2 -1. No not a football result but the margin of victory of Plaid in Rhydyfro last night. I predicted a turnout of around 100 (pathetic!) and sadly was right.
Bob Williams was elected as town councillor for Rhydyfro which was a fantastic moment, stealing Labour's seat.
Unfortunately it came at a cost. The Labour candidate is more capable and committed than many others in her party and I have genuine affection for her and her family. It soured the victory slightly as I don't know why she doesn't have a seat.
But people are funny creatures of habit.
What many don't see is how much effort we as a group put into such elections. For something as "lowly" as a community council election we managed to get out on our campaign over the last 3 weeks 2 Assembly Members, at least two County Councillors, a former County Councillor (ok ok he was the candidate) and a Member of the European Parliament!!!
Not bad at all!
On that basis Bob deserved to win making Rhydyfro now a hotbed of Plad activism.
I still feel it's sad that the Labour candidate isn't on the Town Council where there appears to be a mini revolution taking place. Or at least potentially about to occur. As she said in her campaign leaflet - "it's a time for change!". And Plaid are providing that desired change!
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Striking win.
And it's "by-election" btw, not "bi-election", which reminded me of the Ron Davies "bi-curious" phrase.
;)
Calm down lads! Obviously congrats to Bob on his good win - but a 63 - 39 vote victory hardly hearalds the dawn of a nationalist revolution in Pontardawe.
A fiver (but no more) that Plaid will loose its NPT seat next year in Pont next year - not because of the performance of the current incumbent (who I like and who I belive really wants to make a difference) but because that's the way the politcal pendulum will once again swing.
Shwmae Ponty - have tried to find this info on the NPT website but am obviously too thick to work it out, so perhaps you could tell me how the community councillors, as opposed to county councillors, fit in to the make up of NPT?
Diolch.
Community Council or Town Council wards are sub-divisions of County Council wards.
The County Council, in this case Neath Port Talbot, devolve a number of limited powers to town councils in its area. Town councillors are seperately elected from County Councillors.
The Pontardawe County Council Ward retuns 2 councillors to NPT. A few years ago both were Labour, then Plaid capture both seats but at the last election Labour took one back. The next election is in 2008.
JP - thanks!
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