The UK goes to the polls next week to elect a new circus Parliament.
As you’ll know, the number of MPs from Wales has been cut from 40 to 32 resulting in the Westminster constituency boundaries being changed.
Bridgend County will now be covered by three constituencies instead of the previous two.
Also, as part of the UK Government’s quest to suppress votes and find problems that don’t need fixing, you’ll need a valid photo ID to vote in person on the day. The full list of acceptable IDs is available here.
Candidates are listed in alphabetical order by party.
Summary & Prospects
This will probably end up being one of Labour’s safest UK constituencies, so there’s no point going into it in any great detail. There are more than enough Labour votes across the constituency to guarantee a big Labour win – anything less than 55% of the vote would be a poor showing, relatively speaking.
You would expect the future of Port Talbot Steelworks to be *the* issue here. The “Maesteg” bit of the constituency name will be silent.
I don’t know enough about Neath Port Talbot’s local politics to make any informed comment, though NPT Council is currently run by an Independent-Plaid Cymru coalition.
Most of Plaid Cymru’s support in NPT is concentrated in the Neath constituency hough – particularly the Swansea Valley – though you would expect them to be competing with Reform to finish a distant second if the Tory vote collapses as expected.
