Wales 2007; results thread

[minionofmidas]

Really, this is a consequence of Labour angering everyone in the UK with ttheir policies.

No it bloody isn't. This is about opportunism and greed. That's all.

Greed for office that is I suppose?

Once you've calmed down, can you give me a rundown on what the three parties have agreed on? (Both politically and in terms of cabinet posts)?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Greed for office that is I suppose?

Yes, but also for the ego-trappings that come with office (the loathsome, unprincipled and generally two-faced Mike German getting to call himself "Deputy First Minister" (everyone knows he covets that title...), getting a ministerial car... that kind of thing).

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I'm calm now. Still angry, but calm.

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It's not quite a done deal yet; depends if IWJ places any principles that he might still have over his ego.
But what we'll see if this pot-of-sludge-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow-coalition happens politically (this presuming that it lasts for four years... which seems unlikely. An unnatural three party with a majority of three. Oh dear...) depends on a couple of unknown factors... but, basically, the LibDems want STV in local government (though I wouldn't have thought that it could be done and dusted in time to save LibDem councillers up for election next year), Plaid want a new Welsh Language Act and a referendum on turning the Assembly into something akin to the Scottish Parliament rather than the current Wales County Council setup (but here's the problem with that; a two thirds majority vote is needed to call a referendum. This coalition doesn't have the votes, although a deal with Labour would have done), and all parties want token "green measures". That's more-or-less it; except that everyone knows that the Tories were strongly opposed to Morgan's social policy agenda and want as much of it repealed as possible. Other than that, we'll probably see dull centrism in most areas of policy, if they get anything else done at all...

And as far as cabinet stuff goes... well, the Tories want big (for the Welsh Assembly) positions and have made that condition of a coalition. There will probably be two Deputy First Ministers because Bourne's ego is about as big as German's. That's about all that is known at this stage.

Another political effect will be an electoral backlash for Plaid and the LibDems (the elephant in the room, basically). Quite how bad it'll be depends on whether or not the new WAG is merely backroom fudge or turns out to be a complete fiasco. But I certainly wouldn't want to be a Plaid counciller in South Wales right now.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And this:

and a referendum on turning the Assembly into something akin to the Scottish Parliament rather than the current Wales County Council setup (but here's the problem with that; a two thirds majority vote is needed to call a referendum. This coalition doesn't have the votes, although a deal with Labour would have done),

Is, barring a LibDem grassroots revolt next week, the biggest thing standing in the way of a crock-of-**** coalition.
O/c there are some Labour AM's (including the one I'd like to see as the next leader; but I agree with him on most other things, so that's alright ) who wouldn't exactly be very happy about working with Plaid... and an Assembly vote on a referendum would be touch-and-go even if a Labour/Plaid deal of some sort was in place, but it would actually stand a good chance of happening.

[minionofmidas]

Three Deputy First Ministers? What's that for? It would seem that (at least officially) the point of having a deputy prime minister is knowing who'll chair cabinet meetings when the Prime Minister is on vacation, or has just keeled over from a massive f**king coronary on the way to the meeting. Which doesn't really work out if you've got several, unless one of them is the First Deputy First Minister.

Bavaria had an everybody-against-the-CSU four-party government from 1954 to 1957, btw: SPD, BP (basically the wing of the CSU that was even more federalist, and didn't want an alliance with the CDU), FDP and BHE (the eastern refugees' voting bloc that we had from the early fifties to the early sixties). FDP left in 57 and joined with the CSU instead. After the 58 elections, the FDP was not in Parliament anymore but the CSU formed a government with the BHE. After 1962, the BHE was not in Parliament anymore but the CSU had a majority, which it hasn't lost ever since.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Map of turnout:



Average across Wales was about 40% or so. Pathetic. Especially in working class areas. If turnout was better in working class areas, then the current undemocratic mess wouldn't be happening. The Welsh Labour party needs to change. </huwforleader>

[Harry Hayfield]

As members know I'm a Lib Dem member in the Ceredigion constituency and today we held our first meeting since the election. We spent 90 minutes talking about the election result in Ceredigion and the rest of Wales and because of the fact that my grandfather has to transport me back to where I live I had to leave before the meeting moved on to the subject of next year's local elections. But before I did leave I did make the following observation:

Westminster 1997: 46 Lib Dems elected
Ashdown "Constructive Opposition"
Westminster 2001: 52 Lib Dems elected
Westminster 2005: 62 Lib Dems elected
Ergo, Constructive Opposition in the Assembly

It seemed to be supported by the majority of the party in Ceredigion, but I wonder how many ordinary members have been able to attend these high level meetings.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Three Deputy First Ministers? What's that for? It would seem that (at least officially) the point of having a deputy prime minister is knowing who'll chair cabinet meetings when the Prime Minister is on vacation, or has just keeled over from a massive f**king coronary on the way to the meeting. Which doesn't really work out if you've got several, unless one of them is the First Deputy First Minister.

Unless IWJ is even more scared of Helen Mary Jones than we all thought, it'll only be two. Which is bad enough. And it's all about ego, obviously.

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Heh.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Morgan has hinted, and strongly, that he was about to discuss changing the voting system for local elections with the LibDems just before the LibDems broke off talks.

[afleitch]

Morgan has hinted, and strongly, that he was about to discuss changing the voting system for local elections with the LibDems just before the LibDems broke off talks.

Yes, but what does he mean by 'about to discuss'; surely it would have been brought up early on in talks with the Lib Dems? Or it wasn't on the agenda, but now is to get the Liberal Democrats back into discussions.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Morgan has hinted, and strongly, that he was about to discuss changing the voting system for local elections with the LibDems just before the LibDems broke off talks.

Yes, but what does he mean by 'about to discuss'; surely it would have been brought up early on in talks with the Lib Dems? Or it wasn't on the agenda, but now is to get the Liberal Democrats back into discussions.

By the sound of it "discuss" roughly translates as "about to start haggling over it" rather than translating as discuss.

[afleitch]

Morgan has hinted, and strongly, that he was about to discuss changing the voting system for local elections with the LibDems just before the LibDems broke off talks.

Yes, but what does he mean by 'about to discuss'; surely it would have been brought up early on in talks with the Lib Dems? Or it wasn't on the agenda, but now is to get the Liberal Democrats back into discussions.

By the sound of it "discuss" roughly translates as "about to start haggling over it" rather than translating as discuss.

It should have been the first thing on the table; it was the Lib Dem's 'stick' up here the moment they sat down with Labour in 2003. It probably would have saved Labour needless problems. Of course it could still be an option under a 'rainbow' coalition with other parties, even the Conservatives can be converted to supporters of STV again as was the case here.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It should have been the first thing on the table; it was the Lib Dem's 'stick' up here the moment they sat down with Labour in 2003. It probably would have saved Labour needless problems.

The trouble is, the LibDems internals "difficulties" meant that there weren't any proper coalition talks involving them until quite recently (the term "talks about talks" was used quite a bit). In fact, technically, they've only just started doing things officially (up until that night, just about everything went through German and his cronies).

Just about every single aspect of the post-election situation has been a Godawful mess.
My main criticism of Morgan, btw, isn't anything he's done post-election (yeah, maybe he's opened his big mouth a few times too often, but he's always done that. He wouldn't even be Labour leader were it not for that...) but that he doesn't seem to have prepared things during the campaign, even though he knew that Labour wasn't going to win a majority (o/c the fact that he was probably going to resign if Labour took less than 25 seats (which would have happend were it not for the gain of Wrexham and the three (or was it more than that?) recounts in the Vale) might be a factor here). He seems to have assumed that Labour winning the election, combined with the likely electoral price Plaid and/or the LibDems would pay for dealing with the Tories, would have been enough.

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Oh, they'll probably do it (or at least try to), yes. But I wouldn't have thought they'd be able to change things in time for the local elections next year (which, right now, look like they could be awful for both Plaid and the LibDems).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Peter Black (who thinks that the LibDems should stay in opposition) is claiming that opposition to a coalition with the Tories and Plaid is growing within the party.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Noticed something interesting.

In the last General Election, Labour polled 594,821 votes, the Tories 297,830, the LibDems 256,249, Plaid 174,838, UKIP 20,297 and various Indies 28,888.

In this years Assembly election, Labour polled 314,925, Plaid 219,121, the Tories 218,730, the LibDems 144,450, UKIP 18,047 and various Indies 57,591.

Turnout in the General Election was 62% (1,392,719), while in the Assembly election it was 44% (978,132).

Or to put it another way; 47% (!) of Labour's General Election vote didn't vote for the party in this year's elections. Even if we assume that all the increase in Plaid's vote came from people who voted Labour in 2005 (which is unlikely, but let's ignore that) and that the same is true of the Indies (yeah, a very high percentage of these voters are most likely normally Labour) the figure is still extremely high... over 200,000 votes in all, accounting for over a third of Labour's vote in the General Election and about half (!) of the turnout difference between the two elections (it's even worse if you don't make these assumptions... we're talking of two thirds of the difference here...)

(oh, and for the record in 2003 only 340,535 Labour voters turned up at the polls. The reason for the popular vote shifts this election isn't a true swing from Labour to the other parties, but a rise in turnout for the other parties, combined with a loss of Labour votes to some Independent candidates).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Three Deputy First Ministers? What's that for? It would seem that (at least officially) the point of having a deputy prime minister is knowing who'll chair cabinet meetings when the Prime Minister is on vacation, or has just keeled over from a massive f**king coronary on the way to the meeting. Which doesn't really work out if you've got several, unless one of them is the First Deputy First Minister.

Unless IWJ is even more scared of Helen Mary Jones than we all thought, it'll only be two. Which is bad enough. And it's all about ego, obviously.

Rumour is that there will indeed be two Deputy First Ministers, although apparently German's title be something like Assistant Deputy First Minister...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'm a little irritated that constituency level figures for the regional vote don't seem to have been published on the interwebs yet.

Anyways, if you add the SLP and CPB totals to the Labour regional vote you get 31.2% (just 1% off the constituency %). Interesting or not? (the SLP quite blatently targetted Labour voters for their regional votes, and I think the CPB did as well).

[afleitch]

Probably best not to play around with figures too much. I'm not a fan of'stay at home' conclusions as I find it slightly delusional to believe that half the country naturally supports Labour but most of them stay at home ergo 'thats why Labour got x result' at every election.

It was at it's worst when during the last two general elections, Labour head office bigwigs claimed people didn't vote because they liked things so much. Actually no it was it's worst after last years May locals when the official explanation was 'people like Tony, are angry and want him to stay' or something along those lines.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Probably best not to play around with figures too much. I'm not a fan of'stay at home' conclusions as I find it slightly delusional to believe that half the country naturally supports Labour but most of them stay at home ergo 'thats why Labour got x result' at every election.

But I'm not playing around with the figures too much (I'm playing around with them a little bit, obviously. But what's wrong with doing that?) nor am I trying to put a stupidly optimistic gloss on things (in fact, from my point of view, what I'm saying isn't actually optimistic at all), I'm not even making assumptions about what the results would have looked like if everyone had voted.
I'm just making the point that Welsh Labour's ability to turn out it's voters in Assembly elections is awful.

[Harry Hayfield]

I can give you Ceredigion's constituency and regional list votes and Carmarthen East's and Llanelli's tomorrow (as I am going to Carmarthenshire County Council) but all the rest will involve phone calls to the other 20 councils!

Ceredigion Constituency 2007: Plaid 14,818 Lib Dem 10,863 Con 2,369 Lab 1,530 Ind 528

Ceredigion Regional 2007: Plaid 12,488 Lib Dem 7,769 Con 3,753 Lab 2,348 Green 1,394 UKIP 663 BNP 550 SLP 210 WCP 206 Ind 202 Ind 128 CPB 93 Veritas 79 CPA 58

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I can give you Ceredigion's constituency and regional list votes and Carmarthen East's and Llanelli's tomorrow (as I am going to Carmarthenshire County Council)

Thanks

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Yeah, but it shouldn't though. Last time round the electoral commision stuck the results up on their website. O/c maybe it'd be an idea to email them about it or something. Yeah, I'll do that when I remember too.

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Thanks

[afleitch]

I'm just making the point that Welsh Labour's ability to turn out it's voters in Assembly elections is awful.

But I'm sure it's not the only party that suffers   The only way to increase turnout is to empower the Assembly with more powers to make it more...'worthwhile' going out to vote. The age of 70%+ turnouts is pretty much dead but you have to get above 50% which we managed to do after falling below 50% last time round.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

But I'm sure it's not the only party that suffers

Well no... of course not. The LibDems had the same sort of serious problem this election. But I'm not as interested in them

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Giving the Assembly more powers might help, yes (and maybe a referendum on new powers who get people more interested even if it goes down to defeat; as it might well do), but, at least as far as my own pet concern goes, it's not really the root of the problem (much of which is organisational, in a broad sense of the term, but there's a lot of other stuff contributing as well).

[afleitch]

Is there support for wider and greater Assembly powers in Wales? The main issue in Scotland appears to be full fiscal autonomy, which with the SNP less likely to go for an independence referendum may pick up speed.

I've never heard a rational explanation for why Wales should not have similar powers to Scotland (barring the civil service issue). Then again I'm a believer in 'federate to survive' politics

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Going back the post-election fiasco, Labour sent Plaid a deal earlier today, though there's no real chance of IWJ accepting it. What we'll see instead is a rejection, followed by IWJ complaining that Labour weren't co-operative enough and that, tragically, he will now be "forced" to press ahead with the rainbow rubbish (or words to that effect).

He sort of gave the game away the other day, btw, when he mentioned that a sticking point between Labour and Plaid was the referendum issue... but that the problem wasn't whether or not to hold a referendum but the timing of one.
Right now Plaid are look for excuses to sell to their voters for what would be a pretty impressive betrayal of the Welsh Nationalist tradition (and even more so of that part of the older Welsh Radical tradition that Plaid have inherited).

Before entering politics, IWJ was a lawyer.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Is there support for wider and greater Assembly powers in Wales?

Some support (from Plaid voters and also a large share of Labour voters; ie the electoral coalition that won the '97 referendum), yes. And I suspect that shallower support exists within the other parties these days.
Winning a referendum would be hard though, and impossible without official Labour support (due to the fact that, on this sort of issue, the party straddles the fault line... and has done for ages, even going back to Griffiths v Bevan and all that).

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Ah; so more autonomy, but keeping the other (more symbolic and so on) links?

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There isn't a rational reason as such... a lot of it is because of the language issue.