Jones and May are vying for your vote

LABOUR and the Conservatives will each launch their Welsh manifestos today, with Carwyn Jones and Theresa May making impassioned bids for your support.

There is suddenly so much to play for in this nation.

Not a Welsh Conservative was sent from Westminster in 1997 or 2001. There was change in 2005, when three seats of Wales’ 40 turned blue.

Then there were eight Welsh Tories in 2010 and in 2011 the nation sent 11 to the Commons.

This time, if the analysts and bookies are right, there is a chance that Theresa May’s party could win half the seats.

The politics of the whole UK was transformed when the SNP won 56 of Scotland’s 59 seats in 2015, leaving Labour with one. Commentators say that unless Labour recovers in Scotland it may never form a Government in Westminster again.

The situation for Jeremy Corbyn’s party will be even more dire if it loses hold of its Welsh heartlands as well. The Tories may stand scant chance of taking the Valleys but Plaid Cymru won the Rhondda in the 2016 Assembly election and performed strongly in Blaenau Gwent.

The most intense Labour-Conservative contest is likely to be in Newport and northeast Wales. There are solid strategic reasons why Mr Jones will launch the Welsh Labour manifesto in Delyn.

The Tories were thrilled when they won Vale of Clwyd in 2015. Plaid has high hopes of winning Anglesey, and it would be a shattering moment for Labour if it was left with no territory north of the northernmost tip of Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney.

However, Mrs May will need no reminding that a lot can happen in the remaining weeks leading up to June 8.

Her own party’s manifesto UK launch handed ammunition to her rivals. The Lib Dems’ Tim Farron has described social care plans in England as a “dementia tax” and a “version of the poll tax”.

There is also disquiet in Tory circles.

The party has earned electoral capital in the past by promising to lift people out of inheritance tax so they leave something behind for their children. But can Tories argue that their proposals that would see care costs recouped once someone has passed away are not in reality a form of death tax?

This is dangerous territory for a party that masterfully won the support of pensioners. Alongside the controversial English social care plans, there is the proposal to start means-testing the Winter Fuel Payment and eventually remove the guarantee that the state pension will rise by at least 2.5% annually.

The key threat to Mrs May is not that millions of people suddenly switch to another party but that legions of voters will feel disquiet about handing her an unassailable majority and decide to sit this election out. This could smash hopes of overturning majorities of a few thousands in Welsh target seats, where people might decide to stick with long-serving Labour incumbents. No party can afford complacency. The Western Mail newspaper is published by Media Wales a subsidiary company of Trinity Mirror PLC, which is a member of IPSO, the Independent Press Standards Organisation. The entire contents of The Western Mail are the copyright of Media Wales Ltd. It is an offence to copy any of its contents in any way without the company’s permission. If you require a licence to copy parts of it in any way or form, write to the Head of Finance at Six Park Street. The recycled paper content of UK newspapers in 2014 was 78.5%