Devolved Leadership Elections

[Sibboleth]

Lamont is pretty firmly associated with the Left, even if she isn't popular in all sections of it. Have a look at the stuff on nominations (and the link as well) posted by Andrea earlier; the patterns are pretty telling.

[Sibboleth]

Voting has started in the Plaid leadership election - result in the middle of March. There are three candidates, and here are three brief and extremely biased profiles:

Lord Elis-Thomas (aka Dafydd Elis Thomas, aka Dafydd El) - AM for Dwyfor Meirionnydd. Dafydd-El has been around for ever and a day; he was the MP for Meirionnydd from 1974 until 1992, led Plaid from 1984 until 1991, has been an AM since 1999, a member of the House of Lords since 1992, was the Assembly's Presiding Officer from 1999 until 2011. A fully-paid up member of what passes for the Welsh Establishment (he is the President - that is Chancellor - of Bangor University and is on the Governing Body of the Church in Wales and served on more quangos than probably even he can remember), Dafydd El used to call himself a Marxist and led the left faction of Plaid in the party's semi-civil war in the 1980s. He is also 66. He hasn't attracted much institutional support, but is the only candidate with serious name recognition.

Elin Jones - AM for Ceredigion. The choice of (most of) the party establishment and backed by a majority of Plaid AMs. She was the Rural Affairs minister in the Labour/Plaid coalition and does not like badgers much. Has had a couple of party posts in the past. Pretty dull.

Leanne Wood - AM for the South Wales Central list since 2003. The candidate of the left of the party, but has attracted a surprising amount of establishment support along the way (including Dafydd Iwan). Loves to be seen as a radical and occasionally goes in for publicity stunts to prove this (much like Dafydd El a few decades back). Quite how she manages to square this with the campaign that she ran against Chris Bryant in 2001 (which some people consider to have been both homophobic and xenophobic) is uncertain, but I'm sure some excuses can be found if the issue (which has been politely forgotten by most) is raised.

Simon Thomas, who was the MP for Ceredigion until he lost his seat in 2005, was also a candidate. But he sent everyone to sleep and so pulled out endorsed Jones.

At a guess the election is wide open. Wood has had most of the positive buzz, but has some serious structural disadvantages (Plaid membership being concentrated in North and West Wales). Jones has the lions share of institutional and establishment support, but she's dull. Dafydd El isn't just yesterdays man, he's last week's man, but is very well known (and very well liked) amongst ordinary Plaid members.

[Leftbehind]

Yeah, I can't say I remember Bryant-Wood 2001 campaign. Should easily be Wood.

[Sibboleth]

BBC reports that Wood has won.

[freefair]

Leanne Wood wins. Oh me oh my
Not sure how this will work out. Will it split the left vote (especially is the non-Welsh speaking majority of Wales) and let the Tories in marginals?
Or will it push the moderates in Plaid to LibDems and Labour and hurt the party in its heartlands.
Or could it do both?

[Andrea]

Leanne Wood 2879 votes
Elin Jones 1884
Lord Elis-Thomas 1278

2 round

Wood 3326
Jones 2494

Quite how she manages to square this with the campaign that she ran against Chris Bryant in 2001 (which some people consider to have been both homophobic and xenophobic)

I recall the animosity of that campaign (Plaid just won the Rhondda in the Assembly election, Bryant was a new candidate, I remamber someone branding him as "the exotic candidate" in the media) but could you refresh us on which were the main allegations flying around? If it doesn't lead you in defamation risk territory

[You kip if you want to...]

This certainly doesn't look good for them considering the proposed boundaries for 2015.

Although:

In December 2004 she was the first assembly member to be ordered out of the chamber for referring to the Queen as "Mrs Windsor" during a debate. Lord Elis-Thomas asked Wood to withdraw the remark on the grounds of discourtesy. When she refused, she was ordered to leave. She later said: "I don't think I was treated fairly, I don't think it was necessary.", "I don't recognise the Queen, I called her that because that's her name."

I feel as though i'd do something like this...

[YL]

There doesn't seem to have been any mention yet of the forthcoming Ulster Unionist leadership election.  Perhaps this is a sign of how far the UUP have fallen with their 2005 disaster and the 2010 UCUNF farce.

Anyway, Tom Elliott resigned last week, and there are three candidates so far: Danny Kennedy (Newry & Armagh), John McAllister (South Down) and Mike Nesbitt (Strangford).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster_Unionist_Party_leadership_election,_2012

[Vasall des Midas]

This certainly doesn't look good for them considering the proposed boundaries for 2015.

Although:

In December 2004 she was the first assembly member to be ordered out of the chamber for referring to the Queen as "Mrs Windsor" during a debate. Lord Elis-Thomas asked Wood to withdraw the remark on the grounds of discourtesy. When she refused, she was ordered to leave. She later said: "I don't think I was treated fairly, I don't think it was necessary.", "I don't recognise the Queen, I called her that because that's her name."

I feel as though i'd do something like this...

That's just what she likes to call herself, her name is von Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha.