Will Labour lose Wales?
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 11 April 2026
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
With one month to go until the local and regional elections, Megan McElroy and James Heale have hit the road with Luke Tryl and Louis O'Geran of More in Common. They report back from the focus groups they've been running in Wales, where voters view Labour through the prism of a double incumbency, as they hold both the Senedd and Westminster. Starmer faces an uphill battle to avoid an historic loss – so is he about to lose Wales?
Produced by Megan McElroy and Patrick Gibbons.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to this special Saturday edition of Coffee House Shots. |
| 0:09.0 | I'm Megan McElroyant and joined today by Luke Trill, UK director of More In Common, |
| 0:13.4 | Louis O'Gearan Senior Associate at More in Common and James Hill, Deputy Political Editor at The Spectator. |
| 0:19.8 | Now James, we've run away today because Tim's on holiday. |
| 0:22.6 | We've come to Wales with Luke and Louis. |
| 0:24.6 | Luke, we've just finished our first focus group of the weekend. |
| 0:28.6 | Could you tell us a bit about what we've learned? |
| 0:30.6 | Yeah, so this was a focus group in Cardiff of people who voted Labour at the last general election, but are now thinking they might go elsewhere |
| 0:41.2 | in the Senate elections. I think what came through most strongly for me was really just a sense |
| 0:50.3 | that that promise of change that Kea Starmel were literally emblazoned on the front of the |
| 0:55.3 | manifesto, hadn't been delivered. It was a sort of, you know, in some of the groups that we do, |
| 1:01.7 | we might hear this later on, you sort of get a real anger, Kea Stammer, the sense that he is sort of |
| 1:08.9 | betrayed principles, or he hasn't done what he promised. |
| 1:12.1 | It wasn't that. Instead it was more a kind of disappointment, this sort of failure of delivery, |
| 1:18.9 | a failure to deliver for Wales. And again, what was interesting was that sort of failure they didn't |
| 1:24.4 | just put a Keer Stama's door. It ran through sort of every level of government. |
| 1:28.5 | So it was, you know, Westminster government. It was a Senate. It was Cardiff City Council. |
| 1:33.5 | Just at every level, not quite delivering for people. And perhaps unsurprising, I should say, look, this has been the case I think in every focus group I've run this year. |
| 1:42.8 | You asked them about their top issue, and it was a cost of it. It was a sense. There's never ending crisis. It's not getting better. There's no end in sight. And quite frankly, the government's not doing enough to help. And, Louie, I think one of the most interesting things that we heard was the sense that Wales has always been neglected. I suppose the big question is, is Labour going to lose Wales? |
| 2:02.1 | What are your reflections on what we've just heard and more generally? |
| 2:04.6 | The sense that Wales is neglected is really interesting because actually it's something that spans |
| 2:08.8 | across groups like that who are considering Clyde Cymoury, but also actually when you talk to |
... |
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