Labour in Llandudno 2

Not all the talking and debate at Welsh Labour's conference went on inside the Venue Cymru hall in Llandudno...

::Assembly Counsel General Carwyn Jones – seen as a leading contender to replace Rhodri Morgan as first minister next year – was warning a fringe meeting that the party was too often seen as “anti-Welsh” by some voters, especially in western Wales.
Labour has struggled for support in the Welsh-speaking heartlands and lost all its first-past-the post seats in the region in the Assembly elections.
Mr Jones said: “What we have to realise is that we are considered in some parts of Wales not as non-Welsh, but anti-Welsh.”
Mr Jones is the only Welsh speaker among those tipped to run for Mr Morgan’s job.
::Shame then, given these concerns, that the Welsh translation on the cover Welsh Labour Report to conference was wrong. The word ‘ymylol’ (fringe) had the last ‘l’ missing, while the last ‘d’ in arddangosfeydd (exhibition) wandered off to the next line of text
With no simultaneous translation in the hall, sections of Rhodri Morgan’s speech delivered in Welsh yesterday might also have been lost on monoglot delegates.
::With a leadership contest virtually guaranteed when Rhodri Morgan stands down next year around his 70th birthday, how many cabinet ministers noticed that the first minister mentioned only one of them by name in his keynote speech? That was finance minister Andrew Davies.
::New Welsh secretary Paul Murphy was revelling in his role in Llandudno even if he admitted more than once he was more surprised than anyone that he was back in Gordon Brown’s cabinet.
He regaled the party’s fund-raising dinner with stories about Labour big-wigs past, including one Roy Jenkins, who attended a similar function in Merthyr Tydfil.
Roy was not keen on the soup and asked the waitress: “Could I have some asparagus tips?”
She duly whisked into the kitchen but was away some time. When she returned she told the bon-viveur: “Chef says he’s got no asparagus tips, would yew like Benson and Hedges instead?”
::Mr Murphy showed that he still liked the best cuisine when he took two of his advisers out for a haddock and chips lunch on Saturday in Barnacles restaurant in Llandudno.
He couldn’t have heard the delegate telling health minister Edwina Hart less than an hour earlier that poor diet, smoking, drinking and lack of exercise could lop 14 years off life expectancy.
Well, one out of four can’t be so bad.
::No expense was spared on raffle prizes at the conference dinner, which was sponsored by Airbus and the Federation of Small Businesses.
First prize was dinner at the House of Lords with Lord Neil Kinnock and Glenys, followed by an iPod shuffle, two bottles of Penderyn Welsh whisky, and... five copies of the Annual Report of the Welsh Labour Party, signed by Gordon Brown.