Why is the Welsh Tory leader under pressure?

Andrew RT Davies has been Welsh Conservative Senedd leader twice since 2011

Discontent over Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies has been rumbling on for a good few months.

There were moments during the summer when private discontent among Davies’s colleagues threatened to spill over into a public challenge to his leadership.

It did not happen. But winter does not appear to have turned down the heat, with Tory Members of the Senedd (MSs) voting next Tuesday on whether they have confidence in their leader.

There has been a sense that Davies’s critics could not rally behind an obvious or unifying alternative.

Also, those who might have fancied taking over did not want to be the one to wield the knife.

Some Conservative insiders also suggested Davies had not been shy in confronting his critics, in effect telling them to put up or shut up.

Conservative sources have said he has taken that to its ultimate conclusion by calling a confidence vote himself.

It has to be said that many Tory MSs really like Davies, with one Welsh Tory describing him as a sort of father figure in the group.

Criticism and frustration has come from some Westminster Conservatives about the direction of the Welsh party and whether they were giving voters an alternative vision.

Former Welsh Secretary Stephen Crabb suggested a refresh might be needed before the next Senedd election.

Boris Johnson’s former spin doctor, Guto Harri, has also been a vocal critic – and he was called out for it by Davies during a conference event at which he was present.

Have they emboldened Davies’s critics, who will also have noted that there has been no discernible change to how he approaches his role?

It is worth remembering that Davies led his party to a record number of seats in the 2021 Senedd election, but the next campaign in 18 months looks a much tougher proposition.

Andrew RT Davies is facing a confidence vote

Polling for the Conservatives is grim and the party was wiped out in Wales earlier this summer at the UK general election.

One of the open questions - before we even get on to discussing the threat posed by Reform - is whether simply attacking Labour about 20mph and health spending will be enough to win over voters.

Whether that is fair criticism or not, for many of Davies’s detractors that is the perception of the party under his current spell in charge.

What a year it has been in Welsh politics.

We have had acrimony within Welsh Labour, we are on our third first minister of 2024 and now the potential for a new leader of the Senedd Tories.

Whether you regard Davies as a political heavyweight or not, he would be a big figure to replace metaphorically and literally, having once described himself as 19 stone of prime Welsh beef.

The difficulties faced in finding a new leader the party could unite behind, developing a public profile matching Davies’s and bucking the awful polling predictions are just as big.