With elections to the Welsh Assembly due next year, the red lights should be flashing for Labour
With all eyes fixed firmly on Labour’s disastrous performance in Scotland and much of England, last night should set alarm bells ringing for the party in Wales.
In 2010, Welsh Labour suffered what was deemed to be a difficult evening. The results at the time said it all. The loss of four seats saw the party take 26 in Wales whilst the Conservatives picked up an additional five to secure eight Welsh seats in the House of Commons.
Labour’s proportion of the vote fell by 6.5 per cent whilst the swing from Labour to Conservatives was 5.6 per cent.
Going into this year’s election, all the talk had been of Labour making albeit modest gains in Wales. As the final Welsh Political Barometer prior to the polls opening indicated, Labour were supposed to be on course to bag an additional two seats in Cardiff Central and Cardiff North.
With all 40 seats declared in Wales however, the results make for sobering reading. In the only bit of the UK that has a Labour Government, led by Carwyn Jones, the party saw itself make a net loss of one seat in Wales, whilst the Conservatives picked up an additional three to return 11 Welsh MPs.
This all comes on the back of results in last May’s European Elections which put UKIP in second place in Wales, less than 1 per cent behind Labour in the popular vote.
With elections to the Welsh Assembly due next year, the red lights should be flashing for Labour in Wales with election results going in the wrong direction.
Ed Jacobs is a contributing editor to Left Foot Forward. Follow him on Twitter
83 Responses to “The alarm bells should be ringing for Welsh Labour”
Leon Wolfeson
Workers? Oh, some Tories, the far right and some very elderly voters.
Not the people who voted Labour in the past, who either stayed with Labour, tribally, voted green or stayed home. They didn’t turn their back on their principles and go to the UKIP – what happened was Labour turned their back onto them!
Leon Wolfeson
What?
The Blairites are to the left of where Labour ended up in their quest for the LibDem votes which…went mostly to the Tories.
Ben Skipp
http://www.independent.co.uk/property/proportion-of-homeowning-britons-falls-to-30year-low-8580708.html
Oops, sorry, it’s 64%
Leon Wolfeson
You’re still wrong, I’m afraid.
64% of *households*. Households are not individuals. In fact, given the increasing overcrowding in rental accommodation, there’s a minority of adults who are – or their partner is – a homeowner. And that trend will now accelerate. Sharply.
From the ONS – “76 per cent of those aged 65-74 owned their own homes – the highest across all age groups. The proportion of owner occupiers among those
aged 25 to 34 has declined from 58 per cent in 2001 to 40 per cent in
2011.”
(Over 74, it falls because people go into care homes)
And when you exclude the City, wages have fallen. Some measures of inequality have fallen, *only* because the minimum wage has stopped the income of the poorest workers falling *too* sharply. (It’s NOT good when they fall because of that!)
Leon Wolfeson
That’s not enough of a leftward shift.
Blair, I remind you, inherited his first election strategy from the best PM we never had. And then he lost votes, LOTS of votes, in the subsequent elections.