CARWYN JONES MUST DELIVER ON REFERENDUM
CARWYN Jones will be chosen as Wales’s new First Minister today, following his landslide selection victory, where he was backed by most of the trade unions, he won in all three parts of the electoral college. Rhodri Morgan stood down yesterday, and will be a very tough act to follow.
Carwen Jones is an AM for Bridgend, the Assembly’s Leader of the House and Counsel General.
If his nomination as the new First Minister is accepted, he is expected to be sworn in tomorrow before announcing the line-up of a new Cabinet.
Jones has two immedite tasks, and there may be a tension between them. He needs to deliver on the deal with Plaid under the One Wales agreement for a referendum before the Assembly elections in 2011 and under the terms of that agreement Labour must campaign for a Yes vote for more powers. His other task, and one where he will be under pressure from London, is to focus single-mindedly on the general election.
Of course technically Carwyn isn’t the leader of the Labour Party in Wales but the leader of the Labour group in the Welsh Assembly. You could argue that it’s the MPs who should be fronting up for the Westminister election.
Comment by Hendre — 9 December, 2009 @ 11:20 am
r.e #1
Actually, he is the new leader of Welsh Labour, not just the Assembly Group. So he does have responsibility to think of the MPs and Westminster elections too.
Comment by reader — 9 December, 2009 @ 3:10 pm
I don’t believe there is such a position within the British Labour Party. Before 1999 the senior Welsh Labour figure would be the Secretary of State for Wales or the shadow SoS.
Comment by Hendre — 9 December, 2009 @ 3:20 pm
He’s definitely the leader of the welsh labour party, not just the group in the assembly - as an USDAW member in North Wales I got ballot papers for the election.
Comment by Leftwing Criminologist — 9 December, 2009 @ 10:02 pm
Gone for the lazy choice – here’s the Welsh Labour wiki entry:
It is not separately registered with the Electoral Commission under the terms of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act, nor is it part of a federal organisation (such as the relationship between the Welsh Liberal Democrats and the Liberal Democrats, for example). As such it does not have an office of Leader. Carwyn Jones is regarded as the de facto Leader, although his constitutional position is that of Leader of the National Assembly Labour Party, analogous to the Parliamentary Labour Party.
Comment by Hendre — 10 December, 2009 @ 10:09 am