Wales (Cymru)

Stopping snap elections could help to support more women into politics, according to one former MS.

Bethan Sayed, who stepped down at the last Senedd elections to spend time with her newborn son, said women could be better supported by their parties if general election dates were set in advance.

Rishi Sunak's general election announcement last month caught many, including some in his own party, by surprise.

Some of the biggest names on the Welsh language music scene including Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog, HMS Morris and Mari Mathias will be among those playing at Cymdeithas yr Iaith’s gigs in Pontypridd during the week of the National Eisteddfod this year.

Dylan Jenkins, organiser of this year’s Cymdeithas yr Iaith gigs, announced some of the artists who will be playing at the organisation’s gigs this year on Huw Stephens’ programme on Radio Cymru last night (20 June).

A major TV investigation has revealed that the controversial businessman whose company donated £200k to Vaughan Gething is under suspicion for potential tax evasion.

It has been alleged that another of David Neal’s firms has been wrongly characterising the kind of waste it has been dumping at a Pembrokeshire landfill site.

If that proves to be the case, it would mean that Mr Gething was in effect able to win the Welsh Labour leadership election thanks to money that should have been paid to the Welsh Government in landfill disposals tax.

About 1,500 Tata Steel workers will begin an indefinite strike next month over the company’s plans to cut thousands of jobs, the trade union Unite has said.

The move is the first time in more than 40 years that steel workers in the UK have taken strike action, the union added.

About 2,800 Tata Steel workers will lose their jobs when the company closes both blast furnaces in Port Talbot by the end of September.

The company said if the strike affected the safety or stability of its operations it would be "forced" to accelerate closure plans.

The strike will begin on 8 July at Port Talbot and Tata's Llanwern site in Newport.

For many people going about their business on a pleasantly warm Woodfield Street, Morriston, politics and the general election didn’t fire up enthusiasm. Several said they didn’t vote, while others shrugged and said all politicians were the same.

Rosalind Willis, though, wasn’t buying that argument. “I can’t understand when people say they’re all the same,” said the 70-year-old. “Where have you been?” But start mentioning cost of living pressures, the economy, health service, or public transport, and the spark of interest was ignited.

NHS waiting times in Wales are now the highest on record, according to the latest performance data.

The Welsh Government says the “disappointing” figures for April and May show there is a “long way to go” to reduce waits built up during the pandemic.

In April the number of overall patient pathways increased from just under 768,900 to just over 775,000 – the highest on record.

The government argued that the latest figures could have been affected by a “reduction in activity” during the Easter holiday period.

Plaid Cymru says Wales’ new First Minister, Vaughan Gething, had put waiting times “front and centre” of his leadership campaign – but had so failed to deliver.

First Minister Vaughan Gething has been grilled in the Senedd over a stinking landfill site which is owned by the convicted polluter who donated a huge sum to his leadership campaign.

Residents who live close to the Withyhedge site near Haverfordwest have been complaining for months about the noxious odours emanating there which have left locals “on all fours throwing their guts up”.

It’s owned by Resources Management (UK) Ltd which is part of the Cardiff-based Dauson Environmental Group which made the controversial £200,000 donation to the First Minister’s campaign to become Welsh Labour leader.

The company’s owner, David Neal, has previously received two suspended prison sentences for dumping toxic sludge in the Gwent Levels – a sensitive wetland area near Newport.

Workers at steel giant Tata have launched a work to rule and overtime ban in protest at the company’s plans to close blast furnaces at its Port Talbot plant.

Tata is switching to a greener form of production at the steelworks, which needs fewer workers as a consequence.

Unite said 1,500 of its members based in Port Talbot and Llanwern started industrial action on Tuesday, warning that strikes will be held if the company does not row back on its plans.

The Shadow Welsh Secretary has come under fire for displaying a “patronising and contemptuous” attitude towards Wales in a general election interview.

Jo Stevens was heavily criticised after an interview with Catrin Haf Jones on S4C’s Y Byd yn ei Le programme, during which she backed Wales’ embattled First Minister, claimed HS2 doesn’t exist and refused to commit to devolving policing to Wales – something long called for by Labour in the Senedd.

Asked whether Ms Stevens’ party was “undermining devolution” by ignoring a vote of no confidence in Vaughan Gething, she branded the motion, “a political stunt by the Tories aided and abetted by Plaid Cymru”.

The vote of no confidence passed in First Minister Vaughan Gething has led to tension between members of the Senedd Labour group and the party’s whips office at Westminster, we have been told.

Mr Gething lost the vote earlier this month when two Labour MSs – Hannah Blythyn and Lee Waters abstained on the motion that was supported by all three opposition parties. He has, however, refused to resign.

The motion, moved by the Welsh Conservatives, condemned Mr Gething for accepting donations totalling £200,000 to his Welsh Labour leadership campaign from a businessman who received two suspended jail sentences for illegally dumping toxic sludge in the protected landscape of the Gwent Levels.

Happening on the Welsh version of Wikipedia has led one man to create a brilliant online tool that allows people to learn how to pronounce Welsh placenames.

Dafydd Elfryn has created Map Llais (Voice Map) which features more than a thousand audio files of placenames in Wales, pronounced in local dialect.

It has become a great resource for many visiting Wales and those already living here.

Plaid Cymru’s Rhun ap Iorwerth has accused Labour of showing a “complete disregard” for Wales in its General Election manifesto.

The Plaid leader said the document failed to back policies championed by Labour’s First Minister Vaughan Gething.

Mr ap Iorwerth said it demonstrated a “lack of influence” from Welsh Labour on the party’s UK-wide policy platform.

“Labour’s manifesto proves that the party in Wales is powerless under Keir Starmer,” the Plaid leader said.

“The complete disregard towards Wales shown in Labour’s programme for government exposes both Welsh Labour’s lack of influence and the UK leader’s lack of ambition.

“There is nothing on devolving the Crown Estate, nothing on HS2 consequentials for Wales, and nothing on the devolution of justice and policing – all policies supported by Labour in Wales.

The 2019 Labour Manifesto was an inspiration, and I am immensely proud to have stood on it.

For the first time in my life here was a manifesto offering a transformative vision to create a fairer, more equal, greener, socialist society for all based on equality, dignity and social justice, – in my home, Cynon Valley, and across Cymru.

Boris Johnson’s victory was a devastating blow to me, and to socialists everywhere.

Since that election we’ve suffered almost five more years of a Tory UK government. The result is a surprise to no-one; increasing levels of inequality and poverty, especially child poverty; an acceleration in the climate crisis; crumbling public services; the worst cost-of-living crisis in living memory; living standards collapsing.

We at the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales (CPRW), the Welsh countryside charity, call on all political parties to commit to involving local communities in planning decisions and to integrating energy policies that support and benefit rural Wales. Originally named the Council for the Preservation of Rural Wales, the CPRW has worked to secure the protection and enhancement of the country’s landscapes and environment since 1928.

We’re committed and passionate about safeguarding our countryside for the benefit of our communities, biodiversity, rivers, landscapes, language, and culture, and our visitors. We care about our countryside and want people to enjoy and discover its beauty and bounty, and our local members work hard to make this happen. Musician, author, and broadcaster Cerys Matthews is CPRW’s new President. She’s passionate about the Welsh countryside and our values, vision, and cause.

Unelected Welsh Labour officials are threatening to impose a new leader on the party’s Senedd group if Vaughan Gething is ousted, according to senior Labour sources.

If that happened, Wales would be plunged into an unprecedented political crisis.

NationCymru has been told that the threat reflects a growing realisation among those who support Mr Gething that his position as Welsh Labour leader and First Minister is unsustainable and that he will have to step down.

Weeks before he narrowly defeated Jeremy Miles in the leadership election in March, we revealed how Mr Gething had accepted donations totalling £200,000 from a waste company owned by businessman David Neal, who had previously been handed two suspended prison sentences for dumping toxic sludge in the Gwent Levels protected wetland landscape near Cardiff.

Wales should get an extra £4bn in funding from the HS2 rail project and more control over its natural resources, Plaid Cymru's leader has said.

Party leader Rhun ap Iorwerth called for "fair" funding for Wales and a £20 a week increase to child benefit in its manifesto for the general election.

He backed a "fairer" tax system with increased windfall taxes on energy companies at the manifesto launch in Cardiff, and for powers over policing to be handed to the Senedd.

Mr ap Iorwerth appealed to Welsh voters not to give Labour a "free pass" in the general election.

The supporters of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru (CBFJ Cymru), Welsh Cladiators, Save Northern Meadows and Save Penrose are ordinary people animated by a sense of social justice or a desire to do what is right for their local communities.

Yet, the conduct of the Welsh Labour Government has now forged an unusual sense of unity and purpose amongst this relatively diverse group of campaigners. Key to their critique of the Welsh Government is its failure to listen to citizens, coupled with a propensity to patronise those who seek to legitimately question or challenge government policies and decisions.

The Welsh Government has refused to disclose the cost of a trip to India undertaken by Vaughan Gething and three officials in a failed bid to persuade Tata Steel to scrap its plan to make nearly 2,000 workers redundant at Port Talbot.

The First Minister was criticised for engaging in “performative politics” by travelling to Mumbai when Tata’s chief executive TV Narendran had been in London the previous week and made it clear that the group would not reverse its plans.

In February I reported how the Deaf community was failed by the Welsh Government. It had stood by and, in the face of objections, allowed Gwent Police to take control of the sign language interpreting facility for Deaf people in Wales and create the Welsh Interpreter and Translation Service (WITS).

The Minister for Social Justice Jane Hutt MS, Maria Battle and Professor C Janczewski – Chairs of the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board – and Councillor Chris Weaver, Cardiff Council Cabinet Member for Finance, had all apologised for not consulting the Deaf community prior to WITS taking control of British Sign Language (BSL) interpreting in 2010. Only Gwent Police, the instigator of the WITS project, failed to offer an apology.

"Wales needs more funding and "economic fairness" from Westminster, Plaid Cymru has said ahead of its general election manifesto launch later.

Party leader Rhun ap Iorwerth said the general election was "about one thing - the economy".

He said Labour did not offer "meaningful change" after 14 years of "Tory cuts and chaos".

Plaid's manifesto, which is being launched in Cardiff, calls for the Welsh Parliament to have more power over natural resources and funding for public transport."

The Labour Party’s general election campaign director in Wales falsely claimed that he wrote offensive tweets about disabled and gay people years long before his involvement in Labour politics, it has emerged.

At the weekend we reported how Stewart Owadally, a close ally of Vaughan Gething whose recent Welsh Labour leadership campaign he managed, had written a series of obnoxious tweets between 2009 and 2014.

One, addressed to Nick Griffin, the former leader of the far-right British National Party when he was a Member of the European Parliament between 2009 and 2014, stated: “You can’t spell you spaz” .

The second tweet, in which Mr Owadally responded to another Twitter user, said: “I ANSWERED F***ING QUESTIONS!!! Sorry, you’re a total idiot. Can’t be bothered with you any more. Utter halfwit. Mong.”

In the third, Mr Owadally wrote: “Apparently have turned into a total retard tonight”

By now, you've probably heard there's a UK general election on 4 July.

Members of Parliament - or MPs - will be elected to the House of Commons, and the leader of the party with the most MPs will become the new prime minister.

Wales - like Scotland and Northern Ireland - also has a devolved government - meaning some powers have been passed from the House of Commons to the Welsh Parliament, or Senedd, in Cardiff Bay.

From pensioner poverty to digital exclusion, from keeping homes warm to bank closures, the Age Cymru manifesto Our Blueprint for Wales highlights key challenges facing older people in the run up to July’s general election. We urge the next UK Government to help tackle pensioner poverty by making sure older people get what they’re entitled to and are supported in other ways.

This general election matters for older people. Worn down by the pandemic and cost of living crisis, many are yearning for a more positive future for themselves, their families, and generations to come – and are eager to help bring it about.

Nuclear disarmament of the UK is something "we all should be aiming for", according to Plaid Cymru's leader Rhun ap Iorwerth.

But he said the UK's defence force should be "well-funded", able to "play their part in defending ourselves in peacekeeping roles" and ensures the welfare of military personnel after they leave service.

His comments come after Conservative minister Penny Mordaunt said in a general election debate Russia's leader Vladimir Putin would doubt Labour's willingness to use nuclear arms.

"I'm against the nuclear deterrent because I don't think that is the kind of defence that we need and should be building in the 21st Century," Mr ap Iorwerth told BBC Radio Wales' Sunday Supplement.

"We absolutely, yes, need to be making sure that we have adequate defence forces.

"I don't think that our place here in Wales is to be talking about nuclear deterrence.

A substantial majority of Nation.Cymru readers have indicated that they believe the First Minister should resign after losing a no-confidence vote in the Senedd last week.

The no confidence motion against Vaughan Gething was passed by 29 votes to 27, with all opposition members supporting it. Two Labour MSs – Hannah Blythyn and Lee Waters – were said to be ill and unable to vote.

The motion was non-binding and will not force Mr Gething to stand aside from his role as First Minister but the result is embarrassing for him, the Welsh Government and the UK Labour Party.

2,103 people voted in our self-selecting poll which ran for two days and closed at 6pm this evening (8 June). 91% of participants thought that the First minister should resign after losing the no-confidence vote.