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29/01/2007
Sneak a peek in the "war against terror"
According to today'sSun, new surveillance cameras could soon be taking snapshots like this in your high street in the "war against terror".
The proposal is contained in leaked documents drawn up by the Home Office and presented to Tony Blair’s working group on Security, Crime and Justice.
And every pervert in town will be signing up to be a surveillance camera operator as real life merges scarily with every schoolboy X-Ray Spex fantasy.
You have been warned.
09:49 Posted in Gwleidyddiaeth - Politics | Permalink | Comments (4) | Email this
Prisons full - unless you're for peace
The prisons crisis has thrown up some interesting anomalies.
Lindis Percy, a 64-year-old peace campaigner, has been sent to prison for non-payment of a fine imposed after she protested outside a US signal intelligence station in Yorkshire. She was given a seven-day sentence in a County Durham jail, despite appearing in court with a broken arm in plaster.
Meanwhile Derek Williams, a convicted child pornographer who admitted downloading 180 indecent images of youngsters onto his computer, was released by Judge John Rogers in Mold because the prisons are full. He fully expected to get a prison sentence and the crime warranted one. He's back home in Blaenau Ffestiniog.
09:24 Posted in Cymru Fach | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
Bread and circuses 2007
Need cheering up on a Monday morning? This video of Stupid Americans will probably depress you as much as amuse.
A friend from San Franscisco writes: "You may be tempted to believe that these people are not representative, but the sad fact is that they are. The bourgeoisie have succeeded in stripping the average American of the capacity for understanding the world around them, to the extent that we now quite consciously seek immigrants for positions requiring any real thinking through the provision of special visas.
"Sadly, the US Left, rather than viewing this as a means whereby the ruling class maintains itself and therefore something that we are obligated to combat, has taken the position that we must retreat from presenting well reasoned argument in order to communicate with working people.
"America has become a nation of idiots, most Americans have embraced religious prejudice and magical thinking; have no knowledge of history, the world around them, or their own interests; are hopelessly in debt, but certain they will wind up wealthy; and devote more attention to the lives of celebrities to any aspect of their own lives.
"The only thing that makes it bearable at all is that I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where we generally exceed the rest of the country in just about any measure of open-mindedness, political orientation, and social values."
In the dis-UK the boom in celebrity culture and the glorification of stupidity (Jade Goody becoming a multi-million-pound star because she's a big-mouthed bully who thinks East Angular is "abroad") means we're probably a decade behind the States unless we offer an alternative.
The Roman emperors offered the restive masses bread and circuses to distract them from rebellion. We get Celebrity Big Brother and Hello! magazine.
08:32 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
28/01/2007
Glyn's world
Tory AM Glyn Davies is in a class of his own when it comes to blogging.
Not for him the petty point-scoring of compulsive blogger Peter Black. No, Glyn's world is full of confusion:
"I feel a bit like one of those Secord World War soldiers who emerges from the Borneo jungle after 40 years to find that the world had changed."
He's just been forced to take down a post showing two Scotsmen in kilts with one displaying more than just his haggis. Apparently he was advised to do so by some "adviser", who's probably bald from tearing out his hair at Glyn's quixotic pronouncements.
If it's possible to like a Tory, you'll like Glyn. Hours of entertainment from someone who clearly detests most of his own party and is looking vainly to Cymricise it.
(hat tip to Wales Votes)
09:42 Posted in Cymru Fach | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
26/01/2007
Labour's 'blood money'
Plaid's Adam Price continues his assault on Labour's debt to millionaires with this Early Day Motion in Westminster. It's bad enough that the "people's party" is so beholden to millionaires but Mittal is in a class of his own when it comes to exploiting his world-wide workforce.
The deaths of Mittal miners and the exploitation of Liberia's iron ore deposits make Labour's latest donation nothing short of "blood money".
LAKSHMI MITTAL AND THE LABOUR PARTY 25.01.2007
Price, Adam
That this House notes the £2 million donation by Lakshmi Mittal to the British Labour Party; deplores the deaths of 52 miners last year in Mittal-owned coal mines due to poor safety conditions condemned by trade unionists and public officials; denounces Mittal's decision to reopen an iron-ore mine at Omarska in northern Bosnia on the site of a former concentration camp in which hundreds of Croats and Bosnians were murdered; congratulates the government of Liberia on forcing Mittal to renegotiate a 25-year iron-ore concession widely regarded as unfair and exploitative; and calls on the Labour Party, in honour of miners who lost their lives and their health while working underground in the UK coal industry, to donate the money received from Mr Mittal to the families of the bereaved in Kazakhstan and the Ukraine as a gesture of solidarity with working people everywhere exploited by global industrial tycoons.
Signed:
Price, Adam
Llwyd, Elfyn
Williams, Hywel
15:54 Posted in Gwleidyddiaeth - Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
25/01/2007
History repeats itself at Wrexham FC?
On Monday, Wrexham FC's new owner Neville Dickens behaved like the used car salesman he is and lied in front of 300 fans. Today the fans hit back with this rebuttal.
It's now becoming obvious that history is about to repeat itself with a local businessman selling out to a developer intent on cashing in on a lucrative site, valued at £10-12m.
The only people who can stop that happening, once again, are the fans. The Wrexham Supporters' Trust - made up of 1000 fans - wants community control of the club and the Racecourse ground to ensure that individuals can never again wreck the oldest football club in Wales.
12:58 Posted in Chwaraeon - Sports | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
Hedd Wyn, socialism and a conspiracy theory
Interesting article in Golwg magazine about Hedd Wyn, the farmer-poet who died in the trenches of Belgium in 1917 and was awarded the "Black Chair" at the Birkenhead National Eisteddfod posthumously.
Iwan Llwyd has written a play about the poet called "Mae gynnon ni hawl ar y sêr" (We have a right to the stars) in which he explores Hedd Wyn's socialism and how it was affected by a chance encounter with a Russian soldier shortly before his death. The Russian, Hedd Wyn wrote in a letter home before he was killed, told him a new day was dawning in his country, the Bolshevik revolution.
Even for farmers from remote Trawsfynydd, this revolution lit a spark.
Llwyd also puts forward a strikingly modern conspiracy theory - that the Eisteddfod committee awarding the chair, the highest Eisteddfodic award, knew about Hedd Wyn's death and that the award was made for propaganda purposes. It should be remembered that Lloyd George, then Prime Minister and warmonger, attended the Eisteddfod and would have been keen to encourage more Welshmen to enlist as the war dragged on into its third year.
The Black Chair had a tremendous resonance in Wales and and is still today an incredibly poignant story of a generation cut down in their prime.
I'm not sure I buy the conspiracy theory - the relevant government papers would be available to check by now anyway - but I wouldn't put anything past a warmongering Prime Minister.
• Perhaps some readers might find it amusing that the top prize in the National Eisteddfod for a poet is a chair. I like the practicality of the idea - let's face it, you can't walk around with a crown on your head.
10:44 Posted in Diwylliant - Culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
24/01/2007
What has the Assembly ever done for us?
Wales's first blogespondent is fairly positive towards the Assembly's limited achievements in its short life.
To be accurate we should be asking "what has the Labour Assembly government ever done for us?"
There's no doubt it has done some things that are better - free prescriptions will make a difference to those who had to pay before, but it's little comfort if you can't get treatment for a serious illness because of a postcode lottery.
Bus passes for the elderly are another improvement but again depend on people having a bus service in their area.
This tinkering at the margins seems designed to gain headlines and photo opportunities rather than fundamentally altering people's lives.
Gimmicks like free school breakfasts have been a real con - one of those back-of-a-fag packet pledges that weren't costed and involved no consultation with the schools affected. Little surprise that only 28% of schools have introduced them. My kids went along for a while but a slice of toast and a drink is hardly the innovation promised. Many parents, I suspect, are using the breakfast clubs as an excuse to drop the kids off early to get to work on time. It'd be interesting to know how many children actually attend the clubs.
So eight years of Labour Assembly rule has seen minor tweaks in the system. We all know that substantial improvements are needed to turn Wales round from being a low-wage, high sickness, low-skilled society to somewhere that's far more dynamic, healthy and sustainable. New powers will only work if the people implementing them have the vision and drive to use them. Labour have no vision or drive left, except to safeguard their own privileges.
13:02 Posted in Gwleidyddiaeth - Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
22/01/2007
Burn your Burberry!
Rhys Ifans plans to burn his Burberry gear if the Rhondda factory is closed by company bosses.
I'd love to join the protest but have to confess to having a wardrobe that's more Primark than Prada. But, rest assured, I will be boycotting Burberry from now on.
One celeb, or even a dozen, does not a campaign make but the image-conscious fashion world should take note when stars come out for a cause.
More practically, the Reddragonhood has made an interesting and practical offer to set up a Welsh clothing co-op. If Rhys Ifans, Tom Jones and others really wanted to make a difference how about shoving two fingers up to Burberrys and dipping into their pockets to help set up a new enterprise controlled by the workers and making quality goods for a decent wage?
10:43 Permalink | Comments (2) | Email this
New camp to stop the LNG gas pipeline
Little coverage so far of this new camp near Milford Haven, where a footpath is being used to block work on the 120-mile LNG pipeline across south Wales.
Plans are also afoot for a similar LNG exercise at Amlwch on Ynys Môn - although this pipeline will run under the sea to Lancashire. The initial idea was to land the LNG at Fleetwood, Lancashire, but local opposition was too fierce. The multinationals must see Welsh communities as a soft touch - or is easier to buy off Welsh councils with the promise of jobs?
10:22 Posted in Amgylchedd - Environment | Permalink | Comments (2) | Email this
21/01/2007
A third want Welsh independence - poll
A third of Welsh voters want independence, according to a Wales on Sunday opinion poll out today.
Only 49% wanted to keep the Union with the rest undecided.
However the politicians try to spin this, it's a stunning result and sets the scene to make the May elections very significant. Independence has been the great unspoken in Welsh politics - Plaid has declared it a long-term aim but shied away from making constitutional issues a priority because it judges other policies to be more attractive.
Perhaps now the leadership will have to re-think and start to incorporate a vision of self-government and growing confidence into its manifesto. About time too!
If anything, the poll understates the support for independence. In a nutshell, it's a crap poll.
I hate to say this because it's favourable to the pro-independentistas - 32% want independence and only 49% want to maintain the Union!
But the poll is not statistically weighted and is scientifically unbalanced. Polling just 500 people is not a large enough sample, although - in fairness - it's the same amount as the BBC Newsnight poll sampled in Wales to find that 20% back independence. There have been questions asked, as previous posters have mentioned, about the skewed nature of the question but that in itself was a significant proportion of voters.
The Wales on Sunday article is not online yet, but it reveals how it undertook the poll - it phoned 125 people in four regions of Wales but where it phoned is a matter of concern. It seems to have chosen areas that can only be described as more Anglicised and part of what Dennis Balsom would call "British Wales".
For example, the poll managed NOT to poll anyone in the Valleys... where more than a third of the Welsh population lives and which has the highest level of Welsh born and Welsh identifying people.
The regional breakdown included the South East, which consisted of polling in Cwmbrân, Monmouth, Chepstow, Newport and Cardiff. The first four can hardly be described as representative of the Valleys, can they?
Likewise the South West meant phoning 125 people in Cardigan, Milford Haven, Tenby and Haverfordwest. Why not Llanelli, Swansea, Ammanford or Carmarthen?
The North Wales sample is equally skewed towards the Anglicised coastal resorts and, no, Bangor is not a nationalist stronghold. Doh!
The paper does not say where it polled in Mid Wales.
Despite this bias - and the spin put on the poll by the paper: "Welsh back Union" - this flawed poll still provides clear evidence of a growing support for Welsh independence.
I've questioned Wales on Sunday's polling methods before but this time I think it understates the level of support for independence.
18:42 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
20/01/2007
Time for a Welsh Independence First?
Pressure is mounting for an explicit campaign for Welsh independence, with this blog just the latest voice.
In Scotland the pro-independence movement - which includes the SNP, SSP and Greens as well as non-aligned members and groups - is coordinated via Independence First.
A similar organisation in Wales would face the obvious problem that, Plaid Cymru apart, no elected politicians would get involved. Are there other organisations and individuals who would be interested in an Independence First-style movement?
15:40 Posted in Cymru Fach | Permalink | Comments (5) | Email this
18/01/2007
Change for the better
Plaid has finally produced its pre-manifesto, or "vision statement" as it prefers to call it.
It has some excellent policies that confirm its growing ability to develop radical but credible ideas for Wales in the 21st Century. Free nutritious school meals for primary school kids, real help for first-time buyers, stopping the sell-off of playing fields, firmly anti-nuclear and pro-green energy, public ownership of the rail system, scrapping the council tax.
It says "we believe in equality for all and privilege for none" but takes a step back from promising the earth: "No government can guarantee success in life but we can make sure the rules aren't stacked against you."
The document argues for universal public services and a progressive tax system: "This is the Welsh way - from Lloyd George's pensions to Bevan's NHS."
So far, so good. This is a credible set of proposals to take to the voter in May. It's all stuff that a Plaid government can do under the present devolution settlement and future enhanced powers.
But there's a problem - Plaid Cymru is the party of independence or it is nothing. And there's no mention of independence here, not even as a "long-term aim". Plaid's leadership has to grasp this nettle rather than hoping nobody notices.
It's profoundly depressing for its core voters to see the leadership attempt to deny the obvious. It's disconcerting for potential voters that a party has so little faith in its core belief. And it's disingenuous to believe that the current debate about the break-up of Britain doesn't involve Wales.
The party wants feedback here. Socialists and republicans who want a party committed to an independent Wales should make their views known.
11:31 Posted in Gwleidyddiaeth - Politics | Permalink | Comments (9) | Email this
17/01/2007
The cost of dependence
The ever-entertaining Blamerbell Briefs questions the economic benefits of independence. It's a game Labour likes to play, in order to scare people into remaining part of the Union.
But can someone list the economic benefits of dependence, i.e. remaining part of a crumbling UK? Phil Williams produced detailed statistics about this - is it beyond the whit of someone in Plaid to update those figures?
One plus, Labour would argue, would be the jobs created by having UK institutions located in Wales, e.g. the DVLA and Royal Mint. The truth is that these make up only a small fraction of civil service jobs and the high-paying, high-end public posts are almost all in London. Many Welsh civil servants are on tax credits due to poor wages.
Similarly the massive amounts spent on research and development by the state very rarely comes to Wales - 2.5% at the last count.
And let's not get too carried away with the St Athan jobs... how many thousands of military-related jobs have been lost in Wales in the past 10 years?
I remain sceptical until the jobs are actually created - remember LG and the fabled 6,000 jobs promised for Newport? They never materialised.
On today's Politics Show, Carwyn Jones was very evasive when asked whether it was true £100m of public money had been spent by the Assembly on luring these jobs to Wales. He claimed it was commercially confidential, which of course is bollocks because this is a grant from one government department to another. Unfortunately, the interviewer Adrian Masters merely answered "fair enough" and allowed Jones to bask in the wonderful news.
The idea that public money should be spent without the public or journalists being able to examine the facts suggests that the Assembly government has a long way to go in terms of transparency.
Oh, this started as a question about dependency and ended with a rant about accountability. But you get the picture.
16:12 Posted in Cymru Fach | Permalink | Comments (9) | Email this
16/01/2007
Is there an acceptable face of capitalism?
Burberry workers facing the sack at the Treorchy plant are rightly annoyed at the massive profits hike the company is enjoying at the moment. Profits are 20% in the past three months, yet Burberry intends to shift production of its polo shirts from the Rhondda to China. The shirts sell for £55 and yet the GMB union reckons they only cost £11 to make in the Rhondda and £4 in China.
Workers spoke of the obscenity of the profits and yet understood that capitalist companies are all about maximising profits for shareholders. Let's face it, that's what capitalists are there for - to make money off the backs of workers. If they didn't move to China, they'd be neglecting their duty. By law, directors are required to maximise profits for their shareholders.
Which makes you think - is there an acceptable face of capitalism? The simple answer is no. Capitalism is incompatible with the needs of communities like the Rhondda, where workers have served the company well for decades on minimum wages.
That loyalty and long-service has been rewarded with the minimum severance pay, despite the booming profits.
It's hypocrisy of the highest order for the likes of Leighton Andrews, a paid-up member of the pro-capitalist New Labour establishment, to decry Burberry for taking a cold business decision. That's capitalism - like the cold-eyed shark, it knows nothing else.
20:50 Posted in Mewn undeb mae nerth - Workers' struggle | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this
Alun Davies's blog RIP
It is with some sadness that I have to report the death of Alun Davies's blog. Alun's blog was only with us for a few short months and signed off cheerfully on December 20. Four weeks later and the poor little blog shows no sign of life. Perhaps it was an over-indulgent Christmas - witness his exuberant foodie comments - or perhaps he's too busy canvassing.
Or perhaps it was just that Alun couldn't sustain the ridiculous lie that anyone in the Labour Party is fighting for socialism.
If anyone sees Alun's blog wandering the back streets of Aberystwyth in search of a meaningful cause, please do the decent thing and rescue it.
20:43 Posted in Cymru Fach | Permalink | Comments (5) | Email this
Please sir, can we have some more?
Labour is playing every desperate card in the pack to try to turn the pro-independence tide in Scotland (and to a lesser degree in Wales).
First Rhodri Morgan tries to bat away the threat of independence in the coming elections, then Peter Hain steps in with a bizarre argument that Dr Who would not have happened in Cardiff if not for the Union. Scary thought, eh?
Now Trevor Phillips, a tame Labour establishment man who's done well from the Race Relations Industry and his connections, steps in with an accusation that Welsh and Scottish independence somehow threatens race relations in the UK.
The tactic, as with previous Labour propaganda offensives trying to paint any advocate of the Welsh language into a "racist", is to throw so much mud that it sticks.
There are two possible responses - one is to duck down and hope the mud doesn't hit you. The other is to come out fighting with a shield and plenty of ammunition.
The duck-down philosophy was tried over the Simon Glyn affair and failed dismally. It's now time to come out fighting...
The likes of Trevor Phillips obviously don't talk to ethnic minorities in Wales and Scotland. If they did they would be told by ethnic minorities living in Wales and Scotland that they don't feel threatened by independence. On the contrary, they support it! Witness Asians for Independence in Scotland and Moslems for Plaid recently launched in Swansea. Independence from the imperial heartland has a positive ring for peoples from across the world who remember their own anti-colonial struggles and sympathise with Wales as "the last colony". Phillips, of course, also stepped into the row over alleged anti-English racism during the last World Cup.
Peter Hain's claims that Wales gets and extra £1,000 per head of public spending is a lie. Even the Tories have sussed that lie, revealing just two weeks ago that Labour spending on the NHS in Wales is 10% lower per head than in England, despite Welsh towns topping the long-term sickness and disability lists as well as having an older and poorer population.
In schools and housing, the level of public spending is significantly higher in England than in Wales. Pensions and other benefits are universal, so where is this extra £1,000 per head per year being spent? And isn't £1,000 a handy round figure with which to beat the oncoming pro-independence tide.
Expect much more of this claptrap in the coming four months before Labour is swept out of power in Wales and Scotland. It's going to be very messy.
Why?
Because in 1997, when Labour proposed the devolution bill, I don't believe Blair in his wildest nightmares thought his party would lose power in its two Celtic heartlands. Labour has relied on these two countries for its majority in all but two General Elections and believed devolution would buy off the growing sense of national identity.
The shock that these cheeky bastards, like Oliver Twist, could come to the table and demand more power has been too much for them. More, you say?! More?!
00:05 Posted in Cymru Fach | Permalink | Comments (2) | Email this
14/01/2007
My kingdom for a horse(face)
I like Paul Flynn, the independent-minded Labour MP for Newport West. With no little wit and wisdom, he's stood against the anti-Welsh bias in his own party and championed causes as diverse as cannabis and against bull bars on 4x4 cars.
His republicanism also marks him out as being among the more honest of our representatives, but I can't agree with his choice of a replacement for the Queen - Princess Anne.
Having argued the case succinctly against privilege and inherited power, he goes and spoils it all by opting for a president who just happens to come from the very same family as the bloody Queen!
Anne is famous for being a show jumper, mysteriously supporting Scotland in the rugby (do the Royals have teams dished out to them over breakfast - "here you are old girl, the Jocks for you I'm afraid") and her most famous public statement was "naff off" to the assembled media.
Mmm, have you really thought this one through Flynnie? Or have you finally inhaled on one of those jazz cigarettes you affect to dislike?
We need a republic and we need a clean break from the hereditary rubbish that's gone before it.
23:10 Posted in Cymru Fach | Permalink | Comments (8) | Email this
11/01/2007
The Blair Foundation
Blair's plans to set up a foundation probably didn't involve this
Not content with his £180,000 a year salary, Blair has - according to some estimates - made £1m on his house in Connaught Square since he bought it for £3m. That should ease the money worries for the grabbing Blairs, who seem unable to pay for a summer holiday like the rest of us.
09:51 Permalink | Comments (3) | Email this
03/01/2007
When a house is a home, not a property
Iain McWhirter in the Glasgow Herald makes some excellent points about the political origins of the present housing crisis. Unlike those who delight in rising house prices, he reflects on the inevitable boom-and-bust nature of the market.
People have short memories, imagining that the present boom will continue indefinitely although the cost of houses for sale in Wrexham are now seven times the average wage. Even a couple on average wages are going to find it difficult to get a toehold on the fabled "housing ladder".
And those who do stretch themselves to avoid paying extortionate rents will be the first to be stung when interest rates rise or house prices crash.
Much of the problem stems from the buy-to-let trend, which has seen people with spare cash opting for bricks and mortar instead of stocks and shares. Just last week I heard of someone locally who has 40 houses in his "portfolio" - in an area where house prices have doubled in just five years. Perhaps he and others have forgotten that in the early 90s house prices weren't just static, they were falling while interest rates soared.
Friends handed back keys to their banks unable to pay the mortgage payments. Others had to sell houses at prices below what they'd paid for them five years earlier.
McWhirter makes the case convincingly that the current boom underpins the economic "feelgood" factor for Labour, which is why Labour is so unwilling to deal with the housing crisis. The whole housing market is skewed towards developers and the wealthy rather than those who just want a house to be a home.
10:07 Permalink | Comments (2) | Email this
02/01/2007
A vision of the future for Rhondda. Not
Stephen Moss writes in The Guardian about the Burberry factory closure and the battle to save 300 manufacturing jobs.
He concludes with a profoundly depressing but skewed metropolitan view of the Valleys:
There is still a strong sense of community in the Rhondda, but it is atavistic - the cement that held them together, the shared identity founded in heavy industry, no longer exists. In a generation's time, the Valleys will be like the Peak District is now - full of retirees, second homes, tourists and micro-industries, with gastro-pubs in place of the rowdy drinkers' dens that currently exist. That is not to lament the change - I find the sight of unemployed men sitting in pubs drinking pints of lager from 11am to 11pm dismal - but you can't help feeling sympathy for those in the line of fire.
You can't help feeling that this is the kind of Valleys Moss and other metropolitans onlookers would favour rather than the staunchly working-class culture that has emerged from the Valleys. Somewhere nice to nip down the M4 to - within touching distance of the Beacons and Cardiff, newly glamourised by Dr Who.
He's right that the industry - specifically coal mining - that brought so many into the Rhondda has gone but it also presupposes to a poverty of ambition and imagination on the part of Rhondda people. Does he really think that drinking lager all day is the only response to job losses?
To be honest, keeping 300 minimum wage jobs (£169 for a 39-hour week) is not the long-term way forward for the Valleys and it shows how desperate the place has become that the campaign has been so passionate. At this rate, the Valleys will have more in common with West and North Wales now that it is becoming popular with tourists and holiday home owners.
There are other options - if those tasked with shaping our country's future got their arses into gear. Rhodri Morgan talks about a high-tech economy but the Rhondda is seeing precious little of that. There is a desperate need for a new energy-based manufacturing industry that produces turbines, solar panels and spends serious money researching the latest sustainable technologies.
More tourists, holiday homes and retirees would see the whole of Wales turning into a nightmarish care home, empty of youth, working people and drive.
We need to save the Burberry jobs but don't kid ourselves that this is the long-term future for Valleys generations of the future.
17:13 Posted in Cymru Fach | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
Anglophobia and paranoia
"The sooner that England gets shot of those greedy whining celtic parasites the better,and as for us English being a mongrel people,well we mongrels came and took the land and made it our own and the fuckwitted inbred celts were too weak and stupid to stop us.Im proud to not be a celt." - Action Against Anglophobia
My thanks to Blamerbell Briefs for drawing attention to the Action Against Anglophobia messageboard.
The Anglophobia that these narrow-minded racists and bigots complain about amounts to "Make a Scotsman happy, kill Jimmy Hill" - which is really only offensive if you're the chinny wonder. It's hardly in the same league as the wonderfully thoughtful "fuck all the welsh with a crowbar!" comment on the AAA site, which at least had the merit of correct spelling and not too much drool on the keyboard.
This may be the extreme fringe of anti-Celtic paranoia on the part of our English neighbours but the chattering classes are also veering in this direction. It seems the sheer cheek of the Celtic upstarts in running their own (toothless) Assemblies and Parliaments - and then demanding more, the ungrateful sods - has unleashed the worst kind of patriotic demons among some English people.
When asked to point out any Welsh anti-English comments, there was nothing. Apparently, anti-Englishness is "ingrained in our culture" so there's no need for specific websites and the like. Ah, that'll be the anti-Englishness that has magnanimously accepted so many English people to Wales - many of whom have, in turn, embraced Welshness in its many forms. The ones that haven't, of course, are a different matter.
What's most interesting is this paranoia, whether it's telling "the Jocks" that England doesn't want the Union anymore (now the oil's running out), or that Scottish MPs shouldn't get a vote on English issues (while English MPs presumably should be allowed to vote on whether Trident goes to Faslane again) and that we get too much in the way of subsidy (which is another patronising way of saying we're dependent on England for all the wonderful public services we enjoy).
Devolution has only been with us for seven years. In that time, small but significant steps have been taken that seem to show that Wales, Scotland and England are moving further apart. Happily, Leo Abse is being proved right that devolution is the slippery slope to independence - hopefully, like a good slide, it'll be a fun ride!
This year's elections will see increased votes for Plaid Cymru and the SNP as Labour loses its grip as the ruling pro-Unionist party in Wales and Scotland. The increased vote is not borne of Anglophobia but a desire to run our own affairs in a more progressive way (people are rejecting Labour and Tory despite the UK media frenzy surrounding Cameron).
It seems the Celtophobia that is at the core of Action Against Anglophobia is just borne of racism and a bizarre sense of oppression.
13:50 Posted in Cymru Fach | Permalink | Comments (3) | Email this