This Strange Election

Desmond Clifford

In 1921 Lloyd George was Prime Minister and wanted a parliamentary seat for his private secretary, Capt. Ernest Evans.

He persuaded Cardiganshire’s sitting member to vacate the seat by giving him a place in the House of Lords, a grotesque device still used by Keir Starmer.

The by-election was divisive. Liberals were riven between Lloyd George supporters and Asquith loyalists who saw DLG as an immoral usurper.

Lloyd George’s candidate won the day. The minister of Tabernacl, Aberystwyth’s largest Methodist chapel, Rev. Richard Jenkin Rees, was drummed out of town by his congregation for endorsing Ernest Evans rather than the Asquith Liberal.

Hubris lurked; Lloyd George’s fall beckoned. The Conservatives, on whose support he depended, formed the “1922 Committee” and vowed to exclude him from office. Lloyd George never held power again.

The 1921 by-election was the last time an election was held in Wales when Labour wasn’t the dominant party. Labour replaced the Liberals at the 1922 General Election and have remained dominant since – until now.

At a Senedd election, power has never changed hands but, unless opinion polling is bunkum, it will this time. Plaid aims to do to Labour what Labour did to the Liberals a hundred years ago.

It’s been a strange and unfamiliar election. Voters no longer hang on Labour’s every word. Either Plaid’s Rhun ap Iorwerth or Reform’s Dan Thomas will be First Minister.

Eluned Morgan is fighting for her own seat rather than leadership of the country. Conservatives are fighting for their lives. The Greens look set to win seats for the first time.

Our whole understanding of what Welsh politics looks like is about to shift. The Overton Window hasn’t moved; it has been smashed and rebuilt on a different wall with perspective-bending double-glazing.

And yet, praise the Lord, for we are an undemonstrative nation! For all its historic import, the election is stubbornly low-key.

At first, I thought it was just slow to get going and would burst suddenly into life like those thrilling spring blossoms that attack the last weeks of winter and light up the way ahead.

I waited in vain.  The election lumbered slowly. No great issues arose. The nation’s attention was not grabbed.  The bus stop chatter is “I’m A Celebrity…” and the follies of Trump.

On central issues, no great chasm stretches between the parties. Leaders are desperate to avoid mistakes. Caution is winning this election.

The new voting system makes assumptions difficult. We have no prior experience and no base lines to work from. We find ourselves in unfamiliar new constituencies which may or may not make sense.

Tactical voting seems practically impossible, despite what the parties say.

Any system has shortcomings. The one we used previously – two votes, one for a traditional constituency and another for a list-seat – was a little bizarre really.

The new system is simpler. It’s one vote for one party and you’ll have six members in your constituency.  It’s not rocket science, but still feels strange.

We’re voting for parties rather than candidates, a contest of labels, not people.

Troubling

This is unfamiliar and, for me, troubling. I accept I’m the minority, but the candidates are important to me. Of the parties I’ve been prepared to vote for, there are candidates I would support and some I certainly wouldn’t.

If the list is headed by someone you can’t approve of, then you have no option but to swerve that party completely.

The Single Transferable Vote system, used reliably in Ireland for a hundred years, would offer different and flexible options.

The everyday visibility of elections has declined markedly.  A few decades ago, streetlamps and other public spaces were festooned with posters. Advertising hoardings were booked solid.

The poster in the window or garden is greatly diminished.  My part of Cardiff used to be an intense poster battlefield between Labour and Plaid Cymru. Their posters vied for every street.  All that’s gone.  There are still some posters up, but they look lonely and marooned, like a forgotten church fete, rather than artillery on democracy’s front-line.

The election has migrated online.  The difficulty is that what you see is served up by the algorithm reinforcing your existing preferences.

That’s how the technology works but the point of an election is to create a democratic marketplace for ideas – to open the ears of voters to all-comers with the prospect that some minds might change.

Virtually the only candidates identifiable in this campaign are the party leaders. The television and media outlets have done their best.  There have been several debates for the leaders of the six principal parties, any of whom have a chance of winning seats.

It’s to the credit of Welsh politics that, with two women among the leaders, the debates at least look like a cross-section of society.

I chanced upon the Scottish leaders debate which featured six men wearing the same suit. Only a diligent follower of Scottish politics could differentiate between them.

TV debates

The Welsh tv debates had their challenges. The tv presentation was effective and fair, everyone got a decent crack of the whip – but I wonder if that’s not part of the problem?

Six people is a lot to engage meaningfully in debate. The smaller parties get a better deal than they used to.

Plaid Cymru was marginalised years ago but benefitted from more equal treatment in recent times, as have the Greens and Reform.

But are arrangements optimal for voters? At the 2024 UK election there were separate debates between Starmer and Sunak on the grounds that one or other would become Prime Minister.  Isn’t there a similar case for a head-to-head between Rhun ap Iorwerth and Dan Thomas?  One of them will soon be First Minister and voters should be confronted with this choice.

Manifestoes offer limited help. I’m a cheerful anorak and among that few per cent of people who read them.

I don’t argue that they’re identical, but they do repeat. Everyone, it turns out, wants better health and education and more jobs. Who knew!?

Among the centre-left parties, you’d struggle at a blind policy tasting test. Delete three or four shockingly inaccurate (and xenophobic) dog-whistles, and Reform’s manifesto is pure Tory.

Today, manifestoes are a sort of political mood-board and not much more.

Deeply confusing

Welsh politics is now deeply confusing.  After 25 years of stability, it’s practically impossible to understand what Labour currently stands for.

The UK Labour Party has worked with fanatical zeal to undermine its Welsh (and Scottish) sister parties.

Perhaps this is part of an incredibly clever strategy invisible to all but those gifted with political second sight.

When asked, poor Eluned Morgan is unable to list a single thing achieved by her vaunted “partnership in power”, yet still she won’t criticise useless Starmer or the Secretary of State for Anti-Wales. UK Labour has become simply a shell for holding power.

What Labour in Wales now stands for is anybody’s guess.

Reform’s interest is getting Farage into Downing St. He was on Radio Four’s Today programme this week, busy moderating his image. Gone is the angry insurgent, it’s now avuncular more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger, with just the odd militant quip for form’s sake.

Inherent nastiness

Reform is torn between inherent nastiness and an instruction to cultivate at least a vague tone of respectability. They accuse opponents of being “obsessed with Nigel”.  Er, yes!  Reform is all about Farage, and the last thing they want is to form a Welsh Government.  They’d shit bricks, and so would I.

Plaid has been trying to replace Labour for years – and its chance has come at last.  A couple of fences from the finish line, it’s afraid of bottling.  Arsenal has the same problem!

If Plaid make it into office, they’ll need to shed this reticence and declare purpose and full conviction.

The Lib Dems are squeezed and seem to have only one member. Even so, nothing quite kills them.

The Greens have struggled in Wales to gather the momentum generated by their charismatic leader in England. Nevertheless, they look set to make a first appearance in the Senedd.

The Conservatives are going the way of Liberals and becoming a legacy party. Wales never truly liked the Conservatives, and it must be galling for them to see Reform becoming what the Tories never could be: a right-wing party competing for power in Wales.

On the other hand, I suspect Tories will still be around in 15 years, when Reform has folded.

This election is strange and deracinated.  It’s unsatisfying, something’s missing.

Can we regard it as an experiment which has been tried and found wanting?

The Single Transferable Vote (STV) is the way forward, real choice and real democracy in people’s hands.