More of a mixed message for the Conservatives

THE YOU GOV poll today certainly made good reading for the Welsh Conservatives in terms of headline figures around 31% of the Welsh electorate being prepared to back them in a UK General Election, but the messages in the polling weren’t uniformly pleasing.

For example, as we noted earlier, Conservative voters remain less convinced than any others for the main parties that the powers of the Assembly should be extended. 53% would oppose increasing the Assembly’s powers if a referendum was held now, compared to 32% in favour. This is certainly a challenge to the Conservative group in the Assembly, which is known to be ahead of much of the rest of the Welsh party on this issue.

There is also less pleasing news for the party when it comes to Assembly elections compared to UK ones. In such contests the UK figures fall away from 31% to 25% and 27% in the constituency and regional votes respectively, boosting Plaid Cymru. The Conservative Party always has had a problem in making itself seem relevant in Assembly elections, and on these figures this problem seems to persist.

Further, 50% of electors have no opinion on how Nick Bourne would perform as First Minister. This can be compared to 47% lack of opinion for Ieuan Wyn Jones and 58% for Kirsty Williams, showing a lack of familiarity with Assembly politicians in general as Adam reflected upon earlier. But Nick has been leader of his party for ten years now and Kirsty has only been in post a year, so the recognition factor should probably have been higher.

At the same time Nick also scores negatively in terms of whether the electorate as a whole consider he would do a good or a bad job as First Minister. He gets a -12% rating on that score, compared to +8% for Ieuan Wyn Jones and -2% for Kirsty Williams. Evidently more needs to be done to raise the profile and perception of the Conservative group leader in the Assembly.

Ok, all of this needs to be tempered by the 31% support in a UK General Election, their polling amongst young people and their dominance in some regional votes, but at the same time it would be a mistake for the Welsh Conservatives to imagine that all is sorted for them.

It is often said by Labour that Cameron hasn’t “sealed the deal” with the electorate. By the same token, on the basis of these figures, when it comes to Assembly election performance there is currently no deal to seal for the Conservatives in Wales.

Survey Report