A blast from over the water

It seems that someone posting from the other side of the Taff is causing something of a stir in the political world....

A blogger going by the name of Keir Hardly has been taking pot shots at the Welsh language, describing it as "brain dead" and going on to say "The Welsh-identity totalitarians should not be permitted to foist the language on the unwilling". Apparently he believes that teaching the language to school children is an impediment to their progress and it should be made "non-compulsory" - unlike all the other subjects in the curriculum. And who is this person? None other than Labour activist Dave Collins, a school governor is Grangetown, a candidate for Cardiff city council and an assistant to Ann Jones, Labour AM for the Vale of Clwyd. Now with Plaid in government with Labour I expected to see some backbiting and sniping from the Labour sidelines on issues of Language - particularly from the awkward squad of dissafected Labour MPs (see the fuss made by some MPs over the use of Welsh at Cardiff General station) - but I was surprised to see this from someone so closely associated with the Labour Group in the National Assembly for Wales. Clearly he has not taken stock of what is happening in Grangetown, where the demand for Welsh medium education is growing and the number of Welsh speakers is rising quite rapidly...

For those that missed it, don't try looking for it via the blog spot that it inhabited, instead check ORDOVICIUS for details instead as its now been "sanitised" into oblivion.

What is quite remarkable is that Grangetown is a ward that Labour desperately need to win back if they are to take control of Cardiff's city council again. Now given that Plaid have an effective presence there, is it really a good idea to run a fairly anti Welsh language line in the ward? I suspect not... expect to see a lot of back tracking on this!