Wales: the Final Piece of the Jigsaw

Labour and Plaid have, by overwhelming majorities, agreed to go into Coalition together. With Plaid's Dafydd Elis-Thomas as Presiding Officer, the two parties have 40 seats between them, with the Tories forming the new Official Opposition with 12 seats, the LibDems with six, and Trish Law on one. This means that the new WAG has a majority of 21.

To be honest, no outcome was ideal in this election. Labour remained the largest party but lost more than 10% of its AMs, clearly showing itself to be on a downward spiral and making it a fairly difficult prospect for any other party to join with it. And minority government wasn't a great situation either: the other parties have until now shown a willingness to work together to stick it to Rhodri Morgan (and indeed, Alun Michael) at any opportunity. So to get a Coalition, even one that involves campaigning on the Yes side of a referencdum on Holyrood-like powers for the Assembly, and horrifies a large part of the Welsh Labour contingent at Westminster, is pretty good going.

Plaid's position is an odd one as well. They have foregone their status as largest Opposition party to become the junior partner in a Grand Coalition. They could even have been at the head of the Rainbow Coalition, and Ieuan Wyn Jones could have been First Minister, but it wasn't to be. The fact that the LibDems were blowing hot and cold didn't help matters, and neither did the fact that some Plaid AMs were horrified at working with the Tories. It would have taken a long time for the Rainbow Coalition to get up and running, and it would have been very weak. I don't think it would have lasted the full four years. Plaid now get into government, but with Labour at the head, Rhodri Morgan and his successor (Morgan has voiced an intention to quit in 2009) are the ones who will take the flak for things that go wrong. Plaid can sidestep difficult headlines, as the LibDems did in Scotland.

For the Tories, there are good points and bad points. The downside is that they are confirmed as the Party that Nobody Loves, with Labour not even bothering to talk to them, and several Plaid AMs furious at the idea of their involvement in a Rainbow Coalition. On the other hand, Nick Bourne is now Leader of the Opposition in Wales (albeit still from third place), a first for a Tory Leader in either Holyrood or Cardiff Bay. The Party can benefit from this.

The LibDems, meanwhile, are frozen out, and like in Scotland, it's a problem of their own making. However, the similarities end there: in Scotland, the LibDems took the huff and wouldn't speak to anyone. In Wales, they spoke to everyone, but kept pulling out. Then they'd talk again. Then they'd pull out again. Their own indecision killed their prospects in the end, and like in Scotland, questions now have to be asked about the LibDems' relevance in politics.

Of course, the metropolitian press have noted that 'nationalists are now in power in all three devolved administrations'. They miss the point: nationalists have to be in power in Northern Ireland - it's called a Power Sharing Agreement for a reason - and Sinn Fein is not the only nationalist party: the SDLP are nationalist, have a minister nad supplied the Deputy First Minister before the Assembly was suspended in 2002. Sinn Fein, meanwhile, had Ministers since 1999 and it's only now that Martin McGuinness is Deputy First Minister that anyone's really bothered. And it's worth noting that the Election produce a Unionist majority and a majority of Ministers in the Executive are Unionists for the first time (7 to 5 versus 6 apiece beforehand). The SNP do form the Government in Scotland, but the minority status means that the Party is reliant on the goodwill of the (Unionist) Opposition parties. And Ieuan Wyn Jones is about to become Deputy First Minister of Wales, but therein lies the rub: Deputy First Minister. Plaid are the Junior Partners to a Unionist Labour Party.

The time for hysteria from London has not yet come.

In fact, Labour and Plaid have agreed a power sharing deal, which now has to be ratified by party members. Let's see what happens...

Welsh lessons

*braces self for angry reaction from Welsh speakers, furious at the butchery of their language*

Anyway, in the midst of the formation of the Executive in Scotland, it's been far too easy to overlook Wales. For those who haven't checked, Labour now have 26 AMs, Plaid have 15, the Tories have 12, the LibDems 6, and there is one Independent. Labour attempted negotiations with the LibDems. They have collapsed. They have been attempting negotiations with Plaid, and these are at death's door. Plaid, meanwhile, is negotiating with the Tories and the LibDems to form a 'Rainbow' Coalition, and this could lead to Ieuan Wyn Jones becoming First Minister.

Now, this has raised an interesting question. If Plaid and the Tories can negotiate in Wales, what's stopping the SNP and Tories from negotiating in Scotland. I'm not the first blogger to consider this question but never let it be said that I don't know a good bandwagon when I see one.

Anyway, the question is, "Interestingly, Plaid doesn’t appear to have a problem entering into a coalition with the Tories, eventhough PC didn’t embrace the business community in the way the SNP has. Has Wales woken up to a new dawn where the Tories aren’t the bogeymen and women they once were? After all that Bliar and Brown have put us through, is Scotland mature enough to have that debate?"

I'm going to start by considering the wording of the question. Why is it a question of Scotland being mature enough to debate the Tories' involvement in government? It's not like Scotland has frozen the Tories out altogether. The 1997 wipeout (as Duncan points out) was caused by the voting system, not hatred for the Tories (though that helped!). They got enough votes in 1999 for 18 MSPs, and managed to win the Ayr By-Election not long after the creastion of Holyrood. There are Tory MSPs, Scottish Tory MEPs and a Scottish Tory MP. So Scotland per se has no problem with the Tories.

The issue is the SNP's "No deal with the Tories" rule. Now, this hasn't stopped informal understandings being reached between the SNP and the Tories at Council level, and it's almost certain that the new Executive will talk to the Tories on some issues. So why no formal Coalition? (I'm aware that the boat is likely to have sailed on this for the short term, by the way) Why is the rule still in place?

As far as I understand (and I may be wide of the mark here), the rule was instituted as a response to the Poll Tax. This means that it was drafted at a time before Holyrood, when there was no prospect of the SNP forming a government of any sort unless there were about 300 Parties in the Commons and the SNP ended up being the largest of them.

So if that's the case, then the ban is equivalent to being anti-American because of Vietnam. It was a valid reason at the time, but it's a little passé. Not only that, but it was designed to prevent the SNP propping up a UK Tory Government. It would have been written when the Scottish Parliament was still an idea, and never imagined the circumstances that the Tories might ever be in a position to prop up a Scottish SNP Government. Rather than being a signpost, setting out the SNP's position in a Hung Westminster Parliament, it's become a shackle, limiting the SNP's options in a PR Holyrood Parliament.

There's a cliché that I rather like: "the past is a different country - they do things differently there". Things have changed: the SNP is more sympathetic to business than it was in those days, when Alex Salmond was elected National Convener for the first time, and had a vision of turning the SNP leftwards away from the old 'Tartan Tories' line. Jim Sillars is out, Jim Mather is in. Conversely, the Conservatives are more accepting of devolution now - the fact that devolution is here has surely helped - and are even sympathetic to calls for more powers to be transferred Northward. So where at the time, the two parties were essentially diametrically opposed on practically everything, there's been a convergence, and the two have both moved a little closer. There's room for discussion and certainly room for negotiation.

The question is: can everyone involved dare to think the hitherto unthinkable?