beccatoria | Elections!

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.