Producers once failed to get permission to film the James Bond movie Spectre in the bulbous debating chamber of the Senedd, the Wales government’s dockside parliament in Cardiff. “Dai another day,” was the running joke on Welsh Twitter.
It is easy to see what attracted the filmmakers. The debate room is a futuristic bowl at the base of a dramatic curved wooden structure holding up the entire Senedd. Observers sit in the dark in a mixed press and public gallery above the chamber, separated from it by curved glass around this wooden centrepiece that reaches for the sky.
On Tuesday in the gallery, it felt like we were all in a big spaceship. On the ship’s bridge below, the 60 members of the Senedd sat in concentric circles in the chamber; the round design is to foster friendly debate. Wales’s new first minister, Eluned Morgan, may not have got that memo. She took no prisoners during first minister’s question time.
Morgan was ready for barbs that came her way from Tories and also Plaid Cymru, the nationalists who have occasionally co-operated with the government in the past. She held a folder labelled “Hot Issues” with pre-cooked ripostes. But, mostly, Morgan fended them all off with barbs of her own.
“Well, I’ve never heard such nonsense in my life,” she said, dismissing Tory criticism of her government’s handling of Tata Steel cuts that will cost 2,000 jobs in Wales. “I will not take lessons from you,” she said, decrying Tory “chaos” and the “absolute joke” of their party’s management of the UK economy.
Engaging fluently in Welsh and English, the feisty Morgan rebuffed any challengers who came at her with daggers-in-teeth; she was indeed friendlier to a few others. She marched out at the end with her glasses on her head, utterly unscathed. Morgan was better than her critics on Tuesday.
She will have to keep it up; she is the third Labour first minister of Wales so far this year and must now salve the wounds of her fractious party after a painful period of infighting. Wales also faces myriad challenges, especially with its ailing health service and tight UK finances.
A few hours after FMQs, Morgan was more jovial as she bounced into the Welsh government’s cabinet room for her meeting with The Irish Times. “What’s his name?” she whispered to an aide as the door opened. “Hello Mark,” she said a second later, beaming, as she walked in. Politicians lead ridiculously busy lives. They meet multitudes of strangers. This was a warm, funny moment that underlined how politicians – despite their occasional attempts to prove otherwise – are just ordinary people like the rest of us, with brain blips and busy schedules.
Morgan (57) was good company – chatty, informed, ready for debate and with a twinkle in her eye. Gareth Harding, a Welsh writer based in Brussels where she spent 15 years as a member of the European Parliament, once said that when she first arrived, she “liked to party”. Was this true?
“It certainly was,” she said, laughing. “But I was 27, so that’s fair.”
A vicar’s daughter and now the wife of an Anglican priest, Morgan has been steeped in Labour politics all her life. Her father was a council leader and their Cardiff home was like a political headquarters, she said.
She worked in television before becoming an MEP in 1994, then the youngest in parliament. She stood down in 2009 to spend more time with her children, and was appointed to the House of Lords as a baroness in 2010. She was elected to the Welsh parliament in 2016, becoming health secretary during the pandemic. In August she became first minister, succeeding Vaughan Gething. He had lasted less than five months after a donor row and falling out with his colleagues.
This Thursday, she is due to visit Cork for the annual bilateral between the two governments, the Ireland-Wales Forum. On the way she is to call in on President Michael D Higgins at Áras an Uachtaráin. Left-leaning British politicians are enchanted by him: “I’m really excited. I haven’t met him before, but I heard him speak in the Lords. I’ve been a massive fan ever since, and obviously there is his whole cultural background and the poetry. I’m making an effort to learn a few words of Irish before I go, to see if I can impress him.”
This year’s forum is the fourth of a five-year programme, focused on co-operation in areas such as energy, education, culture and trade. Morgan said negotiations on the next programme would begin: “Let’s make it really meaningful. One of the things we are really interested in is building out the Celtic Sea opportunities – offshore wind. We need a big picture vision.”
Relations between Wales and the Republic were close, she said, and had their own verve separate from relations between the State and Westminster. It was “the Celtic connection”, she said.
Back on her home turf, Morgan’s in-tray is mounting. Labour has been in power for a quarter of a century in Wales, and faces elections in 2026. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party is threatening to make inroads in the more industrial south of Wales, while Plaid is also on the march, notably in the north.
“Yes, we’re taking the Reform threat seriously. If you’ve been in power for a long time like us, you need to keep testing that you are in tune with what the public wants. What has come back to us is the NHS, the economy and provide better jobs.”
She said the Brexit Party, a Reform forerunner, tried to break into Wales before but “fell apart almost the moment they walked in; no coherence, no policy agenda”. Farage launched his party’s UK election campaign this year in Merthyr Tydfil, a statement of intent. Did she know him from Brussels, where he was an MEP for 20 years?
“I wouldn’t say I had lots of dealings with him but, of course, I met him in the bar, where everyone else met him.”
The election of a UK Labour government in July was “like night and day” compared with relations between the Welsh government and Westminster under the Tories, according to Morgan.
She said that when she was health minister, she spoke to a UK Tory health secretary only once, “and afterwards he tried to throw me under a bus”. Tories often point to higher waiting lists in Wales as evidence of Labour mismanagement, although Morgan retorts that her population is “older, sicker and poorer” than elsewhere in Britain.
“On day one [of the new Labour UK government], Wes [Streeting, the UK health secretary] picked up the phone. I had waited two years for someone to pick up the phone from the Tory party.”
Morgan has also been in phone contact with Sue Gray, recently ousted as prime minister Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, but supposedly in line to be his envoy to devolved nations and regions of Britain. She and Morgan had been texting, the first minister said.
“We are organising a time for her to come and visit Wales. I’m really pleased that she has got this role, and pleased that the UK government realises it is one of the most centralised countries in the world and that if you want to drive the economy, you need to devolve powers.”
In the meantime, Morgan’s critics will be waiting for her. If Tuesday was anything to go by, she will be waiting for them too.
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Find The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Our In The News podcast is now published daily – Find the latest episode here
