A year is a long time in politics

Predicting 2010 in politics: The Thick of It series conclusion set out the verbal battle lines of a General Election to come that will be full of sound and fury

ONE year ago any political look back or look forward column would have based its predictions on the landmarks easily discerned through the mists: How would Kirsty Williams work out as Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader? Who would succeed Rhodri Morgan? Would Labour be knocked from poll position in Wales in the Euro elections? So it came to pass that all three were worth watching in 2009 and their parallels will be big stories next year, too.

2010: another year, another election. The electoral cycle does not permit a fallow year until 2013 so we can confidently predict that next year – and for the following two, too – the high point of the political year will be a ballot box contest. All political parties know this, and hardened politicos have already invested much energy in shaping and predicting the outcome of an electoral contest as big and hard fought as anything we have seen in modern times. The closing scenes of the The Thick of It captured the Stalingrad tone to come: a battle not just of ideas but a brutal, bloody scrap fought street by street and house by house, between party machines that absolutely detest one another. The Liberal Democrats and Plaid may imply there is little to choose between Labour and the Conservatives, but the two big parties do not see it that way. For both realistic would-be governments, 2010 is as pivotal a year as 1979 or 1997. It will be a savage affair with big casualties.

It’s not difficult to predict a General Election in 2010, although there is more movement around the date. In such matters, the bookies are rarely wrong. Ladbrokes is still, in the style of Cuba Gooding Jr, showing the money – and it lies on May 2010 rather than two months earlier. So let’s play safe and continue to call it then.

When it comes, the biggest story in the 2010 General Election in Wales is likely to be the revival of the Conservative Party, especially in North and West Wales. The signs have been there for several years and were demonstrated most clearly in the results of this year’s Euro elections. A WalesHome.org column reflected then: “Imagine a new political world with three dominant Welsh parties fighting it out to emerge top. Sometimes it will be one, sometimes it will be another, but there will be no automatic front runner…Unless Labour radically restructures and repositions then this sort of pattern may be here for a long time to come. And even if Labour does take some of the hard decisions needed in order to rebuild itself, there is no guarantee that the repositioning will work.”

The battle for Labour is little changed six months on. Defending Labour territory from the resurgent Conservative challenge is the epitome of the battle that The Thick of It foreshadowed. Seats like Cardiff North and the Vale of Glamorgan seem already lost to Labour. Look to the Vale of Clwyd, Delyn and Carmarthen West & Pembrokeshire South as the real battlergrounds. Because the Conservatives know that unless they take such seats, they will make progress but they will not make a government.

Watch out also for the challenge faced by the Liberal Democrats. They hold four Welsh seats in Westminster and keeping them all will be a big ask. A classic third-part squeeze is on the cards, even if the the hung Parliament that some predict may grant the Liberal Democrats their biggest opportunity in decades. Ladbrokes are still calling it for the Conservatives but, at the time of writing, you can get 11/4 on a hung Parliament – the second most popular option. If that happens then expect the process of coalition building we saw in Wales in 2007 to be a walk in the park compared to the negotiations and possible outcomes next year.

Plaid may be talking big about their ambitions for the General Election but history is against them. As we reflected during Plaid conference in September: “In terms of seats, the targets are…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?”

Four months later, this analysis seems still very plausible. Plaid will find it hard to get beyond regaining Ynys Mon and Ceredigion in 2010. Winning those seats will simultaneously mean their highest ever tally, but also a mere reoccupation of ground previously held. No breakthrough, but an advance – and that is often what is important in politics.

Has he won the easiest contest?

One person who will need to demonstrate an immediate advance in 2010 will be the new First Minister. Carwyn Jones had a convincing win in December, and will be judged this year by the way he builds on this. There will be a variety of ways in which this could manifest itself.

The course of the first has already been set: the performance of the newly reshaped Welsh Assembly Government. Some have condemned his new Cabinet for not looking and feeling radical enough, but his initial moves have been shrewd and purposeful. Retaining Edwina Hart AM and Jane Davidson AM in the key portfolios of Health and Social Services and Environment, while at the same time bringing in decisive figures like Carl Sergeant AM and Leighton Andrews AM to deal with Local Government and Education shows a real determination to place politics at the heart of decision making. Next year will see whether or not these appointments have been the right ones.

Carwyn will also be judged by the way Welsh Labour performs in the next General Election. This will be a battle of credibility for Labour. Carwyn’s ascendancy with 52% of the Labour electoral college was a convincing win that will be impossible to match amongst the electorate at large. Instead the battle will come down to middle range seats and to whether Labour can deny Cameron an outright majority in the Commons. But let’s throw another measure into the mix. In 2008 the collapse in Labour’s vote at the local elections was worse in Wales than in other parts of the UK. Similarly, the 2009 Euro election result demonstrated a bigger collapse for Welsh Labour than for her sister parties, too. For the past two years, Wales has been the softest underbelly of the Labour Party in any part of the UK. If Carwyn stops this rot – and it will be easy to compare – then he will have at least partly arrested the narrative of decline which plagues his party.

Whatever Carwyn does, though, one of the big impacts of the 2010 General Election will be the large turnover in Welsh MPs. Even without the aid of the electorate, a number of prominent Parliamentarians have already signalled their departure. The headlines may have been grabbed by the early (and probably temporary) political retirement of Plaid’s Adam Price MP, but it is Labour who will see the biggest change. Father of the House Alan Williams MP in Swansea West, fiery Betty Williams MP in Aberconwy, prescription policy expert Martyn Jones MP in Clwyd South, doughty John Smith MP in the Vale of Glamorgan and now the forthright Kim Howells MP in Pontypridd have all indicated they will not restand. There are rumours others who have done 20 years or so will also follow. Add in prospective seat changes and we could have up to 15 new MPs out of 40 from Wales in a matter of months.

And 2010 promises that more Assembly Members will turn their backs on the Bay too, signalling they will not restand in 2011. Eight Labour figures have already indicated they will retire: former First Minister Rhodri Morgan AM in Cardiff West, Irene James AM (Islwyn), Val Lloyd AM (Swansea East), Dr Brian Gibbons AM (Aberavon), Karen Sinclair AM (Clwyd South), Lorraine Barrett AM (Cardiff South & Penarth), Andrew Davies AM (Swansea West) and current Cabinet big hitter Jane Davidson AM (Pontypridd). Add to them the Lib Dems’ Mick Bates, and almost one in six of AMs have made clear this year they will not be looking to return to the institution in 2011. The intervening year will probably add to this number as others, perhaps spanning all parties, indicate they will not be fighting on, even if their seats are safe.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but politics is full of themes. The MPs’ expenses issue was a defining period in modern politics which may well cast its shadow over the year to come, too. Yet its seeds were apparent both in the Assembly Members’ expenses furore of the year before as well as in the rumours circulating of darker deeds among certain MPs. It may feel that this story has come and passed, but elected members say that the ill will it created is still discernible in many conversations with the electorate, regardless of party.

The author of the All Wales Convention report - the script outline for devolution in 2010

2009 has been a year of emerging tensions between Plaid and Labour at the heart of the One Wales government. The reworking of the coalition policy on tuition fees was a cause of real public tension, as was the introduction of a badger cull. Yet it is in the attitude of the two parties to the issue of further devolution that remains a possible fracture. The debacle of the Labour statement that was intended to reassure Plaid at the end of November is an illustration of how every word – every nuance – matters when it comes to the forthcoming referendum on more powers for the Assembly. The One Wales agreement makes clear that this will be delivered within the life of this Assembly. To Plaid, the second half of 2010 is a better option than 2011. Many in Labour agree.

There are far too many variables to be sure that the referendum will take place then, so predictions here on this matter will take two other forms. First, and obviously, there will be major repercussions – from within Plaid and elements of Labour – if the senior partner fails to deliver on this key component of One Wales. Carwyn knows this already. Second, comment levels on WalesHome.org articles will continue to be higher on columns discussing the referendum than any other topic. But we know too that outside the Bubble and the blogosphere there is one hell of a lot to do to win the battle of ideas when it comes to progressing devolution as a process.

To most people, their principle political concerns in 2010 will be the same as 2009: the economy and the shape of public services. They will be the battle grounds on which the General Election will be fought and also on which the performance of the Welsh Government will be judged a year later. The days of solving political problems in Wales with a cheque book are over. It has been said many times that government must deliver services better and in a more effective way. The biggest change between 2009 and 2010 may be the move from rhetoric to reality on this front.

To adjust Harold Wilson’s old phrase, a year is a long time in politics.