Alan's Green Thoughts

The 2026 Senedd election, the first Senedd election using solely proportional representation with no first past the post element involved unlike in the last 6 Senedd elections, saw a sea change for Welsh politics.  For the first time ever, Plaid Cymru won an election in Wales, having hitherto being stymied by their difficulty in appealing to voters who were neither native Welsh (Cymraeg) speakers nor fluent in Welsh. They won it convicingly as well, winning 43 of the 96 available seats in the Senedd (which previously had 60 seats, 40 single member constituencies plus 20 list seats, 4 per region) and 35.4% of the vote. Amidst the 16 new constituencies (created for expediency by simply pairing existing Westminster seats, despite major geographical issues involving Gwynedd Faldwyn [Gwynedd & Montgomeryshire], Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd [Brecon and the Tawe Valley], and Bangor Conwy Mon [covering Conwy & Ynys Mon/Anglesey] in particular; it would have been far better to simply use t...

As expected, the Scottish Parliament proved a slight setback for the SNP (Scottish National Party), whose ratings have been sliding since Nicola Sturgeon resigned from the office of First Minister and who endured a drubbing at the 2024 general election - but not as much as pollsters predicted. The SNP in fact only lost 6 seats, making them still the largest party in the Scottish Parliament by far, and they topped the poll in every single Scottish region, although in the Edinburgh & Lothians East region this was only by 0.6%. They also won every single constituency in the Central Belt region with no party coming close to winning any of them, although they did lose as many as 7 constituencies - 2 to the Greens (Edinburgh Central and Glasgow Southside, whilst holding the notionally more Green-inclined Glasgow Kelvin & Maryhill), 4 to the Liberal Democrats (Caithness, Sutherland & Ross, Edinburgh Northern, Skye, Lochaber & Badenoch and Strathkelvin & Bearsden) and most ...

  Readers, Sir Keir Starmer suffered a drubbing for Labour in this year's election similar to that the Conservatives endured in 2023 - and like Rishi Sunak back then, many of the political changes will be virtually irreversible. Like in 2025, the May 2026 local elections in England resulted in a breakdown in 2 party-politics. Although Labour won the second most seats up for election this year, this is only because they were defending (notionally, accounting for East and West Surrey's replacement of the 11 Surrey districts and Surrey County Council) as many as 2,564 seats, more than all the other parties, residents' associations and independents combined. They lost 1,496 of these - almost 60% of the seats they were defending, as well as control of 38 of the 66 councils they had overall control of, again an almost 60% decrease; in fact across England they gained just 3 council seats from other parties. By far their largest losses were in Greater London, where they lost contro...

  It has taken me a while to get around to this, unfortunately, but in terms of election predictions the Scottish Parliament and the Senedd in Wales must not be overlooked. In particular, the Senedd's switch from a Mixed Member Proportional system (40 single member constituencies, 20 list seats with 4 per region) to a closed list proportional representation system (96 seats, with election by 16 6-member constituencies) will result in a radical shake-up of the Senedd, especially with Plaid Cymru and Reform UK currently fighting to top the poll in Wales and Labour predicted to finish no better than 3rd, and possibly even 4th. Even with the shine coming off Reform UK in Wales just like in England and Scotland, Plaid Cymru is not guaranteed to top the poll because its appeal in English-speaking areas will always be somewhat limited by its key raison d'etre, even though it will undoubtedly win over more Labour voters than Reform UK will across Wales with the exception of Flintshire ...