Flamboyant labels on empty luggage

It was a heavy election defeat. Labour had the stuffing kicked out of it. So when the residual representatives gathered they were looking for a diagnosis for their defeat, but also a fresh direction.

The year was 1959, the place was the House of Commons, and the figure in the spotlight was Aneurin Bevan - the freshly elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.

Bevan had a particular gift for a turn of phrase that could skewer his opponents. On this occasion, the debate on the Queen’s speech following the third straight Conservative victory, what Bevan termed ‘the grand inquest on the condition of the nation’, Nye had “Supermac” in his sights.     

Prime Minister Harold Macmillan had won following a campaign built around affluence (“most of our people have never had it so good”).  But it would soon unravel, and Bevan’s charge was that the government's grand sounding programme had very little inside it. 

“The Prime Minister” Bevan said with scathing understatement “has an absolute genius for putting flamboyant labels on empty luggage”. 

The phrase came back to me when I saw pictures from Welsh Labour’s conference from Llandudno of the merchandise on sale to mark the party’s relaunch: an empty bag with the jauntily designed slogan ‘Yes we Ken’.

The pitch at the conference was a reframing of Welsh Labour’s ‘Standing up for Wales’ posture focused on the performance of public services rather than powers to the Senedd. 

Out with constitutional talk, in with ‘bread and butter issues’. “Sometimes we've treated standing up for Wales as though it simply means seeking more powers for politicians. I reject that test. Standing up for Wales means standing up for the people of Wales, people's jobs and wages, the NHS" Ken Skates said in his first conference speech as Welsh Labour leader.

The repositioning was backed up by the independent review of the party’s performance in the 2026 Senedd elections by the polling and research consultancy PF Global that was the centrepiece of the conference. Like any political consultancy report it has both data and analysis - one objective, the other subjective; evidence, and advice interpreted from it. It is a 56 page report that is rich in data, and it is consistent with the other polling that has been published. What is significant about the report in my view is not the data, but some of the conclusions drawn from it. 

The report’s own data says switchers left over identity and a feeling Wales was being let down, and yet the recommendations are to talk about devolution and Welsh identity less. 

The central argument is not contested - Labour had a very unpopular leader at Westminster and did badly in elections right across the UK, but did even worse in Wales because of dissatisfaction with Welsh Labour’s performance in running key public services. This is a dissatisfaction that had been building for some time -  in part because of the changing demographic nature of the Labour vote, and partly because people had become more alert to the Welsh Government’s culpability for poor outcomes. “Support among Welsh Labour’s base had been falling since around 2019, and the 2021 result – helped by Mark Drakeford’s handling of the pandemic – obscured the trend” the report found. And when Labour won at Westminster in the summer of 2024 there was nowhere to hide, “after more than a decade defining itself against a Conservative UK Government, Welsh Labour lost that contrast in 2026” the report stated. 

So far, so uncontroversial. The report’s analysis becomes more contestable when it gets to the Welsh stuff. 

The report, The road back to victory, was commissioned by Welsh Labour and its lead author was the Professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King’s College London, Anand Menon. He was a member of the advisory board of Labour Together, the centrist Labour think-tank close to Keir Starmer. It has a foreword written by Ken Skates (perhaps unusual for an independent report). The report’s analysis is now being used as the foundation for Welsh Labour’s recovery strategy. 

“We didn’t prioritise the things that people really cared about’ Ken Skates said. That will now be put right. Skates makes it clear in his foreword to the report:

Under my leadership, Welsh Labour will fight relentlessly in the pursuit of health and wealth for all in Wales. We will work with colleagues across Britain wherever we can advance our shared ambitions and speak plainly where Welsh interests require a different approach. Our commitment to devolution must mean bringing power closer to people and making government more accountable for results. 

This was also the theme of his conference speech. Welsh Labour, he said,"must be confident in its identity, but judged by what that identity means for jobs, wages and public services". 

Why is he saying that?  Well, the data in the report suggests that Labour and Plaid supporters hold similar economic views but ‘differ somewhat’ on identity, “This tends to give Labour a comparative advantage when the economy is salient, and Plaid when identity or distance from Westminster is” the report says.

So focus the debate on “bread and butter” issues and Labour is on strong ground - it will do well.  If you let the debate drift to ‘Red Welsh Way’ territory you are in trouble.  

This is consistent with the view of the party staffers who were interviewed as part of the research - in fact when Eluned Morgan gave her speech in May 2025 setting out the differences with UK Labour Welsh party officials did not promote it on the official social media streams and the text of the speech did not appear on the party’s website (in fact I posted it on my blog a month later to ensure it had at least some digital footprint).

The trouble with the distraction tactic advocated by the review authors is that it jars with the other data in the report which shows that the voters Labour lost (and needs to win back) do care about powers to the Senedd and more equitable funding. That’s the re-wiring of the State they consistently voice support for.

The report acknowledges “Welsh Labour voters who switch to Plaid do score more strongly on their Welsh identity than those who stayed. Focus group participants also cited it as a reason for switching, objecting to ‘the lack of Labour standing up for Wales as a separate entity’”. 

Whether you think this is an echo of the phenomenon of ‘regional’ parties standing up to the centre, or an expression of national identity and difference, the outcome is much the same - being seen as different to HQ matters to a coalition of voters. And, crucially, it is these voters that sustained Labour’s long periods of Government in Wales.

But not this time. Just 26% of those who voted Labour in either the 2021 Senedd election or the 2024 general election stuck with the party in 2026. It was a rout. 

The Party that dominated every election in Wales for 103 years received the votes of just 11.1% of people - a share of the vote barely above the Conservatives on 10.7%. 

The analysis acknowledges the efficacy of Rhodri Morgan and Mark Drakeford’s “clear red water” approach, but notes that Eluned Morgan’s “Red Welsh Way”, adopted after the 2024 general election, “recalled this earlier approach but was not its equivalent”. 

Here is the key passage:

It struggled to land on everyday policy, instead tied up in constitutional positioning and the relationship with Westminster. Demands such as transferring the Crown Estate and devolving policing did not speak to voters on the doorstep, who found themselves more concerned with the economy, cost of living, and the NHS. The campaign also moved between this slogan and “Power in Partnership”, which sent its own signals regarding governing relationship with UK Labour, but still did not provide clear policy objectives, whether in terms of common ground or differentiation. 

In the words of an anonymous Welsh Labour campaign staff member quoted in the report “I just don’t think we really connected with our audience”. But why? 

The report implies it was because Eluned Morgan got lost in the constitutional weeds and should have stuck to ‘bread and butter’ issues, but it gives no consideration to the fact that after years of MPs and MSs making the claim that Westminster was letting Wales down on rail funding and on resources the much anticipated new Labour Government repudiated those claims in office; that Vaughan Gething’s sourcing and handling of a game-changing campaign donation tarnished the trusted brand that Mark Drakeford’s careful handling of covid had done so much to burnish, nor the fact that Eluned Morgan’s inconsistency in ‘standing up for Wales’ sapped her credibility. Voters had stuck with Labour in the hope that things would get better, Keir Starmer killed that hope and Welsh Labour leaders were perceived to be excusing it.

Nope, none of that is even acknowledged (in fact the axis of the graph showing Welsh Labour’s decline conveniently starts in July 2024 rather than four months earlier when the data would show that the fall in support coincided with Vaughan Gething’s election as leader). For a ‘very serious piece of work prepared by very serious people’ (in Vaughan Roderick’s phrase) it feels like a shabby omission.

The report authors have a neat solution to Welsh Labour losing support for not being seen to ‘stand up for Wales’ - re-define what ‘stand up for Wales’ means! Genius!

It says it plainly in Recommendation Three: “Be Welsh on Labour’s terms. Prioritise what voters in Wales value most: the NHS, the economy, and cost of living. Arguments for more devolved powers should be made when there is a clear case that they would improve those everyday priorities”. 

I can’t help but wonder what Paul Flynn would have made of it all. In ‘Dragons Led By Poodles’, his acid chronicle of the last time Labour took a thumping from Plaid Cymru, the long-time MP for Newport West evoked the ‘shape-shifter’ from Star Trek Deep Space Nine who liquefied at the end of each day and sleeps in a bucket before emerging in any shape he wishes - "he has the capacity of being on all sides - simultaneously". 

It is such mind-bending thinking which advises Welsh Labour to define national identity on its own terms. If this is a recommendation they follow then they will be having a conversation with themselves for some time to come, and it is likely that the voters won’t notice. As the experience of Scottish Labour shows, if you  continue to assert a worldview that is not shared by most voters they will continue to pick someone else to represent them.

When he spoke to the conference on Saturday morning Prime Minister Andy Burnham set his expectation that the debate in Wales should now focus on giving powers to local government. He and Ken Skates are on the same page on that one, and clearly think it's time everyone comes on board.  The Labour Group in Senedd has never been more united Skates told interviewers. And Burnham’s message to the Llandudno audience was  “What I want to achieve more than anything is the sense of a one Labour team for Wales, where we’re all pulling in the same direction, where I’m pulling with you, not creating problems for you or going against what Ken and colleagues want to achieve, with our Welsh PLP”.

The independent report’s chief recommendation was to ‘Define a clearer relationship with UK Labour. This includes joint action where objectives align, as well as the ability to make a distinct Welsh case where priorities differ’. And Ken Skates’ foreword was on point. “Under my leadership”, he wrote, “We will work with colleagues across Britain wherever we can advance our shared ambitions and speak plainly where Welsh interests require a different approach”. 

Working with UK Labour “wherever we can” is the default, and speaking out is the exception. No more Red Welsh Way.

Ken Skates elaborated the morning after on the BBC’s Politics Wales, “When it comes down to Welsh Labour being distinct it’s not on the basis of constitutional arguments it’s on the basis of us being more focused on community, left of centre on the economy, making sure we leave nobody behind, making sure we improve people’s lives, making sure we put more money in people’s pockets, it’s that relentless focus on people’s life chance. That’s what makes us distinctive in the Senedd, that’s what will make us distinctive as a political party again”.

The record is pretty clear, Welsh Labour did well under leaders who spanned the different traditions of political thought in the party (Rhodri Morgan, Carwyn Jones and Mark Drakeford) and didn’t allow any contradiction to arise between those who felt both Labour and Welsh. And the party didn’t prosper under those who didn’t seem to have got the memo (Alun Michael, Vaughan Gething and Eluned Morgan). 

Ken Skates seems confident he can buck the trends and that the recommendations of the report set out a ‘road back to victory’.  

The label is certainly flamboyant. Whether there is anything in the luggage is something the voters get a chance to give a view in May’s Council elections. 

And appropriately enough today is Aneurin Bevan’s birthday.