Winston Roddick. A LibDem, shock!

Would  Winston Roddick have won the North Wales Police Commissioner Election if he had stood  as a Liberal Democrat?

Probably not

But amid claims that Winston Roddick "hid" his party allegiance, as well as calls for him to step down immediately after winning the election, the barrister and former senior legal adviser to the Welsh assembly  it is a valid question

"I am a member of the Lib Dems, but this was discussed extensively during the campaign," Roddick told the Guardian. "I will not be taking the Lib Dem whip, and will act independently and impartially as PCC, as I have throughout my legal and judicial career."
A spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, whose candidate in the bellwether Corby byelection slumped to a humiliating fourth place on the same night that Roddick emerged victorious in the North Wales PCC election, said that a member of the party running as an independent was a different case from a candidate who was running on a party ticket.

However, Owen Smith, a Welsh Labour MP and the Shadow Secretary of State for Wales, tweeted on Friday night: "Winston Roddick must explain why he hid his party allegiance from the North Wales electorate. #Independent?"Another Labour MP, John Mann, tweeted that "roddick should resign as police commissioner of he is a lib dem member."

Roddick was publicly endorsed during the campaign by Kirsty Williams, the Liberal Democrat leader in Wales, who said that the party was not putting up candidates but that she was backing him "because, as an independent candidate, he is free from party political pressure."
One of Wales's leading barristers and Wales's first counsel general, the QC began his career as a police constable in Liverpool before becoming a barrister and has been a crown court recorder. 

In his campaign, Roddick said the police commissioner needed to act independently of political interference.

 Guardian 17 November 2012

The first thing to point out is that Winston Roddick like all the other newly elected  Police Commissioner has now sworn an oath to be Independent and all should now be seeking  to be as La Pasionaria said  acting independently of political interference.

It is not as if Labour were unaware of his political allegiances 

I believe he stood either for the Liberals or Liberal Democrats  in Westminster  elections for Ynys Mon 1970, Cardiff South in 1983, and Newport West  in 1987. 

One of Wales's leading barristers, he was appointed as the first Counsel General for Wales in 1998, the most senior legal adviser to the Welsh Assembly, and Labour must have  surely been aware of his allegiance then.

Now retired from this post  he showed his independence, by claiming that the two Liberal Democrats who has been disqualified from the assembly cannot be reinstated as AMs and the election was noe vois 

John Dixon and Aled Roberts, were members of public bodies to which AMs cannot belong.

Roberts eventually was allowed to take his seat,

So he probably angered his party there.

It does sem like sour grapes from Labour who expected to win all four posts in Wales but only Alun Michael in South Wales won and his son Tal ,lost to Rodderick in North Wales.

Should Roddrick have declared his memership of the LibDems?

Well yes but that shouldn't have prevented him from standing as an Independent.

Indeed there is a valid argument that all candidates should have stood as Independents and political parties should be restricted to endorsing  a candidate.

Those who bothered to vote seemed to think so.

The other elections.

Thanks to Bill Chapman for the update on the Deganwy ward  by-election  on Conwy councilas he points out, this is a traditional Conservative seat.

Although the previous incumbent was an Independent they already hold  the other two ward seats and Plaid did well here

Con 437 (38.4; +2.1)
Plaid 327 (28.7; +28.7)
Lab 142 (12.5%; +12.5)
Ind 74 (6.5%; -42.6)
UKIP 57 (5.0%; +5.0)
LD Terry James 53 (4.7)
Ind 49 (4.3; +4.3)
Majority 110
Turnout 
Con gain from IndPercentage change since May 2012

And thanks to ALDC amd no thanks to the Council website . In the in Cyfarthfa ward on Methyr Council  Labour gained the seat from Independents where a a split vote may have helped them  and they now hold all three seats in the ward.

As he points out
Lab 385 (33.0; -4.9)
Ind 364 (31.2)
Ind 289 (24.8)
Plaid 101 (8.7; -9.0)
Con 26 (2.2; +2.2)
Majority 21
Turnout unknown
Lab gain from Merthyr Independents
Percentage change since May 2012


In the other elections (Yawn)

Iy was Independents candidates who made the news. Winning  surprise victories in the police and crime commissioner elections, with a former police officer and a former judge winning two of Wales’ four posts.

In an election marred by low turnouts, Labour were beaten in Gwent, Dyfed-Powys and North Wales, with Wales’ former First Secretary Alun Michael the party’s only candidate to win a seat in Wales dashing party activists’ hopes of a clean sweep.

Even Mr Michael was forced into a second count, after the former MP for Cardiff South and Penarth failed to reach a 50% majority in the first round of vote counting.

The turn out in Wales was under 15% so I suspect we wont see any Tories questioning the legitimacy of Assembly elections or referenda in the future.


It must  surely , be the end Labour’s Christine Gwyther standing for any post going after she   who was defeated in Dyfef Powis  where  Conservative candidate Christopher Salmon beat  with a majority of 1,114 votes in a straight fight and on can only wonder if an Independent had stood whether he or she would have easily one this.

As I said I would do I spoilt my paper unfortunately  I can't find the details of spoilt ballots.

One good thing may come out of the result Labours failure to win all four Welsh seats .
It may encourage them to call for devolving these powers . A cynical move but it would be for the best rather than this piss-poor pseudo democratic attempt

Cardiff South and Penarth by-election

The result for the Cardiff South and Penarth by-election,

Cardiff South and Penarth by-election, 15 November 2012
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour Co-op	Stephen Doughty	9,193	47.3	+8.4
	Conservative	Craig Williams	3,859	19.9	-8.4
	Liberal Democrat	Bablin Molik	2,103	10.8	-11.5
	Plaid Cymru	Luke Nicholas	1,854	9.5	+5.3
	UKIP	Simon Zeigler	1,179	6.1	+3.5
	Green	Anthony Slaughter	800	4.1	+2.9
	Socialist Labour	Andrew Jordan	235	1.2	N/A
	Communist	Robert Griffiths	213	1.1	+0.7
Turnout			19,436	25.7%	-38.2
	Labour Co-op hold		Swing	8.41% swing C to Lab

Lab maj 5,334 (27.44%)

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

Alas my prediction was off mainly because I over estimated the Plaid vote and under estimated the others 

Labour – 51%

Conservative – 22%

Plaid – 13%

Lib Dem – 6%

UKIP – 6%

Others -4%

Though Plaid can take some comfort in being the only major party to increase their vote in a low turnout although the Greens saw the biggest increase number wise.. 

The Libdems can be relieved to retain third place but three years ago they would have probably expected to win a by-election in a constituency such as Cardiff South and Penarth and the future looks bleak for the Cardiff Central seat which thy currently hold.


Gareth Hughes in his preview of the seat  referred to  Stephan Doughty the now Labour MP as being 

 "straight from central casting for Labour.  Young, male, on message and from the third sector. In his case boss of Oxfam Cymru.

To which I posted the comment

"More like Central Cloning".

Tory Dirty Tricks In Corby?

It has emerged that the  Conservative MP running the party's byelection bid in today's Corb by-election has been secretly filmed by Greenpeace apparently supporting the campaign of a rival candidate.

Chris Heaton-Harris, who is campaign manager for the Tories in Corby, was recorded saying he encouraged an anti-wind farm candidate to join the election race against the Tories, adding: "Please don't tell anybody ever."

The footage, covertly recorded by the environmental group Greenpeace, captures the MP saying the independent anti-wind farm candidate, James Delingpole, had announced his candidacy as part of a "plan" to "cause some hassle" and drive the wind issue up the political agenda.

He is also filmed claiming he helped Delingpole by providing him with "a handful of people who will sort him out", including the deputy chairman of his own constituency party, who had stood down and then became the anti-wind candidate's campaign agent.

According to Wikipedia ..

Delingpole maintains that man-made climate change is not as extensive as is widely asserted and links mainstream scientific projections with "the atavistic impulse which leads generation after generation to believe it is the chosen one: the generation so special that it and it alone will be the one privileged to experience the end of the world; and the generation so egotistical that it imagines itself largely responsible for that imminent destruction".
In a BBC Horizon documentary, "Science under Attack", Delingpole responded to an assertion made by Paul Nurse that there is a scientific consensus in relation to global warming by stating that the idea of a consensus is unscientific. In response to Nurse's question as to whether he had read any peer-reviewed papers, he maintained that as a journalist "it is not my job" to read peer reviewed papers, but be "an interpreter of interpretations".

Delingpole claimed in July 2011 that "There has been no global warming since 1998". He repeated this claim in a Sky News discussion in November 2011 with Guardian contributor Julie Bindel.
In an article published on his Telegraph blog on 25 January 2012 Delingpole objected to environmentalist organization Friends of the Earth charitable status because it is "quite clearly a viciously misanthropic, anti-capitalist political organisation funded by deep-green ecoloons who given half the chance would have us all living in Maoist peasant collectives while they busily bombed our economy back to the dark ages"

In A statement  Chris Heaton-Harris, said 

 "The quotes attributed to me range from factually correct statements to me bragging about things beyond my control, which has so often before been the failing of politicians. The implication that I choreographed any sort of 'secret plan' is simply not the case and I apologise if that is the impression given.
"It can hardly be said that my wanting to "put this on the agenda" is new. I have spent years fighting on-shore wind, getting over 100 MPs to sign a letter to the prime minister, securing debates and raising questions in Parliament and touring the country speaking to anti-wind groups.
"It is a subject I am passionate about and will continue to work on until communities across my constituency, Northamptonshire and the country have the protection they deserve."

Guardian 13 November 2012

The former deputy chairman of Heaton-Harris's constituency party, Trevor Sherman, had indeed resigned his post on 15 August. He remained a member of the Tory party and was described by Delingpole as "a superb election agent".
The Conservative councillor who set up Delingpole's campaign website was Donna Edmonds. She said she did not believe there was a conflict of interest because she "knew all along" that Delingpole would pull out.

Guardian 13 November 2012

The suspicion was is that  "the plan" was to use Delingpole's candidacy to shift government policy on wind farms, primarily through the energy minister, John Hayes. Heaton-Harris said: in the interveiw

"Next week hopefully John Hayes, James Delingpole and I will have a meeting somewhere."

Delingpole eventually withdrew from the race after Hayes declared in an interview with the Daily Mail that "we can no longer have wind turbines imposed on communities." 

Hayes was appointed  Minister of State for Energy at the Department for Energy and Climate Change.on 4 September 2012 

On 6 September 2012, Delingpole announced he would be standing in the upcoming Corby by-election on an anti-wind farms platform.

He may have had some prior knowledge of Hayes appointment  and with claims that  suggesting that Chancellor  George  Osborne was behind the about-turn.and was the  driving force behind anti-wind farm agenda, by father-in-law Lord Howel. It may be that this may even go deeper than dirty tricks or as Better Nation points out potential electoral fraud.

The Tories are set for a heavy defeat in Corby but lose or win we ned an investigation in to this including if any electoral law has been broken.

But the first action must be for David Cameron to withdraw the Tory whip from Chris Heaton-Harris, and sacking  John Hayes

Tomorrow's Election

After due consideration (as they say) I will not  be spoiling my ballot in tomorrows poll for Police and Crime Commissioner by shall be writing in the name of James Gordon  from the Batman TV series but following the advice of  Welsh not British  and writing Devolve policing on my ballot paper.

It will make a much more positive statement.

As far as the elections go it will probably be a clean sweep for Labour in Wales though  Independents Mike Baker in the South Wales area and Winston Roddick in North Wales may just pull of a surprise.

In the Other Elections  Cardiff South  and Penarth should be safe for Labour and my prediction is

Labour – 51%

Conservative – 22%

Plaid – 13%

Lib Dem – 6%

UKIP – 6%

Others -4%

In the Two By-elections the prediction   (or guess) is a bit harder.

On Conwy county borough council:

 Deganwy division after the resignation of a Independent councillor  Jason Weyman. should be a Conservative gain since they already have the other two seats but with 7 candidates the winner may have under 30% of the vote.

On Merthyr Council:

In Cyfarthfa after the resignation of Merthyr Independents councillor Les Elliott.Where Labour hold one seat, Independents one and there's one vacant  it will probably be between 

Margaret Davies Lab and Malcolm Jenkins Ind  who were close  just lost out last time should be the main contenders.

But in all cases local conditions will apply so we may see some shocks.

But  quite frankly it shows the nature of the Police and Crime Commissioner   elections that here in from Beddau the result in Deganwy and Cyfarfthfa is of more interest.

Leanne to bet all in 2016

In one of the boldest moves by any Welsh practician in years Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood has announced  that she will will gamble her safe seat in the Welsh assembly at the next election  by giving up her  regional AM seat  to stand for  a constituency seat in 2016.

Plaid insiders say it is part of a strategy of "going for broke" to get into government.

She has not named the seat she wants to contest, saying it will depend on decisions taken by grassroots members.



Ms Wood told BBC Wales: 

"I'm putting forward myself for a constituency seat because I really believe that Plaid Cymru can win these elections and do very well.
"If we are going to become the biggest party in the assembly - and I've already said that's what we need to do as a party to develop ourselves - then two-thirds of the seats that are constituency seats need to be fought and won by this party."If we are going to do that and we are going to do that seriously then we need to take bold steps in order to do that and by standing for a constituency seat today I'm making the bold move that we need to see in Wales."

BBC 12 November 2012

Her home seat of the Rhondda must be first choice   

At the last election it was however it was a safe win for  Labours Leighton Andrews, who won more a majority of .6,739 (33.6)%

But of course Plaid did win  the seat in 1999

Assembly Election 1999: Rhondda
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Plaid Cymru	Geraint Davies	13,558	48.7	N/A
	Labour	Wayne David	11,273	40.5	N/A
	Liberal Democrats	Meurig Williams	1,303	4.7	N/A
	Independent	Glyndwr Summers	913	3.3	N/A
	Conservative	Peter Hobbins	774	2.8	N/A
Majority			2,285	8.2	N/A
Turnout			27,821	50.2	N/A
	Plaid Cymru win (new seat)C

A considerations could be  Cynon Valley where Christine Chapman enjoys a 6,515 (34.7)% majority  for Labour but who is a low profile AM despite being there since 1997 and might be more vulnerable.

Caerphilly, in the neighbouring region, has been a Plaid target for years . But winning it will mean overturning a smaller Labour majority of 4,924 (19.3% ) still a considerable task 

There's  always Llanelli which must be Plaid's top target in 2016 but this may be too far from Leanne s base.

In some ways it reflects Alex Salmond decision to fight the Gordon seat in 1197 rather than ensure his return to the Scottish Parliament in the 2007 election 

The SNP had finished third in the previous election  with 6,501 (22.6%) of the vote.So it was a big gamble

Scottish Parliament election, 2007: Gordon
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	SNP	Alex Salmond	14,650	41.4	+18.8
	Liberal Democrats	Nora Radcliffe	12,588	35.6	-2.5
	Conservative	Nanette Milne	5,348	15.1	-8.8
	Labour	Neil Cardwell	2,276	6.4	-3.9
	Independent	Donald Marr	199	0.6	N/A
	Independent	Dave Mathers	185	0.5	N/A
	Scottish Enterprise	Bob Ingram	117	0.3	N/A
Majority			2,062	5.8
Turnout			35,363	54.1	+6.6
	SNP gain from Liberal Democrats		Swing

 The argument may be that Leanne Wood is no Alex Salmond  but the decision may well hugely raise her profile to come close enough.

Of course it is probably to early to speculate to deeply as it is still possible the Assembly boundaries may change to a 30 -30 constituency rather than the 40-20 we have now and if the former is adopted and we have 6 regional members per the 5 regions Leanne may just reconsider.

Nevertheless this a Bold announcement an a very big gamble; But if it comes of then there will be a major change in the welsh political scene . 

At least it will make the 2016 elections interesting.

Salmond still top dog.

Even after a bad month for Alex Salmond As Better Nation Reports  he is still the most popular political figure in Scotland by a mile.

Between Oct 10 and Oct 12 the polling company YouGov. conducted a survey of 1,000 Scots and asked, amongst other questions, the following questions

In general, which government do you think is better 
at making decisions for Scotland?

The UK government 24
The Scottish government 64
Don't know 12

Which ONE of the following people do you think 
would be best at standing up for Scotland's 
interests?

Alex Salmond  SNP 43
Johann Lamont Labour 6
Ruth Davidson Con 5
Willie Rennie  LibDem2
None of these 24
Don't know 21

As Better Nation point out its a pity we don't see a clearer breakdown of the None of These and in particular  Green party leader Patrick Harvie who impressed me during the last Scottish Parliamentary Elections.

Clearly the majority of Scots of Scots believe that the Scottish Government is best for them . Though it would be interesting to compare similar polls to when Labour were in power.

However I suspect that the opposition leaders would have rated higher than a combined 13%

One of the  most interesting  surveys was on the economics of Independence,


The ‘Yes’ campaign is deploying a series of 
arguments as part of their campaign to achieve a 
‘Yes’ vote for an independent Scotland in the 
referendum in 2014 – for example they point to 
statistics showing that Scotland generates 9.6% of 
UK taxes, but receives just 9.3% of UK spending in 
return. If the ‘Yes’ campaign could persuade you that 
you and your family would be economically better off 
with Scottish independence, in these circumstances, 
how likely or unlikely would you be to vote ‘Yes’ for 
an independent Scotland in 2014?

Very likely 30
Fairly likely 15
TOTAL LIKELY 45
Neither likely nor unlikely 10
Fairly unlikely 9
Very unlikely 27
TOTAL UNLIKELY 36
Don't know 9

So there's a significant pro-independence vote if the Yes campaign can persuade voters they were financially better of in an Independent Scotland.

How they can do this ?

They could argue on the current economic settlement but both sides will be twisting the figures to suit their argument.

They could compare Scotland to the likes of Norway even pointing out how Iceland have managed to pull themselves out of the mess that they were in due to the financial crisis.

Or they could argue that Independence would create the very dynamics and optimism  that Scotland to declare the the world that they are worth investigating.

In other words the economic case doesn't have to be there now. Independence will create the economic case.