Which PM won gold for Wales?
Bubble — By David Melding AM on May 29, 2010 7:00 am
- Our leading columnist tries his hand at the best daytime quiz ever made
I FEAR this column will get me into real trouble. It started with David Cameron’s visit to the Assembly, which shortly followed the one he made to Scotland and was itself quickly followed by his visit to Northern Ireland. Whatever else you may think, the PM has shown the devolved institutions conspicuous respect.
I sensed that this courtesy was reciprocated and I expect that when the usual partisan ballyhoo is done with, Cameron can look forward to a steady, untheatrical relationship with Wales and the other Celtic nations. Even so, the squabble over the referendum date aptly illustrates how things can quickly deteriorate, leaving the public perplexed about what politicians are rowing about. Further rows would not be good for devolution.
How did PMs in the 20th Century respond to such challenges and who in particular showed most respect to Wales and its potential as a nation?
To Henry Campbell-Bannerman can go the distinction of the first devolved institution of any significance, with the establishment of the Welsh Department of the Board of Education (1907). It was a response to Balfour’s Education Act (1902) which had sensibly, but unpopularly in Wales, permitted state funding of church schools. Campbell-Bannerman drew on David Lloyd George’s advice and, unsurprisingly, the Welsh Insurance Commission and the Welsh Board of Health followed the same model and were directly Lloyd George’s creations. So Campbell-Bannerman cannot take that much credit for these significant developments, but Lloyd George’s claims deserve more attention.
The Welsh Wizard, Prime Minister 1916-22
Lloyd George led a ‘Welsh revolt’ against the 1902 Education Act and most local authorities refused to implement it. Here Lloyd George seemed to be emulating the great theorist of Southern secession, John C Calhoun, in maintaining that laws could be rejected if they offended national communities. It echoed the Irish crisis, of course. There should be no ‘Rome on the rates’ in Wales, it was intemperately claimed. But Lloyd George did not pursue the logic of this position. He was always destined to be king of Britain rather than prince of Wales.
He achieved much for Wales in the process. With Lloyd George in Number 10, Wales at last felt a full national member of the UK. But that was because he was Welsh rather than what he did to build political institutions in Wales. He flirted with devolution and perhaps came close to adopting it in 1920, but the Irish crisis soon crushed any prospect of a federal UK. Disestablishment he did deliver, although by then few still prayed for it. Despite my immense admiration for him as a British PM and world statesman, I can only give Lloyd George the bronze medal.
Wartime leader and peacetime pragmatism, Prime Minister 1940-45 and 1951-55
Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee are worthy of combined consideration in that vast mid century space that was dominated by global war and unimaginable holocaust. Wales must have seemed very small to them, but they advanced her nationhood somewhat. Attlee said No, with a typical firm clip, to creating a Secretary of State for Wales. He offered instead the Council of Wales - rather like the Pope offers titular bishoprics in Mesopotamia. Nice, but ethereal. Churchill went further and recognised the reality of a Welsh political space. The adoption of a Policy for Wales (the first by any UK political party) and the appointment of a Minister for Welsh Affairs were not perhaps stellar achievements, but surely significant. To the PM who started the long march to Welsh political nationhood (although for Churchill it may have been more of a sleep walk) I give the silver medal.
It was Harold Wilson who took administrative devolution to its logical conclusion by creating a Secretary of State for Wales. At last, Wales was on the same constitutional pedestal as Scotland. Yet it is not enough to get him in the medals. He finished a process rather than sparked any innovation. Wilson in fact fluffed the chance to radically transform territorial politics in the UK, largely due to his notorious opportunism. Under Wilson, devolution went from a popular cause to the cause of constitutional chaos. The mid to late 1970s was a depressing period for those who believed in a robust British constitution, whether devolved or unitary.
Callaghan and Thatcher had a lot in common on devolution. They blamed their predecessors – Wilson and Heath – for leaving them a rather toxic asset. Both were fervent unionists; both nodded reluctant assent to some measure of devolution; and both were happy enough to see the scheme rejected. Unlike Blair in 1997, Callaghan expended little capital on devolution. He only campaigned a couple of times in the referendums. While he certainly had other things on his mind, Callaghan’s indifference did much to turn defeat into blind, terrified rout. Thatcher thought that was that and left devolution to the wolves (they did not devour the infant though, but suckled it throughout the 1980s). While Callaghan and Thatcher were the big players in 1979, no medals go to them.
John Major was tripped up halfway around the course by that other constitutional conundrum – Europe. Pity, he might have fought for bronze. He did more than any other PM to stretch the unitary state to its utmost. The Welsh Grand Committee, like its Scottish cousin, was set to become a sort of colonial council holding the executive to account – but all constitutional innovation soon evaporated under Euro-sceptic heat. He did do one thing of great note. In the White Paper Scotland in the Union, his government said this: “No nation could be held irrevocably in a Union against its will”. The dam of traditional Unionism suddenly burst.
The deliverer of devolution, Prime Minister 1997-2007
Gold goes to Blair. How could it not? To those who would question the referee, I say this: six thousand seven hundred and twenty-one. These votes and many more were secured by Blair when still in the superstar period of his premiership. Political capital he spent liberally both in Scotland and Wales. Every bell was pulled, every whistle blasted for devolution. The Scottish referendum – where the Yes option soon became as popular as retrospective betting – was held a week before the far less certain poll in Wales. His master stroke was insisting on PR for the Assembly, to Welsh Labour’s disgust. Blair pushed Wales into the pool of political nationhood where it started to swim with unexpected confidence.
Yes, Blair gets gold. And now I await the buckets of dross that will surely be poured over my head…
Tags: Conservatives, David Lloyd George, David Melding, devolution, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Tony Blair, Winston Churchill
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17 Comments
“And now I await the buckets of dross that will surely be poured over my head…”
Not from me! I think this is a great article, and with an intellectually honest conclusion that we’ve come to expect from you.
It used to amaze me when I heard criticisms that Blair’s offering to the electorate in 1997 was timid. I still have one of the Welsh pledge cards and number two was devolution. This was an immense risk for Labour and for Blair personally; had it been lost within just a few months of his Premiership, he would have been badly damaged. History will record that Blair was effectively saddled with a commitment to devolution by John Smith, and it is true that home rule was settled Labour Party policy by 1994, But – in addition to adding PR (something Labour’s critics seldom acknowledge when charges of tribalism and a determination to retain one-party fiefdom status are bandied around) he could have found a dozen ways to soft-peddle. Heaven knows, there was little popular enthusiasm for devolution in Wales in the run up to 1997 to force him to a vote.
The deeply uncomfortable truth for many people in Welsh politics today is that the message “Tony Blair wants you to vote “Yes”" was without doubt the decisive one in gaining devolution for Wales. Without his huge popularity at that point, hundreds of thousands of Welsh people who votes “yes” would have voted “no”, or not at all.
Later, of course, the charges of timidity became ones of neglecting or abusing Wales, something certainly given legs by the way the mishandling of the Ron Davies succession. I’ve written about how Labour’s painful irresolution on further devolution has allowed its critics to depict it as the road-block, instead of the change-maker. That’s for another discussion, but whatever has happened since cannot detract from the fact that it was Tony Blair and new Labour that delivered devolution for Wales.
So your conclusion is spot on.
Blair was never interested in devolution. If Labour hadn’t adopted the policy under John Smith it would not have seen the light of day after 1997. Gold goes to Thatcher. Without her and the reaction to her policies the 1997 referendum would have been lost. It was won because thousands of Labour voters knew that the Tories wanted a ‘no’ vote. Unlike in 1979 Labour activists campaigned throughout the valleys for a yes vote. Inspired not by any love or in some cases even understanding for the possible consequences of devolution but by a determination to ensure that never again would the Tories devastate the valley communities. Look at the size of the yes vote in communities such as Blaenau Gwent. I was there on the night of the count in Bridgend. The majority for yes in Bridgend which was very close to the majority in Wales was entriely due to the yes vote in the Ogmore constituency. At the beginning of the night we were all pretty depressed as the boxes from the Bridgend constituency were opened and there were majorities of in some cases 6 to 1 for the no vote. Then the boxes from the valleys arrived and the tide turned. Our message was quite clear and it was that this was a vote to stop the Tories and traditional Labour voters responded in their thousands. It was a simple message to get across and it was very effective.
As for PR, again Blair wasn’t that interested. The Tories owed their seats in 1999 to Ron Davies who wanted STV but realised that the Labour Party would only go as far as the present system.
“Blair was never interested in devolution”
He inherited the policy, that much is certainly true. But he saw it though, and gave it it oomph it needed.
(of course, had John Smith lived, we’d have probably got a Welsh Parliament in 1997, possibly without even the bother of specifically consulting the voters)
Nice try, but with respect David Melding, you characteristically gloss over Plaid’s influence towards devolution.
During WWII Attlee, then Sec of State for Dominion Affairs, incorrectly characterized Welsh nationalist as “mischievous who tend to be against the war effort”. Most Welsh nationalists supported the war effort- Ambrose Bebb the first among them! During the war, Churchill and Attlee had Welsh speaking spies planted in Welsh speaking units to report on any anti-war sympathies.
According to historian Professor John Davies, Churchill established the Council of Wales in 1948 because of a marked growth in support for Plaid Cymru during and following the war. Plaid led protests over the War Office’s continued use of use of Welsh lands for training exercises, first in the Preseli Hills in 1946, then in Tregaron in 1947, and later Trawsfynydd in 1951.
It was Plaid’s growth in influence in southeast Wales during the 1950s that prompted the government to give in on small concessions towards home rule, which included the publication of the Digest of Welsh Statistics in 1954, and the formal recognition of a capital for Wales in 1955. Most importantly, you leave out the events surrounding the Flooding of Capel Celyn. Despite nearly universal Welsh opposition, the scheme went ahead which demonstrated how abjectly powerless the Welsh were over their own country. Plaid Cymru surged in their vote share, and the Council of Wales responded in 1957 by recommending the creation of a Welsh Office and Secretary of State for Wales.
You omit that the creation of a National Assembly of Wales was practical as early as 1967, as Plaid’s Gwynfor Evans and Labour’s Gwilym Prys Davies and Jim Griffiths argued “in favour of a political system in Wales more answerable to the electorate”, according to Davies.
UK PMs did not undertake the constitutional reform of Wales out of their own altruistic sense of justice, and men and women on the ground working for a constitutional arrangement more equitable for the people of Wales influenced their actions. Plaid’s Gwynfor Evans deserves part of that Silver Medal and Gold award.
“you characteristically gloss over Plaid’s influence towards devolution”
Even if that were true (and, with respect, your own summary is more than a little glossy) the criteria is which Prime Minister did the most for Wales. Plaid can’t qualify.
In reply to David Llewellyn
The Council of Wales was established by Labour, not the Tories, and it was a (poor) compromise to stop Jim Griffiths and Labour backbenchers demanding a Secretary of State.
The recognition of Cardiff as capital came through campaigners in Cardiff. One of the decisive roles was actually played by Cardiganshire County Council which got all the Welsh councils to vote on the issue. The government had already said by then they would be quite happy to recognize anywhere as capital as long as everyone in Wales agreed.
The Tories in the 1950s were, however, very willing to treat Wales seriously and were discussing in Cabinet how important that was because the Welsh felt ill treated and ignored. They feared the possibility of the rise of nationalism but saw the real danger as patriots within Labour combining with Plaid. The new post of minister for Welsh affairs proved rather effective in bringing Welsh issues to Cabinet but most importantly the whole raft of things done for Wales in the 50s were seen as fair and reasonable rather than concessions.
The PC vote did not surge after Tryweryn. In fact the late 50s were seen as disastrous within the party and there was very strong criticism of Gwynfor for not making advances. Nor was Wales virtually unified against the flooding of Capel Celyn. Even Bala Town Council did not support the campaign and Merioneth County Council only did so on a close second vote There is also at least one letter in the national archives from Capel Celyn saying people were too scared to say how they felt because of the nationalists. Only 20 Welsh MPs voted against the 3rd reading of the Tryweryn bill.
The key player for the establishment of the Welsh Office was Jim Griffiths. He and others in Welsh Labour genuinely believed in devolution and were not reacting to a threat from Plaid. It’s only after 1966 that Labour can be seen as reacting to Plaid.
Having finished plugging my forthcoming book on post-war Wales, to turn to the actual question David Melding raised: Blair wins my vote for doing the most for Wales as a concept of nation. Devolution has to trump anything. But nations are made of people and Attlee’s reforms of ’45-51 did more for the Welsh (and British) people than any other government.
The reality is that Wales has been pretty peripheral for all post-war prime ministers but governments are not just PMs and things normally happened for Wales because of other figures within government. Plaid are part of the story but James Griffiths and Wyn Roberts in particular show that people in other parties cared about the recognition of Wales too.
A lot of people may well be surprised at the choice of Tony “f***ing Welsh” Blair.
“History will record that Blair was effectively saddled with a commitment to devolution by John Smith, and it is true that home rule was settled Labour Party policy by 1994″
So Blair was “saddled” with Labour policy. Isn’t it to be expected that he should run with party policy? This is just confirming Jeff Jones’s point that he was never interested in devolution. Failing to go with devolution for Scotland would have been ruinous electorally but I seem to remember that Philip Gould, Blair’s bag carrier, saying about devolution for Wales, “It’s not part of ‘the project’ “. It’s fair to say that he put his back into it.
As for PR, a form of PR was going to be necessary in order to convince voters that the Assembly would be genuinely something new and not the “Labour county council on stilts” which many thought. It’s pretty widely understood now that Ron Davies and the Welsh Office were assured that the Additional Member System would give a Labour majority in four elections out of five, so the charges of tribalism are not completely redundant.
“Jim Griffiths………and others in Welsh Labour genuinely believed in devolution”
Yes, in the same way as lots of people believe in God. The idea’s nice , but don’t ask them to do anything concrete about it.
“Isn’t it to be expected that he should run with party policy?”
Not at all, Davey. Blair changed a lot of Labour’s policy offering (including aspects of how devolution was to be delivered). Some say for the better, others say it was for the worse. Either way, there’s no denying he did a great deal more than simply implement the platform bequeathed to him by John Smith. There’s a reason “Blairite” was coined as a term.
“It’s pretty widely understood now that Ron Davies and the Welsh Office were assured that the Additional Member System would give a Labour majority in four elections out of five “
Absolute rubbish. Everyone both inside and outside the Labour Party knew that adopting AMS meant a very greatly reduced chance of Labour winning an overall majority, and even then only securing a very narrow one.
“The idea’s nice , but don’t ask them to do anything concrete about it.”
Jim Griffiths was the most influential devolutionist the Welsh Labour Party has ever produced. Welsh Labour has had significantly more influence on devolution than any other party. Go figure.
Points well made, Adam. Administrative devolution was delivered by Labour in the 1960s and political devolution, up to a defined point, happened in 1997.
To return to the main subject of the column, which reads with the usual elegance, I’m inclined to agree with David on Blair but think that Wilson, by the same virtue of being PM when a major step forward took place, is also deserving of clear recognition. He was also PM when the first Welsh language Act was passed and, if I recall correctly, when the WDA was created.
If we’re talking about delivery rather than motivation I suppose Blair would have to be near the top. However top of Liberal Non-conformist Wales’s wish list at one time was disestablishment, which Lloyd George did deliver, albeit from the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Churchill should surely get points deducted for sending in the army against the miners in Tonypandy.
Daran
True of course that Wilson saw the first Welsh language legislation passed on his watch. However, if we’re talking about which party has done most for the language overall, it would have to be the Conservatives.
Great Article David – if you’re going to get into trouble for it it won’t be from here – and some pretty good discussion.
One point, to expand up on Martin’s assertion that “things normally happened for Wales because of other figures within government” is to recognise Peter Walker’s role in using the Secretary of State’s “armoury” to its full in running a quite distinct Welsh industrial policy. Apart from the fact he was surely right, he also clearly needed Thatcher’s acquiesence and he created a legitimacy for Wales to have distinct national policies even within a non devolved set up. Peter Hain’s education policy from 97-99 was in similar vein.
Reading through the whole thread and the multiple attempts to examine Welsh political history one is struck by the degree of gradual progress towards a clearer ntaional political identify punctuated by some roadblocks (with the 1930s being by some way the worst, even worse than the 1980s) with the key driving figures being first Liberals and than Labour devolutionists. this doesn’t mean anything was inevitable but it does suggest there are very few absolute breaks with the past.
However to finish by addressing one of Martin Johnes’ other points; if “nations are made of people and Attlee’s …….did more for the Welsh (and British) people than any other government” is surely not true. On that basis it’s Churchill, no contest.
Adam,
In reality the problem with devolution from a Labour Party perspective was that there was never any real debate in the 1980s in Welsh Labour. The driving force for the policy came from Scottish Labour and Welsh Labour followed on. The consequences of devolution, including the electoral consequences, were never really thought through. The assumption on the back of the UK election results from 1987 was that Labour would always win a majority in the FPTP post section plus a few regional seats. The first Assembly election came as a political shock and you know it. Before the election I gave Jon Cruddas my assessment of the likely result. In fact I sat in Maggie’s chair in No 10. I predicted all the losses, arguing that the unpopularity of the Labour councils would have an effect on the Assembly result . I know that my comments were dismissed by Labour Party officials in Wales as coming from someone who had failed to be selected as a candidate. I’ve always found it amusing that London couldn’t even get through to Transport House to find out if Alun Michael had even made the regional list. National TV coverage had gone off the air and I received a phone call asking me what had happened.
Probably in political terms, I agree with Martin Johnes that the most important decision was the creation of the Welsh Office and here the key figure was Jim Griffiths. As a result from a UK perspective the idea of Wales as one political entity was confirmed. If devolution came it had to be on the basis of an all-Wales solution rather than any other configuration such as the creation of two regional assemblies representing North and South. It’s the solution I supported in the context of regional assemblies being established throughout England and Wales. Instead we have ended up with a political structure for good or evil which owes more to nationalism than either good governance or devolving power closer to the people.
Jeff wrote: “Probably in political terms, I agree with Martin Johnes that the most important decision was the creation of the Welsh Office and here the key figure was Jim Griffiths. As a result from a UK perspective the idea of Wales as one political entity was confirmed. ”
And Wilson was of course PM then. So I stand by my suggestion of a medal for him.
More broadly though, it strikes me that PM’s permitted or did not permit development to occur. An equally interesting article might be “Which Cabinet Minister won gold for Wales?” but that of course would exclude Wyn Roberts, who would surely qualify for one of the gongs.
Jeff
I’m not sure we’re disagreeing as such. Yes, the impetus (both popular and political, incidentally) for Welsh devolution came from Scotland. No, the Welsh Labour Party was never united behind the decision in the same was as the Scottish Labour Party. But then again, neither were/are the people. The massive difference, of course, was the legacy of ’79 where the Scots were effectively gerrymandered out of a Parliament, while the Welsh turned home rule down in such resounding fashion that many in Labour vowed that it should never return to the political agenda.
Also agree with the consensus that administrative devolution was the major step. However, I stand by David Melding’s assessment that Blair deserves credit for making the difference between a second “no” vote and a “yes” vote.
Blair stuffed almost all the corruptions of Westminster into The Welsh Assembly.
Labour won power in Wales with a promise of Home Rule, Two authoritarian Labourites, Bevin and Morrison persuaded Conference to renage on that promise in the 1930s. Bevin’s Union expelled a Miner blacklisted out of the pits by the bosses when he joined that Union because he had to be a lorrydriver working for himself to survive. So much for Union Solidarity.
The Labour Party expelled my local Labour Party Branch because they participated in the United Front against Fascism. Then we had the Traitors in New Labour actively building Global Fascism following in Thatcher’s footsteps. It seems they have not read Marx, because they are unaware of the internal contradiction in Capitalism, and even if they had, are too stupid to see the internal contradiction in Marxism. They certainly have not read “The Negative Outcome of Economics” as they blithely pursue the growth that will destroy the Earth’s ability to support Life.
The first time I heard “No more boom and bust” was in 1954 from the man intending to make Socialism impossible in the UK. New Labour took aboard almost everything else he said, judge his politics for yourselves, one thing he sais was “THey rather went over the top in pre-war Europe”. .
This senile old fool forgot to slag off Blair and all the other inflators for destroying the efficacy of Keynes’ Theory to make Capitalism work to give security to everybody. The idiots are fertilising the Stock Market with inflation which is just like straight Nitrogen, which as any Organic Farmer will tell you destroys the soil.
Those half baked soggy socialists need to go back to 1888 Llantrisant and listen to the Socialist ideas Sam Mainwaring had. His nephew/adopted son was even better, his pre 1943 prophesies of human induce disaster being fullfillled.