Scotland/Wales 2007

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Might as well start a thread now

As a (very) brief intro...

In 2007, Scotland will hold elections for the Scottish Parliament, while Wales will hold elections for the National Assembly. Elections are done by a mix of fptp (which is the case for most of the seats) and regional "top up" lists (designed to make the elected bodies more proportional).
Scotland is currently governed by an (increasingly fractious) Labour/LibDem coalition, while Wales is ruled by a minority (sort of) Labour government (a certain Peter Trish Law currently sits as an Independent Labour AM. When he votes with his old party, they have a majority, when he doesn't they don't).

I've made some maps of the 2003 elections. Wales is already finished...

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...and here be Scotland...

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I really have very little idea, but why should that stop me making a suggestion?!

Nothing

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Very unlikely; Labour have been doing (relatively speaking) much better in Wales than most other regions over the past few years (Euros, Locals and the General Election last year) and Morgan is still pretty popular (hey maybe he can get Ruddock to run for something ). An amusing feature of the electoral system used (for now at least; rumours are always around of changes) is that Labour didn't win a single top up seat (because they cleaned up so well with constituency seats) meaning that even if they lose a few constituencies (the most vunerable is Cardiff North IMO) they'll pick up a couple of top up seats. The main question is whether they can regain/hold onto (depends how you look at it) their majority; that's very uncertain. Marek is a dead man walking in Wrexham though
It's uncertain how well the Tories will do; as of now it's unlikely that they can repeat the narrow gain of Preseli Pembrokeshire (it's not going be an open seat and their best possible candidate got himself elected to Westminster by a squeaker last May) and Clywd West is questionable (again it was very close last May and the Labour AM is pretty popular, despite being from South Wales originally)... but at the same time Cardiff North will be much easier going (Mrs Morgan won't be Labour's candidate after all) and to be honest they really should be able to pick it up. Vale of Glamorgan is possible, but like most socially mixed seats it'll depend on the turnout (ie; if Barry can outvote the commuter villages). The Tories would probably gain Brecon & Radnorshire if Labour runs a strong candidate (tactical voting is rampant over there. The old pre-83 seat would be Labour o/c) but I suspect the local Labour party will do what they did for Westminster.
Plaid are still in trouble; with the new boundaries (and I'm pretty sure these'll be used) they'll have a fight on their hands in Caernarfon, and Ynys Môn isn't exactly safe. Ceredigion is unlikely to do what it did last May, but they're still worried about it, while Carmarthen East & Dinefwr is *very* vunerable (the AM is an absolute waste of space and won't have the Godsend of the death of a popular former M.P just before polling day), but the strange flipside of that is that they might be able to gain Carmarthen West & Pembrokeshire South if they run the same candidate as last election.
Llanelli is unlikely to flip back, ditto Conwy, although they'll try hard in both cases. There's also a possibility that Lord Elis-Thomas might run as an Independent if he loses his nomination fight (which is pretty soon IIRC). If he does Plaid loses the seat, period.
Finally there's the Peter Law question; which will remain unanswered for a long time I think.

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Yeah, they seem to be gonners. Not sure about Sheridan though.

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The SNP are in trouble at the moment (they should have won three by-elections over the past half a year or so after all...) and I don't think that matters are helped by the fact that Salmond isn't running in a safe SNP seat; he's running in Gordon (SNP third last time round), something that is sure to suck up a lot of resources that could have been spent on nearby SNP marginals like Inverness East - Nairn & Lochaber and Aberdeen North. If he wins it'll come at a price I think.
In the Central Belt the SNP *should* gain Cumbernald and also Glasgow "Govan" fairly easily; but that was the case last election as well and they didn't (especially amusing in Govan o/c). There's a couple of other seats (to the west of Glasgow) where they should at least come close, but that's not certain IMO (well... not unless they get their act together sharpish).
Most interesting seat in Scotland might be Tweeddale & etc etc seat; a near perfect four-way marginal last election

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...and this is where things could get very interesting. If the LibDems do well, they might end up demanding too much and getting nowt in return, especially if the Greenies (who, interestingly enough, finished in 1st place in Edinburgh Central on the list vote. Came close in Edinburgh North & Leith as well) do well as well... as I think they will...

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This whole row could hurt the Tories a lot in Pembrokeshire: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4721496.stm

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Wait a sec... isn't this the same guy that was forced to resign over similer remarks in 2003?

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Comedy turnout?

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Comedy turnout?

1562 valid votes cast. I couldn't get turnout figures but the ward.

Ah well... will probably be in this mornings PA report then.

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Al, what's that insanely Conservative pocket in S. Wales?

Monmouth. Rural, not poor, 100% English speaking ... the surprising thing is that it was held by Labour at Westminster from 97 to 05, not that it's AM is Tory.

Pretty much (although 6.8% of the population can speak Welsh up to a reasonable degree; second lowest in the country. Beaten only by Blaenau Gwent; which o/c is also in Monmouthshire. Constituency with the highest % is, by far, Caernarfon at 69.5%. Monmouth also has the highest % of people who can neither speak, read or write Welsh; 87.2%. When you bear in mind how commuter (and as such, businessmen) dominated Monmouth is... most of that 6.8% probably only learned for business purposes and aren't exactly fluent. It's certainly not a language spoken at home in the constituency). Not sure how rural it really is these days; it certainly has a large rural element, but it's basically Cardiff commuterland nowadays (with the usual sad sight of old market towns becoming dormitary towns), something that made Labour's by-election win in '90 all the more shocking (nowt shocking about the subsequent Tory regain in '92 o/c) and the Labour wins in the '97 and '01 elections equally suprising. It's not the sort of place that would even think of voting Labour in England; actually if it were English, Labour would likely be third. Before then it'd only gone Labour once since it's creation; in 1966 (which may have had more to do with a desire to kick out the very rightwing ex-Cabinet minister, Peter Thorneycroft, than anything else. Interestingly the victorious Labour candidate was a man from Swansea called Donald Anderson...)
The AM was also elected M.P in 2005; I'm not sure if he's going to stand again. If he retires the Tory majority should sink down towards saner levels (say, 15% to 20%).

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I sense a story. What is it that I should know about Donald Anderson?

Donald Anderson is one of two reasons why, until 2005, Swansea hadn't had a new M.P since 1974
He was the chairman of the Foreign Affair select committee for a while, and as such had quite a high profile in his last few years as an M.P.

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True; I have a *lot* of trouble believing that 8% of people in Cardiff are fluent Welsh speakers for example... Welsh is just not something you hear people speaking in an everyday way east of Neath.

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I've not checked that, but somehow it fails to suprise me

Amusingly the wards with the highest % of fluent Welsh speakers (according to the census) are very much trendy-lefty middle class suburban wards (Pentyrch, Creigiau/St Fagans, Llandaff...)

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Can I have one of those icons with the map of Wales please?

If you mean what I *think* you mean (and if there's any confused it'd be my fault) then...

This is the key for % majority for Indepedent candidates...

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You might like to know that Plaid Cymru have today announced a new logo. Gone is the green triban (with the three mountain peaks) and in comes a yellow poppy (as described by BBC Wales)

I'm speechless... the triban was actually a good little logo... this is just a load of PR b*ll*cks... another sign of Plaid losing touch with their roots methinks...

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Apparently so...

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No Comment

In other Nat related news, Mr (er... Lord...) Presiding Officer won his nomination fight the other day. One less worry for Plaid.

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Apparently the Dishonourable Member for Carpet Bag and Leotard is going to run for one of the PR topup seats.

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Dundee was his old stomping ground when a councillor and has a recent tendency to back mavericks

Recent? What about the guy that beat Churchill? (I forget the name... a Labour guy running as a Prohibitionist... began with an "s"...)

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As most of you should know, the new Welsh Assembly building or 'Senedd' was officially opened today. Very nice it is too

Indeed. Nice line by Morgan:

"Well, for me, it's because if we here follow too closely the traditions of the original senate of ancient Rome, it means that at some point, I get to be stabbed in the back by men wearing sandals."

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I still don't think it should have been built in Cardiff. The capital of the principality is Caernarffon dammit. Owain Glyn Dwr's "Parliament" sat in Machynlleth. And the Council for Wales was in Ludlow.

Capital of Wales has been Cardiff since the '50's; it was quite a controversial decision at the time. Some of the strongest opposition actually came from the Valleys M.P's (including Nye Bevan).
As for Caernarfon... it's too remote from the rest of Wales to make much sense really. Machynlleth is a lovely little town (which I visit quite a lot, btw) but would be completely ruined by the addition of all the bureaucrats needed to run a Parliament... unless you were to build a new town for bureaucrats a few miles up or down the Dovey/Dyfi. Still it could do with an economic boost (have you seen the unemployment figures for it? Ouch) and should certainly be removed from Powys as soon as possible... and Ludlow is kinda impossible for several other reasons
That said... I do think that some form of elected authority for the old Marches would be nice... (and entirely logical around Oswestry).

Personally I think they should have built it in Pontypridd or Caerphilly. Heh... maybe even Merthyr?

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1983, 1979... and after then I'm not sure... I have a feeling that it might be in the 18th century...

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I lived in Machynlleth TWICE (1982 - 1985 and 1993 - 1998)

Nice little place isn't it? There's a sign or something (I can't remember exactly what right now) to do with it on the right hand side of the main road in from the east IIRC.

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Hmm... Gravesham (and it's predecessor, sort of, seat Gravesend) had voted the right way since 1918 (with a few exceptions in the '20's IIRC. And maybe one in the '50's as well) up until 2005 (apparently paranoia about Gypsies was the main cause of the stronger swing than the rest of North Kent, btw). Bury North (ex-Bury & Radcliffe) has voted for the winner of the popular vote every election since 1955 with the exception of 1979, a seat called Bolton West has done the same since 1964 (although the current Bolton West is quite different to the old Bolton West). Hmm... o/c technically several seats created in '97 would qualifiy (including the post-97 Wrekin seat) but that's probably not the answer you're looking for...

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Will someone PLEASE explain what the heck "IIRC" means?

If I Recall Correctly

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Um... hasn't it occured to them that openly joining up with a bunch of seperatists would be electorally lethal in most of the rest of the U.K?

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Margaret Ewing the SNP MSP for Moray (and former M.P for the old East Dunbartonshire (based around Cumbernauld) and also Moray a few years later) has died of cancer. She was 60.

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It means that there will be a Scottish Parliamentary by-election for Moray.

Yes; I'll just set the thread up for that now...

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Non-partisan politics has ended in Powys; there are now four groups on the council. LibDems (18 seats), Labour (4 seats), Montgomeryshire Independents (28 seats) and another group of Independents expected to have 21 members.

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Yep, the last council not to have a party grouping system has a party grouping system

Were it not for the fact that I lived for quite a few years in a local authority controlled by "Independents" I would almost think of this as a sad thing... but I have, so I don't...

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Maybe the council will now say which party holds which wards? I know Labour hold most of the Valley's wards north of Neath (and what idiot thought it a good idea to have them in the same local authority, well, the rest of Powys?) and I'm pretty sure Crickhowell is LibDem... I think they also do well in Newtown? I'm pretty sure the Tories used to hold the Dolforwyn ward, but lost it.

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The leader of Ceredigion County Council (for a decade; the longest in Wales) is resigning.
According to le Beeb he'd bbeen a councilelr for 45 yeasr

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Private polling stuff leaked to the Sunday Times...

Constituency: Lab 30%, SNP 29%, Lib 19%, Con 15%
Regional: Lab 27%, SNP 26%, Lib 21%, Con 14%

Take with the usual salt mine (ie; it's a leaked private poll in a Sunday paper. Also note that polls have historically exaggerated SNP support for some reason).

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What doth thee make of the almost complete apparent demise of the SSP in recent days?