Look @: Mid & West Wales (Part III)

Note: This post was almost finished before the new YouGov poll was released. After some thought I've decided to post it anyway, and I'll finish of the remaining 13 seats in North Wales 'ignoring' the new poll for consistencies sake. Then I'll throw the new poll at it all and revise (possibly a lot!) of the original calls.

This post looks at the list seats in this region. You can find the Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire seats here and the other four constituencies (Powys, Ceredigion and South Gwynedd) are here.

The 2007 Regional List Result was as follows:

Party	Const. Seats	Region Votes	Region Votes %	Add. Members	Total Members
Plaid Cymru	4	67258	31.0%	1	5
Conservative	2	49606	22.9%	1	3
Labour	0	39979	18.4%	2	2
Lib. Dems.	2	28790	13.3%	0	2
Green	4%	Christian Party			0.7%
UKIP	3.8%	Independent			0.5%
BNP	2.9%	Communist Party			0.3%
SLP	1%	Veritas			0.2%
Independent	0.7%	Christian Peoples			0.2%
Additional Members
1. Alun Davies			3. Nick Bourne*
2. Joyce Watson			4. Nerys Evans

Most Likely Result…

There is quite simply no such thing as a 'mostly likely result' in Mid & West Wales, mainly as there are only really two safe constituency seats (Carmarthen East & Dinefwr and Dwyfor Meirionnydd; both Plaid Cymru) in the region! The rest are varying degrees of marginal so they way I'm going to tackle this is by going through each of the main four parties and showing how a good or bad night in the constituency seats will affect the regional list. To do this I am going to have to make tentative calls on the constituency seats to hold the other parties steady when analysing each eventuality. So, in addition to the safe seats I'll give the three 'leans' to the incumbent party. Therefore, for the purposes of this post Brecon & Radnorshire stays Lib Dem and Plaid can keep Llanelli and Ceredigion. The added advantage of this is that I'm not giving Plaid much potential for variance in this analysis. As they appear to be polling in the same region as 2007 working on the assumption they'll keep their four seats isn't the worst. This is bound to be a poor election for the Liberal Democrats but so long as they are not completely wiped out their leader should hold her seat.

Now, to deal with the tight marginal races! We're essentially left dealing with two swings for these remaining three constituencies. We've got the CON>LAB swing in the two Pembrokeshire seats and the LD>CON swing in Montgomeryshire. With the added complication that Carmarthen West & Pembrokeshire East is a three-way marginal with Plaid in with a chance, of course! So, I'll hold Montgomeryshire constant as a Tory Gain and run through the various Pembrokeshire possibilities then give the Lib Dems' their seat back and repeat. So, if we start with a good night for Labour; they can have both Pembrokeshire seats but we'll pop Montgomeryshire in the Tory column (for what it's worth, if pushed I'd say this is 'most likely' result). If we then apply the Uniform Swing from the last YouGov poll, we get the following:

Party	Const. Seats	U-Swing	Add. Members	Total Members
Plaid Cymru	4	31	0	4
Labour	2	29	2	4
Conservatives	1	22	2	3
Lib. Dems.	1	9	0	1

So because of Labour's increase in their regional vote they would not lose either of the two regional seats despite the fact we've given them two extra constituency seats. Plaid would be the losers as their only list seat would now go to the Tories, who would wind up with the same total number of seats as 2007. The first seat would be allocated to Labour's #1 candidate Joyce Watson who has had something of a promotion following Alun Davies' move to contest his home constituency Blaenau Gwent. Next up would be the Welsh Conservative leader Nick Bourne who will serve his fourth term in the Assembly if re-elected. Bourne faced calls to stand down in 2008 following a series of mini-scandals but he toughed it out and will lead his party into this May's elections.

The third seat would fall to Labour's Mari Rees, who stood as her party's candidate in Presili Pembrokeshire at the General Election. Finally the Conservative #2 candidate Lisa Francis will return to the Assembly following a term away. She essentially lost her seat because of her party's good performance in Pembrokeshire, gaining both constituencies from Labour. Under this scenario she gets it back because Labour take them back!

Basically, the above scenario is a best case for Labour, gaining their two key targets in the constituencies. But what if they fail to take one? That entirely depends on which one, and who wins it! The Presili Pembrokeshire is as straight fight between Labour and the Tories but Plaid have a good chance of winning in Camarthenshire West & Pembrokeshire East. We'll start with the Tories winning one of the two:

Party	Const. Seats	U-Swing	Add. Members	Total Members
Plaid Cymru	4	31	0	4
Labour	1	29	3	4
Conservatives	2	22	1	3
Lib. Dems.	1	9	0	1

The total seat allocation remains the same as Labour are compensated for their failure to one of their target seats with an extra regional seat. In addition to Joyce Watson (LAB), Mari Rees (LAB) and Nick Bourne (CON) Town Councillor Matthew Dorrance would take the fourth Assembly seat ahead of Plaid Cymru. HOWEVER (and you were struggling to keep up this far!) the regional sub-sets in the YouGov polling have constituently shown Plaid (and the Tories) a couple of points above the UNS and Labour (and the Lib Dems) a couple below. SO, if we apply this two percent swing on the UNS this fourth seat becomes very close between Labour and Plaid. If the Welsh Nationalists were indeed pushing 35%, and Labour struggling to get much above 25%, then Plaid's lead candidate would take the final seat. He is the former Ceredigion MP Simon Thomas, who has been working as a special advisor to the current Welsh Assembly Government.

However, if Plaid Cymru's Nerys Evans manages to win her home constituency of Camarthenshire West & Pembrokeshire East…:

Party	Const. Seats	U-Swing	Add. Members	Total Members
Plaid Cymru	5	31	0	5
Labour	1	29	2	3
Conservatives	1	22	2	3
Lib. Dems.	1	9	0	1

…Thomas has virtually no chance of winning a regional seat. Under UNS the the Conservative #2 candidate Lisa Francis just pips Matthew Dorrance (Labour #3) to the final berth, but the regional adjustments give the Tories a more comfortable margin.

So, what if Labour do terribly in the South West and fail to take either Pembrokeshire seat. We'll start with the Tories holding both seats:

Party	Const. Seats	U-Swing	Add. Members	Total Members
Plaid Cymru	4	31	0	4
Labour	0	29	4	4
Conservatives	3	22	0	3
Lib. Dems.	1	9	0	1

Incredibly, Labour would take all four constituency seats if UNS is to be believed. This would mean their #4 candidate Rebecca Evans would win a seat in the Assembly. Unfortunately for her it is very unlikely that her party will fail to win either target seat yet simultaneously perform well enough in the regional vote to secure all four seats. They would have to do quite badly (around 20%; a mere 3% increase on 2007) though to not win three regional seats, so Watson, Rees and Dorrance would all be heading to Cardiff Bay. The interesting aspect of the Tories' doing well in the constituencies is that this would result in their leader Nick Bourne losing his seat. The polling suggests that Plaid Cymru would be just enough ahead of the Conservatives to snatch the final regional seat, with Simon Thomas winning an Assembly term.

Finally (for this half), if Plaid win Carmarthenshire West & Pembrokeshire East…

Party	Const. Seats	U-Swing	Add. Members	Total Members
Plaid Cymru	5	31	0	5
Labour	0	29	3	3
Conservatives	2	22	1	3
Lib. Dems.	1	9	0	1

…you get the top three Labour candidates with the Tory leader Nick Bourne taking the fourth seat. Again, this is quite tight in UNS, with Labour almost chalking up all four, but much more comfortable with a little regional tinkering.

I'm a bit worn out after all that so I'll run through the scenarios where the Lib Dems hold Montgomeryshire quickly before you fall asleep!

For consistency I'll do a good Labour night first:

Party	Const. Seats	U-Swing	Add. Members	Total Members
Plaid Cymru	4	31	0	4
Labour	2	29	1	3
Conservatives	0	22	3	3
Lib. Dems.	2	9	0	2

Seat 1: Nick Bourne (CON), Seat 2: Lisa Francis (CON), Seat 3: Joyce Watson (LAB), Seat 4: #3 Conservative candidate. The Tories are so confident they will win at least one constituency seat in this region they don't appear to have a third candidate yet. This scenario see's him/her just beat the Labour' #2 to the fourth seat under UNS, but they would take it with a more comfortable margin with the regional adjustment.

Now the Tories hold one:

Party	Const. Seats	U-Swing	Add. Members	Total Members
Plaid Cymru	4	31	0	4
Labour	1	29	2	3
Conservatives	1	22	2	3
Lib. Dems.	2	9	0	2

Seat 1: Joyce Watson (LAB), Seat 2: Nick Bourne (CON), Seat 3: Mari Rees (LAB), Seat 4: Lisa Francis (CON). Again, fourth seat tight between Labour and Tories on UNS, more comfortably for the Conservatives with the regional boost.

Pembrokeshire splits 1 Labour, 1 Plaid:

Party	Const. Seats	U-Swing	Add. Members	Total Members
Plaid Cymru	5	31	0	5
Labour	1	29	2	3
Conservatives	0	22	2	2
Lib. Dems.	2	9	0	2

Same people, different order! Seat 1: Nick Bourne (CON), Seat 2: Joyce Watson (LAB), Seat 3: Lisa Francis (CON), Seat 4: Mari Rees (LAB). Tories aren't too far behind Labour for the fourth seat with the regional adjustment.

Bad night for Labour, 2 Tory holds in Pembrokeshire:

Party	Const. Seats	U-Swing	Add. Members	Total Members
Plaid Cymru	4	31	0	4
Labour	0	29	3	3
Conservatives	2	22	1	3
Lib. Dems.	2	9	0	2

Seat 1: Joyce Watson (LAB), Seat 2: Mari Rees (LAB), Seat 3: Matthew Dorrance (LAB), Seat 4: Nick Bourne (CON). Do I need to say the UNS/Regional adjustment thing again?!

Pembrokeshire splits 1 Tory, 1 Plaid:

Party	Const. Seats	U-Swing	Add. Members	Total Members
Plaid Cymru	5	31	0	5
Labour	0	29	3	3
Conservatives	1	22	1	2
Lib. Dems.	2	9	0	2

Seat 1: Joyce Watson (LAB), Seat 2: Mari Rees (LAB), Seat 3: Nick Bourne (CON), Seat 4: Matthew Dorrance (LAB).

So there you have it. An extraordinarily long post that will probably definitely be obsolete when the next YouGov poll is released! The key things to pick up from all of this, aside from the fact it's pretty complex, is that Joyce Watson is seemingly guaranteed a list seat. It would take a mini-meltdown from Labour to put her at risk. Ditto Nick Bourne too, who has to worry about his own party doing to well in the constituencies more than anything else! Then, if the seats we've initially allocated as 'lean' stay that way then the #2 candidates for Labour and the Conservatives are quite likely to fill the gaps. Anyway, congratulations to anyone still with me!