Things can only get Medr

An early test for Labour and higher education in Wales ahead of today’s King’s speech

In September 1998, Ron Davies defeated Rhodri Morgan to become Labour’s candidate for first secretary of the inaugural Welsh Assembly; five weeks later, Davies had to resign from the post over a “moment of madness” on Clapham Common. History does not always repeat itself but sometimes it rhymes.

Yesterday saw the resignation of Vaughan Gething as Wales’s first minister after four members of his cabinet quit in protest over a donations row related to the leadership campaign that had seen Gething succeed the long-serving Mark Drakeford. We always suspected that Drakeford was standing down to get his social science papers in order for the next Research Excellence Framework.