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Who dunnit?

Betsan Powys | 12:09 UK time, Monday, 12 May 2008

So who dunnit?

We know what happened to Labour councillors in Wales. We watched as the victims of May 1st's electoral rout fell - all 129 of them.

But who dunnit?

Remember Rhodri Morgan's line the very next day? That Labour was taking "a belting" in its heartlands because of wall to wall bad news about the economy, that it "has been unrelenting adverse news - no good news and an unrelenting series of adverse headlines really going back to the impact of the credit crunch suddenly hitting home".

And his advice to the Prime Minister? "

"Listen, listen, listen and just see how we need a strategy to get people to understand what it is Labour is trying to do to steer the ship of state through exceptionally choppy economic waters."

From AMs came stories of doors being closed in their faces, disillusioned former supporters turning elsewhere and a constant refrain of 10p, 10p, 10p.

So a niggling question: how come Labour did so well in Neath Port Talbot, the only authority in the UK where Labour held majority control before May the 1st and actually increased their majority? Weren't people bothered by the abolition of the 10p tax rate there?

And then another coming from worried campaigners: why hadn't Rhodri Morgan 'done enough' to counter the negative impact on the doorsteps of that other Labour leader, Gordon Brown?

And now it's Rhodri Morgan's turn to listen as the former Welsh Secretary, Peter Hain and Lynne Neagle, Labour AM for Torfaen - yes, that well known Labour marginal as Paul Murphy put it - warn that if Wales Labour don't listen, they will lose again.

Labour, says Peter Hain, is a victim of its own success in Wales. In government it's created social changes but then as a party, failed to keep up with people's aspirations. (Is he saying Labour have created a nation of Tories? Plainly he's hoping not.)

And there's more: here's a taste of what the Labour Group Chair in the Assembly, Lynne Neagle, had to tell party members in Monmouth:

"The electorate has just told us that we haven't done enough - and what we have done clearly hasn't been communicated well enough."

"The very idea that none of what happened in the local elections in Wales has ended up at the door of the Assembly is monumentally worrying - it must make us question just what kind of an impact the institution has made on the Welsh psyche?

"We control education, health, housing, community regeneration - and according to some - we've established clear red water between ourselves and an unpopular UK Labour Government.

"And yet on May 1st, the clear red blood of good Welsh Labour councillors ran thicker and faster than their counterparts in England. It is time to take some responsibility.

"It takes a strong character to ask for a discussion with the person who has just bloodied your nose - but that is what Welsh Labour must do with the electorate, starting today."

She may have a particular strong character in mind, she might not.

She may speak for some AMs though not for others.

Peter Hain may be the 'former' Welsh Secretary.

But the ball is firmly in the court of the Wales Labour leadership.

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