After Caerphilly

Desmond Clifford

Lindsay Whittle’s Caerphilly victory for Plaid Cymru is the most significant by-election result since Gwynfor Evans won Carmarthen in 1966. They bookend Plaid Cymru’s glacial progress.

Gwynfor’s victory signalled Plaid’s emergence as a realistic electoral proposition after decades on the margins. The triumph of the admirable Lindsay Whittle – the personification of “try, try, and try again” – signals the realistic possibility of Plaid forming a Welsh Government after next year’s election.

As ever, it seems wise to caveat that much can change, and politics is never certain.

Plaid Cymru had a false start when devolution began. They performed spectacularly well at the first Senedd election in 1999 winning 17 seats and besting Labour in traditional strongholds of Islwyn and Rhondda.

Labour responded by dumping Alun Michael and installing Rhodri Morgan who devised “Welsh Labour” both as the name of the party and a political strategy. For 25 years Welsh Labour kept Plaid at bay through tacking gingerly along the soft nationalist spectrum to detach enough Wales-minded voters from Plaid’s blandishments.

Labour followed this tested and proven strategy until the day Mark Drakeford stood down as First Minister, after which it had a nervous breakdown and lost virtually any sense of political identity and credibility.

Tactical votes

An important consequence of Caerphilly is that Plaid has established itself as the “stop-Reform” party and attracted many tactical votes as a result, alongside those wanting Wales-focussed change. Labour will struggle to occupy this territory.

Attention now shifts to the UK Budget on 26 November. Will the Chancellor throw Eluned Morgan a lifeline? Will she offer some sort of advantage to Wales in recognition of that 100 years of support about which the party so recently boasted? Plenty of Labour supporters have noted, with mounting bitterness, that the Labour UK Government has offered Wales no more advantage than its Conservative predecessors.

Whatever Jo Stevens (the now silent Secretary of State for Wales) thinks she’s contributing to Wales, or to the Welsh Labour Party for that matter, it isn’t working.

There are problems in relying on Chancellor Rachel Reeves. Firstly, she’s not shown the slightest inkling to help her Welsh Labour colleagues so far and everyone knows the Treasury has contempt for Wales.

Any goodies dangled at this stage would risk being seen as too-little and too-late, a transparent and slightly pathetic effort to hoodwink ahead of an election. People dislike being taken for mugs.

Secondly, the Chancellor’s bigger issue is to fill a budget hole, so it’s not a great time for goodies in any case. Informed commentators think some sort of tax rise is inevitable and, if so, this will hardly help Welsh Labour’s cause next May.

From the UK Labour Government’s point of view, if it must be done, now is the best time to raise taxes, so that memory will have dimmed by the next UK election in 2028/29. For their Welsh and Scottish branches – for branches is what they now are – the timing couldn’t be worse: new taxes usually start in the following financial year, exactly one month before the Senedd election in 2026. Yuk.

Hubris

Can Plaid sit pretty? Hardly. Hubris is the enemy, and the party needs to guard against entirely reasonable celebration of Caerphilly slipping into triumphalism and complacency. They have managed reasonably so far but it’s a tricky frontier to patrol. Now is the time for Plaid to double down with determination, diligence and humility. Lindsay Whittle struck a solid note pledging to “work my butt off” for the next seven months.

Welsh Labour has been kicked from one end of the country to the other. Much of this is its own fault for presiding over a disillusioning self-immolation and collapse. More to the point, they’re the government and kicking is what they must expect. It will continue. Where they’re confident of the record, they should defend it.

Plaid has largely escaped serious scrutiny and, clearly, this will change as we approach the election. They have an established leader and a familiar team, but does it have an effective agenda?

Voters will want to know what change looks like. The Senedd has been characterised by consensual centrist mush for years and years and voters will expect more than a version of Labour’s agenda with a dragon stamped on it.

If Wales is to look and feel different, if public service delivery is to improve, people will want to know how and to what timetable.

Defeat

Caerphilly was, ultimately, a strange election for Reform. In one sense, their achievement was as remarkable as Plaid’s. The last time this seat was contested, in 2021, Reform came last with 2% of the vote. A jump from there to 36% is extraordinary; it took Plaid a hundred years to get where it is now.

Yet Reform’s result felt like a species of defeat. Everyone expected a close race, and many predicted a Reform victory, including Reform itself. The hype was too much; an important part of politics is management of expectations. You need to allow yourself some wiggle room and Reform didn’t really do this. Inexperience perhaps.

On the plus side for Rerform, Llyr Powell was a competent candidate in many ways. He had a tricky moment in the BBC TV debate when challenged by the excellent Alison Vyas and her son Cole about making them, a mixed-race family, feel unwelcome in Caerphilly – but generally, he is competent debater.

His constant defaulting to immigration, which is scarcely an issue in Caerphilly, merely showed that Reform hasn’t developed convincing policies on the everyday issues people care most about. Whether they can do this at all remains an open question.

Equally, as the Welsh election beckons, they must persuade voters they have a competent team fit for the serious obligations of governing the country. So far, they have Llyr Powell and the preposterous Laura Anne Jones. It remains to be seen whether the Caerphilly result is a platform or a peak for Reform.

Another interesting aspect of Caerphilly was the invisible Conservatives. In fairness, it was never promising territory for Conservatives, but as recently as 2012 they scooped up more than 5,000 votes.

They got 690 votes this time, 2% of the total. Unless they can improve by a multiple of six, they may not win a single seat in the next Senedd. Shed no tears: they brought it on themselves. They’ve contributed zero to political well-being in Wales.

Dark hole

Andrew RT Davies, during his long leadership, led them to the bottom of a deep, dark hole and Darren Millar is keeping them there. During the long Conservative years at UK level, the Welsh Tories did nothing to influence even one iota of advantage for Wales. They steadfastly refused to engage meaningfully in the Senedd even on the things they said they cared about.

Some of the younger intake of Tory MSs seem reasonable and quite impressive. They should have organised a palace coup to depose the old guard, but it’s too late now and I suspect their fate is sealed.

Next May, led by donkeys, they will climb over the top in the manner of junior subalterns, and they will run towards no-man’s-land to meet their fates.

All eyes now on the Chancellor’s Budget of 26 November. This may, or may not, help Eluned Morgan. In the meantime, the Welsh Budget is in progress with a few hundred million pounds on the table up for negotiation. Plaid probably don’t much feel like being a supplicant at this stage, and fair enough. Equally, they’d be unwise to block the budget; no good could come of that.

Plenty to play for as we enter the dark nights.