Keep A Welcome In The Hillside

Happy Saint David's Day.

At the General Election of 1979, both main parties promised to create a Welsh-language television station, because North Wales was such a key electoral battleground between Labour and the Conservatives. 

18 months ago, that would have sounded like something from a vanished world. And that would have been before beginning to speculate on, say, South Yorkshire, or County Durham, as somewhere where General Elections were won and lost. Yet look at things now. Let's make the most of it. 

And let's hold onto it. The plan is to abolish 13 Red Wall seats, redistributing them to areas that the Political Class can pronounce. The places that they cannot pronounce are not only in Wales; they usually get the stress wrong in "Consett", for example, as they invariably do in "Barnard Castle".

All 72 Red Wall MPs should make it clear that they would vote against any such redistribution. That would be enough to defeat any such move. The ball would then be in the court of the purported Opposition.