On the road in south Wales: why is Reform UK on the rise?
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A warning, there's strong language from the start. This week, we're on the road in South Wales, where Nigel Farage's Reform UK are hoping to be the new insurgents. Here in Wales, the primary ambition is to be the main challenger to Labour. But frankly, my ambition, sky is the limit. Let's go for it. Let's try and win this.

Welsh Labour have been in power here since the start of devolution and were still the dominant party at the last Westminster election. But people here are feeling disillusioned and disappointed, leaving many looking for an alternative. I know a lot of people that voted Labour, wish they'd voted Reform in the last election. A change is needed. South Wales has long been a Labour heartland, bound up with heroes like a Nairn Bevan and the proud socialism of coal miners.

But could reform ride the wave we're seeing around the world and bring right-wing populism to Wales? I'm John Harris and you're listening to Politics Week the UK for The Guardian. Can I ask you two very quick questions? There was a council by-election here the other week. Do you know about that? Yeah. Reform UK got its first councillor here. Right. I just wondered, did you vote for him? How do you feel about it? No, you certainly did not. Go on.

You say that quite emphatically, sir. Yes, Nigel Farage is... I can't even use the words I would like to say. Oh, feel free, carry on. Nigel Farage is a Trump... Can I use the words? Ass-kisser. Yeah. Right, and I wouldn't vote for him if he was on fire. And why do you think people are voting for him in this part of the world? Because there's a rise in the far-right...

All over the world, due to Trump and Elon Musk and the likes of the rest of them. Yeah, the American wind is blowing through South Wales, you see. It is. Does it worry you at all? Yes, it's disturbing, very disturbing. I can see the rise of fascism. Yeah, I don't think people really understand what Farage and his crew are all about. I don't know whether you know this, but Nigel Farage and Reform UK are doing quite well in this part of the world. I wouldn't mind voting for him. Tell me why.

I don't know, a lot of people are starting to go for reform. My buddy who works for me on the coal, he'd keep saying reform. I didn't do it, but if it was anybody, I'd go for reform. If you were given the choice between Keir Starmer and Farage, you'd take Farage? Yeah, I'd go for Farage. And that applies to your friends as well? He gets on with, like, Trump and all that, and we've got to stay on their side. We've come to Newport in South Wales for reasons both global and local. Donald Trump is well into his second term as president, creating chaos everywhere.

and spreading fear. Alternative for Deutschland doubled their vote in the recent German elections. And although we've got a newly elected Labour government, let's be honest, a lot of the political weather is being made by Nigel Farage and Reform UK. Now they say their next big test, staging post, is going to be the Welsh Senate elections in 2026. But already there's been a sign of Reform UK starting to do really well.

So not that far from where we are there was a council by-election the other week where Reform UK got its first elected councillor in Wales. If you want to get a sense of the future and Nigel Farage really started to worry the Labour Party this is where you ought to come. It's very easy to think of this great big right-wing populist wave in very big global grand terms, you know, it's all about oligarchy and Elon Musk and this great political wave crashing around the globe but obviously it's happening at a very very specific local level too.

If you understand that sort of global wave of right-wing populism as being partly based, at least, on a sort of politics of resentment and grievance and places that feel very overlooked and ignored and neglected, the post-industrial area of South Wales is full of places like that. That's a big part of what's going on here. So we're going to do our best to get immersed in this big political sea change that seems to be happening not just here, but all over the world. There he is.

Will Hayward is a freelance journalist who specialises in Welsh politics. We're in a shift. So Welsh Labour are the most successful democratic party in history. They've been the biggest party in Wales in every general and devolved election since 1922. But what it looks like is now we might see that change from being not just the largest party, but potentially the second or maybe the third largest party behind reform and Plaid Cymru. So they've been squeezed from the right from reform and on their left flank by the nationalist Plaid Cymru.

Okay. Let's talk about the right flank in particular. So in this part of Wales, sort of post-industrial southeast Wales, starting in Newport and then going into the valleys and slightly beyond, something is going on. I think there are 13 seats in Wales where reform finished second at the general election. The majority of those, if not all of them, are here. They're in this area of the country, right? Why is this happening?

So the South Wales Valley's really, really strong identity. It's got areas of incredibly high deprivation. Some of the highest levels in Europe. There's a village in the Cunnan Valley called Penracaiba, which has 50% levels of child poverty. So every other child you see is likely to be in poverty for many, many years because historically with the union movement and mining in South Wales, there's been really, really strong deprivation.

links between Labour and the voters there. However, in Wales, there is huge issues around the Welsh NHS. Wales at the moment has 24,000 people who've waited over two years for a procedure. In England, that figure is essentially zero. There's also issues around schooling. COVID was really Wales' awakening of devolved consciousness. For the first time, people realised actually it wasn't Westminster that were running all these services. We've had much more stringent restrictions during the pandemic here.

So the idea that power and politics in Wales was something distinct really, really came into the foreground, didn't it? Yeah. I mean, Mark Drakeford went from someone who could walk through any high street in Wales and not be recognised to the man who could decide if you could see your nan. And that is a huge, huge change. For the last 14 years, Welsh Labour have said the reason for your ills and the reason for your problems are those swine down the M4, the Tories in Westminster. But now the people in Westminster are them. And the

Problem they're going to have is they're not able to now point the finger anywhere else. The irony of this is Welsh Labour have spent 25 years trying to get people to be aware of devolution and now people are. There's a frustration with their public services and that is something that Reform are looking to try and capitalise on. We have arrived at the Loading Bay, which is a community cafe and community centre actually, a couple of miles outside Newport.

And it's just one of those places where you walk in and straight away you just notice things that tell you something about the condition of the country and people's lives and so on. The first thing I saw was a little flyer for a warm bank they do here. So obviously, as much as anything, they're dealing with people or helping people living at the sharp end here. But this is a regular event called Sing Along With Liz for parents and toddlers. And it's half term as well, so I would imagine there'll be a lot of people here today.

One of the reasons we've come here is that if you want to sort of know which way the political wind's blowing, talking to mums and dads who have young families, you often get a really good sense of it, and with women in particular. So it's well known that Reform UK think they can depend on sort of older, angrier, very often, men.

but the demographic they're really targeting, they call worried women. This is my grandson, yes. How old's your grandson? My grandson's 14 months. Julie is a semi-retired former teacher. She's here with her grandkids. I mean, they do go into nursery a couple of days a week, but we help out where we can, really, because, as you know, it's very expensive, childcare is very expensive, nurseries. What's your sense of how Wales is doing and how Wales is being run?

a little bit sad, I think, sometimes that we seem to be left behind from, you know, what's going on in the wider sort of UK then, shall we say. What about things like the health service, education? Oh, yeah, OK, you sighed a bit when I said the health service. Yeah, well...

My future daughter-in-law is a doctor and that is obviously tough. I mean, I saw an article recently, you know, where lots of doctors and nurses that are training in Wales, they actually, they leave Wales once they finish their training to go in England because of better pay, better environments. I find that sad. One of the reasons we're here is that things are shifting a bit in Wales, it seems, that the Labour Party's very much had most of...

of Welsh politics its own way for a long time. Yeah. And that feels like it's sliding a bit now. Yeah, no, I agree. After the last election, particularly, I think, what has been predominantly a Welsh Labour nation, there was definitely a shift there.

I don't ever know whether we'd ever be a Conservative nation. That reform, I know a lot of people that voted Labour wish they'd voted reform in the last election. Do you feel that pull yourself? Are you minded to vote reform? Yeah, I think so. I think sometimes it gets to the place where a change, you know, a change is needed. Tim, who can show me number two?

So, staying along with Liz, this regular event is very busy today. There are 30 kids here, which is sort of maximum capacity. Kelly is currently on maternity leave with her third child. As well as having three under three, she tells us that rising costs are making life harder in Wales.

Harder too than if her family lived just a few miles away across the border in England. You're just cracking on with everything. What things are hard? Well, to be honest with you, it's pretty challenging. But financially, you know, even things like just your basic foods, everything is increasing. At one point, the fuel is different in different areas wherever you go, so...

So sometimes it's a struggle. It can be, yeah. And you live with your partner or husband? Yeah, with my husband. What does he do for a living? He works as an underwriter. But he works in Bristol because, you know, jobs over here, there's not exactly many of those either, is there? Right, right. So again, you feel that England is sort of different. Yeah. It's only over there and life's very different for a lot of people. It can be tough.

It's a similar story for Carrie, a mental health nurse who's also a parent of three kids. She's going into nursery and it's gone up to £67 a day. And she's only going in one day a week. Living wage has gone up, so they've put their prices up and then some of it's then come up. You're paying £67 a day for childcare? Yeah, it will. That's a huge amount of money. Do you follow politics much? Not really, no. Do you vote? Yeah, I do vote.

They do try there, but I feel that Labour have got to try and do something now. I'd like to think they're trying their best. Have you picked up the fact that in this part of Wales, Nigel Farage and Reform UK are doing quite well? Where I work, I work with a lot of people from the Valleys, and it seems like the Valleys have got a big support on Reform, just from the people that I work with. You'll hear that talked about. Yeah, I've heard that talked about.

But reform are culturally a deeply sort of English conservative with a small and large C kind of force. You know, you think about Nigel Farage and his mustard-coloured trousers and his barber jacket. Richard Tice is another example, right? So how can, or rather is, Reform UK appealing to these voters? Labour has been dominant politically and culturally. I mean, this is a very deep identity here. Will Hayward again. Does it feel remarkable to you?

It does feel remarkable in some respects. I mean, identity is a strange thing in Wales. So the people who identify as solely Welsh used to be historically very quite small. It used to be British or British and Welsh, whereas younger people now skew more Welsh. Older people still identify as British. They've got a tighter link to a sense of identity towards Westminster. It doesn't necessarily surprise me, though, because what Reform are really careful to do is when I interviewed Farage at their first Welsh conference back in the autumn,

They are very deliberately not trying to be anti-devolution. They don't want to give an impression that they are English people coming to Wales. They're deliberately not going after that kind of anti-devo vote because then they can be characterised as other and outsiders. So they're playing quite a careful game with it. So you've been the only so far Reform UK Welsh conference at here in Newport. What sort of specifically Welsh political messages were they chucking out there?

When you ask about Welsh-specific messages, Nigel Farage was very deliberately offering nothing Welsh-specific. The only Welsh-specific thing they said is, aren't the Welsh government doing a terrible job? That was the only thing they said. They are not even naming a Welsh leader. Now...

Just to put it in context, in 15 months there will be the Senedd election. Now they are saying to people they could win that election, but they're also saying we're not going to name a Welsh leader until after the election. So they are saying to people in Wales, we could form your government, we could form the next government, but we're not going to tell you who your leader is going to be until afterwards. It's like the mystery box. That's clever, isn't it? That's like the ultimate small target strategy. There's less to attack. They can carry on making the noise about how the Welsh government has let you down in ways A, B and C, but they themselves present as small a target as possible.

Well, I mean, from their perspective, I can see why they wouldn't want anything to interfere with brand farrage, would they? That's not something they want to do. But from a Welsh perspective and like Welsh democracy, that is, I think, I would argue is a pretty unacceptable sort of events. And I can't imagine them making that same argument in Scotland if they had a chance of forming the government.

Capitalising on brand Farage is clearly a successful strategy, not just with the demographic tide of voting Labour and seeing little change, but also with the youth vote. Back in the Loading Base cafe we meet Finn, an 18 year old working there on his gap year. Anyone of your age, young men in particular, talk about Nigel Farage much? Yes, about reform and all that stuff, yeah.

I'd say half and half talk about him seriously and half talk about him in a jokey way. Some of his stuff is so outlandish that it's funny. But where are they picking it up? Where do they see it? I'd say a lot of it's online because he's got quite a big following on TikTok and he's really kind of taken that space in terms of politics over all the other parties. I'd say you see reform more than anyone on TikTok. Wow.

And have you got friends, therefore, even you yourself maybe, who think, therefore, that Farage is quite interesting and is worth listening to? I know people who are my age who voted for him, all because they've seen a lot of his stuff on TikTok. He's making relatable content on there. People are intrigued by him. Do they share his views about immigration or multiculturalism or whatever it is?

Some do, I'd say, because he's very straight to the point and a lot of people like that way of thinking. Whoever's in his team have got a great way of connecting to the youth somehow, whether that's joking around with trends of today, because he's always following the latest trends on TikTok and that's what people like to see, who are my age. There is a political voice that's coming through from America

that people are jumping on board with, which I find quite alarming, where you demonise a group of people. It's not how I see the world. That is getting traction in Newport, and I find that quite disturbing.

Mike Taylor is pastor of the church that hosts Sing Along With Liz, and he's very involved in the local community. As well as seeing more and more people struggling with their day-to-day costs, he's also contending with a new problem. The ability to say, me and you disagree, right? We could get on a pub, we'll have a pint, we'll have a good argument, but we're still mates. We're losing that from our society. We no longer can be friends because we don't agree on a point.

And that's coming into the world that I live in. And then you see political parties coming in on the back of that with this, oh, well, you know, this community is causing this problem, this community, you know, and it fuels that. And we've had young people come through here, and I'm like, you can't come in here with that language. That's about hostility to immigration as much as anything else, is it? Immigration, the trans community, all of that. And I'm like, we're not having that. And I can see that happening.

amongst the male 20 to 30 year old, I can see that getting traction and I don't like it. I try and talk them around. The problem we have at the moment is with social media and YouTube and that you can feed whatever ideology you want. I can say whatever I want but you can go onto YouTube and find 50 million people that agree with you. It doesn't mean you're right. It's interesting that you can pitch up at a singing session

for parents and toddlers, and straight away get a sense of this very sort of unstable, shifting political reality in which we find ourselves. And straight away people said, yeah, yeah, things aren't right here, I don't like the way things are being run. And as soon as you mention Reform UK, people nod, they know exactly what you're talking about. One of the things that struck me was this sense that when the internet first came along, everyone said it would make the world smaller, wasn't that a good thing?

But it turns out it's very unsettling for a lot of people, quite worrying thing, because suddenly Elon Musk and Donald Trump, who were working most of their mischief in a different time zone, seven hours flight time away, it feels like all that's in very close proximity. Two people there, completely unprompted, said, I think what's happening in America is really affecting here. And here we are in Newport, and it feels like something that could be happening 10 miles down the road.

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That's BlueNile.com to find the perfect jewellery gift for any occasion. BlueNile.com What's wrong? Oh, what we're doing? We're going up. We're going up the side of a very steep valley in Pontypool. Continue for three quarters of a mile. We're trying to find Treveden and or Penegarn, which are council wards, which between the two of them just elected Reform UK's first Welsh councillor.

which was held up, not least by that candidate himself, as being a very big deal for Lee. Now he did obviously make contact with a councillor who won for Reform UK here but he didn't want to talk to us as it turned out. He said he was trying to settle in. We also tried to speak to someone from Reform UK in Wales but no one wanted to. So instead of which I think we're going to try and find a couple of people at least who voted for Reform here if I ever reach the top of this valley side.

Do you live around here? We pitch up at a parade of shops where one of the first people we meet is Michelle. She tells us what life's like in this part of Pontypool. It's just the town centre. We used to have a Friday market. They built on that to make shops. The shops have now left. So obviously, you know, most people have a go to Cumbrian.

because there's more shops. The kids around here, I mean, we used to go to the youth clubs, you know, and then they've got nowhere to go, so they just hang around the shops. Youth clubs have shut down? Most of them. There's only one. Well, there's one. One shuts at 6pm. That doesn't do anything for the teenagers. Were you aware there was a council by-election here the other week? Unfortunately, yes. Why do you say unfortunately? Because the person I voted for didn't get in. Ah, so you didn't vote reform? No, I did not. But they...

But they won. I know. How do you feel about that? I just think, you know, Nigel Farage, he's, well, I can't really say. You can, say what you like. He's an absolute knob. He's all about himself, you know. I mean, he's Trump's bum. You know, he thinks he's wonderful and Donald Trump, he just makes my skin crawl. Why do you think people in Pontypool are voting that way? Because they're fed up with Labour. What do you think they're fed up with Labour about specifically?

They're the ones that are running everything down. They're not putting anything into the community. It's all about themselves. What, the Labour Party? Yeah. Who've been running Wales since devolution started. So you don't think much of the Labour Party either? No, I used to be a Labour follower. I used to vote Labour every time, but they've just completely lost my vote. Who are you voting for now? I voted for Independent.

Can I ask you a quick question? Yeah, go on. Do you live locally? I've been sticking. Not far from here. I was born and bred up here, Traverse. Were you? Yeah. What do you do for a living? Coalman. Really? You deliver coal? Yeah, canny sacks of coal. I've been doing it 12 years. Where's the coal come from these days, then? Not Wales, is the answer. Columbia. Traverse comes from Ireland.

And the old voids come from Aberpurgham. What a business. You're like one of the last South Welsh people involved in coal. Yeah. But there used to be tens of thousands of it. Yeah. Including my grandfather. He was a miner in Acre, Philly. He didn't like it used to be mined. Before it would be like a row of houses and you could just sell it on that row of houses. Now you've got to travel now. What do people do with the coal? Burn it in their fires in their house? Yeah, so burn it. Do you follow politics at all, sir? No, no. You don't? Do you vote? No. Really? No.

I don't know whether you know this, but Nigel Farage and Reform UK are doing quite well in this part of the world. I wouldn't mind voting for him. Tell me why. I don't know. A lot of people are starting to go for Reform. My buddy who works for me on the coal, he keeps saying Reform. I hear him do it, but if it was anybody, I'd go for Reform. Because I do like Nigel Farage. What do you like about him? He was on... What, I'm a celebrity, get me out? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And he was all right. I liked him in there. If you're going to pick anybody, you like the look of Farage? I don't like Starmer. Tell me about what you think about Starmer. I just don't like him. If you were given the choice between Keir Starmer and Farage, you'd take Farage? Yeah, I'd go for Farage. And that applies to your friends as well? He gets on with Trump and all that, and we've got to stay on their side. So you quite like Donald Trump as well? Yeah. What do you like about him? I think he's all right. He's a bit nuts, but he's all right.

Well, I'm glad we met you, sir. That's very good. Now, what's your first name, sir? Lee. Nice to meet you, Lee. Yeah, cheers. Brilliant. Cheers. All the best with the coal as well. Amazing. The last coal delivery man in Wales. He's pushed. He quite likes Farage and Donald Trump. No, not really for political reasons. Just the idea that they're a bit different. And that they're the right side of all these winds howling around the world. It was fascinating.

It's got its moments. Opinion is clearly very split, as local Leanne tells us. Do you follow politics much?

They're all liars and all pretty much the same, aren't they? Would you include Nigel Farage in Reform UK in that? God, yes. I hate reform. It is said that they're starting to break through in South Wales and more and more people are minded to support them. Are you picking that up? Well, they've just voted a reform councillor in up here, haven't they? Yeah. Why do you think that is? Because people are stupid and just...

Yeah, a lot of people are racist. I think that stems down to a lot of it. People think they'll stop the people on the boats coming in, so we'll vote for them, and they don't actually look into it anymore. Or to be charitable, they're feeling anxious and insecure, and they don't think politics is working, so they pick the fellow they think might... Yeah, people just think we need change. Yeah, yeah. How do you feel about the fact reform are doing better and better, it seems? It's worrying. Scary. We've heard already today from people that...

Some voters are sort of open to Nigel Farage and his messages or like him because he's on TikTok. And then we've just heard again, they think he's all right because he was on I'm a Celebrity, get me out of here. Which might sound sort of flimsy, but I think shows you that he's successfully marketed himself as something other than a politician. And he's reaching people through channels beyond current affairs programmes and news websites. Do you know what I mean? It's getting through in a different way.

The other thing which is really interesting is, even if it's true that reform are insurgent, there are a lot of people here who don't like it, right? They know what's at stake, that somehow by some weird accident, the by-election here the other week represented something significant, you know. Is this politics going to break through or not? And they're really conscious of it. Oh, I should talk to him. Which fella? Before I can finish my point, we're interrupted by Lee, the coal delivery man we just spoke to, who tells us to talk to his cousin, Shane. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Excuse me, sir.

Your friend Lee here said we should talk to you. How are you? Alright. So we work for the Guardian newspaper, we make their podcast and part of the one we're making this week is in Pontypool. I see. Do you live locally? Yes I do. How's the place doing?

Pontypool as a whole? Yeah. I don't think it's doing very well to be honest. The same as most Welsh little valleys, communities. They're struggling, there's not much coming in. The only thing you seem to see doing well is hairdressers, vape shops and obviously your second hand shops. And what about jobs more generally? Oh there's not much work in Pontypool at all. My father worked in steelworks.

A lot of people worked in steelworks back then so you know they just don't exist anymore like they used to. Do you work now? Yes. What do you do? At the moment I work for myself so I just generally general building and things like that. But it sounds like sort of quality dependable work is quite hard to come by. Yes there is unless you are really qualified in your job then there's not much work about at all at the moment. I think people are struggling. Okay.

I don't know whether you know, but Reform UK, Nigel Farage, has won a by-election here the other week. You're nodding. How do you feel about that? A lot of my family voted for them, and I know a lot of people who voted for them. I think a lot of their views are good. Like what? Well, they are all for stopping illegal immigrants and things like that. So I've been told. What, illegal immigration of any kind?

I'm not sure, I don't really get into it that much. But that sort of rings true for you? Yeah, yeah, of course. Tell me why? You know, the UK as a whole, it's just they've let too many people in, haven't they, across the borders, you know? It just seems to me like they're eating up all the work and taking everything, you know? In South Wales specifically? Yeah, there's a lot of influence in South Wales as well. There's generally more Eastern European around. I mean, you've only got to go to Newport and you'll see.

And if I said to you that if you go to a hospital, for example, all the people who fix you up and look after you are likely to be from overseas. Yes. Does that make you feel different about immigration?

No, not different, no, no. But there is a lot of them in the hospitals. And again, they're high-end jobs, aren't they? You've got a general sense that you need work and things here that aren't there. Yes, definitely, that are not there, no. And it's going to get worse. Do you feel that? I think so, yeah. There's a lot of influence of young people. So where are they all going to find this work and this money? People are struggling now, especially with the price increase on everything, food bills, energy bills, everything. So it's not getting any better as far as I'm concerned. In a nutshell, how do you feel about the future? On the...

A gut instinct, you know. A bit worried about the future, to be honest. Yeah, I can see things changing. I think things are generally going to get worse. Thank you very much indeed. We're driving down this very steep hill into the middle of Pontypool. There's one sort of question hanging over a lot of what we're trying to explore or explain here. I suppose a lot of people would say, well, what's Reform UK's offer to South Wales? How is it going to materially improve things here? And I think that's a very valid question to which they haven't got an answer.

But I'm not sure their politics works on that level. In fact, I know that it doesn't, right? It's performative. It's about saying things that people like, some people like, and also the idea that people see something of themselves in far-ars, chiefly, right? So the idea, then, that politics is about what you can do and deliver is sort of irrelevant in this politics, which seems utterly weird, right? It seems absurd, because it's about what pours out your phone and how it makes you feel.

I still think that mainstream politicians and a lot of the so-called mainstream media haven't cottoned on to that. Because it's really hard to get your head around it, but I think it's true. Can we ask you a quick question? Yes. Do you come to Pontypool quite often? No.

I've never been to Pontypool before. As we were warned, Pontypool High Street is eerily empty and there's a sense it's been forgotten by the people in power. It's quite something. So people here, like Barry, are very interested in what reform has to say. Well, he's got better ways forward, I think. Do you like Nigel Farage? Yeah, he's OK.

How does he compare to Keir Starmer, say, to you? I would say a lot better. I don't think much of Keir Starmer whatsoever. Right. And what feelings do you get from Nigel Farage? Well, he seems to be more prepared to maybe get things done. I think he put better things in place, stopped a lot of people coming over, maybe looked after the pensioners better, things like that. And in general, how would you say Wales has been run lately?

Not very good at all. You're looking for a change, aren't you? Yeah. Do you think you'll get one? You'd like to think so at some point, but who knows? Probably not. Even so, you'll give them a go? Yeah. Do you think they'll understand if you come to towns like this, with these quite imposing town centres, which must have looked quite grand at one point, the thing to remember is that coal mining and working in the steelworks were quite well-paid jobs.

So time was, if you'd come down here on a weekday afternoon or a Saturday morning, there'd have been loads and loads of people around. I remember South Wales when it was like that, when I used to come and visit my grandparents and aunties and uncles in the sort of mid-70s. It was exactly like that. I'd never seen so many people walking down the street. And now, unfortunately, they're sort of ghosts of their former selves. I cannot emphasise how quiet the middle of Pontypool is. And there's two huge buildings here, one of which is very splendid architecturally, that are completely empty.

I understand why people feel not just sad but they often feel angry about things like that. Further along the street are Paul and Catherine, a couple who live in the town. How's the place doing? Awfully. What, the town? The town. Tell me, I mean I think I know why you say that. Why do you say that? It's just very run down. We've been talking for years about regeneration, the local area, and it's not happening. Most of the shops have closed down, very little being put in place.

When did that, when did it happen? God, how long has it been like this? 20 years? This place used to be thriving. I can remember as a child coming through here with my parents, just this was the place to come and it's a shame now because it's, there's nothing to bring people here. There's no reason to come shopping here. There's nothing you'll find here that you can't get and come around and it's, yeah.

an optician's place on my birthday cards. Wow, something happening in Cwmbran, what a big shopping centre open. We don't go to Newport or Cardiff anymore, we just go to Cwmbran. There's nothing that we can't get there for that's become more run down. There's nothing for children, there's nothing for teenagers here. So then we get lots of problems with that, don't we? Yeah, there's nothing for them to do. Yeah, nothing we can do. There's nothing we can do, no. I feel your pain. Do you follow politics much at all?

To a certain extent, local politics. That's the reason we're here. Do you notice Reform UK being more of a thing in this part of the world? Yes, definitely. Throughout the entire country, it's not just Wales or Pollypool. It's massive everywhere now, isn't it? And not just in this country either, throughout Europe, the more right side of politics is definitely taking hold.

How do you feel about it? It's frightening. For a long, long time it's been a Labour constituency. Nobody's particularly happy with Labour, it's just there was no one else to vote for. UKIP took quite a good shot at it a few years ago and did really well. So yeah, if there's an opportunity to go somewhere else, I think a lot of people will do that. The Labour Party's run Wales since devolution started, right? So what does that tell you? I know. Yeah, I won't go into personal politics. I'm

I think Labour have had their time here, but like I said, to the people on that side, there is no one else to vote for. They're not going to vote Conservative. So Labour would be the way you would go. If UKIP or Reform, as it is now, are coming around, I think there's an opportunity for them to have their say. Maybe it's for a good thing, despite the negative side of what most people see with Reform UK. In the sense it'll shake things up a little bit?

as in the sense it'll give Labour somebody to have to fight against and maybe they'll pull their fingers out and maybe Labour will stay but do something better or not. There's an election tomorrow. How would you vote? I don't know is the answer and I think that's probably the problem in this area is people don't know who to vote for and I've always thought you shouldn't just vote for the party that's going to win. You should vote even if you know the party you're going to vote for is going to lose. Those people that are voting should vote with your heart not with your head I think. But you wouldn't vote reform?

I wouldn't say I wouldn't. It would be dependent upon what they were saying at the time and what suited, what was right for the area and what was right for us as a family. You surprised? I was quite surprised then. Of course, domestic here. Yeah, we've only been married for 13 years, so there's a lot to learn about each other still. It's only 10 years since the Brexit referendum.

And after the Brexit referendum, people were all saying, oh, they're left behind, we've got to help these places, and you've got levelling up and all that, and here we are. And nothing's really improved, has it? In fact, it's carried on getting steadily worse. And you cannot, you can't use these political clichés like aspiration, that's a really good example, for as long as towns look like this. You just can't. Because people are reminded of being overlooked and neglected and passed over every time they come to town or look out the window. Whatever unfairness is...

politically or economically, that's what it looks like. There's one point it's really important to make, which is that because Reform UK seem to be doing well here, it sparked a response. And there are lots of people that we've met who are determined to oppose it and stop this insurgency and the idea Reform UK are going to take lots of seats in the Welsh elections. They know what's at stake. And actually,

That makes here the front line, right? If you're worried about this sort of politics, if you're scared of it, if you look at what's happening in America and Germany and Britain, and it makes you feel anxious, I think it's worth understanding that the front line against that sort of politics isn't in Manchester or London. It's here, right? It's in South Wales.

Both Westminster and the Cardiff Bay establishment have failed the peoples.

Wales is broken. Wales needs reform. We look forward to taking our message to the people and delivering the change Wales deserves. And we should mention it's a big week for US-UK relations as Keir Starmer meets Donald Trump in Washington. Pippa and Kieran will have a behind-the-scenes look at that trip and what it all means in a special episode of Politics Weekly Westminster later this week. This episode was produced by Frankie Tobey. The music is by Axel Kekutie. And the executive producers are Zoe Hitch and Nicole Jackson.

Thank you.

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