The last few weeks have been tumultuous ones in politics

In the General Election, we saw the Tories swept aside in Wales and it is about time.

I can think of 100 different reasons why the electorate imposed their own blanket ban on them in Wales but it ultimately came down to their own hubris and their lack of competence.

Voters did not forget that while we obeyed pandemic laws, they partied. Nor would voters forgive them for their ineptness across a wide range of policy areas. It would be hard to come up with a single thing that worked out well for the Tories during their last few years in power.

After a result that saw Labour win back many of the seats they have lost over the years to the Conservatives, you would think that there would be an air of positivity in their camp. Not so, it seems.

The controversial £200,000 donations to Vaughan Gething’s leadership campaign from a convicted polluter, the leaking of Labour group messages that suggested he may not have told the whole truth to the Covid inquiry and his subsequent handling of a ministerial sacking cast a long shadow over their General Election campaign.

The culmination of events reached their inevitable conclusion this week when, following several cabinet resignations, the First Minister finally stepped down.

In reality, he had no choice but to go but the decision came many weeks too late in the eyes of many commentators.

It has tarnished Labour’s brand in Wales and it has even tarnished Labour in Westminster as Gething received the full backing of Starmer and many of the Labour MPs in Wales.

This may partly explain why Labour’s result in Wales did not have the depth that it has enjoyed in previous landslide victories for them.

Plaid Cymru were certainly one of the beneficiaries of a lack of confidence in Labour during the General Election campaign.

In the constituencies of Carmarthen and Anglesey, we won two seats that Labour threw the proverbial kitchen sink at. We also attracted support from normally loyal Labour voters due to issues such as frustration with Starmer wedding himself to so many right-wing Tory policies, disgust with the party’s stance on the ongoing violence in Gaza and their unwillingness to fight Wales’ corner on matters such as fair funding or HS2.

I am pleased to say a fair number of those new voters have now joined Plaid Cymru.

In the next Senedd election in two years’ time – when our message will not be drowned out by the UK media landscape – it will be interesting to see how we do if we can keep up this momentum and Labour’s woes in Wales continue.