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Wales History & Monarchs
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Devolution in Scotland and Wales: AD 1978-1999
After much debate a Scotland Act and a Wales Act are passed in 1978, arranging for a referendum in each region. The acts state that regional assemblies will be established if two conditions are met: a simple majority in favour, but also a minimum turnout of 40% of the electorate.
The referenda are held in March 1979. In Scotland there is a small majority in favour, but only 32% of the electorate vote. In Wales there is a large majority (4:1) against the proposed assembly. Later in 1979 a Conservative wins a general election, beginning a spell in power which lasts for eighteen years. Conservative policy is anti-devolution (though as a gesture the Stone of Scone is returned to Scotland in 1996). So the issue hangs fire - until 1997.
'Decentralization of power to Scotland and Wales' is in the party manifesto with which Labour wins an overwhelming victory in the general election of 1997. The pledge is quickly delivered. Within weeks of the election a bill is passed, arranging for referenda to be held. The Scots are to be asked two questions: Do they want a Scottish parliament? Do they want it to have tax-raising powers? The Welsh are only to vote on a single issue, whether they want a Welsh assemby with devolved powers which do not include tax raising.
In a 60.4% turnout the Scots vote 74.3% for a parliament and 63.5% for tax-raising powers. In a 50.3% turnout the Welsh vote by a tiny majority (0.6%) in favour of an assembly.
Elections for both assemblies are held in May 1999, on a system of proportional representation. About two thirds of the candidates are returned on a first-past-the-post basis, with the other third added from party lists to achieve the required balance.
In both regions Labour wins the greatest number of seats, while falling short of an absolute majority in either. The second largest vote is in each case for nationalism, with the SNP winning 35 seats in Scotland and Plaid Cymru 17 seats in Wales. The Conservatives come third in both regions, and the Liberal Democrats fourth. But the Liberal Democrats, the most natural allies for Labour, have enough seats to provide a coalition majority in both Scotland and Wales.
The strength of the Plaid Cymru vote surprises and impresses many, though it is also argued that Labour may have lost support by the centralizing manner in which Alun Michael has been virtually imposed by Tony Blair upon the Welsh Labour party as their leader in the run-up to the election.
With 28 seats in the 60-seat assembly, Alun Michael forms a minority government. The assembly is officially opened on 26 May 1999 in Crickhowell House in Cardiff. A new building for the assembly in Cardiff is meanwhile under construction.
However, within nine months the arrangement stitched up by Tony Blair comes apart. In February 2000 the assembly passes a vote of no confidence in Alun Michael. He is succeeded as leader of the Wales Labour Party, and as First Secretary of the assembly, by Rhodri Morgan - the very man kept out of the job the first time round by the vigorous efforts of Labour party headquarters in London.
These mining valleys, with their tight-knit communities centred on the chapel, become the prevailing image of Wales. Yet they are just one specific part of the country, in the south. Elsewhere much of the principality remains entirely agricultural, exporting mainly wool. In the north there is another region of industrial enterprise, quarrying slate to roof new houses for a rapidly expanding national population.
Even so, the valleys are in a real sense the heart of modern Wales. They suffer grievously in the depression of the 1930s, and in the subsequent slackening of demand for high-cost British coal. And they play a correspondingly important part in the development of left-wing Welsh politics.
Welsh Labour and nationalism: AD 1900-1999
The Welsh mining town of Merthyr Tydfil plays a significant role in the story of Labour in 20th-century Britain. The founding father of the Labour party, Keir Hardie, loses his first parliamentary seat (London's West Ham) in the election of 1895. For five years he is out of parliament, campaigning incessantly to establish trades union and Labour solidarity. Then, in 1900, he wins Merthyr Tydfil as the candidate of the new Labour Representation Committee.
For most of the next six years he is the only Labour member in the commons until a sudden change, in the 1906 election, swells the Labour representation in parliament to twenty-nine.
A decisive corner has been turned, and the member for Merthyr Tydfil is now at the head of a strongly developing political movement (Hardie retains the Welsh seat until his death in 1915).
The Labour party suits the radical mood of the Welsh valleys, but it also appeals increasingly to other regions of the principality. In the 1966 election Wales returns 34 Labour members to parliament and three Conservatives. Three decades later, after the 1997 election, there are 34 Labour MPs and not a single Conservative representing a Welsh constituency. But there are now, in a development of equal significance, four members from Plaid Cymru, the party of Welsh nationalism.
Plaid Cymru, meaning simply 'party of Wales', has a magnificently Welsh moment of origin. During the National Eisteddfod in Pwllheli in the summer of 1925 six men meet in an upstairs room of a temperance hotel. Their shared purpose is independence for Wales; together they decide to form a Welsh party. They are ready to contest a parliamentary seat in the general election of 1929, but the party has no electoral success until its chairman, Gwynfor Evans, wins a Carmarthen by-election in 1966.
Under his leadership Plaid Cymru gradually achieves a higher profile in Wales, particularly through the struggle to establish a Welsh television channel.
In the familiar link between Language and nationalism, Plaid Cymru recognizes the importance of Welsh in the nationalist cause - and also the fact that broadcasting will be a crucial factor in the survival of Welsh as a living language. This important argument seems to have been won when the new Conservative government commits itself, in 1979, to a Welsh TV channel.
A few months later the promise is withdrawn, whereupon Gwynfor Evans declares - in May 1980 - that he will begin a hunger strike in October. A summer of demonstrations is followed by the capitulation of the government in September. S4C (Sianel Pedwar Cymru, Channel Four Wales) begins broadcasting in 1982.
Thereafter Plaid Cymru representation at Westminster rises in successive elections. Two seats are won in 1983, three in 1987, four in 1992. Meanwhile the party benefits also from the strong advance of Britain's other Celtic nationalist party, the SNP in Scotland.
SNP successes in the 1968 local elections prompt the setting up of a Royal Commission to look into the issue of devolution, with the terms of reference including Wales as well as Scotland. The Commission, reporting in 1973, recommends Scottish and Welsh assemblies with devolved powers within the United Kingdom. The topic is predictably controversial.
Even so, the valleys are in a real sense the heart of modern Wales. They suffer grievously in the depression of the 1930s, and in the subsequent slackening of demand for high-cost British coal. And they play a correspondingly important part in the development of left-wing Welsh politics.
Welsh Labour and nationalism: AD 1900-1999
The Welsh mining town of Merthyr Tydfil plays a significant role in the story of Labour in 20th-century Britain. The founding father of the Labour party, Keir Hardie, loses his first parliamentary seat (London's West Ham) in the election of 1895. For five years he is out of parliament, campaigning incessantly to establish trades union and Labour solidarity. Then, in 1900, he wins Merthyr Tydfil as the candidate of the new Labour Representation Committee.
For most of the next six years he is the only Labour member in the commons until a sudden change, in the 1906 election, swells the Labour representation in parliament to twenty-nine.
A decisive corner has been turned, and the member for Merthyr Tydfil is now at the head of a strongly developing political movement (Hardie retains the Welsh seat until his death in 1915).
The Labour party suits the radical mood of the Welsh valleys, but it also appeals increasingly to other regions of the principality. In the 1966 election Wales returns 34 Labour members to parliament and three Conservatives. Three decades later, after the 1997 election, there are 34 Labour MPs and not a single Conservative representing a Welsh constituency. But there are now, in a development of equal significance, four members from Plaid Cymru, the party of Welsh nationalism.
Plaid Cymru, meaning simply 'party of Wales', has a magnificently Welsh moment of origin. During the National Eisteddfod in Pwllheli in the summer of 1925 six men meet in an upstairs room of a temperance hotel. Their shared purpose is independence for Wales; together they decide to form a Welsh party. They are ready to contest a parliamentary seat in the general election of 1929, but the party has no electoral success until its chairman, Gwynfor Evans, wins a Carmarthen by-election in 1966.
Under his leadership Plaid Cymru gradually achieves a higher profile in Wales, particularly through the struggle to establish a Welsh television channel.
In the familiar link between Language and nationalism, Plaid Cymru recognizes the importance of Welsh in the nationalist cause - and also the fact that broadcasting will be a crucial factor in the survival of Welsh as a living language. This important argument seems to have been won when the new Conservative government commits itself, in 1979, to a Welsh TV channel.
A few months later the promise is withdrawn, whereupon Gwynfor Evans declares - in May 1980 - that he will begin a hunger strike in October. A summer of demonstrations is followed by the capitulation of the government in September. S4C (Sianel Pedwar Cymru, Channel Four Wales) begins broadcasting in 1982.
Thereafter Plaid Cymru representation at Westminster rises in successive elections. Two seats are won in 1983, three in 1987, four in 1992. Meanwhile the party benefits also from the strong advance of Britain's other Celtic nationalist party, the SNP in Scotland.
SNP successes in the 1968 local elections prompt the setting up of a Royal Commission to look into the issue of devolution, with the terms of reference including Wales as well as Scotland. The Commission, reporting in 1973, recommends Scottish and Welsh assemblies with devolved powers within the United Kingdom. The topic is predictably controversial.
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