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.
Ieuan Wyn Jones is a Welsh politician who was the Deputy First Minister in the Welsh Government from 2007 to 2011. He was the Member of the National Assembly for Wales for the Ynys Môn constituency from 1999 to 2013, and he was also leader of Plaid Cymru from 2000 to 2012. Jones served as Member of Parliament for Ynys Môn constituency from 1987 to 2001, when he retired to focus on his work in the Welsh Assembly. In 2007, Jones was named Wales' "Politician of the Year" by the BBC Wales am.pm programme. He resigned from the Welsh Assembly on 20 June 2013. In 2017 he unsuccessfully sought to return to the House of Commons for his former constituency.
The first minister of Wales is the leader of the Welsh Government and keeper of the Welsh Seal. The first minister chairs the Welsh Cabinet and is primarily responsible for the formulation, development and presentation of Welsh Government policy. Additional functions of the first minister include promoting and representing Wales in an official capacity, at home and abroad, and responsibility for constitutional affairs, as they relate to devolution and the Welsh Government.
Susan Linda Essex is a British politician who served in the Welsh Assembly Government as Minister for the Environment from 2000 to 2003 and Minister for Finance, Local Government and Public Services from 2003 to 2007. A member of the Labour Party, she was Leader of Cardiff City Council from 1994 until its abolition in 1996 and Assembly Member (AM) for Cardiff North from 1999 until her retirement in 2007.
Politics in Wales forms a distinctive polity in the wider politics of the United Kingdom, with Wales as one of the four constituent countries of the United Kingdom (UK).
Michael James German, Baron German is a Welsh politician who was Deputy First Minister of Wales from 2000 to 2001 and 2002 to 2003 and Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats in the National Assembly from 1999 to 2008 and overhaul Welsh Party leader between 2007and 2008. The first-ever deputy first minister of Wales, he was also Minister for Economic Development from 2000 to 2001 and Minister for Rural Affairs and Wales Abroad from 2002 to 2003. He was elected to the National Assembly for Wales in 1999 where he was Assembly Member (AM) for South Wales East until 2010 and led his party group until 2008. In 2010, he was granted a life peerage and has since served in the House of Lords as a working peer for the Liberal Democrats. Ideologically, he is on the more liberal wing of his party.
Edwina Hart, MBE is a Welsh Labour politician who represented the constituency of Gower from the establishment of the National Assembly for Wales (Senedd) in 1999 until 2016. Hart served in the Welsh Government as a cabinet minister for the full 17 years she was an AM including as Minister for Health and Social Services from 2007 to 2011 and as Minister for Business, Enterprise, Technology and Science from 2011 to 2016.
Andrew David Davies is a Welsh Labour politician, who represented the constituency of Swansea West in the National Assembly for Wales. Davies was born in Hereford to Welsh parents; his mother is from Llandeilo and his father from Holywell, Flintshire. Davies attended Hereford Cathedral School and Swansea University, where he trained as a teacher.
Welsh Labour, formerly known as the Labour Party in Wales, is an autonomous section 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 27 of the 32 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.
Thomas Middlehurst is a British retired politician who served as Leader of Flintshire County Council from 1996 to 1999 and Assembly Secretary for Education and Training in the National Assembly for Wales from 1999 to 2000. A member of the Labour Party, he was Assembly Member (AM) for Alyn and Deeside from 1999 until his retirement in 2003.
One Wales was the coalition agreement for the National Assembly for Wales between Labour and Plaid Cymru agreed to by Rhodri Morgan, First Minister of Wales and leader of Welsh Labour, and Ieuan Wyn Jones, leader of Plaid Cymru, on 27 June 2007. It was negotiated in the wake of the preceding National Assembly election which resulted in a large Labour plurality, but no majority. Labour and Plaid Cymru approved the document in separate votes on 6 and 7 July, respectively.
The Interim Morgan administration of Wales was formed on 9 February 2000 by Rhodri Morgan following the resignation of Alun Michael as First Secretary, which was pre-empted by a vote of no-confidence by Plaid Cymru.
The 2000 Labour Party in Wales leadership election was held on 11 February 2000 after the resignation of Alun Michael as first secretary of Wales and leader of the Labour Party in Wales on 9 February 2000. Rhodri Morgan, who had unsuccessfully challenged Michael in the previous leadership election in 1999, was elected unopposed as the new leader of the party in the National Assembly for Wales and was later nominated unopposed by the assembly as the new first secretary on 15 February.
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.
In the Senedd, the Leader of the Opposition is the leader of the Official Opposition, the largest political party that is not in the Welsh Government. The Leader of the Opposition leads and appoints members of the Shadow Cabinet and as such is sometimes styled as the Shadow First Minister of Wales.
Dafydd Wigley became Leader of the Opposition and Shadow First Secretary of Wales after the creation of the National Assembly for Wales on 12 May 1999, following the first assembly election held on 6 May. Members of his shadow cabinet were elected by Plaid Cymru's assembly members and announced on 18 May.
Ieuan Wyn Jones became Leader of the Opposition in Wales after being elected as President of Plaid Cymru, the Official Opposition in the National Assembly for Wales, on 3 August 2000. Jones had previously served in these roles in an acting capacity on the behalf of his predecessor Dafydd Wigley from December 1999 to February 2000. He formed his shadow cabinet on 9 August and, like his predecessor, appointed himself Shadow First Secretary of Wales and Shadow Assembly Secretary for Finance. Members of his shadow cabinet were initially known as shadow assembly secretaries until October 2000. From that month, members were known as shadow ministers, with Jones's titles also changing to Shadow First Minister of Wales and Shadow Minister for Finance, after a similar change was made to the names of ministerial posts in Rhodri Morgan's coalition government between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Jones's shadow cabinet was dissolved after the formation of a coalition government between Plaid Cymru and Morgan's Labour Party on 19 July 2007.
Mike German, the leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrat Group in the National Assembly for Wales, formed his frontbench team of party spokespeople on 13 May 1999. German had led his party into the 1999 National Assembly for Wales election after being elected as leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrat Group in 1998. This was his first frontbench team in the assembly, with it dissolving after the party entered government in October 2000. He formed a second frontbench team after his party returned to opposition in May 2003.
Ieuan Wyn Jones, the leader of Plaid Cymru, formed his frontbench team of party spokespeople in the National Assembly for Wales on 25 May 2011 after the dissolution of his party's coalition government with Rhodri Morgan and Carwyn Jones' Welsh Labour following the 2011 National Assembly for Wales election. Jones had previously led a shadow cabinet before entering coalition from 2000 to 2007, when his party had served as the Official Opposition since the 1999 National Assembly for Wales election.
