I am writing this with less than three months to go to the date set for the next Senedd election. I along with, almost all Senedd and party members, hope it goes ahead on the 6th May so the electorate have the opportunity to give their view on our performance as their representatives for the last five years and on the relative merits of the parties. However, the election must be both safe and fair and if it cannot be both then I fear that a postponement will be inevitable.
In normal times I would be delivering leaflets around the constituency, visiting community groups, and attending concerts and sports events. None of these is possible, the nearest I get to meeting constituents in person is waving across the road to them.
The normal activities of holding surgeries around the constituency, attending sports events, attending school concerts have not occurred for the last year. I am fortunate enough to represent an area with a fine choral tradition with attending male voice and ladies choir concerts being part of my annual programme, but this has not been possible for the last year.
The election addresses will go out to every elector during the election, and I have done my best to build up a local profile via the local Evening newspaper and the local radio station. Constituents will be contacted by phone, but with concern over scam callers many people either screen their calls or do not answer from unknown numbers. Also, the advantage of knocking on doors is that people see you and recognise you and can put a name to a face.
As the 2019 General Election was the Brexit election, the 2021 Senedd election will be the COVID election. The views of voters on how Mark Drakeford and the Welsh Government has dealt with the pandemic is almost certainly going to be the key issue for undecided voters. They will also compare Mark Drakeford and Boris Johnson and whilst they may think Boris Johnson is entertaining, our phone contacts tell us that they think Mark Drakeford is dealing better with the pandemic.
Whilst there are a vociferous minority who want to pretend the pandemic does not exist, the more people we contact the more the desire to come out of lockdown slowly and safely becomes seen as the view of the substantial majority.
By May, unless there is a vaccine shortage, I expect that over half the population will have had the first vaccine and most if not all in the first four groups their second. We will hopefully be on our way to the new normal.
We must also always remember the phrase coined by the former U.S. Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill that “all politics is local”. Whilst the pandemic will be the big issue there will be individual regional and constituency issues. In my constituency we have managed to stop the introduction of a new waste incinerator in Llansamlet which, unsurprisingly, was very unpopular with local residents. There are areas where youth annoyance and damage, road safety, local flooding, and environmental matters, including fly tipping are important. To those living in the new flats in SA1 the cladding issue is of great importance. I have been supporting constituents on all these and many more local issues during my time as an elected representative. In other parts of Wales, large scale flooding, the fear of flooding and disused coal tips are major issues.
After all of the above it will almost certainly come back to people’s view on how the Welsh Government has dealt with the COVID crisis and the inevitable comparison with what is happening and has happened in England.
A week is a long time in politics and as I write this with less than three months to the expected polling day, I realise a lot of can happen in the weeks leading up to the election. I hope at a very minimum that the COVID restrictions will be reduced so that we can deliver election leaflets even if we cannot knock on doors during the election campaign.
This is an election like no other, but it is important that it takes place on the 6th of May. I like all other candidates will do my best to get elected and hope I never have to fight another election like this year’s.
Mike Hedges is the Member of the Senedd for Swansea East.
