Wales 97 Red Letter Day

It's 1997 and Wales is going to the polls to vote on devolution.

The mood of the country is hard to gauge,

it's going to be too close to call.

Peter Snow, what do you reckon?

We reckon it's going to be too close to call.

Can't tell you when those boxes are going to stop. Too close to call.

We can safely say it's too close to call.

26,000. So I think that is a Yes all round.

You just cannot believe that result. It's there on the scoreboard.

Just to have more than half by a bare whisker voting.

Slightly more than that voting Yes as a percentage

is an extraordinary result.

Who could have predicted these scenes?

Good morning, and it is a very good morning in Wales.

The date is September 18th 1997 and Wales says Yes to devolution.

It's Red Letter Day.

The last time Wales had a parliament was under Owain Glyndwr

in the 14th century.

Since Tudor times, it had been ruled from London.

It wasn't until the 20th century

that home rule came back onto the political agenda.

Well to the fore, was a fighting Welsh Liberal, David Lloyd George.

It was to be an unsuccessful crusade for Lloyd George.

The road to devolution would be long and hard.

When I was growing up and getting interested in politics,

I don't remember anybody discussing devolution.

If you think of the three major figures in Labour

during that period, in the 50s and 60s,

Cledwyn Hughes and Goronwy Roberts were north west Wales Labour giants.

They were in favour of an elected council for Wales.

Jim Griffiths was in the middle.

He didn't want an elected council for Wales or devolution

but wanted a Welsh Secretary and a Welsh Office

to be a separate department of state.

Nye Bevan didn't want anything at all

because as far as he was concerned, he would never have had the NHS

for Great Britain if we'd had devolution.

You would have had it in Wales but private health care in England.

After 13 years in opposition, Labour won the election in 1964.

The party had promised to deliver a Welsh Office.

A year later, they kept that promise.

Good morning, the Welsh Office. One moment. Connecting you now.

For the first time, a Welsh flag flew on a ministerial car.

A Labour government created a Welsh Office

with Jim Griffith as Secretary of State for Wales.

He had administrative powers over housing, local government and roads.

This seat of the Welsh government, not so much a seat as a stool,

was based in Cathays Park, Cardiff

which would become the Welsh equivalent of Whitehall.

# Dwr

# Dwr

# Dwr... #

In 1965, a year after setting up the Welsh Office,

Westminster allowed Liverpool Corporation to flood Tryweryn valley

to create a reservoir to supply water to Liverpool.

This was despite an unanimous opposition of Welsh MPs.

Some people believed a Welsh Office was not enough

to protect Welsh interests.

It was a time of international protest by young people.

In Wales, the focus was the preservation of the Welsh language.

The campaign would get a boost with the election of a new MP.

Gwynfor Richard Evans - 16,179.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

It was 1966 and in a by-election held in Carmarthen,

Gwynfor Evans became Plaid Cymru's very first MP

beating the Labour candidate by nearly 2,500 votes.

It was a result that nobody had expected.

The party was starting to be seen as a threat in Labour's heartlands.

Deep in the bowels of Labour, probably,

it did mean some might have tended towards thinking

what to do to take ourselves beyond just having a Welsh Office.

In 1976, Jim Callaghan headed a new Labour government.

Following reports recommending the decentralisation of power,

he promised Wales a referendum

giving some powers over health and education.

It gave him the support of the Scottish and Welsh nationalists,

which he needed to prop up his majority.

But Callaghan's government was in trouble

and at the end of '78 and into '79,

the UK saw some of the worst industrial unrest in its history.

It was the winter of discontent.

My wage is £68 and I've been here over 15 years.

You will get over £74.

Mr Callaghan, we are surely due the average wage which is £78.

What we've got to do is to save the future of Ebbw Vale and many towns.

SCREAMING AND SHOUTING

The referendum was held on St David's Day, 1979.

In the months leading up to it rubbish had not been cleared,

corpses not buried and patients not treated because of strikes.

How much of a priority was a Welsh Assembly?

Give a massive No to the Welsh Assembly.

If we're really going...

If we want extra resources... If we want extra resources...

Labour itself was split on the issue

and the campaign for a Yes vote was half-hearted.

We've got the final result.

Just to make that clear, 243,048 voted Yes

and nearly a million No - 956,330.

Confirms the things we thought, the things that have been happening.

It is a crushing defeat for the campaigners for a Welsh Assembly.

'Were you disappointed when the 1979 referendum led to nothing?'

Hugely disappointed.

We didn't know the Conservatives would be in for 18 years

a couple of months later.

Out went Labour and in came the Tories

with Margaret Thatcher the new Prime Minister.

Where there is discord, may we bring harmony.

Where there is error, may we bring truth.

Where there is doubt, may we bring faith.

Where there is despair, may we bring hope.

It took a very long period of Conservative rule

to make the case for devolution in Wales.

# I predict a riot

# I predict a riot

# I predict a riot

# I predict a riot... #

They've seen the assault on the steel industry in the early 80s,

the coal industry in the middle part of the 80s and there was nothing anybody could do.

We didn't have that muscle power to stop the Government

from rolling the tanks over us and saying, "That's what's happening."

Maggie, Maggie, Maggie! Out, out, out!

Maggie, Maggie, Maggie! Out, out, out!

It was a turning point for the mining industry

and also the Welsh language

with the creation of a new Welsh language TV channel.

It's a tremendous victory. It's the biggest victory in Wales.

The Government has been humiliated and defeated

and that by a comparatively small people.

Apart from Nicholas Edwards,

all Mrs Thatcher's Welsh Secretaries were English.

How can you have the credibility of a Welsh Secretary

when most didn't come from Wales?

Wouldn't it be better to have a devolved set-up in Wales

elected by the people of Wales?

You wouldn't have the problem that when the Conservatives are in,

they don't find somebody from Wales to take the job.

It was the lack of logic that made people think

it would be better to have an elected Assembly for Wales.

In the 1992 election,

unexpectedly, John Major led the Conservative Party to victory.

But not in Wales.

Here, the Tories fell from their highest point of 14 seats to six.

COMMENTARY: The strong showing of Labour and Plaid Cymru in Wales

has revived arguments over devolution.

It is the election result in England that determines

what we'll have in Wales.

Welsh Secretary David Hunt has no mandate

but he has the free hand to get on with it in Wales.

This second defeat in a general election

left no option for Neil Kinnock but to resign as Labour leader,

to be replaced by John Smith.

After Neil Kinnock resigned as Labour leader,

after his second defeat in the '92 election

which was shattering to him, for me, to a whole generation of Labour MPs,

John Smith took over, his attitude to devolution was reverse to Neil.

Neil was suspicious, certainly about Welsh devolution,

and Robin Cook was suspicious about Scottish devolution.

And he made the Caerphilly MP, Ron Davies, his Shadow Welsh Secretary.

The night I was elected, I had a conversation with John Smith

and he gave me my marching orders

that I was to be Shadow Secretary for Wales.

I was to deliver for Wales the same parliament

that he wanted delivered for Scotland.

Then the question became, well, what sort of powers should it have?

I think if John Smith had lived

the model of Welsh devolution would have been stronger.

COMMENTARY: Smith's successor as Labour leader

was a young and unknown MP called Tony Blair.

He let Ron Davies know he had doubts about the whole devolution thing.

It's fair to say that Tony Blair was cool.

He wasn't against but he wasn't an enthusiast as John Smith was.

There was some of his shadow cabinet who weren't keen on devolution -

Jack Straw, David Blunkett, whispering in Tony Blair's ear,

"Find a way of dropping this idea.

"Constitutional changes are not what Labour voters are interested in.

"They are interested in bread and butter issues."

While Labour was still working out its policies,

the Tories carried on running Wales.

In 1993, John Redwood was appointed Welsh Secretary.

Two years later, it was William Hague.

By the '97 election, the Major government

had suffered from a series of scandals.

Voters had had enough of it.

Labour, rebranded New Labour, was elected in a landslide victory.

# Things can only get better... #

Now, we seem to have a victory on a scale

which has never been seen before in the history of Labour.

Ron Davies was appointed Welsh Secretary

and set about implementing the sixth pledge Labour had made

during the election - devolution.

Part of his job was to make sure the public understood

why this was still a key priority.

They thought Tony Blair walked on water.

Therefore, if you've got a government you voted for,

why would you want something separate for Wales,

when you've got everything you want from a Labour government?

You had to remind people we'd had Labour landslides before

in 1945 and 1966, and they don't last long

and then the Conservatives come back.

Although you've got a landslide Labour government

and a Prime Minister who appears to walk on water, fantastic,

but you need an insurance policy against the fact it won't last.

MUSIC

A date was set for the referendum to make the most of the honeymoon period

that newly elected governments enjoy with the electorate.

This is BBC Wales on One, watching history in the making.

For the second time in 18 years, the Welsh are being offered

a modest measure of self government, but will they take it?

The Scots said Yes again last week.

Tonight, we'll bring you the Welsh story as it unfolds

and not just the Welsh story.

What's happening in Wales tonight has big implications

for the future shape of government across the UK.

Over here on the left, the piles will be totting up for Yes and No.

Green for Yes, red for No.

-'On the night of the referendum, where were you?'

-I was in a studio.

It was the S4C programme, locked in with Rod Richards for about seven hours.

I'd never been in a studio for so long - from 11pm until 6am.

The votes started to come in.

First, from the counties near the English border,

giving No an early lead.'

So far so good. We are cautiously optimistic,

based upon the results that have come in so far.

Tony Blair will be exceedingly nervous

and Ron Davies doesn't exactly carry a lot of hair

but what he does will probably be standing up on end.

But then counties further west started to declare,

kick-starting the Yes vote.

That is the Yes party celebrating.

It had been a switch-back of emotion of quite an extraordinary kind.

Things are improving.

Ann would say that. The fact is it's not been a very good night for Ann or the Yes campaign.

Then the Anglesey vote came in.

Yes, they wanted devolution, but by a surprisingly narrow margin.

A Welsh nationalist seat in Westminster, only marginally Yes to a Welsh Assembly.

If they have only scraped in by saying Yes,

this is boding better than we thought for the No campaign.

It's extraordinary, the way they're bouncing around.

But then, finally, it all depended on Powys and Carmarthenshire

and whether the No vote in Powys would be more than knocked out

by the Yes vote in Carmarthen.

It is still very tight, though. 23,038.

'Were you sitting there doing mental arithmetic?'

I think, by five in the morning, when the Carmarthenshire result came out,

I wouldn't say I was past caring,

but after you've been on switch-backs of emotion like that,

you've developed a, kind of, slightly tougher skin.

Instead of biting your nails, you're saying,

"Well, we're going to lose", "We're going to win",

"We're going to lose", "We're going to win."

I was quite philosophical by 5am.

Dauddeg chwech mil...

Twenty six thousand. I think that's a Yes all round.

The final finishing post.

Well, look at that.

It was just like a football match.

Imagine at half time you're losing 9-0,

and then in the second half, the other counties came in

and slowly it went up, 9-8, 9-9,

and in the last kick of the match,

the final result comes through from Carmarthenshire and it's a Yes vote.

The emotion at that time was just incredible.

Good morning.

And it is a very good morning in Wales.

It was fantastic to be there because Rod Richards would have been over the moon

if Carmarthenshire had not done it,

as the last big result coming our way.

I would have been sick as a parrot.

As it was, he was sick as a parrot and I was over the moon.

The objective was to get a majority and we've got a majority.

Obviously, last night and this morning has been very tense,

and the result was very close.

But the rules were set, we had to get a simple majority, we've got a simple majority, and that's it.

'The vote - very, very close. Why do you think it was so close?'

Well, psychology.

Erm, I think, as a people...

..we are modest to a fairly extreme degree.

The No campaign's central allegations

that we were incapable of running our own affairs

without squabbling between north and south,

between Welsh-speakers, monoglot English-speakers...

..between the Valleys and the coastal belt.

There was this fear that we were not able to hack it.

But it would be two years before the first Assembly elections,

and they would be eventful.

The first problem was where to put the Assembly.

It should be in Wales, but north Wales or south Wales,

or have it somewhere in the middle?

Cardiff, despite voting against devolution,

was an obvious favourite. But where in Cardiff?

City Hall? Or what about a brand new building in Cardiff Bay?

There were people who thought that Wales needed a symbol of its history

and they were very pro the City Hall, as I was indeed.

If you were a history boy or girl, you wanted the City Hall.

If you were a modernity, sustainability and green sort of school,

you wanted a new building that could be an advertisement

for Welsh commitment to sustainable development.

The biggest advantage of City Hall was the fact that Cathays Park,

where all the civil servants were, was only 150 yards away.

I thought it was the ideal distance.

It's the Whitehall of Westminster of Wales.

One would have been one end and the other would have been the other end

and you could go back and forth at no expense to anybody.

That would have been ideal.

We did lose that by coming here and having this three mile gap.

Negotiations had been held with the Labour county council,

but these had failed.

The decision was made to take over an empty building in the bay.

But finding a building turned out to be the least of their worries.

The Secretary of State for Wales, Ron Davies, has resigned

after what he's described as a serious lapse of judgement.

Mr Davies has told of an encounter with a man on Clapham Common in London.

I was the victim of a crime. I've given a full statement to the police.

What I want to do is minimise any embarrassment to myself,

my family or the government.

In the Prime Minister's letter to the former Welsh Secretary, Mr Blair said -

Tony Blair picked a rising star in his government, Alun Michael, as his new Welsh Secretary.

He wanted him to get the new Assembly job too.

I make no apology for being a strong supporter of Alun Michael. I think he's a great guy.

But not everyone was convinced.

There was a leadership contest between Alun Michael and Rhodri Morgan.

And I therefore declare that Alun Michael was elected.

The party members protested that it was a Millbank fix

because local union bosses like the transport workers' leader

could cast their union's vote without holding a ballot.

It's a fix up!

The first Assembly Members for Wales were elected in 1999.

The first time in more than 400 years that Wales was running its own affairs.

Labour did badly and didn't get a majority,

but Alun Michael did get the job as First Secretary.

He then confounded everyone by not seeking a coalition,

making his administration extremely vulnerable.

He also got to meet the Queen

when she officially opened the first Assembly Government.

The first debating chamber was in Crickhowell House in Cardiff Bay.

It was later replaced by the purpose-built Assembly building.

But only a few months later

Alun Michael's position was becoming untenable.

Opposition parties organised a vote of no confidence in him as leader

but Alun decided to go before he was pushed.

And that is why, Mr Llywydd,

I formally and in writing, as required by standing orders,

present you with my resignation as First Secretary.

But nobody had told Tony.

I believe the First Secretary is doing an excellent job and so do the Labour Party.

He not only has forgotten why he imposed the First Secretary,

he doesn't even know whether the First Secretary is in office.

When Alun decided that he had to resign

rather than face the vote of no confidence

in the February of 2000, the rest of the Cabinet said,

"Rhodri, you're the one who has to take over as caretaker person."

That rapidly transformed itself into becoming the First Secretary.

Everybody seemed to regard that as, kind of, a very quick process

because I had stood twice, once against Ron, once against Alun,

although I'd lost twice, you could say I was a loser,

but they said, "Rhodri, you are the natural person to take over. Just get on with it."

The birth pangs of devolution had been horrendous in Wales.

And the low esteem of the institution,

for fractiousness, for meaningless motions of procedure,

plus all the, you know,

Ron's famous walk on Clapham Common and on the M4 and so forth.

The way most people inside Wales, let alone outside Wales,

thought of Welsh politicians running their own affairs

was big thumbs down and I felt I had to stabilise the ship

to get that respect back up to somewhere near normality.

But stabilising the ship was going to be more difficult than anyone had thought.

In 2000, one year after devolution,

we had this succession of crises, like the trials of Job.

"I'm going to chuck this at you, see how you handle that."

We had the flooding.

Local residents making futile efforts to keep the torrent at bay.

These were horrendous floods. And then the freight tanker drivers' crisis in September.

Cut the duty on fuel or we will blockade the refineries.

That was the message they took to the people

as they began their long journey from Cross Hands to Cardiff.

They wanted to see me and Sue Essex, the Transport Minister,

not the Prime Minister and the Transport Minister in London.

Unless we do something, half of us won't be here by the end of the year.

Then we had huge job losses in the steel industry in December.

And in February, foot and mouth starts.

Disaster struck again in 2001 when foot and mouth arrived in Wales.

For the whole of 2001, until about October, Wales was like a war zone,

rural Wales, with these funeral pyres of these millions of sheep.

It was meant to try us and ask us, could we prove ourselves

as capable of standing up to these massive problems

that hit different parts of Wales.

Nearly three inches of rain have fallen since yesterday

and the lower stretches of the River Dee are dangerously high.

In Bangor-on Dee...

I remember going to Bangor-on-Dee.

If ten people in Bangor-on-Dee had voted for devolution, I'd be surprised.

But they wanted the Welsh First Minister standing on that bank

to see if they were going to get flooded.

When you're in a crisis, who do you turn to?

Westminster or the Assembly?

Everybody, during those crises, they all turned to the Assembly.

It wasn't until after the second Assembly elections that they got a purpose-built chamber.

On St David's Day in 2006, the Queen was back to open it,

this time in a splendid tangerine outfit.

Lord Elis-Thomas, the Presiding Officer,

leads the Queen into the new Senedd building.

Rhodri Morgan, the First Minister also there, shaking hands with Her Majesty.

He's flanked by the Duke of Edinburgh.

Presiding Officer, ladies and gentlemen,

I am pleased to declare this building open

and I wish you success in your future deliberations.

The following year, Labour entered a coalition with Plaid Cymru.

In 2010, the Conservatives were back in power in Westminster,

also in a coalition government, with the Liberal Democrats.

But all four parties were united in March 2011 for the next step along the road to devolution.

A referendum in Wales brought about full law-making powers.

Welcome to Wales Today live from Cardiff Bay

on the day the country votes Yes in the referendum

on more law-making powers for the National Assembly.

Wales has spoken.

Wales has said Yes!

CHEERING

I actually feel very relieved. I don't feel triumphalist.

I'm just enormously relieved.

We've now got a powerful Welsh Assembly

with the ability to initiate laws in the 20 devolved areas.

The end of 24 years in public life, either as an MP or an AM,

I can say, "OK, job done."

Good evening and welcome to Wales Today.

The Assembly election results are in and it's a good day for Labour.

We already have 30 seats.

Given the disarray in other parties, we know that's enough to govern.

All these newly elected AMs will, for the first time,

be able to pass Welsh laws without having Westminster interfere.

Only time will tell whether this new Assembly will use these new powers wisely.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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