Ron Davies (Welsh politician)

As Labour's Welsh Secretary, Davies designed and won the 1997 referendum, carried by 50.3 per cent on a margin of 6,721 votes, and coined the phrase that devolution was 'a process, not an event'. His Government of Wales Act 1998 created a weak, executive-style assembly without primary law-making powers, a compromise with Labour sceptics. In October 1998 he resigned after what he called a 'moment of madness' on Clapham Common, and he never led the institution he had created.