User:ThatRandomGuy1/sandbox3

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David Melding
CBE
The official portrait of David Melding taken at the Senedd in 2016. He is wearing a suit, tie, and glasses.
Official portrait, 2016
Deputy Presiding Officer of the National Assembly for Wales
In office
11 May 2011 – 11 May 2016
Preceded byRosemary Butler
Succeeded byAnn Jones
Shadow Minister for Economic Development
In office
11 July 2007 – 16 June 2008
LeaderAndrew RT Davies
Preceded byAlun Ffred Jones
Succeeded byRussell George (new position)
Member of the Senedd
for South Wales Central
In office
6 May 1999 – 29 April 2021
Preceded byOffice Created
Succeeded byJoel James
Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Housing, Heritage, Culture, and Media
In office
18 September 2018 – 17 July 2020
LeaderPaul Davies
Preceded byNew position
Shadow Counsel General & Shadow Minister for Culture & Communications
In office
17 July 2020 – 9 September 2020
LeaderPaul Davies
Preceded byNew position
Personal details
Born (1962-08-28) 28 August 1962 (age 61)
Neath, Wales
Political partyConservative
Alma materCardiff University
OccupationPolitician
CabinetShadow Cabinet (Wales)
Websitedavidmelding.wales

David Robert Michael Melding CBE (born 28 August 1962) is a Welsh politician, writer and federalist political and constitutional scholar known for his advocacy of a federal United Kingdom. A member of the Welsh Conservatives, he served as Member of the Senedd (MS) for South Wales Central from 1999 to 2021 and in several Welsh shadow cabinet posts from 2007 to 2021 under leaders Nick Bourne, Andrew RT Davies and Paul Davies, having previously served on his party's frontbench from 1999 to 2003 under Bourne and Rod Richards. He also served as Deputy Presiding Officer of the National Assembly for Wales from 2011 and 2016 under Welsh Labour's Rosemary Butler. Ideologically, he is considered to belong to the one-nation tradition of British conservatism and as belonging to the more moderate faction of the Welsh Conservative Party.

Early life and career[edit]

David Robert Michael Melding[1] was born in Neath, Glamorgan, on 28 August 1962.[2] He was educated at Dwr-y-Felin Comprehensive School in Neath, which he left around the age of 18 with A-levels. By this time, he had started regularly writing letters to international pen pals as a hobby.[3] He aspired to study economics at University College, Cardiff; he later studied politics at the institution and attained a Bachelor of Science in Economics in the subject.[3][2] In 1982, Melding decided to transfer to the College of William & Mary in Virginia, United States, after listening to a lecture by one of its faculty at Cardiff on American politics.[4] He won a scholarship to study at the institution for a year, where he devoted his attention to American political history and attained a Master of Arts in government.[4][5]

In 1989, Melding became deputy director of the Welsh Centre for International Affairs (WCIA).[2] He later became executive officer of the organisation; in this position he was also responsible for the Welsh branch of the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF), whose operations were overseen by the WCIA during this period.[6][7][8] From 1996 to 1999, he was the co-ordinator of the Welsh branch of the Carers National Association.[2] In this position, he criticised reforms made to the benefits system by John Major's Conservative government, which reduced the levels of financial support given to people who cared for ill or disabled relatives.[9] By 1997, he had also become the chair of governors at Meadowbank Special School in Gabalfa, Cardiff.[10]

Early political career[edit]

By 1980, Melding had joined the Conservative Party. He served as chairman of the Conservative Students at University College, Cardiff, and in the same year he was elected as chairman of the Neath Young Conservatives; he was re-elected for a second term in 1982.[5][11] From 1983 to 1984, he was vice-chairman of the Welsh branch of the Federation of Conservative Students.[5][12] From 1986 to 1989, he worked at the Conservative Research Department as the party's research officer for Wales, providing research for the party in the 1989 Pontypridd and Vale of Glamorgan by-elections and in the 1989 European Parliament election.[2][5] It was in this capacity that he released his first publication, The Political Parties and the Welsh Nation, in 1987; in this book he argued that the Conservatives in the 1990s would supersede the Labour Party as the most dominant party in Wales as a result of Labour's falling vote share in the country since the 1979 general election.[13][14]

In October 1990, Melding was selected by the Conservative Party as its prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) for Blaenau Gwent, one of Labour's safest seats in the United Kingdom, at the 1992 general election.[6][7] His Labour opponent was Llew Smith, the incumbent member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South Wales East.[7] Melding said his campaign would focus on portraying the Conservatives as a "compassionate" party, promising not to make personal attacks and to instead campaign on policy issues.[15] In 1991, he attended a conference on negative campaigning in the United States, reiterating his view that politics should be "hard and fair" but not personal and linking this to his campaign in the constituency.[16][17] At the election in 1992, Melding won 4,266 votes in Blaenau Gwent, coming second to Smith who won 79% of the vote.[18]

In April 1996, Melding was selected to contest another constituency for the Conservatives, this time Cardiff Central at the 1997 general election. Cardiff Central had previously been held by the Conservatives as recently as 1992, when Labour's Jon Owen Jones won the seat from the incumbent Conservative MP Ian Grist at that year's general election.[10] Although already considered a moderate,[19] Melding was an anti-devolutionist in his early career, and he ran on an anti-devolution platform in the constituency, remarking in 1996: "if I win Cardiff Central, I can assure you there will never be [a devolved Welsh assembly] anywhere in my constituency."[20] At the election in 1997, the vote share of the Conservatives in Cardiff Central fell significantly on a national background of a Labour landslide against John Major's Conservative government. Melding and his party fell to third place, with the Liberal Democrats' Jenny Randerson coming in second place behind Jones who was re-elected as Labour's MP for the constituency.[21]

In the aftermath of the Conservatives' 1997 general election defeat, Melding continued to campaign against devolution. Later that year, he became one of the founding organisers of Nick Bourne's Just Say NO campaign for the 1997 Welsh devolution referendum, which the newly-elected Labour government had pledged to hold if it won the general election to determine whether a devolved assembly for Wales should be established.[22] In a debate ahead of the election in September, Melding said an assembly had little support among the Welsh public because the proposals for such an institution were being "rushed through" by the government.[23] In the referendum, he voted against establishing a devolved Welsh assembly; the overall result of the referendum returned a small majority in favour of doing so, and the first assembly election was scheduled for May 1999.[24][25]

Following the referendum defeat, Melding authored an article for the Institute of Welsh Affairs' journal Agenda. In the article, Melding called for the establishment of a devolved Welsh Conservative Party with some policy autonomy from the wider UK party. He warned that if the Conservatives failed to create a strong organisational structure in Wales and adopt a Welsh-based policy platform in the country, it could potentially fail to become the second largest party in the assembly.[26] He later described the Welsh part of the Conservative Party at this time as "an utterly derivative entity without even the modest autonomy usually given to a branch franchise" in 2009. In 1998, the Conservative constitution was amended to re-organise the Welsh party as the Welsh Conservative Party, with its own designated leader in the National Assembly for Wales.[27] A leadership election was held from October to November 1998 to determine who would serve in this position. The party leadership in Westminster favoured Nick Bourne, an academic considered to belong to the moderate wing of the party who wanted to adopt a Welsh-specific agenda for the party in Wales. Bourne was challenged by Rod Richards, a right-wing Thatcherite known for his populist and combative style who wanted to align the party further toward its ideology in England. Melding supported Bourne, who lost the contest to Richards.

Notes and references[edit]

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Vote 2011: Wales elections: South Wales Central". BBC News. 10 May 2011. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  2. ^ a b c d e "People in the Assembly: David Melding". BBC News. 1 September 1999. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  3. ^ a b Bradley, Melanie (9 July 1981). "Global friendships sealed with ink". Neath Guardian. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  4. ^ a b "Federal Britain". The Virginia Gazette. 17 November 2007. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  5. ^ a b c d "Election '92: Your Guide to the Candidates". Gwent Gazette. 26 March 1992. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  6. ^ a b "Tories' choice to fight bastion". South Wales Echo. 6 October 1990. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  7. ^ a b c "David takes on MP Llew Smith". Campaign and Weekly Argus (North Gwent Edition). 2 November 1990. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  8. ^ "It's a non-uniform way of helping". South Wales Echo. 27 April 1990. p. 11. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  9. ^ "Carers hit by new rules". South Wales Evening Post. 27 November 1996. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  10. ^ a b "Charity worker selected". South Wales Echo. 2 April 1996. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  11. ^ "Tory finances 'quite rosy'". Neath Guardian. 15 April 1982. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  12. ^ Politics Today. Conservative Central Office. 1987. p. 336. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  13. ^ "Tories are tipped for success". South Wales Echo. 8 December 1987. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  14. ^ "Tories 'set for Welsh gains'". South Wales Echo. 8 December 1987. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  15. ^ Morgans, Richard (18 October 1990). "Tory David ready for borough battle". Gwent Gazette. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  16. ^ "Off to study the morality of elections". South Wales Echo. 14 March 1991. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  17. ^ "Keeping the mud out of politics". Gwent Gazette. 21 March 1991. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  18. ^ Michael, Rhiannon (18 May 2011). "David Melding: Portread o'r Dirprwy Lywydd" [David Melding: Profile of the Deputy Presiding Officer]. BBC News Cymru (in Welsh). Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  19. ^ Hetherington, Peter (20 September 1997). "All set to start work in the shadow of Scotland". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 May 2024.
  20. ^ "Welsh assembly referendum 'will lead to No vote'". South Wales Echo. 8 October 1996. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  21. ^ "Jones keeps seat as Conservative vote collapses". South Wales Echo. 2 May 1997. Retrieved 23 May 2024.
  22. ^ Andrews, Leighton (1999). Wales Says Yes: The Inside Story of the Yes for Wales Referendum Campaign. Seren. p. 125. ISBN 978-1-85411-253-8. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  23. ^ "Welsh speakers hit out at 'scare tactics'". South Wales Echo. 10 September 1997. Retrieved 23 May 2024.
  24. ^ Williamson, David (20 June 2009). "Tory AM calls for a Welsh parliament in a federal British state". Wales Online. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  25. ^ Covery, Alan (Autumn 2014). "Welsh Conservatism: the unexpected evolution" (PDF). British Politics Review: Journal of the British Politics Society, Norway. 9 (4): 10–11. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  26. ^ Speed, Nick (23 December 1997). "Tory calls for power switch". South Wales Echo. Retrieved 23 May 2024.
  27. ^ Convery, Alan (15 July 2016). The territorial Conservative Party: Devolution and party change in Scotland and Wales. Manchester University Press. p. 83. ISBN 978-1-5261-0054-2.
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