Tories to beat Labour in Wales for first time in a century, poll shows

The Conservatives could beat Labour in Wales for the first time in nearly a century, according to a shock new poll.

The YouGov Welsh political barometer shows the Conservatives on 40 per cent in the country, up 12 per cent since January. Labour are down three per cent on 30 per cent.

The results, if replicated at the general election on June 8, would see the Tories pick up the most votes in Wales for the first time since 1922.

The poll has Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru on 13 per cent, unchanged, the Lib Dems on 8 per cent, down 1 per cent, and Ukip on 6 per cent, down 7 per cent.

Labour won the most votes in Wales for the first time in the 1922 general election and has dominated politics there ever since.

In 2016 it won the Welsh Assembly elections with 29 seats and 35 per cent of the vote, just short of a majority.

The party picked up 25 seats in Wales at the 2015 general election, with the Tories winning 11. Plaid Cymru won 3 and the Liberal Democrats 1.

This weekend Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones backed his party's plan to borrow £500 billion to invest in capital.

"In 1945, a Labour government came in after the war when things were much, much worse than they are now, when the UK was in a far more difficult state," Mr Jones told BBC Sunday Politics Wales.

"Yet, it created the NHS, it made sure the economy was rebuilt, it built houses. All these things were done at a far more difficult time.

"If they could do it - there is no reason why a Labour government can't do it after June."