The Greens will be in the BBC leaders' debate

Following my previous post—though perhaps not because of it—I received an email this afternoon saying that the BBC has invited the Greens to take part in the televised leaders' debate on 26 April.

We Won! BBC Wales have invited the Greens

Hi Pawb

Thank you so much for signing the petition BBC Wales: Don't exclude the Greens / BBC Cymru: Peidiwch ag eithrio’r Blaid Werdd. We are delighted to announce that BBC Wales will be including the Wales Green Party in the televised leaders debates that will be taking place on the 26th of April, ahead of the National Assembly Elections for Wales in 2016.

We could not have done it without your help, so thank you very much.

Diolch yn fawr

Kim Bryan

That's definitely a win. So well done BBC Cymru Wales.

Will BBC Cymru Wales follow BBC Scotland?

In the run up to the Scottish Parliament election, BBC Scotland have agreed to host two televised leaders debates. As well as the main parties—the SNP, Labour and the Tories—the LibDems, Greens and UKIP will also take part in the first on 24 March, and the LibDems and Greens, but not UKIP, in the second on 1 May. The details are here.

     

BBC Cymru Wales have not announced their plans, but I would urge them to follow BBC Scotland's lead. For the sake of fairness, the voices of UKIP, the Greens and the LibDems need to be heard alongside those of Labour, the Tories and Plaid Cymru in the campaign for the Senedd too.

Musings on a Sunday lunchtime

On a lazy Sunday lunchtime, I was rather taken by something that Lee Waters wrote on his Amanwy blog today:

I'm bored of the economic debate in Wales. All the business organisations, the CBI and IoD, can come up with is the idea of spending £1 Billion on a new stretch of M4 around Newport, which would gobble up all the available money for the whole of Wales and only success in moving the traffic jams a few miles down the road.

Amanwy, 28 February 2016

His view on the proposed new M4 motorway should hardly come as a surprise, after all he was director of Systrans Cymru. But the first thought that came to my mind was that the new M4 is not just all that business organizations can come up with ... it is equally true that it is all that the Labour government in Wales can come up with (or the Tories, for that matter). Yet he is standing as the Labour candidate for Llanelli in the Senedd elections in May.

Which got me thinking ...

First, it reminded me that there are distinct divides in the Labour Party in Wales. A point I have often made is that Welsh Labour contains people who tend to see things from the perspective of the Welsh national interest as well as those who primarily see what is in the British national interest. Next, I remembered an article by Gerald Holtham in 2014 in which he suggested the best way of rekindling excitement in Welsh politics, especially one in which Labour always leads the government, is that Welsh Labour should supply its own opposition.

As I re-read that article, I smiled at how much things had changed in relation to the fortunes of our national football team, and smiled even more about what he said on adopting STV for elections:

A possible stimulus could come from multi-member constituencies. Suppose we reduced the number of Assembly constituencies and elected three members for each. Each Party would have to put up three candidates per constituency and the public would express their preference by voting 1, 2, 3 … Different views within the same Party could be judged and endorsed by the public, reflected in the order in which it voted for a Party’s candidates.

If people in Pontsticill are determined to vote Labour, they can at least ask "which Labour". Yes, that would result in a degree of intra-Party competition, traditionally anathema to UK politicians, but it would give the public more influence and the public would like it. For proof, look to the Republic of Ireland where such a voting system has long been in place. From time to time politicians have urged changing it and set up referenda to do so. Every time the public has refused and clung to the system. Admittedly a degree of selflessness is required of our politicians to move to such a system. What an opportunity to demonstrate that they are not "just in it for themselves", as cynics claim.

Gerald Holtham – Click on Wales, 27 March 2014

As it so happens, the Irish held elections for the Dáil on Friday, and I'm one of those people who are keeping half an eye on how the counts there are unfolding. It is a truly wonderful system, especially because it gives people the chance to throw out one candidate from a particular political party in favour of someone else from the same party who they consider to be better.

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Turning now to more practical and immediate matters, we all know that Labour are going to form the next Welsh Government after the May elections, despite the long-standing traditional pantomine performance from most party representives that they are going to win. Labour will get 25-27 seats, the Tories 13-16, Plaid 9-10, UKIP 6-9, LibDems 1-3, Greens 0-2. They'll probably be able to govern as a minority government because the opposition on any issue would be so divided. Labour won't want to give any other party the credibility of a share of government if they can help it, and will look to play one small party against the others to get their budgets through.

So yes, in one sense it will be more of the same. Our government will be a Labour government. The question is, What sort of Labour? If the majority of Labour AMs are the sort that will put the Welsh national interest first, it will inevitably take us further towards independence. As I've said before, Labour boast that they were the party that delivered devolution for Wales, even though they were hardly very keen on it before they did; and we might well find that Labour are the party that will deliver independence for Wales, even though they are hardly very keen on it now.

Personal opinion or party policy?

Y Byd ar Bedwar last night focused on solar farms in Wales. As most readers of Syniadau will know, I am entirely in favour of renewable energy ... although that doesn't mean I don't have concerns over some individual proposals or the financial framework which applies to energy projects in general.

In particular, I think local communities should either partially own or receive a fair share of the profits made by developers and landowners for renewable schemes such as solar and wind farms. Much of the programme examined complaints that local communities were not in fact benefiting in the way that had been promised/expected when these schemes were given permission. I think there would be a better chance of it happening if that financial framework were administered by the Welsh Government rather than the UK Government in Westminster.

The full programme (with subtitles) is available here, but I would like to highlight something that Llyr Gruffydd said in it:

     

"The Westminster Government, as we've seen, has done nothing less than attack the renewables sector since the British General Election last May; through cutting subsidies, through changing the rules, and so on.

"And of course they, in London, are now looking to invest more and more in fracking and in nuclear – the sort of methods which are not, in my opinion, going to allow us to fulfil our climate change and environmental obligations here in Wales."

I agree with him entirely on this. But what I find sad is that he is only able to offer this as a personal opinion, rather than as the policy of Plaid Cymru. If he were to say that Plaid Cymru's policy is one of total opposition to any new nuclear power stations in Wales (which is in fact true, because that's the position endorsed repeatedly in party conferences) he would immediately be contradicted by other prominent Plaid Cymru politicians saying how much they support new nuclear power. Similarly, if he were to say that Plaid supported other renewables such as onshore wind farms, he would immediately be contradicted by other Plaid Cymru politicians saying that they oppose them. In fact it has become something of a mantra for Plaid politicians to talk about personal opinions rather than party policy when interviewed in the media, in an attempt to avoid highlighting these divisions.

As everyone knows, Plaid Cymru is all over the place when it comes to energy policy, because no-one in the party leadership is strong enough to unite the party around one policy for the whole of Wales. The same is true in other policy areas, too.

As things stand, Plaid Cymru is not a party for the whole of Wales, but better thought of as a set of local parties with often different local policies. This is the main reason it is going to continue go backwards in terms of the seats it will hold in the National Assembly after the May elections, and why it is in danger of falling to fourth place in terms of the vote across most of Wales. Yes, it will still hold on in its local heartlands, and perhaps even increase its level of support there, but it will do so at the price of becoming more and more irrelevant at a national level.

The maths would work

I was surprised to see, as reported here and here, that talks about an electoral pact between the Greens, Plaid Cymru and LibDems for the Assembly elections in May had come to naught. There was a lot to be gained from such cooperation, although not as much as the total of 22 seats mentioned in the ITV report.

The reason for this is that the election system for our National Assembly is heavily weighted in favour of constituency seats. Two-thirds of the seats are decided on the first-past-the-post system, leaving only one-third of them to help correct that bias. Yes, these additional seats do correct it to some extent, by not to the same extent as in Scotland, where there is a 73/56 or 57%/43% split. So the key to electoral success in the Assembly is winning constituency seats.

A quick look at the results from 2011 shows that there are five constituency seats that could be won from either Labour or the Tories if the Greens, Plaid and LibDems were able to work together. Ordered by the size of the margin they are:

Cardiff Central
won by Labour with 37.9%, combined three party vote 44.9%

Aberconwy
won by the Tories with 34.0%, combined three party vote 40.4%

Llanelli
won by Labour with 39.7%, combined three party vote 41.5%

Montgomery
won by the Tories with 43.7%, combined three party vote 44.9%

Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire
won by the Tories with 35.8%, combined three party vote 33.6%

Of course a lot has changed since 2011. Opinion polls show that the LibDems have plummeted and that UKIP have risen. But UKIP are not likely to win any constituency seats, so whatever they get is irrelevant to winning seats from Labour and the Tories. The LibDem collapse is rather more pertinent. It means that Kirsty Williams will have to fight hard to hold Brecon and Radnor, and could do with all the help she can get. So negotiating an electoral pact could positively affect that seat too, making six constituency seats in total.

So why on earth did they fail to do it?

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There are two answers. Squabbles over which party was chosen to fight these seats, and the complicating effect of the regional lists.

As I see it, the LibDems are in prime position to win Cardiff Central and Montgomery, and Plaid in prime position to win Llanelli, Aberconwy and, as a long shot, Carmarthen West. Put bluntly, the Greens aren't in prime position to win any of these seats, so if Plaid Cymru and the LibDems wanted to reach a bi-lateral agreement without the Greens, they could do so and gain from it.

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Looking at the North Wales region first. The LibDems have no hope of winning any constituency seat and Plaid are certain to win two: Ynys Môn and Arfon. Both parties won a list seat in 2011, but the problem this time round is that UKIP are certain to win one list seat, and might well win two. As there are still only four list seats, the last thing Plaid wants is to be in the scrap to win one of them. The win-win situation would be for Plaid to gain Aberconwy with LibDem help, thereby dropping out of the running for a list seat. This would mean that the LibDems only have to fight the Tories and UKIP to hold their one list seat, although it's still a long shot because a Tory loss in Aberconwy would just result in them winning a list seat instead. If the LibDems were really clever they would encourage people to vote for a Tory win in Clwyd South ... but that might be a step too much for them.

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The next interesting region is Mid and West Wales. This is where the LibDems have most to gain from an electoral pact. Looked at from an "unambitious" perspective, Kirsty Williams probably feels quite safe. Provided she is first on the LibDem list, losing Brecon and Radnor would just mean that she got a list seat instead. But the general collapse in LibDem support means that the LibDems would find it all but impossible to win two list seats. So the only realistic way for the LibDems to keep two seats overall would be for them to hold Brecon and Radnor and gain Montgomery from the Tories.

Plaid, from the same unambitious perspective, probably think in a similar way. Dwyfor Meirionnydd, Ceredigion and Carmarthen East were safe seats in 2011 and will remain safe this year. It didn't really matter to them that they narrowly lost Llanelli in 2011, because they made up for it by getting a list seat instead. However this time round they will almost certainly not get a list seat if they lose Llanelli, because of UKIP. I also think Plaid are far from certain of winning Llanelli this time, not least because Lee Waters is an exceptionally good choice of candidate for Labour. As a bonus, the pact would also give them an outside chance of gaining Carmarthen West from the Tories, a seat which they can have no serious prospect of winning without that help. Even if they didn't win it, they would have absolutely nothing to lose.

For the Greens, the advantage of a pact is that if the LibDems and Plaid were to win these constituency seats, they would then be completely out of the running for any list seats. The four available seats would instead be contested between Labour, the Tories, UKIP and the Greens. So even though a three party pact would not benefit the Greens in constituency seats, it could make all the difference in terms of them gaining a list seat. They might well be able to win the seat anyway, without a pact, but the pact would turn possibility into probability.

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I don't think an electoral pact will make any difference to the outcomes in South Wales West and South Wales East, which leaves South Wales Central.

Despite all the optimism in the world Plaid and the Greens are not going to win any constituency seats on their own, and especially not Rhondda. Leanne Wood never stood a chance. In constituency terms, the only one of the three parties that could win on their own is the LibDems in Cardiff Central. Yet it would be far from easy because they have slipped a very long way.

There are two ways of looking at things, both dependent on the strength of the Green vote. In 2011, the Greens got a higher percentage of the list vote in Cardiff Central (9.1%) than in any other constituency in Wales.

In the first scenario, if the Greens had wanted the other two parties to stand down in one of the five constituency seats I listed above (leaving the others to Plaid and the LibDems) it would be this one. I wasn't involved in the negotiations, so I don't know whether the Greens made a stand on this. But from a LibDem perspective, they made up for losing Cardiff Central by gaining a list seat in 2011, and they would certainly win a list seat this time round if they stood down in favour of the Greens. So the LibDems had nothing to lose; one way or the other, they could only win one of the twelve seats in SWC ... and couldn't possibly win two.

The second way of looking at it is that if the LibDems won with Green and Plaid support in Cardiff Central they would then not win a list seat, and this would make it more likely for Plaid to win two list seats rather than one, or for the Greens to win one list seat.

The first option is better than the second, but either way, the overall result for the three parties is increased by an electoral pact. However the main factor will be how well the Tories do in the two SWC constituencies in which they stand a chance: if they win Cardiff North and/or the Vale of Glamorgan it will mean that they are that much less likely to win a list seat. With a pact (and Tory luck) the three parties could win four seats out of twelve if the Greens won Cardiff Central, or three if the Lib Dems won it. Without a pact they might end up with only two.

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In short, an electoral pact was a no-brainer which would give the three parties a fair chance of winning five more seats than they are likely to win on their own. That's a lot to throw away.