It’s been a hectic day at Welsh Labour’s annual conference here in Llandudno. I’m not claiming this blogpost as comprehensive coverage of it, but it should give you a flavour of what it’s been like here.
By the way, Twitter comes into its own at occasions like this and that’s certainly been true today. Take this as a shameless invitation for you to follow me if you don’t already – my account name is adrianmasters84.
The big name of the day was party leader Ed Miliband who came to tell Welsh delegates to campaign for a Yes vote in the Assembly powers referendum (a message which wouldn’t have necessarily been welcomed here in the past but was this time – with some exceptions) and to do all they could to win a majority for Labour in the Assembly election.
Interviewing Ed Miliband on Llandudno prom
But he said they should use May’s election to ‘send a message’ to David Cameron’s UK government – a message that has been announced loudly and clearly at this conference. I asked Mr Miliband if that didn’t undermine Welsh Labour’s attempts to fight the Assembly election on its own records. The election can be about both, he said but expect some criticism of that approach from the other parties in Cardiff Bay, particularly Plaid Cymru.
Ed Miliband’s speech was well-received in the hall and one or two senior politicians told me they thought he showed much improvement.
There was a little criticism of his decision to devote a portion of his speech to attack what he said was the UK Government’s plan to privatise large chunks of the NHS.
In particular his line that the plans amounted to taking the ‘N’ out of ‘NHS’ caused some consternation. “I thought we’d already done that with devolution,’ one delegate said to me.
That criticism of Health Secretary Andrew Lansley certainly made one person sit up: Andrew Lansley himself.
So incensed was he by the claims coming from Mr Miliband and in particular the location – talking about the English NHS in Wales – that he decided to take action. Since he was spending time on Anglesey it wasn’t much hardship to hop in the car to Llandudno.
He certainly made an impact – amongst journalists and politicians that I spoke to, none of us can recall as similar occasion when a Cabinet member, a Secretary of State, has turned up at the venue of another party’s conference to put their point of view.
A surprise appearance by Conservative Health Secretary Andrew Lansley at Labour's Welsh conference, Llandudno
In one of many jibes at the Labour leader, Mr Lansley told me he’s often staying with family in Wales. “I’m in North Wales more often than Ed Miliband,” he said.
We’d been so surprised by the call to say that the Health Secretary would like to meet us on the prom that we half-expected it to turn out to be a Labour stunt.
On the way we were scanning the distance to see if we could spot him. ‘There he is,’ I said – ‘Tall man, white haired. Oh no that’s Paul Murphy.’
When I told Mr Murphy this later he confessed he’d spotted the Health Secretary on the other side of the road and, stopping in his tracks, said to his assistant, ‘That looks like Andrew Lansley. It can’t be. Why would Andrew Lansley be in Llandudno?’
ITVAdrian 
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