Hooray! 2025 is to be an election-free year. That’s what’s promised for Wales anyway, although who knows in the current political climate? Nothing would surprise me at a time when the political terrain is as unstable as a drunk on an icy pavement.

In any case, the absence of elections doesn’t mean no politics. The early weeks of this new political year emphasise this.

On Monday, President-elect Donald Trump will be inaugurated as US President. This time round, an emboldened Trump will be brimful of macho bravado in matters domestic and international, especially after his lieutenants in the social media world have handed him back the freedom to vent in capitals with scant regard for facts or fairness. Greenland and Canada are already in his sights, it seems.

In Trump’s words: “The people of Greenland would love to become a state of the United States of America. Now, Denmark maybe doesn’t like it. But then we can’t be too happy with Denmark and maybe things have to happen with respect to Denmark having to do with tariffs” or “Canada should be our 51st State”.

Meanwhile, Keir Starmer is just over six months into office after a peculiar landslide election victory which appears to have made him a less imperious Prime Minister rather than more so. Starmer is now discovering that a ridiculously over-cautious, safety-first election campaign whilst maxing out on the need for “change” – with little explanation of what change actually means – brings more than a few difficulties. Ultimately, playing an electoral system that is fundamentally broken is likely to come back to bite you on the posterior. In July, British voters were faced with the ridiculous first-past-the-post system offering slim pickings for choice of PM, while guaranteeing to translate unimpressive vote shares into whopping majorities. Fourteen years of Conservative governments, culminating in the past seven years of political omni-shambles, meant change was the most appealing prospect for the majority of voters. But there’s a critical difference between the narrative of change and its expression in politics, and the actual substance of policy change in practice.

We are about to find that out in Wales. The Senedd has returned with focus firmly on the Welsh Government’s draft budget published just before the Christmas break. The budget debates will expose matters of policy, economics and especially politics, given Labour has insufficient numbers to get the budget approved. And following the budget last autumn, this year is predicted to be one of the best of the cycle. If this budget is difficult for the Welsh Government to get through, how will they manage when things tighten up and spending cuts or tax rises loom again in 2025-26?

In scrutiny of the budget, the language of change again features prominently from every party represented in the Senedd, as well as those aiming to be there after May next year. There’s no doubt in my mind that those who best harness the rhetoric of change and give it some meaning will fare best........

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