Post by Robert Waller on Feb 1, 2024 0:40:55 GMT
The coastal mid Wales county known as Ceredigion in Welsh, and Cardiganshire in English, has a long and interesting electoral history. It has been electing members of the House of Commons since 1536, but until 1885 there were two MPs. One represented a non-contiguous collection of small boroughs - Cardigan, Aberystwyth, Lampeter and Adpar (in effect a ‘rotten borough’ which was never more than a village on the river Teifi and is now part of Newcastle Emlyn). The other covered the rest of the county. From the unification of the two seats in 1885 to 1983 there were no boundary changes as the division was identical to the county. Then Cardiganshire was paired with the northern part of Pembrokeshire for 14 years in the shape of Ceredigion & Pembroke North, but despite the continued over-representation of Wales, especially its rural parts, it was returned to be a separate constituency on its own, Ceredigion, for the 1997 to 2019 elections inclusive. Now, in the 2023 boundary reviews, Welsh seats have finally been reduced to the same size as those elsewhere in the UK, and the link with the north of Pembrokeshire has been restored.
Ceredigion Preseli was drawn to consist of all 40 electoral divisions of Ceredigion county local authority – they are small in electorate with the largest being the 2,084 voters of Aberystwyth Penparcau, the only one above 2,000 – and 13 only slightly more populous divisions of Preseli Pembrokeshire: essentially the Fishguard/Goodwick built up area, the rural area just south of that around Letterston, and to the east the Preseli hills (Mynydd Preseli), so that most of the added area is within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, including its substantial inland, upland, portion. The Ceredigion section has just over 56,000 electors in all, and the Preseli part adds another 17,900. The boundary changes have a political effect. As far as the notional results for 2019 are concerned, because the Preseli Pembrokeshire constituency had a very different competitive pattern, with the Conservatives first, Labour second, and both Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats in effect nowhere, with 6.5% and 4.5% respectively. This means that while the Nationalist party had won Ceredigion comfortably in 2019, their notional majority in the new seat is reduced to a vulnerable looking 1,443 over the Tories, while the Lib Dems drop from third place to fourth.
This is in all probability misleading, however, for two reasons. The first is that notionals cannot take into account incumbency or the fact that voters adjust according to the existing situation. There was less point in voting for Plaid Cymru in a Conservative-Labour contest like Preseli Pembrokeshire and many may well have taken a tactical option, so that the low score there will not be totally relevant to a situation where Plaid’s Ben Lake is the incumbent. Secondly the Tories have slumped dramatically in the opinion polls in Wales as in the rest of Britain. Plaid Cymru will therefore start as favourites in Ceredigion Preseli. However history tells us not to rule anything out in this neck of the woods.
This individualistic part of west Wales has produced some rather unexpected developments at general elections. From 1885 to 1966 it sent no one to the Commons but Liberals (of various types, including Coalition Liberals (1918, 1921 byelection) and an Independent Liberal in 1923. However Elystan Morgan gained the seat for Labour in 1966 and held it in 1970, before managing to lose it back to the Liberal Geraint Howells in February 1974 when Labour were returning to power at Westminster. Then one of the most dramatic, and, to outsiders at least, surprising, results anywhere in the United Kingdom in 1992 occurred in the constituency of Ceredigion and Pembroke North. The apparently well-established Liberal Democrat MP Geraint Howells, who had held the seat and its predecessor Cardigan since 1974, was ousted as his vote fell by over 11%. However, he was not overtaken by the Conservatives, who had finished second in 1987, or even by Labour, who had been third. Instead, leaping from fourth place to first, the victor was the Plaid Cymru candidate Cynog Dafis. The Nationalists almost doubled their share of the vote, from 16% to 31%.
In 1997, Dafis strengthened his position further, increasing his share to 41%, and securing a majority of nigh on 7,000 votes over Labour, who advanced into second place. Then in 2001 the position changed again, as the Liberal Democrats bounced back up by about 10% to retake second, at least, while Labour dropped a similar amount and into fourth and last. The explanation for this last change is easier than some: it was merely confirming the order established in the by-election held in February 2000, when Cynog Dafis rather nobly gave up his Westminster seat (unlike any of his colleagues in Scotland or Wales) on election to a devolved body in 1999. He was succeeded by Simon Thomas. In the 2005 general election however, Thomas was himself ousted, by just 219 votes, by the Liberal Democrat Mark Williams. Williams even survived the cull of the ex-coalition LDs in their disastrous 2015 election, and that by a margin of over 3,000. But two years later, in 2017, in another very close change of hands, the 24 year old Nationalist Ben Lake beat Mark Williams with a majority of just 104. In December 2019 Lake increased his lead to well over 6,000, and the Lib Dems dropped to third behind the Conservatives.
This always was one of the strongest Welsh-speaking parts of Celtic rural west Wales. Overall in Ceredigion over 56% reported that they have Welsh language skills in the 2021 census. Only in Aberystwyth have a majority of the population no such skills at MSOA level; drilling down to the smaller OA (Output Area) level mainly English speaking areas include the university part of the small town of Lampeter, and the Cardigan Bay coast around Aberaeron and New Quay (though not in New Quay itself). Ceredigion has its districts of hill farms and little Welsh-speaking towns like Tregaron and Newcastle Emlyn. It boasts wild moors and one of the largest bogs in Britain (Cors Caron near Tregaron), remote medieval abbeys like Strata Florida and castles like Cardigan and Dinerth, and Cilgerran in the seat but just over the Pembrokeshire border. In the days when the MOSAIC categorisation was fashionable It ranked as the seat with the highest proportion of residents living in Census enumeration districts classified as rural under, very nearly 70%.
Though Pembrokeshire as a whole has been called ‘Little England Beyond Wales’, that applies much more to the south of the county, and the part now added to Ceredigion also has a majority with Welsh language abilities: although only 47% in Fishguard and Goodwick MSOA, that figure is over 59% in Cilgerran & Crymych between Fishguard and Cardigan and over 60% inland in Crundale, Clynderwen & Maenclochog MSOA.
As well as the tourism, the Rosslare ferry base in Fishguard Harbour, and the agriculture, this is a seat influenced in employment and activity by higher education. There are two universities, a large one at Aberystwyth and a much smaller one at Lampeter, and across Ceredigion over 13% are in full time studies, with 68% in central Lampeter and 55% in Aberystwyth North at MSOA level. It might be expected that as a result Aberystwyth would not be one of the stronger Plaid Cymru parts of the constituency, but that is not borne out by local election evidence. In the most recent Ceredigion council elections, in May 2022, the Nationalists to all five available council seats in Aberystwyth. It has to be said that municipal elections are not the best indicator of internal preferences in this seat.
Although Plaid Cymru won 20 of the 38 available spots in 2022 (on brand new ward boundaries) and hence retained control of the council, there were still 9 Independents elected, along with 7 Liberal Democrats and one each for Labour and Gwlad. The Independent strength is hard to place in Westminster terms. It may, though, still be worth identifying that the Lib Dems were strongest in the Aberystwyth hinterland, winning in Faenor immediately to the east of that town, Llanfarian to its south and Tirymynach to its north and north east. The other concentration of LD victories was in the south of that authority around Cardigan, winning Teifi which covers the heart of that town and Mwldan immediately to its north. Labour’s solitary victory was in Lampeter, where Hag Harris was unopposed, as he had been in 2017. He was a well know local character who ran a record store; but he died suddenly later that same May,
www.cambrian-news.co.uk/news/shock-following-death-of-popular-lampeter-councillor-hag-harris-549122
and Labour only finished third in the consequent byelection on 6 October 2022, won by Plaid Cymru with the Lib Dem in second place, so they have been expunged from the council. In other byelections, in 2023 the Lib Dems held Llanfarian and PC held Aberystwyth Penparcau. Finally, a word for Gwlad, a party for full Welsh independence, who have not done very well since their foundation in 2018, but their leader Gwyn Wigley Evans did win his home division of Llanrhystyd half way between Aberystwyth and Aberaeron in May 2022 with 39.8% of the vote. He was the only Gwlad candidate in Ceredigion, though.
In the Pembrokeshire county council divisions now included in this constituency, also slightly reduced in number due to re-warding before the May 2022 elections, the picture is even more clouded by Independent victories, as they won every division (some unopposed) except for two. Both of these – Fishguard North East and Goodwick - were taken by Labour that year, and both were gains since 2017. The Independent councillor for Fishguard NW was also originally elected as Labour, too, but that was back in 2012. The Lib Dems had won Dinas Cross in 2017 but did not even contest the larger Newport & Dinas ward in 2022. Such are the complexities of local council politics, and its capacity to offer guidance on national contests is limited.
In the 2021 Senedd elections Plaid Cymru had retained Ceredigion very comfortably, with 55% of the vote, compared with 15.6% for the Tories 10.9% for Labour and 10.5% for the Lib Dems. The Conservatives held Preseli Pembrokeshire at the same time with a majority of just 1,400 over Labour. As in the 2019 general election, the LDs performed very weakly, with just 3%, but Plaid Cymru did a lot better in these elections for the Welsh legislature, achieving a 19.5% share.
This may be a clue to the likely outcome of the 2024 general election in Ceredigion Preseli. With a potential Plaid Cymru vote that can be mobilised in the right circumstances (that is - a decent chance of victory) in the Preseli part of the new seat, the Conservative decline, and Ben Lake’s incumbency in an area where personal votes clearly count for more than they do in most parts of the United Kingdom, it is the Nationalists who should start as favourites, However Labour may well leap from an actual fourth place in Ceredigion and a notional third in Ceredigion Preseli into second place – and looking at that history, surprises at any time in the future cannot be ruled out.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 26.6% 46/575
Owner occupied 70.2% 174/575
Private rented 19.4% 239/575
Social rented 10.4% 503/575
White 96.7% 94/575
Black 0.4% 460/575
Asian 1.4% 478/575
Managerial & professional 29.4% 376/575
Routine & Semi-routine 20.7% 396/575
Degree level 35.1% 202/575
No qualifications 15.4% 406/575
Students 11.2% 74/575
General Election 2019: Ceredigion
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Plaid Cymru Ben Lake 15,208 37.9 +8.7
Conservative Amanda Jenner 8,879 22.1 +3.7
Liberal Democrats Mark Williams 6,975 17.4 −11.6
Labour Dinah Mulholland 6,317 15.8 −4.4
Brexit Party Gethin James 2,063 5.1
Green Chris Simpson 663 1.7 +0.3
PC Majority 6,329 15.8 +15.6
Turnout 40,105 71.3 −3.9
Registered electors 56,250
Plaid Cymru hold
Swing 2.5 C to PC
Swing 10.1 LD to PC
Boundary Changes
Ceredigion Preseli consists of
100% of Ceredigion
30.1% of Preseli Pembrokeshire
Map
bcomm-wales.gov.uk/reviews/06-23/2023-parliamentary-review-final-recommendations
2019 Notional results on new boundaries (Rallings and Thrasher)
Ceredigion Preseli was drawn to consist of all 40 electoral divisions of Ceredigion county local authority – they are small in electorate with the largest being the 2,084 voters of Aberystwyth Penparcau, the only one above 2,000 – and 13 only slightly more populous divisions of Preseli Pembrokeshire: essentially the Fishguard/Goodwick built up area, the rural area just south of that around Letterston, and to the east the Preseli hills (Mynydd Preseli), so that most of the added area is within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, including its substantial inland, upland, portion. The Ceredigion section has just over 56,000 electors in all, and the Preseli part adds another 17,900. The boundary changes have a political effect. As far as the notional results for 2019 are concerned, because the Preseli Pembrokeshire constituency had a very different competitive pattern, with the Conservatives first, Labour second, and both Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats in effect nowhere, with 6.5% and 4.5% respectively. This means that while the Nationalist party had won Ceredigion comfortably in 2019, their notional majority in the new seat is reduced to a vulnerable looking 1,443 over the Tories, while the Lib Dems drop from third place to fourth.
This is in all probability misleading, however, for two reasons. The first is that notionals cannot take into account incumbency or the fact that voters adjust according to the existing situation. There was less point in voting for Plaid Cymru in a Conservative-Labour contest like Preseli Pembrokeshire and many may well have taken a tactical option, so that the low score there will not be totally relevant to a situation where Plaid’s Ben Lake is the incumbent. Secondly the Tories have slumped dramatically in the opinion polls in Wales as in the rest of Britain. Plaid Cymru will therefore start as favourites in Ceredigion Preseli. However history tells us not to rule anything out in this neck of the woods.
This individualistic part of west Wales has produced some rather unexpected developments at general elections. From 1885 to 1966 it sent no one to the Commons but Liberals (of various types, including Coalition Liberals (1918, 1921 byelection) and an Independent Liberal in 1923. However Elystan Morgan gained the seat for Labour in 1966 and held it in 1970, before managing to lose it back to the Liberal Geraint Howells in February 1974 when Labour were returning to power at Westminster. Then one of the most dramatic, and, to outsiders at least, surprising, results anywhere in the United Kingdom in 1992 occurred in the constituency of Ceredigion and Pembroke North. The apparently well-established Liberal Democrat MP Geraint Howells, who had held the seat and its predecessor Cardigan since 1974, was ousted as his vote fell by over 11%. However, he was not overtaken by the Conservatives, who had finished second in 1987, or even by Labour, who had been third. Instead, leaping from fourth place to first, the victor was the Plaid Cymru candidate Cynog Dafis. The Nationalists almost doubled their share of the vote, from 16% to 31%.
In 1997, Dafis strengthened his position further, increasing his share to 41%, and securing a majority of nigh on 7,000 votes over Labour, who advanced into second place. Then in 2001 the position changed again, as the Liberal Democrats bounced back up by about 10% to retake second, at least, while Labour dropped a similar amount and into fourth and last. The explanation for this last change is easier than some: it was merely confirming the order established in the by-election held in February 2000, when Cynog Dafis rather nobly gave up his Westminster seat (unlike any of his colleagues in Scotland or Wales) on election to a devolved body in 1999. He was succeeded by Simon Thomas. In the 2005 general election however, Thomas was himself ousted, by just 219 votes, by the Liberal Democrat Mark Williams. Williams even survived the cull of the ex-coalition LDs in their disastrous 2015 election, and that by a margin of over 3,000. But two years later, in 2017, in another very close change of hands, the 24 year old Nationalist Ben Lake beat Mark Williams with a majority of just 104. In December 2019 Lake increased his lead to well over 6,000, and the Lib Dems dropped to third behind the Conservatives.
This always was one of the strongest Welsh-speaking parts of Celtic rural west Wales. Overall in Ceredigion over 56% reported that they have Welsh language skills in the 2021 census. Only in Aberystwyth have a majority of the population no such skills at MSOA level; drilling down to the smaller OA (Output Area) level mainly English speaking areas include the university part of the small town of Lampeter, and the Cardigan Bay coast around Aberaeron and New Quay (though not in New Quay itself). Ceredigion has its districts of hill farms and little Welsh-speaking towns like Tregaron and Newcastle Emlyn. It boasts wild moors and one of the largest bogs in Britain (Cors Caron near Tregaron), remote medieval abbeys like Strata Florida and castles like Cardigan and Dinerth, and Cilgerran in the seat but just over the Pembrokeshire border. In the days when the MOSAIC categorisation was fashionable It ranked as the seat with the highest proportion of residents living in Census enumeration districts classified as rural under, very nearly 70%.
Though Pembrokeshire as a whole has been called ‘Little England Beyond Wales’, that applies much more to the south of the county, and the part now added to Ceredigion also has a majority with Welsh language abilities: although only 47% in Fishguard and Goodwick MSOA, that figure is over 59% in Cilgerran & Crymych between Fishguard and Cardigan and over 60% inland in Crundale, Clynderwen & Maenclochog MSOA.
As well as the tourism, the Rosslare ferry base in Fishguard Harbour, and the agriculture, this is a seat influenced in employment and activity by higher education. There are two universities, a large one at Aberystwyth and a much smaller one at Lampeter, and across Ceredigion over 13% are in full time studies, with 68% in central Lampeter and 55% in Aberystwyth North at MSOA level. It might be expected that as a result Aberystwyth would not be one of the stronger Plaid Cymru parts of the constituency, but that is not borne out by local election evidence. In the most recent Ceredigion council elections, in May 2022, the Nationalists to all five available council seats in Aberystwyth. It has to be said that municipal elections are not the best indicator of internal preferences in this seat.
Although Plaid Cymru won 20 of the 38 available spots in 2022 (on brand new ward boundaries) and hence retained control of the council, there were still 9 Independents elected, along with 7 Liberal Democrats and one each for Labour and Gwlad. The Independent strength is hard to place in Westminster terms. It may, though, still be worth identifying that the Lib Dems were strongest in the Aberystwyth hinterland, winning in Faenor immediately to the east of that town, Llanfarian to its south and Tirymynach to its north and north east. The other concentration of LD victories was in the south of that authority around Cardigan, winning Teifi which covers the heart of that town and Mwldan immediately to its north. Labour’s solitary victory was in Lampeter, where Hag Harris was unopposed, as he had been in 2017. He was a well know local character who ran a record store; but he died suddenly later that same May,
www.cambrian-news.co.uk/news/shock-following-death-of-popular-lampeter-councillor-hag-harris-549122
and Labour only finished third in the consequent byelection on 6 October 2022, won by Plaid Cymru with the Lib Dem in second place, so they have been expunged from the council. In other byelections, in 2023 the Lib Dems held Llanfarian and PC held Aberystwyth Penparcau. Finally, a word for Gwlad, a party for full Welsh independence, who have not done very well since their foundation in 2018, but their leader Gwyn Wigley Evans did win his home division of Llanrhystyd half way between Aberystwyth and Aberaeron in May 2022 with 39.8% of the vote. He was the only Gwlad candidate in Ceredigion, though.
In the Pembrokeshire county council divisions now included in this constituency, also slightly reduced in number due to re-warding before the May 2022 elections, the picture is even more clouded by Independent victories, as they won every division (some unopposed) except for two. Both of these – Fishguard North East and Goodwick - were taken by Labour that year, and both were gains since 2017. The Independent councillor for Fishguard NW was also originally elected as Labour, too, but that was back in 2012. The Lib Dems had won Dinas Cross in 2017 but did not even contest the larger Newport & Dinas ward in 2022. Such are the complexities of local council politics, and its capacity to offer guidance on national contests is limited.
In the 2021 Senedd elections Plaid Cymru had retained Ceredigion very comfortably, with 55% of the vote, compared with 15.6% for the Tories 10.9% for Labour and 10.5% for the Lib Dems. The Conservatives held Preseli Pembrokeshire at the same time with a majority of just 1,400 over Labour. As in the 2019 general election, the LDs performed very weakly, with just 3%, but Plaid Cymru did a lot better in these elections for the Welsh legislature, achieving a 19.5% share.
This may be a clue to the likely outcome of the 2024 general election in Ceredigion Preseli. With a potential Plaid Cymru vote that can be mobilised in the right circumstances (that is - a decent chance of victory) in the Preseli part of the new seat, the Conservative decline, and Ben Lake’s incumbency in an area where personal votes clearly count for more than they do in most parts of the United Kingdom, it is the Nationalists who should start as favourites, However Labour may well leap from an actual fourth place in Ceredigion and a notional third in Ceredigion Preseli into second place – and looking at that history, surprises at any time in the future cannot be ruled out.
2021 Census, new boundaries
Age 65+ 26.6% 46/575
Owner occupied 70.2% 174/575
Private rented 19.4% 239/575
Social rented 10.4% 503/575
White 96.7% 94/575
Black 0.4% 460/575
Asian 1.4% 478/575
Managerial & professional 29.4% 376/575
Routine & Semi-routine 20.7% 396/575
Degree level 35.1% 202/575
No qualifications 15.4% 406/575
Students 11.2% 74/575
General Election 2019: Ceredigion
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Plaid Cymru Ben Lake 15,208 37.9 +8.7
Conservative Amanda Jenner 8,879 22.1 +3.7
Liberal Democrats Mark Williams 6,975 17.4 −11.6
Labour Dinah Mulholland 6,317 15.8 −4.4
Brexit Party Gethin James 2,063 5.1
Green Chris Simpson 663 1.7 +0.3
PC Majority 6,329 15.8 +15.6
Turnout 40,105 71.3 −3.9
Registered electors 56,250
Plaid Cymru hold
Swing 2.5 C to PC
Swing 10.1 LD to PC
Boundary Changes
Ceredigion Preseli consists of
100% of Ceredigion
30.1% of Preseli Pembrokeshire
Map
bcomm-wales.gov.uk/reviews/06-23/2023-parliamentary-review-final-recommendations
2019 Notional results on new boundaries (Rallings and Thrasher)
| Plaid Cymru | 16045 | 31.1% |
| Con | 14602 | 28.3% |
| Lab | 10733 | 20.8% |
| Lib Dem | 7561 | 14.6% |
| Brexit | 2063 | 4.0% |
| Green | 663 | 1.3% |
| Majority | 1443 | 2.8% |
