Caerffili election reflection

The dust is settling after Plaid Cymru's win in the Senedd by-election in Caerphilly. Several days after the election my friend Anna asked me if I was going to blog about it, and I said it was on my list of things to do. At this rate, I think I might be the last commentator to pass comment. 

Senator Whittle a few days before the win

There are some headline takeaways. It's the first time Plaid Cymru have won in Caerphilly. Lindsay Whittle, Plaid Cymru's candidate, was standing for the 14th time in an election. It's the first election in a hundred years in Caerphilly that hasn't been won by Labour.

Oh, and Reform lost. By a considerable margin in the end. 

Turnout was high - 50% of the electorate, which was higher than in the last Senedd election. Reform tend to get people who don't usually vote to vote for them, but this time it seems like they encouraged a lot of people to venture out and vote for their main opponent.

Although they've put a brave spin on it, this was a major slap backwards for Reform. They expected to win. They had their victory party booked. Nigel had been to town a couple of times to gee up the locals with his anti-immigration dogwhistles. Reform's media cheerleaders had made the story all about them. And Reform had certainly splashed the roubles trying to get that seat in the Senedd. My friend Ben sent me pictures of all the leaflets and Reform churned out loads!

But Plaid Cymru won. Wales won. 

It's annoying that the media coverage seems to have been a) Reform came second, b) Labour got battered in a safe heartland seat, c) er, Plaid Cymru won.

Although... without the Reform angle, I'm not sure how much interest there would have been in this. I doubt the result - and Lindsay's name - would have been reported in the New York Times. I doubt (K)GB News would have had pundits staying up all night waiting for the result. (They were, apparently, quite disappointed.)

The following day this was circulating on social media. It summed up how a lot of people felt.

My main feeling was relief. I went to bed on Thursday night in a high level of anxiety. On Friday morning when I checked my phone I felt close to crying. Politics has been so relentlessly grim recently it felt so alien to be happy at an election result. 

I had reason to be anxious. I had been canvassing in Caerphilly a few times and the number of Reform placards and posters had increased over time. People said they were thinking of voting for them or were very coy on the doorsteps, which I interpreted as planning to vote Reform but being embarrased to admit it. There was fear too. An Asian family who ran a shop said the rise of Reform made them feel afraid for the first time about living in Caerphilly. I hope they celebrated the Plaid Cymru win.

Canvassing wasn't always easy. I got soaked to the skin in Ystrad Mynach. But the result makes it worth it. 

Ystrad Mynach before the deluge

The general consensus among people I've talked to is that this election isn't a very reliable indicator of how the Senedd election next year will go. This was a straight 'first past the post' election and, like many other commentators, I have a feeling people chose to vote Plaid Cymru as they had the best chance of beating Reform. As I said back in August after the Grangetown council election, it's hard to make floating voters stick. 

But hope springs eternal. Caerphilly's new Senedd member is a great advocate for his home town and the surrounding communities. I hope the people who voted for him see that and choose to vote for him again in May next year. 

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! 

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. 

Senedd 2021 Election Leaflets Review & Ranking

With less than a week to go to the Senedd Election, here is a review of the political literature we have recieved so far. I introduced the scoring template in a preview post, but to recap, parties earn points for SMART goals, the number of leaflets, being bilingual, contact details, candidate photos, and endorsements. Parties are docked points for vague objectives, throwing shade - 1 point per target, photos of politicians from other parties, photos of the area that don't include the candidate, stock photos, and typos. I'm also going to list "pandemic points" as a possible tiebreaker.

As of this post we have received 20 pieces of post so I am going to list them by most leaflets then alphabetical order, which means we start with Labour.

Party: Labour

Number of items: 4. 2 of them are general for the list votes and 2 were from Vaughan Gething, the constuency candidate. Only 2 were bilingual, so 6 points

Quite like this design

SMART goals: 3 points - not many, as the leaflets tended to focus on what "Welsh Labour has delivered" rather than making promises. I like the idea of a new national forest - and that's a measurable goal. We will either have one or we won't.

Contact details: a total of 10 ways to get in touch with either generic Labour or Vaughan himself.

Relevant photos: 10, including lots of Vaughan in the consituency. All 4 regional list candidates had pics. Including the one called Mr Death. (He's never going to be health minister, is he!)

Endorsements: 6 different ones. Vaughan got an endorsement off Lynda Thorne who is one of my local councillors who has been very helpful in the past.

Vague objectives: -7. Including to make Wales "a greener country".

Shade: -2. Main targets are the Tories who get unfavourable comparisons across a lot of policy areas. Plaid Cymru apparently "want to put up barriers to our neighbours just over the border".

Irrelevant photos: 0

Typos: -1

TOTAL = (35-10) = 25. I think this is the most points Labour have ever scored in one of these rundowns. True, they racked up the easy points with the contact details, but overall their literature is a lot more positive than it has been in previous campaigns. If there was more detail to their goals they would have scored even higher.

Pandemic Points: 10! Vaughan Gething mentioned it a lot in his 2 leaflets. But then he is the health minister so I think that's reasonable. 

Party: Liberal Democrats

Number of items: 4. These all came like letters in proper envelopes. We had 2 from the local candidate, Alex Wilson, and 2 from the regional list candidate, Rodney Berman. All 4 mailings were a letter and leaflet, so 8 pieces of literature in total, all bilingual = a whopping 16 points.

Comms note: one of the leaflets is a CV of the candidate, which is quite a nice piece of literature. Given the lack of space I'm not sure why they needed to include his hobby of running a theatre group, though.

#TopTip: Only include necessary information on a CV

SMART goals: 3 - not much really that could be measureable. A lot of space on the regional list leaflets is used up explaining how to vote tactically and "lend your vote" to the Liberal Democrats. 

"Pssst! Lend us a vote, mister..."

Contact details: 3

Relevant photos: 9

Endorsements: 2

Vague objectives: -7. Things like "better schools and hospitals" are laudable, but not specific.

Shade: There's a personal swipe at "our current MS", ie.e. Vaughan Gething, but they don't mention his name. In it's own way that's extra-insulting. Plus "The Conservatives simply don't have the answers for Wales' future" while Labour "is a wasted vote" and "Plaid are focusing on consitutional issues ahead of the COVID recovery." While asking Labour voters to lend a vote to them, they say that could have kept UKIP out of the Senedd last time. I'm going to count that as shade too, so the total shade points are -5.

Irrelevant photos: -1 for a stock photo.

Typos: 0

TOTAL = (33-13) = 20, a respectable score

Pandemic Points: 3

Party: Plaid Cymru

Number of items: 4. 2 general ones and 2 for the local candidate, Nasir Adam. All bilingual, so 8 points.

Is it just me, or is this Labour's colour scheme...?

SMART goals: 11. Lots of these including specific numbers. 1000 more doctors for the NHS. 5000 more nurses and other healthcare professionals. 50,000 new homes. And a promise of an Independence Referendum before 2026.

As a note, just because a goal is SMART doesn't actually make it smart. I have grave doubts an extra 1,000 doctors could be recruited in just 5 years.

Contact details: 4

Relevant photos: 10 - lots of photos on Nasir in action including on a community litter-pick wearing a t-shirt that riffs on the cover of Straight Outta Compton by NWA. An interesting photo choice. Judging by these leaflets, Plaid have one approved photo of party leader Adam Price, which must appear on all their literature. Just that one photo. No others.

Endorsements: 0

Vague objectives: -10. Lots of aspirational stuff like "a fair deal for families". What does that even mean?

Shade: The thing about encouraging tactical voting is that you end up throwing shade on parties by just saying they can't win. That's said about the Greens and the Lib Dems. Generally though they don't really go after anyone. -2 points.

Irrelevant photos: 3 stock photos! -3 points. 

Typos: It's not a typo but on the leaflets from Nasir, he lists 4 pledges on one leaflet and 3 pledges on another leaflet and the pledges are different. So I'm going to ding a point for inconsistency. -1

TOTAL = (33-16) = 17

Pandemic Points: 1

Party: Conservative Party

Number of items: 2 bilingual leaflets = 4 points.

SMART goals: 5. Promises of 1,200 more doctors but only 3,000 extra nurses. 5,000 more teachers and lots of big new roads, all heading out of Wales, incidentally. Also a very cunningly phrased promise about council tax - constituency candidate Leighton Rowlands will "vote to fund a council tax freeze".

Contact details: 2

Relevant photos: 3

Endorsements: 0

Vague objectives: -5, including "more police on our streets". How many more?

Shade: Just the one reference to Labour failing Wales before the pandemic. -1 point.

Irrelevant photos: -5. Stock photos of policemen, a hospital, a motorway.

Typos: 0

TOTAL = 14-11 = 3 points

Pandemic Points: 1

Party: Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party

Number of items: 1 (saes yn unig)

SMART goals: 0, unless you count the name of the party

Contact details: 0

Relevant photos: 0

Endorsements: 0

Vague objectives: Do we count hashtags? #SaveWales #SavetheUnion. They reckon a vote for them will bring about one education system, one health service and one government. No real detail on what that would look like. I'm going to give them -2 for the hashtags.

Shade: This leaflet doesn't say anything beyond slogans.

Irrelevant photos: 2 stock photos, one of the Senedd with a red cross through it and a landscape. -2 points

Typos: 0

TOTAL = (1-4) = -3

Pandemic Points: 0

Party: Freedom Alliance 

(This appears to be some kind of anti-Lockdown party. There are also are a few conspiracist-tinged phrases in their literature, like "the current political structure and its controllers".)

Number of items: 1 (saes yn unig, although it does say "For the love of Cymru vote for freedom")

SMART goals: I guess "no lockdowns, no curfews" could be measureable. A generous 2.

Contact details: 3, including a QR code.

Relevant photos: 1 photo of the constituency candidate, Alan Golding.

Endorsements: 0

Vague objectives: This whole screed is a vague objective, starting with "a new way of doing politics is needed". Alan promises to return Wales to a position "where people matter more than our politicians". This will be through "honest conversations" and asking "difficult questions that need to be asked". To be honest by the time I got to the appeal to "common sense solutions", I had checked out. However, a quick run through brought me to a tally of 19 vague objectives. A new record. 

Shade: All other policial parties and "career politicians". And their controllers too I guess. I'm going to just give -1 point as he is the only candidate to throw shade on the controllers. 

Irrelevant photos: 0

Typos: 0

TOTAL = (7-20) = -13

Pandemic Points: doesn't actually mention the pandemic, despite claiming "Lockdowns have plunged the Uk into unimaginable debt, caused a national mental health crisis, devastated our children's education, and have been directly responsible for many avoidable deaths from cancer, heart disease and suicide." Still, 0 pandemic points. 

Party: Independent (David Rolfe)

Number of items: 1 (saes yn unig) - the smallest leaflet received so far.

SMART goals: There was no room for any on the leaflet.

Contact details: 4

Relevant photos: 1, of the man himself, David Rolfe.

Endorsements: 0

Vague objectives: David listed 3 bullet points, but with no details, they all count as vague objectives so -3 points.

Shade: David claims to be "An independent voice among the political chaos of mainstream parties" but he doesn't actually throw shade on anyone. 0 points.

Irrelevant photos: 0

Typos: there's a word missing in the legally required text on the leaflet. -1

TOTAL = (6-4) = 2

Party: Propel

Number of items: 1 bilingual leaflet = 2 points

SMART goals: "We will end Welsh lockdowns". OK. Well I guess that's measurable. It also mentions that Propel candidates have signed a "Contract with Wales" to introduce 10 Acts in the Welsh Parliament. The leaflet invites me to look them up online, but I'm not really that invested. So there may be details there that would turn them into SMART goals. I'm only giving 1 point though.

Contact details: 3 social media channels

Relevant photos: 1, of leader Neil McEvoy. And his signature. Which potentially gives graphologists a deeper insight into Neil's personality.

Don't need to ask for his autograph

Endorsements: 0

Vague objectives: the summary of the Contract with Wales lists 4 vague objectives. There is another vague objective listed as part of their proposed Coronavirus Recovery Act. So a total of -5.

Shade: Nothing. 

Irrelevant photos: 1 landscape stock photo, so -1

Typos: 0

TOTAL = (7-6) = 1

Pandemic Points: 0

Party: Reform UK 

(This used to be the Brexit Party)

Number of items: 1 (saes yn unig)

SMART goals: The one measureable goal is to halve the number of councils in Wales from 22 to 11. They are also promising no more full scale lockdowns. 2 points.

Contact details: 3 social media channels

Relevant photos: 2. There's a photo of the local consituency candidate Alan Pick, and one of party leader Nathan Gill (who was previously elected to the Senedd as a UKIP candidate and then quit that party).

Endorsements: 0

Vague objectives: They want to reform a lot of things but don't say how. I counted 5 vague objectives.

Shade: They accuse Welsh Labour of keeping children out of schools without good reasons. Otherwise, they use a good chunk of the leaflet to claim that 50% of people don't vote in Welsh elections so seem to be trying to cultivate people who don't vote rather than steal voters off other parties. So that's just the 1 shade point for the Welsh Labour reference.

Appealing to people who normally can't be arsed

Irrelevant photos: 0

Typos: 0

TOTAL = (8-6) = 2

Pandemic Points: 0

Party: UKIP

Number of items: 1 (saes yn unig)

SMART goals: They want a referendum to scrap the Senedd. They also want to cut alcohol duty and scrap business rates for small companies. I'm going to give them 3 points.

Contact details: 0

Relevant photos: 6 of their list candidates and Neil Hamilton who is the party leader (and is beginning to look like the Emperor Palpatine), so 7 points in total.

Endorsements: 0

Vague objectives: Lots of comments like "UKIP Stands against the knee-taking cultural vandals who want to erase Wales' history by removing statues to its fallen heroes." Talk about fighting imaginary enemies. 

Culture warriors screaming at clouds

There's other stuff too like ending illegal immigration and funding the NHS instead of sending foreign aid, which has echoes of the lies told during the Leave campaign about all that money that could be spent on the NHS and which then disappeared. I counted 9 vague objectives.

Shade: Lots of it. The Tories and Reform UK "are desperate to keep their snouts in the trough", the Abolish the Assembly Party weren't nasty enough to displaced people in a migrant camp, Mark Drakeford "cosies up to Plaid Cymru who want to destroy the UK and drag Wales back into the EU." They mention the EU a few times. It's clearly a bogeyman for them. The only people they don't mention are the Liberal Democrats, which must be quite demoralising for them in a way. -5 points.

Irrelevant photos: 0

Typos: 0

TOTAL = (11-14) = -3

Pandemic Points: 0

Party: Worker's Party

Number of items: 1 bilingual leaflet, so 2 points

SMART goals: 1 (free bus travel for kids)

Contact details: 3

Relevant photos: 4. (3 photos of the people I think are the named candidates and 1 of George Galloway, party leader, who is also on the regional list.)

Endorsements: 0

Vague objectives: 8, at least. But a lot of statements that aren't anything, like, for example: "There should be no homelessness in Wales... Affordable housing projects are not affordable for normal people." There's no actual commitment to do anything.

Shade: there's a swipe at "big business" but no mention of any other parties. 0.

Irrelevant photos: 0

Typos: 0

TOTAL = (10-8) = 2

Pandemic Points: 1

And that, dear readers is it, for now. Well done if you have made it this far. Hopefully you will get your strength back in time to vote on Thursday.