Is Labour finding it difficult to get candidates for the 2026 Senedd election?

The tag team of our FM and Jo stevens seem to have ruined labour.

I'm getting a little tired of the argument that the purpose of a voting system is to produce a desired political result. The purpose of a voting system is to deliver a Senedd which accurately reflects the political preferences of the Welsh electorate, who are the sovereign body in our constitution. It is then for the politicians to put together a government to carry out the promises laid out in their manifestos.

UK Labour knows Welsh Labour are in big trouble because of their pernicious policies, be it their shambolic winter fuel allowance and benefit cuts fiasco and warmonger Keir Starmer flip-flopping. What about their 'Welsh Not' when it comes to HS2 & Cambridge to Oxford rail infrastructure consequential. The Port talbot Tata Anti-Welsh debacle where British Steel Scunthorpe was nationalised and English workers prioritised where 2,800 Welsh steel workers and thousands more were dumped on the employment scrapheap and rewarded with two fingers and Universal Credit. Labour are so arrogant. They think that they own Wales. Stick a red rosette on a pig and they'll vote for it. They don't count the Labour votes in Wales they weigh them, these sloane rangers laugh while drinking their publicly funded prosecco at UK Labour HQ. Not anymore they don't. I think Welsh voters have seen Labour for what they really are. Anti-Wales perpetuator of poverty, who hold the Welsh and Wales in utter contempt. I say good riddance to Welsh & UK Labour in Wales. We deserve better governance. All I want is Wales not to self-harm. We've suffered enough.

I certainly think they are. There has been increasing disengagement for 25 years which massively accelerated under Corbyn, who along with Momentum were one of the most things to emerge from the Labour party. I’ll say engagement at local party level is 1/3-1/2 of what it was 30 years ago. Many of those are at the elder end of the age scale, to be polite. There are so many reasons why The UK’s political environment now is highly adversarial, performative and personal. Just look at some the articles and comments on this site, and on the other side of the political scale (Daily mail etc). If you value family life, online abuse and mental health deterioration, it’s not the job for you. Mhairi Black’s recent interview was very honest of this. Sad to say also MS/MP is a solid income, but not competitive with high-level private sector jobs, especially in law, engineering, finance, IT or business, who are they are types we want in senior leadership roles. Even most public sector CEO type roles massively outpay politicians for less stress/work. Labour will get 6 candidates in each constituency, probably backfilled with local councillors (like Plaid), trade unions officials etc. But they’re not alone – I can’t see anoyone in the Tories and Plaid list of candidates (admittedly the tories haven't declared all) who jumps out as having been incredibly successful prior to politics. 

Nah, it's just a subtle way of reminding the array of intellectual giants that populate the Senydd that they will need to sign the very important forms their mums have filled in for them...

The most prescient comment in this article is that “voters are not that interested in devolution”. It’s unfortunately very true. The Senedd as an institution is being eroded by the mediocrity of those inhabiting it (on all sides) and that isn’t going to change next year. The new voting system has contributed to this malaise along with many other factors; but the institution could be on borrowed time if it can’t make more impact on the every day lives of people. It’s no good saying things are just as bad or worse at Westminster. It’s up to the Senedd and Welsh government to make themselves more relevant than a student debating society.