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All 40 Welsh seats to the House of Commons | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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These are the results of the 2005 United Kingdom general election in Wales. The election was held on 5 May 2005 and all 40 seats in Wales were contested.
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All 40 Welsh seats to the House of Commons | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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These are the results of the 2005 United Kingdom general election in Wales. The election was held on 5 May 2005 and all 40 seats in Wales were contested.
Below is a table summarising the results of the 2005 general election in Wales. [1]
| Party | Seats | Votes | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | Gains | Losses | Net +/- | % seats | Total | % votes | Change | ||
| Labour | 29 | 0 | 5 |  5 | 72.5 | 594,821 | 42.7 | 5.9 | |
| Conservative | 3 | 3 | 0 |  3 | 7.5 | 297,830 | 21.4 | 0.4 | |
| Liberal Democrats | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 10.0 | 256,249 | 18.4 | 4.6 | |
| Plaid Cymru | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 7.5 | 174,838 | 12.6 | 1.7 | |
| Independent | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2.5 | 23,230 | 1.7 | 1.1 | |
| UKIP | 0 | 0 | 0 |  | — | 20,297 | 1.5 | 0.6 | |
| Green | 0 | 0 | 0 | | — | 7,144 | 0.5 | 0.2 | |
| Forward Wales | 0 | 0 | 0 | | — | 3,461 | 0.2 | N/A | |
| Legalise Cannabis | 0 | 0 | 0 | | — | 1,772 | 0.1 | N/A | |
| BNP | 0 | 0 | 0 | | — | 1,689 | 0.1 | 0.1 | |
| Socialist Labour | 0 | 0 | 0 | | — | 1,605 | 0.1 | 0.1 | |
| Veritas | 0 | 0 | 0 | | — | 1,437 | 0.1 | N/A | |
| Others | 0 | 0 | 0 | | — | 8,346 | 0.6 | 0.5 | |
| Total | 40 | 1,392,719 | 62.4 | ||||||
The election saw Labour lose ground in Wales although it still won 29 of Wales' 40 constituencies and 42.7% of the vote. In what the BBC described as a "sensational defeat". Labour lost Blaenau Gwent, its "safest seat in Wales" to Independent Peter Law, a member of the Welsh Assembly who had left Labour to contest the election following a dispute about the use of an all-women shortlist in the selection of Labour's candidate. [2]
Plaid Cymru, also fell back losing Ceredigion (to the Liberal Democrats) and failing to regain Ynys Môn which they had narrowly lost to Labour in 2001. [2] This followed on from what the BBC described as "a poor performance" by Plaid Cymru at the 2003 National Assembly for Wales election, when it was reduced from 17 seats to 12. [3] Elfyn Llwyd, Plaid Cymru's parliamentary leader who was re-elected as MP for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy, said the result was "extremely disappointing". However he also stated that while the result was "a set back...but it's not half as bad as the media speculation would suggest", noting he and Plaid's two other MPs increased their majorities, and that "If 1,400 votes had gone the other way, we would have won Ynys Mon and held Ceredigion." [3]
The Conservatives made three gains from Labour (Clwyd West, Preseli Pembrokeshire and Monmouth, the first time there had been Conservative MPs from Welsh constituencies since the party had been wiped out in Wales in the 1997 election. [2] The Shadow Secretary of State for Wales, Bill Wiggin, said after the result "Never again will Wales be a Conservative-free zone". [4] However, the Conservatives failed to win two other target Labour-held seats, Vale of Glamorgan and Cardiff North, which the BBC described as "disappointments" for them, and Wiggin admitted that he would have liked the Party to win more seats in Wales. [4] [5]
The Liberal Democrats gained two seats (taking Cardiff Central from Labour in addition to their gain of Ceredigion), thereby doubling their Welsh total to four seats. [2] Lembit Öpik, the Welsh Liberal Democrats leader, described this as a "fantastic night" for his party in Wales, and called their gaining of Ceredigion the "result of the night". [6] He also added that by having the second highest number of Welsh MPs the Welsh Liberal Democrats were now "the official opposition" to Labour at Westminster. [5]
Plaid Cymru is a centre-left to left-wing, Welsh nationalist political party in Wales, committed to Welsh independence from the United Kingdom. It campaigns on a platform of social democracy and civic nationalism. The party is a strong supporter of the European Union and is a member of the European Free Alliance (EFA). The party holds 4 of 32 Welsh seats in the UK Parliament, 12 of 60 seats in the Senedd, and 202 of 1,231 principal local authority councillors. Plaid was formed in 1925 under the name Plaid Genedlaethol Cymru and Gwynfor Evans won the first Westminster seat for the party at the 1966 Carmarthen by-election.
Simon George Thomas is a Welsh former politician who was a member of Plaid Cymru. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Ceredigion from 2000 to 2005, and an Assembly Member in the National Assembly for Wales representing the Mid and West Wales list between 2011 and 2018.
Ieuan Wyn Jones is a Welsh politician who was the Deputy First Minister in the Welsh Government from 2007 to 2011. He was the Member of the National Assembly for Wales for the Ynys Môn constituency from 1999 to 2013, and he was also leader of Plaid Cymru from 2000 to 2012. Jones served as Member of Parliament for Ynys Môn constituency from 1987 to 2001, when he retired to focus on his work in the Welsh Assembly. In 2007, Jones was named Wales' "Politician of the Year" by the BBC Wales am.pm programme. He resigned from the Welsh Assembly on 20 June 2013. In 2017 he unsuccessfully sought to return to the House of Commons for his former constituency.
The 2005 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 5 May 2005, to elect 646 members to the House of Commons. The governing Labour Party led by the prime minister Tony Blair won its third consecutive victory, with Blair becoming the second Labour leader after Harold Wilson to form three majority governments. However, its majority fell to 66 seats; the majority it won four years earlier had been of 167 seats. The UK media interpreted the results as an indicator of a breakdown in trust in the government, and especially in Blair.
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