Roderick predicts a Labour capitulation
Friday, February 02, 2007
The BBC’s Vaughan Roderick blogs about as often as he has his hair cut (which is to say – not regularly!)But when he does write, it’s usually an interesting read.
Last month, Vaughan posted his predictions for the way North Wales seats could fall in the next Assembly election. And he was prepared to go even further than our own discussion on marginal and marginally marginal constituencies on this blog, predicting that Labour could easily lose Delyn to the Tories, and maybe even the Vale of Clwyd and Clwyd South too.
These are all constituencies with Labour majorities around the 3,000 mark. But they’re still vulnerable and could well be lost.
Now, that really would be a disaster for Rhodri Morgan.
Labels: BBC, marginal constituencies, Vaughan Roderick, Welsh Assembly Election 2007
posted by Blamerbell @ 3:23 pm,
5 Comments:
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At 1:08 pm,
Praguetory said...
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I admit I struggled with Vaughan's blog, but the earlier discussion at your place was fascinating. Sorry if this makes me sound very lacking on knowledge, but isn't a Labour/Plaid coalition still assured?
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At 2:59 pm,
Blamerbell said...
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Not at all. There are people in both parties who believe it is in their best interests to see Labour die a slow death after the next election.
But the most important consequence of red-green coalition talk was to kill off the Labour strategy of 'Vote Plaid get Tory'.
This seems to have worked. -
At 12:40 pm,
Welsh Spin said...
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Delyn's vulnerability is overstated, neglected as it was between 1999 and 2003 by Alison 'Bonkers' Halford. Vale of Clwyd and Clwyd South would both require swings of over 7% from 2003 for Labour to lose. This is conceivable, but I for one wouldn't put money on it. We could seriously do with a Welsh poll to give these discussions some sort of context. At present speculations over how far UK wide polling trends are reflected in Wales are just that. They may be more helpful in straight Labour/Tory fights such as these (sorry to the two Mark's), but even so they are an unreliable proxy.
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At 1:56 pm,
cymrumark said...
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Welsh spin you have so little faith......we are well on course for our 17% swing:)
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At 1:52 am,
Welsh Spin said...
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Yeah Mark.
That's about as convincing as promising to subsidise first homes by £5k each ...
I've made my view that the Lib Dems would be Labour's preferred partner clear before on Peter Black's blog, but regardless of the constitutional issues, Plaid cannot be a viable partner for Labour until they become both internally coherent and fiscally responsible.
Plaid can never bring themselves to admit that their ambition of independence is a chimera, nor can they ditch the victim mentality that comes from denial of unpleasant facts. This very fact means they would split apart in face of the realities of government, being essentially a protest movement at heart.
