Angus Parsad-Wyatt is Chief Executive of ConservativeHome.
Welcome to the fourth week of ConservativeHome’s Campaign Notebook – our insider snapshot from Conservative campaigns across the UK in the lead up to the general election on 4 July.
So far on the campaign trail we have brought you the latest from Sir Iain Duncan Smith’s campaign in Chingford & Woodford Green, Grant Shapps’ fight in Welwyn Hatfield, the key electoral battlegrounds in the Midlands, and Liberal Democrat targets in Surrey.
With polling day edging ever closer, it’s been another busy week for ConservativeHome out on the road, and so we have split the seats we have visited this week into two parts – today we are reporting on three constituencies in Wales, where voters are already getting a flavour of a Labour government in the Senedd; and on Friday we will bring you the latest from some of the seats being eyed up by the Liberal Democrats in South-West England.
Vale of Glamorgan
We start our Welsh journey in the Vale of Glamorgan – a large constituency in southern Wales, stretching from the outskirts of Cardiff westwards to Bridgend. This seat has been represented by former Secretary of State for Wales, Alun Cairns, since 2010.
On only two occasions since this seat was formed in 1983 has any party had a majority over 10,000 (Conservatives in 1983 and Labour in 1997), and Cairns’ now stands at 3,562; so elections here are closely fought, and there is every expectation that the one on 4 July will be no different, regardless of who the eventual winner is.
After a quick pitstop at Marco’s Café on Barry Island (for the Gavin & Stacey fans), ConservativeHome meets Cairns and his team at their HQ in Barry. As one might expect from a former Secretary of State in a marginal constituency, this is a well-organised campaign; with an energised young team of about a dozen activists bundling leaflets, answering emails and calls, highlighting maps, and adding campaign photos to the office wall.
That may sound like the basics one would expect to find in any campaign HQ, but you may be surprised at the differing levels of resources, support, and enthusiasm that different candidates and associations attract. As we prepare to hit the streets, Cairns sets the scene:
“We are fighting for every single vote here. This has always been a marginal, so we have always worked hard to earn people’s trust and their votes.”
We take a short drive up the road into the ward of Illtyd, which takes in a large residential area on Barry’s western edge, as well as the town’s high street. This ward elects three councillors to Barry Town Council, and three councillors to Vale of Glamorgan Council.
Of the six current councillors, two are Conservative, two are Labour, and two are Plaid Cymru, so this ward is indicative of the marginal nature of this seat; but in reality “people here know this is a two-horse race between Conservatives and Labour, there’s not much interest for Reform, and Plaid didn’t stand here last time” Cairns says.
With Labour the largest party in the Senedd, their beleaguered First Minister Vaughan Gething fighting to stay on as First Minister just three months into the job, and Sir Keir Starmer having called Wales a blueprint for Labour in government, the Conservatives here are encouraging voters to think more about Cardiff than Westminster:
“Labour have been in power in Wales for 27 years, and they are now deeply unpopular. You’ve got dreadful NHS waiting lists, falling education standards, and now this blanket 20mph speed limit. These are all things Labour are responsible for, and they are failing.”
But is Labour’s track-record locally cutting through on the doorstep? “We’ve seen what they do and the thought of that lot being in power in Westminster is a scary one. I don’t want Angela Rayner representing us on the world stage”, one disgruntled voter tells us, joining a handful of people who have brought up Labour’s Deputy Leader to us unprompted during this campaign.
An older lady tells us that she will be voting Conservative again because “we don’t have enough buses up here, it makes it very difficult to get into town, but I’ve seen Alun at the meetings about the buses and I know he’s fighting our corner.” Never underestimate the importance of hyper-local issues like a particular bus route, or a new marina – which Cairns has just secured for Barry – to be the deciding factor for voters.
A man in his 50s down the road says he will be voting Labour: “I like Alun, he’s a good MP, but the Conservatives have made a mess and I think it’s time for change.” The ‘change’ message is a powerful one, so you can see why Labour plaster that word all over their campaign.
Speaking to a handful of other voters, and seeing a number of Plaid Cymru and Labour signs in windows and front gardens, it certainly does feel as though change in the air here.
As we drive out of Barry we notice a large blue sign in the distance and wonder if the Conservatives have visible support too. As we get closer it becomes apparent this sign is attached to the church – ‘Jesus brings hope’ it reads. Do you think he could bring Conservative votes too? Otherwise hope may be all that is left here.
Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe
ConservativeHome heads northwards into the Brecon Beacons National Park (or ‘Bannau Brycheiniog’ as we’re now supposed to refer to it) and the constituency of Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe.
If we thought Vale of Glamorgan covered a large geographical area, this seat is several times bigger, spanning a large part of central Wales. Since the 1980s, this seat has changed hands so often between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, that the results list resembles a series of Ukrainian flags.
This seat was brought into focus for politicos in 2019 when a by-election was triggered following a successful recall petition against Chris Davies, then Conservative MP, for fiddling his expenses.
In what was the first electoral test for newly-crowned Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the Liberal Democrats narrowly won with a majority of 1,425 votes. Four months later at the 2019 general election, Fay Jones won this seat back for the Conservatives with a 7,131 majority.
The size of this constituency, and the range of different types of area it covers – suburbs, towns, villages, farms – makes it even more difficult to predict what will happen here on 4 July. If enough Labour voters on the outskirts of Swansea in the south of the constituency tactically vote for the Liberal Democrats, they will win. But if Conservative voters in the rural north of the constituency turn out in bigger numbers – and stick with the Conservatives rather than going to Reform – then the seat could well stay blue.
“The Lib Dems and Labour are fighting over who they think can win here”, Jones tells us, indicating that the route to victory for the Conservatives is to come through the middle with the left-leaning vote split. But then the Conservatives have troubles on their own flank, in the form of Reform – could they similarly split the right? Jones doesn’t think so:
“Reform are not really making ground here. At the by-election in 2019 over 3,000 people voted for the Brexit Party and ended up with a Lib Dem MP, which is definitely not what they wanted.”
Whether voters here risk making the same mistake again depends on just how angry they are at the Conservatives.
“What was Sunak doing leaving D-Day early? That was a stupid mistake!”, one voter tells us in the village of Tretower, but he says in spite of the Prime Minister’s error he will still vote Conservative “of course, whilst we could do without those silly things, the Conservatives are still better than the alternative.”
This voter may be forgiving, but a group in a pub in Crickhowell were not so, with one lady overheard saying “I think they’re finished, it’s time for something different” to murmurs of agreement from two of her friends.
That change message repeated. At a British government level, it looks almost certain that that change is going to come, but whether the voters in Brecon and Radnorshire also change their Member of Parliament will depend on if the anti-Conservative vote can efficiently coalesce around one of either Labour or the Liberal Democrats.
Given the number of those highlighter-esque diamond signs we see along the roads pronouncing that the Lib Dems are ‘winning here’, they may have already decided which.
Monmouthshire
The third and final stop of the Welsh section of our campaign tour is the constituency of Monmouthshire. This seat has always been somewhat of a bellwether: switching from Labour to the Conservatives in 1970, back to Labour in 1997, then turning blue again in 2005, when it elected current Secretary of State for Wales, David TC Davies.
Davies’ majority in 2019 was 9,982, making this the Conservatives’ second safest seat in Wales.
ConservativeHome joins Davies and his team in the village of Govilon, just outside Abergavenny. Two things struck us immediately: firstly this is a very pretty area – in a valley, bisected by the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal, and surrounded by hills rising up into the distance; secondly that, for a midweek afternoon, Davies’s team of supporters campaigning with him is a notably large group.
“Labour are targeting this seat relentlessly” Davies says, giving the impression that his is another Cabinet scalp they are hoping to take on 4 July. “But people are really unhappy at the Welsh Labour government, and voters are put off by them” he adds.
The Conservative attack lines against Labour’s record in Wales are well-known and well-rehearsed. It is no accident that the literature from the three seats we visited all attack the blanket 20mph speed limit – it is a deeply unpopular policy, and an important dividing line in these Conservative-Labour marginals.
But as we saw in the Vale of Glamorgan earlier, that is not always enough to win people round to voting Conservative.
“I’m still thinking about how I will vote. Labour have been bad in Wales, but then Conservatives have been bad for the UK. It will be one of them, but I don’t know which…what a choice!”, one voter tells us. A similar sentiment is echoed by a younger man who lives further up the hill:
“I used to vote Labour, but I’m fairly disinterested and disengaged in politics now. I might consider the Conservatives, I might go back to Labour, but I’m more likely to not vote to be honest.”
And that pattern of uncertainty that we have seen across this campaign continues with an older lady we spoke to: “I’ve voted Conservative for a long time, but this time I am not sure. However, I’m not keen on Labour in Wales, so probably won’t support them.”
However, others are much more certain as to who will get their vote on 4 July. “Oh definitely Conservative – I think the 20mph thing is a terrible idea, we never wanted it, and I think Vaughan Gething is deceitful”. This seat is evidently a two-way fight between Conservatives and Labour, although one older man says:
“I am completely fed up with politicians – they are all the same. But I always vote, so I will be voting for Reform UK as they feel different”.
Having been first elected in 2005, Davies is the longest-serving current Welsh Conservative MP. With that comes a degree of name recognition and a personal vote; or at least a reason for people to vote for you even if they are unhappy with the party nationally. “He’s the only one who has been here, so yes I will vote for him, as I have done before” an older lady tells us; “I’ve always supported David, and he’ll get my support again.” her neighbour adds.
In a seat which has taken in more Labour-voting areas under the boundary changes, at an election where the national swing to Labour will be in double figures, turning out personal support like this could be the only route to keeping the seat blue.
Look out for part two on Friday, where ConservativeHome will bring you snapshots from the campaigns in the South-West, including Jacob Rees Mogg’s North East Somerset and Hanham; Banbury with Victoria Prentis, the Attorney General; and Cheltenham where Alex Chalk, the Justice Secretary, is fighting the Liberal Democrats.
The post Angus Parsad-Wyatt: Campaign notebook, week four (part one). A taste of Labour government in Wales. appeared first on Conservative Home.
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Author: Angus Parsad-Wyatt
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