2016: Opportunities and Challenges for Plaid: Party of Wales and Government of Wales

Writing for the Cambria Nostra blog, Penarth National Assembly candidate and National Chair of Plaid Cymru, Dafydd Trystan Davies, looks at what the result of the UK General Election means for the party and for the nation...

Dr Dafydd Trystan Davies

"As the dust settles on the 2015 General Election and parties start to move beyond the shock of the election of a Conservative majority Government committed to imposing further cuts and renewed austerity, the time has come to look forward to the pivotal National Assembly elections in 2016.

The 2015 election throws up challenges and opportunities for all parties but in Plaid’s case the scales are very much tilted towards the opportunities as we look towards 2016. Let us consider for a moment the parties in Wales. Labour, having secured one of their worst General Election results in many years, face a protracted period of soul searching and renewed internal battles between centre left and the right. For the Tories in Wales, the further damaging cuts being imposed by a Westminster Tory Government is not a good backdrop for a mid-term election campaign. And if things are bad for Labour (and potentially also for the Tories), adjectives cannot properly convey the crisis facing the dying embers of the Liberal Democrats. UKIP are in a somewhat different position having made some progress in terms of votes but they did not make any breakthroughs. They clearly benefitted from protest votes and an anti-politics mood but those voters may well be ready for something more substantial in 2016."

(continue reading this article at Cambria Nostra)