Pentyrch By-election
I suppose I should be used to losing my staff and those of the Welsh Conservative team to elected office by now. It is a tradition that I hope continues!
After all Nick Ramsay was first a council seat victor then went on to win Monmouth as an AM last May… I was truly delighted to see my researcher, Craig Williams victorious in this epic battle for a seat on Cardiff City Council. It was a battle that turned out to be a close contest between the Welsh Conservatives and the Socialists with both Plaid and the Lib Dems fading badly from their vote in May, despite the latter crew throwing everything at the campaign. Parties often get blamed for causing by-elections and I suspect that might have played a minor role here but it did not dominate and Labour also had a well liked and local councillor who lost the seat as their sitting councillor in May…
Against this background Craig in my opinion and despite the very favourable position the party is in nationally faced an uphill task. He worked like a Trojan and remained good humoured and positive and was supported by a very strong and committed team. I went out on four separate occasions to support Craig before holidays intervened and Jon Morgan, David Melding, Nick Ramsay. William Graham and Andrew RT also supported strongly from the Assembly AMs and special mention should also be made of Jon Burns, Richard John, Clare Bath (naturally) and Craig Piper also did sterling service.
Craig had a very ready grasp of the issues that mattered to Pentrych and Gwaelod-y-Garth as we canvassed and talked to residents. He had, of course, given the First Minister a good run for his money in the Assembly elections (when The Cardiff West team and Charlotte as his agent had performed so well- Charlotte, of course is a veteran of tough campaigns– Stefan’s for example ) and so was very familiar with the area.
I had the good fortune to be sitting by the side of Lake Garda late that night and heard of the victory first, before the nail bitingly close margin (though news during the day had indicated its closeness) from our Director for Wales, Matt Lane who continues to make everything possible for us in campaigning in Wales.
Well done to all of the team and on current performance Craig will be following Nick into the Assembly Chamber.
