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FM Jones: dealing with '17 years and time for change'

Carwyn Jones and Yvette CooperImage source, Yvette Cooper
Image caption,

First Minister Carwyn Jones meets Labour leadership candidate Yvette Cooper

Another of the Labour leadership candidates has visited Wales today. But what Yvette Cooper had to say may be slightly less interesting than what her host - First Minister Carwyn Jones - said during her visit to Cardiff Bay.

Our cameras filmed the two politicians, as Mr Jones briefed Ms Cooper on the challenges facing Welsh Labour in next year's assembly elections.

He told the shadow home secretary: "We've got an election now in May but things are in place, getting there. It'll be a different battle next year than it was in 2011 when we increased our share of the vote."

He added: "We'll have been in power for 17 years so the difficulty we face is we're the establishment. I don't detect any great desire for change but the manifesto's gonna have to be pretty exciting to avoid this idea that somehow we're just chuntering along as ever.

"Seventeen years and time for change, that's what we have to deal with."

I'm not sure if the first minister intended to share these views with a wider audience but as Gordon Brown would tell him it's sometimes worth assuming a microphone is turned on before opening your mouth.