‘Let’s face it, he’s a bit of a nerd – but he’s not trying to be cool and that makes him quite cool’
Love him or loathe him, Welsh Labour leader Mark Drakeford’s profile has soared since the start of the Covid pandemic. Here, Welsh affairs editor Will Hayward asks if the First Minister is Welsh Labour’s greatest asset or a liability
IN APRIL 2020, Welsh Labour was in real trouble. A year from the Senedd election, a YouGov poll gave the Tories a seven-point lead over Labour.
The Conservatives had just hoovered seats at the general election and they looked poised to do well in tomorrow’s ballot.
Party leader Mark Drakeford was a total nonentity in the minds of the vast majority of the Welsh public.
Looking more like the university professor he used to be rather than the manicured, staged-managed politicians many are used to, he seemed to have no interest in playing the showman like Boris Johnson and the public seemed to have no interest in him.
However, roll forward 12 months and arguably Mark Drakeford is the single greatest electoral asset that any Welsh political party has.
A recent poll found that when asked how well Mr Drakeford was doing, 57% said “totally well”, with the equivalent for Nicola Sturgeon being 49% and Boris Johnson being 39%. This is not an anomaly.
From the moment the Welsh Government started diverging from the UK Government on Covid policy last summer, all the polls have put Mr Drakeford’s personal ratings very high.
“He has been consistently well-rated in the polls,” said Laura McAllister, Professor of Public Policy and the Governance of Wales at the Wales Governance Centre.
“Actually his personality, that reassuring and academic forensic style, has worked well in a pandemic.
“It’s understandable because people want reassurance and they want to know that he is on top of all the facts and science.”
According to Prof McAllister, Mr Drakeford’s handling of the pandemic has helped counter some of his perceived weaknesses.
“Normally, his style works less well in an election environment, but we are in an unusual election with Covid.
“He is certainly much more of an electoral asset than anybody anticipated. It neutralises some of the often quite ageist attacks on him such as he is an ageing figure, that he is Old Labour, that he is at the end of his career, whereas Adam Price is at the start of his career.
“Notwithstanding the ageism of that, I think he has been able to neutralise it by bringing a bit more of himself to the table with his great cheese interventions and the rest of it.
“More importantly, I think that he is the character for the moment. That is what has been very difficult for his opponents to cope with – they have really had to change their electoral campaign strategy.”
This analysis is supported by Cathy Owens, who previously worked as a special adviser at the Welsh Government and is now a director at public affairs consultancy Deryn.
She said: “Mark’s unassuming nature would not have been seen as a vote-winner, and the polling at the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2021 showed that Labour would have been in real trouble in this election.
“But the crisis has allowed more people to see him for who he is. We should not see that as a positive – with so much sadness across our nation, that would be wrong – but maybe it tells us more about how our politics is covered, and perceived, in normal times.”
A good example of how Mr Drakeford’s profile has increased can be seen in the readership figures for online articles about him.
Pre-Covid, articles involving the First Minister would often be among the least read on our sister website WalesOnline.
For the past year, however, articles featuring the First Minister have been read in enormous numbers.
A series of Facebook Live interviews conducted with Mr Drakeford received more than 300,000 views (10% of Wales), with accomining articles also seeing a readership into
six figures.
Now some of this will simply be down to the fact that, for the first time in many people’s lives, they will feel that what the First Minister says will have a big impact on them personally. You will always listen to the person who decides if you can see your mum in a care home.
But there is no denying that Mr Drakeford is now known by most people in Wales, and that is a genie that won’t go back in the bottle.
But there is also an argument that a high profile does not equal popularity.
Those same Facebook interviews and articles that received so much attention were also littered with comments hurling criticism and, often, abuse at the First Minister.
Some of the comments are quite vitriolic, with many seeming to be trying to outdo each other in calling him various names – Dripford, Drippy, Captain Mogadon and D*ckford among the more common.
So is this increased profile actually going to be a turn-off to some voters?
“I think that’s fair to say,” said Prof McAllister. “We haven’t quite got the granular evidence, but you can draw presumptions from research and I think there is quite a lot of people who are not Labour voters who don’t like Mark Drakeford and who think
his journalistic style is off-putting.
“They find it slow and bureaucratic and very public sector, for want of a better term. If you are a natural Conservative voter, and maybe even a Lib Dem voter, you might find that very off-putting. Some of the parties have tried to capitalise on that, such as Propel and Abolish the Assembly.”
Ms Owens believes that, despite the criticism, Mr Drakeford’s willingness to take unpopular decisions like the ban on supermarkets selling nonessential items has been a net positive.
“He can be stubborn,” she said. “But that is usually because he feels strongly about a particular issue.
“And I know he has involved himself in the detail in a way other FMs may not have, and other ministers sometimes do not appreciate. But it is generally for a good reason, based on his long-standing principles.
“Let’s face it, he’s a bit of a nerd. But he’s not trying to be cool and that makes him quite cool. His genuine nature has won him fans across a vast swathe of people, even if they might not vote for him.
“He now has the highest positivity rate of any leader in the UK. Other party leaders in Wales must look at him and think, ‘How the hell has he done that?’. It is not just because his profile has shot up because he is on the telly all the time. It is that people can see him for who he is, and they like him.”
According to Prof McAllister, the First Minister’s popularity could prevent the disastrous election result many thought likely.
“That doesn’t mean that Labour are going to do dramatically well,” she explained. “But it has given them a protection against doing very badly, I think. The electoral system helps, too, but they could have done very badly in this election. However, I think they have been helped by the way coronavirus has been handled and the public reception to that.”
There is no doubt that Labour feels that Mr Drakeford is an electoral asset. Campaigners are always keen to share his visits to their constituency on social media and the most recent press release from the party was titled: “If you value Mark Drakeford’s leadership through this pandemic, vote Welsh Labour.”
So what does Mr Drakeford’s popularity mean for other politicians in Wales?
If the First Minister has seen his popularity increase through TV appearances, has Vaughan Gething seen a similar increase?
“No, I don’t think he has,” said Prof McAllister.
“The evidence shows that people know who he is, but they like him less on the back of it. We don’t have the evidence to explain exactly why that is the case, but I think he is probably a less naturally reassuring and appealing politician than Mark Drakeford is. To be fair to Vaughan, he has had some of the toughest gigs.
“He has had to explain some of the worst parts of the pandemic, including death rates.”
Prof McAllister added that she believes that none of the other party leaders can hope to match Mr Drakeford for popularity.
“Adam Price hasn’t been able to make the kind of breakthrough in the public consciousness he would like,” she said. “However, when people know him they seem to like him, I think.
“I think Plaid have had to rethink, really, because they would have wanted to go into this election with Adam Price as a presidential figure, saying that now is the time to replace Mark Drakeford with a younger, more vibrant new model.
“But it has become a clash of continuity, which of course Labour want it to be.
“Andrew RT has come to the table too late to make any great impression and he is not a natural performer.”