Following the disaster that was Enfield Southgate, the knock-on effects and media coverage of the event caused Labour to stumble backwards in opinion polls once again. To many it seemed like a repeat of 2010's struggles, only this time there were some immediate electoral tests for the government. In Wales the Welsh Assembly was back up for re-election and for once Labour was under threat. First Minister Mark Drakeford had only been in power for 2 years following the resignation of the popular Labour-Respect aligned Rhodri Morgan. Drakeford, a firm advocate of Morgans "clear red water" policy in the days of Blair and Brown, would see his support hold up considerably better than Burnham's in the same period, giving hope that Wales would provide Labour some small comfort in this election cycle. However, the Conservatives, Plaid, Liberals, SDP and the BNP were all hoping to take Welsh Labour down a peg.
The Tories, under leader Nick Ramsay, had been quick to allign themselves with Macmillanisation as their best shot of winning new seats in the Senedd, in particular targeting the marginal assembly constituencies of North Wales. Plaid hoped discontent with Labour would result in the lion's share of this vote going their way and too targeted specifically disillusioned Labour voters. For the Liberals they were hoping to shore up their strongholds in Powys, with Ceredigion too as a target from Plaid. The SDP continued the multiple front assault and were pushing hard on Labour in the heavily urbanised parts of South Wales, devoting resources to 4 target seats. The BNP in Wales was considerably more left wing than their England equivalent and as such targeting a different kind of disillusioned Labour voter than Plaid was. With Labour being pushed on all sides, a rally round the flag effect did keep them stronger than many would have expected but the results were still problematic.
Although still the dominant party by a comfortable 7 seats, Labours 1 seat majority had been utterly wiped out and now a coalition with a smaller party was required if they wished for any chance to still govern. However, with neither the SDP or the Liberals commanding enough seats to help Labour form a majority, the only option for a possible coalition was Plaid Cymru and, to make matters worse for Labour, had a particularly steep level of bargaining requests after such a loss for the government. Instead, talks between the Conservatives, Plaid and the Liberals began to take place for what was dubbed by the media as a "Brazil Coalition". Early negotiating was rife with tension between Plaid and the Tories, as many senior Conservatives at Westminster expressed fury at having to deal with a nationalist party. By the 9th of May, coalition talks looked set to fall apart and it was only through the intervention of Eric Pickles that they didn't. Slowly but surely, a centrist consensus was formed between the three parties and an agreement where Ieuan Wyn Jones would be made First Minister and a referendum on further devolution was pledged in exchange for Conservative control of the purse strings. The cabinet be a 40-40-20% split between the three and eventually all 3 parties could cheer that they had beaten Labour in Wales, albeit in a potentially shaky coalition with the other two. However, while all this had been developing another devolved election had taken place north of the border, how will Scotland voice their opinion of the government?
