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Senedd shake-up: what happens if Welsh Labour lose their majority? – politicalbetting.com
Senedd shake-up: what happens if Welsh Labour lose their majority? – politicalbetting.com
Elections: remember them? For most of the country, they’ve become a distant memory. Aside from a handful of council by-elections in Scotland in the autumn, there’s been nothing for ten months. They are, however, due to return with a vengeance in May with elections for some or all of 149 English councils, plus 13 mayors (including London and all the large combined-authorities), 40 Police & Crime Commissioners, the London Assembly, Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd.
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Interesting lead
That’s interesting. I wasn’t really paying attention to politics around that time as I was too busy with work, but I reckon the SNP were always likely to win in 2011 (though not necessarily a majority). I think the only reason Labour hung on to their Scottish seats at Westminster in 2010 was Gordon Brown.
Just to add, the bigger risk for the Tories is being seen to support a nationalist party. It could hurt them future elections in both Wales and Scotland.
A pilot friend of mine is fond of telling me that these are merely numbers on a clock face. I find it quite helpful when I occasionally wake at 3 am. If I reach 5 am then it's a good night's sleep.
Oh and good morning
Ugh.
Hopefully a reminder to the bookies to get some more markets up on the local elections, if they are indeed going ahead as planned. Betfair only has London Mayor up at the moment.
F1: Ladbrokes' odds are unchanged, but Betfair's have Bottas down to 8 and Russell 9 for the title. Sadly lays aren't close, 14.5 and 20 respectively otherwise I'd be tempted to hedge bets made already.
Testing is about six weeks away with the first race a week or two after that. Every other driver was confirmed weeks if not months ago. I do expect Hamilton to re-sign but it's peculiar it's taking so long.
Is there much of a cleavage between Plaid in the Senedd, and Plaid in Westminster?
If so, I would see rather less prospect of a Plaid-Tory administration.
They seem to be somewhat so-aligned in the Commons.
And Good Morning everyone. Cold day forecast, with the possibility of snow.
Depends whether I am washing the front or the back.
Rainfall shower? My coiffure is too splendiferous.
O/t one of the reasons I'm increasingly feeling that the tories will win outright next time is that Labour are merely bimbling and bumbling. There's nothing exciting to report in Labour's polling. They should be miles ahead. They aren't.
Labour are recovering from a severe case of Corbyn, and are polling decently. I think lots of people are giving the Government some benefit of the doubt over errors due to the rare nature of the situation, and because the vaccine rollout is currently going well.
Supplies will soon be a little harder to come by and the media will doubtlessly be wetting themselves over slowing rates, and the Conservatives face the fact that the PM is a complete bloody fool. Not to mention problems with the withdrawal agreement, and then the deal with the EU. And incoming fiscal problems (not the Conservatives' fault, of course, but their responsibility and they will be blamed for spending cuts and tax rises).
Sir Keir seems a decent person but he's no Tony Blair. Perhaps after the turmoil we will want a steady Joe type. A John Smith. A lawyer. A branch bank manager. Very competent and safe, I'm sure.
And I only wish to demure on one point. I have been very critical of Boris Johnson. A large part of me loathes him. However, I don't believe a 'complete bloody fool' would have pre-ordered in bulk from multiple vaccine developers, backed the UK one to the hilt, and begun rolling out one of the world's most successful vaccination programmes. We must give credit where it's due. The Conservative Government have made a stellar success story of vaccination. Incidentally, I'm not convinced that the UK will be particularly affected by supply issues either. We're not subject to the European AZ factory issue with Novasep.
And it's incredible to me that the EU STILL hasn't authorised the Astra-Zeneca vaccine.
Are Plaid Cymru essentially left-wing party? One of the strengths of the SNP was that it actually played to both left and right, although Sturgeon has moved it toward the left.
One notable thing is the high share for Abolish the Assembly and Reform U.K. That makes 11% in total for the hard right, which is presumably a drag on the Tory vote.
On vaccine: I would argue this is a stopped clock telling the right time. Boris Johnson is a cash-splurging simpleton. It just so happens that splurging cash on the vaccine was 100% the right thing to do, and any higher costs (the EU has cheaper vaccines) are more than made up for by economic savings by achieving positive healthcare results.
I agree on Sir Keir. He's boring. But a grown-up. I'd take him over the incumbent. Right now, I'm very unlikely to vote Conservative if the PM isn't changed pre-election. Not persuaded to vote for Labour, as yet, not least because of the forthcoming devolution policy which I suspect will be carving England into pieces.
Mr. B2, I think my previous dog was a puppy at that time. Despite being short-haired and having no fur at all on some of his undercarriage he didn't seem to care being belly-deep in the garden snow (this was when he was too young to go for walks because he hadn't had all his shots).
https://twitter.com/ProfJDChalmers/status/1352761005726715904?s=19
You do know that Britain (England) is one of the most centralised countries on Earth?
In the current political climate, with challenges in NI and, in particular, with the Scottish elections and independence, I don't think the Tories can afford to be seen to put another lot of nationalists in power, still less support them.
My best guess is a weak Labour minority with both PC and the Tories calling the shots, and uniting where required, to direct and rein them in.
Other additional member systems like Germany's and New Zealand's have a 50/50 divide, thereby making it impossible to sneak a majority on just the constituency seats. Scotland's system is also imbalanced with 57% constituency seats, but not as bad as Wales.
It doesn’t need another tier of ‘regions’ in the middle, with another layer of politicians, officials and other hangers-on funded by taxpayers, and with most of their powers coming up rather than down.
The issue is the powers rather than the structures.
(I think the other big mistake was not to open the schools first and assess the impact of that before opening anything else. And of course EOTHO.)
I couldn't believe the massive gamble she was taking. And it gets basically zero comment these days.
It's a stock manifesto promise which no one cares about when they win, that Whitehall wont like, and the public dont care enough to force it to happen.
NZ has more constituency seats (it’s about 60/40 I think), but the point is that the list seats are allocated in order to reach complete proportionality of each party in Parliament..
Therefore, the list (or party) vote is only one which really matters. Parliament is composed precisely according to the percentage each party achieves in that vote.
I understand it works the same way in Germany.
After 25 years, I believe the NZ system works very well. I still have reservations about the accountability of list MPs, but overall I feel that all opinions in multi-racial, multi-cultural NZ are able to gain representation and work out their various compromises with each other in Parliament.
The problem with the Welsh (and to a lesser extent the Scottish) systems is that they are a kind of pretend PR with an inbuilt lever to push even more seats toward the dominant party.
As Foxy points out upthread this works well for Labour - until it suddenly doesn’t.
It's "...with whom you are showering".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTv5ckMe_2M
It appears to be one of your manias, presumably contracted from reading Telegraph leader in about 2003, and now perhaps a terminal case.
And how dare you suggest my fascinating and unique collection of personal characteristics are some sort of second hand impression left from a media organ?!
*slaps GardenWalker across the face with a large haddock*
Look at a map of English local authorities.
Then look at a map of English health authorities.
Now a map of English police forces.
Now a map of “functional economic geographies” (if you can find one).
It’s an utter mish-mash. A dog’s mess of Dickensian satraps and rotten boroughs.
Which suits the mandarin in Whitehall very well, but is anathema to democracy and accountability.
I can see why doing something that contrived would piss a lot of English people off.
If they did it along the lines of ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and/or historic counties, and still had a mechanism for taking an all-England view at federal level, it might just work I suppose.
They STILL haven't approved the AZ vaccine which is, frankly, ridiculous and their rollout is a complete shambles.
Yet I read the Saturday Telegraph. It's very good.
By that point an awful lot of people will be vaccinated and restrictions probably less so people may be feeling more positive generally, but we'll also be on something like 130000 deaths. Political arguments about it will be inevitable, but I'm uncertain how hard those campaigning will feel best to be on the subject.
#easyjokes
The Welsh and Scottish systems don't do that, and they add to the disproportionality by dividing list seats by region, which means you can still win additional list seats in some regions even if the constituency seats overall already give you more than a proportional share.
"This I must say was in stark contrast to the Labour Party and Keir Starmer who took every opportunity to attack the heroic work of our Vaccine Taskforce.
Arguing that the UK should have joined the EU scheme – a policy which would have seen millions fewer of our most vulnerable protected as of today."
Obviously it is shocking that SKS didn't order a single dose of vaccine but I must have missed the last bit. Did he really say that? I don't think so.
I don't find that cartoon either clever or particularly funny. It's very 'meh'.
All this tells us is what preoccupies YouGov. At least it's not getting worse. But it's not in a good place.
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However, because of the system I expect they may have to govern subject to agreement, and I do expect close cooperation with Plaid and the Conservatives, indeed as things are just now in Wales I would rather have a Plaid FM than a Labour one
And my wife and I get get our vaccinations this afternoon, that is if the road over the Little Orme is open following snow and multiple crashes with a bus and other vehicles earlier
https://twitter.com/robpowellnews/status/1352897074635935745
https://twitter.com/robpowellnews/status/1352898265541451776
He is going back and the paperwork will be dealt with when he arrives in the same room as Toto- which I suspect will be just prior to testing given the current travel restrictions.
Of course, they totally ignore the EU shambles on the vaccine and the UK's stellar rollout which for the next 2 years matters far more than a few rotting haddock.
Seemed to be under the impression that UK government would just hand farmers money without any forms.
Deluded doesn't come close.
Then your other posts could be seen as more balanced as you are able to criticise the EU when they get things wrong, otherwise it is more than reasonable to conclude that you are simply an anti brexit obsessive with no balance and your postings are just tedious
There might be some token easing (e.g. primary schools, gyms, hairdressers) once all the vulnerable and over 50s have been jabbed, but I don't think we're getting properly out of house arrest until the entire adult population's done. I'm certainly not making plans for Summer holidays because they ain't happening, at home as well as abroad. Beyond that, social distancing in some form is going to be with us for at least a year, and we may never be completely rid of it. This is going to be a very long, painful, dispiriting slog, make no mistake.
An interesting thread, but a few comments.
1) The Liberal Democrats are very unlikely to win any seats. With Kirsty Williams retiring Brecon and Radnor will be very hard to defend, and they have so little strength left elsewhere they won’t get any on the lists. I am expecting Plaid, the Tories and Labour to lock out all 60.
2) Because of the corrupt electoral system, Labour should win most seats, but given at recent elections the Tories have been running them unexpectedly close in every seat outside the core Valleys and Cardiff, that isn’t a certainty. Equally, the point about campaigning may come into play here. Abject as Price is, he is likely to prove more effective than Drakeford and Davies (who is currently also having to explain why he was in effect visiting the pub during lockdown). That may help Plaid, but I doubt if it will help them enough to come second.
3) Whoever wins, unless the Tories win at least 29 seats the new government will be some hybrid involving Labour and Plaid, because as David notes, no other permutation makes sense. This is bad news for Wales as Labour are a totally shite government and unfit to clean the public toilets in Cathays Park.
Finally some people have been asking about Plaid - it’s much easier if you think of it as a political movement with some of the structures of a party, like the Greens, rather than as a wannabe party with a highly centralised command structure and unified agenda like the ScotsNats. So it doesn’t ‘want’ anything in specific as a whole - rather, it feels Wales and the Welsh language have a raw deal and need a better one.