Spirit of community binds region

TOMORROW the people of Blaenau Gwent will choose a new MP and a new AM after what must surely be one of the most extraordinary by-election campaigns ever seen in Wales.

Peter Law's stunning victory in last year's general election was not simply a personal triumph for a hugely popular politician who had represented the area at council and National Assembly level for more than 30 years. It signified a major seismic fracture in Labour's bedrock support in arguably its most totemic seat in Britain.

Most compellingly, it had been represented by NHS founder Aneurin Bevan, and subsequently by another hero of the left, Michael Foot. Its most recent MP, Llew Smith, was unremittingly Old Labour and held Tony Blair in barely concealed contempt.

With this background, the clash that occurred over the imposition of an all-women shortlist on the local party can be seen as almost incidental to the bigger ideological conflict that has simmered between Blair and his many detractors within the Labour Party not just in Blaenau Gwent for years.

Nevertheless, its political history and its persisting economic problems mark the constituency out as somewhere quite distinctive. Although its towns and villages have their own more local loyalties too, there is an abiding sense of community about Blaenau Gwent that outsiders are instantly aware of, even if they don't fully understand it. The character of the place, together with the major preoccupation of those who live there, was summed up by Peter Law in the maiden speech he delivered in the House of Commons in June last year: "Obviously it is a working class area and an industrial constituency - mining and steel. Sadly, the mines disappeared in the 1980s, due to Conservative Governments who smashed up part of our community, as many people, particularly in South Wales, will remember; but they did not smash our community spirit, which still exists. The warmth of that spirit can be found throughout my constituency.

"The other part of the industrial equation was steel. For 200 years, the Ebbw Vale steelworks was well known. It was in a valley 30 miles from the coastal area and was so important to the community that the town was built around it. It was a tragic day for us when on July 5, 2002, the Corus steel company - executioners and axe men, as I described them - closed that steelworks in our constituency.

"It had a devastating effect on us. The last 500 jobs - quality jobs - at the steelworks were taken away and immediately the community plummeted into another era of handouts and soup kitchens. Five hundred families lost their quality of life with the loss of those jobs and the local economy was devastated beyond belief. Our local economy has still not recovered."

Those who saw BBC Wales' debate programme with the candidates last Sunday will have been struck by the unusually high quality of contributions from the audience, made up of local residents. While there was some political point scoring from a minority of contributors, the overwhelming impression was of a community deeply concerned about its future prospects. It is against that backdrop that tomorrow's by-elections are being fought.

As always, there is a supporting cast of extras - in this case including three of Wales' major parties. But the fault lines are clear: the real battles are between Labour's Owen Smith and the independent Dai Davies for the Westminster seat, and Labour council leader John Hopkins and Mr Law's widow Trish, also standing as an independent, for the seat in the National Assembly.

Labour's task has been to win back the trust it has lost in the constituency. The first step in its carefully honed strategy was for Peter Hain to apologise for imposing an all-women shortlist on the local party, and to allow its members total control over the selection of a new parliamentary candidate. This, it was felt, would go a long way towards removing the sense of grievance over the way Peter Law had been treated.

The party chose Mr Smith, a highly polished performer with reasonably local connections who had worked as a BBC Wales producer, as a special adviser to former Cabinet Minister Paul Murphy, and who was now employed as a top lobbyist for Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, the world's biggest drugs company.

His running mate John Hopkins, the less dynamic local council leader, had been chosen months before as the Assembly candidate. Extremely unusually for a critical pair of by-elections, Labour has largely kept its big guns away. Apart from an appearance by Gordon Brown, there have been no conspicuous ministerial visits.

Instead, "John and Owen" have been presented as crusaders on local issues of concern to the community. Rather than stressing Labour's record in government at Westminster, the Assembly and the local authority, they have concentrated on matters like anti-social behaviour, campaigning for extra police officers.

In doing so - and doubtless reflecting the concerns of many local people - their position has been partly compromised by the fact that Mr Hopkins's council could itself fund such measures, but has not done so.

Labour has vied with the Liberal Democrats for the quantity of leaflets distributed and media releases sent out. A great deal of such activity is conventionally seen as essential for any party hoping to win by-elections, and the independents' campaign has certainly been weaker in this respect. But the Liberal Democrats' chief executive Lord (Chris) Rennard has identified an extra ingredient in Blaenau Gwent - what he calls "the grapevine factor".

Unlike the other parties - including Plaid Cymru, whose Assembly candidate has absented himself from the campaign for the last week on what is described as "a family engagement" - the independents do not have a dedicated press officer. This is regarded by seasoned observers from outside the constituency as unspeakably amateurish.

Equally, Trish Law's repeated insistence that she will "do what is best for Blaenau Gwent" without necessarily specifying what that will be is seen as a "no no" in conventional campaigning terms.

Yet just as Labour's unorthodox approach is resonating with some, Mrs Law's down-to-earth admission that she is not a polished politician also has considerable appeal.

Coupled with the natural sympathy that exists for her as the widow of a much admired politician who died prematurely, it is easy to understand how the grapevine factor referred to by Lord Rennard has operated.

One of the conundrums of the campaign is the extent to which association with Mr Law will rub off on Dai Davies. Previously the union convener at the now shut steelworks, he is also a recent former secretary of Blaenau Gwent Labour Party, as well as being one of the 20 party members expelled for backing Mr Law last year.

Mr Davies acted as Mr Law's election agent and subsequently was employed as his political researcher. While quite well known in Ebbw Vale, he has not had a high profile elsewhere in the constituency. An articulate exponent of left wing principles, and undoubtedly more politically knowledgeable than Mrs Law, in other times he could have been mistaken for a Labour backbencher.

As is often the case when families fall out, there is considerable antagonism between the two main camps in these by-elections. Those who left Labour with Peter Law have not been appeased by the party's apology over the all-women shortlist, and now feel free to attack those aspects of New Labour they always found it difficult to stomach. And despite warm words about Mr Law that constitute the official party line, beneath the surface there are varying degrees of animosity towards him and his successors held by some Labour members that have on occasion become apparent. Lord Rennard, the Lib-Dems' by-election guru for the past 25 years, has also detected a polarisation on the doorstep. Perhaps significantly, he says there have been a lot of extremely negative attitudes expressed towards the Prime Minister.

"The outright hostility towards him dates from his decision to take Britain to war in Iraq and the misleading information about weapons of mass destruction. People no longer trust him, and he is now an electoral liability."

It is difficult to predict what will happen tomorrow, but perhaps we should be prepared for upsets. Peter Law did not expect to be elected to Parliament, let alone with a majority of 9,200. The only opinion poll, conducted early in the campaign, put Owen Smith comfortably ahead in the race to become MP and Trish Law narrowly ahead of John Hopkins.

The conventional wisdom is that Labour's vastly superior resources will see it home and dry in both seats. But Lord Rennard urges caution: "Labour may be operating from four offices in the constituency and it may have put out some glossy leaflets with messages from soap stars and Sudoku puzzles. But that doesn't necessarily guarantee success."

The results of the by-elections will have profound consequences. Defeat for Labour in the parliamentary seat would be a hammer-blow - greater than the one suffered last year. With the all-women shortlist issue put to bed, losing to Dai Davies would indicate a far more deep-seated malaise. It could accelerate Tony Blair's departure from Downing Street.

If John Hopkins wins the Assembly seat, Rhodri Morgan would get his effective majority back in Cardiff Bay. In the wake of embarrassing defeats like the recent one over calls for a public inquiry into the failures of the ambulance service, this would be a welcome fillip to Mr Morgan's hopes of winning next year's Assembly election with an overall majority. The arrival of Trish Law in the Senedd would, of course, confirm Labour's minority status and make securing a majority next year all the more difficult. That, in turn, could prompt Mr Morgan's exit from the First Minister's office sooner than he would like.

Western Mail