey and Joe Allen have changed all that. A surprising ascent during Euro 2016 (when the country reached the semi-finals) created excitement for the future.

Mark Drakeford’s mission to create a Welsh super state

Few appreciate how mischievous Welsh devolutionists are when it comes to embedding themselves in the national consciousness. Take the Welsh translation for ‘first minister’, prif weinidog, which means ‘prime minister’. What was once a linguistic trick has now become an informal touch point in Wales. Regardless of his title, Mark Drakeford behaves, looks and sounds like a powerful national leader rather than a devolved minister. Few politicians exude such confidence but it should be no surprise: in the last year, Drakeford guided Welsh Labour to two triumphant victories in national and, more recently, local elections. He lectures the British Prime Minister on the future of the Union and then calls for him to resign.

Why the Welsh are turning their backs on rugby

In the space of a few days last month, two games were held a mile apart in Cardiff. The first was the concluding episode of the Six Nations tournament, the second a crucial World Cup football qualifier. Beyond jubilation and disappointment, the occasions exposed the gulf between the two most popular sports in Wales: the former highlighting the crisis of datedness that has engulfed rugby, the latter demonstrating why football has gone on to reflect a more confident, vibrant and relevant Welsh identity. The age-old debate of what is Wales’ national sport has never been so easy to settle. Gareth Bale’s talismanic triumph over Austria was a stark contrast to the lethargic response of the Welsh XV to the Italians, who overcame the embarrassing hubris that had seeped into a Wales team too busy basking in the glory of milestone caps for Alun Wyn Jones and Dan Biggar.

Interview: Rowan Williams on Wales, independence and the King Lear of Westminster

Rowan Williams is no stranger to politics. As Archbishop of Canterbury he was as comfortable criticising Tony Blair over Iraq as passing stern judgment on David Cameron’s austerity measures. Even in these pages, at the height of the global crisis in 2008, Williams was arguing that Marx could teach us a thing or two about financial markets. Still, in recent weeks it just might be that he has embarked one of his most controversial projects yet: a commission to help define Wales’ constitutional future in the UK. As the spectre of Scottish independence haunts Westminster and Welsh nationalism gains momentum, it is a timely mission. In October, Williams was unveiled as head of a Welsh government independent commission on the constitution, set up by Mark Drakeford.

Wales is terrified of a repeat of the Aberfan disaster

While the Westminster bubble has spent the last few weeks focusing on Tory sleaze and COP26, the Welsh have been facing a far more consequential challenge. The problem is the country’s coal tips: monstrously black, heavy slag heaps, omnipotent and ever-present reminders of the great industry that once dominated Britain’s economy and fuelled the furnace of the Empire. Rarely do I find myself agreeing with the rabble rousing Rhondda socialist, Leanne Wood, but the former Plaid Cymru leader (who unexpectedly lost her South Wales seat in the Senedd election in May) sounded a prescient warning this month. She argued that unless action was taken to manage these tips properly, another Aberfan was ‘on the cards’. For once this was not nationalist hyperbole; it was a stark warning that has for too long been unheeded.

Welsh independence faces an existential crisis

Wales has never embraced the notion of independence and perhaps never will. So it was unsurprising that YesCymru, a grassroots nationalist movement formed to support Scottish secession in 2014, was more or less irrelevant for the first five years of its existence. Its official launch in 2016 went without notice. Wales’ decision to follow England – not Scotland – in voting to leave the EU also complicated arguments for separation. And despite a march in 2019 through Merthyr Tydfil featuring celebrity guests, the group’s 2,000 members at the start of last year was a modest figure – signalling they had little hope, like Plaid Cymru, of winning popular support. Then Covid came along, with constitutional fissures growing across the UK and Wales.

Drakeford draws up his battle lines on the Union

A little over two years ago, a relatively unknown First Minister of Wales unveiled his blueprint to repair intergovernmental relations across the UK. As he delivered the annual Keir Hardie lecture at Merthyr Tydfil College, Mark Drakeford said that he had been forced to ‘take up the baton where the UK government itself has dropped it.’ A reform of the constitution was deemed ‘both urgent and vital’ if the Union was to survive post-Brexit, while a ‘fairer, more equitable and more sustainable settlement’ should follow. Such language peppered the most provocative constitutional speech by a modern Welsh politician. The trouble was that hardly anybody listened. Downing Street certainly had little interest in hearing from a First Minister who had been in the role for less than a year and had no personal electoral mandate to make such protestations.

King of Fortress Wales: an interview with Mark Drakeford

Mark Drakeford sits opposite me in a small conference room on the third floor of Cathays Park, the nucleus of Welsh government operations during Covid-19. The First Minister of Wales is in bullish mood. Last month, he almost single-handedly delivered a thumping election victory for Labour in Wales – securing 30 seats in the Senedd and extending Labour’s 22-year-grip over the devolved parliament. The party in Wales enjoys starkly different electoral fortunes to its comrades across the border, with Drakeford now Labour’s only leader with experience winning national elections across the UK. I meet him a few hours after the first devolved Covid summit, where he and other devolved leaders spoke with the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and Michael Gove.

Welsh Labour proves again it’s a distinctive, winning brand

After the news of a Tory landslide in Hartlepool was announced early Friday morning, senior Welsh Labour figures were worried. The scale of defeat in the North of England was worse than expected, and represented nothing short of a disaster for Keir Starmer’s leadership. Could the same fate be expected for Labour’s Red Wall in North and South Wales, which started to crack in the 2019 general election? The answer, in short, is no. Welsh Labour stormed to a breathtaking victory in the Senedd election, gaining a seat from its 2016 hall to win thirty of the sixty places in Cardiff Bay. There was a Tory whimper but no bang: the party turned Vale of Clwyd from red to blue but failed to make significant inroads in other Labour heartlands, winning five seats mainly thanks to the much-derided regional member system.

Number 10 should fear a Welsh nationalist coalition

As Disraeli’s famous maxim goes: England does not love coalitions. In Wales, by contrast, we can’t get enough of them. Throughout the devolved era deal-making has created and sustained governments, including the current Labour-led administration – backed by the sole remaining Senedd member for the Liberal Democrats, Kirsty Williams, and the independent statesman Lord Elis-Thomas. After the votes are counted in next month’s Welsh election, history looks likely to repeat itself. A slurry of recent opinion polls project various outcomes on May 7 but none suggest an outright majority for any party. The latest Welsh Political Barometer, the most tested poll for identifying long-term trends in Wales, now suggests that compromise and pragmatism will be necessary to form the next administration.

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.

Welsh Labour’s Red Wall is crumbling

For a long time, Lord Mandelson’s famous quip that the people of south Wales ‘will always vote Labour because they have nowhere else to go’ rang true. The party dethroned the Liberals in 1922 to become Wales’s voice at Westminster and have won every general election since. In more recent times the onset of devolution presented a new opportunity for Labour to dominate in a new seat of power in Cardiff Bay. They have done just that: the party has been in government in Wales without serious challenge for over two decades. The coronavirus crisis has been a relatively successful period for Welsh Labour too. First Minister Mark Drakeford has developed a substantial media profile over the last 12 months by putting Cardiff at odds with London on pandemic policy, taking a leading role in debates on the future of the Union, and establishing a cult status as a professorial-cheese-loving-allotment-tending grandfather to the nation.

The 80-minute nationalism of Wales vs England

Every year, one match during the Six Nations – either in the heart of Cardiff or the depths of West London – sets the heart rate of Welsh rugby fans to dangerous levels. When Wales face England this weekend there is no doubt that millions west of Offa’s Dyke will be captivated by one of the oldest rivalries in sport. England versus Wales is a battle steeped in rugby history. In modern times it has produced moments etched in Welsh rugby folklore: Scott Gibbs’ blistering try in 1999 that robbed England of a Grand Slam at Wembley; Gavin Henson’s long-range kick in Cardiff six years later, which raised the curtain for a new era of the sport in Wales; and a nail-biting win at Twickenham during the World Cup in 2015.

Why the Welsh Tory leader has to go

For a party that is so obsessed with bursting the ‘Cardiff Bay Bubble’, the Welsh Conservatives certainly enjoy the Senedd’s tearoom. This week reports emerged that Tory members of the Senedd, including party leader Paul Davies, drank alcohol on Welsh parliament premises, days after a ban on serving it in pubs took effect. A Senedd commission report confirmed today there was a ‘possible’ breach of rules and referred the incident to Cardiff city council and the standards commissioner. It's miserable timing for the Tories, coming four months before an election. All parties involved insist they haven't broken any Covid rules. But while Labour's Alun Davies has been suspended by his party, the Tories involved have not.

Wales’ vaccine problems mount for Mark Drakeford

Mark Drakeford has been a popular figure throughout the pandemic. The Welsh First Minister’s authoritative grasp of detail and his professorial briefings have helped foster a sense of national confidence that ministers in Cardiff have a better grip on the public health emergency than politicians in Westminster. Today’s Welsh Barometer poll for ITV Cymru reaffirms that view: it shows overwhelming public support for the lockdown restrictions introduced by the Welsh government before Christmas. This popular support for the Labour government is no small thing to overlook; the Welsh public have embraced devolved politics and feel comfortable diverging from policy set in London. And with a new year comes new opportunities for varying strategies across the UK to combat the virus.

Has Wales turned on Mark Drakeford over Covid?

11 December has long stirred the imagination of the Welsh. On this day in 1282, the last native Prince of Wales, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, was slain by Edward I’s army at Cilmeri. The Tywysog’s head was then apparently taken to the Tower of London and put on display for 15 years. The Welsh he left behind were first conquered and later assimilated into their larger neighbour – marking the beginning of the ancient political, cultural and economic partnership between Wales and England. Nobody has credibly challenged the union since. Welsh legend has it that we will eventually be rescued from our English captors by Y Mab Darogan: a prophesised son of destiny. But attaining nationhood has long been just a dream: the medieval rebel Owain Glyndŵr failed in his revolt against another English king and over four hundred years later the ‘Welsh Wizard’ David Lloyd George was more interested in elevating the politics of his nation within Britain.

Mocking the Welsh is still the last permitted bigotry

Even after Wales voted marginally for a form self-government in 1997, there was incredulity that these remnants of Celtic antiquity thought they could look after their own affairs. Wales’ former first minister, Carwyn Jones, recalled what he saw as ‘casual racism’ towards the Welsh that still existed in the early years of devolution: ‘How incredible you Welsh feel that you can govern yourselves! This great experiment of devolution!’, was apparently the reaction of many in Whitehall. After 20 years of devolution, not much has changed. Compared to Northern Ireland and Scotland, Wales has been crudely viewed by many as an extension of England, but with its own curious culture, an ancient language, and what has been described as a ‘poor man’s parliament’.

Wales is beginning to split from the rest of Britain

‘I believe in the United Kingdom and in a successful United Kingdom’. For a committed unionist, Labour’s first minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, has done more than most to fan the flames of nationalism during Covid-19. In taking a markedly more cautious and communitarian approach to the pandemic compared to Downing Street, Drakeford has managed to both improve his approval ratings and inadvertently led the resurgence of our long-forgotten independence movement. Wales is definitely not the same place it was six months ago. The Welsh government’s latest divergence from Westminster is its most dramatic yet: it has announced a travel ban from Covid hotspots across the UK into Wales. There is genuine anxiety in many parts of rural Wales about the spread of coronavirus from the North West of England, as large cities continue to be put under severe restrictions.

Beg, borrow or steel: the case for saving Port Talbot

Growing up in south Wales, it is hard to escape the past. More than most other tired industrial regions of Britain, there is still a strange nostalgia of days gone by. Heavy industry and manufacturing gave us Tinopolis (Llanelli), Copperopolis (Swansea) and Treasure Island (Port Talbot). Although it is only the latter that has managed to drag itself through economic depression, Thatcherism, and globalisation to the 21st century. Now, at long last, the day of reckoning fast approaches for Port Talbot’s steelworks. At the start of the pandemic, the plant’s owners Tata Steel pleaded for a £500 million government loan. Then it offered up a £900 million stake in the company to the British state. Whitehall apparently sent in investment bankers to help conjure up a rescue strategy last month.

Keir Starmer’s Welsh nationalism problem

There is no region of the UK where Labour has dominated more – both politically and culturally – than Wales. Since 1922, the party has consistently won general elections there, and has ruled Cardiff’s devolved government relatively unchallenged since it was established in 1999. But Keir Starmer would be wise to keep his eye on events in Wales as he seeks to outflank the Prime Minister. The surprising impact of this Covid crisis has been a surge in Welsh nationalism, which until now was a slumberous movement reserved for the radicals of Plaid Cymru and Welsh football fans. The flames of nationalism have been fanned by Cardiff’s break with Downing Street policies on coronavirus restrictions, and Welsh Labour have become increasingly affected by this nationalist surge.

What Boris can learn from David Lloyd George

The question of nationalism within the United Kingdom is not a new one. The popularity of self-governance and separatism has ebbed and flowed, but it has been a constant force that has strafed against the Union. If Boris Johnson is truly intent on preserving the United Kingdom then he would do well to look to others who have navigated the nationalist question. One such figure is surely David Lloyd George, the architect of the modern UK settlement who secured the union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland by resolving the Irish question during the post-war coalition. For all this, however, he spent much of his career as the gadfly on Welsh issues. During the 1890s, the ambitious MP for Caernarfon was the unofficial leader of Wales in all but office and name, heading the patriotic Welsh group Cymru Fydd (Young Wales).

It’s time to devolve the Welsh Conservatives

Coronavirus has exposed the main weakness of Welsh Conservatives: as an essentially regional branch of an English party, its success has always relied on its national parent. This structure has made it a strong political force too. In December, the sweeping majority Boris Johnson won was largely down to his successful penetration of Red Wall seats, many of which were in North Wales. But as Welsh support for the UK government’s response to the pandemic continues to plummet – while Labour first minister Mark Drakeford’s approval ratings soar, coinciding with an interesting surge of support for an independent Wales – it is evident that ahead of next year’s Senedd elections, the Welsh Conservatives should seek to distance themselves from their London HQ.

Why Wales and Westminster don’t agree on the lockdown

Nicola Sturgeon is a familiar figure to many even south of the border. But while Scotland's nationalists are frequently seen and heard on the airwaves in England, the same isn't true of Wales's politicians. If you ask a Brit to name the first minister of Wales, you wouldn't be surprised if they struggled to answer. But coronavirus has given Wales a new prominence – not least in the country choosing to go it alone in its response to tweaking lockdown rules. It seems all it took was a pandemic to prove that the Welsh, not just the Scots, have a competent parliament and leader to make decisions. Over the last couple of weeks, the Welsh government has ramped up efforts to communicate how its policies differ to those made in Westminster.