What Really Happened in the 2007 Assembly Election

In this seminar, Professors Richard Wyn Jones and Roger Scully disseminated some of the data collected from the Wales Life and Times Survey 2007. The Wales Life and Times Survey 2007 is a major study, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council of the United Kingdom, and conducted by the Institute of Welsh Politics at Aberystwyth University and the National Centre for Social Research. Some 900 interviews were conducted face-to-face, with a representative sample of people from across all 40 constituencies in Wales, between May and August 2007.

The seminar also asked the question whether the Welsh had really become more Welsh since devolution. Prof Roger Scully, co-director of the Survey, commented that "Devolution doesn't seem to be making the people of Wales more 'Welsh' in how they define themselves. But they have become much more Welsh in how they want to be governed. Opposition to devolution has more than halved in the last ten years; and, interestingly, it has fallen most quickly among those living in the more 'anglicised' parts of Wales, and amongst those in Wales who do not consider themselves as 'Welsh'."

Presentation