General election: What the campaign might look like in Wales

The 2019 general election changed the political map of Wales, with a Boris Johnson-inspired Conservative Party turning some unexpected parts of it blue.

The Tories took Bridgend and also swept across north Wales, taking Wrexham, Delyn, Vale of Clwyd, Clwyd South and Ynys Môn from Labour.

As Rishi Sunak announced an election will take place on 4 July, the polls indicated that we could be looking at a lot more red this time round.

Winning back seats in Wales will be an important part of Sir Keir Starmer’s bid to become prime minister.

In short: expect plenty of campaign visits by Labour to north Wales.

If a recent BBC Wales trip across the north Wales coast to gauge voter mood is anything to go by, politicians of any party will hear one thing dominating: the cost of living.

The constituencies of Ynys Môn, Bangor Aberconwy, Clwyd East and Clwyd North will be amongst those central to Labour’s plans – they are pretty confident about Bridgend and Wrexham – along with Pembrokeshire Mid and South, Vale of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire.

The latter three have something in common, which we will come on to shortly.

The eagle-eyed amongst might have noticed that some of those names are not familiar.

That is because the map has already changed: the 40 seats of 2019 have been whittled down to 32 to try and make the constituencies more equal in terms of population size – although Ynys Môn has special status.