In many ways Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies has achieved something few Welsh politicians have ever done - people know who he is.

But, sadly for Mr Davies, familiarity does not equal support and the Welsh Tories have been floundering under his leadership. I have covered Mr Davies for several years now and have watched as his relentless quest for attention at any price has accelerated

I truly believe there is a strong argument to me made that Andrew RT Davies is the worst political leader in the UK and I am going to try and explain why I think this is the case. This article first appeared in the Will Hayward Newsletter. You can view the newsletter here.

Let's break this down into three parts:

A brief overview of the current controversies Mr Davies finds himself in.

Explain why I believe that Mr Davies is the worst leader of a political party in the UK.

Discuss how the Welsh Conservatives can be transformed from the joke they currently are to a party that has at least a shot of being in government.

Right, let’s make this bit quick because most of it is already in the public domain. There are a few key issues that are impacting Mr Davies at the moment:

A poll at a country show

Mr Davies recently posted on his social media a picture of the Conservative stand at an agricultural show. In it they were asking people to vote on whether the Senedd should be abolished.

This sparked outrage among his own party because abolishing the Senedd has never been Welsh Conservative policy. Many of his own MSs posted their support for devolution on their own social media. One example was former Welsh Tory leader Paul Davies who wrote: “The Conservative Party is clear - it is not party policy to abolish the Senedd so not sure why this question is even being asked.”

I spoke to several Welsh Tories who were really furious that their leader posted this. I was struck by how angry some (not all) were. Normally, Mr Davies’s populist antics get a bit of a shrug and an eye roll, but this time around the reaction was much stronger.

Even the former Welsh Tory leader Nick Bourne, who led the party in Wales from 1999-2011 and is now a Lord, weighed in. He was roused from his semi-retirement in Andover to post: “It has NEVER been the policy of the Welsh Conservative Party to abolish the Assembly/Senedd. Why pose this question?”

Now I should point out that the chances of any imminent move against Andrew RT Davies were minimal. One MS told me there was little prospect of anyone trying to replace him.

Racism rows

There are two strands to this. The first is Conservative MS Laura Anne Jones, who used a racist slur to describe Chinese people in a WhatsApp chat. You can see it here:

Mr Davies was criticised for not suspending Ms Jones from the party (she has already been removed from the cabinet pending a police investigation into her expenses). But the row has been compounded by the fact Mr Davies himself has been accused of "Islamophobic race-baiting" by the Muslim Council of Wales........

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