The announcement on the board about the business scheduled for the Assembly briefing room was amusing – to cynical journalists – but also, as it turned out, completely misleading.
“Welsh Lib Dem” said the board, which sparked jokes about how small the party had recently grown.
But the gist of the press briefing was just the opposite – it was about how a party holding only one council seat in eight in Wales was able wheedle its way onto the cabinets of fully half the Welsh local authorities.
The Lib Dems hold 156 out of 1,264 seats, and yet they sit in 11 of the 22 cabinets, or similar. A trifle like Labour’s Militant Tendency of old, but far more successful.
The party performs this trick without “controlling” (ie, possessing a majority of seats) on a single authority. The National Assembly’s extremely handy Local Elections Guide 2008 lists the Lib Dems as the hardly-rans compared with the other parties (the “control” table); but then that Guide doesn’t total up cabinet seats; and neither does it total how many councils is “led” by each party (ie, who supplies the council leader”).
One of the few councils the Lib Dems most regret not having a say in is Torfaen; the result there was perhaps the biggest shock in last May’s elections - Labour hung onto control only through the assistance of the tiny Plaid Cymru group.
But the Lib Dems got their own back on Plaid in Carmarthenshire. The document written by party officials and presented to the press today states that the council is “in administration” – which is not that it is bankrupt, but that the Lib Dems are “part of the administration”. In fact, Carms could be said to be a Lib Dem failure; their single councillor votes with the controlling Independents, but has been given no seat in the cabinet.
It seems as if the Lib Dems centrally before the election pushed on all their federal parties and affiliates to follow a candidates’ policy which aims to get a core of good, able people elected on each council, who could then work towards gaining leadership on the authority through a seat in the cabinet.
Mrs Randerson, the party’s local government spokesman, spoke of the aim of “changing the culture” in councils, and “changing structures”. All very anoracky. But Lib Dems know how government works and how those workings can be improved.
And their AMs have consistently provided the best and more reliable commentary on what is going on at the Assembly – partly because the party has a policy of being open (so unlike Labour or Plaid), but more importantly because they possess a deep belief in the need to understand structures and the way in which they work.
The 2008 election results offered the opportunity for coalitions – and no party understands that method of governance better than the Lib Dems. They beat even Plaid hollow.
The party seems to have been extremely willing to help the great number of new and inexperienced members (primarily as a result of the collapse of Labour representation) to establish robust administrations able to hold the officer-corps to account. Traditionally, Welsh councils – particularly in the Labour-dominated Valleys – have been largely officer-fiefdoms, with councillor influence often restricted to ward level.
And this string of Lib Dem successes has happened even before proportional representation is introduced. With Scotland having joined Northern Ireland to introduce the system, some people reckon that the next Welsh council poll will be through STV.
It might be that 2012 will be too early after the Assembly election of 2011. But the partial PR used for the Assembly virtually ensures that sooner or later a governing coalition in Cardiff will exist only if PR is part of the government’s policies.
The Lib Dems and Plaid are in favour; the Conservatives are possibles; only Labour is solidly against, and that party includes not a few STV-supporters.
