A Tribute to Rhodri Morgan

Posted on February 8th, 2008 filed in Politics, Wales, Welsh Assembly

Today Rhodri Morgan celebrates eight years as the Welsh Assembly Government First Minister.

He seems like a physically fit man. We reported a film clip of him swimming around Cardigan Bay, in August 2007 not long after his heart operation.

The important question is, whether Mr Morgan is politically fit to lead Wales in 2008.

Journalist Patrick Hannan - raised near Aberdare - comments on Rhodri Morgan in his recent book, When Arthur Met Maggie (Seren, Bridgend, 2006) :

Mrs Thatcher brought a ball and crane and other items of demolition machinery into industrial Britain. Almost fifteen years after she left office, Rhodri Morgan, marking his fifth anniversary as Welsh First Minister, told the press : “My own personal ambition is to try to undo the damage that Margaret Thatcher did to Wales - that’s what I have a burning ambition to do.”

Morgan’s political ambition reveals the poverty of Labour’s vision for Wales : a Party which can only define itself in opposition to some body else’s achievements.