General Chat

"Small countries always seem to succeed better,"

Every country you have mentioned has been independant for centuries.

What has Wales got to offer young people outside of Cardiff & the other large towns? My OH's son & nephew attended Welsh Universities, they can count on one hand friends who remain in Wales, they're either in London, England elsewhere or overseas. Realistically Wales could never support itself & you know it.

If Wales ever gained independence say goodbye to your pension John along with funding for hospitals, schools and roads.

Have you even vaguely attempted the maths? Do you know the nett tax income receivable by a Welsh treasury? Will all the environmentalists collapse in a heap and declare "rip it all out" cos it's good for the economy?

Will Wales become a tax haven? Have independent banks where $trillions will be kept? Withdraw from any cooperational military force? Issue passports?

I despair so much I cannot compose a proper sentence!

The rest of the world is certainly out of step with you John.

"NZ and Australia do quite alright on their own". Exactly, SueMaid. That is the point I would make. Large empires (Prussia, Russia, Roman, Ottoman) dissolve. Small nations survive and thrive. Yes, they need to make trade agreements. Yes, they need to share resources and infrastructure. But all those small countries I mentioned are better off under their own steam, imho. Yet BK is spreading the lie that Wales (which was proudly independent till Union in 1536) could not thrive as a small independent country.

The Union was forced on Ireland, Scotland and Wales hundreds of years ago. And there have been many benefits of union with England. But I do think eventually Scotland will become independent (within next 20 years and possibly much sooner) and Wales wil eventually follow. But only a prediction and an opinion. :-)

Thanks Tec, I am pleased that someone else has the same opinion of Plaid as I do.

The English taking over part came from READING Rose's link to the questionnaire followed by researching.

Let's be brutaly honest......if incomers do not integrate to some degree they will not be happy in Wales and some do leave again. OH and I did a tot up of friends who arrived here between 1986-1988 in one single large village. 14 families arrived, only 4 have gone back over the bridge. Two of those for job opportunities, one because they inherited a property and one because they were not accepted.

Our staying power is pretty good. However, when viewing a property we sort of 'knew' whether the area would be good for us or not. There was definitely a vibe if you landed somewhere anti. Oh and one of those areas was Lampeter and another was Crymych. No surprise there.

Most of us never said 'we knew better', cos we didn't! When we asked for help we got it PDQ. In-laws were staying with us during first harvest and they were astounded at all the machinery that came trundling down our track, all for the cost of a bloody good feed :-D :-D

Even if we saw something we thought we could do in a better way we kept quiet...lolol yes I know people will find that hard to believe ;-) it's just the way it was.

If you make your neighbour uncomfortable they will never be happy and that goes BOTH ways.

Those radicals that do their best to cause dissent should be shoved somewhere off the coast. I can give the coordinates of a couple of nice areas :-D

John you brought it up. You said the following...

I have always beeen unashamedly in favour of an independent Wales - just because I think we would do better.

John's first sentence of post before last - of all the scantimonious statements that beats all. Also I believe that the third sentence of his posting at 20.43 should read either 'him and me' or 'he and I' instead of 'I and him' which I regard as bad grammar.

I would remind him yet again, to keep his neb out of Ireland especially the North which IS part of the United Kingdom.

I would say again as I stated once before that I consider he suffers from a ' narcisstic personality' and he did not dispute it at the time. This is not a slur but merely an educated observation.

He likes nothing better than to stir it.

NZ combined with Australia!!!! That is hilarious :-D They do quite alright on their own :-D

That's it, I'm off because I am about to say something REALLY offensive.>>>>>>>>>>>>>

John - could I ask why you have been calling Dr Lewis "Dr Ellis"?

Tecwyn is one of the voices of reason on this thread imo. Brenda in Wales also deserves stand-up applause for her support of the Wales she loves too. I have to admit that I have only been to Wales a couple of times in my life and that was many years ago, but Brenda has made it sound very appealing, as have one or two others on here who live there.

Suzanne. I have said that 13% currently believe an independent Wales will work. So probably 87% think it would not. And many of the 13% live in Anglesey and Caernarfonshire.

Where did this English taking over come in to the argument. Missed that. Was that something Robyn Lewis said to the cashier?

Small countries always seem to succeed better, BK. Would you say that 1. NZ would be stronger if combined with Australia? 2. Iceland if combined with Denmark? 3. Canada with USA? 4. Portugal with Spain? 5. Norway with Sweden?.

Heavens!!!!! Ireland has a small population and I doubt it would do better if joined to England. I would suggest that Wales with 3m population and massive resources and a workforce that has always wanted to work will do better than any of those small countries mentioned. We can produce more wind power and HEP than even Norway, we have a huge coastline for marine energy. WE have massive untapped mineral resources. We have forests and lakes like nowhere else. We could be far wealthier than Switzerland within 50 years.

Rose. Tower is still extracting some coal and employing quite a lot of people. Mainly drift mining now, I think. Quite busy up there in Hirwaun.

I think Welsh coal-fired power stations would have used Welsh coal as long as it was not an exorbitant price. Fetching coal from China cannot be very friendly to the environment. And creates no jobs here. Closing mines like that just destroyed whole communities all over the UK - Thatcher just wanted to kick union power into the long grass, whatever the human cost. After all, the coal areas all voted Labour, so why should she bother to appease them.

OF course not all welsh are nationalistic,if they were i would have no friends,
we have nationalists in England,Scotland,and Ireland ,not just wales.

Anglesey has always been a bit more extreme than other parts of wales,but lately ive noticed it more,.
two wks ago ,i went to our local hos where my daughter was due to have a scan,while we were waiting in reception a young girl approached my daughter and ask her if it was alright to ask her some ques regarding the welsh language,my daughter said it was ok,and the young lady started to ask her questions,
where was she born
did she speak welsh
would her unborn child be taught to speak in the medium of welsh
she then gave her a list of welsh language nursery schools and play groups in her area(BABY NOT DUE UNTIL FEB)
She asked if my daughter had any other children,when my daughter said yes,she gave her a lecture about how important it is that her child speaks welsh,(She 2 and speaks both English and Welsh)she then gave her a cd for her daughter and unborn daughter to watch,do we really need this while sitting in a hos awaiting a scan,? at the end of the day its up to the parent,,
:-D

Pmsl Hayley Bloody Brilliant Chuck :-D ;-)

Ann reading some of the posts is like watching a middle aged women walking across a crowded pub with her skirt tucked in her knickers you really must go and advised her as such but you cant stop laughing and normally some kind soul will advised her before you manage to do it...............you read a post 0jn this thread by a certain person and just PYSL at the rubbish in front of your eyes, with every post they are getting longer and the ego is growing bigger and bigger till you think ....any min now its about to burst the silly begger will combust all over our screens.Most of it is what is made up in his own mind assuming this and that ,or copy and paste from 45 yrs ago....but still I read on, its pure comedy .......if any of it was hand written my bet it would be in purple crayon.... :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

Sis....if i lived there i would make the effort to learn Welsh.

SIL's OH was English and he knew some Welsh.........more swear words than anything else... :-S :-S

Very well said Tecwyn, I am English and proud to be so, I have visited Wales many times and have always been made welcome.
I thnk we are allowed to be proud of our place of birth if we want but that does not mean we should dislike or demean someone else because they are a different nationality or because they speak differently to us.

I rest my case! Not one iota.

Bro, my OH has a defective LL gene...lol some people physically cannot learn Welsh, even if ignoring the mutations. Strangely, he managed German when living abroad.

An independent Wales? Not financially viable in my view and that is worthy of it's own thread. Perhaps John would like to start one whilst I do some research :-D or maybe I'll just guess ;-)

It's been a good thread, I thank you for not leaving it with 2 replies..lolol

So you have lived there 40 years Suzanne...that makes you more welsh than John :-D

I am English and none of my direct ancestors going back at least 200 years were born outside of England. If I wanted to move to Wales I would, but I would'nt call myself Welsh

I am proud to be Welsh, proud of my ancestry, my culture, my heritage, my language, and everything else that makes Wales the beautiful little country that it.is.
Having said all that, I have no time whatsoever for radical extremism in any shape or form. Have we not seen enough examples where nationalistic extremism has led to bloodshed, even wars?

Independance for Wales? what nonsense - how would that work? For many years Plaid Cymru candidates stood on my doorstep denying that independance was their hidden long term agenda. Now they openly admit it in their election manifesto.
I am strongly against the breakup of the Union - it may well be the will of the Scottish people. That will be a sad day - but that is democracy.
It will be an even sadder day if Wales ever achieves independance, and I hope and pray it doesn't happen in my lifetime, or that of my children.

The English have their characteristics, the Welsh have theirs. Are we so different, really. Does the geographical position of Offa's Dyke, make us so different?
In times of war, thousands of Welsh servicemen have fought, and died, for the British Crown, because we are part of a Union, and I hope it stays that way.

I live in a small Welsh coastal village, population approx 400, that triples at holiday time, by mainly English tourists. Many come back here year after year. I have become good friends with some. I have never heard any of them say they've had a bad experience at the hands of the Welsh.
I am not saying this doesn't happen, obviously it does, but that can happen anywhere.

I just wanted to redress the balance on this thread. We are not all blindly nationalistic. Such bigoted attitudes are extremely dangerous in my view.

Happy New Year,
Tec.








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