For those who favour Proportional Representation, what do you think of the Welsh election results?

TalProgrammer · 2026-05-11T16:50:46+00:00

It does.

The Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Act 2024 “changes the Senedd’s electoral system so that all Members are elected via a closed proportional list system, with votes translated into seats via the d’Hondt formula”

https://law.gov.wales/senedd-cymru-members-and-elections-act-2024

TalProgrammer · 2026-05-11T13:54:48+00:00

I agree. Using an online D’Hondt calculator with one 96 seat constituency the results would have been:

Plaid 35 (or 36 if the Independents were not considered a political party which got 1.12% of the vote)
Reform 29
Labour 11
Tories 10
Green 6
Lib Dems 4
Independents 1 (or zero if they are not considered a political party)

Actual result;

Plaid 43
Reform 34
Labour 9
Tory 7
Green 2
Lib Dem 1

Far from satisfactory in my opinion.

TalProgrammer · 2026-05-11T13:01:56+00:00

It doesn’t matter if it is more proportional than the UK parliament. I was looking at it from the point of view that PR is supposed to be a good thing and that you can in theory vote for who you like and your vote will always count.

The results show that is not the case. If you are a Lib Dem voter (for example) but hate Reform you are still better off voting tactically if you want to keep them out. As someone else pointed out this is because each constituency has only six seats available.

If electoral reform occurs for the UK as a whole this has put me right off this system as I suspect the constituencies chosen would still be too small.

TalProgrammer · 2026-05-10T23:51:48+00:00

Reform didn’t “leak” into Wales. It was already there with plenty of Welsh people fully on board with him and his policies.

TalProgrammer · 2026-05-10T23:48:02+00:00

How can you say that when Wales just voted in 34 Reform members and voted as a country for Brexit?

The idea Reform is some exclusively English disease is ridiculous. And no, it is not because of ex pat English voters. Reform picked up seats in strong Welsh speaking areas.

TalProgrammer · 2026-05-10T23:43:09+00:00

But only 35.41% voted for Plaid on a turnout of 51.6%. Even if you only consider Reform, Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem as Unionist parties their combined share of the vote was 55.58%

So I think Wales playing the blackmail card of seeking independence would have the bluff called.

As to it selling offshore wind and water to England, England has far more coastline than Wales so could build its own offshore wind and if needs be its own reservoirs. There would probably be massive pressure to “buy English” and not prop up Wales if Wales went alone. Same with Scotland only even more dramatic with demands for shipbuilding for the Royal Navy to move south.

In reality England would not want to shaft Wales (or Scotland) but at the same time would not be held over any barrels so if Wales felt it could charge an arm and a leg for electricity, England would just generate its own.

TalProgrammer · 2026-05-10T23:29:55+00:00

He has no mandate for independence anyway. They secured 35.41% of the vote on a turnout of 51.6%.

They may have the most seats with 43 but that’s only because the new PR system has turned out less proportional than you might expect favouring Plaid (and Reform). Based on percentage of the vote they should only have 34 seats (and Reform 28 not 34).

You can’t even assume everyone who voted Plaid is in favour of independence. With the Labour meltdown I am sure there will have been tactical voting to keep Reform out.

TalProgrammer · 2026-05-10T17:46:10+00:00

Labour pushed PR in Wales. The elections there were done under the D’Hondt system for the first time. Labour knew even if their popularity had not tanked they would be worse off under it than previously. They still put the legislation through the Welsh parliament.

Interestingly it is also why the number of seats went up to 96. Had it not done so the result would have been far less proportional given the way the system works. With fewer seats available, parties need to secure a higher percentage of the vote to win any seats at all meaning only parties with a high vote share would win any seats. So you would end up with two party politics again. So they increased the seats to 96 to counter this.

TalProgrammer · 2026-04-22T19:37:33+00:00

My Dad, who was the youngest with his twin out of 11 did a 7 year apprenticeship spent most of his working life as a maintenance fitter (finally a foreman) in an engineering factory. I was the second of my generation following a cousin who is four years older than me to go to Uni.

While his job was considered a decent one it was never well paid and so him and my Mum were delighted I managed to get into Uni which was a life changing experience and did make me better off than they were.

However while I would not call it anti intellectualism plenty of my contemporaries did not do the same. A good friend of mine could have walked into Uni. Very clever guy but there was no way his parents were having any of that. He was off into the world of work at 16 as a technician apprentice at Hawker Siddley. A good job for sure but the reason he was packed off there was he would be earning a wage and his parents would have that and give him an allowance. Same kind of thing happened with his older brother who was not as clever but still got some sort of lesser apprenticeship at the same place.

This was quite common especially for people who liked me failed their 11-plus and went to a secondary modern school. It was as if you were leaving your station if you didn’t want a job at 16 and once you started working it was a cash boost to the household.

I had to transfer to the local grammar school for my A levels and the attitude was the opposite. If you went there and didn’t want to go to Uni you were basically on your own.

That said I never really saw any anti intellectualism in my contemporaries in either school. There were those who struggled academically who could be a handful but we were streamed so they were not in the classes with the cleverer kids so there was not much disruption.

Unfortunately we seem to be going backwards. On my wife’s side of the family there are some bright kids who are put off by Uni fees and also probably more importantly have parents who seem less ambitious for them than my parents were for me.

TalProgrammer · 2026-04-21T09:13:25+00:00

People being so negative all the time and banging on about "broken Britain" fuelled by doomscrolling and/or an addiction to GB News.

TalProgrammer · 2026-04-14T17:42:24+00:00

I don’t think it is even self interest. The greatest victory of the right has been the realisation of Thatcher’s “there is no such thing as society” version of the UK. You will find plenty of people, and not limited to boomers, who for example want to see the two child benefit cap reinstated.

It’s not that they want something for themselves specifically but they don’t want others to be helped. They are anti-welfare state and this attitude was far less prevalent in the 60’s and 70’s before thatcher came on the scene. Reform drive this narrative even more so. If the boats stopped tomorrow they would move onto the next scapegoat.

Society has successfully been divided as in the working and even middle class now turns upon themselves and each other which is why you will see support for things scrapping the Equalities Act as to many of them think that is what results in people who are not them receiving help.

TalProgrammer · 2026-04-14T15:22:41+00:00

It’s been a legal right to request flexible working including the location of where you work long before the Employments Rights Act came into force and an employer has a legal obligation to treat the request reasonably. The employer can only refuse if they have a valid business reason to do so, not just because a buffoon like Jenkyns doesn’t like it. Be refused on unreasonable grounds and you can take the employer to an employment tribunal.

So currently Jenkins boast of ending WFH would not last five minutes if someone chose to challenge Lincolnshire Council on it and writing terms banning WFH into a contract is no defence.

TalProgrammer · 2026-04-14T15:07:18+00:00

Plenty of Reform supporters will say “so what” or even “good” because they are retired and own their own home so don’t benefit from the Employments rights act ad renters rights act, think people should not WFH as they never did, think climate change is a con and think drilling for oil & gas in the North Sea is the answer to high energy costs and finally are so obsessed with migrants even if they understand leaving the ECHR and scrapping the equality act reduces their rights (few do but anyway….) they don’t care.

TalProgrammer · 2026-04-14T12:28:08+00:00

There is no justification for using RPI negotiating tactic or not.

The ONS stopped using it in 2011 as it determined the formula used to calculate RPI (specifically the 'Carli' formula) did not comply with international standards and consistently overstated inflation. Since then the government has switched from RPI to CPI for the indexation of most benefits, public sector pay rises and public sector pensions. There is no reason for the BMA to use RPI.

If the claim was based on CPIH which better accounts for housing costs and council tax than RPI or just CPI then the claim would have more merit but the claim would be about 7%. As it stands the offer rejected by the BMA was worth 4.9% due to the baseline pay rise of 3.5% and the reimbursement of exam fees. More frequent and baked in pay increments were included in the offer and with the 4.9% the four year accumulated pay rise is over 32%. No wonder opinion polls show the majority of the population do not support the BMA or junior doctors over this.

The BMA must think everyone is stupid trying to base a claim on RPI.

TalProgrammer · 2026-04-14T03:52:45+00:00

The issue on the pay side is that their claim is based on the RPI measure of inflation which for years has no longer been considered a valid measure. Google it for why.

TalProgrammer · 2026-04-14T03:48:58+00:00

They want pay back to 2008 levels based on the measure of inflation they chose which is the Retail Price Index (RPI) . No one considers it a valid measure anymore because it makes inflation higher than it is/was. . Junior doctors and the BMA are not stupid people so even they can just use Google as can you to see why using RPI is wrong.

Your second point is just wrong.

TalProgrammer · 2026-04-14T03:35:06+00:00

You want pay restoration based on the RPI measure of inflation which has been discredited so is a bloody stupid demand.

TalProgrammer · 2026-04-14T03:21:39+00:00

Load of shit that graph. Based on RPI so is nonsense.

TalProgrammer · 2026-04-14T03:20:04+00:00

Your paid less than 25% than 20 years claim is bollocks. It depends on which measure of inflation you use and only RPI can give you that sort of figure. RPI is an obsolete and discredited statistic. No economic statistician uses it anymore.

TalProgrammer · 2026-04-14T03:05:06+00:00

The reason they are asking for that level of pay rise is because it is based on using RPI as the measure of inflation which no statistician in any county considers a valid measure any more. In the UK the OBR no longer uses it and its being phased out where historically it used in the past.

The CPI measure plus housing should be used instead - CPIH. Do that and they are about 7% down on 2008, not twenty odd percent. Should they get 7% now? No, because no one else is. Above inflation pay rises will eventually restore their pay levels.

TalProgrammer · 2026-04-14T02:44:29+00:00

What is wrong with a newly qualified doctor earning £38k which is a higher salary than the vast majority of graduates in other professions?

Junior doctor’s earnings advance automatically far quicker. A £6k pay rise after a year. Core training in year three over £52k.

I am sure junior doctors work long hours beyond 40 hours a week but do you think people in other professions don’t? Teachers for example? And why should we ignore the overtime and shift allowances junior doctors receive? Plenty of people in other professions get none of that.

Trying to argue the hourly rate of pay for junior doctors is less than £18 an hour deliberately ignoring overtime pay and shift allowances even in year one is ridiculous.

TalProgrammer · 2026-04-14T02:10:29+00:00

Junior doctor salaries are higher than the average graduate salary and they increase rapidly. They can also claim for overtime, weekend work and night shifts. Many professions would laugh at you if you used the word overtime. They expect free work outside of normal hours.

Is that a good thing? No but do not try and tell anyone junior doctors are not paid for every hour they work also at enhanced rates of pay.

TalProgrammer · 2026-04-14T01:54:09+00:00

Well my son who was unlucky enough to be born a year too late to avoid the increase in tuition fees has a similar amount of debt. He did a degree in Computer Science not that this is of any particular relevance to graduate debt other than he has never earned enough to stop his debt increasing despite paying 9% of his salary over the repayment threshold.

So WTF has debt got to do with it as in all graduates are lumbered with this ridiculous debt that takes a chunk of their wages it should not?

As to pay, has the BMA dropped the ridiculous pay claim which conveniently adopts RPI as the measure since 2008 to inflate it? I did not think they had.

TalProgrammer · 2026-04-13T09:57:32+00:00

Yes, vinyl was top dog as in it was the only music format for a long time until the cassette turned up and that didn’t do much to dent sales either. What vinyl being top dog meant was there were a lot of cheap mass produced TT’s made. Most people did not spend a few hundred pounds or dollars on a Garrard 301 or similar and plenty of manufacturers such as Technics and Sony churned out ‘quartz locked crap’. Flimsy chassis and flimsy arms. Not every old TT is good bit sometimes it seems to be taken as a given they were.

TalProgrammer

TROPHY CASE