WELSH politics is predictable and a bit boring, a financal expert said.

Gerald Holtham, writing for the Institute of Welsh Affairs think tank, said that Labour must provide its own opposition if it is going to re-kindle political interest in Wales.

Labour "does not need to be so defensive," he wrote. "If it debated differences of view in public and acknowledged difficulties openly and honestly, there is no Welsh Daily Mail to run tendentious headlines about ‘splits’."

He said the public views the Assembly a "bit like the Welsh soccer team; we're glad we've got one, even though rather few of us go to the matches."

Mr Holtham said much of the indifference to any further devolution seems to be based on the thought the Assembly should sort out the problems they're already responsible for.

"Welsh politics is predictable and a bit boring. Given the enduring impotence of the opposition and if Labour is to rekindle political interest, it must provide its own opposition – or at least its own political and policy debates," Mr Holtham argued.

Mr Holtham had chaired the Independent Commission on Funding and Finance for Wales which reported back in 2010.