There were no electoral surprises in Caerphilly County Borough after it re-elected its three Members of Parliament in the 2017 General Election.
Wayne David for Caerphilly, Chris Evans for Islwyn, and Gerald Jones for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, were all elected last night with comfortable majorities.
Across the UK Labour picked up 29 seats while the Conservatives lost 12 seats – losing its Commons majority.
Prime Minister Theresa May will continue with a minority government with the support of the Democratic Unionist Party.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has called on her to resign and said Labour was ready to serve the country.
Wayne David, who was the chairman of the Labour Party’s campaign in Wales, said: “I’m delighted to have won, but I am also extremely pleased to have won with an increased majority too. We fought a very hard campaign here in Caerphilly, as we did throughout Britain and Wales, and I think this is a wonderful result for Welsh Labour.”
He added: “I think people have been disillusioned by the Conservative government, in particular they took a dim view of Theresa May calling a snap general election and people have voted for change. They want fairness, integrity and honesty in politics and in most people’s view the Conservative party no longer stands for those things.”
In the past Mr David has been a big critic of Jeremy Corbyn, but last night conceded that the leader had fought an “excellent campaign”.
Caerphilly full results
Wayne David – Labour – 22,491
Jane Pratt – Conservative – 10,413
Lindsay Whittle Plaid Cymru – 5,962
Liz Wilks – UKIP – 1,259
Kay David – Liberal Democrat – 725
Andrew Creak – Green – 447
Conservative candidate Jane Pratt said she was pleased with the party’s Caerphilly result.
She said: “Last election the vote was 6,000 and we have increased that to 10,000. I’m delighted to have come second, it’s a very good result for me.
Islwyn full results
Chris Evans – Labour – 21,238 votes
Dan Thomas – Conservative – 9,826
Darren Jones – Plaid Cymru – 2,739
Joe Smyth – UKIP – 1,605
Matthew Kidner – Liberal Democrats – 685
Labour’s Chris Evans held the Islwyn seat.
He said: “I want to thank my team. This has been the best campaign I’ve been involved with, and I couldn’t have done it without them.
“We’ve got the best future for the people of Islwyn.
“This is an election nobody wanted. I will say this. When will the Conservatives learn that this isn’t about name calling, or personal attacks. They’ve tried it nationally, and they’ve tried it locally. In both cases, people see them as the ‘Nasty Party’. Finally, they’ve been rejected.
“When are we finally going to have a debate about the issues? This country is more divided than ever. But do you know what? Sooner or later, we have to come together. We have to find some common ground, it’s the only way forward. I hope this election draws a line under the nastiness, the name calling, and we got on and do what matters the most. What are the best policies for our country, for our people?”
Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney full results
Gerald Jones – Labour – 22,407
Pauline Jorgensen – Conservative – 6,073
Amy Kitcher Plaid Cymru – 2,740
David Rowlands UKIP – 1,484
Bob Griffin – Liberal Democrat – 841
Labour hold in #Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney. #ForTheMany pic.twitter.com/DR4XNll7bH
— Gerald Jones (@GeraldJonesLAB) June 9, 2017
Former deputy leader of Caerphilly County Borough Council Gerald Jones was elected as MP for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney.
Mr Jones, who was first elected to the seat in 2015, said: “There are some that say the constituency of Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney is a safe Labour seat, whatever that means.
“But I speak for myself and I speak for the Labour party in saying that we will never – we have never and we will never – take this constituency for granted.
“We have talked to hundreds if not thousands of constituents in recent weeks and have heard the messages from the people of this constituency who are suffering under Tory austerity over the last seven years.”
A sad day in pollitics, the left have a hold on the Labour party and i fear their grip will last a long time. They won with leftie/ PC type students who believe anything He says. He claims that he wants to save the NHS but its the benfits cheats he is protecting with his policies will destroy our health care. For the conservatives to win next time we need to target the young and pull them away from the left.
There is little chance of an enfeebled Tory party doing anything of the kind Edward. May will be replaced soon and another election fought but a choice of leader will be from a very poor pool. Gone are the days of the Tory grandees such as Francis Pym, Hesseltine, Clarke and so on.
Theresa May chose to take on one of the greatest campaigners of this century, Jeremy Corbyn, on his own turf and got a bit of a tuning. I don’t vote Labour or Tory, waste of time, but this is a lesson for young Tories. I must admit to enjoying the loss of seats experienced by the Scot’s Nats – good!
I think the issue was that she was over confident and she took the British people for granted, which is always a big mistake and i have seen this happen several times with different Prime ministers. Corbyn was underestimated, he promises the earth but im sure there would be no way he could implment them. But he gave the people what they needed and wanted to hear. Perhaps now all politicians will take this warning and listen to its people. The Torys failed to act or respond to Corbyns manifestio, which was obviously doomed fail. I also think May will be gone within 2 years. I am not sure if this is good or bad because i think we may have prime minister Boris, he is good entainment but im not sure if he is PM material. Then again. He might be look at Trump anf Corbyn.
I was reading the express and they said that Rudd,hammond, Davis and Boris are contenders for PM. For me its a two horse race between Rudd and Boris. And Sadly i think Boris would do well as a charcter and not because he is s strong leader. Rudd would be my Choice she done well in thr debate she took part in.
Maybe there is someone out there that is not in the limelight currently but may be elevated to cabinet position in the new administration. I think all bets are off at the moment, we need to see what happens when things settle down.
Comrade Corbyn promised everything for free for everyone, an easy sure fire way of winning votes and gullible fools were taken in like rats following the piper, Corbyn is nothing more than a rabble-rouser, the majority of Welsh voted to leave the EU then went and voted for a left wing socialist that has seriously weakened the UK’s negotiating powers.
At last someone else who agrees with me. I thought I was the only one who saw him
I think a lot of people saw through him – but there was an element of tactical voting by students / young people and police – 2 sections of the public who stood to benefit from Corbyns “promises”. ( ie:scrapping student fees and increasing the number of police officers ) and he stood to gain a large number of votes from them.
I listened to one of the ex Tory chancellors on the radio saying he had costed Comrade Corbyns promises and it would have cost £300 billion pound.
He also said that the Tories should have used this approach during the campaigning to expose the false promises.
What Corbyn did was to offer incentives to two big sections of society to vote for him – he offered to abandon student fees and to increase the number of police, giving him 2 large sections of voting public.
To give an example of the young people who voted for him – I saw a TV interview this morning asking a 20 something youth worker why she voted for him – her reply ? – I researched him on the internet and he seems an honest person and chose the things that are important to me.
Since when can you tell from the internet whether a person is honest ?
No doubt a lot of young people voted Labour, some of them had thought things through and decided that, in their view, socialism was good for the country. Many more, however, voted out of self interest, free university education in England and other costly policies were attractive to them.
The problem the self interest group is going to find is that to finance that manifesto the government will have to borrow even more heavily. Who will have to pay taxes to pay off this debt along with interest? The present day teenager of course. The old people, much despised on social media by many of the young will be dead and unable to bail them out. It will be the present day young that will be paying taxes in the year 2050 and beyond to fund all this.
You are totally right.
What todays young people seem to forget is the older generation have seen the promises of politicians over many years but fail to acknowledge the experience we have in these matters.
Also they are misguided ,as many of their comments seem to suggest that they think the older generation have had it really good and have had better lifestyles than they have.
In my working career ( I’m retired now and a pensioner )I’ve worked hard since I left school at 17 years of age,seen many years of employment with relatively low wages; either low pay rises (typically 1%-3%) and many years of pay freezes.
I’ve seen the 3 day week (with power cuts) the miners strike ( my dad was a miner and like many mining families, we really struggled during the strike )
Most pensioners can just about get by – but these youngsters seem to think we all have “gold plated pensions” .
I have nothing against todays young people – and it is good that they aspire to have a good standard of living – but like many of us pensioners did – they will have to work for it !
You get nothing for free in this world – and I agree with you,as they grow older it will be their generation that pays the increased taxes that socialist ideas bring.
Nothng wrong with aspiration but far too many think that wealth will somehow drop into their laps and they won’t have to work. I left school at 16 years and 2 weeks old and have worked ever since. I have laboured in appalling conditions in industry and have done just about every job you can think of, from manager to scrubbing floors.
I bought my first house at 20 and did not own even a landline phone in order to save money to pay the mortgage. No holidays, no car but did everything, including my shopping, on a motorbike. Went to college and night school, did a university degree and, inch by inch, managed to afford to travel and buy my own home.
I don’t mind that I had to work but I do mind that a chunk of the population believes that I and my contempories had it ‘easy’ and should now go without to pay for people who would rather not work. I wonder whether these critics would have been willing to do half the things I have done to earn an honest living?
Exactly – and unfortunately a lot of todays younger generation seem to want everything handed to them on a plate !
but maybe thats partly the fault of the nanny state – where people expect everything to be done for them.
The other thing that is changed is peoples attitudes – especially regarding democracy – they just don’t seem to understand the meaning of the word let alone the principles of it.
I have just read an article online where Jeremy Corbyn wants to try and form a minority government and has prepared a Queens speech and people have started an online petition to try and oust Theresa May – firstly, with the DUP the Conservatives have a majority government so Corbyn is wasting his time.
As for the online petition – its like are-run of Brexit – it seems that when things don’t turn out as these people want they throw their toys out of their prams and try to get decisions overturned !!!
There is actually a new word for the actions of people you describe, it is ‘slacktivism.’ This means people who can’t be bothered to put any time, effort or their own money into causes of any kind but get all wound up about issues from Brexit to the NHS and sign online petitions or dash off a couple of lines on Twitter. The derivation of the word, fairly obviously, comes from a melding of ‘activism’ and ‘slacker.’
None of the ‘slacktivists’ understand or want democracy. I have never voted Tory in my life but the Conservatives won 318 seats and are, by far, the biggest party in Westminster. I don’t see how any group cobbled around the Labour party has any justification as a government.
To give examples in my own lifetime Labour won the election in February 1974 with 301 seat against the Conservative’s 297. Quite properly Harold Wilson formed a Labour government. He then called an election for October of that year and the result was Labour 319 Conservative 277. This result made Labour’s total only one seat out from what Theresa May achieved last week and the Tory opposition held 11 seat more than Labour has now. Despite this result Labour remained in power for five years. I rest my case, the slacktivists may witter on about they hate another Tory government or Brexit but they don’t know what they are talking about.
Slacktivists – spot on ! and as for giving 16 year olds the vote thats a ridiculous idea.
I feel like you that these slacktivists do not know what they talk about.
My mates son is a slacktivist – he’s a student in Cardiff who is a socialist and active Corbyn supporter – he’s a “poor” student ( no part time job – like some students have )but he has to have all the latest tech gadgets and nice lifestyle and wants the hard working people of this country taxed to the hilt in order to provide him with this lifestyle he’s accustomed to.
He bleats on about socialist values and looking after the vulnerable – but what these so called socialists really want is a life where the slackers have a lifestyle supported by the welfare state,happy to get by on others efforts !
Perhaps It would be much better if we had a ” first past the post ” system in the UK – where whichever party has the greatest number of votes governs.
Personally I would prefer proportional representation and doing what is in the interests of the country as a whole – but todays politicians have shown us that they are unable to sit down and debate sensibly in the interests and fairness of all.
I want a country where had work is rewarded and the lazy are forced to work.
I want everyone to pay a fair proportion of income tax in proportion to their earnings / wealth.
Will we ever achieve this utopia ?- not in a million years.
I have just seen on the BBC that all the Mps who were against Corbyn to unite behind their leader. Where is the principals of these MPs ? It just shows how desperate the Labour party have became to gain power, they will promise the world regardless of how they will pay for it.
Just goes to show that politics is a dirty game.
And George Osborne & Nick Clegg in particular have surely shown that !
If Comrade Corbyn was really interested in whats best for the UK he would stop all this nonsense about trying to form a minority government and allow Theresa May to concentrate on the Brexit negotiations and getting the best deal for the UK.
The truth is he’s not really interested in the UK – he’s already stated publicly that he would allow free movement of EU nationals – regardless of whether the EU would do the same for Brits abroad – thats the sort of crackpot he is.
He should accept however you paint it – he lost the election.
Again its sour grapes from these young liberals. These people have gone through school where there is no losers only winners. Now days children have medals if they win or lose. Because of this attitude in later life they hate losing and will protest against it. Sad state of affairs
Only interested in themselves – it’s no wonder we’ve lost the sense of Community in this country.
So much for free speech i just posted a link to a you tube site,which explains the problem with millienals only to have it blocked. It looks like the observer is run by snowflakes
Why are my posts being blocked so much for freedom of speech, the observer is at it again