The Welsh Labour Conference.

The Wales Labour Party has been holding its spring conference at Llandudno this weekend. We're holding ours in Cardiff in two weeks time. Labour remains the biggest party in Wales, so this has to be treated as a significant event. There are but two aspects of the proceedings that I want to comment on.

Firstly, there's the overall theme. which is 'to protect Wales from the Coalition Government at Westminster', and to "send the Coalition Government a message". It seems awfully dismissive of the National Assembly for Wales to be treated as no more than a tool for influencing the UK Government. Its supposed to the Welsh General Election. I hope we don't replicate this approach at our Welsh Conference, even if we are holding our UK Spring Conference alongside it. We'll be just two months from the Assembly election and I hope we take the opportunity to showcase our Assembly candidates and our Assembly policies.

The second eye-catching aspect of the Conference was Peter Hain's call "To kick Nationalists out of government". Now its inevitable that Labour should want to form a Government on its own, but this is no way to talk about about your coalition partners. Two weeks ago, Matt Withers in the Wales on Sunday informed us that the vicious campaign to undermine Ieuan Wyn Jones was being orchestrated by someone close to Peter Hain and an ambitious AM who is not in the Cabinet. It does not take a Sherlock Holmes to work out the identity of the two individuals he meant. I really do hope we can maintain a more civilized approach to our Lib Dem partners before the next General Election.