Mind Your Language

Ruth Kelly is right, of course. Furthermore, only British Standard English should have any official status anywhere in the United Kingdom, except in a given local authority area where one quarter or more of the population is made up of native speakers of another language indigenous to these islands, in which case that language should have equal status, but no more than that.

Just as was once predicted by Leo Abse, the Welsh are now discovering what the people of Northern Ireland and of much of the United States will soon discover, and what the Canadians discovered long ago: that enforced bilingualism or multilingualism transfers economic, social, cultural and political power to a bilingual or multilingual elite. In Wales, in Northern Ireland, in much of the United States, in Canada, and in great swathes of urban England and Scotland, those who are or will be excluded are or will be the black and white members of the English-speaking working class.