Westminster 2015 : The Post-Mortem

Why are we looking at five more Tory years when we could've had this?
(Pic : Wales Online)

In one final visit to the 2015 House of Commons election, it's worth looking in more detail at last Thursday's results in Wales - considering why it happened and what can be learned from it.

Conservatives

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A Unionist dog whistle - You have to start with the Tories, simply because they provided the most interesting development in Wales. Those gains (whether in seats or votes) were in places you would've expected : the Costa Geriatrica in north Wales and wealthier parts of south Wales along the M4 corridor - what Balsom's Three Wales Model (here) dubs "British Wales". Gower would normally be considered an exception. This could be a direct result of Anglo-Welsh concerns about Scottish nationalism or even (subsequently) things like Trident and its impact on the UK's global standing. When you factor all these things in, their performance in Wales perhaps isn't as spectacular as it first appears; it's no different to Labour maxing-out their vote in the valleys and taking an extra seat or two.

Voters "stuck with the plan" – Large numbers of people are what you might call "temporarily embarrassed millionaires". The key Conservative campaigning messages were to "stick with the plan" and bank on Cameron's credible leadership. It's easy to assume – and I suspect most people reading this are left-wing – that because we oppose cuts to public spending everyone will. "Tax and spend" politics might be seen as bad things by those in middle earning private sector jobs who are too wealthy to see the benefits of redistribution, but too poor to really consider themselves part of the middle and upper classes. Most will be young professionals or young families. Many will be "Shy Tories" or voted for Tony Blair (what's now being dubbed "aspirational politics"). So it's no surprise that, as we're just about seeing an economic recovery, wealthier parts of Wales voted Conservative – they genuinely feel better off and want to maintain the status quo. Perhaps they have longer memories than Labour give them credit for.

Lines Between Life and Death – I'm sure the Vale of Clwyd gain will be almost entirely down to the possible downgrades at Glan Clwyd Hospital, which is reportedly incredibly unpopular in the area. Similarly, Powys – which relies quite heavily on cross-border health services – has turned blue on both sides of the border meaning there's the possibility of significant Anglo-Welsh lobbying to protect services in Shropshire. Labour have said nowt on either issue (even if it's devolved) and concentrated on pan-UK issues, flagging up London-specific policies like the "mansion tax" as though it was relevant in Wales or northern England. The Tories meanwhile ran an old-fashioned campaign focusing on local issues.

Labour

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A crap and complacent campaign – Their manifesto managed to contain so many words yet say very little. It was a load of focus group seminar guff and nothing stuck. The little progress they made in their target seats (Cardiff Central aside) could tell us several things : their activist base is thinning out and they can't run the campaigns of yore, they've run out of ideas, they neither accept how bad the smell was when Gordon Brown left office or the Welsh Government's poor record as beliefless middle managers. Someone (it might've been the defunct Welsh Not blog) once described Carwyn Jones' leadership style as similar to that of a supermarket manager, and he exemplified that by calling for brand changes - that's what you do when you have a bad product. Failing to reject or spell out cuts made them too right-wing for the now radicalised and energised Scots, backing tax rises and increased borrowing made them too left-wing for English swing voters, while the whole time they were perhaps "too London" for Wales - sticking with policies your average Welsh Labour voter couldn't understand or relate to - the "mansion tax" being one of them.

They increased their share of the vote in the wrong places - On the whole, they did fairly poorly and not just in their target seats but even in parts of the South Wales Valleys. OK, Labour MPs have big majorities anyway, a blip here and there doesn't matter; but they took voters in Wales for granted and automatically assumed any anti-Tory vote belonged to them by right. Also, there's no point securing big percentage swings rises in places like Merthyr, Swansea West and Blaenau Gwent if they can't hang on Gower or take seats like Arfon and Aberconwy. They should consider this a final warning for what could happen in future elections. All those red constituencies on the third diagram are ripe for the taking by other parties in the Assembly elections - with the right candidate and the right message - due to lower turnouts. They should thank their lucky stars that Plaid are no SNP.

Ed Miliband's leadership – Truth is this election wasn't lost during the campaign but several years ago. There's a hidden test prospective Prime Ministers need to pass. I call it the Deep Impact test. Imagine a major disaster was about to befall the UK – like an asteroid smashing into London. A prospective Prime Minister will be able to give the final address and convince you everything will be alright. Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair could do it. David Cameron could do it. Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon could. It's not a direct qualification for the job, but it's something you can't learn as a SpAd, from a PPE lecture or at a think tank seminar. You either have it or you don't. Ed Miliband doesn't and Labour better make damned sure whoever follows him does.

South Wales is the new "Celtic Heartland" – Labour's annihilation in Scotland is good news for troughers from the Valleys, as south Wales is the new Central Belt. It means greater prospects for Welsh Labour MPs at the top table of shadow government - if the incoming leadership want a token person with a funny accent from the regions. Owen Smith has already, inexplicably, kept his Shadow Welsh Secretary post. Every cloud....

A protest against the Welsh Government? – While Labour were keen to conflate Westminster issues with devolved issues in 2011, the exact opposite has happened this time - no doubt health has been a major issue on the doorstep, for example. The Welsh Government can throw around all the survey findings they want, but it doesn't do anything to stem a bubbling populist opinion that Labour are running Wales into the ground. It won't cost them many seats at present (though it explains Vale of Clwyd), but it makes them vulnerable. This might also explain the UKIP figures further down.

Plaid Cymru

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A brightly-coloured campaign but a strategic failure – Plaid got boots on the ground in target seats, held rallies and Tweeted until their thumbs fell off – basically attempting to replicate the Ynys Môn by-election. However, they might've placed too much emphasis on the TV debates. While Leanne Wood did well and grew in confidence, at points you couldn't tell if this campaign was about raising Leanne's personal profile or sending MPs to Westminster. On strategic failures, take Cynon Valley and Caerphilly. In both seats, Plaid selected firefighters to stand. I don't know about you, but firefighters tend to work shifts, and might not be able to commit as much time to campaigning as UKIP's army of the independently wealthy and retirees; or have as many canvassers to call upon as sitting Labour MPs in local authorities chock full of Labour councillors. Perhaps some candidates in outlier seats, where you would expect Plaid to do well, needed more help from the centre and didn't get it (the same goes for Labour too in places like Gower). A slim victory on Ynys Môn would've papered over the cracks, and it's worth reviewing precisely how they run and manage campaigns at a local level.

Increased share of the vote in some 2016 target seats – On the whole, Plaid did OK and their mean increase in share of the vote per seat (just under 1%) was better than both the Conservatives (0.9%) and Labour (0.6%). There's a glimmer of hope for next year, in particular constituencies like Rhondda and Cardiff West - but they shouldn't get carried away. They flopped in Aberconwy and Llanelli (which should ring alarm bells, though Keith Davies is a different opponent to Nia Griffith) while their performances in other constituencies weren't as good as you would otherwise expect. They lost votes to UKIP too, and under normal circumstances these votes would've been Plaid's to pick up, which could've generated an SNP-style surge. It didn't happen because....

The anti-austerity vanguard didn't show up (except for viewers in Scotland) – Plaid's key message was opposition to both public spending cuts and a speedy reduction of the UK's budget deficit. So where were all these hard-up voters demanding change? "False consciousness" isn't an excuse as the Welsh electorate isn't half as radical as Plaid think they are and Plaid have been given more publicity than at any point in their history. For whatever reason, the electorate didn't buy what Plaid were selling; take a look at this sample. They did in Scotland though, and I suspect it's because Nicola Sturgeon is backed by a competent and aspirational SNP government while Plaid (and the Greens) appear self-righteous. A bit organic quinoa. A bit cultural criticism postgraduate. A bit Guardian and Owen Jones. A bit Machu Picchu gap year. A bit crachach. A bit "sustainability". A bit too keffiyeh and vegan skinny soy latte. A party of Apples when the world runs on PCs. In short, they should ask for the SNP's help on how to present policies, and desperately need to inject a bit of working class toughness and directness into their campaigns; before the feminist wing of Plaid get a fit of the vapours, Nicola Sturgeon has proven you can do the latter without being "macho".

The "Big Demand" becomes "Big Whinge" - Plaid Cymru campaigns are normally framed around "The Big Demand". Pre-1997 it was devolution. Subsequently it was a law-making Assembly, to be included in TV debates and the likes of the infamous "maximum wage". This time it was funding equity (per-head) with Scotland – which came out of nowhere and didn't have any firm grounding in fact. Why should Wales receive an extra £1.2billion a year? "Because Scotland" would fail a GCSE economics exam and it sounds like the begging bowl politics that turn even people like me off Plaid. They had more moral and economic justification for a proportional share of spending on things like Crossrail and HS2 (Will HS2 benefit Wales?), and I don't see why they didn't focus on that instead. The comments from Syniadau and Gerald Holtham (first comment) are solid and honest advice - the sort of advice Plaid Cymru's leadership need to listen to and not dismiss because it doesn't fit their narrative. They're getting basic stuff wrong in a way the SNP aren't, and I suspect it's down to how the party is organised, with an excessively powerful executive bubble prone to groupthink.

The hype train derailed – Self-confidence and self-belief is great, but if expectations aren't met you crash down to earth hard. It's worth repeating : this wasn't a bad result, but Plaid got a bit carried away and it masked their more realistic expectations (to hold three seats). There was little objective thinking or opinion on how their campaign was really going. If you believe Twitter, Facebook and sites like Daily Wales it was brilliant everywhere; I doubt I'm the only person who never buys into that "Hearing good things on the doorstep" poop (from all parties; canvassers are about as welcome as double glazing salespeople and Jehovah's Witnesses). This allowed supporters to whip themselves into such a frenzy they convinced each other they could win Llanelli and Ceredigion because they turn up to rallies, stick placards in their front gardens, retweet image macros to each other in social media echo chambers or are due success by riding the SNP's coat tails; there's an old idiom about empty vessels making the most noise. When those over-confident expectations aren't met, the demoralised grassroots will (quite rightly) start to ask questions.

Liberal Democrats

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They held Ceredigion (and retain a base in a few other places) – One of the few good news stories for the Lib Dems last week at the expense of Plaid, and I suspect it's down to Mark Williams as a constituency representative than his party. Although even there their share of the vote collapsed, they retain a rump presence in their Mid Wales heartland and a sizable presence in Cardiff Central. Also, they still managed to get 2.3million votes across the UK, which proportionally would've resulted in around 50 MPs – 50 MPs being much more heartening than 8! So there's no need for Lib Dems to lose all hope, but they have to accept what happened and why.

Everything else that could go wrong did go wrong – Where to start? Their campaign was noticeably limp in Wales everywhere outside Cardiff Central and Ceredigion. It was right to focus on retaining rather than gaining seats, but some of the drops in votes are mind boggling. Everyone was expecting a backlash, but not even I was prepared for some of these figures. The irony is that, in my opinion, they had the strongest manifesto - not that it means anything to the electorate at large.

It might take 3/4 electoral cycles to recover – The groundwork Lib Dem activists need to do to rebuild their voter base is monumental, but I suspect they will recover (to a point) – it'll just take time. The days of the Lib Dems taking 20% of the vote in the valleys are over though and I suspect, after what looks set to be a dreadful 2016 election, they'll have to start with the basics : more councillors and canvassers. The start of that process has to be humility in front of the electorate. Stop the "If the Lib Dems were still in government...." No more silly bar graphs. No more "Only the Lib Dems can...."

Remember the human cost – OK, I had a giggle with the logo because Lib Dems have savoured the smell of their own farts as if it's the bouquet of a fine wine for the last five years (See also : Proctalgia Fugax 1964-2014) - and history will probably be kinder to them come 2020. Despite that, we need to recognise the personal and emotional cost. For example, their Bridgend candidate, Cllr. Anita Davies, is a genuinely inspirational woman who didn't deserve to be publicly humiliated for the sake of party pride. They lost up to 30 deposits in the land of David Lloyd George and shouldn't have put up so many paper candidates this time around, instead accepting the catastrophe that was coming.

UKIP

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They're taking votes from everyone – They've gone from losing every deposit to third place (in terms of vote share) in the space of five years. It'll probably be hard to determine precisely where the bulk of UKIP votes came from, but it's clear they came from every direction with the sharpest increases in Labour heartlands. As I said in a comment last week, I suspect it has at least three main components:

1. Protest voters who used to vote Lib Dem or Plaid but now vote UKIP - because they're the party that's shaken things up the most and who "the establishment" are most worried about. In many cases, the rise in UKIP votes correlates with the decline in Lib Dem votes. It makes you wonder if many of the people voting Lib Dem in the past genuinely believe in their policies; or, whether they want to vote out of civic duty but didn't know who to vote for - the Lib Dems, and now UKIP, being an established "None of the Above" party.
2. Committed anti-immigration voters, who probably would've voted BNP in the past, or have been convinced it's a serious threat.
3. True believers (anti-EU libertarians and social conservatives) who've been there since the start.

They're not exclusively "Little Englanders" – When you look at the map, UKIP's vote hasn't increased sharply in places you would've expected it to (i.e. where English people migrate to), like Aberconwy and Pembrokeshire. Wrexham (where's there's a large Polish community) and Flintshire aside, their vote was strongest across the Valleys, in particular the Gwent valleys, where people have a high degree of Welsh identity and low degrees of both English and British identity. This wasn't about Britishness or Welshness at all, but....

UKIP voters are likely to be "the left behind" - There are two other indicators which correlate with UKIP getting a high share of the vote – people with no qualifications and low percentages of people holding degree-level qualifications. Essentially, UKIP voters are, or could be, people who've been left behind by Labour for generations, who don't have a clue what "austerity" means, don't read the Morning Star or are highly unlikely to be in unionised workplaces, have been hit hard by globalisation, but who want a convenient explanation for their problems that they understand - like immigrants from the EU taking their jobs. UKIP's cravat wearing cads and bounders have, figuratively speaking, got turkeys to vote for Christmas. These voters are people who would suffer most under UKIP's brand of right-wing libertarianism and securing their vote is an act of political genius, boiling down to their straight-talking, pub philosopher style - it's something other parties can learn from, not dismiss or turn their noses up at.

Their divisiveness means they're still some way away from being competitive – Considering how disorganised their campaign in Wales was, it's a surprise they did as well as they did. In PR terms they're a walking disaster, but I suspect many Kippers don't care and take any attack as the "establishment parties" rounding on them. They actually do better when attacked, and a bit more focus should've been on their wacky policies not their wacky candidates. I don't want to get anyone's hopes up, and it doesn't make a difference, but compared to last year's European elections their vote is down (though turnout was much lower last year). I suspect this is the absolute maximum UKIP can expect to achieve in terms of vote share, and Kippers aren't known for turning out in Assembly elections. Next year that will change and the other parties need to prepare now.

Greens

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They've come some distance in a short space of time – The Green performed modestly even when compared to 2010, but there's clear and distinctive progress made, with a record number of candidates and a record share of the vote. In terms of next year's Assembly elections, it's looking good for them in Mid & West Wales and South Wales West – but they'll still have to double their vote to absolutely ensure a list seat.

A Plaid-Green alliance wouldn't have made much of a difference – There was much discussion on this in the run up to the start of the campaign, but even if Plaid and the Greens stood a joint candidate in Ceredigion, the Lib Dems would've won. The Greens in Wales are still in their relative infancy as a serious political force. It's going to be a long time until co-operation between the two parties will benefit either party simply because the Green share of the vote is negligible and so they don't bring much to the table in terms of leverege (for now). Two places where Green-Plaid cooperation might've worked are Swansea West and Cardiff Central - making the difference between single digit and double digit results. Meh.

That'll be £16,000 please – All but three Green candidates in Wales lost their deposits, which is marginally more than the Lib Dems. They might've over-expanded their ambitions too quickly and it was a ridiculous decision to stand this many candidates so soon. A careful selection of targets might've helped (probably sticking to university seats - they did relatively well in them) and the £16,000 their candidates chucked away could've been better spent preparing for next year. Far from an exponential surge, their official response to the result was like saying there's a tsunami on the way but a 5cm wave subsequently breaking up the beach - technically correct, but barely enough to get your feet wet. In fact, their votes match what they normally achieve on the Assembly lists (30-35,000 votes) so you can contend that the Greens haven't made much hard progress in Wales, and simply picked up natural and habitual Green votes in a Westminster election for once (as opposed to them going to the Lib Dems or Plaid).