John Osmond (Cardiff, IWA): The future of coalition politics in Wales spiralled towards a black hole late on Wednesday evening. The executive of the Welsh Liberal Democrats voted against participating in a "rainbow" deal with Plaid Cymru and the Welsh Conservatives in the National Assembly. Just a week ago the same executive voted down a coalition deal with Labour. It was this that sparked the intense negotiations that resulted in the prospect of the "rainbow" option, see my post below. I am not ashamed at its optimist tone at the prospect of a break from a century of Labour domination in Wales.
Now, like some leftist groupuscule, the Welsh Liberal Democrats have chosen pure oppositionist politics. In an extraordinary interview on Radio Wales, a former Welsh Liberal Democrat leader and once Montgomery MP, Lord Carlile, welcomed the executive's decision and accused the party's leader Mike German of taking it towards a dead end. Outside observers have made precisely the opposite analysis. The 3 May election was inconclusive. With 32 per cent of the vote Labour was lucky to scrape back with 26 seats. Plaid Cymru has 15, the Conservatives 12 and the Liberal Democrats 6. Now it looks as if Wales will have a Labour minority administration led once more by Rhodri Morgan, and hopes for a fresh start will be postponed. But there have been so many surprises in Cardiff Bay over the past week that only one certainty remains: the Assembly has to elect a First Minister by midnight next Wednesday - or another election must be called. If this does happen what will be the popular verdict on the Liberal Democrats?
STOP PRESS: Labour have brought forward the Assembly plenary session to nominate the First Minister to tomorrow (Friday) at 1pm. Meanwhile, some Lib Dem activists are lobbying for their special conference, originally planned for Saturday in Llandrindod, to still go ahead in an effort to overturn their executive's decision - whose tied vote stopped them going forward. It appears they may have gathered enough signatures - 20 - to put their conference back on the agenda: hope for the rainbow lives on!
