Election Leaflet Update 2026

I have been tallying up the leaflets that have come through my door at election time since 2007 and have just updated my graph to reflect the campaigns of the various parties for the Senedd election in 2026. We had a record number of leaflets through the door this time, and the Green Party now holds the record for sheer volume of leaflets, topping the previous high point held by the Labour party in the first election when Jeremy Corbyn was leader. 

So with no further ado, here's the graph:

The overall trend is up, with four parties distributing five or more leaflets. Admittedly, the Plaid Cymru figure this time is slightly skewed because on occasions when I posted leaflets in my street I skipped posting one through my own letterbox. But even if those were counted, the total number of leaflets we would have received would only have been 8, less than half the total we received from the Green Party. 

I haven't spoken to anyone who thought the Green Party didn't send them enough leaflets and I do wonder if the incessant leafleting backfired on them a bit. In fairness, their first leaflet landed on our doormat in November 2025 and then we had a Happy New Year leaflet in January as well. But the trickle became a flood in the last few weeks of the campaign. 

Getting so many leaflets didn't feel very "green" in the environmental sense. It also didn't escape my notice that almost all the leaflets were printed in Essex. I hope the party offset their carbon footprint for all the road miles. In contrast, all the Plaid Cymru leaflets we distributed in our constituency were printed by a printer in Splott (if we used a commercial printer). 

It is mildly amusing that with so many battles now fought online between bots and keyboard warriors, we are seeing such growth in analog paper leaflets. I'm just sad that this year I didn't have time to do a pre-election round-up. I was too busy with campaigning (ironically, giving out leaflets myself!) to do a full dissection as I have in years past, especially as we had so many!

You can read all my previous election leaflet round ups here.

My February 2026 round-up

February is always a short month and this year it felt really short. The big highlights were a weekend in Malaga with my friend Jim and a bucket list gig in Bristol. But lots more happened too, like going on a pancake day date with Cathy and fielding a new team in my monthly Blood Bowl battle with Bryan. 

On the blog, my second Book of the Month in 2026 was also a second science fiction book of the year. My album of the month was a heavy metal band from Mongolia.

In other news I made it to February's community litter pick organised by Keep Grangetown Tidy. 

Fiona, the organiser of KGT, took a sneaky pic of me and my friend Neil extricating rubbish from one of the big hedges! So here we are in action:

It was a big month in politics generally. I was pleased to see the Green Party win a by-election in England. I'd talked about it with Jim quite a lot in Malaga - he had been part of the campaign. More close to home, the Plaid Cymru conference at the end of the month went really well. I missed out on going as I had other commitments but it seemed like everyone else I know went and had a great time. 

The campaigning has continued in Grangetown.

I enjoy my early morning sessions leafleting at railway stations, and sometimes I indulge myself taking pictures of trains. I liked this juxtaposition of old and new rolling stock at Eastbrook.

And at Dinas Powys I spotted this train named after Gavin and Stacey!

I made it to three football matches in February. I've already posted a full write up of the game I watched in Malaga. My two other games were a disappointing home defeat for Barry and a great home win for Cardiff Dracs. I watched the latter with Scott and Nick and made them smile for a selfie!

 Time marches on... into March.

Election reflection

Last Thursday was election day in the Cardiff Council by-election in my ward. 

Obligatory voting day selfie

I couldn't get to sleep on election night and kept checking the WhatsApp group set up for us canvassers. A little after midnight the provisional vote counts came in and they were confirmed shortly afterwards with an image of the results.

The Green Party won the seat by 44 votes. Labour came second. Plaid Cymru were the third placed party. Worries that split voting among those three parties would let Reform win proved unfounded. They placed fourth with only 13% of the vote. 

I felt sad for Neil, the Plaid Cymru candidate. He worked really hard campaigning. One of the first things he told me was that he wanted to run a positive campaign and focus on the issues not just complain about other parties - and our campaign was positive. I feel we asked people to vote for us because of what we promised, not just because we were "not Labour". 

Our campaign was in marked contrast to the Greens campaign, but I do wonder whether they can convert one time protest voters who wanted to "punish Labour" (like a Green leaflet said) into repeat voters. Personally, as a former floating voter, I don't think protest voters stick, and previous anti-Labour protest votes in Grangetown evaporated when Senedd or Westminster elections came round.

Even if it does turn out to be a one off, it was quite the result for the Greens - their first ever Cardiff Council seat and their first by-election win in Wales. I met the new Green councillor on Saturday morning and he told me it hadn't really sunk in yet.

And now some statting... Turnout was only marginally over 26% of the electorate, meaning only a quarter of people who could vote bothered to vote. From the time I spent canvassing I suspect a reasonable percentage of people were away on holiday on election day and possibly hadn't bothered to sort a postal or proxy vote. This election was held on relatively short notice and certainly wasn't in anyone's plans when they were booking their summer holidays. Turnout was 35% in the 2022 council election, which rather spoils the comparisons of vote share, however, I will give it a go...

In 2022, all four Labour candidates were elected with over 50% of the vote. In this by-election the Labour vote dropped by about half. In 2022, Plaid Cymru and the Greens campaigned together in the "Common Ground" alliance and came second with about 26% of the vote. The former Labour votes presumably went mainly to the Greens and Plaid Cymru this time round, as their combined share of the vote was about what Common Ground got last time plus the missing Labour vote. 

Meanwhile, it looks like Reform took a good chunk of their votes from the Tories. Propel, another pro-independence party, scored about 10%. The Tories and Liberal Democrats finished bottom of the heap. We didn't see a single leaflet from the Liberal Democrats and it really feels like they are completely finished as a force in Cardiff now. Strange to think the Lib Dems held all the council seats for Grangetown as recently as 2012. 

On a personal note, I enjoyed getting stuck in to my first active electoral campaign since going "Big P" political. Canvassing was more fun than I expected. I was a bit out of my comfort zone at first, but many people wanted to chat about what they thought the key issues were to a stranger who knocked on their door. I have developed an intense dislike for Ring doorbells though - both the chime, and the mild paranoid feeling that people are looking through the camera and deciding not to open the door. 

Certain conversations will stick with me -  chatting to the people smoking outside the Cornwall pub (who we had heard chanting "Starmer's a wanker" at Labour canvassers a few minutes previously), the lady who immediately left her house to go and vote when I knocked on her door on election day, the woman who told me Labour had "mesmerised" her ethnic community and she kept telling all her friends to vote Plaid Cymru instead. Only one guy told me the biggest issue that needed to be fixed was to "stop the boats". He didn't tell me who he was going to vote for, but I felt pretty confident I could guess. 

It's a good thing I enjoyed canvassing. There is another council by-election coming up over in East Cardiff and it's likely there will be a Senedd by-election in Caerphilly in early November, after the tragic death of the sitting Senedd member there. And then we have the full Senedd election next year, then the next full council election is due in 2027, and then some time in 2028 or 2029 we will get a general election. 

And that's if everything goes to plan, but politics has been volatile in the past 15 years, so it would be a foolhardy to bet on the future election schedule not changing! 

Election Day! (Cardiff Council by-election)

It's election day in the council by-election. Three late pieces of literature arrived yesterday. This included a fourth leaflet from Plaid Cymru - the only one I haven't been out delivering myself. 

A Labour postcard arrived with the post. It's monolingual. Honestly, I quite liked the minimalist approach on one side. 

The other side shows the Labour candidate in Blaenclydach Street, which is where he lived as a child.  

The other leaflet we received was from the Green Party - a big double A4 spread. Cathy said they are trying to use up all the trees.

I have looked at the picture on the front several times and I can't decide if it's real or whether the crowd behind are photoshopped. I recognise the candidate but I don't know who the other people are.

It's a hung jury in our house about the next picture. I thought it was quite effective in trying to get across a message that people are planning to vote Green. Cathy thought it was "filler".

In a conversation online, a Green Party member told me that several Liberal Democrats joined the Greens after the Lib Dems entered their disastrous coalition with the Tories in 2010. That was their explanation for why so many Lib Dem tactics from 15 years ago are reappearing in Green campaign literature now. Like dodgy graphs. 

I would question whether putting another party in the lead on your election literature is a good thing. The Tories did something similar back in 2017 when they compared Jeremy Corbyn's chances to other "unlikely victories" like the Brexit Leave vote and Trump's first win. And of course, Corbyn forced a hung parliament in a much closer contest than most commentators expected.

We will find out whether it makes a difference tonight! 

Council by-election leaflet review

Since 2007, I've been reviewing election leaflets on this blog (there's a list on this page) but this year is the first time I've had 'skin in the game' because I've been out delivering some of them! (ICYMI, I joined Plaid Cymru last month!)

We are having a by-election because one of our four Labour councillors resigned recently. (Probably because of events covered in this rather unpleasant news story that doesn't paint the Cardiff Labour Party in a nice light, and I can understand why she left.) The councillor who resigned is someone I've talked to about problems with a local park being closed, and, on a personal level, I thought she was a good councillor. But she's left a party I feel has been failing Cardiff as a city for a while now. 

And the result is this by-election. So, with just a couple of days left before polling day, here is a run-down and review of the electoral campaign leaflets that I've seen. Looking back at the council election in 2022 and the General Election last year, I didn't do my usual thing of awarding and deducting points. So, I don't feel too hypocritical not doing it this year either. (Obviously, this year, I think everyone should vote for Plaid Cymru.)

I should also point out that not all these leaflets have come through our letterbox. I have been given some of them by other people. It's been fun being in the canvassing WhatsApp group and seeing people sharing different leaflets they have received - usually new ones ended up coming through our door too, so it was a bit spoilery. But that's fine. 

I'm going to assess the leaflets on whether they are bilingual, their 'photo effort' and also the number of dragons or other Welsh symbols that appear on leaflets. The dragon quotient (DQ) is important. I enjoy seeing graphs and 'race' or 'winning' diagrams so will mention them too. I'm also going to sum up their overall message.

I'm going to do this in rough order the leaflets arrived, and first off the mark were Labour. They may have had the advantage because they knew their councillor was resigning, and as they run the council they had some sway over when the election was set. Their 'Grangetown Labour News' and a generic leaflet actually arrived before I knew there was a by-election.

Party: Labour / Llafur

Number of leaflets: 3 (candidate leaflet, Grangetown Labour News, generic Welsh Labour "Delivering for you" leaflet)

Candidate: Khuram Chowdhry (only features on one leaflet)

Photo effort: 1 of Khuram by Grange Gardens; a group shot of Khuram with Labour canvassers. Grangetown Labour News had head shots of the three incumbent Labour councillors who haven't resigned. The generic leaflet had five photos of Eluned Morgan, the First Minister on it. There were also some stock photos and the artist's rendering of what the new Channel View Development will look like, if it's ever finished. It seems to have been stuck in a half-built stage for months. 

Cymraeg: Yes, all 3 leaflets. 

Dragon Quotient: 1, an arty one on Khuram's candidate leaflet

Graphs: none

Overall message: Labour and Khuram say they know what the problems are - parking, litter, antisocial behaviour etc. And they have plans in place to fix it. Although, as they are the party that runs the council, it seems fair to ask why they haven't already put those plans into action and fixed it. There was a nice nod to the community litter-picking group in the newsletter. On the candidate leaflet, Khuram lists a load of things he would like to see happen - things like "protecting our parks and green spaces", when the Labour Council has approved plans to build on a chunk of The Marl, one of Grangetown's few parks. It does feel like all the things he wants to do would put him in direct opposition to most of his fellow Labour councillors. 

Party: Propel

Number of leaflets: 2 (both candidate leaflets)

Candidate: Vincent Yewlett (local guy who runs a business on Clare Road)

Photo effort: 1 candidate photo used on both leaflets, of Vincent stood on Clare Road, 2 different photos of Vincent and Propel party leader, Neil McAvoy, looking at 'problems' - the overgrown river bank and some rubbish strewn streets. Vincent is wearing a Wales retro football top in those photos. 

Cymraeg: both leaflets were bilingual

Dragon Quotient: Propel have a dragon in the logo and Vincent had a dragon on his football shirt in two of the photos, so that's a total of 4 across the leaflets. 

Graphs: none

Overall message: Vincent goes hard on his local status and claims to be the only candidate "walking the streets" of Grangetown. Propel are the "new Welsh alternative", apparently. 

Party: Plaid Cymru

Number of leaflets: 3 (2 candidate leaflets and 1 generic leaflet about how Plaid Cymru will fix NHS waiting lists)

Candidate: Neil Roberts

Photo from delivering the leaflets

Photo effort: 2 different head shots of Neil and a group photo with canvassers next to the bandstand in Grange Gardens. A couple of photos of problems - fly-tipping and a new development that is blocking out light for residents. The NHS leaflet is all stock photos. 

Cymraeg: wrth gwrs!

Dragon Quotient: Plaid Cymru use a daffodil in their logo and it features as an embellishment four times besides the logos. No dragons, though. 

Graphs: 1, showing the recent YouGov national poll that shows Plaid ahead generally in Wales.

Overall message: Neil offers a change from Labour and promises to challenge the Labour run council as "a fresh voice for Grangetown". He also wants to celebrate the diverse communities in Grangetown and challenge divisive rhetoric, with a direct reference to dogwhistle terms used by the Labour Prime Minister recently. Having talked to him, I know Neil wanted to run a positive campaign focusing on his ideas for improving life in the community rather than criticising other parties - a different approach than most of the other leaflets we received.

Party: Green Party

Number of leaflets: 5 (3 candidate leaflets and 2 attack pieces aimed at Labour)

Candidate: Matt Youde (knocked on our door while I was out canvassing; Cathy said he seemed nice)

Photo effort: multiple reuse of two photos taken in Sevenoaks Park (not Grange Gardens for a change) and one of Matt with his arms folded in an alley next to a big pile of fly-tipped waste. Two photos of another chap, who I think is the prospective Senedd candidate in next year's election but it doesn't actually say that. One of the hit pieces has a picture of Kier Starmer - which is one more picture of him than all the Labour leaflets combined. 

Cymraeg: all 5 pieces are bilingual

Dragon Quotient: zero! (Disappointing)

Graphs: a dodgy line graph based on "doorknocking data"; a race showing Labour and the Green runners leaving everyone else behind; a set of results from the last council election that claims Greens placed second, even though the Greens were in an alliance with Plaid Cymru for that election and the result was therefore a vote for both parties.

Technically not true

Also, technically, not entirely true

Overall message: Despite three candidate leaflets, I don't think Matt is offering much different from other candidates. He talks about litter - and, across all five leaflets, that is the only thing mentioned that could be considered an environmental issue. Nothing about the climate at all. Rent caps get mentioned several times. 

However, what is really different about the Greens' campaign is their two hit pieces - one is a letter from a former Labour councillor who has now joined the Greens and the other just says "Punish Labour, Vote Green!" I mean, that's a take, and I'm sure this will appeal to some people who are really angry with Labour but long-term you want to be more than just a protest vote because those don't stick. 

Wanted: angry voters!

Party: None (Independent)

Number of leaflets: 1

Candidate: Ahmed Abdillahi Abdi Samater

Photo effort: 1 candidate photo

Cymraeg: yes

Dragon Quotient: zero

Graphs: none

Overall message: quite positive, but the leaflet is a bit all over the place in terms of topics. Also the text was all centrally aligned and I find that hard to read.

Party: Conservative

Number of leaflets: 1 (given this landed alongside a leaflet for a builder, I suspect this was delivered by a leaflet delivery firm rather than a volunteer)

Candidate: James Hamblin (a Tory I know told me James lives in London but will be a Senedd candidate next year, so this is really just about him being able to say that he ran for the council as part of his Senedd campaign)

Photo effort: pretty decent - six different photos on one A4 double-sided leaflet. Photos of James outside the new central bus station (had he just arrived on a bus?), by the Tramshed venue, with Darren Millar (leader of the Welsh Conservatives), outside the Senedd with Andrew RT Davies (former leader of the Welsh Conservatives), with another guy I don't know possibly outside a pub, and an action shot of him cleaning some graffiti on Virgil Street. They aren't all taken on the same day either, unless he had a change of clothes with him. 

Cymraeg: None (except for the bilingual Welsh Conservatives logo)

Dragon Quotient: Zero

Graphs: none

Overall message: The Conservatives are using the hashtag #fixwales and there is a mix of ideas here, like night buses for Cardiff  and supporting live music venues. But there's some proper bollocks on here about "Labour's war on motorists" and how the Senedd shouldn't be expanded. At the same time as saying "36 more politicians? No thanks!", they are also saying they want a community council for Grangetown, which would be, er, more politicians, wouldn't it? Anyway, this is probably a good insight into the key themes the Tories will be campaigning on for the Senedd next year. 

And the very last leaflet to land on our mat was from...

Party: Reform UK

Number of leaflets: 1

Candidate: Joseph Martin

Photo effort: 1 candidate photo, where, weirdly, he's not looking at the camera.

Cymraeg: ha, ha, ha, no. 

Dragon Quotient: zero

Graphs: none

Overall Message: minimal really. "Cardiff needs Reform" is the slogan. There's a claim that Labour will introduce three week bin collections, which isn't true as far as I'm aware. On the scale of scaremongering, it's picayune stuff, but still it's misleading. I try to be fair in these reviews, even to parties I would never vote for, but there isn't much to say about this. When you have three policy statements and one of them is opposing something that isn't happening, then it's hard not to think it's a deliberate attempt to hoodwink people. 

So, that's the round up. 

Thursday is polling day. If you live near me and are voting, then vote Plaid Cymru!

2024 General Election Review

The result: Wales stops feeling blue

I stayed up until almost 5am watching the election results come in. Admittedly, I didn't watch it all - after the exit poll announcements at 10pm I watched the Star Wars film, Solo, to kill a bit of time before the actual results were declared.

By now, everyone with a passing interest in politics will know the headlines. Labour won with a big majority - something that felt unthinkable after Boris Johnson's huge win for the Tories in 2019. 

The Liberal Democrats went big as well, their 72 seats being the party's highest total for a century - going back to when they were just Liberal, no Democrat. 

Plaid Cymru won 4 seats, doubling their representation in the House of Commons. The number of constituencies in Cymru had dropped from 40 to 32, so some MPs had been squeezed out already. Every remaining Tory incumbent lost - including a record 4 former Welsh Secretaries. Most of the seats were won by Labour and the Liberal Democrats got one. 

The exit polls predicted a depressing total of Reform winning 13 seats. In the end they got 5, including panto politico Nigel Farage finally becoming an MP. Subsequently there have been questions over whether several Reform candidates were real people. The picture of their candidate in Clapham appears to be AI generated. Several candidates in Scotland have a nonexistent digital footprint. They still got thousands of votes though. 

I was happier to see the Green Party win a new record total for them of four seats. Jeremy Corbyn held on to his seat in Islington as an independent candidate having been ejected from the Labour Party. Amazing to think he was leading Labour in the previous two elections. Other independents won in areas with large Muslim populations, which is being taken as a protest vote against the Labour Party's stance on Gaza. The success of the independent candidates took some of the gloss off Labour's victory. 

I was flicking between channels on election night. I stayed mainly on BBC 1 Wales which focused on results from Cymru. BBC2 was the general BBC UK coverage chaired by Laura Kuenssberg, who I feel has been very partisan towards the Tories for several years. She was matey with Boris Johnson and seemed like his personal PR machine at times. Watching Laura slowly assimilating what was happening was quite amusing. Her expression turned increasingly sour as the night wore on. 

Meanwhile, on ITV there were some decent guest pundits including Ed Balls and Nicola Sturgeon. Sky's coverage was also quite good. It seemed that Sky announced results a fraction before the BBC. Sometimes they announced a bit too quickly, at one point they erroneously credited the Greens with a win in a seat Labour won off the Tories.

Early on in the night Andrew RT Davies, leader of the "Welsh" Conservatives, lost his cool on BBC1 Wales and lumped the blame for the Tory defeat squarely on (now ex) Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. In fairness, he wasn't wrong in his criticism of the decision to call an election without a coherent campaign strategy. Rishi may have felt a July election would wrongfoot his opponents but it also seemed to wrongfoot his own party. 

I knew two people personally who were standing as candidates. My fellow Barry Town fan, Ian, was the Plaid Cymru candidate in the Vale of Glamorgan. A former work colleague, Charlie, stood as the Tory candidate in Llanelli. Neither won, but props to them both for standing. 

Now the dust has settled and we get to see whether Labour have been all mouth and no trousers in their promises of change. It's been barely a week and so far they seem to have made the right noises. I'm a bit concerned that the new health minister has links with private healthcare companies. But overall it feels that things may be different now. 

Council election round-up 2022

It's council election day!

I've been blogging about election leaflets since way back in 2007. I don't always bother with council elections, but this year felt noteworthy for two reasons. Firstly, only two sets of candidates seem to be campaigning. Secondly, we have an electoral alliance that may herald a new joint approach in Welsh politics. 

We had people knock on our door on the same evening from both campaigning platforms. And we have had a bit of bumf from both of them. It seems a bit pointless rating them as there are only two. Here is a brief run down instead.

Firstly, here are the challengers - Cyngrhair Tir Cyffredin / Common Ground Alliance

Plaid & Green sounds like a terrible paint colour combo, but it's actually the alliance between Plaid Cymru and the Green Party of Wales. Both have put up two candidates for the four council seats in our wards. This may end up getting replicated in other elections, because it's probably the only way the Green Party are going to get influence in the Senedd, and it might just give Plaid Cymru the extra impetus they need to make headway outside their normal heartlands. 

We got six bits of bumf from them with their key pledges about improving local health services, more youth facilities and apprenticeships, affordable housing "for local residents not for greedy developers", better transport connections and better parks. 

I'm all for those. Although, realistically, health services aren't council jurisdiction so I don't know what they plan to do about the shortage of GPs in our area. I'm also jaded enough to interpret "better transport connections" as making it harder to drive anywhere rather than actually providing transport people want to take. Build me a monorail and I will be on it every day. 

One bit of bumf was a "letter" delivered on election eve ostensibly from a former member of the Labour party explaining why he was now voting for the Plaid Green Alliance. An interesting approach, but one I dislike. I prefer positive politics rather than having a go at other parties. 

In response, here are (three of) the incumbents: Grangetown Welsh Labour

If I was awarding points this time round, the use of a selfie of the four candidates would get a bonus point. But I'm not awarding points. Before I say anything more about this, I should point out that I've met Ash (the selfie taker) at recent Grange Community Action meetings and he has a genuine passion for the area, and another counsellor, Lynda, was very helpful sorting out some ongoing antisocial behaviour in our street. 

We had three bits of bumf from Labour. I noticed the careful branding choices that this is electoral communication from "Grangetown Labour" or "Grangetown Welsh Labour", almost as if the local candidates are trying to put some clear red water between themselves and the soulless binfire that is the Westminster opposition party at the moment. 

Promise-wise, there's some overlap with the Common Ground Alliance. Affordable housing, green stuff, opportunities for young people, reducing the number of cars driving around the city (they don't obfuscate that point). There is also an emphasis on education and promises of improving personal safety through tackling street crime. I saw some inflation going on in terms of the funding for the latter - in one leaflet they mention the specific figure of £432,000 being awarded from the Home Office to make streets safer. In another leaflet, this gets rounded up to £500,000. 

That sounds like a lot of money, but the average salary in South Wales Police is £42,000 per year. So, that's only about 10 new police officers. For the whole of Cardiff. And unless it's recurrent funding, at the end of the year, that's it. Breaking down really big amounts of money like this into what it can actually achieve is always depressing. 

There are apparently some other candidates standing but they can't be bothered to ask for my vote so I can't be bothered to go looking for their manifestos. Quid pro quo. Back in 2008 when I first blogged about the council elections, the Liberal Democrats were pouring resources into campaigning, but that party seems to have disappeared from the scene after becoming the enablers of Tory austerity in the 2010 "coalition" UK government.

So the choice this year seems to be just Plaid Green or Red.

2016 Welsh Assembly election UPDATED communications overview

Some more electoral bumf has come through the door. Yay. So, I'm updating the review I posted last week. We have material from two parties not mentioned before, and new material from three others.

New leaflets

The following parties haven't been in further contact, so keep their scores from last time:
Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party = 0
Women's Equality Party = 1
UKIP = disqualified

Same rules as before. Here we go.

Party: The Green Party
Candidate: Anthony Slaughter
Previous point total = 4
New point awarded
bumf = 1
promises = 0
contact = 0
candidate photos = 1
Cymraeg = 1
total = 3
Points deducted
blame = 0
mud slinging = 0
photos of opponents = 0
sloganeering = 8 (it feels cruel but there is no substance to any of their aims)
typos = 0
REVISED GRAND TOTAL = 2
Update comment: It feels mean that they score so low, given how relentlessly positive and hopeful their leaflets are. But, bottom line is, I'm a pragmatist and want to know what you would actually do, not read your wishlist.

Party: Labour

Candidate: Vaughan Gething

Previous point total = 17

New points awarded

bumf = 2

promises = 1 new one (an environment plan to collect water in Grangetown). There's also an extensive list of things Labour is apparently already working on such as the redevelopment of a leisure centre.

contact = nothing new

candidate photos = 3, including one with Vaughan and a fire engine

Cymraeg = 0

additional points = 6

Points deducted

blame = 0

mud slinging = 2 (reference to broken Tory election promises and how the Tories have "abandoned young people")

photos of opponents = 0

sloganeering = 0 

typos = 0 (although some of the text has flowed a bit wrong on one of the leaflets)

REVISED GRAND TOTAL = 21

Update comment: As mentioned there is a big list of things Labour are doing and introducing. I like that Vaughan is putting out there what he and his party have done rather than slagging off other parties. Also a good use of photos showing him out and about. 

Party: Liberal Democrats

Candidate: This is a list leaflet although the main name mentioned on there is Eluned Parrott, so let's say it's her

Points awarded

bumf = 1

promises = 3 (safe nurse staffing levels and smaller infant school class sizes, cutting business rates on plant and machinery)

contact = 0

candidate photos = 2. I think. If we count Eluned as the candidate.

Cymraeg = 0

total = 6

Points deducted

blame = 1 (it's all Labour's fault!)

mud slinging = agh, so much! The Liberal Democrat invective machine is back up and running. I count 8 specific instances of negative comments about Labour.

photos of opponents = 0

sloganeering = 4

typos = 0

GRAND TOTAL = -7

Verdict: Why do the Liberal Democrats always go negative? It wouldn't be so bad if they offered concrete options but it's all wishy-washy stuff like a promise to "build an 'Opportunity Economy'" and stuff. OK. What does that look like then?

Party: Plaid Cymru

Candidate: Dafydd Trystan Davies

Previous point total = 7

New points awarded

bumf = 2 (1 local, one regional)

promises = 1 (electrification of the railways)

contact = still 0 (Come on, people, these are the easy points)

candidate photos = 3

Cymraeg = 2 (as you'd expect)

total = 7

Points deducted

blame = nobody really

mud slinging = 3 - two references to Labour's failures and also saying Labour has 'run out of steam'

photos of opponents = 0

sloganeering = I'm going to ding them 3 because, e.g. although they say they are going to invest in specific hospitals they don't say what that investment would be aiming to do

typos = 0

REVISED GRAND TOTAL = 8

Further comment: I'm not convinced that Plaid Cymru could pay for everything they want to do. Or that they have thought through their promises. Where exactly are they going to get 1,000 doctors from, for example? But still, generally a positive campaign.

And finally... Vapers in Power

Party: Vapers in Power

Candidate: Bernice Evans

Points Awarded

bumf = 1 (regional list leaflet)

promises = 0 really, although it mentions three places where they think vapers should be allowed to vape

contact = 0 but they do have a hashtag

candidate photos = 1

Cymraeg = 1

total = 3

Points deducted

blame = 2 (The Welsh Health Minister, Mark Drakeford, and the lying media). There's also the comment that vapers will "soon be brutalised by European legislation". Sort of some preemptive blame there.

mud slinging = 1 (their hashtag is anti-Labour)

photos of opponents = 0

sloganeering = 1 (a threat to hold "spreaders of malicious untruths" accountable. How?)

typos = I'm going to ding them 1 for a terrible run on sentence. There are a few garbled sentences so I think this is fair.

GRAND TOTAL = -2

Verdict: A one issue party about an issue that doesn't exercise me in the slightest. Very emotive language from someone who doesn't think anyone should tell her what to do. I am interested to see how many people bother to vote for this.

The election is on Thursday. Any more reviews will probably be after the fact now.

All the links to previous elections are in this overview of trends.

2016 Welsh Assembly election communications overview

I’ve been doing my reviews of electoral communications for a few years now (see an overview of the trends here). We have just over a week to go until the next Assembly election, so here’s my overview of the bumf we’ve had through the door so far.

Lots of people want our vote...

I’m going to use the same marking system as I did back in 2015. Candidates are awarded points for:

~ number of pieces of bumf through the door

~ number of definite promises they make

~ number of ways they offer you to get in touch, not including generic websites

~ number of different candidate photos, with bonus points if they are with the party leader

~ a point for bilingual Welsh/English leaflets

Candidates are dinged points for

~ the number of other people they blame for the mess we're in,

~ number of negative comments about other parties (mud slinging)

~ photos of politicians belonging to other parties

~ meaningless ‘slogan’ promises e.g. ‘I’m going to fight for Welsh jobs’

And new for this year, I’m going to ding for typos because if you can’t be arsed to proofread your leaflet then you should be punished.

This time round I’m going to list them alphabetically by party name.

Party: Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party

Candidate: none (they’re only going for the regional vote)

Points awarded

bumf = 1

promises = 1 (abolish the Welsh Assembly)

contact = 0

candidate photos = n/a

Cymraeg = 0

total = 2

Points deducted

blame = 1 (the Welsh Assembly is at fault for everything, it seems)

mud slinging = 0

photos of opponents = 0

sloganeering = 0

typos = 1 (“A talking supermarket that we didn’t wants and time has shown...)

GRAND TOTAL = 0

Verdict: this has all the hallmarks of a lone nutter with a grudge against the Welsh Assembly. One of the comments in the leaflet is ‘What has the Welsh Assembly ever done for us?’ Well, er, kept our NHS true to its ideals and in a related note given us free prescriptions.

Party: Green Party

Candidate: Anthony Slaughter in the constituency and four others on the regional list

Points awarded

bumf =2

promises = 0 (lots of slogans)

contact = 3 (Twitter, Facebook, personal email)

candidate photos =5 (all four regional candidates, including Anthony and a different one of Anthony on the constituency leaflet)

Cymraeg =2 (both leaflets fully bilingual)

total = 12

Points deducted

blame = 0

mud slinging = 0

photos of opponents = 0

sloganeering = The constituency leaflet has 6 things that a “Green voice in the Senedd will fight for” but with no concrete options. There’s another one on the regional leaflet, so 7 slogans in total.

typos = 1 (they medded up their bullet points on the regional leaflet)

GRAND TOTAL = 4

Verdict: On a personal level I agree with all their aims, but it feels like wishful thinking. If they had put one concrete idea behind any of their pledges I’d take them more seriously. How are they going to deliver “Sustainable and vibrant communities” for example? What does that even mean?

Party: Labour

Candidate: Vaughan Gething

Points awarded

bumf = 2

promises = 6 (e.g. create 100,000 new apprenticeships, NHS treatments fund, free childcare

contact =6 (Twitter, Facebook, email, mobile number, personal website, real world address)

candidate photos = 5 across the 2 leaflets. One of them is in front of the Grange fish bar. Yeah!

Cymraeg = 0

total = 19

Points deducted

blame = 0

mud slinging = 2 (The Tories are a threat to education and local government services)

photos of opponents = 0

sloganeering = 0

typos = 0 (although some of the text has flowed a bit wrong on one of the leaflets)

GRAND TOTAL = 17

Verdict: Vaughan spends a lot of his communication talking about what he has achieved as the Assembly Member for the past term. There’s a big bit bigging up NHS Wales. He also has three local residents endorsing him, which is a nice touch. 17 is the best score Labour have ever achieved in these ratings.

Party: Plaid Cymru

Candidate: Dafydd Trystan Davies (but we also got one for Cardiff Central candidate Glyn Wise)

Points awarded

bumf = 3 (although one is probably a mistake)

promises = 9

contact = All generic so 0 (oof, these are the easy points in this scoring system)

candidate photos = 2 (possible more on the regional leaflet, but it’s unclear)

Cymraeg = 3 – properly bilingual throughout

total = 17

Points deducted

blame = it’s all Labour’s fault, apparently. 1 point.

mud slinging = 5 different pops at Labour

photos of opponents = 0

sloganeering = 4 and lots of promises to “work tirelessly” if elected

typos = 0

GRAND TOTAL = 7

Verdict: The leaflets mention how Labour have had 17 years in power “with little to show for it” but neglect to add that a good chunk of that was in coalition with, er, Plaid Cymru. Bit of an omission.

Party: Women’s Equality Party

Candidate: none (regional list only)

Points awarded

bumf = 2

promises = 0

contact = 0 (but they do have English and Welsh hashtags)

candidate photos = 1, possibly? It’s of 4 women, one of whom is wearing a Women’s Equality badge

Cymraeg = 1 (but only just – the Welsh side doesn’t have a photo and looks like an after-thought)

total = 4

Points deducted

blame = 0

mud slinging = 0

photos of opponents = 0

sloganeering = 3, although there is a lot of positive thinking without any substance behind it

typos = 0

GRAND TOTAL = 1

Party: UKIP

Candidate: Mohammed Sarul-Islam

Wait, he’s not our candidate. He’s standing in Cardiff Central! DISQUALIFIED!

Can't vote for you
even if I wanted to!

For interest, here’s the promises in Mr Islam’s leaflet:

Introduce locally elected health boards

Introduce university technical colleges to teach vocational trade skills

Reintroduce grammar schools

Cut fees for STEM students

Devolve economic development powers to local councils

Scrap the Severn Bridge tolls

And here are the meaningless unsubstantiated slogans:

Support long-term investment in staff and resources for a better NHS

Treat cancer as a top priority

UKIP will hold the Welsh Government accountable

Bring jobs into the local area

And this statement that isn’t really a promise or anything:

UKIP opposes tax raising powers being devolved to the Assembly without a referendum (they love their referendums)

All the links to previous elections are in this overview of trends.