The Welsh Parliament Assembly’s electoral reform committee, made up exclusively of Labour and Plaid Cymru Assembly Members, has released official recommendations for more politicians and an even less constituency-linked voting system for the Senedd. Labour’s Dawn Bowden, who chairs the committee, has said she would like her party to adopt its recommendations. They are yet to officially comment. Plaid Cymru have already officially taken on the call for more politicians in their manifesto…
In the 2011 Welsh Devolution referendum, the Yes campaign repeatedly promised that the new powers proposed for the devolved assembly would not mean more politicians. The BBC even helped the Labour-led campaign with a spurious ‘fact check‘, refuting a main claim of the No campaign, that a Yes vote would lead to more Assembly Members. The BBC emphatically ‘fact checked’ that it wouldn’t. Now it looks like the fact checkers should have been fact checked…