{"id":53535,"date":"2021-06-04T18:25:02","date_gmt":"2021-06-04T17:25:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/?p=53535"},"modified":"2021-06-04T18:25:05","modified_gmt":"2021-06-04T17:25:05","slug":"elections-how-a-city-of-marginals-became-safe-labour-territory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2021\/06\/04\/elections-how-a-city-of-marginals-became-safe-labour-territory\/","title":{"rendered":"Elections: How a city of marginals became safe Labour territory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Until recently, Cardiff was not a city of safe seats in Westminster and Senedd elections. Cardiff North and Cardiff Central have both been marginal seats in recent decades. Those two seats, and Cardiff West were all seen as in play in the last Senedd election. Cardiff North continued to be referred to as a Labour\/Tory marginal, Cardiff Central was said to a ‘hyper-marginal seat’ which could see a Lib Dem gain<\/a>, and the blunt instrument of polling suggested Mark Drakeford could lose his Cardiff West seat to Plaid Cymru<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

None of this came to pass, and the Labour party had huge majorities in every seat the smallest being a 9 per cent majority in Cardiff North. Even though it was a good night all round for Welsh Labour, these don’t look like the results of marginal seats. So what’s happened? Were Cardiff’s constituencies ever as marginal as we thought? And if they were, what’s changed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cardiff North<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cardiff West<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cardiff Central<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cardiff South and Penarth<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where are the constituencies? <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cardiff North<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If one seat in Cardiff is marginal, it’s Cardiff North. The seat, which still contains some of the most affluent parts of Cardiff, was historically a Conservative seat, before being taken by Labour in the 1997 landslide. Since, then it’s been a marginal seat, usually following national swings. Until 2017, the seat was won by the party who won the most seats overall. In 2017, Labour took the seat as one of its gains from the Tories. In 2019, Labour kept the seat with no swing to the Tories, completely defying the national picture. The constituency has been changes over the last few decades with many new housing developments, and it is not in affluent areas like this where the Conservative party are now making their big gains. The fact this seat didn’t fall in 2019 despite it being the best night for the Tories for decades suggests that it may now remain a Labour seat for the foreseeable. It certainly won’t be a top target for the Tories next time around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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