Council elections 2022: Welsh Labour launches campaign

Mark Drakeford blamed the Conservatives for the cost-of-living crisis at Welsh Labour's local election campaign launch, saying the situation had "not come out of thin air".

Sir Keir Starmer joined him in Bridgend to kick off the party's campaign for the elections on 5 May.

Labour enters the election as Wales' largest party in local government with majority control of seven councils.

But it will hope to improve on 2017, when it lost more than 100 councillors.

Mr Drakeford said that, working with the Welsh government, Labour councils had been the "bedrock" of the way people in Wales had been "served and helped to keep safe during the desperately difficult two years that we have been though together" in the pandemic.

"And the sad truth is that the years ahead of us are going to be just as challenging.

"The pandemic is not over."

Speaking at Bridgend College's Steam (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) Academy in Pencoed, the first minister and Welsh Labour leader said people were now living under a "Tory cost of living crisis".

"It has not come out of thin air," he said. "A decade of austerity has undermined the capacity of hard working families right across the UK to withstand the stresses and strains that are about to be vested upon them.

"It is a Tory government that decided in the spring statement only 10 days ago to say in the figures they themselves published that their decisions will result in... half a million more children across the United Kingdom living in poverty over the next two years."

Listing policies such as the introduction of free school meals for all primary school pupils, part of his Labour's government's Senedd deal with Plaid Cymru, Mr Drakeford said Welsh ministers and Labour councils would be putting "money in the pockets of people who desperately need that help over the weeks and months to come".

"Only a Labour council, working with a Labour government here in Wales can make that difference," he said.

UK Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said there was now a "buzz" around the party as it begins local election campaigning.

"You can feel it, things are changing, there's a different approach to us in the doors," he said.

"We need to build that positive case for change, in partnership here in Wales," he said.

"So many people ask me 'well, what difference does it make if Labour gets in?'

"And I say look at Wales, look as what's happening in Wales, and you can see the difference before your eyes."

Speaking to BBC Wales later, it was suggested to Mr Drakeford four of the seven Labour-majority run councils setting higher than average band D council tax does not help with the cost of living.

"But that's just the nature of the places that they represent," he said.

"The council tax is driven by the price of properties in an area - the lower the price of properties the higher a council tax becomes.

"It's why in those areas the fact that a Labour government in Wales has sustained the council tax benefit when it's been abandoned by the Tories across our border is so important in the lives of people because many, many people in those council areas won't be paying council tax at all."

Last time around Labour lost majority control of three heartland councils - Blaenau Gwent, Bridgend and Merthyr Tydfil.

It is defending majorities in Swansea, Neath Port Talbot, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Caerphilly, Cardiff, Newport and Torfaen.

Wales will be electing councillors in each of its 22 local authorities.

Elections are also taking place in parts of England, in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Labour gained ground at the 2021 Senedd election, the last time Wales went to the polls.

The party's performance at local elections in England, held on the same day, wasn't so good. It lost more than 300 councillors, but fared better in key mayoral races.

The election that matters most to Sir Keir Starmer is the next general election.

After 12 years on the Commons' opposition benches, he says there is now a "buzz" about Labour.

Results from these local elections in May will be pored over to see whether that statement is true - and whether he is on track to get his party back into power in Westminster.