Tomos Grace has an excellent article on blogging in Wales in the Institute of Welsh Affairs (IWA) Spring 2005 issue of its magazine, Agenda.. Sadly, the article isn't available online.
The magazine arrived on Saturday, May 28th. Spring is clearly as elastic a concept for IWA as it is in politics!
There was an interesting discussion at the Hay Festival today on the new Library of Wales, chaired by Mario Basini of the Western Mail. My good friend Prof Dai Smith spoke and so did novelist Niall Griffiths.
The Library - classic Welsh writing in English - is being supported by the Welsh Assembly Government. It follows from a report by the Assembly's Culture Committee, to which I contributed, on Welsh writing in English.
Parthian is publishing the series. The first two titles to be produced are Raymond Williams' Border Country and So Long Hector Bebb by the late Rhondda author Ron Berry. It was great to meet members of Ron's family including his wife and daughters, who still live in the Rhondda, at the event.
Dai is chairing the group which is selecting the titles to be published. Niall Griffiths turned out to have been influenced by Ron Berry. I bought Niall's new novel Wreckage in Hay.
Shortly after I was elected to the National Assembly I had an article in the Western Mail (which isn't in their online archive, but I re-published it later in the Bevan Foundation Review ) about the fact that so many Welsh 'classic' novels written in English were out of print. Click Read More below to read it.
I told the story in that article of trying to locate Jack Jones' Rhondda Roundabout on the Internet. At the time, a search on the second-hand book website abebooks.co.uk showed one copy for sale for over £500.
I told that story again today, and explained how young people need those stories to shape an understanding of where communities like the Rhondda had come from. To get a laugh, Dai pointed out that Jack Jones came from Merthyr, not the Rhondda. He and I have had lots of conversations about Rhondda and South Wales writers in the past, and he knows I know this! 'Once you're on that platform, you're a comedian' he told me afterwards. Today I played his straight man. I'll get the cheeky beggar back for that!
Written out of History
Leighton Andrews AM
Twenty-five years ago Raymond Williams, Wales’s foremost cultural critic of the twentieth century, delivered a lecture in Cardiff on the Welsh Industrial Novel. Analysing the writing of novelists such as Jack Jones, Gwyn Thomas, Gwyn Jones, Lewis Jones and many others, Williams noted that the industrial novel had special characteristics of its own. In particular, the world of work was central to the writing.
Today, the bulk of the novels referred to by Raymond Williams are out of print. Gwyn Thomas’ All Things Betray Thee – out of print. Gwyn Jones – Times Like These – out of print. Lewis Jones’ Cwmardy and We Live – out of print. Jack Jones’ Black Parade and Rhondda Roundabout - out of print. Check the Welsh Books Council’s gwales.com website search facility.
Of course, if you’re lucky, you might be able to pick some of these books up second-hand. But in the case of Rhondda Roundabout, it will cost you. A search on the second-hand book website abebooks.co.uk shows one copy for sale for over £500.
Strangely, as we head towards Cardiff’s centenary as a city, the one novel which tells the making of Cardiff probably better than any other – Jack Jones’ River Out of Eden – is also out of print. This is the story of the growth of a small village to be the world’s greatest coal-port – an Empire City – which you would think a Welsh TV company would have jumped at by now.
These books are an essential part of the modern narrative history of South Wales, as well as being worthwhile novels in themselves. They tell the story of the South Wales’ coalfield and its people. At a time when we are all encouraged to think about cultural tourism or industrial heritage, their absence is a scandal. Jack Jones’ novels are family sagas, but then family history is enjoying a real boom today. Family history connects us with our society, with where we have come from. My own family history – my great-great-grandfather coming to the Rhondda from the Forest of Dean shortly after the Tonypandy riots – turns out to be typical of so many others at that time.
All of us who represent Valleys’ constituencies are conscious that we do not want to dwell in the past. Our focus is the future. We all object to the
stereotyping of the Valleys that persists in metropolitan television views of Wales: the slagheaps, the pit-gear, the choirs and so on. Our Valleys today are increasingly green and fresh, providing a fine environment in which to live. We want people to have a better understanding of the attractions of the Valleys – while not in any way denying the social deprivation and other contemporary challenges that we face.
But you cannot explain the Valleys and their settlements without reference to the history. You cannot begin to paint the picture of industrial heritage without reference to that history. You cannot begin to connect our capital city and the Valleys without reference to that history. As Raymond Williams said in his lecture:
In the second half of the nineteenth century there was a further major transformation: the intense development of valleys like the Rhondda, in the independent coal trade; the very rapid expansion of Cardiff as a coal port.
Without the Valleys, Cardiff might still be a fishing-village. You cannot tell the Cardiff story separately from the story of the Rhondda Valleys. That is why it is essential that the celebration of Cardiff’s centenary as a city reflects the role of the Valleys in the making of the city.
People find pride and identity in that history. Re-discovering that history has been an important part of providing understanding and making generational connections in many of our communities. In recent weeks I have seen in my own constituency how the Penrhys Partnership has been making good use of local history in just this way to help young and old tell the Penrhys story.
The absence of English-medium Welsh literary texts like the novels I have cited must be addressed. The Welsh Books Council needs to give a higher priority to ensuring the availability of the classic Welsh industrial novel. The Assembly’s Culture Committee has begun an enquiry into English-medium Welsh culture, and that provides a focus for this issue to be addressed.
We cannot live on our history. But we cannot live without it either.
Earlier this year, I ran an opinion poll on this blog about smoking in public places. The Assembly's Committee on the subject subsequently reported, and its report was debated on Tuesday.
I had some concerns about whether the Report had really considered the economic impact on small Valleys and rural pubs, so I put down an amendment which, though defeated, received support from some Labour, Tory and Plaid AMs.
My speech in the debate follows:
Leighton Andrews: I propose amendment 1 tabled in my name: delete ‘looks forward to the’ and insert
calls for a full study of the economic impact on smaller businesses before any.
I start by congratulating Val Lloyd and her committee; I think that they have done important work. I had certainly not focused in detail on the issues until they started that work. I accept the health arguments put forward in the report. I am not just a non-smoker, but pretty much an anti-smoker. I have been an asthmatic since the age of two, and I know of the effect of tobacco smoke on my lungs, and I take steps to avoid it. Therefore, I support what the committee says on the health issues.
The amendment I propose is not designed to block progress towards a ban on smoking in public places. It is designed to test out the conclusion that was reached on the economic impact of a ban. The amendment does not say, ‘Do not move towards a ban’. My reason for bringing the amendment forward derives directly from the committee’s report. Let us remember that the committee was established, among other things, to
‘consider current evidence on relevant issues, including the health risks of environmental tobacco smoke, and the economic impact of restrictions on smoking in public places’.
That is a quotation from the committee’s terms of reference. I have drafted the amendment specifically because of the conclusion on page 13, where the committee says that
‘It recognises that some smaller businesses may have difficulty in adapting to the changes and opportunities a smoking ban would bring.’
Those are the committee’s words, not mine. It is also borne out by evidence from the licensee trade, including many in my constituency. Indeed, evidence from the Rhondda is cited on page 11. Most of the publicans questioned said that they would have to lay off staff. Forty two publicans, over 50 per cent, said that their pub would probably close. I pay tribute to the publicans from the Rhondda, who have taken an active part in the debate. They have been to the Assembly, some have given evidence, and they also held a meeting in Tonypandy before the report’s publication. I will hold a further meeting with them in Ton Pentre next month, now that the report is published. It is an issue for them, and it will also be an issue for private clubs, including labour, trade union and ex-service people’s clubs. It is important that the debate gets a wide hearing.
The amendment calls for a full study of the economic impact on smaller businesses before any legislation is introduced. Legislation will not happen tomorrow—we do not have the powers. There is plenty of time for a full economic impact study to take place. That is not necessarily the same as a regulatory impact assessment—it is a wider examination. I was not too chuffed to find that the questions that I had tabled to the Minister for Economic Development and Transport asking about the economic impact of a ban on smoking were transferred to the Minister for Health and Social Services for answer.
Jeff Cuthbert: Will your study into the economic impact—and I accept that you are mainly talking about small businesses—also include the economic effect on the NHS, in terms of dealing with people suffering from passive smoking, particularly those with breathing difficulties and heart conditions?
Leighton Andrews: My understanding is that part of the work has already been done, and that would be carried out prior to legislation, through the overall study. I am looking specifically here at work in relation to smaller businesses, which I do not think has been carried out.
It will be said that pubs are declining anyway, due, for example, to the availability of cheap drink at supermarkets. That may be true, but a ban on smoking might accelerate matters—we need to know the facts.
Others will say that the publicans did not provide convincing evidence, either in the Assembly or in Ireland. That does not obviate our need to ensure that the legislation for which we are responsible is robust, and can stand up to scrutiny.
Peter Black: In the report, there is reference to a study by Professor David Cohen on the economic and health predictions for Wales, in relation to the impact of a smoking ban. How will the study that you are advocating differ from that study?
Leighton Andrews: I am glad that you raised David Cohen’s evidence, because he gives an extraordinary range of estimates on the impact on the hospitality sector in Wales, from minus £48 million to plus £131 million—a difference of £180 million. So I do not think that that work has been done in detail.
It will be said that pubs should gear themselves for the non-smoking market and look at the example of Wetherspoons. I am not talking about large, open-plan Wetherspoons-style pubs—I am talking about Valleys and rural pubs usually run by one person or a family. What if an economic impact study finds a problem? At least we will know where we stand, and we can take steps to mitigate the situation, give people time to prepare, and examine the options for progress towards a ban. For example, in the past, the Assembly has looked at giving mandatory rate relief to rural pubs that have faced difficulties. This presents us with an opportunity to take people with us.
It is also an opportunity for us to consider our responsibility as, in this context, a legislative body. It is a useful opportunity to test the readiness of the Assembly to take legislative responsibility. Too often, our debates sound like party conference debates; we do not get into the subtleties of issues. Our system of devolution gives great powers, through orders, for Government to offer proposals on a take it or leave it basis. The opposition can oppose, but backbenchers on the Government side are too often faced with a nuclear option, which, unsurprisingly, we are loth to take.
Here, because we have an issue that is not whipped, there is a real opportunity for us all to engage in the detail of the issue. It is good for our democracy; we should be exploring this issue in detail. We want more powers. Let us use them responsibly, let us know the full facts, and let us ensure that, as a legislative body, we are seen to be capable of exploring the difficulties of issues as well as the potentialities.
Politics
The blog has received several nominations in the New Statesman New Media Awards. But with just a week to go to close of nominations, you too can nominate the blog:
Click here for the nominations page.
And well done David Cornock for noticing the reasons this blog has been nominated.
A final note on the General Election campaign.
One of the problems of the General Election campaign from a Welsh point of view was the lack of understanding centrally of what a General Election means in a devolved context. For example, on the day of the launch of the Scottish and Welsh manifesto, the UK message was about education – in other words, education in England. This meant that the UK TV bulletins were leading on an agenda that was not that relevant to Wales and Scotland, so our voters saw messages about English education on the main BBC and ITV news bulletins. This is a particular problem in Wales of course, as our voters largely read papers produced in London, whereas Scottish voters read papers produced in Scotland. It would have been better if the UK message that day had been about pensions or another UK issue.
Our campaign was designed to focus mainly on Welsh TV and radio, where we could add value to the UK campaign, through the regional news bulletins. One problem, as in the devolution referendum, is that the issue of balance works against the organisation with the most going on. We often had two or three picture stories on the same day - not all of which were controllable by us - but we would still get the same amount of coverage as the other parties. This made the coverage somewhat stilted.
Amongst the papers, we focused on the evenings and weeklies, especially those in the 12 or so battleground seats. This worked better in some areas than others. The South Wales Echo, for example, carried a lot of our material, and gave us fairer coverage than we would normally expect to get.
The Western Mail tried hard to get its own election campaign going, expecting the parties to fall in with its agenda. They were not our priority, given the low level of the paper's general readership in Wales. Other parties, ntably Plaid, seemed to devote more attention to them. The paper made constant demands for us to publish more detail on our waiting list pledge, yet they refused to publish the detail we had already released, so we made it available on our website.
In Wales, we deliberately launched the devolution section of the manifesto early, giving stories to the Daily Post and an article to the Western Mail, along with an interview to BBC Wales. We did not want the Welsh manifesto launch to be overshadowed by the constitutional issue, when our core messages were on the strength of the Welsh economy. Our subsequent manifesto launch, with Mike Ruddock joining us, worked exceptionally well: after a series of second-rate rugby related stunts by the other parties, we had the real thing – a rugby hero to reinforce the ‘world-beating Wales’ message. We maintained the focus on the message that a vote for Plaid or the Liberals could let the Tories in by the back door.
Organisationally, there were daily phone calls involving Scottish and Welsh party representatives at which the UK campaign message and likely plans for the day and for the next day were cascaded by (initially) John Reid (and later) others. However, often the next day’s plans were not finally settled – so much for the infamous grid.
Early on during one of these calls Rhodri Morgan came up with the phrase ‘Are you remembering what we’re remembering’ as a counter to the Tories ‘Are you thinking what we’re thinking’. By that evening, the Prime Minister was using it.
Politics
So Lennie Lawrence is on the way out.
He will have six months consultancy to soften the blow.
Thanks, Lennie, for getting us into the Championship, and good luck for the future.
Peter Black AM is proudly boasting of how he has enabled his blog to be translated into various languages by adding a link for the Babelfish translation tool to his weblog.
Interestingly, this has the effect of translating the name of his blog in French into Noir AM de Peter, or Black AM of Peter. In Spanish, it is Negro de Peter. In Italian, Nero de Peter. In German, it becomes Peter Schwarzes Morgens. I haven't checked the other languages. I'm not sure this is what Peter had in mind.
If you then link to my blog from the French version of Peter's blog, you soon find out how problematic the translations become. Leaving aside Babelfish's inability to get the French for Wales right (Pays de Galles, not Pays de Gales), you end up with a curious mix of Welsh and French in the subtitle of my blog.
But even more entertainingly, where I wrote yesterday in my post on Cardiff City:
'I'm a fan who became a politician, not a politician who became a fan' this has been translated as
'Je suis un ventilateur qui est allé bien à un politicien, pas un politicien qui est devenu un ventilateur.'
A 'ventilateur' is an electric fan designed to cool you down.
Peter Black is the Lib Dem education spokesperson, by the way. I wonder what their policy is on learning modern languages?
Politics
The Cambrian Colliery disaster took place 40 years ago this week. I was able to get a reference to it on the day of the anniversary itself on Tuesday.
It's time for some reflection on the situation at Cardiff City. Since the crisis blew up publicly in March - see my posts during that month - things seem to have stabilised. When I went on Good Morning Wales early in March following the sale of Graham Kavanagh, I was as worried as anyone. I said on the programme then:
"what we all want, of course, is to avoid administration, avoid relegation and not sell any more players but that may not be realistic."
Well, the good news is that we avoided administration and relegation, and avoided selling any of the players we wanted to keep. So the natural pessimism that followed the shock of the Kavanagh sale - still a bizare and extraordinary event though - did not turn out to be justified.
To stay on the optimistic note for the time being, discussions I've had with representatives of the Supporters Club and Valley RAMS suggest that the supporters' voice is being heard more within the club in terms of planning proper incentives to encourage people to come to the ground, buy season tickets etc. They are positive about the role being played by Peter Ridsdale, who has now taken over as Chief Executive, and who I am told came up with the 'Ambassador' title for the early bird season tickets. But it's Ridsdale's football knowledge that is impressing people. I guess there are no surprises that Sam has asked him to take over altogether - we saw that one coming months ago.
We also had the news that Costco were committed to the stadium, though I would like to be clearer as to whether this is an unconditional commitment that they cannot wriggle out of.
The Council also appears to still be committed to the scheme, although I notice that Council leader Rodney Berman is using the same phrase now about the last pieces of the jigsaw needing to be in place as he did in March .
Finally on the optimistic side, the club did reply to my letter, and with more information than I had expected. Sam also tried to ring me twice, though inevitably i was out at meetings when he did. I took the club's letter as a positive sign that the club was willing to be more open and share more information with the fans and shareholders. The letter of course revealed that Sam's company had not been paid consultancy fees for a while. The club promised an AGM this summer. The club did not reveal to whom the loan notes were repayable, but then they did not have to. The understanding is that this is medium-term debt not repayable until 2011, and if we can get our overall spending under control, that is not necessarily a worry for (say) next season.
Now, some notes of caution. The stadium still remains key to the financial viability of the club, and of course the accounts indicated that the directors will have to look at a financial restructuring after May 2005 (see my letter to the club). We don't know what form this restructuring is likely to take, nor do we know when the stadium deal will go ahead, or when we can expect to hear news of other retailers. We are still heavily in debt.
Next, we are clearly going to lose players this summer, as the club has to get its spending on wages down. That's obviously disappointing, given we ended the season looking a better team, but scarcely surprising. We are likely to see Gabbidon going, and we know other clubs have been sniffing around Jerome, McAnuff and Collins. Of course, no-one should believe every rumour around, certainly not from the Echo given their belief that 9 or 10 players would follow Kavanagh out. There are other players who are high-earners, some of whom most fans would be happy to see leave: on the other hand, there are areas we will have to strengthen.
The club will also have some kind of break-even figure in mind for ticket sales, of course. That could be tough to reach.
We may see some changes in managerial personnel, with the latest rumour being that Dave Jones might be appointed. Personally, I'm less concerned about that at the moment. Lennie got us up into this division, and I for one am grateful for that, but it is fair to say he has not really enjoyed fans' confidence this season. Of course, it's not as though he has a free hand.
Then there is the boardroom situation. Personally, I have always found David Temme helpful when I have spoken to him, so my thanks to him if he is moving on now. I am not sure what to make of the departure of Kim Walker. I hope it doesn't indicate that there is more division within the boardroom.
So all in all, would you buy a season-ticket this season? Well, I will. At the end of the day, it's Cardiff City. And I'm watching City in the Championship, not in what I still think of as the old Fourth Division, and I don't think that would have happened without Sam's investment.
I'm a fan who became a politician, not a politician who became a fan. I didn't ever particularly want to get involved in worrying about the state of the club. In the past it's been enough for me to go to games, cheer our victories or moan about our defeats and lost chances, and then go home. I didn't expect to be writing letters to the management and the rest. I respect those fans who do more than that, whether it is running the Supporters' Club and Valley Rams, or the various websites such as Mike Morris's and others too numerous to mention!
I approach next season with no illusions. I will be looking to the board to fulfil their responsibilities in terms of holding a company AGM as a vehicle to keep us informed, and more importantly, to deliver the stadium. I also hope we have a bullshit-free season. Above all, I hope we have a good season on the pitch. But, to be fair, today, notwithstanding the problems, I am more optimistic than I was in March.
I am very pleased, and not a little humbled, to have been nominated in the New Statesman's New Media Awards.
And some real people seem to have nominated me, unlike Peter Black AM, who has nominated himself!
Politics
New Monmouth MP David Davies confirms my post below that the Welsh Tories did badly overall.
He confirms they were disappointed not to win more seats.
Meanwhile, one of his constituents wants to know how he is going to do two jobs.
A good question.
Politics
The artist Charles Burton, originally from Treherbert, has an exhibition on at the Martin Tinney Gallery in Cardiff kicking off next Wednesday, 25th May. He's a smashing bloke and I hope he sells lots of paintings.
A constant theme of the Labour campaign, right from the beginning, was the danger of a vote for the Liberal Democrats or Plaid letting the Tories in by the back door.
Peter Hain had been making this point for over a year by the time the campaign started, and argued the point strongly in the Guardian at the end of March. In Wales, when we published our pledges early in February, we were concerned to get this message across early and would return to it during the campaign. Labour voters needed to turn out if they wanted a Labour government. Elections were not a lottery and voters should not ‘have a flutter on their future’ by gambling on a vote on another party. We maintained this line throughout the campaign, for example, at our manifesto launch, and when the Cardiff North opinion poll was published.
It was a message, of course, that the Lib Dems sought to resist. The Independent also said it was impossible for the Tories to form a government through Labour defections to the Tories, though in the same paper Professor John Curtice accepted a Lib Dem advance would hit Labour. The BBC's David Cowling has subsequently noted that the Lib Dems were gainers of Labour votes.
And after the election, the Liberal Democrats claimed that 7 out of 8 former labour voters turned to them. One of their campaign leaders, Tim (Lord) Razzall, said on Newsnight that Stephen Twigg had lost Enfield Southgate because of the rise in the Lib Dem vote.
In Wales, the Lib Dems continued to do well along the M4. They were second in Swansea
West and in Newport East. Labour Parties in the Welsh cities need to ensure that they do not let them pick up seats in the Assembly elections, building on their local election base. Where Labour parties are weak and not involved in community campaigning, they will always be at risk from the Lib Dems.
The UKIP vote may also have cost the Tories 25-27 seats, as both Mark Steyn and Polly Toynbee have noted. We need to reflect on that.
Politics
The Daily Telegraph has clearly decided to start a campaign for English representation. First, they took up the theme that England had voted for the Tories rather than Labour (marginally, in fact).
This was followed by an article arguing that because of the Barnett formula, England is bankrolling Scotland.
Of course, I have argued for a long time that the English question will need to be addressed. See for example, my chapter in The Blair Agenda. I have never believed that the English regions could be equated with Wales and Scotland.
Politics
The Tory campaign was one of the nastiest we have seen for a while, with its constant focus on issues such as immigration and asylum. Much of the campaign was subterranean, operating through direct mail and aggressive telephone canvassing. The Tory campaign was of course designed to depress the Labour vote – to try and keep our voters at home – both by suggesting we were far ahead in the polls and also by making them feel uncomfortable about backing us - while motivating their own. However, it was too much a Michael Howard show and in some ways it had the wrong impact – the suggestion was that the sheer unpleasantness of Lynton Crosby’s ‘dog whistle’ strategy was harming the Tory campaign by solidifying the Labour vote. The Conservatives went OTT, with Howard calling the Prime Minister a ‘liar’, rightly seen by Richard Wyn Jones as descending to a new low in political debate.
It seemed in March before the campaign officially kicked off that the UK Labour campaign was being forced onto the defensive by a much more aggressive Conservative campaign – the Conservatives’ strongest campaign since 1992. Then Howard Flight came along and raised in one speech all the issues we wanted on the table. The UK Labour strategy was to ensure that this was not a referendum on Labour’s record, but a choice between two different visions for Britain. Forward not back, economic success versus boom and bust. Howard Flight took us straight to the heart of the message that the Tories planned extensive cuts in public services.
In Wales, we sought to expose the lies at the heart of the Tory campaign. We got some coverage for the way in which Tory candidates around Wales were deceiving voters with their claims that pensioners would get a £500 discount on their council tax despite the fact that it wasn’t in their Welsh manifesto. We succeeded in getting some exposure of the Tories’ letters to voters which contained misleading information on MRSA rates in local hospitals. These were supplied to us by Labour activists around Wales, and we had the story running over 3 days, with a front page in the Western Wail.
Subsequently, via the South Wales Echo, we exposed the fact that the Tories were sending out letters claiming that the cost of asylum was being borne by council –tax payers, when in fact the sums the Tories were using were the amounts being reimbursed by the Home Office.
Some aspects of the Tory campaign were ill-targetted. Why, for example, were there so many Tory posters in the Rhondda? They are still up, in both Valleys. Not the most profitable territory for them, and so many that they must have wasted a fortune. Of course, as The Times pointed out on May 4, the Tories had spent an unprecedented sum, some £16 million:
'The source said: "Michael is spending the family silver, virtually all of it, to try to secure the best possible result"'.
According to David Hencke, in the Guardian, there was a secret Tory fund which channeled money direct to some marginals, including Preseli Pembrokeshire.
There are now three Tory MPs in Wales. They are all very right-wing, probably anti-Assembly in practice (even David Davies), and may cause grief for the Tory Assembly leader Nick Bourne. Aside from the landslides of 2001 and 1997, you would have to go back to 1966 to find a time when the Tories had as few as 3 MPs in Wales. 2005 remains one of their worst post-war results.
Politics
Apparently Plaid Cymru's defeated Ceredigion candidate Simon Thomas has yet to receive a message of commiseration from Plaid President Dafydd Iwan.
Perhaps Simon is being snubbed for telling the truth about Plaid's disaster?
Politics
I'm told by our web expert that according to statcounter we had over 400,000 hits on the www.rememberredwood.com website.
I think that's pretty good going.
Politics
At Welsh Labour's conference in March, Peter Hain said that Plaid was the party of three leaders: Ieuan Wyn Jones in Cardiff, Elfyn Llwyd in Westminster, 'and Dafydd Iwan, in denial.' That seems to be a fair reflection on the Plaid Cymru post-mortem so far.
Plaid has gone backwards since 2001. They lost nearly a third of their Assembly Members in 2003; their two flagship Valleys' councils in 2004; and possibly their most talented MP in 2005.
After they lost the Rhondda, in 2003, they claimed we had spent £100,000 on our local campaign.
After they lost Rhondda Cynon Taff Council, in 2004, they claimed we had spent £250,000 on the campaign. In fact, it was community campaigning that won it for us.
Now, to deflect attention from their disastrous results, Plaid seem to be claiming that holding Carmarthen East and Dinefwr with an increased majority was a tremendous success because we had spent thousands there targetting Adam Price. There doesn't seem to be a link to the actual Western Mail story with Adam Price's claims that we had spent tens of thousands there. Sorry to disappoint them, but as far as I can see our candidate there just had a couple of visits and a few mentions in our press releases.
They are also blaming the loss of Ynys Mon on the intervention of the independent candidate Peter Rogers. I think the high workrate and profile of Labour's Albert Owen has more to do with it, but if they want to remain in denial, that's up to them.
Some of the Plaid members are wiser than this, and it may be they will have a thorough rethink. There are some suggestions that they are embarking on a painful internal debate . While they can be expected to do better overall in the Assembly elections, compared to the UK General election, I think they may well lose their place as the official Opposition in the Assembly next time to the Tories. They will be under pressure from ourselves, the Lib Dems and the Tories in several of their seats in 2007.
Finally, I was entertained by the bar-chart used by Rhondda Plaid Cymru in one of their election leaflets, trying to show they were catching us up. It showed their vote going up from 21% in 2001, to 27% in the 2003 Assembly election and 35% in the RCT Council election in 2004. Just the small matter of the fall in their vote between 1999's Council and Assembly elections and the 2001 General Election and the subsequent assembly and Council elections. They ended up with 15.9% in the Rhondda this time: their worst Rhondda result since 1997, of course.
Politics
Overall, Welsh Labour emerged with 29 seats (down from 34). Aside from 2001 and 1997, you would have to go back to 1966 to find an election when Labour emerged with more Welsh seats (the boundaries and number of seats are not of course strictly comparable). There is a now a record number of Welsh women MPs, thanks to Welsh Labour.
Overall, across the UK, after the landslides of 1945, 1997, and 2001, and the 1966 result, this is Labour's 5th best result at a UK level. It was, of course, the first time Labour has secured a third-term.
Independent commentators were predicting that Welsh Labour could lose one-fifth of our seats. In other words, seven seats. We didn't, and we came close to a remarkable result, losing two seats with very small margins.
There was no great surprise, frankly, that we lost Monmouth, our most marginal seat, and Cardiff Central. These losses were widely expected before the election was called, though both Huw Edwards and Jon Owen Jones campaigned hard, with Jon in particular never out of the South Wales Echo. The loss of Clwyd West was also widely expected, and it is a tribute to the campaign run there by Gareth Thomas that he came so close.
There was concern about Preseli before the campaign started - again, the eventual result was a close one, and Sue Hayman worked hard there.
Blaenau Gwent was a unique - indeed a bizarre - election and I will write separately about that. It was certainly not Maggie Jones's fault - she was a good candidate who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The Lib Dems did better than expected in taking Ceredigion, although we were hearing reports that they were making progress there quite early on.
The Tories should have done better in Wales. Leaving aside 1997 and 2001, their performance is their worst in Wales since 1966. They were gutted at not taking the Vale of Glamorgan or Cardiff North, and to win Preseli and Clwyd West by the tiniest of margins was a clear failure for them.
Plaid Cymru were the biggest losers on the night. They declared at their Spring conference that they only had one target seat in Ynys Mon, and they failed to get that. They had no expectation of losing Ceredigion - it was a shock to the Plaid representatives on the election night panels on TV and radio. Overall, it was their worst result since the 1987 General Election.
In some ways you could argue there was not a Welsh campaign but a series of local contests. As we said in our final message from Peter Hain on May 5th:
'Don’t be fooled by the national opinion polls. It’s very different on the ground in the battleground seats. Just a few votes could make the difference in up to a dozen seats. Your vote really counts'.
We told those representing us on election night panels on May 5 that they should
• Expect some close results. There are a lot of local, hard-fought contests all over Wales
and that
• We are making no predictions early on.
It was a bruising, hard-fought campaign. At local level, people were having to argue for every vote. Nationally, it felt like one of those end-of-season promotion or relegation battles, where squeezing out a point is what matters.
There was no appetite for the Tories - but we had to work hard to get a majority.
Politics
I decided it was going to be too risky to seek to post very often during the election. I am a great believer in 'message discipline' and almost anything can, and would be, taken out of context in an election campaign. In any case, I was acting as Communications Director for Welsh Labour, so it seemed sensible to set an example....
I will post over the next few days in the form of a serial post-mortem on the Welsh results and on the Welsh media coverage of them.
The blues are staying up....
Well done City: we stay in the championship and thankfully it doesn't go to the last weekend.
Posts
All Comments
