Safe seats
There are an awful lot of letters and Emails doing the rounds today and another is on the way. This one is to Rhodri Morgan and it's asking him to reconsider his plans to step down on his 70th birthday in September.
The author? Huw Lewis who is, as we tend to put it, "widely expected" to be a candidate when a leadership contest begins.
He's told an audience in Rhyl tonight that he doesn't think that contest should begin in the Autumn after all. With Labour in turmoil, he thinks the First Minister should stay put. He should stay in the job and put off those plans to head off every morning to his garden shed to write his book. He should stay until the Labour boat has stopped rocking and is either back on (or perhaps permanently knocked off) course.
It won't please those who are already afraid that Welsh Labour is in limbo. Huw Lewis will no doubt be accused of getting cold feet. Then again he might be praised for behaving in a statesman-like way.
You can hear his own reasoning tomorrow on Good Morning Wales.
In the meantime, I have a new friend. Tony Benn has brought a camping chair with him to College Green and sits down for a rest between tv interviews. "This is the safest Labour seat in Westminster" he told me, before asking whether I was Bulgarian by any chance. He'd been listening keenly to my piece for S4C and must have been wondering why - of all the day's developments - the Bulgarians were so fascinated by Peter Hain's appointment.
It was the black mac and heels that did it.
I'm Betsan Powys, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Wales' political editor. I'll be blogging the inside track on .
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