Will Hayward

The riots in Ely were national news. Two teenagers were dead and people in this Cardiff suburb were scared to leave their homes. What they needed was someone to go out to bat for them. Luckily there was someone whose job was precisely that - Alun Michael the Police and Crime Commissioner.

But when Mr Michael made a series of pretty atrocious errors and then refused to even front up to the media, I felt I needed to use my platform to highlight this shortcoming. I also felt that it prompted a broader question about the role of PPCs in general. This was picked up by several other news organisations and I made appearances on both the BBC and Times Radion highlighting this issue. In November 2021 I broke an exclusive about Adam Price and Plaid’s culture. It was an earthquake in Welsh politics. It was the start of a series of pieces exposing how a horrific culture had been allowed to fester in the party under his leadership.

For the initial piece I spent months building trust with the people who had experienced abuse within the party. When the piece was published the reaction was huge. There were calls within the governing Labour Party to end their cooperation-agreement with Plaid and Adam Price was forced to order an independent inquiry into Plaid’s culture. Once that was published it vindicated all the time I had put into writing it. The report was utterly damning. Among other things it found that the party had failed to have a zero tolerance to sexual harassment. Despite this, Adam Price refused to resign. This prompted me to write this comment piece where I referenced everytime both Adam Price and Plaid Senedd Members had called on other people to step down in the past seven years. Pointing out this clear hypocrisy triggered some of his colleagues to move against him and step down. Following this several other people who had suffered at the hands of the party's culture contacted me to thank me for my work. I am very proud that I was able to give them a voice and create meaningful change. Not many journalists can say that their reporting directly led to the resignation of a major party leader. My opinion piece about the excuses, deflections and half-truths that lift the lid on Wales' HS2 scandal was the culmination of nearly half a decade of my reporting on a huge injustice facing Wales.

The issue of revolved rail funding may sound dry and complicated and in many ways it is. But it is in this very complexity that politicians have hidden the fact they have deliberately and scandalously underfunded Wales’ rail network for 20 years. Wales is the poorest part of the UK and terrible infrastructure is a key reason for this. This is where opinion can be so valuable. Being able to write this as my column enabled me to tell the story in a way that was accessible to the public.