FM Wars IV - A New Hope

Mark the date in your calendar. May 11th was the day when Welsh politics became interesting as what was meant to be the formality of reinstating Carwyn Jones as First Minister took a shock turn.

Ynys Môn AM Rhun ap Iorwerth nominated Plaid Cymru Leader Leanne Wood as their challenger. Nothing interesting there but what followed was as all the Labour AMs naturally voted for Carwyn Jones and all the Plaid Cymru, Conservative and UKIP AMs voted for Leanne Wood. The sole Lib Dem AM, Kirsty Williams gave her vote to Carwyn in order to create a dead lock.

The vote finished 29-29. As is customary the Presiding Officer and Deputy Presiding Officer do not vote. Since they are from Plaid Cymru and Labour it wouldn't have made any difference at all.

As interesting as all this is I wanted to look at the claims from Labour that they had a clear mandate to govern.

Now I've already debunked the 'largest party myth' when Labour were banging on about it before the General Election in 2015 and the same rules stand here in Wales and Rhun ap Iorwerth mention it in the EBC article. I wont repeat myself or Rhun, I'll just post some sexy charts to show Labour's mandate for what it is.

This isn't a sexy chart, It's Carwyn having a blub. Source EBC

A look at South Wales Central

I saw an interesting tweet from Leighton Andrews over the weekend. In the tweet the former Labour Minister was congratulating a Tory AM on retaining his list seat. Unless you've been living under a rock these past few days you'll be aware that Leighton Andrews lost his constituency seat due to the Rhondda putting their faith in Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood.

Having fine tuned my list seat spreadsheet I entered the results to see what would have happened had the Rhondda not woken up.

At least we now have one less Labour hypocrite.

The hypocrisy of the UKIP haters.

The Welsh elections have been and gone and people all over Wales (and beyond) are tearing their hair out that UKIP had seven Assembly Members elected thanks to the form of proportional representation that our democracy allows.

Hey Heath, Imma let you finish but Cesar Romero was the greatest joker of all time.

Welsh Election Results - 2016

The 2016 Welsh elections were held on May 5th. The main shock saw Plaid Cymru's leader Leanne Wood winning the Rhondda seat ahead of former Education Minister Leighton Andrews. The collapse of Labour's vote (-27%) coupled with the increase in the Plaid vote (+21%) is something we're used to seeing with the SNP in Scotland, but not with Plaid Cymru in Wales.

Another surprise of the night was Kirsty Williams almost trebling her majority in Brecon and Radnorshire. Despite losing four seats, this woeful showing from the Lib Dems won't cause a leadership challenge as Kirsty is now the sole Liberal Democrat in the Senedd. (Edit - Kirsty has now resigned as leader of, umm, herself. You couldn't make this up).

UKIP performed as well as the polls had predicted. I have previously looked at the results for the EU Elections in 2014 and the General Election in 2015 so their performance shouldn't have shocked anyone as the Welsh elections includes proportional voting which gave UKIP seven regional seats.

With thanks to ITV I have compiled the following table. I have ignored the independent candidates and the whack jobs. The forty seats are listed alphabetically on the left with the colour of the party who won the seat. Their vote figure is colour coded to show where they placed. Despite it showing the Lib Dems and Greens finishing fifth and sixth there were some seats where independents hammered them both.

Click to make it bigger, or squint at the screen it's your choice.

Guide to the Welsh Election - 2016

On the 5th May 2016 the people of Wales will once again vote for who they want to become their Assembly Members for the next term. This then helps decided who will form the next Welsh government. I thought I'd put together a guide to explain how the Welsh elections work for the benefit of the first time voters. I'll update the page up until the election.

1. You need to be on the electoral register in order to vote.

Share via twitter | facebook