Look @: South Wales West (Part III)

This post looks at the list seats in this region. To find the three Swansea constituencies click here and for the other four (Bridgend and Neath Port Talbot) click here.

The 2007 Regional List Result was as follows:

Party	Const. Seats	Region Votes	Region Votes %	Add. Members	Total Members
Labour	7	58374	35.8%	0	7
Plaid Cymru	0	28819	17.7%	2	2
Conservatives	0	26119	16%	1	1
Lib. Dems.	0	20226	12.4%	1	1
BNP	5.5%	Socialist Alternative			0.6%
Green	3.8%	Respect			0.4%
UKIP	3.6%	Independent			0.4%
SLP	1.5%	Communist Party			0.3%
Christian Party	1%	Christian Peoples			0.2%
Independent	0.7%
Additional Members
1. Bethan Jenkins			3. Peter Black
2. Alun Cairns			4. Dai Lloyd

The Most Likely Result…

This one is actually quite easy, largely because we do not expect Labour to lose any of their constituency seats, therefore only changes in the regional vote can alter the list allocation. If we take a uniform swing from the last YouGov poll we get the following:

Party	Const. Seats	U-Swing	Add. Members	Total Members
Labour	7	47	0	7
Plaid Cymru	0	18	2	2
Conservatives	0	15	1	1
Lib. Dems.	0	8	1	1

On the current polling figures no seats would change hands in the list allocation. The personnel will though as the Conservative AM Alun Cairns was elected as the new MP for Vale of Glamorgan last May. Intriguingly, Cairns offered his resignation just after his General Election victory but it was declined and he was asked to stay on until his term ends this May. So as it stands Bethan Jenkins, who was the youngest member of the Third Assembly, will win a second term as Plaid Cymru's lead candidate. The Conservative's new lead candidate Suzy Davies will take the second seat ahead of the current Liberal Democrat AM Peter Black, who is seeking his fourth term in Cardiff Bay. The final seat will go to Plaid's #2 candidate Dai Lloyd who was also first elected in 1999.

There is only really one other candidate with any chance of winning a seat on the regional list and that is the Tories' #2 candidate Byron Davies. Davies has been his party's candidate for the Gower constituency in recent years and there are two scenarios in which he can become an Assembly Member in May. The first is if the Conservatives beat Plaid into second place, in which case he would take the fourth seat that would go to Dai Lloyd in the likely result. The other possibility is if the Tories get twice as many votes as the Liberal Democrats, which considering the Universal Swing above isn't beyond the realms of possibility. In this case Plaid's #2 candidate Dai Lloyd would take the third seat and Davies would pip Lib Dem AM Peter Black to the fourth spot.

That said, generally speaking the cross-breaks for this region has not shown significant evidence either alternative happening. The Liberal Democrats have tended to outperform UNS in this region and Plaid Cymru have been above the Conservatives in SWW in all but one of the YouGov surveys. Plaid have also finished second in this regional vote for each Assembly election so Davies (B) faces an uphill task.