Quick post on two articles. One is an interview in the British left-wing magazine Red Pepper with Plaid Cymru’s progressive new leader Leanne Wood. She gets a fair degree of space to discuss her vision for Plaid and Wales. Normally the British Left is every bit as nationalistic as its right-wing opponents and quite dismissive of the independence movements of the “Celtic Fringe” (as they view it), but Wood seems to be a bit of a Guardianista-style darling at the moment.
Meanwhile over in Québec another nationalist movement seems to be in resurgent form if media reports and predictions are to be believed (though how much that is down to renewed separatist feelings in Québec and how much to the recent student protests and a decade of lacklustre Liberal governance is debatable). The Montreal Gazette has more.
AN SIONNACH FIONN 
In fairness to Red Pepper it’s a good bit to the left of The Guardian. It is a London-based magazine but in my experience (admittedly as an occasional and not a regular reader) its coverage has always leant towards a pro-independence position on Scotland and Wales.
LikeLike
Thanks, Ciarán. Like yourself I’d be an occasional reader so I’m not sure of their track record (though they did give activists in Wales some coverage in relation to S4C being subsumed under the BBC – a terrible short-sighted and unfair decision by the UK authorities, I may add).
Leanne Wood is an interesting case. She has received some generous mood music from the British Left (the Guardian in particular). Traditionally Plaid Cymru has been the butt of left-wing jokes or derision. Is it her genuine left-wing, socialist and republican credentials that has her in such a good light? Even though she is probably the most “nationalist” Plaid leader for many years. Has the British left realised that? She is potentially the Alex Salmond of the West.
LikeLike
Hi,
This may be of interest, regarding Irish Language signage in the Moyle area, Is the rule regarding this only applicable “road by road” as opposed to say, town or village? Also who devised the 66% thing?
http://www.ballymoneytimes.co.uk/news/local/bilingual-surveys-in-the-glens-1-4000884
LikeLike
Thanks for the link. Wasn’t the 66% thing dreamed up by Unionists as a means of preventing bilingualism in local government while hiding behind “democracy”? As far as I know it is road by road.
A 35% no vote equals monolingual English language signs even if a 65% yes vote calls for bilingual ones. Strange form of democracy.
I wonder what would happen if a 51% yes vote for monolingual Irish language signs was introduced, what the reaction would be? Or even 66.66%? Far from pleasant I suspect.
LikeLike