Wales Is Getting More Politicians — But The Talent And Vision Look Dire
From Jane Dodds’ shaky answers to a leaders’ debate short on depth and a poll pointing to fragmentation, the quality on offer in Welsh politics looks worryingly poor.
There are elections where voters can at least pretend the people on offer look ready for power. This is not one of them in Wales.
After my latest chat with Mike Graham, Sunday night’s ITV leaders’ debate and the latest More in Common poll, the same conclusion keeps forcing itself to the surface. Wales is heading into one of the biggest political moments since devolution — and the quality on offer looks alarmingly poor. Labour is weakening. Plaid is rising. The map is shifting. The Senedd is expanding. But for all the noise, there is still no serious sense that Welsh politics is producing the kind of talent or vision needed to turn the country around.
📉 Jane Dodds Was Asked About The Money — And Fell Apart
One clip from my Mike Graham interview told you more about Welsh politics than hours of campaign spin ever could.
Jane Dodds was asked about the money, and the answer was chaos. Not clarity. Not command. Not even the basics. Just the sort of muddle that should end any serious claim to high office.
As I wrote on X, she came across as someone with no idea on the basics and no idea what the Welsh budget is.
And that matters because budgets are not some technical sideshow. They are the whole point. Every promise in politics eventually runs into the same wall: the money. If you do not understand that, then you do not understand the job.
That is why the clip mattered. Not because it was awkward. Not because it was embarrassing. But because it was revealing.
It showed, in a few seconds, what too much of Welsh politics now looks like: people asking for power without demonstrating even the most basic grip on what that power involves.
If you cannot explain the budget, you are not ready to help run the country. It really is that simple.
🎭 Sunday Night’s Debate Showed Just How Thin The Talent Pool Is
If the Jane Dodds clip captured the problem in one moment, Sunday night’s ITV leaders’ debate showed that it runs much wider.
This should have been the moment when party leaders showed they were ready to govern. Instead, what viewers got was a stage full of politicians long on lines, short on depth, and badly lacking anything close to a compelling vision for Wales. ITV’s coverage showed the leaders being challenged on the cost of living, health and public services, while separate campaign reporting set out the usual long list of party promises on tax, childcare, hospitals and transport.
But that is exactly the point. Welsh politics does not suffer from a shortage of promises. It suffers from a shortage of seriousness.
Where was the hard-headed plan for economic growth? Where was the honesty about trade-offs? Where was the recognition that public services cannot be fixed with warm words and another round of fantasy accounting?
Too much of the debate felt like politics as amateur dramatics — people performing conviction rather than demonstrating competence.
And that is the deeper problem in Wales. It is not just that too many politicians lack answers. It is that too few even look capable of asking the right questions.
🏴 The Poll Rounds Off A Pretty Bleak Picture
If the interview and the debate raised doubts about the quality on offer, the latest More in Common 2026 Senedd MRP projects Plaid Cymru on 30 seats, Reform on 28 and Labour on 24, with the Conservatives on 7, the Greens on 4 and the Liberal Democrats on 3. That would leave Labour in third place after 27 years in power, and Plaid as the largest party, though still 19 seats short of a majority
Yes, this poll is somewhat better for Labour than ITV Cymru Wales’ earlier March MRP, which had the party on just 12 seats. But “less awful than before” is not a recovery. A model that still puts Labour in third is not good news. It is a sign that the old order is breaking down.
And yet the really important point is not simply that Labour is weakening. It is that the alternatives still do not look convincing enough to inspire much confidence either.
That is what makes this poll so striking. It does not point to a country rallying around a strong new direction. It points to a country drifting away from one exhausted political model without any obvious belief in what comes next.
💷 More Politicians, Still No Sign Of Better Politics
And now for the part that would be funny if it were not so absurd.
At the very moment the political system is becoming more fragmented, more unstable and more visibly mediocre, the Senedd itself is expanding from 60 members to 96. That means more politicians, more salaries, more staffing costs and more burden on the taxpayer.
But where is the evidence that this will produce better politics?
Where is the sign that doubling down on the class of people currently producing this level of vision and competence is going to improve anything?
If anything, the opposite looks more likely. Wales is on course for more politicians, more posturing, more coalition horse-trading, more competing demands on public money — and still no serious plan.
That is the real indictment here. Not just that Welsh politics looks weak, but that it wants to become bigger at the same time.
Final Thought
Taken together, my chat with Mike Graham, Sunday night’s ITV leaders’ debate and the latest More in Common poll all point in the same direction.
The quality looks weak. The vision looks thin. The confidence they ask from voters is nowhere near matched by the seriousness they display in return.
Labour is fading. Plaid is rising. The system is fragmenting. More politicians are on the way.
But if this is the talent on offer for the next chapter of Welsh politics, voters are entitled to ask a very blunt question:
Is this really the best Wales can do?
✍️ Jamie Jenkins
Stats Jamie | Stats, Facts & Opinions
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