Ieuan Wyn Jones AM and his core vote.

Paul Williams (aka The Druid) came a respectable second, with 7032 votes, in last weeks Welsh Assembly Elections; he nearly matched the number of votes received by Peter Rogers (7197) when standing as the official Conservative candidate in 2003. And it was similar to the number of votes Albert Owen received (7181) when he stood as the Labour candidate in 1999.

Ieuan Wyn Jones vote was down slightly, 9969 as compared to 10653 in 2007.

By the end of his next term in the Welsh Assembly in 2016; 5 years this time instead of the usual 4 to avoid conflict with the General Election the year before, Ieuan Wyn Jones will have been representing Anglesey as an MP or AM for 29 years, overtaking Cledwyn Hughes who represented the island for 28 distinguished years.

Elections where IWJ has been a candidate on Anglesey

The only person to have defeated Ieuan Wyn Jones was the Conservative Keith Best back in 1983, when Ieuan Wyn Jones first stood. The nearest anybody has come to defeating him since was in 1992 when his majority was cut to 1106 by Gwynn Price Roberts standing for the Conservatives.

In essence Paul Williams did very well considering Ieuan Wyn Jones has a core vote of around 9000 plus, the current unpopularity of austerity cuts by the Conservative led Coalition Government, and the island history long support of ‘liberal’ parties. In fact other than for Keith Best (1979-1987) you have to go back to 1722-1725 to find the previous ‘Tory’ to have held the seat - The Viscount Bulkeley.

Finally I think it’s worth mentioning the good result achieved by Joe Lock, the Labour candidate, who increased their vote to 6307. The least said about the Liberal Democrats the better.

Welsh Assembly Elections - The candidates for Ynys Môn

Ieuan Wyn Jones, Plaid Cymru
Paul Williams, Conservatives
Joe Lock, Labour
Rhys Taylor, Liberal Democrats.

The interesting question this time is what will happen to Peter Rogers votes of the 2007 Welsh Assembly Election.

Many Anglesey Conservatives believe that had Peter Rogers not stood in 2007 that their candidate would have been much closer to Ieuan Wyn Jones.

A belief recently repeated by the Paul Williams, the welsh speaking, Anglesey born Conservative candidate. The argument goes if you add the 6,261 votes for Peter Rogers with the 3,480 for the then Conservative candidate and 912 for UKIP you’d get 10,574 votes.

I suspect though that Peter Rogers may have had cross party appeal, and some tactical voting by Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters.

An alternative explanation therefore for the votes Peter Rogers gained could have been a combination of votes (difference between 2007 and 2003), the - 1,343 Labour votes, 3,717 Conservative votes (some of which may have gone to UKIP), 1,147 Liberal Democrats. In total 6207.

Maybe we need to consider the 2003 results - PC 37%, L 24%, C 29% and a need for a 8% swing for the Conservatives to gain the seat, which is only 2,017 votes.

And then what will happen to the Liberal Democrats votes?

All in all rather to close to call - although if Plaid Cymru can motivate their supporters to vote, my thoughts are a Plaid Cymru hold with a reduced majority, with Paul Williams a close second.

Note: We should remember that in 1999 Ieuan Wyn Jones had 53% of the vote, and in 2007 he had 40% of the vote, which was 18% higher than the ITV YouGov Poll of the time.