# Why is Wales so poor? (Economy, language and more)



## lewislewis (Feb 19, 2009)

We are often told how Wales has a lower GVA per head than most other parts of the UK. Wales is significantly poor. We are told that 'Wales is too poor to be independent', 'Wales has the poorest areas of Western Europe' and that we aren't really catching up with the rest of the UK either. All of these statements, as depressing as they are, are rooted in fact.
The symptoms of this poverty are obvious- endemic low pay and in-work poverty across Wales, growing unemployment (and when employment grew in 2007 it was mainly low-paid jobs), ill health and the mass emigration of most of our educated graduates. 

Why is Wales so comparatively poor, when we have such massive amounts of natural resources? Why so poor when we have more heavy industry (and you'd assume that creates wealth) per head of the population than anywhere else in the UK? Why so poor when we create more energy than we consume? Why so poor when we have a history of being the first industrialised country?

I am none the wiser, but would appreciate any answers!


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## lewislewis (Feb 24, 2009)

No takers?


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## editor (Feb 24, 2009)

lewislewis said:


> Why is Wales so comparatively poor, when we have such massive amounts of natural resources? Why so poor when we have more heavy industry (and you'd assume that creates wealth) per head of the population than anywhere else in the UK? Why so poor when we create more energy than we consume? Why so poor when we have a history of being the first industrialised country?
> 
> I am none the wiser, but would appreciate any answers!


I'll have a go:

It's  because most of the wealth was taken out of the country. When south Wales was the biggest coal exporter on the planet and the dock and mine owners were making billions, that wealth wasn't reflected in the standard of living for workers who were ruthlessly exploited.

Moreover, vast areas of Wales now are either post-industrial wastelands/short term low-paying industrial parks or isolated farm land. Add to that the lack of decent cross-Wales transport links and it's not surprising that the money is flowing out of - rather than around - the country.

Of course, _some_ parts of Wales are still doing very nicely, thanks.


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## niclas (Feb 25, 2009)

Perhaps a better question (no offence LL!) is to ask how we can change the situation for the better.

As in all countries, workers have been systematically robbed. We have the dubious distinction of being one of the world's first industrialised nations and therefore one of the first post-industrial nations. Extreme, amazing wealth has been extracted from the people and natural resources - not for nothing was the world's first million pound deal done in Cardiff Coal Exchange.

We need:
control over the means of production for community benefit, 
production for need not greed, 
localisation of food rather than its globalisation, 
pioneering new forms of green technology (e.g. hydrogen cells) 
using our "intellectual factories" (colleges) to develop new technologies and smart manufacturing industries to deal with climate change, the end of oil and other fossil fuels
and lots of other stuff 

I doubt any of this will happen unless workers in Wales have the independence to think and act for ourselves. If we stay as we are, we will remain a remote and insignificant appendage of some post-colonial power.


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## isitme (Feb 25, 2009)

maybes you get shafted cos it's easy for london to

welsh are even worse than geordies for not noticing how shitty it is if they build some flagship thing like your parliment or the arts projects in newcastle which are all well and good but don't actually do much to help the poor people

someone suggesting wales is a bit fucked is usually greeted by a load of nationalist bollocks, (like how it was such a big thing getting a welsh parliment, how much did that cost and many jobs did that create?)


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## phildwyer (Feb 25, 2009)

I've never been a nationalist, but when you look at what the EU has done for Ireland, Greece and Portugal it makes me reconsider.  The trouble is Plaid would make us all speak Welsh, and I'm not going for that.  If only they'd get off the language stuff I'd vote for them.


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## phildwyer (Feb 25, 2009)

isitme said:


> (like how it was such a big thing getting a welsh parliment, how much did that cost and many jobs did that create?)



I agreed with you at the time, but as it turned out the Assembly's made life significantly better in Wales.  No prescription charges, minimal uni fees etc.


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## PAD1OH (Feb 25, 2009)

I think an end to the excuse that coal being taken by england as the only reason for the current situation would be a good start.

Thinking that a modern economy can be built on coal is a joke.

less of the past and more of the future please..


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## Idaho (Feb 25, 2009)

Historically Wales has always been economically peripheral to larger markets over the border. And to further disolve economic power, it has been cut into three peripheries. South Wales being economically peripheral to the larger markets of Bristol and Gloucester, Mid Wales to Shrewsbury, etc and North Wales to Chester, Liverpool and Manchester.

It was always more economically viable to take goods to these larger markets. It's all very well having a large coal, wool or meat resource - but the Welsh population didn't itself need much more than a relatively small percentage of these products. The bulk of the income was selling over the border.


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## PAD1OH (Feb 25, 2009)

peripheral physically or mentally?

maybe not peripheral enough....

Places like Ireland, Iceland are as peripheral as you can get but they have done some great things with their economies. Ok they are both bad examples in the current climate but I sometimes think location is overplayed.

Both Ireland and Iceland were very open economies but they also focussed on building internal markets, skills, social structure etc.


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## editor (Feb 25, 2009)

Idaho said:


> Historically Wales has always been economically peripheral to larger markets over the border. And to further disolve economic power, it has been cut into three peripheries. South Wales being economically peripheral to the larger markets of Bristol and Gloucester, Mid Wales to Shrewsbury, etc and North Wales to Chester, Liverpool and Manchester.


I'm not entirely sure of that. At the turn of the 20th century, south Wales was an industrial powerhouse, outputting coal, iron and steel and running a vast export business that made Cardiff's docks busier than New York's. The railway network was one of the densest in the UK, forming a massive infrastructure that stretched right across the south of the country.

I really can't see Gloucester - or perhaps even Bristol - competing with that level of wealth generation at the time*.

(*for the bosses, natch).


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## Idaho (Feb 25, 2009)

PAD1OH said:


> peripheral physically or mentally?
> 
> maybe not peripheral enough....
> 
> ...



Building internal markets is the key I think. I wouldn't be too suprised if some people in North Wales used to buy coal in from Lancashire pits.


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## editor (Feb 25, 2009)

Idaho said:


> Building internal markets is the key I think. I wouldn't be too suprised if some people in North Wales used to buy coal in from Lancashire pits.


One of the major obstacles to creating a Welsh economy has always been the lack of an internal rail infrastructure. You can't get from south Wales to north Wales without going through England - and even when it was technically possible in the 1950s, it was along a painfully circuitous route.


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## Idaho (Feb 25, 2009)

editor said:


> I'm not entirely sure of that. At the turn of the 20th century, south Wales was an industrial powerhouse, outputting coal, iron and steel and running a vast export business that made Cardiff's docks busier than New York's. The railway network was one of the densest in the UK, forming a massive infrastructure that stretched right across the south of the country.
> 
> I really can't see Gloucester - or perhaps even Bristol - competing with that level of wealth generation at the time*.
> 
> (*for the bosses, natch).



All the economic, and therefore political development that had happened up until that time had all focussed over the border. South Wales was the Kuwait/Ryhad of it's day. Lots of people working to get fuel out of the ground to send it elsewhere. Just because the infrastructure of export and delivery had expanded massively, didn't mean there was any pressure or need to create wider cross markets within Wales or decent political structures. 

So many of the ME Oil states try to diversify out of Oil and fail. They also struggle (or more commonly don't even bother) to develop political infrastructure.


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## Belushi (Feb 25, 2009)

Monbiot wrote a good article on this subject recently

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/12/30/the-open-veins-of-wales/


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## editor (Feb 25, 2009)

Idaho said:


> All the economic, and therefore political development that had happened up until that time had all focussed over the border.


Lord Bute- the owner of much of Cardiff docks - became the richest man in the world at the time, so there certainly was 'nuff cash generation going down, but because Wales was effectively ruled by England, the country saw precious little economic benefits from their labours.

That legacy is seen in the lack of love felt for Engand in some quarters today.


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## Idaho (Feb 25, 2009)

editor said:


> Lord Bute- the owner of much of Cardiff docks - became the richest man in the world at the time, so there certainly was 'nuff cash generation going down, but because Wales was effectively ruled by England, the country saw precious little economic benefits from their labours.
> 
> That legacy is seen in the lack of love felt for Engand in some quarters today.



I don't think it would have made much difference if it had it's own parliament. Look at the energy rich states - they are hardly bastions of direct democracy and wealth distribution. I don't know anything about him, but You think Lord Bute would have crashed the cash around to his fellow countrymen if he was Welsh? I am guessing he never gave much away to the masses of urban poor in England.

Where in the world at the end of the 19th C was there anything resembling wealth redistribution? The idea that there is some historical justification for the resentment a modern day resident of South Wales may have for resident of a town or city a hundred miles to the east is fairly lame.

It's a simplistic in the extreme to see the wealth created from South Wales industry as going "to England". It no more went to England than the wealth generated in Yorkshire factories went to England. The same capitalist exploitation occurred throughout. The only difference being that Welsh were able to but a nationalist (and false) personification to their exploitation: "the reason we are exploited is because we are welsh and they are english".


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## editor (Feb 25, 2009)

Idaho said:


> It's a simplistic in the extreme to see the wealth created from South Wales industry as going "to England".


Have you read the Monbiot article? As he correctly points out, all the transport links were designed to take things _out_ of Wales with litle provision for serving Wales as a whole.

And if certainly felt like Wales was being ruled by England during Thatchers reign when the Tory government - a government _without a single seat in Wales_ - closed the mines and shafted the people. You'll find many of those still dumped on the scrapheap look to Westminster as the ones to blame for their plight.

And it is different to Yorkshire, because Wales had been on receiving end of  cultural oppression too - read up on the aftermath of the Treachery of the Blue Books as a good reference point. We weren't even granted a capital city until the mid-1950s for fucks sake.


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## _angel_ (Feb 25, 2009)

editor said:


> Have you read the Monbiot article? As he correctly points out, all the transport links were designed to take things _out_ of Wales with litle provision for serving Wales as a whole.
> 
> *And if certainly felt like Wales was being ruled by England during Thatchers reign when the Tory government - a government without a single seat in Wales - closed the mines and shafted the people. You'll find many of those still dumped on the scrapheap look to Westminster as the ones to blame for their plight.*And it is different to Yorkshire, because Wales had been on receiving end of  cultural oppression too - read up on the aftermath of the Treachery of the Blue Books as a good reference point. We weren't even granted a capital city until the mid-1950s for fucks sake.




You mean Wales was being ruled by _the tories_. What happened in Wales also happened to northern England, and the fact people (mainly southern) had voted for it didn't make anything any sweeter.


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## Idaho (Feb 25, 2009)

I don't disagree with you on what happened. I just disagree with you on the nationalist bent that gets placed on top. Apologies for the chop-job here, I realise they are painful to read.

I haven't read this article, however I do know the era reasonably well. The transport links were designed and implemented by capitalists to get maximum profit from the resources they controlled. They were not designed and implemented by capitalists to get maximum benefit to their english compatriots. 



> And if certainly felt like Wales was being ruled by England during Thatchers reign when the Tory government - a government _without a single seat in Wales_ - closed the mines and shafted the people. You'll find many of those still dumped on the scrapheap look to Westminster as the ones to blame for their plight.



Now you are skitting about history, cherry-picking. However this example is more illustrative of my point: The exact same thing was the case across much of the north of England. Westminster destroyed millions of lives across industrial and mining towns in the north.



> And it is different to Yorkshire, because Wales had been on receiving end of  cultural oppression too - read up on the aftermath of the Treachery of the Blue Books as a good reference point. We weren't even granted a capital city until the mid-1950s for fucks sake.



This is certainly a difference. But is largely OT in terms of poverty in Wales.


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## editor (Feb 25, 2009)

Idaho said:


> Now you are skitting about history, cherry-picking. However this example is more illustrative of my point: The exact same thing was the case across much of the north of England. Westminster destroyed millions of lives across industrial and mining towns in the north.


I'm not saying that other industrial parts of the UK didn't suffer equally, but you can't just strip away the historical and cultural context of what happened in Wales. 

Many English people may not think of Wales as a separate, bona-fida country, but to most Welsh people it most certainly is. It's not an area. It's a nation.


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## derf (Feb 25, 2009)

Looking at editor's posts most of what he has said could equally be applied to Yorkshire.
An area based on heavy traditional, but now dead, industries where people feel alienated from central government and claim to be Yorkshiremen above English.

They don't sound so far removed from each other.


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## Idaho (Feb 25, 2009)

> Many English people may not think of Wales as a separate, bona-fida country, but to most Welsh people it most certainly is. It's not an area. It's a nation.



I don't think there would be that many who are particularly interested either way to be honest. Why would someone in Lincoln or Middlesborough or Gravesend decide that Wales wasn't a country? And more significantly for this thread - why would that in itself make Wales poor?

Nations come and nations go. Wales came, went, and came back again. The notion of what is Wales is different now to the notion people had 1000 and 500 years ago. For all nationalists and nations there is always a desire to reverse engineer a seemless historical narrative of a country. That the notions we hold now are true and constant to some ancient ideal, much attacked but never sullied. My opinion is that this is fantasy. The historical and cultural context is more to do with current justifications of nationhood - which political entities require for a mandate to rule.


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## isitme (Feb 25, 2009)

derf said:


> Looking at editor's posts most of what he has said could equally be applied to Yorkshire.
> An area based on heavy traditional, but now dead, industries where people feel alienated from central government and claim to be Yorkshiremen above English.
> 
> They don't sound so far removed from each other.



except everyone in yorkshire competes to say they came from the worst rather than the best part


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## editor (Feb 25, 2009)

derf said:


> Looking at editor's posts most of what he has said could equally be applied to Yorkshire.
> An area based on heavy traditional, but now dead, industries where people feel alienated from central government and claim to be Yorkshiremen above English.
> 
> They don't sound so far removed from each other.


On the surface they are similar, but if you understand the full historical and cultural context, then you'll appreciate that Wales' story is a different case.

Perhaps as an Englishman you're unable to comprehend the difference, but to most Welsh people it's as clear as day.


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## llantwit (Feb 25, 2009)

editor said:


> On the surface they are similar, but if you understand the full historical and cultural context, then you'll appreciate that Wales' story is a different case.
> 
> Perhaps as an Englishman you're unable to comprehend the difference, but to most Welsh people it's as clear as day.



@Derf: Surely it's most clear in the fact that Wales is actually a separate nation, recognised as such by most people. 
Just because it isn't a nation state doesn't man it's not a nation.


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## PAD1OH (Feb 25, 2009)

but surely the point is that until Wales can define itself in relation to itself and not how it relates to England and what happened in the past it's not going anywhere.


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## editor (Feb 25, 2009)

PAD1OH said:


> but surely the point is that until Wales can define itself in relation to itself and not how it relates to England and what happened in the past it's not going anywhere.


I guess it's been rather difficult for Wales to define itself when it's being ruled by people from afar that no one voted for.

It's changing now for the better. The sense of national identity is growing as is the growth of the language and the arts.


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## PAD1OH (Feb 25, 2009)

editor said:


> It's changing now for the better. The sense of national identity is growing as is the growth of the language and the arts.




it is. this is what makes wales a nation. It is recognised as a nation.

we still can't make primary legislation and have to go begging to westminster when we want to make certain policies etc....


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## Idaho (Feb 25, 2009)

editor said:


> I guess it's been rather difficult for Wales to define itself when it's being ruled by people from afar that no one voted for.


Everyone in the country is ruled from afar by people no-one voted for. The entire political system is a sham democracy. Sticking a welsh flag on top and putting 'Cymru' as the prefix of everything from buses to biscuits won't make a jot of difference.

And what does any of this have to do with why Wales is poor?


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## derf (Feb 25, 2009)

isitme said:


> except everyone in yorkshire competes to say they came from the worst rather than the best part



You should see where I grew up lad. I'm telling you the RSPCA would have you in court in you kept a dog in that place. The food was tripe and chips but only when we could afford tripe.


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## derf (Feb 25, 2009)

llantwit said:


> @Derf: Surely it's most clear in the fact that Wales is actually a separate nation, recognised as such by most people.
> Just because it isn't a nation state doesn't man it's not a nation.



That's the big thing that separates wales and yorkshire. It may be the only thing. 
Having said that a lot of people in yorkshire think they should return to being a separate state.


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## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

derf said:


> That's the big thing that separates wales and yorkshire. It may be the only thing.


Well, that and a language with roots going back to the 6th Century - which has survived against all the odds - and an entirely different history.


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## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> Well, that and a language with roots going back to the 6th Century - which has survived against all the odds . . .



Isn't Welsh the most highly subsidised language in the world?


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## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> Isn't Welsh the most highly subsidised language in the world?


Eh?


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## bluestreak (Feb 26, 2009)

Because you let English cunts run things.  Into the ground.  And take the money.


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## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

bluestreak said:


> Because you let English cunts run things.  Into the ground.  And take the money.


Just you Englisch wait until Owain Glyndwr rises again! They you'll all be sorry!

*shakes fists at the sky
*looks optimistically in the direction of distant Welsh mountains.
*puts on some Super Furry Animals


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## PAD1OH (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> Just you Englisch wait until Owain Glyndwr rises again! They you'll all be sorry!
> 
> *shakes fists at the sky
> *looks optimistically in the direction of distant Welsh mountains.
> *puts on some Super Furry Animals



* starts to sing along and forgets what all the fuss was about anyway, like.


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## Gavin Bl (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> Isn't Welsh the most highly subsidised language in the world?



any subsidy the language gets now is precisely because of the parlous state it got into over the previous century or so.


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## Idaho (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> Just you Englisch wait until Owain Glyndwr rises again! They you'll all be sorry!
> 
> *shakes fists at the sky
> *looks optimistically in the direction of distant Welsh mountains.
> *puts on some Super Furry Animals



I went to his stomping ground last year. Some lead mine near Llanidloes with a sign next to it.


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## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

Idaho said:


> I went to his stomping ground last year. Some lead mine near Llanidloes with a sign next to it.


Had he been Scottish, English or Irish,  there would have been a Hollywood blockbuster or two about the man. His life story is really interesting, with a perfect movie ending


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## Idaho (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> Had he been Scottish, English or Irish,  there would have been a Hollywood blockbuster or two about the man. His life story is really interesting, with a perfect movie ending



Cripes - even your heroes have persecution complexes


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## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

Idaho said:


> Cripes - even your heroes have persecution complexes


It's a fair comment. Glyndwr lived a fascinating life but the lack of Welsh influence in Hollywood means that his story has never been told.

Mind you, if it spares us tosh like a LlanBraveheart, perhaps that's not a bad thing.


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## Idaho (Feb 26, 2009)

Well exactly - why would you want ahistorical hollywood piffle ruining what was otherwise a much more interesting story.


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## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

Idaho said:


> Well exactly - why would you want ahistorical hollywood piffle ruining what was otherwise a much more interesting story.


A good BBC documentary wouldn't go amiss. When I was at school I wasn't even taught about Glyndwr, but we knew all about King chuffin' Henry IV and the rest of the Englisch mob.


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## Belushi (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> A good BBC documentary wouldn't go amiss. When I was at school I wasn't even taught about Glyndwr, but we knew all about King chuffin' Henry IV and the rest of the Englisch mob.



They've had a History of Scotland on BBC2 recently, be nice if they had one for Wales as well.


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## remedial_gash (Feb 26, 2009)

Belushi said:


> They've had a History of Scotland on BBC2 recently, be nice if they had one for Wales as well.



Didn't Huw Edwards do one a few years ago?  very lightweight if I remember, 30 minute slots on 2W, and mostly focusing on Welsh influence within 'Britain' - lloyd George etczzz.

To the poster who suggested that Welsh was the most subsidised language in the world, I doubt that it's even the most subsidised in the UK, given the recent launch of BBC Alba up north.

Gash
x


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## bluestreak (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> Just you Englisch wait until Owain Glyndwr rises again! They you'll all be sorry!



Channelling the spirit of O'Lynch ed? 

I hope when the Welsh rise you'll remember than not all of us are running dog lackeys of English imperialism?


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## Belushi (Feb 26, 2009)

remedial_gash said:


> Didn't Huw Edwards do one a few years ago?  very lightweight if I remember, 30 minute slots on 2W, and mostly focusing on Welsh influence within 'Britain' - lloyd George etczzz.



He did a series about Wales and religion I think, and a different programme about Lloyd George.


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## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

bluestreak said:


> Channelling the spirit of O'Lynch ed?
> 
> I hope when the Welsh rise you'll remember than not all of us are running dog lackeys of English imperialism?


Don't worry.

I've been making notes.


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## remedial_gash (Feb 26, 2009)

Belushi said:


> He did a series about Wales and religion I think, and a different programme about Lloyd George.



Ah, my mistake.

Interestingly I found an undoubtedly biased article from the times about BBC Alba : http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article5627346.ece

15m quid for 68000 speakers etc, as you might expect really.

Gash
x


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## Idaho (Feb 26, 2009)

Belushi said:


> Lloyd George.



That twit should be enough to condemn the lot of you to Hades. Palestine, Northern Ireland, Cyprus...


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## Belushi (Feb 26, 2009)

Idaho said:


> That twit should be enough to condemn the lot of you to Hades. Palestine, Northern Ireland, Cyprus...



Shall I start listing English Prime Ministers


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## remedial_gash (Feb 26, 2009)

On the Welsh - Yorkshire similarities, I've several, admittedly anecdotal experiences of kinship. My Grandfather (a steelworker) used to go up there all the time, and loved he place. I know of several Yorkshire types who've move to Wales - mostly west - and they love the similar grimness off this place, and several have become 'proper' Welshmen.

Admittedly I'm rambling and derailing the thread. Soz.

Gash
x


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## remedial_gash (Feb 26, 2009)

Idaho said:


> That twit should be enough to condemn the lot of you to Hades. Palestine, Northern Ireland, Cyprus...



A Manc by birth.

Gash
x


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## Belushi (Feb 26, 2009)

The Yorkshiremen were our allies when I was a kid 

When Welsh folk slag of the saes we dont usually have Northerners in mind, our stereotypical Englischman is a posh southerner.


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## Idaho (Feb 26, 2009)

Belushi said:


> The Yorkshiremen were our allies when I was a kid
> 
> When Welsh folk slag of the saes we dont usually have Northerners in mind, our stereotypical Englischman is a posh southerner.



I'm sure it wasn't as simple as that. Nationalism tends to contain far more contradictions and confusions when you scratch the surface.


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## _angel_ (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> Well, that and a language with roots going back to the 6th Century - which has survived against all the odds - and an entirely different history.



Under estimate Yorkshire at your peril!


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## Idaho (Feb 26, 2009)

Belushi said:


> Shall I start listing English Prime Ministers



Go ahead - no-one is under any illusions about them. It's only the welsh who retain the holy glow of racial purity


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## Belushi (Feb 26, 2009)

Idaho said:


> Go ahead - no-one is under any illusions about them.



What illsuions do you think the Welsh are under about Lloyd George? you are aware that some of his sternest critics were Welsh and he's still widely reviled by many in South Wales?



> It's only the welsh who retain the holy glow of racial purity



Really? I've never heard any welshman claim any such thing as 'racial purity', but feel free to post a link.


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## Idaho (Feb 26, 2009)

Belushi said:


> Really? I've never heard any welshman claim any such thing as 'racial purity', but feel free to post a link.



So you'd say that the English, Welsh and Scots are broadly speaking the same race?


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## Belushi (Feb 26, 2009)

Idaho said:


> So you'd say that the English, Welsh and Scots are broadly speaking the same race?



Yes, though it depends on what you mean by 'race'. If we're talking in strictly scientific terms its a meaningless concept, but people often use it when they mean ethnicity, nationality, culture etc etc.


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## Idaho (Feb 26, 2009)

Belushi said:


> Yes, though it depends on what you mean by 'race'. If we're talking in strictly scientific terms its a meaningless concept, but people often use it when they mean ethnicity, nationality, culture etc etc.



(eyes papers suspiciously) 

just checking, just checking... move along now.


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## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> Eh?



I just would have thought being massively subsidised might be considered odds in _favour_ of the language's survival.

Without them it would probably be dead everywhere but in the halls of a couple of Universities.


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## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> I just would have thought being massively subsidised might be considered odds in _favour_ of the language's survival.
> 
> Without them it would probably be dead everywhere but in the halls of a couple of Universities.


I think you'll find the language survived 500-odd years of total 100% non-subsidy, despite efforts by the Englisch rulers to see it off.


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## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

Idaho said:


> It's only the welsh who retain the holy glow of racial purity


That's an unpleasant accusation.

I'm beginning to suspect that you might have a bit of a chip on your shoulder when it comes to the Welsh, as I've yet to see you say a positive word about them.

Why is that?


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## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> I think you'll find the language survived 500-odd years of total 100% non-subsidy, despite efforts by the Englisch rulers to see it off.



Guess it should be fine without all that money now, then.

Could build a hospital or something.


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## Idaho (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> That's an unpleasant accusation.
> 
> I'm beginning to suspect that you might have a bit of a chip on your shoulder when it comes to the Welsh, as I've yet to see you say a positive word about them.
> 
> Why is that?


The racial purity comment was partly a joke and partly serious. Nationalism doesn't really exist without notions of exclusivity. 

I have a chip on my shoulder about certain kinds of nationalism. I like to poke and worry at the contradiction of otherwise intelligent and critical people getting crude, simplistic and uncritical under the nationalist banner.

I don't have any positive word to say about the Welsh because I think such a broad sweeping statement about a variety of different humans would be nonsense  The only unifying trait that the Welsh have is being born in a particular part of this island - beyond that the identity is largely constructed. That in itself is all fine and dandy (providing the more ciritcal and intelligent people acknowlege it). The bit that pisses me off is when a large part of that construction seems to be about having a go at people who live in this part of the island for their constructed and artificial identity. How 'we' oppressed 'them' or 'we' took 'their' money and made 'them' poor. It's poppycock.


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## Gromit (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> Isn't Welsh the most highly subsidised language in the world?


 
I don't know but i read an article recently that stated the Welsh model of promoting their threatened language has been seen as best practice and that other regions / languages such as Catalan are looking to follow suit.

Primarily this means investing in a Language TV channel etc.


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## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> Guess it should be fine without all that money now, then.
> 
> Could build a hospital or something.


Or perhaps people could reconnect with the language and culture of their home country. Perhaps that's not important to you, but it is to some people.

Are you aware that kids taught through the medium of Welsh are consistently performing well? Or that learning two languages when you're young holds you in good stead for learning more? 

Still if you want to through around trite 'hospital' comparisons then maybe you should look closer to home: the amount of cash going to the Welsh language is microscopic compared to what people spend on home entertainment, music and cosmetics etc.


----------



## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

Idaho said:


> The only unifying trait that the Welsh have is being born in a particular part of this island - beyond that the identity is largely constructed.


So the shared language and heritage, the place names, the history, the folklore, the language etc all count for nowt?


----------



## Gromit (Feb 26, 2009)

Idaho said:


> The racial purity comment was partly a joke and partly serious. Nationalism doesn't really exist without notions of exclusivity.


 
It doesn't?

My mother is English. I'm welsh born and bred.

I think Wales is better off with Welsh rule not because my bloodline is any better but because i've seen how English rule has fattened English pockets over Welsh ones. Politics is all about self interest and Welsh interests are rarely in the self interest of the Londoncentric government.


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> Or perhaps people could reconnect with the language and culture of their home country. Perhaps that's not important to you, but it is to some people.



Then they can spend their own money on it.



editor said:


> Are you aware that kids taught through the medium of Welsh are consistently performing well? Or that learning two languages when you're young holds you in good stead for learning more?



I have no quarrel with this.  Would seem more appropriate for our European cousins to be funding a language we could actually speak to them in, though.



editor said:


> the amount of cash going to the Welsh language is microscopic compared to what people spend on home entertainment, music and cosmetics etc.



That's people's own money. The portion that the Government has seen fit that people can spend as they wish.  You _do_ see the difference, don't you?


----------



## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> That's people's own money. The portion that the Government has seen fit that people can spend as they wish.  You _do_ see the difference, don't you?


You were the one throwing around the erroneous 'hospital' argument which has_ bugger all_ to do with the funds allocated to Welsh language. 

The fact that the Welsh language is growing in Wales proves that it is indeed money well spent, even if people like you fail to comprehend why that may be important.


----------



## Gromit (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> Then they can spend their own money on it.


 
Should not the party who were guilty of deliberately trying to kill the language bare the responsability for undoing the damage that they did?

Its not that the language faded cause people got bored of it. Children were beaten in schools for speaking welsh and made to wear the welsh knot etc. All thanks to the English government.

I personally don't feel that any of the funding should come from Welsh tax payers but that all of it should come from English taxpayers.


----------



## phildwyer (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> Or perhaps people could reconnect with the language and culture of their home country.



The Welsh language has nothing to do with the culture of most Welsh people.


----------



## phildwyer (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> His life story is really interesting, with a perfect movie ending



Ending?  What ending?


----------



## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

phildwyer said:


> The Welsh language has nothing to do with the culture of most Welsh people.


It does to the 582,400 people who can speak the langiage and it does to the people who use Welsh place names every day of their lives. And, of course, it does seem just a tad important to those singing the national anthem at the Six Nations.


----------



## Gromit (Feb 26, 2009)

phildwyer said:


> The Welsh language has nothing to do with the culture of most Welsh people.


 
You only say that cause you don't live here.

I'm not a welsh speaker but even to me the welsh language forms part of my identy through wenglish, place names, cetain welsh songs and randon words and phrases such as:

Cymru am byth
Croeso y Cymru (on the borders)
Nos da
Cwtch


----------



## _angel_ (Feb 26, 2009)

Marius said:


> Should not the party who were guilty of deliberately trying to kill the language bare the responsability for undoing the damage that they did?
> 
> Its not that the language faded cause people got bored of it. Children were beaten in schools for speaking welsh and made to wear the welsh knot etc. All thanks to the English government.
> 
> I personally don't feel that any of the funding should come from Welsh tax payers but that all of it should come from English taxpayers.



Yes, all people living in England are evil oppressors.


----------



## Gromit (Feb 26, 2009)

_angel_ said:


> Yes, all people living in England are evil oppressors.


 
Nope but you elected them so share the blame.


----------



## _angel_ (Feb 26, 2009)

Marius said:


> Nope but you elected them so share the blame.



fuck off! i elected no-one.

this idea of collective guilt just because of where you live is screwed. nationalists can get to fuck!


----------



## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

phildwyer said:


> Ending?  What ending?


Don't you know anything about the man?

He disappears after 1412 and despite enormous rewards being offered, he was never captured nor betrayed. He ignored Royal Pardons, countless stories and myths about his identity and whereabouts have circulated and it's even been argued that folk hero Jack of Kent, was Glyndwr.

The myth is that he will wake one day to set Wales free and that sure looks like a perfect Hollywood ending to me.


----------



## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

_angel_ said:


> Yes, all people living in England are evil oppressors.


Did he say that?


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> You were the one throwing around the erroneous 'hospital' argument which has_ bugger all_ to do with the funds allocated to Welsh language.
> 
> The fact that the Welsh language is growing in Wales proves that it is indeed money well spent, even if people like you fail to comprehend why that may be important.



They're both taxpayers' money.  A lot of it not even British taxpayers.

The fact that the Welsh language is growing in Wales proves nothing more than that a lot of money _has_ been spent.  It says nothing about the merits or otherwise about spending the money in this way.


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

Marius said:


> Should not the party who were guilty of deliberately trying to kill the language bare the responsability for undoing the damage that they did?



Perhaps.

But they're dead.

So it goes.


----------



## _angel_ (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> Did he say that?



he said something even more stupid than that. like i should take any responsibility for a government I haven't voted for.


----------



## Gromit (Feb 26, 2009)

_angel_ said:


> fuck off! i elected no-one.
> 
> this idea of collective guilt just because of where you live is screwed. nationalists can get to fuck!


 
And yet I bet you are happy enough to share in the collective profits (a rich economy) resulting from your country's past. Just not its sins.


----------



## _angel_ (Feb 26, 2009)

Marius said:


> And yet I bet you are happy enough to share in the collective profits (a rich economy) resulting from your country's past. Just not its sins.



You're mental if you think *all* English people somehow profited from 'exploitation' of Wales. It's like when we're being told to feel collective guilt for something like slavery, or something, even tho it was ages before we were born AND the average British person didn't exactly get rich off of it.

Highly deluded. That's what nationalists are. 

Would it be okay, then for Welsh people to profit from stitching up their fellow countryfolk?


----------



## phildwyer (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> And, of course, it does seem just a tad important to those singing the national anthem at the Six Nations.



Most of whom know precisely five words of their national anthem.  And can't even spell that many.


----------



## phildwyer (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> The myth is that he will wake one day to set Wales free and that sure looks like a perfect Hollywood ending to me.



My point precisely.  His story has not ended.


----------



## Gromit (Feb 26, 2009)

_angel_ said:


> You're mental if you think *all* English people somehow profited from 'exploitation' of Wales. It's like when we're being told to feel collective guilt for something like slavery, or something, even tho it was ages before we were born AND the average British person didn't exactly get rich off of it.
> 
> Highly deluded. That's what nationalists are.
> 
> Would it be okay, then for Welsh people to profit from stitching up their fellow countryfolk?


 
Stiching up anyone is never right. Wales needs to learn lessons from how its been treated and is trying its best not to be Cardiff-centric even if that is where the debating chamber is.

Thats why there is a program to spread the civil service as far as possible across wales with new buildings in Merthyr Tydfil, Aberystwyth and Llandudno Junction for starters.


----------



## phildwyer (Feb 26, 2009)

Marius said:


> You only say that cause you don't live here.




I probably spend as much time in Wales as I do anywhere else.  But I do take your point: the language does impinge on my life.  Not because I speak it though.  My culture is the anglophone, working-class and socialist culture of south-east Wales.  Which also happens to be the culture of most Welsh people.


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

phildwyer said:


> My culture is the anglophone, working-class and socialist culture of south-east Wales.  Which also happens to be the culture of most Welsh people.



I'm not sure about the 'socialist' bit.


----------



## phildwyer (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> I'm not sure about the 'socialist' bit.



Why not?  The vast majority of anglophone Welsh people have been socialist for well over a century.  The Welsh speakers are far more conservative, but even they don't vote Tory.


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

phildwyer said:


> Why not?  The vast majority of anglophone Welsh people have been socialist for well over a century.



Never see them about much. 



phildwyer said:


> The Welsh speakers are far more conservative, but even they don't vote Tory.



In recent years the Welsh speakers seem to be more generally middle class.  Culchure, innit.  So maybe you're correct that count.


----------



## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

phildwyer said:


> I probably spend as much time in Wales as I do anywhere else.  But I do take your point: the language does impinge on my life.  Not because I speak it though.  My culture is the anglophone, working-class and socialist culture of south-east Wales.  Which also happens to be the culture of most Welsh people.


Actually, it's more about your age.

We're from a generation when the Welsh language was being put to its death throes and anyone admitting to being Welsh could expect a ton of pisstaking,  but things have changed massively, particularly amongst the young.

There's now a thriving Welsh language music scene that barely existed twenty years ago and a growing sense of Welsh identity and pride.

To claim that the Welsh language has "nothing to do with the culture of most Welsh people" is simply not true. It's proving to be of growing improtance to a lot of people, as witnessed by the massive increase in pupils attending Welsh speaking schools. 



> In Wales, the figures are on a much, much bigger scale.
> 
> The most recent figures show that nearly 55,000 children - that's one in five - are now taught at Welsh-medium schools.
> 
> ...


----------



## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> In recent years the Welsh speakers seem to be more generally middle class.  Culchure, innit.  So maybe you're correct that count.


Source?


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> There's now a thriving Welsh language music scene that barely existed twenty years ago and a growing sense of Welsh identity and pride.



I did enjoy Radio Luxembourg at Offline.


----------



## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

phildwyer said:


> Why not?  The vast majority of anglophone Welsh people have been socialist for well over a century.  The Welsh speakers are far more conservative, but even they don't vote Tory.


Are you calling Plaid Cymru 'conservative' then?


----------



## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> I did enjoy Radio Luxembourg at Offline.


They're not the only Welsh speaking band I've put on at Offline either. Proof indeed of the growth of Welsh.


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> Source?



Nothing aside from what I've seen.  Often people who've made a bit of money in England coming back to Wales to live and taking Welsh lessons.  Sometimes English people moving in and taking it up.

This is in the South West - maybe things are a little different further East, couldn't say.


----------



## 1927 (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> Lord Bute- the owner of much of Cardiff docks - became the richest man in the world at the time, so there certainly was 'nuff cash generation going down, but because Wales was effectively ruled by England, the country saw precious little economic benefits from their labours.
> 
> That legacy is seen in the lack of love felt for Engand in some quarters today.



But the Butes were Scottish no?

And can I just point out that Cardiff *WAS NOT*, despite the myth put around, the greatest coal exporting port in the world, which was actually Barry.

You have to admire the balls of David Davies, who was Welsh, when the Butes refused to export his coal he built his own railway, dock and town to export it himself.


----------



## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> Nothing aside from what I've seen.  Often people who've made a bit of money in England coming back to Wales to live and taking Welsh lessons.  Sometimes English people moving in and taking it up.
> 
> This is in the South West - maybe things are a little different further East, couldn't say.


Welsh is generally spoken more in the less affluent farming areas of Wales.

I was at school when Welsh as at its lowest ebb.


Proportion of people aged 3 and over able to speak Welsh:







http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=447


----------



## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

1927 said:


> And can I just point out that Cardiff *WAS NOT*, despite the myth put around, the greatest coal exporting port in the world, which was actually Barry.


True, although Cardiff was the commercial hub for the coal industry.


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> Welsh is generally spoken more in the less affluent farming areas of Wales.



I know, but these are among people who have always spoken Welsh.  I was talking about how things have moved recently, where I've seen interest in Welsh by non-first language types being a middle-class cultural diversion.

If there is some proper organic take-up of the language happening I'd say that's a very good thing, but I haven't seen any myself, aside from the odd eccentric little band.

By the way, has the language started to evolve at all, or are new words still invented by a committee of historians in Cardiff?


----------



## phildwyer (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> Actually, it's more about your age.
> 
> We're from a generation when the Welsh language was being put to its death throes and anyone admitting to being Welsh could expect a ton of pisstaking,  but things have changed massively, particularly amongst the young.



Actually I'm a bit younger than you.  

When I was in school the headmaster was *massively* into the Welsh language.  He even used to stand kids up in Assembly for saying "good morning" to him instead of "bore da."  And all the signs around the school were in Welsh, which resulted in kids mistaking the library for the toilets and smiliar mishaps.

This was in the early 80's, which was just the beginnig of the language revival for practical purposes.  Of course you're right that things have developed much further since then.  But the days when speaking Welsh was stigmatized were already long gone.


----------



## phildwyer (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> Are you calling Plaid Cymru 'conservative' then?



Not any more, though their roots were ultra-conservative.  Saunders Lewis was a fascist (as well as an Englishman).  But the Welsh-speaking areas of Wales are still socially and politically conservative compared to Cardiff and the Valleys.


----------



## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

phildwyer said:


> This was in the early 80's, which was just the beginnig of the language revival for practical purposes.  Of course you're right that things have developed much further since then.  But the days when speaking Welsh was stigmatized were already long gone.


Yes, but we're both from the time when the language was in terminal decline, as the graph clearly illustrates. 

The younger generation (and with respect, that's not a group you're in) have an _entirely_ different view of the Welsh language. It's neither seen as dead or unhip - in fact, there's quite a coolness about the language which is reflected in the growing amount of bands singing in Welsh, and the increased interest in the Eisteddfod.


----------



## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

phildwyer said:


> Not any more, though their roots were ultra-conservative.  Saunders Lewis was a fascist (as well as an Englishman).  But the Welsh-speaking areas of Wales are still socially and politically conservative compared to Cardiff and the Valleys.


So you were indeed wrong to say "Welsh speakers are far more conservative."


----------



## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> By the way, has the language started to evolve at all, or are new words still invented by a committee of historians in Cardiff?


It's 'evolved' in much the same way as English and many other languages, adding some new words verbatim and 'Welshifying' others. Why should it be any different?

It's anything but a dead language.


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> It's 'evolved' in much the same way as English and many other languages, adding some new words verbatim and 'Welshifying' others. Why should it be any different?
> 
> It's anything but a dead language.



This is the bit that interests me, whether it's a properly living language now or a re-animated corpse given the illusion of vitality by European hand-outs, which is how things were looking back in the 90s when I was last paying attention.

There was certainly a time not too long ago where new words were basically being invented by academics to stop too much English leaking into the language.  

A living language evolves by itself without intervention by conservationists.  Do you have any examples of recent organic evolution in the language?


----------



## Swan (Feb 26, 2009)

phildwyer said:


> Not any more, though their roots were ultra-conservative.  Saunders Lewis was a fascist (as well as an Englishman).  But the Welsh-speaking areas of Wales are still socially and politically conservative compared to Cardiff and the Valleys.



Llanelli is largely Welsh speaking and no one would describe that area as conservative.


----------



## Belushi (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> This is the bit that interests me, whether it's a properly living language now or a re-animated corpse given the illusion of vitality by European hand-outs, which is how things were looking back in the 90s when I was last paying attention.



Even at its lowest point half a million welsh people spoke cymraeg as their first language every day, its never been anywhere near 'dead'.



> There was certainly a time not too long ago where new words were basically being invented by academics to stop too much English leaking into the language.



Thats hardly a phenomena confined to Welsh, unless you class French and German are 'dead languages' as well.


----------



## Belushi (Feb 26, 2009)

Swan said:


> Llanelli is largely Welsh speaking and no one would describe that area as conservative.



Yup, or mining valleys like my own with plenty of welsh speakers.


----------



## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> This is the bit that interests me, whether it's a properly living language now or a re-animated corpse given the illusion of vitality by European hand-outs, which is how things were looking back in the 90s when I was last paying attention.


How can it be 're-animated; when it _never died out in the first place _and has always been spoken by hundreds of thousands of people?

As for new words, try looking up Welsh words for technology.


----------



## Belushi (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> It's 'evolved' in much the same way as English and many other languages, adding some new words verbatim and 'Welshifying' others. Why should it be any different?



Innit, words like Bungalow or Bank are hardly anglo-saxon.


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

Belushi said:


> Thats hardly a phenomena confined to Welsh, unless you class French and German are 'dead languages' as well.



Fair enough, but then those are also languages that are evolving organically, just at less of a frantic pace than English, hence their feeling threatened.

Perhaps my 'zombie' depiction of Welsh was overly harsh, and I should have said 'quadraspazzed, on a life glug'.  

For all I know, things have changed, though, and Welsh is happily morphing and mutating at a pace far faster than Latin or Old Norse.


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> As for new words, try looking up Welsh words for technology.



Good point.

What was Welsh for 'television', again?


----------



## Belushi (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> Fair enough, but then those are also languages that are evolving organically, just at less of a frantic pace than English, hence their feeling threatened.
> 
> .



As is Welsh 



> Perhaps my 'zombie' depiction of Welsh was overly harsh, and I should have said 'quadraspazzed, on a life glug'.



Your depiction appears to be based on complete ignorance, which is a shame. It's a beautiful, vital language.


----------



## Belushi (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> What was Welsh for 'television', again?



You do realise Television isnt an English word?


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

Belushi said:


> You do realise Television isnt an English word?



Yes, it is.

Find a dictionary.


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

Belushi said:


> Your depiction appears to be based on complete ignorance, which is a shame. It's a beautiful, vital language.



Cool, won't be needing any more European money then.  Perhaps the Catalonians would appreciate it.


----------



## Belushi (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> Yes, it is.
> 
> Find a dictionary.



It really isnt  its Greek and Latin.


----------



## Belushi (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> Cool, won't be needing any more European money then.  Perhaps the Catalonians would appreciate it.



Thats *Catalans*.


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

Belushi said:


> It really isnt  its Greek and Latin.



No.  It's English.  It derives from Greek and Latin.

Big part of what makes English so dynamic - not scared of appropriating or stealing.
Generating words by committee is the coward's way.


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

Belushi said:


> Thats *Catalans*.



 I thought it was Catalans but choked at the point of typing.


----------



## Belushi (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> No.  It's English.  It derives from Greek and Latin.



Yup, and when it appear in a Welsh dictionary it derives from Greek and Latin as well. Or the estimated one third of English words which are adopted from French.

Started to understand how languages develop now?


----------



## Belushi (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> Big part of what makes English so dynamic - not scared of appropriating or stealing.



Neither is Welsh.


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

Belushi said:


> Yup, and when it appear in a Welsh dictionary it derives from Greek and Latin as well. Or the estimated one third of English words which are adopted from French.
> 
> Started to understand how languages develop now?



Ooh, the projection is tangible. 

When it appears in a Welsh dictionary the only link with Greek and Latin is via English.


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

Belushi said:


> Neither is Welsh.



Hence the 'Welshification' committees.


----------



## Belushi (Feb 26, 2009)

> Ooh, the projection is tangible



Theres nothing like deploying a bit of pop psychology to make a post look extra cretinous.



8ball said:


> When it appears in a Welsh dictionary the only link with Greek and Latin is via English.



And the many Latin root words in English came via French, your point is?


----------



## Belushi (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> Hence the 'Welshification' committees.



Or the OED.


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

Belushi said:


> Or the OED.



And how is what they do comparable?


----------



## Belushi (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> And how is what they do comparable?



Christ this is hard work  

Read my posts again and then if you still dont understand I'll spell it out okay?


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

Belushi said:


> And the many Latin root words in English came via French, your point is?



They weren't Anglicised by committee, they were just adopted.

One is the natural development of a language, the other is a centralised response to a conceived threat by people who'd like a language to be developing naturally but are on life-support duties. 

Christ, you can be very dim for one so patronising. 

My question, as stated earlier, was whether this is still the case or whether Welsh is having something of an authentic revival.  Since I don't live there any more and only pop back for weddings and bar mitzvahs.


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

Belushi said:


> Christ this is hard work



As John Wayne said, 'Life is tough.  It's tougher when you're stupid'.


----------



## Belushi (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> They weren't Anglicised by committee, they were just adopted.
> 
> .



Thats is actually what the OED do, by committee.



> One is the natural development of a language, the other is a centralised response to a conceived threat by people who'd like a language to be developing naturally but are on life-support duties.



Yes, like all those dying European languages.



> Christ, you can be very dim for one so patronising.



I'll let others judge on our respective posts. Playing the ball rather than the man always looks so desperate.



> My question, as stated earlier, was whether this is still the case or whether Welsh is having something of an authentic revival.  Since I don't live there any more and only pop back for weddings and bar mitzvahs



Which plenty of posters have answered.


----------



## Belushi (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> As John Wayne said, 'Life is tough.  It's tougher when you're stupid'.



Yes, John Wayne.


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

Belushi said:


> Playing the ball rather than the man always looks so desperate.



Your self-awareness is staggering.


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

Belushi said:


> Which plenty of posters have answered.



You'll have no trouble in pointing me to the posts giving an example of recent change in the Welsh language of a non-centralised nature, then.

By which I should point out that I'm not saying there hasn't been any.  I was just interested in examples.


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

Belushi said:


> Thats is actually what the OED do, by committee.



Ah.  I must have been confusing them with those dictionary-compiling people.


----------



## Belushi (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> You'll have no trouble in pointing me to the posts giving an example of recent change in the Welsh language of a non-centralised nature, then.



Why, thats isnt what you asked.

You only have to see the officual stats for the growth of the language (I think the Ed linked to them earlier) to see the extent of the revival.

Or speak to a group of young Welsh kids.



> My question, as stated earlier, was whether this is still the case or whether Welsh is having something of an authentic revival. Since I don't live there any more and only pop back for weddings and bar mitzvahs


----------



## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> Hence the 'Welshification' committees.


Do you think all of Wales uses identical words and pronunciation, and only words that are approved by committees? 

Your ignorance - and what's fast looking like anti-Welsh prejudice- is beginning to shine through here.


----------



## Belushi (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> Ah.  I must have been confusing them with those dictionary-compiling people.



Yes, it has a much wider role.


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

Belushi said:


> Why, thats isnt what you asked.



You really have no business accusing anyone of not reading your _posts_ in a thread! 



Belushi said:


> You only have to see the officual stats for the growth of the language (I think the Ed linked to them earlier) to see the extent of the revival.



Numbers of people speaking it do not a viable language make.  Wasn't that long ago that all of the upper classes in this country were well-drilled in Latin.  All my questions have been directed at seeing what kind of a revival there is.  And all the Welsh kids I know are from a generally non Welsh-speaking area.

My point is that Welsh, in the early 90s, looked like the linguistic equivalent of one of those species that lives in a few compounds and groups get moved around now and then to stop the gene pool stagnating.  You may have quite a lot of them, but their numbers and the lack of inherent diversity makes them a nonviable species long term.  Hence my interest in whether Welsh had been evolving at all recently, as that would make the all difference to me in terms of whether it was a properly 'living' language again.

I have no real interest in the small quarryful of chips on your shoulder, I was just interested.


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

Belushi said:


> Yes, it has a much wider role.



Go on - this sounds more interesting.  A link will do.


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> Do you think all of Wales uses identical words and pronunciation, and only words that are approved by committees?
> 
> Your ignorance - and what's fast looking like anti-Welsh prejudice- is beginning to shine through here.



I was _asking a question_, you fucktard! 

I wanted to know if there was a real revival in Welsh or just the understandable effect of a lot of money being poured into a minority language.  All I'm getting is what looks like bile born of some kind of inferiority complex.  
Which is fine, doesn't answer my question in any meaningful way but at least it tells me who not to ask next time . . 

As for anti-Welsh prejudice . . . some things don't even merit a response.


----------



## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> My point is that Welsh, in the early 90s, looked like the linguistic equivalent of one of those species that lives in a few compounds and groups get moved around now and then to stop the gene pool stagnating.  You may have quite a lot of them, but their numbers and the lack of inherent diversity makes them a nonviable species long term.  Hence my interest in whether Welsh had been evolving at all recently, as that would make the all difference to me in terms of whether it was a properly 'living' language again..


Even in the 90s, Welsh was being spoken all over Wales, complete with regional dialects and slang. New words were entering the language and being put into common usage regardless of whether they had been 'officially approved' or not (so, no different to English then).


----------



## Gromit (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> Do you think all of Wales uses identical words and pronunciation, and only words that are approved by committees?
> 
> Your ignorance - and what's fast looking like anti-Welsh prejudice- is beginning to shine through here.



No different to english really. A word for something in London may be neglected for another word in Newcastle for the same thing.

Both are living breathing languages. Dictionary compilers don't invent / police the language, they merely log the changes.


----------



## editor (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> All I'm getting is what looks like bile born of some kind of inferiority complex.


Your own petty prejudice is leaking all over the page again.


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> Even in the 90s, Welsh was being spoken all over Wales, complete with regional dialects and slang. New words were entering the language and being put into common usage regardless of whether they had been 'officially approved' or not (so, no different to English then).



This was the very early 90s and it was looking pretty moribund from where I was living at the time.  Sure, quite a lot of people spoke it in some places, but they were getting older and from my point of view things didn't look great for the language's future.  
I had friends from North Wales who saw things quite differently, but their Welsh speaking seemed tied up with identity politics, a way of defining their separation from English culture.
Then there was the stuff about new words (the 'new blood' of any language), being created by academics so as to stop it being overcome by a language that would happily magpie terms from anywhere.

This is what I saw at the time.  If that offends you, that's your bag.

And I've said on this thread that proper movement in the language would be a good thing.  The only way I can see that you can translate that to 'anti-Welsh' prejudice is the fact that I don't automatically agree with everything you say.


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> Your own petty prejudice is leaking all over the page again.



That's you, that is.

No, that's you, that is.


----------



## Gromit (Feb 26, 2009)

8ball said:


> I wanted to know if there was a real revival in Welsh or just the understandable effect of a lot of money being poured into a minority language.



The money kept the language alive. Nothing more.

What has made it grow is a change in attitude to the language.

When i was in school it was a dead language and so a waste of time to learn despite the push to revive it. Uncool.

Then certain welsh bands made it cool during the cool cymru pop era.

With that coolness breaking down previous barriers parents noticed through league tables that welsh speaking schools had really good results. The desire to have the best education for ones kids has created a new generation of welsh speakers where welsh is no longer uncool but now has snob value.

My theory anyway.


----------



## 8ball (Feb 26, 2009)

Marius said:


> The money kept the language alive. Nothing more.
> 
> What has made it grow is a change in attitude to the language.
> 
> ...



The first 3 sentences there certainly mirror my experience.  

I don't think the term 'snob value' will play well with certain parties, though.


----------



## phildwyer (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> Yes, but we're both from the time when the language was in terminal decline, as the graph clearly illustrates.



Obviously the decline was not terminal.  And in fact the graph shows the decline had levelled out by the time we were in school.  However...



editor said:


> The younger generation (and with respect, that's not a group you're in) have an _entirely_ different view of the Welsh language. It's neither seen as dead or unhip - in fact, there's quite a coolness about the language which is reflected in the growing amount of bands singing in Welsh, and the increased interest in the Eisteddfod.



This is true.  But I still think that the yoof's commitment to Welsh is largely rhetorical.  Yes, it is considered cwl and all that, but how many of them actually speak it?  I bet it's not many more than when we were in school.  There's a massive difference between saying you speak it and actually being able to speak it.


----------



## phildwyer (Feb 26, 2009)

editor said:


> So you were indeed wrong to say "Welsh speakers are far more conservative."



It was a generalization, of course the Swansea valleys are not conservative.  But generally speaking it's generally true in general.


----------



## editor (Feb 27, 2009)

phildwyer;8811288]It was a generalization said:


> Obviously the decline was not terminal. And in fact the graph shows the decline had levelled out by the time we were in school.


Yes, it had levelled out. _At the bottom _of the graph.


----------



## Idaho (Feb 27, 2009)

Marius said:


> I think Wales is better off with Welsh rule not because my bloodline is any better but because i've seen how English rule has fattened English pockets over Welsh ones. Politics is all about self interest and Welsh interests are rarely in the self interest of the Londoncentric government.



Wales is better off with Welsh rule because all people should be in control of the affairs of the area they live in - not because of some innate virtue of Welsh people. Once again you live under the, frankly tragic, assumption that money going to English capitalists is shared freely among the english while we scoff and laugh at you all from across the border. And that had the money gone to Welsh capitalists they would share it round likewise.

This thread could have been an interesting discussion about how raw material wealth rarely provides good wealth distribution. However it became another off-tone call to prayer for the more irrational end of Welsh romantic nationalism.


----------



## editor (Feb 27, 2009)

Idaho said:


> Once again you live under the, frankly tragic, assumption that money going to English capitalists is shared freely among the english while we scoff and laugh at you all from across the border. And that had the money gone to Welsh capitalists they would share it round likewise.


Now that's what I call a strawman.


----------



## Idaho (Feb 27, 2009)

editor said:


> Now that's what I call a strawman.



It certainly is. However I wasn't the person building it.

You refuse to engage with a more thoughtful and analytical discussion about the structural causes of poverty in Wales, and instead go back to some Braveheart/Ernesto image of greedy Englisch raiding the helpless and noble Welsh and robbing them of their destined place as the richest country in the world 

Go for it!


----------



## Pingu (Feb 27, 2009)

dunno if this has already been mentioned but some of the statistics dont really tell the whole picture (esp when it comes to income) where my mum lives on ynys mon has a very shit rating in the income statistics.. however this is because most of the people living there are retired. lots of nice cars and what would normally be the trappings of well offness on show. 

this in no way though should detract from the other parts of wales and the skew in the data from areas like where my mum lives is not the norm. I see jobs that I know in other parts of the country would attract at least 25% more being advertised regularly. 

dunno where I am going with this as i have lost my train of thought but in general my experience of wales is that people are financially poorer than comparative people in other parts of the UK. 

We make up for it though in other areas


----------



## Gromit (Feb 27, 2009)

Idaho said:


> Once again you live under the, frankly tragic, assumption that money going to English capitalists is shared freely among the english while we scoff and laugh at you all from across the border. And that had the money gone to Welsh capitalists they would share it round likewise.


 
It goes to the rich capitalists. But where do those rich capitalists spend their gains thereby improving which local economy?

Many English gentlemen were made Welsh Lords. They made their fortunes out of Welsh mines and estates then vanished with their dosh back over the border to spend it there. Thats how resource wealth is syphoned out of a country.

Wales is trying to create high paid jobs in Wales now. Not to create rich people for the sake of creating them but because if they work and live in Wales and spend that money in Wales it benefits the local economy not just them.


----------



## editor (Feb 27, 2009)

Idaho said:


> It certainly is. However I wasn't the person building it.
> 
> You refuse to engage with a more thoughtful and analytical discussion about the structural causes of poverty in Wales, and instead go back to some Braveheart/Ernesto image of greedy Englisch raiding the helpless and noble Welsh and robbing them of their destined place as the richest country in the world
> 
> Go for it!


And there you go. One man. Many chips.

You can't divorce Wales' current economic situation with the past, no matter how much you try and belittle it. Our entire infrastructure is a result of the economic exploitation of the past and that has had a huge bearing on modern day Wales.


----------



## Idaho (Feb 27, 2009)

editor said:


> And there you go. One man. Many chips.
> 
> You can't divorce Wales' current economic situation with the past, no matter how much you try and belittle it. Our entire infrastructure is a result of the economic exploitation of the past and that has had a huge bearing on modern day Wales.



You can call it a chip, or you can call it an opinion, it depends how personal you want to make an internet discussion 

So the economy of Wales and it's subsequent poverty bear no relation to all the other resource rich countries with extensive poverty?


----------



## ddraig (Feb 27, 2009)

8ball said:


> That's you, that is.
> 
> No, that's you, that is.



pwy yw'r CONT ma?


----------



## _angel_ (Feb 27, 2009)

editor said:


> Now that's what I call a strawman.



It sounds pretty much what is being 'argued'.

The idea that the 'English' (one homogenus unity) all "got rich" off the the backs of anything at all, including Wales, is laughable.

Some rich people lined their pockets at the expense of others -- do you think this 'huge wealth' extended to the children being shoved up chimneys, to people (men, women, children) being made to work long hours in factories??

Do you really think they -- on the whole -- went sharing their money about?


----------



## Idaho (Feb 27, 2009)

Marius said:


> It goes to the rich capitalists. But where do those rich capitalists spend their gains thereby improving which local economy?
> 
> Many English gentlemen were made Welsh Lords. They made their fortunes out of Welsh mines and estates then vanished with their dosh back over the border to spend it there. Thats how resource wealth is syphoned out of a country.
> 
> Wales is trying to create high paid jobs in Wales now. Not to create rich people for the sake of creating them but because if they work and live in Wales and spend that money in Wales it benefits the local economy not just them.



It's the same in modern day Africa and in the Gulf - resource wealth benefits a few and is taken elsewhere. In the Gulf this leads to the kinds of Arab nationalism that created the Ba'ath party, and to some extent Al Qaida. In Africa it lead to the anti-colonial wars, and to the continuing reign of corrupt generals and Mugabesque folk.

My problem is that I don't see where you are going with the analysis.


----------



## llantwit (Feb 27, 2009)

editor said:


> I don't suppose you've got any credible sources to back that up, have you?


I don't have a source to hand, but I don't think it's especially contraversial to say that rural Welsh-speaking Wales is traditionally conservative, which is what I took PD to be saying.
You'd only have to look at election results and compare them to the stated aims, politics, and policy preferences of constituency politicians to see that.


----------



## Brockway (Feb 27, 2009)

We're poorer because we're a colony - it's that simple. If we took control of our own affairs and resources we would be better off. And we'd be less crap as a people. Being colonised is a state of mind too. There's nothing more depressing than Welsh people saying: oh no we're hopeless, we can't possibly do that ourselves. I'd like to think that things are changing with the younger generation in Wales and certainly, culturally, we seem to be more self-assured since devolution.


----------



## PAD1OH (Feb 27, 2009)

Brockway said:


> *And we'd be less crap as a people.* ,,,,,



you need to change that mindset as a start... also so you don't contradict what you say after..


----------



## Idaho (Feb 27, 2009)

Brockway said:


> We're poorer because we're a colony - it's that simple. If we took control of our own affairs and resources we would be better off. And we'd be less crap as a people. Being colonised is a state of mind too. There's nothing more depressing than Welsh people saying: oh no we're hopeless, we can't possibly do that ourselves. I'd like to think that things are changing with the younger generation in Wales and certainly, culturally, we seem to be more self-assured since devolution.



Nonsense. Wales is poor for the same reason that other less accessable and former industrial parts of the island are poor.


----------



## Karac (Feb 27, 2009)

Idaho said:


> Wales is better off with Welsh rule because all people should be in control of the affairs of the area they live in - not because of some innate virtue of Welsh people. Once again you live under the, frankly tragic, assumption that money going to English capitalists is shared freely among the english while we scoff and laugh at you all from across the border. And that had the money gone to Welsh capitalists they would share it round likewise.
> 
> This thread could have been an interesting discussion about how raw material wealth rarely provides good wealth distribution. However it became another off-tone call to prayer for the more irrational end of Welsh romantic nationalism.


We could of talk of middle class English Devonian politics instead


----------



## Karac (Feb 27, 2009)

Idaho said:


> Nonsense. Wales is poor for the same reason that other less accessable and former industrial parts of the island are poor.



Your a middle class idiotic Brummie with no brain


----------



## Brockway (Feb 27, 2009)

Idaho said:


> Nonsense. Wales is poor for the same reason that other less accessable and former industrial parts of the island are poor.



"the island" - is that a new country? Or do you mean greater England? Wales is a nation (albeit a colonised one) - we are not an English region. If there are some parts of England poorer than others that's your business. I couldn't give a shit about Devon, Yorkshire or wherever - it's not my country.


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## Idaho (Feb 27, 2009)

Karac said:


> Your a middle class idiotic Brummie with no brain





Brockway said:


> I couldn't give a shit about Devon, Yorkshire or wherever - it's not my country.



Lovely, lovely nationalism. Inclusive, constructive and positive 

I consider the surface duly scratched 

(unsubscribes from thread)


----------



## Brockway (Feb 27, 2009)

Idaho said:


> Lovely, lovely nationalism. Inclusive, constructive and positive
> 
> 
> (unsubscribes from thread)



Oh do fuck off you colonising gimp. 

As for nationalism it's a perfectly acceptable form of politics when one country is unhappy about being colonised by another. Gandhi, for instance, was an Indian nationalist - he wanted to free his people from English/British imperialism. I suppose you think he was some kind of fascist. Maybe he should have been a bit more inclusive and allowed the Brits to walk all over them. How about the Chechens? What are they always bitching about - can't they just let the Russians take the piss out of them?


----------



## lewislewis (Feb 28, 2009)

Idaho said:


> I don't think it would have made much difference if it had it's own parliament. Look at the energy rich states - they are hardly bastions of direct democracy and wealth distribution. I don't know anything about him, but You think Lord Bute would have crashed the cash around to his fellow countrymen if he was Welsh? I am guessing he never gave much away to the masses of urban poor in England.
> 
> Where in the world at the end of the 19th C was there anything resembling wealth redistribution? The idea that there is some historical justification for the resentment a modern day resident of South Wales may have for resident of a town or city a hundred miles to the east is fairly lame.
> 
> It's a simplistic in the extreme to see the wealth created from South Wales industry as going "to England". It no more went to England than the wealth generated in Yorkshire factories went to England. The same capitalist exploitation occurred throughout. The only difference being that Welsh were able to but a nationalist (and false) personification to their exploitation: "the reason we are exploited is because we are welsh and they are english".



In terms of energy rich states, it might be argued that Venezuela one of the most energy rich states in the world is actually also amongst the most advanced in terms of direct democracy and wealth redistribution (although starting from a base far more unequal than in Wales).


----------



## lewislewis (Feb 28, 2009)

phildwyer said:


> Why not?  The vast majority of anglophone Welsh people have been socialist for well over a century.  The Welsh speakers are far more conservative, but even they don't vote Tory.



Generalisation of the year goes to...

Let's dismiss all those 'conservative' Welsh speakers from the north who shut down military recruitment centres and went to jail on a regular basis.


----------



## lewislewis (Feb 28, 2009)

phildwyer said:


> Not any more, though their roots were ultra-conservative.  Saunders Lewis was a fascist (as well as an Englishman).  But the Welsh-speaking areas of Wales are still socially and politically conservative compared to Cardiff and the Valleys.



Slur.


----------



## editor (Feb 28, 2009)

I've just added these two 1987 photos to my piece on Cardiff Docks:














If anyone was in doubt about the collosal wealth that used to run through the area, here's a reminder:





> Such was Cardiff's explosive growth that by 1880 it had been transformed from a small town into one of the world's greatest ports, with Barry and Cardiff docks handling more coal than any other port in the world. At the turn of the century, Cardiff's docks were handling more traffic than New York!
> 
> World's first £1,000,000 cheque
> 
> ...


----------



## Meltingpot (Feb 28, 2009)

editor said:


> At the turn of the century, Cardiff's docks were handling more traffic than New York!



Wow.


----------



## pigtails (Feb 28, 2009)

editor said:


>



I miss it looking like this - I loved the mud flats, 'the bay' is pretty souless now.


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## phildwyer (Feb 28, 2009)

pigtails said:


> I miss it looking like this - I loved the mud flats, 'the bay' is pretty souless now.



You can see the church in which I was Christened in that photo!


----------



## Gromit (Feb 28, 2009)

My dad had a boat moored there. I used to play on those flats whilst he worked on the boat.


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## spacemonkey (Feb 28, 2009)

pigtails said:


> I miss it looking like this - I loved the mud flats, 'the bay' is pretty souless now.



I hated the mudflats. I think it looks much prettier now (excluding the commercial crap and luxury flats).


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## phildwyer (Feb 28, 2009)

spacemonkey said:


> I hated the mudflats. I think it looks much prettier now (excluding the commercial crap and luxury flats).



Will no-one think of the sandpipers?


----------



## pigtails (Feb 28, 2009)

spacemonkey said:


> I hated the mudflats. I think it looks much prettier now (excluding the commercial crap and luxury flats).



Oh no, I think the the mud flats were stunning - specially on a bright winters day, it's just a bit boring now


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## davesgcr (Mar 1, 2009)

The most evocative Cardiff picture ever (saw the original last year)


----------



## editor (Mar 1, 2009)

davesgcr said:


> The most evocative Cardiff picture ever (saw the original last year)


That's amazing. Where's it from?


----------



## davesgcr (Mar 1, 2009)

Its by Lionel Walden 1894 - and its called "Cardiff Docks" - held in the Musee d'Orsay Paris.

_
"Waldens painting shows the goods yard of the Bute Dock railway - built in 1886 - which was a specialised harbour railway of 18 miles connecting to the Rhymney and Taff Vale lines.

In the background can be seen the Dowlais steelworks , and not only the prominent masts of the sailing vessels but a steam vessel. Such was the global coal trade that it gave sailing vessels their last great cargoes_."    

Commentary from "The Railway Art in the Age of Steam" - which was a book relating to last years exhibition in the Walker Art gallery in Liverpool. ISBN13:978-0-300-13878-8

An outstanding exhibition (which went to NYC and SF) 


An outstanding picture - now when that time machine is patented - thats one of my foggy and gas lit evening visits


----------



## editor (Mar 1, 2009)

Here's a slightly bigger version:


----------



## davesgcr (Mar 1, 2009)

Think of the fact that there was an Impressionist school in Penarth ! 



Wales may be economically poor (doing some research for the Wales Route utilisation study - was quite depressing) - but what culture , landscape , people etc etc...........

And for less "subsidy" than other parts of the UK too ....without naming names / regions.


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## phildwyer (Mar 1, 2009)

davesgcr said:


> Think of the fact that there was an Impressionist school in Penarth !



A whole school?  I thought it was just one painter: Sisley?


----------



## davesgcr (Mar 1, 2009)

Quite right ! - just Sisley (article in the weekend papers a while ago)


----------



## Brockway (Mar 1, 2009)

He stayed at 4 Clive Place in Penarth. And he got married in Cardiff while he was over here.


----------



## spacemonkey (Mar 1, 2009)

editor said:


> Here's a slightly bigger version:



Amazing, never seen that before.


----------



## phildwyer (Mar 1, 2009)

davesgcr said:


> Quite right ! - just Sisley (article in the weekend papers a while ago)



He did some great stuff of the cliffs, he saw a beauty in them that no-one else had noticed before.  Shame about that weird tree falling down a few years back.  The Ed has some good photos of it on the site somewhere...


----------



## llion (Mar 2, 2009)

To return to the point of view put across earlier in this thread that rural Welsh-speaking Wales is traditionally conservative, I would argue, as someone who grew up in Ceredigion, lived in Cardiff for 10 years and recently moved back to Ceredigion, that this is a very outdated and inaccurate view. To my knowledge, for example, Ceredigion has not returned a Tory MP in living memory (and probably far beyond), and was in fact one of, if not the first seat in Britain to have an MP returned on a partly Green Party mandate (Cynog Dafis, who won the seat in 1992 on a Plaid Cymru/Green Party ticket). Ceredigion and other rural counties' earlier loyalty to the Liberal Party, was the product of the enduring legacy of the nineteenth century radical/Nonconformist alliance, which produced such great figures as Henry Richard from Tregaron, whose ideas on pacifism and improving relationships between nations/avoiding wars are about as far from conservative as can be imagined. 

The success of the deal Plaid struck with the Greens reflects the fact that environmental activism and 'green' ideas have been particularly influential in both rural Ceredigion and Powys since the early to mid 1970s. This is due in part to the fact that the lifestyles and ideas associated with hippy culture were accepted from a very early date in these areas, hence the success of the Centre for Alternative Technology since the mid seventies and the generally friendly and harmonious relations between local people and the 'hippies' who were attracted to move to rural Wales for a number of reasons. From personal experience, I can vouch for the fact that culturally and politically rural Wales has been and is, in ways that are not perhaps immediately obvious, a hotbed of alternative ideas and actions e.g. some of the huge free parties/raves held in the area, Operation Julie, the development of the Welsh Language movement (which again is often mistaken for a conservative movement when it was and is in fact a positive, active affirmation of the importance of cultural diversity and of the rights of minorities to live as much of their lives as they choose in the language of their choice in the face of globally homogenizing, mainly economic, pressures), Transition Towns (of which Lampeter is one of the first), and many other environmental initiatives in the Machynlleth area.

Another myth repated in this thread, which flies in the face of social reality in Welsh-speaking Wales, is that Welsh has ever been a dead language. The Welsh language movememt which emerged in the sixties developed in order to address the fact that Welsh speakers had very few legal rights, which made their efforts to reverse the decline in numbers speaking the language virtually impossible. Ordinary, everyday actions and issues such as writing a cheque, birth certificates, wedding registrations, driving licences, road signs etc could only be done officially, or were only available in English. Each of these rights had to be won individually through concerted civil disobedience and direct action which involved both younger and older generations, and was arguably the clearest manifestation of the spirit of the Sixties global protest movement in Wales. 

To me, these actions were heroic, as they have ensured that I and other born since the seventies have been able to use a language which has been around for a very, very long time throughout my education, up to and including post-graduate level, in my working life and socially and culturally through Welsh language tele, films and pop. Interestingly, the idea of Welsh-speaking Wales as being conservative is again undermined by the music and ideas which have come out of the Welsh language music scene e.g. John Peel's faves Datblygu were from Cardigan and were v left-wing in an uncompromisng and iconoclastic way, Ffa Coffi Pawb (the band which the Super Furries emerged from) were similarly very out there and radical from the name itself onwards, same goes for the Gorkys. As for new Welsh words being hatched in some sort of academic laboratory, again there's very little, if any evidence of this. New Welsh words emerge in the same way as they do in any other living language - through a comibnation of experimentation, argument, discussion and useage by speakers themselves, followed by official recognition in dictionaries etc.


----------



## editor (Mar 2, 2009)

llion said:


> To return to the point of view put across earlier in this thread that rural Welsh-speaking Wales is traditionally conservative, I would argue, as someone who grew up in Ceredigion, lived in Cardiff for 10 years and recently moved back to Ceredigion, that this is a very outdated and inaccurate view.


Great post, llion.


----------



## davesgcr (Mar 2, 2009)

Agreed - the Welsh language is pretty safe now - thanks to many good initiatives (and to be fair to support from many incomers to be fair) 


The problems of the economy - regrettably - are a continuing worry !


----------



## ashie259 (Mar 4, 2009)

editor said:


> Great post, llion.


+1. Really fascinating stuff. Thanks


----------



## RobotHyper (May 13, 2017)

Wales was poorer, now it is catching up.

House prices are high in Wales.


Swansea has the highest rainfall per annum in the UK.  Wales has a high rainfall climate; it may have made agricultural output lower before farming industrialisation.  London, Kent has the warmest climate in the UK.  In the summer months during warmest days it is the region which is warmest.  It may have helped with its development.  It is the way you do things which generates wealth more in my opinion than climate.  Places like the Arctic and Antarctic are inhabitable but many people debate how much a role climate plays in Africa’s poverty.


Swansea has the highest rainfall in the UK and its roads do not flood, meaning there were structural engineering problems like drainage problems with English roads.


Manufacturing needs to become more efficient.  There are only so many products a person needs, as agriculture became more efficient people move into manufacturing as manufacturing becomes more efficient requiring less people to produce the goods, people then move into the service sector.  Need to use more modern machinery and equipment to increase manufacturing productivity.  Most goods are made in the UK and not exported or imported – branch manufacturing.


Highly funded Governments grow their economies fast, a well-funded government goes with things which create productivity increases.  Highly funded countries like Norway and Qatar grow their economies fast with strong welfare.  They have State owned enterprises.  Countries with low taxation are third world countries, countries with mid-level taxation are mid income countries and countries with high levels of taxation are developed countries.


Only 20% of Wales lives in cities, while 50% of the world’s population lives in cities.  Cities are colossal generators of wealth.  Use housing subsidies to build up the cities.  Demography.  Rural areas far from the capital of a country are poorer.  Both areas far from a capital and rural areas are poorer.  Geography.


Wales is on the up.

Low crime, high Southerly style property prices now, high southerly style Life expectancy.  It was not always this way.  Before devolution things were worst, things are improving.  Schools improving.


The annual literacy and numeracy tests sat by all the kids before GCSE’s are working.  They can sack the correct staff.  It also keeps the kids out of trouble.  Keeps productivity high.  Go with devolution maximum a country within a country most things devolved but foreign affairs and MOD.


I’m too young to be sure if it is an old wife’s tale or not but when Wales was the first to abolish grammar schools its GDP per capita caught up to 85% of the UK average.


----------



## planetgeli (May 13, 2017)

^

House prices in Wales are not high. For what my sister in law pays in Hackey for a 4 bedroom house you can buy a castle in Wales with acres of land.

Swansea does not have the highest rainfall in the U.K. You are acting on figures 15 years old. There are plenty of places with more rain in Scotland and even Yorkshire. Swansea does, however, flood. The outskirts, sometimes, appallingly. 

Manufacturing was largely destroyed in South Wales by Thatcher. The wealth of this country was built on coal (and to a certain extent steel) and South Wales got sweet FA out of it. Visit Ammanford sometime.

Geography? Wales is like a tiny Colombia. Except in Colombia hillside farming is the norm because they don't restrict themselves to heavy machinery that cannot operate at 45 degrees. Sheep farming is never going to make us rich. Dairy farming is all but dead.

What you say about the annual literacy and numeracy tests is a joke. I know. I mark them. I have no words for how appalling the results are. Staff, incompetent staff, are never sacked. I work in a school with plenty of them. 

Your post is an unbelievably optimistic fairy story. I'd love you to be right. You aren't.


----------



## davesgcr (May 13, 2017)

Quick canter through some of he economic and population etc data shows some very modest improvement - but with huge variations across Wales - Anglesey appears to be one of the worst performing areas - along with the top end of the Eastern Valleys. Cardiff and the Vale outshine everywhere. 

Being slightly biased - from the Ammanford area - there are clear benefits in things like a clean environment and low(sih) crime rates - whihc is fine if you have a reasonable job / income.


----------



## Gromit (May 13, 2017)

Wales voted to leave Europe. 
It got lots of money from Europe. 
Anyone who thinks Westminister are going to cover the loss of EU money are dreaming. 

Wales is fucked. 
Any gains we might have made will be destroyed over the next ten years. 

Westminster will still try to blame everything on Europe as if they were the cause.


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## planetgeli (May 13, 2017)

davesgcr said:


> Being slightly biased - from the Ammanford area - there are clear benefits in things like a clean environment and low(sih) crime rates - whihc is fine if you have a reasonable job / income.



Again, I live eight miles from Ammanford and don't recognise the picture you paint barely at all. Clean environment now the coal has disappeared - yes. Low crime rate? You must be joking. Glanaman, Garnant, Ammanford itself and Tycroes are generally Smack City with attendant problems. The biggest laugh the dealers had was when hundreds of thousands was spent on a new Ammanford police station only for it to be declared unfit for use. The number of people in Ammanford with a decent job is minimal and the town itself is dominated by boarded up shops, pound shops, charity shops and shops selling shit. Tesco in Ammanford sells things, everything, at higher prices than it does in middle class Carmarthen, which is disgraceful to say the least. I wonder how long my beloved Kosovan barbers will last. And how the fuck they ended up there in the first place.

The local rag (Carmarthen Journal) has a great crime page full of domestic violence (Tycroes features heavily here), people being bust for 0.5g of shit hash and a Vietnamese guy who features quite regularly being caught growing "a cannabis farm". His latest was above the disused bank at the top of the pedestrianised street IIRC. At least he didn't get murdered like the other Vietnamese guy.

Yeah, come to Ammanford. It's got clean air.


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## davesgcr (May 13, 2017)

planetgeli said:


> Again, I live eight miles from Ammanford and don't recognise the picture you paint barely at all. Clean environment now the coal has disappeared - yes. Low crime rate? You must be joking. Glanaman, Garnant, Ammanford itself and Tycroes are generally Smack City with attendant problems. The biggest laugh the dealers had was when hundreds of thousands was spent on a new Ammanford police station only for it to be declared unfit for use. The number of people in Ammanford with a decent job is minimal and the town itself is dominated by boarded up shops, pound shops, charity shops and shops selling shit. Tesco in Ammanford sells things, everything, at higher prices than it does in middle class Carmarthen, which is disgraceful to say the least. I wonder how long my beloved Kosovan barbers will last. And how the fuck they ended up there in the first place.
> 
> The local rag (Carmarthen Journal) has a great crime page full of domestic violence (Tycroes features heavily here), people being bust for 0.5g of shit hash and a Vietnamese guy who features quite regularly being caught growing "a cannabis farm". His latest was above the disused bank at the top of the pedestrianised street IIRC. At least he didn't get murdered like the other Vietnamese guy.
> 
> Yeah, come to Ammanford. It's got clean air.




Thanks for the update - I have clearly been away far too long to recognize the changes (regular trips down there ceased nearly 20 years ago when my parents were around) - that does sound depressing - there must be an element of piss take when the disused Lloyds Bank in a prime spot was a cannabis grow location which the police found only by accident......not a heck of a lot tends to get reported in the august pages of the South Wales Guardian which I look at on line. Good job then my parents no longer live in Tycroes.


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## Kesher (Jun 9, 2017)

planetgeli said:


> Again, I live eight miles from Ammanford and don't recognise the picture you paint barely at all. Clean environment now the coal has disappeared - yes. Low crime rate? You must be joking. Glanaman, Garnant, Ammanford itself and Tycroes are generally Smack City with attendant problems. The biggest laugh the dealers had was when hundreds of thousands was spent on a new Ammanford police station only for it to be declared unfit for use. The number of people in Ammanford with a decent job is minimal and the town itself is dominated by boarded up shops, pound shops, charity shops and shops selling shit. Tesco in Ammanford sells things, everything, at higher prices than it does in middle class Carmarthen, which is disgraceful to say the least. I wonder how long my beloved Kosovan barbers will last. And how the fuck they ended up there in the first place.
> 
> The local rag (Carmarthen Journal) has a great crime page full of domestic violence (Tycroes features heavily here), people being bust for 0.5g of shit hash and a Vietnamese guy who features quite regularly being caught growing "a cannabis farm". His latest was above the disused bank at the top of the pedestrianised street IIRC. At least he didn't get murdered like the other Vietnamese guy.
> 
> Yeah, come to Ammanford. It's got clean air.



It's also got the The  Railway (pub)


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## RobotHyper (Mar 17, 2018)

Bad best practise leads to poverty in Wales.  People follow best practise until the money runs out.  Perhaps Wales is not catching up.  A more serious mind leads to more wealth, not a silly one.  The UK I have noticed has fallen from 13th richest country in the world GDP per capita nominal to 25th richest country in the world out of 200.  Wales could use greater sales techniques on foreigners.  Wales could do with a bigger banking sector or IT sector.  More higher value end services.  Business men in Wales wrongly favoured setting up manufacturing companies instead of higher end services.


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## editor (Mar 17, 2018)

Gromit said:


> Wales voted to leave Europe..


It wasn't as emphatic as your post suggests, and some people only voted for Brexit on the grounds that they've been so fucked by the current system, things couldn't get much worse. And, like a lot of people, I dare say some believed the outright lies that were pedalled by the Leave campaign.

 854,572 (52.5%) voters in Wales chose to leave the EU, compared with 772,347 (47.5%) supporting Remain.


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## davesgcr (Mar 17, 2018)

RobotHyper said:


> Bad best practise leads to poverty in Wales.  People follow best practise until the money runs out.  Perhaps Wales is not catching up.  A more serious mind leads to more wealth, not a silly one.  The UK I have noticed has fallen from 13th richest country in the world GDP per capita nominal to 25th richest country in the world out of 200.  Wales could use greater sales techniques on foreigners.  Wales could do with a bigger banking sector or IT sector.  More higher value end services.  Business men in Wales wrongly favoured setting up manufacturing companies instead of higher end services.



Back in the 1970's , the panacea seemed to be setting up "industrial estates and units" - that seemed to work for a while until globalisation kicked in , and outsourced much of the embryonic businesses - there actually seems to be a fair bit or higher tech / or maybe back office stuff in Cardiff certainly - less so elsewhere maybe. The key needs to be major improvements in high tech connectivity and the access to markets , not to mention proper electrification beyond Cardiff of the main lines (and something of course for North Wales rail wise) .....

Quite amazingly - WiFi is now available on pretty well every ATW train , so you can surf the net from Dovey Junction ..


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## RobotHyper (Mar 25, 2018)

The Welsh have never been communist.  Higher ambitions for its people, instead of lower ambitions.  If all regions of the UK are following scientific pronciples of wealth creation, it is hard for a region to catch up.


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## Plumdaff (Mar 26, 2018)

editor said:


> It wasn't as emphatic as your post suggests, and some people only voted for Brexit on the grounds that they've been so fucked by the current system, things couldn't get much worse. And, like a lot of people, I dare say some believed the outright lies that were pedalled by the Leave campaign.
> 
> 854,572 (52.5%) voters in Wales chose to leave the EU, compared with 772,347 (47.5%) supporting Remain.


 
This is an interesting article about Wales and the Brexit vote, thinking about the possible diminishing of the 'Welsh effect' in Welsh politics, Wales as an effective one party state, and the effect of significant in-migration of retired English voters who are more right wing in large numbers into some areas of Wales. 

One other thing Wales lacks is any form of real internal political media - I'd recommend the podcast Desolation Radio  - one of the contributors is the author of the linked article, it's looks a specific Welsh political issues from a non partisan, Welsh left wing viewpoint.


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## editor (Mar 26, 2018)

Plumdaff said:


> This is an interesting article about Wales and the Brexit vote, thinking about the possible diminishing of the 'Welsh effect' in Welsh politics, Wales as an effective one party state, and the effect of significant in-migration of retired English voters who are more right wing in large numbers into some areas of Wales.
> 
> One other thing Wales lacks is any form of real internal political media - I'd recommend the podcast Desolation Radio  - one of the contributors is the author of the linked article, it's looks a specific Welsh political issues from a non partisan, Welsh left wing viewpoint.


That is interesting. So this is another thing we can blame England for!


> It is estimated that over the last 10 years over a million English people have moved into Wales. As of now 20.8% of Welsh population is English-born. To put this demographic shift in context, this is the highest percentage of foreign born population in the EU apart from Luxembourg.
> 
> As well as being destructive to the Welsh language in-migration can impact attitudes towards the EU in two ways. First, the constant in-migration of people from England into former Welsh speaking communities and the simultaneous out-migration of young Welsh speakers has a cumulative impact: it erodes the local political and cultural apparatuses which previously incubated/fostered the alternative political and linguistuc culture which ultimately produced distinct political opinions.
> 
> Second, whilst migrants from England are a diverse group, in terms of voting statistics they generally tend to be more conservative and have emerged as more likely to vote UKIP. This is unsurprising given that many in-migrants are products of ‘white flight’.


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## mwgdrwg (Mar 26, 2018)

editor said:


> That is interesting. So this is another thing we can blame England for!



On Anglesey I can go to the local supermarket and be in a minority, with more brummie and cockney accents than Welsh speakers. A Welsh speaking heart-land swamped in a generation.

The last point in your quote is spot on, they mostly seem to be UKIPpers, with the amount of posters and banners I see at elections.

Fucked up.


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## RobotHyper (Jun 25, 2019)

Wales.  Please God no.


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## skyscraper101 (Jun 25, 2019)

RobotHyper said:


> Wales.  Please God no.



eh


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## kebabking (Jun 25, 2019)

skyscraper101 said:


> eh



its a bot. or someone who's talking to the people in his head.


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## 19sixtysix (Jun 25, 2019)

mwgdrwg said:


> The last point in your quote is spot on, they mostly seem to be UKIPpers, with the amount of posters and banners I see at elections.



In the days of analogue TV I used to take calls from english folk who'd moved to wales and were complaining about welsh TV in English and Welsh. As a Scot I had to explain to them that moving to a different country will bring it certain cultural differences and the solution to getting your TV back was to move. The slogan " come home to a warm fire buy a holiday home in wales" was in my mind


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## Poi E (Jun 26, 2019)

A former co-worker from Chester swore blind that he would not go to Wales because of the risk to his safety. As I have a deep affection for Wales I encouraged his misguided views.


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