Analysis ... South Wales East

This is the third in my series of analyses for the five electoral regions of Wales, following South Wales West and South Wales Central. In 2007 the result was:

	South Wales East
			Constituencies   1   Blaenau Gwent 2   Caerffili 3   Islwyn 4   Merthyr Tudful & Rhymni 5   Monmouthshire 6   Newport East 7   Newport West 8   Torfaen   Regional seats   1   Plaid Cymru 2   LibDem 3   Conservative 4   Plaid Cymru

The eight constituency seats were all held by Labour with the exception of Tory Monmouthshire and Blaenau Gwent, held by Trish Law as an independent affiliated to Peoples Voice. Two of the regional seats were won by Plaid, although one of these was lost to the Tories when Mohammad Asghar defected in 2009. Of the other two regional seats, one was won by the LibDems and one by the Tories.
 

The Constituency Vote

Monmouthshire is, and is certain to remain, rock solid Tory.

In Blaenau Gwent Trish Law is standing down, and even though Jayne Sullivan is standing as an independent with her backing, Blaenau Gwent seems certain to revert to Labour. Alun Davies ran a typically vicious personal campaign when first selected for the seat, but after Trish Law announced she was standing down he realized he no longer needed to.

The two Newport seats were not entirely comfortable wins for Labour. In Newport West the Tories ran them close with 34.6% of the vote to Labour's 40.5%, and in Newport East the LibDems got 27.6% to Labour's 32.0%. But because of the current ConDem coalition in Westminster, the share of the vote for each of these two parties is likely to go down, meaning that Labour should hold both without too much trouble.

The three remaining seats were all marked by strong showings from independents, but won by Labour. Merthyr Tudful and Rhymni had a total of five independents who between them collected 30.3% of the vote. It's a perfect illustration of why we would be better off with AV, because these candidates split the vote and allowed Labour an easy win. In Islwyn Plaid got a strong 21.6% of the vote, and because no independent is standing this time round our share of the vote should go up, but it still won't be enough to beat Labour.

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The really interesting seat in this region is Caerffili. Plaid got 25.8% of the vote behind Labour's 34.6%, a margin that in itself would make this seat one of Plaid's main targets; but because the person who was standing as an independent is now Plaid's candidate, it has become a seat that Plaid should expect to win.

Ron Davies got 22.2% of the vote as an independent, and adding the two percentages together gives 48.0% ... which would beat Labour comfortably. But is it reasonable to add them together? My answer is yes. Plaid's core vote last time is going to remain largely intact, though subject to the same swings common to the rest of the country, of course. The question is whether Ron's own personal vote will stay with him. Fairly obviously those who turned against him because he was no longer in the Labour party had already done so in 2007, which indicates that they are more impressed with his personal qualities than his political affiliation. These people will not switch back to Labour. So it is only those who would rule out voting Plaid in any circumstances that will turn away from him now. Some of his 22.2% may feel that way, but it certainly won't be half.

So I think Ron Davies will make it, though it will be tighter than it otherwise would be simply because Labour are riding high in the national polls. It will be good to see him back, for the Assembly does not have that many heavyweights.
 

     
 

The Regional Vote

These are the details of the regional vote in 2007. Seats are determined by the percentage of the vote on the second ballot paper, but seats already won at constituency level are taken into account. After a seat has been won, the percentage necessary to win another seat is the original percentage divided by two, then three, then four, etc.

Labour ... 38.4%
Conservative ... 21.4%
Plaid Cymru ... 14.6%
LibDem ... 11.8%
UKIP ... 4.9%

Round  1 ... Labour 38.4% ... already won
Round  2 ... Conservative 21.4% ... already won
Round  3 ... Labour 19.2% ... already won
Round  4 ... Plaid Cymru 14.6% ... regional seat 1
Round  5 ... Labour 12.8% ... already won
Round  6 ... LibDem ... 11.8% ... regional seat 2
Round  7 ... Conservative 10.7% ... regional seat 3
Round  8 ... Labour 9.6% ... already won
Round  9 ... Labour 7.7% ... already won
Round 10 ... Plaid Cymru 7.3% ... regional seat 4

This time around, the regional vote is going to be enormously hard to predict. Having spent many an hour looking at the spreadsheets, it looks like the final regional seats will be decided on very small percentage differences at around 6.5%.

What we can say with relative confidence is that the LibDems will get one, but only one, regional seat. It actually doesn't matter too much what their percentage share of the vote will be, because it can't possibly be more than 12% and won't be less than about 7% ... and anywhere in that range will get them one seat. Newport East and to a lesser extent Merthyr have a good core level of LibDem support which will stop them falling too far.

A few months ago I had thought that Plaid would at least break even, either holding our two regional seats or winning Caerffili and holding one regional seat. I'm not so sure about that now, but we are able to win a total of two seats in two different ways.

If Plaid win Caerffili, then either of these two things needs to happen to get one regional seat:

•  to get more than twice the regional vote of UKIP
•  to get more than two-thirds of the regional vote of the Tories

But if we lose Caerffili, both of them need to happen to get two regional seats.

We could scrape it if we get about 13% of the vote. This would be down on our 2007 showing of 14.6%, but not disastrously so. We have solid core support in Caerffili and Islwyn, and this should help to keep any fall lower than it would otherwise be.

UKIP are an unknown quantity, and I've never been convinced that those who want to get rid of the Assembly will ever be motivated to get out and vote in Assembly elections. They might say they'll vote UKIP at home on the phone or sitting in front of their computers, but I think they will stay there on polling day. What's the point of voting to get rid of something that all five electoral regions of Wales have just voted to enhance by an overwhelming margin? So although the latest poll puts them at about 8%, I'd expect them to get more like 6.5%.

There's no doubt that the Tories will be down on their 21.4% showing in 2007, but the question is by how much. I think it will be less than the polls suggest because of their core support in Monmouthshire and Newport West. This might also be bolstered by people who would not normally vote in an Assembly election, but who vote Tory in Westminster elections, turning out to vote No in the AV referendum. My guess is that the Tories will get about 19%.

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Now if these share of the vote predictions for Plaid, UKIP and the Tories are right, it means that there will be a very tight three-way battle for the third and fourth regional seats if Ron Davies wins in Caerffili, or for the fourth regional seat if he doesn't. Although the actual percentages are different, they each boil down to a figure of around 6.5% when divided to take account of the seats already won:

Half of Plaid's 13% ... vs ... all of UKIP's 6.5% ... vs ... a third of the Tories' 19%

One thing is obvious: Plaid's chances of getting two seats in total will be better if we win Caerffili. However this is not just because of the extra seat that will be available. The beauty of the situation is that it will be a fight between one party on the left and two parties on the right, so people with views on the right of the political spectrum will have to choose between the Tories and UKIP. Therefore if we win Caerffili, it wouldn't matter if one of the two does better than Plaid; for what one right wing party gains, the other right wing party will lose ... and that will leave Plaid with, at worst, the fourth regional seat.

Given a choice between them, I hope UKIP wins. A UKIP AM continually sniping against the Assembly will tend to make the three other unionist parties more united in favour of further devolution for Wales. And from Plaid's point of view, we hardly want the Tories to become the second largest group in the Assembly at our expense.

However if we don't win Caerffili, we will easily win the first regional seat with 13% of the vote, but this will mean that there is one less seat to fight over at the 6.5% level. Plaid would only then get the final regional seat by getting more than twice UKIP's vote and more than two thirds of the Tories' vote. So Plaid need to fight hard, for if we win Caerffili it is possible for Jocelyn Davies to lose her seat. She has shown herself to be a competent and determined deputy minister, and it would be a great shame to lose her.
 

     
 

The Prediction

If I were more cautious, I wouldn't dream of predicting the overall result in South Wales East. But seats are not won by being cautious, so this is my prediction:

•  Ron Davies will win Caerffili for Plaid; the Tories will win in Monmouthshire; and the six other constituency seats will be won by Labour.

•  The LibDems and Tories will win the first two regional seats, and it doesn't matter which way round. The two remaining regional seats will be won by Plaid and UKIP.