The little man resigns

Goodbye to all that

As anyone with a modicum of politics will know, Alun was elected to Westminster last week as the new MP for the Vale of Glamorgan. It was a career move he has long wanted, having stood for Parliament on several occasions previously. He won last week with a thumping mandate.

Today an announcement was made by the Welsh Conservatives that:

“Alun Cairns has today offered his resignation as an Assembly Member to the chairman of the Welsh Conservative Party and the Welsh Conservative Party board of management. This will be considered by the board.”

Please accept! Not because I want to see the back of my old friend, but because he wants to make the move and the electors of the Vale have backed him. He’s been a thorough and clever Assembly Member, and the institution will miss him. But it’s right for Alun to move on. He will make his mark elsewhere now.

Alun was a man much in demand at the Conservative group: he had four jobs in the Assembly. Two of those have now been transferred to Nick Ramsay, the affable AM for Monmouth, who adds Chief Whip and Shadow Business Minister to his role as Shadow Finance Minister. Close to party leader Nick Bourne, Ramsay is a safe pair of hands who is known as an assiduous attender of Assembly debates and one of the most popular members of the Tory group. He’s a good choice for these roles. As for Alun’s other jobs, no permanent solution has yet been found for the Heritage portfolio; and his job as deputy economic development spokesperson to David Melding will whither on the vine. The capable Melding never really needed any help anyway.

But Alun Cairns’s successor as an Assembly Member is also an interesting question. Chris Smart was second on the Conservative regional list in South Wales West in 2007 and in ordinary circumstances might be expected to be shoed in. But there may be different ideas out there. Betsan Powys speculated thus earlier today:

“If the second on the list were a man the party was ready to welcome with open arms, there would be no problem. I think it’s fair to say that he is not.”

But back to Cairnsy, as he is affectionately known around these parts. I mean it in a spirit of generosity and friendship when I wish him well. He has always been one of the livest wires in the Assembly fuse box. And I know that there’s a beautiful symmetry that he and Glyn Davies will have today arrived in Westminster together. They’ve been a formidable double act for years, and there seems a poetic justice in their reunion.

Oh, and by the way, Gordon Brown has also announced his intention to resign as leader of the Labour Party.