A few weeks ago Rebekah Brooks regaled the Leveson Inquiry with the tale of how Prime Minister David Cameron used to end his texts to her with LOL, believing it meant ‘lots of love’ . . . he stopped using it when she explained to him that the letters actually stand for ‘laugh out loud’.

These three letters also have a much older meaning, brought home when I flicked through the classifieds in last Saturday’s Wasting Mule. (Obviously I had time on my hands.) For there I came upon the notice shown on the left. Reminding us that LOL has, for a few centuries now, stood for Loyal Orange Lodge.

LOL 803 is a new Lodge, formed on March 17 this year, and the only one in Wales. It is named after Rawlins White, a Cardiff fisherman and Protestant ‘martyr’ who was burned at the stake on the 30th of March 1555, in the reign of Queen Mary ‘Bloody Mary’ Tudor, Henry VIII’s daughter by Catherine of Aragon. Mary reverted to Rome, but Rawlins did not.

The Orange Order is of course Protestant and loyal to the Union and the English crown, taking the ‘Orange’ tag from Prince William of Orange, who was invited to assume the English throne in 1688, and went on to achieve fame as the victor of the Battle of the Boyne in 16

90. (Which was, in reality, something of a draw.) Though the organisation wasn’t set up until a century later, in response to growing fears of Catholic insurrection in Ireland, where French Revolutionary ideas were taking hold. The very first Lodge was formed in 1796, near Loughgall, County Armagh. Given that most of the Protestants in the no

rth of Ireland traced their roots to Lowland Scotland, it

wasn’t long before the movement spread to that country, where it remains powerful; finding one expression in Rangers FC.

I’m not going to lose sleep over a few Orangemen in Cardiff. I don’t anticipate July 12th parades through Whitchurch. But when you add yet another unwelcome development to all the other problems you begin to realise that there are just too many in Wales, often claiming to speak for Wales, who are not loyal to Wales or to our people. Their ‘Wales’ is the country that knows its place – subservient to England and whichever inbred billionaire sits on the throne.

Which is why those of us who are truly loyal had better start making ourselves heard. Because if we don’t, then they’ll continue to ignore us, and walk all over us. And we’ll deserve it.