Wails from Wales 

Wales, essentially now a political blemish on the face of the well-known landscape of the west of England due to the workings of the Welsh Assembly, is a place most people in the rest of Britain don’t give a hoot about. For that reason, the Assembly (sorry, the Senned) must keep doing things to ensure that people remember it is there and, consequently but only very temporarily, give a hoot about it.

Readers may recall, in these very pages, when they renamed the Brecon Beacons to something so unpronounceable that news readers still struggle – even at woke central, the BBC Radio 4 Today programme – to say it. For good measure, just in case listeners have forgotten what and where Bannua Brycheiniog is, they always add ‘formerly called the Brecon Beacons’ which must wind the Welsh of a more nationalistic persuasion up a treat. And they’re also wrong, in our house they are still called the Brecon Beacons – even by my wife who is Welsh. So there!

Changing the name of the Beacons was all to do with colonialism, apparently. A bit like the lunatics in charge of the asylum that is our Northern carbuncle, Scotland, reclaiming Nessie. Apparently, the non-binary monster was also colonialist.

Well, the llunatics in Wales are at it again. This time they are extending their anticolonialism to renaming streets and removing works of art (mainly public statues) to convey their anti-racist credentials and to “set the right historical narrative”.

Nothing could be further from the truth; they are not setting the ‘right’ historical narrative, they are explicitly setting the wrong historical narrative. That’s what happens when you simply make stuff up and are driven by how you would like things to have been rather than what they were. It’s simply a form of lying. But, of course, this is the epitome of wokeness. The truth is less important than the narrative created by left-wing social justice warriors.

To be less racist they intend to remove statues of “old white men”. Not only are they being racist but ageist, and as an old white man, I am offended. If only I had a statue to be removed, I could get really offended – but that is also part of the problem. These are not just any old white men; they are dead white men. If they were ever offensive to anyone, and given who they are targeting, I am sure they could be, they are no longer here to defend their legacy.

Surely if you want to show how awful the past was, if only in your own eyes, you’d leave the evidence for all to see? But one suspects this is nothing more than virtue signalling – a simple attack on things and people many in Britain hold dear, and last time I checked Wales was still British.

Take for instance the proposals to erase the Duke of Wellington and Admiral Lord Nelson from public view in Wales. Without the former, we would now have President Macron as our leader, and be eating snails for breakfast. Without the latter, we would be watching bullfighting on a Saturday afternoon which would take the minds of the animal rights terrorists off foxhunting for a while.

The kind of Welsh who propose to sanitise the past, are the very people who fight to have acres of paint added to signs to incorporate the Welsh language, and who cold shoulder non-Welsh speakers in pubs and shops. Not all Welsh people are like that and few that I know genuinely speak Welsh. But the folk with common sense are rarely the ones who make the headlines.

Other targets include streets named Drake Close, Peel Street, Gladstone Way and (you probably got there before me) Churchill Way in Cardiff. Old Winnie was far from perfect, something that has never been a state secret, but had it not been for his efforts in the 1940s instead of the annual Eisteddfod, the famous annual cultural festival held in Wales, they would probably be holding Hitler Youth rallies, wearing lederhosen and no longer singing ‘Bread of Heaven’ (same tune though!).

The plans are all part of “an effort to uplift the positive impacts of minority communities in Wales and change the ‘alarming’ lack of diversity within public commemorations.” How removing people increases diversity is beyond my understanding and, perhaps the lack of diversity represented in public art suggests that the diverse elements of the population have not yet achieved anything or made the kind of contribution that deserves a monument. I have no idea and wait, enthusiastically, to be enlightened.

But if their achievements are substantial then they should be able to stand up against and cast their own critical light on all the colonialists, slave owners, racists and people who were none of those things, who are already celebrated for their contribution. The public should be able to see both sides of the story.

Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He is a columnist with Unity News Network and writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.

If you enjoy The New Conservative and would like to support our work, please consider buying us a coffee or sharing this piece with your friends – it would really help to keep us going. Thank you!

Please follow and like us: