An alternative look at the amusing and humiliating, the joyous and scandalous complex saga of two extraordinary years in Welsh politics, from Ron Davies's sudden resignation to Alun Michael's troubled appointment, Rod Richards's fall from grace and Rhodri Morgan's rise to power, presented in the author's unique tantalising style.

Golwg wahanol ar ddifyrrwch a llawenydd, cywilydd a gwarth dwy flynedd gymhleth a hynod yng ngwleidyddiaeth Cymru, o ymddiswyddiad sydyn Ron Davies i apwyntiad cythryblus Alun Michael, cwymp Rod Richards a dyrchafiad Rhodri Morgan, wedi ei chyflwyno yn arddull bryfoclyd ac unigryw'r awdur.

Hardly anyone comes out of Pat Hannan’s account of post-Devolution Wales with much credit. Hannan is the arch-cynic who casts a cold and sometimes jaundiced eye on the pageant of recent Welsh politics and turns it into broad farce. One cannot help feeling that Wales deserves better.

Certainly the National Assembly has had fraught beginnings, and one cannot suppress a smirk at some of Hannan’s bons mots on the main players. ‘On October 27 1998, Ron Davies became the first Cabinet Minister ever to resign for not doing anything wrong.’ And so on, right through the débâcle of Alun Michael’s ‘resignation’, the rise and rise of Rhodri Morgan, the sideshow of Rod Richards meeting two girls in a London pub, Peter Hain’s ‘untiring quest for someone else to blame’, Ieuan Wyn Jones’s coyness about saying Plaid Cymru is in favour of Independence, and the removal of the vegetarian and hapless Christine Gwyther as Minister for Agriculture: ‘You didn’t have to have a degree in marketing to realise she was not the ideal ambassador for the lamb chop’.

Of the Assembly itself, Hannan says its first term ‘turned out to be like a Christmas present which has been despatched without instructions or batteries’. All good rollicking fun, the animus evenly and sometimes thinly spread among most of our politicos, though Hannan can hardly be taken as a reliable guide and probably doesn’t want to be.

The chapter that sits most incongruously with the rest (because it is clearly motivated by personal animosity) is the eighth, in which he takes on the Cardiff and County Club over its policy of refusing membership to women, among whom is his wife, Menna Richards, Controller of BBC Wales. His spleen is reserved for Sir Tasker Watkins and Sir Geoffrey Inkin, two of the Club’s most influential members. Again we are treated to some typical Hannanian wit: ‘Not even Sir Geoffrey’s most fervent admirers would claim he’s a man particularly noted for his progressive views, but he has a healthy regard for democratic systems, something he once put to the test as the Conservative candidate for Ebbw Vale’.

What Hannan is most against, I think, is an image of Wales that died forty years ago – ‘the country’s long and passionate love-affair with the past. Behind Cool Cymru you find Cawl Cymru, a reheated stew made from the leftovers of another life.’ The kindest thing that can be said about his iconoclasm is that it may, after all, prove to have some part in helping Wales to move on, though we shall never know for sure. Alas, people with power and thick skins tend to ignore satirists.

Meic Stephens

It is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgment should be included: A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Welsh Books Council.

Gellir defnyddio'r adolygiad hwn at bwrpas hybu, ond gofynnir i chi gynnwys y gydnabyddiaeth ganlynol: Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.com, trwy ganiatâd Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru.