"Senedd Cymru" is already a compromise do we need an English translation?

I have often thought that when considering what we should call our Welsh Legislature we should have asked some Welsh Historian if there was an old word from our past that we could use in the same manner as the Irish used Dáil Éireann i

The name Dáil Éireann is taken from the Irish language but is the official title of the body in both English and Irish, including both language versions of the Irish constitution. Since the Dáil was first established in 1919, it has also been described variously as a "National Assembly", a "Chamber of Deputies" and a "House of Representatives".

A dáil means an assembly or parliament, so a literal translation of Dáil Éireann is "Assembly of Ireland". Article 15 of Ireland's constitution describes the body as "a House of Representatives to be called Dáil Éireann" (Teach Ionadóirí ar a dtugtar Dáil Éireann).

In common usage, the word Dáil is accompanied by the definite article, but Dáil Éireann is not. So one speaks of "the Dáil" but not "the Dáil Éireann".

In fact The National Assembly for Wales  actual has a title  Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru and I wonder if we should have promoted  Cynulliad over the years to the extent that it could have come into common usage and we would not be even asking the question of renaming our legislator.

The English comedian Bill BaileyUsed to joke  about the Welsh assembly 

Right. Good morning. Later this morning we'll look at financial restructuring in the Rhondda, but first we've got a nice policeman here who's going to give a little talk on road safety.

Of course plenty of nations use the term Assembly including France use Assembly  (Assemblée nationale; )  to describe usually the lower) house  

So why not Cynulliad if we wished to emphasise a new era of devolution ? I suppose if we  were to see a Bicameral legislature  after Independence then Cynulliad could be used to describe the whole legislature in the same way.

The Oireachtas  sometimes referred to as Oireachtas Éireann, is the legislature of Ireland

 The Oireachtas consists of:

• The President of Ireland
• The two houses of the Oireachtas (Irish: Tithe an Oireachtais):
  • Dáil Éireann (lower house)
  • Seanad Éireann (upper house)

 A law renaming the assembly the Senedd will include an English explanation of the word's meaning, the institution's presiding officer has said.

The BBC reports that.

BBC Wales understands some AMs were unhappy with Elin Jones's plan to give the institution a Welsh-only name.
Ms Jones, who is in charge of assembly day-to-day business, said most AMs backed Senedd name, meaning parliament.
Welsh language campaigners accused her of "opening the door on giving the institution a de facto bilingual name".
However the Conservatives said a "fully bilingual name" was what they wanted, and the assembly should become "Senedd Cymru/ Welsh Parliament".

 A bill to rename the institution and cut the voting age to 16 in assembly elections is expected in the next couple of weeks.Last November Ms Jones told AMs she had decided the assembly would be given the "monolingual name 'Senedd' and that members will be referred to as 'Aelodau'r Senedd/Members of the Senedd'".
Some assembly members, including most Conservatives, were opposed to the decision, BBC Wales has been told. One said the plan had been "watered down".
An assembly source said there had been a "compromise".
In an interview with BBC's Sunday Politics Wales programme, Ms Jones said the name Senedd "seems to me to have the greatest support" among AMs.

"Of course, we are a Welsh parliament, we are a Senedd now, and we do need to call ourselves that," she said.
"Formally this institution will be called the Senedd, if the members agree to that legislation.
"The legislation itself will describe the Senedd as the Welsh parliament.
"Members, people in Wales, people outside of Wales who don't speak Welsh will of course be able to use the terms Senedd and hopefully that will become more familiar to more people.
"But of course it needs to be described as the Welsh parliament because that is of more immediate understanding to those people who don't speak Welsh.
"But over time the formal name will establish itself."Formally we hope to be known as the Senedd once the legislation is passed,"

Asked why the English description was being included, she said:

"I don't want people to feel unfamiliar with what this institution does just because we've given it a Welsh-only name."

But Osian Rhys, chair of Welsh language campaign group Cymdeithas yr Iaith, said Ms Jones appeared to be "opening the door on giving the institution a de facto bilingual name".

"Senedd is a name that the general public understands and supports, which is already used widely by Welsh speakers and non-Welsh speakers alike," he said.
"We call on Elin Jones to ensure that an English description does not appear in the legislation, thereby ensuring that the Senedd will have one name and brand that we can all use."

But the Tory leader in Cardiff Bay, Paul Davies, said his party "supports a fully bilingual name for the assembly" and "we believe that it should be renamed Senedd Cymru/Welsh Parliament".

"We are adamant as a group that, in the interests of full transparency, we should adhere to the original agreement made by all parties - in making the name understandable for both Welsh and English speakers."

You could argue that Cynulliad could have caused consternation in areas like the BBC where new casters  who seem to have norproblem with the pronunciation of a Croatian tennis player, but struggle over the name Geraint.

Recently UK Prime Minister Theresa  May even mispronounced Plaid Cymru  for god's sake.
Paul Davies knows full well (as does (Elin Jones)  that the media in particular will be using Welsh Parliament  rather than Senedd Cymru or even more important just the Senedd.

How anybody can have a problem in pronouncing "Senedd" is beyond me ? Indeed I would argue that that itself is already a compromise.

Labour's Criticism of SNP ruined by Welsh Labour Government .

Jeremy Corbyn and the whole of the Labour Party, must at times regret that the only example we can see of Labour as a government is in Wales .

So every time he criticises the SNP government in Scotland and that Labour would run the Scottish Parliament  better than the SNP  Jeremy and Labour in general come a cropper.

1. Jeremy Corbyn‏Verified account @jeremycorbyn Feb 4

   Life expectancy in Scotland is falling for the first time in 35 years. @LabourRichard and I are clear: this is not acceptable.

   0:41

   130K views

   992 replies1,355 retweets2,962 likes

    

    

    
2. 
   

The response  was hardly unexpected.


Indeed it's like unfavourably  reviewing   the food in a restaurant  run by a rival. whilst the one you run has been condemned by food inspectors.

The redoubtable Wings Over Scotland has  of course ceased on this.

Alert readers will recall that earlier today we conducted one of our regular context checks for statistics misleadingly-incompletely reported in the Scottish press. But while those are like shooting fish in a barrel, there’s one thing that’s an even more reliable open goal for the website editor looking for content in a slow news week.Ladies and gentlemen, once again we give you… Scottish Labour.There’s absolutely nothing that happens in Scotland that Scottish Labour are happy with. Day in and day out they can be found putting the bleakest possible spin on any statistic for a dwindling audience of diehard supporters and Scottish journalists.Something bad happened? SCOTLAND IS TERRIBLE AND IT’S ALL THE SNP’S FAULT. Something good happened? IT WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH AND IT’S ALL THE SNP’S FAULT. And the solution is always the same: let Labour run things.There’s only one problem with that theory: it’s been tried.Labour have run the Welsh Government ever since devolution 20 years ago – despite being proportionally elected, the current administration has 12 Labour ministers and deputies out of 14 – and without exception the Assembly in Cardiff has delivered worse(often spectacularly worse) results than its SNP-run counterpart since 2007.The equivalent Welsh measure for operations cancelled for non-clinical reasons (what Scottish Labour describe as because “hospitals couldn’t cope”) is 75,000 in two years. That’s 37,500 a year, compared to the Scottish figure of 8,311.And if we adjust those numbers pro-rata to account for Wales being a significantly smaller country than Scotland (with just 58% of the population), we get these figures:NON-CLINICAL OPERATION CANCELLATIONS (per year)Scotland: 8,311Wales: 64,113The Welsh figures under Labour are a breathtaking 771% worse than Scotland’s. We’re going to say that again in case you think it’s a typo:Seven hundred and seventy-one percent.There’s a reason the Scottish public don’t trust Labour to run their public services, even when they’re imperfect. And everyone except Scottish Labour knows what it is.

The SNP Government  in Scotland is not perfect and have made mistakes , but if you were a victim of Westminster Austerity  which was started by Gordon Brown's Labour Government and continued by the Tory/Lib-Dem coalition , then I suspect many in Wales and  England,  would like to be living under Ms Sturgeon's rule than anywhere else in these Island.

Certainly anyone in Wales should be thinking that we could be doing better than being run by Labour's Third-Rate First Ministers.

If Scotland can use its powers to improve life under the SNP, we should ask ourselves  is there another Party other than Labour who would not only start to do so but would seek parity of powers with Scotland to continue it.

Welsh Government backtrack on compulsory English in cylchoedd meithrin

It seem my theory that the controversial  proposals which suggested English would be made a compulsory subject for children in Welsh-medium nurseries was largely due to a cock up rather than a conspiracy may be correct .

I wrote at the time that

"I suspect that in reality education minister   Kirsty Wiliams  and her advisers in their zeal  to be "doing something" have not looked hard enough into its implementations".

The idea of introducing English into Welsh Medium Nurseries, seems to so badly thought out that I suspect the minister may not even had realised that this would be the result of her White Paper.

The BBC report that 

The Welsh Government has backtracked on proposals which suggested English would be made a compulsory subject for children in Welsh-medium nurseries.
Last week Welsh teaching union Ucac said the proposal in the new Curriculum White Paper was "a serious concern".
But now the government has said the wording was not an accurate reflection of its intentions.
It has acknowledged the "unintended consequences".
Ministers have also pledged to ensure any new law will make clear that language immersion can continue.
Currently, English is introduced incrementally from the age of seven in Welsh-medium schools.
Under the new proposals set out in a consultation last week, English would be introduced to three-year-olds in "cylchoedd meithrin" or Welsh-medium playgroups.
The consultation document said it would be a "duty on all schools and funded nursery settings to teach English as a compulsory element of the new curriculum for Wales".


In a statement, the Welsh Government said on reflection that statement

"does not reflect our intention" and would have "unintended consequences" for Welsh-medium schools and nurseries who apply immersion as the teaching model."To be absolutely clear, our proposal is the new curriculum will still enable schools and settings, such as cylchoedd meithrin, to fully immerse children in the Welsh language," it added.

Ucac has welcomed the clarification.
The union's general secretary Rebecca Williams said:

"The unanimity and ferocity of the response from parents and organisations proves the value of immersion as an approach that creates bilingual citizens. It also emphasises the need for constant vigilance, and the importance of scrutiny and protest within a democratic system."We look forward now to responding to the detail of the proposals which should see our curriculum moving forward to a new and pioneering era."'Lack of faith for the future'

Siân Gwenllian AM, Plaid Cymru's shadow minisiter for education and Welsh language said: 

"The fact that such a clause has been included in the first place raises serious questions about the credibility and integrity of this government's education department and its education minister.

"This mess is a sign of a lack of basic understanding learning within government about the necessities of minority language teaching."It does not generate a lot of faith for the future, given the key part the department is expected to play is to plan the growth of Welsh-medium education as part of the government's goal to create a million Welsh speakers by 2050."

Quite right such a clause would have gone against the very ethos of  "cylchoedd meithrin"  especially for those pupils who had non Welsh speaking families.

It make you think whether other parts of the White Paper have not been thought  through.

One of the main criticisms of all political parties election manifestos is that although they usually claim that they have been fully costed , they have not been fully thought out and reflect an "ambition" rather than intent.

But once in power politicians should be careful of making huge aspirations without also giving clear details on how these will be carried out.

Far to often this has been the story of Welsh Labour in the Assembly and it is ironic that in this case the minister responsible is Kirsty Williams a Liberal Democrat in "Not a coalition " who previously  from the opposition benches  would have been one of the most vocal in exposing this.

Has someone mixed up their Rocks?

One of Wales' most iconic Welsh monuments marking the flooding of a village has been painted over and replaced with 'Elvis'.

The painted message 'Cofiwch Dryweryn' (Remember Tryweryn) – a reference to the Welsh village that was flooded to provide water for Liverpool – was first daubed on a derelict wall at the side of the A487, overlooking Llanrhystud, in the early 1960s after the failure of a campaign to prevent the flooding.

The graffiti has since become an unofficial national landmark.

The memorial has been vandalised several times over the years but the latest defacement has sparked outrage on social media.

Aled Gwyn Williams, posting on Twitter, said: "It seems, against hope, that this has really happened. We have to call this what it is; an anti-Welsh hate crime. The mural was an iconic symbol of Wales' resistance to oppression, and this is an attack on that and on all of us. Resist."

For years campaigners have fought to save the wall, situated about nine miles south of Aberystwyth, against the ravages of time and erosion.

Dafydd Lewis, from Welsh language campaign group Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, previously stated: “Tryweryn was the catalyst really for the Welsh language movement in the ’60s, it was a wake-up call for many and sparked the fight for justice and the future of the Welsh language.

“Many people have taken the mantle of painting the wall over the years – it is one of the few examples of nationalistic graffiti that we have and has essentially put Llanrhystud on the map.”

Maybe the perpetrators mixed up their Rocks?

The Elvis Rock is a rock alongside the A44 in Powys, Wales, near its border with Ceredigion.^[ It is also one of the most well known pieces of graffiti in Wales, with the word "ELVIS" written on it. The rock is located beside the main trunk road through the country, and appears out of context with the surrounding landscape.

Ironically the graffiti on the rock allegedly originally read “Elis” and was written in 1962 by John Hefin and David Meredith in support of a local Plaid Cymru candidate, Islwyn Ffowc Elis. The rock has been repainted several times, and at one point the text was totally obliterated. However the word “Elvis” has again reappeared on the rock and is still visible today.

I wonder if someone mixed up the two rocks and decided to repaint the wrong .

I am sure that the  'Cofiwch Dryweryn' will be repainted , but maybe it should be listed as a national monument , and given legal protection.

If a Banksy in nNeath Port Talbot can gain such instant recognition, then surely a monument to Tryweryn should also be .

Transanctional politics has no place in a democracy.

I believe in ancient China, Emperors were advised that in times of famine they should judge whether a region was Loyal to the Empire or not.

If a region was loyal then food was taken from the disloyal areas and given to the loyal ones

On Friday I posted on the claim by the  Times,  that the government is looking at encouraging more Labour MPs to vote its way by offering money for deprived areas of the U.K. that voted to leave the EU. A government official said something on these lines is under consideration.
Labour response was as expected.

John Mann has urged the PM to "show us the money" with "transformative investment" in areas that voted Leave.

But the Labour MP, who backed Theresa May's Brexit deal, denied it amounted to "transactional politics".

Transactional leadership is a style of leadership in which leaders promote compliance by followers through both rewards and punishments. Through a rewards and punishments system, transactional leaders are able to keep followers motivated for the short-term.

Writing on the Labour List website, Mr Lavery, the former general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers and a close ally of Jeremy Corbyn, accused Mrs May of playing "divide and rule" over Brexit.

"If the prime minister wants to talk about ending austerity and protecting rights as we leave the EU, she should do so with the leader of the Labour Party and his team.
"Any Labour MP seriously considering discussions with the PM should remember her record and that of her party going back generations. Quite simply, taking such a bribe would be fool's gold."

John Mann, MP for Bassetlaw, a former coal mining area in Nottinghamshire, met cabinet office officials in Whitehall on Thursday and told reporters: "I want to see, when we leave the European Union, significant investment in new technologies, new jobs, science and industry in areas like mine and all the other areas in the country like mine.

"This isn't transactional politics, this is about getting a national fund ... the areas that voted Leave the most are the areas that have not had that investment."

 Asked if the government was trying to bribe Labour MPs, Chancellor Philip Hammond said: 

"No it doesn't work like that I'm afraid."What we are doing is looking at some of the drivers behind the Brexit vote.
"What was it that felt that made so many communities feel that they didn't have a stake in the way our economy was operating?
"And making sure we are investing in, for example, former coalfield communities to ensure they can keep up with the changes that are happening across the economy and that they too can share in our future prosperity."

But David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham, in north London, tweeted his response to headlines suggesting the PM was preparing to "woo Labour MPs with cash to back Brexit" saying: "Cowards and facilitators. History will be brutal."

And his colleague Chuka Umunna, who like Mr Lammy campaigns for another EU referendum, said on Twitter: "Government by bung is WRONG - whether involving DUP MPs or those from any other party.

"Funding should be based on the needs of the people not on the needs of an incompetent Tory PM to secure the votes of MPs for a deal which will make the UK poorer."

Certainly any Welsh Leave region who are under the impression that because they did vote to exit the EU will be very disappointed.

What is likely to happen is that many of those areas that voted Leave who are currently receiving EU funding will not find that it is replaced pound for pound  by the UK government .

The Tories have no need for the locality of the poorest areas of the UK , thir strength lies in the affluent areas of the South East of England.

Even the 1997 Blair Landslide barely  dented the Tory shires annd inded it was the Liberal Democrats who made the most damage.

1992 General Election

1997 General Election.

Those Labour MPs who are prepared to sell themselves , for a brief injection og government cash are deluded .

It is not my place to tell the Labour Party on how to react to this , but if these have not been deselected or lost the Party whip by now should clearly lose it.

National Library of Wales shunned by Cultural Minister.

BBC report that 

The Welsh culture minister has not attended formal meetings with the National Library of Wales since he took over in 2017, its boss has claimed.
The library receives £9m government support but the relationship has become strained over broadcast archive plans.
The Welsh Government said it had engaged with the library "at every juncture on this issue".
Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas has also met some trustees - and the president - informally at functions.
He was appointed deputy minister for culture in November 2017 but has refused to provide £1m of funding towards the new archive until the library changes its business plan.
The national broadcast archive would be based at the National Library in Aberystwyth and would house the entire BBC Wales TV archive, as well as material from other broadcasters.
The library's chief executive Linda Tomos has written to the assembly's culture committee, which has been scrutinising the archive proposals.

Lord Dafydd Elis Thomas was elected as a Plaid Cymru AM but quit the party, and now sits as an Independent AM, he then joined the Welsh Labour Government to join Liberal Democrats Kirsty  Wiliams  in "Not a Coalition" giving Labour a working majority

 Defending the library's business plan, Ms Tomos wrote that it had "provided all information requested by the Welsh Government" and "consistently" asked whether more information was required.She added that Lord Elis-Thomas had not taken part in traditional six-monthly meetings with the library's president, Rhodri Glyn Thomas, since joining the cabinet.
"The usual six-monthly ministerial meetings with the president have not been held since the deputy minister was appointed," she wrote.
Ms Tomos said "no reply was received" to an email requesting an urgent telephone call between the library's president and Lord Elis-Thomas last summer.
The email, which was sent on 19 July 2018 and which was included with the letter to the committee, is from a library staff member to one of Lord Elis-Thomas's officials.
It asks for an urgent phone call between Rhodri Glyn Thomas and Lord Elis-Thomas following the receipt of a letter from the minister that morning.

What exactly does  Mr Elis-Thomas think is job is ,Just sit back and let  events happen. If he has a issues with the way the National Library is run then he shoult not only tel the library's president, Rhodri Glyn Thomas to his face, but the  Welsh Public as well.

A Welsh Government spokesman added that staff had met with representatives of the library and the BBC on 18 January, and both organisations "were clearly committed to achieving an acceptable solution to ensure the delivery and sustainability of the National Broadcast Archive.
"While these discussions are still under way, including internal discussions at the National Library and the BBC, it would not be appropriate for us to go into more detail."
The government has publicly expressed its concerns about the financial sustainability of the national broadcast archive in recent months.
At a committee hearing in January, Lord Elis-Thomas said he would call on the BBC to make a greater financial contribution to the project.While the Heritage Lottery Fund has agreed in principle to fund most of the cost of the archive, the project requires the government to commit £1m in order to unlock the rest of the money.

What is the National Broadcast Archive?

• It aims to be a "chronicle of the life of the nation" and "Wales' national memory"
• The BBC has been broadcasting in Wales since 1923 and it has 95,000 audio tapes, 64,000 video tapes - being digitised - and thousands of cans of film
• It would join the ITV, S4C and screen and sound archives collected at Aberystwyth
• Digitised content would be available to view by the public and researchers at the National Library but also at new hubs in Cardiff, Carmarthen and Wrexham.

The National Library is one of Wale's Jewels that define us as a Nation and you would expect the Welsh Cultural Minister  (Wo often expressed such views) to work to make it expand into such things as the national broadcast archive.

If he has a reason for not meeting with the Library President  then it he should tell the Assembly why.

Pork Barrels and patronage. Is Mrs May the most corrupt PM since DLG?

Pork barrel is a metaphor for the appropriation of government spending for localised projects secured solely or primarily to bring money to a representative's district. The usage originated in American English. In election campaigns, the term is used in derogatory fashion to attack opponents. However, scholars use it as a technical term regarding legislative control of local appropriations.


You can argue that all governments do it, send money to the constituencies that  have MPs they support the sitting government , but Mrs May has taken the system to even more shameful,levels ever since she took office as Prime Minister .

First she  promised  the Democratic Unionist Party £I billion  to Northern Ireland by Theresa May to secure its support after the general election, and secure her fragile majority.

Then Mrs  with the rescheduled meaningful vote looming three backbench Tories have been appointed to the Privy Council: Philip Dunne, Roger Gale and Edward Leigh. and a knighthood to the likes of  to John Hayes, a right-winger who prospered when Iain Duncan Smith was Tory leader, held ministerial posts under David Cameron and who "questioned" the prime minister's Brexit deal.

Now the The Times reported on Thursday that the government is looking at encouraging more Labour MPs to vote its way by offering money for deprived areas of the U.K. that voted to leave the EU. A government official said something on these lines is under consideration.
Such a move would be controversial. Anna Turley, a Labour MP who represents Redcar, a leave-voting district in the northeast of England, accused ministers of offering “bribes and sweeteners” to her colleagues.

May’s spokesman James Slack denied the proposal would amount to cash in exchange for votes.

“The prime minister has a long-standing commitment to tackle inequality between communities,” Slack told reporters in London. “No community should feel that they are left behind.”

Left Foot Forward  report that 

"The MPs she will have in mind are some of the 14 who rebelled against the Labour leadership to help defeat the Cooper-Boles amendment on Tuesday.
Most of these MPs represent Leave-voting constituences, many of them poorer than average and several former coalfield communities.
After decades of under-investment, even a vague offer of a cash injection may seem tempting.
But after eight years of devastating government cuts to these areas’ local council budgets, talk of a last-minute bribe is insulting.One of the areas likely to be targetted will be Jarrow in South Tyneside whose MP Stephen Hepburn voted against the Cooper-Boles amendment.
The government has cut £156m from South Tyneside Council’s budget since 2010.
So Jarrow’s residents have had to pay more council tax for less services in order to make up for the government’s cuts. It will have to be a huge cash injection to make up for that.
After eight years of paying more and getting less because of May’s governments’ policies, should a vague promise of a “cash injection” sway Jarrow’s MP?Other MPs who will be targetted, if Theresa May is serious about this offer, are Gareth Snell, Ian Austin, Graham Stringer and Sir Kevin Barron. They all voted against the Cooper-Boles amendment.
The areas they represent have also suffered severe cuts in services. Since 2010: Snell’s Stoke council has had its budget cut by 24%, Austin’s Dudley by 29%, Stringer’s Manchester by 17% and Sir Kevin Barron’s Rotherham has had to cut £177m.
Of course, all areas have been damaged by austerity, to a greater or lesser extent. Yet only a tiny few will benefit from any cash injection.If Jarrow gets investment, what about neighboring Gateshead? Or all the other communities which need investment?"

Indeed  Mrs May could well be breaking electoral Law  and neighbouring constituencies, that did not have a Labour MP  prepared to accept such a bribe  will be heading to court   

The man acknowledged as the crown prince of political honour-mongering was David Lloyd George, who told one political rival in 1920 that he regarded the sale of titles as "… the cleanest way of raising money for a political party".

The First World War produced such bizarre political times that Lloyd George was a political leader without a political powerbase.

He had to raise funds for his own party and, to a lesser extent, his own pocket, because he was not a wealthy man.

As an agent of these sales, he employed John Maundy Gregory, one of the most unappetising characters in a rich stew of misdeeds.

Maundy Gregory, son of a vicar, from Southampton, traded honours in London's clubland, creaming off enormous shares for himself and lining the pockets of both the main parties in Lloyd George's political coalition, the Unionists and the Liberals.His price list varied from £80,000 to £120,000 for a viscountcy to £10,000 to £15,000 for a knighthood. As an example, £10,000 in 1922 would be worth £363,000 today using the retail price index.

Lloyd George came under a furious attack from Conservatives in the House of Lords, but was able to buy the silence of the press by handing out titles to proprietors.

Lloyd George was not interviewed by the police.

After he lost power, the political pressure for reform was expressed in a Royal Commission which led to the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925.

So the question is, Is Mrs May breaking at the very least the spirit of the above act?

Of course post-brexit Mrs May could well retrospectively make her clear form of bribery perfectly legal.

But she may well go down to one of the biggest abusers of the patronage system and Pork Barrel System in modern times.