Eluned Morgan today became Wales’s first female first minister (prif weinidog) after a vote in the Senedd. It is a landmark moment for Wales, and for the Labour Party – she is the first Labour female premier of a government in Great Britain. The party has yet to choose a woman as UK leader, unlike the Conservatives with Margaret Thatcher in 1975, followed by Theresa May and Liz Truss.

She becomes Wales’s head of government after the unhappy and controversial premiership of Vaughan Gething, who will now be remembered as a pub quiz question: ‘who was the first black head of government of a European country?’ I suspect Eluned Morgan will be in power in Cardiff Bay for a lot longer than his five months. In taking office, she told the Senedd, ‘Wales is a warm and welcoming nation and our political discourse needs to reflect that’.

Our family connection with Welsh first ministers

When I head the news that Eluned Morgan was to become first minister, I reflected that my family has had connections with four of the six people who have led the nation since devolution – home rule – in 1999. It is almost certain that will never happen again.

Alun Michael

I first met Alun Michael, then a Cardiff MP, in December 1995, on a day of huge disappointment for him and my father Bob.

Alun was a key figure in the project to create the Cardiff Bay Opera House, with a stunning design by Zaha Hadid. Its construction depended on Millennium Commission lottery funding. Late in the day, the opera house project went head to head against a new national rugby stadium to host the 1999 Rugby World Cup final – and despite Wales’s reputation as a musical nation the powerful supporters of what became the Millennium Stadium won, with much misleading talk about opera being elitist. (The famously egalitarian Australians happily celebrate Sydney Opera House.)

Dad was belatedly hired to run a PR campaign to make the case for the opera house, and get across the message that despite the title it would host musicals as well. He and Alun Michael met Cardiff newspaper editors but it was all in vain. On that December day, we heard that the Millennium Commissioners had rejected the project in favour of the stadium.

I supported Alun as he undertook a series of broadcast interviews in English and Welsh. I was impressed by his professionalism on a day of crushing disappointment. Zaha Hadid went on to international stardom, designing iconic buildings around the world, including the Aquatics Centre for the London 2012 Olympics and Guangzhou Opera House. Ironically, within a decade Cardiff had its opera house, under the less controversial name of the Wales Millennium Centre. (I joked back in 1995 that the Zaha Hadid project would have sailed through had it been called Dr Wizz’s House of Fun.)

Alun’s time as the original first minister of Wales was an unhappy one. Tony Blair, in an early period as control freak, fixed the contest for Welsh Labour leader despite Rhodri Morgan being the overwhelming popular choice. Alun was ousted after just nine months, and soon resumed his career as a UK government minister.

I had one further meeting with Alun, in Westminster around 2011, after the fall of the UK Labour government. He was then on a parliamentary committee, and I met him to discuss cyber security. We went on to discuss his time as first minister, and I expressed sympathy for the confected outrage after he appointed a vegetarian, Christine Gwyther, as agriculture minister.

Note: Alun Michael was technically first secretary of Wales, but I have used the title that had been used since late 2000.

Rhodri Morgan

Rhodri was one of a handful of politicians, like Boris Johnson, known by their first name. He was charismatic, very intelligent and perfectly placed to lead Wales after Alun Michael was ousted.

He was famously down to earth, and took caravan holidays at Mwnt on Cardigan Bay. As the Guardian put it in 2009, ‘… in Wales, serenity reigns and grown-up government is modestly maintained from a caravan near one of the loveliest beaches in Ceredigion’. 

Dad worked with Rhodri at South Glamorgan County Council, where the future first minister led economic development, while Dad ran PR. The council for the Cardiff region was transforming the capital with bold developments that helped it bounce back from the end of the coal export trade and closure of a major steel works. Rhodri used to commute in his camper van to the county’s headquarters on Newport Road, where it made a strong contrast with Dad’s unreliable Austin Princess. He later ran the PR operation of the European Commission’s Wales office before being elected to the Westminster parliament.

Vaughan Gething

I had just a fleeting contact with Vaughan Gething in late 2022. Dad’s false teeth had gone missing after he was transferred between Welsh hospitals, and the Cardiff & Vale Health Board had done nothing to replace them after five months. In despair I contacted Gething as Dad’s member of the Senedd. Very soon after, an executive at the health board contacted me and confided that Vaughan Gething had given the board’s chief executive a blistering rebuke for the board’s indifference. (I had previously blogged about the fact even Gething as former health minister couldn’t get the health board to put things right, but I was wrong.)

Eluned Morgan

Our family connection with the latest first minister of Wales a more tenuous one. Her father, Bob Morgan, was a Church in Wales priest in Ely, Cardiff, who became leader of South Glamorgan County Council in 1981. Dad had already known him for several years, and always spoke warmly of Rev Bob. His daughter became the youngest member of the European Parliament at 27 in 1994.

Dad retired almost 20 years ago, so I am not expecting any further family connections with whoever leads Wales in the future.