Labour Party fifteen years ago

Posted on January 3rd, 2007 filed in History, Photos, Politics, Valleys, Wales, Welsh Assembly

Fifteen years ago the Labour Party boldly claimed “New Year – New Government” in their member magazine. They printed a photograph of a confident-looking Neil Kinnock, the would-be Prime Minister.

The Commentary in that magazine exuded promise of better things :

This New Year is Special.

It is the year in which the Tories run out of time. They can dither and delay no longer. 1992 is the year of the General Election. 1992 will be the year in which Britain elects a Labour Government.

The New Year is a time for new ideas.

Time for new people, the energy, the vision, the policies to strengthen and modernise the British economy. Time for a new team with commitment to the values of social justice needed to raise standards of care and opportunity.

Time for a new government.

Three months later and Neil Kinnock would be standing in front of a rally of Labour Party members in Sheffield claiming triumphantly “We’re alright! We’re alright”. A week after that Labour lost the General Election. Kinnock resigned immediately.

As the Welsh Assembly elections approach, Labour First Minister Rhodri Morgan provides a predictably punchy New Year message :

The start of a new year is always a time for reflection, as well as for scanning the horizon. 2006 was a remarkable year for the Welsh economy. There are now 130.000 more jobs than there were when the Assembly came into existence seven and a half years ago.

On behalf of the Labour Party, I make this promise: whatever the results of May’s elections, we will not go into a government with the Tories – only a vote for Labour will keep the Tories out of Welsh Government

My challenge to the other parties is to make the same commitment but I do so knowing that they cannot deliver. A vote for Plaid Cymru or a vote for the Liberal Democrats is a vote to return Wales to the dark days of Tory misrule. Only Labour offers a future of hope, confidence and social justice.

The people of Blaenau Gwent rejected Rhodri Morgan’s Labour Party a few months ago because they were, in the words of Trish Law AM, “more Tory than the Tories”. Rhodri Morgan has little to be confident about.