Welsh Elections 1832 - 2005

[Cubby]

Good Work Harry!

Is the 1945 map solid red?

I see the 1979 and 1983 election fiascos affected Wales as well. I guess no place in the U.K. was safe from that vicious woman.

[Cubby]

Is the 1945 map solid red?

No; even in 1945 the Liberals held onto most of their rural seats in Wales (though Goronwy Roberts took Caernarfonshire for Labour), while the Tories hung onto a few seats here and there (Monmouth for instance) while gaining Caernarfon Boroughs (David Lloyd George's old seat) from the Liberals in weirdly close three-way fight.

What made the rural seats in the center of Wales different and not prone to voting Labour? There's one called Montgomeryshire on that map that according to Wikipedia has been Liberal/Lib Dem/Whig for "centuries"!

[Cubby]

What made the rural seats in the center of Wales different and not prone to voting Labour? There's one called Montgomeryshire on that map that according to Wikipedia has been Liberal/Lib Dem/Whig for "centuries"!

As for Montgomery; Labour didn't exactly have a good start for the reasons above, but also because of the landlord factor (as late as the '30's Labour literature in places like Montgomery would include a line informing voters that the ballot was secret).

So much for traditional English liberty

Tell me more about this landlord factor, please.

[Cubby]

Tell me more about this landlord factor, please.

What's there to tell? Tyrannical landlords are much the same World over; back in the early 20th century (and the 19th century, obviously) most of the people working in agriculture were either tenant farmers or agricultural labourers, they often lived in tied cottages (ie; tied to their landlord and to their occupation. Lose your job, lose your home) and their employers/owners would use this fact as a form of blackmail to get them to vote for their (ie; the landlords) candidate; vote against the landlord's candidate, lose your home (this happend in Wales a lot during the years in which the Liberal party (which in Wales got much of it's early strength from it's opposition to landlords and landlordism) first started to sweep all before it).

Well that situation is very different from the American South, where the white tenant farmers and landlords all voted for the same party without coercion due to animosity over the Civil War (War of the Northern Aggression as they called it) and half the population in some places (i.e. the black sharecroppers/tenant farmers) weren't allowed to vote at all until 1964/68.) This continues in the South today, voting is based on race, not class. But you know this so I'll shut up now.

By the way, most of what I know about Wales I learned from the movie and book How Green was my Valley which is one of my favorite films, and I'm glad it won Best Picture over the boring and over-rated Citizen Kane. This is partly why I'm asking a lot about Wales.

[Cubby]

You are aware that "How Green was my Valley" was actually written by an Englishman are you?

No, I had no idea.