Blair’s ministerial role snub had silver lining for Rhodri
Julie Morgan, wife of Wales’ late First Minister Rhodri Morgan, looks at the relationship between her husband and former Prime Minister Tony Blair, including her husband’s shock at being passed over for a ministerial role in Blair’s government
RHODRI Morgan was “totally mystified” as to why Tony Blair refused to give him a job in Government, but came to see the snub as a blessing in disguise, according to two of the people who knew him best.
Julie Morgan, the wife of the late First Minister, described his shock when he was not given a ministerial post when Labour won power in 1997.
Speaking at an event to mark the launch of Mr Morgan’s autobiography, Rhodri, Ms Morgan admitted he was “very, very down” about being passed over, but avoided harbouring personal resentment.
Ms Morgan, who is now the Labour AM for Cardiff North, said: “I think Rhodri was totally mystified when Blair took against him so strongly, because they’d worked together very closely in the energy team when they were in Opposition; he’d been to Blair’s house for dinner, they’d got on very well. But when the opportunity came to give him a job there was no job and no explanation.
“And then when the chance came to be First Minister he was blocked on several occasions, and Rhodri never knew why – and there were some myths about why this was: the fact that Blair spent the night in our house and thought it was so untidy that nobody living in such a house could possibly be a First Minister...
“We don’t know. Rhodri never knew.
“He was very upset when he didn’t get that job on the front bench . . . He was very, very down about it.
“But I think he never personally had any resentment against Blair, and after he became First Minister he said everything was absolutely fine with the relationship with Westminster because Blair never came and never interfered and never had anything to do with Wales.”
Mr Morgan’s former special adviser, Kevin Brennan, said that Mr Morgan was later glad not to have served on Mr Blair’s front bench.
Mr Brennan, who is now MP for Cardiff West, said: “I think actually in the end Rhodri was incredibly grateful to Tony Blair for not appointing him as a minister because the ultimate outcome of that was that he was not in any way Tony Blair’s man as the First Minister of Wales and nobody could accuse him, either, of taking orders from New Labour in Westminster. In the end, as these things often do in politics, it turned out to be a huge blessing in disguise.
“And, I think, also Rhodri wasn’t someone to carry hatred around in his heart or resentment for others, and he knew he had to have a practical relationship with the Prime Minister of the UK... I think he just didn’t fit the New Labour, control-freakery, spin doctor mode of that era when the party at that time was tremendously paranoid about losing in 1997, having been out of power for 18 years.”
Many of the tributes to Mr Morgan have stressed his personal charisma, but Ms Morgan said he did not see himself as the type of leader who could point people to a “great utopia”.
She said he “didn’t feel he could inspire people in that sort of way” but she believes he did provide inspiration through “his practical actions and his general approach to everybody”.
Vale of Glamorgan Labour AM Jane Hutt, who also attended the event at the Brighton Labour conference, insisted there were now significant differences between life in Wales and in England as a result of Mr Morgan’s leadership.
She said: “Don’t say we’re naive because I don’t think we are.
“I think it is different and I think Rhodri has helped make it different in Wales.”
Ms Morgan also gave her account of one of the most famous anecdotes about Mr Blair’s overnight visit to their household.
“Tony Blair stayed in our house... Rhodri said Tony gets up very early to pray in the morning.
“I don’t know if that’s true, but he was up very early and was down in the kitchen when my mother came down, and my mother didn’t know he was there, so she stood quite shocked. She knew she knew the face.
And she said, ‘Oh, I know who you are. You’re Lionel Blair.’ “So that’s a true story.” The Morgans attended many conferences together, and being in Brighton stirred memories.
She admitted they had some “unfortunate experiences” and remembered a barefoot post-swim search for their clothes along the famous pebbled beach while watched by bemused Japanese students.
“We went swimming in the sea and the tide obviously took us along a bit which we obviously didn’t realise,” she said.
The New Labour era seems increasingly distant in a party now led by Jeremy Corbyn.
Ms Morgan described it as a “vibrant, interesting conference”.
She said: “I think that Rhodri would have enjoyed that conference hall today, because there’s great energy here and great hwyl, I think.”