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Plaid Cymru still needs to take a lot more pawns before it can become the dominant pieces on the board in Wales

PLAID CYMRU is meeting for its annual Conference in Llandudno this week, and once more it is my weekend venue of choice.

To my mind, overall the last two years have been the most effective and rewarding in the history of Plaid Cymru. 2007 was excellent, and the party performed an amazing political triumph on entering a Welsh government for the first time in its history. Let us not minimise the impact of that. Based on some of the factors outlined in an earlier WalesHome article, in 2007 Plaid was a party with options. Ieuan Wyn Jones was rightly singled out as Welsh Politician of the Year in two awards ceremonies that year. He maximised Plaid’s position by embarking on rival but in a way complimentary negotiations. By behaving strategically and politically he brought the party to a number of negotiating tables simultaneously. Without the poker game and the poker face they would never have walked away with the prize.

But 2008 in some ways was even better. It could have been very easy not to be able to match 2007′s performance when the local elections came. To my mind, Plaid did better in those elections than they were given credit for. Regardless of what some media outlets might think, there were electoral contents outside Gwynedd. And quite frankly Plaid didn’t do that badly in Gwynedd either. But the real story of how well they did is in two parts. First, the results themselves, with Plaid gaining seats in every part of Wales. Frankly, the new seats won in Wrexham and Torfaen are worth more to Plaid in the long run than a handful of extra councillors that would have given them control in Gwynedd. Because in 2008 – and not 2007 – Plaid finally became, in local government terms, what they set out to be all those years ago – Plaid Genedlaethol Cymru.

And look at the results of those results. Once more by shrewd negotiation Plaid capitalised on their gains in Wrexham and Caerphilly and  even made a silk purse out of a sow’s ear in Swansea. And I use the word capitalised deliberately. Accuse me of Cardiff-centrism, but it is hugely important that Plaid is now sharing power in the governance of our capital city. Overall across Wales, Plaid is now a member of more local government administrations than it has ever been before. Plaid Genedlaethol Cymru, indeed.

But what of the Assembly, the place that matters most to Plaid? The biggest variable in Assembly arithmetic so far has been Plaid’s tally: 17 in 1999, 12 in 2003, and 15 in 2007.  That probably makes me think it still has enough elasticity to surprise in 2011. But can Plaid surprise everyone else outside Plaid and really break through? Can it go beyond 17 seats, beyond 20 seats, and toward the 30 seats that would make a single party Plaid administration viable? The answer must surely be no. Not because the party is not gaining votes. Despite a relatively poor showing in this year’s European election, the trend for Plaid is definitely pointing forward. But not with enough pace, and there are too many other variables at stake.

The first variable is the Conservative Party. To me it is logical that if Plaid prospers electorally at Assembly level, in first past the post terms that will generally be at the expense of Labour. The same is also true of the Welsh Conservatives. But there is a crucial difference between them. On paper Plaid stands a realistic chance of taking far fewer extra first past the post seats in 2011 than the Welsh Conservatives. Just look at 2007 when the Conservatives picked up 4 new first past the post Assembly seats, yet Plaid just retook 2 old ones. In 2011 the Conservatives need far smaller swings to take new seats like Clwyd South, the Vale of Glamorgan, the Vale of Clwyd and even Gower. In contrast, Plaid’s key first past the post targets look harder to win. Places like Neath where the Labour majority is a shade under 2000 or Caerphilly perhaps, where a complex form electoral dance is taking place.

Because, in short, at Assembly election level Plaid has done the easiest bit.  At the moment that has left Plaid is now pretty much exposed on the regional lists should it win new constituencies. It is the position which the Conservatives broadly found themselves in 2007. Every time they took a first past the post seat, they lost a list one. For Plaid to escape that pattern, they don’t just need to move to the next level electorally, they need to go to the one beyond that. The one where Plaid picks up Neath and holds  two regional seats in South Wales West. The one where three seats in South East Wales are achieved again. The one where Plaid get Carmarthen West and Pembrokeshire South but somehow find even more voters in Mid & West Wales to enable Nerys Evans’ current list seat to stay Plaid. The one where it’s Plaid that capitalises as Conservatives move off regional lists and into first past the post seats, not Labour.

But let’s not jump too far ahead, because there is another significant test before 2011. The next UK General Election will be the next big hurdle for Plaid. In terms of seats, the targets for this time are bold but well defined: holding the current three seats; regaining Ceredigion and Ynys Mon; and picking up maybe Llanelli, Aberconwy and/or Clwyd West. It is probably the biggest opening up of new Westminster territory ever attempted by the party. Yet the track record of Plaid in gaining ground is not great. It has only ever held two seats consistently since first winning them; indeed, apart from 1974 has never won two new seats at the same time. Every other gain has always been incremental and singular, and not always retained. Against such a backdrop, does not a surge forward on such a scale look almost impossible?

All of which makes it all the more surprising that Plaid’s Director of Elections has decided to stand down now. One of the great political curiosities of this decade has been that the strongest voice in Plaid Cymru comes not from one of its Assembly Members but from one of its MPs. The power and presence of Adam Price is hugely significant. There was a clear sense of shock in Plaid when Adam announced last month that he was standing down as the party’s Director of Elections. It is a post he has held since 2005 and he has had more hits than misses. He was brought in to turn around the party’s electoral strategy after the disappointment of the last Westminster election when Ceredigion was lost to the Welsh Liberal Democrats. The irony is, despite success in 2007 and 2008, Adam will not be at the strategic helm of the party to ensure that both Ceredigion and Ynys Mon return to the fold.

Despite considerable success, Plaid Cymru is a long way from the electoral success it desires. Compared to the SNP, it is still the poor relation in electoral terms. Coming third behind Labour and the Conservatives in this year’s European elections was not just not good enough, no matter how a Vale of Glamorgan leaflet tries to spin it as some sort of bizarre “joint-first”. Deeper and wider success at local government level must translate through into new Assembly seats and new Westminster seats too – especially if the party is openly talking about more than doubling its number of MPs in a single election.

But, quite frankly, for all its recent successes, Plaid has still got a long way to go. The successor to Adam Price as Director of Elections has got one hell of a job to do in the next two years.