Devolved Leadership Elections

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I just liked the idea of the title.

Anyways, in the aftermath of the devolved elections in Scotland and Wales there will be many leadership elections...

*Scottish Labour (resignation of Gray following an electoral campaign that was significantly more incompetent than 1983).

*Scottish Tories (resignation of Goldie following a failure to stop the bleeding)

*Scottish LibDems (resignation of Scott following the Armageddon)

*Welsh Tories (defeat of Bourne as a result of his inability to calculate basic odds)

*Plaid Cymru (future resignation of IWJ following the Plaid's worst result in the history of the National Assembly)

...and, frankly, most of these would get no attention on their own.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

NotHarris for Leader!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Any left-wingers?

Lamont would be the most leftish of the candidates, unless I'm misremembering things greatly.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Anas Sarwar will get the deputyship if the Glasgow party machine get's it's way.

Glasgow does have one of the larger concentrations of Party members in Scotland, and not just because it's also the largest city (even if the two eastern CLPs have fairly small memberships).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The same basic system is used for devolved Labour leadership elections, yeah. Of course they've just changed a lot of things to do with the organisation of the Scottish Party, though I don't remember this being one of them.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Interesting result, that's for sure.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I would suggest that this particular chain of discussion ought to be continued elsewhere, if it is to be continued at all.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Unite and Unison follow GMB in recommeding Lamont/Davidson duo while Community backs Macintosh for Leader and Sarwar for Deputy

That would make Lamont a pretty clear favourite on paper. Also quite a turn-around; I think Unite backed Gray in 2008.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That makes Lamont a very clear favourite on paper, though an upset win for Macintosh would still be possible if he can win the members vote heavily (maybe his lead with councillors shows some potential for that kind of thing). The Deputy election looks fun; Sarwar's impressive councillor and CLP hauls looks good for a strong showing with the membership, but Davidson has all but one of the affiliates that matter. I think Harris and MacDonald can probably be ruled out in their respective races.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Lamont is pretty firmly associated with the Left, even if she isn't popular in all sections of it. Have a look at the stuff on nominations (and the link as well) posted by Andrea earlier; the patterns are pretty telling.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Voting has started in the Plaid leadership election - result in the middle of March. There are three candidates, and here are three brief and extremely biased profiles:

Lord Elis-Thomas (aka Dafydd Elis Thomas, aka Dafydd El) - AM for Dwyfor Meirionnydd. Dafydd-El has been around for ever and a day; he was the MP for Meirionnydd from 1974 until 1992, led Plaid from 1984 until 1991, has been an AM since 1999, a member of the House of Lords since 1992, was the Assembly's Presiding Officer from 1999 until 2011. A fully-paid up member of what passes for the Welsh Establishment (he is the President - that is Chancellor - of Bangor University and is on the Governing Body of the Church in Wales and served on more quangos than probably even he can remember), Dafydd El used to call himself a Marxist and led the left faction of Plaid in the party's semi-civil war in the 1980s. He is also 66. He hasn't attracted much institutional support, but is the only candidate with serious name recognition.

Elin Jones - AM for Ceredigion. The choice of (most of) the party establishment and backed by a majority of Plaid AMs. She was the Rural Affairs minister in the Labour/Plaid coalition and does not like badgers much. Has had a couple of party posts in the past. Pretty dull.

Leanne Wood - AM for the South Wales Central list since 2003. The candidate of the left of the party, but has attracted a surprising amount of establishment support along the way (including Dafydd Iwan). Loves to be seen as a radical and occasionally goes in for publicity stunts to prove this (much like Dafydd El a few decades back). Quite how she manages to square this with the campaign that she ran against Chris Bryant in 2001 (which some people consider to have been both homophobic and xenophobic) is uncertain, but I'm sure some excuses can be found if the issue (which has been politely forgotten by most) is raised.

Simon Thomas, who was the MP for Ceredigion until he lost his seat in 2005, was also a candidate. But he sent everyone to sleep and so pulled out endorsed Jones.

At a guess the election is wide open. Wood has had most of the positive buzz, but has some serious structural disadvantages (Plaid membership being concentrated in North and West Wales). Jones has the lions share of institutional and establishment support, but she's dull. Dafydd El isn't just yesterdays man, he's last week's man, but is very well known (and very well liked) amongst ordinary Plaid members.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

BBC reports that Wood has won.