Welsh Senedd Election - PR in action. This will be interesting!

No, the clowns will be going for another party altogether., the earnest, Welsh through and through, will be the ones going for Plaid.

A toad with a red rosette would normally be enough for folk to vote Labour. Now and again Plaid, basically Labour who speak Welsh, have a bit of resurgence, but it always dies down.

Reform have given ordinary Labour voters in South Wales, where most seats are, an alternative vote for the first time, the fact that voters were willing to ditch Labour was seismic.

Historically they will not vote Tory, that included Mrs Thatcher. Reform were on track to win, Labour had no chance, but they did not want a Reform win, with all that kudos, so Labour stalwarts were told to vote for Plaid. This meant that Labour’s share went down, but Reform did not win.

In May Labour will be calling Reform a wasted vote and hoping that strategy is enough to stop Reform getting control of the Senedd.

Read the beginning of the thread FriedGreenTomatoes2. Reform will not gain control of the Senedd, simply because they do not have enough support. With the PR system they will not be able to win enough seats to rule alone, and apart from the Tories, who are predicted to get only two or three seats, no other party will enter a coalition with Reform.

Well if it’s that clear cut Casdon I’m surprised Reform UK haven’t withdrawn! Why even bother if it’s so cut and dried?

Unless of course, in the privacy of the ballot box …. 🤔

The reality is with a PR system, it’s highly unlikely that one single party will ever have control in the future FriedGreenTomatoes2, I’m not making this up. The current poll difference between Reform and Plaid is one seat, so it’s just maths. There are potentially 3 Tory seats, and potentially 20 seats split between Labour, Greens and Lib Dem’s. The predictions obviously won’t be 100% right, but I doubt if they will be far off.

Well presumably they bother, like any party or politician, because even though they are v unlikely to get a majority or ally with another party to do so, having seats means they'll have a vote at Senned, a chance to ask questions on behalf of their supporters etc.
Unless they do the 'Nigel Farage in the EU parliament' look & don't bother to turn up most the time.

The reality is with a PR system, it’s highly unlikely that one single party will ever have control in the future

Absolutely right, Casdon. Under D’Hondt, it’s virtually impossible for any party to win four of the six seats in any constituency. The turnout would have to be massive as would the vote margin between first and second place.

No party can win more than 39 seats. Nobody apart from perhaps some Tories would work with Reform which would mean Reform winning 39 and the Tories 10.

Latest polling from YouGov shows Reform on 37, Plaid 36, Labour 12, Green 7, Tory 3, LibDems 1, so more likely to be a coalition between Plaid and other parties.

Labour 12
😲 In Wales?!

I dont know why I said 39. I must have had 13 constituencies in mind not 16. It's 48 of course so if one party were to manage that they would need only one other member to work with them.

I wonder how much of the recent Green Party vote was a negative to all of the others - she sounds like a great credible rep, but I remember great results for the Monster Raving Loony party as a protest vote.

I vote Plaid myself years ago because I had more confidence in them than the main parties.

My beef is that 3 countries of the UK have a sub-assembly but England does not.