Jungle drums
The Plaid leader Ieuan Wyn Jones has reacted with "regret" and "shock" to the news that Mohammed Asghar has defected. Hearing the news throught the media won't have helped, I imagine.
"We were very proud of the fact that in campaigning hard for Mohammad Asghar's election in 2007 that Plaid Cymru ensured the first ever Assembly Member from the black minority ethnic community. It is has come as a shock that he has now decided that he shares the same values as those held by the Conservative and Unionist party."
The Chair of the Plaid Cymru group has got over the "regret" pretty quickly and is already calling on Mr Asghar to give up his seat.
"We now call on Mohammad Asghar to take the honourable decision to resign his seat as a Plaid Cymru AM. The people of the South Wales region did not want a second Tory AM to represent the area - they elected a Plaid Cymru AM. Mr Asghar does not have the political mandate to sit in the Assembly as a Conservative member for the South East."
The "little parrot" will tell us what he makes of that in the next half an hour.
UPDATE
Two questions:
Where will Mr Asghar sit when Rhodri Morgan gets up to take his last First Minister's Questions? It's not as if AMs can shuffle along benches after all.
Out of interest - and at this point no more - who was third on Plaid Cymru's list in South Wales East at the last Assembly Elections? It was Councillor Colin Mann, Deputy leader of the Plaid group in Caerphilly council.
I'm Betsan Powys, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Wales' political editor. I'll be blogging the inside track on .
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