Okay Charlie, you are entitled to your non-resident's opinion. Respect mine.

I shall not share my own experience in the open, where it can be abused, but happy to privately. I can assure you they are not.

What I will say is they're a nationalist party, not a party of the centre left, which means a substantial segment of supporters/members who are rural and conservative.

Jokes on anyone who thinks Plaid are progressive. Sorry.

Arboreal Breakdown.

Those are issues (health and material wealth) common across the island, as I often say to people. And I don't think you can do much via devolution, especially not when those very issues, compounded by diet, have been present, even stubbornly entrenched, since the late nineteenth century.

It's a good question, and it gets to the heart of why we can clearly see a plague on all their houses attitude among voters. Local government's visible weakness fuels that sense of anger and needs immediate and ameliorative resolution.

And Scotland, I think, though do correct me, has been shielded from the very worst by the Barnett cushion. Although even that is now worn out! Down here, without that cushion, well, Caerphilly is a case in point. The online/media commentary has totally missed the point but it is there for all to see

Thing is, we, you and I, people our age, can remember a time when councils did proper tidying up of the streets and cut the grass, didn't let leaves block up the drains, when bins were picked up every week, and so on, and so on. It's hardly declinism or nostalgia to say we pay more for a lot less.

They also *really* don't like seeing their wages eroded when the environment/urban fabric around seems threadbare and somehow not as good as it used to be — that then begs the question, for what exactly are we paying.

100% agree! His papers are all spread around, especially in the States. But, the Digital Public Library of America is worth checking, as the photos London had taken when he was doing work on that book do seem to be digitised (if the link works):

dp.la/search?q=%22...

Occurs to me that Jack London was a major influence on those who emerged on the left in that period, his novel The Iron Heel comes up time and again in memoirs, oral histories. Martin Eden too. Published by Mills and Boon, who also did editions of the main miners' leaders memoirs, e.g. Bob Smillie.

Should say that your post popped up via @tricksterprince.bsky.social, rather than this being one of those wholly random step-ins!

If you can access a copy of Sam Davies' County Borough Elections in England and Wales, 1919-1938, volume 1, Lorna, it covers all the pre-war elections in Barnsley. The volume may even be on Google Books, via the preview, and you can search that way. It's a goldmine compendium.

Right down to the notion that Whittle, the Plaid winner, was somehow the plucky upstart as opposed to a former AM and ex-leader of the local council. So many partisans dressed up as "journalists".

“Mamdani in the Áras for us” actually scans.

If the local authority had been scandal free - and it very much is not - and this happened, very loud alarms would ring, but Whittle used to be the local council leader, has previously served as a List AM, and is therefore the perennial Mr Alternative locally when Labour falls down. And it has.

It's recoverable. The Labour vote fell broadly in line with the Plaid increase (viz Tory > Reform shifts as well), so lots of tactical voting, which can turn around. Plus it is a reminder that Labour has heavy incumbency drag on an angry electorate that wants life to be easier, if not better.