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Betsan

The Monday before the May 3 election I was telephoned by ICM conducting a poll with a range of questions about Wales and its Government.

One of the questions I was asked was what sort of coalition I expected or wanted (can't remember the specific question) and I was asked to choose from a series of options. What I do recall was that the options I was presented with excluded a Plaid/Conservative coalition. I pointed out that I was not being presented with all the options, and asked if it would not be sensible to include that as an option in the survey. I was told that was not possible.

Interesting that that has now become a possible option for Wales, but wait for someone to stand up and say 'the people of Wales don't want this' - if they base that view on ICM polling it will be because the people of Wales weren't asked!

to me it just seems wrong that a government can be formed without including the party that the most amount of people in wales voted for. i'm not saying labour should go it alone, but surely they should be part of the government?

at 26 they have 11 more seats than the next biggest party, pliad on 15.

wrong, plain wrong

This is 'Alice in Wonderland' stuff.

Someone voting for the largest party in Wales could end up being governed by a 'coalition of the unwilling'.

Whereas in Scotland someone voting for the largest party ends up putting them in power, albeit in a minority role.

And as none of the parties pretend to have no truck with coalitions in the hustings, the voters are clueless as to what plans they have got up their sleeves for after election night.

As Forrest Gump might have said 'Life is like a box of chocolates - you never know what you're gonna get'.

Quite..

The best thing that could happen to Wales is a government that does not include Welsh Labour.

They ran a campaign of arrogance believing they would get a 'majority'. The possiblity now is that they would be left out all together.

Perhaps they won't take the welsh people for granted as Labour voting no-brains in the future... because we are not!

A few observations from the distant (from Cardiff) hills of North Powys...

1. Well that's the last time I vote for Lembit Opik. It is sad that he has become so enamoured of his celebrity status that he will spurn an opportunity to guide the future of his adopted country.

2. So Plaid are so desperate to gain power that they'll do a deal with the devils that (a) were opposed to Welsh Devolution in the first place, and (b) supported labour's illegal war in Iraq. Lads that is just too low.

Personally I hope that all these coalition talks founder and Labour are forced to run a minority government. Then each of their policies will be tested and require the assent of the parties the majority of Wales (outside Cardiff, the Vallets and Deeside)voted for.

I think we are living in interesting times...

Betsan

I think you miss the obvious point. The voting system for Assembly Elections is designed to ensure that parties are forced to work together. Remember Ron Davies' vision for inclusive politics? This is a great chance for Wales to lead on mature politics in the form of a 4 way power sharing government of which its make up should consist of seats allocated proportionally in accordance with the percentage vote each party recieved. It's fairer and better reflects how the Welsh public voted on May 3. Labour's stranglehold on Welsh politics should be put to the sword with PR for local government being high on the agenda of the 3rd Assembly.

Sorry, perhaps I was barking up the wrong tree with 'Alice in Wonderland'.

Surely the 'Wizard of Oz'.. Betsan, Get those red shoes and and start practising - I am looking forward to your rendition of 'Somewhere over the Rainbow'..!

I shall leave it to the other posters to determine who will play the parts of :-

Toto -
The Tin Man -
The Scarecrow -
The Cowardly Lion -

The Wizard himself...

Well, it is a Friday afternoon..

A number of posters to this blog have commented on the fact that Labour have 26 seats out of the sixty, far more than anyone else.

However, any democrat should look at the votes cast, not the seats won, to decide who the people of Wales want to rule. Labour polled just 29.6% of the vote, just 8% more than Conservatives and 8.5 % more than Plaid. In all the three potential colours of the rainbow polled just over 54% of the vote. That means that the so called Rainbow Coalition would have been elected by a majority of the electorate, whereas a Labour minority government would have been elected by less than a third, and even a Labour Liberal coalition by just 41%.

OK, so because of the system the 16% who didn't vote for the four main parties only got 1 seat between them, but anyone who has any interest in a democratic Wales must see that a government made up of AMs elected by 54% of the electorate has to be more correct than one made up of those elected by 41%, or, even worse, under 30%. Even with the Liberals on board, Labour would have no electoral mandate to rule. With Plaid they would, but only just even then! So a rainbow has to be the best way for Welsh democracy.

All the above are the additional members votes (which is the proportional representation bit of the system), but even taking the constituency votes the figures aren't all that different. However you cut it, Labour was supported by less than a third of the electorate and should have to form a coalition with another party with over 20% in order to claim any moral mandate for government.

Surely the Tin Man is Mr Bourne. The Scarecrow has to be Dafydd El. The Cowardly Lion is Rhodri Morgan. The wizard isn't on the yellow brick road at all, but still in North Wales rueing being second on the list...

That leaves Toto... would that be Mr German?

Of course, if I restrict myself to party leaders, it would be very different. Mr Morgan would then be the one not part of the journey and looking distinctly less than he did before someone opened the curtain (which would make Toto the electorate for opening that particular drape!)

I think we have to be pragmatic and accept that the people of Wales rejected Labour even though they have the largest number of seats (first past the post is not representative). I for one believe that the Welsh Conservative party is considerably more centrist than the one in England. I as one who prefers an mixed economy rather than one that creates a dependency society welcome the contribution that pragmatic politicians like Cairns/Melding and Jonathan Morgan can make. For those from Plaid who oppose this coalition ask yourself the question who supports a new Welsh Language Act, the Welsh Tories do, Labour doesn't.
The Welsh Conservatives are more Welsh than Welsh Labour... give them a chance.

So once again Lembit Opik shows us where his priorities lie. He is more interested in his "celebrity" status than meeting with his Lib-Dem partners to help negotiate what could be an historic decision in Welsh politics. Like Glyn Davies I have come to thoroughly dislike his obsession with his own publicity. He won't be getting my vote in 2 years time!

Are the Welsh Dems looking to shoot themselves in the foot?
I was a disillusioned Labour voter who turned to the Lib Dems 5 years ago because I liked what I saw. Now they want to put the Tories into power and trust Plaid when they made fools out of them on the budget? That will just send me back to Labour. I wonder how many other Lib Dem voters would feel the same?

I like the Lib Dem policies, I really believe in them. I don't believe in their current course of action.

What is interesting reading many comment from people here and in other places is that there seems to be a common belief that the majority party in Wales is Labour. I would ask those people who hold this view to explain this to me. They didn't get a majority of the vote or the majority of the seats. Thus they are a minority party, the largest maybe, but a minority. I am not happy with the idea of Plaid going into a coalition with the Tories, but someone has to govern. Labour tribalists seem to have blocked any deal with any other party in a coalition, and have not made a decent case for a New Zealand arrangement, so either we get minority Labour government or a new coalition. A minority coalition is possible but not very likely, so it looks like the electoral arithmetic points to a rainbow coalition.

Bethan - Dim on 8 cyntaf o'r blogs dwi'n gallu weld sut mae mynd i'r ail dudalen o'r blog yma.

Diolch, Arfon

If my memory serves me correctly isn't the full title of the Conservative Party "The Conservative and Unionist Party"?
That being the case how can Plaid consider forming a coalition with a party that, even in its title, is diametrically opposed to Plaid?

We have had now 4 weeks without a Goverment in Cardiff and all seems to be well. Do we need them ?
What are they being paid for if they are not looking after Wales ?
AM,s should not be paid until a goverment is formed this would hurry them up.

What concerns me is that the projected three party government which, it is claimed, is favoured by the Plaid leadership compromises the party's position as a left party of Wales. I am hugely distressed by the apparent willingness to facilitate the return of the Conservatives to government. I am so because I do not believe for a moment that Bourne's Welsh party is any different ideologically from the Cameron-led UK Tory party: a party led by an old-Etonian, right-wing former adviser to Michael Howard as leader and speech-writer of many xenophobic speeches and papers for that distaff son of Llanelli.

Ieuan Wyn Jones revelled in the modesty of Tory gains in Wales and, incidentally, in the Liberal Democrats' inability to improve their position at all. And yet, if we are to believe reports - and that's all that most of us have - Plaid appears to be prepared to lead a government with partners so recently reviled by him.

Rhodri Morgan is, of course, correct. Labour have no God-given right to govern Wales but even the Almighty might have some conceptual difficulties with a post-election pact that marginalises the largest party in the name of democracy!

I believe that the election result demands that key components of Plaid's programme form part of a programme for government. But its natural political allies are Labour and, in my opinion, the allergic in both parties need to grasp this proposition. Almost certainly more can be achieved by an arrangement with Labour than by a distasteful machine-politics fix with the other two parties. Labour also needs to heed this lesson.

Looking at it in crude terms, Plaid's ambitions for 2011 are hardly diminished by cooperation on a government programme that includes its key concerns. Those ambitions might well be damaged by an apparently opportunistic alliance with the Tories and the Liberals.
Even at this late stage,Plaid should step back from dining with the Devil. and engage Rhodri Morgan in robust negotiations. A pluralistic Wales has probably already been achieved and it may well be the position that no future government that does not include Plaid is now conceivable. This is a major achievement and is good for democracy. The reported direction that Plaid is taking runs the risk of forfeiting all that.

Moreover, the chances of such a three-headed government running into the sands of political paralysis or political implosion are bound to be high.

I voice my concern that some bloggers feel that Labour has some sort of right to govern. Even Rhodri Morgan seems to think that not including Labour in the government is cheating democracy. Thankfully, a few bloggers have pointed out that just because labour are the largest party, that does not give them a natural right to govern. It seems that labour still don't understand the system that was established under them. The other parties seem to have taken the new form of Welsh politics on board and are making progress. Whatever coalition emerges it will be a great learning experience for the AMs and the people of Wales on how our election system works and the compromises that the parties have to make to form a more pluralistic government.

There's been a number of comments from Lib Dem supporters on this blog about how they'll not vote Lib Dem again if they form a coalition with Plaid and the Conservatives. One even said they'd switch back to Labour because he really liked Lib policies but not a rainbow coalition.

These people have clearly not read the manifestos. The similarities between the Liberal and Plaid manifestos are large. Those with the Conservatives less so, but still significant. Labour is significantly different in many ways.

If the witer really likes Lib Dem policies he should read the manifestos and realise that he's likely to see more of those policies implemented in a Rainbow coalition than in a coalition with Labour (which would only have been voted for by 41% of the electorate anyway). Only then should he decide what to support - Lib Dem policies implemented in a rainbow coalition, or Labour policies implemented with lip service to the Lib Dems just like the last time they were in coalition.

In answer to Anotheran, I have indeed read the manifestos of each party. I haven't disputed the similarities of the manifestos. I have issues with the working relationships of the three parties involved. I did not vote to put the Tories in a position of power, I do not trust Plaid.

I thought long and hard, as a Labour Party member, about giving Plaid my list vote.
Now, I feel betrayed as they prostitute themselves by losing their government virginity to the Tories who will bo back raping the public services in Wales.

what a joke. wales is becoming a laughing stock, im just glad the uk press cant even be bothered to cover it...I voted while most of my friends didnt, now I wonder why I bothered...