When Rhodri Morgan came into the press gallery to report on what we all wanted to know about, he was looking downward, and his face was horribly gloomy, writes Clive Betts from the National Assembly press gallery.
A man about to retire knew he had to report on the collapse of his life’s work.
He had never thought that he would have to report that the party he headed had been overtaken by their life-time enemies, the Conservatives.
“It is not a pleasant position to be in,” Mr Morgan told us.
But by the end of the briefing, the First Minister was telling us about the heroic Welsh politician (and a bit more !) Boadicea.
She might be a blood-thirsty sadist, but at least she was Welsh.
Mr Morgan remains at the top of his profession. Later, one of the journalists present challenged the Tories to resurrect the “Rhodri is tired” lie they had tried a year or so ago. Apparently, they have decided not to.
Tory leader Nick Bourne is no way the equal of Mr Morgan. But he also has a sense of history and its significance (even if it is sometimes supplied courtesy David Melding, South Central).
It was Mr Melding who gave the last date when the Tories polled top in Wales. “This is the first time we have been first in Wales since the Balaclava bounce in 1859,” said Mr Bourne.
And at that time, of course, the workers had scarce a single vote.
Mr Morgan was blunt about his own party’s poor performance in the European elections – “We were out-organised and out-fought,” he said.
He did manage to salvage one tiny lesson from the fiasco (my word, not his). At least, warnings that the Tories might win in Wales if Labour voters didn’t bother to vote wouldn’t sound in future like one of the threats that parents use to get their children to go to bed when 8pm arrives …
Mr Morgan dragged out the usual reasons for a bad Labour performance – that Tories always turn out, even when their own government is performing badly, while Labour voters, in such a situation, are likely to sit on their hands.
He also drew a lesson from American president Ronald Reagan. Mr Reagan didn’t see it as his job to manage the government; he employed others to do that.
His job was to think of the “simple messages” which enthused his own supporters to go out and vote.
In comparison, Gordon Brown was more a micro-manager, said the First Minister. He even wondered whether that description applied to himself.
That almost reaches the point that perhaps there was no clear message at the election. That is the claim made by retiring MEP Eluned Morgan. No, that is not the position, emphatically, retorted Mr Morgan.
But, to Ms Morgan’s other claim, the First Minister had nothing but agreement.
“That our machine in Wales is very under-resourced is very right,” he said.
Intriguingly, my home in Caerffili received two different election leaflets, in the same GPO delivery, from the Labour Party, one addressed to the husband, and one to the wife. Perhaps the second address was at the expense of an entire ward somewhere else in the Valleys.
The First Minister managed to pull a couple of spots of light from the gloom. “We did reasonably well in the Valleys,” he said. But then he rounded the picture – “The large majorities you would expect did not really occur – because there is also an opportunity to vote Plaid Cymru in the central valleys.”
Mr Morgan has indeed lighted on one of the enigmas of current Welsh politics. Throughout southern urban old-industrial Wales, there is a massive turning from Labour.
But in Blaenau Gwent and Torfaen, the quitters have not found a single party to turn to. The Lib Dems had hopes, but they have largely not been realised. Ditto Plaid Cymru.
Yet last week, Plaid did reach SECOND position in Blaenau Gwent, even if only fourth in Torfaen.
Why did Labour do so badly in Wales ? Mr Morgan blamed the reducing percentage of the working class and the disappearance of the link with organised labout through the trade unions (65 per cent of the electorate were working class in 1945; only 45 per cent today).
He could have mentioned how much Labour centrally in London was willing to spend on campaigning in Wales compared with what they apparently spent in past decades.
Certainly, in the decades before the Assembly was set up, Transport House in Cardiff would trumpet how the Welsh Labour vote was consistently holding up better than that in the English regions.
Now Wales is suffering more than England. Perhaps because the country had fared better in the past ?
