Fairwater (Cardiff electoral ward) have included Labour councillor Michael Michael, who was deputy leader of the Cardiff Council until 2008 and Plaid Cymru's Neil McEvoy, who was deputy leader of the council from 2008 to 2012. McEvoy had previously been a Labour Party councillor for the Riverside ward in the city and was also elected as a Plaid Cymru Assembly Member in the Wales Government in 2016. Plaid Cymru ("Fairwater and Pentrebane Voice") and Labour ("Fairwater and Pentrebane Fightback") both issue local campaigning newsletters containing allegations and counter-allegations against one another. These have included accusations that Cllr Michael Michael, a hairdresser, was profiting from
Splott medieval times, and a derivation of "plat", meaning a grassy area of land. The name of the original farm would seem to be Middle English "splott", from Old English (speck, blot, patch of land) and the word is to be found in other English place names in the Vale of Glamorgan, Gower, and Pembrokeshire, as well as in Somerset and Devon, in the West Country of England, from where it was presumably introduced by English settlers. It has frequently been noted on lists of unusual place names. The population of Splott in the United Kingdom Census 2001 was 12,074, in