The Welsh language double-edged sword for the new Plaid Cymru government

There's been some social media chatter in recent days suggesting that the new Cabinet of the Plaid Cymru government in Wales is composed exclusively of fluent Welsh speakers and will be conducting its business in Welsh.  That sounded like one of those claims that might turn out to be untrue on closer inspection, so I did some digging, but I certainly can't find anything that contradicts the suggestion that all the Cabinet ministers speak Welsh.  Apparently the first public meeting was bilingual, and the indications are that future closed meetings will probably be in Welsh only.

If correct, that's plainly an astonishing moment of triumph for Welsh language and culture.  Centuries of systematic London-ordered attempts to eradicate the language and to assimilate the nation have reached their end point with a democratically elected Wales-only government conducting its business in Welsh, without any artificial steps having been required to achieve that.  However, unusual circumstances certainly have been required to get there, and I do slightly worry about the future dangers for Plaid Cymru in a country that remains overwhelmingly English speaking.

Decades ago, I heard someone say that the fact that Scottish nationalism was an English-speaking phenomenon gave the SNP a huge advantage as compared to their Welsh sister party.  I initially thought that was a very odd thing to say, but when I thought about it for five minutes I realised it was obviously true, because the SNP don't have to get over the hurdle that Plaid historically have faced of trying to convince the majority population that they are not a party that belongs only to the minority language group.  Plaid have finally cleared that hurdle by becoming seen as the only viable progressive alternative to Reform, but the concern might be that once their government loses some of its early popularity, people might revert to thinking that Plaid is not, after all, for "people like us" and Labour might start to gain some attraction again.  

Hopefully Plaid have some sort of strategy in place to counter any damaging signals that are being inadvertently sent out.  They could probably do with explaining whether it is feasible for a monolingual English speaker to become a senior Plaid Cymru minister in the future without first having to learn Welsh fluently as a sort of 'entrance exam', and what the practical arrangements would be if that happens.  

We talk about culture wars in Scotland, but the straight choice between Plaid and Reform that Wales has just made was absolutely monumental in cultural terms.  Reform would have been happy enough to eradicate the Welsh language, while Plaid conducts government business through it.

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Catch up with Wednesday night's blogpost: "S*** just got real, lads. The famously always wrong blogger "Stew", who said there was "zero chance, barring nuclear war or an alien invasion" of the Holyrood election producing a pro-indy majority, and who said betting on Angus Robertson to win Edinburgh Central was "free money", has now said there is "NO chance" of victory in a 2029 de facto referendum. Looks like it's ON."

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