Welsh Conservatives and conservatives in Wales

With the party conference beginning this weekend at the ICC in Newport, discussions about the party's Welsh wing and the relationship between the Senedd group and the UK Parliamentary group are bound to be top of the agenda, an agenda which is pretty full of other big items like the looming UK general election, local elections in England and Northern Ireland, and ongoing turbulence in the UK Government after another high-profile ministerial departure. In Wales recent polling has suggested that the Welsh Conservatives are still struggling to come close to competing with Labour in the Senedd, despite a new tone of campaigning from Andrew RT Davies and popular policy shifts such as aligning themselves with other Welsh parties with regards HS2. Our two guests grapple with some of these issues and much more: Ant Pickles: https://twitter.com/antpickles former Chief of Staff of the Welsh Conservatives & Abigail Mainon: https://twitter.com/AbigailMainon Chair of the Conservative Women’s Organisation Wales and a former Senedd Candidate in Alyn and Deeside As always, you can follow us @hiraethpod on the socials for all the latest from the pod, including on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HiraethPod And if you are enjoying the pod, please rate and review us in your podcast app of choice and, if you are able to do so, please consider supporting us on Patreon from £3/month: http://www.patreon.com/hiraethpod