THE long-awaited launch of Mark Drakeford's campaign for the leadership of Welsh Labour and, with it the Welsh government, kicks off today.

Things are looking good for the man who manages to combine a reputation as the leading light of the Labour left in Wales with an understated “safe pair of hands” appeal.

At a time when New Labour seemed all conquering, the then first minister Rhodri Morgan turned to Drakeford to provide the intellectual muscle to his campaign to put “clear red water” between Welsh Labour and the Blairite juggernaut.  

In doing so, a different settlement was reached in Wales that allowed its massively underpowered and underfunded Assembly to produce one of the most progressive governments in Europe.

But every settlement is compromise and plenty of politicians remained to ensure Wales did not drift too far from the mainstream.

Thankfully things have changed since then and changed for the better.

Welsh Labour has been accused of being slow to catch up with the Corbyn project. A criticism fair only in part.

In 2015, Drakeford was the only minister to come forward to back Corbyn for the leadership. This support has continued since through all the smears and innuendo that have been thrown at the Labour leader.

That’s despite discordant notes having been sounded from Wales’s First Minister Carwyn Jones, who has at times sought to distance himself from Mr Corbyn and has promoted alternative policies — for example on Brexit, where Jones has called for Labour to seek membership of the single market and customs union with the EU, despite Wales, like England, having seen a majority vote to leave the bloc.

Cardiff West AM Drakeford has some excellent credentials, a member of both Unite and Unison, an academic of social policy, ex-minister for health and current finance minister.

He has a track record of challenging right-wing elites and posing positive socialist alternatives. He set out his stall in his 2012 book Social Work and Social Policy Under Austerity, arguing: “The crisis was not caused by the profligacy of welfare states but by the contradictions in the global economic system and by the attempts that governments had made to reconcile them.

“The intuition of the mass demonstrators against austerity measures — that the many are being penalised for the greed and folly of the few — is right; there are alternative steps by which public policies can steer societies in new directions.”

Better still, the prospects for left advance in Wales are elevated by the growing movement on the ground with Welsh Labour Grass Roots, the People’s Assembly and signs of reinvigoration in the trades councils, Wales TUC and throughout the latter’s affiliates.  

This is the power on which progress can be built. Wales remains the only nation in Britain governed by Labour. But following a general election left-led Labour governments in Westminster and Cardiff could together bring about fundamental changes in constitutional and economic arrangements to ensure a shift in wealth and power from the few to the many.

Drakeford may not have his own theme tune — yet — and his dancing skills remain untested, but he is definitely the candidate to bring Welsh Labour to the party, full of confidence and exuberance and with a songbook we can all get behind.