A winning team

Tweet Not my description, but that used by Carmarthenshire County Council’s leader, Meryl Gravell, to justify continuing with the anti-Plaid Alliance in County Hall.

It’s an interesting piece of doublespeak, certainly from the point of view of the Labour part of the team. As Vaughan Roderick (translated by Ordovicius here) has pointed out, it's an odd definition of winning. If going from 25 seats to 11 is winning, I wonder what losing looks like. We'll just have to wait four years to find out.

Even taking the Anti-Plaid Alliance position overall, however, it is worth noting how close Plaid came to overall control of the council. Plaid won 30 seats, but needed 38 to gain a majority. Looking at the 8 most marginal seats from Plaid’s perspective, a further 600 votes in those seats would have been enough for Plaid to have formed the administration. This was hardly a massive vote of confidence in the ruling clique.

Whilst there is, of course, nothing in any way illegal in the way that the Alliance have retained power, it is hardly a surprise that many people in Carmarthenshire are having difficulty understanding why a party which was trounced remains in power whilst one which made such a spectacular advance is excluded. It is something which we in Plaid will take great pains to fully explain over the coming months and years.

Decimated in Llanelli, and wiped out in Carmarthen Town, the days of this particular Alliance are numbered.