
Can I just start this post by stating I think Kirsty Williams has got off to a good start since taking over from Mike German. Sure there have been a few blunders, the project 31 statement lacks any credibility, but on the plus side indicated her ambitions. And the recent PPB performance was awful.
However, I think she's on to something in the way she has positioned her party as the anti Cardiff Bay Bubble party. Appart from AMs, the political media, public affairs professionals and civil servants - the Welsh square mile is a rather abstract and distant place to the rest of Wales. The fact that Plaid, who cleverly positioned themselves as a Wales wide party rather than an establishment party in 2007, have gone native since entering the Government of Wales makes this a very profitable division line for the Lib Dems.
However the Lib Dems seem to me to be cornering themselves into a difficult stranglehold of their own making. The clear electoral gains for the Lib Dems are to be made from scavenging the decaying Labour political corpse during the next two years. However, project Kirsty is all about re-establishing a Lib-Lab Government in Cardiff Bay.
Hence her political attacks have been primarily aimed at the Welsh Government's junior partner where in reality they are only in direct electoral competition with Plaid in Ceredigion.
The inevitable question therefore is why bother voting Lib Dem if their sole option after 2011 is to keep Labour in power.
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