Post by Robert Waller on Aug 31, 2023 19:59:20 GMT
When people talk about the valleys of South Wales, they could be referring to the broad spread of serrated terrain stretching in parliamentary terms from Llanelli in the west all the way to Torfaen in the east, including the majority of twelve current Westminster constituencies. On the other hand, it is possible that they could be referring to just the most renowned two, Rhondda Fawr and Rhondda Fach (respectively large and small, west and east), which are now included in a single constituency. Many of the classic characteristics of the region are present in Rhondda: famed male voice choirs such as that of Treorchy; collieries known for the range of the mining experience from disasters to militancy, like Maerdy; pioneering amateur rugby union teams as at Treherbert; and distinguished politicians from D.A.Thomas who became Viscount Rhondda to George Thomas who became Viscount Tonypandy, not forgetting the Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood. Indeed the elections in these particular valleys have seen some remarkable results.
When first entranced by parliamentary constituencies between 1966 and 1970, long before I was fortunate enough to visit them all, I was struck by an unusual, indeed unique feature in list of the most recent general election results. Until 1974 Rhondda was allocated two constituencies, and in Rhondda East the second place in 1966 had been taken by ... the Communist party, in the shape of Annie Powell! Admittedly, she was a very long way behind Labour, but this seemed decidedly peculiar during the Cold War. In fact she had finished second in 1964, 1959 and 1955 too, achieving around 15% of the vote in the last named two. Nor was this a pure personal vote. In Rhondda East in 1966 the Communists just came last in a close three way battle to be runners up, but still took 7.4%, which would be easily enough to save their deposit nowadays. They have never done so well since that date (though Annie Powell was still being elected as a councilor for Pen-y-Graig ward as late as 1979 and was Mayor of Rhondda that year), but clearly there is an unusual left wing tradition in these valleys. In 1945, for example, Labour had beaten the national Communist party General Secretary Harry Pollitt in Rhondda East by less than 1,000 votes – he took a share of 45.5%.
The reason for that tradition is clear. This is a true heartland of working class solidarity, and in particular, that based on the extraction of coal. Just as the constituency communities lie along the Rhondda valleys like beads on a chain, each used to be umbilically connected to one or more pits. Over 75 collieries were sunk in all, though of course these were subject to geological and economic problems leading to closure along with disasters such as the Wattstown catastrophe in 1905 and the Cambrian Colliery gas explosion in 1965 that claimed 31 lives. However, even after the Second World War there were still 18 mines open within the current boundaries of this constituency. The last one to close was at Maerdy in 1985.
Mining may be only a heritage now, but its legacy and the working class nature of this seat is still clear from its statistics. It has the highest proportion of all 650 constituencies for those describing themselves in the Census as ‘in bad health’. In 2011 it was 5th in the list for ‘long term sick and disabled’. It was in the bottom three for higher managerial and professional workers, in the bottom ten for residents with a degree and the top ten for ‘no educational qualifications’. Other figures are striking too. Mining has of course completely disappeared as a source of employment but Rhondda is now no.1 out of 650 for employment in caring, leisure and other service occupations. Perhaps oddly for a place where the Nonconformist chapel tradition was once so strong, it ranks 2nd for respondents saying they had no religion – although in fact that may actually be explicable, as it is the Protestant Nonconformist strands that have suffered most of all from decline over the past century. Finally, nowhere had a higher percentage of people born in Wales.
One might think this last finding would suggest an affinity with Plaid Cymru, the Welsh Nationalists. It is true that Plaid won the inaugural constituency election for the National Assembly for Wales in 1999, and then the Llwynypia born Leanne Wood held the seat from 2016 to 2021 as the assembly transmuted into the Senedd. However it is the Labour party that has won all the Rhondda parliamentary contests since January 1910, whether the valleys had two seats or just one, and indeed even as far back as 1885 it was won by William ’Mabon’ Abraham, who sat as a Lib-Lab before he seamlessly changed his designation to Labour in 1910. The Conservatives or Unionists have never even threatened to come close, and second place has also been taken by a motley variety: Communists as we have seen, Liberals, the SDP in 1983 and, most often, Plaid Cymru – ten times between the re-establishment of the single constituency in 1974 and 2017. Their best performance was 26% in 2015, and as well as the ‘Very Welsh’ aspect, Labour’s massive shares have also been eroded most recently by the party’s somewhat ambivalent response to the result of the Brexit referendum, when Rhondda voted by over 60% to leave. This is likely to be the main reason why Boris Johnson’s Conservatives advanced to second place, for the first time since 1979, in December 2019 with a share of nearly 16% (and the Brexit party took another 12.6%). This position seems unlikely to be repeated in a putative 2024 election.
Plaid Cymru do remain the main challengers in local government contests in Rhondda. In the most recent Rhondda Cynon Taf county borough elections in May 2022 they won a seat in Treorchy and finished second in ten other wards. In 2017 they had returned both councillors in Pentre, both in Pen-y-Graig, both in Porth and Treherbert, and topped the poll in Ystrad as well as taking all three seats in Treorchy ward. Labour’s 2022 performance indicates a substantial recovery since 2017 locally, but Plaid will probably finish second next time in the Westminster race.
Their chances of this will not be reduced by the suggested boundary changes. Rhondda will in essence survive the cull necessitated by the reduction of the representation of Wales from 40 parliamentary divisions to 32. However with a 2019 electorate of just 50,262 it will have to be expanded. The initial proposals were that Rhondda’s boundaries should be extended due southwards, to take in both wards of Tonyrefail from the Pontypridd constituency, which adds just over 9,000 electors, and four wards with nearly 12,000 in all from Ogmore: Brynna, Gilfach Goch, Llanharan and Llanharry. All of these are within the Rhondda Cynon Taf borough and simply extend the seat south from the Cymmer and Pen-y-Graig wards. In May 2022 Labour took three of the Tonyrefail council seats and Plaid Cymru one (similar in 2017).
However in the revised proposals of October 2022 the Commission sprung something of a surprise. Tonyrefail and Gilfach Goch were confirmed as additions (and indeed in the final report), but instead of the other three wards from Ogmore mentioned above, we find three wards - Penprysg, Hendre and Felindre, which in effect centred on the community of Pencoed. The oddity is that these are suspended from the south western corner of the main body of the Rhondda seat, apparently connected by nothing more than a farm track to the Gilfach Goch ward. The Commission admitted that these revisions to the initial proposals were a consequence of decisions elsewhere, notably the retention of the town of Bridgend in a single constituency. But Rhondda was left looking decidedly weird. Then in the final report (June 2023) a third different set of changes were promulgated – perhaps third time lucky.
This time, Pencoed would be returned to Bridgend, which is logical as it is really part of the built up area of that town and the highly dubious ‘farm track’ link was eliminated. Instead the whole of the Ogmore and Garw valleys to its south-west are to be paired with Rhondda, including the wards of Blackmill, Ogmore Vale and Nant-y-Moel from the former valley and Bettws, Llangeinor, Ponycymmer and Blaengarw from the latter. The result is a seat that looks much more geometrically logical, as seen on the map at least
bcomm-wales.gov.uk/reviews/06-23/2023-parliamentary-review-final-recommendations
though of course the deeply crumpled surface here is not done justice by a two dimensional map; the Garw valley, for example is, blind in the sense that there is no road out to the north through Blaengarw (noted incidentally for its extraordinary cricket ground carved out of the side of the mountain). There were new ward boundaries in Bridgend County Borough before the most recent elections in 2022, but all these communities were in wards won by Labour, except for Ogmore Vale (won by an Independent; here seems little threat to Labour there from Plaid Cymru (46 votes), Conservative (37) or Green (9).
Another (historic) alternative, Communist candidates, no longer figure in the Rhondda general election results, and the South Wales valleys seats no longer take pride of place in the list of the twenty safest Labour seats, as they did back in the late 1960s: by that measure Rhondda only ranked in 44th place overall in 2019, which is not even the highest in Wales – Cardiff Central is higher, a seat that both Liberal Democrats and Conservatives have won easily within living memory. The top five on the list are all in Merseyside, and almost all of the rest are either in the heart of cities or have very large non-white populations or both. As elsewhere, the economic transformation as Britain’s coal mining has disappeared has changed the political complexion to an extent, but unlike in English former coalfields in the Midlands and North this has not created a serious Conservative challenge. Even in a majority English speaking part of Wales the sporadic Nationalist successes in both devolved assembly and local council elections suggest they cannot any longer absolutely rely on victory in all circumstances. However, Labour are still by far the favourites to hold the valleys in a broad sense and the Rhondda and Ogmore (and Garw) valleys in particular
2011 Census old boundaries, ranks UK
Age 65+ 18.7% 190/650
Bad health 9.1% 1/650
Very bad health 2.5% 6/650
Owner-occupied 70.2% 211/650
Private rented 15.9% 238/650
Social rented 12.2% 485/650
White 98.1% 107/650
Black 0.4% 387/650
Asian 0.9% 553/650
Born in Wales 91.5% 1/650
No religion 45.7% 2/650
Managerial & professional 18.0%
Higher managerial, administrative and professional 3.8% 647/650
Higher professional 2.6% 649/650
Routine & Semi-routine 38.5%
Routine 19.3% 10/650
Caring, leisure and other service occupations 14.6% 1/650
Employed in construction 11.5% 10/650
Long term sick or disabled 10.7% 5/650
Professional scientific and technical activities 2.5% 649/650
Degree level 14.0 % 640/650
No qualifications 37.8% 7/650
Students 7.6% 248 /650
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 19.8% 261/575
Owner occupied 66.9% 264/575
Private rented 20.0% 206/575
Social rented 13.1% 379/575
White 97.7% 27/575
Black 0.2% 544/575
Asian 1.0% 519/575
No religion 61.3% 1/575
Managerial & professional 21.0% 547/575
Routine & Semi-routine 34.5% 15/575
Degree level 21.9% 553/575
No qualifications 28.0% 14/575
Students 5.7% 271/575
General Election 2019: Rhondda
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Chris Bryant 16,115 54.4 -9.7
Conservative Hannah Jarvis 4,675 15.8 +5.7
Plaid Cymru Branwen Cennard 4,069 13.7 –8.6
Brexit Party John Watkins 3,733 12.6 N/A
Liberal Democrats Rodney Berman 612 2.1 +1.3
Green Shaun Thomas 438 1.5 N/A
Lab Majority 11,440 38.6 –3.2
Turnout 59.0 –6.2
2019 Registered electors 50,262
Labour hold
Swing 7.7 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
The new Rhondda & Ogmore will consist of
100% of Rhondda
24.2% of Ogmore
15.4% of Pontypridd
2019 Notional results on new boundaries (Rallings and Thrasher)
When first entranced by parliamentary constituencies between 1966 and 1970, long before I was fortunate enough to visit them all, I was struck by an unusual, indeed unique feature in list of the most recent general election results. Until 1974 Rhondda was allocated two constituencies, and in Rhondda East the second place in 1966 had been taken by ... the Communist party, in the shape of Annie Powell! Admittedly, she was a very long way behind Labour, but this seemed decidedly peculiar during the Cold War. In fact she had finished second in 1964, 1959 and 1955 too, achieving around 15% of the vote in the last named two. Nor was this a pure personal vote. In Rhondda East in 1966 the Communists just came last in a close three way battle to be runners up, but still took 7.4%, which would be easily enough to save their deposit nowadays. They have never done so well since that date (though Annie Powell was still being elected as a councilor for Pen-y-Graig ward as late as 1979 and was Mayor of Rhondda that year), but clearly there is an unusual left wing tradition in these valleys. In 1945, for example, Labour had beaten the national Communist party General Secretary Harry Pollitt in Rhondda East by less than 1,000 votes – he took a share of 45.5%.
The reason for that tradition is clear. This is a true heartland of working class solidarity, and in particular, that based on the extraction of coal. Just as the constituency communities lie along the Rhondda valleys like beads on a chain, each used to be umbilically connected to one or more pits. Over 75 collieries were sunk in all, though of course these were subject to geological and economic problems leading to closure along with disasters such as the Wattstown catastrophe in 1905 and the Cambrian Colliery gas explosion in 1965 that claimed 31 lives. However, even after the Second World War there were still 18 mines open within the current boundaries of this constituency. The last one to close was at Maerdy in 1985.
Mining may be only a heritage now, but its legacy and the working class nature of this seat is still clear from its statistics. It has the highest proportion of all 650 constituencies for those describing themselves in the Census as ‘in bad health’. In 2011 it was 5th in the list for ‘long term sick and disabled’. It was in the bottom three for higher managerial and professional workers, in the bottom ten for residents with a degree and the top ten for ‘no educational qualifications’. Other figures are striking too. Mining has of course completely disappeared as a source of employment but Rhondda is now no.1 out of 650 for employment in caring, leisure and other service occupations. Perhaps oddly for a place where the Nonconformist chapel tradition was once so strong, it ranks 2nd for respondents saying they had no religion – although in fact that may actually be explicable, as it is the Protestant Nonconformist strands that have suffered most of all from decline over the past century. Finally, nowhere had a higher percentage of people born in Wales.
One might think this last finding would suggest an affinity with Plaid Cymru, the Welsh Nationalists. It is true that Plaid won the inaugural constituency election for the National Assembly for Wales in 1999, and then the Llwynypia born Leanne Wood held the seat from 2016 to 2021 as the assembly transmuted into the Senedd. However it is the Labour party that has won all the Rhondda parliamentary contests since January 1910, whether the valleys had two seats or just one, and indeed even as far back as 1885 it was won by William ’Mabon’ Abraham, who sat as a Lib-Lab before he seamlessly changed his designation to Labour in 1910. The Conservatives or Unionists have never even threatened to come close, and second place has also been taken by a motley variety: Communists as we have seen, Liberals, the SDP in 1983 and, most often, Plaid Cymru – ten times between the re-establishment of the single constituency in 1974 and 2017. Their best performance was 26% in 2015, and as well as the ‘Very Welsh’ aspect, Labour’s massive shares have also been eroded most recently by the party’s somewhat ambivalent response to the result of the Brexit referendum, when Rhondda voted by over 60% to leave. This is likely to be the main reason why Boris Johnson’s Conservatives advanced to second place, for the first time since 1979, in December 2019 with a share of nearly 16% (and the Brexit party took another 12.6%). This position seems unlikely to be repeated in a putative 2024 election.
Plaid Cymru do remain the main challengers in local government contests in Rhondda. In the most recent Rhondda Cynon Taf county borough elections in May 2022 they won a seat in Treorchy and finished second in ten other wards. In 2017 they had returned both councillors in Pentre, both in Pen-y-Graig, both in Porth and Treherbert, and topped the poll in Ystrad as well as taking all three seats in Treorchy ward. Labour’s 2022 performance indicates a substantial recovery since 2017 locally, but Plaid will probably finish second next time in the Westminster race.
Their chances of this will not be reduced by the suggested boundary changes. Rhondda will in essence survive the cull necessitated by the reduction of the representation of Wales from 40 parliamentary divisions to 32. However with a 2019 electorate of just 50,262 it will have to be expanded. The initial proposals were that Rhondda’s boundaries should be extended due southwards, to take in both wards of Tonyrefail from the Pontypridd constituency, which adds just over 9,000 electors, and four wards with nearly 12,000 in all from Ogmore: Brynna, Gilfach Goch, Llanharan and Llanharry. All of these are within the Rhondda Cynon Taf borough and simply extend the seat south from the Cymmer and Pen-y-Graig wards. In May 2022 Labour took three of the Tonyrefail council seats and Plaid Cymru one (similar in 2017).
However in the revised proposals of October 2022 the Commission sprung something of a surprise. Tonyrefail and Gilfach Goch were confirmed as additions (and indeed in the final report), but instead of the other three wards from Ogmore mentioned above, we find three wards - Penprysg, Hendre and Felindre, which in effect centred on the community of Pencoed. The oddity is that these are suspended from the south western corner of the main body of the Rhondda seat, apparently connected by nothing more than a farm track to the Gilfach Goch ward. The Commission admitted that these revisions to the initial proposals were a consequence of decisions elsewhere, notably the retention of the town of Bridgend in a single constituency. But Rhondda was left looking decidedly weird. Then in the final report (June 2023) a third different set of changes were promulgated – perhaps third time lucky.
This time, Pencoed would be returned to Bridgend, which is logical as it is really part of the built up area of that town and the highly dubious ‘farm track’ link was eliminated. Instead the whole of the Ogmore and Garw valleys to its south-west are to be paired with Rhondda, including the wards of Blackmill, Ogmore Vale and Nant-y-Moel from the former valley and Bettws, Llangeinor, Ponycymmer and Blaengarw from the latter. The result is a seat that looks much more geometrically logical, as seen on the map at least
bcomm-wales.gov.uk/reviews/06-23/2023-parliamentary-review-final-recommendations
though of course the deeply crumpled surface here is not done justice by a two dimensional map; the Garw valley, for example is, blind in the sense that there is no road out to the north through Blaengarw (noted incidentally for its extraordinary cricket ground carved out of the side of the mountain). There were new ward boundaries in Bridgend County Borough before the most recent elections in 2022, but all these communities were in wards won by Labour, except for Ogmore Vale (won by an Independent; here seems little threat to Labour there from Plaid Cymru (46 votes), Conservative (37) or Green (9).
Another (historic) alternative, Communist candidates, no longer figure in the Rhondda general election results, and the South Wales valleys seats no longer take pride of place in the list of the twenty safest Labour seats, as they did back in the late 1960s: by that measure Rhondda only ranked in 44th place overall in 2019, which is not even the highest in Wales – Cardiff Central is higher, a seat that both Liberal Democrats and Conservatives have won easily within living memory. The top five on the list are all in Merseyside, and almost all of the rest are either in the heart of cities or have very large non-white populations or both. As elsewhere, the economic transformation as Britain’s coal mining has disappeared has changed the political complexion to an extent, but unlike in English former coalfields in the Midlands and North this has not created a serious Conservative challenge. Even in a majority English speaking part of Wales the sporadic Nationalist successes in both devolved assembly and local council elections suggest they cannot any longer absolutely rely on victory in all circumstances. However, Labour are still by far the favourites to hold the valleys in a broad sense and the Rhondda and Ogmore (and Garw) valleys in particular
2011 Census old boundaries, ranks UK
Age 65+ 18.7% 190/650
Bad health 9.1% 1/650
Very bad health 2.5% 6/650
Owner-occupied 70.2% 211/650
Private rented 15.9% 238/650
Social rented 12.2% 485/650
White 98.1% 107/650
Black 0.4% 387/650
Asian 0.9% 553/650
Born in Wales 91.5% 1/650
No religion 45.7% 2/650
Managerial & professional 18.0%
Higher managerial, administrative and professional 3.8% 647/650
Higher professional 2.6% 649/650
Routine & Semi-routine 38.5%
Routine 19.3% 10/650
Caring, leisure and other service occupations 14.6% 1/650
Employed in construction 11.5% 10/650
Long term sick or disabled 10.7% 5/650
Professional scientific and technical activities 2.5% 649/650
Degree level 14.0 % 640/650
No qualifications 37.8% 7/650
Students 7.6% 248 /650
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 19.8% 261/575
Owner occupied 66.9% 264/575
Private rented 20.0% 206/575
Social rented 13.1% 379/575
White 97.7% 27/575
Black 0.2% 544/575
Asian 1.0% 519/575
No religion 61.3% 1/575
Managerial & professional 21.0% 547/575
Routine & Semi-routine 34.5% 15/575
Degree level 21.9% 553/575
No qualifications 28.0% 14/575
Students 5.7% 271/575
General Election 2019: Rhondda
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Chris Bryant 16,115 54.4 -9.7
Conservative Hannah Jarvis 4,675 15.8 +5.7
Plaid Cymru Branwen Cennard 4,069 13.7 –8.6
Brexit Party John Watkins 3,733 12.6 N/A
Liberal Democrats Rodney Berman 612 2.1 +1.3
Green Shaun Thomas 438 1.5 N/A
Lab Majority 11,440 38.6 –3.2
Turnout 59.0 –6.2
2019 Registered electors 50,262
Labour hold
Swing 7.7 Lab to C
Boundary Changes
The new Rhondda & Ogmore will consist of
100% of Rhondda
24.2% of Ogmore
15.4% of Pontypridd
2019 Notional results on new boundaries (Rallings and Thrasher)
| Lab | 23949 | 56.3% |
| Con | 6572 | 15.5% |
| Plaid Cymru | 5290 | 12.4% |
| Brexit | 4902 | 11.5% |
| Lib Dem | 969 | 2.3% |
| Green | 590 | 1.4% |
| Oth | 277 | 0.7% |
| Majority | 17377 | 40.8% |
