Peter Hain’s targeted intervention over Labour’s dismal election showing is the clearest indication yet that something deeper than a 10p tax gaffe is wrong in the party’s relationship with Welsh voters.
The findings of an internal inquest into Labour’s failures at last May’s Assembly polls at least hinted at an aspiration to set about learning those lessons.
But clearly not yet.
Some views here, here and here.
Gordon Brown’s continuing difficulties with his premiership - his internal opponents becoming ever bolder - is not the whole story, according to the former Welsh secretary.
The toxic 10p tax issue should not be allowed to become the excuse for a battering at the ballot box in which Labour retained overall control of just two councils, land lost overall control of six councils with 137 fewer seats.
There is something deeper than the PM’s unpopularity going on, says Mr Hain, and Welsh Labour needs to embrace that reality or continue to fail.
The Neath MP warned Labour had failed to keep pace with a changing Wales and now had to catch up with a more aspirational electorate being tempted more by David Cameron’s Conservatives.
“For Welsh Labour to use that as an excuse to say it’s all London’s fault, as I have heard some say, simply is not credible.
“There are reasons why we have to look at ourselves in Welsh Labour and make changes.”
During the Assembly elections, Labour’s vote fell three times as much as it did in Scotland and English local elections.
The idea of old fashioned Labour ‘strongholds’ in former industrial heartlands was being blown out of the water.
The days of large workplaces, trade unions, and rugby clubs as bastions of old Labour were gone.
“There are new estates, people don’t go down to the clubs any more, they drink at home, large workplaces don’t exist, unionisation in Wales is very low - it’s fallen down to just one in three workers.
“So the old channels of Welsh Labour’s core base and the links have been disappearing, like Labour in England had to change.”
But the party had yet to evolve to address the new Welsh political landscape.
Mr Hain was adamant: “Wales will not come out to vote Labour as it used to in the past unless we give it concrete reasons to do so.
“We have got to have Welsh Labour as the party of aspiration, of a modern Wales.”
Rhodri Morgan has no plans to review his decision to stand down as first minister and Welsh Labour leader in the autumn of 2009.
Gordon Brown is unlikely to want a general election under present circumstances until 2010.
The trouble is that, as with Gordon Brown, Labour does not have a natural successor lined up to replace Rhodri Morgan as a leader in Wales.
Which tends to suggest that there will be no hasty replacements in any carefully thought-out strategy to deal with the latest poll setback.
The answer for Labour lies in finding that fresh leadership style that appeals more to those new aspirations.
