National Assembly of Wales Elections 2016

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Far too early to predict what will happen, except that there will be another Labour administration.

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I hope UKIP don't get any seats, but it looks inevitable.

If they can maintain their position as a political force then they will obviously win some list seats. Of course if they don't...

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Given how the Tory number of consintuency seats increased by 3, 2 at the expense of Labour. one would like to think this is the year that the party could be thrown out of office by a coalition of Tories, LibDems, and perhaps even UKIP, given their decent vote share. Although a coalition with a moderate Plaid would be workable. Leanne Wood would probably have to resign though.

I think that's wishful thinking. Labour won 25 seats in Wales on Thursday and would presumably (I've not worked the figures out) have won two list seats in Mid and West Wales were it an Assembly election; this takes Labour to 27 out of 60. Even assuming that Labour don't do better than that next year (which given midterm dynamics is unlikely), the numbers would not be there for an alternative administration.

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YouGov have a poll out: Labour 39, Con 23, Plaid 18, UKIP 13, LDem 6, Greens 2. Regional list figures (which are always dodgy) are Labour 34, Con 24, Plaid 18, UKIP 14, LDem 5, Greens 4.

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Huw Irranca-Davies has been selected as the Labour candidate for Ogmore. He currently represents the same constituency at Westminster.

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Huw Irranca-Davies has been selected as the Labour candidate for Ogmore. He currently represents the same constituency at Westminster.

Double-Jobbing is forbidden, yes?

Heavily frowned on rather than illegal, but he'll almost certainly be resigning his seat in the Commons and quite possibly before he's elected to the Assembly.

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So what you are saying is that next year we can look forward to all the 'election experts' predicting that UKIP are going to win Ogmore in a by-election?

Alas yes...

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*Blows away the dust*

There was another YouGov poll released in early December for what very little that is worth: showed the same basic result as the poll before the previous one. Labour 35, Con 23, Plaid 20, UKIP 15, LDem 5/List Labour 34, Con 23, Plaid 18, UKIP 16, Greens 4, LDem 4

Much more relevant is that the next Assembly and the next Government will look very different to the current one, no matter what the electorate decides. The following Labour AMs are retiring:

Rosemary Butler, Newport West (e. 1999)
Christine Chapman, Cynon Valley (e. 1999)
Jeff Cuthbert, Caerphilly (e. 2003)
Keith Davies, Llanelli (e. 2011)
Janice Gregory, Ogmore (e. 1999)
Edwina Hart, Gower (e. 1999)
Huw Lewis, Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney (e. 1999)
Gwyn Price, Islwyn (e. 2011)
Gwenda Thomas, Neath (e. 1999)

You may notice a theme there. Lewis has only just announced his retirement: quite a seat to come up for selection so late in the day.

Meanwhile some of Plaid's veterans are also going:

Jocelyn Davies, List (e. 1999)
Alun Fred Jones, Arfon (e. 2003)
Rhodri Glyn Thomas, Carmarthen East & Dinefwr (e. 1999)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

YouGov have such an obvious house effect for UKIP at present (which has emerged quite randomly over the past six months? Bizarre) that it would be nice to see what other companies made of things, except probably it wouldn't as pretty much all Welsh polling since there has been such a thing has been terrible.

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Not been keeping up to date with the polls really, because they've mostly been saying the same thing and I've had other priorities (sorry ).

Labour 35, Plaid 21, Con 19, UKIP 17, LDem 6, Others 3

A very poor poll for the Tories: I suspect recent headlines regarding the steel industry have been less than entirely helpful. Estimating UKIP for this election is clearly a total crapshot of course.

<sub>The regional list poll is utterly pointless because a lot of people think they're just being asked for their second preference, but fwiw it is:

Labour 31, Con 20, Plaid 20, UKIP 16, LDem 5, Greens 4, Others 3</sub>

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Pretty clear by this point that all movement in the polls for about a year has been statistical noise one way or the other and that, probably, we're better off ignoring them as individual efforts.

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If you think that's bad check out Welsh polls from previous years (a lot aren't online, admittedly). 2003 was supposed to be a comparatively tight race...

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Stopped clocks, etc.

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I wonder what turnout will be? This has been a very, very dull campaign.

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Yeah that sounds about as expected. UKIP winning list seats really fycks over the LibDems, btw.

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Most rumours have been less than well sourced, but it doesn't sound good in Cardiff North.

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But anyway I'm expecting a pretty poor set of results in general.

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Rumours from that seat sound better, but others suggest embarrassingly bad performances in some usually safe seats. But who knows with rumours.

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Rumours from that seat sound better, but others suggest embarrassingly bad performances in some usually safe seats.

Alun Davies literally nearly losing Blaenau Gwent (a billion local scandals -waste disposal issues included because South Wales - some of which involved him) being an example. This is kind of like 1999: clear Labour win, but unenthusiastic and weird and local factors deciding a lot of votes and causing bizarro patterns.

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With one seat (Cardiff West) left to declare, the only constituency to have changed hands is Rhondda.

...and note that the result there was not even slightly echoed in surrounding constituencies (Plaid vote down some). Much like the Brecon & Radnor result fundamentally a personal victory and a reflection of the massive potential of a Leader Bonus in low turnout elections.

Talking of personal factors, Labour vote up 8pts in Arfon.

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What's the story with the PC enclave in South Wales? (I haven't really been following the thread.)

It's the Rhondda.  The Plaid candidate was their leader, Leanne Wood, and there were apparently issues with the Labour candidate.

It has also voted Plaid in an Assembly election before (again under unusual circumstances). There are a lot of voters in South Wales who though normally Labour are quite prepared to vote for Plaid or some random Independent in certain situations, particularly in a low stakes election. And of course Leader Bonuses are generally massive in these elections; see also Brecon & Radnor and actually even Bridgend again (even if Carwyn's vote was down by more than average it was still notably higher than would otherwise have been) or Cardiff West when Morgan was Leader, etc.

As for Andrews, lets just say that he has certain image problems that have intensified massively in recent years and leave at that...

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Scottish Tories polled higher percentages than their Welsh cousins on both constituency and list ballots.

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You poor bastards

On the contrary the idea of Mr Brown Envelopes as The Face of UKIP is immensely heartening...