Plaid Cymru surge to joint lead for Assembly list vote in dramatic YouGov poll

Here is the type of bizarre poll that we used to see in Scotland when people still thought that the list vote was a second preference vote. But the Additional Member System has been operating in Wales for just as long as it has been here, so there's no reason at all to suppose that there's any confusion at play. On the face of it, therefore, the results on the list vote are astonishingly good news for Plaid Cymru -

Constituency ballot:

Labour 46% (-4)
Conservatives 21% (+2)
Plaid Cymru 17% (-)
Liberal Democrats 10% (+3)
UKIP 5% (n/a)
Greens 1% (n/a)

Regional list ballot:

Plaid Cymru 26% (+6)
Labour 26% (-9)
Conservatives 14% (+3)
UKIP 13% (+1)
Liberal Democrats 11% (+3)
Greens 6% (-1)

In theory the list vote ought to be the most important vote, although because of the ratio between constituency and list seats it wouldn't be possible for Plaid to make up all the damage done on the constituency vote. Nevertheless, these figures would certainly produce the party's best results in terms of seats since 1999.

Could the greatest challenge to Calman's timidity come from Wales?

Interesting to read in yesterday's Herald the suggestion that, if the Holtham Report is implemented in full, the Welsh Assembly would all of a sudden hold more extensive fiscal powers than the Scottish Parliament is set to receive under Calman. On the face of it, this is excellent news - the detailed economic arguments over Calman would be more than superceded by any perception that we are for the first time being left behind by our Celtic cousins. The pressure to beef up the proposals would become irresistible.

However, I'm more inclined to fear that the end result of this divergence may instead be that the Welsh proposals are watered down. As we all know, the default setting in both Whitehall and the Tory party is to relinquish as little power as they can possibly justify.

Wales warms to self-government

I (slightly wearily) had a look at the ICM website tonight on the off-chance that the detailed breakdown of their latest poll might have been made available a bit earlier than usual. No luck, needless to say. But I'm glad I looked, because what I did find instead was the details of a survey that was carried out a couple of weeks ago for BBC Wales on the subject of the future of the devolution settlement. Remarkably - and it has to be said, somewhat misguidedly - there are twice as many people in Wales who feel that the Welsh Assembly has the most influence over their country as those who (more realistically) think that Westminster still calls the most important shots. But perhaps more to the point, when asked which tier of government should hold the most influence, 64% said the Assembly and only 19% opted for Westminster. So much for the Welsh being more reluctant devolutionists than the Scots.

And when questioned about specifically how much power the Assembly should hold, 58% wanted more powers than there are at present - including no fewer than 15% who favoured outright independence.

Shadow Cabinet gains another junior part-time observer member

I get the impression that the BBC's Betsan Powys has, to some extent, interpreted Annabel Goldie's elevation to part-time "Shadow First Minister" in David Cameron's Shadow Cabinet in the same way I did. Having probed whether the same 'honour' would be conferred on Welsh Tory leader Nick Bourne, she poses the question - "is it better to be Shadow First Minister or real life Leader of the Opposition?"

(For the uninitiated, the Tories are the Official Opposition in the Welsh Assembly despite being only the third largest party. This came about after the two largest parties - Labour and Plaid Cymru - formed an improbable governing coalition.)