Taffia Don: 04/05/07 – NATIONAL ASSEMBLY GOVERNMENT FOR WALES RESULTS

Friday, May 04, 2007

04/05/07 – NATIONAL ASSEMBLY GOVERNMENT FOR WALES RESULTS

Well it was a long night, with coverage finishing at 6.30am, which incidentally is when I got to bed, surprisingly though I was quite sprightly by 10.00am when I earthed in the potatoes gaining several calicoes on both my hands for my efforts – I’m not used to all this labouring.

It was fairly good election result with labour retaining seats by the skin of their teeth, e.g. vale of Glamorgan, which I believe was around 60 votes more for labour over the conservative among others, labour won back Wrexham, not that surprising since John Merik(?) seemed to have slightly gone off the rails in his relations with the Elis-Thomas, the pair not speaking by the end of the second assembly which was problematic since they were presiding officer and deputy presiding officer.

There are a few points thought that are worth mentioning.

1) During the commentary this morning (4th May 2007) they mentioned that neither the presiding officer or the deputy presiding officer will have votes in this assembly. This will defiantly suit labour, as they were scuppered on several votes because the presiding officer voting against them when the deputy was presiding. So this is a partisan alteration to the devolution settlement surely.

2) I can’t find the figures at the moment but I seem to recall that they said that labour had 35% share of the vote, and they have managed to get 43% of the seats – here is me thinking that we had a proportional system, however, this hybrid additional member system seems to favour labour.

3) Turnout, was quite good (in a comparison with recent elections) on average 44% nation-wide. Which compared to the percentages in general elections is good and would have gained more acclaim if it wasn’t for the recent French presidential election.

4) The rise of the BNP they gained 9% in the regional vote in Wrexham, and 8% in Swansea east (those being the most notable of their results). I don’t know the candidates in Swansea east however Wrexham had a very powerful independent candidate and I was wondering if there was a correlation between voting for independents and voting for peripheral minority parties such as the BNP. This is based on the assumption that if you vote for a major party then you would give them your two votes. However, since independents are not allowed to stand on lists in addition to the constituency does this prompt people to look at and vote for unorthodox parties? This I shall have a look at later, providing I can find a breakdown of the regional vote for each constituency, although I can’t recall a large BNP presence in Blaenau Gwent where the independent Trish Law won.

I can’t find such a break down, does anyone know where I can get one?

¶ 7:25 PM

Comments:

Labour got only 32% of the votes.

Regarding the Presiding Officer + Deputy. One will be from the government and 1 from the opposition this time, not 2 from the opposition as was the case!

# posted by

hedd : 12:15 AM

There was barely any mention of the BNP in Blaenau Gwent - not one leaflet came through the door in my area as far as i can recall. There is an issue locally though with an emerging polish community in the area. Lack of understanding and general tabloid-type opinion of 'foreigner = bad = steal jobs' is fueling the fire, so to speak. Its easy to see some sort of a divide, when you see and hear the reactions of some people, on the weekends, when some of the polish people come into a pub.

I think that this is a part of the reason that the BNP polled as they did here. I think it gives all the main parties here something serious to think about.

# posted by

Luke young : 4:55 PM