[8][9] Wood credits her political awakening to reading Marge Piercy's 1976 feminist classic Woman on the Edge of Time, and the 1984–85 UK miners' strike.

[5] After joining Plaid Cymru in 1991 aged 20,[5] Wood was elected a Councillor for the Penygraig ward on Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council in 1995; she did not recontest the seat in 1999.

[2] In December 2004, Wood, a republican, was the first Assembly Member to be ordered out of the chamber, after referring to the Queen as "Mrs Windsor" during a debate.

[5] Lord Elis-Thomas, a fellow Plaid Cymru AM and the Presiding Officer, asked Wood to withdraw the remark on the grounds of discourtesy.

[12] Wood was arrested on 8 January 2007 for protesting against the UK's Trident nuclear missile programme at Faslane naval base in Scotland.

[22] Through the Freedom of Information Act, she uncovered a severance package of £750,000, personally authorised by Colman, to the former chief operating officer Anthony Snow.

[25][26] Figures obtained by Wood under the Freedom of information Act revealed the level of pay among university vice-chancellors in Wales.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills subsequently asked HM Revenue and Customs to "press for prosecution where there is clear evidence that the employer has committed an offence", in 2010.

One of these stated "I've never seen a more flagrant, repellent and cynical exploitation of anti-Semitism in my life than its disgusting use to smear Corbyn because of a lack of alternatives for how to defeat him."

Following criticism, Wood later deleted the tweets, whilst a Plaid spokesperson affirmed the party's support for the report.

It contains initiatives including: a Green Construction Skills College; implementing an integrated transport plan for the valleys; creating a land bank for renewable energy and food production; and a programme to renovate heritage buildings.

[34] Wood was elected leader of Plaid Cymru on 15 March 2012, defeating Elin Jones and Dafydd Elis Thomas.

[35][36] Her leadership platform included a call for "real independence — genuinely working to end war, inequality and discrimination", emphasising economic and environmental concerns alongside constitutional reform.

Wood said she was sure Wales would be an independent sovereign state within a generation, and would exist within a "Neighbourhood of Nations", following the break-up of the United Kingdom.

[44] In the second debate on 16 April, Wood challenged Labour leader Ed Miliband to hold an emergency budget if the party won the election, to reverse spending cuts she believes have been particularly harmful in Wales.

[45] On 30 April, she took part in Ask Leanne Wood, a 30-minute debate on BBC One Wales in which she answered questions from a live audience, and suggested Plaid Cymru would support a Labour government.

"[51] In September 2017, the conservative commentator Iain Dale placed Wood at Number 99 on his list of the '100 most influential people on the Left'.

"I really felt very, very strongly that if you ask people a question in a democracy you have to accept the result, no matter how much you don't like it," she revealed in August 2021.

"I spent a lot of time internally within Plaid Cymru trying to persuade people that we needed to accept this result...