100 years ago, today marked a turning point in the history of our nation and our Party. The Labour Party in Wales won a majority of Welsh seats in a Westminster election for the first time ever, and we have been winning elections here in Wales ever since.

However, the date also marks 125 years since Aneurin Bevan was born, founder of our Health Service, the greatest gift from Britain to the World.

In 1952, Aneurin Bevan wrote this book, In Place of Fear, which sets out his analysis of British politics, consisting of property as represented by the conservatives and his struggle with poverty, representing the mass of people represented by Labour and in difficult economic times, property attacks, democracy itself.

What we’re now seeing in Britain with one in four people in food poverty is the Tories attacking democracy with people having to have voter I.D. to vote with the right to peaceful protests being withdrawn and the police and crime bill with a public order bill tagging people, infringing people’s other rights to peaceful organization. We’re also seeing the number of seats in Wales reduce from 40 to 32.

Of course, in 1944. Aneurin Bevan wrote this book, Why Not Trust the Tories, which he explained how the Tories would do anything, including lying to cling on to power. And as they left the war, they said we had to balance the books. We couldn’t afford major rebuilding, but instead people put their faith in the Labour government in Bevan, in Attlee, in a welfare state, NHS, in council housing.

The Labour movement’s victories of the past 100 years run through the ballot boxes of Wales. Our First Minister, Mark Drakeford, said “People in our Party don’t want to BE anything, they are people who want to DO something”. The Key to Labour’s success is that we listen, and we never take peoples votes for granted.

Labour created the NHS, and we introduced the national minimum wage. We decriminalised homosexuality, passed the Climate Change Act and we introduced Devolution to Wales and Scotland. We are world-leaders in recycling and your Welsh Labour government has banned fracking and introduced free prescriptions. We have produced and passed countless policies that have changed countless lives, and we did it all by winning elections.

As these sorts of bold issues that can take us forward as we come out of the despair of the current crisis, we’ve seen the signs and examples of progressive politics emerging in Wales for the Welsh Labour government, with the UK government. We can deliver a stronger, fairer, greener future for Britain. So, let’s make the future better than in the past and labour even stronger for the people of Wales.