Senedd Cymru (Welsh Parliament) election, 6 May 2021

[IceAgeComing]

The key difference is that the elections were totally different: in England it was local elections that are broadly (although not exclusively; local factors do play a role and more of one than people think sometimes) judgements on the performance of the Westminster government and that is the impact.  Elections for the Devolved Parliaments are elections fought on their own turf: and in Wales it was Labour that had the pandemic record to fight on and Labour that likely benefitted from any pandemic-related boost which would have gone to the Tories in England.  Are there things that they could benefit from looking at?  I imagine so but the fact that an incumbent government increased its number of seats at a time which is clearly very good for incumbent governments that have been perceived to have handled the pandemic fairly well (which is a global trend) is a factor that needs to be considered as a major factor.  I suspect that if this was a General Election we'd be looking at some different results.

Also Vale of Clwyd is not a "Red Wall" seat: its a historic marginal and would have been for decades.  Its why the Tories gaining it was not surprising: its a place they always work on.

The apparent underperformance of the trio of anti-Senedd right-wing parties (AWA, Reform, UKIP) is notable especially the first two.  I thought that the likely scenario would be that they'd split the votes to the point where none would get in but the fact is that even if you combined the three (which wouldn't be how things would go) they probably wouldn't get into the Parliament: quite clearly there's no appetite for the elimination of devolution.  That's clearly helped Labour since its gained them a couple of list seats and going from 28 to 30 is significant since it makes their life a lot easier - they can go as a single party government pretty easily since they can probably always find someone to go with them on a certain issue.  Its also saved the Liberal Democrats from extinction and they probably don't mind this situation since it gives them the balance of power.  Looking at the regions yet to declare they'll stay on 30: would be shocking if they got a list seat from one of the last two regions.