Blwyddyn newydd dda!
Working on a post about the recent National Archive release
The recent National Archive release of Cabinet Papers from the Blair era has already attracted some attention, notably around Tony Blair’s reaction to Rhodri Morgan’s Clear Red Water speech.
There are some interesting observations in a number of the papers, which run from December 2002 (the commentary on Clear Red Water) to 2004, when the UK Government position on the Richard Commission is being formulated.
As I said last year in my post on the Richard Commission and the 2004 Welsh Government Cabinet Papers, we would have a more rounded view of the process leading to the 2006 Government of Wales Act when the UK Government Cabinet Committee papers for 2004-6 were published. The recent release gives us some more material to illuminate those discussions.
There is no question that Welsh Labour had a vigorous internal debate on these issues. Indeed, I have just found some additional media coverage of my own evolving position (!) which I think I missed when I wrote on this last year. However, the new documents add to what we previously knew and I am working on a longer post on the National Acrhive release.