Assembly huge Labour own goal?

By Vaughan Roderick

Yes campaigners celebrate victory early on 19 September 1997 Welsh assembly 'needs more punch'

On the 10th anniversary of the first Welsh assembly election, the BBC's Welsh affairs editor considers Labour's decline over the decade.

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Whatever effect devolution has had on Wales, from a purely party-political standpoint establishing the assembly may yet prove to be a huge own-goal for Labour.

Over the past decade the party has moved from being the ruling force in Welsh politics to a position where its seven decades of electoral domination may be over.

In 1999 Labour held 34 of the 40 Welsh seats in Parliament and controlled 15 of Wales' 22 local councils.

Despite the semi-proportional voting system and a bruising battle for the Welsh Labour leadership, few thought that Labour would fail to win an outright majority in the new assembly.

Winning those 34 constituencies would be enough and party leaders were confident that any losses would be offset by seats won by regional list candidates.

The results, when they came, hit Labour like a blow to the solar plexus.

The party won just 27 constituencies and one regional list seat.

Even worse, most of the defeats came not in the traditional marginals but in Labour strongholds like Llanelli, Rhondda and Islwyn.

As one senior Labour figure remarked "what sort of an election is it where we hold Cardiff North but lose the Rhondda?"

It was Labour's worst electoral performance in Wales since the 1930s, in terms of the popular vote.

Former Welsh Labour leader Alun Michael casting his vote in 1999

Labour won just 37.6% of the constituency vote compared to the 54.7% it received in the general election just two years previously.

If Labour were the losers in 1999 there's no doubt that Plaid Cymru were the big winners vaulting into second place in terms of both votes and seats.

Plaid's share of the vote effectively trebled between 1997 and 1999 with the party capturing 17 seats.

There was little sign of a Conservative recovery in terms of the share of vote in 1999, but the elections did provide a vital lifeline for a party which had been wiped out at Westminster and virtually disappeared from Welsh council chambers.

Its eight regional and one constituency seat provided a foundation on which to build.

Ironically, while the Conservatives, who traditionally oppose proportional representation (PR), benefited from the voting system, it did little to help the Liberal Democrats, PR's most enthusiastic proponents.

The question following the 1999 election was whether it was a "blip" brought on by Welsh Labour's leadership problems.

Crucial test

At first it appeared that might be the case with Labour holding its ground in the 2001 general election and re-taking its lost strongholds in the 2003 assembly election.

Since then though, Labour's support has plummeted.

The 2007 assembly election saw its constituency vote drop to 32.2% while the 2008 local elections left Labour in a majority on just two councils.

The decline in Labour support is no doubt partly temporary but social and economic changes have also played their part with the fall in Labour support mirroring the decline of heavy industry in Wales.

What devolution has done is to give the other parties the organisation and professionalism they lacked to take advantage of political opportunities.

Labour's dominance of Welsh politics is now confined to Westminster.

The general election due sometime between now and June 2010 could be the most crucial test Welsh Labour has faced in its history.