UK 2005 Election numbers

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Seats won with a majority of the vote

Labour: 140
Conservative: 54

Seats won with a plurality

Conservative: 144
Labour: 115

Now those are actually quite interesting numbers.

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The sole exception was Mr Tangerine Man himself, and even then he only just avoided losing his deposit... cruel fate that his ego wasn't damaged even more than it was. Oh well.

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Lol

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Against Dobbo as well

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They (and everyone else) actually thought they would do better than that.

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Open seat in an area that's had some racial problems over the years and in which both Labour and Tory candidates were Kashmiris.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There were never many Tory voters in that part of Wales to start with; though I do think that the Tories would have saved their deposit in the by-election had it had the sort of turnouts you can normally expect in by-elections in seats like Blaenau Gwent (there was a decent turnout for several reasons; one of which was the somewhat civil war-ish element to politics there now; Ebbw Vale against Tredegar and so on).

The Conservatives should find some way to connect themselves with the parties that want more local control.

Won't happen as the Tories have always been opposed to local control; them adovocating it would look disingenuous as it would be.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The old term of abuse (favoured by Willie Ross I think) for the SNP was Tartan Tories, btw.

Plaid Cymru basically just runs in opposition to whatever Labour advocates, but usually by being further to the left than Labour.

Plaid are not to the left of Labour (except, perhaps, in some of their own late '90's propaganda)... they are basically in the centre of Welsh politics, with a pseudo-social democratic wing and a rather right-wing (and to put it bluntly; pseudo-fascist in some cases. Out and out fascist in the case of the late Saunders Lewis) nationalist wing.
There's a possibility that Plaid may be junior coalition partners with Labour after this year's elections, although nothing as far as that goes is certain.

In terms of Westminster politics, Plaid are all over the place and always have been. Not that there position in Westminster matters at all to anyone.