Saturday 4 May 2019

Plaid and Wales needs a Replacement Vote not a Protest Vote.

All Parties in power have Mid Term Blues in which they lose seats in local elections  and where we sometimes are led to believe that in the following General Election we will see a change in government, only to see the Prime Minister return  to number 10.


So Yesterdays results in England may not be  a sea change that many may hope for.

Still for the Tories it was an even worse drubbing than anybody seem to have predicted.


England scoreboard

PARTYCOUNCILLORSCHANGE +/-
Conservative3562-1334
Labour2023-82
Liberal Democrat1350+703
Green265+194
UKIP31-145
Others1179+662


Labour didn't have a particularly good night , but in truth many of the councils being fought were the sort the Liberal Democrats have won in the past 


Council change results: sorted by Result descending. Click buttons below to sort the tabular data
Bath and North East Somerset

LD GAIN FROM CON
Chelmsford

LD GAIN FROM CON
Cotswold

LD GAIN FROM CON
Hinckley and Bosworth

LD GAIN FROM CON
Mole Valley

LD GAIN FROM CON
Vale of White Horse

LD GAIN FROM CON
Winchester

LD GAIN FROM CON
North Devon

LD GAIN FROM NOC
North Norfolk

LD GAIN FROM NOC
Teignbridge

LD GAIN FROM NOC


It is the Greens who are probably the  real story here with nearly 200 gains scattered throughout England , they now are beginning to look like a party for the future.
As i said we have seen this before but  whereas the Westminster  Party have rallied behind the leader The prime minister Theresa May wasas been heckled at Welsh Conservative conference on the very day her party  1,300 seats in English council elections.
"Why don't you resign", party member Stuart Davies told Theresa May before he was shouted down and escorted from the premises in Llangollen.
Mrs May said the election results gave both the Conservatives and Labour a simple message "to get on" with Brexit.
She insisted to BBC Wales that the Welsh Conservative party supports her.
Mr Davies yelled across the hall: "We don't want you" as Mrs May began her speech to conference.
The heckler - a member of the Clwyd South Conservative association which recently passed a motion of no confidence in the PM - accused her of dragging the party into disrepute.
"We saw the results. There's only one way - it's down," he told BBC Wales after being ejected."We need a new prime minister and we need that new prime minister as soon as possible."
Asked if the heckler was saying what many Welsh Conservatives were saying in private, Mrs May told BBC Wales: 
"I think you saw the reaction from everybody in the hall. They did not want that to be said."
So it seems that she realises that is what they are thinking though.


What of Wales  where there were no Elections , Plaid may be well rueing  there weren't any here and it would be them picking up the "Protest Vote"

Certainly it was the REMAIN Parties who won on Thursday in England and Plaid  will be confident that will not lead to the Lib Dems and Greens , being seen as such in Wales in the forthcoming Euro Elections.

But for an Independeista Party protest votes can only go so far and can disappear with the wind as the Liberal Democrats found out . They have just emerged from the wilderness after nearly a decade after all.

What Plaid need to be careful of is turning to populist policies to win short time power.

Plaid in the past have reproduced the above results ans one control of Merthyr Rhondda Cynon Taf and Caerphilly ,only to swept away at the next election.

Rather than a Protest vote Plaid should be arguing for a Replacement Vote, and a mindset that this means Independence.

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