Cardiff South and Penarth
2010 Results:
Conservative: 12553 (28.29%)
Labour: 17262 (38.91%)
Liberal Democrat: 9875 (22.26%)
Plaid Cymru: 1851 (4.17%)
UKIP: 1145 (2.58%)
Green: 554 (1.25%)
Christian: 285 (0.64%)
Independent: 648 (1.46%)
Others: 196 (0.44%)
Majority: 4709 (10.62%)
Notional 2005 Results:
Labour: 18506 (46.8%)
Conservative: 9387 (23.7%)
Liberal Democrat: 7835 (19.8%)
Plaid Cymru: 2062 (5.2%)
Other: 1780 (4.5%)
Majority: 9119 (23%)
Actual 2005 result
Conservative: 8210 (22.2%)
Labour: 17447 (47.3%)
Liberal Democrat: 7529 (20.4%)
Plaid Cymru: 2023 (5.5%)
Green: 729 (2%)
UKIP: 522 (1.4%)
Other: 452 (1.2%)
Majority: 9237 (25%)
2001 Result
Conservative: 7807 (21.8%)
Labour: 20094 (56.2%)
Liberal Democrat: 4572 (12.8%)
Plaid Cymru: 1983 (5.5%)
UKIP: 501 (1.4%)
Other: 794 (2.2%)
Majority: 12287 (34.4%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 8766 (20.7%)
Labour: 22647 (53.4%)
Liberal Democrat: 3964 (9.3%)
Plaid Cymru: 1356 (3.2%)
Referendum: 1211 (2.9%)
Other: 4456 (10.5%)
Majority: 13881 (32.7%)
Boundary changes:
Profile:
Current MP: Alun Michael(Labour) (more information at They work for you)
Simon Hoare (Conservative) Alun Michael(Labour) (more information at They work for you)Dominic Hannigan (Liberal Democrat) born Cornwall. Educated at Cape Cornwall School and Penwith College. Contested Cardiff South and Penarth at 2007 Welsh Assembly elections.
Farida Aslam (Plaid Cymru) Legal advice worker for a housing association.Matthew Townsend (Green)Simon Ziegler (UKIP)Clive Bate (Christian Party) 
Robert Griffiths (Communist) General Secretary of the Communist Party of Britain. Contested Newport East 2001, Pontypridd 2005. Contested Wales 2009 European elections for No2EU.George Burke (Independent)2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 90593
Male: 48%
Female: 52%
Under 18: 26.6%
Over 60: 19.5%
Born outside UK: 6.8%
White: 91.1%
Black: 2%
Asian: 3.6%
Mixed: 2.4%
Other: 0.9%
Christian: 68.1%
Hindu: 0.8%
Muslim: 3.9%
Full time students: 3.7%
Graduates 16-74: 18.2%
No Qualifications 16-74: 34.2%
Owner-Occupied: 66.6%
Social Housing: 23.1% (Council: 13.7%, Housing Ass.: 9.4%)
Privately Rented: 6.8%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 7.4%
Stephen Williams has been chosen for the Conservative.s He is a Cllr on Cardiff City Council.
Anthony Slaughter is the Green Party candidate.
“The Chancellor of the Exchequer has this day appointed Alun Edward Michael to be Steward and Bailiff of the Three Hundreds of Chiltern.”
In their revised recommendations released today the Welsh Commission has proposed the following new seats for Cardiff
Cardiff Central
Cardiff North and South West Gwent
Cardiff South and Penarth
Cardiff West
Candidates for the by-election
Stephen DOUGHTY [Welsh Labour/Llafur Cymru]
Robert GRIFFITHS [Welsh Communist Party]
Andrew JORDAN [Socialist Labour Party/Plaid Lafur Sosialaidd]
Bablin MOLIK [Welsh Liberal Democrats/Democratiaid Rhyddfrydol Cymru]
Luke NICHOLAS [Plaid Cymru - The Party of Wales]
Anthony SLAUGHTER [The Green Party/Plaid Werdd]
Craig WILLIAMS [Welsh Conservative Party Candidate]
Simon ZEIGLER [UK Independence Party/Plaid Annibyniaeth y DU]
Only the Conservatives and the Communists have the sense not to put those stupid Welsh translations next to their name. What is this country coming to.
Registration of Political Party legislation permits parties to use bilingual ballot paper descriptions. And above all that, Welsh is the national language of Wales, why would candidates not use it?
Oddly one of the few expressions I know in Welsh is Y Blaid Ceidwadwyr – The Conservative Party. It hasn’t been that useful to me over the years though.
There are others. The Liberal Democrats are Democratiad Rhyddfrydol Cymru (Welsh Liberal Democrats).
Labour is Plaid Lafur Cymru or Llafur Cymru (Welsh Labour).
UKIP is Annibyniaeth Y Deyrnas Unedig (United Kingdom Independence Party) or Plaid Annibyniaeth y DU (UK Independence Party).
“Only the Conservatives and the Communists have the sense not to put those stupid Welsh translations next to their name. What is this country coming to.”
I can understand Welsh being used in Wales. Do they use Scottish Gaelic in Na h-Eileanan an Iar? I thought that name change from the Western Isles was a sign of the times.
At least at the moment we’re not seeing Urdu, Punjabi, Japanese etc, as we have seen some councils spending thousands of pounds on translations.
Anyone want to suggest what would have happened if Sunny Jim had not set an example ot Gordon Brown in losing his bottle?
What would have happened in an October 1978 election?
Perhaps a rerun of one of the 1974 elections?
In which case would a staggering on Labour government would have been hit by the winter of discontent and then the recession of 1980-1981.
During which it would surely have collapsed.
Given that everyone can read English there its a complete waste of time, effort, and money. Its redundant and pointless. There is nothing wrong with having ones own language and using it to communicate, but it has to have a point, which using Welsh on ballot forms does not.
Well Richard I was around at that time & was already active in politics, and I reckon that, although some polls showed Labour very slightly ahead, the Tories would still have won, though more narrowly than they did in 1979.
It is very hard to tell but I think there was little prospect of a clear con majority. If it had been hung it would not have been similar to 1974 because the big liberal vote would have gone down. My gut feel is the winter that followed cost labour about 3 to 4 per cent
Jim should have cashed in then. I think he was fed up with minority and wanted to win if not lose
Perhaps
42% each in October 1978.
I think the Libs a bit lower than in 1979
whether that would have given Labour enough seats to carry on impossible to know now.
I think a minority Thatcher administration would have been a disaster – preventing her from doing all the difficult things
and preventing the country getting all the benefits of her.
Perhaps she might have got a chance by staying leader
and waiting for the Labour Government to get into difficulties in the 1980/81 recession.
Fortunately from my point of view
she won in 1979 and onwards.
I felt sorry for Jim Callaghan though who was a patriotic and honourable man
let down by the unions.
Time for a guess at the election result. Seems I haven’t been put off by the Bradford West surprise. With no polling and very little feedback on how the campaign is going, it’s entirely unscientific.
Lab 48
Con 24
LD 14
PC 6
UKIP 4
Others 4
And a slightly different 1979 ‘what if’:
What if the government had lost the vote of confidence a few months earlier and the general election had happened during or immediately after the winter of discontent?
If Labour had suffered a 1983 size defeat would it have been able to survive the SDP breakaway?
I don’t think they would have lost much worse in march 79
The opinion polls suggest they would.
As does Holborn & St Pancras S:
May 1977 Lab maj 0.8%
08/03/79 byelection Lab maj 0.9%
May 1979 Lab maj 9.5%
That was a GLC by-election presumably? I don’t recall it. I seem to remember a Charlie Rossi as the GLC member for that constituency.
Well possibly but it’s a bit of a myth that Labour went massively behind in the Winter of Discontent.
Certainly they were a fragile Government that was liable to be thrown into a defeat at any moment if the political situation changed which it did,
and subsequently after the election, it paved the way for events which would lead to a much more serious defeat,
but there was actually only one poll in February showing a 20% gap.
Perhaps it would have been about 9 or 10% gap – which would of course be bad enough
but with the Liberals at a low ebb
a 1983 majority was never likely unless the Tories actually polled what they had in local elections like in 1977.
36-47% perhaps
Final prediction for today’s By-election.
Labour 53%
Conservative 22%
Plaid Cymru 8%
Liberal Democrat 7.5%
UKIP 5.5%
Green 2.5%
Socialist Labour 1%
Communist 0.5%
LAB Hold
Labour- 57%
Conservative- 20%
Plaid Cymru- 9%
Lib Dem- 5%
UKIP- 5%
Green- 2.5%
Socialist Labour- 1.5%
Communist- 0.4%
No-one thinks Plaid Cymru might get second place?
Not in Cardiff. There isn’t enough of a Welsh Nationalist support base to pull of second place in my opinion, even in a by-election on low turnout. Would love to be proved wrong though.
It sounds like you may be
If that is the case then the Conservative vote must have fallen off a cliff, even by by-election standards. No Louise Mensch to blame that on in Cardiff South.
They have declared the result here but the BBC haven’t seen fit to tell us what it is
Labour 9193
Conservative 3859
Lib Dem 2103
Plaid Cymru 1854
UKIP 1179
Green 800
Socialist Lab 235
Communist 213
Fortunately we have David Boothroyd
result is
Lab 9193 47.3%
Con 3859 19.9%
LD 2103 10.8%
PC 1854 9.5%
UKIP 1179 6.1%
Grn 800 4.1%
SLP 235 1.2%
Comm 213 1.1%
so suggestions that there might be a surprise second place were misplaced
Thanks for the percentages Pete, I was too tired to work them out haha. Comfortable hold for Labour but they’re only back to 2005 levels at 47%. Good results for Plaid, UKIP and Greens. Lib Dems and Conservatives doing poorly but nothing too shocking.
Swing is 8.4% from Con to Lab.
Labour share is the same as at 2005 general election.
Not a bad result for Labour but not particularly great either. If Corby turns out to be much better, however, it won’t matter too much. It’s clear that that’s where Labour put the vast majority of its resources.
Labour failed to get 50%!
Not a particularly bad result for Conservatives, actually.
I imagine that with the police elections going on on the same day, more Tory votes were carried over into the by-elections. I wonder if that might be the case in Corby as well? Although Labour will still easily win it.
Of course, in Corby, there might be a lot of split ticket voting with the Labour candidate being disqualified for the PCC election, Labour voters in Corby might have ticked another box for PCC.
I thought this was a relatively unconvincing result for Labour in terms of expectations.
LD share was exactly as expected and I would say only PC and UKIP can feel properly pleased here.
Not a great performance by Labour, given it’s mid-term, but obviously a comfortable win. The Conservative vote actually wasn’t down very much, but was still at the low end of predictions, while the Lib Dem vote, though heavily down, held up better here than it has elsewhere.
Plaid look to be making some surprising headway, and UKIP did well to hold their deposit in an unpromising seat. A strong set of results for them. The Greens also did well, up nearly 3%, given that they’ve never performed well in Wales.
Even the Socialist Labour and Communist candidates managed more than 1% each – this is one result which wasn’t particularly bad for any party.
I disagree, its a poor labour result. To replicate an election where they were infront by only 2% in mid term opposition is not good at all.
Joe – I take it you’re referring to the 2005 result? It’s actually a 4.3% higher majority than the 2005 notionals on these boundaries, so not great, but given that their mid-term polling in general is lacklustre, I wouldn’t call it poor – after all, they won on seats rather easily in 2005.
Is this the first time UKIP have saved a deposit in a Welsh seat at a Westminster level?
The retirement of Michael reduces still further the dwindling number of seats which, with their linear equivalents, have had only 2 MPs since WWII. The only remaining ones now seem to be Clay Cross/Bolsover (Harold Neal & Dennis Skinner, Lab), Coventry W/N/NW (Maurice Edelman & Geoffrey Robinson, Lab) Huddersfield/Huddersfield East/Huddersfield (Curly Mallalieu & Barry Sheerman, Lab) & Blackburn (Barbara Castle & Jack Straw, again Lab). Even Blackburn is arguable because between 1950 & 1955 there were 2 Blackburn seats, one held by the Conservatives, and in 1945 it was a 2-member seat which as well as Castle elected Labour’s John Edwards (later MP for Brighouse & Spenborough). There aren’t that many seats left which have had only 3 postwar MPs over & above these – of course it tends to be only safe seats which have this kind of distinction. It could be argued that Labour has done well to hold that part of Coventry uninterruptedly since the war since it contains quite good Conservative areas such as Bablake.
I forgot Horncastle/East Lindsey/Louth & Horncastle (Sir John Maitland & Sir Peter Tapsell, Con)