Tuesday 27 January 2009

Welsh Speaking

Here.

Compare it to this.

By all means let the people of North Wales have all the Welsh-language provision that they could possibly want, although they have never needed it in the past in order to preserve the language. On the contrary, it was all but illegal for centuries, yet survived and thrives.

Contrast it with Irish, the only official language of the Irish Republic, but with no more than two thousand people who even claim to be native-speakers, many of whom are widely understood to be making a political point by not exactly telling the truth.

But free the people of South Wales from rule by a Welsh-speaking elite unconnected to the fully Welsh-speaking communities and culture further north, and perpetuated by a handful of achingly exclusive "state" schools which their local Labour councils regard as a nuisance.

Which is really an argument against devolution at all, and certainly against any further devolution of powers over the (mercifully reserved) Welsh language or anything else. Further devolution would not, of course, pass in a referendum. Nor is there the slightest chance of it while any Welsh Labour MP is Secretary of State.

He himself might very well resign in order to oppose it (only Ministerial office kept the present one, and several other Welsh Labour MPs, from opposing devolution outright), and it would split the Labour Party organically, with probably the majority of its members in Wales seceding. Ex-Labour Independents and ex-Labour (by no stretch of the imagination Hard Left) small parties already do well there, and their unification might very well be brought about by this.

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