Inside Vaughan Gething's terrible start as no confidence vote looms

It's been less than three months since the great and the good of Labour, and some very warm journalists, sat in a very warm lecture theatre in Cardiff and saw Vaughan Gething announced as Welsh Labour leader. Mid-campaign it emerged he had accepted £200,000 – a huge amount in Welsh political terms – towards his leadership campaign from a businessman convicted of environmental offences.

The businessman David Neal, and what Vaughan Gething knew when and what Mr Neal expected in return for his donation, if anything, isn't the only thing that has resulted in the worst possible start to a job the newly-installed First Minister has long wanted. In the weeks since his appointment he has sacked a minister, ditched several flagship policies, angered key figures, and walked away from journalists' questions.

The no-confidence vote in him today, somewhere around 5pm, isn't binding – something Mr Gething made an explicit point of saying in the chamber on Tuesday. But given the finely-balanced nature of Senedd electoral maths if one Labour MS is absent or chooses to abstain or vote against him he will lose the vote.

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We understand the Conservatives and Plaid will both have all their members present and will vote for the motion along with Rhys ab Owen, an independent MS, and Lib Dem Jane Dodds.

No pairing is on offer – a voluntary arrangement between parties so an absent member's vote is effectively cancelled out by someone else not voting. That means if anyone is absent from the Labour benches, Mr Gething will lose the vote, Wales Online reported

The roles of Welsh Labour leader and First Minister are ones he has long coveted and despite everything key party figures – including the shadow secretary of state for Wales Jo Stevens and party leader Sir Keir Starmer – have backed him publicly.

It is not, however, a normal reaction that when presented with a campaign leaflet for an election which is less than five weeks away, featuring a picture of the UK Labour and Welsh leader together, the majority reaction was: "I hope we don't have to reprint these before the campaign is over."

Political types get very excited talking about someone's first 100 days in office. Vaughan Gething is rapidly approaching that milestone (today is 81 and counting) and it is impossible to think what there is of note from his government to discuss except that he has alienated voters, angered many of those who should be his allies, and ditched three key, agenda-setting Welsh Government policies.

There have been strong protestations from Team Gething that the issue of donations is not coming up on the doorstep. But then an ITV Wales/YouGov poll dropped showing that the first time pollsters asked people in Wales their thoughts on Mr Gething a whopping 57% thought he was doing a bad job.

In one of two back-to-back Senedd debates about the David Neal donations one of his own MSs stood in the Senedd and criticised him taking the money. Cabinet colleagues told journalists they wouldn't have accepted it and some MPs agreed.

Let's not forget that Vaughan Gething wasn't the choice of his Senedd colleagues to be their leader – Jeremy Miles was. When Mr Gething came in there was dissatisfaction about his approach. He had spoken in his victory speeches of unity but that wasn't reflected in practice. There were no real attempt at being reconciliatory. The people he brought in were his while those who had worked for the other side were blocked. His claims of party unity that he made upon being elected were, as one person put it to me, "complete b***ocks and he has no intention of uniting us".

It was noticeable how few people came out to bat for him and the body language between colleagues, plus the deafening silence when he gets to his feet in First Minister's Questions, tells oh so much.

On the two-month anniversary of his election he took the huge step of sacking one of his ministers, accusing her of leaking information to the media then refusing to release any evidence about how he got to that conclusion. She strongly denies the claim. The information leaked was a message where he said he would delete a chain of messages involving his ministerial colleagues because their messages could be released later through a freedom of information request.

The UK Covid Inquiry secretary, when made aware of the messages, said it took them "incredibly seriously" and would look at whether Mr Gething needed to be recalled. Welsh and UK Labour have avoided repeated questions and Mr Gething has literally walked away from questions from journalists.

The big items on his desk were the anger over the 20mph default speed limit, farming subsidies, and striking doctors. I'm told UK Labour made it clear they all had to be addressed before a general election and he's had limited success solving any.

The 20mph reform that he had so widely talked about was a damp squib, satisfying neither those who opposed it or those who had put their political capital on the line to bring it in. It is still, candidates say, coming up on the doorstep with the election coming too soon for anyone to see the 20mph signs returned back to the warehouse.

He also had to deal with the huge backlash to Welsh Government's own plans to reform post-Brexit farming subsidies. Within days it was announced the scheme would be delayed by a year. This is something Welsh Government, like other parliaments in the UK, is having to work out – it's not a 'nice to have'. But the Welsh Government approach was so strongly disliked that more than 12,000 people responded to its consultation and more than 3,000 stood on the Senedd steps demanding change.

Two policies which were very much Mark Drakeford's personal passions – reforming the school year and the way council tax is worked out – have both been unceremoniously kicked down the road by Mr Gething within weeks of his arrival in the big corner office. Ditching proposals to change council tax – a plan which would have ensured the people who are worst off contribute in a more fair way – was such a hammer blow that it brought forward Plaid Cymru's plans to exit the co-operation agreement it was in with Labour. It's been put to me that Vaughan Gethng didn't just oppose the three options that had gone out to the public but even a fourth compromise option, overruling his finance minister as he told her to ditch any proposal until 2028.

Then this week the plans to change the school term – something huge effort has been put into and much goodwill has been lost over – have now also been delayed. Again 16,000 people got in touch with the Welsh Government to share their views. A small majority, we're told, were in favour of a restructure but not enough to pursue and researchers have admitted the findings were "very mixed and sometimes contradictory".

None of these things have dealt the killer blow his political opponents wanted. There are no rumours circulating that anyone in Labour will either abstain or vote against Mr Gething, despite much private unhappiness but nor has anyone told me they think he can survive long-term. He was being described as wounded before this no-confidence vote and while he may have limp on today who knows if he can ever recover fully.

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