Political Thinking with Nick Robinson
Jun 26, 2026 · 34 min · 11 segments
The new First Minister of Wales Rhun ap Iorwerth on what Wales really wants, why Reform surged in the Senedd election, and how working as a nightclub bouncer will help him deal with Andy Burnham.
Rhun ap IorwerthGuest
Nick RobinsonHost
when you were four years old, and your dad said to the journalist on that day, "I didn't think he'd be playing for so long."
What's different to what you expected? What's better, what's worse than what you planned for?
I mean, the intensity of it, I guess I was, I was expecting to a point, but then there's a, an added level of intensity that perhaps you don't, you don't quite recognize is gonna be there.
A private office and civil servants, good civil servants, who had until recently been doing their best for another administration, suddenly making it clear that they would do everything they could to deliver your vision.
And I visited one of, uh, Welsh Government's offices up in the north of Wales, in Llandudno Junction, just a few days after becoming First Minister, and I remember asking a group of people there, "W-w-what are you doing today?" And they looked at me and said, "Well, we're, we're doing what you asked us to do.
We're, we're implementing your policy on, on such and such." And I thought, wow.
Pe-people can't, uh, have it both ways in saying that our childcare offer, for example, is so outlandishly ambitious that we'll struggle to implement it, and say that we've got really nothing that's too ambitious for Wales.
when you were four years old, and your dad said to the journalist on that day, "I didn't think he'd be playing for so long."
What's different to what you expected? What's better, what's worse than what you planned for?
I mean, the intensity of it, I guess I was, I was expecting to a point, but then there's a, an added level of intensity that perhaps you don't, you don't quite recognize is gonna be there.
A private office and civil servants, good civil servants, who had until recently been doing their best for another administration, suddenly making it clear that they would do everything they could to deliver your vision.
And I visited one of, uh, Welsh Government's offices up in the north of Wales, in Llandudno Junction, just a few days after becoming First Minister, and I remember asking a group of people there, "W-w-what are you doing today?" And they looked at me and said, "Well, we're, we're doing what you asked us to do.
We're, we're implementing your policy on, on such and such." And I thought, wow.
Pe-people can't, uh, have it both ways in saying that our childcare offer, for example, is so outlandishly ambitious that we'll struggle to implement it, and say that we've got really nothing that's too ambitious for Wales.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.