Wednesday 25 May 2011

What went wrong for Plaid

Plaid Cymru are having a review of what went wrong for them in the election.  Having no particular axe to grind here are a few thoughts.

Over the years Plaid Cymru have positioned themselves as a left of centre party. Of course, this puts them in competition with the dominant ‘leftish’ Labour Party for votes. Consequently, they mop up the votes of protest when the main party of the left is unpopular. But alas, when the reverse is true they suffer a loss of votes.

Now the SNP in Scotland have never branded themselves as either right or left but “nationalist”. They’ve been branded “tartan Tories”, by Labour. But whatever label you put on them they have been an effective electoral machine.

First of all they targeted the Tory vote and swallowed up the Conservative vote in Scotland. They then moved their tanks onto the Liberal Democrats lawn and helped themselves to their votes. By so doing, they eclipsed Labour in most of the Scottish constituencies, to gain an absolute majority. A first  as no other party in the Scottish parliament has had such a majority.

Now, of course, Scotland is not Wales. But there are lessons in this approach for Plaid Cymru.

Over the years Plaid Cymru have being obsessed with attracting the Labour vote. Attacking Labour from the left has been their chosen approach. Indeed the recent Assembly election was a prime example of this strategy.

Barely a word about the Conservative/Liberal Democrat Westminster governments cuts. Cuts that most people in Wales are uncomfortably aware of. And which Labour exploited so effectively in the campaign.

No, Plaid barely mentioned these. Their campaign was almost exclusively a litany of Labour’s mistakes. OK, such a campaign might have had some merit if they had been in opposition these past four years. But the public are not idiots and found such attacks barely credible from a party that had shared the governmental bed with Labour over the last Assembly term.
Such a strategy failed from two points of view, it was not creditable and secondly it was a negative campaign. The public tend to switch off such negative campaigns.

Plaid Cymru went into the campaign with high expectations Why? They thought that there would be a dividend arising from the successful referendum on law making powers. Indeed much of their eve of election party conference was a valediction of the part they had played in the successful referendum. What was overlooked in the heady aftermath of the win was that sixty per cent of Welsh people were not bothered enough to vote. So if there was to be an electoral bonus to Plaid it would only come from the minority that bothered to vote in that referendum. To base an election strategy on such slender foundations proved to be mistake.

The resulting law making Assembly causes a more fundamental problem for the party. Now that the assembly is a real law making body many voters question whether there is now a purpose in voting for Plaid Cymru. Surely, the voter reasons, they have met their ambitions.

Clearly, a problem for them if ‘Indepedence’ is a word that none may dare call it by name. What then is the underlying philosophy of the party. How can it attract people to its banner? Where is it going as a party? What is it’s raison d’etre?

Unless it comes up with a creditable answer to these questions it’s electoral success or failure will be determined more by the ebb and flow of the political fortunes of Labour than anything they do as a party. In other words, Plaid Cymru only benefits in Labour’s lean years. A party that bases its electoral philosophy on Micawber’s philosophy that “something will turn up” is not likely to have to bright a future.

On a more practical level their one unique selling point, their plan to create 50,000 jobs with their Build for Wales company, was kept till almost the last minute of the campaign. Why? Because when the proposal was first unveiled it was subject to a withering attack by Labour in Westminster. Instead of ploughing ahead and being confident in their own work they shied away from the issue until a few dates before polling day. Result a possible vote winner not deployed effectively.

So will Plaid review of the campaign be clinical and  forensic? Only time will tell.

But the omens are not good with local constituencies already patting themselves on the back on excellent campaigns -despite losing. It’s like a football team claiming victory on the number of near misses rather than goals.

Thursday 12 May 2011

Regional List: explained



Many have asked me to explain how the regional top up works for the National Assembly. So below. I've tried to explain it. 
This will be my last blog for  a week or so, as I'm off on holidays!


Regions and Voting
There are five regions, each electing four regional AMs. This gives an additional 20 regional seats to top the 40 elected on the first past the post system based on constituencies.
A quota system invented by Belgian mathematician and lawyer Victor d'Hondt (1841 - 1901) is used for deciding the 20 regional seats.  Thus proving that there is more to Belgium than beer, chocolates and Tin Tin. 
Now back to the sums. It's all worked out on the total number of regional votes received by a party or independent candidate. These are then divided by the number of constituency seats already gained in the region +1. No, this not bad typing on my part the plus 1 is an essential part of the calculation.
Should you be a 'billy no mates' party with no constituency seats the number of votes you received in the whole of the region is divided by one. If the party has secured one constituency seat in that region then its number of votes is divided by two, if it has two seats in that region it is divided by three, and so on. Simple, ain't it. If you don't understand it now then the Welsh standards of numeracy is lower than previously thought.


So, the rule is, the more constituency seats a political party wins, the harder it is to gain any additional seats through the regional list system. Now the overall allocation of seats is more proportional to the number of votes cast.
You can check it all - below.


This is how the system operated for the 2011 Assembly elections. Whether it is the best system is a question for another day, but Lord Richards thought not. 


When asked to make a recommendation he suggested a system of Single Transferable Vote based on multi-member seats based on local authority boundaries. So that all  Assembly Members would then be chosen in the same way.
North Wales Regional List
Labour
5 Const. AMs  +1
Conservative
2 Const. AMs
+1
Plaid Cymru
2 Const. AMs +1
Lib.Democrat
0 Const. AMs
+1
UKIP
0 Const. AMs +1

62,677/6

52,201/3

41,701/3

11,507/1

9,601/1
10,446
17,400  AM
13,900
11,507
9,601
10,466
13,050
13,900  AM
11,507
9,601
10,466
13,050  AM
10,425
11,507
9,601
10,466
10,440
10,425
11,507 AM
9,601





Mark Isherwood
Conservative
Antoinette Sandbach
Conservative
Llyr Huws Gruffydd
Plaid Cymru
Aled Roberts
Liberal Democrat
Party
Votes
Percentage
Conservative
52,201
26.8
Plaid Cymru
41,701
21.4
Liberal Democrat
11,507
5.9
Labour
62,677
32.2
UKIP
9,608
4.9
Socialist Labour Party
4,895
2.5
BNP
4,785
2.5
Green
4,406
2.3
Welsh Christian Party
1,401
0.7
Independent - Weyman
1,094
0.6
Communist Party of Britain
523
0.3

South Wales West Regional List
Labour
7 Const. AMs  +1
Conservative
0 Const. AMs
+1
Plaid Cymru
0 Const. AMs +1
Lib.Democrat
0 Const. AMs
+1
UKIP
0 Const. AMs +1

71,766/8

27,457/1

21,258/1

10,683/1

6619/1
8,970
27,457  AM
21,258
10,683
6619
8,970
13,728
21,258 AM
10,683
6619
8,970
13,728 AM
10,629
10,683
6619
8,970
  9,152
10,629
10,683 AM
6619

















Suzy Davies
Conservative
Byron Davies
Conservative
Bethan Jenkins
Plaid Cymru
Peter Black
Liberal Democrat

Party
Votes
Percentage
Conservative
27,457
17.8
Plaid Cymru
21,258
13.8
Liberal Democrat
10,683
6.9
Labour
71,766
46.9
UKIP
6,619
4.3
Socialist Labour Party
5,057
3.3
BNP
4,714
3.1
Green
3,952
2.6
Welsh Christian Party
1,602
1.0
Trade Unionist & Socialist against cuts
809
0.5
Communist Party of Britain
464
0.3

South Wales East Regional List
Labour
7 Const. AMs  +1
Conservative
1 Const. AMs
+1
Plaid Cymru
0 Const. AMs +1
Lib.Democrat
0 Const. AMs
+1
UKIP
0 Const. AMs +1

82,699/8

35,459/2

21,850/1

10,798/1

9,526/1
8,970
17,729 
21,258  AM
10,798
9,526
8,970
17,729  AM
10,925
10,798
9,526
8,970
11,819  AM
10,925
10,798
9,526
8,970
  8,864
10,925  AM
10,798
9,526

















William Graham
Conservative
Antoinette Sandbach
Conservative
Jocelyn Davies
Plaid Cymru
Lindsay Whittle
Plaid Cymru


Party
Votes
Percentage
Conservative
35,459
19.6
Plaid Cymru
21,850
12.1
Labour
82,699
45.7
Liberal Democrat
10,798
6
UKIP
9,526
5.3
BNP
6,485
3.6
Green
4,857
2.7
Socialist Labour Party
4,427
2.4
Welsh Christian Party
1,904
1.3
English Democrats
1,904
1.1
Communist Party of Britain
578
0.3
South Wales Central Regional List
Labour
8 Const. AMs  +1
Conservative
0 Const. AMs
+1
Plaid Cymru
0 Const. AMs +1
Lib.Democrat
0 Const. AMs
+1
Green
0 Const. AMs +1

22,013/9

9.780/1

6,169/1

4,468/1

2,583/1
2,445
9.780    AM
6,169
4,468
2,583
2,445
4,890 
6,169    AM
4,468
2,583
2,445
4,890  AM
3,084
4,468
2,583
2,445
3,260
3,084
4,468  AM
2,583

















Andrew RT Davies
Conservative
David Melding
Conservative
Leanne Wood
Plaid Cymru
John Dixon
Liberal Democrat


Party
Votes
Percentage
Labour
22,013
43.1
Conservative
9,780
19.2
Plaid Cymru
6,169
12.1
Liberal Democrat
4,468
 8.8
Green
2,583
 5.1
UKIP
2,465
 4.8
Socialist Labour Party
1,230
 2.4
BNP
1,098
 2.2
Communist Party of Britain
   522
 1.0
Monster Raving Loony Party
   357
 0.7
Trade Unionist & Socialist against cuts
   219
 0.4
Welsh Christian Party
  156
 0.3
Mid and West Wales Regional List
Labour
1 Const. AMs  +1
Conservative
3 Const. AMs
+1
Plaid Cymru
3 Const. AMs +1
Lib.Democrat
1 Const. AMs
+1
UKIP
0 Const. AMs +1

47,348/2

52,905/4

56,384/4

26,847/2

9,711/1
23,674  AM
13,226
14,096
13,423
9,711
15,782  AM
13,226
14,096
13,423
9,711
11,837
13,226
14,096   AM
13,423
9,711
11,837
13,226
11,276
13,423 AM
9,711





Elizabeth Joyce Watson
Labour
Rebecca Mary Evans
Labour
Simon Thomas
Plaid Cymru
William Powell
Liberal Democrat



Party
Votes
Percentage
Labour
47,348
22.5
Plaid Cymru
56,384
26.7
Liberal Democrat
26,847
12.7
Conservative
52,905
25.1
UKIP
 9,711
 4.6
Green
8,660
 4.1
Socialist Labour Party
3,951
 1.9
BNP
2,821
 1.3
Communist Party of Britain
1,630
 0.8
Welsh Christian Party
  595
 0.3