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Sunday, October 04, 2009

Interesting times in Labour leadership contest

With Edwina Hart and Huw Lewis already declared as candidates to succeed Rhodri Morgan as First Minister it was only a matter of time before Carwyn Jones threw his hat into the ring as well.

And sure enough earlier this afternoon, Carwyn's website appeared on-line together with a video, shot with a handheld camera Hill Street Blues style, and a new twitter account in English and Welsh. No sign of an on-line presence from Huw Lewis yet.

At about the time that Carwyn Jones' first tweet appeared drawing attention to his website, Leighton Andrews, who I believe is involved in running his campaign retweeted a message from Daily Post Correspondent, Tom Bodden:

RT@tombod Carwyn Jones has taken an early lead in the Welsh Labour leadership election - online poll at http://www.dailypost.co.uk/ #NextFM

And indeed at that time Carwyn had over 70% of the votes cast so far. At the time of posting he has dropped back to 55%. Shortly after Edwina Hart's official twitter feed posted a retweet from somebody called Sam Knight:

RT @samknight Fix website polls if you want to but success will come if you really engage with people and give a vision for the future. Agree

And then followed it up with:

For the record. We took a genuine snapshot of yesterday's @WalesOnline poll at the time. We have a policy of non interference on polls.

and:

We do however, encourage participation from all genuine supporters

I think that there is a clear implication in these tweets that may need to be addressed by the Carwyn camp. Perhaps everybody should calm down. After all nominations have not even closed yet.

Update: An anonymous contributor points out that Sam Knight is a Huw Lewis supporter. So both camps are questioning why it was that Carwyn Jones secured such a strong early lead in some on-line polls.
Comments:
sam knight's twitter has a Lewis for Labour sign. Are you sure you have the full story?
 
carwyn's intro video, there is scaffolding in the background, very sloppy videography
 
Anon 10.15pm: Clearly not. That makes the whole thing even more intriguing.
 
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