A hung parliament with how many power brokers?

I was struck by the latest opinion poll in the Guardian, not by the Con/Lab/LD results, which were much the same as they've been for some time now, but by the figure for the SNP and Plaid Cymru.

At 5%, (UK-wide), this was up (from 4.4%, so far from statistically significant) on their results in the Scottish Parliament/National Assembly elections and more than double the result they got in the 2005 General Election.

A simple doubling of their vote shares, with the adjustments of the 3 UK-wide parties based on the opinion poll movement, showed the SNP on 25 seats (up from 6 at the 05 election) and Plaid Cymru on 6 (up from 3 at the 05 election).

Which from the same doubling in vote share is a far better performance for the SNP than for Plaid - a reflection of quite how far behind Labour in Wales (every other party including) Plaid come in.

But also shows that, on a slightly smaller swing to the Tories, it won't be just the LibDems that may have a choice to make about supporting a government, but Plaid and the SNP. Will this effect how either Labour or the Conservatives will approach the issues of an independence referendum for Scotland or full powers for the National Assembly in Wales?

In one way, the above isn't a fair comparison, doubling vote share is only a uniform swing if you start from the same point. So, taking Plaid from c12% to c24% is a smaller gain than the SNP from c17% to c34%. But that 10% difference doesn't account for why the Scots can quadruple their seat numbers, and the Welsh only double them (add on that extra 10% or so to Plaid and they reach 10 seats). Move the Plaid gain to a (quite ridiculous) quadrupling of the vote, and they end up with 18 seats, more akin to the gain that their Scottish counterparts make.

So, two conclusions from this. Firstly, that a hung parliament could easily feature the SNP and Plaid Cymru as power brokers, just as much as it does the LibDems or the Northern Irish parties. Secondly, that Plaid have to do so much better than the SNP to make the same sort of breakthrough.

New departments & Prime Ministerial favour

Thatcher merged the Departments of Trade & Industry (one of the few ways in which she followed in the footsteps of Ted Heath, who also merged the two departments only for them to promptly be demerged by Harold Wilson in 1974) and split the DHSS into the Department of Social Security, and the Department of Health.

The winners in these two changes were Cecil Parkinson (a clear Thatcher favourite, all be it one who only enjoyed the re-created DTI for 4 months before being forced to resign) and Ken Clarke (far from a Thatcher favourite) who became head of the newly hived off DoH (leaving the clear Thatcher favourite, John Moore, with the denuded and politically less exciting, DSS).

John Major created the Department of National Heritage (from elements of the Home Office, Environment, and the odd other department) and merged the Department of Employment & of Education. The winners from these changes were clear and both Major favourite's: David Mellor (a friend, given the new Department for National Heritage and then, a la Cecil Parkinson, forced to resign through personal scandal a matter of months later) and Gillian Shepherd (part of the East Anglia mafia that predominated during the Major years who, having been Secretary of State for both Education and for Employment landed the combined ministry).

Tony Blair moved from the DFEE (Employment and Education) and DSS (Social Security) to the DFES (Education & Skills, shedding all but the training part of old Employment department) in favour of the DSS (becoming the DWP).
He also created the Department of Constitutional Affairs which evolved into the Justice department, from the former Lord Chancellor's department.

The winners in this? Alastair Darling (not really a Blair confidante but a respected technocrat) was the first Secretary of State for the enlarged DWP. Charlie Falconer was the first Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, and then for Justice. Whilst a friend of Blairs, his appointment was at the expense of another friend of Blairs, Derry Irvine.

Brown has been most active in creating and reshuffling departments: DCSF (Children, Schools and Families) was created from the old DfES, gaining children's responsibilies from other departments (eg, Social Services from health) but shedding 16+ education to the DIUS. Ed Balls (a clear Brown favourite) headed DCSF and John Denham (not known to be a clear Brown or Blair favourite) DIUS. The new Department for Energy and Climate Change, was headed by Ed Miliband, another ex-Brown adviser. And of course, most prominently of all, Mandelson became head of the new super-department of Business, Innovation and Skills.

Prime Minister	Cabinet Minister	New department	Favourite?
Thatcher	Parkinson	Trade & Industry	Yes
Thatcher	Clarke	Health	No
Major	Mellor	National Heritage	Yes
Major	Shepherd	Education & Employment	Yes
Blair	Darling	Work & Pensions	No
Blair	Falconer	Constitutional	Yes
Brown	Balls	Children, Schools & Families	Yes
Brown	E Miliband	Climate Change	Yes
Brown	Denham	Innovation, Universities	No
Brown	Mandelson	Business, Innovation & Skills	Yes

Now, you would expect a Cabinet to have many Prime Ministerial favourites in it, but all the favourites above are clearly the Prime Ministers most prominent supporters; and account for 8 out of the 11 new departmentalk bosses - far more than a coincidence.

Non-replaced GOATS and yet another job for Timms

Both Mark Malloch-Brown and Prof Ali Darzi have now left government, from their posts at Health and Foreign respectively. Neither have been replaced. According to the FCO website, there is no minister responsible for Africa (Malloch-Brown's former beat) and the DoH have got round the issue of Prof Darzi's job by pretending he hasn't left.

Were these jobs that didn't need doing? Or have been completed? Or which only existed because of the willingness of an outsider to lend their reputation to the government? It's quite odd to see ministers leave and not be replaced, not least because of the desire of the whips to be able to offer junior posts to backbench MPs.

Stephen Carter has partially been replaced at Culture & BIS with the announcement that Sion Simon (already at Culture) and Stephen Timms (at the Treasury and adding BIS to his roster) will carry on Carter's work. This makes Timms, with 11 appointments in 11 years, the most travelled and reshuffled minister in this (or I'm fairly certain any other ) government, well in excess of John Reid or Mike O'Brien (the other oft-reshuffled ministers in this government).