Wales's 20th-Century History

Simon Jenkins On Wales's 20th-Century History | HistoryExtra Podcast - HistoryExtra

"‘My experience of Wales, which is the land of my father, is that it was through much of its history right back to the Middle Ages, a very prosperous part of the British Isles. Extraordinary natural resources and had those resources right through the 20th century. And it it benefited from it. It was far less poor than Ireland or Scotland, or much of the north of England or the West of England. And it was less poor because it had, it had sheep, it had fertile valleys. It had fertile uplands, it has stock. It supplied England with milk. It also had slate, iron, lead, zinc, all these, all these minerals, which it exported successfully, then had coal, which it exported very successfully. It had a very lively fabric industry. And it had a lot of tourism. It is a beautiful place. Nothing in Wales with the possible exception of coal needed so to speak to collapse, needed to go.

It was as well placed to do very well as the, as Yorkshire for instance, as East Anglia, Southeast England, or the Midlands. Why is it not that way today? That's what fascinates me… Glamorganshire was… by far the richest county in the, in Britain. It was doing very well and the Civic Center of Cardiff, the valleys, the ports and docks were all centres of wealth. This wealth was not stolen by the English, it was Welsh wealth. Most of it stayed in Wales. My father's streets in in Meifod dallas [sp?], were infinitely more substantial, well built and nice to live in than the ones he went to as a young man, in for instance, Bradford or in Lancashire, where he was appalled at the living conditions of the working class. Wales really was a very classy place’…

‘Wales really is now one of the poorest regions of the British Isles. It's almost as poor as Northern Ireland. And it's always just as dependent on central government as Northern Ireland is, which is pretty bad news. And I'm just puzzled by this. Whether it's, one mustn't put the cart before the horse. But undoubtedly, Welsh politics has developed a language of resentment and grievance, which is ingrained in Welsh politics. And I've read so much about it...

Welsh politics, time and again, and I’ve set on committees on occasion and so on, the Welsh component is simply give us a grant. The phrase give us a grant, it should be the motto of the Welsh dragon. And it's bad news. It doesn't do you good. It actually ultimately makes you dependent and does you harm. And of course, when you don't get the grant, it means the colonial power is against you. This whole psychology, I think, is very unhelpful… And I just do believe that if Wales is to prosper, as I still think it can, because it has so many advantages still, but it's got to snap out of that, that that sense of grievance and dependency’...

The trouble began, I think, really with with the Depression. The Depression hit Wales very hard, because the price of coal collapsed. And, in a sense, nothing happened in Wales that was any different what happened in in South Yorkshire or in Nottinghamshire or Lancashire. A community, a very tight knit community experienced a trauma. One consequence of it I think, in Wales, and this is perhaps more controversial, is that in Wales, one result was that bright people fled. My father being one of them. It was a source of pride to my father's family, or my father, my grandfather, that that almost all his children got out was the phrase.

And I think that what was left behind was a sense of, of resentment and failure, covering not just individual families or individual villages and towns. But a sort of political community, which never let it go. And the result of that was, was the, there's almost this psychosis, which, whenever I go to Cardiff, you just hear it all the time. It's unfair. We're maltreated, we're oppressed. And you hear this phrase, you just don't hear it in Liverpool or Newcastle, Southampton. And then it's overlaid with, with with, with a sense of national insecurity and all these things.

Which, which Wales just doesn't, even since, even since devolution, which was a great step forward for Wales, it really was a moment of what should have been huge pride and it was a moment of pride. But it was not translated into what I think it should have been, which was a beacon of good devolved government, on the west coast of Britain. But there was an opportunity in 2000. And I still think it was a good idea. I still think Wales, Welsh politics was really transformed by it. And it did stop complaining quite so much and become more, more sort of self reliant. The political identity did emerge from devolution and and it's still there ready and waiting. It hasn't been a great success. And the polls don't show the Welsh very, very convinced by it. But nonetheless, it was something worth doing and it's done...

On the one hand, the Welsh language and culture is splendid. It's one of the great, what's called Celtic cultures of Europe. And it's alive and has survived in, it's very exciting. You do sense a very specialness about it. And, you know, I love listening to it *mumbles*, the special characteristics of this is language and culture. Where I'm alarmed is simply at its imposition compulsorily on people who, who just are not a part of it. And it is exactly what they claim the English did when they invaded Wales. There's no good taking, taking very young children who do not speak Welsh, refusing to teach them any language other than Welsh. It is clearly holding them back, it’s clearly holding Welsh education back, which was thriving when Welsh was taught but not compulsorily.

My father learned Welsh at school proudly. I think you’re now forced to learn it angrily. And I just think it's the element of compulsion. It's, the it's the, the tricks like giving the official documents in which the Welsh is in black and the English in red, so I can't read it. I mean, silly things like that just infuriate people, and of course, divide them and deter outsiders from coming in. And I just think it's economically a bad idea, even if it's culturally a good idea...

People flocking to Wales because they want to be there, which is more than half the Welsh want to be because they're leaving... almost all the people in Welsh language schools in Wales are English people who come to settle there, hooray. Why ram it down other people's thoughts?… the emergence of it as a political movement, and I think had a lot to do with Scottish nationalism emerging, And the early days of nationalism and then got bound up in it. And trapped by the language question, which meant that a huge chunk of Welsh people just alienated from it. We're not going to vote for a party that didn't speak their language...

I am myself an instinctive nationalist… I'm not an internationalist in, in politics. And I've always believed that Ireland would eventually go, Northern Ireland, Scotland will eventually go. The question is what would happen to Wales. It doesn't make sense for Wales to be an independent state, in the sense of its political economy, cutting off from England, Wales, to my mind, its entire future is built in its relationship with Lancashire, the Midlands and the Southwest. It's got to see itself that way...

‘Is there any particular historical aspect or resentment that you think is most important for Wales to get over?’

‘Well, I think I think Wales has to get over England. It really has to. England treated it terribly badly, but it was in the 13th century. I once was talking to the Welsh minister of culture at the time, about how undersold, I thought the great castles of Wales, which are the greatest collection of castles in Europe, were at the time. He looked at me incredulous, he said, why should we give publicity to English castles? I could not hardly believe I was hearing this, for someone in charge of tourism. That's the problem. If you hate your neighbor, that much, you ain’t going to get any help from them in the long term. I think Wales should get over England and become Wales again. It would do it nothing but good.’


At least you can critique victim culture in white people

In subtle asian traits this guy was slamming the French government for not officially promoting minority languages and even equated this to trying to kill them. But the choice of which minority language to promote is inherently political - and it can become imposed, which becomes its own injustice

It is interesting that those who condemn "nationalism" support Scottish independence. Probably because the English are seen as evil "colonial" masters.