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It's 1865 and Aberystwyth sees the opening of the Royal Pier. It had cost a staggering £13,600 to build.

The Mimosa sets sail for Patagonia and the Welsh colony that survives until today - the one that's given the world what must be its most intriguing accent - is founded by Michael D. Jones.

The Ffestiniog narrow-gauge passenger railway is the first of its kind in the world and the Whitford Point Lighthouse on Gower is the only cast-iron lighthouse ever built in the UK.

South Wales Cricket Club travels to Gravesend to play the Gentlemen of Kent and John Jones (writing as Mathetes) publishes in Welsh his Sermon to the Students of ... where but Haverfordwest.

Oh and at the General Election the Conservatives win the popular vote in Wales.

Not since the morning-after-the-night-before back in 1865 then have the voters of Wales woken up to find they've voted Tory. Now you've gone and done it again and finally, after dreadful performances at the polls that seem to have gone unnoticed elsewhere, Labour's dwindling fortunes in Wales have got MPs listening and worrying.

Not just Welsh ones either. Tom Harris, who last night was one of a handful of members to speak out against the Prime Minister, . "The Conservatives beat Labour in the the popular vote in Wales (and no number of exclamation marks after that sentence could do that statement justice)".

Peter Hain, back in the Wales Office and a man with a mission, doesn't do surprise. He said before the votes were counted that it would be disastrous and it was. He's sounded warnings many times before now that punishing Labour = a Tory win. Now that voters can actually see that staying at home and not voting Labour really does get you a Tory victory, it's bye-bye hypothetical dire warnings, hello reality.

Of course the problem for Labour is that the voters may not dislike the idea of letting the Tories have a go. They may even quite like it. They might notice that the sky hasn't fallen in and may even be tempted to stay home again come the General Election. Why not, unless they're convinced that their reasons for not turning out this time - or even giving their vote to someone else - have been addressed.

A perfectly accurate but slightly blase 'you can't read these results across to a General Election' and 'at least Laborur voters stayed at home rather than switching', surely won't wash with them.

After last night's meeting of MPs in Committee Room 14 in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister looks a deal safer than he did before all the desk banging and loud applause. "We've been re-educated" muttered Paul Flynn as he headed off to the canteen later. "Haven't you heard Betsan? Everything's fine. Gordon is the man for the job. Whatever made us think otherwise?" Unconvinced wasn't the word.

At least one MP that we'll put down as a Welsh waverer has been convinced that the best option, for now, is to give Mr Brown his unequivocal support. The others were pretty much convinced of that already.

A colleague who had a word with Mr Brown last night in the Commons reports that after the meeting the Prime Minister was "like a new man" before adding, "I'm not quite sure why".

In Wales there's agreement that the warring has got to stop and the fightback has to start. , and are all worth a read.

As even the most loyal MPs still made clear last night there have to be practical, specific changes without resorting to what sounds like "childish finger-pointing" as Rhodri Morgan put it yesterday. Because they are still acutely aware that taking down the Prime Minister by inflicting a thousand cuts will simply prove more painful, more protracted and will do yet more to take down with him any chance the Labour party has of winning a General Election.

* UPDATE: Mea culpa.

The Western Mail's Tomos Livingstone puts me right. It was1859 not 1865. If I'd put my glasses on to read the graph I'd have seen that he's right. Tomos very kindly tries to let me off the hook by saying they were probably two posh men and a dog voting back then and that they'd probably started to discuss the plans for the pier in Aberystwyth at least. But six years earlier it was by the looks of it so let's go for the opening of the East Bute Dock in Cardiff and the opening of Corris Railway instead.

The rest stands!

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