Elections!

[beccatoria]

Okay, so I know the AV vote isn't back yet, but isn't looking good. I did vote for it, but honestly, I don't like it much, it seemed like the worst possible alternative to first past the post, which is probably why the Tories suggested it. Perhaps it's because I never really felt I understood how it would change the voting landscape that was why I was never fired up about it and only ever dubious and vaguely concerned that the fringe parties would get their second preferences counted first, given that I think there are a helluva lot more right-wing than left-wing fringe parties, meaning I wondered whether there'd be an initial boost for the Tories before a boost to the Lib Dems or Labour on a really close race. I dunno. Like I said, I voted for it because on balance it seemed like the best thing to do, but I feel a lot more awkward about how now there won't be any conversations about other voting systems than I do about this voting system failing to pass.

I also absolutely think that people are voting against it in reaction to the unpopularity of the Lib Dems. I get the Clegg's point that they're being blamed for the worst of the Tory-led policies, but dear lord, man, when you U-turn like that on tuition fees and aren't seen to be doing anything to fight against the tide, I'm sorry, but it's not only understandable, it's just that people blame you. You did some of it. It's just that the people who are likely to look at those cuts and decisions and need to blame someone are the Lib Dem voters, not the Tory ones, who are probably getting more or less the government they thought they'd get.

Though I do think that while the frenzy surrounding the unpopularity of the Lib Dems hasn't absolved the Tories, it has definitely meant that there's just less media attention on them. So in that sense the Libs are scapegoats, yes, in that they're drawing all the attention. But I can't exactly say that I think the attention they're drawing is unfair either. I just wish the Tories were also drawing it.

I think that it's also good to point out that while the Tories may be holding their own, or making minor gains, that's not enough to suggest support for a majority government on their own. They're holding their voters, but they're not gaining on them either.

Okay, enough of the UK-wide, let's talk about Wales.

I was really relieved that my constituency went Labour again, finally, though not surprised given the candidate and the situation and the opposition, etc. Plus, she came around door-to-door campaigning to our house (weeeeeks ago now), with HARRIET HARMAN which was kinda cool. Harriet Harman likes the tiles in our hall.

But I am pretty bitterly disappointed that the relatively minor swing towards the Tories in percentage of the electorate translated as two seats net gain. I'm glad they lost their leader at least but it's something they can spin as a success and now they're the second-largest party in the Assembly for the first time since it began which sucks monkey balls.

My first thought when I saw that Labour had 30 seats was that they'd probably go with a minority government, but it looks like they're at least considering a coalition with someone, which begs the question - with whom? I believe they actually ruled out the Tories before the election (and that'd just be WEIRD). Plaid is the obvious choice, and I'd certainly be happy with that, but they'd be more junior than last time and a few quotes I've heard are suggesting that they may wish to lick their wounds and consider whether, on the whole, the coalition hurt them. Junior partners in coalitions often come out of it worst for wear even when the coalition itself isn't unpopular (and it wasn't here, largely) because they can't get that much through or really vocally agitate for their own causes against the larger party. But, on paper, Plaid and Labour are virtually identical on many issues.

The Lib Dems would be the other obvious candidate given how tiny they are and like, well, they're not in a position to ask for much, but the problem with that is that I really think it'd be politically toxic. I mean I don't mind the Lib Dems in Wales that much, they're okay, and I don't think that them being in a coalition with Labour would really change that much but given the creaming the Libs just suffered and given how Labour are talking about how their success in Wales was definitely partly down to dissatisfaction with UK-wide politics, do they really want their first act to be to team up with the guy a lot of people are dissatisfied with?

So, we'll see, I guess. I still think a minority government is on the cards, but they probably also have memories of that HILARIOUS time when their own policies made one of their own run as an independent, win his seat, deprive them of a majority, and then see all the other AMs team up against them to stop University fees from going through, among other things. Hilarious because that's now like some kind of flagship policy for them, but whatever, the point is, they've been down that road before and it was, on occasion, embarrassing.

Finally, I want to talk a bit about the way the votes swung and the way Wales doesn't follow Scotland in voting patterns and nationalism and how this is clear, now that we have like, actual elections about these countries instead of all of us Celts panic-voting whatever Left party we think is most likely to get in.

I was quite sad to see Plaid get HAMMERED, like, really badly. In terms of where people voted, they actually lost fewer voters than the Lib Dems (a drop of about 3% instead of 5% or something?) but that translated very differently and they just got creamed whereas the Lib Dems just got...mini-creamed.

But I do have thoughts about why that is. And basically, the Lib Dems have never really been much of a political force in Wales. They pretty much always trail fourth. Plaid Cymru, on the other hand, I think often functions in Welsh Assembly the way the Lib Dems do nationally these days - they serve as the Other Left Party you can vote for when you're pissed at Labour. And this time, Labour picked up its extra seats from all three of the other parties. It wasn't just stealing primarily from one other group.

Plaid are basically screwed, I think, because they're being squeezed from all sides. When the Assembly started, it pretty soon after the landslide Labour win in 97 and the Tories were mud - first Assembly elections, they didn't return a single constituency candidate and only got in via the regional lists. Of course that didn't last as they recovered politically, they started reclaiming their more traditional Welsh territories, Monmouthshire, Pembrokeshire, and those weird parts of North West Wales that seem to swing between Plaid and the Tories (well, okay, that probably does make sense, its electoral warfare between the rich, English retirees and the nationalists). But Plaid ended up picking up places like Llanelli and Rhondda and stuff, off the backs of that growing dissatisfaction with Blair's Labour government.

Now the unpopularity of the coalition is increasing support for Labour, but it's also the Lib Dem, not the Tory name that's become mud, meaning that Plaid's getting squeezed from both sides and can't exactly encroach on the Dem's territory because they're tiny.

Long story short, I think that electoral upset at the situation with the UK government, in Wales, translates more as solidarity for Labour than anger at the Lib Dems.

But why not Plaid? Like is happening in Scotland with the SNP?

I think that's a difficult and quite sad question to answer. The short version is that the SNP have successfully branded themselves as the political party of national pride and solidarity and Not Wanting to be Like England.

Plaid haven't.

I think there are some historical reasons why the Labour party is so entangled in the soul of, at least South Wales, which has a lot of constituencies due to population density. The Labour movement was enormous in shaping this part of the country; the Miners' Strikes really cannot be underestimated in terms of how they shaped the political discourse of the very recent past, and before them, Unions were just unspeakably enormous forces. I'm not sure it would be articulated quite as nationalism but certainly a powerful part of the Welsh political identity has been tied up with the Labour party for a long time. I'm not sure if it was, or is, like this in Scotland too, but, for example, Aneurin Bevan, founder of the NHS and social housing, I would argue is indicative not only of the post-War Labour movement, but also of a political movement that had a lot of roots and history in the South Wales Valleys.

I'm sure the same is true for many other areas of the UK, but I can't speak to those. What I'm trying to say is, a lot of the political activism in Wales in the last sixty years hasn't been left wing, it's been Labour. And yes, a lot of that has also been frustration and anger at the "old guard" of complacent Valleys MPs, but I think on a fundamental level, we sold our soul, and in some ways we look for reasons to go back to them rather than reasons to look to Plaid - in this part of the country (see below for how linguistic issues affect this; and we are talking about a more anglicised part of the country).

And we absolutely could have changed that narrative in the last twenty years (which I think is what the SNP have been more successful at doing?)

But we haven't. Which gets me to the other reason, which is the fragmented, broken national identity that we have. I mean to start with there are just a shitload more people who live in Wales who don't consider themselves Welsh and as such would be far less likely to consider voting for a nationalist party. I can't find a proper statistical number (probably because none are kept?) but I do know that one of the reasons the original referendum on the Assembly didn't pass, for instance, was apparently, according to pollsters, unconvinced English ex-pats. So it is a voting block worth considering.

On top of that there's the linguistic issue which is just...quite possibly one of the biggest scars in the nation that we don't like to talk about. Plaid Cymru is unavoidably tied with Welsh language issues which alienate half the people who might otherwise be persuaded to vote for them. There's a lot of insecurity on both sides of the issue of Welsh People who Do and Do Not Speak Welsh for reasons I'm sure everyone can guess and nationalism is so strongly associated with linguistic nationalism, it's a whole other subtext that punctuates the political battle for votes. And again, I think this is something that the SNP do not have to contend with to the same degree with because of the specific ways in which language and being Scottish interact as opposed to language and being Welsh?

Though obviously I know I have a couple of both Scottish and Welsh flisters and would be happy to hear corrections!

So yeah, basically, I'm...pretty pissed that the Tories didn't do worse, and I'm sad for Plaid, but also I think that something that's likely to be lost on a lot of people outside Wales is, I'm not sure the drubbing for Plaid represents a lack of...national pride. It represents a fractured national identity in political and linguistic terms. In some ways, I think the fact that the south voted every seat east of Pembroke and west of Monmouth to Labour is an act of nationalism, or at least, an affirmation of political identity.

I don't entirely buy that argument, but I also don't think it's total bullshit. I think that it's...complicated, and I think that for very many people, rejecting Plaid Cymru is not about rejecting being Welsh.

Also, today, someone I didn't know very well but had previously thought was probably all right, and knew had pretty left wing liberal politics, shocked the hell out of me by declaring that obviously this was all because the Scottish really cared about their parliament, but the Welsh thought the Assembly was kind of a joke that no one wanted in the first place. (Which confuses me because it only existed because a majority voted for it to happen, okay it was a small majority, but more people voted for it than didn't). So I pointed out that eight weeks ago we had a referendum to increase its powers which passed really strongly. But apparently that was down to low turnout and she basically implied it was thrown by Welsh-speaking nationalists in a tone that suggested she thought we were all crazy. For the record this is bullshit anyway; support across the board was higher than anticipated, even in places like Monmouthshire which is so English the freaking English Democratic Party stand there in an attempt to get the boundaries redrawn. But what really pissed me off was the way she obviously felt completely comfortable saying this in the same breath as expressing all sorts of other left-wing ideas and was completely confident I'd feel the same way. There really is this infuriating cognitive dissonance when it comes to Wales and Welsh issues, I see it again and again. There's at least two other English people in my work who are the same way. Super left wing about 90% of shit and completely dismissive and even aggressive about Welsh matters because they...don't see the "point" of them or whatever.

So I didn't tell her I was a Welsh speaker because I didn't feel like being dismissed and kind of...tried to make another point or two but then I had work to do. But it was really disheartening. And a really good illustration (yes, okay, in a cool story bro my best friend's roomate once said so it must be true kinda way, I admit) of why...we have issues with coherent national identity in this country.

FIN.

Comments

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

I was just reading the election results and surprised at the difference between Scotland and Wales and thinking I WONDER WHAT BECCA THINKS.

I think your analysis of what the SNP have done in Scotland is pretty right on. There is definitely a similar centrality of Labour and unions, particularly in the industrial and ex-industrial central belt (which is something like 90% of the Scottish population); I'll see your Aneurin Bevan and raise you Ramsay MacDonald! This election, the SNP took Glasgow Shettleston, which is one of the poorest urban constituencies and one of those places where Labour just goes without saying; I thought that was pretty significant. The SNP have totally become the party of wanting to distance oneself from England, and with the Tories in power, that is something Scottish people want a LOT.

Since the ConDems got it, I've really seen a different feeling among my Scottish and English/Welsh friends and family; Scotland feels as if it has a certain distance from the cuts, for all they do affect their budget, and this vote is an attempt to maximise that. I see the SNP win as a protest vote against Westminster rather than a vote *for* independence, but if and when the referendum happens I can see it going in favour.

I have lefty friends who are intensely pro-independence and those who are anti, but everyone is pretty pissed off with Labour, not just at the Westminster but at the Scottish Parliament and local level; they've had a lot of corruption and general fuckups. People tend to think the SNP try to do more than Scotland can pay for, but at the same time, they have made tangible improvements in government, and Alex Salmond is by far the biggest profile Scottish politician. If they can convince people that Scotland is able to survive economically without England, I think independence will happen. My gut positivity and my intellectual suspicion war over Scottish independence; but if they let expats vote (my last registered address is in England so I can't get a postal or proxy in Scottish elections now unless I actually register at my mum's address and raise her council tax) I would probably vote yes.

Your explanation of the language issue makes it all make a lot more sense to me. There are so few Scottish Gaelic speakers, and they are in the very sparsely populated north of the country, that those issues make very little difference to Scottish politics. You see a lot of Gaelic signs but rarely hear it spoken. Something that seems to be happening with the SNP's growth is more of Lowland Scots (think Burns) being recognized as a living language--there was a box on the Scottish census to say if you were a Scots speaker--but I think that's still pretty confusing for most people who are used to seeing dialect more as a class than a national issue. Scotland also has so many institutions that hold it together as a country, with the separate law and education systems to England and Wales, so that it is probably less easy to dismiss it as not really a country the way it seems your colleague was trying to do with Wales.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

We've been insulated from the cuts in Scotland because the SNP have been putting off making any cuts for the last two years. They've been deliberately postponing until after the election, so now our cuts are going to be much more severe and harder to budget for than the cuts in England.

This next year in scotland is going to be very difficult.

And I bet you that the SNP blame Westminster for every single library and hospital that gets shut down. Fostering the flame of independence.

But. The sums just don't add up for independance. Making Scotland into the next Ireland or Iceland is no longer an option.

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

Right, that's the impression I get. I actually get pretty annoyed with my folks who think Scotland can stay insulated from cuts. But given the catastrophic state of things in the UK under the ConDems, would independence necessarily be worse?

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

It's going to be hard for Scots I think, because the SNP have essentially lied to us so much about the state of the countrys finances, their budget for example is pure pie in the sky. There just isn't enough money to pay for everything they've said they'll do. There's going to be horrific cuts.

And I think independence would be worse. Scotland has this major problem that out of anywhere in the UK, we have the greatest proportion of people employed by the councils. It's close to 50%. So we have the situation where half the country is working to pay the taxes to pay the wages for the other half.

For Scotland to be independant, I would guess something in the region of 25% of people who work for the councils and the state would have to be made unemployed.

And really the only answer the SNP have to fill the black hole in the budget is just to start borrowing massive sums of money and running up a huge deficit. Which, as we've seen with Ireland/Iceland/Greece, just doesn't work out well in the end.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Hee! Well I'm glad that I provided instant commentary! ;)

I'm glad to know that you agree with some of the stuff I was thinking about the SNP and its perception there. Ramsay MacDonald! I've heard of him! :D I know he was the first Labour Prime Minister but as totally ashamed to admit I didn't know he was Scottish. *facepalm* Especially with a name like that.

There have been times in the history of the Assembly where places that go Labour without question have gone Plaid, but always as a protest vote and never enormously en masse, and I think that's the key difference there - the way the SNP have managed to take on the mantle of that in a much larger way for country.

Your comments about independence make sense too. I have to be honest, if there were a referendum in Wales on it (which would never pass; demographic and linguistic issues being part of the reason for that but obviously not the whole of it), I wouldn't vote for it, but the only reason for that would be economic issues, so it makes sense that's gonna be the key issue for Scotland. Wales is poor and just couldn't survive on its own at the level we do even currently, and we're already one of the poorest parts of Britain. I know that Scotland has similar issues, albeit it's in a much better position than Wales, not economically so much, but in terms of population and infrastructure. I mean, I'm sure technically we could survive, but practically it would probably involve becoming a poorer country and I'm not sure that's worth it for independence if we can get the Assembly working to the degree that we have more quasi independence. I mean, already I'm deeply grateful to it for doing things like protecting the NHS from the current shake-ups in England, even though the fact we rely on some of the national NHS infrastructure means that it'll affect us in some way.

Also I think that it sounds like Labour have a better reputation here - there's not a perception of them as being either corrupt or incompetent on a general scale. Which I didn't know about Scotland, so that makes a lot of sense too.

Also your stuff about the linguistic issues in Scotland is something I know a bit about and what you say makes sense to me. It's kind of ironic that in some ways it's the success of the Welsh language in surviving in difficult times to the point that it's still a large minority that screws it over. ;) Although I know that Scots Gaelic was also never a language of all the people of Scotland so even historically I think there may be less association of the language with nationality. But the thing you raise about linguistic class indicators is also interesting because Welsh is the language of the working class in areas that are still very Welsh speaking but during the explosion of the mining industry and through to the 30s, in the south, the bastion of the Labour movement that we're talking about, it was the working class that shed the language as a means of getting ahead, broadly speaking, and the middle class, the slightly more educated or professional workers - shopkeepers, ministers, etc. - who had the luxury of keeping the language alive at home. So now, I think that really contributes to the perception, in south Wales, of Welsh being seen as "superior" and of Plaid being unable to capture that working class left-wing vote.

Anyway, thanks for the response - it's really interesting to me to get a comparison on these issues.

[such_heights]

This is a really interesting post, thanks for sharing it! Watching the way the Scottish and Welsh elections have shaken out has for the most part been pretty heartening.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Yeah, I'm disappointed that the Tories made any gains, but at least they don't have an actual hope in hell of governing in any capacity, like, ever, and I'm please Labour made strong gains. Glad you found it interesting!

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

The Tories did a fine job of screwing the lib dems every way imaginable with the AV thing. First of all they made it AV, the bastard compromise that nobody could love. And then they insisted the referendum be held on the same day as the elections, to make sure that when people went to punish the lib dems at the polls, they also punished them in the referendum.

AND they ran the most vile and lie-filled campaign I've seen in a very long time. If indeed ever.

If I was a lib-dem, I'd be wondering why the hell I was in this coalition with those snakes for partners.

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

↑ THIS!

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

There's really no question is there? I mean, the Tories are the same old monsters they have ever been. If anything they are even worse now, even fewer morals.

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

They're not even pretending to offer noblesse oblige in exchange for jobs for the boys any more.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

And I'm astonished that they're getting away with the boundary changes. With that and the Labour collapse in Scotland, they might actually have a chance of winning the next general election.

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

LALALALA NOT LISTENING LALALALA! ;-P

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

God yes, the Lib Dems are screwed six ways from Sunday on this one and I'm having a hard time seeing how they didn't know that would be the case when they agreed to this. I saw in the news this morning that Clegg is trying to fight back by finally taking a stand on the NHS, but frankly, I'm having a hard time not considering it to be too little, too late.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Depends if he's making smoke and mirrors doesn't it, if he makes a big show of being against the changes, but then falls in line and accepts the Tories fudged version of the changes that pretend they're not privitising it but still are, then the Lib Dems will be rightly voted into extinction as the party that allowed the NHS to be destroyed.

Hard to see it as being anything but a done deal already though.

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

I agree about the differences in Welsh and Scottish language issues having a significant effect. Your analysis of that, and Labour as a party of nationalism (which I knew but didn't fully understand*), are especially interesting to me. Thank you.

she obviously felt completely comfortable saying this in the same breath as expressing all sorts of other left-wing ideas and was completely confident I'd feel the same way

Been there a kazillion times, just with slightly different issues. Although, thinking about it, maybe not that different (your pro-Norman-English foes and mine probably have similar attitudes). I've often wondered if some of the English-in-Wales who've moved there recently were in search of rural England (and possibly as a low-key British form of "white flight").

* Humorous aside: one of my Welsh-speaking friends from north-west Wales claims the Labour Party only have even a foothold in many parts of Wales because the local Labour clubs were the one place that served alcohol on Sundays.... lolz.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

You're welcome, I'm glad you found it interesting and thanks for the response.

I think, alas, privilege will always manifests itself in that kind of ignorance - it's an assumption that this is how reality works because it couldn't possibly work another way - it blocks the need to even consider whether the issue at hand tallies with other attitudes one might hold. I'm fortunate that I'm not often on the receiving end of it, but it makes sense that there's a universality in the experience of passive oppression (and overt, aggressive oppression too, obviously, though that's fortunately not what we're talking about in this instance). :(

I've often wondered if some of the English-in-Wales who've moved there recently were in search of rural England (and possibly as a low-key British form of "white flight").

Yeah, this is pretty true, I think. There are a lot of, well, to put it bluntly, rich, white English folks who retire to rural Wales. Pembrokeshire - the south western peninsula - is one of the places that sometimes goes Tory here (and did this time), and, well, there's a reason we call it, "Little England Beyond Wales". (Though there are also some odd historical quirks associated with that area and its migration patterns).

Humorous aside: one of my Welsh-speaking friends from north-west Wales claims the Labour Party only have even a foothold in many parts of Wales because the local Labour clubs were the one place that served alcohol on Sundays.... lolz.

AHAHAHAHAH. I believe it. I toooootally believe it!