Welsh first minister vows to keep Labour ‘most successful democratic party on the planet’
The first minister of Wales has said she is determined for Welsh Labour not to lose its crown as the world’s most successful democratic party, despite warnings it could be relegated to third place in May’s elections.Polls suggest Reform UK and Plaid Cymru could win more seats than Eluned Morgan’s party in the Seneddelections next year, ending 100 years of dominance for Labour in Wales.Morgan said: “Of course I feel the pressure but I’m also determined to turn this round.We’re the most successful democratic political party on the planet.It’s a long winning streak.
We’re up for the fight.”Morgan became Labour’s first female head of government in the UK in the summer of 2024 following the resignation of Vaughan Gething over a donations scandal.She is seen as charismatic and energetic, but the polls suggest the people of Wales may be ready for change, with her party being defeated at the high-profile Caerphilly byelection in the autumn.Morgan said: “Caerphilly was difficult but I’m keen to make sure people recognise that what you have in me is a leader who is determined to turn a page.”She pointed out that Labour Senedd grandees such as the former first minister Mark Drakeford and the social justice secretary, Jane Hutt, who have been at the centre of Welsh politics since devolution in 1999, were leaving the parliament.
“They have been here right from the beginning.They helped to establish devolution.They helped to protect devolution from the years of austerity.But what we have now is the end of austerity and what I’m setting out is a vision, where Wales will move from post-industrial society to one embracing a digital future, a technology-driven future that will be powered by clean energy made here in Wales.”Morgan highlighted a scheme to build a first-of-its kind nuclear power station on Anglesey (Ynys Môn) in north Wales, announced in November, and the creation of two AI growth zones in south Wales.
The first minister said if Plaid led the next Welsh government, its desire for an independent Wales would be a distraction.“What we’ll get is constant talk about the constitution and a constant battle with the UK government.”Morgan said Reform “threw the kitchen sink” at the Caerphilly byelection and came up short.“There is a percentage of people who will buy into their negativity, their division-making, their hatred.What I’m interested in doing is competing on a positive pitch.
I want to look to the future and I’m not interested in chasing them down an immigration agenda.“We have a situation in Wales, particularly in the area I represent [mid and west Wales], where 48% of doctors and dentists have been trained overseas.We are dependent on these people.”She said companies would be less keen to invest in Wales and public services would be at risk under Reform.“Reform have no experience of running anything.
That is one hell of a risk for the people of Wales to take.”In the summer, Morgan expressed impatience with UK Labour, calling on Keir Starmer to rethink policies on welfare and said she was “tacking to the left”.She said she was pleased changes had been made to the winter fuel allowance and the two-child benefit cap had been abolished.Morgan also said UK Labour was following the Welsh party’s lead on schemes such as free school breakfasts.“We’ve been doing that for 21 years.
And they want to introduce a youth guarantee.Again, 60,000 young people in Wales have already benefited from our youth guarantee.What’s great is, they’re following us.We’ve set the pace, I think, for the UK government.It’s a shame they don’t give us as much credit for the creativity we’ve shown in the past.
”Some Labour party members have privately suggested it may be time for a spell in opposition, giving time and space for reinvention but Morgan said it would be an “awful thing” for Wales if her party lost power,“I think that the things people rely on every day may not be there,Think about free prescriptions – something they’re not offering in England,That may go,It won’t go if Welsh Labour is in power.
”More than anything, she said Labour provided stability.“Instability is very, very dangerous for the country at a time when the world is facing instability.You see the challenges people have with the cost of living crisis, climate change and flooding, Russia and the aggression happening there.All of those things create an environment of instability.I think that what we can offer is stability in an age of instability.
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Former EU commissioner and activists barred from US in attack on European tech regulators
The state department has barred five Europeans from the US, accusing them of leading efforts to pressure tech firms to censor or suppress American viewpoints, in the latest attack on European regulations that target hate speech and misinformation.Secretary of state Marco Rubio said the five people targeted with visa bans – who include former European Commissioner Thierry Breton – have led “organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose.”“These radical activists and weaponized NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states – in each case targeting American speakers and American companies,” Rubio said in an announcement.In recent months, Trump officials have ordered US diplomats to build opposition to the European Union’s landmark Digital Services Act (DSA), which is intended to combat hateful speech, misinformation and disinformation, but which Washington says stifles free speech and imposes costs on US tech companies.Late on Tuesday night, Breton posted on social media: “Is McCarthy’s witch hunt back?”Tuesday’s move is part of a Trump administration campaign against foreign influence over online speech, using immigration law rather than platform regulations or sanctions
Elon Musk, AI and the antichrist: the biggest tech stories of 2025
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, wishing you a happy and healthy end of the year. I myself have a cold.Today, we are looking back at the biggest stories in tech of 2025 – Elon Musk’s political rise, burst and fall; artificial intelligence’s subsumption of the global economy, all other technology, and even the Earth’s topography; Australia’s remarkable social media ban; the tech industry’s new Trumpian politics; and, as a treat, a glimpse of the apocalypse offered by one of Silicon Valley’s savviest and strangest billionaires.At the close of 2024, I wrote that Elon Musk’s support of Donald Trump had made him the world’s most powerful unelected man
Activist group says it has scraped 86m music files from Spotify
An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.Observers said the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their technology.A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86m music files from Spotify and 256m rows of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100m tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, said it had “identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping”
Chinese robotaxis due in London next year as Lyft and Uber reveal tie-ups
Chinese robotaxis are due to be on the streets of London next year after the US ride-hailing companies Lyft and Uber announced tie-ups with Beijing-based Baidu to deploy its self-driving technology.Lyft is the third firm to announce plans to introduce self-driving taxis to the UK capital next year, after Uber and Waymo, the main operator of robotaxis in the US.Its ride-hailing services are the major rival to Uber’s in the US and Canada, and this year Lyft expanded into Europe after acquiring the Freenow app in the summer.While Uber had signed a deal to work with Baidu in the summer in other global markets, it had not until now said that the Chinese tech company’s Apollo Go cars were planned for London. It had previously announced its services would be operated with self-driving technology from the UK-US firm Wayve
MPs question UK Palantir contracts after investigation reveals security concerns
UK MPs have raised concerns about the government’s contracts with Palantir after an investigation published in Switzerland highlighted allegations about the suitability and security of its products.The investigation by the Zurich-based research collective WAV and the Swiss online magazine Republik details Palantir’s efforts, over the course of seven years, to sell its products to Swiss federal agencies.Palantir is a US company that provides software to integrate and analyse data scattered across different systems, such as in the health service. It also provides artificial intelligence-enabled military targeting systems.The investigation cites an expert report, internal to the Swiss army, that assessed Palantir’s status as a US company meant there was a possibility sensitive data shared with it could be accessed by the US government and intelligence services
Extremists are using AI voice cloning to supercharge propaganda. Experts say it’s helping them grow
While the artificial intelligence boom is upending sections of the music industry, voice generating bots are also becoming a boon to another unlikely corner of the internet: extremist movements that are using them to recreate the voices and speeches of major figures in their milieu, and experts say it is helping them grow.“The adoption of AI-enabled translation by terrorists and extremists marks a significant evolution in digital propaganda strategies,” said Lucas Webber, a senior threat intelligence analyst at Tech Against Terrorism and a research fellow at the Soufan Center. Webber specializes in monitoring the online tools of terrorist groups and extremists around the world.“Earlier methods relied on human translators or rudimentary machine translation, often limited by language fidelity and stylistic nuance,” he said. “Now, with the rise of advanced generative AI tools, these groups are able to produce seamless, contextually accurate translations that preserve tone, emotion, and ideological intensity across multiple languages
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