Posts

Now comes the hard part

Image
Published in Nation.Cymru on May 9th 2026 So, the campaign is over but now comes the hard part. If you think forming a Government is tricky, try running one in the age of the Polycrisis! There are multiple crises all happening at the same time, and the Welsh Government has neither the levers, capacity, nor financial firepower to make more than a dent in any of them. But don’t worry, this is not a counsel of despair. It’s a case for focus. I am neither religious, nor an addict, but during my decade in politics I turned more than once to Reinhold Niebuhr’s ‘Serenity Prayer’: ‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference’. So, what can be changed, and what is out of the control of an incoming Welsh Government Minister? First off, we need to acknowledge the stark reality - times are hard and aren’t going to get better anytime soon. The extra funding the Welsh Government can expect over the n...
Post a Comment
Read more

A national plan to improve Tourette syndrome services

Image
Speech in Senedd on 21st January 2026 Tourette's is a complex and misunderstood condition.   And yet it’s a common one. It is a brain disorder that affects 1 in 100 people.  That’s a similar prevalence as autism, or childhood epilepsy, but it doesn’t get the same recognition - either from the general public or from the health service. If most people know anything about Tourette's at all, it's that it makes people swear and shout in public. And the excellent new Bafta nominated film, I Swear, which I would recommend to all, to some degree reinforces that stereotype. In fact the vast majority of people with Tourette’s do not have a compulsion to swear.  But as the film also captures they do suffer pain, anxiety and isolation. And yet people think Tourettes is funny. It's not. It causes great distress, and pain. Tourettes is not in itself a psychological condition, nor a behavioural one, nor is it caused by poor parenting.  It’s a complex neurodevelopmental conditi...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Devolution Generation - the birth and bedding in of the Senedd

Image
Centre of Welsh Politics and Society's and WISERD's 2025 Annual Lecture November 27th - Main Hall, Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University Diolch am y croeso, ac y cyfle i dod nol. I don’t come back to Aber very often, so when I do I get the strange sensation of both continuity and change. The prom, the grind of Penglais Hill, and the smell of the books in the Huw Owen Library, are just the same as I remember them. They are fixed points. They have barely changed. What has changed in 30 years is the context. 30 years ago this just wouldn’t be happening. There were no annual lectures on Welsh politics, there were no conversations about Welsh politics. In fact, in the mid 90’s, whilst there was undoubtedly plenty of politics in Wales, there was not what we can properly describe as ‘Welsh politics’. What we had instead was neatly captured by the title of the HTV Wales weekly political programme of the time: Wales in Westminster. A programme that didn’t even ...
1 comment
Read more