Reaction BBC Wales Leaders' Debate

Welcome to Swalec Stadium where the leaders' debate has just finished.

It was certainly lively and we will be seeing what you and some

commentators made of the performances. Stay with us for

another live and lively half hour. Well, everyone is starting to relax

after an hour-and-a-half of argument and debate about some of the key

issues in this election campaign. From Brexit to the economy

to benefits - the five party representatives argued their case

in front of an audience of 200 carefully balanced

and representative voters You've been giving your

views on social media and please keep them coming

with the hashtag So as the audience and politicians

continue to discuss, here we'll be gauging reaction

in our very own spin room, where Guardian journalist and social

media guru Elena Cresci has been analysing every move,

word and possible banana skin with an array of experts and keeping

an eye on what you have been saying Well, Bethan, it's certainly caused

a stir here and across Wales. One of the biggest debates has been

about Brexit's effect on Wales. You will be able to see some of those

opinions on the screen below me. We have already had some great comments

coming in. I'll be joining you

in the spin room, but first, some touch-line

reaction from political commentator and former Welsh

football international - how appropriate -

Proferssor Laura McAllister. What did you make of it? It was hard

to pick out an outstanding winner, there were no goals. The most

striking thing was the real mix of devolved policies versus policies

that this election should be about, that is those controlled by the

Great Britain government. That was very controlled in parts. We saw

Carwyn Jones particularly position himself, as he has had done in the

campaign, as the leader of Labour in Wales, but that is not true because

this is an election for a Prime Minister and it is an election

between Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May. There were no terrible

performances, there were some that left a bit to be desired, but every

party will go away with something they think will benefit them for the

rest of the campaign. Thin praise, no standout performances. I have to

ask about the sub, Darren Millar, for the Conservatives. It was his

first performance, and Mark Williams in these big debates. Darren did

well, but I do not think he was popular with the audience around

things like austerity will stop but for someone who is not in a

leadership role, and that is the problem with his appearance, he

performed quite well. Mark Williams has done well throughout this

campaign and that is not reflected in how the Lib Dems are doing. Often

the leaders can perform very well and it is not always translated into

votes and seats won in an election. For now, thank you very much. We

will speak to you later. Well, before we head to the spin

room, let's have a quick reminder We cannot trust the Tories on this

and we had the opportunity to ensure there was a Welsh voice in the House

of Commons when we had the Article 50 amendments which my party

supported, they were tabled by the Labour Party, which would ensure the

National Assembly would have a real voice in the negotiations and the

Tory party marched against them in the lobbies and our opportunity was

lost. The way we get the best deal is by having the best negotiator at

that table facing of the other negotiators, the 27 we have to

content with. It is a straight choice, Jeremy Corbyn or Theresa

May. I know who I will be backing. The redistribution of wealth from

the EU and we cannot guarantee that same redistribution of wealth will

happen through the Westminster government. My concern is the Tories

will try to grab that money for themselves and we will lose out and

that is what we have to get guarantees from the Tories about,

although their leader has gone on holiday. We have a massive trade

deficit, 60 billion a year in their favour. We have a 20 billion a year

deficit with Germany alone in cars. There is every reason to think that

the EU being rational will want a free trade agreement with us which

is what the British Government is pushing for. There was a time and we

used to say to people the way out of poverty is to get a job, but it does

not happen any more. Nurses are using food banks, the lowest paid

have had tax credits taken away from them. Those who are the richest have

had a tax cut and those who are the poorest have a greater tax burden.

Brexit, benefits and our security - three of the really

People here are pouring over the 90 minutes,

Over in the spin room, Elena Cresci is with two highly

informed political anoraks to look at how all this might impact on this

I am joined by Roger Scully, and you have been watching all the activity

tonight. Were you surprised that these issues were the ones that got

people talking? Not at all surprised. It was inevitable the

events in Manchester would be discussed and then we got onto the

major issues, Brexit and the economy and we also talked a little bit

about a discussion of the NHS. What have the polls been saying either

most important issues in the campaign to Welsh voters? The polls

have been clear. The Conservatives have sought to make it the Brexit

election and the polls are suggesting they have been

successful. Normally we expect the NHS, the economy and education, but

the polls have been ranking Brexit as the number one issue in the

election of 2017. You mentioned briefly the attack in Manchester.

How do you think this has affected the campaign so far? That

interrupted the campaign and it has brought a rather sombre tone to the

last few days. But in the last few days we are getting back to business

as usual and parties are being more robust in their attacks upon each

other. We will see much more of a normal election in these last eight

or nine days. How has this been a different campaign in Wales to the

rest of the UK? We have heard about this being a historic win for the

Tories and then maybe not. Early polls in the campaign put the

Conservatives on top, they have had a breakthrough in Wales which is

different from normal. The Conservatives have sought to make it

a Britain wide election, the choice between Theresa May and Jeremy

Corbyn. Labour in Wales are not talking about Jeremy Corbyn and are

not putting the UK wide party at the forefront. Carwyn Jones, not even a

candidate in the elections, is the main voice in their campaign. They

are separating themselves from the Britain wide election and making

this a Welsh election. Did Carwyn Jones mentioned Jeremy Corbyn? I

think Jeremy Corbyn was mentioned to him. I do not think he mentioned

Jeremy Corbyn. If he did, I missed it. That you very much. We are going

to hear about how some of the party supporters thought their leaders

did. We are going to speak to Hannah Blythyn, Greg Williams, and

Grenville Ham on behalf of the Green Party. You are all going to tell me

your chat or a lady did best. Were you impressed with the First

Minister? Surprisingly, yes, Carwyn gave the measure performance as we

have come to expect. This was a leaders debate and there was a

leader absent. I recall him saying something like the next five years

are crucially important. If they are that important, why are they having

an internal dispute and one of their senior figures could not come in to

debate today. Why was the leader not here? Two leaders were clearly not

here. There were two leaders, one is Theresa May and the other is Jeremy

Corbyn. I note Labour do not want to talk about Jeremy Corbyn, but you

either vote for Theresa May's team or Jeremy Corbyn's team. Why was

there not a Welsh leader here on behalf of the Conservatives? We were

ably represented by Darren Miller tonight. He is our policy director.

There are an awful lot of devolved issues, who better than the policy

director? The main leaders were not there, Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa

May. We will leave it there. You were not on the platform, but

disappointed that sustainability and the environment did not come up?

Exactly, all the leaders were there and mine got lost in the post. The

only point where I saw a climate change reference was from the

Conservative chat and he was referencing a department that was

scrapped two years ago. It is one of the biggest economic threats, that

is what the World Economic Forum was saying. It was good to hear mention

of the tidal lagoon, but I genuinely believe there is a new, green

revolution happening across the world and Wales with all of our

natural assets could be at the forefront of that. Hannah, on Welsh

Labour, he did not mention Jeremy Corbyn, just to clear that up. I do

not think so, but there is... Is there a problem there? We have come

so fine now in devolution, if you hear people talking about, they will

focus on education and health which are devolved. But it is a UK

election and when you mention that, you are in charge of that here, so

there is no good shouting about health and education, you are in

charge of it. We have to talk about the investment we are putting into

health and education. All parties talk about the main issue, Brexit,

and that got serious airtime. This is a UK election. The party leaders

are clearly Jeremy Corbyn or Theresa May. Carwyn Jones does not feature.

You are electing members of Parliament and the party leaders are

those two from the main parties. You keep making that choice very

clearly. On Brexit, where do you stand? Would you offer a second

referendum? Yes, we would, but Brexit is rearranging the chairs on

the Titanic. The audience was coming up with the real issues we face on

the streets. There was pensions for women, people on the streets, so I

do not think Brexit will solve any of the fundamental problems in our

society. Darren Miller said Wales would have a strong voice in the

negotiations and the audience laughed. It is an incredibly strong

voice, one of the one ministers is a Welsh MP. If you look at the

Secretary of State, Alun Cairns, visiting the NFU, putting Wales and

agriculture and high-tech jobs and Erasmus, the university sector, the

Welsh office team are already delivering. If you want more

influence, elect more Welsh Conservative MPs. That is the

electioneering. We will hear from the next three parties very shortly,

but back to you. This is a campaign that has been fought with the

backdrop of fake news, so what we need our fact checkers. I do some

fact checking, but we have got a How can our viewers discern what is

real and what is a fake? I have sympathy because me and my

colleagues have been watching the entire debate is trying to keep

track of all the facts and figures and it was exhausting. After the

first half hour they tried to fire all their statistics at every of us

in a hurry. People have to be able to tell you where they are getting

their facts from and ask yourself questions like, how can I trust

this? Where is it coming from? Does that source have an agenda? Pensions

have gone up by ?1250. Think about that. The context is that pensions

will always rise with inflation. Because of inflation, the value of

your pension goes down and you can buy less. That figure is ignoring

inflation. In real terms pensions have only gone up by about half of

that, so it is a very misleading headline. You have to look out for

figures that sound too good to be true. Some people sitting at home I

thinking, this is ridiculous. How are they meant to deal with all of

these numbers coming straight at them? Is there a way they can break

it down in simpler terms? I wish there was. This was a debate

for professional fact checkers. For this one, if you were following us

on Twitter, on the hashtag you would have found you linking to sources to

back up and sometimes contradict the claims the panel was making. It

isn't something where you can just look at something and say, oh,

that's right or oh, that's wrong. Sometimes you have to do the leg

work and find out. I mentioned fake news earlier. It's the buzz word of

this year. How much this afternoon is actually a new problem or is this

something that has always existed it's just the internet has

exacerbated it? That's a great question. In a way you don't know.

You can't possibly believe that politics only invented lying 12

months ago. Whether it's by we the people, or whether it's by

politicians or even dare I say it, journalists, I think we all knew how

to tell a fib a while back. What I think the internet makes dink is

that things can spread really quickly. People can share things

they haven't checked for themselves. So things can take on a life of

their own. We all have a chance to stop that. If you're not sure about

something, don't share it. That's good advice. I think we're back to

Bethan now with more fact checking. Yes, and no fibbing over here. I'm

joined by three politicians, pure facts for the next three minutes, is

that a deal? Yeah. Caroline Jones from Ukip, Steffan Lewis from Plaid

Cymru and William Powell from the Lib Dems. How did your man do? I

think Mark came across really strongly this evening, as an

authentic voice of Welsh liberalism, representing both rural and urban

communities. I think one of the things that resonated most with

members of the audience and across Wales was the importance of there

being a strong and united Welsh voice at the Brexit negotiating

table. People don't want a second referendum do they, or ratification.

Do they? I think there is growing support for a ratification

referendum. I think the importance at this stage of having a Welsh

presence at the negotiating table, because if frankly, you're looking

at David Jones or Alan Cairns at that regard as regard them as the

answer, you're asking the wrong question. Steffan Lewis, Leanne Wood

arguably has done more than anybody on the platform today. Did she

really shine tonight? Absolutely. I think one of the things that comes

across and it's something nobody can feign is sincerity and that

authenticity. Leanne has that connection with an audience and with

the public at large. That really shines every time she makes an

appearance. Had it not been for Leanne Wood at the last UK general

elections participating in the UK debates Wales wouldn't have been on

the aJen enda at the UK election at all. She has an opportunity tomorrow

night as well. Your idea of providing a shield for Wales, other

parties seem to be using that now, don't they, is that a problem for

you? No, it exposes the hypocrisy. You heard a Conservative and Labour

representative on the panel this evening, neither wanted to name

their own party leaders in Westminster and neither could name

one example of how they managed to win consensus with their party. If

they want to keep talking about devolved matters and Wales in this

election, we welcome that warmly. Neil Hamilton and Paul nuttal get on

well do they? Yes, they do. I thought Neil's performance tonight

was very good. He absorbs information and he relays that to

the public. One thing that we as a party are absolutely dedicated to is

that Wales, after this referendum, will receive every penny and more

due to it. Yeah, he mentioned a massive Brexit dividend was on its

way and coming very soon. Are you still saying that's ?350 million a

week. I never, ever said ?350 million a week. What I said when I

was out campaigning - Due tell vote leave that at the time? I wasn't

with vote leave. Due point out that wasn't true? What I said to people

was, read all the information in front of you and it is your decision

and your decision alone. People will come back to you and tell you that I

said that. What sort of dividend are you expecting? Neil Hamilton is

saying it's massive. What figure are you expecting? I wouldn't like to

put a figure on anything. What I would like to say is with what we

send to the EU every day, as a UK Government, I would expect this

dividend to be over and beyond what we've currently been receiving. In

terms of the money coming back from Brussels, we know that the

Conservatives, for example, are suggesting that joint prosperity

fund, do you expect Wales, in the end to get more, which is what

Darren Millar suggested tonight, than it currently gets. I think a

lot will depend on what happens politically. We can't predict the

future. One thing we can agree, if Wales keeps repeating itself

politically it can't expect to change economically or socially. I

fear a blank cheque for Theresa May will mean that Wales misses out and

loses out, as it always does when we keep on making the same political

choices. If there is another referendum, that delays the money

coming back? I agree with Stefan, what we need to do is have a united

approach and that's what Mark was referencing this evening in terms of

the votes that have been in Parliament to try to ensure that

Welsh interests are properly represented. At the moment, we've

got a situation where we need to have full and unfettered access to

the single market. Even the clankingers have access to the

single market, theoretically. What we need is a situation where we have

got access that's free and unfettered and doesn't have either

tariff barriers or non-tariff barriers. That's critical. That's

going to go on and on the debate about Brexit. Thank you for joining

us. Back to you Elena. Joining me now we have special media expert

Helen Reynolds and Valerie Livingston. We've had a massive

response on social media tonight. I want to talk about that. Helen, can

you tell us what debates really have got people talking on social media.

I think in general people took a look at the debate and before they

even heard anyone speak, there was quite a lot of talk around the idea

of there not being a present leader for the Tories. I think you can't

get away from that instant look at who's there. It's interesting a lot

of it seemed around personalities. There was debate around the issues.

But there was talk about Neil Hamilton not being in Wales, not

living in Wales and some kind of comments really about generally the

people rather than what they were saying during the debate. That's

what I got from the social moda response. We see that a lot, that it

tends to be about the personalities. Another thing I want topped touch

on, we've had this stuff about the social media election, the past two

elections. I think we're past that. We can say that the form of

campaigning has evolved. You look a bit at this, can you tell us more

about that. We've definitely seen a shift in the way parties campaign.

Three or four election cycles ago, the focus was on broadcast media and

newspapers. Now social media has opened up as a powerful channel for

parties. They are getting directly to their voters and with the rise of

certain alogrithyms they can target their message keenly. What do you

think about this, is this a tool to use to bypass the media? Yeah

absolutely. It's not just a powerful tool for targeting specific

audiences. Using Facebook and the data that Facebook knows about us,

it's a way of capturing people's psychological state and appealing to

them specifically on subjects that are to do with their mood. And to do

with not just their preferences. So it's a massively murky place,

actually. Because we can't see a lot of the advertising that's put onto

social media channels because it's targeted specifically at those

groups. I think that's really worrying, actually. Is there a

positive to this at all? Is there something in here about people power

or is it something more sinister? It's great that people access a wide

range of point of views. The danger with social media is that we block

out the views we don't want to hear. A final word from you. Yeah, I think

there are loads of positives. You're average person who wants to know

more about politics will go straight to Google and if they can find

social media profiles and more information than they previously

could, then they're more able to have an informed vote. Thank you

very much both of you. Please keep on sending your views to hashtag BBC

Wales debate. I promise I will stay up all night reading them, though

that is a political promise. So who knows.

Time is running out, but here's a peak behind the secret

The set is about to be dismantled. The Huw is there to do the Ten

O'Clock news. Everything will be lifted out. Takes days to put in,

hours to take out. An army will move in shortly. Who knows when it will

be needed next. Do you fancy another election? Who fancies one of those?

I think we can at least leave it six months before we go to the ballot

box again, maybe. Have you had enough? Give us a break I say. Let's

look back at this debate then. Any standout performances for you,

you've watched quite a few in your time? I have. The thing I found most

surprising was the audience were often more interesting than the

panellists. They took a few more risks and a few more chances than

the panellists themselves. That's partly to do with the number of

interviews that Leanne and car win have given over time. It didn't seem

to come alive consistently from a panel perspective. Are you saying

they're getting too used to these? I think with Carwyn Jones and Leanne,

certainly. Which is why it's a little bit more interesting to hear

from Mark Williams who's never really had a public profile in Wales

br. It was interesting to hear from Darren Millar, who got to be leader

for one night only, maybe or perhaps we'll see him in that role again in

the future. I've asked Laura, already. I think for somebody who

only had a couple of hours' prep, that won't a bad job. What due make

of any, no standout moments, was it that consistently mediocre. I don't

think the debate caught fire tonight. I think it was pretty low

key throughout. I thought the answers were safe by and large. The

most pointed challenges came from the audience really rather than one

of the politicians at another. I think everyone was trying to play it

on the safe territory upon which they knew their party did well.

Which in some respects is a little bit surprising, because for parties

like Labour and Plaid Cymru, there is something to play for here. The

Conservatives are in a commanding position even in Wales really, if

you look at where the seats that could be won are. It seems strange

to me that nobody was prepared it take a gamble really and go in hard

on some critical policy areas. The only thing I was expecting more of

and I didn't get was people mentioning May and Corbyn. Not their

own parties mentioning their leaders, heaven forbid. Until you

wield Craig Williams on earlier, nobody had mentioned any of that

aspect. That surprises me after last night too. We talk about a Welsh

general election, is it that different? Is it that defined that

it is a completely different election here or actually, if you

look at the topics, it's Brexit, that travels right across the UK?

Yes, but I think politicians have some responsibility as well to talk

about the issues that are at stake in that election. Because otherwise

it's very hard forethem to return back to an Assembly election when

different public policies are under discussion. You can see the tactics

in so doing. But it's slightly disingenuous in terms of how the

election is playing out. The issue over the leadership is a case in

point. I don't think the Welsh public will have gleaned much about

what this election is about by list tong that debate. That's a reining

-- listening to that debate. That's a shame. The polls have been pretty

wild in terms of Wales. Where do you see them going over the next week or

so? I wouldn't want to speculate after recent wildness to be honest

with you. There's too many people, pundits included, that have tried to

predict polls in the last year and got them horrifically wrong. All to

play for? All to play for, for Labour and the Conservatives,

certainly. I don't think there's going to be a huge gap of seats from

Wales between them. Thank you very much. That is it. Our time is up. We

hope you enjoyed the debate. BBC Wales will follow every step of the

way until polling day. Then it's over to you for election 2017. You

can join me overnight then for the results as they come in. Plenty to

look forward. To Thanks for your company tonight. From all of us

here, good night. I want answers to the questions...

I care about. I want politicians...

Held to account. Join me for a Question Time

Leaders Special,