The final fight

Approaching the finish line

As the paper reports, “Staff on all three campaigns believe thousands of votes belonging to members of the party and trade unions have yet to be cast before the ballot closes at 5pm on Thursday.”

Returning to the “No complacency” theme that has been an undertone of the Carwyn Jones approach, his campaign manager Leighton Andrews said: “No-one has won this election yet. There are still a significant number of members who have yet to vote. We are quietly confident Carwyn is the popular choice among party members, but we are taking nothing for granted and there’s a lot of work to be done.”

From Matt Greenough, communications director for Huw Lewis’ campaign, came a similar pledge to keep fighting. But he also gave a view on the way the campaign had boosted his candidate. Matt said: “To get from a position on the backbenches to where Huw is now – front and centre in Welsh politics, driving the agenda forward – that is a tremendous achievement in itself. But we won’t rest until 5.01pm on Thursday.”

From Andrew Davies, the Swansea West AM managing Edwina Hart’s campaign, a further commitment to maintain battle: “We are not giving up in this campaign until November 26. I think there are still a lot of people who haven’t voted and even at this stage may be undecided.”

I know what Andrew was saying here – the same as the other two campaign organisers – but a mischevious interpretation of that line is possible. Nobody’s giving up on November 26th are they? Surely not?

No they’re not. All three candidates are in until the final result. And we’ve only got ten more days to go before we reach that point. At last.