All Change

Right then, a whole basket of topics to talk about today so let's start with the hello's and goodbyes.

Jane Davidson will be off in 2011. The ex-Education Minister has told Labour's Pontypridd branch that she's giving up the job. Not a sniff of a scandal around Davidson so there's no reason to treat it as anything other than early retirement.

Mike German has also, finally, stepped down. The race to be his replacement begins and we should have the first female party leader in the Assembly by December. In his goodbye speech to the party faithful he stated that the Union was "dead" and that the only options for the future was a federalised UK or an independent Wales. He warned that Wales was in danger of getting left behind in the devolution race, echoing Peter Black's recent call for a Yes Campaign.

Jenny Randerson immediately put her hand up as a candidate which, after Kirsty declared herself to be a candidate last month, means that the Lib Dems have a contest. Peter Black has immediately written Randerson off as "more of the same" but she has collected heavyweight support in the shape of the Lib Dems only "safe" MP, Jenny Willot and the leader of Cardiff Council Rodney Berman. Unfortunately for her though she's also attracted the support of serial loser-backer Lembit Opik. Unsurprisingly Peter Black, a staunch Kirsty backer, immediately declared his support for Opik's opponent for the UK party presidency!

Even though Ordovicius clearly thinks otherwise I'll give the Libs the benefit of the doubt and state that this could be an interesting contest. It will be the first leadership contest between two females for one thing and, as the UK Lib Dems have showed us over and over, when it comes to Lib Dem leadership issues they can be pretty nasty with each other.