Labour Will Have to Do a Deal

With a relatively resurgent Tory Party and one short of an overall majority, Carwyn Jones is not the type of politician to sit on the fence and muddle through. I suspect that Labour were contemplating working with the Lib Dems well before the election. As fas as Plaid is concerned, we will do what we always do and put the interests and needs of Wales first, which means not ruling out talking to Labour.

Five years is a long time for a Government to keep momentum going, particularly with a manifesto void of any vision and mostly filled with what they will retain rather than what they will do, but what will be in it for the Lib Dems? Kirsty will be gambling that in 5 years time, their UK perception will somehow have improved, allowing them to build a new political platform under the wings of Labour in Wales. It is very hard to re-build a party with only one constituency in Wales and so she will be looking at policy options that will enable the Libs to re-build their potential power bases. The problem here though is that they will also face a potential Council meltdown in Wales as they received in England yesterday, with Labour aiming a vicious campaign against them. Those two situations will be hard to balance.

I cannot conceive a situation where Labour would have had a better chance to get an overall majority, yet they fell short. There is already talk within Labour activist ranks of fiddling the electoral system yet again, to return to first past the post - creating the Labour kingdom that many of them believe is their birthright. Carwyn will of course scoff at such suggestions, but we are already starting to see the side of Labour that was very well hidden during the campaign; the side that believes Wales is its own personal property.