Plaid Candidate in Bilingual Leaflet Shock.

I'm still  awaiting election leaflets from Plaid,:Liberal Democrats, Greens, Socialist Labour  and TUSC with 10 days to go time is ruining out and those voting by post may well have done so before I receive them.

I know the Plaid leaflet has been delivered to some in Beddau so why has Royal Mail failed to reach the rest of us?

Anyway the Plaid Leaflet is of course Bilingual  surprisingly was the Tories (alas Labour failed in that respect(.

So it was infuriating to see the Blog Penarth Times attacking  a Plaid Candidate for having a Bilingual Leaflet.

Under the Banner

PLAID CYMRU’S NON-WELSH-SPEAKING ELECTION-CANDIDATE ‘WRITES’ TO VOTERS IN WELSH

They attack is on the Plaid Candidate for Cardiff South and Penarth





They then feign surprise over this

The bi-lingual pamphlet, which includes both Welsh and English verions of  Foday’s personal letter to electors and is “signed” by him,  gives what some might say is a misleading impression that the Plaid Cymru candidate is Welsh-speaking.


In fact Ben Foday has publicly declared in a hustings meeting in St Mellons that, as a first generation immigrant, he does not speak Welsh –  but there is no rider to this effect in the pamphlet itself, nor is there any background information given on the candidate

The Blog then goes on to make a thinly disguised attack on Mr Foley history seemingly surprised that someone who came to Wales in 1982 should have played a role in Welsh public life.

they write 

However in a 30-year career Ben Foday appears to have picked up a raft of appointments on various public bodies and is said to have “worked in several fields including the management of social housing for 10 years before joining Newemploy (Wales) Ltd,a Community Voluntary Organisation, as director .  He served as a non-executive director of the old  Llandough Hospital and Community NHS Trust and was a  board member of long-dissolved Cardiff Bay Development Corporation.

One can only wonder what it is about Mr Foley Penarth Newa objects to.

After all they begrudgingly point our in a foot note,

 [PDN Note]  At this election the Labour Party has also included a Welsh-language letter which gives the impression of having been written by its canddate Stephen Doughty in some versions its election literature,. Some Conservative literature is also bi-lingual 

So why single out Ben ?

Maybe its because they think al Plaid members should be Welsh speakers

 The Welsh Language still has a particular resonance for Plaid Cymru because the party was originally founded to keep Wales Welsh-speaking –  and originally had the aim of making Welsh the official language of Wales.Although the Welsh Language is no longer the burning issue it once was, hundreds of monoglot English-speakers continue to find themselves excluded from senior positions in public organisations because they can’t speak Welsh – and compliance with the Welsh Language Act (legislation backed by Plaid Cymru)- still imposes huge costs on a wide variety of public organisations.

For some reason I think I prefer this diatribe to be part of an anti Welsh Language nut job rather than any other alternative,