A question I sometimes ask myself: If I were the Welsh Conservatives what strategy would I adopt to win the 2021 Senedd election? (yes maybe I'm sad I know) 1/
IMO the first thing to note of course is that anything done by the Welsh Conservatives won't actually make a massive difference. Votes at Senedd elections mostly depend on the wider UK political scene. But maybe you can budge the dial 2-5% each way? But that can be decisive. 2/
I think being an anti-Devo-lite choice (which is the current strategy) is probably a fair shout considering their vote could be squeezed from the right by Brexit Party / Abolish / UKIP. 3/
However, counterintuitively it may IMO be the wrong choice. Because the only people who will *see* Welsh Con messaging are likely to be those following Welsh media. And people vaguely interested in Welsh politics are likely to be a bit more pro-Devo. 4/
I don't think it's a surprise that the time that the Welsh Conservatives seemed to have the most self-generated 'mo' in Wales was when Nick Bourne and David Melding were at the reins and when there was a real Welsh conservative character to them. 5/
To the extent that they actually considered changing the party's name to 'Ymlaen' and becoming a semi-independent entity. Which politically probably wasn't a great idea but you can see where they were coming from. 6/
As a result in 2011 under Bourne's leadership, they built UP to their best ever result at a time when the Conservative were entering a difficult second year in government and people may have been tempted to give them a bloody nose. 7/
The thing is that under Paul Davies' leadership they are pretty well placed to do this. His recent Gwydir blog ticked pretty much all the boxes in that regard. But the overall campaign (and messaging on Covid-19) seems to be 'Wales needs to be more like England'. 8/
I wonder therefore whether some clear blue water and a more independent (not pro-indy but keener on devo) message would give small 'n' conservative nationalists permission to vote Tory, while those without an interest in Welsh politics would quite frankly be none the wiser. 9/
Anyway, that's just a random stream of thoughts for you on a topic most of you probably don't care about. But if you've read down this far, maybe you do! /10
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