1998 Welsh Labour leadership election

The 1998 Welsh Labour Party leadership election was held on 19 September 1998. Secretary of State for Wales Ron Davies was elected as Welsh Labour Leader and nominee for First Secretary.

1998 Welsh Labour leadership election

19 September

Candidate Ron Davies Rhodri Morgan Overall Result 68% 32%

Elected Leader Ron Davies

Candidates

• Ron Davies, Member of Parliament for Caerphilly since 1983 and Secretary of State for Wales since May 1997.
• Rhodri Morgan, Member of Parliament for Cardiff West since 1987, backbencher, Chair of Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Select Committee since May 1997.

Result

Ron Davies won with 68% of the vote, winning all three sections of Welsh Labour's electoral college formed from the party's Welsh MPs, MEPs approved assembly candidates, the trade unions and the party's members.

In his memoirs, Rhodri Morgan wrote:

"[The Welsh MPs] went heavily for Ron, although I kept majority among the approved panel of Assembly candidates down to 32-22. Of the candidates subsequently elected to the Assembly it was 4-4. The unions went for Ron, even my own union the T&G. The party members' vote split much more evenly, but I didn't maintain the early success I'd had in Aberavon and Swansea [CLPs], although I did get a majority of the constituency nominations."

Aftermath

Davies would go on to serve until his resignation just over a month later on 29 October 1998, two days after resigning as Secretary of State for Wales on 27 October 1998. He stood down citing "an error of judgement" in agreeing to go for what he said was a meal with a man he had met while walking on Clapham Common in London, which is a well-known gay meeting place. He was mugged at knifepoint. The full details of the incident (which he infamously called a "moment of madness" at the urging of Tony Blair's Press Secretary Alastair Campbell) have never emerged.

Morgan went on to fight the next leadership election only to loose to Alun Michael, Morgan himself would go on to be elected unopposed in the third leadership election in three years in February 2000, a position he would hold until December 2009.