John Osmond (Cardiff, IWA): The possibility of a 'Rainbow Coalition' ruling Wales lives on following a special Welsh Liberal Democrats conference at the weekend. Meeting in Llandrindod, they voted by 125 votes to 77 to approve the 'All-Wales Accord', the extraordinary agreement which would see all three parties share power, and shatter Labour's century long control of Wales.
The vote overturned the decision not to join the coalition made by the Liberal Democrat executive a few days earlier. It immediately led Plaid Cymru's leader Ieuan Wyn Jones, speaking at a meeting of his party's National Council in Aberystwyth, to declare that a Rainbow government with him as First Minister was possible once more. The mood of the Plaid meeting was strongly in favour of the Rainbow option, with only a small number of the party's AMs voicing misgivings about the electoral consequences of being seen to give Conservatives a role in government.
However, the 'All Wales Accord' should be radical enough to mitigate against this. Plaid Cymru persuaded the Conservatives to support "holding a referendum on the transfer of full-law-making powers as set out in the Government of Wales Act 2006", while the Liberal Democrats got an agreement to a further referendum on the use of the single-transferable vote in local government elections early in the term of the Assembly, for implementation by 2012. Another commitment is legislation to give Welsh speakers equal rights in the provision of services and the creation of the office of Language Commissioner, following similar arrangements in Canada. This landmark document represents a Rubicon being crossed by the three political parties, and a seismic shift in the Welsh political landscape.
How likely is the 'Rainbow' to come about? Plaid Cymru's National Council meets again in about a month to approve it, leaving the ball firmly in the court of Rhodri Morgan, who was voted in at the head of a minority government last Friday (with just 26 out of 60 Assembly seats). The Liberal Democrats and Conservatives have now both ruled out any coalition with Labour - but will Morgan make Plaid Cymru an offer it can't refuse in order to ward off the rainbow? That would mean seats in the Cabinet and a raft of radical policies that many Labour AMs would find unpalatable. But barring a Plaid - Labour alliance, watch out for a no confidence motion in Rhodri Morgan connected with the Assembly's Government's budget for 2008-09 in the Autumn - and the possibility of a rainbow over Wales.
