Yesterday the ‘Welsh’ Government announced that is has taken the troubled Betsi Cadwaladr
University Health Board into special measures. (The Tawel Fan scandal being the last straw.) Today we learnt that the chief executive, Trevor Purt, has been suspended. And yet . . . despite everything that has been said and written about the health service in Wales generally, and the northern part of the country in particular, there are a couple of issues, or contributing factors, that no one is willing to address. To explain what I’m referring to, I can do no better than quote a recently elected Tory MP, James Davies, now representing the Vale of Clwyd.
This is what the Daily Post had to say about him a month before the election, and here’s Dr Davies’ maiden speech in the House of Commons on June 2nd. The same two themes crop up in both pieces and also figured prominently in his election campaign; one is his concern over the state of the NHS in Wales and the second is the decline of Rhyl. The first of those he blames on the Labour regime down Cardiff docks, which is the easy way out and no more than we should expect from a Tory politician on the Costa Geriatrica. As for Rhyl, well, he doesn’t actually blame anyone, he just seems to believe, rather vaguely that, well, something should be done. Among his suggestions is a new Sun Centre. Of course, that’ll solve all the problems.
Being a GP, Dr Davies must be aware that one of the major reasons for the poor standard of health and other services in his area is the demands placed on those services by a) large numbers of elderly people moving into Wales and b) the white trash, problem families, drug addicts and other substance abusers, plus all manner of criminals, being dumped in the towns along our northern coast. Rhyl being the worst example. Dr Davies knows all this but he cannot say it because, as an England-worshipping Welsh Unionis
t he is psychologically and emotionally incapable of viewing England as anything other than a paradise inhabited by superior beings with which Wales enjoys a one-sided relationship, with everything good that we enjoy emanating from England, and everything wrong with Wales our own fault. This is the Unionist mind-set (of both right and left), though it’s sad to see this self-loathing displayed in a seemingly intelligent man of just 35 years.
Which leaves James Davies in the position of wanting to discuss, and demand remedies for, problems for which he cannot admit major contributory causes. The Vale of Clwyd constituency is located in Denbighshire, where only 42.7% of the 65+ age group was born in Wales, yet we are asked to believe that the obvious influx of elderly people from outside of Wales has no impact whatsoever on the performance of the NHS locally. (In my area, less than one third of the 50+ age group is Welsh born! See map and table.) I’d hate to think that this inability to link cause and effect is indicative of how he works as a doctor. ‘Yes, Mr Smith, you’ve definitely got cirrhosis of the liver, but we’ll ignore your three bottles of whisky a day’. Much of Davies’ support would have come from elderly English voters angry at the standard of the local health service, but of course oblivious to the fact that their moving to Wales in such numbers contributes to the declining health service they’re complaining about. Nor can Doc Davies be honest about the reasons for the state of the NHS because he’s after the votes of those causing the problem! It’s altogether fitting that this flight from reality is taking place so close to where Alice in Wonderland was written.
But it’s not just James Davies who is unable to face the truth. It’s all the other politicians, and the media. With the latter doing its already tarnished reputation no good by tip-toeing around the elephant in the room. All terrified of speaking the truth for fear of making the front page of the Daily Mail or some other rag and being vilified as ‘racist’ or, what is much worse, ‘anti-English’. And fearing said rag going into overdrive with ‘ . . . veterans of Dunkirk . . . “the few” . . . Welsh all supported Hitler anyway . . . We’ll Meet Again . . . have to ask in Welsh to go to the toilet . . . fucking immigrants . . . fucking Jocks . . . good bloke, that Farage . . . blahdeblahdeblahdebritnatbollocks’.
Last night I put out a few tweets on this subject which were well received, being favourited and retweeted. The one discordant voice belonged to a Plaidista named Rhydian Fitter, who seemed unable to make the connection between tens of thousands of elderly English people moving to our rural and coastal areas and deteriorating heath provision. “I don’t see the connection”, protested young Fitter. Of course not. As a loyal member of Plaid Cymru you must follow the party line that pretends the colonisation of Wales is not
happening (and, er, if it is, then it’s a good thing), a line that is little different to that of Dr James Davies, and is also the line enforced by the Daily Mail. Let us hope and pray for Plaid Cymru’s demise to begin next May. Plaid Cymru has had nothing to say to Welsh people – as Welsh people – for over thirty years, you can’t run on empty for ever. If I thought it would help put Plaid out of its misery, I’d even consider voting Ukip . . . despite Nathan Gill.
To conclude, and here I make no apologies for repeating myself. People living in other parts of the country, particularly the south, may be tempted to think that the problem dealt with here is restricted to the rural north and west, because English people don’t retire to Merthyr or Newport. Don’t kid yourself! The ‘Welsh’ Government has a fixed amount to spend on the NHS and other services, when so much of that has to be diverted to the areas suffering the strain of the geriatric influx, or the dumping of undesirables, then clearly, there will be less to spend in Merthyr and Newport, Swansea and Cardiff. We are all paying for the refusal – of all concerned – to acknowledge one of the major factors contributing to the crisis overwhelming the Welsh NHS.
ref your clip in your tweet sidebar – is Protic posing as J Jones, or is J Jones posing as Protic ? I find it hard to believe that any genuine Serb would fail to understand the relevance and importance of identity. Even in the Balkans all they really wanted was for Croats, Bosnian Muslims, Albanians et al to bugger off and respect Serbian territorial claims which may have been a bit inflated, but that’s about par for the course wherever a dispute arises.
I’m reasonably certain that ‘J Jones’ is Protic, and it’s an alias he’s been using for some years. They invariably appear on the same sites and blogs (not mine, obviously) with JJ agreeing with JP and vice versa. It’s quite amazing how they find their way to the same sites, no matter how obscure. Either they’re telepathic or JP is exposing himself to a serious psychiatric condition.
Don’t forget the residents of caravan parks – and I’m thinking of the tens of thousands of static caravans in one stretch from Talacre to Pensarn – who can stay for about 10 months of the year, pay no council tax and are invariably elderly and/or with health problems.
I am friendly with a family from the English midlands who have two caravans, and of the ten or so family members who each spend about three or four weeks of the year in Towyn, six have serious health issues. Each of those six has spent at least a night in Bodelwyddan hospital over the past couple of years, with ailments such as heart problems, breathing difficulties, diabetes-related kidney problems and strokes.
Does the Welsh government receive a penny for these caravanners’ treatment?
I very much doubt it. It is not the fault of this family, they are merely doing what they’ve done for forty years – holidaying in Towyn. It is the fault of the UK and Welsh governments for failing to recognise that the NHS in Wales, vis-a-vis elderly English holidaymakers and settlers, should receive extra funding to cope with the extra demand for health services.
And as for Plaid: I am still a member but its paranoia over being tarred with the ‘racism’ brush is fatally wounding the party. Many at the top level are feminists, environmentalists, pacifists, federalists, devolutionists, socialists and campaigners for any-and-all forms of politically-correct equality stuff. But as for being nationalists – that comes a long way down their list of priorities for themselves and Wales.
I agree, caravan sites and chalet parks are overlooked, and in many cases it may be deliberate. I suspect that many councils, housing associations and other bodies are content to have this situation because if the law was strictly enforced then it would add tens of thousands to the social housing waiting lists. and also get the Daily Mail and others laying in with charges of ‘racism’.
P.S. It’s relatively easy to establish how many are living this way because most of them are registered with local doctors, or the local library, or some other easily checkable source. That this is not done, only confirms my belief that there are too many who just don’t want to know.
Further west and north you go within our country the worse it gets, simply because that’s where the influx of Anglos has a disproportionate effect on what is generally a smaller native population anyway. Whichever way you disect the issues of language/identity/culture you will find a steadliy increasing pace & tempo of corrosion/erosion > decline.
In towns like Aber having a Uni there makes matters worse ! simply because they are tuning into the global academic scene always yapping on about “world leading this and that ……” but only in their own little bubble. Growth of student numbers – it was called “wider access” at one time, which made me think there might be a chance to sell a few gates, – led to more academics, generally sourced from the lower decks of assorted English and overseas unis, all conducting their business in English with a token acknowledgement that Welsh exists ( in a small corner ) . Combine this academic influx with the assorted good lifers, drop outs, layabouts and petty crims and you have a pretty nasty social mix before you add on a dose of retiring gentry with their near-certain health issues.
You can replicate this picture in many towns up & down the country, with some shifts in the bias of the mix but with similar outcomes. Brychan, above, unearths a gem when he tells us that ….”When the elderly move within England the cash follows the patient, but not if they move to Wales”.
Perhaps Carwyn, on reading this when mopping up his runny egg in the morning, will rush off a text to his crew alerting them to further possibilities of extra funding for NHS and community social services in Wales, while also setting his team on working to change the planning and social services rule books which enables customised housing developments for the monied influx, and the hidden transfer system that shifts metropolitan England’s human effluent into our back yard. But on waking up, I realise he’s not going to do anything like that as long as he has a hole in his ass.
I did hear Llyr Hughes-Griffiths say today on Radio Wales I think that we have to be ‘brutally honest’ about the state of the NHS in North Wales if it’s to be sorted out. Yeah right!
Talking of Health Boards. How can a Hywel Dda Health Board Hospital in Aberystwyth have a monoglot English speaker on the desk in the Out-Patients dept.? It’s like we’re still living in the 90’s. And while there this week, I saw a very old Welsh speaking local being dealt with by again an English speaking ambulance driver. It’s shameful.
By a strange coincidence I was in Bronglais today (wife having some tests). I asked directions of two ambulance drivers near the new entrance on the hill – both were English. This is a log-standing problem with the ‘Welsh’ Ambulance Service. Either it doesn’t have the funding to train locals to do these jobs, or else it is a policy decision of the Trust to recruit trained ambulance drivers and paramedics over the border.
Either way, it’s unacceptable. And it should be unacceptable to all politicians. Their constituents are being denied good jobs with good pensions, the kind of jobs with status that earn respect in the wider community.
But try to mention the subject and you’ll be shouted down with ‘If you were in an accident you’d be glad to see an English paramedic . . . ‘ or ‘If you were having a heart attack you wouldn’t care what nationality . . . ‘. Which is nothing but distractionary bollocks, for it doesn’t address the issue of why Wales is filling up with English ambulance drivers.
The farcical nature of the whole situation was brought home to me about ten years ago. My late mother-in-law needed an ambulance. Once arrived with two English paramedics. Now my mother-in-law’s first language was Welsh, and she was hard of hearing, which meant that it was difficult to get through to her speaking English, especially when speaking with some funny English accent. So my wife and her sister had to interpret for their mother what the paramedics were saying and then translate their mother’s words. All this taking place in Gwynedd in the 21st century.
Of course, the ambulance was plastered in bilingual signage, inside and out. Reminding us of what 50 years of language campaigning has achieved – cosmetic bilingualism that means fuck all.
By sheer coincidence my mam has been in Bronglais for just under a month, she had a fall, has spinal compression problems as a result can’t move her hands or legs – she’s virtually become a paraplegic. She’s 85, hard of hearing, and has difficulty understanding and communicating in English at the best of times.
When she arrived at A&E she was brought there by two monoglot English ambulance staff who were talking ‘baby speak’ to her with exaggerated mouth movement (obviously having mistaken my mother for a dim witted two year old who was too stupid to understand the ‘Queen’s English’). She was dumped in a bed and left there. When I finally arrived I was told that my mother was confused and talking gibberish and couldn’t answer any questions the Doctor and the nurses had asked her, so they couldn’t assess her properly. I immediately realised that they were all speaking to her in fast English with every dialect from Yorkshire to Essex, except the Dr – he was Arabic and the nurses couldn’t understand him very well either.
After a quick chat with my mam I was able to c convey everything she said to the staff, as she was quite coherent – it was just that she was talking to them in Welsh, and because of her fall (she’d been lying unconscious for two hours before she was found), her speech was just a bit slurred and a bit feeble.
I was fuming, and let all & sundry know in no uncertain terms of my frustration and fury. I insisted that in future ALL communications were to be carried out with her in Welsh and if there were no Welsh speaking staff available (Drs etc.) then she was to have a fluent Welsh speaking senior nurse with her at all times to convey her communications to the other monoglot staff. Failing that I threatened to take the matter to the very top and in the process bring my solicitor in on the act.
The reaction was akin to me having taken a pin out of a grenade and lobbed it on to the A&E waiting room floor – you’ve never seen such horrified looks! But it’s worked – the attitude has changed greatly and when I visit I get embarrassed at how accommodating the staff on Ceredig ward have become.
But the point is – I should never have had to resort to such lengths to get my mother treated in her native tongue in a hospital that can’t get further into the middle of Wales. I estimate that at least 80% of the staff from floor cleaners to surgeons are monoglot English speakers with strong English regional accents that indicates they are relatively new arrivals. Amazingly some of the few that make an effort to say please and thank you in Welsh are some of the Polish staff that bring the tea around. That also I think says something about attitudes towards the natives.
It’s a bloody screaming disgrace and an obvious affront to people’s basic human rights. Complain at media level and guess what you’re accused of being? Yes you’ve guessed an anti English RACIST!
The one that gets most hot under the collar about this is my wife who’s from Birkenhead and feels embarrassed at the attitudes, ignorance and bigotry displayed by her fellow countrymen and women.
It’s a small world. I spent a few days in Ceredig last year after an accident close to Aber. I’m not from the area but was taken there by ambulance. I think I mentioned it at the time on this blog that few of them on that ward if any spoke Welsh. There was a woman in the female section who screamed night and day in Welsh. She was I was told talking to people who had long died. The nurses dealing with her were mostly English speaking….if not all of them. Doesn’t human rights come into play in such situations?
Not if you’re Welsh.
Another powerful if depressing piece exposing the Welsh political class, including joke nationalists, the media and civil society for what they are selfish, self aggrandising, cowardly, visionless sock puppets.
The NHS is Labour’s Achilles heal and they know it, which is why the Tories exploited it so ruthlessly during the General Election and will do the again in the run up to the Assembly elections as Labour flounders under delusions of its own competence.
This weeks events following the relentless Tory attacks on the NHS for 18 months is piling the pressure on Carwyn Jones, his normally laid back, unflappable persona was severely ruffled in FMQ’s yesterday by Lib Dem leader Kirsty Williams on e-cigs to the extent that the Presiding Officer had to intervene and get his remarks removed from the official record and made him apologise for being so rude and off hand, and behind the scenes Carwyn’s been told him to up his game or move on by senior Labour people.
As for Besti Cadwallader it should have been taken in to special measures after the first set of balls ups, but hey this is Labour Wales why should a Minister act decisively when you can hold out for patient deaths, major losses of public confidence in the NHS, Welsh Ministers and devolution, allegations of staff misconduct and an opportunity to waste even more public money before you act, this is what Labour sheep voted for and will do again nexy May, enjoy it folks.
I thought your Cornish friend might be a troll when he first appeared, they frequent the Scottish pro indy sites and get frequently ignored, but his ‘contributions’ here are no better than the idiots infesting Daily Wales.
What I don’t get Jac is that I believe you’re pro Wales being in the EU? Please correct me if I’m wrong. Control of borders is just impossible within the EU. No doubt we could do something with planning laws but not much.
Using planning laws correctly could achieve something. For example, no more ‘retirement bungalows’ that, before they’re even built, are advertised over the border. Social housing providers establishing to the satisfaction of an independent panel that there is a local need for new properties before planning permission is given. A split market with a fixed percentage of properties reserved for local buyers. Double council tax on holiday homes and a limit of 10% on the number of holiday homes allowed in any community. These would be a start.
Another well written piece. I agree with yourself and Huw Edwards that it is astonishing that such subjects are never raised due to unjustified claims of racism [odd to hear Huw Edwards being the one to broach it, but Hywel Teifi “Whirligig” Edwards must have started slowing down the spinning in his grave just that little bit when he did.]
Of course immigration is a complex subject, but countries need to have powers to deal with it in the way that is best for them. Immigration from England is the form of immigration which is having the largest effect on Wales- not only in the way illustrated well in this article, language has to effectively grow in order to stand still, and the political scene is changed tremendously by them.
But Marconatrix misses the point, of course- the whole point is that even discussions relating to the stress on the NHS in certain areas caused by this, an important discussion, can not be had because of the ridiculous cries of “racism” – a point which Marconatrix illustrates perfectly.
Marconatrix says he is “puzzled” by Jac’s politics. Well, if Marconatrix is the same gentleman who posted on Cornwall24’s forum as Factotum (I have a passing interest in other Celtic languages) then I am more than puzzled by his attitude to Wales.
A succession of snide comments concerning the Welsh and ignorant comments on the state of the Welsh language and how it is used in society, hidden behind an insistence he liked and cared for Wales, culminating in a bizarre claim that everyone else on the forum disliked Wales apart from him, when his were the only snide comments on it.
Something was going on there.
Perhaps a bitterness borne from an interest in the Welsh language, but then finding that Welsh speakers weren’t what he expected? I don’t know. But that’s happened more than once. Best thing is to fit in with them rather than complain they are not what you want them to be. I’d suggest not telling people that they shouldn’t use “lico” in conversation because it isn’t in whatever dictionary you happen to possess could be a start. Just a thought.
I know on Cornwall24 people would “bow to his knowledge of Wales”, but I hope he understands that is unlikely to happen here.
Oh, and claiming to support Welsh nationalism whilst dripping the poison of claims of “racism” (despite the ‘that’s not “exactly” what you said’ bollocks) seems to be par for the course.
I think his politics and opinions are becoming less of a puzzle to me.
Marconatrix, if you are not that same gentleman, I apologise for jumping to conclusions and withdraw the above remarks, but I think I do have reasonable cause for thinking so.
I’ve had my doubts about ‘Marconatrix’ for a while, I even warned him a while back that he was wearing out his welcome. Thing is, he’s ostensibly supportive, but the criticism is never far away. Today he says that he doesn’t understand my politics. I remain what I’ve been all my life – a right wing nationalist. No one else is any doubt where I stand, so why should a regular follower have problems understanding?
Just to reply quickly to your last remark. Perhaps you should somewhere (not on this thread) spell out exactly what it means to be a Right Wing Nationalist in Wales today. RW Nats in my experience are imperialists, the BritNats who can’t adapt to loss of Empire, the Ulster Unionists and various neo-fascist groups around Europe, and so on. I don’t quite see you as any of those.
Most successful nationalist movements in post-war Europe seem on the whole to be centre-left or left-wing, and come with a positive message that inspires support. A lot of what you come out with is honestly pretty negative. I appreciate your frustration with the state of things, but negativity will not win friends and influence people, and that at the end of the day is the nature of politics.
The Welsh Nats of 50 years ago traded on the richness of Welsh culture and society, and sought to build a spirit of confidence in the nation. And isn’t that exactly what the SNP have been doing recently to their continuing success?
I just can’t see how your efforts do deepen the divisions within Wales, especially by blaming some of the least powerful in society, can do anything but harm for your cause.
What am I not seeing?
I don’t have the time right now (possibly not the inclination either) to explain to you where I stand. But I will say this, it should be obvious to anyone that the Left-Green ‘nationalism’ of Plaid Cymru and others amounts to not offending anyone, trying to appeal to everybody, refusing to deal with the difficult issues like colonisation and so, as a result, having nothing to say . . . and being increasingly rejected by the Welsh people.
I believe that my people, the Welsh, should have first call on everything our country has to offer, be that education, jobs, funding, homes, etc. If that makes me a blood and soil nationalist, then I don’t give a fuck. And that’s because those who’ll attack me either share my attitudes (but for a different nation), or else belong to the impotent and discredited weaklings I referred to above. People who are betraying our nation. Some of them are doing it deliberately, and have been for decades.
I’m not sure what you’re ‘not’ seeing Marconatrix, however what it seems you ARE seeing – through blinkers I fear – is the tiresome propaganda spewed out by those who’s aim seems to be to tar anyone who is a nationalist (but not a tree hugging ‘socialist’) as a jack booted fascist & right wing racist.
There’s a ridiculous trend that has sprouted up in the last 70 years where everyone is put in a convenient pigeon hole that suits the politics of the Anglo western hemisphere.. When you get someone that doesn’t fit that right/ left wing model, confusion bursts forth and ridiculous far fetched accusations start flying around.
My all time political hero Fidel Castro is a good example (and I’m not a socialist or a communist). Because he was a nationalist first and foremost (like I like to label myself), but didn’t fit the Nazi style dictators of Europe. Consequently he threw those western political clowns into utter confusion and panic. By the same token someone like Jac who calls himself a “right of centre nationalist” but evidently does not fit the profile of a Hitler, Mussolini or Franco has the same effect on the brain-washed political observers of the UK, who are similarly driven into a state of confusion and ‘don’t see’ things.
As i’ve said many times, Plaid lost their way when the fluffy left winger Gwynfor Evans took over as president from Saunders Lewis. They recovered slightly when the balance was shifted slightly during Dafydd Wigley’s reign, only to be thwarted again by ‘green’ prostitute and tree hugging individuals like Cynog Dafis, who cleverly managed to make his move and install the puppet Ieuan Wyn Jones. The rest is history and sadly that socialist first nationalist second trend still continues with Lean Wood – much as I like her as a person, having spent a lot of time in her company in the past. Unfortunately the slide continues, and will do so until someone who is a right of centre nationalist and has a back bone to tell it as it is takes the stage again.
The SNP and Sin Sin Fein have done just that – tell it as it is TRUTHFULLY and stick to it – in the process highlighting the injustices and lies of the London based parties, be they Labour or Consevative. On the other hand you have ‘ear ticklers’ like Plaid and the Lib Dems who split a gut to be all things to all people (and in Plaid’s case they ape ‘Old labour’ in the mistaken belief that they can win over the worshipers of cabbages in south Wales).
What you should ‘SEE’ Marconatrix is how futile, shallow and disasterous that is, That’s before I get started on the ass that Plaid made of themselves over the “I” word! The key to success is to tell the truth – as it is. I think Jac does an excellent job of that.
Thank you both for taking the trouble to respond. This is an important discussion but this is not really the place for it, maybe we can take it up again in the future.
I apologise for intruding on a thread about the Welsh NHS, itself a serious matter.
If money doesn’t follow English patients into Wales then something is clearly badly amiss and presumably you AMs are at fault for letting this slip past them.
One of the scare stories used during the Scottish referendum campaign was that Scots would be unable to receive medical treatment in England, although it was soon pointed out that the Scottish and ‘English’ health services had been separate from their very beginning and suitable arrangement had always been in place for one service to reinburse the other. (E.g. when someone went to the other country for specialist treatment).
Am I right in thinking that the English and Welsh NH services were separated as a part of devolution? If so you must ask why the established and proven English/Scottish arrangement wasn’t followed.
Needless to say the very last people to blame are those needing treatment.
Again, the lack of welsh speaking doctors, nurses, ambulance staff etc. is a scandal of the first order. Requiring a knowledge of Welsh (ideally at native level or near to it) is not in any sense “racist”, it’s simply a necessary qualification to do the job. But again the problem is surely with government for not providing the incentives for native speakers to take up these posts, not with the present front-line staff who no doubt are simply doing their best in trying circumstances.
The NHS in Wales is separate to the NHS in England. If patients resident in Wales travel over the border for treatment – as many in border areas do – their Welsh health board has to pay the English board providing the treatment. There are regular spats in which English health boards say they will no longer treat Welsh patients as they don’t get paid enough.
(At this point it might be worth mentioning that many Welsh babies are born over the border. Shrewsbury, Hereford and Chester offer the nearest maternity facilities for large parts of Wales. As these babies are, technically, even officially, English born, this can have a distorting effect on considerations of identity and population movement in the areas concerned.)
However, people moving to Wales and receiving treatment in Wales are classed as Welsh. No claim can be made to the health board in the area from which the recently arrived patient originates.
With so many English retiring to Wales – in my area just 31% of the over 65s are Welsh born – this obviously places a burden on the local NHS, and other services such as health visitors and home help, that is pushing the Welsh NHS and other services to breaking point.
But everyone is afraid to raise this issue for fear of being shouted down as a ‘racist’. But there is nothing racist about it, it’s elementary economics, and sooner or later it will have to be faced.
Gwilym………………….. Gwynfor left wing ? seriously doubt that ! Fluffy, absolutely ! and not just due to being an anti war guy in WW2, but with all sorts of other issues. However he did have a streak of courage and bloody mindedness, like with S4C when he filled the Tories, who were a nasty bunch of c**ts, with a genuine concern that he might top himself and bring about all sorts of mayhem, so he had his positive attributes. I suppose what I’m coming round to is that many of that generation had weaknesses but they could combine to form a useful unit, but now we have a bland uniformity of Plaid Cymru – Political Correctness, where those matters raised in this site are deemed out of bounds.
“. . . . now we have a bland uniformity of Plaid Cymru – Political Correctness, where those matters raised in this site are deemed out of bounds”. – I agree.
However I think you’re confusing “fluffiness” with the man’s political positioning. I don’t think anyone can argue that Gwynfor Evans, and now the third generation of his family who are involved with politics, would argue the fact that they are all committed left wingers.
As I said previously, it was at the point that Gwynfor Evans became president of Plaid Cymru that the party flipped from being a right of centre nationalist party to a left of centre (and far left at times – read the track record of Dafydd Ellis Thomas’ political journey) socialist party with nationalist sympathies. The only brake on that being during the time that Dafydd Wigley was president. Wigley was probably the most balanced and most effective president they’ve had, (quite similar to Alex Salmond in many ways), but then they committed political suicide when the ‘progressive’, green hugging, pacifist lefties like Cynog Dafis stuck the blade between his shoulder blades when they capitalised on the opportunity to do so whilst he was temporarily laid up with a minor heart ailment.
The stature of Wigley’s statesman-like reaction, by not exposing what was done to him speaks volumes for his decency, However the on-going disaster that has ensued when it comes to Plaid’s progress since that event is clear for all to see.
Since the ‘sons of the manse’ have run Plaid it has crumbled in the same way as the non conformist religion of that sector has also disintegrated. Now they have a president in Leanne Wood who (thankfully), whilst not being a product of the manse is actually the product of an outdated socialist brand of politics that also crumbled post the wrecking of the coal and steel industries.
However the real Archilles heel of the party is their incredible ‘jelly backbone’. Being ‘lily livered’ has become the prime qualification to be a member of Plaid. That has been the case since the days of Saunders Lewis, who was probably the last Plaid president who had the guts and commitment to tell it all truthfully – as it is. It was after that period that the era of cowardice came to the fore, and this era was trumpeted in by Gwynfor Evans, a left wing pacifist whose only attack on the establishment was to join a march to protest against the drowning of Treweryn (instead of fighting it face on) and the threat of starving himself to death for S4C. A stroke out of Ghandi’s book, but not complimented with Ghandi’s steely resolve or his courage.
Note well, I am NOT a socialist, I also detest the right wing Tory Westminster mob with a passion that makes me physically sick. I AM a nationalist first and foremost and I’m repulsed to such an extent by the cowardice displayed by our ‘so called’ nationalist party of Wales that I have distanced myself from all politics until such time as I can again attach myself to a party that sticks up and fights for for my country, it’s culture and language and starts to manouver us towards independence. I still wake up every morning and think to myself (in the words of the song) “I thank the Lord I’m Welsh”, but also slyly wish I was Scottish or Irish at times!
Can’t agree with your interpretation of Gwynfor as a leftie – he may have courted them,was a pacifist/ consciencious objector etc but also had a bit of “uchelwr” about him which pissed off many potential voters in Sir Gar back in his time.
It is the consequences of his fluffy tolerance which we now have to live with – 2 generations of absolute waffle ( your hero F Castro would not have had any time for such drivel and would have the wafflers out cutting sugar, or some other socially useful activity ! ) led by that uber elitist Arglwydd D.E.T and sundry other products of the Universities of Wales & Oxbridge. What a shower – Wigley stood out like a beacon among such dwarfs, a man of real practical talent, strong intellect but not prone to mouthing off just to demonstrate that capacity, opting instead to drive forward despite the efforts of others to put on the brakes.
So here we are today – with ST, HMJ, and a further assortment of dull, grey ( with touch of green ! ) timid cutouts ready to do battle on our behalf. I must make sure my bunker is well insulated as the crap that is about to be uttered will not make easy listening.
Do you know of any politician willing to stand up and make the coherent case for Wales – for fair treatment on account of the social & economic woes visited upon us by the demographic shifts described on this site, or better still, the case for early secession from the Union which treats its smaller parts with such utter contempt ?
I don’t think there’s much we disagree on dafis! However, there is a difference between an “uchelwr” and “crachach”. Tony Benn was an “uchelwr” by birthright, you didn’t get much further to the left than dear old Anthony Neil Wedgewood Benn! The “crachach” on the other hand (often in the guise of a ‘son of the manse’) are often the products of that class of people we have in Cymru who have been educated beyond their abilities, been brought up with a harp in the back of the Volvo and after a stint in CYIG (when a student at pantycelyn) go on to become self promoting gravy train passengers either in politics (Plaid) or establishments like Bwrdd Yr Iaith Gymraeg. They then go on to send the next generation to Eton – Rhodri Williams jumps to mind as a classic example.
These are people who are divorced from the common folk (often again by birth – typically the spolit Brylcreem haired lad who dwells in the manse). They wear their leek in their cap but not in their heart. They tend to have a very polite and often “fluffy” persona that keeps a good arms length from “Y Werin” – CRACHACH! I hate to speak ill of the dead, but I fear Gwynfor was more in the “crachach” camp than the “uchelwr” camp. And he was most definately a socialist left winger although he dressed and carried himself as a genteel gentleman – genteel gentlemen are not always ‘right wingers’ or true nationalists in Cymru.
j just got back and found your response which is fair comment but take issue with any comment about Rhodri Williams being on the same page as G Evs.
Much as one may have disliked aspects of G Evs’ career, it contains nothing as stomach churning as the personal opportunism of the current middle age generation’s star turn, although there is an upcoming bunch of younger ones who may have me turning to advocate violence ! Mr Williams epitomises the extreme end of a spectrum where anything goes to get ahead, yet when you boil it down his track record is a shallow account of successful survival at the champagne socialist end of the pirhana pool! My food is starting to come back up – what a creep !
Back to old G Evs – in his time he had many trappings of a community leader , maybe a “lesser uchelwr”, but your old buddy Arglwydd DET is the tops when it comes to “crachach”. I’ve heard Anglos speak of him as a top bloke, bon viveur, conwasser of wines, etc etc which indicates the successful execution of a migration from hotheaded young radical to silly old fart. Silly bastard made it as the Queen’s man in Wales, had he turned queer he could have been the Queen’s queen in Wales as well !!
LOL! The role of ‘Queen’s queen’ in Wales was firmly occupied by the royal arse-licker and wholesale molester of young boys who was rewarded with the earlship of Tonypandy – I hope his bones rot in hell!
PLEASE never refer to that daft attention seeking old fart Dafydd El as my ‘old buddy’! He spent his younger days trying to shock his old man (a dog collar wearing manse occupier) and his father’s crowd with everything he could think of to draw attention to himself – including an essay in his college days on ‘free love’ – I’m sure that went down well at the manse – but at least it got his father’s attention I guess. His latter years were occupied slurping wine and trying to be controversial again, only by then I doubt if anyone was listening. So why not transform into a cap doffing royalist? Yep ‘old fart’ seems to fit well.
As for Gwynfor Evans – a ‘parchus’ left wing son of the manse, who I’m sure meant well in his heart of hearts but truly messed things up for Plaid Cymru by pointing it in the wrong direction.
Better get back to the NHS before Jac tells us off dafis 😉
I read your blog partly because I’m continually puzzled by your politics.
OK the problems are not easily solved, but without Plaid what have you left? Even with PC few seem to want to vote for them, hence you return mostly unionist MPs and AMs. So on the face of it the Welsh are voting themselves into oblivion. They are glad of the right to be able to settle and work in England, and the quid pro quo is that you have to allow the English to settle and work in Wales. If you can’t manage to assimilate them as once used to happen, whose fault is that?
What would you do if you ruled Wales, build up Offa’s Dyke into a sort of Iron Curtain, or less dramatically adopt an isolationist policy? Wales as a British version of East Germany?
You want to discriminate against people on the basis of where they were born. Is that fair? I couldn’t help where I was born, and neither could you. It’s something that’s quite beyond our control, like the colour of our skin. Not exactly racism, but something quite close. Closer for instance than religious discrimination, because people can and do change their religions.
You could discriminate on the basis of language, like the Baltic states, that would be fair because people can learn the local language if they really need to, ah but the Welsh don’t exactly fall over themselves to promote Welsh, now only spoken by a static minority despite sustained official support.
Personally I’m pro Welsh nationalism and the language, but most Welsh people seem to give little more than lip-service to either. Who am I, and outsider, to tell them they are wrong?
All a bit pathetic really.
Wel, dyna fi wedi dweud fyn nhamaid fi …
“They (us Welsh) are glad of the right to be able to settle and work in England, and the quid pro quo is that you have to allow the English to settle and work in Wales.” You’re missing the point, but in doing that, you’re also highlighting the difference. Too many Welsh people, the young, the educated and the ambitious, go to England, and make a contribution to the wealth of England. The people I’m complaining about moving to Wales contribute nothing, they are the people England wants rid of. This is not a quid pro quo.
An independent Wales would obviously not accept drug addicts, problem families, etc being dumped here from England. Nor would it accept unmanageable numbers of people who have spent their active lives elsewhere and come to Wales to be a burden on local services. There is nothing racist about this, it’s basic economics. I want Wales to have control over its border, which is no less than all English political parties and an overwhelming majority of the English people want for England / Britain.
At the other end of the spectrum and off topic already perhaps but with the same overall result is those who buy second homes in Wales, especially by the seaside. They live in them for perhaps 4 weeks of the year, in my village over 50% of the houses are second homes. OK you might say, they don’t all come the same 4 weeks and the influx of rich English visitors bring money to the local community, wrong, they bring sod all (other than their St George’s cross flags)!They bring their own food and drink with them as well as most everything else the need. The only businesses that seem to benefit are the few cafes in the village but even they have been hit by the opening of a large fashionable restaurant just outside the village owned by yet another English company that proclaim to employ young offenders (most of which are English it seems). End result is that the Welsh economy suffers along with the people, we can’t even sustain a decent shop year round any more.
Thankfully we (as yet) don’t have to tolerate the influx of undesirables and drains on the economy that some towns have but it is evident in villages around us, Liverpool council have bought a load of ex MOD houses near RAF Valley where they ship all the dregs of society (that even “Benefits Street” find to extreme to feature) to pass their problems on to us and save them cash at the same time!
We’re not waving, we’re drowning!
Did the local council have anything to say about Liverpool buying these ex-MOD houses?
It was a long time ago but I have no recollection of Ynys Mon council publicly voicing an opinion. I’m not really a political animal, just a passionate one so following such things closely was and is never a strong point with me. The episode was covered by the local press at the time, the Chronicle and the Holyhead and Anglesey Mail, there was a lot of upset locally as well but sadly I can find no reference to these events online. My wife has heard again that they are now in the ownership of a local landlord who does rent the properties to families who would seem to be unwanted by Liverpool’s council housing department.
Again on parallel with your observations with the drain on the medical sector by the influx of those with a higher than average need is the drain on other local services. For example, my wife used to be employed as a teacher at the school where the children of these families where sent, most of these children were under the scrutiny of social services, some having to be taken into full time and temporary foster care. I don’t know if anyone’s aware what is involved with putting children into foster care, basically it’s a serious amount of work by social services to get an Interim Care Order, followed by a court case that takes up to six months to deliver a final verdict, all of which costs serious money, time that would be far better off being spent elsewhere. No wonder Liverpool want shut, where better than HMP Wales!
Spot on Jac. That is exactly as it is. An excellent and truthful roundup of the REAL problems on every front from politics to the media and the NHS in Cymru.
What REALLY gets my goat is the way the media froths at the mouth whenever they get an opportunity to compare us with England – and always when there’s an opportunity to promote any little negative facet that they can draw attention to, you don’t hear a whisper when the shoe is on the othjer foot. I swear that that south of the Lansker line refugee (Jamie Owen) has an orgasm every time he’s given an opportunity to broadcast his anti Welsh sentiments in the guise of news – a pity he didn’t get as much pleasure out of pronouncing our Welsh place names and applied it with the same gusto! How many decades does he need to get his mouth around our phonetic alphabet? Albeit in a carefully culivated English public schoolboy accent – although he only got sent as far as Christ College Brecon from Pembroke Dock!
There is a tutorial unit for the English schools curriculum. This unit is called ….
“Where is granny going?”
http://www.rgs.org/OurWork/Schools/Teaching+resources/Key+Stage+3+resources/Who+wants+to+live+forever/Where+is+Granny+going.htm
A working example of statistical segment is provided, and it compares Eastbourne where 23% are 65+ and London Borough of Wandsworth where less than 10% are 65+. In the exam you get extra marks for citing the fact that extra cost of care by councils and increased healthcare costs are a challenge to granny moving to costal towns.
Eastbourne, are so plagued with hoards of wrinklies, it has its own Clinical Commissioning Group (GPs consortium) within the English NHS, and are allocated increased funding to ‘procure’ the ‘off-the shelf’ procedures from NHS Hospitals like hip replacements and other costs of looking after the elderly. When the elderly move within England the cash follows the patient, but not if they move to Wales.
If Rhydian Fitter is unable to make the connection between tens of thousands of elderly English people moving to our rural and coastal areas of North Wales and deteriorating heath provision then he should immediately enrol in Key Stage 3 Geography in Sussex.
The Royal Geographical Society sets this particular exam question.
Who says they are racist?
I often wonder where you (and a few other regular contributors) get their information. But this is incredible, and raises the obvious question – why doesn’t the ‘Welsh’ Government insist on the money following the patient from England to Wales? And I notice that, in Eastbourne, a retirement hotspot, 23% of the population is in the 65+ age group, whereas here in south Gwynedd it’s 30%, with only 31% of the over 65+ born in Wales. http://i0.wp.com/jacothenorth.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Gwynedd-SW-Wards-merged1.png
There’s a reason why funding follows the patient in the English NHS.
It’s because the Tory government established CCGs (like the one in Eastbourne) as a privatisation policy. If the CCG can’t get the local NHS hospital to do the hip replacement in time for the waiting list target, the CCG can procure the operation from a private hospital, as the CCG has a nominal control of the funding. CCGs do actually exist within the Welsh Health Boards in the form of primary care accounting units, but cannot procure outside the NHS except in specific ‘unusual’ clinical referrals.
One of the largest GP consortiums in Wales is in Pontypridd, who choose to inject their spare cash into a ‘charity’ who books first class flights with British Airways to send orthopaedic surgeons from the Royal Glamorgan to Mbale in Uganda. Upon arrival this ‘third sector medical unit’ cavort about in pith helmets at the behest of the UK Department for International Development, dish out bibles, and use their ‘clinical expertise’ to customise mopeds into make-shift ambulances, presumably based on the response times of the Welsh Ambulance Trust.
http://pont-mbale.org.uk/main/en/partnership-links/ambulance
Incidentally, the trustees of this ‘charity’ are the same GPs who used to deliver patient appointments in RCT by premium rate phone lines. More expensive per minute than phoning Kampala. I suggest they redirect their ‘relief operations’ to assist the latest crisis in Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNvPKwArLV4
If Plaid Cymru are to ‘have some honesty’ over the situation in they DO need to look at the mechanisms set up by the Tories in NHS England and not blindly follow Labour Ministers centralisation dogma. All you need is a ‘ministerial veto’ as a security gate to stop procurement from the private sector. CCGs can also be a mechanism for invoicing England for your English pensioners of North Wales. To argue otherwise means reforming the Barnett formula to be ‘needs based’, is a false premise.
If it’s good enough for Auntie Gloria in Eastbourne, it’s good enough for Auntie Gladys in Llandudno. As for Auntie Nandawula in Mbale, International Development is (not yet) devolved to the Welsh Government.