Wales 2007; results thread

[Parlez-vous Platypus?]

The BBC:

Carmarthen West: CON gain from LAB by 98 votes; 49.7% turnout.
Vale of Clywd: LAB hold over CON by 92 votes; 40.3% turnout.
Vale of Glamorgan: LAB hold over CON by 83 votes; 48.9% turnout.

Only 52 seats declared, though

[Sibboleth]

Carmarthen West: CON gain from LAB by 98 votes; 49.7% turnout.

In my final prediction (which I forgot to post here; it exists elsewhere, so I'll dig it up so thee can all mocketh me. Or not) this was one of only two seats that I got wrong (the other was Llanelli; which I thought would be close)... mainly because I foolishly bought the claims Plaid made about how well they were doing in Pembrokeshire... even as I (rightly) ignored their claims about South Wales... but I think most people expected this to go Plaid, so I'm not alone.

Vale of Clywd: LAB hold over CON by 92 votes; 40.3% turnout.
Vale of Glamorgan: LAB hold over CON by 83 votes; 48.9% turnout.

Fun in socially polarised marginals! In the Vale, Hutt only won on her third recount! Thank St. Asaph! (bad joke, sorry...). If you cut Rhyl out of Vale of Clwyd or cut Barry out of Vale of Glamorgan, both would be safely Tory.

Only 52 seats declared, though

All the FPTP seats have declared. We just have (some) of the regionals to get through.
Sad as I am, I'm looking forward to the regional figures by constituency...

[Sibboleth]

Here we are:

Might as well have a crack at predicting the FPTP seats. See below about media coverage, so there’s (more than just a) little element of shooting in the dark to some of these… oh, and I fully expect to be badly wrong in several cases…

Aberavon: one of Labour’s safest seats, no way Gibbons loses.

Aberconwy: if The Election According To Plaid is accurate, this will be a Plaid “hold”, no question. But… it must not be forgotten that a generation ago this would have been a mighty Tory fortress… either way, I can’t see Denise Idris Jones hanging on.

Alyn & Deeside: Labour. Obviously.

Arfon: Plaid, sadly. But methinks there is a better than 50-50 chance of it turning red in the next Westminster election.

Blaenau Gwent: the media and the pundits think that St. Peter’s widow will be easily re-elected. [blanked; name of Labour activist in area] disagree.

Brecon & Radnorshire: LibDem, unless something very strange happens.

Bridgend: a fair few people have been predicting the end of Carwyn Jones, or at least a scare. I’m not so sure; the seat is quite polarised, boundary changes favour Labour and Cairns isn’t running again.

Caerphilly: thanks to Ron Davies, perhaps the most confusing race in Wales. I suspect that Cuthbert will win again, but ruling out a Davies upset-comeback or Plaid getting in via the backdoor (unlike most other Valley’s seats there’s an element of Cardiff commuterdom here (in Caerphilly itself) and, in local elections at least, said element votes Plaid, giving them a fairly solid base) would not be clever.

Cardiff Central: LibDem…

Cardiff North: if the Tories can’t win this one now that it’s an open seat, they might as well give up and die.

Cardiff South & Penarth: there have been various claims of a possible upset here, but I don’t see it. Yes, boundary (and demographic) changes are good to the Tories, and, yes, the LibDems do well in local elections, but… for all their strength in Penarth, the Tories don’t exist in the Cardiff part of the seat anymore (which is why they only polled 25% in 2003) and I reckon that good LibDem results in local elections have as much to do with the unpopularity of the former Labour administration on Cardiff council as anything else…

Cardiff West: Rhodri wins again, obviously.

Carmarthen East & Dinefwr: a Plaid hold here…

Carmarthen West & South Pembroke: on paper, this is Plaid’s best hope of a FPTP gain in Wales, period.

Ceredigion: the LibDems have tried hard, but I don’t see them pulling off another shocker here.

Clwyd South: should be Labour, especially as there’s no JMIP/Forward Wales/”Indie” candidate here this time round…

Clwyd West: before… recent events… I’d been sure of a Tory gain here. As it is… well… will homophobia really hurt someone in a seat with the demographics of Clwyd West?

Cynon Valley: will be a Labour hold

Delyn: the Tories are hopeful here and can’t be ruled out, but a Labour hold seems more likely.

Dwyfor Meirionnydd: shockingly, Lord Elis-Thomas will coast to another landslide re-election…

Gower: Labour

Islwyn: I know some people think that Etheridge has a chance here but… look, no matter how bad an AM the Western Mail says she is, James is an incumbent with a majority verging on 40%. In a constituency that swung towards Labour in the 2005 General Election. Sure, turnout and voting patterns are different at Assembly level, but…

Llanelli: true that Helen Mary Jones only lost by 21 votes last time and that, as such, a gain for Plaid looks quite likely in Tresosban… but the kicking that Plaid suffered here in the General Election should give people pause for thought. I suspect I’m in a minority here, but I don’t see Llanelli as being cut and dry yet…

Merthyr Tydfil: there seem to be about 700 or so independents running in Merthyr for some reason. Can’t see any of them winning (especially as most seem have run before and… not done so very well), but it makes the race for second place impossible to predict.

Monmouth: it’s an open seat, but it’s Monmouth. Tory hold.

Montgomery: apparently the LibDems are worried about this one. It would be a huge upset if they lost it, but it probably won’t happen.

Neath: apparently some people in Plaid think they are doing very well here. Apparently people from the other parties disagree. Either way, 22% is a big gap to close…

Newport East: has been hyped as a LibDem gain by some. They took just 16% there in 2003. Ho hum…

Newport West: a Labour hold, unless voting patterns are really weird.

Ogmore: Janice Gregory to keep it in the family…

Pontypridd: Labour hold o/c.

Preseli Pembroke: Dunwoody is certainly vulnerable here, but to who? Once again, it depends on whether you believe in The Election According To Plaid or not…

Rhondda: Leighton Andrews to win, and win easily. The ommission of the scene of ’99’s greatest shock on Plaid wish-lists has been hard not to notice.

Swansea East: Labour

Swansea West: both Plaid and the LibDems claim to be doing well here. If this be true, Davies to hold via a vote-splitting fluke…

Torfaen: there’s a People’s Voice candidate here, but as I’ve not heard any rumours of an upset… Labour hold.

Vale of Clwyd: odd things can happen in seats as socially polarised as this one. But a Labour loss seems unlikely.

Vale of Glamorgan: a key Tory target, obviously. Could well be very close.

Wrexham: while the media and most pundits hand this over to Marek without really thinking, he’s in trouble and he knows he is. Enough trouble to lose? I’m not sure, but I do think this one may be extremely tight.

Ynys Mon: is Ieun Wyn Jones really in trouble? And if so, who to? (the most likely answer is Peter Rogers; an Indie these days). If he really does go down to defeat, it would be huge… although it still seems a little unlikely. But possible. Which is why IWJ has spent most of the campaign in his own constituency…

Well, at least I tried. I expect to be wrong in quite a few cases, though at least I’ve tried to cover most sane possibilities and have, I hope, avoided being systematically biased.

Obviously Innacurate Predictions Are in Bold

Near Ghastly F*** Up's Are In Blue

A Handful I'm Very Pleased With Are In Red

[Sibboleth]

Regional list results so far (for those that don't know what these are, they're what a party gets if it doesn't win enough FPTP seats. Sort of)...

North: 2 Con, 1, Plaid (but not Wigley, obviously), 1 LDem
Mid/West: 2 Lab, 1 Tory, 1 Plaid
SWE: 2 Plaid, 1 Con, 1 LDem

[London Man]

We've lost 3 seats so far. How did we gain Wrexham, out of curiousity?

[Sibboleth]

We've lost 3 seats so far.

And that is all that we can lose now; none of the remaining list seats were Labour in 2003 and none will be Labour now.
O/c... notionally speaking... we've actually only lost two. Which is better than I'd been expecting actually...

How did we gain Wrexham, out of curiousity?

By running a good candidate (also our candidate in 2003; sure, she lost then, but had no time to even campaign properly, and still nearly beat Marek, who'd been a Wrexham institution for ages) and keeping the pressure on Marek all the time. Basically.

[afleitch]

And here it is Al; the 'regular' map

[Sibboleth]

And now more maps; % vote for the four major parties. Constituency vote rather than regional because the latter doesn't seem to have been published anywhere. Unfortunate as the patterns in the regional vote are likely to be a much better indicator of partisan strength (albeit in a low turnout election) than the constituency vote... especially with so many Indies running.



And yes, Vale of Clwyd is rather polarised.

[Harry Hayfield]

Labour 314,836 (32.16% -7.84%) winning 24 seats (-5)
Plaid Cymru 219,382 (22.41% +1.25%) winning 7 seats (+1)
Conservatives 219,003 (22.37% +2.42%) winning 5 seats (+4)
Liberal Democrats 144,541 (14.77% +0.64%) winning 3 seats (n/c)
Independents 59,066 (6.03% +4.98%) winning 1 seat (n/c)
United Kingdom Independence Party 16,838 (1.72% -0.61%)
Ratepayers 2,561 (0.26% +0.26%)
English Democrats 1,867 (0.19% +0.19%)
Others 840 (0.09% -1.30%)
Labour lead over Plaid Cymru of 9.75%
Swing from Lab to Plaid: 4.54%

[Hippie George Wallace]

English Democrats run in Wales? Why?

[the sweetness of chai and the palliative effects of facts]

IWJ wins in Ynys Mon. Rogers couldn't crush the Labour and Tory votes as much as he needed.

Indeed, he only really crushed the Tory vote. The Labour vote's decline fits with Wales' overall trend.

And that's with a Cardiff based lawyer running for us! I'm surprised that he did as well as he did actually...

Eh... the Tories won that seat with a Brighton based lawyer running for them in the 1980s.

[Sibboleth]

IWJ wins in Ynys Mon. Rogers couldn't crush the Labour and Tory votes as much as he needed.

Indeed, he only really crushed the Tory vote. The Labour vote's decline fits with Wales' overall trend.

And that's with a Cardiff based lawyer running for us! I'm surprised that he did as well as he did actually...

Eh... the Tories won that seat with a Brighton based lawyer running for them in the 1980s.

Yes, but the Tory voters there don't mind that sort of thing so much. O/c when I said "based" I should also have added that this meant that he seems to have spent most of his time during the campaign in Cardiff (where he's a counciller)...

[the sweetness of chai and the palliative effects of facts]

Since only SW Wales W regional is out, and I somehow very much doubt a change to the 4 PC, 1 Con, 1 LD distribution there (Labour held all seven FPTP seats)... can we call this count effectively over?

[Sibboleth]

Since only SW Wales W regional is out, and I somehow very much doubt a change to the 4 PC, 1 Con, 1 LD distribution there (Labour held all seven FPTP seats)... can we call this count effectively over?

2 PC, but yes.

[the sweetness of chai and the palliative effects of facts]

Since only SW Wales W regional is out, and I somehow very much doubt a change to the 4 PC, 1 Con, 1 LD distribution there (Labour held all seven FPTP seats)... can we call this count effectively over?

2 PC, but yes.

typo, I guess. Maybe I was thinking of "4 total of which 2 PC etc ".

So, Labour 26
PC 15
Con 12
LD 6
iLabour 1