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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]
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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.
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