The IWA Podcast discusses the findings of the Wales Political Barometer Poll.
Plaid could move to second place with the Conservatives slipping into third as voters visit the polling booth on May 5th. These are the key findings from the latest Welsh Political Barometer Poll.
The poll, conducted by YouGov on behalf of ITV Cymru Wales and the Wales Governance Centre, shows a 3% drop in support for the Conservatives from the previous poll, while Labour remains in the lead.
Jess Blair is joined by Daran Hill, Gareth Hughes and Professor Roger Scully to discuss these findings in the latest IWA Podcast.
Listen below and let us know what you think.
If you followed the Welsh media then you’d think Plaid were already in second place!! The amount of preferential treatment and column inches they are given over the official opposition in the Assembly (the Welsh Conservatives… in case you forgot) is absurd.
Not sure where the narrative of Plaid decline since 1999 comes from. Daran Hill repeats it here. It’s factually wrong. In 2007 Plaid Cymru increased number of seats and % vote on 2003.
Great. Can we have different faces next time?
Hang on Daniel, listen to what I said – I actually corrected myself on that very point
Seamor, you do make a very persuasive point. This was brought home very heavily to me in 2011-12 when the election for leader of Plaid received at least five times as much coverage as the election of the Conservative leader in Wales, especially by the BBC.
“Not sure where the narrative of Plaid decline since 1999 comes from”
1999 Constituency vote for Plaid 290,572. 28.4%
2011 Constituency vote for Plaid 183,000. 19.3%
1999 List vote for Plaid 312,048. 30.6%
2011 List vote for Plaid 170,000. 17.9%
So the Plaid decline is quite well evidenced. Labour and Plaid are very fortunate that the Tories have hit a rare patch of bad press nationally (I mean UK press) with the Panama Papers revelations and the threat to steel production in Wales. The perception that conservative free market economics leads to Tory supporters paying little tax in the UK whilst profiting from overseas firms that undercut British workers is a reminder why we in Wales vote Labour. It’s also possible that UKIPs anti immigration, UK nationalist message may benefit at the expense of the Conservatives here in Wales.
@Daniel
You haven’t considered that interest in political party’s leadership race is not confined to those who vote for the party alone.
I think you have to concede that for the Welsh public the election of a leader of the only non-British Nationalist party in Wales is going to be of more interest than the election of the leader of the Tory Party’s West of Clawdd Offa branch office.
The Press likes novelty and change. Whatever their virtues the Comservatives are never going to lead a government in Wales so they aren’t interesting. Plaid are most unlikely to form a government either so they aren’t very interesting. But they are fairly likely to be in a governing coalition so they are a bit more interesting than the Tories. The Silk Commission and what has followed from it would never have happened without Plaid in the One Wales coalition. So love it or hate it, they have had an effect on Welsh politics and public life. The Comservatives? Not so much. So if the press do pay more attention to Plaid (do they?) it is a fair reflection of news values.
” think you have to concede that for the Welsh public the election of a leader of the only non-British Nationalist party in Wales is going to be of more interest than the election of the leader of the Tory Party’s West of Clawdd Offa branch office”
It’s clearly nothing to do with what is of interest because the Conservatives have more voters in Wales than Plaid Cymru and always have had. What its is to do with is that BBC CYMRU/wales (amongst others) has traditionally been stuffed to rafters with Welsh nationalists… if they haven’t already left to stand as Plaid Cymru AMs that is
@Seamor bytts
“It’s clearly nothing to do with what is of interest because the Conservatives have more voters in Wales than Plaid Cymru and always have had.”
Oh come on even Tory voters were more interested in whether Leanne Wood would become Plaid’s leader than which gentleman farmer would end up fronting the Tory party in Wales.
As far as I can recollect, the Plaid leadership contest centred around who could most convincingly weave “Independence….Scotland….our communities…” into as many speeches as possible. Lord Dafydd failed to be convincing on the “Independence” thing and also failed miserably to rule out future coalition government with Labour.
Plaid are now noticeably silent on the “I” word and there is a growing silence over Lab/Plaid coalition. Scotland is still in fashion though and “our communities” now include Port Talbot despite the low number of Welsh speakers there.
The yougov poll referred to above can be found on Roger Scully’s blog page:-
http://blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/electionsinwales/wp-content/uploads/sites/100/2016/04/April-2016.pdf
I like to look at the cross tabs to see how supporters of various parties think. UKIP has strong support amongst the “working class” (C2DEs) along with Labour as you would expect. Conservatives and Plaid the most “middle class”.
At CapM.
well you made me laugh so you won 🙂
There is an argument for saying that UKIP voters are the Labour voters that have been left behind by the political change of the last 20 years. If you remember, the Labour Party was badly split on the issue back in 1997 and Ron Davies had to tread very carefully to get the bill through. Those Labour voters that were opposed to devolution have either migrated to UKIP or chosen not to vote in Assembly elections.
Sorry Daran – I missed your sotto-voce correction around 2.12. (Was listening in the car). And yes, J Jones there’s been a decline from 1999. What I meant was that the narrative of continual decline is misleading. In fact Daran’s correction undermines his broader point. If Plaid do increase their vote on the last election this time around the results, if plotted on a graph, would look like a mountain range rather than a ski-slope.
The Plaid leadership context centred around who could most help them break out of the Fro and recapture previous successes in the Valleys.
Daniel, hardly a mountain range, more a possible erroneous peak in the middle 😉
“….break out of the Fro and recapture previous successes in the Valleys.” Plaid have a Welsh speaking Albatross round their necks and when they speak to their electorate they have to speak with one voice in the North and West and a completely different voice in the Valleys.
If you look at the demographic split for the separate parties you can see that UKIP has a high proportion of C2DE voters…the “Alf Garnet” voters, essentially protectionist with regard to jobs and very conservative on immigration. UKIP can talk to the disenchanted valleys communities.
Plaid, with its liberal left agenda and its middle class but unionised voter base (teachers, Local Authority employees, academics and Media employees) along with its Welsh speaking small business, farm and building industry conservative supporters, finds it difficult to speak with two tongues…as it were.