It's Oh So Quiet

The issue of the Welsh leadership is surprisingly quiet. As Matt Withers highlighted on the weekend (link not on his blog yet), and as Glyn Davies also noted, the disastrous local election campaign has not been addressed by the major players in the party.

It could of course be that no potential suitors for the hot seat want to be associated with such a damaging campaign. The fortunes of the Welsh Labour camp are a difficult issue to focus on. At one level they have of course been held back by a stuttering and weak Westminster administration. The donations sleaze followed by the 10p tax debacle has obviously hit them hard. Added to which Plaid had an excellent local elections campaign suggesting the One Wales Government has not run into any negative views from the pubic a large. However, I refuse to believe that those at the head of Welsh Labour continue to believe, as they stated following the Assembly elections, that the rejection they had at the polling booths is solely to do with the unpopularity of the Westminster Government.

Whoever takes over from Rhodri Morgan will need to address the failings in the party in Wales. As things stand they could suffer yet further losses at the General election. Having slipped to third places in many councils, lost Assembly seats and facing losing seats in Wales at the next election with the party as a whole losing power at Westminster the future leader in Wales will have a very difficult task. The fact that none of the pretenders for the crown have Rhodri Morgan’s popularity with voters outside the Labour heartlands could make that task even more difficult.