Cymru and Catalunya

Blog has moved

2008-08-12T13:32:00.001+01:00

August 12th, 2008:

Sue Davies's blog, about the current affairs, history and culture of Cymru (Wales) and Catalunya (Catalonia), has moved. It's now at:

suedavies.wordpress.com

Olympics open in Beijing

2008-08-10T19:15:00.005+01:00

World's sporting 'heroes'
help keep repression alive
WHAT do 1936, 1980 and 2008 have in common? These are years in which, to the world’s shame, brutal dictatorships (Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia and now Communist China) were allowed to host the Olympic Games.

The parrot cry of the appeasing International Olympic Committee is that sport has nothing to do with politics. Try telling that to repressive regimes to whom the games are a heaven-sent (yes, I’m aware of the irony) opportunity to pretend to the world that everything is hunky-dory and the human rights of millions (today, billions) are not being trampled on.

And, though I blame Olympic administrators far more than athletes, there is no escaping the fact that the very presence of hundreds of the world’s top sportsmen and women, as they scramble for their medals, is helping to keep the repression alive.

The IOC’s appeasement of China goes further - praising to the (polluted?) skies efforts to hack back on endemic pollution. Which doesn’t chime with what the BBC is finding on a daily basis in Beijing (see below). The Beijing authorities claim that the smog that hangs over the city most days is just harmless mist.

* Then there’s internet censorship, contrary to what journalists were promised.

* Then there is that sudden ban on any flags other than the Olympic nations’ main flags. This is to clamp down on free-Tibet protests (on the first day, Tibet protesters were grabbed and dragged off).

But it also meant that Wales’s Nichole Cooke, who won an early gold in a cycling event, was unable to drape herself in the Red Dragon, as medal-winning Welsh athletes have done in the past.

China’s vast economic might has led to schizophrenic attitudes. The United States, for example, ocasionally has a go at China for its poor human rights record, but then hands it “favoured nation” status and encourages American businesses to dive and trade, trade, trade.

Tiny Cuba meanwhile - yes, a bad human rights record, but nothing on the scale of China’s - has been the subject of a massive US trade embargo for many years.

BBC monitoring finds filthy skies
The BBC has been monitoring the amounts of PM10 (tiny lung-penetrating particles) in the air in central Beijing every day in the run-up to the Olympics and plans to continue through the Games.

By the way, the World Health Organisation guideline maximum is 50 micrograms per cubic metre (mcm), averaged over 24 hours.

BBC figures this month up to the opening ceremony:
Aug 1 - 19mcm
Aug 2 - 15
Aug 3 - 79
Aug 4 - 292
Aug 5 - 104
Aug 6 - 186
Aug 7 - 191
Aug 8 - 156

And these figures, mostly way over WHO safety levels, are despite China closing dozens of pollution-producing factories around Beijing just for the Olympics and removing thousands of vehicles from the city’s roads.

After the games, these factories will reopen and the vehicles will be back. I wonder what will the figures be like then?

Spanish judge takes a tilt at repression
MEANWHILE, on the eve of the Olympics, a brave Spanish High Court judge, Santiago Pedraz, allowed several Tibetan organisations to file cases against Chinese bigwigs - two ministers, three political leaders and two generals - alleging crimes against humanity following the repression of the demonstrations led by Buddhist monks in Tibet in March.

The cases are being filed under remarkable legislation that allows Spain to have a go at injustice way beyond its borders.

You may recall Margaret Thatcher’s friend, Chile’s ex-dictator Pinochet, being arrested in London in 1998 on a Spanish warrant issued under the same legislation in respect of the brutal repression carried out by his regime.

This tilt at China may come to nothing (it’s difficult to imagine China allowing top officials to be prosecuted in Spain) but it does help to keep that nation’s dreadful repression in the spotlight. All power to his judicial elbow.

2008-05-05T20:14:00.004+01:00

I’m back - but now it’s a
blog about two places
It’s been more than a year since ill-health forced me to put aside my blog about Welsh current affairs and history. I’m picking up the pen again - but there is a big difference. My work always involved travel, mostly to Ireland and Spain. Now, I’m semi-retired so I’ve stepped up the travel and spend almost as much time in my second favourite place on earth, Catalonia, as I do in Wales (I’ve been a regular visitor to this part of Spain since the early 1980s). So from now on this blog is about current affairs and history of both places. A website is being prepared to expand on what is being said here. As ever, your comments will be welcome - even if they oppose my views.

2007-02-11T19:00:00.000Z

Sue Davies is unwell and has withdrawn
from blogging for a while. Her friends wish
her a speedy recovery.

Her website cymruwales.net has
plenty of scope for your own comments - at
length, if you wish. There is a letters policy,
but beyond that there is no censorship.

2006-12-22T18:36:00.000Z

Comment added today (22.12.06):
* Offended by Merry Christmas?
* Pinochet: shame on Thatcher
* Obscene Iran ‘conference’
* Plaid-Labour work for Wales
* Prince ‘concerns’ a sham?
* Why this disinterest in politics?

2006-12-22T16:04:00.000Z

Religious bans play
into hands of bigots
There’s nothing
wrong with a
Christian Christmas

Traditionally, Santa was always
in green - the red version being
a fairly recent invention.

Western Mail columnist Lowri Turner took time out from slagging off her fellow C-list celebs to slagging off Christmas. She’s all in favour of “de-Godding” the festive season, though in that confusion of mind that makes her column almost unmissable she doesn’t mind school nativity plays (at least as long as her tiny tot is involved).

Otherwise she is happy to join the woolly-minded brigade that thinks that by pretending that religious festivals such as Christmas aren’t really religious at all they will avoid offending religions other than Christianity. In other words, discriminating against the biggest faith somehow helps the smaller ones.

Hence we end up with clumsy inventions such as “Winterville” (Birmingham) and “Luminos” (Luton). In the same light, a study showed that Christmas displays by most UK companies make no reference to Christianity at all.

I believe that this intolerance towards Christianity is dangerous because it plays into the hands of bigots who will then conclude that it’s safe for them to lash out at any faith they don’t like.

Trees complaint

Among people of various faiths who I’ve spoken to I find no demand at all for a ban on seeing Christmas (the word include “Christ”, for heaven’s sake) as a Christian festival. All they ask for is that their festivals are not forgotten, surely a reasonable plea.

This was illustrated last week in Seattle, USA, where a rabbi complained that decorated trees at the city’s airport did not contain Jewish symbols, it being the Jewish festival of Hanukkah. Officials frantically removed all dozen trees to avoid offending Jews. But the rabbi said (and I believe him) that he wasn’t being anti-Christian and was not demanding that Christian symbols be removed. After an outcry (including, encouragingly, calls from faiths other than Christianity) the trees were reinstated.

It illustrates the paranoia that grips authorities and propels them into actions that end up serving nobody but the bigots. The rabbi received hate mail. In the UK a Muslim woman is attacked and her veil torn off after Jack Straw MP’s stupid yearning to see Muslim women without their veil.

Billons follow faiths

All over Europe we’re seeing the growth of religious intolerance leading to increasing resentment as more bans are introduced. I’ve already commented on how the religious symbols ban in French schools (in reality aimed at Muslims) has led to many Muslims girls opting out of education rather than submit and to the radicalisation of a whole generation of young Muslims.

Organised religion has its detractors, maybe with good reason, but it cannot be denied that for billions of people around the world their faith is important. So if a particular faith is clearly the main faith in that country then its religious festivals should prevail. Other faiths should not be forgotten and should be given the attention their support deserves.

Anyone should be allowed to wear what clothing or symbols they like at any time, anywhere. Bans that encourage intolerance should be scrapped.

I don’t mind in the slightest if Jews wishes me happy Hanukkah or Muslims wish me happy Ramamadan and I don’t believe that anyone other than the woolly-minded would mind if I wished them a Merry Christmas.

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all.

(Regarding Hanukkah, see http://www.akhlah.com/holidays/hanukkah/hanukkah.php for a brief introduction to this fascinating Jewish tradition, which last for eight days from December 15).

2006-12-22T15:39:00.000Z

Pinochet-style dictators were really
there to support rich and powerful
Thatcher should be ashamed
of tears she shed for Chile’s
brutal murderer Pinochet

Franco: murderous Spanish
dictator became a
blueprint for Pinochet

We should all be ashamed of Margaret Thatcher for the tears she shed for the late General Augusto Pinochet, for he was nothing more than a mass-murderer.

His brutal reign in Chile started when in 1973, with the help of the United States, his forces overthrew the democratically-elected government of Salvador Allende. Thousands of innocent Chilean men, women and children “disappeared” during his 17-year right-wing regime. We now know that they were all murdered, many of them after being tortured by the brutal sadists Pinochet relied upon to keep the population in check in a climate of continual fear. Many were dropped into the sea from helicopters.

His deluded supporters claim that Chile’s current economic well-being is entirely due to his dictatorship. Rubbish! The centre-left coalition that has governed the country for the past 16 years deserves the credit, not Pinochet. Sure, his dictatorship saw the wealthy prosper but there was a massive rise in unemployment among the poor.

The claim that “he saved Chile from communism” is rubbish, too. This mantra is always used to excuse right-wing dictators and their slaughter of many thousands of innocent people, such as Franco in Spain, Pinochet in Chile or the Junta in Arentina.

These dictators used the “struggle against communism” as a code to hide what was really going on – seizing power in support of the rich and powerful, whose basic aim was to keep the poor and uneducated in abject poverty so as to provide their estates and factories with a plentiful supply of labour so poorly paid it was little better than slavery.

Cruel savagery

Anyone trying to raise the poor out of poverty would be dealt with in a simple manner – murdered.

This is what happened in Spain, when the far-right defrauded its way to electoral victory in 1934. It immediately started to roll back reforms to help the poor, giving rich landowners and industrialists the green light to slash the wages of their already-poor workers even further and reacting with cruel savagery against anyone who objected.

When the far-right lost power in 1936, their fraud attempts having failed, its supporters – a ragbag of thugs, including royalists and fascists – began to rampage through Spain to deliberately cause the chaos which they would soon use to justify Franco launching his terrible Civil War. Tens of thousands were murdered during Franco’s 40-year regime, which became a blueprint for Pinochet in Chile. No wonder, the right-wing in both countries now snarls at attempts bring out the truth.

Among the many accounts of Pinochet’s savagery, I noted the sad report about a footballer who was a member of Chile’s World Cup squad. Pinochet held a reception for the team but this player refused to shake his hand. On the dictator’s orders, the footballer’s mother was arrested and tortured.

Such are the people Mrs Thatcher counts among her friends.

2006-12-22T15:35:00.000Z

Jewish ‘anti-Zionism’ movement
mistaken to attend Iran event
Obscene ‘conference’
doubted slaughter
of six million Jews
The “conference” that took place in Iran about whether the Nazi’s slaughter of some six million Jews really took place was obscene.

There is an immense amount of historical evidence, including personal testimony and documentary, to prove that the dreadful slaughter was real enough and deserves its status as one of the greatest crimes against humanity of all time. What is happening in Iran is sheer anti-Semitism. Nothing else.

The behaviour of successive Israeli governments towards the Palestinian people upsets me (as it upsets a significant number of the Israeli people) but that does not mean that I have anything but respect for the Jewish people in general and the immense and positive contribution they have made in many fields. I condemn the discrimination they have suffered over many generations and I deplore the evidence that anti-Semitism is once again on the rise.

As to the Iran “conference”, I noted the presence there of a Jewish movement called Neturei Karta. Founded in 1938 and describing itself as “Jews against Zionism”, the sect, which I’m told is steadily growing, believes that the foundation of the state of Israel was contrary to Jewish religious law and argues for its dissolution.

I first heard about this movement two years ago when I was discussing with a Jewish friend the view some hold that the very existence of Israel was a catalyst for unrest in the Middle East, the state having been founded on lands which Arabs regarded as belonging to them. He startled me by saying there were Jews who actually held that view and told me about Neturei Karta (see http://www.nkusa.org if you want to know more).

I don’t know enough about Jewish religious law to say whether Neturei Karta is right or wrong. Maybe they’ve a point to make. But, no matter how right they regard their cause, their presence at the Iran event was a big mistake. Their defence there of the Holocaust truth was meaningless in the face of what that evil event was really all about – just Jew-bashing.

2006-12-22T15:29:00.000Z

Tories and LibDems fume as Assembly
pledges more money for education
Budget voted in
after direct
Plaid-Labour talks
The Welsh Assembly has finally voted through its Budget, the minority Labour government winning by 30 votes to 17 after the Plaid Cymru group and one independent abstained and another independent voted with Labour.

The vote – which days ago Labour looked set to lose – came after Plaid and Labour held direct talks and much more money was promised for education.

Schools will get £9.6m more and an extra £1.7m has been promised to services for children with special educational needs. A £2m grant to help schools meet fuel bills is now pledged every year rather than as a one-off. It was claimed that this is “new money” and not cut from other budgets

The Tories and Lib-Dems are, of course, spitting feathers and claiming betrayal. But two things pleased me – seeing two major political parties co-operating to the benefit of Wales instead of being at each other’s throats and not seeing Plaid Cymru (on this occasion, anyway) getting into bed with the obnoxious Tories.

2006-12-22T15:25:00.000Z

Prince hardly spends any of his
vast wealth on causes he supports
Fine words from
Charles – but does
he genuinely care?
In a speech the other day, Prince Charles waffled on about green issues, urged companies to adopt “sustainability” and pledged that his staff (but not him, I note) would be encouraged to cycle to work. They were fine words designed to make us believe that he really cares about our troubled world.

But is he genuine? Do you ever see him actually spend any of his own money, beyond tiny pittances, to really help the causes he worries so much about?

For example, every year billions of children die of starvation. Many could be saved if, instead of spending all his vast personal wealth on maintaining his luxurious lifestyle (he has several homes and has just bought himself another one), Charles was to divert a significant amount it to help the world’s needy.

At the same time he could be encouraging his vastly wealthy friends around the world to do the same. What a difference that would make.

We’d better not hold our breath, though. Billionaire Charles has become adept at empty gestures (fine words cost nowt), hand-wringing to make it look as if he cares and grabbing the credit for the work of others (the Prince’s Trust, for example, which relies totally on other people coughing up the cash).

2006-12-22T15:22:00.000Z

Why so much disinterest in political process?
Voters are fed up with
politicians always at
each other’s throats
A South Wales councillor Adrian Hobson, who I gather is Plaid Cymru, wrote a rather pointless letter to the Western Mail the other day.

He bemoaned the lack of interest of young people in politics or community activity and then lashed out at an interesting proposal (by Labour, I presume) to try and engage young people by getting them to shadow councillors on his authority, Rhondda-Cynon-Tâf.

I hold no brief for any party and maybe the proposal will fail. But he should be asking, why is there this lack of interest? And is his sort of politician part of the problem?

All over Wales, people - young and adults - tell me they have lost interest in the political process because of the sight of stupid politicians always at each other’s throats; Plaid and Labour wrangles at local council level is often cited. Hence plummeting voter turnouts. And it’s wrangling that often spills into community activity.

People want politicians who are willing to work together for the good of all. The tone of Mr Hobson’s letter suggests that he isn’t one of them.

He writes, “Interest would plummet if the truth was known about the workings (or not) of our [Labour] Cabinet!”, he claims. But I recall that when Plaid Cymru ran RCT there were similar claims about the Cabinet of which he was a member - even from within Plaid. A back-bench Plaid councillor from the Valleys once told me that its goings on were so secretive that often the first he heard of RCT Cabinet decisions was when he picked up the local paper.

2006-12-09T11:21:00.000Z

There were few more
anti-Welsh than the Tudors
English royals have
no moral right to
include Wales in their titles
Philip Grice, grandly styling himself Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order (one of those meaningless titles that make us the laughing stock of the world) wrote to the Western Mail to criticise a reference to the Queen of England.

Here’s his letter:

SIR - I was very surprised to read that Dr Robyn Lewis, in referring to the Queen as Queen of England, was apparently unaware that The Queen is in fact the Queen of the United Kingdom .

Perhaps it should be "Queendom" and this is what threw the good doctor.

For the Queen is of course the Queen of the United Kingdom due to her descent from the Welshman Henry Tudor - King Henry VII - who united England and Wales through his marriage to Edward IV's daughter Elizabeth, and his defeat in battle of the Yorkist King Richard III. It seems to me in these circumstances, and what with the Queen being half Welsh and all, that if anybody was upset by the present situation it would be Yorkshire people rather than Welsh people.

PHILIP GRICE, Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order, Llansteffan Road, Carmarthen

Mr Grice - sorry, sir, LIEUTENANT Grice - fails to grasp the reality of Tudor politics.

After the Battle of Bosworth, the Tudors still needed to prove themselves to the powerful English barons (not just the Yorkists) and they, along with many of the so-called “great” Welsh families, did so by rejecting any Welsh roots to become more English than the English.

That is why many anti-Welsh laws were were left on the statute book and curbs on the Welsh language were introduced. English anti-Welsh sentiments were very strong in mediavel times and during the Tudor era there were few more anti-Welsh than the Turdor hierarcy.

This massive Tudor betrayal led to considerable Welsh discontent that was savagely surpressed, in particular by Henry VIII, who executed (polite word for murdered) tens of thousands of his subjects for dissent, many of them in Wales.

To describe England and Wales as “united” is perverse. The Tudors aimed to eradicate Wales completely by destroying its language and culture and absorbing what remained into England. What they didn’t bargain for was Welsh determination not to let that happen. People are still trying to eradicate our language and culture today, so the struggle goes on.

The traitorous Tudors lost the right to be truly regarded as Welsh and the current royals have no moral right to include Wales in their titles as long as the Welsh continue to be denied the right, in a referendum, to say yes or no.

2006-12-09T11:09:00.001Z

He should have faced trial
but instead he got a gong
James Baker - a name Iraq’s
Shias recall with horror

Acidic comment
from US news
cartoonist
Chip Bok

One of the co-authors of the Iraq Study Group report now before George Bush is the Honorable James Addison Baker III.

No wonder some of Iraq’s Shia leaders have been less than enthusiastic to see this particular US politician crawl back into the limelight. Baker, Secretary of State to President George Bush Senior, was a leading architect of one of the most shameful episodes in American history - the stabbing in the back of Iraq’s Shia population in 1991.

You may recall that Bush Senior, flush with victory after ousting Iraq from Kuwait in the Gulf War, made a speech urging Iraq’s Shias to rise up against a weakened Saddam Hussain. He promised full support from the US, which still had massive forces in the region.

The Shia people took him at his word and rose in a massive rebellion. They fought bravely and came agonisingly close to toppling the brutal dictator. But there was no US support. Instead, Bush, Baker and all the US candle-stick makers, stood by and watched as Saddam crushed the rebellion with ferocious savagery. Some 200,000 Shias are thought to have lost their lives.

Why did Bush allow the carnage? The answer is simple - political expediency. The Shias are allied to Iran and Bush and Baker concluded it best that Saddam stay in power than risk seeing increased Iranian influence over Iraq. The US even helped Saddam by relaxing the no fly zones so he could more easily move his troops around.

Which is why Saddam continued for 12 more years to fill his blood-drenched torture chambers until, post 9/11, it became politically expedient to bring him down, Bin Laden having proved too elusive.

Bush and Baker should have been tried for crimes against humanity. Instead, Baker received one of America’s highest honours, the Freedom Medal. That’s the sort of world we live in.

2006-12-09T11:07:00.000Z

The Bolton way failed, so now try genuine democracy
Reforms UN needs
- scrap Security
Council, end the veto
So John Bolton, the US’s combative ambassador to the UN, has decided to jump before he’s pushed, the chances of his temporary appointment being made permanent by the Democrat-controlled Senate less than those of George Bush ever seeing sense about anything.

He was sent in to push for reform of the UN. A laudable aim. But, as ever, the Bush regime idea of the US getting its way by arrogantly throwing its weight around was doomed from the start. All it did was make more people anti-American.

The UN is badly in need of reform. The structure that US now howls so much about as failing the world was put together by - guess who? - the US when the UN was founded in 1946.

If the Western nations are serious about pushing genuine democracy round the world then they could start at the UN with two basic reforms:

1) Scrap the Security Council which was specifically designed to deny the majority of nations a voice.

2) End the veto used by the bigger nations to continually thwart the majority view.

In other words, let the UN be run according to the principle of one nation, one vote on every isue. How more democratic could you get?

2006-12-09T11:04:00.000Z

We condem slaughter of innocent people
but are quite prepared to do it ourselves
Surely nukes make
us no better
than Al Queda
I’m not surprised that Labour, a party in love with big business, in particular the arms industry, is proposing a new generation of nuclear weapons to replace Trident missiles.

But think on this. By their very nature, nuclear weaposns are weapons of mass destruction. Drop a missile or a bomb on a city (as the Americans did twice in 1945 with horrific results) then, quite deliberately, you will kill many thousands of innocent men, women and children and hideously main many more.

So what we have is a policy of being prepared to slaughter innocent people on a massive scale in order to achieve our aims, whatever those might be. Blair’s proposals are simply aimed at making that slaughter more efficient.

But how can world leaders who support this policy expect to be taken seriously as they scream their condemnation - as they rightly should - when Al Queda or any grouping slaughters innocent people. After all, aren’t they simply carrying out the same policy?

2006-12-09T11:03:00.000Z

Big guns wheeled out to fend off nationalists
Independence issue
has Labour
scared witless
Labour is clearly worried about the growing strength of the Nationalists in Scotland, independence now commanding a majority in some polls. Hence the big guns - Blair and Brown - recently piling in with dishonest speeches about how freedom will wreck Scotland. Blair even dragged Wales into his condemnantion.

Well, my views have been clear for years. I’ve studied the economic arguments and I have no doubts that Wales will benefit from full independence. The list of small nations with strong economies is long and cannot be ignored.

But we have a democracy-deficit problem in Wales. The Labour Party, which dominates our country, steadfastly refuses to get involved with a debate on the pros or cons of independence. Our docile media, almost all of which is owned, controlled and, at senior level, largely staffed from outside Wales, has no desire to push for such a debate, either.

But why not have a proper debate? If Blair and Brown really do believe the anti-nationalist bilge they spew out, then surely they would want the nationalist arguments to be publically proved to be rubbish.

But no, Labour is prepared to deny Wales and Scotland the economic prosperity that freedom will bring for one grubby reason alone - it needs the parliamentary seats of those two nations to keep power in the English Parliment.

That’s why we won’t get that debate from Labour. They’re scared witless about the outcome.

2006-12-09T10:59:00.000Z

Newspaper hides its own anti-Charles poll verdict from readers
Royalist tendency
leads Western Mail
into dishonest ways
The Western Mail gives its readers the impression that there is broad support for Charles buying an estate in Wales by publishing several pro-royal letters and just one opposing.

Yet I know that from what people tell me the Mail received other critical letters, including one from me based on my comment below. My letter highlighted the findings of the Mail’s own online poll which showed considerable opposition to the purchase.

It seems that the poll embarrassed the royalist tendency that seems to have the Mail in its grip, hence the decision to hide it from its readers. But there you go. Dishonesty is all that’s left to the royalists as they continue pretend they have support when they damn well don’t.

And it’s not the first time. A few weeks ago the Mail gave prominance to a letter from a thoroughly dishonest outfit, Monarchy Wales, claiming that republics were economic basket-cases continually having to be rescued by monarchies. I worte in proving that it was a pack of lies by showing how basket-case monarchies - many of them in reality brutal dicatorships - had brought much death and destruction to 20th Century Europe.

The Mail refused to publish my letter and Monarchy Wales’s pack of lies was allowed to stand.

2006-11-23T18:52:00.000Z

Poll shows huge opposition
to ‘glorified holiday home’
Charles’ Welsh estate is King
Canute bid to stem tide of
anti-monarchism in Wales
The royals already have far more sprawling estates, palaces and luxury mansions scattered around Britain than they will ever need so Prince Charles’s decision to add a huge estate in Wales to the ever-growing list is a slap in the face for those struggling to put just one roof over their heads.

I listened to some estate agents gloating about how property prices will now soar in Carmarthenshire. Obviously, they couldn't care tuppence for the immense problems that young people have in trying to afford property in the county now, leave alone when the royals come galloping in.

I’m not surprised. I see the purchase as a desperate King Canute-style bid to stem the tide of anti-monarchism that has been steadily rising in Wales. If opinion polls I’ve monitored in recent years are anything to go by then republicanism is now backed by at least 30 per cent of the Welsh, royalty by a similar percentage (and a lot of those are settlers) with the remaining 40 per cent not caring much either way.

Mind, you, royalists support may have slipped even further. I note that the Western Mail’s own online poll showed 49.37% opposing Charles “glorified holiday home in Wales”, with only 21.52% in favour. The rest couldn’t see it making much difference to tourism or couldn’t care less.

And that hugh level despite the Welsh republican movement being lamentably fragmented and the royalists holding almost all the levers of power. It’s time we republicans got our act together.

2006-11-11T19:17:00.000Z

Storm over my letter in the Western Mail
Mask slips on Tory
Party’s sham policy
towards Wales
The Tory Party’s current policy of embracing the Welsh Assembly is a sham, according to the extraordinary reaction to a letter I had published in the Western Mail about our largely useless MPs (LUMPS - see earlier post)

A Peter Davies wrote in to divert attention from the LUMPS by calling for the Welsh Assembly to be abolished instead. Events followed swiftly.

First a Glyn Erasmus piled in (lovely letter) to point out with detailed figures that Mr Davies was a Newport councillor who been elected on a far smaller percentage of votes than that which he was complaining about for the Assembly.

Mr Erasmus wrote, in part: ‘Might I point out, that at the last election, 524 people voted for Mr Davies to be a Councillor, this from an electorate of 3,621. I am no genius at maths, but even I can work out that his vote amounts to about 14.5% of the electorate. Are we to assume that, true to his principles, Mr Davies will resign as a councillor? How can his pride allow him to continue when such a small proportion of the electorate wanted him to represent them? Or, perhaps he really believes an election result can only take into account the views of those that actually vote.’

Then it emerged that not only was Mr Davies the father of one of the LUMPS (David Davies, Tory MP for Monmouth) but he was on the Tory Party’s list of preferred parliamentary candidates and therefore himself a would-be LUMP.

His problem was that his letter flatly contradicted the Tories’ main policy towards Wales, namely that they accepted the Assembly (after opposing its conception with almost demented ferocity) and, if we are to believe what the Tories told the media, he was being hauled over the coals.

Well, I've believed for a long time that the Tory Party's claim to embrace the Assembly is a sham and that Mr Davies’ letter was simply the mask slipping. If he was ticked off by his party bosses it was probably for letting its slip.

It has always seemed to me that Tory interest in the Assembly as possibly improving the lot of Wales is minimal. Much more important was the growing realisation that the Assembly provides a loud-mouth platform for a few Tories (how else would David Davies, an AM for several years, have got himself known?) when the party’s presence on our nation’s political map is otherwise minute, as it always has been, is, and always will be.

Oh, one further development: I note that Mr Davies has been invited to join the far-right UK Independence Party, which is always spitting feathers at the thought of the Welsh having any say in their own affairs.

2006-11-11T19:12:00.000Z

PSC, ERC and ICV repeat tripartite
Catalunya: the left is
back in power
with CiU fuming
More on the elections to Catalunya’s Parliament (see earlier posts). The PSC (Socialist) has agreed with ERC (left, republican, nationalist) and ICV (left, green, nationalist element) to reform the left-wing tripartite which ruled for two years before falling apart over ERC’s refusal to support the Estatut giving the Catalans more power and revenue (ERC didn’t think it went far enough).

PSC new leader José Montilla becomes the Catalan President and ERC’s fiery Josep Lluís Carod-Rovira filling the newly created position of Deputy President, with everyone promising to avoid the pitfalls that beset the previous pact.

The CiU (centre-right, nationalist) meanwhile is fuming on the grounds that it won the election and therefore should govern, with its leader, Artur Mas, as President. Some commentators have also taken that line.

Well, the CiU’s problem was that it did not win the election outright. It picked up two seats but was well short of an overall majority. It needed partners and certainly there were talks – one moment it was the much-vaunted grand pact between PSC and CIU, then it was a possible united nationalist front with ERC. But nothing materialised.

Simply put, political parties are just groupings of individuals. Pacts and coalitions are simply groups of parties. The true winner is the pact that ends up representing the most people.

On that basis, CiU received 928,511 votes, while the reconstituted tripartite of the left received, in total, 1,485,308 – that’s 556,797 more than CiU.

2006-11-06T18:00:00.000Z

Remember a certain D Rumsfeld shaking his hand?
Saddam - who from the
West was just as guilty?
So, Saddam is guilty of terrible crimes - so tell me something we haven't known for many years. But killing him will be a big mistake. It will just make him a martyr. Better that he rots in prison for the rest of his days.

When he went on trial I wondered in this blog who from the West deserved to be standing in the dock alongside him.

I had in mind all the government leaders and politicians who befriended and backed this blood-soaked dictator to the hilt (a grinning Donald Rumsfled sent by Ronald Reagan was pictured shaking the tyrant's hand) even though they knew that his torture chambers were overflowing.

The West (the US in particular, UK close behind) built him up, gave him aid, sold him arms (naturally) and urged him to go to war against Iran - a pointless conflict that cost the lives of some two million young men from both sides (if that wasn't genocide, then what is?).

I'm not alone in my views. The BBC website asked what its viewers thought about the Saddam guilty verdict and as I spun through the many dozens of comments from all over the world I could see that most people thought the same as me and that many from the West were culpable.

I noted, too, that many people thought that the policies of George Bush and Tony Blair had killed many more innocent people than Saddam ever did - so why no prosecution for them?.

As for the verdict's timing – I would be amazed if the White House had not being leaning on Iraq to get the verdict in before November 9. Will Bin Laden suddenly be produced just hours before the US polling booths open?

Backed by West, Shah ruled Iran with brutality
Let's remember what provoked
that 1979 hostages crisis in Iran
I see that Iran has been the marking the anniversary of when in 1979 students in Tehran took 52 American hostages, provoking an international crisis. US hatred of Iran stems from that event.

The students were wholly wrong to subject innocent people to such an ordeal, but in all that I've read about the event I hardly ever see the reason mentioned.

Just months earlier, the Iranian had overthrown the Shah of Persia, who with the West's full backing (US and UK engineered the coup that returned the monarch to power in 1953 in rteurn for oil favours) had ruled Iran with increasing brutality (he could teach Saddam a thing or two about torture chambers). The Shah fled to the West and turned up in the US. Iran demanded that he be extradited to face trial for his terrible crimes (shades of Saddam). The US refused. Hence the hostage crisis was triggered..

2006-11-04T08:39:00.000Z

What insults a soldier more?
A

joke or being sent
to die for a pack of lies
Democrat John Kerry, the decorated Vietnam war hero who ran for the US presidency last time, was addressing students the other day and joked about if they didn’t do well they would end up in Iraq. Of course, he was alluding to how the well-off in America usually manage to avoid combat duties when they got drafted, senior members of the Bush administration – Bush himself included – being prime examples.

The right-wing media, though, insisted on twisting the meaning into a grave insult to American´s military and, from the White House down, have howled at him ever since demanding that he apologise.

I wonder what’s more insulting to soldiers - to make a joke or to send them to out to risk death or serious injury in a war waged on a pack of lies..

I come from a military family and I have no doubt my soldier relatives – World Wars One and Two, Korea, Canal Zone and, currently, Iraq – would unhesitatingly choose the latter.

I think what Kerry meant to say was that if the students didn’t study hard enough they might end up in the Republican Party.

2006-11-02T19:25:00.000Z

Catalunya voters
nudge towards
the centre-right
The ruling Socialists lost five seats in yesterday’s elections to the 135-seat Catalunya Parliament as the centre-right CiU took top position, as it did in 2003. But once again the CiU, which didn’t win as many extra seats as some polls predicted, failed to achieve an overall majority and so will have to build a coalition if it is to take power.

CiU (centre-right, nationalist) won 48 seats, up 2 on 2003
PSC (Socialists) won 37, down 5
ERC (republican left, nationalist) won 21, down 1
ICV-EUiA (green left, nationalist element) won 12, up 3
PP (right, far-right element) won 14, down 1
Ciutadans (new party) won 3

The turnout was disappointingly low - just 56.7 per cent, well down on the 2003 figure of 62.5 per cent. As a result, the CiU, PSC, ERC and PP all saw their vote numbers tumble. Of the established parties, only ICV managed to attract more votes.

Surprise of the night were the three seats for Ciutadans, which according to forecasts wouldn’t win a single seat. This new party seems to be unhappy with Catalunya’s emphasis on the Catalan language. I’m told that it may have attracted anti-nationalist PP voters who weren’t happy with the PP’s far-right element. It may also have benefited from the widespread discontent with the established parties that the very low turnout seems to suggest. Who it three members supports in Parliament will be noted with interest.

ERC fell back a bit to 21 seats after soaring to 23 in the 2003 elections. It may have paid the price for confusing the electors by fielding two leaders throughout the campaign. A swift return to just one front runner is on the cards.

I was interested in the success of ICV. The PSC-ERC-ICV tripartite government was attacked on all sides and evenutually collapsed. Yet here was ICV with a high-profile campaign extolling the tripartite’s successes - and picking up three more seats.

Possible pacts

Anyway, the negotiations are well under way. To some this horse-trading is distasteful, but to me this is what a proper democracy is all about. If you cannot win outright, then you have to find partners. You have to negotiate.

There are various possible combinations. The target is 68 seats for an absolute majority. A CiU + ERC nationalist alliance would mean a majority of just one, so adding ICV would be safer, a 13-seat majority. CiU leader Artur Mas would then be the new Catalan premier.

The Socialists could return by repeating their tripartite - PSC+ERC+IVC - giving them a precarious majority of two. That would give the PSC’s new chief, José Montilla, the top job.

We may even see a CiU+PSC grand coalition - the much talked about socio-convergencia, an alliance heavily supported in some polls, heavily rejected in others.

2006-11-01T14:57:00.000Z

I apologise for my recent blog inactivity. I was ill for a while, then had to slog my way through a backlog at work (I’m involved with a venture that frequently has me on the road and sometimes takes me out of Wales). Normal service is now resumed – hopefully.

Topics in this catch-up batch:

* US torture
* Useless MPs
* Huge death tolls
* Catalunya votes
* Muslim veil row
* Assembly opposition
* MP flashes his wealth

Is US torture policy why
more Allied soldiers are
being killed or maimed?
George Bush has again denied that the US tortures its “war on terror” prisoners. It’s a barefaced lie because the “enhanced interrogation techniques” that have come to light in recent times clearly are torture.

For instance, take “water-boarding” – hooding prisoners, strapping them to boards then repeatedly up-ending them in a water for several minutes so they think they’re drowning.

What else is that other than torture? If US soldiers were captured and given such treatment, you can bet your boots that the White House would be screaming, “Torture!”.

‘Saves lives’ claim

That particular torture technique was endorsed by Vice President Dick Cheney in an interview the other day. He’s since denied he said it, but I’ve heard the tape and his endorsement was unequivocal.

The White House and its many acolytes in the right-wing media constantly claim that these “enhanced interrogation techniques” have produced “actionable intelligence” that “saves American lives”.

As the torture debate grows, this has become a mantra but I have yet to see any credible evidence, verified by independent sources. Indeed, there are security analysts who worry that the information gleaned includes a considerable amount of pre-planned disinformation that in itself has cost lives.

Much more likely is that the US use of torture is one of the factors behind the recent surge in American, British and other Allied soldiers being killed or maimed.

It’s not difficult to see why. It seems that many Muslims perceive the US as torturing Muslims on such a scale, at known and secret bases across the world, that it even has to farm out this obscene business by transferring some to torture chambers it rents in foreign lands not best known for human rights – in Bush-speak, these torture-transfers are called “rendition”.

To many young, impressionable Muslims, this US torture-fest is ample proof of Al Qaeda claims that the Christian West is hell-bent on destroying the Muslim world.

It isn’t true, of course, but while the US refuses to rein itself in then that is what is many Muslims believe.

Policy change needed

As a direct result, the numbers of Al Qaeda-related groups across the world have soared into the hundreds, swelling the ranks of insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and increasing the possibility of further attacks against Western interests almost anywhere in the world. Truly George Bush and Dick Cheney have become recruiting sergeants for Islamic militants.

Jailing the occasional hapless GI Joe for abusing Iraqis while turning a blind eye to the torturers is a pretence that doesn’t fool anyone. What’s needed is a wholesale change to one of two options:

* that the US treats all of its captives are Prisoners of War and accords the full protection of the Geneva Convention.

* that the US returns to the Rule of Law. If there is evidence against individuals then bring them before the courts, allowing them all the rights that any other suspect has.

Several other countries, such as UK, Spain and Germany, to their credit, prefer the second option.

George Bush’s policies – condoning torture, on top of jailing prisoners for many years without any charges or access to lawyers (the highly-restricted military tribunals recently announced are just a PR stunt) – has done massive harm to the US’s image around the world.

The US is no longer seen as a free and fair nation.

Large LUMP sums
for Wales’s largely
useless MPs
I see that MPs reel in an average of about £131,000 a year in expenses and allowances (on top of a basic salary of £59,686 plus a hefty pension). That´s almost £200,000 each annually.

I don’t believe that any MP in Wales is worth anything like that. Certainly not since devolution took away some 90 per cent of their workload. They no longer have responsibility for any of the matters that touch the lives of their constituents most, such as education, health, roads, transport, housing and culture.

Our largely useless MPs (LUMPS as I call them) have so little to do that they seem to spend most of their time trying to dream up things to make it look as if they are busy people - various setups to liaise with the Welsh Assembly seem a favourite ruse.

Another is superfluous letter-writing. The Assembly has done such a poor job of publicising precisely what it does do that many people still think their MP is the one to approach. This is a godsend to the LUMPS who, instead of referring their constituents to the local AM, as they should, pompously promise that they “will take the matter up”. Hence floods of pointless letters.

The LUMP sums should be heavily reduced. But, of course, we could take a LUMP hammer to this entire under-performing yet highly expensive government tier if Wales had much-needed independence.

Are 350,000 US
deaths not important
enough for Mr Bush?
I see that some commentators in the US have been questioning Bush’s “War of Terror” from an interesting standpoint.

Some 3,000 people were killed in the September 11 attacks and so far the US has spent around $1 trillion (that’s a thousand billion dollars) on hunting down the perpetrators (this sum is forecast to reach $2 trillion, when factors such as the long-term care costs for some 30,000 injured soldiers are worked in).

Yet since the New York atrocities, nearly 150, 000 Americans have been killed with guns and nearly 200,000 have died on the roads but there is no sign of the Bush administration showing anything like the same sort of concern.

Catalunya votes
– could the
Socialists lose power?
My favourite country outside Wales is Catalunya, currently part of Spain. I’ve spent a lot of time there since democracy was restored in the 1970s. I follow its affairs closely and recently started to comment about its history and current affairs on my website.

Today (November 1), Catalans will be voting to decide who governs Catalunya for the next four years (the powers and status that its government, the Generalitat de Catalunya, enjoys make Wales’s Assembly look very feeble in comparison). So who’s standing and who’s likely to win?

First, imagine that Plaid Cymru’s warring factions – right, left and greens – were to split away and form separate political parties. That’s what you have in Catalunya.

There’s CiU (centre-right), ERC (republican left) and ICV-EUiA (green left with nationalist elements). Their combined vote has always given the nationalists a sizable majority in the Generalitat, but they find it hard to work together. ERC wants independence sooner rather than later but the CiU says later rather than sooner.

Catalans win more powers

On the non-nationalist side are the Socialists and the right-wing PP, two parties that vie for control of Spain. The PP, which includes some disturbingly far-right elements, was in power in Madrid until being ousted by the Socialists in 2003.

The Catalunya wing of the PP seems a tad more moderate, but remains unpopular (it holds just 15 of the Generalitat’s 135 seats). Catalans tell me that this has a lot to do with the PP being founded by supporters of the Franco regime that murdered tens of thousands of Spaniards and tried hard to destroy the Catalan culture during its 40 years of brutality. Even now the party refuses to renounce Franco’s repression and murders.

The CiU was in power in Catalunya for 23 years until 2003 when the Socialists took over even though they won fewer seats than the CiU. The Socialists governed in a three-way pact with ERC and ICV, which fell apart earlier this year when ERC refused to back the new Estatut then going through the Spanish Congress to give Catalunya even greater powers and extra revenue.

Despite the promise of more powers, ERC saw the Estatut as much-watered down from what was agreed by the Generalitat last year. In the subsequent Catalunya referendum in June, ERC urged NO. Though te Estatut was backed by a large majority, just over 50% of the electorate stayed away, an abstention rate that the pundits have scratched their heads over ever since.

The Socialists ejected rebellious ERC from the tripartite and called early elections.

Support for ERC in Catalan municipal elections has been rising in recent years and jumped in the 2003 Generalitat elections. A few days ago, in the only televised debate between the five main party leaders, ERC’s irrepressible leader, the bushy-mustached Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira, was deemed out-right winner by viewers, according to a couple of newspaper polls.

Tripartite may be resurrected

The latest polls suggest that CiU will again emerge as victors with slightly more seats than last time, but well short of a working majority and so will need to find partners if its leader, the charismatic Artur Mas (image more than substance?) is to be the next Catalan President.

CiU and the PP have been allies in the past, but Mas has already ruled out a similar tryst this time round, mainly because at Spain level the PP has foamed at the mouth at the thought of Catalunya winning more powers and fought the Estatut tooth and nail in Congress. Even now the PP is arguing before a constitutional court that the Estatat should be scrapped (strangely, down south in Andalucia, the PP has readily agreed to proposals for greater powers that look remarkably similar to those in Catalunya’s Estatut).

The Catalan Socialists, led by José Montilla, seen as dullish but stolid, could again come second but might retain power by resurrecting the tripartite of the left. According to some polls, the voters favour a grand coalition, a socio-convergencia, between the Socialists and CiU (imagine Labour running the Welsh Assembly with the Tories). But the CiU has not ruled out itself getting into bed with ERC and/or ICV, whose leader Joan Saura has been busily defending the earlier tripartite’s record.

Interesting times.

In the 2003 Catalunya elections, CiU won 46 seats (down 10 from 1999); the Socialists won 42 (down 10); ERC won 23 (up 11), the PP won 15 (up 3) and ICV-EUiA won 9 (up 6).

Let people wear what
they want – it’s called
tolerance, Mr Straw
Jack Straw’s stupid paranoia about Muslim women covering their faces in his presence (does he refuse to talk to people on the phone?) has fanned the flames of racial hatred.

As far as I’m concerned devout people should be allowed to wear whatever clothing or symbols they want, when they want, wherever they want – and that includes schools (with good will, school uniform rules can easily be adapted).

As long as Muslim women are wearing the veil out of their own free will and not being coerced by men then that’s fine by me.

What on earth is wrong in that? Britain is supposed to pride itself on its tolerance, but Shaw and those backing him are putting the skids under that notion.

I can see where Straw got the idea. The French government has been hailing its ban on Muslim girls wearing headscarves and veils in school as an unqualified success because the violent protests forecast by some never materialised.

Worrying TV documentary

Well, I recently saw a French TV documentary which took a close look at the ban. Its findings were worrying – and not just because of farcical outcomes such as schools deciding that bandanas were OK as long as the ears and forehead were visible.

It found that many older girls were outraged by the ban and wanted to take the matter to the streets but they were being advised not to do so by Muslim activists. Instead, they should go along with the ban and concentrate on finishing their education. Once they had left school they would be welcomed into ranks of the activists. Hence no riots.

So what the ban appears to have done is to radicalise a whole generation of young Muslims with incalculable consequences for the future. Of course, most will be active within the law. But I bet there will be some who won’t.

The ban has had another dreadful consequence. It appears that across France thousands of Muslim girls are deciding they cannot live with the ban and are leaving school without completing their education. I find that desperately sad.

Failure of Assembly
opposition to get
its act together
In a letter to the Western Mail, Gwyn Hopkins was outraged that all 26 Labour AMs voted against Plaid Cymru and Tory motions regarding water supplies from Wales. I agree that the vote shows that Welsh Labour does not have the interests of Wales at heart. Nothing new in that.

But hold on. Currently, the Assembly’s Opposition has a majority of one over Labour. So the motions could have been carried if the whole of the Opposition (along with the Deputy Speaker) had voted in favour. Perhaps Mr Hopkins’s ire should be directed at the Opposition for not getting its act together.

MP is mugged
- and bang goes
£5,500 worth of watches
I travel a fair bit and so I take care on the security front – there are loads of measures you can take to lessen the robbery risks.

Which brings us to Tory MP for Clwyd West David Jones and his wife Sara, who were mugged while on holiday in Naples during the summer. I haven’t had a chance to raise the matter before now. I hope that the unlucky pair have recovered and that the thieves will be quickly caught.

But my sympathy is tempered somewhat by what was stolen – the Rolex watches each was wearing. Their wrists were encased in some £5,500-worth of flashy jewellery.

Muggers know a Rolex when they see one, so tourists who wanders about in foreign cities showing one them off is simply asking for trouble. It’s stupidity. And should someone so stupid be representing us in the House of Commons?

Why does anyone need to spend thousands of pounds on a wristwatch when, for under a £100, you be assured of a perfectly decent, quite accurate one? The one I wear cost me £25 seven years ago and has never let me down once.

I’ve always thought that there is something pathetic about people who spend vast sums on themselves when across the world billions are starving (it’s one of the reason I dislike the royals).

Why is there this need to flaunt wealth – the “look at me, I´m SO wealthy” syndrome? Why is this sort of preening vanity so desperately important to people such as Mr Jones?

Surely it can´t just be because he´s a Tory.

2006-09-09T16:49:00.000+01:00

Would WWI have happened
if Europe hadn't had royals?
20th Century Europe
- ravaged by ‘basket
case’ monarchies
"Places that get rid of Monarchy usually end up as economic or political basket cases. Monarchy is then quickly restored to regain sanity and peace," so trills Neil Welton, of something called Monarchy Wales in a newspaper the other day.

His letter is breath-taking in its ignorance of history, which is full of the dreadful consequences of bad monarchies, and not just in Britain. Twentieth-century Europe saw a long list of monarchs who helped to create and sustain brutal dictatorships or were dictators themselves.

When the Austro-Hungarian empire was dismembered in 1919 for helping to plunge Europe into war there was chaos for 20 years, but it was nowt to do with the lack of a monarch - economies struggled because of the cack-handed way lands and resources were doled out to the successor nations. The only success was republican Czeckoslavkia, which received 27% of the land but 80% of the heavy industry, leaving other nations bereft.

Dictatorships sustained

Another big factor in turning many fledgling democracies into "basket cases" was capitalism´s supreme failure, the Great Depression, which swept through Europe in the 1930s. No monarchy was going to magic its way out of that mess.

In Russia, the cruel rule of the Czars paved the way for Soviet Russia. Other repressive dictator-kings include Alexander I of Yugoslavia, Carol of Romania, Zog of Albania and Boris of Bulagaria.

Victor Emanuel III of Italy helped to usher in Mussolini´s dictatorship and gave him fulsome support. He tried to appear the good guy by dismissing Il Duce, but only after Italy had lost the war. The Italians saw through him and eventually threw out the monarchy.

George II of Greece helped establish and sustain General Metaxas’s dictatorship and his later successor Constantine II initially supported the Generals when they grabbed power. The restoration of democracy saw Greece quickly became a republic.

All over Europe, there were far-right royalist terror campaigns aimed at plonking someone back on a throne. The savage "White Terror" drive in Hungary in 1920, for example, saw the slaughter of hundreds of workers, Jews and anyone leftist.

Rampaging royalists

In Spain, the deeply unpopular Alfonso XIII fled into exile in 1931 after his support for dictator General Primo de Rivera caused a big surge in republicanism. After a democractic republic was proclaimed, far-right thugs, many of them royalists, rampaged through the country to create the chaos and instablitity they would later use to justify Franco’s toppling of a legitimate democracy and subsequent state murder of tens of thousands of Spaniards, royalists happily in agreement..

Yes, the monarchy was restored in Spain, but it was hurridly installed before the end of the Franco regime and confimed in a constitution in 1978 achieved more or less at the point of a gun, the army at that time still very much in "Vive Franco!" mode.

Finally, would World War One (which laid the foundations of World War Two) have happened if Europe hadn´t been in the grip of so many squabbling, preening monarchies (our own included and all related)? I think not.

2006-09-09T16:22:00.000+01:00

A tale of Welsh rugby sychophants
Forelock-touchers
grovel to haul in
royal hanger-on
I see that one of the many royal hanger-ons has been appointed vice-patron of the WRU. I have two questions.

Was this because throughout the whole of Wales not one suitable Welsh candidate could be found?

Or was it because the WRU leadership is riddled with forelock-touchers who pray nightly that their pathetic sychophancy will soon mean gongs galore?

It’s bad enough that Welsh rugby players are forced to wear the badge of our supposed conquerors upon their shirts.

2006-09-09T16:13:00.000+01:00

A plea for Wales to waste money
So many royal houses
are an obscenity in
age of poor housing
A Mr Magee (no, not Mr Magoo, though shortsightedness does seem a factor) wrote to the Western Mail from Kent urging that Wales provides a royal residence.

For goodness sake, hasn’t this profligate family got enough places to live, scattered around the country?

I’m all for a cull of royal residences – the existence of so many is an obscenity in an age when vast numbers of poor people are either homeless or living in sub-standard housing. And no where more so than Wales, which – let us not forget – is, thanks to centuries of misrule by England, now officially one of the poorest areas of Europe. I can think of far better ways to spend the money.

Part of Mr Magee’s thinking is that because the new Wales Bill puts the Welsh First Minister on the same formal footing as the Prime Minister (stuff and nonsense, really) the royals will need somewhere super to receive our Rhodri.

Well, Rhodri’s new status is nothing to be proud of. It’s sad to see the proud Welsh being forced by political expediency to kowtow to a family whose blood-drenched record in Wales over the ages includes trying hard to obliterate the Welsh, their language and their culture.

But if HM really does want to meet Rhodri for a cuppa now and again, I can recommend a couple of terrific sandwich stalls in Cardiff market.

2006-09-09T15:32:00.000+01:00

Engineers propose 'national network'
Hain leaves way open for England
to steal a lot more Welsh water

This, apparently, is the water network
map currently being considered
by the Environment Agency.

Moves by England to steal even more water from Wales are gathering pace, spurred on it seems to me by Welsh Secretary Peter Hain´s damaging insertion into the Wales Bill (now law) of a clause (heavily backed by Welsh MPs) specifically denying the Welsh Assembly any right to protest against the purloining of Welsh water resources.

It has now become known (in a BBC report) that the Government´s Environment Agency is seriously considering a "national network" proposed by the Institution of Civil Engineers, to pump water from wetter parts of Britain (i.e. Wales) to drier areas (i.e. England).

This network would use pipes, canals and rivers to transfer water from existing reservoirs in Wales. The building of new dams to drown more valleys is also envisaged.

I have commented earlier on the strong interest being shown in recent years by Thames Water in the valleys of south east Wales, in Monmouthshire and Blaenau-Gwent. Now I hear that people living in and around the massive Elan Valley reservoir network in Mid Wales, which supplies Birmingham with free water, are increasingly worried about what they gather are plans to expand reservoirs in their area.

As one local representative put it, "There has been talk of creating a new dam at the Graig Goch part of the valley, which would flood large parts heading right over to the Ceredigion border." He and other representatives have warned that, quite rightly, there will be massive opposition. This isn't 1904.

TIME TO INVESTIGATE LIVERPOOL

By the way, it´s high time there was an official investigation into claims, in a recent BBC programme, that Liverpool never needed to drown Tryweryn Valley in North Wales.

Such claims were rubbished by Liverpool when it grabbed the reservoir in the 1960s (handed to them by England´s MPs, whose Commons votes completely swamped the total opposition from Welsh MPs). Did Liverpool lie in order to save drowning an English valley?

If the claims are true then Liverpool should compensate Wales. Mind you, my view has always been that Liverpool and Birmingham owe Wales massive compensation anyway because neither city ever had the right to drown Welsh valleys.

They were allowed to do only because we are, in truth, an English colony. That is why England can, as it is currently doing so, make plans to grab even more of our water resources for free and with impunity.

A WELSH DROUGHT?
I keep seeing, from time to time, talk of past droughts and possible drought orders in Wales.

Let´s get this clear - Wales has and always has had more than sufficient water for its needs. The problem is (and this does causes shortages in some Welsh areas from time time) is that England has first call on Welsh water.

Wales could bring in a huge income if we were allowed to export water at a market price, in the same way that many nations export oil.

But only genuine independence is going to allow us do that.

2006-07-20T17:28:00.000+01:00

70th anniversary of start of Spanish Civil War
Welsh veteran's view: UK
should apologise to
Spain for helping Franco

Spain, 1937: Alun Menai Williams
(seated) with his friend, Billy,
who was killed three days later.

Should Britain apologise to the Spanish people for its role in helping Franco to succeed in the Spanish Civil War?

Civil war veteran Alun Menai Williams certainly thought so. Raised in Gilfach Goch, he served as a medic with the International Brigade throughout much of that terrible conflict.

He died in Cardiff this month, but as recently as last month he was in Barcelona advocating that apology at the launch of a version, in the Catalan language, of his memorable book, From the Rhondda to the Ebro.

An acquaintance of mine was at the launch. He writes:

“I had a brief chat with Alun Menai Williams and it was difficult to believe he was 92. He was articulate, humorous and events of the civil war were fresh in his mind. The launch was at the city's British Council offices and the large audience was testimony to the high regard with which Mr Williams is held in Catalunya.

He had lost none of his old fire. The British Council is, of course, run by the UK government and consular feathers were ruffled somewhat when, in response to a question from the audience, Mr Williams readily agreed that Britain should apologise to the Spanish people for its role in helping General Franco tear down a legitimate democracy to usher in four murderous decades.

That role, much hidden at the time, included the Royal Navy, based at Gibraltar, helping the uprising to get going by providing Franco's forces with an abundance of military intelligence.

Farcical 'non-intervention'
Then there was Britain's farcical non-intervention policy, supported by the major powers, to supposedly deny weapons to both sides. In reality, the policy made deliberately sure that the democratic government was kept weak (it was forced to rely on uncertain arms aid from Soviet Russia) while turning a blind eye to the massive flow of troops, weapons and aircraft to Franco's side from the fascist regimes in Germany, Italy and Portugal.

In other speeches at the launch, it was acknowledged that the Nazis used the war to develop tactics and weapon systems, including the bombing of towns and cities, that were used to devasting effect against us in World War Two.

It is clear that Hitler felt emboldened by the success of his forces in Spain and the intriguing question remains: would he have gone to war if Franco had lost? With the 75th anniversary of the start of the Spanish Civil War (July 18th) now upon us, perhaps it's time for Britain to make that apology, so strongly advocated by Alun Menai Williams.”

2006-07-20T17:23:00.000+01:00

Tourism is a curse for many Welsh towns
Why plans to double Pwllheli
marina should be opposed

Pwllheli marina,
already far too big

I have family ties to the Llyn peninsular and, like many of my relatives, I hope there will be strong resistance to plans to more than double Pwllheli marina to 1,000 berths.

Marina traders supporting the scheme claim it will provide much work for local youngsters, completely ignoring an independent assessment earlier this year that no more than 11 new jobs will be provided.

Even the claim that the yachters will spend freely in the town is highly suspect. Just like second home owners, who have helped turned so many once-thriving Welsh communities into ghost villages, these weekend sailors will arrive with their 4x4s loaded to the gills with food and supplies, leaving local shops with crumbs.

Pwllheli is a supreme example of the many Welsh towns that, in truth, have gained little by bowing low to the Great God Tourism..

At best, tourism provides such town's young people with low paid jobs for little more than four months of the year. The rest of time they are back on the dole.

Well down pecking order

Sometimes, not even those temporary jobs are available. I've noticed that, increasingly, many of the businesses that serve tourism are run by outsiders, who set up shop just for the season and who often seem to bring in their own workers (in some cases, it seems to me, because they dislike hearing Welsh spoken around them).

I have long suspected, despite vociferous claims to the opposite, that efforts to bring full-time jobs to such areas - in the shape of more light industry, for example - are well down the pecking order because behind the scenes tourism dictates otherwise.

More factories and workshops? Good god, no. They'll just spoil the view and put the tourists off their fish-and-chips.

2006-07-20T17:18:00.000+01:00

But Mr Blair, Britain already has two-tier MPs
Let's shed a tier
- our useless and
expensive MPs
Tony Blair insists that he will not create "two tier" MPs in the UK.

This is a reference to demands, mostly by Tories, that since Wales and Scotland now have devolution Welsh and Scottish MPs should be barred from voting on matters peculiar to England.

Well, English MPs have been voting on matters peculiar to Wales and Scotland for generations and I don't ever recall the Tories complaining about that. Devolution for England would appear to be the answer, but that is a matter for England. I couldn't care less.

But Britain already has two-tier MPs - those in Wales and Scotland and those in England

Since devolution, Welsh and Scottish MPs have seen much of their previous workload vanish - for example, they no long have any responsibilities for the important areas of educution, health, housing and roads. That workload is now carried by AMs, leaving the MPs with very little to do. English MPs, I suspect, are much annoyed.

It's no wonder that, well aware of how irrelevant they've become, our MPs are constantly trying to think up ways of pretending they still have some role to play (pointless liason bodies, for example). Hence, the latest suggestion that they should be given the job of scrutinising Welsh Assembly spending.

Wales would be better off ditching this useless and very expensive tier of MPs altogether, via the sensible route of full independence. In the meantime, their salaries and allowances should be slashed. They are simply not earning their keep.

2006-07-20T17:06:00.000+01:00

Vicious far right rolled back reforms
Spain's 2nd Republic
marked by events
across the country

The flag of the 2nd Republic

The 75th anniversary of the founding of Spain's 2nd Republic has been marked by so many books, glowing newspaper articles, ceremonies and exhibitions that you'd hardly think the country today is a monarchy.

The 2nd Republic (the 1st was a short-lived affair in the 1880s) was proclaimed in 1931 when deeply unpopular King Alfonso XIII (his backing for the disasterous Primo dictatorship of 1923 to 1930 being one factor) fled into exile following the strong showing by republicans in that year's municipal elections. In those days, republicanism ran right across the spectrum to include the middle class, industrialists and even elements of the military.

The fledgling centre-left democracy launched a series astonishingly progressive reforms to improve the lot of desperately poor peasants, raise education standards, eliminate literacy and provide healthcare. This year's celebrations have rightly dwelled on how quickly those reforms quickly began to make a difference.

The Republic offered the prospect of prosperity for all and if it been allowed to continue and develop, then surely Spain would have become one of the most advanced nations in Europe (and, of course, would not have suffered forty years of brutal repression).

Backlash by workers
But it was not to be. The far right won the 1934 elections (spectacularly rigged, say some historians). The Republic continued (not even the far right was much interested in restoring the monarchy) but became repressive and soon began to roll back the reforms, in particular those aimed at ending rural poverty. Landowners began slashing rural wages and grabbing back what land the peasants had been allowed. Waves of evictions followed.

Backlashes by factory workers and landless peasants were inevitable (there were also well-founded fears that the government, flush with admirers of Nazi Germany, such as Gil Robles who became Minister of War, was planning a Hitler-syle subversion of the democracy).

Madrid handed the task of tackling the protests to a certain General Franco, who gave Spain a foretaste of his blood-lust by allowing his North African mercenaries a free hand to crush the protests - noteably in the Asturias where resistance among the miners was fierce - with as much cruelty as they wished, even against women and children.

In Catalunya, fears of a fascist takeover in Madrid, led to the declaration of an independent state but still part of Spain. Franco ordered his commander there, General Domingo Batet, to conduct the customary bloodbath, but instead the general used diplomacy and tact to end the rebellion. Franco never forgave Batet and later had him murdered.

There were elections again in 1936, and the left won, despite clear attempts to again rig the result for the right. It was the beginning of the end for the Republic. The far right, unable to win at the ballot box, began to plot a military rising to overthrow Spain's legitimate democracy. The Civil War was, then, just months away.

2006-07-20T17:01:00.000+01:00

I spoke far too soon
I was far too quick to announce my recovery from an initial bout of ill-health. The trouble quickly returned and I haven't been in much shape to comment on anything for the past few weeks. Now, after recuperating with friends in Catalunya, I'm a lot better. I'll not tempt fate by saying anthing more than that. My thanks to those who sent me their best wishes - I even got a nice note from an old sparring partner.

2006-06-30T11:52:00.000+01:00

Sue is unwell
Sue Davies has been unwell for the past few weeks, but hopes to be able to continue her blog and website comments very soon. As ever, she has a lot to say. Her friends wish her well. -- JW.

2006-06-03T18:36:00.000+01:00

Protesters try to save Trywryn Valley in the 1960s. Will similar protests soon be seen in the Monmouthshire and Blaenau Gwent valleys?

Is Hain easing way for
more drowned valleys?
England thirsts
after yet more
free Welsh water
The other day, more regions in south east England were added to the region's growing "drought order" list.

Then the National Farmers Union demanded that a "national grid" for water be set up, admitting that what this really meant was to transfer water from Wales to south east England.

Then it was revealed that in the Wales Bill, currently going through Parliament, Welsh Secretary Peter Hain has written in a clause making sure that the Welsh Assembly will not have control over Wales's water resources. Control will stay in London.

These events are clearly linked.

About five years ago, the newspaper Wales on Sunday discovered that several English water companies were drawing up contingency plans to flood Welsh valleys to supply the English regions as England's water problems increase.

The basic plan is to syphon off water from the River Wye and pipe it over to the River Thames. In order to keep the Wye topped up, valleys in South East Wales would have to be drowned.

Welsh Water was quoted as saying they knew the plan had been discussed and that they were opposed to it.

Such plans are bound to be just as heavily opposed as the drowning of Tryweryn was in the 1960s. And if it had the power, the Welsh Assembly would certainly throw the plans out. Which, of course, is why Mr Hain is making sure that the Assembly doesn't have that power; instead making sure that the votes of English MPs will drown out the votes of Welsh MPs.

Careful media wording

What will Wales's English-controlled media make of it?

Wales on Sunday, part of the Western Mail/South Wales Echo/Liverpool Daily Post conglomerate, said this in its comment column at the time: "We, and the people of Wales, will take a lot of convincing that any of our communities, agricultural land or sites of scientific or scenic importance should be sacrificed for the benefit of English water companies."

Note the careful wording. It's not all-out opposition. It seems to be suggesting that if England puts up a convincing enough argument media approval could follow. How did the rest of the Welsh media respond?

The Mail clearly didn't regard the story as very important, relegating it to page 6, and then only in terms of a denial from Thames Water. Further down its report, though, Welsh Water repeated its claim that it knew the prospect had been discussed by English water companies (why would WW lie?).

Water firms plea to Blair

The South Wales Echo and the South Wales Argus, both of whom circulate in the potentially-threatened Monmouthshire and Blaenau Gwent valleys, did not see the story worthy of even a mention. There was no more than a perfunctory mention on the TV newscasts.

Then there was silence until, months later, England's water shortages hit the headlines with a report accusing the water companies of abstracting too much water from rivers, causing them to run dry. The water chiefs responded by saying they were urging the Blair government to allow the building of more reservoirs (guess where?).

The government has never promised to turn the water companies down.

Are the English water companies still maintaining they have never discussed plans to transfer water from Wales?

Tryweryn all over again?

In the 1960s, Tryweryn Valley in North Wales, including the village of Capel Celyn, was drowned to supply Liverpool. The plan was massively opposed in Wales and led to a huge surge of support for the Welsh Nationalists. It underlined how powerless Wales is when its wishes conflict with those of its big powerful neighbour. Although almost every MP in Wales voted against the plan when it came before the House of Commons, it was approved because their votes were swamped by English MPs.

Earlier this year, in an effort to attract the National Eisteddfod in order to bolster its Year of Culture credentials, Liverpool pathetically apologised for drowning Tryweryn (but refused cash support for a memorial). Shortly afterwards, a BBC documentary about the drowning claimed that Liverpool never needed to drown the valley and today does not use much, if any, water from the reservoir.

2006-06-03T18:31:00.000+01:00

Councils need to reflect voting patterns
How to stop dominent
political parties
misusing their power
There has been a ding-dong going on in Wales with, one one hand, the complaint by an independent councillor in Caerphilly that ruling Labour have taken all the council committee chairs and vice-chairs and, on the other, it being pointed out to him that in independent-run Pembrokshire - where they hold 40 of 60 seats - the independents have taken all the cabinet positions and most of the chairs and vice chairs.

This sort of misuse by dominant parties has been going on for many decades and, not only is it undemocratic, it always leads to councils being grossly inefficient (that's a polite way of putting it and the Valleys are a perfect example).

The answer is to bring in legislation that binds councils to form administrations that more honestly reflect how the voting went.

So if the election result in votes is Labour 40%, Plaid Cymru 35, Lib Dems 15 and Independents 10, then that's how the administration should look, the share of Cabinet positions and committee chairs and vice-chairs reflecting those proportions as near as dammit, i.e honest and genuinely democratic.

It should even be the case if one party wins more than 50 per cent of the vote. There would still be a substantial minority that needs proper representation.

And, yes, I have no problem in seeing 40 independents grouping together as, in effect, a politcal party. For, after all, that is all that a politcal party really is, a group of indviduals banding together in the pursuit of common interests. Hence Pembrokeshire.

2006-06-03T18:02:00.000+01:00

DESPERATE NEED FOR LYBIAN OIL
US brings Gadhafi in from
the cold (and turns blind
eye to his dictatorship)

I see that the US has completed the process of bringinging Lybia's dictator, Col. Gadhafi, in from the cold, citing his backing for George Bush's lamatable "war on terror" (with approval rating at record lows, Mr Bush clearly needs all the friends he can get).

It is of course a load of baloney. Gadhafi still brings terror to his people, in particular those who dare to dissent. His jails (and torture chambers) are home to such people. If ever there was a carbon-copy of Saddam Hussain (whom Ronald Reagan backed to the hilt) then it's Gadafi.

Oil is the real reason for all this sudden bout of back-slapping (we've even seen a handshake from a grinning Tony Blair). With Iraqi oil supplies threatened by the insurgents and Iranian oil in unfriendly hands, the US and UK desperately needs more oil from somewhere, hence the pretence that Lybia is all of sudden the Good Guys. The oil companies, of course, are flooding in.

Not all the US media sees it favourably. Above is how that fine political cartoonist, Sack, whose work appears in various US newspapers, saw Gadhafi's sudden transformation.

2006-06-03T17:44:00.000+01:00

SORRY ABOUT THE DELAY...
Apologies for the gap. I was away on holiday and had hardly been back a day when I went down with some awful bug (was even hospitalised for a while - still no sign at the sharp end of nice Mr Blair's billions having any tangible effect. Where is the m0ney going? More administrators?). Anyway, after a spot of R&R, I'm right as rain, back in the saddle wih nose to the grindstone (if I may happily mix my metaphors). Huge backlog of emails to work through, though...

2006-05-15T00:07:00.000+01:00

TIME FOR LEAGUE SIDES IN INTERNATIONALS?
English soccer
- geared to
helping England lose
I'm not a great footie fan, but I wish England well in the next month's World Cup. But after visiting friends in England I did find the presence of so many England flags somewhat incongrous, given that the sport the English fans follow so feverently is hardly geared to helping their national side succeed.

The Premiership is so stuffed with foreign players that on occasions sides are fielded without a single player eligible for England. The sad net result is that the pool of top players available for England is very small indeed (Welsh rugby is headin the same direction).

Perhaps football and rugby should face up to this reality and drop national sides altogther and, instead, play internationals between teams drawn from the top levels in each country. Now there's a thought.

2006-05-14T23:34:00.000+01:00

I welcome your views
- there's a website, too
Either use the blog comment facility or email me direct at suedavies1400@yahoo.co.uk (if you email me direct I will acknowledge your comment on the blog and you will get a personal reply - I can't do that with anon comments).

My blog is linked to a comment website – cymruwales.net – which has categories covering Wales, UK, international, media, monarchy and Catalunya plus plenty more scope for other people's opinions, for or against. Comments to this blog are repeated there.

The site also has a ‘Welsh roots’ section, potted histories of many places in Wales and hundreds of Wales-related links.

2006-05-14T23:23:00.001+01:00

WHY PEOPLE WON'T VOTE
Thumbs down to
constant strife
in party politics
I read that the Institute for Public Policy Research wants us to be forced to vote in elections and that several Cabinet members are in favour. As much as I would love to see more people turning out on polling day, this is the worst possible answer.

There are two main reasoms why turn-outs have slumped.

People are fed up with seeing the political parties constantly at each other's throats instead of working together for the good of the community or the country and they are fed up with all the lies, the sleaze and the hypocricy that disfigures government at all levels.

Herding us to the polling stations (where like as not there'll be nobody worth voting for) won't change any of that one jot. What's needed are whosesale changes in party politics (i.e. a lot more honesty). That'll bring the people back to the polling booths.

2006-04-30T19:34:00.001+01:00

IRAQ COST MAY REACH $811 BILLION
Record oil prices
hurts the world
- but rich get richer
The so-called War on Terror has forced up the price of oil to levels which were unimaginable a few years ago, making vast profits for many already very rich people - oil speculators, oil company executives and oil shareholders, including, so I gather, some senior members of the Bush administration.

It's got to the point where it isn't just hurting car owners. Right across the board, industry is passing on increased fuel costs to the consumer.

Which means prices are soaring, which means shoving up inflation, which means rising interest rates, which means industry costs are up, which means yet more pressure on prices and inflation.

Within that giddy spiral, householders have less to spend because mortgages are more costly and prices are rising.

Is there an upside? Well, house prices might slow down and motorists might switch to cars that guzzle less petrol. More people might jump on a bus. But don't bet too much on it.

This is all happening across the world with many nations hacking back their growth rates. Everywhere you look, the real victioms are the world's poor.

Meanwhile I read that a US Congressional committee forecasts that the cost of the Iraq war could reach $811 billion (that's £445 billion). It's mind-boggling. Such a sum would irradicate huge swathes of world poverty.

2006-04-30T19:22:00.001+01:00

POWYS HAD TOO MANY FALSE INDEPENDENTS
Put your trust in those
honest enough to admit
their political leanings
Political parties constantly at each other's throats at all politcal levels to the detriment of their communities is the main reason why so many peopole are fed up with politics.

Independents are usually the best way forward, which is why I don't necessarily welcome the emergence of party political groupings on Powys County Council, thus ending the long tradition there of being run by independents.

But it was inevitable because there are two kinds of independents and in Powys there were too many of the wrong kind.

I refuse to believe that there is anyone in politics who is genuinely non-political - everyone has political leanings of some sort. The problem with many "independent" councillors, therefore, is that you never know which way they lean. These false independents could - and often do - hide views that would be repugnant to the people voting them in.

A friend, who used to be a councillor, tells me that when he first stood for a Valleys community council, he knew that a fellow candidate describing herself as "independent" was in fact a Conservative Party activist in Cardiff. When he challenged her, she openly admitted that she knew that Conservatives stood no chance in the Plaid Cymru/Labour-dominated district where she lived.

In the same election, hardly anyone knew that another affable-sounding "independent" had, in his youth, been a card-carrying member of Oswald Mosely's Blackshirts, and his views (in private) hadn't changed much. Fortunately neither got in, but they came close.

The only independents worth their salt are who have the courage to admit their leanings to the voters - and often the voters will reward this honestly.

Take my friend. He was a Plaid Cymru councillor but he left the party because, in his view, two key colleagues were clearly dishonest and the party refused to do anything about it. He stood as an independent but as his support for nationalism hadn't changed he was open about it with the electors. Not only was he relected, but his vote shot up. Another independent who didn't hide her Labour-leanings also did well.

I'm told that they both found it much easier to work with each other and with both sides on the council, primarily because - despite their leanings - they did not belong to a political grouping.

That, to me, is the way to go. In Powys, voters were starting to twig that some independent councillors were not what they seemed. And I think the parties knew it.

2006-04-30T19:03:00.000+01:00

BACKING FOR BRUTAL RIGHT-WING DICTATORS
US policies have
caused many of
the world’s problems
I often get accused of being anti-American because of the comments I make. It’s a charge I vigorously deny. I've been to America several times and enjoyed my visits. It's an exciting country and, in general, most Americans I meet are warm, friendly and enjoy a good argument. Any stereotypical picture you might have probably doesn't exist.

And I certainly don't hold with criticising individuals in Britain (as happens a lot) simply because they are American.

No, what I'm opposed to is purely on the political front - for instance, American foreign policy, which has caused many of the major problems the world faces today and continues to make the world more unsafe.

For more than a century, the US - supposedly the bastion of freedom and democracy - has actively supported brutal right-wing dictatorships that brought terror and enslavement to many millions across the world.

Why? To save the world from communism? Rubbish! That was just an excuse that doesn't bear objective analysis to hide the two real objectives - the American military's ruthless aim to keep expanding and arms sales. A key part of the first objective is to build a vast string of bases across the world.

What categorises almost all of the US's foreign ventures has been an utter disregard for the ordinary people of the effected countries. The US has been prepared to see millions stay oppressed, poor, uneducated and lacking in healthcare as long as its policy objectives were met.

This post is continued on the website cymruwales.net international page where a few examples are give - Cuba, The Philipines, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Iran and Spain.

2006-04-23T16:03:00.001+01:00

A ROSE FOR HER, A BOOK FOR HIM
Catalunya - where they
really know to
celebrate Sant Jordi Day
Today is St George's Day. A footie-mad friend tells me that when Barcelona ousted Chelsea from the Champions League a few weeks back, soccer websites were filled with messages from rueful Chelsea fans to the effect that least the Barca fans showed immense respect for English soccer, the proof being all the England flags they displayed in Barca's Camp Nou stadium.

Sorry, lads. It was nothing to do with respect for England. St George (Sant Jordi) is the patron saint of lots of places, including Catalunya, of which Barcelona is the capital. He's been their saint for more than a thousand years. Barca soccer fans are fierce nationalists, hence the flags with red crosses.

In Catalunya, the Sant Jordi festival lasts several days with every town and city district putting on all kinds of events, including funfairs, rock and classic concerts and Gegant competitions (giant dolls, see photo).

What a contrast. I've been in England on St George's Day and you'd not see it different from any other day.

This is also when, by tradition in Catalunya, the woman gives the man a book and he gives her a rose and the streets are lined with rose and book stalls. I thought it sounded a bit sexist, but my Catalan friends tell that the book is quite likely to be one she wants to read. Huge numbers of books are sold. Apparently, Spain's Second Republic started it all in the 1930s to encourage reading and raise literacy standards.

2006-04-23T10:54:00.000+01:00

THEY'D HAVE TO REWRITE HISTORY
Image how the mafia
would look in a
thousand years time
Imagine today's mafia families being allowed to develop completely unchecked over the next 1,000 years or so.

You would see them accruing vast riches through hundreds of years of many murders, even mass murder, land grabs, thievery, torture, extortion and getting laws passed, enacted at the point of a gun, to give their many terrible crimes a veneer of respectibility, all the while adding airs and graces and ever grander titles to mark their untouchable superiority over the rest of us.

And, to be sure, these families would surround themselves with a vast network of "made" cronies, utterly dependent on the "godfathers" at the centre for their riches and titles, carefully graded according to how useful they've been in keeping the coffers overflowing. Occasionally, one family would oust another in a violent shoot-out but the raking in of vast fortunes would continue unabated.

But how could the mafia families get away with it for so long? Simple. Through their enormous influence they could easily make sure that accounts of their history are sanitised to the point of downright dishonest. Supression of the truth could be so successful that society would come to celebrate the memory of these monsters and even see their present-day descendants as wonderful people, somehow ordained by God to be over us in perpetuity.

Of course, this evil process would have to have the grandest name possible. I suggest "monarchy".

Happy birthday, ma'am.

2006-04-20T17:42:00.000+01:00

HYPOCRICY BEHIND CHINA LEADER'S US VISIT
US bans Cuba trade but
encourages ties with
much bigger villain China
American businesses are banned by law from trading with Cuba. The US even tries to block other countries from trading with the tiny island nation, on account of it being communist with a questionable human rights record (jailing dissidents, for instance). This persecution has succeeded in damaging Cuba's economy.

China is another communist state and has a far worse human rights record - it enslaves more than a billion people, massaced thousands of dissidents at Tiananmen Square in 1989, has jailed countless others, persecutes various faiths and even invaded and occupied another country, Tibet. Every year, it increases its military spending and I've seen it worryingly forecast that within 20 years China will outstrip the US in arms

Yet, not only are US firms allowed to trade with China they have been enouraged to do so by successive US governments. Indeed, China has even been awarded "favoured nation" status. In recent years many US manufacturers have racked up US jobless by moving production to the repressive state and recently internet giants Google and Yahoo announced major investments there, even agreeing to censorship.

Chinese President Hu Jintao is currently on an offical visit to the US and is being glad-handed everywhere - touring a Boeing's factory in the wake of an order for Boeing aircraft, dining privately with Bill Gates of Microsoft and (as I write) is set for talks with President Bush.

I predict that after the talks there'll be some ritual Bush muttering about human rights, to be quickly smothered by the announcements of trade deals.

The other day, the American political cartoonist Ann Telnaes (I'm an admirer of her elegant drawings that pack a lot of punch) nicely summed up the hypocricy behind Hu's visit with this cartooon:

2006-04-20T14:28:00.000+01:00

WHY NOT PUNISH THOSE DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE
It makes no
sense to fine
public bodies
I don't understand the logic behind fining public bodies when they make some huge blunder. Recently, we saw an English NHS trust fined £100,000 for failing to supervise adequately two doctors at a hospital where a patient died after routine surgery, and two Welsh trusts fined a total of £27,500 over the death of an elderly woman, dropped off at the wrong house by an ambulance crew. There have been many other cases.

The trusts have to pay the fines from money which could be better spent on equipment or more doctors and nurses. The money flows to the Government, which in a roundabout way returns the money to the trusts when, predictably, they fall short of funds.

Rather than this silly merry-go-round, wouldn't be better if the individuals directly responsible for these big, often deadly mishaps - usually the managers - were fined individually and sacked. I sometimes think that the present system is designed to hide and protect grossly inefficient administrators.

2006-04-16T11:47:00.000+01:00

UNION FLAG - 400 YEARS OF CALCULATED INSULT
Left, the union flag of 1606. Right the flag after Ireland was added in 1801. Gradually the flag flattened to become the design known today. No attempt was ever made to add Wales.

We don't need union flag rejig
- just ditch it and keep
our Welsh Dragon flying
England's union flag is 400 years old this year. It was first formed from the crosses of Scotland and England with Ireland added almost two centuries later. Wales was always expressly excluded, yet the Welsh are expected - indeed, ordered - to fly this insulting rag from all public buildings in Wales.

Inevitably, the anniversary has led to calls for the flag to be redesigned to include Wales, with some very weird designs being suggested.

I have a simpler solution. After 400 years of this continuing insult it's time for the Welsh to say enough is enough and ditch the union flag altogether. Refuse to fly it anywhere in Wales.

We don't need the union flag or a redesign because we already have a flag of our own - the Welsh Dragon. That and that alone is what should be flying from Welsh public buildings.

There are those with rose-tinted glasses eager to explain that no insult was intended - that when the flag was being designed in 1706, to reflect union with Scotland, we were excluded for the simple administrative reason that officially Wales was deemed part of England.

This is a gross distortion of the historical truth. Any close examination of that era's political attitudes will show that the Welsh were a hated people.

Why Wales was excluded

The Welsh had flocked to Henry Tudor's banner in the hope if he took the English throne - which he did at the battle of Bosworth in 1485 - he would end England's harsh rule of Wales. They were to be cruelly disappointed.

The Tudors, along with Wales's so-called "great" families, needed to appease the still-strong English nobility and they did so by quickly rejecting their own Welsh roots and reinventing themselves as English. They underlined their commitment to England by leaving in place many of the draconian measures through which England had ruled Wales for centuries. It's why Henry VIII, in one of history's biggest betrayals, tried to destroy Wales, its language and culture once and for all by making Wales part of England. .

That Wales survived this attempt at genocide speaks volumes for the character of the Welsh.

Contrary to sanitised accounts of his reign, Henry VIII was a cruel king, who cracked down on the growing dissent across his realm by having tens of thousands of people executed. Many of the executions - judicial murders - were carried out in Wales, where dislike even hatred of the Tudors was spilling over. Even children were strung up.

The Stuarts came to the throne in 1603, union with Scotland just three years away. The hatred and mistrust of the Welsh that the Tudors had fostered was still a potent force and it was clear that the Welsh, stubbornly adhearinjg to their own language and culture, had not been assimilated into England.

So, what better way of reinforcing Wales's status as a non-people than to remove Welsh symbols from the royal coat of arms - which is why England's three lions are there twice - and keep the Welsh off the newly-designed flag altogether.

It was a calculated insult that has been allowed to stand for 400 years, supported by every English monarch ever since. The flag marks the Welsh as an inferior people.

Redesign would be a sop

I have no doubt that the English monarchy would not hesitate to authorise a redesign if they thought it would help bolster their crumbling position in Wales. They're an unprincipled bunch that will do anything, say anything to keep their lucrative grip on Britain.

But it would be for all the wrong reasons - just a sop. As such the Welsh should have no truck with the idea. We have the Welsh Dragon - let's keep it flying.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I welcome your views
- there's a website, too
Either use the blog comment facility or email me direct at suedavies1400@yahoo.co.uk (if you email me direct I will acknowledge your comment on the blog and you will get a personal reply - I can't do that with anon comments).

My blog is linked to a comment website – cymruwales.net – which has categories covering Wales, UK, international, media, monarchy and Spain plus plenty more scope for other people's opinions, for or against.

The site also has a ‘Welsh roots’ section, potted histories of many places in Wales and hundreds of Wales-related links.

2006-04-10T20:10:00.000+01:00

TWO BRANDS Of NATIONALISM
A man who sees
much evil in a
St David's Day parade
A Will Williams, in a letter to the Western Mail, saw evil in the Saint David's Day parade through Cardiff centre. The cause of his ire? He saw a child wearing a beret and - heavens forfend! - he even saw people with flags bearing the cross of St David. Oh, such evil!

Come off it, Mr W, are all the world's beret wearers evil? As for the flag, for goodness sake, it was St David's Day, after all.

His letter is typical of the scare-mongering arguments used over many years to lead Wales away from its true destiny, leaving it, as it is today, officially classed as one of the poorest corners of Europe, so poor that it still qualifies for Brussels aid even after the inclusion of impoverished nations from eastern Europe.

There are two kinds of nationalism. I detest one, I embrace the other.

Nazi Germany, the European scramble for Africa in the 19th century and, currently, Pax America are examples of the worst kind - a ruthless determinatiion to dominate, colonise or gobble up other nations or even whole continents, backed if necessary by massive force.

The other is my kind of nationalism - a firm belief that Wales will be far better off as an independent nation. It's a belief - far from "unquestioning" - based on studying the economic arguments and comparing the economies of the very many successful small nations.

I don't want to dominate or invade any other nation. My kind of nationalism is light years away from the "nationalism, misguided by blind xenophobia" that Mr W pretended to see in that Cardiff parade.

In his letter he say he loves a good debate. So do I, so perhaps he will join me in urging that the Welsh be allowed what they have never have been allowed - an unfettered public debate on the pros or cons of Welsh independence.

2006-04-10T17:45:00.000+01:00

THEY WALKED 15FT OVER SENTRY LINE
Helen and Sylvia case
proves anti-terrorist
laws will be mis-used
The concern that civil liberties groups often have when anti-terrorist laws are being framed is that they will quickly be mis-used to curtail free speech and peaceful demonstration. Such worries are always rejected by the government and police as ridiculous and alarmist.

Taken then the case of Helen John and Syliva Boyes, both grandmothers in their 60s and both veterans of the wonderful Greenham Common protests of 25 years ago.

A few days ago, these two indomitable women walked 15ft across the sentry line at the United States military base at Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire. They were promptly arrested under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act.which came into effect this month.

They were held for 12 hours at Harrogate Police Station before being released on police bail. When they return to the police station on April 15 they face prosection as potential terrorists with the prospect of up to a year in prison or a heavy fine.

The women, who have been arrested more than a dozen times between them, carried placards denouncing the new law and leaflets expressing their support for the people of Diego Garcia and the Chagos Islands, who were evicted from their homes to make way for US military bases.

Before this law military police only had the power to escort protesters off the military sites and prosecute them for civil trespass.

Mrs John is quoted by the BBC as describing the new law as a "kick in the teeth for the Magna Carta".

She said the need for opponents of the Government to take direct action was greater now than ever. "We have seen two million people standing in Hyde Park and Tony Blair had no compunction in ignoring them. Even though there are huge numbers of people who oppose what the Government is doing, the only effective protests have been where direct action is taken. We have to demonstrate at the bases where the killing capacity exists - we have to attack it at source. These are the eyes and ears of the US war fighting machine and they are on our soil."

I couldn't agree more.

2006-04-10T17:28:00.001+01:00

MY BLOG IS
LINKED
TO WEBSITE
This blog is linked to a website - cymruwales.net - which has categories covering Wales, UK, international, monarchy, media and Spain plus a lot more scope for other people's opinions, for or against. The site also has a 'find your Welsh roots' section, potted histories of many places in Wales and hundreds of Wales-related links.

2006-04-10T17:15:00.001+01:00

CONCERN OVER BULK ANTHRAX TENDERS
If Iran, then why not
haul US in front
of Security Council?
If Iran is to be hauled before the UN Security Council over suspicions that its nuclear ambitions are not peaceful then why not the United States as well?

It appears that the US is preparing to stockpile biological weapons in direct contravention of treaties designed to limit their spread and, like Iran, has failed to convince that the intentions are peacful.

The magazine New Scientist recently revealed that the US army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah is asking companies to tender for the production of bulk quantities of a non-virulent strain of anthrax, and for equipment to produce significant volumes of other biological agents. The US renounced biological weapons in 1969 but is known to have produced small quantities of anthrax as recently as 1998.

The tender requests were discovered by the Sunshine Project (SP), a US-German organisation that campaigns against the use of biological and chemical weapons.

According to SP, one "biological services" contract specifies, "The company must have the ability and be willing to grow Bacillus anthracis Sterne strain at 1500-litre quantities." Other contracts are for fermentation equipment for producing 3000-litre batches of an unspecified biological agent, and sheep carcasses to test the efficiency of an incinerator for the disposal of infected livestock.

Although the Sterne strain is not thought to be harmful to humans and is used for vaccination, the scale of the contracts has caused major concern. Alan Pearson, programme director for biological and chemical weapons at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington DC, said, "If one can grow the Sterne strain in these units, one could also grow the Ames strain, which is quite lethal."

A spokesperson for Dugway said the anthrax contract is at an early stage and that the base has not yet acquired the agent.

The spokesperson refused to say what the stocks will be used for. According to Sunshine they could be used to test procedures to decontaminate vehicles or buildings, or to test an "agent defeat" warhead designed to destroy stores of chemical and biological weapons.

There are even fears that they could be used to determine how effectively anthrax is dispersed when released from bombs or crop-spraying aircraft. "I can definitely see them testing biological weapons delivery systems for threat assessment," says Hammond.

Whatever use it is put to, however, the move could be seen as highly provocative by other nations, he says. "What would happen to the Biological Weapons Convention if other countries followed suit and built large biological production facilities at secretive military bases known for weapons testing?"

* Dugway is no mythical "Area 51". Covering 800,000 acres 85 miles from Salt Lake City, it even has a website with the usual sanitised, meaningless "mission statement".

2006-04-10T16:21:00.000+01:00

SIGNS DESIGN GIVES WELSH-BASHERS AMMO

SIGNS: in Wales (above) and in Ireland

Take Irish road
on bilingual
road signs
With monotonous regularity, the anti-Welsh brigade turn their attention to bilingual road signs. Generally, the attacks come in letters to newspapers owned from England (i.e. almost every newspaper in Wales) which are usually only too willing to give them lavish attention.

Typical is the claim that "the majority of motorists find these directional and warning signs confusing and therefore dangerous". Such claims as baseless because there is a wealth of research that shows that most motorists are in fact NOT confused by bilingual signs which are therefore NOT dangerous, whether the signs be in Wales or in the many bilingual nations across the wortd.

But there is a change I would like to see in Wales which would go a long way towards cutting the ground from under the detractors and that is to cease the practice of putting Welsh and English all in the same typeface.

Instead, we should adopt the Irish system of placing the Irish language at the top in upper and lower case and the English underneath in capitals, thus in a sense giving both languages an equal validity. Of course, that would only apply where there is a marked difference. If the English is close to the Welsh, then the Welsh only should apply. I would be happy with that, even though I'm not a fluent Welsh speaker.

I made this suggestion many years ago in a letter to the then Welsh Office (in the good old days when the Tories ran Wales despite only having six Welsh MPs) but never received a reply. That might be because I asked for a comment on a suggestion I'd heard somewhere that the same-typface policy was the brainchild of someone who disliked Welsh and wanted to provide future Welsh-bashers with ammo.

2006-04-03T20:04:00.001+01:00

HISTORY - LABOUR PULLING IN TWO DIRECTIONS
I support ‘Welsh working
class’ museum plan
but there is a snag
Assembly Member for Merthyr Huw Lewis is calling for a museum to "present the struggles and achievements of the Welsh working class". I fully support this idea.

An excellent site would be Pontypridd Museum, sitting alongside the historic stone bridge over the River Taff in the centre of the town. This splendid museum, in its permanent displays, already has many of the elements Mr Lewis undoubtedly has in mind..

First of all though he will have to have a word with his Labour colleagues who took over Rhondda Cynon Tâf Council last year and who, if various reports are to be believed, are preparing to axe the museum's funding, a calamity that will almost certain see its closure.

2006-03-30T11:20:00.001+01:00

LACK OF POWERS COMES HOME TO ROOST
Report backs heavy
Welsh opposition
to police mergers
When, in 1998, the legislation setting up our weak Welsh Assembly was going through the English Parliament, the Lords and the Commons joined forces to deny Wales power over various areas, the basic sentiment seeming to be there was much you couldn't trust Welsh with.

High on that long list was policing. If ever a chicken came home to roost it was that failure to grant the Assembly full powers.

Which is why we now have Wales' four police forces and the police authorities that run them almost unanimous in opposing the stupid plans of the English Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, to merge all four forces into one sprawling conglomerate force that couldn't possibly satisfy the needs of a nation as diverse as Wales.

All four police authorities in Wales - Gwent, South Wales, Dyfed-Powys and North Wales - have rejected the proposals. North Wales Police are even considering legal action. This hefty opposition is in direct contrast to Tony Blair's claim - to the Commons in Prime Ministers Questions the other week - that the mergers had substantial support in Wales.

This opposition has now received firm backing from a think-tank, the Policy Exchange, which has roundly condemned the mergers as "misleading and misguided".

Its report says smaller forces like Dyfed-Powys perform better. The force, which employs around 1,200 officers - actually outperform larger forces such as the Metropolitan Police, which with a serving force of over 31,000 officers is the largest in England and Wales.

Scotland runs its own policing and is therefore immune from these disasterous mergers. This could so easily have been the case in Wales if our pathetic MPs had done their job properly instead of eagerly lining up behind those who did not have Wales's interests at heart.

2006-03-29T12:56:00.000+01:00

URGENT NEED FOR DEMOCRACTIC CONTROL
WAC has failed
to bring arts
to wider public
As someone who adores the theatre (so little quality in Wales) and art exhibitions, even the most avent-garde of shows, I've long been of the opinion that the Arts Council of Wales has done a poor job in bringing the arts to the wider public, seeming to prefer to concentrate its quite sizeable resources on what is more likely to appeal to the better-off; opera springing to mind as an prime example. What forays there have been into pleb-land appear to be more cosmetic than lasting.

ACW has been existance long enough for it to have recognised where it deficiencies lay and to have taken effective action. But it has miserably failed to do so.

In which case - in what for me is a rare show of support for the Welsh Assembly's Labour administration - I fully support Culture Minister Alun Pugh's attempts to remedy the situation. He was right to bundle failed chairman Geraint Talfan Davies out of the job (in my view he has done far too little to address the problems in his three years at the helm) and I back his direct-funding proposals if they would achieve bringing many more people to the arts.

That the Assembly opposition should have suddenly banded together to kick Mr Pugh's proposals into touch is suspicious. The risk now is that the arts will continue to be the preserve of the more well-off. It seems as if they could not see any further than grabbing at a rare opportunity to defeat the minority administration. What they failed to see is that they they themselves, as elected representatives (well, most of them), could bring their influences to bear.

Why have both an Arts Council AND an Assembly Culture Committee. The latter could easily do the job of the former, and be more democratic. We are a small nation and can ill afford this expensive duplication.

There is a another dimension - the virtulent campaign against Mr Pugh and his proposals by the Western Mail, stepped up massively since he had the temerity to describe the paper's serious coverage as a "joke". The Mail is now unfairly lambasting Mr Pugh at every turn. I strongly suspect that the opposition saw in this camapign a chance for favourable headlines and, of course, they were right.

Now Prof Dai Smith has accepted the role of interim chair pending an independent review of arts policy (to be chaired by Professor Elan Closs Stephens, of S4C fame). My attitude was neatly summed up by this short letter from a D Griffiths of Penygraig, published in the Mail recently. I hope the two Profs take note:

SIR - My goodness! What a frenzy! The suggestion that the arts should extend to all areas of Wales has created an outpouring of criticism from the establishment, duly recorded in many inches of columns in the Western Mail. The intimation that an elected body might take control of public money must be very upsetting to so many people.

2006-03-27T15:02:00.000+01:00

PRINCE'S 'WORD OF GOD' CALL IS CONFUSING
Is Charles backing
biblical support
for beating up women?
In a typically garbled speech in Saudi Arabia, Prince Charles inists that the “great ages of faith” understood “the art of interpretation of sacred texts between the meaning of God's word for all time and its meaning for this time”.

He also urged greater tolerance, adding "We should do all we can to overcome the distrust that poisons so many people's lives."

Well, that's easy to say. Trouble is, so much of this "poison" flows from the "sacred texts" on which he seems to place great store. For instance, does Charles support the clear justification the "sacred texts" provide for men beating up women?

Women were told by St Peter to “obey and serve in silence.” prompting St Augustine to write, "My mother blindly obeyed the husband she had been given. And when women came to her with the marks of their husbands’ wrath on their faces, she told them: it is you who are to blame, and your tongue; for it is arrant impertinence in a servant to stand up to her master, which would not happen if you understood that, in the marriage contract, you took service as his underling and, given this condition, must never be proud or quarrel with your husband.”

Violence in the home, based on "scared texts", was well known in medieval times. Hence we find St Teresa urging novices doubtful of their vocation to consider what would become of them should they choose otherwise: “You do not know the mercy God has shown you in choosing you for Himself, freeing you from subjection to a man who may destroy your body, if not your soul as well.”

There have been many instance that this thinking lives on in modern times.In Spain recently there was a furore when a Catholic Church theologian blamed battered wives for provoking their husbands: “No one has said what the victims did, who often provoke with their tongue,” he wrote in a parish newsletter. There was anger too when an iman in Andalucia gave advice on how to beat one’s wife without the marks showing.

I don't believe for one single moment that God ever intended for women to be treated as badly as they are by many of world's religions. Men wrote these texts and took the opportunity to exercise extreme control over women, even over how they dress.

Hence St Peter: “Women are subject to their husbands, and must not have their hair uncovered out of doors.” Why? Hence St Paul: “Women are to dress decently... without curls in their hair.” Why? Hence St Jerome: "A virgin must uncover no more than her eyes when she goes forth in the street.” Why?

If a woman wants to follow this dress code out of personal free will then that is fine and I would support her right to do so. But in many parts of the world women risk multilation or death if they disobey the rules in these "sacred texts".

If Charles, as I suppose he might, says that he didn't mean that we should follow everything in the "scared texts" then where does he draw the line? If he doesn't tell us in detail, then he is simply - as he so often does - making vague speeches which sound good but are on close examination meaningless.

2006-03-25T13:25:00.000Z

LINKED TO WEBSITE
This blog is linked to a website - cymruwales.net - with much
more scope for other people's opinions, for or against.

2006-03-25T12:50:00.000Z

IS ONLY SOUTH WALES CIVILISED?
Is this letter
trying to stir
up hatred?
This letter - as good an exmple of what's wrong with Wales these days - appeared in the Western Mail the other day:

SIR - Having just returned from foreign climes, Machynlleth... May I suggest that 20 or so 200 x 200ft signs are placed facing north on a line that runs from Aberystwyth to Welshpool with the words "Welcome to Civilisation" written on them.
IA PRICE, Cwmparc, Rhondda

I know the Machynlleth area well and it is a truly beautiful part of Wales, so I have to wonder what was behind this suggestion that only the southern half of Wales can be regarded as civilised. Was it an attempt to stir up hatred between the various parts of Wales (in which case why did the Western Mail print it?).

I have lived in Cardiff all my life, but there are branches of my family across North Wales (their roots in farming), in West Wales (oil industry) and the Valleys (teaching and engineering) so I have very little sympathy with small-brained people from one part of the country slagging off people in another part.

Our small nation can ill afford to be at each other's throats. We desperately need to stand together as one people if we are to climb out of the poverty that infects so many areas of Wales.

I note that the letter-writer lives in the Valleys, a part of Wales I admire for its fine, robust communities but see as marred by much deprivation. Surely his/her invective would be far better aimed at those whose policies have made the Valleys - officially - one of the poorest parts of Europe, thus qualifying for EU aid.

2006-03-24T12:41:00.000Z

POOR JUDGEMENT BY LORDS
Why couldn't this
school have simply
allowed Muslim jilhab?
I took a look at the House of Lords judgement which overturned a court decision granting Muslim pupil Shabina Begum the right to wear the traditional jilhab gown at school.

The lords based their unanimous judgemen on their claim that the school in Luton, where 79% of pupils are Muslims, had "taken immense pains to devise a uniform policy which respected Muslim beliefs".

But Shabina's case was that the policy, which allowed shalwar kameez (trousers and tunic), "did not satisfy Islamic clothing", so clearly it was obvious that in fact the policy did not respect Muslim beliefs enough. Why couldn't the judges see that?

As a former teacher, I have nothing against school uniform but where genuine religious beliefs are involved I see nothing wrong at all with those beliefs taking precedent if the happiness and well-being of a child is involved. With goodwill and imaginative thinking such beliefs can easily be incorporated into a school code

What on earth was wrong in allowing the jilhab? Why couldn't the school have simply said that Muslim girls could wear either the shalwar or the jilhab?

I have long believed that many senior judges - particular those in the House of Lords - are way out of touch with the real world. This poor judgement has done nothing to alter that view. I wonder what vast sum has been pointlessly spent in defending this stubborn policy?

2006-03-24T11:27:00.000Z

THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF A TERRIBLE FOLLY
Iraq - after three
years of carnage
who to believe?
On the third anniversay of the US-UK invasion of Iraq, both President George W Bush and PM Tony Blair spun as best they could the constant and massive carnage among the Iraqi people that their badly-handled war has helped to deliver.

There have been hugely optimistic speeches from both of them, both ignoring that their reason for invading - that Saddam Hussain had weapons of mass destruction and was about to use them - proved wholly false, the equally false story now being that they invaded to save the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator (Blair also still tries to connect the invasion with the September 11 attacks, a notion that even the Bush camp has long since dropped).

But who should we believe? Bush and Blair or the growing army of critics, the US side of it neatly summed up by this recent Doonesbury cartoon:

The American people have already made up their mind. Support for the war along with Bush's popularity and approval ratings have plumetted. It's no wonder that Republicans gearing up for November's US Congressional elections are deeply worried with many distancing themselves from their hapless president at a great rate of knots.

REPORT CLAIMS SHE NOW FACES DESELECTION

2006-03-17T12:37:00.001Z

Leanne Wood, courageous AM

Leanne, the only AM
with courage to join
anti-monarchy demo
Leanne Wood, one of Plaid Cymru's Welsh Assembly members, continues rise in my estimation. The Assembly has several AMs of various parties with pro-republican sympathies (if the Assembly is typical of the population then perhaps as many as 20) but she was the only one with the courage to join the large but poorly-reported anti-monarchy demo outside the new Assembly building when it was officially opened the other day by some doddering old dear who lives in London.

It's a sad commentary on the rampant hypocrisy in public life these days that - according to a newspaper report - Leanne now faces the prospect of being "deselected" by Plaid Cymru as a result of her courage.

If true, this wouldn't surprise me. A long time ago I was a Plaid Cymru member but left because the party, which used to set its sights on a Welsh republic, had clearly become infected by a desperate desire to be embraced by the "middle England" of Wales, and that meant diluting such founding principles as anti-monarchism and, as we've seen in recent years, even ditching the drive for independence.

A journalistic device

Mind you, the report relied almost entirely on quoting "a senior Plaid source". I have viewed such reporting devices with a lot of suspicion ever since a journalist told me that such quotes are sometimes genuine but sometimes aren't.

She said that what sometimes happens is that the newspaper's editor or news editor thinks up an idea and instructs a reporter to write a story about it. The reporter can't find anything to support the idea, but does that mean that the story is dropped on the grounds that the editor/news editor's idea is far-fetched nonsense?

No. It will still appear, but supported by quotes from "insiders" or "industry sources" or "a close friend" and so on. The practice, so I'm told, isn't confined to small local papers but is widely used on national newspapers, in particular the tabloids.

POINT IS - IRELAND IS FREE, WALES ISN'T

2006-03-17T11:30:00.000Z

Daft to accuse
Irish of ‘beggar
my neighbour’
In a letter to the Western Mail, a Gwyn Meredith admits that "Ireland has benefited from increased prosperity in recent years" but tries to dissuade the Welsh from following suit by accusing the Irish of adopting "beggar my neighbour" policies to achieve that prosperity.

This is daft. Every nation in the world is constantly competing with every other nation to tempt foreign companies in to provide work and prosperity for its citizens. To put it crudely, the UK, for example, would be quite prepared to see factories close in some other part of the world and their workers made jobless if those factories would then move to some part of the UK and provide jobs here. If that isn't "beggar my neighbour" then what is?

The whole point of the Ireland-Wales comparison is not that this or that individual policy might or might not work here but the simple fact that Ireland can make whatever economic decisions it feels appropriate because it has full independence; Wales doesn't. As a result, Ireland has prosperity; Wales doesn't.

MUCH MORE SCOPE FOR READERS' OPINIONS

2006-03-06T13:16:00.000Z

"cymruwales.net"
At long last, website
linked to my blog
is up and running
It's been a long time coming, but the promised website linked to this blog is finally here.

I've teamed up with CommentCymru at cymruwales.net, which has other stuff about Wales. This blog will continue, but each item will be repeated on the website along with additional comments.

To start with the comments are split into Wales & UK and International (incuding the so-called "War on Terror") but gradually there will be other categories.

There is also be much more scope for readers' opinions - for or against - as well the chance to introduce new topics on separate pages. Responses to the blog will be better displayed.

There is a letters policy to avoid racism snd abuse for abuse's sake but the aim is to carry every letter in full - with none of the political censorship routinely used by the mainstream media, to which my letters have often fallen victim.

MORE PEOPLE LAMBAST WESTERN MAIL

2006-03-05T19:13:00.001Z

Mail editor 'stands by
right' of columnists to
express homophobic views
Once again, the Western Mail's editor's Alan Edmonds is making statements that do not stack up against reality.

The paper has been heavily criticised by politicians and readers in general for allowing one of its columnists, Lowri Turner, to express disgracefully homophobic views.

Even the Welsh Assembly's Equality Committee has written to Mr Edmunds criticising his decision to carry the column, saying "Homophobia, together with all other forms of prejudice, is unacceptable in any modern, democratic, civilised society, and it is therefore disappointing to say the least that an article that promotes such attitudes appeared in a newspaper that purports to be 'the national newspaper for Wales'."

Quoted by the BBC (I haven't noticed the story in the Mail yet) Mr Edmunds said, "The view which caused concern was expressed not by the paper but by our columnist, Lowri Turner. Columnists are, by their nature, there to write challenging, often controversial things and, while their views are not necessarily the views of the paper or its editor, I stand by their right to express them.

"There was no intention to offend. We publish views and opinions every day with which some people will disagree.

"This is a democracy and it is not the role of the National Assembly to hold editors to account for the content of their newspapers. In my view that would be a dangerous and unhealthy precedent for Wales."

This is idiotic. Are we to presume that if his columnists held anti-Jewish, anti-Islamic views or pro-Nazi views, he would "stand by their right to express them".

Mr Edmunds appears not to understand the nature of his job. Editors ARE responsible for the content of their newspapers. Lowri Turner is employed by the paper as a columnist and every view she expresses, controversial or otherwise, becomes in effect the view of the paper once the editor has cleared her column for publication. That is why if she libelled someone it would be the paper as well as her who could be sued.

The letters column to which Mr Edmunds alludes are an entirely different matter. Yes, libel cannot be allowed there either, but the wide-ranging views expressed in a letters column do not become the view of the paper because the individual writers are not empolyed by the paper and that distinction is widely recognised and understood.

You always know when someone is losing the argument when they grotesquely exaggerate what their critics are saying. Hence Mr Edmunds describes the perfectly reasonable right of the Assembly's politicians to question him - as "a dangerous and unhealthy precedent for Wales."

By the way, he didn't stand by the right of Alun Pugh (see below) to express a view critical of the Western Mail. He promptly fired him as a columnist.

What Lowri Turner said:

Writing during the Liberal Democrat leadership contest, under the headline "However much I love my gay friends, I don't want them running the country', Ms Turner criticised contenders Mark Oaten and Simon Hughes, who had admitted gay relationships, saying gay men did not make good party leaders because they did not face the same challenges as those who had children.

She added, "I have gay friends whose biggest headache is whether to have a black sofa or a cream one... My gay friends have not sat in accident and emergency with a small child."

Invited by the BBC to comment on the criticism, she declined.

Who is Lowri Turner?

Lowri Turner is one of those endless C-list celebs famous for being famous, her main fame claim being that she presents some of those thoroughly boring "reality" shows that cram the TV schedules these days. The Mail, though, was obviously dazzled by her talents and took her on as a columnist some years ago to comment on things Welsh.

After her first efforts, which suggested to me that she was out of touch with what's going on here, I invited the Mail to explain how someone living in London could adequately comment on things in Wales, particularly as it seemed she was rarely here and propably had to wait for her copy of the Western Mail to turn up in the post.

The Mail wouldn't print my letter - surprise! surprise! - but shortly afterwards Ms Turner's column changed tack and became much more general, quickly descending into that mainstay of all poor columnists, being bitchy about other celebs (particularly women) and low-paid workers who couldn't possibly answer back. And thus it has been ever since.

'DOT CAT' WEBSITES ALREADY APPEARING

2006-03-04T12:06:00.000Z

Welsh website
hopes helped
by Catalunya
Those who wish to see Wales with its own internet domain classification - dot cym, perhaps - can take heart from the recent success of Catalunya (I prefer to use the Catalan variant of its name, as most Catalans do) in achieving its own internet presence. "Cat" websites have been swift to appear.

Details of the how this hard-won campaign (heavily backed by the Catalan parliament) was fought and its implications for similar campaigns can be found at:

http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_1/gerrand/index.html#g1

It's yet another example of what Catalunya has achieved since Spain emerged in the 1970s from the nightmare of Franco's brutal dicatatorship, during which the state murdered tens of thousands - perhaps hundreds of thousands - of its own people, including many Catalans.

Catalunya's nationalist politicians quickly saw that they would get nowhere without their own parliament with a firm grasp on the economic levers. That's what they demanded and that's what they acheived and as a direct result Catalunya is now one of the most dynamic and prosperous parts of Europe. Wales please take note.

PRINCE WIELDS ENORMOUS POWER

2006-03-03T12:51:00.001Z

Charles 'dissident' claim is
insult to brave genuine
dissidents around the world
Writing in the Western Mail, a Rhodri Griffith states that he was once anti-monarchy but is now a royalist, mainly on account of Prince Charles's support for some green issues.

Well. I'm the opposite. In my late teen I was a royalist. Now I'm not. Studying history was the key factor .

Mr Griffith praises Prince Charles' views because some of them happen to coincide with his own. But if Charles didn't hold those views, or happen to hold opposite views, as the next monarch along might well do so, would Mr Griffith still be so supportive?

According to recent revelations, unelected Charles constantly wields his power behind the scenes to bend democratically-elected politicians to his personal whims. It means that despite many denials, the monarchy does have a political dimension and I find that disturbing.

It is grotesque to see this pampered multi-millionaire describing himself as a "dissident" when so many genuine dissidents elsewhere in the world are being tortured and murdered for their beliefs.

And surely Mr Griffith is being one-eyed in his choice of republics to lambast. There are republics I would not want us to copy - the US and France, for example, with their deeply politicised presidencies - but there are many others, Ireland and Germany among them, functioning perfectly well with non-political presidents, solid proof that nobody needs a monarchy.

And let's not forget that across the world, throughout history even up to modern times, monarchies were usually cruel dictatorships by another name, often using torture and mass murder to keep all but the favoured few in abject poverty.

I resent not being able to democatically choose my nation's head of state. Monarchies are nothing to be proud of.

The Oaf of Allegience

2006-01-31T14:50:00.000Z

WHY DO IRISH AMs HAVE A
CHOICE ABOUT THE
OATH BUT NOT WELSH AMs?
In a letter to the Western Mail (31/1/06) Arwyn Davies makes a telling point about the oath (oaf?) of allegience appearing to place the queen above God.

There is another serious anomoly: why is the oath of allegience mandatory for assembly members in Wales but not for assembly members in Northern Ireland?

I have tried to get Welsh Assembly officials to answer that question, but they won't. The most I've got from them is the text of the oath (as if I needed it) but never an answer to that important question.

What I do know is that the decision to force the oath on Wales was NOT democractically arrived at by a vote of Welsh Assembly members.

So who did make the oath decision and how can we get it changed so that Welsh AMs have the same right to a choice as Irish AMs?

Western Mail 'joke' controversy

2006-01-28T13:16:00.000Z

PETULENT EDITOR ‘SACKS’
MINISTER FOR
TELLING THE TRUTH
Not long after my previous comment about Culture Minister Alun Pugh accurately describing the Western Mail's serious coverage as a "joke" then I learnt that the Mail's editor, Alan Edmunds, in a move which has left him looking silly and petulent, has "sacked" Mr Pugh from a weekly column he writes (unpaid) about cultural topics in Wales.

Mr Edmunds is quoted as saying: "When someone who writes a column in your paper takes such a cheap shot at it in a public forum it leaves an editor with little choice but to say thank you and goodnight. He said the minister had "managed to insult and alienate every journalist on the paper as well as its readers".

Well, here's one reader who, for reasons outlined in my previous comment, isn't the least bit "insulted" by Mr Pugh's remarks. And I know many other readers who feel the way I do.

Further more, today I rang a journalist I know who used to work for the Mail. Would the paper's journalists feel insulted?

When she had stopped laughing she said, "On the contrary. I think that, privately, most journalists at Thomson House [which is where the Mail, Echo and WoS are published] are worried about the direction the Mail is taking and would be in Mr Pugh's corner.

"It isn't the journalists who are lowering the paper's standards, it's the management."

She added, "It was one thing for Alan Edmunds to take Wales on Sunday way down market [he was editor there prior to moving to the Mail] but nobody expected him to do the same with the Western Mail. It looks like we were all wrong. It's very sad."

[The Western Mail has declined to publish any of my letters supporting Mr Pugh - clearly Mr Edmunds sees himself as being above criticism].

Newspaper executives up before Assembly

2006-01-23T14:45:00.000Z

WESTERN MAIL’S ‘SERIOUS
COVERAGE IS A JOKE’,
SAYS CULTURE MINISTER
For years I've been criticising the Western Mail's decline as a serious newspaper, not that the Mail has ever printed any of my letters containing such criticisms.

There was a time when the Mail was a vital for anyone remotely interested in Welsh current affairs. But I have watched in despair as, increasingly, the newspaper became dismissed by family, friends and colleagues to the point that nobody takes it seriously any more.

So I was not surprised to see the Welsh Assembly's Culture Minister, Alun Pugh describing the Mail's serious coverage as a "joke" when the newspaper's executives were hauled before the Assembly to try and justify plans for deep staff cuts. Mail editor's Alun Edmunds reply was that this was "unfair and difficult to back up".

This revealing exchange did not appear in the Mail's own quite positive coverage of the debate. I wasn't surprised at that omission either - it seems to me the Mail often suppresses views it does not like.

Mr Edmunds went on, "To say that opinion formers regard the serious coverage as a joke is an easy thing to say, but I speak to many opinion formers and they don't say that to me... I would suggest (it is) probably quite a difficult thing to back up. The serious coverage in the Western Mail is now more challenging... it's written in a less turgid manner, it has headlines that are more engaging. There's a lot more humour in the paper and there's a greater variety of stories."

The "joke" accusation isn't at all "difficult to back up". I once spent most of the day at the Assembly and sat in on several debates, some quite important. There was not one word about any of them in next day's Mail, which declined to print my letter of complaint.

After I mentioned this in an online discussion, a journalist emailed me a Press Gazette report (by a former Mail political writer) saying the "dumbed down" Mail no longer has a team of reporters covering the Assembly, instead it leaves it up to its reporter in the House of Commons, far away in London. If that's true, it speaks volumes.

Mr Edmunds' use of "challenging" and "turgid" are particularly revealing. I suspect by "turgid" he really means "lengthy". But as many other newspapers and journals prove every day, longer reports are not turgid if they are well-written. Is Mr Edmunds in effect saying that the journalists he employs are incapable of well-written longer reports?

I follow Welsh current affairs closely and often either there is not one word about key events or the reports are so perfunctory as to be almost incomprehensible - presumably, the "challenge" being to make sense of them (I'd love to know which of Mr Edmunds' "opinion formers" think his serious coverage is so excellent. His Aunt Dolly?).

We keep hearing how the people of Wales do not have a clear idea about what their own Assembly actually does. That's no wonder, given that the Mail's coverage is so poor. Its sister papers, the South Wales Echo, Wales on Sunday and the Liverpool Daily Post (which North Wales people tell me about and which I see when I'm up there) are not much better.

All four newspapers, which between them are completely dominant in Wales, are owned by the profitable Trinity Mirror group. Just how profitable? In the report I saw, the Mail executives disputed National Union of Journalists claims of £200m profits, so I turned to the financial press.

According to Reuters news agency last March: “Publisher Trinity Mirror says its full-year profits surged ahead of expectations... pretax profit was £208.5m, up from £172.5m a year earlier... At the company's regional papers, ad revenue rose 5.3 percent...”

This profit figure was 11 per cent up on the previous year's figure of £155.5m. That's more than half a billion pounds profit in just three years. Sounds pretty profitable to me.

The truth that newspaper owners have made a fundamental error in believing that if they "dumb down" current affairs coverage and serve up a constant diet of "humour" and fluffy lifestyle stories then the readers and money will flock in.

It's a failing strategy. It's not what the more affluent readers want. They're fed up of seeing their intelligence insulted day in, day out and they are turning away. My job straddles business and the public sector and I hear it in all the time.

And the sector that understand this more than most is the advertising industry. There was a time when advertisers believed that most "opinion formers" and reasonably affluent people in Wales automatically bought the Western Mail. They no longer believe that.

Sex offenders back in schools

2006-01-14T11:54:00.000Z

DID KIM HOWELLS RECEIVE
POLICE ADVICE?
IF NOT, WHY NOT?
As a parent and a former teacher I was horrified to learn that people who are on the sex offenders list can be "cleared" to work in schools.

I am far from convinced by the explanation from Kim Howells MP, who has admitted that as a junior minister he "cleared" one such person to resume teaching. He has been defended as having "acted properly" after studing "long and hard" advice from his officials suggesting that the man in question was not a danger to children .

But the case only came to light because local police voiced their deep concern to the education authority involved, so it doesn't sound as if Mr Howells recived advice from the police. Surely, the police attitude in such cases should be a vital ingredient in the file of advice.

If there was police advice ansd it recommended approval, then Mr Howells is in the clear. But if police advice was missing from his file, why didn't he query that? Why didn't he seek it out? Surely, it wouldn't have meant much more than a couple of phone calls. He should be made to answer that question.

Education Secretary Ruth Kelly says she is "reviewing procedures" as a result of this case. What is there to agonise over?

As I see it, there should be one clear-cut rule - as long as someone is on the sex offenders register then, no matter what the level of offence, he or she should not be allowed to work with children. No exceptions.

I note that our own Education Minister, Jane Davidson, is asking Ms Kelly if there are any such cases in Wales. She is AM for Pontypridd. The MP for Pontypridd is, strangely - Kim Howells. Perhaps she should be banging on his door, too.

Welsh-medium education

2006-01-12T12:39:00.000Z

LOW MARKS FOR
STUDY OF WELSH
SCHOOLS PROGRESS
My two children went to a splendid Welsh medium school and emerged well-adjusted and well-educated (after topping up their university degrees, both have gone on to very good jobs) and they are both fiercely proud of their fluency in Welsh.

So it was with surprise I read in the Western Mail of Professor David Reynold's study
which spotted a fall in standards in such schools in recent years. But complacency can strike anywhere, so the schools should examine his findings dispassionately to see if there are lessons to be learned.

I would, though, question his headline-catching terminology - "the dream seems to be is over". The huge success of Welsh medium education wasn't a "dream" it was solid
reality. A course correction may well be needed but it's silly to describe it as being all over as if nothing can be put right.

Further more, what is glaringly missing from his study - presuming it to have been accurately reported - is a comparison with non-Welsh medium schools. Without that data, his study is seriously deficient.

Parents used to be able to see at a glance how schools compared on a range of subjects and the Welsh-medium schools in south-east Wales invariably occupied high league positions.

Had those parental rights not been ended by education minister Jane Davidson's wrong-headed decision some years ago then that slide in standards could have been spotted by parents a lot earlier and answers demanded. After all, we parents can be a pushy lot when we need to be.

Bring back league tables, I say.

'Honours' list mark Welsh subservience

2005-12-31T19:10:00.000Z

LET'S DITCH THIS
RIDICULOUS
BAUBLE-FEST
I saw the New Years Honours list described as "marking Welsh achievements". I see it more as marking Welsh subservience.

For starters, demeaningly, the Welsh are not allowed to choose who from Wales is recognised. Anyone Welsh only gets the nod if the English agree.

Then there is what this discredited "honours" system has become - the principle device by which the English monarchy tries to claw back lost ground as it gradually fades in popularity; hence the scatter-gun approach in recent years of spraying out "honours" in all directions.

Which means - and this is something not generally realised - is that these awards are only for royalists. Anyone known to be anti-monarchist, however deserving of recognition, will be excluded.

Those who genuinely deserve recognition are utterly lost among the majority who clearly don't. Many, of course, are time-servers who are given gongs simply because people of that sort always get them.

The free-thinking Welsh should turn their back on this increasingly ridiculous bauble-fest and demand their own honours system in which only the truly deserving will be recognised.

* The BBC News website asked people for their views on the "honours" list. I took a quick spin through the 460 or so opinions and found it difficult to spot anyone willing to support this antiquated system. It was clear that very many saw Tom Jones and Gordon Ramsey as particularly undeserving of their awards.

2005-12-24T10:51:00.001Z

WISHING YOU ALL
THE NON-PC
COMPLIMENTS
OF THE SEASON
I'd like to wish everyone Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda (that's a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in Welsh) and I don't care tuppence if that offends anyone.

The stupid complex knots that some people - noteably in America and increasingly in Britain - get tied up in as they try to do "the right thing" are a nonsense that ends up with nobody satisfied.

I don't mind in the slightest people of other faiths openly celebrating their festivals nor if their greetings to me reflect that faith.

Nor do I have any problem with a government or community dwelling on one particular faith if it is clear that the majority of its people are of that pursuasion and as long as other faiths are fully tolerated.

It does not worry me if schools want to reflect a particular faith as long as it is clear that the majority of parents wish it so and there is adequate provision for those who do not wish to partake. But that does not mean I support the teaching of one particular religious in the classroom.

The Welsh-medium school my children attended was a good case in point. The Christian faith was part of the school ethos because that was the clear wish of the majority of parents.

But in the classroom my children were taught about the different faiths objectively and in the course of their studies visited a mosque, a synagoge and a Hindu temple. They emerged from that excellent school with enhanced values and a greater understanding of the world; which is how it should be.

'Useless MPs' - the debate rages

2005-12-23T12:58:00.001Z

YES, BUT WAS THAT
MP JUST WRITING
SUPERFLUOUS LETTERS?
Jeff Jones, in a letter to the Western Mail, points out that over the past couple of years his local Member of Parliament wrote far more letters than his local Assembly Member.

I have no reason to doubt the accurancy of Mr Jones's research, but in no way does it dent my long-held belief that because of Welsh devolution MPs in Wales are a costly irrelevance.

As I read his letter the question that sprang to my mind was this: when constituents mistakenly seeks an MP's help with matters which are the Assembly’s responsibility, does the MP point out that they should be contacting their AM (and giving them the contact details) or does he or she pretend that they still have responsibility in these matters by offering to write what in reality is a totally superfluous letter.

I agree with Mr Jones that the who-does-what question confuses people. Ditching our increasingly useless MPs will go a long way to remedying that.

Labour quick to breaks its promise

2005-12-14T18:11:00.000Z

NANTGARW'S WONDERFUL
LITTLE SCHOOL IS
UNDER THREAT AGAIN
I have relatives in the Taffs Well/Nantgarw area, just north of Cardiff, and I am saddened to hear from them that Rhondda-Cynon-Taf Council is planning to close Nantgarw Infants School.

This little school, which takes pupils from nursery up to seven, is a wonderful example of how the youngest children should be taught and just a year ago was highly praised in a school inspector's report, when its academic record was regarded as excellent. The report is full of good reasons why the school should not close.

The school has played a prime role in uniting this former mining community which was smashed apart in the 1960s by the building of the A470 trunk road. There are woods between the school and the old Nantgarw pottery site and parents laboured long and hard to turn those woods into a environmental resource for the school, creatng a celebrated classroom in the trees.

This will be the third time in a decade or so that the school has faced closure. Previously, ferocious campaigns by parents working with their local Plaid Cymru councillors won the day, the council being unable to refute their carefully-collated evidence that contrary to what county officials were claiming the kids were getting a good education.

After the second victory, so I'm told, a Labour councillor claimed that Plaid had greatly exaggerated the threat to the school. He promised the parents that Labour would never close the school. Well, they haven't wasted much time in breaking that promise. Labour regained control of RCT Council earlier this year and quickly progressed with proposals to close the school.

This time round though, Plaid - once dominant in the area - seems a spent force without much stomach for a fight; its county councillor for the area just managing to hang on to his seat in this year's local elections thanks mainly to Labour fielding a virtual unknown.

Labour AM for the Pontypridd area (which includes Nantgarw) is Jane Davidson, the Assembly's education minister. A couple of years ago I listened to a speech by her in favour of small schools. Or rather it seemed to be in favour. When examined closely, her speech was a masterpiece of not really saying anything, so I'm not at all surprised to see her not lifting a finger to help this marvellous little school in her own backyard.

RCT Council should be thoroughly ashamed of itself.

I welcome your views
Either use the blog comment
facility or email me direct at
suedavies1400@yahoo.co.uk

Why Wales needs full independence

2005-12-13T12:09:00.000Z

LONDON MADE IT
IMPOSSIBLE FOR
WELSH ASSEMBLY
TO BE EFFICIENT
I've been having a ding-dong (reflected in an earlier post) in the letters column of the Western Mail with UKIP, the far right party much opposed to the Welsh having a say in their own affairs.

The other day a spokesman attacked my views that Welsh independence would result in at least two costly and largely irrelevant levels of goverment being ditched - the House of Commons and the Lords - by taking a side-swipe at the record of the Welsh Assembly on a couple of issues.

Lest anyone else should think that I support the Assembly in its current form, let me explain that when the Assembly was being set up I followed the Commons and Lords debates closely and was appalled at the grotesque red-tape machine that London officials were insisting that the Assembly become (with, at the time, Labour’s blessing).

I predicted then that the Assembly would have no chance of functioning efficiently saddled with so much pointless machinery. Sadly, this has turned out to be the case, with even some Labour supporters beginning to realise what a mess it created.

The only way Wales will rid itself of London's dead hand is with full independence and the restoration of the Welsh parliament destroyed by an English monarch in the 15th Century.

Ditch both of these dishonest electoral systems

2005-12-13T11:55:00.001Z

PETER HAIN ATTACKS ONE
UNDEMOCRATIC SYSTEM
BUT SUPPPORTS ANOTHER
In a statement the other day, Peter Hain, Labour's Secretary of State for Wales, supported the Assembly for Wales "list" system (which his party invented) but attacked the idea of candidates creeping in via the list after losing elections as unacceptable and undemocratic.

I agree with his criticism, but surely the list itself is hardly democratic in that it results in the Assembly becoming cluttered with AMs who have never had the courage to face the electorate. And what about the first-past-the-post system, which his party supports, by which all the other AMs are chosen? Surely, there can be few electoral systems more undemocratic.

Take the situation, fairly typical in Wales, of a four-way party split. Party A wins 40 per cent of the votes, party B wins 30 per cent, party C wins 20 per cent and party D (usually the Tories) wins 10 per cent.

By Labour's system, party A wins that election outright. But hold on, 60 per cent of the voters did not want party A to win, so the majority of voters go unrepresented. How on earth can that be considered honest or democratic? It’s no wonder there is so much disillusionment with politics.

The answer is to ditch both the "list" and FPTP systems and hold all the elections on a PR basis. There are bad and good PR systems, but the straight-forward transferable vote seems to be the best. The victor will know that she or he reflects the electorate much more accurately. That’s truly democratic and much more honest.

There seems to be a fear that PR is far too complicated for the average voter to understand, but it's used at all levels across the European mainland and in Ireland, with very little complaint. Are the voters there more intelligent than voters in Britain?

Expensive government

2005-11-22T19:55:00.000Z

SUPPORT WELSH FREEDOM
- AND DITCH AT LEAST
TWO COSTLY LEVELS
The chairman of UKIP in Wales lambasts the Welsh Assembly for its level of expenses and allowances. But surely the figures that cause him so much anguish pale into insignificance when compared to the total expenses and allowances achieved by Welsh members of the House of Commons, the House of Lords and the European Parliament.

At least Welsh Assembly members deal with matters of major and direct importance in our daily lives - health, education, the economy, roads, transport and so on, whereas MPs (their workload massively reduced since devolution), peers and MEPs are at best of marginal use, at worst utterly useless.

Those who genuinely want to reduce the cost of government (and I would throw councillors' soaring allowances into the pot as well) should join me in seeking full Welsh independence. At least two costly levels - Commons and Lords - would get the heave-ho staright away.

What the UKIP chief didn't reveal was to what extent are his party's successful candidates (they sit in the European Parliament) prepared to forgoe their expenses and allowances.

A brutal dictator goes on trial

2005-10-18T14:58:00.000+01:00

WHO ELSE SHOULD BE
STANDING IN THE
DOCK WITH SADDAM?
So Saddam Hussain finally goes on trial for a range of dreadful crimes against humanity. But surely there are others who should be in the dock alongside him - and I don't just mean others from within his brutal dictatorship.

I'm thinking in particular about all the Western politicians and military types - mostly American and British, some French - who supported his vicious regime to the hilt for a decade or more when they knew perfectly well that his blood-stained torture chambers were filled to overflowing and that he was gassing his own people..

They did so because of those twin curses - political expediency and arms sales. The US hated Iran so it bank-rolled Saddam's murder-machine and nudged him into a ruinous war that cost around two million young Iraqi and Iranian lives.

Saddam's heavy crimes against the Iraqi people never concerned the US much until it became politically expedient to raise them when they wanted to remove him from power to help get George Bush Jr. re-elected (in the same way that even today the US isn't bothered much that Saddam also gassed Iranian villages - it's not politcally expedient to be bothered about that).

Complicity in torture chambers, in the gassing of innocent men, women and children and in the deaths of millions of young people - aren't these crimes big enough to warrant prosecution somewhere? Of course, the charges won't come from the Iraqi goverment - after all, they know who's paying the bills - but doesn't anyone in the West care?

Tryweryn: my 'reject apology' call criticised

2005-10-14T11:31:00.000+01:00

HOW LIVERPOOL COULD
MAKE ITS 'APOLOGY'
REALLY MEAN SOMETHING
In a previous note I urged that Liverpool City Council's official apology for drowning Tryweryn Valley in 1965 be rejected.

David Banks, a columnist for the Liverpool Daily Post, criticised my call by quoting the council's leader, Mike Storey, as saying, "What happened to the people in the valleys was wrong and I think now is the right time to say sorry." Mr Banks invited me to see that as the council apologising for the act itself.

I saw those words in the the BBC report, but I'm not impressed. Sure, at first glance it might seem to fit the bill, but hold on, what does it really mean?

Is Mr Storey really saying that Liverpool should not have drowned Tryweryn in order to satisfy his city's water needs? Is he admitting, as some of us suspected at the time, that Liverpool could have got its water from elsewhere? Is he speaking from a position of knowledge? Has he seen certain records? If so, can we see them? Is he hinting that he now knows that a Welsh valley was drowned and an entire community destroyed in order that some English valley somewhere wasn't?

I'd like to see Mr Storey spell it out. It could be there's a can of worms to kick over here.

Talk is cheap. If the council wants its apology to mean something, then let's see it gather together the survivors of Tryweryn and their decendents and ask them what they would like done, and be prepared to put their money where their mouth is.

Mr Banks says I shouldn't blame the current generation in Liverool for what happened in 1965. Of course not, but almost every time a tap is turned on in Liverpool the current generation benefits from that dark deed - as future generations will also do. Which is why, though they may not be to blame, they have a responsibility to make sure that any apology is meaningful;

If the council's members truly are sorry and are saying it was wrong for Parliament to overturn the overwhelming Welsh opposition to the drowning, then here's what they can do right now - publically support the call for the Welsh Assembly to be given full legistlative powers so that events, such as Tryweryn, can never happen again.

Perhaps Mr Banks will reflect on that next time he is enjoying a cuppa in the editorial offices of the Post - a cuppa likely to be made with Tryweryn water.

Valley drowning proved Welsh powerless

2005-10-12T21:34:00.000+01:00

WALES SHOULD REJECT
LIVERPOOL'S
TRYWERYN 'APOLOGY'
I see it reported that Liverpool City Council is to formally apologise for the 1965 drowning of Tryweryn Valley, near Bala, thus destroying an entire Welsh-speaking community - a calamitous event that drew many Welsh people (myself included) into support for nationalism..

Some poorly-motivated Welsh politicians, we are told, are urging us to accept this "fulsome" apology. I hope that this so-called "apology" is rejected for what it so clearly is - meaningless political expediency, particularly as, carefully-worded, it dwells more on the "insensitive" handling of the act rather than the act itself.

What Tryweryn did was to prove, if proof was ever needed, that Wales will only have what England allows it to have. If the needs of Wales and England conflict then England will always prevail.

When the necessary Act came before the English parliament not one Welsh MP voted for it. No matter, England's huge imbalance of MPs made sure that this grubby legislation was passed. It showed how powerless the Welsh are when it comes to the crunch.

Forty years on, we may have "devolution" and imagine that we make our own decisions but nothing has changed. The starl reality is England still calls the tune and there is nothing that the "f****** Welsh" (to use Tony Blair's infamous description of us) can do about it.

Wales will never get anwhere until it has genuine independence.

Food poisoning outbreak was waiting to happen

2005-09-27T09:57:00.000+01:00

THIS IS WHAT YOU GET
WHEN SCHOOL
KITCHENS ARE ABANDONED

The massive e.coli 0157 outbreak that has hit many pupils (and now their relatives) across the Welsh Valleys is a disaster that has been waiting to happen.

New cases were reported over the weekend bringing the total to 117. Several children are in hospital, including one so ill she had to be flown by helicopter to a hospital in Bristol. Suspicion has fallen on a Bridgend firm that supplies schools and other places, such as old folks homes, across a wide area of South Wales (the firm in question has rigorously defended its cleanliness record).

But think back to the Thatchite pressures in the 1980s and 1990s (kept going with great gusto by New Labour) that forced education authorities to privatise the service leading to full kitchens in schools being abandoned, particularly in the infant and primary sector where - surprise, surprise - this widspread outbreak is concentrated.

Many parents (I was one of them) were so worried that children's meals were no longer being freshly cooked but being cooked in a factory, then shuttled perhaps 50 miles to be heated up somewhere else that they started giving their children packed lunches instead.

I rarely gave my children pre-cooked, re-heated food at home, so why should it be forced on them at school. My children seemed relieved to be taking their own food - I recall my daughter describing the new-style schools meals as tasting "funny".

Of course the "open" inquiry we've been promised into this dangerous outbreak should be in public. But I suspect it won't be because New Labour fears exposure of its role in setting the scene for this calamity.

Directory refuses War on Terror listing

2005-09-27T09:33:00.000+01:00

CENSORSHIP PROMPTS
MY BLOG SHAKE-UP

The refusal of one of the big blog search directories to list my War on Terror blog means that I will once again be combining the posts with this blog. I'll be summing up the posts here and linking them to fuller versions on a website, where there will be much more scope for opinions other than mine..

The directory won't explain its refusal to list me, so I'm left to suspect that someone there doesn't like seeing Bush criticised for making the world so unsafe. It's censorship.

A tale of two death tolls

2005-09-01T00:25:00.000+01:00

WHY NO ROYAL GRIEF
FOR SHIA PILGRIMS?

I see that the queen is 'shocked and saddened' by the death toll (possibly more than 1,000) caused by Hurricane Katrina in the New Orleans area in the USA . On the same day, some 1,000 Shia pilgrims are reported to have lost their lives in Baghdad. I couldn't find any reference to the queen expressing her grief at that death toll. What's the problem, ma'm? Wrong part of the world?

A question of anthems

2005-08-27T16:05:00.000+01:00

IT'S TIME WE DITCHED
IMPERIALISTIC
GOD SAVE THE QUEEN

In an email to me, a reader has objected to my describing God Save The Queen as the English national anthem.

I readily concede that, officially, England does not have a national anthem. Indeed, it can be argued that no part of the UK - not even the UK itself - has a national anthem, because no anthem (not even GSTQ) has ever been adopted by royal proclamation.

But the point I'm making is that in such matters custom and practice are the guiding principles. GSTQ being played as the English anthem at rugby and soccer internationals featuring England being a good example.

GSTQ, first heard in the 1700s, quickly came to be regarded as the British national anthem. But with the swift decline of Empire after World War Two, many (including many English people) began, quite rightly, to question GSTQ's imperialistic sentiments, which clearly had England in mind.

Certainly the Scots had every right to jib at the GSTQ references to crushing Scots (and there are those who saw the "enemies" verses as applying just as much to the Welsh as anyone - for a long time the Welsh were regarded as England's enemies). The offending verses are rarely, if ever, heard today, but have never been officially dropped.

There are those (and I'm one of them) who think that, if you're going to have anthems, then it's time the UK ditched GSTQ altogether and replaced it with something more appropriate in the modern world.

Why I am not a royalist

2005-08-24T11:34:00.000+01:00

LET WALES HAVE AN
UNFETTERED DEBATE
ABOUT MONARCHY

After my post about the Eisdeddfod's relucance to use 'royal' in its title and my letter on the subject in the Western Mail, a Dilwyn Miles wrote to me to criticise the Eisteddfod authorities for 'pandering to the extreme minority'. He though this was being 'pretty discourteous' to the queen, especially as she is 'one of us' as a member of the Eisteddofd Court.

Well, Mr Miles, as you have noted I am not a royalist. I confess that I was once but that was before I studied Welsh history. There were too many instances of the English monarchy conniving to give the Welsh a hard time for me to remain a royalist and still retain my self respect.

Consequently, I do not lament the Eisteddfod's dislike of the word 'royal' (I will not be surprised if eventually the Eiseddfod is bullied into pretending to be more enthusiasic or face a loss of funding - that's the sort of dishonest world we live in).

I don't care tuppence about being 'discourtious' to the queen. Her hold on Wales is based on packs of lies masquerading as 'history' which hide the atrocities her ancestors committed in Wales as they cut a bloody swathe across our nation.

Also, the monarchy has played an active role in hindering Wales's progress towards economic prosperity, which is why we are so far behind England on almost every economic, health and social indicator you care to mention.

None of this means that I support those who advocate violent protest. What I want is an unfettered public debate on republicism v. monarchy, culminating in the Welsh being allowed to choose in a referendum.

That will be hard to achieve because the Welsh media, being mostly owned, controlled and largely staffed from outside Wales, is basically royalist and would not dare risk such a debate.

As for 'extreme minority', for a long time opinion polls have showed that most people are either opposed to monarchy or are ambivalent, in which case such a description could just as well be applied to royalists in Wales.

------------------------------------------------
Sue welcomes your views for or against
Either use the blog comment facility
or email her direct at
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Policing costs - a scandal

2005-08-22T12:43:00.000+01:00

WHY IS GOVT
HAMMERING
CHARITIES BUT
NOT ARMS FIRMS?

There is something seriously wrong when people in Mumbles trying to raise money for the RNLI find themselves lumbered with £5,000 policing costs for their raft race – cutting by about a third what they expect to raise for this vital lifeboat charity.

The police say they have no choice, given government guidelines. But I am puzzled. Today, in the Independent I see Scotland Yard described as “furious” that it has to spend £4m providing some 4,000 police officers to guard Europe's biggest arms fair in London next month.

The Metropolitan Police, it is reported, is planning to ask the Home Office to change the regulations to force exhibitors to pay for the external policing.

This is disgraceful. Presuming that the Met and the police in Wales adhere to the same guidelines, perhaps the Government will explain why it is forcing charity supporters to pay massive policing costs which they clearly cannot afford but not arms manufacturers which clearly can.

The Welsh public would have a better chance of changing this idiotic policy if policing was brought under the Welsh Assembly, as many progressives advocate.

A nationalist and republican speaks out

2005-08-16T12:17:00.000+01:00

WILL LABOUR'S NEW
LAW MAKE SUCH
VIEWS TREACHERY?

The Western Mail, owned by an English company, has been accused many times of being less than eager to print letters expressing views not in accordance with its royalist sympathies. Occasionally one slips through. This appeared last week and I couldn't agree more (I hope Hedd Ladd-Lewis won't mind the letter's appearance here).

SIR - As a Welsh nationalist and republican, I do not hold any allegiance whatsoever to the English Monarchy.

I dislike being called "British" and I have never stood to "God Save the Queen". Nor do I hold any allegiance to Prince Charles, who was foisted on the Welsh nation in 1969 by the English state, aided and abetted by a gang of Welsh quislings.

I also dislike the flying or the waving of the Union Jack in Wales, which is a provocative symbol to any decent Welshman or woman of our subjugation by our English neighbours.

By expressing these firmly held beliefs, will I now be liable to prosecution for treachery due to the very ill-thought out and highly dubious legislation which is shortly to be passed by the present Labour administration?

HEDD LADD-LEWIS
Heol Alan, Llandeilo

A dolt's fury over National Eisddfod's title

2005-08-16T11:51:00.000+01:00

'ROYAL' DROPPED AS
MORE SERVILE
PRACTICES BITE THE DUST

Some dolt writing to the Western Mail is spitting feathers over the fact that the National Eisteddfod no longer uses the world 'royal' in its title. The word was introduced with a lot of reluctance in 1966 after the esablishment leaned heavily on the festival authorities, hinting darkly that otherwise future funding would be at risk.

But the word died out as part of the Eisteddfod’s title for the same reason that many servile practices linked to the royals have rightly bit the dust in recent decades, such as standing for the English national anthem in cinemas or doffing one's cap when some pampered parasite trots by. These things happen because over a period of time it becomes obvious that most people involved wish it so.

Another good example is the so-called 'loyal' toast. From time to time I attend functions and in Wales clearly the practice is in decline, which is not surprising because it has been obvious for years that more and more diners are reluctant to raise their glasses to royalty.

Incidentally, my loyal toast has always been loudly and clearly 'to Cymru'. Nowadays, when the toast is called for, increasingly that is what I hear around me.

Our dolt goes on to make the stupid suggestion that republicans should stop using the postal service (and, presumably, money).

Well, if we lived in a truly fair society then our stamps and money would reflect the fact that, as many polls show, the majority of people are either ambivalent or opposed to a monarchy. In other words, at least half of our stamps, coins and banknotes should carry no references to royalty at all.

The National Eisteddfod controversy

2005-08-10T11:50:00.000+01:00

LIVERPOOL'S
EISTEDDFOD
OFFER CLOUDED
IN SKEWED DEBATE

There is much controversy in Wales over Liverpool's offer, in an effort to bolster its 2008 City of Culture credentials, to host the 2007 National Eisteddfod. The huge Welsh-language festival was in the Merseyside city in 1884, 1900, and 1929

The Eisteddfod was to be held in Flintshire in 2007 but the North Wales county council – dreadfully strapped for cash after being appallingly badly-run in recent years – has said it cannot afford the necessary financial support.

The former Archdruid of Wales, Dr Robyn Lewis – whose views I usually agree with – completely lost the plot when he opposed accepting Liverpool's offer on the ludicrous grounds that there have been racist attacks there. Well, excuse me, but in recent years there have been racist attacks, riots even, in parts of Wales. By his weird reasoning, the Eisteddfod should be banned from Wales as well.

I know Liverpool well. It's a fine city and his attacks don't make sense.

Mind you, coverage within Wales of what the Liverpool Welsh want has been dreadfully skewed - perhaps in an effort to undermine Dr Lewis stance – with much credence given to the views of Rev Ben Rees, described as “Merseyside's most influential Welshman”. He's chairman of the Merseyside Welsh Heritage Society and is campaigning for the festival to come to Liverpool.

But there was not a single word about the letter sent to the Eisteddfod authorities by Roderick Owen, president of the Liverpool Welsh Society (reported in the Liverpool Daily Post), revealing that such societies in Liverpool and Birkenhead had voted “unanimously” to oppose the festival coming to Liverpool on the grounds that there are now far too few Welsh speakers there to make the necessary arrangements.

His suggestion is that it should go to Flintshire with the Merseyside Welsh trotting across the Wirral to help out. The problem with that is Flintshire's distinct lack of cash.

Perhaps the answer is the other way round - for the Welsh in Flintshire, who seem to be enthusiastic and available in large numbers, to help the Merseyside Welsh to organise and stage the Eisteddfod in Liverpool, where there seems to be cash ready and waiting.

It might help revive the Welsh in and around the city and will undoubtedly help to promote the Welsh language in England - no bad thing given the levels of ignorance about Wales among th English.

Can Plaid Cymru bounce back?

2005-08-06T11:10:00.000+01:00

HARD TIMES FOR
PLAID - WITH ONLY
ITSELF TO BLAME

So Plaid Cymru is 80 years old. Does it have a role in modern Wales? Recent catastrophic losses - including Rhondda and Llanelli, in the last Welsh Assembly elections, Rhondda-Cynon-Tâf council in the last local elections and Ceredigion in the last General Election - suggest that the so-called “Party of Wales” may be in terminal decline”.

Well, if it is then it has nobody else but itself to blame.

In the first Welsh Assembly elections in 1999 all the signs were that the party was going to do well though probably fall short of winning.

At the time, the party had a settled policy on independence – that if it took control in Wales there would be no move towards independence for at least five year coupled to a pledge that the people would be consulted first. It was a policy everyone could understand.

Also, the party was making good headway on the economic case for independence. It's work on how better off we would be if all the taxation came to Wales was difficult for the Labour/Tory pact of lies against independence to argue against.

Then, part way through that campaign, the party made the fatal error that started the rot. In a wholly mis-judged effort to try and achieve that Welsh Assembly win by attracting traditionally non-Plaid votes the party suddenly announced that it no longer had any interest in independence, indeed indicating that it never really had.

From Wales' London-leaning newspapers that usually give Plaid a bad press there was almost universal praise for the policy shift and for a while the party basked in the warmth of positive media coverage.

At the time, I was one of those who predicted that it wouldn't last. Plaid did well in the elections but failed to win. The strategy was already unravelling. The honeymoon with the media was soon over.

Since then, the party has become mired in confusion with rival factions pulling and dragging over the independence issue. Time after time the party tried to explain its its vision in cock-eyed terms that that few could understand. Of no help was the appearance of having a triple leadership, much lampooned in the press – no matter that in similar fashion the Tories and Labour in Wales each have three “leaders”.

The shambles the party was in soon translated itself to the electorate with the recent dreadful results being almost inevitable. It was hugely ironic that the party's so-called director of strategy, Ceredigion MP Simon Thomas, and therefore one of those responsible for the mess, should lose his parliamentary seat at the last General Election.

And all this happening at a time when there are clear signs that Labour is beginning to lose its grip in Wales. The natural beneficiaries should be Plaid but instead, at present, it's a strange combination of wishy-washy LibDems and steely-eyed right-wing Tories.

Can Plaid bounce back? Of course it can, but the party needs to re-establish its settled policy on independence and have one word in mind at all times – clarity.

Click here for my new blog - The War on Terror

2005-08-05T20:15:00.000+01:00

My comments on terrorism have been moved from Wales Comment to my new blog The War on Terror.

The Leanne Wood hoo-ha

2005-07-22T12:50:00.000+01:00

WALES BADLY IN NEED
OF TRUE DEMOCRACY

There's a big hoo-ha in the Welsh media over Leanne Wood, a Plaid Cymru AM in the Welsh Assembly, for suggesting - in a memo to party officials written in 2003 but leaked now - that Plaid should concentrate AM staff resources on casework that benefits the party and not where insufficenct votes are likely to be garned.

Plaid maintains that the advice was never adopted, but inevitably Labour is alleging a misuse of allowances.

I couldn't care tuppence about that; in my book the expenses and allowances available to all our representatives - councillors, peers, MEPs, MPs and AMs - are profligate and should be heavily scaled back.

But the controversy does bring out a concern I've long had about the Welsh Assembly.

Ms Wood is a "list" member. In other words she is one of the 40 per cent of members appointed by their party rather than elected by the people.

I've long been a strong opponent of the "first past the post" system, stubbornly favoured by Labour and the Tories, because of all the available systems it is the most suspect. Take the recent General Election - in Wales 29 seats went to Labour and 11 to other parties. Yet, in overall votes, a total of 797,898 voters did not want Labour candidates elected compared to just 594,821 who did.

That's not democracy, that's mockery.

The "list" system was an attempt to remedy this abuse (but not for General Elections) but it was the worse possible answer because it resulted in the Assembly being littered with AMs of whom the electorate has never seen hair nor hide.

Labour has some cock-eyed plan to ban "list" members from also standing in AM constituencies (they weren't suggesting that when they had list AMs, including their former hapless leader Alan Michael).

Surely, the better reform would be to ditch the "list" system altogether and make all would-be AMs come before the electors, with the electorate's wishes more accurately reflected by the sort of transferable vote system used in many countries.

Only then will we have true democracy.

The Welsh need their own president

2005-07-14T11:57:00.000+01:00

HIGH-SPEED CHARLES,
WHAT AN INSULT!

Charles is currently on his annual high-speed race around Wales. Tomorrow, breathless no doubt, he'll be back in dear old England as if he couldn't wait to see the back of this strange country with its strange language and strange ways.

A Welsh journalist once told me that he believes that the summer was deliberately chosen for this annual three-day jaunt because Wales would be crammed with flag-waving English tourists, the royalist media being only too happy to categorise them as hordes of loyal Welsh subjects.

That the Welsh media would be willing to play ball in such a way was shown a few years back when a photograph of placard-waving republicans protesting in the distance at Charles's presence in Wales was captioned in the Western Mail as Welsh royalists giving their prince the warmest of welcomes.

The "crowds" greeting any royal visiting Wales are invariable described as large, cheering and enthusiastic when to those actually present at such occasions they often weren't.

On a practical note, if we had our own president - say, on the lines of Ireland's much more dignified presidency - then he or she would be in Wales almost all of the time and not just for an insultingly few days a year.

Summit wrong with our priorities

2005-07-09T18:38:00.000+01:00

MAKE SNOWDON REAL AGAIN

I see that the drive to raise millions to tart up the cafe on top of Snowdon is failing to meet targets. Snowdonia National Park Authority has collected more than £7m but is still £1.7m short. Good, I say.

Instead, let's use a fraction of the money raised to demolish the present eyesore (a descendent of the monitoring station built there in wartime), tear up the entire Snowdon Mountain Railway rail track and remove all signs of the damage these structures have done to this historic mountain and its one-time reputation as a mountain so fearsome that the team that conquerered Everest trained there.

Since then it has become some sort of dreadful theme park in the clouds, tame "mountaineering" at its sanitised worst.

Let's make Snowdon, the highest point in Wales, a real mountain once again.

I'm still not persuaded

2005-07-09T18:22:00.000+01:00

MY STUDENT VOTE CALL CRITICISED

My call for an end to the student vote (see below) has been criticised by two anons from Aberystwyth (I thank them for their comments, which are repeated here).

Anon 1 makes valid points about the political setup in Ceredigion. I thoroughly agree with his or her comments about Plaid's Simon Thomas (a wally, if there ever was one) and I agree that the consituency is hardly a Plaid stronghold (I readily recall Cynog Dafis - one of Wales's better MPs at the time - needing a pact with the Greens to win the seat in the first place.

I'm sure that Ceredigion doesn't NEED any sort of particular set-up to survive, but But I wasn't commenting specifically on the political landscape of that part of Wales, I was questioning the right of students in general (I was one once) to skew the vote of an area which almost all of them would shortly leave within the next year or two. Anon 1 hasn't persuaded me on that point.

Part of Anon 2's argument is that my idea is unworkable, there are just too many admin hurdles. He or she may be right. On the other hand someone might come up with a workable scheme if the idea was properly debated. I'm not a trained administrator, so I don't really know. And, no, I would not want to see such a restriction expanded beyond the area of immediate concern.

That concern is this - that a large bunch of people, i.e. undergraduates, can descend on a community and by sheer weight of numbers completely out-vote its long-term residents and then after a year or two push off without any further involvement in that community.

It's a concern that should be debated in Britain's university towns and cities, but I suspect it won't be because the political parties - all of them - would be far too afraid of alienating the student vote to dare initiate such a debate.

As for my politcal leanings, I spelled much of that out in the first post to this blog. I didn't vote as a student but in all honestly that was less to do with personal conviction and more because at the time I wasn't much interested in politics. That came later. I stopped supporting political parties some time ago after concluding that none of them tell the people the truth. Nowadays I weigh up individual candidates no matter what party. I live in North Cardiff and I don't regard Julie Morgan as worth voting for and I wasn't surprised to see her support fall. Trouble is none of the rival candidates seemed any better so I didn't vote.

Political parties dismiss low turnouts as voter-apathy. That's a convenient label to hide the truth that most people are fed up with political parties, in particular with them always at each other's throats. The parties refuse to work together and as a direct result the communities and the country suffer.

ANON 1 said...

I'm sorry to hear you repeating the shallow 'student' line on what happened here in Aberystwyth. As a local to the town I know that there was far more going on than just a university/anti-war 'blip'. You have to see that far from being a 'Plaid Stronghold', ceredigion has a wealth of different political perspectives. Local council events (including the 'de-greening' of Plaid) along with wider political machinations, had their effect. Finally, the self-aggrandisement of Simon Thomas only served to push voters back to their Liberal leanings.

Any impact from students really counted the other way; Plaid's usual press-ganging of Welsh speaking students into voting failed when their student reps didn't complete their registration in time.

The bitter 'anti-student' (read anti-incomer) rhetoric from a defeated Plaid has only served to show how out of touch they were with the electorate during the campaign - brimming with over confidence.

On a final note, the right to vote shouldn't be taken away from people who live, interact and (let's not forget) work in a community for the majority of the year. Forcing students to exersize their democratic right in their parent's home, not theirs, is merely a rejection of the kind of plurality that places like Ceredigion needs to survive.

ANON 2 said...

Firstly, I was a student at Aberystwyth at the time of the election and I voted by postal vote in the constiuency where I was born and raised, and fact of the matter is, I probably won't live there in the next four years for more than a few weeks when it's Christmas. So by your reckoning I shouldn't vote either their or in Aberystwyth.

I don't know the figures for 2005, but in 2004 there were over 800,000 students, both undergraduate and post-graduate. In a country where just 61.3% (27,148,975) of people actually bother to vote you wish to reduce the eligibility to vote.

I'd like to know further details of how your idea would work, would people who are post-graduates who have lived and studied in a region for more than 4 years be eligible to vote? What about undergraduates who are studying in their home town? Should students be allowed postal votes to the place where they were brought up even if they have spent less than a few weeks in holidays there and effectively know little about the place where their vote counts?

Your opposition is worded such that you don't like people being able to vote in an area where they may in the future move away from. Perhaps before you're allowed to vote you should have to declare you won't move away from the area? How should people in the military be dealt with? Afterall they get posted all over the place with no certainty on how long they'll be in each place.

Did you vote when you were a student? Do you feel guilty about doing so? Also in the recent election did you vote for a party that didn't win?

Shock revelation about venerable Western Mail

2005-06-25T13:05:00.000+01:00

NEW DAILY NEWSPAPER PLANNED

Is Wales about to get a new morning newspaper to rival the aged Western Mail? So far there's been nothing about this in the Welsh media - and certainly not in the Mail itself - but my attention has been drawn to the current edition of the media magazine Press Gazette in which reporter Clive Betts claims that plans are well advanced to launch The Welsh Globe (working title) on Saint david's Day next year.

In an article headed New Welsh daily targets ‘dumbed down’ Mail’s patch, Mr Betts - himself a former Western Mail political writer - reveals that the Mail no longer has any representation in the press gallery of the Welsh Assembly (I recall that at least three years ago it had a team of reporters there).

Pathetically, it now relies on its London-based parliamentary staff to fill in on the big stories.

Surely it is shocking that the only morning newspaper in Wales - proudly dubbing itself the "national newspaper of Wales" - does not see fit to cover the Welsh Assembly properly. After all, the Assembly deals with far more important day-to-day matters concerning Wales - education, health, housing, transport and the arts, for example - than does the London parliament, which these days is largely irrelevant to Wales.

It certainly explains things. I have sat in the Assembly's public gallery on occasions and have been apalled by how poor the coverage was of the important debates I witnessed. There were times when the reports were so garbled I wondered if they knew what was going on. Once I did complain to the Mail but my letter was never printed.

I guessed long ago that the circulation was well down, judging from how among people I know the Mail has gone from being a "must" buy to a "very occasional" buy, so it was no surprise to see the Gazette article referring to the Mail's "years of slowly declining circulation".

Mr Betts quotes an un-named Globe spokesman as saying: "This was a hard-nosed business decision by a number of leading Welsh businessmen as a result of the Western Mail moving downmarket and leaving an opportunity for a paper that serves the A, B, C1 market with a truly excellent level of reporting and comment."

Good luck to it. I've read the Western Mail for more than 30 years and have watched it decline from a quite excellent newspaper to one that these days often isn't worth buying.

Time to end the student vote

2005-06-17T19:34:00.000+01:00

ELECTIONS UNFAIRLY SKEWED

Let's take a look back at two of last month's General Election results in Wales.

The LibDem's gained two seats - wresting Cardiff Central by a hefty margin from Labour MP Jon Own Jones and Ceredigion by whisker from Plaid Cymru's Simon Thomas.

The LDs claimed that all sorts of factors helped them win, but in reality the party successfully exploited the student vote in both university-dominated consituencies - making top-fees a key issue in Cardiff Central and Welsh independence a fear among English students (as if Plaid ever stood for independence!) at Aberystwyth.

I hold no brief for Labour or Plaid. Mr Jones seemed a a hard-working MP and among people I know in Cardiff Central - I live in the next door constituency - support for him seemed as strong as ever. Mr Thomas, on the other hand, was seen as a weak MP and his star was waning.

Nevertheless, the results got me thinking. Is it fair to allow students to skew election results in this sort of way? After all, for almost all of them the consituency they (briefly) live in and politically altered will be just a distant memory in two or three years time.

Perhaps it's time for the student vote to be ditched, though I suspect that this is one chunk of electoral reform the LibDem's WON'T be calling for.