The Tory UK Government's cost of living crisis is crippling the standard of living for ordinary people.

Boris Johnson is a deeply unpopular Prime Minister who seems oblivious to his disastrous leadership.

The recent heavy by-election loses for the Tories in Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton showed this.

I visited the picket line organised by the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers at Cardiff Central during the recent industrial action by rail workers.

I stand in solidarity with them.

No worker lightly takes industrial action as it financially negatively impacts on workers and their families. The Tories have created a British rail network where it is cheaper for families to fly transatlantic than it to travel to major UK cities by rail. It is obscene as the UK government pump subsidies into private companies who walk away with large sums of profit for their shareholders.

The attack on Welsh workers by the UK government continues. I was outraged Boris Johnson has stated his government wishes to repeal the Trade Union (Wales) Act 2017. It is a vindictive attack on Welsh workers and on the Welsh devolution settlement itself.

The 2017 law bans employers from bringing in agency staff to replace striking public sector workers.

The act is a fundamental expression of the Welsh Parliament to protect the rights of trade unions in devolved public sectors, such as health, education, and local authorities. The right for workers to withdraw their labour is an integral facet of any democracy. It is a last resort that no worker would wish to invoke. To strip away fundamental rights of the workers is an attack on ordinary hard-working people.

I hold advice surgeries across the constituency, and I was delighted recently to host one such surgery in Pontllanfraith along with local Labour councillors Mike Adams, Colin Gordon and Pat Cook. It affords me an opportunity to speak to my constituents directly and I am always struck by the friendliness of people even as we live through difficult times.

As a feminist I was dismayed at the recent decision of the United States Supreme Court to overturn the landmark court decision of Roe v Wade that guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion. The USA, for all its faults, is still seen a a beacon of liberty and freedom to the rest of the world. To witness such a regressive step back in the rights of women in the land of the free is deeply concerning.