Labour failed to land message in by-election - deputy FM

Huw Irranca-Davies says Labour needs be more "positive" in their future campaigning

Labour "failed to land message" in Caerphilly by-election, according to Wales' deputy first minister.

Huw Irranca-Davies told BBC Politics Wales that Labour needs to look at their style of campaigning and run a "positive campaign".

Labour came third in Caerphilly, behind Plaid Cymru and Reform UK, with just 11% of the vote in a seat they'd held at every Senedd and Westminster election for a century.

Owain Williams, a prominent Labour campaigner who has previously stood as a candidate for the party, said he believes the party should not be saying the "country needs us".

"I worry that people then think we take voters for granted," said Mr Williams.

"We should be looking at what's ahead and what we can offer people for the next five, 10, 20 years in Wales, not dwelling on the last 10, let alone the last 100 years."

One Labour source described the campaign to me as "excruciating".

Using a graphic which implied it was a two-horse race between themselves and Reform UK, when the polls suggested it was Plaid Cymru who was best placed to beat Reform was cited as one reason.

Campaigning against the Labour council's plans to close libraries in the area raised eyebrows too.

Labour's Caerphilly candidate Richard Tunnicliffe (left) gained just 11% of the vote

There were also legal letters sent to the party after they posted on social media an implication that Reform's candidate, Llŷr Powell, had links to Vladimir Putin - an accusation the party firmly denies.

They also referred to bribes taken by a former Reform leader.

After the result, Powell said he had been subject to death threats and harassed during the campaign and he blamed Labour for that.

"I'm very disappointed and thankfully the voters had seen through their smear, fear," he said.

"They deserved to be in the gutter like their campaign belonged."

Irranca-Davies said the party needed to run "positive campaigns" and they "failed singularly" to talk about the "investment in that constituency and in health".

He said of his party's candidate, Richard Tunnicliffe: "I don't think Richard could have done any more, quite frankly... Labour got squeezed out of this contest.

"We weren't really in it, and it was from quite early on, when some of the early polling came out, people were making a really clear choice, saying, how do we stop Reform?

"I hope that what we do as we go forward now and into May is on a very positive footing about what the offer will be, what our record is, defending against austerity and what we've done over the last 12 months."