Labour MS blames unpopular government policies and tactical voting for his party’s thrashing in Caerphilly
Emily Price
A Labour Senedd Member has blamed unpopular government policies and tactical voting as the reason his party came a distant third in the Caerphilly by-election.
Swansea East MS Mike Hedges made the comments in analysis he penned in an online article for the Labour Hub.
His party was thrashed in the recent by-election in Caerphilly where the former Labour stronghold was won by Plaid Cymru’s Lindsay Whittle with 47.38 per cent of the vote.
In second place was Reform UK’s Llŷr Powell on 35.9 per cent, while Welsh Labour’s Richard Tunnicliffe came a very distant third with just 11 per cent of the vote.
‘Unpopular’
Hedges pointed to a number of unpopular Welsh and UK government policies, such as Wales’ 20mph speed limit and Keir Starmer’s decision to cut winter fuel allowance, as reasons for Labour’s humiliating defeat.
In an article for Labour Hub, Hedges wrote: “The Westminster government became very unpopular very quickly. The decision to cut the winter fuel allowance for everyone who was not on pension credits was very unpopular and wrong.
“The right decision has now been made with a cap on income to receive it and not providing it to people living abroad – but a lot of damage had already been done.
“A failed attempt at changing benefits followed and that further weakened support.”
‘Derision’
The Senedd backbencher described Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer as “massively unpopular to the stage that people are not listening to him”.
He wrote: “The mention of his name provokes derision including from Labour supporters.”
Hedges also suggested that some of the Welsh Government’s controversial policies had had put off voters in Caerphilly.
The Labour backbencher wrote: “The Welsh Government has made unpopular decisions too and whilst the 20mph default speed limit is generally supported on estate and outside terraced housing it is very unpopular on B roads which are seen as roads joining communities.
“The proposal to expand the Senedd and bring in a different voting system is unpopular with the electorate too – there is a belief that we have enough Senedd members and moving to a complicated voting system only makes it worse.”
The Senedd by-election for the key Senedd seat in Caerphilly was triggered following the sudden death of Labour MS Hefin David.
Plaid Cymru’s by-election win was Labour’s first parliamentary defeat in the constituency for over 100 years.
Defeat
Polling had suggested that Reform’s Llŷr Powell would win the seat in Labour’s electoral heartland and join his party’s only Senedd Member, Laura Anne Jones, in the Senedd.
Although Reform came second – Powell still gained a hefty 12,113 votes while Labour candidate Richard Tunnicliffe gained only 3,713 votes.
Hedges blamed tactical voting for the massive drop off in Labour support.
He wrote: “Reform has dominated council by elections in the South Wales Valleys since the general election and was expected by them to win Caerphilly comfortably.
“The Labour vote collapsed, a Camlas sponsored poll by Survation in the run up to the by-election suggested that the election was between Plaid Cymru and Reform and Labour were in a distant third place.
“This fed the ‘vote Plaid Cymru to stop Reform’ strapline being promoted by Plaid Cymru and led to a catastrophic drop in the Labour vote.
“This is a classic example of tactical voting, also of producing a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
He added: “Labour voters identified as late as the second week of October, when knocked up on polling day apologised and said ‘sorry, but I want to stop Reform, so I am voting Plaid Cymru’.”
Historic
In Hedges opinion column, he also pointed to Labour-run Caerphilly Council as part of the reason for Plaid Cymru’s historic win.
Days after Labour launched its campaign, the leader of Caerphilly Council, Sean Morgan, dramatically resigned and announced he would back Plaid Cymru’s candidate.
Morgan claimed there had been a “fix” for Labour’s candidate selection because his deputy leader was unable to stand.
It came following the Labour council’s controversial plans to close libraries in the constituency in response to a £29m budget gap.
The proposals were paused in August following a pubic backlash and a legal challenge.
Writing for Labour Hub, Hedges said: “Caerphilly has locally been an unpopular Labour run Council. The library closure programme is both unpopular and unlikely to save substantial sums of money.
“There is a substantial Plaid Cymru group on Caerphilly Council which gave the Plaid Cymru campaign a good start.
“The campaign started badly with the council deputy leader being kept off the shortlist of candidates for the by-election.
“This was followed by the council leader resigning from the Labour party and supporting Plaid Cymru.”
Wrapping up his opinion column, Hedges said it’s “not the first time” Labour has lost in the South Wales Valleys.
He wrote: “The largest voting block is now the stop reform block who Plaid Cymru successfully won over at the Caerphilly by election.
“Just remember it is just one by-election and there are over six months to the Senedd election.”
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Yes, but he misses the fundamental point. After 26 years of failure to deliver, Welsh Labour has been rumbled.
What can it deliver without the proper resources? When it’s own resources are exploited for England’s benefit.
Welsh Labour are not as unpopular as some like to suggest, they’re (correctly) being tied to Kier Starmer and are going down with the ship as it were. If Welsh Labour truly became an independent organization, they might see their vote share recover.
I accept that austerity didn’t help; but two points in response. First, Welsh Labour measures “success” by money spent, not whether it was spent effectively. Second, they had plenty of money in the first decade or so of devolution; but largely squandered it. Since then more has been wasted on a regular basis.
How do you measure “success”?
I was basically going to say the same thing. He fails to appreciate that labour and tories are collapsing in Cymru and the UK more generally, over 100 years between the two of them and this is where we are, for most, it’s just not good enough.
Traditional supporters have also lost trust in Labour due to the contempt they have been shown.
The farce around Vaughan Gething and his dodgy donations, as well as the “parachuting in” of candidates from London with no knowledge of or connection to Wales at the last election have reinforced the view of Labour as undemocratic, metropolitan and out of touch with Welsh concerns.
Sounds much like the carpetbaggers of Reform.
Despite all the dodgy dealings and non attendance, Vaughan still refuses to resign as MS.
Meanwhile the old guard are leaving en masse in 2026
There is going to be a whole new crew .
Many of which will be unknowns and very little time to create a following
Labour have a huge problem on their hands
Some of those selected by Labour to stand already have a number of negative issues linked to them. Can nobody in Labour understand that their days are numbered and rewarding failure is not the way to go.
I’d blame 100 years of Wales being the poorest country in Britain and now one of the poorest in Europe.
Wales is only the poorest part of the UK if you cheat the numbers and include the UK capital in one of the countries to hide the true state of their northern regions. If you compare the regions and nations separately, North East England holds the wooden spoon.
Fighting over the wooden spoon isn’t good enough, we should aspire to be amongst the economically richest in Europe.
It’s not good enough but nor is pretending half of England isn’t similar or worse because that stops the root causes of problems being fixed when the root causes are UK wide.
I’d like to see your evidence for half of England being similar or worse off than Cymru.
Pointing to parts of England being well off and raising their average can also be done for Cymru which also has parts that raise it’s average.