“So it’s more important than ever that the direction of the Government is clear and decisive,” he added.

Oh dear. The commentariat are going to have some fun with that one tomorrow.

"The very idea that none of what happened in the local elections in Wales has ended up at the door of the Assembly is monumentally worrying - it must make us question just what kind of an impact the institution has made on the Welsh psyche?," says Ms Neagle.

Fair point. Ask yourself this: were Labour in Scotland to suffer the same heavy defeats in local elections, where would the bulk of the opprobrium be directed at? Gordon Brown? Or Wendy Alexander? And has Wales created the world's first national legislature that doesn't even annoy people with its decisions enough to affect their voting choice?

Still, Labour might actually make some headway with their attempts to portray Timpson, a lawyer who lives 15 miles away in leafy Tarporley, as a toff. Driving towards the town's station along Gresty Road, I was stuck behind a humungous 4x4, which was turning right onto an estate but had paused to let out (and wave at) a gleaming blue soft-top sports car. What was going on? Then it hit me: this was the property the Tories had rented out for the duration of the campaign. The vehicles looked more than a little incongruous alongside the street's terraced houses, built on the grounds of the town's former cattle market; maybe Labour aren't being too foolish playing up the class card after all.

October 12 is the day that Mr German will be prised away from his plush Cardiff Bay leader's office, having announced that he will stand down following the party's autumn conference in Clydach. Selflessly, he agreed to stay on in his role after being requested to allow the party to complete a review of the constitution.

“I have received a request from party officers that I should allow the party to complete the President’s review of the constitution – including the rules for electing the leaders of the party – before I resign as leader.
“I have taken soundings within the party and the Assembly group, and feel this is a sensible way forward.
“I said earlier in the year that I would stand down when it was sensible and practical to do so, and having received this request from the party’s senior officers, I have decided that I will resign following the debate on the constitution at our Autumn Conference.”

In his letter to Mr German requesting he stayed on, John Last, chair of the party's NEC, fretted "I think the Party would attract unnecessary criticism both internally and externally if you resigned before the Party has resolved this constitutional matter", in a somewhat endearing overstatement of the interest of those outside the party in the internal constitutional make-up of the Welsh Liberal Democrats.

Still, back to that leadership contest. The trigger will be officially fired on October 12 - and "a contested election is unlikely to be shorter than seven weeks" - but expect interested parties to start manoeuvring into position now. Early favourite here is a Jenny Randerson (Cardiff Central) v Kirsty Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) battle with Randerson emerging victorious. But hacks note Eleanor Burnham (North Wales), the woman with a rainbow coalition in her hair, made a rare foray into the press room at the Senedd yesterday to say hello. The betting starts now...

Which is fair enough: he's a politician, not a TV reviewer. But what could be more embarassing than learning the catchphrases and returning a week later and showing them off? The Conservatives winning the Vale of Glamorgan was "pretty tidy" he claimed, albeit in a clipped Old Etonian tone. And taking tea with Welsh Conservative leader Nick Bourne, Vale of Glamorgan parliamentary candidate Alun Cairns and council group leader Gordon Kemp outside the town's Fountain Tea Room, Mr Cameron asked “What’s occurring?” after being told by the waitress that the show had been filmed there. No word of a lie.

Onlookers noted how Mr Cairns was determined not to leave the side of Mr Cameron throughout his 15-minute visit (on to Nuneaton, taken from Labour, and Bury, from no overall control, next). Good job the dimunitive Mr Cairns can slip between the legs of the media scrum.

Oh, yes...the results. Plenty of analysis of those in tomorrow's Western Mail - and there's still 10 to come. Can Plaid save some face in Caerphilly? Surely Rhondda Cynon Taff won't see the same shock results as elsewhere? And can the Lib Dems (or 'Liberal Democrat Focus Team', as they seem to have billed themselves on the voting slips) continue their good run of form in Wrexham?

Hat-tip to Searchlight Cymru for this story. If you've received a copy of the BNP's election literature in Wales - there's a copy lying on my desk - you'll see a picture of what they bill as "the REAL face of the BNP". It's "a family organisation that wants to put British people first" and is illustrated with a picture of a smiling family-of-five. Just your average, run-of-the-mill family voting BNP.

Er...except it's the family of BNP campaigner Nick Cass. Rather than being the "REAL face of the BNP" in Wales, he'll be standing as a candidate for Kirklees Council, West Yorkshire.

This, of course, was the same election leaflet that claimed four-year-olds in Welsh schools were being "taught homosexuality", soldiers in hospitals were being ordered to remove their uniforms so as not to offend Muslims, and asylum seekers were being given cheques to buy cars.

Llanelli's Plaid Cymru AM Helen Mary Jones casts her eye over the political big beasts' trip to Wales today, and unexpectedly suggests Wales should be governed by a party which ignores it.

If you can't wait that long there's a taster along with a photograph taken at Rome's Trevi Fountain, where Lembit popped the question, in Rome here. Isn't it just beautiful?

IF ever those Labour naysayers in the Assembly and beyond – and I’m looking at you, Welsh Viceroy Paul Murphy – needed a reminder of the possible consequences of halting a referendum on further powers for the Senedd before 2011, it came last week.
The Conservatives in Westminster are actively blocking a move to transfer powers to the Assembly which would allow local councils to suspend the right to buy council houses.
To make that clear to the 98 per cent of people who do not understand Wales’ new law-making arrangements, a clunky piece of machinery reminiscent of little-remembered 1980s children’s TV show Bertha, they are not being asked to vote on the suspension of the right to buy.
They are being asked to vote on the principle of such power being given to the Assembly.
The Conservatives, for whom the right to buy remains an iconic policy from the Thatcher days, are fighting the transfer of power. They are wrong to do so.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the policy, the Conservatives should accept the new devolution settlement and allow it to be argued out in the Senedd. That is the correct place for such a decision to be made.
“Far from undermining devolution, Welsh Conservatives are committed to ensuring it works for everyone in Wales,” says Shadow Social Justice Minister Mark Isherwood.
Really, Mr Isherwood? Because you’ve got an awfully funny way of showing it.
Plaid Cymru AM Leanne Wood, as reported in last week’s Wales on Sunday, has written to Tory leader David Cameron complaining about his party’s behaviour on this. In that very Leanne Wood-ish way of hers, she describes the move as proving the Conservatives as “anti-Welsh”.
The North Wales-based Conservative business expert Dylan Jones-Evans hit back, saying: “There may be a different view within the South Wales Valleys at what constitutes ‘Welshness’, but for the life of me, I cannot see what is so anti-Welsh about giving 20,000 local families across North Wales, and tens of thousands of others across the nation, their first opportunity to get onto the housing ladder within their communities.
“Since they were purchased, the pride of possession has transformed many of these houses into fantastic homes which are still lived in by the former tenants who exercised their legal right to buy.”
Well, that may very well be so. But this isn’t the argument we’re having now. The argument is: can the 60 AMs who make up the Senedd be trusted to make a decision in this area or not?
The underlying argument of the Tories would seem to be: no, they can’t.
And that should serve as a wake-up call to those Labour members, particularly in the Assembly, opposed to a full law-making Welsh Parliament not forced to go cap in hand to Westminster every time they want to pass a law.
Within two years, whether they like it or not – and barring a miraculous electoral turnaround – there is likely to be a Conservative government in Westminster and a Labour/Plaid Cymru coalition in Cardiff Bay.
How will Labour AMs like it then when every thing they want to do will be dependent on a House of Commons with a Conservative majority giving them the nod?
How will a devo-sceptic like Huw Lewis, the Merthyr AM who is passionate about regeneration and tackling poverty, feel when every attempt to get a positive law through is chucked out by the Tories?
They probably won’t like it very much at all. Still, at least they’ll have the consolation they only have themselves to blame.

Who did former Welsh Conservative leader Rod Richards opt for when he was arrested following a fracas outside his Cardiff home last night? A loved one? His solicitor? Or, er, a journalist to let the press know exactly what had just happened to him...?

"The loss of that starting tax band was an essential part of a good welfare to work scheme and that's the reason why I am not keen on it, while accepting obviously in the end it's the Treasury, it's the UK Government, that have got to make the figures add up rather than ourselves.

"Nevertheless I do think there's a differential impact in Wales because there probably are quite numbers, probably more than in England say, of people who will be adversely affected because of the number of people working close to the minimum wage."

Poor Mr Brown. He is very rapidly running out of friends.