WalesHome.org

IT’S often argued, and widely believed, that the bubble operates in an atmosphere all of its own. There is Wales, and then there is its political class. Or that there is politics and then there is the rest of them. The plebs.

Thus it was ever so. That’s why Romans terminology still resonates. So there must be a grain of truth in it. Few things will silence the arguments and guarantee unification more surely than an attack on Welsh politics from out there in the cold. And the political class is right to feel uncomfortable with such an automatic reaction, as it suggests self-interest and runs counter to the spirit of public service.

This week, though, the bubble broke ranks. It took an interloper in the form of the Secretary of State for Wales to trigger it, although he couldn’t be blamed for loading the gun. By last Thursday, a general weariness had descended on the Bay, a torpor brought on by yet another episode – and a bloody long episode at that – of Labour making key decisions while turned inwards, only to about by 180 degrees to discover that it had driven Welsh governance up a cul-de-sac. Even those with most to gain had become bored with the game and had taken their ball home.

This may seem harsh. Labour remains the most popular party in Wales (at least by last election’s results), and it is in the midst of a very important passage in its modern history, searching out a replacement to fill out the vast political outline of Rhodri Morgan. Even if you didn’t sign up to the near-supercilious cap-doffing to his brilliance as a leader that went ahead in the Siambr on Wednesday, it can at least be agreed that he has worn the biggest boots in Welsh politics for at least the past decade.

What has followed Rhodri’s demobbing is a clean if far, far too lengthy leadership campaign. All three candidates can take comfort from the races they have run – and this cannot be interpreted as any passing of judgement on their individuals claims to the crown – but I am personally bored to tears with it all. I think my attention dissipated towards the end of week two. No doubt there is party policy that explains this ponderous process, and it doesn’t demonstrate disciplined writing to admit that I haven’t been bothered to check, but I’m guessing such indolence will chime.

So far, so uninteresting. But then matters really fell apart this week, revealing a juvenility in power that we have sadly experienced before. Who really knows what the real series of events it was that led us into the shooting-in-the-foot that was Labour’s joint response to the All Wales Convention? There were multitude different accounts, and they only served to fuel the rumour mill on Cardiff’s shoreline: Rhodri couldn’t carry his group on the response; the press release had been much watered down; that it was a Rhodri plot, a final piece of payback from the First Minister to the Welsh Secretary, retribution for Hain’s backing of Alun Michael all those years ago and evidence of the man’s reputed undying enmity towards those that cross him.

Whatever, the interloper (that’s how he’s regarded these days, an intruder from airless Westminster corridors) quickly copped the blame. It’s partly Hain’s own fault. If you make a reputation as a kite flyer, as he did for many years in the Blair government, you can hardly claim contusions when you are perceived to be taking the mickey. And he should know by now that certain sorts in the Wales will always be looking out for him to do so, with a super-sensitivity that makes me wonder if they have Hain radars on their roofs. But it is easy for the rest of us to be convinced by Hain’s motives this time, and perhaps damn him for them. He must have glimpsed the end of Labour government, and it would be unnatural for a man so reputedly ambitious, a man who could reasonably believe that his political career could carry on beyond a switch of administration, to seek a dead hand in the leadership of Welsh Labour, a whisperer behind the throne. It could be his only fiefdom before long.

(And, where Hain is concerned, it is easy for the conspiracy theorists to start conjecturing. Here’s one I made earlier. What if he decided to take the hit in readiness for Thursday, so that the Government could announce yet again that it had brought in expertise, this time in the enormously-talented Gerry Holtham, and had overseen a lengthy inquiry only to fudge its recommendations? No doubt there are others. It’s almost worth WalesHome starting a new blog and calling it Peter’s Perceived Plans. It will be rammed in a fortnight.)

Hain came out fighting. This was interpreted as his pitch to Labour’s rank-and-file, as he attempted to make a nine-parts-farcical argument for a near-reneging on perhaps the most central plank of the One Wales agreement, claiming – we think – that a referendum that can’t be won is a referendum not worth fighting. 1979 was invoked. 1997, too. Devolution would be put back 20 years if Wales said No. All supremely perplexing and all largely academic.

The LCO system must go. It is a snippy, bitsy way of doing business, so it makes sense to campaign for a Yes vote, because it will bring far swifter legislation, and that benefits Wales. But it is supremely rich for Labour to have driven us into this dead end and then complain that the satnav might be shonky. It could have gone to the country over Richard. Instead, it dithered for five years, terrified by how its bruised and bruising Jurassic membership might react, before framing a second inquiry, only to shrink from its timid recommendations on the grounds that victory is not certain. Certainly not among its own ranks. Even the Tories are now more progressive on devolution.

And in all if this, the Government has still failed to answer one of the fundamentals, a question likely to unify all those anti-anoraks. Why is the pace of devolution at such a crawl? We’ve had a decade of devolution now, a record to assess. Why is it that Scotland and Northern Ireland move faster. We subsist, they feast. What marks Wales out as different in this regard?

It is this aspect of the past week that makes me deeply angry, along with what lies behind it. This unmerry little dance crosses the floor only as a means of allowing the Labour party to lead it. Perhaps we should not be surprised. Squeeze Welsh Labour ever so slightly, and it spasms into self-regard and self-preservation, all the while making life that bit tougher for the new leader, and electoral success two years hence that much more elusive.

But this dance – we’ve been here before. Each and every internecine contortion behoves Labour’s leader – its new leader – to take bolder and ever-longer strides. Strides longer than a leadership contest.