Why another of Labour's heartlands is becoming more restive. A rumbling in the valleys

....Though it is set soon to get powers more akin to Scotland's, until now the Assembly has been permitted only to amend laws made in Westminster, and then only in certain areas. Rhodri Morgan, Wales's Labour first minister, reckons listening to the Assembly's orators is as diverting as watching paint dry.

.........And now, if a recent poll by NOP for ITV Wales is accurate, Labour will lose four of the 29 Assembly seats it currently holds (there are 60 in all) in the May elections. A single survey is unlikely to be very accurate, but there are three reasons to think that it picked up something real.

First, the swing against Labour fits the national picture. The party is unloved across Britain right now, with support in the polls only a few points above the levels the Tories sank to in the mid-1990s. Even though Mr Morgan has done his best to distinguish Welsh Labour in style and substance from the cappuccino-drinking Westminster variety—he thinks that New Labour is merely a passing fad and remarks that global warming would be a boon to tourism in Wales—his party still suffers from Labour's national funk.

A second reason is that both the main opposition parties (the Conservatives and the nationalist Plaid Cymru) are scoring points against the party in power. The poorest part of Britain, Wales has also grown less rapidly than the rest (see map). The Tories and the nationalists have attacked Labour for wasting the £2 billion ($4 billion) of European Union funding that has come Wales's way. A recent study shows that the cash has not had much impact, and the money will shortly dry up anyway, for Wales does not look so needy when compared with Romania and Bulgaria. Both parties have also criticised Labour for the state of the unreformed health service, which lags behind its cousin in England even though it has enjoyed the same investment splurge.....

Apr 12th 2007 | CARDIFF
From The Economist print edition