Read on Twitter
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& #39;m sad I know) 1/
IMO the first thing to note of course is that anything done by the Welsh Conservatives won& #39;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& #39;t think it& #39;s a surprise that the time that the Welsh Conservatives seemed to have the most self-generated & #39;mo& #39; 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& #39;s name to & #39;Ymlaen& #39; and becoming a semi-independent entity. Which politically probably wasn& #39;t a great idea but you can see where they were coming from. 6/
As a result in 2011 under Bourne& #39;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& #39; 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 & #39;Wales needs to be more like England& #39;. 8/
