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Scientists at the A A Gill Institute for Studies in Cymrophobia have discovered a cure for Welshness. Apparently the discovery was made some years ago, but was kept top secret. Although the news is only now leaking out we understand that the ‘cure’ has been in use for quite a few years, and is proving very effective.

Speaking exclusively to the Daily Express Institute head Professor Beowulf Cholmondeley said, “Over the years we have all suffered the annoyance of being on a train and finding oneself sitting next to or opposite some garrulous Taff who wants to talk about rugby, or music . . . or else the little sod just sits there, picking his nose, in that annoying, Welsh way . . . you know.

“Then there’s every parent’s nightmare: one’s darling daughter comes home and informs one that she’s being rogered by some hairy-arsed bastard called Fluellen or Guffin or something. So if only in the interests of more enjoyable train travel and the defence of English womanhood, something clearly needed to be done.”

“The obvious answer would have been to do away with the lot of them. But that sort of thing has had a bad press over the past hundred years or so, and so a re-think was needed. Castration and sterilisation were obviously attractive, but even then, some do-gooders would have made a fuss.

“Thankfully, an old friend of mine, working in Cambridge at the School of Traditional Hallucinogenics, was studying the effects of drinking reindeer urine after the animals had ingested large quantities of fly agaric (amanita muscaria).

“After one particularly intense session of research he had a startling and inspiring vision of a Welsh-free world. The beauty of his vision was that rather than final solutions that bleeding-hearts might find unpalatable, we didn’t have to do anything!” For the beauty of the policy is – wait for it! – just ignore them!

Seeing my somewhat quizzical expression Professor Cholmondeley went on, “Your average Welsh person, for all the noise and banter, is a very insecure creature; this stems from a deeply ingrained sense of inferiority. Consequently, Johnny Taff needs to be reassured that he’s loved, otherwise his self-confidence drains away and he gets very despondent”.

Perhaps noticing that I was still unconvinced, the Professor adjusted his monocle, took another pinch of snuff, and continued, “What I am going to outline is the ultimate refinement of psychological warfare. It is just so bloody clever!

You must have noticed that when Question Time goes to Wales the audience and the panel are overwhelmingly English!” I nodded. “Well, that’s because the makers of Question Time are with us. Welsh people watch QT and wonder what’s happening, they either think they aren’t wanted on Question Time, or that it’s all over for them because they’re now a minority in their own country.

“More generally, the UK, media ignores Wales altogether unless it’s to run anti-Welsh stories telling the Welsh they’re disliked. This results in many of them thinking their kids would have more chance in the world if they lost their Welshness. Like I said, it’s so bloody clever! We’ve even got the Welsh media on-side. Reporters go to Llansheepshagger to do a story with instructions to only interview English people. Result? There are about two million people in south Wales who think everybody living north of Brecon or Carmarthen is now English!

In a nutshell, make the Welsh believe everybody hates them and they’re being over-run, and then – to misquote something one of them once wrote – they WILL go gentle into that good night. We have been implementing this strategy for a few years now and it is working splendidly. And anyway, think about it: aren’t we really doing them a favour? I mean, who’d want to be Welsh if they had a choice?”

I asked if there was any response to this devilishly clever strategy. “No. None at all. That’s the beauty of it. If we were doing something obvious like killing them, or driving them out by force, then there might be a reaction. But what we are doing is so subtle, so intangible, yet so persuasive, that it screws their heads up and takes away their will to resist.

“There is absolutely no way they can fight it . . . unless of course the daft buggers realise we are just playing mind games”.