Think tank boss and former Starmer aide chosen as Welsh Labour candidates

A think tank boss and a former Starmer aide have been selected as Welsh Labour candidates in what a former Welsh Labour MP called an “insult to Wales”.

Think tank chief and former Labour aide Torsten Bell has been selected as Welsh Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Swansea West, while executive director of legal affairs for the Labour Party, Alex Barros-Curtis, was selected for Cardiff West.

Beth Winter was the former Welsh Labour MP for Cynon Valley, a constituency that no longer exists following Boundary Commission changes.

Writing on X, Ms Winter said: “In his leadership campaign, Starmer promised to end imposing candidates. He broke that promise.

“The imposition of candidates in Cardiff West & Swansea West cuts local members out of the process. It is an insult to Party members, an insult to Wales, and an affront to democracy.”

Mr Barros-Curtis led the legal and finance team working on the campaign to elect Sir Keir as the leader of the Labour Party.

In 2016 he was also a senior parliamentary assistant to Andy Burnham, who then served as the MP for Leigh, a town in greater Manchester.

Mr Bell is the chief executive of economic think tank the Resolution Foundation, and according to their website he is currently “on leave”.

The Resolution Foundation is an independent research group whose stated aim is to improve outcomes for people on low and modest incomes.

In 2022, in a report from the Resolution Foundation, Mr Bell called former prime minister Liz Truss’ mini-budget “the biggest unforced economic policy error of my lifetime”.

Mr Bell’s CV also includes working as an aide to former Labour Leader Ed Miliband and special adviser to the then-chancellor Alistair Darling when he was a Treasury civil servant.