Cardiff South & Penarth by-election

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Caused by the resignation (at some point in the near future) of Alun Michael who is to be the Labour candidate for South Wales Police Commissioner. Michael had held the constituency since 1987, the constituency having previously been represented (in one form or another) by James Callaghan for over forty years. A proper profile and all that will be up at some point when I have time, but it's enough (for now) to say that this is proletarian South Cardiff plus the odd seaside town-cum-suburb of Penarth (and now a little beyond), that Michael's majority in 2010 was about 10pts, and that Labour held the Assembly seat by miles in 2011. Labour councillors now represent all but two wards (both at the Penarth end) of the constituency.

But there are candidates nominated.

Labour have picked Stephen Doughty, who is currently the head of Oxfam Cymru.

The LibDems have picked Dr Bablin Molik (a researcher, I think a medical researcher, at Cardiff uni) and Plaid have picked Luke Nicholas who works for their group in the Assembly.

No one from the Tories yet.

Etc.

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The interesting thing about Plaid is that the correlation between language and Plaid support which is so striking when things are looked at from an all-Wales perspective is not so strong inside (most) individual areas.

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Some people are doing a liveblog thingy. Recent posts of interest:

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Turnout: 25.3% - official.

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Result soon, apparently.

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Labour hold

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Labour 47%, Con 19%, LDem 11%, Plaid 9%, UKIP 6%, Green 4%, SLP 1%, Commie 1%

Labour majority of 5,334 (27.4%)

Or something like that, anyway.