Wales: History, Politics, Culture

  Wales as East Germany   I have long thought that Wales’s party system resembles that of the old German Democratic Republic (popularly known as East Germany), which disappeared from the stage of history in 1990.   It was a totalitarian dictatorship, with Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin being its guiding lights, and yet it had a plurality of parties, each offering a choice in minor areas, but all underpinned by the same basic ideology of Communism. Wales has been looking increasingly like that since at least 2007, four parties which are the same store, but with differently coloured store fronts. Imagine my surprise then when I chanced upon an academic submission to by Professor Russell Deacon to the Independent Constitutional Commission to consider Wales’ future, chaired by Professor Laura McAllister and Dr Rowan Williams. Professor Deacon   may be somewhat less harsh than me on the Welsh political landscape, but his views point in the same direction. His submission...

The More Things Change . . . King Edward the First has had an almost universally bad press in Wales, especially among Welsh nationalists and those who teach in Welsh medium schools. Quite understandably so. The King, who went on to become “the Hammer of the Scots,” is blamed for the subjugation of Wales by the English and for the death of the last native-born Prince of Wales. Edward himself has had an often-mixed reception among an audience wider than the Welsh. Some have seen him as the first truly British King, seeking to forge a new nation, while others view him as an unhinged tyrant in the image of Patrick McGoohan’s portrayal of him in Mel Gibson’s movie Braveheart . In all this, Llywelyn is portrayed as the victim. However, history is seldom as clear cut as a cartoon with white hats and black hats, and some attention needs to be paid on Llywelyn and his squandering of a “good hand” after reaching the pinnacle of his triumphs and conquests in the mid-1260s. It’s reasonable to ...