Caerphilly by-election: Will Plaid or Reform have last laugh in Tommy Cooper’s birthplace?

Caerphilly is famous for three Cs: coal, cheese and its mighty castle. It’s also the birthplace of the legendary comedian Tommy Cooper.

And after Thursday’s Senedd by-election, in what was once a Labour stronghold as impregnable as the castle, it’s Plaid Cymru or Reform UK that will have the last laugh.

It may not be a Westminster by-election, but this clash will have an impact on UK politics way beyond the Welsh valleys if Nigel Farage’s party triumphs.

A Reform UK victory would strengthen claims that Mr Farage and his insurgents are poised to inflict massive damage on Labour and the Conservatives in elections next year and beyond.

Victory in the valleys would intensify fears among the other parties that Reform UK’s boasts about winning the next general election are not the fantasy that its opponents claim.

On a campaign visit to Caerphilly, Mr Farage – inevitably – posed for photographs in front of a 9ft tall bronze statue of Tommy Cooper, who died in 1984.

But the by-election is no laughing matter for Labour, which has seen its support in this by-election crumble like Caerphilly cheese.

Labour has held the Westminster seat of Caerphilly since 1918 and the Senedd seat since devolution in 1999. Ron Davies, said to be the architect of Welsh devolution, was MP from 1983 to 2001.

He was Welsh secretary under Tony Blair from 1997 until he quit over what he called a “moment of madness” in 1998 when he was mugged at knifepoint on London’s Clapham Common.

For the front-runner Reform UK, not even the conviction of its former leader in Wales, Nathan Gill, for taking pro-Russian bribes seems to have halted the march of Mr Farage’s party towards the brink of a stunning victory.

Mr Gill, who led Reform UK in Wales in 2021, admitted taking bribes to make statements in favour of Vladimir Putin’s Russia while he was a member of the European Parliament.

Questioned during a visit to Caerphilly, Mr Farage said: “Any political party can find in their midst all sorts of terrible people. Gill is particularly shocking because I knew him as a devout Christian, very clean-living, honest person. So I’m deeply shocked.”

Despite this bribery scandal, the latest opinion poll in the constituency suggested a narrow Reform UK victory, with Mr Farage’s party on 42%, Plaid Cymru on 38% and Labour languishing on a dismal 12%.

But with Labour, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Green Party out of contention in a two-horse race, Reform UK’s candidate Llŷr Powell could be vulnerable to tactical voting for Plaid Cymru’s Lindsay Whittle.

Turnout could be crucial. A low turnout is likely to help Plaid Cymru win. A high turnout could mean Reform’s opinion poll leads, both nationally and locally, are reliable and could hand victory to Mr Farage.

But Plaid has come second in every Senedd election in Caerphilly and Mr Whittle can’t be faulted for perseverance and dogged determination. Until now, he’s had a miserable record as a candidate, both for Westminster and the Senedd.

Aged 72, he has stood in Caerphilly in every general election since 1983, no fewer than 10 times, and in every Welsh Assembly election since it was formed in 1999 – seven times.

Dubbed “Mr Caerphilly” by his party, he was council leader and assembly member for South Wales East between 2011 and 2016.

Interviewed by Sky News back in 2003, the year of Tony Blair’s Iraq war, he said: “People are obviously very unhappy with the health service. They’re unhappy with the way the Labour Party are drifting to the right.

“They’re unhappy with the treatment of the ex-miners and their compensation claims. They’re unhappy with the treatment of the firemen. They’re unhappy that we’ve just gone to war.”

Reform UK’s Mr Powell, on the other hand, is just 30 and is relatively inexperienced as a candidate. He was a Tory candidate in local elections in Cardiff in 2022.

But he was also active in Mr Farage’s UKIP and Brexit Party and worked for the now disgraced Gill as a constituency caseworker while Gill was an MEP. He now says Mr Gill’s actions were “abhorrent” and “a betrayal”.

For Labour, despite its long dominance in Caerphilly, this campaign couldn’t have gone any worse. As well as battling against the unpopularity of both Sir Keir Starmer and the Welsh government, the council’s Labour leader, Sean Morgan, defected to Plaid Cymru during the campaign.

So, like many two-horse races, this political dash to the finishing line could be neck and neck.

Of Caerphilly’s three Cs, coal is long gone. The last mine, Penallta collier, closed in 1991, though there’s a proud history of coal mining.

Back in 1913, tragedy struck when the Universal Colliery in Senghenydd was the site of the UK’s worst mining accident, when 439 miners and a rescuer were killed in an explosion.

But Caerphilly could be about to make history once more, with either a massive stride forward on the road to Downing Street for Mr Farage or Labour surrendering power to the Welsh nationalists in Cardiff after more than a quarter of a century.

And, as Caerphilly’s most famous son would have said, the by-election result on Thursday night will be a pointer to politics in Wales and the whole of the UK… just like that!