‘We’re the party of ambition’: Plaid Cymru sets out to topple Labour

It is fair to say that Rhun ap Iorwerth, the leader of Plaid Cymru, was on safe ground at the national Eisteddfod in Wrexham this week. More than once, festivalgoers interrupted his interview with the Guardian to shake his hand or take a selfie.Ap Iorwerth has just embarked on a nationwide “listening tour” during which he will visit every Welsh constituency, beginning in Wrexham, before the Senedd elections next May.On Tuesday, the Welsh nationalist party celebrates its 100th anniversary, and ap Iorwerth believes he is on the verge of delivering the best present the party could ever ask for: ending Labour’s long reign to win power in Wales for the first time.“Wales gave Keir Starmer his big majority but I don’t think [voters] expected this barrage of bad policy, passing on the cost of the failures of successive governments to the most vulnerable,” the 52-year-old said of the UK Labour government’s refusal to lift the two-child benefit cap and attempts to cut the winter fuel payment and disability benefits

UK politics: No 10 says Hamas won’t have ‘veto’ over UK recognition of Palestine – as it happened

Keir Starmer is now all-but-certain to recognise Palestine as a state in September. Last week he said this would happen unless Israel complied with certain conditions, including committing to a two-state solution. Given that Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli PM, said last week this would involve Israel having to accept a “jihadist state”, it seems fair to assume that Israel will not comply (unless the Netanyahu government is replaced with a very different one in the next few weeks, which is also not plausible).Starmer also set out requirements for Hamas. But the government has confirmed that these are not formal conditions, implying Palestinian state recognition will go ahead even if all the hostages have not been released

Share your question for the Green party leadership candidates

Voting is underway in the leadership contest for the Green party of England and Wales. Current party co-leader Adrian Ramsay has teamed up with MP Ellie Chowns, after Carla Denyer decided not to stand for re-election.The party membership will have to decide between the Ramsay and Chowns ticket or the Green party’s current deputy leader, Zack Polanski.Ramsay, who was elected as Green party MP for Waveney Valley in 2024, has been co-leader since 2021. He was previously the deputy leader of the Green party of England and Wales from 2008 to 2012

Truss accuses Badenoch of not telling truth about Tory failures

The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, is not telling the truth about the “real failures of 14 years of Conservative government”, the former Conservative prime minister Liz Truss has said.Writing in the Telegraph, Truss said: “In a recent speech Kemi said: ‘From now on, we are going to be telling the British people the truth even when it is difficult to hear.’ If she’s not willing to tell the truth to her own supporters, the Conservative party is in serious trouble.”Truss’s comments came after Badenoch’s own Telegraph article in which she claimed the current Labour government was failing to heed the warnings of the disastrous mini-budget that defined Truss’s short-lived premiership.The former prime minister has been fighting a desperate battle to rewrite the narrative around her 45 days in office in 2022

Like Clement Attlee, Keir Starmer must rise to the occasion | Letters

Martin Kettle rightly says Aneurin Bevan is the one politician other than Clement Attlee whom Labour leaders regularly invoke (Critics say Starmer is no Attlee – and they’re right. Labour must look to the future, not the past, 31 July). Keir Starmer has drawn on Harold Wilson for inspiration, but more pertinent to Kettle’s argument is David Lammy claiming a role model in Ernest Bevin. Made minister of labour in 1940 and foreign secretary in 1945, Ernie Bevin dominated the decade. Bevin sought a continued US military presence in Europe but had no illusions about the “special relationship”

Journey times up, deaths down: Welsh 20mph speed limit still divisive two years on

A few weeks ago, two groups of protesters gathered on the steps of the Senedd in Cardiff Bay. One demonstration was against the war in Gaza; the other, against the Welsh government’s two-year-old default 20mph speed limit in urban areas.The change from 30mph was brought in by the Welsh Labour government across about 35% of the country’s roads in September 2023, at a cost of £34m. The reduced speed limit applied to any built-up area, defined as roads where lamp-posts were no more than about 180 metres apart.Last week a small study by GoSafe, which monitors road cameras, found the policy had added an average of two minutes to journey times of differing lengths, aggravating an already bitter culture war over legislation designed to save lives