Vaughan Gething has been elected leader of Welsh Labour – and is set to become the next Welsh first minister and first black leader of any European country.
Currently serving as minister for the economy, Mr Gething, 50, has been in politics since he was a teenager.
But he rose to prominence as health minister throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, when, he told Sky News years later, “you had to make really difficult, big calls and go out and front them up on a daily basis”.
Image: Vaughan Gething in 2021, when he was the health minister. Pic: Reuters
Mr Gething was born in Zambia, where his father, a Welsh vet, met his mother, a Zambian chicken farmer.
He has spoken in the past about experiencing prejudice, and the impact it has had on him and his family.
In the 1970s, when he was two, his family moved to Abergavenny in Monmouthshire, where his father was due to start a new job – only to find the offer withdrawn when he arrived with a black family.
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The family eventually relocated to Dorset, where he was brought up.
Set to become the nation’s first black first minister, he said: “Today we turn the page in the book of our nation’s history.
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“A history that we write together.”
Early career
Mr Gething studied law at Aberystwyth University and then qualified as a solicitor at Cardiff University, having also served as the president of Wales’s National Union of Students.
His passion for politics began at a young age: he joined the Labour Party at 17 to help campaign in the 1992 elections.
Before being elected to the Senedd, he worked as a researcher to former Assembly Members Val Feld and Lorraine Barrett between 1999 and 2001.
Mr Gething became the youngest ever president of the Wales Trade Union Congress in 2008.
Elected to the Senedd
Image: Vaughan Gething upon getting elected in 2011. Pic: PA
He was first elected to the Senedd in 2011 as the member for Cardiff South and Penarth.
Mr Gething joined the cabinet in 2013 as deputy minister for tackling poverty, the first black cabinet minister in any of the devolved governments of Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales.
He was appointed deputy minister for health in 2014, before he took on the role of health minister in 2016.
He retained the role throughout the first year of the pandemic until he was made economy minister.
The government’s COVID response is currently the subject of an ongoing public inquiry.
This was the second time he ran to become leader of the Welsh Labour Party, having stood in 2018 against Mark Drakeford.
The US Labor Department has officially rescinded guidance issued during the Biden administration that limited the inclusion of cryptocurrency in 401(k) retirement plans.
On May 28, the Labor Department revoked a 2022 guidance that had urged fiduciaries to be “extremely cautious” when considering cryptocurrency for 401(k) retirement plans. The move could give asset managers more flexibility to include digital assets in retirement investment options.
The government agency removed the guidance asserting that it represented a departure from the department’s “historically neutral, principled-based approach to fiduciary investment decisions.”
“We’re rolling back this overreach and making it clear that investment decisions should be made by fiduciaries, not D.C. bureaucrats,” said US Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer.
The Labor Department under Biden criticized the practice of marketing cryptocurrencies to 401(k) participants. At the time, the agency claimed cryptocurrencies posed “significant risks and challenges” to participants’ retirement accounts due to their “speculative and volatile” nature and “valuation concerns,” among other reasons.
The American Banking Association (ABA) criticized the 2022 compliance release, claiming that it did not make the guidance available for public comment and review prior to issuance.
President Trump has pledged to make the United States “the world capital of crypto” during his 2024 campaign.
Under his administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission has scaled back several enforcement actions and investigations involving Web3 companies such as Uniswap, Coinbase, and Kraken, while also engaging in policy discussions on topics like real-world asset tokenization and the regulatory status of certain tokens.
At the same time, some lawmakers have expressed concerns about Trump’s involvement in the crypto space, including calls for greater scrutiny of his associated ventures.
Bilal Bin Saqib, head of Pakistan’s crypto council, announced on May 28 that the country is moving to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve.
Speaking at the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, Saqib said the government of Pakistan followed the United States’ lead in establishing a Bitcoin strategic reserve and is embracing pro-crypto regulatory policies. The government official told the audience:
“Today is a very historic day. Today, I announce the Pakistani government is setting up its own government-led Bitcoin Strategic Reserve, and we want to thank the United States of America again because we were inspired by them.”
The announcement represents a significant departure from the government of Pakistan’s previous stance on cryptocurrencies, holding that crypto would never be legal in the country.
Pakistan’s shift reflects the broader trend of nation-states adopting pro-crypto policies following the regulatory shift in Washington, DC under the President Donald Trump administration.
Bilal Bin Saqib at the Bitcoin 2025 conference announcing a Bitcoin strategic reserve. Source: Cointelegraph
United States Vice President JD Vance took the stage to deliver a keynote address at the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, encouraging Bitcoiners to deepen their involvement in politics.
Vance highlighted the strategic and geopolitical importance of Bitcoin, emphasizing that the US should maintain leadership in the crypto industry to remain competitive in the age of digital finance. Vance told the audience:
“What happens in the world of politics, what happens in the world of bureaucracy, will affect even the most transformational and valuable technologies if we do not make the right decisions. The first thing that I would ask you, is to take the momentum of your political involvement in 2024 and carry it forward to 2026 and beyond.”
“Don’t ignore politics because I guarantee you, my friends, politics is not going to ignore this community, not now, and not in the future,” the vice president continued.
Vice President JD Vance gives a keynote speech at Bitcoin 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Source: Cointelegraph
Bitcoin continues to gain institutional legitimacy and has been elevated to an asset class with macroeconomic and geopolitical importance. Market analysts and Bitcoin advocates warn that the global race to acquire BTC is underway between sovereign powers.
Bitcoin maximalists and market analysts argue that high-stakes game theory compels nation-states to adopt BTC due to the downside or opportunity cost of not adopting the scarce digital asset as sovereign competitors do.
The regulatory shift in the United States prompted other governments to indicate a possible policy reset on cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin.
The government of India, for instance, is reconsidering its crypto policies in response to regulatory changes in the US. India’s economic affairs secretary, Ajay Seth, said that digital assets do not care about borders.