Here we go again!

Oscar Wilde and James Abbott McNeill Whistler are renowned for their sparkling wit as they verbally sparred with each other. For most of the time, however, they simply abused each other; good old fashioned insults; out and out insult.

The Welsh Assembly building in Cardiff Bay is an elegant an eloquent statement in slate, wood and glass of a concept of ‘openness’ which it was hoped would characterise the government of the country.

The behaviour of our political ‘masters’ as they feel power slipping away or tantalizingly within their grasp beggars any insult that Wilde and Whistler might voice.

The bunch of posturing inadequates who strut their parochial political stuff in the Bay invite derision and contempt.

If I hear just one more politico tell me exactly what ‘The People of Wales’ meant when the voted in the recent elections I shall do something reckless; like taking these self appointed teachers of the electorate seriously. Well, perhaps not that drastic.

Plaid now has the balance of power. God help us all!

I am old enough to remember Plaid when they were an honest to goodness old fashioned nationalist party – and by definition, therefore, a right wing organization. I am also old enough to remember the Tarsus moment when the party finally realised that Wales was actually a left wing country and for them to have any chance of power they had to suddenly become born again socialists. So they did.

They are thriving on a half baked general concept of what being Welsh is all about. They play with ideas of nationalism masked in the words of hard headed economics but underpinned with emotional inanities which would be destroyed if the same hard headed economics was applied.

Take, for example, the Welsh language.

On my father’s side of the family, my grandfather was a Welsh speaker who actually taught by great grandmother to speak English using the South Wales Echo. On my mother’s side of the family, my great grandparents stopped talking Welsh to her daughters after number three. The succeeding daughters (including my grandmother) were brought up as monoglot English speakers! I was brought up as a monoglot English speaker and the appallingly inept Welsh classes through primary and secondary school did not encourage a bilingual approach!

Welsh has been something of an irritation in my life: both real and perceived. Plaid’s emphasis on the language has changed over the years – not, I’m sure, in reality; but definitely in the way in which the importance of the language has been presented to the mass of English speaking voters who would have to support the party if they were to stand any chance of gaining power. In my area Plaid have distributed a leaflet solely in English so attract the vote and lessen the fear of those who don’t speak Welsh.

A quarter (?) of the population speak Welsh: the vast majority do not. An essential component of a clear national identity (according to Plaid) is the language. The vast majority of the population are therefore excluded from a real identity with the country.

When I was going to vote in the recent election, the polling station was in my local primary school. This school has been changed from a local primary school for the area into a Welsh language medium school for a much wider area. The parents in this area see this Welsh school as a way of ensuring that their children do not go to either of the local secondary schools but rather to a Welsh language secondary school which is clearly perceived as a more attractive alternative to the English language schools. As I made my way to vote the pupils for this school were making their way towards their classes. What was significant was that not one single child talked in Welsh. Not one. English was the language of the home and English the natural language of the pupils. Welsh here is merely (or essentially) a way of escaping what are seen as sub standard schools.

I do not blame parents, they must do what they see as the best for their children; I do blame a hypocrisy which suggests that the ‘choice’ of Welsh is a disinterested one. Welsh is being used as a cynical tool for advancement.

I find myself remembering the views of anti-apartheid activists in South Africa who asked the regime, seemingly counter intuitively, not to destroy the apartheid system, but merely to make it work! Of course it couldn’t; it relied on lies and hypocrisy to work.

The attitude towards the Welsh language by our political masters is also one grounded in hypocrisy and fuelled by a deeply dishonest tokenist approach. If Welsh is important, or essential to our concept of what it means to be Welsh, then it is of overriding importance to make Wales bilingual as soon as possible. Quebec has laws which make it illegal to display a notice in a shop window which is only in one language. Why do we not have the same laws here?

The simple answer is that, apart from the major urban centres, Wales is not a rich country. The language is in a desperate state and needs immediate expensive resuscitation. If the real cost of making Wales a bilingual nation were put before the people of Wales with the tax implications clearly outlined, the measure would be rejected by the monoglot population overwhelmingly and no political party is prepared to carry the can for that.

So we will continue our expensive (but containable) compromise of spending just enough to show willing, but never enough to do something meaningful.

So back to Plaid. What do they do? Make deals with the Lib Dems? Sad. Add the Conservatives? Suicide. Go with Labour? Emasculation.

I sincerely hope that they get what they deserve: the trappings of power without the real power that gets things done; the ability to speak to a wide audience of people who won’t want to listen to the ideas that they truly hold.

The minnows of Wales.

God rot them!