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David Melding in one of the meeting areas in the Senedd

YESTERDAY, Rene Kinzett argued that when it comes to ideas, the left is bereft while the right is in the ascendancy. If so, it should be David Melding, the Welsh Conservatives’ head of policy, that should be leading the charge here.

Melding, a regional AM for South Wales Central, took up the cudgels this summer with a new book, called “Will Britain Survive Beyond 2020?”, in which he argues that the UK must adopt a federal system of government in order to save the British state from collapsing. In the process, he has gone further than any Tory yet in embracing devolution, and the book’s proposals has already startled some fellow Conservatives whom Melding claims still have some difficulty in dealing with the changes that were set in motion in Wales in 1997.

But rather than accept Adam Price’s tongue-in-cheeck invitation to join Plaid Cymru, Melding argues that federalism is the only way to stop a slide into independence, and admits that he has constructed this argument in order to save Britain, in which he still passionately believes.

It is clear that Melding has gone on a political journey in the 12 years since the referendum, when he voted against establishing the Assembly along with nearly all of his party. However, even then, he admits to misgivings at the time, and was not a prominent “no” campaigner, despite having already gained a reputation for wonkishness.

“I found that time an unsettling period,” he says, over a cup of tea in one of T? Hywel’s numerous meeting rooms. “Although I had no difficulty with the Conservative line, once the Scots had voted overwhelmingly “yes” in their referendum, which came before ours, I realised that they had already bought devolution to Britain, that a page had turned.”

His decision to duck out of campaigning came, he said, because he believed it was an election too far where his work was concerned. Employed at Carers Wales at the time, he thought the prospect of another three-week campaign “a little bit indulgent” and, although he took part in a number of Conservative events because he “felt honour bound”, he calls his commitment then “very very light. The Scots had voted the week before and I had a most miserable week, because it made sense that Wales should say Yes, too. I kept thinking – ‘How can Wales vote any other way?’”

Melding believes that the Conservatives should have sat down after their defeat in the referendum and decided as a party how it was to embrace devolution, and how it could possibly shape the UK in the coming century. “We didn’t ask – ‘What is the end here? How is this going to change things?’ I grew to form the view that it was difficult to see Britain prospering over the next 100 years without some sort of settlement. But most of the response came from people who were not in the Conservative party.

“Devolution has released a new dynamic, an unpredictable dynamic, which will remain that way until there is some sort of structure in place. What do I mean by unpredictable? The sort of thing that has happened in Scotland, where the SNP wants to stop Trident being stationed within Scottish borders. That is the sort of thing that leads to the break-up of the UK.”

So far, Will Wales Survive 2020? has been somewhat damned with a lukewarm response from within the Welsh Tories – Melding admits that few of them have spoken to him about the book, although he’s spoken with a number of people outside the party, and his reputation as a thinker remains intact. But the book also raises many questions as well as answers. For example, Melding believes that Conservatives here need to appear as Welsh as possible, to place some clear blue water between the party this side of the border and the popular Toryism now becoming more popular in England. How far should that go?

“The Scottish party is autonomous, but that hasn’t answered the problems the it faces. We have a party that is theoretically autonomous, but it’s not going to transform our fortunes here. In a federal party, you have to be match fit. I don’t see a structure that is flexible enough, unless there is a high level of autonomy within it. The issue of being at loggerheads with Central Office is not that great, because we’re all Conservatives and we’re all in a party of the centre right.

“But we need to avoid a system that has a Welsh party signing up to something that it not in Welsh interests. The military academy is a good example. Despite the cuts that we’ll need to balance the deficit, we’d all like to see it go ahead. It’s very important to Wales that work begins there.”

But perhaps the most commented-upon remark in Melding’s book is that his party has been “anti-Welsh” in the past. While he maintains that the observation was originally culled from a 1960s Tory party report, he goes on to say: “There’s been a perception that we’re unsympathetic to Welsh causes, most of it unintended. But we always risk error when London leads the way.

“What happened with S4C (when the Thatcherite government was forced into a climbdown after reneging on a pre-1979 General Election promise to establish a Welsh language television channel) is a prime example. If that sort of issue repeats itself, we only need one big mistake a generation to mark us for years. We are still recovering from what happened with S4C.

“Our local government record is hardly stunningly successful. In the 1950s, it was certainly the case that Labour was the dominant force in Wales. It has not helped our cause that we have missed opportunities to draw level. Instead, we did damage during those times. If we’d been able to say to people that we would go the extra mile, we could have taken some of those chances.”

Perhaps that’s why the Conservatives have never truly been given the credit for the Welsh Language Act? Melding doesn’t agree. “The first act was down to Labour, but we established the Welsh Language Baord. We did get a lot of credit but, by the 1990s, we were a profoundly unpopular party here. We had got into the S4C debacle, and had become unpopular for the things we did inadvertently.”

Another aspect of the arguments in Will Wales Survive 2020? that will perhaps surprise non-Tories is that Melding describes unionism as “adventure” and that the Union “cannot be seen as an enterprise sufficient of itself and above the troublesome questioning of its citizens”. But he maintains that the Acts of Union of 1707 “was at least amended if not repealed” by the events of 1997, adding: “We cannot paddle around in the Unionist swimming pool forever. If you want to preserve Britain, you cannot not change what we have.”

Instead, Melding looks across the world to democracies such as Canada, Australia, India and the US, to their models of federalism, arguing that their implementation has been achieved and continues successfully with few problems. This would lead on to the replacement of Parliament with a senate of no more than 100 members, of which Wales would have no fewer than 15, using the US model that precludes dominance by representatives from any heavily-populated area.

“The Conservative party really has to come up with answers as to how Britain will look in 10 years,” says Melding. “If we are to have a stable constitution, it has to look more federal in character. I think federalism’s the only game in town. We need strong structure in place to protect Britain and we don’t have forever to do it, because devolution has released some very powerful forces. if we don’t harness them, we leave the field open to those people who don’t want a Britain anymore.”

In fact, Melding believes that if the Tories do assume government next spring, they will have a year before the fault lines become apparent. Very soon, he believes, such an administration would find itself under fire from governments in Cardiff and Edinburgh, who have no love for the Conservatives and would be only too willing to lay their country’s ills at the door of Downing Street.

Very often, it has been the small slights that have offended, and have consequently made the news. Earlier this year, Cheryl Gillan, the current Shadow Welsh Secretary, came under fire after advertising for an assistant and including the following line: “Knowledge of devolution, Scotland or Wales is desirable but not essential”. In many instances, Gillan would be forgiven for casting her net as wide as possible, but memories of the arch-Thatcherite John Redwood remain fresh.

“That period, 1987-97, when we had English Secretaries of State, was unhelpful,” says Melding. “That role could have been awarded – should have been awarded – to Conservatives with constituencies within Wales. However, we’re in a very different situation now. Back then, the Secretary of State was the highest office in Wales. That’s not the case now. The first issue is that you’re no longer dealing with one person, you’re dealing with the National Assembly.

“The second issue is – how long should we have a Welsh Secretary? In my view, we should have a Secretary of State until we have a constitutional settlement. When that happens, I can’t see any justification for having one. The role would be amalgamated into a constitutional office, or something like it. I don’t see it as a long-term issue.”

But Melding argues that far from rejecting all things English, any new constitutional settlement needs to involve them. “In 1997, England was the only country left out entirely from the constitutional settlement. We have to acknowledge that frustration. I want a parliament for England, they need to catch up. I acknowledge that not everyone within Britain wishes to be known as British, but the optimist in me suspects that people still want it.”

Despite Melding’s undeniable contribution to the Welsh Conservative party, either as its primary thinker or in his Assembly role as Shadow Minister for Economic Development, he is rarely touted as a potential leader. He’s happy with that.

“I don’t see myself as a potential leader of the party in Wales in the future. I don’t think that is my forte. leadership requires a very different set of skills. I’m very much the backroom boy, a lieutenant preparing policy. The prospect of leading does not fill me with any excitement whatsoever.

“The Conservatives have had problems with devolution because it went to the core of what we believe in, a core based around Westminster. There’s been some difficulty recovering from the shock, because devolution argues for less power from the centre. It’s a challenge to the party to think differently, to become different. For some Conservatives, this has been troublesome. But I think that a federal Britain will provide a better environment to advance conciliation.”

Born in Neath and a Cardiff University graduate, Melding completed his Masters at the prestigious College of William and Mary, in Virginia. Now that his sometimes sparring partner Adam Price has decided to stand down as an MP at the next General Election and spend a year studying in the US on a Fulbright scholarship, does Melding have any advice?

“He’ll greatly enjoy studying in a place of such intellectual vitality. He’ll also be able to see at first hand that, in a federalist society such as the United States, while people have great loyalty for their state, the loyalty to the country is also very, very strong.

“I hope that when he sees federalism in action, he’ll join me in convincing the UK to emulate such federalism and also learn its lessons – although he is about as likely to take such an invite from me as I am likely to accept an invitation from him to join Plaid Cymru.”