There are three elections taking place in Bridgend county next month: the Senedd election, Police & Crime Commissioner election and a by-election for the county council vacancy in Nantymoel.
There’ll be more on the by-election here in the next few weeks, while I’ll be looking in more detail at the Senedd and the police elections over at State of Wales.
Some key local issues
- The ongoing fallout from the Ford engine plant closure.
- Recent UK Ministry of Justice proposals for women’s residential centres (alternative to prisons) in Porthcawl and Sunnyside, Bridgend.
- Porthcawl regeneration and the future of Bridgend town centre post-pandemic (depedestrianisation, empty shops, town centre masterplan).
- Relatively high rates of council tax and an element of resentment towards capital spending contributions for the Cardiff City Region.
- School reorganisations and mergers, including the future re-location of Ysgol Bro Ogwr.
- Protection of green spaces in the new Local Development Plan.
- Capacity at the Princess of Wales Hospital and local GP and NHS dental surgeries.
The Candidates
Labour
The early favourite to succeed Carwyn Jones is Labour’s Sarah Murphy.
While she has campaigning experience professionally, this is her first run at an elected office as far as I know. A relatively low profile and lack of electoral experience would otherwise have been something opponents could use to their advantage, but this is an unusual election that has torn up the rule book. You would assume most of Carwyn Jones’ personal vote will transfer across.
Bridgend’s suburbs (particularly Brackla), as well as Porthcawl, have been slipping away from Labour over the last decade. The Pyle/Cornelly area is the last part of the Bridgend constituency you can say remains a reliable Labour stronghold (with smaller pockets elsewhere like Cefn Glas and Morfa). This is due to a combination of dissatisfaction with Bridgend Council and more effective on-the-ground campaigning by the Conservatives and Independents.
As with all of the campaigns, it’s been a bit quiet apart from a visit by Mark Drakeford to Porthcawl. Maybe the relaxation of Covid-19 restrictions will kick start things, but Senedd elections have always been fairly low-key.
As long as Labour can get their vote out they should win, though I doubt it will be as comfortable as previous years.
Conservatives
Despite facing a very large majority to overcome, the Tories ought to have placed Bridgend high up their target list following their 2019 UK election victory.
Their task has become a bit harder since Suzy Davies withdrew her candidacy following her effective de-selection after placing fifth on the regional list. The circumstances of her withdrawal and deselection were an absolute disgrace, but those are the times we live in.
The natural conclusion is that the Tories aren’t serious about winning Bridgend and Sarah Murphy’s job has been made a bit easier. The local Conservative party are unimpressive and have been prone to in-fighting – though things have calmed down in the last year or two.
If Suzy’s treatment was/is appalling, it’s equally appalling that her chosen successor as a candidate – Vale of Glamorgan councillor, Cllr. Rachel Nugent-Finn (who represents Cadoc in Barry) – has had to start an election campaign like this.
By all accounts, she has a fairly accomplished record as a councillor. But trying to get a serious campaign up and running in just a few weeks seems like an impossible task.
The Tories traditionally have more resources at their disposal than the other parties, so perhaps we can/could have expected a leaflet bombing campaign similar to Jamie Wallis in 2019 (though it’s been quiet so far).
The Conservatives are near-guaranteed Bridgend-based representation. The top two candidates for the South Wales West regional list are sitting Bridgend county councillors – Cllr. Tom Giffard (Con, Brackla) and Cllr. Altaf Hussain (Con, Penyfai); the latter briefly served as an MS during 2015-16. If elected, they won’t have to resign their council seats as the next local election is due to be held within a year.
Independents
There’ll be two Independents running in Bridgend.
The first Independent to announce their run was former UKIP-Independent-Brexit Party and now Independent (again) regional list member for South Wales West, Caroline Jones. She’s a former teacher and prison worker with a regional office in Porthcawl but is a serial ship-jumper. Before being elected to the Senedd under the UKIP banner in 2016 she was a Conservative candidate for South Wales Police & Crime Commissioner in 2012.
In addition to standing in Bridgend, she’s also standing on the South Wales West list. It’s safe to say that it would require an abnormally high number of votes to get anywhere close to winning a list seat as an Independent. Perhaps Caroline is counting on having a high profile by being a sitting Member of the Senedd, but list members generally don’t have much of a profile at all (and even constituency members struggle).
Her policy priorities include:
- Ending rough-sleeping and increasing the number of affordable homes.
- Mental health to be treated in the same esteem as physical health.
- Cutting waiting times for cancer treatment (she herself is a breast cancer survivor).
- Decarbonisation of infrastructure and protection of wildlife.
Secondly, there’s Bridgend town councillor, Cllr. Steven Bletsoe, who has the backing of the Bridgend County Independents group and is appealing to those “fed up with party politics”.
His policy platform includes:
- Improve children and adult social services to ensure their interests are maintained at all times.
- Introduce a compulsory register of lobbyists at the Senedd.
- Call for the Barnett Formula to be scrapped and replaced with a fairer financial settlement scheme.
- Increase the 100% business rate relief valuation to £12,000 and close loopholes which allow rate relief for empty shops.
- Increase funding for frontline NHS services.
- Invest in new social housing stock.
In both cases, they’ve had to balance local (which is the whole point of standing as an Independent) with national-level policies. There are policies that other parties would agree with. In the event of a Senedd where there’s no clear majority, an Independent member would be in a position to negotiate favourable deals for Bridgend.
The problem both face is that there isn’t a particularly good track record of electing Independents to the Senedd. Steven Bletsoe could be a bit of a wildcard and affect the final outcome by taking votes away from Labour and the Conservatives which would “send them a message” ahead of next year’s council elections. That said, pushing for a third-place finish would be a decent result under first-past-the-post.
Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru & Others
The Liberal Democrats have selected Harvey Jones, who is currently studying at university and has worked as a communications officer for the Welsh Young Liberals.
As in the rest of Wales, the Lib Dems have been in a terminal decline in Bridgend for the last decade after once being influential in local politics. The Lib Dems finished a creditable third in Bridgend during the 2019 UK general election, seeing a fairly sizable jump in their vote share (presumably from Remainers). Since then, however, their polling figures have looked dreadful.
Plaid Cymru has selected nurse and Pencoed town councillor, Cllr. Leanne Lewis. She has personal experience of the pandemic both as a frontline staff member of the NHS and as a patient after being hospitalised towards the end of 2020 with Covid-19.
She stood in the Bridgend constituency for Plaid at the 2019 UK General election and finished fourth, narrowly missing out on retaining her deposit. Bridgend isn’t natural Plaid Cymru territory, but they tend to do better in Senedd elections than Westminster elections. Third or fourth place would be decent enough.
Reform UK is the successor to the Brexit Party, represented in Bridgend by Christine Roach, who’s a community councillor in the Vale of Glamorgan (Colwinston Community Council). While they’re a bit more professional and presentable than UKIP, with Brexit done and dusted you wouldn’t expect them to do much anywhere in Wales and they’ve been polling around 2%.
I doubt many people in Bridgend will have heard of Gwlad – who have selected Universal Basic Income advocate, Geraint Jones, to stand for them – but they’re a right-leaning Welsh nationalist party formed by those disillusioned with Plaid Cymru’s policy positions.
