There was an
interesting article
last week by a Cardiff academic arguing that, in political terms, Wales is
becoming more similar to the ‘British mainstream’. The piece by Daniel Evans of Cardiff
University was followed the following day by a rebuttal
from Martin Shipton in the Western Mail.
All my innate prejudices and history mean that I’d prefer to agree with
Martin Shipton on this occasion, but having read both, I sadly concluded that I
felt that Daniel Evans made the better case.
It is, of
course, true, as Martin Shipton says, that referring to the ‘British mainstream’
is meaningless in a context where Scotland and Northern Ireland are clearly so
very different, politically, from the rest of the UK. It would be much more correct to refer to the
‘English mainstream’ in this context, but after making that change to the
wording, I cannot but agree that Wales and England are becoming more, not less,
similar in voting patterns.
This is about
more than the rise in support for UKIP, which has supplanted Plaid as the third
party in terms of votes, despite winning no seats in Wales yet. It is also evidenced by polling on the
question of membership of the EU, where Welsh opinion seems increasingly
similar to English opinion; the contrast with the situation in Scotland is
stark.
It is still
true, of course, that comparing Wales as a whole with England as a whole, there
remains a clear difference in overall voting habits; Wales has a clear Labour
majority whilst England has a clear Tory majority. But there is a danger that using overall
averages in this way means that other significant similarities are lost. If we treat Wales, for analysis purposes, as
a region of EnglandandWales, and compare it with other regions of the same
entity, that particular difference looks more like part of a natural geographical
variation within the overall pattern than a stark difference between two
different entities.
It’s also true
that England doesn’t have a Plaid vote of around 10-15%. I’m not convinced though that that is enough
to declare that Welsh politics is significantly different from English politics
as a whole. Some regions of
EnglandandWales have much higher support for the Lib Dems than other regions –
looked at from an overall perspective, having a party in one region of EnglandandWales
which polls strongly there but not in some other regions isn’t a sufficient unique
defining characteristic either.
Martin Shipton
argues that the devolution of income tax powers will be a game-changer, since
it allows parties to put forward “rival,
and potentially radically different, tax and spending plans”. I’m not at all convinced about that one
either. If a whole range of taxes were
to be devolved, allowing the Welsh Government to ‘mix and match’ as it wished,
I can see the possibility of alternative proposals being put forward. As it is, all we are likely to see is a party
which knows it has no chance of having to deliver on its promises (the Tories)
putting forward wild promises to cut taxes with no indication of how they will
make up the deficit. There is a good
reason why the income tax powers already devolved to Scotland have never been
used, and I see the same happening in Wales.
I really want
to believe that politics in Wales is, and should be, different; but we need to
make it different. Trying to see
differences where there are none, or trying to exaggerate the importance of
such differences as do exist looks like clinging to a romantic notion of
yesteryear. If we want Welsh politics to
be different, we have to make it so; and above all, that means that politics in
Wales has to be focussed on a debate about what the future direction of Wales
should be, not merely on which bunch of politicians should be steering that
future. As long as all we’re offered is
bland managerialism – “we can run things better than any of the others” – such differences
as do exist between Wales and England will continue to erode.
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