From Ron Davies's 'moment of madness' to the Lib-Lab pact the new Welsh Assembly has had fraught beginnings. Patrick Hannan scrutinises the sagas of Ron and Alun and Rhodri and Rod, placing them in the complicated context of the organisations and people who set the agenda of public life in Wales.

The humiliating failure of Labour's attempts to control Wales from London; Plaid Cymru's anti-independence stance; inter-party manoeuvring in the Assembly; trouble for the Welsh establishment at its club; increasing difficulties for the monarchy: these are the strands which make the state of Wales. This is a compelling story about both Wales and Britain, and one which, as Hannan discovers, is also richly comic.

Patrick Hannan is a writer, broadcaster and journalist. During his career he has been Industrial Editor of The Western Mail and for thirteen years he was the BBC's Welsh Political Correspondent. As a television producer he has made documentaries for BBC2, BBC Wales and HTV. For many years he has been a regular writer and presenter for Radio 4. He has been a newspaper columnist and has contributed to a wide variety of publications as well as being the editor of two books on broadcasting in Wales.