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The 1998 Welsh Labour Party leadership election was held on 19 September 1998. Secretary of State for Wales Ron Davies was elected as Welsh Labour Leader and nominee for First Secretary. [1]
Ron Davies won with 68% of the vote, winning all three sections of Welsh Labour's electoral college formed from the party's Welsh MPs, MEPs approved assembly candidates, the trade unions and the party's members. [2]
In his memoirs, Rhodri Morgan wrote:
Davies would go on to serve until his resignation just over a month later on 29 October 1998, two days after resigning as Secretary of State for Wales on 27 October 1998. He stood down citing "an error of judgement" in agreeing to go for what he said was a meal with a man he had met while walking on Clapham Common in London, which is a well-known gay meeting place. He was mugged at knifepoint. The full details of the incident (which he infamously called a "moment of madness" at the urging of Tony Blair's Press Secretary Alastair Campbell) have never emerged. [4]
Morgan went on to fight the next leadership election only to loose to Alun Michael, Morgan himself would go on to be elected unopposed in the third leadership election in three years in February 2000, a position he would hold until December 2009.
Plaid Cymru is a centre-left to left-wing, Welsh nationalist political party in Wales, committed to Welsh independence from the United Kingdom.
The secretary of state for Wales, also referred to as the Welsh secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with responsibility for the Wales Office. The incumbent is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom.
Hywel Rhodri Morgan was a Welsh Labour politician who was the First Minister of Wales and the Leader of Welsh Labour from 2000 to 2009. He was also the Assembly Member for Cardiff West from 1999 to 2011 and the Member of Parliament for Cardiff West from 1987 to 2001. He remains the longest-serving First Minister of Wales, having served in the position for 9 years and 304 days. He was Chancellor of Swansea University from 2011 until his death in 2017.
Ronald Davies is a retired Welsh politician, former Secretary of State for Wales, former Member of Parliament and former member of the Welsh Assembly. He describes himself as a politician belonging to the "traditional left" who had "spent his life looking for a socialist progressive party". He was a member of the Labour Party, and then of Forward Wales (2004-2009); he was subsequently an independent candidate and eventually joined Plaid Cymru in 2010.
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Welsh Labour, formerly known as the Labour Party in Wales, is the branch of the United Kingdom Labour Party in Wales and the largest party in modern Welsh politics. Welsh Labour and its forebears have won a plurality of the Welsh vote at every UK general election since 1922, every Assembly and Senedd election since 1999, and all elections to the European Parliament in the period 1979–2004 and in 2014. Welsh Labour holds 22 of the 40 Welsh seats in the UK Parliament, 30 of the 60 seats in the Welsh Senedd and 576 of the 1,264 councillors in principal local authorities including overall control of 10 of the 22 principal local authorities.
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The fourth Morgan government was a Labour–Plaid Cymru coalition government led by First Minister for Wales, Rhodri Morgan.
The 2009 Welsh Labour leadership election was held following the resignation of Rhodri Morgan, who stepped down after nine years as First Minister of Wales. Morgan had made clear his intent to resign in 2009 as far back as 2005. As Morgan had been elected unopposed in 2000, this was the first contested election for the Welsh Labour leadership for more than a decade.
The 2000 Welsh Labour leadership election was held following the resignation of Alun Michael as First Secretary of Wales and Leader of Welsh Labour.
The 1999 Welsh Labour leadership election was held on 20 February 1999. Alun Michael was elected as Labour's nominee for First Secretary. Michael would go on to become First Secretary in a minority Labour government following the 1999 Assembly election. Runner up Rhodri Morgan went on to serve in Michael's first cabinet and then succeeded him as First Secretary in February 2000.
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