Remain Alliance Inspired, Cynical or potentially disastrous ?

The Plaid,Lib Dem, Green electoral pact i, Wales is either Inspired, Cynical or potentially disastrous for at least one of the Parties.

The plan for the December election is reported to involve 11 seats.Plaid Cymru will stand alone alone in

• Arfon
• Caerphilly
• Dwyfor Meirionydd
• Carmarthen East
• Llanelli
• Ynys Môn
• Pontypridd
•  Caerphilly

We can wonder how many Lib Dem or potential voters wil be enough to secure Arfon which is threatened by Labour or win Ynys Môn in the past it could have made a difference and a Lib Dem revival could take votes of Plaid.

On the other hand one wonders if Plaid hasnt already squeezed the potential Lib Dem Vote  already and whether some Lib Dems will now move to a Unionist Party /

Llanelli, Caerphilly and Pontypridd look like wishful thinking and But it has not all gone down well with all members of their parties and two prominent members of the Welsh Liberal Democrats announcing their resignation from the party because of the 'alliance pact'.

Lib Dem parliamentary candidates for Pontypridd Mike Powell said he was resigning from the party in protest and would instead run as an independent.

Powell came close in 2010 running a populist campaign , jumping on any passing Bandwagon and making claims to have had much more influence  than he really had.

General election 2010: Pontypridd^[15][16]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Labour	Owen Smith	14,220	38.8	−15.4
	Liberal Democrat	Mike Powell	11,435	31.2	+11.2
	Conservative	Lee Gonzalez	5,932	16.2	+4.6
	Plaid Cymru	Ioan Bellin	2,673	7.3	−3.7
	UKIP	David Bevan	1,229	3.4	+0.8
	Socialist Labour	Simon Parsons	456	1.2	N/A
	Christian	Donald Watson	365	1.0	N/A
	Green	John Matthews	361	1.0	N/A
Majority			2,785	7.6	−25.7
Turnout			36,671	63.0	−0.2
Registered electors			58,205
	Labour hold		Swing	−13.3

At the last election however he lost his deposit 

General election 2017: Pontypridd^[13]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Labour	Owen Smith	22,103	55.4	+14.3
	Conservative	Juliette Ash	10,655	26.7	+9.4
	Plaid Cymru	Fflur Elin	4,102	10.3	-1.2
	Liberal Democrat	Mike Powell	1,963	4.9	-8.0
	UKIP	Robin Hunter-Clarke	1,071	2.7	-10.7
Majority			11,448	28.7	+5.0
Turnout			39,894	65.9	+1.6
Registered electors			60,564
	Labour hold		Swing	+2.5

Maybe Mr Powell is not popular with the upper echelons  pf the Lib Dems in Wales as they seem to have abandoned  the seat well before their fall from grace and did not see it as a target seat again

Lib Dems

• Brecon and Radnorshire
• Montgomeryshire
• Cardiff Central

This looks  like the obvious seats for the Lib Dems to target , though whether they can win them is a mute point , Certainly the Plaid vote switching is not going to make much of a difference  and although Cardiff Central used to be their stronghold in the Capitol jo Stevens a Remain supporter has built up a healthy lead.taking much of the LIb Dem support 

General election 2017: Cardiff Central^[11][12][13]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Labour	Jo Stevens[14]	25,193	62.4	+22.4
	Conservative	Gregory Stafford	7,997	19.8	+5.1
	Liberal Democrat	Eluned Parrott[15]	5,415	13.4	-13.7
	Plaid Cymru	Mark Hooper	999	2.5	-2.5
	Green	Benjamin Smith	420	1.0	-5.3
	UKIP	Mohammed Sarul-Islam	343	0.8	-5.6
Rejected ballots			80
Majority			17,196	42.6	+29.7
Turnout			40,367	68.1	+0.8
Registered electors			59,288
	Labour hold		Swing	+8.6

If there was a true move for a Remain attack on Labour Leavers then why not  Stephen Kinnock in Aberavon where  it might have at least dented Pillocks huge majority?

Greens

• Vale of Glamorgan

To be honest this looks like  giving the Greens a free run looks like a token to give the impression of a three party welsh pact

General election 2017: Vale of Glamorgan^[7]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Conservative	Alun Cairns	25,501	47.5	+1.5
	Labour	Camilla Beaven	23,311	43.4	+10.8
	Plaid Cymru	Ian Johnson	2,295	4.3	−1.3
	Liberal Democrat	Jennifer Geroni	1,020	1.9	−0.7
	UKIP	Melanie Hunter-Clarke	868	1.8	-8.1
	Green	Stephen Davis-Barker	419	0.8	−1.3
	Women’s Equality	Sharon Lovell	177	0.3	N/A
	Pirate	David Elston	127	0.2	N/A
Majority			2,190	4.1	-9.3
Turnout			53,718	72.6	+1.5
Registered electors			73,959

and it may be that its intention is to defeat Alun Cairns .

There will be many like Mike Powell in all parties not happy with this and frankly unless it suddenly captures the public imagination , could make little or no difference.

Much may depend on whether Plaid's Adam Price is not frozen out of the UK leaders debate . 

If he can reach the public he may well push this further than I expect, if not his short leadership may be called into question

s