Now you know why Labour are worried

Have just been doing a bit of number crunching. For those whose head starts to hurt when thinking about numbers I suggest you look away now.

In April 2003 the average of polls for ICM, MORI and YOUGOV gave a reading of :

Labour 44
Con 30.6
Lib 19.6
Other 7.0

These were of course UK wide polls.

The actual result was (adding the Constituency and regional votes together)

Labour 38.3
Con19.5
Plaid 20.5
Lib 13.3
oths 8.0

The current average of the same uk wide polls gives:

Labour 32.6
Con 37.6
Lib 20.0
oth 9.66

Nobody seriously believes that Labour could poll below 30% in an election in Wales. Peter Riddel writing in the Times the other day came to the conclusion there was no "cameron effect" outside of the South of England. The evidence I have seen for myself in terms of canvass returns and the rumours we have of the details of other parties figures suggest that the Tories have not made much headway in Wales for the Assembly elections.

However a Labour vote share of 32.6 would be roughly a six percent swing from labour last time. That feels about right. My guess is that there will be quite significant variation across Wales with huge swings against Labour in some areas(Aberconwy and Clwyd west for example) less in others.

The best the Tories can hope for is swapping list seats for constituencies. This will be "spun" as a big leap forward but in reality they will have made little progress.