Blue surge

Extrapolating euro-election results into parliamentary outcomes can become a pointless business – if only because of the UKIP factor – but Ashok Ahir of BBC Wales nonetheless does his best to offer up an intelligent analysis.

His reckoning is that Labour stands to lose 15 of the 29 seats it presently holds in Wales and that the effects in Jackland would be Gower falling to the tories with Swansea West becoming a tight three way contest between Labour, Tory and Lib Dems. Notwithstanding that any partially-sighted pundit would have come up with pretty much the same projection12 months ago, the polls still represent depressing confirmation – and not just for Labour.

As Ahir observes, “Plaid Cymru improved its overall national vote by what it will regard as a disappointing 1.1% on the day that Labour slumped to an historic low. Unlike in Scotland and in Northern Ireland, where the Scottish National Party and Sinn Fein were well ahead in terms of the overall vote (for example, the SNP up 9.4%) Plaid failed to capitalise on Labour's demise. Seeing the Welsh Conservatives win the popular vote instead has to be particularly galling for Plaid strategists, who were briefing all the way up until the final result that it would come out on top in Wales.”

He continues with the comments that “The European election results were particularly bad for the Liberal Democrats, who were completely incapable of capitalising from Labour's failures, only mustering a minuscule 0.2% increase in their vote share on a day when the overall turnout was the lowest on record.”

The unsurprising conclusion within the article is that the undeniable tory triumph heralds what could well be a blue surge across Wales – a trend that has already emerged locally, according to the astute individuals at the Beans on Toast, who report that Swansea students have smashed the Smurfs world record.