In recent months the Twitter feed of Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies has taken a strange turn.
The Leader of the Opposition's social media post have become distinctly more populist, combative and, for want of a better word, unstatesmanly. Apart from being morbidly fascinating to watch a formally serious politician fall down attention seeking rabbit hole, this lurch to the "any attention is good attention" right has serious implications for everyone in Wales. This will take some explaining so stay with us here.
Firstly let's take a look at what Mr Davies has been tweeting. Some of is has been downright bizarre such as when he claimed that the smacking ban had led to an increase in antisocial behaviour.
It is hard to know what point he is making here. Is that because people are no longer able to take their frustrations out by smacking their kids they are resorting to antisocial behaviour? Or is he saying that in the mere 12 months since the ban, that toddlers' behaviour has descended to such a degree that they are now running rampant on the street? Either way, we've yet to see any statistics to back this up.
Also to be filed under "bizarre" was the suggestion that building more roads will protect the environment. Of course there is an argument that building roads can reduce localised pollution in places like the M4 around Newport which is of benefit for people living in the immediate vicinity. However the suggestion that building more roads will "protect" the environment is wild folly.
But this kind of misinformation about climate change is right from the populist playbook. A book it seems Mr Davies has read cover to cover because, rather than trying to bring people together, he is following the same policy of many of his Westminster based colleagues and seeking to sow division.
Whether it is his comments about the "liberal elite" (whoever they are) not liking moves to tackle laughing gas or his poem telling people not to be woke, he is going all out to cultivate an social media presence that get noticed in a way that even the most attention hungry Hollywood D-lister would appreciate.
His two greatest obsessions come in the shape of trans people self-identification and asylum seekers arriving in small boats. This second issue seems to get his juices flowing more than any other having mentioned it in more that 20 tweets in the last month. In this tweet he managed to mention both topics:
Why this is a big problem for everyone in Wales
The reason that this matters to people in Wales who aren't Conservative voters is that Mr Davies current strategy is, frankly, rubbish. Maybe that isn't fair, if his aim is simply garner social media attention and speak to the people who already support him it is a winner. However if his aim is to be a credible leader of the opposition in Wales and pose any electoral threat to Welsh Labour, then it is utter dross.
Wales desperately needs a credible alternative to Welsh Labour. Many public services in Wales are abysmal. The Welsh NHS is on its knees, people are dying on waiting lists by the thousand and their is a health minister who seems singularly unable to get a grip on the situation. Just last week the Welsh Gov were criticised for not even knowing how much money was lost through Covid business grants due to fraud and Mark Drakeford still refuses to be held full accountable for his management of Covid by denying a Welsh inquiry.
Cymru is crying out for a serious opposition party that can at least threaten to win enough seats to end the eternal Labour hegemony and here we have the leader of the opposition who is running a campaign which seems more geared to winning seats in England than Wales.
This is causing real frustrations within parts of the Welsh Tory Party. One insider said it was "frustrating the image the RT was painting". They added: "It is just messaging that we are out of touch with the Welsh electorate. We need to accept Wales is more liberal than we would like to think."
In most countries, right wing parties will calibrate how far to the right they are based on the political DNA of the electorate within the polity they operate. There is no point trying to win a majority in pretty liberal Wales with a nakedly right-wing, populist offering. You can't win and you condemn the rest of the country to live under a Labour administration with no opposition (let's not get started on Plaid).
There are thought to have been plans afoot to challenge Andrew RT Davies at the party's spring conference last year. We understand the party leadership got wind of this leading to Mr Davies publicly calling out those making plans and it all fell apart.
The Tories in Wales have, in a strange way, the same problem as Labour in Scotland, they are just not seen as being Welsh/Scottish. It is hard for the Welsh Conservatives to truly go against the wider party in London in the same way the Scottish Tories have. For one thing they rely on CCHQ for a lot of their funding. The only notable time that they have not simply deferred to London was over Wales not getting HS2 funding (and that was only after actually defending the decision for years).
So why has Andrew RT started to jump on the overtly populist bandwagon just at the time the wheels are falling off the very same tactic for the UK Tories? Does he not not have the stomach for the huge battle it would be to draw the Welsh Tories out of the electoral doldrums?
Part of the answer likely lies in the many of the people who have the leader's ear. There has been a great deal of churn of staffers within the Welsh Tory ranks (and not just the seemingly relentless exodus of Janet Finch-Saunders' staff) with several former UKIP staff holding prominent positions recently. "The people who are most influential are on the severe right of the party," one insider said.
This doesn't mean that people aren't in positions to replace Andrew RT who are not on the right of the party. Sam Kurtz is an articulate, moderate MS who as a farmer can appeal to some of the core Tory voters. James Evans is another ambitious MS who, though he is on the right of the party, is known to be in favour of increased and rationalised devolution. Laura Anne Jones is another who could take a run at leadership (though both her and James Evans were the only ones other than RT who vocally backed the disastrous Liz Truss for leadership).
Ultimately, the big issues facing Wales at the moment is that, however much devolution empowered us to make our own decisions, we are still stuck with the pretty unimpressive status quo. We have a Labour Government who have presided over a steady decline in many of our public services and a group of opposition parties so lacking in electability there is no where else for voters to turn.
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