Plunging through Rhodri’s dress dossier and political hyperbole in the Senedd

When the Western Mail runs a story quoting a “senior Welsh Tory” questioning whether party centrist Nick Bourne should “stay on as leader”, one must wonder how close that individual is to the self-styled True Wales group led by a descendant of Owain Glyndwr.

The Mail reporter with a direct line to a link to that long-ago slaughterer of English colonists is Martin Shipton, the paper’s chief reporter. The man in question is no less than David Davies, MP and previous AM for Monmouth.

Reporters are always coy about naming people who have given them information which turns up in the paper without attribution.  With exceptionally good reason.

The journalist’s job is to wheedle into the public domain accurate information about what is going on, in particular behind the scenes and in what were once smoke-filled rooms.

It should be no secret that Mr Shipton has long had links with the David Davies’s family of Newport, and has been more willing to run their right-wing diatribes against the Assembly than many other journalists.

In so doing, Mr Shipton provides a public service.  The problem, though, is to judge the weight which the Davies-family comments carry within the party in general.

The answer is – not much. A small coterie exists of Newport-based right-wingers; but their weight outside that city seems to be very light.

When the Tories brought out their 39-page dossier Rhodri Morgan – Leadership without Purpose journalists immediately recognised its main author as being Richard Hazelwood, for South Wales Echo political correspondent – he quit the job to become Tory press officer in the Assembly just before his paper closed its office in the Assembly, just as the Western Mail closed its own office – and his press office.

Mr Hazelwood is a wizard at filing significant press releases, etc on his computer – as well, apparently, in paper, to prevent loss. The dossier’s 13,400 words were the sort of political criticism of a opposing leader which was to be expected.

His section on “Rhodri-isms” was lovely. “Denial is more than a river in Egypt,” Mr Morgan told Nick Bourne in accusing him of forgetting the history of the Tory Party in government.

And he said that Alun Cairns, in his review of the Welsh economy, “looks like a Victorian undertaker looking forward to winter”.

I have heard many others as good.

Mr Bourne ran into trouble over the 230 words about Rhodri as a “dedicated follower of fashion”. The First Minister sometimes turns up (although not in the Senedd) in casual sports sweater – but critics should take care. One of the Plaid ministers has turned up for party press conferences in attire just as casual.

This turned largely into a BBC story. Modryb from Llandaff seems intent on bringing down at least one minister – they already possess the scalp of Alun Cairns, the Tory shadow education spokesman, after getting him, in a light-hearted radio programme, to make just the sort of rapidly-delivered light-hearted remark which the programme exists for, about Italians (and which, according to the Western Mail at the time, most Welsh Italians just brushed aside).

For a time today one almost felt that Auntie fancied gaining another scalp. More likely, though, they were keen to flush out any disagreements within the group, after days in which AMs could not be found eager to go on the air to deliver unequivocal condemnations of Rhodri’s dress sense. Perhaps they smelled a trap.

Really, we should get things into proportion. When the First Minister turned up in the middle of the veldt for the Rhorke’s Drift commemoration, he spoke about ths appropriateness of his open-necked shirt for the weather.

Comments have often been made that the Senedd political parties try to lead too comfortable a life with each other. Journalist colleague David Williamson in the Western Mail seemed to be boosting that line when he wrote that the First Minister’s Questions “needs adrenaline”.

Unfortunately, the new sound system in the Senedd gives a frequently grossly misleading idea of what is happening, and the sound (ie barracking) that ensues. In the old chamber, journalists sat immediately behind AMs and could hear everything. And the behaviour has since got worse.

But some people, notably Presiding Officer Lord Elis-Thomas, were keen that the Assembly should not copy the rough-house which is often all that MPs can generate. Perhaps he went too far in fixing the sound system so that, even in the public gallery, nothing can be heard beyond the words delivered directly by an AM through a microphone and into the sound system.

When Lord Elis-Thomas not infrequently admonishes an AM, and an apology follows, no-one, apart from those in the chamber, have an idea about what was going on.

On this particular issue, the Assembly seems to be getting a reputation which is unjustified.

And Mr Bourne’s bad time seems similarly unjustified.

OK, some journalists want a sensation.

The Assembly has experienced several sensations. Such as the sudden resignation of Alun Michael as First Secretary. But that was on a matter of principle, not presentation.

Culture minister the Rev Rhodri Glyn Thomas similarly went on a matter of principle, not presentation – and it wasn’t about a cigar, but no-one dare gives the reason because of legal fears.

It would be a disaster if the presentation used in a document on Rhodri Morgan could tell for Mr Bourne. Fortunately, the blunt backing given by new education spokesman Andrew RT Davies this morning puts paid to that issue.

I would have written that if any Tory has to watch his back this week, it’s surely William Graham, Tory group chairman and chief whip, for fear of a knife from his deputy Paul Davies.

But a press release just arrived says that after “constructive, amicable, positive discussions” both will continue in their current positions (but will presumably alter the work load). ‘Twould be fascinating to know how much blood flowed prior to the discussions.

It’s possible, of course, that the small groups common in Welsh politics are realising that the close personal contacts inevitably involved are breeding a Welsh way of working – which concentrates on co-operation rather than conflict.