I do feel real empathy with Tony Blair, when it comes to handling the public, and the media. That was heightened by my own brief encounter with the leadership role.
For a few short weeks, I shared that personal experience, albeit on a minimal scale. In Autumn 1998, I stood as a Candidate in the second Election for Leader of the Labour Party in Wales - the Election that followed Ron Davies' Clapham Common resignation. It was a chaotic time in Wales, confused and without structure. Yet I spotted the opportunity, under the Party's Election rules, to challenge both Rhodri Morgan and Alun Michael for the leadership.
None of us had any formal standing, under the emerging Welsh Constitution: the Election was being held at a time when no representatives had been elected to the Welsh Assembly, and when the Party's process of candidate selection had only just started. I was an rank outsider, of course: in the event, I did not get through the complex tripartite nomination stage. |
But for five brief weeks, the media (both radio and TV) and the Labour Party treated me as a contender, and I was shown every courtesy as the "third candidate". I attended joint Hustings meetings with the two established politicians. I travelled all over Wales, if speaking to somewhat bemused audiences, who could make neither head nor tail of the process.
But I made a key discovery. It was that very little interest was expressed in my policies, or specific plans: it the primary public and media interest was in personality , in probing into what kind of person I was, where my strengths and weaknesses lay.
That taught me much, both about myself and the political process. When it was over, and I had failed to secure any toehold in the new Assembly, I wrote down my own thoughts about Wales and her politics.
You will find them in my Little Red Book
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Diary 271201-02 