Diolch, Llywydd. I would like, on behalf of my group and my party, also to repeat the condolences, which have been given to Julie and other members of Rhodri’s family.

I overlapped in the House of Commons with Rhodri for 10 years, from 1987 to 1997 and despite our political differences, Rhodri was an engaging and genial companion who always had time to talk. He was a gentle man and a gentleman. I warmed to him because it was immediately clear that, whilst fiercely loyal to his own party, he was always going to be his own man and a fully paid-up member of the awkward squad. Just as important, he was adamantine in his devotion to the fundamental decencies of life and politics.

As a sincere person himself, he was always able to accept the sincerity of others. He bore no personal rancour towards anyone, even those whose opinions diverged radically from his. Unlike some, he never believed that democratic debate was improved by personal abuse and mud-slinging. He was broadminded enough to recognise that people can be equally sincere in their desire to do good even though they may differ fundamentally in their political prescriptions. He was part of that strand of socialist thinking, which in Morgan Phillips’s words owed more to Methodism than to Marx. But Rhodri was a nonconformist in a general sense: his unruly hair being a metaphor for his sturdy refusal to be controlled by anything other than his own conscience.

His obituary in ‘The Daily Telegraph’ described him as

‘Off-message Labour MP…who defied Tony Blair to become First Minister’.

And he was deeply disappointed in 1997 when Tony Blair failed to offer him a ministerial post. But in retrospect, he might have agreed that Blair did him a favour, as Martin Shipton has written:

‘What it really amounted to was that Rhodri—while certainly no wild man of the left—was the antithesis of the technochratic type of politician that Blair favoured.’

As a loyal party man he sublimated his personal disappointment and used the freedom of the backbenches to throw himself enthusiastically into the campaign for the establishment of this National Assembly. In consequence, he has been rightly dubbed as the father of Welsh devolution, not only for his role in the original referendum campaign but also his 10 years as First Minister. And he did as much as anyone to establish this Assembly as a permanent feature of Welsh life, confounding the initial scepticism of people like me. It may not be the strongest argument in his favour to say that without him I wouldn’t be here today, but who can deny that this forum for the vigorous clash of opinions will be his lasting memorial.

In the Assembly election campaign last year, Rhodri and I made a tv programme for S4C, and like all men in their anecdotage we entertained each other with stories of the old days in the House of Commons and the characters who had crossed our paths. Always his own man, he announced his surprise decision to resign as First Minister on his seventieth birthday and he said,

‘There’s never a right time to go’— better not to outstay his welcome. Well, he may have been right about that then, but at only 77 years old this is certainly not the right time for him to go finally, and Wales is much the poorer for his untimely departure. As a selfless public servant he was universally respected across the political spectrum and loved as the warmest of human beings by legions of people he encountered in all walks of life. Dr Johnson said that

‘In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.’

But I can truly say that Rhodri was one of the most admirable men I’ve had the pleasure to know in half a century of public life, and it’s an honour to walk in his shadow.