Twenty-five years ago Wales was, to a very large extent, an imaginary country. Instead of having a democratically elected Parliament of its own, it had a branch office of Westminster’s government in Cardiff run by MPs who didn’t necessarily even represent Welsh constituencies.
After the humiliating four-to-one referendum defeat in 1979 of plans to establish a Welsh Assembly with limited powers, it seemed that Wales was destined to remain a country in name only, enjoying sporadic victories on the rugby field and gaining name recognition on the world stage thanks to its association with entertainers like Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones.
But moods can change, and 18 years of Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher and John Major that ended the mining industry and destroyed thousands of relatively well-paid jobs persuaded just about enough people to back a new devolution proposal at a referendum held on September 18 1997.
