If Labour loses the Senedd seat, it will be a huge blow for party that has dominated politics in Wales for a century
When he steps out of the byelection campaign office opposite Caerphilly castle, the Plaid Cymru candidate, Lindsay Whittle, tends to hear a couple of different cries from passing motorists.
“Some of them shout: ‘Good luck Linds!’ I love that,” Whittle said. “It implies we’re old friends even though I may not know them personally.” Others are rather less positive. “They yell: ‘Stop the boats!’ You hear that all the time.
“But the boats are not an issue here. There are no boats with immigrants coming up the River Taff, the River Rhymney, the River Tywi. Ninety-seven per cent of people in this constituency were born in Britain.”
The people of Caerphilly go to the polls on Thursday to elect a new Senedd (Welsh parliament) member after the sudden death of Labour’s Hefin David.
