Do UK Labour care about Wales?

This week Will enters a rage spiral, Mel reveals her musical gifts and Robin explains how he never planned to be a comedian. 

Wales has been shafted on rail again while the Treasury ignores Mark Drakeford’s pleas for Cymru to be treated the same as England. 

The gang discuss how the arts could be used to transform Wales and Mel drops the truth bomb that Will is clearly a trumpet boy. 

For Wales, See Wales is a podcast all about Welsh politics and issues. It’s for everyone from political nerds to people who have never really paid attention.

About FWSW

100 years ago if you had picked up the Encyclopaedia Britannica and looked up “Wales” you would have seen four words - ‘For Wales, see England.’

This implied that Wales was no different to England. Not worthy of its own description. Second fiddle. Frankly, it implied that Wales was simply less of a country.

That is why we have launched our podcast: For Wales, See Wales.

It is a weekly look at Welsh politics looking at the issues that matter to people here.

There are so many people who are passionately Welsh, who care about Wales and want to better understand what is happening here.

The more informed people are on Welsh issues, the more they are able to hold politicians and decision makers to account for the things that affect their lives.

Just as importantly, we want to have a good laugh talking and learning about the country we love.

Plus we have some great merchandise which you can buy here: https://for-wales-see-wales.teemill.com/

Get in touch at ForWalesSeeWales@gmail.com

For Wales, See Wales is a HayMan Media Production
https://www.haymanmedia.co.uk/

Transcript

THESE TITLES ARE AUTO_GENERATED - So, the usual caveats apply!

 As we know, because we read the news, there is a lot of crime.

 There is crime about. Crime is about. Have you ever been broken into? I've been broken into. No, I haven't, have you? Yeah, a couple of years ago, some two kids jumped over our back fence and nicked near my wife's bikes. But during uni, someone broke into our uni house and they nicked every single laptop inside it, apart from my housemates, which was an Acer laptop. Yeah, well, there we go. And they used that to break the window together. True story. Double insult. Do you know where you could have stashed your valuables? Go on. Inside a lion container. Oh, yeah. They would not be able to smash the way in or the way out. Even that laptop would not have done any damage. Even an X. Because it's guarded by lions.

 What's really good about them is you don't need planning permission. If you've got an outdoor space, you can store them there. They're super secure. It's where you can store your valuables in a way that you are safe in the knowledge that they're going to be safe. Yeah. And wind and watertight. All this extreme weather we're getting at the moment as well. Not affected. Are they watertight? They are. Wind and watertight, yeah. I worry about that. Like I've got a little office at the bottom of my garden that was an old, old garage. And every single sort of winter, every time it's raining, I genuinely do go in and go, is it going to, it's fine today. Yeah. Is today going to be the day? Yeah, absolutely. So if you want to get a bit of secure, wind and watertight outdoor storage, I suggest you go to lioncontainers.co.uk. What's that website? It's lioncontainers.co.uk. Thank you.

 Hello and welcome to another episode of For Wales, See Wales. My name is Robin Morgan. My name is Mel Owen. And I'm Will Hayward. Hello. Hello. You guys are matching. I love this. Very cute. Very bananas and pajamas together. Thank you. That is, we're going to do the university fresher circuit as bananas and pajamas DJ set. It's going to be wicked. Just playing Yma o Hyd on repeat. They'll absolutely love it. Nice housing. Really good. Thank you. Did you have a nice time at Hay after? I did. But I almost died on the way there because we cut it out of the main podcast, but we did put a producer, Daryl, put a clip out where I made a rather bold claim last week. I claimed that I could hold my breath for two and a half minutes. Yes. It turns out I can hold my breath for two minutes and five seconds now. And I did that on my drive up to Hay and then nearly died swerving off a road. Nearly held it forever. Yeah, exactly. I don't know why I was thinking. I was just because... You wanted to prove it to yourself. I did. You're like, those bastards don't know what they're talking about. Taking the mick out of me. It turns out my lung capacity has gone down somewhat since I swam every day. Yeah, it's fair enough. Did you start it, you know, that thing when you're a kid and you hold your breath through a tunnel? Yes. But like the traffic was so bad in the photographs tunnels that you nearly died. This is how I got. I can't hold it for two hours. We need a relief road. Too many people are dying holding their breath.

 I like that. Thank you. I also got a message from someone who said that they were listening to us at the gym and they had to get off the treadmill because Robin's thing about reversing 20 miles an hour, but physically reversing it made them laugh so much. Yay. That's brilliant. I love that. If I can stop people working out one at a time. Yes. If I just want to make Wales unhealthier. That's been my dream from this podcast. So thank you very much. Well done you. The antithesis to Joe Wicks. And the anti Joe Wicks. Yeah. I want to maybe go into a bit of a rage today about how Wales has been treated. Great. I think I know what this is going to be about, but I purposefully not read too much into it because I wanted to hear it from the horse's mouth. You being that horse. You are a horse. What a polite horse. I'd like to go into a rage now, please. If that's all right. Yeah.

 Right. Let's do it. You may.

 Okay. So there were two things I want to go into, but the first one we're going to go back to the old stalwart For Wales See Wales. And that is talking about rail. Do you remember HS2? How could I forget? Finders in England and Wales project. Well, Labour said before they were in power, how awful this was that Wales wasn't getting any new money from HS2 when Scotland and Northern Ireland were. But then they're going to power and went, oh, actually we don't want to give that money.

 Yes. It's only gone and happened again. No. HS3.

 Return of the way. No way.

 So basically this one's even more ridiculous. So a railway line connecting Cambridge and Oxford has been developed. Yes. It's billions of pounds are going into it. And please tell me it's an England only project. No, no, no. So David Chadwick, the Welsh Liberal Democrat MP, asked this question and it transpired that in fact it's been listed as an England and Wales project. I love that. I mean, that is such a ballsy move that you could not have chosen the two most English places as well. Cambridge to Oxford via Eton. That is utterly insane. We also established, from our previous one on universities, that very fucking Welsh students will even be there. Yeah. It's not like they'll even be able to use it when they're there. That's wild. The audacity, I almost have to respect. This is an absolute lie and untruth. Fucking stick it on. Put the And Wales sticker on. And what? And what are you going to do about it? Exactly. What are we going to do? Nothing. That's so funny. Red Welsh Way. Let's just say that over and over again. Yes, exactly. It's very, very frustrating. And the reason that it can happen automatically, as we've discussed before, is because England and Wales have essentially a unified rail network. So, whereas it is fully devolved in Scotland with Wales, it only happens if the Treasury in England decides to treat it as just an English project. They did it for the Elizabeth line, which I would argue more people, Welsh people, probably use, than the Cambridge to Oxford ship. Yeah, especially because it's like connected to Paddington. So, if you're getting a train into London from Wales, then... I mean, we're still, you know, this is still clutching the straws and berths. But if we really want to be generous, yes, I do agree. Thank you. Do you know how many stops there are in between Cambridge and Oxford? I don't, off top of my head, no. That's OK. Because it doesn't affect you.

 Yeah, true. You know, why would you? In all fairness? Well, you should learn, because you're paying for it well.

 This decision was made, like, not... It wasn't, like, made in the last, like, few weeks, but it's now kind of come out, but it's happened. But I think it just underscores how ridiculous the current system is. And we're going to have... There's going to be a kind of reckoning in a couple of weeks. So, on the 11th of June, it is the spending review, where Rachel Reeves is going to come out and say, "This is how they're going... where they're going to be allocating money, what their priorities are going to be." Every single government department in Whitehall is basically lobbying to have their project put forward. I know that the Wales office, so that's the Secretary of State for Wales, who's Joe Stevens, have been trying to get something on-rails. Whoever it will happen, God knows. I'm skeptical that there will be enough, even if they get something to kind of offset HS2. I mean, this really couldn't have come at a worse time for Welsh Labour and UK Labour. No, absolutely not. Like you said, the timing is so appalling. I'm like, "God, Eluned Morgan right now, I would... I do not envy her at all." There's more, though. So, do you remember about a month ago, we talked about the national insurance contributions? So, Rachel Reeves back in September increased the amount that employers have to pay in national insurance contributions, which is a bit of a nightmare because lots of public sector organisations employ people. So, like health boards, councils, stuff like that. So, that meant that they had to spend more taxpayers' money paying tax, so that comes out of their budget. So, in order to offset this, Rachel Reeves said, "Okay, I don't do a good Rachel Reeves." I'm not sure she does.

 She said, "Don't worry, we are going to refund. We're going to refund all of the public sector organisations that lose out from this." The problem is, because of the way that they did it, they did it through the Barnet formula, because Wales has a proportionally larger public sector to England based on population, Wales was actually lost out by about £70 million.

 Quite a big amount of money. A big amount of money. So, just on the 1% of the Welsh NHS budget.

 But Mark Drakeford said, "This is unacceptable. I'm going to speak to the Treasury about this. I'm going to raise it with them. I'm going to tell them that this is not acceptable." Well, he has done that, and he has come back and said... Free song!

 So, he made this point, he made this point, and now he's come back and said, "Yeah, they're not going to do it." So, in a statement, he said, "The UK government has provided £185 million in funding to Wales, following the decision to increase national insurance contributions. However, this falls significantly short of the £257 million, but it's going to cost the devolved public sector in Wales. This shortfall of more than £70 million is a result of them deciding to use the Barnet formula. The choice that they've got is they make public sector organisation in Wales absorb that loss, or the Welsh government makes it up from their other pots. So, they've gone into their reserves, which normally in quite a cash-strapped country, this is now £70 million that is coming out of the Welsh government budget to pay public sector organisations in Wales, because those public sector nations in Wales have got to pay the Treasury more.

 England, if you're a public sector body, you will not lose out, or in Wales, you will. Well, doesn't that just describe the whole thing, doesn't it? Like, when people... What is the Welsh experience of that? But at least we get to go to Oxford and Cambridge for cheaper? No, that's not what I'm saying. Slightly quicker. Slightly quicker. Slightly quicker. Obviously, we can't get... It's quite hard to get directly to Oxford from Wales. You've got to change, haven't you? I've got to go up, but change it ready. Depends where you're coming from, Wales, I guess. Yeah, also. I went to the UK government, and a source told me, because they felt... You can tell that the UK government are a bit annoyed with the Welsh government for making a fuss about this, those bloody fuss-making Welsh, and they never make a fucking fuss. They said... Peter Cux, sorry. They said... Yeah, they said... Income.

 It went on so many levels. I like it. I like that. It's good. It's the gift, the keeps of giving. Thank you. New merch. New merch. Yeah, basic. Yeah, basic. Robin Morgan. So, when I went to them, a UK government source told me... The Welsh government's spending power has been boosted by the UK government's decision to waive their reserve drawdown limits. So, basically, the Welsh government have said... The UK government have allowed the Welsh government to carry more money over, essentially. They've also increased the amount of spending by giving them £180 million to compensate, even though that's short of what it should be. And they said there's been a record 21 billion financial settlement in the autumn budget, which is the largest in the history of devolution. He said...

 Plan for change in Wales! Oh, of course. By fixing the NHS, creating thousands of well-paid jobs, boosting the minimum wage, and investing billions in our high streets. So, basically, we've given you a lot. Stop moaning is what they're saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they're giving the equivalent of what's happening in England, minus what they're not making up, which they are making up in England. I mean, this is gaslighting-wise. This is, like, it is purest form. Do you know what I mean? Like, yes, we've done a bad thing, but look at all these kind of little, alright things we've done. What more do you want from me? God! Yeah, it's like when I wash up. I'm like, "I've washed up, Jen." Yeah, exactly. You can do it and not say. Yeah, you could. You could just do the good thing. Just do it, and then not try and get praise for it. Yeah, exactly. I'd never not try and get praise for it. It's nice, isn't it? Praise is good. Welsh Labour, I mean, they're going to an election in now 11 months, and it's like their own party wants them to lose. It's like, "Okay, question," and genuinely, like, not taking the mic here. Like, do UK Labour care the fact that they're going to lose the Senate? Do they give a shit? Because if they did, I think they'd not be doing this. If you said to UK Labour, "Do you want to win in the Senate election?" They would say, "Yes, we would." The problem is the people who ultimately make the decision are people in the Treasury, and I think there is a bit of a feeling that maybe the Treasury tail is wagging the overall government dog at the moment. I think that it is one of many competing priorities. The Treasury is well known for being completely inflexible, saying, "This is how we do things." They very rarely seem to look at their systems and go, "Well, actually, this doesn't really make sense, or this isn't fair because of X, Y, and Z." They're just like, "This is how we do it." Numbers in a spreadsheet. Yeah, exactly.

 They're going to wake up at the start of May next year and think, "Oh, maybe we should have done more." Or maybe they won't be introspective at all, and actually they'll just focus on the next UK general election. Well, this is my question. Is this going to hang over Keir Starmer's head at all if he loses the Senate? Is he at all going to be concerned how that makes Labour look UK-wide? Because I would argue that when Labour started really underperforming in Scotland, and were losing out to the S&P 12 years ago, that that was a panic for Labour because it was really hard statistically for them to get an overall UK majority without Scotland.

 Is that the same concern in Wales? Do they care enough? I think UK Labour have long-- especially some Welsh Labour MPs are very scornful of Welsh Labour, the Senate members and that sort of stuff. They're pretty disdainful of them. They can't probably imagine a situation where they won't win in Wales, where they won't be OK, they might lose a few seats, but I don't think they realise quite what's coming down the chute towards them. But there's been signs of this across-- you see it in the national media every time there's a by-election or an English council and you think, "We saw it a couple of weeks ago with reform getting swathes of council seats." Is this a big litmus test for Keir Starmer? This is going to be on it on a much huger scale.

 Keir Starmer, I spoke to someone who was actually really high up in the UK civil service. They're not there now, and they know Wales really, really well. And they said to me, "The way to think about Keir Starmer is, in many ways, he's kind of a small English nationalist. He sees Britain as this thing in of itself. In his head, it's not, "This is a union of four countries and this is a UK and a union that needs to be cultivated." There is Britain, and I run Britain. And he's not hostile to devolution. He just doesn't seem to really give it much thought. And I think that is such a problem. They seem to be approaching the Welsh elections like it is a local council election. Yeah, well, I think it is to them. And we've talked about this before when you think of, you know, if a news story is happening in Wales, we now go to Wales. You don't go to the place. Wales is-- Yeah, the place. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. We'll go to Birmingham. We'll go to Spines and Wales. It's a little region to them. Yeah. Shall we move on? I'd love to. Yeah, please.

 Robin, you and I do a lot of media work. You know, we've recorded here, then everywhere. Yeah. I would say this studio feels like home now. It feels like a second home. It's one of the best teams we've worked with. 100%, I mean, the amount of times that you sort of, like, record from a tiny little space, like a cupboard, and you're just on your own there. But it's light, it's bright, the team here, wonderful. Yes. What I love about working at HayMan Media is they aim to produce the best quality product you want to make. Yeah. Like, they help you tell your story, and this is why we work with them. It's why we continue to work with them. And if you want podcast production, it's a really good way of highlighting an issue you think is important. It's a really good way of telling a story you think is important, and it's a really good way of just marketing yourself and your brand. I really suggest you go to HayMan Media, because they are really, really, really good at doing this, and very great guys to work with, aren't they? They are nice people to work with, and I think that's, it's nice to work with nice people. It is. Yeah, despite that, I do work with you, and it's fine. Right, well, thanks on that bombshell. HayManMedia.co.uk.

 Would you guys say you work in the cultural and arts sector? Depends what day you ask me and what gig I had before to be fair. If it was a brawl in Leicester, it doesn't feel artsy. But sometimes if I'm doing, hey, if I do chapter, you can't do it. You can't do it if that feels very artsy. Yeah. We've talked previously about the arts in Wales and how poorly funded kind of culture is in Wales. So we talked about Wales per head in end of 2023-24 was 70 quid per head spending, whereas the UK is 91 pounds per head.

 You know, some countries like Hungary, 160, you know, France, 237 pounds per head. Iceland, 700 per head. That's wild, isn't it? That is crazy.

 Well, VapoG's now. I was thinking it. Where's your top 10 hit, Iceland? Come on. You can do better. The Welsh Government released. They'd done a consultation with the sector, with the cultural sector. They didn't include sport in this, even though Jack Sargent, the MS, responsible, also has responsibility for sport, but they didn't include sport. They announced an 18-page document, and this was their priorities for culture. Oh. Okay.

 So, I read them, and my initial thought was, "This is just kind of woolly.

 There's not much to it." And then, so I gave it a bit of time, had a few people in the arts sector. Now, some people who'd fed into it said, "Actually, we like the direction of travel." Some people thought, "This is absolute. This is just lip service to helping the arts."

 Having reread it a few times, because I'm cool, I think it's just the most blase, just meh thing I've ever read. I said in my newsletter that it was like placeholder text written by candidates on The Apprentice.

 Ooh, I love that analogy. Yeah, that's a good line. So, there is no line in there where you can read it, and you don't just go, "Well, obviously." Sure. Oh. So, to prove it, I scrolled up and down really fast and counted to five, and then just stopped on a random line. Okay. Listen to this.

 "Wales is fortunate to have a deep and broad cultural and creative offer that we should celebrate, enjoy, and share with others. We want cultural organizations and services to support the people of Wales to be collectively, individually, and uniquely Welsh. Innovation and excellence should be fundamental to our aspirations for developing and celebrating culture." Ooh, hot take. Mm. Mm. Yeah, how? How? Yeah. Yeah, but there's something talking about creativity. It doesn't half sound like it was written by chat GPT, does it? Oh, it did. It did. It did. Or it felt like, you know, you're like, "Oh, the word count is 4,000 than I've written 2,000, and it's due in in two hours." Three adjectives instead of one, I think. Yeah. That's just one of those. Put it in. And I think the thing with it, there was nothing statutory in there. There was no way of measuring success. They were just fairly vague. And, pardon me, it's like, "Well, these are the priorities for culture. This is the direction of travel. Maybe they don't need to put that in there." But I decided to go and have a read of what they'd done previously. So, I went back and read their similar release on culture back in 2016 called, "Light Springs through the Dark, a Vision for Culture in Wales." No, you're having this on. You're having this on. "Light Springs through the Dark, a Vision for Culture in Wales." Black, Bible black.

 Love that. Love that. Oh, my days. Now, the similarities are flipping amazing. Less wary.

 So, they both have a section called digital, okay? Digital. It's important because the internet exists. A very modern, I will say. Digital. Digital TV was becoming a thing. Yeah. I had to put adverts on, like, "Evan's switching over to digital now." Digital radio is going to be so clear. Digital. Oh, when, like, a family in the village got a digibox, you knew that, like, they were the wrist family. Digibox. Do you remember your digibox? Yeah. Remember my digibox? We were the last family to get a digibox, but, like, we weren't the first either, you know? Yeah. I'm like, "Oh, I remember when I got channel 18 and 21 to watch music videos all day." That was the end. Oh, yeah, that was totally why I used my digibox. I was 14!

 I wanted the history channel! Yeah, you did. Were you fishing? The fishing channel was big as well. No, I'm not. You're not a fishing boy. No, no, I like Shark Week. Of fact, you do, yeah. But I like watching them, not catching them. Yeah? Have you ever seen fishing?

 Once, my uncle, we went fishing where he put it off the edge of the boat and the boat drives and you, like, like, fish, like, grab onto it. A stretchy. And he took my pet shark, pet shark, my toy shark, my pet shark, fuck me. Importantly. He took my toy shark and put it on the hook and threw it out and then was like, "Oh, you've got something!" And then I wheeled it in and I was like, "I've got a toy exactly like this. That is so weird." And my mum was, like, losing her mind because this was, like, my favourite toy. Oh, that is actually a very sad story. He listens to this. How you doing, John? Was the toy okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was fine. Did you dry down the radiator? It's got a massive hole inside. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's very not okay. I like what I like. You're all right. I'm fine, yeah. John, I like it. I just held my breath for two and a half minutes and swam around. So, the section digital. In 2016.

 So modern. Do you know what's giving as well? Sorry, we will get onto it, but importantly, it's giving. They've got, like, shit, what's modern. And it's a bit like, you know, so digital and I guarantee if I had photos on the phone, there was a brown person in it. I guarantee that. There was, there was, actually, I've got the report here. There was, like, they had dropped in, like, a lot of generic artsy photos. Yeah, like a school prospectus. Yeah. Yeah. I was a star in my school prospectus in my secondary school. To the front, please. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mel, come on, I know you don't play cricket with the boys. Come on.

 Don't you come in your whites. Come on. I mean, they're holding a bat. It'll make you pop. Yeah. They're making new friends.

 You don't cricket.

 Is it a lie? No.

 So the aim in 2016, they said, we need to encourage the cultural sector to be more proactive in pursuing new forms of income and developing and exploiting digital technology. Rolled forward to 2025. And they said, we need to formulate a strategic and collaborative and coordinated a strategic collaborative and coordinated approach to opportunities and challenges in operating in the digital world. It's the same thing. Yeah, yeah. It's almost as if that was 2016. And they still haven't done it. Nine years. Who's been in government in that time?

 It's like the fact that they said digital technology is a huge opportunity. In 2016, my space died eight years ago. Yeah, the ship has sailed.

 But in 2016, they at least had a section which had a bit of accountability. It was called, what more needs to be done? How can we monitor progress? And in that section called monitoring and evaluation, they said, it will be important to monitor and evaluate the progress being made in implementing the goals in this statement. Almost by definition, some cultural activities and their outcomes will be difficult to measure objectively. Nonetheless, we recognize the need to improve the evidence base on effective cultural interventions, especially when they contribute to key policy areas such as health, education, the economy. Good. They realize that they need to measure whether their policies work. Yeah, great. Roll forward to 2025.

 Nothing at all.

 Interesting. Nothing at all. I was really hoping you were like, here's a graph. Here's something they've measured. No, no, no, no, no. Not with art. No. Sure.

 Gosh. Yeah. So, but they did inject some more... I'd say inject. They added a bit of money. So they put in an extra 15 million pounds into the cultural sector, which sounds good. 50 million pounds. No, I wouldn't turn down 50 million pounds. No.

 Let me just outline for you how thin this is going to be spread. So it goes to the arts, which includes dance, music, theater, literature, drama, drawing, sculpture, painting, filmmaking, museums, libraries, archives, the historic environment sector. All of that is where that 15 million pounds has been spread out. I mean, this studio, this way, there's nothing that's not included in that. To be clear, we have not had any Welsh fucking government money. People on Twitter coming at me get away.

 Was that an accusation? There's a Twitter account. Do you know what? I'm not going to go into it because I'm going to do something really good on them. And I really hope you're watching because I'm coming.

 Oh, great. Is it what I think it is? I think that awaits. We'll talk about it off camera. Okay. Great. Oh, stupid.

 Gossip. You don't get that. So while the Welsh government, we're very pleased with this 15 million, it is worth putting for context that Arts Council Wales received a 40% real term spending cut since 2010. Fair enough. 2010 to 2023.

 And just for the context, since 2017, arts funding in Wales has fallen 30%. In England, it's fallen 11%. In Northern Ireland, 16%. And in Scotland, it's actually gone up by 2%. In the newsletter this week, I realized because I'm quite miserable a lot of the time. And I think what you need now is a bit of hope so people don't get that news fatigue. I kind of painted a picture for maybe how we can make the arts better in Wales. Now, I'm not a policy boffin. I'm not an expert in anything, really.

 But I thought what would be interesting is to see how we could use the arts for like how, instead of being a thing, oh, we need to do something for the arts. How you could treat it as like an absolutely vital industry. So can I talk to you about instruments? Do every of you guys play instruments? I play the piano. Play the piano? Yeah. I play a couple of instruments. Well, you play bass in... Bass because I'm Black with a Spondency. Yeah. Shout out to the boys. Collaborated with 69. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I play a few things. What else? A bit of piano. A bit of piano. A bit of drums. A bit of drums. Nice. What are you playing? You've got a trumpet vibe.

 You don't have a trumpet vibe. Sort of band camp. Yeah, yeah. So I've energy. Yeah. You don't have a trumpet vibe. I played the cornet. Oh my God. That was so much better than I was hoping for. It's like the lamest... You should do taro. The lamest trumpet. Corner. It's just a small... It's a small trumpet. Yeah, it makes my hands look bigger though. And the rest.

 Yeah. Don't put it near there.

 The cornet, was there a... What in your head when I want to play the cornet, when you were a boy, what when I want... Or did you pick this up later in life? There was a second hand cornet. Which was cheaper than the trumpet. So I played... I had cornet lessons with Mr. Smalley.

 And also the other... Because it's a smaller trumpet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Obviously. We looked at each other like one of us is going to do it. Mr. Smalley left and he was just replaced by Mr. Bickedyke, who became obviously Pick a Dick.

 There were so many options of a way he could have gone with that actually. Yeah, yeah. It actually worked out better. It was less automatic. Yeah, yeah. It was better. When did you guys think I was doing? Not to say, yeah.

 How old were you, please? It started when I was in year four. So that would have been seven, eight. And I stopped once it stopped getting me out of maths lessons in year nine. Second year of the evening. Yeah, yeah, nine. So when I was like 13. Did he? Okay. I played for... So that meant I played for six, seven years and I got to grade two. Oh wow. Oh, that's you. Two's good, then. When you're in the midst of Smalley, you try hard but you have absolutely no musical talent. Oh, but I played violin for four years. I mean, I was terrible to the point where my parents would like bring me out because after their entertainment, if they had people over or family to be like, look how bad this is. Genuinely. So your party trick was being shit. Being so bad at it. And I genuinely like have such vivid memories. And my mum and dad will be listening to this and they should be crying.

 Of like their shoulders going up and down like tears streaming out their eyes trying not to laugh at how bad it was. Why do you think you became a comedian?

 I don't know. I think exactly. Hmm, let's draw the dots there, shall we, mum and dad?

 Can you still play? I was asking my guys. I could play at the time. No, I know. But like if I gave you a corner. I can play Little Donkey. Oh, a banger. Yeah. I can play the Titanic theme like everyone in the 90s. C C C C B C C B C C G D. That's like saliency on there. Yeah. Darryl, for the next live show, can we get a trumpet or a corner along? I'm so good at the corner. Can we play a song? Yes. Let me film. It's getting harder and harder for schools to fund music lessons themselves. So this is a problem because it means that the only people are able to learn are people who have got independently of means and have money and their parents can help them. And this means in terms of the arts get more elitist, which in turn means that less people access it and then it becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. But there are some instruments which are kind of dying out. The bassoon and the oboe are in strong decline. The oboe was a big player at my school. I feel like everybody played the oboe. Really? Yeah. Remind me of what the oboe is again. An oboe is like a kind of... The bassoon. I knew a bassoon because in Peter and the Wolf, the Disney version, Grandpa Pa was played by a bassoon. (Singing) Oh, they're good. (Singing)

 But Grandpa was the old bassoon, which was a... (Singing) Yeah, they're fine. Oh, okay. I'll tell you what, I guarantee the harp is not on that list, is it? I don't know. I haven't got the full list. I was at a several of the road last year. Last year? Last week. Everyone playing it out. It's not dying out. They were huge signs. They were like these little kids dragging their harps across the field. I've been really thinking lately how much I'd like to be a mum. And a several of the road really cured me of that, to be honest with you. I thought I'm not spending my Friday's dragging a harp across a field for a kid who doesn't want to play it, you know? Yeah, that's fair enough. Yeah, anyway, back to your list. I really hope that you're pregnant.

 Imagine if this is how I told you. I think it'd be so funny to then sort of cut to nine months later. So we have a new co-host. Nine months later. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it will not play the harp.

 Things like the piano and the guitar are doing really well. Yeah. Musical theatre, like acting, doing really well. But there's certain instruments which are doing really, which aren't, just not people aren't taking them up. This is bad for lots of reasons. But what I think is interesting is we talk about the arts being elitist. Actually, I think in Wales we should focus on making our arts elite, not elitist, elite. Because ultimately, like we talk about floating offshore wind, don't we? And how this is going to bring jobs to Wales, good, well-paid jobs. But if you exploit resources in Wales like green energy and stuff like that, that is good for companies that will get the profits of that. They're good for the people in Wales who will work on those projects. But they offer nothing else of value to Wales beyond that immediate thing. I'm not saying they're bad and we shouldn't be doing it. But the arts, if you were to, the arts have a self-evident good in terms of health, in terms of education, in terms of tourism. Like if you, and it's basically the best soft power you can get, it's the best advertisement for Wales you can get. Like look how well, like Welcome to Rexxon did in terms of marketing. And actually, the arts at the moment turns over 1.6 billion in Wales. And that's with it being pretty starved of funds. So I think what would be a really, really, if you had a Welsh government, which instead of seeing the arts as, oh, we need to put a bit of money into that because we have to. If they saw it as this is a vital industry, which could be our USP, like I said in the newsletter, like corporate Tanya as a brand has never been less cool. But come recall 2.0 could be like, you've got so many people in England who work in the arts who are super talented, have got loads of skills, who are just devastated about how the arts have gone. We could do something different in Wales where we make Wales the best place to be involved in the arts in the UK. And you attract people, you bring something and then that culture feeds itself. You need culture to make culture. And wouldn't it be like if you had a Welsh government said actually, in the next like term, we are going to by the end of it, make Wales the best place to be an artist. Not just like, oh, we're just going to do community projects. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but actually elite art. What you need to do as well, we're a small country. You need to be really shit hot of identifying talent, whether it's from a poor family or a rich background and having a clear pathway of how you drive it towards excellence instead of just taking part. And we punch above our weight as it is, you know, culturally. I think when it comes to the arts, when it comes to sports, we do. And I think that's a really good idea. I will say I do think though, that guitar should be more elitist because the amount of dates that have ended with me having a boy play his guitar at me that I haven't asked for. It's like, oh, no, no, I've never heard Wonderwall before. Please play it again. You wait till I whip my corner task.

 I think, you know, this stuff comes from passion at the top, right? Maybe with a potential different first minister. So when you're like, get the 69ers back together. Culture, we're doing culture now. We're just going to get the band back together, man. You do. I want to read in those glasses. I want, you know, like the funk glasses. Yeah. No, you do make a very good point though. I think, because like Manchester seems to have done this to a degree. There seems to be an element of like, if you move to Manchester to kind of work within that industry, for some reason that is the place. And I don't see why Wales can't be that either. I feel like sort of Bristol has this sort of creative vibe as well. Whereas if you can sort of get, you know, the funds behind it, and as you say, like a pathway into it. And also like having like artistic impression, expression rooted in people at a young age, like the arts are really in many ways an antidote to what reformer espousing because they want to divide people. They think about the young men that reform a targeting. They are lacking in confidence, lacking in prospect and actually giving them an outlet where whichever outlet, I'm not saying they should all be learning the fucking oboe, but actually if you were to engender into people an ability to express themselves and find a creative way to grow, I think, and actually feel out to bring people together in a way that nothing else does. Yeah. I get this, that the sharing of stories, that sounds so wanky, but like it is like the sharing of experiences, sharing of stories. And like there are so many people who our paths would never have crossed if we didn't both do comedy or we both didn't work in the storytelling industry. Or like, did you ever think that this was a job open to you? I had no idea. No. I had no idea there was any, and this was growing up in Cardiff, in like the capital city of a country. Yeah. I never had any idea there was sort of anything media related or being a comedian until working behind the bar of a comedy club and seeing different comedians coming up. Was that how you got into it? Yeah, I was always a comedy fan and watched it through TV and radio and stuff. But then I used to assume there was comedians like, oh, so there's Lee Evans and there's Billy Colley and there's Joe Brand, the ones that you've seen on TV. And then working behind the bar of a comedy club, there's like four comedians on this weekend. Like, okay, so there's more than I saw in the next week. It's like, oh, there's another four comedians here. And then you go, oh, right. And that person also gigs here. But like, comedy is a sector, you know, so many people ask sometimes after gigs that, oh, how do I get into it? And, you know, there's so many open mic gigs and stuff, but I would never have understood that as a concept. No, I had to literally be physically being like, you need to do this as a job, go and do it. Because I just didn't, I just saw people were born as 40 year olds, white, not a comedian. But I think so many people, especially from working class backgrounds, don't realize that the arts and culture is, is an actual job, an avenue. It's not just a hobby. You can go and do that. I was talking to Hannah Nisser, who's the poet for Wales, for, well, for the foreseeable. And she was saying like, she never realized, even though she did English lit at uni, even, a card of uni, she never realized she could use that as a job. She then went to go and work in the public sector until somebody was like, do you want to be the poet laureate for Wales? And she was like, oh, okay. You're right here, sure. Sure. And arts make arts, don't they? Like, if you saw, I give you a piece of paper and say, create something, it's really hard to do it. If you see examples and you have inspiration, it feeds off things, doesn't it? So, cool. So I think we just fixed, fixed the arts and work. Oh, marzones. Fixed.

 (Upbeat Music)

 We've done a lot of our stories recently, but I do want to kind of draw your attention to something, a kind of angle they're going down. So they are definitely trying to out reform reform. This is a tweet that they said the other day, breaking capital letters with a siren emoji. Oh, digital.

 (Laughing) Digibox.

 (Laughing) Labour First Minister says, actually, there are very low numbers referring to immigration.

 And Eluned Morgan agrees with reform, all in capitals, that migration has had a positive, all in capitals, impact on the economy. That conservatives have a plan to cap immigration and deport all capitals, those in the UK illegally. Two points. Firstly, immigration has not devolved. If the Tories won every seat in the Senate, they'd be able to do nothing about it. So firstly, the other thing to say is, 38% of Welsh consultants in the Welsh NHS were born outside of the UK. Yeah. 38%. Have you seen this woman? She's saying immigration's been positive. I mean, me, there is an absolute conversation to be had about immigration and community cohesion and bringing, and how we make immigration work in a way that works for Wales and works for the people who are coming in. This idea of, this woman thinks immigration can be good.

 (Laughing) What is that? It's a Facebook meme. It is, yeah. It's a post to get shared on Facebook pages such as, do you remember this street? It's laughable is what it is. You know, it's, I don't mean this in a real way, it's stupid. Like it's not in the slightest bit intelligent. Do you know what I mean? And the problem is they're trying to out reform reform. But Nigel Farage, unfortunately, is very good at what he does. The Welsh Conservatives are not, right? And I've said this, I don't know if it was on the pod or just to you guys before, but I think what the Conservatives do very often, I've seen it, is they ship any talent they've got to Westminster. So anybody who's remaining in the Welsh Conservatives, they need to be a bit of a muppet. And this has proven that. It's interesting, isn't it? Because when Artis stood down, he was seemingly like the head of this kind of social, especially on social media, that sort of policy of quite, you know, let's get a lot of retweets in that quite sort of Trumpian mould. I wasn't sure how they were going to play the next year after he left. I didn't know whether-- Are they going to be more, are they going to try and hold that centre? Yeah. Because it's a huge gap. And this doesn't feel very Darren Miller. Not that I know him, but-- But it's interesting, isn't it, that this is, and this was on the main Welsh Conservatives? It was following an exchange that Darren Miller had with the Leonard Morgan in FMQs. Okay, so-- So it's been pushed. It's been pushed deliberately. Doesn't feel very Christian. It feels very in no room at the end. No olive branches today. No, no, sorry. I used them all up on Will. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you remember a few weeks ago when we looked at that data from the Wales Governance Centre about how voters of other party feel about other parties? Yeah. Reform hates the Tories. Like, they hate them. Like, reform voters hate the Tories. You are not going to win any of them back. No one's going to go, "Nigel Farage isn't tough enough on immigrants. Get me Darren Miller." It's just not going to happen.

 They're not, are they? So what? It's so silly. Where is this? Because also, I think a reasonable person can think that illegal immigration is not helpful, but realise that immigration generally has a positive impact on the rest of the country. I think you can hold both opinions. I think somebody can say, "Okay, we need to control immigration and not let everybody come here illegally." But I do agree that generally, immigration is a positive thing. I feel like surely that's the reasonable man here. What the far right are trying to do in the UK and in the wider world is shift that window of what is acceptable. And they're trying to get us to debate issues from their perspective. So they're trying to get us to debate immigration is roundly terrible and bad, and it has to stop.

 And if you go in with the premises, all immigration is bad, you have already lost because you are debating stuff from their perspective. I don't want to labour this point too much now, but they're so, the far right are such wolves in sheep's clothing in terms of they really care about kids when it comes to grooming gangs, but only obviously only when it's Muslim grooming gangs.

 They care about kids who aren't born yet as well. Nigel Farage this week, women need to have more kids, not with you pal. Sorry. Did he say that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh really, really going down that in a musk sort of wow. Yeah. I mean, he cares deeply about women in a trans context, but don't hear him calling for increased funding for courts so that rape victims get heard more quickly. Yeah, I think Nigel Farage needs to keep away from people's uteruses. What do we think the plural for uterus is? I should read it in the ocean type, but. I think it would be uteruses. Uteruses. Should I find out? Yeah. Uteruses. This is gold content. No uterus, no opinion unless you're the one googling it. Thank you to the man here. Oh, the first suggestion is uterus is all uteri. Or uteri. Should we find out? But I mean, how Lib Dem is the answer, both are correct. Oh no, no, no, you don't get a medal for trying. Well done, everybody. Yeah, well done, we all did that. What a nice message of hope to end on, both are correct. Lots of things can be true at the same time. Good night, sleep time, bye everyone. Credits roll over Robin waving at the camera.

 Any more for any more? I'm good, I'm happy. Anything you'd like to plug anyone? No, actually, which is quite worrying. Do I have no work coming up? Yeah. No, that's not true. If you happen to be an exeter this Saturday, I'm doing-- You're the comedy festival. Yes, you can be there. No, I'm not gonna be there. What festival? Exeter Comedy Festival. Okay. I am doing melodrama at 7 p.m. from Bookaburg. Nice. Which I think is a bookstore. Cute. Yeah, it is a bookstore. I've never done it before, I want to do it in the future. I've heard lovely things about it. Yes, I did a fundraiser gig for the festival and it was so lovely. You know when you're like, too lovely? Sure. Yeah, that you're like, oh, they're not gonna like the show. No, they're not. But no, so yes, if you happen to be in a row, Exeter on Saturday night, please come, I do have tickets left. Nice. I have a tour on sale, it starts next year. It's called Let's Overshare, it's coming to a bunch of places in Wales and beyond England and Scotland. So you can get tickets on my website. I'm also doing a kids comedy show, which is very sweet. I'm taking that to a few different places. Nice. It's really, really fun and wholesome. What's it called? It's the kids show, Story Time. The idea is that I've got a story to tell the kids, but I've forgotten all of it, so they need to help me make it up and they act it out and it's really wholesome. You look so sweet on the poster as well, like your little head tilt. You're like, mm-hmm. You do like a head tilt. I like a head tilt. You're good at head tilt. Thank you. I've got the newsletter, the Will Heywood newsletter, and I'd just like to thank all the people who've got in touch about potential sponsorship. Give us a shout, we can tailor something to you. So exciting times, thanks very much, guys. Thank you. Thank you, I've been Robin Morgan. I've been Robin Morgan. I'm Will Heywood. Ta-da. Bye. See ya.