Only one party in Wales has nothing to celebrate in the local election results, and one doesn’t need to be a political analyst to work out which that is. The Welsh Conservative Party has suffered a serious reverse, most notably by losing the single council it controlled with an overall majority. The loss of Monmouthshire County Council is a severe blow.
Its leader Richard John has been careful to distance his group from Boris Johnson and to promote itself as a progressive, One Nation form of compassionate Conservatism. In the wake of the loss, there were those in the party who blamed the loss on the decision of Cllr John and his colleagues to take the local party to the left. But in the context of what was happening elsewhere, such an explanation doesn’t seem plausible. There’s little doubt that voters were alienated by the issues that dominate domestic politics: the cost-of-living crisis, partygate and widespread disillusion with Boris Johnson as the Prime Minister.
In Wales, Labour undoubtedly had a good election, winning more seats and councils than it held before, while Plaid Cymru did better than expected, winning overall control in Anglesey, Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion in addition to retaining their stronghold of Gwynedd. While it’s a small authority, Blaenau Gwent is a talisman council for Labour as the birthplace of the NHS when it was represented by party hero Aneurin Bevan. Later its MP was Labour leader Michael Foot.
