Talk:Welsh Labour

Comma after Meanwhile

@Bmcln1: I looked at dictionary websites and they all had a comma after "Meanwhile", even when it said "Meanwhile, the". Noah ^💬 21:56, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

History section headings

Llewee, I want to discuss your revert of my edit to the headings in the History section.

My change to the the heading of the 'Pre-history' section was mainly because prehistory usually means 'history before written records', which does not apply here. However, the third definition given in the Wictionary page for 'prehistory' is "The history leading up to some event, condition, etc.", which presumably your intended meaning. My second reason for the change was that it looks wrong to have a 'Pre-history' section as a subsection of a 'History' section'.

I split the section at Kier Hardie's election in 1900, as this is a key development in the party's history, and it makes sense to group this with the period until the 1945 general election. I split this into a new section with the heading 'Rise to power'. This may not need a separate section, but I still favour a paragraph break here.

Thank you got your edit summary when reverting, which clarifies your thinking:

• these changes are unhelpful, the name prehistory is a reference to their not being a wales specific organisation in the labour party until the 1940s, most of that first section isn't about them beginning and they weren't rising to power they were moving towards electoral dominance of a place which didn't have any kind of separate government structure at that time

I was treating this section as a history of the Labour Party in Wales, whereas you treat it at as the history of Welsh Labour as a separate organisation. We should cover both of these in the article.

I am still unhappy with the 'Pre-history' heading, but 'Beginnings' is not ideal. I now propose 'Origins'.

Verbcatcher (talk) 02:59, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Dear Verbcatcher, Thank you for contacting me, my main objection to your edit was the use of the heading "rise to power". Like I said in my revert, this was partially because their wasn't really any power specifically associated with electoral dominance in Wales in the early 20th century and as it seemed like a strange tone to use being the kind of language which is often used elsewhere on Wikipedia to describe dictators entering government and suchlike.

In relation to splitting the section, most of the beginnings section you created consisted of a paragraph I had inserted at the start of the history to briefly explain the context of Welsh politics at the turn of the 20th century. As their is only really one or two sentences about events prior to the official founding of the Labour Party I'm not sure anything is gained by splitting them into their own section it arguably also doesn't really fit with the typical length of the other sections of the history. I'm also generally of the view that having one or two sentences split into their own paragraph looks quite scruffy on Wikipedia and should be avoided if possible.

I can understand your concern that having the word history in the name for one of the subsections for a history section, particularly the first one. I'd be happy to change the title of the first section as you suggested to solve that.

Llewee (talk) 13:53, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

I have changed the section heading to 'Origins (1890s to 1940s)'. Verbcatcher (talk) 14:42, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

"British unionism"

The referenced PDF document from "British unionism" under Ideology in the info box has lots of instances of the word "union" referring to trade unions, a couple of instances of "union" referring to the European Union, but none at all that I can see referring to unionism. Should a better source be used? Sbiki (talk) 11:27, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

History of name

The article currently

1. states that Rhodri Morgan changed the name to "Welsh Labour" in 2000 -- this is correct and cited
2. implies that the name was "Labour Party in Wales" from 1947 to 2000 -- this not supported by the sources cited for the 2000 change

I am unsure of the precise history, but as a starting point

• archives.library.wales (citing 1987 source) "the South Wales Regional Council of Labour was not set up until 1937. In May 1947, the Welsh Regional Council of Labour became responsible for the whole of Wales, 'Regional' was dropped from the title in December 1959, and the body was re-christened Labour Party Wales in May 1975"
• Has Devolution Made a Difference? (2004) p. 52 "The onset of devolution has had a profound impact on the Welsh Labour Party. In the first place, it changed its name to the Welsh Labour Party, from Labour Party Wales (and before that the Labour Party in Wales)."

a footnote in the French Wikipedia article gives the following names, but those differing from archives.library.wales have no cited sources:

• Welsh Regional Council of Labour (WRCL) 1947
• Welsh Council of Labour (WCL) 1959
• Labour Party in Wales (LPW) 1975
• Labour Party, Wales 1979
• Wales Labour Party 1992
• Welsh Labour 2000

I think there is a difference between three things:

1. the name used within the UK-wide Labour Party to refer to its Wales affiliate. I guess this is the question the above sources are trying to address
2. the party name used on ballot papers. I don't know what the answer here is. This sample has "Labour Party/Y Blaid Lafur" but it's only a model. (There were no party labels on ballots until the Representation of the People Act 1969.)
3. the name used informally within Wales. I guess "Labour" is used unless context requires distinguishing the Welsh part from the UK-wide whole, in which case, I would not even hazard a guess.

Previous related discussions from Talk Archive 1:

• When was Welsh Labour founded?
• Name - Welsh Labour

A related question is whether Welsh Labour has/had more autonomy from London HQ than the party's Regional Councils in England; if so, perhaps the 1975 name change reflected this; if not, perhaps it was just window dressing? This 1972 article has interesting points:

• pp. 375-6: the South Wales Regional Council was Labour's first Regional Council (1937); the Lancs & Cheshire RC was next (1938); the remaining nine were 1942 to 1948. "By May 1948 the whole country was serviced". So North Wales 1937-1947 was not an anomaly.
• p. 374: "The Labour Party has eleven regional offices in England, Wales and Scotland. The Conservative Party has eleven Area Offices in England and Wales. In addition, it has a Scottish organization, in many ways independent from Central Office." This wording does not say much for the autonomy of Welsh Labour in 1972. (I concede, Scottish Conservatives was definitely separate, but even so, it seems significant that there is nary a mention in the rest of the article singling out Welsh Labour.)

jnestorius^(talk) 02:34, 16 March 2024 (UTC)