‘I’m proud to have considered

SOME people frown at journalists becoming too close to politicians, but I’m proud to have considered Rhodri Morgan a friend.

Immediately after I came to report for Wales on Sunday at the end of 1994, I struck up a rapport with him. He was different to many other politicians in that despite considerable intellectual gifts, he never displayed any airs and graces.

In the early pre-devolution years when I knew him, we would invariably speak on a Saturday morning. He was number two to Ron Davies as an opposition spokesman on Welsh affairs, and he always had an interesting story to tell.

Sometimes he had an original take on an issue that was already in the news, and on other occasions there was a fresh political story that he wanted to float through the paper. But there were many instances where he had nothing to gain politically or personally from stories he suggested to me. He simply had a nose for what readers might be interested in.

There was an additional element that underpinned our contact in the period leading up to the 1997 General Election, which it was obvious Labour would win convincingly.

While he was a loyal party man who was desperate for Labour to return to power after 18 years in opposition, he was – to put it very mildly – wary of the New Labour project led by Tony Blair.

He thought some of those involved were simply on the make, and was worried that the party’s fundamental commitment to public services would be compromised.

He had a particular dislike for Peter Mandelson, whom he regarded with deep suspicion, believing him to be involved in an unrealised plot to remove him and Ron Davies from the front bench.

When Tony Blair failed to offer him a ministerial post after his election landslide, Rhodri was devastated.

I remember interviewing him in his Cardiff West constituency office in Transport House. He was close to tears and searching for reasons about why he had been snubbed. Some of them appeared silly – that Tony Blair disapproved of Rhodri’s dog licking the dinner plates when he stayed at his farmhouse during a by-election campaign, or that Blair had been offended when Rhodri’s mother-in-law mistook him for the dancer Lionel Blair.

What it really amounted to was that Rhodri – while certainly no wild man of the left – was the antithesis of the technochratic type of politician that Blair favoured.

If Blair thought Rhodri was going to become a docile backbencher, he was seriously mistaken. Rhodri threw himself wholeheartedly into the Yes for Wales campaign in the run-up to the referendum on whether a National Assembly for Wales should be established. His enthusiasm for the cause made it easy for me to persuade the then editor of Wales on Sunday to back a Yes vote. Given the narrowness of the referendum victory, we like to believe we may have played some role in the outcome.

With the coming of the Assembly now a certainty, Rhodri was in no mood to retreat into the background. He was determined to stand against Ron Davies for the right to lead the new Assembly and fought a vigorous campaign.

Rhodri didn’t win against Ron, partly because the bulk of the union votes were stitched up for Ron in advance, but also because as the incumbent Secretary of State for Wales it was felt by many that Ron had a right to the role.

When Ron resigned following his infamous “moment of madness” on Clapham Common, Rhodri quickly declared himself a candidate again. He told Blair to get lost when the Prime Minister asked him not to stand against his chosen candidate Alun Michael, who despite being a longterm supporter of devolution, had shown no desire to swap Westminster for the Assembly.

Asked by Newsnight’s Jeremy Paxman whether he would be standing for the leadership, Rhodri characteristically replied: “Does a one-legged duck swim in circles?”

It took all of Peter Hain’s organisational guile to secure a narrow victory for Michael, again using the block vote of trade unions in a way that appeared undemocratic and certainly left a nasty taste in the mouth. It was a textbook example of the kind of New Labour control freakery Rhodri had disliked so much when in opposition.

Again, Rhodri showed loyalty to the party by accepting the result of the election and by agreeing to serve as Economic Development Secretary in Michael’s Cabinet.

But the fallout from what was widely seen as a stitched-up leadership election almost certainly deprived Labour of an overall majority in the first Assembly election – an outcome that nine months later led to Rhodri Morgan taking over the role whose name was quickly changed to First Minister.

Despite his other qualities, Alun Michael quickly demonstrated that he was no national leader. An institution