I have never bet on a political candidate, because I don’t know how to. I once went into a bookie in Bangor and asked to put a fiver on Syd Morgan wining in Pontypridd, the lady behind the desk told me that she didn’t think that there was a race track in Pontypridd and that there was no horse called Syd Morgan running anywhere in Britain that week. Good result actually, because Syd lost and I saved my fiver!
Even if I knew how to bet on political outcomes and was a regular betting man I wouldn’t risk 5p, never mind £5 on the result in Aberconwy.
According to the UK Poling Report, the new Aberconwy constituency has a “notional” Labour incumbency with a majority of less than 0.9% over the Conservatives. So it is a tight Labour / Conservative marginal. However in the Assembly elections the seat was won by Plaid Cymru. Plaid also won the Conwy constituency in the European Elections, all be it by the tightest of possible margins. The Liberal Democrats, although failing recently, have a good record of coming close in this area, so they can’t be written off.
The seat offers hope to so many parties that the Westminster election has already started in earnest in this area, despite the fact that the election is yet to be called, and probably won’t be called for another 6 months or more. During the past 2 weeks I have had leaflets from all of the big four; indeed I have had two leaflets from Plaid and the Tories!
Plaid, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have all delivered their leaflets by hand, they have spoken to constituents out gardening, on the street etc, the candidates have pressed the flesh and made themselves known whilst delivering the papers, but the Labour message came by post. The post wasn’t even sent by the Labour Party, it was sent by Tangent Direct a mass mailing company based in Cramlington, Northumberland.
I suppose that the message from Northumberland may mean that Labour is ahead, that it doesn’t need local activists to do the donkey work, because it has the money to invest in alternative campaigning methods. On the other hand it may mean that Labour doesn’t have the activists locally to do the donkey work so it has to pay people to do what enthusiastic activists are willing to do for love of the cause in the other three parties. Whatever the reason, receiving a mailing shot got up my nose. It struck me as a lazy and impersonal way of contacting constituents and very bad form. It added to my feeling that Labour has already conceded defeat in Aberconwy, that the junk mail was an unenthusiastic response to the slog that all the other contenders are putting in with gusto.
If we look at all recent evidence - the Assembly, Euro & local elections, coupled with the 'national' polls which predict a fall of roughly 12% in the Labour vote it's fairly obvious that they're out of the running here.
ReplyDeleteIf they hold on to Aberconwy they'll maintain or improve their current position on a UK basis. Surely no one, Gordon Brown included believe that.
Tories will win handsomely. Plaid Cymru will come second.
ReplyDeleteOK BlogMenai I am stating the obvious, but sometimes it is worth reminding the electorate of the obvious. There are people in this constituency who don’t want the Conservatives to win, and who will vote Labour to try and prevent that happening. It is worth pointing out to them that Labour can’t win here, and if they don’t want a Tory MP then the there is only one alternative, an alternative that I would have expected your support in highlighting.
ReplyDeleteAnon I doubt if your prophecy is likely, if the Conservatives win then I would expect Plaid to come third, if Plaid win I would expect the Conservatives to come third. That is usually what happens when there are two opposition parties in with a shout. The reason that happens is fairly simple. I can only vote once and If I want to vote against the incumbent rather than for a particular party, then my one vote will push one of the opposition parties up and the other down. If the anti incumbent vote was evenly split (which would have to happen in order to fulfil your scenario) then the best bet would be that the incumbent would win.
The reality is that Labour have no chance at all and frankly never would have on these boundaries. Alwen is right there are many voters who do not wish to see a Conservative MP for Aberconwy and they are slowly rallying to the Plaid cause.
ReplyDeleteOn the issue of direct mail. All parties use a mixture of hand delivered and pain delivery these days.
The Lib dem leaflet circulated recently was certainly delivered by Royal Mail in Llandudno perhaps by hand elswhere.No doubt Plaid will make use of direct mail paid delivery at some point in the future.
"OK BlogMenai I am stating the obvious, but sometimes it is worth reminding the electorate of the obvious. There are people in this constituency who don’t want the Conservatives to win, and who will vote Labour to try and prevent that happening. It is worth pointing out to them that Labour can’t win here, and if they don’t want a Tory MP then the there is only one alternative, an alternative that I would have expected your support in highlighting."
ReplyDeleteQuite.
Plaid won't win in a million years in Aberconwy. It is essentially a Tory area and Betty Williams relied heavily on the Bangor end of the old Conwy constituency for her wins.
ReplyDeleteLlandudno, Deganwy and Penrhyn Bay are very Conservative, as are big chunks of the Conwy valley (most notably Rowen, Henryd and Eglwysbach).
Plaid win at Assembly level because most Tories regard the Assembly as irrelevant and can't be arsed to turn out. There is a subliminal feeling that, if they ignore it, it will go away.
I predict: 1. Conservative, 2. Plaid (Labour protests boosting them), 3. Labour (v low vote), 4. who cares?
Your claim that Aberconwy is essentially a Tory area is probably incorrect. It is true that there are more committed Conservatives in the constituency than those committed to any other individual party, but (from recollection) the Conservative party has never had a majority vote in any election in the current constituency or any of its predecessors. So the area is essentially anti Tory.
ReplyDeleteIf an election was held on the Single Transferable Vote system in this constituency the party that would rarely ever win it would be the Conservatives.
The problem that the anti-conservative block vote has had is that it was split, before Betti won.
Plaid can win the constituency if it can gather enough of the anti Tory / disillusioned by Labour vote as it did in both the Assembly and European elections. The Lib Dems could possibly do the same, although they seem to have lost the momentum, and UKIP isn’t out of the race either.
The likelihood is that the split opposition will do for Phil as it did for Roger.
The point of the original post, however, was to say that there are so many possible permutations that I wouldn’t bet on the outcome in Aberconwy. If you are confident enough in your prediction then stick a monkey on it!
It is essentially a Tory area ....
ReplyDelete(most notably Rowen, Henryd and Eglwysbach)!!!!
Eglwysbach:
Angharad Booth-Taylor Plaid Cymru 591,
Jack Finch Conservatives 80
Very Conservative!!!!!