{"id":38779,"date":"2023-12-14T10:32:34","date_gmt":"2023-12-14T10:32:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/?p=38779"},"modified":"2026-06-10T15:22:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T14:22:19","slug":"search-for-new-welsh-first-minister-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/2023\/12\/14\/search-for-new-welsh-first-minister-begins\/","title":{"rendered":"Search for new Welsh First Minister begins"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Current Minister for the Economy Vaughan Gething is said to be the frontrunner to take over as First Minister for Wales, and <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/vaughangething\/status\/1735268101808124150?s=20\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/x.com\/vaughangething\/status\/1735268101808124150?s=20\">announced<\/a> his bid for the leadership today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This follows Mark Drakeford&#8217;s resignation as First Minister of Wales, which triggered an election contest within Welsh Labour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The outgoing leader of Welsh Labour <a href=\"http:\/\/bbc.co.uk\/sounds\/play\/m001t9hq\">appeared on BBC Radio 4&#8217;s Today programme<\/a> with host Nick Robinson this morning, hitting back at rising crime statistics as reported by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/politics\/2023\/12\/13\/wales-decline-under-mark-drakeford-graphs\/?utm_medium=Social&amp;utm_campaign=Echobox&amp;utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1702507415-1\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/politics\/2023\/12\/13\/wales-decline-under-mark-drakeford-graphs\/?utm_medium=Social&amp;utm_campaign=Echobox&amp;utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1702507415-1\">Telegraph<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Drakeford defended his adminstration on the show by arguing that &#8220;crime is not a devolved matter&#8221; &#8211; that is, it is a UK-wide policy area that is covered by Rishi Sunak&#8217;s government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">People across the Labour party have given thanks to the leader of their Welsh division, with a fitting &#8216;Diolch&#8217;: Welsh for &#8216;thank you&#8217;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said his Welsh counterpart was a &#8220;titan of Welsh and Labour politics&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">On behalf of the whole Labour Party, I pay tribute to Mark Drakeford for an outstanding career. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/7zxlfB8AiB\">pic.twitter.com\/7zxlfB8AiB<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Keir_Starmer\/status\/1734913052242309514?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 13, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As the race gets underway, Councillor Andrew Morgan has thrown his weight behind Education Minister Jeremy Miles, who he said on <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/AndrewMorganRCT\/status\/1735214516554682576?s=20\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/x.com\/AndrewMorganRCT\/status\/1735214516554682576?s=20\">X<\/a> &#8220;will be a First Minister that stands up for all of Wales&#8221; &#8211; Miles has not yet announced he is running.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Eluned Morgan, a junior Health Minister, is also tipped to join the race after posting a tribute to Drakeford which contained a logo with her name: she praised her outgoing leader for having a &#8220;profound sense of duty&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"zxx\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/IN00WtnvbW\">pic.twitter.com\/IN00WtnvbW<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Eluned Morgan (@Eluned_Morgan) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Eluned_Morgan\/status\/1734951916906353027?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 13, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><br><br>Mark Drakeford&#8217;s resignation as the most senior Minister in Wales did not come as a surprise, as he stepped down exactly 5 years to the day from his election &#8211; and had vowed to serve for no longer than that period.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Recently, the departing First Minister had received declining approval ratings &#8211; with 56% of Welsh voters surveyed by YouGov saying they had lost faith in him as a leader just this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.itv.com\/news\/wales\/2023-12-09\/the-political-leaders-least-popular-with-the-welsh-public-and-why\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.itv.com\/news\/wales\/2023-12-09\/the-political-leaders-least-popular-with-the-welsh-public-and-why\">week<\/a>, following his steering of the nation through COVID-19 and his decreased public presence after the death of his wife Clare in January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Turning 70 next year, Drakeford has been a Member of the Senedd (Welsh Assembly) since 2011 for Cardiff West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">His replacement will take charge of Welsh Labour in March, and the election campaigns for prospective leaders are expected to kick off in the new year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Current Minister for the Economy Vaughan Gething is said to be the frontrunner to take over as First Minister for Wales, and announced his bid for the leadership today. This follows Mark Drakeford&#8217;s resignation as First Minister of Wales, which triggered an election contest within Welsh Labour. The outgoing leader of Welsh Labour appeared on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":293,"featured_media":38822,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1766],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/293"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38779"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38994,"href":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38779\/revisions\/38994"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}