Camarthen West: too close to call

CAMARTHEN WEST & SOUTH PEMBS

2007 Assembly election results

	Party	Votes Cast	Percentage
Burns, Angela	Conservative	8,590	30.1
Gwyther, Christine	Labour	8,492	29.7
Dixon, John	Plaid Cymru	8,340	29.2
Gossage, John	Liberal Democrat	1,806	6.3
Calver, Malcom	Independent	1,340	4.7

Electorate 57,478 Turnout: 49.7%

The seat was established in 1997 and combines rural west Carmarthen with the southern coastline of Pembrokeshire. The number of Welsh speakers (26.7%) tend to live in the eastern part of the constituency, with the Pembroke part been described as ‘little England beyond Wales.’ The economy activity is based on the deep water ports of the Haven with its refineries, tourism based on the ‘Welsh riviera and agriculture. Camarthen town is also an administrative centre with many jobs  in the public sector.

Political Profile 

This seat can be described as very much a three -way marginal, with only 250 votes dividing the Conservative, Labour and Plaid Cymru candidates at the last Assembly elections. The sitting Labour being pipped at the post by the Conservative by 98 votes. 

At the last general election the Conservative candidate overturned a 2,043 Labour majority to gain the seat with a 3,423 majority.

All the indications are that this election is coming at the wrong time in the election cycle for Angela Burns the incumbent. If fields could vote the Conservatives would be home and dry on the poster count, but unfortunate for them the election system is based on ballot papers in the box. It is likely that her vote will suffer a dramatic decrease and all the indications are that it is a two horse or to be more accurate a two mare race between Labour and Plaid Cymru.

In the industrial base of Pembroke Dock Labour have the advantage but in the more rural parts and the Welsh speaking east  Plaid Cymru have the edge.

It is likely to go to the wires and it may all be determined by which party machine is most effective at getting the vote out. In campaign terms Plaid Cymru seem to be the most energetic and may nose in front.

Prediction 

Conservative defeat but Plaid/Labour too close to call.

Candidates

Labour

Christine Gwyther

Christine Gwyther who is from Pembroke Dock, held the constituency seat from 

1999-2007. 

She failed to retain her seat in the 2007. Before going into politics, she worked as a  

Development Officer for Pembrokeshire County Council

During the first term of the Assembly, she was the Minister of Agriculture under the leadership

of Alun Michael. but was dismissed from her post as Welsh agriculture minister by Rhodri 

Morgan on the eve of the Royal Welsh Agricultural show. 

She fought the neighbouring seat of Camarthen East in the last general election.

Conservative

Angela Burns

Angela Burns lives in Pembrokeshire with her husband and two young children. She describes herself as a businesswoman having worked for both large and small businesses. She was elected an Assembly Member in May 2007and has served as party’s Shadow Minister for Finance and Shadow Minister for Regeneration and Transport. She was also Chair of the NAW’s Finance committee. She was appointed Shadow Minister for the Environment and Planning in February 2009.

Liberal Democrat

Selwyn Runnett

Selwyn Runnett lives and works in West Wales. He has been a property professional for over 30 years and is currently a letting and estate agent. He is a Town Councillor and has campaigned on issues relating to rural communities and market towns including the campaign to re-open St Clears railway station and to achieve better train services for West Wales.

Plaid Cymru 

Nerys Evans 

Nerys Evans is Plaid’s Director of Policy and was elected to the National Assembly in 2007. She holds Plaid’s Education portfolio. She read Politics at Manchester University and began working as Plaid Cymru Community Organiser in Carmarthen East in 2002. 

Brecon: will the Lib Dems hold it?

BRECON & RADNOR

2007 Assembly election results

	Party	Votes Cast	Percentage
Williams, Kirsty	Liberal Democrat	15,006	52.2
Davies, Suzy	Conservative	9,652	33.6
Stone, Neil	Labour	2,514	8.7
Lloyd, Arwel	Plaid Cymru	1,576	5.5

Electorate 55,482 Turnout: 51.8%

This is the largest constituency in Wales, it stretches from the heads of the South Wales Valleys in the south and up to the Cambrian Mountains and straggles the English border in the east. It is a sparsely populated rural constituency much of it covered by the Brecon National Park. There are 18.2% Welsh speaker living in the constituency mainly in the western parts of the constituency. The seat takes in the old coal mining area of Ystrad Gynlais in the upper Swansea valley which is on the northern edge of the old South Wales coal field.

The main industries are related to farming and agricultural, tourism is also important   based on the old Victorian Spa towns. Hay on Wye which has the international book festival is also in the constituency.

Political profile

This is a seat that has been held by the Liberal Democrats since the first Assembly elections in 1999 and at the last NAW election it was won with 52% of the vote. 

The seat used to be regarded as a safe Labour seat between 1945 and 1979 but in recent years many Labour votes have gone to the Liberal Democrats to keep the Conservatives out. Classic tactical voting.  

Now with the Liberal Democrats in coalition with the Conservatives in Westminster many of these ‘Labour’ votes are unlikely to be used tactically and are likely to stay with Labour to swell their vote. If this was to happen it would be at the Liberal Democrats’ expense. 

Recent Welsh Polls have made for dismal reading for the Liberal Democrats. The last few months’ polling has shown them in single figures. If these were  to be reflected in the constituency then the Tories would be the winners. But one should not underestimate the power of incumbency especially as in the case of Kirsty Williams who is also Leader of her party.  The oxygen of publicity that goes with the job should be enough to see her get past the winning post, but it could be a very close run thing, and if the polls are to be believed she won’t have much of a party to lead after May.

PREDICTION:

Liberal Democrat  narrowly get their noses past the post

All the candidates

Labour

Chris Lloyd

Chris Lloyd is from Knighton, he stood in the General Election in the constituency where he came third with 4,096 votes. He attended John Beddoes High School in Presteigne and went on to study politics and law at Greenwich.

After graduating he worked for Louise Ellman, Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside and Chair of the Transport Select Committee in the House of Commons. 

Conservative

Chris Davies 

Chris Davies lives in Glasbury-on-Wye. For twenty years he worked as a rural Auctioneer and Estate Agent but now manages one of Mid Wales’s largest mixed veterinary practices based in Hay-on-Wye. He is married and has two young daughters. 

He is well known in farming circles, being a main ring commentator at many agricultural shows including the Royal Welsh Show at Builth Wells.

Liberal Democrat

Kirsty Williams

Kirsty Williams is the Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats. She has been the Assembly Member for Brecon and Radnorshire since 1999. She studied for her degree, a B.A. Hons in American Studies at Manchester University and The University of Missouri.

Prior to politics she worked at Carmarthenshire College and for a small business in Cardiff as a Marketing Executive. She is married with three daughters, and lives on the family farm just outside Brecon. 

She won the seat in 1999. She chaired the Assembly's Health and Social Services Committee  between 1999 and 2003.

Plaid Cymru

Gary Price

Gary Price is 32 years old and lives in Llandrindod Wells. He is a postman for the Royal Mail.

He was educated at the Brynderi Church in Wales School in Rhayader, Ysgol Trefonnen in Llandrindod Wells, and the Llandrindod Wells and Builth Wells High Schools.

An elected member of Llandrindod Wells Town Council for ten years, including serving as Mayor, and for seven years he has served as a Powys County Councillor. 

Inflation down but problems up

The Government’s target measure of annual CPI annual inflation the Consumer Price Index(CPI) was unexpectedly down in March at 4.0 per cent in March from 4.4 per cent in February.

This was due in large part to the drop in food and drink prices which fell by 1.4 per cent in the month. 

For similar reasons the Retail Price Index(RPI) annual inflation was 5.3 per cent, down from 5.5 per cent in February.

At 4%, though, CPI remains at double the Bank of England's official target for inflation of 2%. 


These figures will undoubtedly ease the pressure  being urged on the Bank by some economists to increase interest rates.  But it is still a moot point as to how long they can hold the rates  at the current historic low level with inflation at double their target rate.


In comparison with our European Competitors the UK figures are considerably higher, the CPI shows that the UK inflation rate in February was way above the provisional figure for the European Union. The UK rate was 4.4 per cent whereas the EU’s as a whole was 2.8 per cent.


Whilst today’s news may give a modicum of cheer to the Chancellor, George Osborne, the prospects for the economy as a whole for this year continues to be gloomy and there is little comfort for him from the IMF.

They, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), have cut their 2011 growth forecast for the UK economy to 1.75%. The third downgrade in a year.

This  underlines the fact that Britain faces a year of low growth and rising unemployment with little prospect of a job-creating recovery until later in 2012.


Such figures point to the need  to boost Britain's growth prospects considerably more than the Chancellor's attempts in his recent budget. 


The IMF report certainly gives credence to Plaid Cymru’s attempt to boost the Welsh economy by investing in hospitals, schools, housing and transport through a not for profit company. In their manifesto they say that the aim of this Build for Wales company is to create 50,000 jobs.  This is the kind of boost the Welsh economy needs and is not too ambitious in the light of the IMF report on the prospects for the UK economy. It is certainly true that if the UK economy is at slow then the effect on Wales is an abrupt stop.

There are no signs yet that the Westminster government are reflecting on the IMF forecast and going for the classic Keynesian solution of increasing public capital expenditure to push up growth. 


Indeed their policy of cuts in public expenditure would seem to be the wrong medicine for the UK economy. And what is bad in UK terms spells disaster for Wales. The Westminster coalition's  medicine is killing off any hope of the Welsh economic patient making any sort of recovery in the near future.

Montgomery and the Liberal Democrats

Rounding up on North Wales, 

it is unlikely that any other seats (see previous blogs) in the region will change hands. The seats that produced a small Labour majority last time will benefit from the tide that is flowing Labour’s way. 

The latest UK Poll conducted by YouGov for the Sunday Times has top line figures of CON 36%, LAB 43%, LDEM 9% – a seven point Labour lead, so pretty much par for the course in YouGov’s recent daily polls. 

The only other interesting seat is Ynys Mon. 
It is a seat that rarely rejects the incumbent, the last time this happened was in 1951 when Cledwyn Hughes won the seat for Labour from Megan Lloyd George the then Liberal member. It is not impossible for Ieuan Wyn Jones to suffer such a fate, but despite a decline in Plaid Cymru’s recent poll ratings there are no indications that Ynys Mon electors are about to pull the rug from under the Plaid leader’s feet.

The next region to be looked at in this survey of Wales’s most interesting seats will be Mid and West Wales.   It is in this area that many of the parties have most at stake and if any region could be described as the battle ground of the 2011 Welsh general election it is surely here. The first to be looked at is

MONTGOMERY

2007 Assembly election results

	Party	Votes Cast	Percentage
Bates, Mick	Liberal Democrat	8,704	39.0
Munford, Dan	Conservative	6,725	30.2
Thomas, David	Plaid Cymru	3,076	13.8
Lawson, Bruce	UKIP	2,251	10.1
Maycock, Rachel	Labour	1,554	6.9

Electorate 48,337 Turnout: 46.1%

A mainly agricultural county which stretches from the English border on the east to the Cambrian mountains in the West. Main towns Montgomery, Machynleth , Newtown and Welshpool. The number of Welsh speakers is 23.8% mainly living in the West of the constituency.

Political profile

This seat was once the Liberal/Liberal Democrat’s safest seat in Wales. They held the seat from 1880 until 2010 with it falling only once to the Conservatives between 1979-83 Delwyn Williams took the seat. 

Indeed from 1945 to 1956 Clement Davies held the seat and was  leader of the Liberal Party when in the rest of the UK, Liberals were a very scarce commodity. 

The seat turned its back on them when it fell to the Conservative Glyn Davies, in the 2010 General election. The vanquished sitting MP at the time was Lembit Opik. Many commentators thought that his hunger for publicity in showbizz circles may have contributed to his defeat. The electors giving him the opportunity to develop further his career in entertainment.

Having won the seat in Parliament the Conservatives now have it as one of their target seats for the Assembly. In this they may have been helped by the scandal surrounding the retiring Assembly Member Mick Bates who was found guilty of assault. 

The Conservatives will also benefit by the lack of an UKIP candidate. They polled well last time and their performance may well have prevented the Tory candidate winning in 2007.

These factors and the slump the Liberal Democrats are experiencing in the polls will make it an extremely difficult seat for them to hold, although with such a long Liberal tradition one can’t dismiss their chances completely.

PREDICTION: 

Conservative gain

The candidates

Labour 

Nick Colbourne

Nick Colbourne is a retired North Wales Police officer. He is married with two grown up daughters. He is currently the Chair of Wrexham County Labour Party and in 2007 was Agent for Karen Sinclair’s Assembly re-election in Clwyd South. An ex-County Councillor on Wrexham CBC. He is also a member of the Co-operative Party.

Conservative
Russell George
Born in Welshpool and always lived in Montgomeryshire.  Russell is also an active member of the Hope Community Church in Newtown, Elected in 2008 to represent the Newtown Central ward on Powys County Council. 

Liberal Democrat
Wyn Williams
A local farmer and businessman, and Welsh speaker

Plaid Cymru

David Senior 
David Senior was born in Newtown in Montgomeryshire and now lives in Trewern with his wife and their seven year old  twins. He is a teacher of Science at Cruckton Hall School which specializes in the education of children from the Autistic spectrum. A Member of Welshpool Town Council. 

A Look at Clwyd West

Another look at a seat in the North Wales region that is likely to be highly contested in the Welsh General election. A win here could contribute to Labour getting an overall majority.

CLWYD WEST

2007 Assembly election result

	Party	Votes Cast	Percentage
Millar, Darren	Conservative	8,905	34.0
Pugh, Alun  John	Labour	7,309	27.9
Edwards, Phil	Plaid Cymru	7,162	27.3
Croft, Simon	Liberal Democrat	1,705	6.5
Nicholson, Warwick	UKIP	1,124	4.3

Electorate: 57,370 Turnout: 45.7%

This seat is covered by parts of two local authority areas Conwy County Borough Council and Denbighshire County Borough Council and contain the coastal towns of

Colwyn Bay, Rhos on Sea, Abergele,  and Kinmel Bay which contain the bulk of the voters. This population has a large number of elderly and retired many of whom originate from the the North West of England and tend to get their news from North West of England television. 

The last census indicated a significant number of Welsh speakers (28.2%) many living in the rural villages that are inland, with the historic town of  Ruthin at their centre.

Tourism  plays a significant part in the economy as does agriculture. A significant employer is the  North Wales Police who are based in Colwyn Bay .

Political Profile

Clwyd West is a marginal seat that until 1997 was regarded as a solid  true blue Conservative seat. However, boundary changes made it a less predictable seat. In the Assembly elections it was held by Labour until 2007. 

In Westminster elections Clwyd West was won by Labour in the Blair landslide of 1997 and held by them until David Jones the junior Welsh Office minister won the seat back in 2005. He increased his vote to 15,833 in the 2010 general election gaining a 6,419 majority over Labour who were in second place.

Darren Millar the Conservative candidate and the existing  AM has a majority 1,596. This margin is well within the current poll differences between the two parties. Even taking into account the Conservatives benefit, as is likely, from the lack of an UKIP candidate and the advantage of incumbency, the seat is still vulnerable to Labour.

Labour have never succeeded in pushing their vote above 35% in this seat and this is partially because Plaid Cymru have always polled well. However, recent polls have indicated that Plaid Cymru’s vote has taken a dip with Labour being the beneficiary. If this national polling phenomona is replicated here it might just tip the balance in Labour’s favour. The result will be close Labour could  edge in front if they get their vote out.

PREDICTION

CLOSE BUT LABOUR GAIN FROM CONSERVATIVE

Candidates

Labour 

Crispin Jones

Crispin Jones is the Principal consultant with Gwerin Associates, a Fuel Poverty consultancy service based in North Wales. Until 2006, he was Wales Director for eaga, who currently manage the Welsh Assembly Government’s Home Energy Efficiency Scheme, and is a previous Director with Warm Wales, a Community Interest Company providing managed energy efficiency services to Local Authorities and Housing Associations across Wales. 

Conservative

Darren Miller

Darren was elected to the National Assembly for Wales in May 2007.  He currently serves on the opposition front bench as Shadow Minister for the Economy and Transport, chairs the Assembly's influential Public Accounts Committee and sits as a member of its Enterprise and Learning Committee. Darren also Chairs the Cross Party Group on Faith, and the Cross Party Group on the Armed Forces and Cadets, both of which he is a founder member. Prior to his election to the Assembly, Darren was a manager for an international charity.  He was a member of Conwy County Borough Council, the North Wales Police Authority and the North Wales Fire and Rescue Service. Lives in Kinmel Bay with his wife Rebekah and two children, Mary and Toby. 

Liberal Democrat

Brian Cossey

Brian Cossey is a Justice of the Peace and a member of the Bay of Colwyn Town Council.

Worked for Royal Bank of Scotland (formerly Nat-West Bank) for 32 years. Took early retirement in 2002 as a Senior Banking Manager. He is Chairman of the Old Colwyn Environment Federation which tries to enhance the built and green environment of the village in which he lives. Married with one daughter.

Plaid Cymru 

Eifion Lloyd Jones

Eifion Jones is 62 years old and has lived in the Clwyd West constituency for 30 years. He is married with children and has previously fought elections for Plaid Cymru in Clwyd West in 1987 and 1992.

Eifion’s background is in journalism and broadcasting for HTV, including producing programmes and working across communities in the north of Wales as a reporter. He headed Bangor University ’s Department of Media and Communications, and is now involved in education as a consultant on Welsh-medium higher education. 

Will Plaid Hold Aberconwy?

Over the next few weeks this blog will look at some of the more interesting seats in the forthcoming Welsh General election. In the next few days seats in the North Wales region will be reviewed and in turn seats in the other regions,

ABERCONWY

2007 Assembly election result

	Party	Votes Cast	Percentage
Jones, Gareth	Plaid Cymru	7,983	38.6
Jones-Evans, Dylan	Conservative	6,290	30.4
Jones, Denise Idris	Labour	4,508	21.8
Hughes, Euron	Liberal Democrat	1,918	9.3

Electorate: 44,143 Turnout: 46.9%

This seat is in the Conwy County Borough Council and consists of Llandudno, Conwy, Llanrwst and Betws-y-Coed and the coastal villages of Penmaenmawr and Llanfairfechan. It is an area that is highly dependent on tourism with Llandudno and Betws-y-Coed being in their different ways attractive locations for visitors.

A large number of people outside of Wales have chosen the area for their retirement and as a consequence there are a large number of elderly voters in the constituency. 

In the last census the percentage of Welsh speakers was 34.1%

Political Profile

Aberconwy constituency was won last time by Plaid Cymru with a majority of 1,693. The candidate at the time was Gareth Jones, a popular retired headmaster of John Brights Comprehensive school Llandudno, is now standing down.  

In the last general election this newly created seat went Conservative with a majority of 3,398.  In this same election Plaid Cymru  came fourth with 5,341 behind both Labour (7,336)  and the Liberal Democrats (5,786). On paper this would make this seat a very interesting four way marginal, but with haemorrhage the polls have shown in Liberal Democrat support it is not likely that they will be in contention.

At the moment in Welsh polls Labour are riding high.  The most recent poll for the Western Mail showing them with  51%. The other parties are as follows Conservative 20%, Plaid Cymru 17% and Liberal Democrats 8%. This poll tends to reinforce the  ITVWales/YouGov's monthly poll over the last few months which has consistently shown Labour in the upper 40s. 

Of course there is always a health warning in taking a national poll and applying it to an individual constituency but if these polls are anywhere near accurate then Labour are in poll position to gain this seat from Plaid Cymru. 

UK wide polls are currently showing Labour 41%, Conservatives 35% and Liberal Democrats 11%

PREDICTION

Labour gain from Plaid Cymru

CANDIDATES

Labour and Co-operative Party

Eifion Wyn Williams

A fluent Welsh speaker with local ties and was married two years ago in Llanrwst. Attended Aberystwyth University and  worked for the ex-North Wales Euro MP, Joe Wilson. 

For the past seven years he's been based in Conwy, carrying out an all-Wales role with Environment Wales and Cylch-Wales Community Recycling Network, 

Conservative

Janet Finch-Saunders

Janet Finch-Saunders is is married to Gareth and they have a grown up Son Adam and a Daughter Hannah.A Conwy County Borough Councillor for 7 years in 2008 she became the Welsh Conservative Group Leader and Leader of the Opposition.

A town councillor in Llandudno  for 17 years becoming   Mayor of Llandudno in 2004 

Liberal Democrat

Mike Priestly

Married to Lorraine and I have two girls. A County Councillor representing the Marl Ward in Llandudno Junction and also a Cabinet Member with responsibility for the Environment. Chair of Governors at Ysgol Aberconwy 

Plaid Cymru 

Iwan Huws

Iwan Huws is the former Chief Executive of the Snowdonia National Park and Director of the National Trust in Wales.Outside of his years of experience in rural affairs, He also served on the BBC’s Broadcasting Council for Wales and on ITV Wales’ Advisory Council, and has an interest in local businesses through his current membership of Bangor University ’s Business School Advisory Board. He was educated at Bangor and Cardiff Universities. 

Some are more equal than others

Due to illness I missed the Welsh Conservative conference this year. But I’ve just been reading some of the speeches delivered. Yes, I know, call me an anorak if you like. But amongst them I found this little pearl.

“It is a system so undemocratic that your vote for a mainstream party counts once, while someone can support a fringe party like the BNP and get their vote counted several times.” So said David Cameron the Prime Minister in Swansea recently.

If this were true, it would be a real worry to us all. But what might be accepted in the hot house atmosphere of a conference hall as the truth may in a less feverish atmosphere be seen as very misleading. 

The AV system is used in countless voluntary bodies up and down the land to elect officials. It works simply on the basis of the voter putting 1, 2, 3,4 in order of their preference. 

If any of the candidates get more than half of the votes they are elected. 


It means one candidate has got a majority, but with the voters having put the voting slip in the ballot box only the one time.

Yes, fine and dandy, but what if no one gets that majority. What then? 

Well, the least popular candidate is eliminated and the votes cast to this losing candidate are distributed to the other candidates. For the sake of argument lets take up  Mr Cameron’s challenge and call the losing candidate the BNP.  


So yes, you say, this proves Mr Cameron’s point, the BNP vote is “counted several times.”

In this example, the second preferences of the BNP candidate  is now redistributed amongst the rest.  Ah, so they’ve voted again, the very point the Prime Minister was making. 

Yes, but, and there is always a but, so did all the other candidates left in the contest. 


For those candidates left in the contest also have the votes they gained in the first round counted again in the second round and added to the voting total that decides the winner. This process goes on until one of the contestants achieves a majority.

So all votes are equal and it was disingenuous of Mr Cameron to say otherwise.

Now is the time for me to declare an interest. I’m not a great fan of the Alternative Vote. If one wants a fair voting system then it has to be the Single Transferable Vote (STV). A system which Lord Richard's report recommended for the National Assembly. A recommendation that will surely be revisited in the new session.

But  AV has real merit in one respect, it moves us away from the system of politicians favouring  the voters in swing marginal seats. 

Policy is skewed to appeal to Worcester woman, or Ford Cortina man. Alas, this is what our current election system of first past the post encourages.

Why? Because votes in these seats count far, far, more that in 'safe' seats. Consequently,  politicians don’t reach out to the rest. "Why pander to them if they don’t determine the results" is their attitude.

No, when politicians say that the system is working well. What they really mean is that it works ‘well’ for them.