So I'm just catching up with the latest Welsh voting intention poll, which comes from More In Common, who don't seem to have done any full-scale Welsh polls before.
Senedd voting intentions (More In Common, 18th June-3rd July 2025):
Reform UK 28%
Plaid Cymru 26%
Labour 23%
Conservatives 10%
Liberal Democrats 7%
Greens 4%
It's obviously disappointing that More In Common haven't corroborated the two YouGov polls showing Plaid in the outright lead, but in one sense that may not matter. Progressive parties have a majority of the vote between them, which ought to mean that the Plaid leader would become First Minister on these numbers, at the head of a 'keep Reform out' coalition. Admittedly it would be in Labour's power to scupper that, and to allow a minority Reform government to take office - but how would they do it without being seen to do it? How would they do it without suffering massive reputational damage as a result? I think they would have to swallow their pride and let Plaid take the reins.
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Reform UK would end up as a minority administration on those figures.
ReplyDeleteNot so, unless Labour facilitate that. Centre-left parties would have a clear majority.
DeleteI agree with that. A lot
DeleteIt's a stretch to call current Labour either progressive or Centre-Left, though they're certainly not electorally friends of Reform.
ReplyDeleteDid Sarwar not say he was “open” to working with Reform?
DeleteEluned Morgan, if left to her own devices, would probably be reasonably progressive.
DeleteAny party who's British will work with any other to prevent a Welsh party from being in government
ReplyDeleteJust the same as they would in Scotland if given the chance
On these figures and in my opinion, Labour would have no choice but to swallow their considerable pride and accept a Plaid-led administration of some sort.
ReplyDeleteFrom the National:
ReplyDelete"Ross Greer calls for Scotland to pivot towards wealth taxation"
Considering even as an MSP he earns more than twice as much as the average wage and 7 times as much as the state pension, I look forward to him donating about two-thirds of his wage as an MSP to the Scottish Consolidated Fund for redistribution.
Clearly he would agree to that as being only fair.
Why does his claim that shooting estates should not be getting tax breaks intended for small businesses morally oblige him to give away his income to the point that (on your figures) he ends up on three quarters of the average wage? I'm afraid I'm slow and don't get the connection at all
DeleteYou may aspire to dragging us all down the way to the lowest common denominator. We want to improve the lot of those on minimum incomes and increase state pension, which is currently among the lowest in Western Europe. Off you go back to the Daily Fail and WOS. Your smart arse remark says so much about you, and nothing about anyone else. But now we know what you want for the people of Scotland. Low wages and impoverished pensioners. Cretin.
Deletehttps://www.thenational.scot/news/25304169.ross-greer-calls-scotland-pivot-towards-wealth-taxation/
Delete"There are Tory MSPs in Parliament who are some of Scotland’s biggest landowners who get tax breaks for their shooting estates, tax breaks that are designed for small businesses.
The government has a quarter of a billion pound business tax break scheme that their own review found no positive benefits from."
It's a great virtue signalling soundbite but the devil is in the detail. For instance about the SBBS - from Scotgov for 2020:
"The Small Business Bonus Scheme (SBBS) offers a non-domestic rates – or business rates as they are often referred to – relief to non-domestic properties in Scotland under a certain size, as measured by their rateable value. In the latest year (2020), £279 million was spent on the provision of this relief for qualifying properties."
So if it's the SBBS he's talking about, and he has complained about that before, just how many Tory "shooting estates" do you think there are that have, for instance a total cumulative rateable value of less than £15,000 for 100% relief, or even £35,000 for 25%?
Compared with legitimate small businesses that "... over three-quarters of non-domestic properties in Scotland associated with single-property businesses have a rateable value below the 100% threshold of £15,000, and that take-up of the relief among them is relatively high."
https://www.gov.scot/publications/evaluation-small-business-bonus-scheme/
Greer is an economic tyro. Or would aspire to be if he had a clue.
The new Welsh electoral system is supposedly the most proportional one in the UK. I say supposedly, because as we've seen with multi-member wards in Scottish councils and regional lists, a limited number of seats per area can be effective at shutting out the smaller parties and their voters.
ReplyDeleteTo get a candidate elected, a party must accumulate roughly 17% of the vote. You can immediately see the result if this poll is evenly distributed geographically*:
The Conservatives, Lib Dems and Greens get none.
Reform, Plaid and Labour's vote shares are cleaved in half after their first candidates. 14, 13 and 11.5 puts them ahead of the Conservatives' 10%.
Seat projection is therefore a bit closer to Ref 32, Plaid 32, Lab 32 than the implied ~29, 27, 24 they might get under a single national list.
*Of course the votes won't be evenly distributed. They also did all the boundary drawing before Reform's surge. Now they're screwed LOL
Economically progressive is obviously great. Socially progressive too, but not if it's just a bandwagon for hordes of shouty blue hairs. The Welsh would do well to learn from Scotland's recent past.
ReplyDeleteRe progressive parties, Plaid have 26% and Greens 4%. That totals 30% as against 68% for right-wing parties. Disappointing.
ReplyDeleteFrom The National: Four ways Mairi McAllan can solve the housing crisis. The most obvious way would be for her to resign and leave the job to somebody with more talent. But talent isn't exactly in great supply in the SNP ranks.
ReplyDelete