First declarations early this morning pointed to a cliffhanging result after yesterday's historic Welsh referendum. Pro-devolution campaigners were still predicting a narrow Yes vote for a Welsh Assembly. But the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, and the Welsh Secretary, Mr Ron Davies, faced a nervous night after Wrexham, Flintshire and then Denbighshire - all in the north-east, on the English border - voted No in the first three counts to come in.
The Yes camp was boosted by victories in Anglesey and Blaenau in Gwent and in Bridgend. But with nine results declared from the 22 counting centres the No camp was ahead with 174,075 (53.1 per cent) No votes to 153,744 (46.9 per cent) Yes votes.
Pro-devolutionists were pinning their hopes on the undeclared results in west and mid-Wales with their more concentrated populations and an emerging pattern of a swing for a devolved assembly in areas which had voted slightly against in the 1979 referendum.
A serious setback to the pro-devolution campaign came when Cardiff voted No by 59,589 (55.6 per cent) votes to 47,527 (44.4 per cent). In Wrexham, a small town in north-east Wales, 10 minutes from the border with England, the official counters won the race to be the first to return their vote. It declared at 12.09 a.m. with 22,449 (54.7 per cent) voting against a Welsh Assenmbly and 18,574 (45.3 per cent) voting in favour. The No vote majority was 9.5 per cent. The second result came nearly an hour later when Flintshire returned 28,707 (61.8 per cent) No and 17,746 (38.2 per cent) in favour of a Welsh Assembly. In this border town with close links to Liverpool and Manchester, the No vote majority was a resounding 23.6 per cent.
One of the first victories for the Yes camp came from Bridgend. The Yes vote was 27,632 (54.4 per cent) and the No camp returned 23,172 (45.6 per cent) No votes.
Hoping for a large Yes vote, the Welsh Minister, Mr Peter Hain, said the Yes campaign had an enormous mountain to climb to turn around apathetic voters but that a low turnout signalled Welsh voters were "clearly not worried" by the prospect of a Welsh Assembly.
The leader of Plaid Cymru, Mr Dafydd Wigley, said he accepted the vote was going to be "very, very close". But commentators insisted that the early results from the north east of Wales were not necessarily typical of the principality as a whole.
The fears on both sides of a low turnout were confirmed by the early results. In Wrexham, the turnout was just 42 per cent and in nearby Flintshire the figure was 41 per cent, while in Denbighshire there was an encouraging 50 per cent turnout.
It appeared that although Wrexham voted No, the substantial swing in favour of a Welsh Assembly, compared to the vote on the same issue in 1979, would deliver a victory for the Yes camp if it was reproduced across Wales.
One of the patterns at work seemed to be that in border towns, where voters identify with the English, the turnout was low. But in the rural, Welsh-speaking areas, where the national identity is at its strongest the turnout was expected to be much higher.
The British government appeared set to deliver more power to the regions, modelled on regional governments in Europe. The members of the proposed Welsh Assembly which could be in place by 2000 would have control of the £7 billion block grant. which is exactly half the budget allocated to Scotland.
London will be given a chance to vote for its own form of devolved government next year. And the deputy Prime Minister, Mr John Prescott, has told the English regions they will not be excluded from further plans for devolution during the lifetime of Mr Blair's government.