Breaking the log-jam - 2

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Yesterday, I referred to the log-jam in Welsh politics, which is partly a result of an electoral system which, because of the way support for different parties spreads geographically in Wales, favours Labour over other parties.  However, complaining about the system – however valid that complaint might be – doesn’t alter the facts that (a) the results we get are the result of the way people choose to cast their votes, and (b) the system isn’t going to change any time soon.

But if there is no chance of a change to the voting system freeing us from Labour hegemony in Wales, how might that otherwise be achieved?  About the one thing that can be said with some certainty is that carrying on doing the same thing won’t bring about that result.  The main opposition to Labour is divided fairly evenly between Plaid and the Tories, as it has been for the last four Assembly elections (with the benefit of hindsight, the first election in 1999 looks more like an outlier than the dawn of a new age).  There is no sign of that changing.  And if I can (unfairly, I know) distil the strategy of both of those parties down to a single sentence, they look remarkably similar: “We are the only party that can defeat Labour and we can run things better than they can; if we take our target seats from Labour we can win more seats than they do and we can then form or lead a minority government”. 

Although not directly stated, it’s a strategy which effectively depends on persuading the non-Labour voters in any given constituency to vote for whichever of the two parties stands the best chance of defeating Labour –  the sort of implicit alliance-which-can-never-speak-its-name which a first past the post system encourages parties to pursue.  And certainly it is true that there are some seats which could be won by Plaid if the opposition to Labour was not split, and others which could be won by the Tories if the opposition to Labour weren’t split. 

But even if the implicit appeal for unity behind the strongest non-Labour candidate were to be formalised and effective, the idea that either of those parties can emerge as a clear winner based on such an approach seems fanciful to me.  There is a hard-core Tory vote and a hard-core nationalist vote; I doubt that either could be persuaded to vote for the other, even if there were to be an electoral alliance between the two.  Even if such a strategy were to be successful for either or both in the constituency part of the election, the likely result is that Labour would then start to win seats on the lists – in terms of an end to Labour hegemony, the best that looks achievable to me is three roughly equal groups in the Assembly.  The only non-Labour route forward from there is precisely the sort of coalition which Plaid has definitively ruled out.

There are two other aspects to the strategy being pursued by both the main opposition parties at present as well.  The first is that it is, in essence, a negative approach, characterised more by being not-Labour than by anything else.  The second is that the default position of both seems to be “one more heave”; the new dawn is always going break at the ‘next’ election, which justifies continuing along the same path.  I’ve been there; I know how easy it is to fall into that way of thinking.

Whilst it’s easy to blame the voting system or a split opposition (both of them important factors), we must be careful not to lose sight of the real reason for Labour’s continued hegemony in elections in Wales – at its simplest: more people vote for them than vote for any other party.  And given the unlikelihood, as discussed yesterday, of any change to the electoral system, then for as long as people continue to vote as they do, Labour hegemony will continue.  An occasional breakthrough here or there won’t change that, and may even be counter-productive if it serves to encourage the continuation of current strategies.

There can, of course, be no certainty that any alternative strategy would produce a significantly different result; but that’s not much of a reason for carrying on as at present.  As Einstein never actually said, continuing to do the same thing in expectation of a different outcome is a form of madness.

What is the alternative?  Offering a different future rather than simply a better-managed future; offering a positive reason to support that alternative rather than just a clichéd critique of the status quo; inspiring Wales to be what it can be rather than what it is – I believe all of these to be at least a part of the answer, but any such project has to be seen as the long term project as which it used to be seen rather than simply an electoral tactic over a single five year term. 

But as things currently stand the question remains - why would anyone expect the voters to be motivated to make a change of seismic proportions by the prospect of a mere change of management?

Breaking the log-jam - 1

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With the results of the Assembly election all done and dusted the log-jam in Welsh politics remains firmly in place.  It’s partly to do with the nature of the electoral system in Wales.  On that point, just over a week ago, Professor Richard Wyn Jones of the Wales Governance Centre, wrote an article for the Sunday Times about the electoral system in Wales, which also appears on the Governance Centre’s website.  It draws attention to the way in which the particular electoral system used in Wales favours the Labour Party, and makes it difficult to remove them from power. 

At one level, that should be no surprise; the electoral system, like many other aspects of the devolution settlement in Wales, is a product of the Labour Party’s internal difficulties and disputes.  The result is that it’s a bit proportional, but not too much so.

What are the alternatives?  This little chart is based on the results of last week’s elections, and shows a range of various possible scenarios, based on the votes actually cast last week.  (Note: all of these depend on the accuracy of my arithmetic!)

Party	Const's	Region	A	B	C	D	E
Labour	27	2	29	40 or 41	27	21	19
Plaid	6	6	12	9	11	12	13
Tory	6	5	11	9	10	13	11
UKIP	0	7	7	0	6	8	8
Lib Dem	1	0	1	1 or 2	3	5	4
ATA	0	0	0	0	2	0	3
Green	0	0	0	0	1	1	2
Total	40	20	60	60	60	60	60

Column A is the result actually recorded in the elections, for comparison purposes.

Column B is an attempt to show what the result might have been if Wales had 60 individual constituencies, each electing one member under the first past the post system.  It simply assumes that the extra 20 constituencies carved out of the ones which exist would fall the same way – in practice, of course, it would vary depending on how the boundaries were drawn.  It does show, though, that Labour could expect to dominate a wholly FPTP Assembly – which is why some of them have argued for exactly that in recent years.

Column C shows what would have happened had we had a single national list to allocate 20 seats rather than five regional lists.  It improves the situation a little, but still doesn’t really dent Labour’s dominance because of their success in the constituency seats.

Column D shows what the result might look like if the constituency votes for all the parties were summed and the seats allocated on the basis of the total votes; Column E does the same thing based on the regional list votes.  Both of these are what might be called ‘truly proportional’ results, where the number of seats held by each party directly reflects the proportion of the votes gained.  And they highlight the extent to which Labour, in particular, is over-represented based on votes cast.  As for the other parties – well, Plaid, the Tories, and UKIP are actually not far off a fair share of seats; two are very marginally over-represented.  The ‘losers’ from a lack of proportionality are the Lib Dems, the Greens – and the Abolish the Assembly party.  Whilst I wouldn’t particularly welcome the presence of the last of those in the Assembly, those of us who support fair voting systems have to accept that that might well include providing a platform for those with whom we disagree.

So I agree with the point made by Professor Jones; the current system is ‘sticky’ in that, up to a certain point, changing voting patterns are not reflected in changing patterns of representation; short of a seismic change in voting patterns, Labour’s hegemony will continue.  I’m less optimistic than he seems to be however, when he says “Here’s hoping that this will be the last Welsh devolved election conducted through the medium of the current electoral system.”  I don’t see the system changing any time soon. 

Whilst it’s true that the question of the voting system to be used is amongst the matters set to be devolved to the Assembly itself, it’s also the case that this is one of the matters where Westminster is requiring that there must be a ‘super-majority’ in favour of any change.  That means that there have to be at least 40 AMs who agree not only that the voting system should change, but also what the new system should be.  I don’t see Labour agreeing to making the system more proportional, and that means that as long as they have 20 or more AMs, it won’t happen, even if every other AM could be signed up to a single agreed alternative proposal.  (Fortunately, the system is proportional enough to make it even more unlikely that they’ll ever have 40 AMs as a party, which at least means that they can’t change the system to wholly FPTP!)

It’s not only the results of the voting system which are therefore ‘sticky’; the system itself falls into the same category.  It’s a question of chickens and eggs; as things stand, we won’t see any change to the voting system in Wales without removing Labour’s hegemony; and we won’t see any real dent in Labour’s hegemony without a change to the voting system.  And that brings us to the second – and more important - reason for the log-jam in Welsh politics.  But I’ll come back to that tomorrow.

Election fever?

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The Assembly election is now upon us, and I can’t say that any party has said or done anything which has made it stand out from the rest.  The whole election campaign reminds me in some ways of some of the pointless wars of the past where the armies throw everything into the battle, and fight each other to a standstill more or less where they started.  All the indicators are still that, come Friday, the main difference will be the presence of a number of members from a party which really neither wants the institution to exist, nor to play any constructive part in it.

I doubt that many people have actually read any, let alone all, of the parties’ manifestos, but I’ve at least scanned them - more to get an impression of what the parties are saying than to look at the detail.  History shows that there’s little point in looking at the detail; all four of the parties currently represented in the Assembly have a record of saying one thing and doing another, and it would be folly for anyone to place too much trust in the detail of their manifestos as a result, especially if coalition is on the cards.

So – what’s the general impression?  Well, there’s an awful lot of motherhood and apple pie, much of it common to multiple manifestos.  It’s also noticeable that a lot of the verbs used in all the manifestos are ‘soft’ or ‘weak’ verbs, such as work with, support, continue to, improve, promote, press for, explore, aim for, oppose, move away from, encourage, investigate, pursue, discourage…  It’s not that there’s anything wrong with doing all of those things; it’s just that the effect is to make the promises and pledges a great deal less specific and measurable than they could be.  And even where there are more specific commitments, the ‘how’ is often noticeable mostly for its absence.

Insofar as there is any distinction in feel between them, it’s Labour’s manifesto which stands out from the crowd – but not necessarily in a good way.  Whilst the rest are generally clear that current management is poor and needs replacing, Labour seem to have failed to get that message at all, and their manifesto reads as, shall we say, more than a little complacent as a result.  But given the difficulty the other parties have had of shaking the core Labour vote, and the near certainty that Labour will be far and away the dominant party come Friday, perhaps complacency is all they need.  That tells us more about the voters than the parties, though.

For what it’s worth, I concur with the general view of the rest that Labour’s management has been poor, and that Wales needs a change.  But that’s the easy bit – the idea that a change of management will, of itself, produce the desired improvement is one which I find strange.  Yet that ‘managerial’ approach is at the heart of what most of them have been saying for the past few weeks.  I can understand why they all believe that “We can manage things better than Labour” (and I’d probably agree with them); what’s less clear is why they believe that better management is enough to motivate voters.  It’s an even harder message to sell when the punters can read the polls and conclude that there does not seem to be, at present, a credible alternative to a continuing Labour-led administration.

It's not just about tactics

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It seems all but inevitable that UKIP will have a significant foothold in the National Assembly by the end of next week.  I’d prefer that it didn’t happen, but appealing to Labour voters to vote Lib Dem in order to prevent it, as the Lib Dems have done this week, seems to me to be avoiding the real issue rather then confronting it.  The stated objective – of keeping UKIP out – is a worthy one, although whether the call is a truly honest one or just a sly means of maintaining a Lib Dem presence is a rather different question.

But the real issue that it avoids is the simple fact that a sizable number of Welsh voters seem set to vote for UKIP in constituencies across Wales.  The original purpose of the additional members in the regions was to rebalance the total membership of the Assembly to take account of the lack of proportionality in the first-past-the-post part of the election, which is exactly why UKIP are likely to win seats.  The Lib Dems seem to want to use the regional list system as some sort of separate election which can be used tactically to deny representation to a party whose support will be hopelessly under-represented in the constituency part of the vote.  It’s a strange position for a party which claims to believe in proportional representation to take.

I’d prefer a single class of Assembly members elected by Single Transferable Vote from multi-member constituencies (which is coincidentally, as I understand it, the formal policy of the Lib Dems), but if we are going to have a system of additional members as a second-best option, then I’d prefer to see that part of the election used as intended, to ensure proportionality (even if that helps parties that I don’t like) rather than see parties trying to game the system.  Such a system would probably work better if there was only one election – in the constituencies – and the proportion of votes in that election was then applied to national party lists to select the additional members.

Whatever, the real problem – which the Lib Dems seem not to want to face up to directly (although, in fairness, they’re not the only ones) - is that so many people in Wales intend to vote for UKIP in the constituency ballot.  This isn’t limited to in-migrants to Wales; many of the constituencies where UKIP have previously attracted – and are likely to attract again – their strongest votes are also the constituencies with the highest proportion of Welsh-born voters. 

It’s too easy to dismiss this as a protest vote or an anti-politics vote, but I suspect that it is an expression of an underlying current of opinion which is far more common that I’d like to believe.  Perhaps UKIP simply will disappear after the EU referendum on 23^rd June.  That would be too late to stop them making progress in the Assembly elections, but it might justify treating them as a one-off aberration for this particular election.  But even if that turns out to be true, a disappearing party is not the same as a disappearing opinion, and there’s a lot more than antipathy to ‘Europe’ behind the rise in the UKIP vote.  The problem seems to be that other parties are too afraid of losing support from electors who sympathise with much of what UKIP says (but don’t intend actually to vote for UKIP) to directly deal with the prejudices and half-truths underlying the rise of UKIP.  Treating it as a question of tactical voting simply isn’t good enough.

Pots claim kettle is "just too black"

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I’ve referred previously to the confidence trick which the words ‘efficiency savings’ actually represent.  Whilst all organisations always have some potential to improve their efficiency, unless the savings are specifically identified, an imposed target for efficiency savings is merely a euphemism for a budget cut.  In many cases it will result in cuts to services in one way or another.  Even if those ‘savings’ are re-invested elsewhere in the same organisation, arbitrarily imposed ‘efficiency savings’ are still cuts in the parts of the organisation where they apply.

There was a spat between the parties this week on the subject.  Labour, who are currently implementing an arbitrary requirement for a 3% level of ‘savings’ in the NHS, the Lib Dems, who want a further 3% ‘savings’, and Plaid, who want a further 4% of ‘savings’, ganged up on the Tories who want a further 14% of ‘savings’ with all three claiming that the Tories’ proposal amounts to a vicious cut to budgets.  All of the figures seem to have been plucked from the air, and all of them seem to be saying that they wouldn’t cut the overall total budget; they’d simply redirect the money elsewhere in the NHS. 

But if they’re all going to pull arbitrary figures out of the air, there is no way of knowing whether any of them are right.  And there’s an argument which says that if you’re going to do that, you may as well be ambitious about it.  Especially if you have zero expectation of having to deliver.

Faster isn't necessarily better

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Some years ago, one manager for whom I worked was always late for meetings.  His ‘reason’ was that he already had 9 points on his licence for previous speeding offences, and therefore it was impossible for him to get to meetings on time.  He was invariably at least half an hour late, leaving the rest of us sitting around for half an hour waiting for him.  It used to irritate me, but it didn’t seem to have occurred to him either that it was possible to get to meetings on time by setting out earlier, nor that the time taken to get from A to B could not be calculated by simply dividing the number of miles by 70, because there would invariably be congestion, or road works, at some point along the route.

The Conservatives in Wales seem to be suffering from a similar inability to comprehend the reality of travelling by road, with their announcement today that they would raise the speed limit on the M4 from 70 to 80 mph.  They argue that this “could play a vital role in getting our economy moving and offering invaluable support to hard-pressed motorists, commuters and businesses”.  Leaving aside the words ‘hard-pressed’ which seem to be a mandatory requirement of any press release on any topic from any party these days, how, exactly, would it achieve that result?

On my calculation, the M4 in Wales runs for a little under 80 miles from end to end.  Assuming that it were possible to travel at the maximum legal speed along the whole length, then at 80 mph it would take one hour, and at 70 mph it would take around 1 hour and 8 minutes.  That 8 minutes is, of course, the absolute maximum time difference between the two speeds; we also need to factor in the stretch around Port Talbot where the speed limit is 50 mph, and the almost inevitable congestion at other points which reduces the maximum attainable speed.  For most journeys for most drivers, the effective speed limit (and therefore duration of journey) is set by traffic conditions, not by the law.  And let’s not forget that most journeys by most drivers don’t actually use the whole length of the M4 either.

Taking that absolute maximum of 8 minutes as a theoretical saving, do they really believe that that is enough to ‘get the economy moving’?  And in what way does it offer ’invaluable support to … motorists, commuters and businesses’?  The argument doesn’t stand up to a moment’s examination, and I’m afraid that I really don’t believe that Andrew RT Davies is stupid enough to believe it himself either.  (I think I just paid him a compliment, of sorts, there.)

If it is not going to have the effect that he claims, then why is he proposing it?  Only the man himself can know what’s in his own mind, I suppose, but I suspect that he’s actually trying to make a populist appeal to people like the manager whom I mentioned in the opening paragraph; people who believe that speed limits are somehow unfair, and that enforcing them is some sort of stealth tax on ‘innocent’ motorists, or means of preventing them going about their business.

There is room for debate about what the ‘correct’ speed limit should be.  The improved safety of modern vehicles might suggest that it could be increased, whereas the increasing volume of traffic on our roads, and the need to reduce carbon emissions, might suggest a decrease, given the evidence that slower speeds increase the overall carrying capacity of roads and reduce total carbon costs.  But a simplistic appeal to those who simply want to be allowed to drive faster isn’t the place to start that debate. 

Still, irresponsible and half-baked proposals are another indication of a party which doesn’t expect to be part of the government in Wales any time soon.

Do they think we're stupid?

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The party currently calling itself the “Welsh Conservatives” have kindly sent me a leaflet this week urging me to vote for the ‘Local Candidate’ on one ballot and ‘Welsh Conservatives’ on the other.  They don’t, however, seem to think it either necessary or appropriate to tell me who any of these people are. 

There are lots of photos in the leaflet, although it’s far from clear whether any of them are candidates in the election.  There are four pictures that I recognise - David Cameron, Jeremy Corbyn, Andrew RT Davies and Carwyn Jones – but the rest look like stock photos.  Of the four, only two are actually named.  Apparently, Jeremy Corbyn wants me to vote for him for another five years to make the same mistakes, whereas David Cameron is delivering economic security.  But neither of them are actually in power at the moment nor will they be on the ballot paper for the election. 

The leaflet also proclaims rather boldly that Labour hold 30 seats in the Assembly and that if they lose just one seat they lose power.  Do they really believe that themselves?  Two possibilities strike me; the first is that they really do, in which case their understanding of Welsh politics and the electoral system is, shall we say, a little shaky; and the second is that they don’t believe it, but they think that I (and other electors) will be stupid enough to fall for the lie.

Still, credit where credit’s due – at least it’s bilingual nonsense, which is a huge step forward from a lot of the past efforts of the Tories.

Digging an efficient hole

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I’ve referred to the question of “efficiency savings” in the past.  It’s invariably a political euphemism for “budget cuts”, because it’s a top-down exercise telling people what they must save rather than a bottom-up exercise based on real identified savings.  I’ve also previously referred to a report by the Auditor General, which highlighted concerns that 'efficiency savings' have all too often resulted in cuts to services rather than any real improvement in efficiency, and to a report which identified that one of the outsourcing companies more honestly explained how efficiency savings wouldn’t affect profits, because they’d just cut the services.

It’s not that I don’t believe that large organisations can always find ways of running themselves more efficiently – I’m convinced that they can.  (Whether that’s always a good thing or not is another question – getting the cheapest supplies from elsewhere may look like ‘efficiency’ but may not be the best thing for the local economy.)  It’s more that I don’t believe that simply imposing cuts to budgets and telling managers to do more with less will achieve that aim without affecting services in any way.  To pretend that it will is to be blind to the way things will actually happen as a consequence of demanding such savings.

It was disappointing this week to see Plaid joining the “efficiency savings” bandwagon.  For sure, assuming efficiency savings of £300 million makes the figures add up; but it doesn’t make them actually happen.  One person’s £300 million of unidentified savings is another person’s £300 million of budget cuts.  I can’t really blame Plaid’s opponents for jumping on the figure in the way that they have (although it’s totally disingenuous from parties who’ve done exactly the same on a regular basis); and I find Plaid’s defence of the figure no more convincing than the arguments put forward by other parties in the past.  In a manifesto which contains many good things (and I’ll probably come back to manifestos when I’ve had time to read and digest them), it’s an unfortunate hole to have dug.

Mirror, mirror on the wall...

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… who is the blandest of them all?

When the scriptwriters of VEEP coined the phrase ‘Continuity with Change’, they were actually seeking the most meaningless political phrase they could come up with.  Little did they imagine that any politician would ever use anything similar for real.  Never overestimate a politician.

As the Welsh general election campaign struggles into some semblance of life, no doubt we can expect to hear many other meaningless slogans bandied around.  But who can be the blandest of them all?

The Lib Dems have bolted into an early lead this week with “Our priorities are your priorities” and “Putting People First” (as if any political party would ever come forward and say that they were going to put people last).  I really wish that I could say that I was not expecting keen competition from the others to trump the Lib Dems in the coming weeks…

Coalitions and arrangements

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Simon Thomas seems to have ignited something of a hostile reaction within Plaid yesterday, when he declined to rule out an arrangement with the Tories which falls short of a coalition.  I suspect that, in semantic terms, he was correct to argue that what Plaid’s leader had said only rules out one particular type of arrangement, namely a formal coalition.  But I think most people had interpreted what Leanne said – and were intended to interpret it – as ruling out any arrangement which would put the Tories in power in Wales.

But on the principle, I agree with Simon, and have posted on that before.  It’s not that I particularly want to see the Tories in power in Wales, or see Plaid supporting such a government.  And when the issue was under discussion in 2007, when there was a possibility of including the Tories in the so-called ‘rainbow alliance’, I was even more opposed to a coalition with the Tories than with Labour.  But I was happy to talk to both, because that was the only way of ascertaining what, if any, real progress could be made.  I had two main reasons for not being quite so definitive in ruling out some arrangements in advance.

The first is largely pragmatic, and is to do with negotiating leverage.  In the context of the current voting system for the National Assembly, where coalitions or less formal arrangements are more likely than not, any party claiming to be putting the interests of Wales first needs to get the best deal that it possibly can.  And telling everyone in advance that there’s only one party with which you’re prepared to do any sort of deal doesn’t actually incentivise that party to give a lot of ground.  Quite the reverse – it actually strengthens the Labour Party’s hand in any discussions.

The second is more about the aims and objectives of a party.  I find it extremely difficult to believe that the Tories in Wales would offer more concessions to the nationalist position than the Labour Party, but I don’t find it totally inconceivable that it could happen.  Events are inherently unpredictable.  Ruling out, absolutely, any such possibility in advance looks like the action of a party more concerned with its own short-term advantage than with the constitutional progress of Wales.

Of course, the reason given for that would be that the long term future of Wales depends on the strength of the nationalist party, and that any deal with the Tories would weaken that party.  But is that reasoned argument, or merely rationalisation of pre-existing prejudice?  I’m convinced that any deal with the Labour Party is equally likely to weaken Plaid – that certainly seems to be the experience of One Wales.  But if the main aim is making progress towards independence, then bringing about change, and then entrenching that change, is surely more important than the results of one or two elections.

I accept that this is largely hypothetical – any discussion before the election can only ever be speculative.  I entirely understand why all parties would sooner concentrate at this stage on fighting and winning the election than on speculating about what might happen afterwards.  Perhaps there really will be a political earthquake which propels either Plaid or the Tories into a position where they have enough AMs to be in a position to lead a government, however unlikely that may look at present.  But in a context where all the polls show how unlikely it is that any party will win the majority about which they are all so keen to talk, speculation will inevitably continue to be part of the narrative of the campaign.  That’s entirely natural, and in many other countries in Europe, people and politicians would be struggling to understand why there is such a reluctance in Wales to accept the fact, and debate the possibilities more openly.

Talking about arrangements and compromises is an inevitable part of what it takes to create a different type of politics in Wales, and break away from the UK’s obsession with absolute majorities.  It’s about building a more European style of multi-party coalitions and arrangements.  There’s something very ‘British’ about simply wanting to avoid the question.

More about Labour than UKIP

Tweet We heard on Monday that an “internal Labour analysis” is projecting that unless the party does more to counter UKIP, it could lose control of the Assembly in next May’s elections.  The first question that crossed my mind was about how genuine the analysis is.  From experience, it’s not unknown for people with an axe to grind to invent ‘internal’ documents with the specific aim of ‘leaking’ them to a friendly journalist.  But let’s assume for a moment that this one really is genuine.  On the basis of that assumption, it raised two other issues for me.

The first is that, looking at the detail of the newspaper report, the fear within Labour is that, if UKIP do well, Labour will lose seats to the Tories, Plaid, or the Lib Dems.  To anyone and everyone, really.  But on the numbers being quoted, that can only happen if Labour voters are over-represented amongst those switching to UKIP.  I find that entirely credible – the idea that there is some sort of reservoir of support for Labour which can never be attracted by the political ‘right’ is one that I’ve argued against previously.  It still surprises me, though, to see any Labour source admitting that what UKIP says is likely to be more attractive to Labour voters than to supporters of other parties.

And the second is that, even if UKIP do win 8 or 9 seats – as currently seems possible – and Labour fall to around 26 in consequence, in what sense does that mean that Labour will ‘lose control’ of the Assembly?  It would certainly mean that there would be more non-Labour members than Labour members – a balance of 34:26 – but if that 34 really does include 8 or 9 UKIP members, can anyone really foresee any outcome other than a Labour-led government?  Whether as a minority or in some sort of arrangement with Plaid or the Lib Dems (if there are any of the latter left), it is inconceivable on the basis of current polling that we will not still have a Labour First Minister after the elections.

For sure, without a clear overall majority, they will have to come to accommodations with one or other party to get their budget approved, and they may have to modify some of their legislative proposals; but the number of occasions when all 34 opposition AMs line up together to oppose Labour seems likely to be minimal.  Labour will still be in control, even if not as absolutely as they might like.

And that brings me back to my doubts about the bone fides of the leaked “analysis”.  No-one in Labour can really doubt the outcome any more than I do, and anyone in a position to be producing official (or even semi-official) analyses from the party would understand that.  Is the real story here more to do with Labour’s internal battles, and an attempt to undermine Corbyn by blaming him in advance for any success enjoyed by UKIP?

No real signs of an earthquake as yet...

Tweet Last week, Plaid told us that they want to ‘deprive Labour of power over health and education’.  I can’t disagree with that as an aim, although in itself it’s a very negative statement which needs to be backed up by a positive programme outlining what would be different under Plaid.  There’s no question that the record of Labour in both fields has been badly wanting but however frustrating that record might be from the perspective of opposition politicians, merely removing Labour is an inadequate aim in itself.  And as an aim, it differs hardly at all from what the Tories have been saying, which only serves to underline the inadequacy of the negative.  Health and Education need more than a change of the men and women at the top if performance is to improve.

I can also understand why Plaid don’t want to get into debate about who might do what and with whom after the election, preferring to concentrate on putting their own message across rather than speculating about deals and arrangements once the dust has settled.  I’d be saying the same thing.  But that won’t stop me or anyone else from thinking aloud about just what the process might be if Labour is to be deprived of control over these two important fields – and that demands giving some thought to potential electoral outcomes.

The most credible scenario, given current polling data, under which Labour would have no control over either of these policy fields would be an agreement between all the ‘non-Labour’ parties in the Assembly to come to some sort of arrangement under which one or more of the parties formed a coalition and the others agreed, as a minimum, not to bring the government down.  But Plaid have already – very definitively – ruled that one out.  So what does that leave?

There are currently four parties represented in the Assembly.  At present, it looks extremely likely that they will be joined by a significant UKIP group, and it is at least possible that there will be a Green Party AM or two as well.  Given that any sort of Plaid-Tory arrangement has been ruled out, there are only two possible arrangements of parties which could lead to the formation of a viable government after next May.  The first is if the Tories, UKIP, and Lib Dems between them manage to get a total of around 30 seats; and the other is if Labour, Plaid, the Green Party and the Lib Dems manage to get to the same total (scenarios which include the possibility that any one party in either grouping has enough seats to form a government alone, even if that were to be a minority government with tacit support from at least one other party).  (The Lib Dems are assumed to be flexible enough to jump either way, even if they only have one member left.)

Under the first of those scenarios, Labour would, obviously, be deprived of power over both Health and Education (as well as everything else!).  Under the second, they would only be deprived of both if they were to be the junior partner in a coalition, with the senior partner well ahead of them in votes and seats.  These are, after all, the two most important areas of policy over which the Assembly has control, and it’s just not credible that the largest coalition partner would cede control over both.  Indeed, they’d only be likely to cede control over even one of them if there were to be a rough parity of seats between the partners.  On current polling trends, the likeliest result, even if Plaid were to be a part of the government, would probably leave Labour in charge of both.  (And that also means that Plaid’s participation in such a government would be in direct contradiction to what they said that they wanted to achieve – sadly, the Tory accusation of hypocrisy isn’t as far wide of the mark as I’d like to believe.)

Neither of the two scenarios which would lead to a change of control over health and education seem remotely likely on present trends.  It’s a depressing prospect, which serves only to underline quite how big an earthquake we need in Welsh politics if we’re going to see real change.

Is more of the same inevitable?

Tweet There is nothing new in the latest statement from Leanne Wood ruling out any deal with the Tories after next May’s Assembly elections.  It has attracted comments in a number of Welsh blogs already.  Peter Black suggests that categorically ruling out such a deal will weaken Plaid’s negotiating position.  I can’t disagree with that assessment.  It’s in line with a comment that I made in advance of the UK election – but it’s only a problem if establishing a good negotiating position is the intent, and it clearly is not.  Jac o’ The North suggests that effectively it means that a vote for Plaid is a vote for a Labour Government.  And given the range of outcomes from next May’s election which are currently credible, I can’t disagree with that either.  The only choice we’re being given is Labour by themselves, or Labour with a partner.

Gwynoro Jones sees it as a potentially huge missed opportunity, and a repeat of the situation in 2007.  This one I’m a great deal less sure about.  It is based to an extent on the idea that demonstrating that there is a viable alternative to Labour, however cobbled together, will be enough in itself to bring about the sort of change in Welsh politics which will destroy the hegemony of the Labour Party.  That’s not dissimilar to the arguments which were being put forward by the supporters of an alliance with the Tories in 2007.  I thought the argument was wrong then, partly because I feared that such an alliance would end up strengthening rather than weakening Labour, and partly because, for a serious nationalist party, there has to be a long term gain to justify the short term pain which would probably follow such an alliance, and I simply didn’t see such a gain in 2007.

The question for me was (and is) not whether a simple coalition between Plaid and the Tories would be a good idea or not (it wouldn’t), but whether the gain for Wales would be enough to justify the pain for Plaid.  My disagreement with the position taken so categorically by Leanne Wood and Plaid Cymru this time round is that it rules out even considering whether there might be such a trade-off.

And it does so on the basis of what seems to me to be an assumption that the Tories are still the untouchables of Welsh politics.  I’m not at all convinced that that assumption is as valid as many seem to think, but if we accept that it is true, it means in effect that short term electoral advantage for the party is considered more important than considering whether there might be a real long term gain for Wales.

Accepting for the sake of argument the premise that any form of post-election arrangement with the Tories would be electorally damaging to Plaid, could the Tories offer anything at all which might justify such a sacrifice by Plaid in the short term to advance the cause of Wales in the long term?  That is, I think, the question which should be being asked but doesn’t seem to be.  And it’s complicated, of course, by the fact that any conceivable arrangement of parties which comes to a majority over Labour needs to include – on the basis of current polling – at least the tacit support of UKIP as well (an even more unpalatable prospect for Plaid).

Despite all the difficulties and problems, there is actually one potential prize which I think might be worthwhile.  Under the latest Wales Bill, the Assembly is to get control over its own membership and electoral system, and a move to an even more proportional system of elections would be a better way of bringing about the step change in Welsh politics which most parties claim to support in principle.  An Assembly based on 60 constituency seats elected by STV in multi-member constituencies, with a further 20 list members from a single national list, would produce a legislature whose membership matched very closely the overall share of votes across the whole of Wales.

Labour’s projected vote according to the latest polls is around 35%, but the current electoral system is likely to give them over 40% of the seats and be within a few seats of an overall majority as a result.  An electoral system which gave them only 28 seats out of 80 for that 35% would not only be fairer, but with 52 non-Labour members, it would transform the playing field of Welsh politics.

It’s not a huge step forward for most of the parties involved.  Most parties recognise that an increase to 80 members will happen at some stage; Plaid, the Green Party and the Lib Dems are long-time supporters of STV; and UKIP and Plaid recently joined forces with the Greens and others to present a demand for a more proportional system of voting.  Could the Tories be brought round to such a proposal? 

It would not, of course, be enough to make for a stable Welsh Government for a full four or five-year term, but a government which passed such legislation and then sought to dissolve the Assembly for new elections to be held under the new system should be able to hold together for long enough to achieve that more limited aim.  If they’re as serious as they all claim to be in wanting to see the log-jam of Welsh politics removed – and removed by democratic vote, rather than stitch-up – this would be a far better way than trying to put together a far-from-credible multi-party coalition for a full term.

Making peoples’ votes count – all of them, across the whole of Wales – would probably lead to a different outcome, beyond the difference resulting solely from proportionality, as people think about their second and third choices as well as their first.  And it would also open up the possibility of realignment of parties and an opportunity for new and different parties to emerge. 

It’s the stuff of fantasy, of course.  I really don’t see the non-Labour parties in the Assembly being able to come together around such a proposal.  But in the absence of a step change of some sort, then the conclusion reached by Gwynoro looks depressingly likely to be true – we will be facing more of the same for the foreseeable future.

What to do about Labour?

Tweet Last month, Nick Bourne floated – again – the idea of a rainbow alliance forming a new Welsh Government next May.  Personally, I don’t see it happening.  Of course, a lot could change between now and Next May, but any scenario which doesn’t see Labour emerging as the largest party with between 27 and 32 seats looks highly unlikely at present.  And any result in that range means that an alternative government needs to include all the opposition parties – which on current probabilities means a Conservative-led government with active participation from Plaid, UKIP and the Lib Dems (if there are any of them left).

But where’s the big idea behind such a government – the big win for Wales which would justify the pain which would inevitably be felt by at least one of the parties?  There isn’t one, and the need for one is not even understood.  The only common thread between that disparate bunch is that they’re not Labour - it would essentially be a government pieced together on the back of a negative.  That was part of the problem with the similar proposal in 2007 for some of us – and I’ve often wondered since then whether Mike German really understood how much damage he did to the whole idea in the eyes of some in Plaid when he referred to it as an “anti-socialist alliance”.

But the fact that the proposed prescription – a rainbow government – looks to be the stuff of fantasy, doesn’t mean that the underlying diagnosis is wrong.  Wales has a political problem in that there is not currently a credible alternative to a Labour, or Labour-led, government in Cardiff.  I concur with the view that continued Labour rule is not only a recipe for complacency, it’s holding Wales back.  I also concur with the view that a healthy democracy needs a credible alternative - although ultimately it’s the way people cast their votes which creates that situation, and we need to bear in mind that Labour only enjoys its hegemony because people vote for the party. 

If Labour is the problem, what is the solution?  There are, it seems to me, three potential responses to that question – push it, reform it, or destroy it.

The first is to attempt to push Labour in a particular direction from the outside and is effectively – although not always openly stated as such – the route which Plaid has been following for many years.  It depends on winning the intellectual arguments and/or simply posing a sufficiently strong electoral threat.  I’d argue that it has not been without its successes.  The question now is whether that approach has run its course.

Whether the second possible approach – trying to change the Labour party from within – would have been even more effective is a matter of conjecture; it’s certainly something that I’ve often pondered.  But we only live history once; choices were made and we have to live with the outcomes.  What has happened is in the past and cannot be changed – but it leaves open the question as to whether that could yet be an effective way forward in the future.  Is Labour beyond all hope or not?  I concluded long ago that it is.  Whilst hope always resurfaces when the party is in opposition, a year or two of a Labour government is sufficient to dispel any illusion.

The third option is to destroy the Labour Party in Wales and replace it with an alternative which can articulate a different vision for our future.  The SNP have achieved just that in Scotland – could we yet achieve it in Wales?  The honest answer is that I don’t know, even though it’s my preferred option.  But if it were to be the aim, it would need a determined and consistent strategy to achieve it.  I’m fairly certain that forming a Conservative-led rainbow government in 2016 would be more likely to have the opposite effect.  And continually referring to the Labour Party as a ‘progressive force’ and reinforcing their narrative of needing to stop the evil Tories seems equally unlikely to accomplish the objective.