Scumbag Labour - Parachutes and Donkeys

Ever since it was announced that Stephen Kinnock was going to be turning up for the General Election result night to claim his MP title in Aberavon in May 2015 some people have tried to say that he has been parachuted into the job. Some also claim that you could put a red rosette on a donkey and the people of (insert valleys constituency here) will turn out and vote for them.

Of course I'm not going to blindly listen to these people so I wanted to fact check these statements first.

Graph showing the Labour dominance of Aberavon since 1922. Share via twitter | facebook

I checked the complete General Election history for Aberavon and back when the seat was created for the 1918 General Election Labour came second behind the Liberals and that is the only time in almost 100 years of the Aberavon seat that Labour have not won it. In that time they have had only four MPs. The first was the Scottish Prime Minister Ramsay McDonald who held the seat for seven years. Then it was the turn of Pontypridd born William Cove who held the job for 30 years including one stint where he was completely unopposed. Next up was Aberystwyth's John Morris who held the seat for 42 years. The current MP, Neath born Hywel Francis has held the job since 2001 so will have been the MP for 14 years when he hands the baton on to Tredegar's Stephen Kinnock.

So I guess they were right after all and this is a textbook definition of parachuting an outsider into a safe seat. And when he is elected in 2015 it will be another textbook definition of the donkey vote.

Of course the people of Aberavon are apparently free to vote for whoever they wish, but after almost a 100 years of one party dominance they might question if the party they have blindly voted for really is doing anything for them, with 28% child poverty it is only other Labour controlled seats that are stopping Aberavon having the worst child poverty in Wales.

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