Arfon
2010 Results:
Conservative: 4416 (16.93%)
Labour: 7928 (30.4%)
Liberal Democrat: 3666 (14.06%)
Plaid Cymru: 9383 (35.98%)
UKIP: 685 (2.63%)
Majority: 1455 (5.58%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Labour: 8165 (35.5%)
Plaid Cymru: 8072 (35.1%)
Conservative: 3431 (14.9%)
Liberal Democrat: 2599 (11.3%)
Other: 748 (3.2%)
Majority: 93 (0.4%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 3483 (12.4%)
Labour: 7538 (26.9%)
Liberal Democrat: 3508 (12.5%)
Plaid Cymru: 12747 (45.5%)
UKIP: 723 (2.6%)
Majority: 5209 (18.6%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 4403 (15.2%)
Labour: 9383 (32.3%)
Liberal Democrat: 1823 (6.3%)
Plaid Cymru: 12894 (44.4%)
UKIP: 550 (1.9%)
Majority: 3511 (12.1%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 4230 (12.4%)
Labour: 9667 (28.4%)
Liberal Democrat: 1686 (5%)
Plaid Cymru: 17616 (51.8%)
Referendum: 811 (2.4%)
Majority: 7949 (23.4%)
Boundary changes: The seat undergoes large changes to bring it in line with the preserved county boundaries in Wales. It gains Bangor from
Profile: Arfon is a new seat, replacing the old seat of Caernarfon. The seat is the far North-West of Wales, facing Anglesey across the Menai Strait. It`s predecessor was an extemely Welsh speaking seat and a Plaid Cymru stronghold in recent years under Dafydd Wigley. The new seat gains the small university city of Bangor (one of the smallest cities in the UK), while losing more rural Welsh speaking areas, and becomes a Labour/Plaid Cymru ultra-marginal.
The main towns and cities in the constituency are Bangor and Welsh-speaking Caernarfon, the site of Caernarfon castle where Prince Charles was invested as Prince of Wales in 1969. The South of the constituency stretches into Snowdonia National Park, with the peak of Mount Snowdon lying just inside the constituency border.
Current MP: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru)
Robin Millar (Conservative) Born Bangor. Local government management consultant. Forest Heath councillor.
Alun Pugh (Labour) Born 1955, Llwynypia. Director of an environmental charity. Assembly member for Clwyd West 1999-2007.
Sarah Green (Liberal Democrat) Educated at University of Wales. Press and PR executive. Contested Ynys Mon 2005.Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru) 
Elwyn Williams (UKIP) 2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 56647
Male: 47.5%
Female: 52.5%
Under 18: 22.7%
Over 60: 20.1%
Born outside UK: 3.2%
White: 98.2%
Asian: 0.6%
Mixed: 0.5%
Other: 0.5%
Christian: 72.2%
Full time students: 10.5%
Graduates 16-74: 21.6%
No Qualifications 16-74: 28.2%
Owner-Occupied: 63.9%
Social Housing: 22.1% (Council: 17.9%, Housing Ass.: 4.2%)
Privately Rented: 9.3%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 20.5%
No it couldn’t. Labour will be second. We know you like to create any obstacles to Labour success, or even relative success, but Arfon just isn’t a good area for the Tories especially now it includes Bangor.
If Mr Pugh is bi-lingual, which I suspect that he is, he may well be second.
If Mr Pugh could only speak Swahili and the Tories resurrect Lloyd George and convince him to stand for them, Labour would still come second in Arfon this year!
Yes Matt may be right in fact. I just thought Labour may put up a better fight here than that. However, the PC majority certainly won’t be UNDER 3,000.
Certainly I don’t expect my precitions to be 100% accurate. For a start, I haven’t visited all 65o seats. It is as Peter Snow might say ‘just a bit of fun’.
Also, if anything disasterous happens during the campaign, everything could change between now and then-particularly affecting too close to call seats like Amber Valley for example.
David Lloyd George to stand for the Conservatives here.
PC 3,400
Alun Kibet arap Pugh to stand for Labour here.
Pingback: 2010 Constituency Profile: Arfon | WalesHome.org
Hello,
Roger Hughes of the Green Party will be standing in Arfon on the 6th of May.
http://wales.greenparty.org.uk/region/wales/ge.html
- Jamie
Labour Gain from PC. Caernarfon has never been all that PC, so add it to Bangor and this is a seat for Labour!
‘David Lloyd George to stand for the Conservatives here’
???
Keith, no way Labour win in Arfon. Comfortable PC win.
Agree, no way Labour – I doubt they will hold Ynys Mon, and expect them to lose Aberconwy too
Keith I agree its Caernarfon has residual Labour support along with Bangor but it won’t save them
Matt if Labour don’t lose Aberconwy, Ronnie must have had a brilliant campaign or votes scattered in the most mathematically perfect way
……sods law dictates though 
Intially I thought Labour would poll decently here, but I’m really not sure any more – the council results for Arfon really went bad for Labour in 2008 and the party really isn’t all that well organised in the constituency – I wouldn’t be surprised if the percentages are similar to the 2007 result, which I think constitutes a thrashing.
2007 Assembly result (fought on these new boundaries) was bad for Labour as well
PC 52.4%
L 26.8%
C 9.5%
LD 7.3%
UKIP 4%
OK, Plaid do better in Assembly than Westminster, but still should be comfortable
PC gain maj 2000
PC Gain
Maj 800
I think 800 in a silly amount- more likley 3000 to 4000 PC maj. With Labour downturn and Williams being an incumbent. Arfon was very safe in Assembly elections, so voters will and do vote Plaid here.
This is more like….Plaid gain by 4000
I admit my prediction to be a bit of a shot in the dark here.
Hi Neily….I fully respect and love it when people make predictions!
In Wales I would base predictions on a 7-8% swing away from Labour. This might be slightly higher than the overall national picture
PC maj 4,000
PC GAIN
Plaid hold. Many Labour voters will switch their vote or won’t bother coming out. Also some LDs may steal some of their supporters.
Plaid Gain.Stunning part of the world, where the English are as welcome as a Real Ale Festival in Islamabad…..!
.
It was a Plaid gain – close to the notional result showing that Welsh seats perform very differently in Assembly / Westminster elections.
COGLOAD – I can assure you that the English are more than welcome in Arfon – it is a stunning area and English tourists pay more than a few wages around here.
In Next years assembly elections this will be a Plaid win in my opinion.
When David Lloyd George first won Carnarvon Boroughs in the 1890 by-election, his majority was just 18! He didn’t attain his first comfortable majority until the 1906 general election.
Dafydd Wigley has been awarded a peerage.
Browsing through some results in Whitakers, I hadn’t clocked how close this was – I’d expected a rather easier Plaid victory, with a well-established incumbent in place. This could be interesting at the next Westminster election, though of course much of that depends on boundaries. If the 3 mainland seats in the former Gwynedd were to be reduced to 2, Labour would be likely to win a reformed Conwy, but presumably Plaid the other seat.
This is a stupidly sized seat and I would expect Bethesda and Bangor to merged with Anglesey.
I suppose Bethesda is relatively marginal between Labour and Plaid?
Yes it was a very poor result for Plaid generally, paralleling the poor SNP performance. Devolution seems to have established a pattern whereby these parties perform above par in elections to their respective devolved bodies but below par in Westminster elections. Labour must have carried Bangor easily. I wonder how the old Conwy seat would have voted had it still excisted in 2010. Comparing the notional results with the actual result in 2010 it looks to me like it would have been very close between Conservative and Labour. I’d guess if Betty Williams had stood again she would probably have won
I always expected this to be a lot closer than most Plaid commentators. Like Aberconwy next door, Plaid got extremely carried away with themselves and how well that they would perform.
This seat united by far the best areas for Labour of the old Caernarfon and Conwy constituencies and so it was always going to be a good prospect for them. I guess if all the boundary changes go through then this seat will not exist at the next election and Caernarfon will be attached to a large seat encompassing the Llyn and Meirionnydd. Of course, that seat will be a Plaid stronghold. But a Bangor and Anglesey seat would be a gift for Labour and Albert Owen would be very happy I imagine.
Bangor is a very Labour town, with lots of very big council estates and loads of public sector workers (large regional hospital, university etc).It’s also a real dump as well to be honest. Very run-down and scruffy, which is a shame as the setting of the town is exceptionally beautiful.
I think it used to vote heavily for Roger Roberts when he was the Liberal candidate, as he was in several elections the main opposition to the Conservatives. But it went for Betty Williams in ’97 and thereafter and so returned to the allegiance it had held before Roberts came along.
@A brown
Yes Bethesda is very close between Labour and Plaid.
Welsh Assembly 2011: Lab Gain
PC hold
PC 44% (-8)
Lab 36% (+9)
Con 10% (nc)
Llais 5%
LD 4% (-3)
BNP 1%
“Welsh Assembly 2011: Lab Gain”
The Arfon assembly seat has a PC majority over Labour of 25.6% not the 5.9% Westminster margin.
I agree with A Browns prediction of movement towards Labour but still a PC victory.
If the last result in the Edinburgh West Holyrood seat was as good for Labour as the Westminster seat in 2010, I would also believe that a Labour victory be more likely.
As with Edinburgh West, in Arfon there is a section of the electorate that are loyal to Labour at Westminster and to the nationalists at Holyrood/ Cardiff Bay.
“Bangor is a very Labour town, with lots of very big council estates and loads of public sector workers (large regional hospital, university etc).”
As Bangor has a population of about 15,000 I take it you’re speaking relatively.
In most constituencies Bangor would be a rather minor place.
That is obvious from the benefit to the Tories in Conwy from the loss of that town, and fact that its inclusion here turned a PC maj of nearly 20% to a Labour majority.
Is Bangor as Welsh speaking as the surrounding countryside or are there more English speakers?
“The Arfon assembly seat has a PC majority over Labour of 25.6% not the 5.9% Westminster margin.”
On EXACTLY the same electoral boundaries, I find it difficult to take the 2007 PC lead of 25.6% seriously when the 2010 lead was only 5.9%.
Does it really matter that the Welsh Assembly seat looks safe when the more recently elected Westminster seat fought on precisely the same boundaries is a very tight marginal?
Actually yes it does probably matter. Many Welsh voters tiicket-split between the 2 elections, just as Scottish voters seem to. Several constituencies have behaved in markedly different ways. This has usually weakened Labour comparatively at Assembly level, but not invariably – for example, Labour still holds Vale of Glamorgan at Cardiff but lost the seat quite comfortably at Westminster. Some of this is down to incumbency, but more of it is to do with how Welsh voters perceive the overall picture to be. At Westminster they know that, basically, they will have a Government led either by Labour or the Conservatives; this is not so at Assembly level where Plaid Cymru become a factor, and I believe this has a particularly strong effect amongst Welsh speakers in the West (perhaps elsewhere too).
PC is doing surprisingly poorly in Wales at the moment polling below 20% consistently, a completely different situation to Scotland.
However PC will probably hold all their constituency seats except Aberconwy (which will be lost to labour or the tories) even if they drop to 3rd place.
Surely though Llanelli would be likely to fall to Labour, despite the apparent popularity of Helen Mary Jones? She’s lost it once before.
Yes I know that ticket splitting takes plac. But I just can’t see how someone can say that a seat which many have already argued is a gift for Labour is ‘safe’ for PC just because it was last time.
Plaid are on course for a historically bad Welsh Assembly election and Labour seem on course for a big overall majority.
At such an election, a seat which is such a gift for them must be in the mix. Especially now that we have seen Labour almost win the seat at one election.
We can’t ignore the evidence of actual votes cast on the actual boundaries of this seat-even if we accept that ticket splitting will still take place.
‘Surely though Llanelli would be likely to fall to Labour, despite the apparent popularity of Helen Mary Jones? She’s lost it once before.’
LLanelli is a tough call has she has a majority of 14% but the LD vote was only 3.8%.
Labour might slash her majority to about 1%.
I was speaking relatively about Bangor, but a town like Bangor in any normal-sized constituency would be double the size anyway. So, even though it’s population is just 15,000, its impact is just as large as a town of 30,000 in most English constituencies.
Bangor is not as Welsh-speaking as its surrounding neighbours. Of the normally resident population, about 50-60% speak Welsh, but with the students included this is a great deal less, around a third I should say.
One of the few LD seats on Gwynedd council was gained by Plaid last night – Arllechwedd ward. It’s another dramatic slash of the LD vote share though it’s obviously in a very weak constituency for that party these days.
PC 255 (56.0; +8.8)
LD 93 (20.4; -32.3)
Lab 72 (15.8; +15.8)
Con 35 (7.7; +7.7)
Majority 162
Turnout not known
PC gain from LD
Percentage change is since May 2008.