Wales & Westminster: "Burnham is a poor man's Rhun ap Iorwerth."

So let's focus on reform then.

So rumours were swirling on Monday afternoon.

That's when I first was alerted by multiple people that something was going on with reforms leader in Wales, Dan Thomas.

But it took until Tuesday for it to really reach the public when the reform... made it known that Dan Thomas wouldn't be appearing in the first First Minister's questions for what they described as personal reasons.

That's usually an indication that something's not quite right.

And normally in these circumstances, if it's something like, you know, family moment a private grief or something like that the journalists would be alerted to it but clearly it wasn't being damped down because journalists were being made aware that this this something was going on and later in the day well reform had it in in two senses didn't they dan thomas announced that he was stepping down as the leader of reform i think we all know the reasons for that now and we had a defection

we did and You know, there's been chat for a while, hasn't there, that one was coming and people were speculating who it would be.

And some people were saying there'd be up to five defections.

But I kind of thought in a way it would happen sooner than it did.

But here we are in September.

We've had that first defection from reform to plight, interestingly.

And that's Sarah Cooper-Lassad.

Now, she's worn many hats.

She's been in the Conservative Party.

She did work for an MP in Westminster for a time and stood...

in the 2024 election I believe as a parliamentary candidate so she's kind of gone through a journey shall one say um but you know the reasons that she gave were she's seen what reform is like from the inside and it wasn't for her and she feels that plied a better place to govern Wales so it's really interesting I think it's a bit of a coup for plied um it's another young, young female in politics.

She's got a very interesting story to tell, and she's very passionate about using her experience of being in the care system and being a care leaver to improve that for others.

So I think she'll be a strong voice within Ply, but already we've seen, haven't we on social media, how divisive that kind of move has been.

What was your take on it,

Rob? I've never met Sarah.

There's a lot of new MSs and I haven't met her.

So I only know what I read and what I've watched and what I've listened to.

And she's clearly impressive.

She has a story.

And in politics, if you have a story and you have passions and you have causes, that is a great thing to have.