Thoughts on four parties in Wales

Hmmm....

It would, of course, be a lot easier to do this in Scotland where not a single seat changed hands apart from Labour retaking Glasgow East from the SNP, which had been lost to them in a by-election. I may move up north after the last 24 hours. Life seems so much simpler there.

LABOUR

Well y jiw jiw, as my grandmother would once say. Nobody – but nobody – predicted that. Labour sources were clear it wouldn’t be as bad as was being suggested but to hold on to 26 seats was a minor miracle. Even more amazingly, Labour did it in Wales on 36% of the vote – a full 1.5% down on the calamity of the 1983 election result.

One of the major things that saved Labour was the inability of the Conservatives to take medium range targets in Wales. Thus the party held urban targets like Newport West and Bridgend with more comfort than had been speculated. There was a swing against Labour, but the party machine was in much better fettle than it had been for several years. In the local elections of 2008 and the Euro election of 2009 Labour’s collapse was sharper in Wales than in other parts of the UK. That was not true in 2010 – Welsh Labour did leagues better than its English counterpart.

Why did this happen? I’d suggest three factors played a role. One was Peter Hain. His persistent message of saving Wales from the Tories may have grated with the other parties, but it obviously worked with the electors from Delyn to Swansea West to Ynys Mon. He repeated the mantra as a constant and his message was simple and, quite simply, plausible to the electorate. Look no further than than the 10,000+ majority for Nick Smith MP in Blaenau Gwent to prove this point.

Secondly, Labour’s has begun to overhaul its operation and deploy its resources – and by damn they are more scarce than in the past – to best effect. Yesterday it found the form that in 2001 allowed it to lose 200,000 votes across Wales but shed no seats.

Thirdly, Labour is the luckiest party in Wales. End of.

CONSERVATIVES

The Tories can draw particular comfort that they were the party to gain the most in Wales last night. They entered with three seats and finished with eight, which is a clear step forward, especially when compared to the dysfunctional Scottish Conservative Party which once more returned just one MP. The Welsh Tories have remade themselves and it’s delivering for them, albeit at a slower rate than they would hope.

Thus they got back to around 25% of the vote in Wales last night, the share the used to take before the long nightmare of 1997 began. This was a clear uplift and brought with it gains like Carmarthen West and Pembrokeshire South, the Vale of Glamorgan, Aberconwy, and Cardiff North (just). They have seats in most parts of Wales again, though eastern Clwyd remained stubbornly loyal to its “new” Labour leanings in targets like the Vale of Clwyd and Delyn.

It was a credible performance, though not a sparkling one. But at least, as Cameron considers his next move, the Welsh Conservatives can reflect that they helped put him in that position – in stark contrast to their Scottish cousins.

Oh, and Glyn Davies won Montgomeryshire too on what seems to be, at about 13%, the biggest swing to the Conservatives in any part of the UK. If I had had a bacon sandwich in my hand when I heard that whisper I would definitely have dropped it. Stunning, simply stunning. But hardly symptomatic of a national trend, as I’m sure Glyn would agree.

LIBERAL DEMOCRATS

Well, that didn’t quite go as planned did it? At the start of this campaign pundits wondered whether the Lib Dems would emerge from it with one seat or six. It was all up in the air. Then came Cleggmania and the attendant hysteria and it seemed they were on course for serious progress.

But yet as they gaze into their bleak porridge this morning, they must surely wonder what on earth went wrong. How can a party take a 219 majority in Ceredigion and make it rock solid 8000 plus; but in the neighbouring seat of Montgomeryshire, once their safest in Wales, see their mandate crumble. Local factors must surely be the answer, because one size does not fit all.

And that is a lesson they have learnt in their urban centres too. Swansea West was so within their grasp, yet they faltered and fell. Badly. It felt like watching an Assembly election all over again as every Lib Dem hope of gain was dashed in Wales. Quite why needs serious contemplation and cannot easily be brushed away. Because if they can perform miracle swings in both Pontypridd and Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney, what the hell went wrong in their top targets? And don’t get me started on Wrexham, which was being talked up but in which they only managed to scrape a second.

The bounce bounced away and, in Wales like the rest of the UK, the Liberal Democrats saw no positive effect of the Prime Ministerial debates.

PLAID CYMRU

In contrast, Plaid certainly saw an effect from the TV debates and in retrospect they were right to moan because it certainly impacted on their vote. For Plaid, last night was bleak. I’ve previously contended that Plaid just can’t do well in UK General Elections, pointing toward previous losses. But last night was their worst one yet.

Losing Ynys Mon in 2001 was compounded last night by polling 2500 fewer votes than they managed last time. By any explanation, that is a massacre. Similarly, you decide what was worse: losing Ceredigion by 219 votes when they weren’t expecting it; or by 6,000+ when they were really, really trying to win it back.

And set that in the context of a hung parliament where Plaid, as in the 1970s, could really demonstrate their relevance in a Westminster system and the results seem even darker. (Out of kindness I won’t dwell on the fourth place they polled in their target seat of Aberconwy, which they hold in the Assembly.)

But there were some redeeming features. Plaid may not have won Llanelli but it came damn close to achieving the double figure swing necessary to do so, which was quite something. Lembit Opik may have promised “I’ll be back” but I’ve got a feeling that it’s Myfannwy Davies who will be.

Plaid also did well in the swings it achieved in Neath, Rhondda and, most spectacularly, Cynon Valley. But ultimately these Westminster seats are less important than demonstrating momentum for the next Assembly election. An election that means more to Plaid than any Westminster contest. Watch those spaces.