‘The punishment election’: Is Labour facing a bloodbath in Wales?
4/29/202636 min
South Wales has been a Labour heartland since the party formed over a century ago, but speak to people there today and you'll find support leaving in droves. So can Labour avoid an electoral car crash? Could the other main parties capitalise? Ahead of the Welsh Senedd elections next week, we travelled to Swansea to take the political temperature.
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Guests:
- Professor Matthew Wall, professor of politics, philosophy and international relations at Swansea University and principal investigator of the 2026 Welsh election study.
- Grant Berni, head of the Osprey’s supporters club.
Host: Manveen Rana.
Producer: Harry Stott.
We want to hear from you - email: thestory@thetimes.com
Read more: A walk round Pembroke Dock shows why Labour will lose Welsh election
Further listening: Get ready for a pub brawl, it's local election time
Photo: Getty Images.
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 00:00
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Speaker 10:19
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Manveen Rana· Host0:50
[gentle music] From The Times and The Sunday Times, this is The Story. I'm Manveen Rana. [crowd murmuring] All right. I'm gonna come over. I know I'm supposed to start with bore da, but then I'm lost beyond that, so you're gonna have to help. Um- Prynhawn da. Oh, is it?
Speaker 4· Guest1:14
Yeah.
Manveen Rana· Host1:14
Oh, God.
Speaker 4· Guest1:14
Wednesday afternoon.
Manveen Rana· Host1:15
Wednesday afternoon. I knew I'd get it wrong. [laughs] So I'm in a pub in the charming seaside village of Mumbles, just along the coast from Swansea in South Wales. In fact, if you head up from the beach, along