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Today in #FMQs, I’m going to raise concerns about the damaging effect the media deficit in Wales has on our democracy. I thought I would put this in context beforehand through 3 simple graphs that illustrate the huge extent of the problem.
I think people would agree that you can’t have a meaningful election unless people know which party ran the government over the previous term. This data shows that there was widespread confusion about which party had been in power between 2011-16. 40% thought PC had been in power
This graph compares support for Labour across Britain & for for Senedd elections. The correlation is so strong that it shows that nothing they've done in government in Wales has had any real impact on their polling for 7 years. Their support depends only on the British context.
Here is the explanation. Only 6% of people in Wales read Welsh newspapers; 46% read Scottish papers in Scotland. A similar information deficit applies to TV too. This explains why people don’t know which party runs Welsh Gov & why its performance has no impact on polling.
Welsh people simply aren’t being provided with enough information for Senedd elections to be adequately meaningful. They're being let down by the media landscape. Tune in to FMQs @ 1:30 to see whether the First Minister is prepared to do something about it http://senedd.tv
So here's my question to the First Minister about this today, where I also referenced the 2016 study finding that only half the population knew that health & education were devolved (although I suspect more people know by now that the Welsh Government is in charge of health)
I'm glad to be able to report that the First Minister gave a constructive response about his willingness to work cross-party to address the situation ahead of next year's election. I'll now consult with my party colleagues to discuss the way forward. Thanks everyone for reading.
