With two weeks to go to the byelection in Cardiff South and Penarth Westminster constituency Following the formal resignation of the sitting MP Alun Michael there has been little interest in the media
The vacancy arose because Alun Michael was selected as the Labour Party candidate in the Police and Crime Commissioner Elections which a to be held on the same day 15 November 2012. Michael's candidacy required him to relinquish his Westminster and The writ for the by-election in Cardiff South and Penarth was moved on 23 October 2012 All the Parties have been aware of the date for months.
The Candidates are
Labour Co-op Stephen Doughty
Communist Robert Griffiths
Socialist Labour Andrew Jordan
Liberal Democrat Bablin Molik
Plaid Cymru Luke Nicholas
Green Anthony Slaughter
Conservative Craig Williams
UKIP Simon Zeigler
At the last General Election Labour saw a dip in support for Labour
| General Election 2010: Cardiff South and Penarth[16][17] | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
| Labour Co-op | Alun Michael | 17,262 | 38.9 | -7.7 | |
| Conservative | Simon Hoare | 12,553 | 28.3 | +4.4 | |
| Liberal Democrat | Dominic Hannigan | 9,875 | 22.3 | +2.4 | |
| Plaid Cymru | Farida Aslam | 1,851 | 4.2 | -1.1 | |
| UKIP | Simon Zeigler | 1,145 | 2.6 | +1.2 | |
| Independent | George Burke | 648 | 1.5 | +1.5 | |
| Green | Matthew Townsend | 554 | 1.2 | -0.6 | |
| Christian | Clive Bate | 285 | 0.6 | +0.6 | |
| Communist | Robert Griffiths | 196 | 0.4 | +0.4 | |
| Majority | 4,709 | 10.6 | |||
| Turnout | 44,369 | 60.2 | +2.0 | ||
| Labour Co-op hold | Swing | -6.0 | |||
However in the Assembly Elections Labour on the back of the Toxic Con/Libdem coalition saw Labour regain its ground.
| Welsh Assembly Election 2011: Cardiff South and Penarth[1] | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
| Labour | Vaughan Gething | 13,814 | 50.3 | +12.5 | |
| Conservative | Ben Gray | 7,555 | 27.5 | 0 | |
| Plaid Cymru | Liz Musa | 3,324 | 12.1 | -2.2 | |
| Liberal Democrats | Sian Anne Cliff | 2,786 | 10.1 | -10.2 | |
| Majority | 6,259 | 22.8 | +12.5 | ||
| Turnout | 27,479 | 37.3 | -0.2 | ||
| Labour hold | Swing | +6.2 | |||
So it looks like Labout will have no problem retaining the seat.
However; there may some resentment that Alun Michael has abandoned the seat he only fought in 2010 and The new Labour Council has almost totally reverted to the arrogant rule which saw it lose power to the Lib Dems in 2004 indeed many see former leader Russell Goodway as the Éminence grise the new council.
Labour may be helped by the Tories problems over Europe and UKIP picking up votes from them
The Lib Dems main hope in a Byelection that four years ago they would have high hopes of winning will be to finish a good third.
Plaid in a seat that they have made little impact on in the past can hope that they can increase their share of the vote and hope that Grangetown where their candidate stood last time will vote as they did last May.
UKIP may have their resources diverted to other contest and may not make an impact . But the Anti Europe vote may just see them increasing their share.
It would be foolish to say that we won't be shocked by the result in a fortnight but with no clear contender for Labour and no Squeeze on other parties votes it will be likely that Stephen Doughty will be packing his bags for London.
But as George Galloway showed with his 36.6% swing from Lab to Respect in Bradford West anything possible.
6 comments:
Nice post. There'll be detailed predictions for this seat before too long at Penarth a'r Byd. But the announcement of the MP was revealed here(!): http://penartharbyd.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/announcing-penarths-new-mp/
Heard the Plaid candidate speak at our conference. Very impressive and articulate. However, that's irrelevant at the coal face sadly.
Reckon the results will look similar to the council ones in May. My prediction- Labour 50%, Tories 18%, Plaid 10%, Lib Dems 8%, UKIP 6%, others making up the rest.
Penatharbyd
Thanks for the Link
Anon
You may well be spot on.
Looking at the predictions above I don't disagree with them - but I wonder. What on earth makes people vote Labour?
What on earth makes people vote for this corrupt lazy incompetent party that's made such a mess of Britain?
What motivates the constituents of Cardiff South and Penarth turn out on a bleak November night to vote for a Labour candidate they've never heard of?
Doughty is a reject.
He tried to get the nomination for Pontypridd in 2010 - and the Labour Party rejected him.
He tried to get the nomination for Cardiff South and Penarth - and the Labour Party rejected him again.
It took the personal intervention of Alun Michael to persuade Ed Miliband to squeeze Doughty back onto the short list - even though doing so meant ejecting another, and presumably better - candidate.
And now there's an almighty effort underway to get the Labour vote out on November 15th.
The "remember you owe us" immigrants that Labour helped get into Britain - (legally and illegally), the crooked postal votes, the self-interested public sector workers and, let's not forget, the owners of the Labour Party - the trade unionists, they're all being pressed into service to one end - to get Alun Michael's anointed placeman and appointed successor safely installed in perpetuity as Cardiff South and Penarth's new MP
On November 16th we'll wake up to find we are being represented in parliament by an Alun Michael clone.
.........Just how good will that feel?
It's a real shame. One of those safe seats. But as a Plaid supporter I'm uneasy at Richard's comments. I dont know his political colours but let me just say that some anti-Labour commentary is worse than Labour. Immigrants and public sector workers have every right to vote Labour (though not all of them do). Our job should be to convince them that they'd be better of supporting Plaid. Until we can do that, Labour will keep winning.
But I do agree with Richard's points about Doughty and Michael. The Labour party name resonates with Welsh people, rather than the politicians themselves. We need to get Plaid into a position as strong as that. Then we could slot our best people in instead of having them chasing lost causes all the time.
Anon you are right about Immigrants. Traditionally they and public sector workers have seen Labour as the Party that representing them despite the evidence of the Blair/Brown government.
But of course it is the Traditional ties that the whole of Wales have to Labour where they claim to the true "Party of Wales" despite all the evidence against that must be broken
Post a Comment