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Alun Michael, in front of Penarth Pier

IT’S OFTEN counted as the moment that devolution faced its first crisis.

The opposition parties had been gunning for Alun Michael’s nascent minority Assembly government for close to three months, after its leader had faced his first vote of no confidence following his refusal to sack agriculture minister Christine Gwyther when she had been unable to win a £750,000 aid package for Welsh dairy farmers.

Plaid Cymru and the Lib Dems had failed to support the Tory motion then, but vowed that their position would change if Michael did not come through with the matched funding for the Objective One programme from the Treasury. Time finally ran out on February 9, 2000 when, following a Plaid motion of no confidence, Michael resigned. A political near-disaster, it provided at least one light moment when, in an pre-Twitter age, Prime Minister Tony Blair was heckled while praising Michael in the Commons with cries of “he’s resigned” from the Tory benches.

Within hours, leadership of both the Assembly and the Labour group was in the hands of Rhodri Morgan, whom Michael had triumphed over barely a year earlier. The Assembly was less than 12 months old, and appearing to be proving the anti-devolutionists’ oft-made claim that the country was incapable of running itself.

However, to hear Michael talk about that time now, he is adamant that devolution’s first great crisis came was created by Ron Davies, even before his “moment of madness” on Clapham Common. Sitting in his Cardiff South and Penarth constituency office, with views out to the Bay and the Penarth Head, he is scathing about Davies’ record as a politician, arguing that it was he and not the former Caerphilly MP who had long championed devolution, and that Davies had left the new administration’s finances in such a parlous state that it faced serious failure in its earliest days. Michael places his achievements with the budget and his time in the Bay as among his most rewarding roles in politics and argues – quite convincingly, it has to be said – that he managed to “rescue” devolution at the time.

By contrast, he is hugely complimentary of Morgan and of his tenure as First Minister. He tells a story of how Jeremy Paxman was “forced” to come to Cardiff to oversee a debate between the two of them when they were leadership hopefuls “because neither of us would leave Cardiff to go to London”. As they came off stage afterwards, “Paxman said to us – ‘You know you two are buggers, because you never argue’. And we have always been that way.” Michael also believes that whoever replaces Morgan (talk of his resignation and the subsequent leadership battle is already making daily news) must firstly “recognise what Rhodri has achieved”.

Michael also talked of how he “resented” claims that he was parachuted in to the Assembly by Blair, but is now pleased that devolution has led to cross-political consensus with those same parties that once made those accusations. He also laughs off claims that he is a negative voice on the Welsh Affairs Select Committee, particularly when dealing with the often-unloved Legislative Competence Orders, arguing that it was his proposals on the Welsh language LCO that led to all-party agreement and “stopped the language being used as a political football”.

Born and raised in North Wales, Alun Michael attended Keele University before moving to Cardiff to become a reporter with the South Wales Echo. It was the time that Ted Heath had just become leader of the Conservative party, and Michael found the prospect of a Tory government “scary”. He joined Labour because he believed “it represented the needs of society”. It was at this time, at the start of the 1970s, that he said he first became attracted to the idea of devolution.

Leaving journalism in 1970, Michael became a youth worker in the Llanrumney area of Cardiff, where he was able to witness at first hand “an awful lot of things that were wrong in the way that politics dealt with society”. He was elected as a councillor for the area (having moved elsewhere in the capital in his work) in 1973 and immediately became involved in planning and economic development “as two issues very relevant to young people”. He was also, by this time, a magistrate.

“I became chair of the juvenile magistrates bench. I felt very much that national politics were working against young people and that they were becoming marginalised by the Conservative government. It was the wrong way to do things.”

Michael went on to win Jim Callaghan’s old seat in 1987, which he holds to this day. “After I first got elected, I was asked by a local journalist what my ambition was and of course I said to represent the seat of Cardiff South and Penarth. He said: “Oh, come on. What else?” So I said that I’d like to be Parliamentary under-secretary for Wales with responsibility for the youth service. While I went on to be Secretary of State for Wales, I was also involved in designing the New Deal. It was a partnership offering genuine jobs and genuine training. It’s not headline grabbing and it’s not talked about, but it remains at the heart of what we do. When the recession struck, the Government immediately said that we had to create a promise for young people, as they have been most affected by this downturn.”

Along with his part in the New Deal, Michael puts work on the Crime and Disorder bill – which enacted one of Labour’s five election promises to cut waiting times for young offenders – among his proudest moments. On to that list also goes the “eight year battle” to bring the Cardiff Bay Barrage into existence, arguing that while the city still has to combat generations-long problems – “we are still dealing with the effects of losing 15,000 jobs at the East Moors steelworks (which closed over 30 years ago)” – the redevelopment has impacted positively on the economy and helped to make Cardiff “a vibrant city”.

The Crime and Disorder Bill also figures as one of three of Michael’s most rewarding political roles. “The second was rescuing the dire political situation when Ron Davies resigned. The processes established in the Assembly were, frankly, in a bit of a mess. The finances were in a state. We had a bad settlement during Ron’s period. There was a sense that we faced dramatic failure, particularly in health.

“Although my period leading Welsh Labour was not a comfortable one, and leading a minority was a frightening challenge that ended in the way it did, I still feel that I dealt with a lot of problems before handing over to Rhodri and I take a great deal of pride in the rescue during that period.”

His third, he says with a somewhat wry smile, involves his time as Minister of State for Industry and the Regions, his last post in the UK Government. “I was able to make sure that Wales got its Objective One funding. I worked very closely with Rhodri to make sure we did get everything in place, and it happened on the last week of the last month of the British presidency of Europe in 2005.”

Michael had been on something of a hiding to nothing when he was first accused of being “parachuted” into Wales by Downing Street as part of a ‘Stop Rhodri’ bid, and as an extension of New Labour all-pervasive control freakery. How did he feel about the claim? “I resented it. I did feel it was improper to suggest that someone born in Wales, who had been involved in Welsh politics – and who had supported devolution for 30 years – had been placed here to put a brake on everything.

“The accusation started with Ron Davies. He had been very protective of his role. I had a very heated row with him in the 1970s, when he told me it was the ‘considered view of the left in South Wales’ that they were against devolution. I answered that they can’t have been thinking very much, then. It’s ironic, in my view, that he went on to become a leading figure in bringing forward devolution.

“The claim was also made by some nationalists, and – I think – from some supporters of Rhodri, although it never from Rhodri himself. We’ve never fallen out. We argued passionately about who should be leader, but it’s never ended in a fight.”

Michael also believes his stormy tenure was down to a “dearth of experience” in politics or government among the new Assembly Members. “The opposition parties, in particular, found it very difficult. Each of them were afraid to give ground, to take a step back, even when they knew in their heart of hearts that what I was proposing was reasonable.”

He blames Dafydd Elis-Thomas for failing to follow procedure and sparking his resignation, arguing that the Presiding Office had ignored legal advice that the First Secretary had to consider the terms of the resolution before moving on to a second vote. “I thought: ‘This could end in a spiral for the Assembly’. I thought that if I resigned there and then, it would stop it happening over and over again, and my resignation would be easier for my successor, whom I expected to be Rhodri. In fact, by that evening, I was already supporting Rhodri to replace me.”

Michael quickly left the Assembly, resigning his Mid and West Wales regional seat and returning to Westminster, where in 2001 he was appointed as Minister of State for Rural Affairs. It was a case of out-of-the-frying-pan. Given the task of steering the Hunting Bill through Parliament, he quickly became the focal point for a sizeable and well-organised countryside opposition to the proposed law. Preferring a licensing system for hunts, he believes that his fellow Labour MPs let him down by dismissing the proposals as “too complicated” and proceeding straight to an outright ban.

“It’s very difficult to enforce. That’s why there’s been so few prosecutions. Hunting is so deep in the blood that it cannot be eradicated overnight. I’m a great believer that a law rarely prevents what is being forbidden. You need to create the right environment and climate to sustain a sound piece of legislation.”

This brings the conversation on to Michael’s post-minister Westminster career, and his place on various Parliamentary committees, including the Welsh Affairs Select. He laughs out loud when it is suggested that he may have been a divisive force, particularly on the vexing issue of LCOs. “It’s completely untrue. I’ve been a most constructive force for negotiating through the LCOs. Every one we have seen has gone through. I particularly take pride in the Welsh language LCO (Michael is a fluent speaker). I suggested a solution that supports devolution, and it was taken up by all four parties.

“When I first entered politics, the language was completely used as a football. It was all about painting green on road signs. Now we have seen an explosion in the number of Welsh language schools here in Cardiff alone. The language is now something that non-Welsh speakers support, that they see as a crucial part of our heritage. That it has ceased to be used as a football is a triumph.”

Part of the reason for that, Michael argues, is that the political landscape really has changed in Wales – for the better. He believes that we really are beginning to see the end of the yah-boo politics that the parties all promised to stamp out over a decade ago. A noted proponent of the One Wales agreement, he believe it has so far gone very well. “I argued for it because I could see how One Wales could bring together people with good sense from Labour and Plaid. It enabled Labour to lead the Cabinet, to give Wales stability.

“It was difficult to see any other partnership work. The natural partners of Labour in devolution are the Liberal Democrats. Unfortunately, their group in the Assembly has no unity.”

But Michael welcomes the way in which AMs and MPs are now more easily able to talk to one another, and often across parties. Citing a recent, long discussion he had with Mike German, about exporting Welsh politics to Moldova, he added: “Since One Wales has been in place, it’s not about telling people what’s right, it’s about building consensus.”

However, a small number of AMs are already bending their thoughts towards building something else – support for their leadership bids in an election that will decide who will replace Rhodri Morgan as First Minister. What advice would the first man in the job have for the person who replaces his successor?

“I think they have to recognise what Rhodri has achieved. He has built a radical but consensual approach to governing Wales. The new leader will need to lead with unity. They should also bring some of Rhodri’s gentleness and humour to the way they work, because that allows people to listen, people who might well have been turned off by the ferocity.”

It will be left to time to assess Alun Michael’s rightful role in the history of Welsh devolution. However, there can’t be many people who would resent a lesson in removing the ferocity from politics from the man who has, on more than one occasion, felt its full sting.