Wales (Cymru)

Rhŷn Ap Glyn Williams never thought he’d amount to anything. More interested in doodling on his school books than doing any work, his grades inevitably fell short, with educators neglecting to provide him with the help he so clearly needed.

Only at art college was he finally diagnosed with dyslexia and OCD.

After managing to gain a degree in Art & Design he returned to a subject which he’d struggled with at school ‒ history.

“It was something I knew very little about despite growing up on the Llŷn Peninsula, where Welsh culture and history was taught,” he says.

This time he would learn about our triumphs and trials on his own terms.

“I started reading articles and watching documentaries and the more I learnt, the more I realised how exploited, suppressed and disregarded the Welsh have been and continue to be.”

He says a ‘switch flipped’ inside his head, prompting the decision for Rhŷn himself to contribute to Welsh culture.

A Plaid Cymru MS has accused Transport for Wales of disenfranchising communities along the Cambrian Coast, as the train operator moves to cut four daily services from the timetable.

Raising the matter in the Senedd, Mabon ap Gwynfor accused the transport operator of overseeing a catalogue of cuts to public transport across his rural Dwyfor Meirionnydd constituency.

This includes cutbacks to the T2, T3 and 32 bus services.

Mr ap Gwynfor called on the Welsh Government to bring forward an urgent statement and to clarify what is being done to address “chronic public transport problems” impacting those living and working in rural Gwynedd.

An inquiry into the controversy surrounding the UK's largest opencast coalmine will not hear from the company or council involved.

Merthyr Tydfil council refused a request to appear before Members of the Senedd on the climate change committee while the mining firm behind Ffos-y-Fran did not reply.

Committee chairman Llyr Gruffydd said it was "hugely disappointing" as there were "big questions to be asked" of both.

The council has submitted written evidence to the committee. BBC Wales has asked the mining firm to comment about its absence from the hearing.

Reimplementing 30mph speed limits on Welsh roads could cost up to £5 million, the Welsh government has said.

Ken Skates, the Welsh transport minister, announced on Tuesday that the government in Cardiff Bay will be revising its guidance to councils on which roads can be exempted from the new lower 20mph speed limit.

The move could see councils able to return roads to their previous speed limits by the end of the year.

Mr Skates has admitted that the cost of revising roads back to their previous speeds could be up to £5 million.

This comes in addition to the roughly £34 million it cost to roll out making the default speed limit in built-up areas 20mph in September last year.

Mr Skates made the admission in an interview with LBC.

In recent weeks, Rishi Sunak and other commentators from the political right have painted a picture of life in the UK for the disabled, and specifically the mentally ill.

These are people like me, and possibly you – or at least many people you will know.

According to the Prime Minister, in a recent speech to the Centre For Social Justice, we suffer from a “sicknote culture” – mistaking trivial day to day worries and sadnesses for debilitating clinical anxiety and depression. How silly of us.

Our doctors then sign us off on our whim, so we don’t have to face the responsibilities we want to shirk at any given opportunity.

Welsh health boards have given the green light to close two Air Ambulance bases after 2026 following a vote on the matter.

A meeting of the Welsh NHS' Joint Commissioning Committee voted that the Welshpool and Caernarfon bases will be closed after 2026. The sites will be merged into a new site in north Wales.

However, the decision hinges on acceptable plans being developed for a bespoke car-based service in rural areas.

A former Welsh Labour leader is set to look into the electoral finances of the current First Minister.

Vaughan Gething has appointed Carwyn Jones, a former Welsh first minister, to carry out a review of how the party’s elections are carried out, including examining campaign financing.

Welsh Conservatives have objected to the review, arguing it is Labour “marking their own homework”.

Welsh Labour has been contacted asking for more details on the review.

The announcement comes after Mr Gething, who became the Welsh government leader in March, received a controversial £200,000 campaign donation from a man convicted of environmental offences.

His decision to take the money has been criticised by political opponents and members of his own party, with his leadership opponent, Jeremy Miles, saying on Sunday that he would not have taken it.

The Welsh Government has clearly signalled that it’s about to make major changes to the way its 20mph default speed limit on urban roads is implemented. The new First Minister and Welsh Labour leadership have said they “hold their hands up” and that guidance “has to be corrected”.

This is a hugely important decision, and not just because of the 20mph issue itself. The matter sits firmly on the boundary between evidenced policy-making on the one hand and populism on the other.

The controversy surrounding donations to Vaughan Gething's leadership campaign has hit the headlines once again, as opposition party leaders have called for an independent investigation.

£200,000 was given to Mr Gething by the director of Dauson Environmental Group Ltd, David Neal, who was convicted twice for environmental offences.

Neal was given a suspended prison sentence in 2013 for illegally dumping waste on a conservation site on the Gwent Levels. His companies Atlantic Recycling and Neal Soil Suppliers were also prosecuted and ordered to pay fines and costs of £202,000.

Speaking to BBC Politics Wales on Sunday, cabinet minister Jeremy Miles MS, said that he "would not have accepted" the donation.

Also revealed over the weekend was the loan that Dauson Environmental Group Ltd had received from the Development Bank of Wales, a bank owned by the Welsh Government.

It has prompted the leader of Plaid Cymru to call for a "wholly independent external investigation" into "unanswered questions" surrounding the donations.

A Plaid Cymru MS has launched a bid to transform healthcare for women and girls and counter the normalisation of women’s pain and suffering during gynaecological procedures.

South Wales East MS, Delyth Jewell has applied to the Senedd to seek agreement to introduce the ‘The Strengthening Women’s Voice and Agency in their own Healthcare (Wales) Bill’.

She hopes it will address barriers to women’s rights to health – particularly concerning gynaecological conditions such as endometriosis, menstrual problems and menopause – and services for health conditions where gender-related disparities occur.

Any Senedd Member wishing to propose a Bill can apply to be included in a ballot which is held by the Presiding Officer.

To be eligible for the ballot, Members must table certain pre-ballot information, including the proposed title of the Bill and its policy objectives.

An MS who is successful in the ballot can then table a motion asking the Senedd to agree that they can introduce a Bill to give effect to the proposal included in the ballot.

Huw Edwards has resigned from his high profile newsreader role and left the BBC on “medical advice”.

A BBC spokesperson said: “Huw Edwards has today resigned and left the BBC. After 40 years of service, Huw has explained that his decision was made on the basis of medical advice from his doctors.

“The BBC has accepted his resignation which it believes will allow all parties to move forward. We don’t believe it appropriate to comment further.”

The BBC previously apologised to the family of the young person at the centre of the Huw Edwards furore after a review into how non-editorial complaints are handled at the corporation.

A report, commissioned in the wake of the scandal, has found a need for “greater consistency” in how complaints at the corporation are processed.

The family of the young person originally complained about Edwards to the BBC in May 2023 and the BBC said it tried to contact them twice before The Sun published an exclusive story detailing the allegations he paid a young person for sexually explicit photos.

A stunning mural of local heroes Manic Street Preachers has been unveiled today in their hometown of Blackwood.

The band was formed in the town in 1986 and are rightly considered one of the greatest Welsh groups of all time.

So the fact that it’s taken just the little matter of 38 years for a mural to appear where it all started is perhaps a little surprising.

Still, better late than never and this mural of the band from circa 1991 painted by leading Welsh street artist Paul Shepherd known as ‘Walls by Paul’ is certainly a fitting tribute.

A grandmother is campaigning for more road signs warning of goats in and around Llandudno after a small herd of the animals was killed. Four goats were hit by a vehicle on the A470 at Wormhout Way earlier this month.

The goats have roamed Llandudno and Craig y Don since the pandemic lockdowns saw them venture from the Great Orme into the resort’s empty streets. Conwy Council has previously said it won’t fence in the goats due to the risk of the authority becoming solely responsible for the creatures’ welfare. But following the accident last week, some are calling for more road signs in and around Llandudno to warn motorists of the presence of the goats.

A Welsh drill artist has opened up about the complexities of modern relationships and the difficulty for men to open as part of a campaign aimed at ending violence against women and girls.

Talking to presenter Luke Davies, Eretoda Ogunbanwo – who goes by the stage name Sage Todz – discusses modern relationships and perceptions of masculinity in 21st century Wales, saying he wants to see conversations on these topics become the norm.

Sound is an award-winning campaign from the Welsh Government that was launched in 2023 as a community led platform encouraging young men to take personal and collective responsibility in ending violence against women and girls.

Plaid Cymru has called for the First Minister to make an urgent statement ‘on the floor of the Senedd’ after further revelations about the £200k donation he received to support his Welsh Labour leadership campaign.

Entries on the Electoral Commission’s register of political donations show that Dauson Environmental Group, based in Mr Gething’s constituency, donated £100k to his campaign on December 18 2023 and a further £100k on January 11 2024. Both donations were registered with the Commission on February 7 2024.

The sum donated by Dauson Environmental Group Ltd is thought to be far in excess of any previous donations to Welsh politicians.

My sister received the joyous news that her son has been accepted at a Welsh language primary school in Monmouthshire this week.

Since April of last year, he’s attended the nursery there and his progression in English and Welsh, not to mention his social skills and social life, has come on leaps and bounds in a way that simply wouldn’t have been the case had he waited until past his fourth birthday.

The deep joy in hearing him trot out “amser snack” or “pencampwriaeth” and “bore da” is immeasurable.

Tiny seeds taking root. A broken inheritance mended. Atonement.

Or so it should be.

Some roads in Wales will revert to 30mph following backlash at the Welsh government's £34m default 20mph policy.

Transport minister Ken Skates said the changes will address the concerns that "a lot of people" have raised "on a consistent basis".

"We've put our hands up to say the guidance has to be corrected," he said.

Swansea council leader Rob Stewart welcomed the change, but said the government must help foot the bill to swap signage.

Mr Skates highlighted the almost half a million signatures to a Senedd petition opposing the policy, brought in under former first minister Mark Drakeford and his transport minister Lee Waters.

"I have friends and family who have signed the petition," he said.

A target to reach a million Welsh speakers by 2050 is “almost impossible” to hit due to real-terms budget cuts, with demand for courses outstripping capacity, a committee heard.

Dona Lewis, chief executive of the National Centre for Learning Welsh, gave evidence to the Senedd’s culture committee as part of a one-day inquiry into post-16 Welsh provision.

Ms Lewis warned that the “massive” growth the National Centre for Learning Welsh had hoped to achieve this year will no longer be possible.

She told the committee there are waiting lists for people who want to learn Welsh, “so the demand is higher than what we can reach at the moment”.

Ms Lewis said: “Our work has grown since the centre was established back in 2016 and funding has grown with that. But, to reach more people, clearly, more funding is needed.”

The public needs to lose weight to help tackle growing NHS waiting lists, the Welsh health minister has said.

Eluned Morgan, the cabinet secretary for health and social services in Wales’ Labour-run devolved Government, has warned the health system could become “unsustainable” if people do not lead healthier lives and reduce the burden on the NHS.

Ms Morgan particularly highlighted the impact that obesity and diabetes can have on the service.

It comes as the latest NHS statistics for Wales show the number of individual patients waiting for treatment hit 591,600 in February, the highest on record and an increase of 5,100 from December.

However, Ms Morgan has insisted that some areas of the waiting lists are beginning to improve.

On Wednesday 17 April, a multidisciplinary team of healthcare and economics experts will discuss the seminal report The Rational Policy Maker’s Guide to the NHS with members of the Senedd, at an event sponsored by Jenny Rathbone MS. The award-winning Welsh actor Owen Teale (best known for playing Ser Alliser Thorne in Game of Thrones) will perform an excerpt from Nye Bevan’s In Place of Fear, reminding us what fearless, visionary policy-making looks like.

The NHS was a central part of the UK’s post-war social contract when it was founded. Now it’s struggling to perform and there are increasing calls from the right for so-called ‘reform’, which is often a euphemism for privatisation and introduction of insurance-based funding. This guide explains how there can be no healthy economy without a well-funded NHS: if the NHS is allowed to fail, so too will the economy. We hope to influence the Welsh government to prioritise NHS funding.

A few years ago, I proposed a local clean energy solution for Cathays Park in Cardiff and its fabulous civic buildings, including the National Museum of Wales. The premise being to invest in onsite energy generation to reduce carbon emissions and air pollution – and lower running costs. The core of the project would be a resilient fuel cell (see Welsh heritage twist later) that generated power and heat, or cooling in summer.

A building would, in effect, become a power station. It could supply itself throughout the year and sell excess electricity to other buildings nearby via a private wire. Yet now our National Museum faces the astonishing threat of closure, due in part to high energy costs. A fuel cell installation would not only slash those, but the Museum could sell electricity to the large Welsh Government offices across the Park.

Our Food 1200 and the Future Generations Commissioner are to cohost a Senedd discussion on Tuesday 16 April on the topic of food shocks. Is Wales prepared to face an unstable global food system? Because it will. It already is.

This is the first in a series of national conversations on food security, which will bring together two key issues of our time: food poverty and the future of our farming. Further conversations about food shocks and preparedness will involve local governments, farmers, food poverty campaigners, food partnerships, and others.

Vaughan Gething has been criticised for defending funding cuts that could lead to the closure of the National Museum in Cardiff and the loss of at least 90 jobs.

Mr Gething made the comments at his first press conference since becoming First Minister, which was held at Coleg Gwent’s campus in Ebbw Vale on Monday.

During questioning from journalists, Mr Gething was asked about comments by Jane Richardson, the chief executive of Museum Wales, who warned that the National Museum Cardiff could close and at least 90 jobs could be lost following cuts.

He replied: “I think this neatly highlights when we’re talking about priorities and the reality of our budgets after more than a decade of austerity.

“When we set out in our budget our priorities, that we’d prioritise health and social care, and local government, that meant there were much more difficult choices to make across the range of the government.”

The first minister has defended cuts to Wales' national museum.

At a press conference in Ebbw Vale on Monday, Vaughan Gething offered no immediate help for Museum Wales, which has warned it may shut its prestigious Cardiff site.

Mr Gething said it was a consequence of making the NHS a priority after a decade of austerity. He said the Welsh government faced "difficult choices".

The museum said at the weekend it is axing 90 jobs.

In a bid to prop up the NHS and Transport for Wales the Welsh government has made cuts to most other areas of its budget.

I guess, because I’ve been asked to pen this, I should now consider myself to be an actual, proper writer, but between you and me, I don’t.

Three reasons why I find embracing that label problematic:

I possess a hefty inferiority complex – so hefty in fact, it has its own bedroom.
I have not one scrap of confidence in my writing ability.
Using that word, when referring to myself, is just plain embarrassing.

However, since I have a book launching next week, I’m trying to grab that epithet and run with it. So, with that in mind, here’s my take on being a writer in Wales…

…which starts, and ends, with Wales itself – its landscape, culture, and people.

Without those elements, there would be no book, no features, no writing, no anything. In fact, though you might think I’m being a tad dramatic, I think it’s fair to say that Wales has saved me.

See, before I started my ridiculous ‘DIY Dangerous Living Regime’, I was stagnating. After spinal surgery in 2016 left me with a snarling spine, and what my surgeon calls a ‘grotesque gait’ (Rude!), I was retired on disability grounds from my teaching job in Gloucestershire and had to move back home to Swansea.