Normal Mouth (Rhondda, blogger): After a genuinely tumultuous and probably momentous 2007, the augers for 2008 in Wales seem on the surface to be more mundane. It is true that every council seat is up for election, but this holds the prospect only of modest retreat for Labour, given that its base is already so eroded from four years ago.
Beneath the immediate and visible, however, and there is reason to suppose that this year will deliver much of interest. It will be a proving year for Plaid Cymru, as they wrestle against subsumption in the coalition administration. But Plaid will not respond by delivering its vaunted assessment of the feasibility of Welsh independence, despite the promise of distinctiveness that would hold out. In Ieuan Wyn Jones the party boasts a skillful and serious but ultimately cautious leader. He will regard 2008 as a proving year of a different order, namely one in which his party can establish its bona fides as a party of government. Firing up the independence debate amidst this objective looks at best a distraction, at worst reckless.
For Labour the strangely muted maneuverings to succeed Rhodri Morgan will crank up a gear or two. With the First Minister pledged to depart in mid 2009* this is the year for some proper leadership positioning. Carwyn Jones will suffer from frontrunner status. His most serious challenges will come from the two Labour AMs who ought to be in the Cabinet: Leighton Andrews and Huw Lewis.
As ever, Wales's constitutional debate will be towed along by Scotland. Should the SNP crest break, the effects will be felt almost as strongly here. There is no prospect whatsoever of a referendum on upgrading the Assembly to a Parliament, but we can look forward to the All Wales Convention making some progress, or at least providing some existential clarity. Disputes between Westminster and the Cardiff Bay about widening the latter's powers through the use of Legislative Competence Orders will be keenly awaited and then digested with equal savour. Do not expect these spats to be numerous or significant, however; the Assembly will become more adept at framing what it wants and Parliament will become better at dealing with such requests.
All of which leaves what could be the most interesting constitutional development until last - the fabled merging of the Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland Office, with perhaps the English regions, into a single Department of the Union. Wales, as Scotland, will demand the first Secretary of State, but with so many Scots and so few Welshmen in the Cabinet surely that privilege should head west rather than north?** My guess is that the necessary pretext for such a move - the devolution of justice and policing to the Northern Ireland Assembly - will happen in May as planned, but that the merger may not. With an enforced mini-reshuffle only just completed the full-scale one mooted for the summer may be put back, perhaps until 2009.
* It was perhaps a measure of the FM's priorities that he selected the hosting of the Ryder Cup to be the appropriate moment to conclude his duties.
** And, as Lee Waters points out on this site, a suitable Welsh candidate has just been elevated to the Cabinet
