Blaenau Gwent Results

Excellent news from Blaenau Gwent - Labour losing two seats! Truly excellent to see the smuggers lose. At last we're starting to get rid of their dead hand!

But also a bad night for Plaid Cymru, especially the Welsh Assembly vote, and a bad omen for the Assembly elections next year.

Parliamentary By-Election 2006 - Blaenau Gwent
Dai Davies – Independent: 12,543
Owen Smith – Labour Party: 10,059
Steffan Lewis – Plaid Cymru: 1,755

Welsh Assembly By-Election - Blaenau Gwent
Trish Law – Independent: 13,785
John Hopkins - Labour Party: 9,321
John Price - Plaid Cymru: 1,109

Plaid's profile is so low because it's lead by Ieuan Wyn Jones. A leader who mistakes silence and being charisma-free to being statesmanship. If Plaid have any thought of staying second party in the Assembly IWJ needs to pick up his game - big time. That means saying interesting things and taking Labour on. Leaders need to be intelligent and trustworthy; they also need to be brave!

Talking of Plaid, IWJ and Peter Law. Plaid were very keen to support Law's stand against Labour following Labour's decision to chose from a women's only list. However, Plaid have just got themselves into the same mess with some of the party's most popular politicians unlikely to be in the next Assembly because of Plaid's policy of women on top of the list.

That means Dafydd Wigley and Dr Dai Lloyd out of the Assembly. Bonkers! It's all good saying what a brave man Peter Law was, but wouldn't the Plaid version of Peter Law be Dafydd Wigley standing in next year's Assembly election as an Independent Nationalist? What would Plaid do then? Who'd bet against Wigley getting elected? And who wouldn't bet the Assembly would be better for it?

Plaid - it's no good crowing over Labour's failures when lack of leadership could leave you fourth party in next year's Assembly election. Politics is just a posh word for power. Plaid needs to think about that and less about branding and principles.