'Toxic' Keir Starmer needs to be replaced, former Labour politician tells LBC
A former Labour politician has called on Sir Keir Starmer to be replaced, telling LBC he knows "virtually no-one who has confidence" in the Prime Minister.
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Alun Davies, a former Welsh Government minister and Senedd member, has launched a blistering broadside on UK and Welsh Labour, two weeks on from the party's catastrophic local and devolved election results.
In an exclusive interview, marking a fortnight since Labour lost their first election in Wales in a century, Mr Davies told LBC the Prime Minister's name was "toxic" on the doorstep during the campaign.
"People were angry. There's absolutely no doubt about it. People were angry, not just frustrated.
"People will be frustrated about different things, but this was an anger, a visceral anger towards the Labour Party.
"It was mainly aimed at the Labour Party in London."
Mr Davies, who previously served in various ministerial roles, had been the Member of the Senedd (MS) for Blaenau Gwent for 15-years before he lost his seat earlier this month.
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His previous constituency was once a staunch Labour heartland but returned Plaid Cymru and Reform UK politicians in May's recent poll.
Labour were wiped out.
"A lot of the people were saying 'you've made a mess of it'", Mr Davies said.
"I can't describe to you the number of times that Winter Fuel Payments came up on the doorstep.
"You can explain that the decision was taken elsewhere and that it's not relevant to this election, but people had this anger that a Labour government would do that to groups of vulnerable people in our communities and in our society.
"And people, quite rightly so, wanted to exercise that anger."
Mr Davies is now backing Andy Burnham to replace Sir Keir as leader.
While clearly signalling some decisions taken by UK Labour in government had gone down poorly with voters in Wales, Mr Davies also points to the campaign run by Weles Labour as playing a significant role in the party being kicked out of power in Wales.
"I don't think Welsh Labour understood that this is going to be a 'change election'.
"I think the manifesto turned out to be more a 'steady as she goes manifesto' and that's not what people wanted.
'If you're going to the electorate, who are enormously frustrated with their lives and say 'another four years, please', they're going to say no.
"we were trying to sort of keep a sinking ship afloat."
"I think if you look back over the last few weeks and months, you'll see a campaign that didn't have any clear messaging, that didn't have any clear purpose, where the organisation was falling to pieces sometimes.
"You didn't feel that the Labour Party knew why it wanted to win the election.
Mr Davies also described the recent by-election campaign run by Welsh Labour in the Blaenau Gwent Caerffili Rhymni constituency as an "utter disaster".
"It undermined the local party. It undermined those of us who are active and leading the party locally.
"We were excluded from any decisions in that campaign.
"And as a consequence, it was run by people who have absolutely no idea about the communities in the Caerphilly constituency, and in the wider South Wales valleys."
Davies has defended former Welsh Labour leader Eluned Morgan, who stood down in the wake of the results.
"I don't lay any blame on Eluned.
"I think she was let down by the party.
"To some extent, perhaps even her own government might have let her down in some ways.
"But I can't think of anybody else in Welsh politics who could have held themselves together in a way that she did through what was a traumatic experience."
A Welsh Labour spokesperson said: "These were catastrophic results for us all and we need to take the time to determine what went wrong. Voters raised serious issues about NHS access, roads, local services, cost of living and trust in politics. These are the issues people live with everyday and they felt we weren’t doing anything to help that. We can't ignore that.
"Framing this solely as a Westminster problem won't address the very really problems we face. These results are a reflection on us all and we’ll all have to learn lessons from them."
LBC has asked the UK Labour Party for a response.