Not like that. Like this!
Yesterday it was Matt.
Today I'm reminded of Andy Capp and his wife Florrie and those annuals my brother used to get in his Christmas stocking, year in, year out. There was always a Chocolate Orange and for me, the Twinkle annual until I argued Father Christmas should give in and let me have the Jackie annual instead. Big brother stuck with Andy Capp throughout and so it became my favourite too.
One Andy moment has stuck with me. He's sitting on a bench, a beer in his hand, watching Florrie mowing the lawn in the midday sun. "Oh you shouldn't be mowing the lawn like that love" he says. Wow. A new, politically correct Andy? No. "You should be doing it like this. Get yer back into it!" or words to that effect.
Why did it spring to mind? Some chauvinistic commuter who tutted at the way I was lugging my laptop and shoulder bag on the train to Paddington? No, it's thanks to the Welsh Affairs Select Committee and their report on the Welsh Language Legislative Competence Order.
In essence the upshot of the report is this: in principle? Yes, we agree that in future it's logical and appropriate that legislation with regard to the language ought to be made and put to work in Wales, where it's spoken - or as they put it "located in its social context". In other words they agree that the powers ought to be transferred to the Assembly Government, in principle.
Ah but principle must be turned into practice and there, the problems begin or as Andy would put it, "you shouldn't be doing it like that!"
The LCO as it stands lists the types of companies and bodies that would be affected by future measures, or laws. It states too that organisations who get more than £200,000 of public money would have to comply with future regulation with regard to the language.
Wrong call, says the Welsh Affairs Select Committee. At best you'll end up with anomalies, at worst you'll end up in court. You need clarity. You need drafting with a clearly defined scope.
So how do you do that?
"We suggest that a more sophisticated and appropriate way of dealing with the issues of definition would be for this Order to contain clear principles against which the Assembly Measures can be tested. One way to achieve this would be for the Welsh Assembly Government to insert in this draft Order tests that have to be met by any Measure subsequent to this LCO, rather than trying to insert definitions themselves in the text. These might include a test of reasonableness, a test of proportionality, and a consideration of the cost to demonstrate that the application of any Measure to particular
bodies or organisations will, in the long term, provide a cost-effective benefit to the public
in terms of the use of the Welsh language".
I get the idea but I'm not sure what that would mean in reality. I'm not sure the Welsh Assembly Government does either. You can certainly create future measures with principles in mind - principles like reasonableness, proportionality and so on - but can you transfer powers simply based on those principles?
The £200,000 threshold, says the Committee in its most damning passage, seems to have been chosen "more or less at random" and why include utilities and telecommunication companies in the scope of the LCO but leave out banks or insurance
services? They know the answer but know too it's not the sort of answer that can be included in the wording of an LCO. That's the political compromise struck between the Wales Office and the former Secretary of State.
What now? If there's substantial redrafting required - and it's hard to see how that will be avoided - the LCO will have to come back before both scrutiny committees in the Assembly and in Westminster. They'll have to get a move on, just like Flo. The job must done and dusted before a General Election remember.
But bear this in mind: Andy Capp wanted the lawn mowed. He wasn't out to stop Flo. He wanted the job done and he wanted it done properly. Put like that, the Welsh Affairs Select Committee might not mind the comparison after all. Not so sure about the Assembly Government.
I'm Betsan Powys, BBC Wales' political editor. I'll be blogging the inside track on 
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~42~RS~)
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This is just getting daft - The LCO process is making Wales the laughing stock of devolved governance. Why any restriction ? MPs are treating AMs like a bunch of unruly schoolkids. Capability to legislate in all areas doesn't mean that the Assembly will automatically impose draconian measures in all sectors - the electoral will of the people will determine where the Assembly choose to act.
It's honestly past a joke - it would be difficult to design such absurdity....and why on earth does the process have to start again after a General Election? Who thought that up????
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This "organizations who get more than £200,000 of public money" malarky?
Does this mean that companies like Tesco/Asdas/Sainsburys/Primark/M&S etc., (who I presume receive NO public money), do not have to comply with any language regulations ?
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Interestingly Noah Tescos and Asdas seem to be amongst the better stores at using Welsh - Tesco's self service thing is bilingual. Why do you think they do that? Maybe, just maybe, because it might be in their own interest?
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The GoWA 2006 is simply a reversion to 1494, and Poynings Law. It is an insult to the people of Wales and a denial of the principle of devolution. The people of Scotland wouldn't put up with it, why should we?
The Interim Report of the Holtham Commission (on funding the Assembly Government) makes interesting reading.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/wales_politics/8137877.stm
The link to the Report is on the right hand side of the page below:
http://wales.gov.uk/icffw/home/?lang=en
Holtham makes a number of interim recommendations.
What most impressed itself on my mind in a brief reading of the (lengthy) document is information which illustrates how poor Wales is, in comparison to Scotland, NI and almost all of the English regions.
It also draws attention to the unsuitablity of the Barnett Formula in addressing Wales' funding needs, and how one aspect of the formula, convergence, is making Wales even poorer.
There's a lot more there, and its quite technical.
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Bryn Teilo (4)
I am impressed. confused and nonplussed, but nevertheless impressed Bryn.
Do you do this sort of thing for a living? Are you someone who could be described as a "good country solicitor?"
I am presently working my way (again) through the works of P G Wodehouse, and your post has left me Bertie Wooster-like, staring open-mouthed at someone who has just proved Pythagoras' theorem on the back of a Woodbine packet.
Y'got my vote.
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#4
It is fortunate that Welsh Conservative finance spokesman Nick Ramsay AM said it was "right" to looking at the funding issue "at a time of growing pressure on the assembly's budgets". "As a party we have said that the Barnett formula cannot last forever," he said.
What more can you ask for?
Other than a blue future.
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#6 Noah
Thanks for the compliment, even though its rather two-edged.
Just for clarification so that you needn't bother to repeat your thinly veiled insinuation. I might have been a country solicitor, but am not, and never have been. Neither am I connected or linked to any government institution in Cardiff Bay or elsewhere.
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It's not the LCO process is making Wales the laughing stock of devolved governance, it's the Assembly, In particular the Labour-Plaid love-in at Cardiff Bay. What is not so certain is which is courtesan and which is monarch in the Bay of Hypocrisy
The question raised so eloquently at #4 .....
The people of Scotland wouldn't put up with it, why should we?.
Indeed, why should we put up with second rate governance, this shoddy coalition should be condemned to the same fate as Poynings' Law, obscurity.
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#8
'The people of Scotland..'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaelic_Language_(Scotland)_Act_2005
Passed before the SNP formed the Government of Scotland. Gaelic in Scotland is in a far weaker position than Welsh is here, where the need for services in Welsh for 500,000 speakers is sadly lacking.
Wales has had third rate governance from Westminster since time immemorial. It will remain in poverty in perpetuity as long as it is under its control. On just about every measure, Holtham's report indicates that Wales is the poorest part of the UK. It was even worse under the Tories in the 1990s. Under Barnett it is destined to fall further behind.
The WAC pays lip service to the Welsh Language, saying that it should be a matter for the Assembly - for the people of Wales who elect it - to deal with, but they then delay the Language LCO.
The members of the WAC should state categorically, in that case, that it is not, and should not be a matter for them. They can't say that because Labour MPs from Wales decided that the Assembly should not have legislative powers. Instead they cynically created a system which is demeaning and designed to prevent further devolution. They did it to protect their own seats, salaries, expenses and pensions. Half of them wouldn't be needed if legislative devolution had taken place. Even worse, Labour MPs have an abysmal record of bringing investment to Wales and developing its infrastructure. That is why its the poorest part of the UK today. Labour has been running Wales for the best part of a century and has failed us all, dismally.
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Maybe the Welsh Language LCO has been delayed because it is incompetent legislation.
As incompetent as those who scripted the document.
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Re 8
Your own personal obsessions and hatreds are getting the better of you. Can't you be specific, can't you even attempt to prove some of the silly comments that you consistently make?
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#10
Firstly, it isn't legislation. Its a request for powers to legislate.
Secondly, the GoWA 2006 is a device to control exactly what the Assembly can legislate. The WAC wants the Assembly to draft the legislation/measure so that they can approve it first. Not only that, but its purpose is to frustrate the process so that legislative devolution doesn't take place. The proof of the pudding is that virtually no LCO's have been approved in two years. If the will was there, it could have been achieved in an afternoon. Legislative devolution means just that. The Assembly/Parliament consults as appropriate, drafts a measure/bill, its debated, and voted on.
Thirdly, just how much incompetent and unnecessary legislation has Westminster been responsible for over the years? For example, three thousand new criminal offences in 10 years, and a prison population of over 80,000 the second highest in the western world, after the USA.
I could spend the next three hours listing some really awful examples and still come back tomorrow and the day after. The government and the whips use the guillotine procedure and none of the bills are scrutinised to any extent. Look at the state of the UK today, as a result of what Westminster has done. It has a truly appalling record.
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Legislation that has a negative affect upon 85% plus of the population is not very competent, it is legislation designed to support an attempt at linguistic time shifting, where nationalist elements attempt to use language as a weapon in their quest for independence.
To say it isn't legislation. Its a request for powers to legislate, is not true, the particular LCO expressly indicates an intention to restrict business, that has elements of government finance, to organisations that provide a Welsh language service, this in a world that Welsh, as other minority languages, are as profitable as selling last years fashions, good only for charity shops.
If this Welsh Assembly Government had spent as much effort talking to businesses as it has to language agitators probably more jobs would have been saved, as it is Rhodri and chums fiddle to restrict opportunities to its separatist supporters. A point to note, the 20,000 GBP lower limit on contract size will debar all but the smallest petty cash transactions.
And why? To disproportionately protect a language that is as much use away from the fireside as paper sail in a storm.
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I really don't understand the logic of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee, they admit that the proper place for legislative powers should be the National Assembly and then they attach strings on that process. Either the proper place for legislation is the National Assembly or its Westminster. This is yet another example of how the LCO process is flawed. Unless the LCO is narrowed to the point where it dictates the Measure that can be produced, so in effect it becomes a draft measure, in which case there is no real devolution. It would appear that the select committee is intent on gaining powers to its self that the GOWA never envisaged.
Stonemason again you suggest that the Welsh Government can only concentrate on one matter at a time, would you suggest the same of the Westminster government?
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Re 14
"Stonemason again you suggest that the Welsh Government can only concentrate on one matter at a time, would you suggest the same of the Westminster government?"
It's the strident British nationalists on this blog who are unable to concentrate on more than one issue at a time. They then seem to believe that everyone else is under the same disadvantage.
Claiming that Welsh can only be a language of the hearth places Stonemason where he belongs, I suppose; the Nineteenth Century.
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What an utter waste of time and money. Literally no-one apart from the few thousand Welsh speakers in Wales gives any thought to the Welsh language; this is just a non-issue. Yet you fret over this time and time again.
Wales is a pretty uncompetitive place to do business as it is (regardless of what the WDA says). Tranport links are generally poor, there is little in the way of thriving industry - the 'bouyant' financial sector is actually a series of bank call centres along the M4 - and much of the EU grant money has gone. Yet you now wish to add an additional burden on private industry...having to translate documents into welsh, work in the language etc etc...for the benefit of whom? A fraction of the UK population?
Start spending this time and money on making the most of Wales. The workforce is highly skilled and capable. The lifestyle CAN attract company employees. Start looking out not in.
and p.s. before everyone starts saying I'm some chauvenistic Englishman with a grudge, let me say I'm Welsh. Born and Bred. But I left Wales because there just weren't any well paid private sector jobs.
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m(9)
It ill behoves anyone who blithely announces that "The need for services in Welsh for 500,000 speakers is sadly lacking" to question the accuracy of others on here.
Come on Bryn, don't be coy, Why not 1,000,000.....2,000,000.....or even go for bust with 3,000,000. I'm sure you can find someone willing to carry out a telephone poll to produce that latter figure. Especially as the assembly is so keen on paying for such 'research'.
The truth is, somewhere around 8% (240,000) use Welsh on a daily basis. Though even that figure is considered too high by many.
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#16
'...for the benefit of whom? A fraction of the UK population?'
You consider 30% of the Welsh population who speak the language to be 'unworthy' of benefiting from their hard earned taxes?
#17 -
'The truth is, somewhere around 8% (240,000) use Welsh on a daily basis. Though even that figure is considered too high by many.'
Get out to parts west and north Wales where English is the minority language in all fields - yet councils have to fork out thousands of pounds for translations for one or two people at meeting who can't understand Welsh. Meetings where there is the odd non-Welsh speaker present and the proceedings have to be verbally translated to them costing time and money.
Madness.
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Well Cilmyn. (message 18)
I see you've outbid our Bryn's 500,000 in the "whose the daftest" auction on the number of people who speak Welsh on a daily basis.
You have come along with a (late telephone bid?) of 30% which is 900,000!!!!!!
Tell you what, I'll put my figure in shall I?...Well I reckon no more than 50,000 people in Wales speak Welsh on a daily basis...and every single one of them can speak English. Probably much better than they speak Welsh!
Ah well.
I am however delighted that you are able to point out how idiotic and expensive it is to have translations of virtually everything for a tiny minority of folk.
Just imagine then how ridiculous English speakers must find it to have the self same translations carried out for those who claim to be Welsh speakers. This is made all the more frustrating as every single one of those 'Welsh speakers' can speak English perfectly well.
Funny old world isn't it.
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#15
Of course it is a language of the hearth, as are the the goidelic languages of the Irish, Manx and Scots.
The question to be answered by the WAG is why, when there is such a tiny percentage of the population interested, do they continue to apply massive financial resuscitation in an attempt at resurrection.
A supplementary question, what benefit is there to the majority.
We note you did not comment on .....
"..... the 20,000 GBP lower limit on contract size will debar all but the smallest petty cash transactions."
To difficult ?
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#19
'Funny old world isn't it.'
Its only funny to a language bigot. Try imagining having your native language belittled and how you would feel. That's well beyond your level of sensitivity.
It wasn't an 'auction'... 28.4% of the population of Wales said they had Welsh Language skills in 2001 (800,000 people). Some 21% of the population said they were Welsh-speaking.
We're not interested in your 'guesses' which are entirely irrelevant. That's why we pay to have objective censuses carried out. Stick to the facts.
My figure of 500,000 was rounded down. Wales' population in 2001 was 2,800,000. That works out at some 588,000 Welsh speakers. The census reported that 37% of children in Wales were able to speak Welsh, a significant increase. There was a worrying decline in the numbers in the Welsh heartlands of north and west Wales, mainly as a result of immigration from England.
Minorities in other European countries are catered for, and their languages legally or constitutionally protected. Historically Britain has ridden roughshod over its minorities because of the lack of human rights legislation. Welsh speakers pay their taxes and dues to society, which pay for English language services. The situation in the UK is discriminatory. Our society allows businesses and companies to generate wealth - society makes that possible, but in return those businesses have a social responsibility. That's why laws exist to regulate business and commerce - for example, planning and trading laws etc. Laws protect what society values, for instance, the environment, so that industry and commerce cannot do whatever they like which would damage the environment. Same goes for language. In other countries, minority languages are valued and have legal protection. The UK has done precious little for its linguistic minorities. Its been the typical arrogance of the English mentality - 'our language is superior, let others learn it, we don't need other languages'.
Thankfully things are changing, particularly in Wales. All the political parties are united in their desire to see the Welsh Language fostered and strengthened.
The small handful of non-Welsh-speaking bigots who frequent this blog are unrepresentative.
The significant minority of Welsh speaking people in Wales have to be catered for, the present situation is unsatisfactory.
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Re 19
Funny how Noa, our in-house self-appointed and searing comic genius, is immune to the charms of irony. Delicious!
Isn't it also funny how the anti-Welsh language lot suddenly become experts on the language and on people's ability to speak it?
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Messages 21/22
Language bigots eh! I think we all know who has the monopoly on language bigotry on here. It is the tiny minority who are using every trick in the book to puff up the importance of a dying language. Your absolute hatred of English comes through loud and clear. You use all manner of tricks in order to make out Welsh has any real standing, when ordinary folk who care not one jot about Welsh quietly go about their business, like you....in ENGLISH.
Your statement... "The UK has done precious little for its linguistic minorities. Its been the typical arrogance of the English mentality - 'our language is superior, let others learn it, we don't need other languages'."...Really is disgusting. You deceitfully infer that us English speakers have told Welsh speakers to learn English. Well Bryn, you're too late aren't you. THEY ALL...EVERY ONE OF THEM, already DO speak English, and they speak English a damn sight better than they do Welsh.
As for you FiDafydd, I suggest that you and the king of the statistic fiddlers Bryn Teilo, get your heads together and come up with some common figures for Welsh speakers.
At least Bryn does (rather pitifully) try and justify his daft, bloated figures, whereas you just come out with a stately 30% !!!!!
I fully appreciate that in your desperation Bryn, you will clutch at straws and grab at a figure which heavily exaggerates the Welsh speaking numbers.HENCE YOUR QUITE APPALLING "37% OF CHILDREN IN WALES" NONSENSE.
The fact is that a large number of people will tick a box, or answer a loaded question which turns them magically into a "Welsh speaker" I stick to my figure of around 50,000 Welsh speakers who speak only Welsh every day.
Though judging by the thousands of newly created 'Welsh' nouns (recently dreamt up by a well known committee)which sound and are spelt almost identically to their equivalent English counterparts, it looks suspiciously like Mama, Mama,"We're all Welsh speakers now"
!!!!!
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The bigotry is clear, the contempt displayed to the Welsh language is clear. Fortunately the loathing and hatred displayed here by a few individuals is rare in the real world. I just find it sickening that such views can exist in a nation. Its a matter of simple equality and respect. Other countries manage it, and it looks like most people in Wales support equality. Its a shame that some people display such a lack of respect.
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#22 wrote .....
businesses have a social responsibility
Business has no responsibilities other than to make a return on capital, business will cooperate socially only where such cooperation is beneficial to the business.
This seemingly unwholesome description might offend the sensibilities of the faint hearted, but it works, it produces goods and services without a command driven economy.
If there were a real benefit to business to incorporate a language policy, any language, there would be no need for legislation, business would fall over itself in such provisions.
Such expressions as .....
..... typical arrogance of the English mentality - 'our language is superior ..... are meaningless, in the context of commerce there is no interest in any language except as a medium through which to do business. To expect capital (businesses) to roll over and let minor politicians and their political aspirations interfere with enterprise is ludicrous, I refer you to the old USSR and its command economy, it failed, political fingers in economic pots are as ridiculous as a belief in mermaids.
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It's so very sad that people who speak the language of Dylan Thomas, W.B. Yeats and W.H.Auden have such contempt for another language. Even sadder when that language is a language of their own nation.
Stonemason has now even started using the royal 'we' it would seem:
"We note you did not comment on ....."
Such is his apparent superiority.
Noa doesn't even deserve a reply.
I don't really think there's very much else to say. Except, perhaps, that I actually pity them. To have so much hatred must be terrible. To be so scared, unimaginable.
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OK, Mr. Sembly, it's 'fess-up time.
Yes, I was one of the idiots who, in the 2001 Census, ticked the box to indicate that I had some Welsh language skills.
This was based on the couple of dozen Welsh words that I had learned in school.
As a result of this foolish action, I am now condemned to be one of Bryn Teilo's 800,000 "Welsh Speakers", at least until 2011.
I can't speak Welsh and have no wish or intention to learn it. I suspect that their are hundreds of thousands of people in Wales who have made the same stupid mistake as I did.
Consequently, I prostrate myself at the feet of the majority of Welsh people and crave their pardon for being such a gullible fool.
Roll on 2011 when we can have a question such as 'Do you speak Welsh and, if so, do you use it on a daily basis'.
I'm pretty sure that there will be a substantially different result to that that Bryn Teilo so gleefully quotes.
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#26 .....
My #25 was written as a group response, not a Royal we, a collection of Welsh people who are readers of Betsan's blog.
This LCO is particularly repugnant, not because it deals with language but because, if it becomes law, will put into the hands of a minority the ability to balkanise Wales, the pragmatism of the majority replaced by the Mad Hatter objectives of a minority.
We also noted you avoided responding to my #13 ....
"..... the 20,000 GBP lower limit on contract size will debar all but the smallest petty cash transactions."
Should we assume your agreement with the observation?
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Re 28
I can only assume that you are trying to be ironic in castigating others for not answering questions! That's irony, Noa.
But to expect people to respond constructively to comments such as 13 which contains the usual nonsense and paranoia -
"If this Welsh Assembly Government had spent as much effort talking to businesses as it has to language agitators probably more jobs would have been saved"
- is probably wishful thinking on your part, at best.
But at least you concede that the Welsh Assembly Government has saved jobs. That's a start.
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Stonemason you seem not to understand the LCO process, an LCO is not a law, it does not become law, what it does is confer the right to pass legislation in a fairly narrow field to the National Assembly, they then create measures, which are in effect laws.
Now as the House of Commons currently has such powers do you condemn it? The possession of a power does not equal producing an oppressive law. How can giving people rights oppress the English speaking majority that elect the National Assembly? Not one person will be forced to speak Welsh if the powers are transferred to the National Assembly. Thus if anyone is seeking to spread fear and alarm its you.
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#19 Noassembly - have a look at the official figures, Bryn Teilo has pointed you in the right direction. The figure for Welsh speakers in the Uk is likely to be more than a million - should the question of 'Do you speak Welsh..' be put on census forms for the whole of the UK.
What I find disturbing though is how you denigrate and decry one in every four person in Wales with your comments on the language - its the bullying type behaviour of the majority at its worse. It is shameful and sad to watch.
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Whilst it may be 22 odd percent who have 'some skills' (i.e. a few phrases)... the actual fluency figure is around half that, and even the Welsh language Board would admit to that.
I think seeing as we are discussing an LCO which essentially will only affect those whose preferred language is Welsh, then we really ought to start with a figure for actual fluency and then go down from there. Only people from within this smaller demographic will have any use for what the LCO would dictate of private industry. Therefore what is the point throwing around fantasy based figures including those who ticked a box because they can count to 10 and say a few phrases in Welsh?!? These are not really relevant and sensible for using as a reference in this context.
cue pedantic attack of my spelling and grammar but no actual consideration of the points raised
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#32 Cardiffian - It is up to the individual to rate their own skills with Welsh, not a board or committee or quango..... Also I suspect quite a number of contributors here would jump up and down in agony if the LCO will only be: '...affecting those whose preferred language is Welsh' - I'd duck now!
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#30, but I do understand, part of the LCO attempts to set a financial floor above which the LCO is designed to apply restrictions of trading, the WAG wishes to apply linguistic conditions to contracts worth in excess of 20,000 GBP.
This action is about applying a form of protectionism, in fact it could be classed as a linguistic business monopoly, coercive in nature. Whilst the WAGs rhetoric is about protecting a language, the legislation is concerned with power, the power one group will have over another.
This legislation, at a stroke, will be able to close the shutters on WAG, local authority, quango, housing associations, education, Health, and travel businesses (including rail and road), unless your business complies with the autocratic offspring from this legislation.
No paranoia, its all in the detail .....
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200,000 I think you will find.
Also remember businesses do not exist in a vacuum - they have to comply with a myriad of laws and regulations governing their behaviour. Profit is not the only driving force or imperative in business. Enabling their customers to access services in both the national languages of Wales should be a responsibility of all the larger organisations. I don't see how enabling a section of the population to do business with organisations that were once part of the state or are large commercial concerns can in any way be described as coercive and to the detriment of another language community.
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#35, yes 200,000 GBP, the salaries of four AMs.
No lower bounds for .....
persons providing services to the public under an agreement, or in accordance with arrangements, made with a public authority.
..... how about .....
persons overseeing the regulation of a profession, industry or other similar sphere of activity;.
But the lie sticks .....
Promoting or facilitating the use of the Welsh language; and the treatment of the Welsh and English languages on the basis of equality.
..... like mud on a boot, there can be no equality when business is prevented from doing business by this LCO.
You included .....
Profit is not the only driving force or imperative in business.
I suggest you might like to give that line to your bankers, unless there is government (taxpayers) subsidy.
This is not about preserving the Welsh Language, this is about Political Power.
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#27 gonoph wrote:
'I am now condemned to be one of Bryn Teilo's 800,000 "Welsh Speakers", at least until 2011.'
You can't even read English, let alone Welsh.
THIS is what I wrote:
'..28.4% of the population of Wales said they had Welsh Language skills in 2001 (800,000 people). Some 21% of the population said they were Welsh-speaking.'
Its the 21% that is the figure quoted as 'Welsh speakers'. The 28% was mentioned in the context of a perceived disparity, or 'auction', which some bigot mentioned on here.
I quoted percentages from the 2001 census, they are the most reliable figures we have. They are government statistics. No-one can allow for the tiny number of idiots who claim some skill they don't possess when they fill up the census return. It seems you couldn't read the census form properly either. It appears that you and the aforementioned bigot share a genetic predisposition to which adjectives like 'stupidity' and 'idiocy' could apply.
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Message 37...
extract:
"....No-one can allow for the tiny number of idiots who claim some skill they don't possess when they fill up the census return....."
Are you one of those who rely on a telephone canvass to lay claim to what the Welsh want for their future?
If so, allow me to point out to you that polling science has come a long way, and polls can be quite accurate, which hurts me to accept, but when a census form asks specific questions, which invites a certain type of unspecific answer, as was the case in 2001, no one can reliably state that the result was in any way scientific.
As someone who was working for the ONS on the follow up 'census' reliability scheme, I can assure you there were quite a few, known to me, or approached by myself and my wife, (also employed on that scheme), who could not make known more than a few words, maybe the meaning of their own location name, but with little capability in the grammar whatsoever.
Now, if extrapolated, as is the case in a opinion poll, this would indicate there were a massive number of those declaring their capability to be high, who in fact were to put it bluntly, lying through their teeth, in regards their abilities in the language. Not the 'tiny number' of idiots etc., as mentioned in the quote above.
The same applies to the stated number of fluents here in the Gwent area, supposedly as much as 11%.
This would mean there shoulod be 11 out of every hundred in my locale who can speak the language, to any degree of fluency.
That is most strange, as I have yet to come across more than a handful in the whole region who are competant to any level, never mind fluent.
Including my two eldest grandchildren, who by the way have never used it since they departed education, some decade and half ago.
I know personally, hundreds of people in this area, and to date have come across two for certain. A long time acquaintance of my wife, originating from north Wales, and a Pakistani down in Newport, a guy who used to live near Swansea, and who took up the language when he kept a shop over there.
With a declared 11%, it is not beyond reason to expect at least one in ten, with whom I am familiar, should be able to speak the language. This is definitely NOT the case, that I can assure you.
I suggest that this holds true for the vast majority of Wales, and the truer figure, like here in Gwent, is nearer the lower, rather than the higher, end of the provisionally estimated numbers quoted from the various sources..
I take most of the figures quoted with the proverbial shovel full of salt, a pinch being far too less a quantity to cover the expanded and enlarged quotations.
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