PARTIES PUSH FOR VOTES AS BALLOT LOOMS
After a dismal showing over recent years in Wales, the Liberal Democrats’ big hope for tomorrow’s Senedd Election insists: ‘The voters are coming back to us’. Political editor Ruth Mosalski reports
TOMORROW, voters will be choosing the 60 people they want to represent them in the Senedd for the next five years.
The 2021 campaign has been different from any other previous election due to coronavirus.
Parties were unable to door-knock until just a few weeks before polling day and there have been no rallies or large events.
Manifesto launches, usually the highlight of the party campaigns, were mainly on Zoom, Facebook or email.
But with just two days to go until the polls open at 7am and with coronavirus rules relaxing, senior figures in all the major parties were pounding the streets.
So where were the party leaders yesterday – and what does that tell us about the seats they are hoping to win or defend?
■ Labour
Welsh Labour was left bruised by the results in the General Election of 2019 when key north-east Wales seats went to the Conservatives.
The Tories turned Wrexham, Ynys Mon, Bridgend, Vale of Clwyd, Clwyd South and Delyn from red to blue.
All those seats are causing Labour concern, but particularly Vale of Clwyd.
The incumbent MS, Ann Jones, has stood down, which means the personal vote she had built up over the last 22 years is at risk.
Former legal aid lawyer and councillor Jason McLellan is the Labour candidate this time.
So it’s no surprise that UK Labour leader Keir Starmer was in north Wales yesterday, visiting Vale of Clwyd, Delyn and Wrexham.
They are three seats, all held by Labour in the Senedd, that the party is trying to defend.
Labour’s campaign got off to a rocky start, but the party is now cautiously optimistic. Party leaders are, however, aware that north Wales in particular will be tricky for them.
Contrast that with the optimism in Rhondda.
Won by Plaid Cymru’s Leanne Wood in 2016, this time Labour’s candidate is another Rhondda woman, Buffy Williams.
There is genuine hope among Labour ranks that the party could win the seat back – something Plaid Cymru contests, but more of that below.
One Labour source said there was “a real insurgency” around Mrs Williams; another said the recognition from voters for their candidate is “incredible”.
It’s almost like she’s an incumbent herself because she is so well known, they explained.
Her campaign got a last-minute boost yesterday with a constituency visit from Welsh leader Mark Drakeford.
His party believes that the recognition factor and support for the First Minister has been strong throughout the campaign, but particularly so in Rhondda.
The First Minister also visited Bridgend and Newport West yesterday. They are both seats where new candidate Sarah Murphy, who is standing instead of outgoing Carwyn Jones, and Jayne Bryant in Newport West, are expected to be fine.
Mr Drakeford visits the Vale of Glamorgan today, showing his support for long-time colleague and cabinet member Jane Hutt.
That is the constituency Boris Johnson visited on Bank Holiday Monday.
Mr Drakeford is also expected to visit Monmouth, traditionally a Tory stronghold, but where sitting Conservative MS Nick Ramsay has been deselected by his own party after a series of embarrassments.
Labour clearly, therefore, appears to be putting a huge amount of effort into defending seats it feels might be at risk to the Tories – but is also hoping to make gains in the Rhondda and possibly leave the Tories red-faced in Monmouth.
■ Conservatives
This is an election where the Conservatives will want to build on the gains they made in the General Election two years ago.
Historically, the party has struggled to get its core voters out for Senedd elections, part of the reason that turnout for Senedd elections is markedly lower than for general elections.
The Tories will want to take at least one of those north Wales seats to show they are building on the successes of two years ago.
Conservative insiders are confident of making gains in Brecon and Radnorshire, Vale of Clwyd and the Vale of Glamorgan.
That’s backed up by the visits by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to Barry on Monday and his visit to Wrexham and Llandudno the week before. There is a lot of optimism from Conservatives in the Vale of Glamorgan. Their candidate is solicitor Matt Smith.
Brecon and Radnorshire is back in play this Senedd election because Kirsty Williams, the Lib Dem who has represented it since 1999, is not standing again. Former AM and local councillor William Powell is their hopeful this time.
The seat has been really interesting in Westminster terms in recent years.
Conservative Chris Davies had to quit after forging expenses and facing legal proceedings, which led to a byelection. That was won by Lib Dem Welsh leader Jane Dodds in August 2019, but she lost the seat in the snap election just four months later in December to Fay Jones, the current MP.
■ Plaid Cymru
Plaid Cymru’s leader Adam Price is spending the last days of the campaign in west Wales. Yesterday he visited Swansea. Labour may be talking up the party’s chances in Rhondda, but one Plaid Cymru source disputes that, saying “we’re not downbeat” and that volunteers and campaigners have been putting in the hours and knocking on doors since Covid rule changes allowed it.
Llanelli is expected to be very close, between Plaid Cymru’s Helen Mary Jones and Labour’s Lee Waters.
Their rivals say their campaign has not been cutting through on the doorsteps, but Plaid says the polls have been so varied in Wales, the result is very unknown.
All parties have struggled to get the data they would usually have to see how seats are looking for them because the campaign has been so different this election.
Turnout will be important for the overall result, as will the regional votes for the party, which are often decided on narrow margins.
In 2016, Plaid Cymru won six regional and six constituency seats.
■ Liberal Democrats
The big hope for the Liberal Democrats is either Brecon and Radnorshire – with William Powell.
And if he is unsuccessful, a regional seat in Mid and West Wales.
Welsh leader Jane Dodds visited Llanidloes and Wrexham on Monday, and yesterday travelled to Aberystwyth and Aberaeron.
Today, she’ll be in Powys.
The party’s UK leader, Ed Davey, visited south Wales earlier in the campaign, taking in Ystradgynlais, Cardiff and Cowbridge. Ystradgynlais is part of Brecon and Radnorshire.
Kirsty Williams, who was Brecon and Radnorshire MS from 1999 until 2021, will be campaigning in Brecon and Radnorshire all week.
■ Green Party
The Green Party hopes to make gains on the regional list.
Its best hope is probably South Wales Central where candidates got a total of 3% of the vote in 2016.
The party’s England and Wales deputy leader, Amelia Womack, was targeting Newport yesterday , while Welsh leader Anthony Slaughter was in Barry and Penarth today.
■ Reform UK
Reform UK’s best hope for seats is on the regional list with the best hope being South East Wales.
The party was, therefore, putting its resources into Caerphilly, Islwyn and Newport yesterday.
■ Abolish the Welsh Assembly
Abolish’s hopes for a seat or two is on the regional list, with North Wales and Mid and West Wales their target. The party had a campaign stand in Cardiff South and Penarth yesterday.
FOR SENEDD Election candidates, Friday is the big day, the day the votes will be counted and they find out if they have won a coveted seat in the Welsh Parliament.
But one candidate could be forgiven for having his mind elsewhere.
Veteran Liberal Democrat, current councillor, former Westminster hopeful and former regional Assembly Member, William “Bill” Powell wants to replace Kirsty Williams, who chose not to seek re-election as the Member of the Senedd for Brecon and Radnorshire.
But tomorrow will be a milestone day no matter what as it is a year to the day he was discharged from hospital after six weeks of battling Covid19.
Mr Powell was admitted to Nevill Hall Hospital, in Abergavenny, on March 26 and had to be admitted to intensive care. For two and a half weeks of his three-week stay, he was in an induced coma on a ventilator.
His second three-week spell was in the Covid rehabilitation ward.
“I remember the second half vividly,” he said.
“The first half I just remember being admitted and just a series of lurid impressions of activity in the ICU. I was unconscious but I must have had an element of awareness.
“I remember rushes of activity and monitors going off and a sense of people being around and trying to provide reassurance and me being terribly confused.
“I don’t remember the detail but I do remember images and realising a sense of being in some kind of danger.”
He has requested the diary detailing what actually happened to him in those three weeks. Understandably, he says, doctors have been too busy to send it yet.
What he does know is that the survival rate for people like him at the time he was getting treatment so early in the pandemic was 50/50. “I was fortunate,” he said. Which all begs the question, why would someone given a second chance use it to re-enter the arena of national politics?
Once the laughter stops he quips “I guess it’s in the blood”.
But he said his Covid experience means he has things he wants to get done. He has stayed in contact with some of the healthcare staff who treated him, staff from all over the world.
“There was such a sense of kindness and care and concern which didn’t relate to my ability to pay, and that’s something I want to fight and which is part of my renewed commitment to the NHS.
“The first evening after I was admitted, it was the first night of Clap for Carers, and while that was important and appreciation is important, they need rewarding and resourcing and I have a voice in that which is rooted in authentic experience”.
He has escaped long Covid, and the lasting effects are a new 5k running programme and regular gym sessions when rules allow.
Aside from his personal battles, the seat he is fighting for is the Lib Dems’ best chance of victory – and keeping any presence in the Senedd alive.
In the first three Parliaments, the party had six seats, dropping to five in 2011 before Kirsty Williams became the only remaining Lib Dem in the
Senedd.
After the 2017 General Election there were no Liberal Democrat MPs from Wales in Westminster, and despite initial joy at the party’s victory in the Brecon and Radnorshire byelection in 2019, Jane Dodds lost the seat just four months later.
Despite being their only representative, Kirsty Williams’ role was huge. She gave her support to Labour, giving them a working majority, and in turn was given the education brief by Carwyn Jones.
It all means that depending how the numbers stack up for Labour, if Mr Powell is victorious in Brecon and Radnorshire, the Lib Dems could again hold a disproportionate amount of power.
The Oxford University graduate is keen to say he has “no sense of entitlement” and the eternal platitude of every politician that “I will fight for every vote”.
But he said that since 1985 the seat has been a two-horse race between his party and the Conservatives, and this election will be no different.
Lessons have been learnt, he said. In the General Election where Jane Dodds “fell well behind” the party was seen as “crusading on an issue which we were seen to be pushing and it wasn’t to all tastes”.
He added: “We are seeing an optimism and a readiness to give us a chance again. I think we’re at a really early stage of recovery, from a low place, but we have got to work.
“My focus this time is closer to home and is narrower, but I am encountering support from our traditional supporter but also from Brexit-supporting Liberals. People forget there are a lot of good Liberals in Brecon and Radnorshire who were never proud Europeans, while I am and believe that is something we deserve to be, that isn’t the debate for now. That issue has been shelved for the moment, there’s no point revisiting that at the moment.
“It’s clear to me we’re regaining recognition and support of quite a high proportion of these Liberals who deserted us. To them we appeared to be this crusading Joan of Arc on Brexit and they couldn’t support us then. “They are coming back to us”. His party is the biggest recent example of an electorate voicing their discontent at the ballot box. Post Clegg-Cameron, the party was battered from all sides.
“We paid a desperately heavy price for the decision on tuition fees, that was an iconic issue,” he said.
“We can go back and identify the fact it was a much more nuanced issue, but it is people’s perceptions that matter.”
The infamous pictures of the two leaders together in the Downing Street rose garden, he said, “looked dreadful at the time and has not served us well”.
But he insists that trust isn’t something that his party is unique in having to prove it deserves, citing Boris Johnson’s non-attendance at Cobra meetings, the PPE scandal and the questions over who contracts have been offered to.
He believes that the work Kirsty Williams has done with education in Wales has rebuilt trust in the party.
Delivering support for rural schools in the constituency has been huge locally, and something he wants guarantees will “continue”.
Optimistic Bill Powell may be, but he says there may be perks to being a lone voice in the Senedd.
“If people give me their trust, I will be a strong Liberal voice with a degree of independence, not a part of a wider system.”