Tag Archives: Wales

History Made Here

G K Chesterton is often misquoted as saying that those who argue that ‘you can’t put the clock back’ obviously know nothing about clocks.  It’s near enough to what he did write – that time only moves forwards but principles needn’t – to let stand.  What’s more, we’re seeing plenty of evidence of it justContinueContinue reading “History Made Here”

The Long And Winding Road

The vilification of Nicola Sturgeon in the London press is delightful, not because it is at all pleasant but because here at last is a phenomenon that ‘they’ can do nothing to stop.  No matter what their rage, no matter what their war chest, they cannot win, and the SNP cannot lose.  The only detailContinueContinue reading “The Long And Winding Road”

Only the Desperate

Today in 1320 the Scottish nobility issued the Declaration of Arbroath, with its ringing line about fighting not for glory, nor riches, nor honours, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself. And the contemporary response is Frenchgate.  Nicola Sturgeon says she didn’t say it.  TheContinueContinue reading “Only the Desperate”

The Aye’ds of March

Et tu, Nicola?  It’s onething to have Plaid Cymru singing the praises of an anti-Welsh Green Party but today we had the SNP join the chorus.  Nicola Sturgeon has urged folk in England to vote either for the Greens or for a Labour candidate that would challenge Ed Miliband from the left. We would likeContinueContinue reading “The Aye’ds of March”

The Pecking Order

Irish nationalists have sometimes found the Scots and Welsh a bit puzzling.  Ireland, as a separate island, is clearly not British.  At best it’s one of the British Isles but even that’s controversial, with neutral commentators preferring something along the lines of ‘the North Atlantic archipelago’.  Great Britain though is one land mass, from Land’sContinueContinue reading “The Pecking Order”

The War on Identity

“The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory.  Destroy its books, its culture, its history.  Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history.  Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was.  The world around it will forget evenContinueContinue reading “The War on Identity”

Reasons to be Regional

Two common objections to regionalism are that another tier of government means more politicians and more cost.  It needn’t in fact mean either. First though, let’s be a bit more broad-minded.  We need government to be more effective and efficient – but to achieve that you need to invest, politically in the right people andContinueContinue reading “Reasons to be Regional”

A Voice in Europe?

Postal ballot papers for the Euros have started to arrive, allowing some of us to see what ‘choice’, if any, the ‘democratic’ process has thrown up this time. Although WR has contested European elections in the past, this was when the constituencies were smaller, single-member ones that did less damage to regional identity.  We haveContinueContinue reading “A Voice in Europe?”

Wales: A Way And A Warning

In 2012 we noted the Welsh Government’s plans to create a powerful, integrated environmental body.  Those plans took effect in April 2013 with the launch of Natural Resources Wales. NRW is the end result of a long process of bringing together powers that were once spread very thinly.  Forty years ago, those powers belonged toContinueContinue reading “Wales: A Way And A Warning”