Whatever happened to the idea of making every school a great school?
Bubble — By Jonathan Morgan on June 21, 2010 7:00 am
Eglwys Newydd Primary in Whitchurch: a school that needs protection and support
I REALLY don’t think that Neil McEvoy needs a white charger or a miracle when it comes to a solution to the schools reorganisation process in Cardiff. He and the Cardiff Council’s leader, Rodney Berman, just need to listen to what parents want. People do want the capacity of Welsh-medium education addressed and I agree with them. But they want it achieved on an equitable basis that ultimately benefits the children and ensures that community cohesion is maintained.
I appreciate the problems that Neil has run into in Cardiff West but I have to say, it’s very much of the Council’s own making. In Cardiff North, they have badly mishandled the reorganisation process, initially relying on out of data figures, ignoring the birth rate trend and having no appreciation that our schools are almost full. He undoubtedly has a lot of baggage in Cardiff West – that certainly comes when you change your political clothes. However, I am not prepared to see the anger, frustration and community breakdown that has occurred in Cardiff West repeat itself in Cardiff North.
I attended a school fete last week at Eglwys Newydd, an English-medium school in Whitchurch. It is one of the very good English-medium primary schools that is due to close under Cardiff Council’s plans and there was no surprise that the lead issue that parents, teachers and governors were desperate to discuss with me was schools reorganisation. They have certainly had their spirits lifted in recent weeks when they saw the First Minister step in and block the Council’s proposals to expand Welsh-medium education at the expense of maintaining and improving standards in the English-medium sector in Canton. I believe they have a right to feel buoyed by this judgement because there are a number of direct comparisons between the proposals put forward by the Lib-Plaid led council for Whitchurch and those that have been rejected by the Assembly Government in Canton.
The First Minister was clear in his objection to the proposals in Cardiff West that the Council’s plans would not deliver a broad and balanced curriculum for all the age groups affected. The situation in Whitchurch is exactly the same. While the standard of provision would improve for the Welsh-medium sector, it would not improve for the English-medium sector, particularly given the high standard of school provision that exists in Whitchurch already.
Once this pronouncement had been made, I immediately came out and said that the Council had very little choice other than to halt the proposals in Cardiff North for two fundamental reasons. The first reason was, given the decision made by the Assembly Government, any further decisions would have to adhere to the same consistent criteria employed in Cardiff West; this would in my view stop the proposals in its tracks. The second reason is, if Rodney Berman says that he has no confidence in the Assembly Government’s guidance and regulation – the very things that underpin local authority plans to reorganise schools in their area – then there is absolutely no way that it could continue without a thorough review of current system.
This is probably the first time in years that I and Councillor Berman have agreed on anything. We do need a review of current guidance and regulation and that is why I was one of the first Assembly Members to congratulate the Education Minister last week for coming out and committing himself to such a review.
I certainly welcomed some of the core objectives that the review is set out to achieve, like establishing a new levels of trust, simplifying systems of governance and ensuring that local people should continue to have a significant say in developing proposals in their communities. It is absolutely critical that more dialogue and consultation happens at the local level with initial avenues of appeal and determination being made at a local level.
For example, one of Neil McEvoy’s criticisms of Labour councillors in Canton was they opposed all proposals the Council put forward but didn’t offer any alternative solutions. This wasn’t the case in Whitchurch. The Conservative councillors and I put forward a new and viable ‘Fifth Option’ as a solution for negotiation, only to have it dismissed out of hand by Council officials. This certainly wasn’t a productive way to engage with the local community.
Yet, I do have some concerns which I believe the Government has to face up to before this review goes ahead. Some local authorities that are going through the process of consulting informally or, in some cases, consulting formally through the publication of statutory notices – and I admit that I do have biased interest in this because Cardiff is doing this in Whitchurch – are working on the basis of the existing regulations and the existing guidance. With the Minister making it clear that this is to be a fairly substantial review of the regulations and the guidance, it would surely make more sense if those local authorities were to hold back until they were certain about what the framework will be. I conveyed this point to the Minister, highlighting the fact that it was not unusual for the Assembly Government to point to major programmes that should be halted while significant reviews go ahead; the Minister for Health and Social Services did it with the hospitals reorganisation programme for example. Now while the Government may not be legally able to instruct local authorities not to reorganise its school places, I believe the Minister could give local authorities the strongest possible indication that due to the magnitude and importance of this review work, they should perhaps wait until this has been completed and set in stone. Otherwise, they could be pushing forward proposals based on guidance and regulations that are to be changed substantially as a result of your work. On that basis, it would be unjust to those communities that face the loss of a school or the reorganisation of places if those decisions were taken on the basis of guidance and regulations that are to change in the next few months.
Linked to this point, I was interested to hear the Minister say in his statement that current regulations do not enable Welsh Ministers to receive certain information that is required for the proper assessment of statutory proposals. This admission was extraordinary. I believe it is critical that all decisions are based on a thorough scrutiny of all the evidence and the factors set out in statutory guidance; guidance which stresses that the standards of provision are of prime importance.
If this is not the case, and new regulation is going to enhance the information deemed necessary to assess statutory proposals, then surely it is sensible for the Government to stop all current proposals before the conclusion of the review, as they could be determined using less information available to ministers now than would be the case in the future; again this would be fundamentally unjust.
I believe there are two very specific points that the Government ought to consider when looking at the regulations and the guidance. The first point is population trends. This week, the Assembly Government has pointed to a forecast showing that the population of our nation will go up to 3.3 million, or perhaps 3.5 million, within the next 20 to 25 years. In Cardiff, the population is set to increase to some 500,000 over that time. There is every indication that Cardiff will need more capacity in the next 20 years not less. Therefore, the Council is running the risk of being too focused on short-term fixes, rather than long-term strategic planning. The schools organisation proposals guidance that was published this year points to the need for local authorities to take population projections into account. I think it is vital that the new set of guidance and regulations ensures that local authorities take these projections into account.
The second point is the dilemma that local authorities face between ensuring that there are enough places to deal with those pupils and families who are within the catchment area and the need to satisfy parental preference. I know that a particular conundrum when dealing with surplus places is when it is said, for example, that school X has surplus places and yet we know that local authorities pressurise other schools to take pupils from other catchment areas because they say that the schools within their catchment areas are full. I would like to see further scope and flexibility put in the new guidance to help local authorities manage that conundrum of dealing with surplus school places when parental preference still applies to the decisions that are taken.
School reorganisation based on meaningless figures to reduce surplus places might achieve the Assembly Government’s goal of eliminating waste but the actions of local authorities in delivering this often fails to address a central question – why do some schools fail to attract pupils who wish to go to school elsewhere?
There is nothing in current guidance to get local authorities to improve less popular schools. It’s all about bringing everyone down to the same level. Whatever happened to the idea of making every school a great school?
Tags: Cardiff, local government, public services, school, Welsh Language
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17 Comments
Mr Morgan,
I am astounded that you support the First Minister’s decision in respect of the West of Cardiff.
The proposal would have undoubtedly have provided a very good standard of education in the EM sector. Remember that both the EM schools are significantly undersubscribed and this is even when less than 1/3 of the children at those schools come from within catchment.
At the same time in the WM sector in West Cardiff Ysgol Treganna has a demand close to 200% of capacity even though the building is wholly unsuitable for a modern day school. The overcrowding there is appalling and far worse than any that might arise in the EM schools under the council’s proposal. At the same time those who cannot get into Ysgol Treganna are sent by bus outside their community to be taught in porta cabins on playing fields. The space there is such that there will be no further cabins allowed next year and effectively once 4 school years have be accomodated there will be absolutely NOWHERE for the childen entering primary education in 2011 to go.
How can you support the continuartion of this inequitable situation where provision for one group of children is so much worse than the provision for their neighbours. Surely every child has the right at least to an equal chance in life?
The status quo means that we are all paying for a unsuitable temporary school when there is plenty of space in the existing local schools. I thought the Conservative party were serious about reducing the UK deficit and particularly eliminating waste. Clearly not.
Having seen how the Labour Party where prepared to treat children in Canton, for political reasons, I voted Conservative for the first time after being a life-long Labour voter. I am so disappointed to see that the Conservative party has now defended Labour’s actions in West Cardiff and is equally unprepared to make the tough choices needed for fairer society.
Rob Davies
114 Clive Road
Appalling article by a normally very sensible politician. That Jonathan Morgan could publish such rubbish merely shows the extent to which discrimination against Welsh-speakers in Cardiff has become normalised.
Carwyn Jones’ new policy on education seems to be that educational provision for minority group A (long discriminated against) can only be improved (i.e. discrimination ended) if provision for majority group B (who have more than their equitable share of the resources) is also improved. Not maintained, note, but improved. So unless the majority gain more resources, those minority group A children in cramped buildings/ taught in coverted cupboards/ eating launch at 11.30am/ split up from brothers and sisters/ forced out of their communities for education/ their parents vilified as racist and xenophobic for wanting an education in the minority language etc, must stay where they are for the foreseeable future.
People are right to suggest that there are also secondary issues here, such as why Cardiff, one of the richer parts of Wales, should somehow not have to get rid of surplus place when poorer parts of Wales like Gwynedd, Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire, Conwy, Pembrokeshire have to do this?
But the main issue is the way that this whole matter institutionalises discrimination against a minority group in Cardiff and Wales.
This seems to me me to be a more of an issue of saving money than saving education. I cannot fault local authorities that much, they are restricted by tight budgets (always ). This WAG administration has in some ways a retarded idea of education – they may boast about their enlightened view on early childhood education. That was lost when Jane Davidson made the comment that class sizes do not matter, that was met with laughter from every educator in the world. That is why schools are dumped on with this surplus education nonsense. It’s ridiculous to close schools when the population will go up (unless we are now living in the nightmare world of PD James’ “children of men” with no children).
New schools need to be built to replace old knackered old stock, and old schools that are in good condition need to be upgraded, kids should not be taught in portakabins, fresh thinking is what’s needed. British schools are light years behind the US (and that’s saying something).
Why anyone would think that there is something particularly healthy about Whitchurch High school having 2500 kids is bizarre! Reports have shown that a good healthy high school should have 1,000 or under.
Also I believe that “free schools” is another dead end just like the foundation school, the Thatcher equivalent in the 1980s and Charter Schools in the US. In fact in a 2003 Federal government report they found that charter schools did not do as well as the traditional US Public School. There is something somewhat dishonest with this post’s title, when I hear people who defend Whitchurch schools (with a web site titled “Destroy Whitchurch” sums up their rather parochial mentality). They say people should have the “Choice” not to send their children to “failing schools”. They don’t want to name those “failing schools”, because they don’t exist!
If I was Jonathan Morgan I would be lobbying for adequate funding of our schools. And challenge the status quo, he should ask his fellow Bishop of Llandaff alumnus for money for Welsh schools so that they produce the type of education that all kids need.
What schools need in deprived areas is good leadership that involved all I school, small learning communities, and parental involvement. Truancy is unacceptable, when my step son missed a class in his Colorado High school I had a call. When he was in Wales he would take every Friday off for a month, not a word! And this was a “successful” school he was in.
Simon,
Not sure that Jonathan Morgan consciously supports institutionalised discrimination against Welsh speakers – the rhetoric is very different from Canton and he is prepared to offer positive alternatives – but it is a flawed article. He certainly sets the bar that needs to be met by the council in reallocating places far too high;
“The First Minister was clear in his objection to the proposals in Cardiff West that the Council’s plans would not deliver a broad and balanced curriculum for all the age groups affected. The situation in Whitchurch is exactly the same. While the standard of provision would improve for the Welsh-medium sector, it would not improve for the English-medium sector, particularly given the high standard of school provision that exists in Whitchurch already.”
So effectively no change to English medium education is permissible unless it retains its already high standards? No respect for the idea of equal quality provision between the two languages, more support for those that lobby him hardest (and there the similarities to Canton become more obvious).
Where the article falls down hardest is in its own identified specific points.
Firstly the question of demographics; are birth rates really rising? doubtful, greater demand for English medium schools is driven mostly by immigration. Jonathan Morgan, and others who quote the report about rising population should take a long hard look at the assumptions behind those calculations, throw in the UK’s likely future growth rate and new government changes to immigration policy and they’re going to look very shaky.
The second point about the use of surplus places appears, in very confused language, to allow parental choice to drive provision which again requires the presence of surplus places. Can we really afford this as an approach to educational planning in the current budgetary environment? it would of course logically ultimately lead to the closure of the least popular schools, the ones whose parents are least likely to lobby Tory AMs and councillors to keep them open, but the cost, financial & human, en route would be pretty high. We start with unconscious discrimination on linguistic grounds and finish with unconscious discrimination on social grounds. The temptation to say same old Tories is becoming almost overwhelming….
Ben,
Obviously I agree with most of your comments. I agree with you that some of the “discrimination” on language is unconscious, and I would also agree that the Tories are traditionally less anti-Welsh (on language) than Labour. However, unconsciousness or not a discourse has been created in Cardiff and we need to examine it.
Are we sure that the rhetoric in Whitchurch is so different to that in Canton? I’m afraid that the Whitchurch campaign has used very similar language, including the erection of billboards using the words “Welsh” and “English” all over Whitchurch suggesting that “Welsh” education was taking over “English” education, receiving more money etc.
We musn’t be naive about how majoritarian discrimination (unconscious or not) works. The problem (empty school places) is painted as an “ethnic” problem produced by the minority (i.e. elitist Welshies kicking hard done by local kids out), and this is used to mobilise the “local” community in opposition. Once the majority has its own way, then the “ethnicised” rhetoric of Welsh vs. English previously employed is dropped, and the issue is painted as one which is in fact a perfectly reasonable “policy” debate.
This enables the anti WM campaign to retain its objectives (keeping open all EM schools, regardless of however empty they are, or what percentage of their pupils travel in), while also keeping a veneer of respectability among the majority that the debate has been really rather sensible all round, but for the whinging by “exclusive”, “middle-class”, “monocultural” Welsh-speakers. To top it all up, the purveyors of majoritarian discrimination then declare themselves to be in favour of education in Welsh, but (in Canton at least) produce no policy proposals about how to do this as they know any such proposals actually require resources to be shared out in a more equitable manner.
If Simon Brooks is a spokesperson for Treganna, then I suggest that they should find someone else. After this rant he clearly shows English speakers as the villain in this sad episode.
Closing schools is a reactionary response reducing children to the level of commodities. A more enlightened approach to schools in Western Wales (which includes English and Welsh speaking communities), and this goes for Cardiff too.
We should not have carbon copy of London in Wales, share the wealth.
Alienating English speakers will not do favors for Plaid in Cardiff West.
I think you’re wrong, Mike, to assume that the anti-WM campaign and “English speakers” are one and the same.
We have to face up as a city to what has happened in west and north Cardiff, and be honest about the politics of discrimination which has underlined it.
The situation is that certain EM schools with low take-up and low numbers of pupils from within the catchment area are earmarked for closure. Parents with children at these schools campaign against closure. There’s nothing wrong with this – it is perfectly reasonable for parents to do this, and nobody would disagree with their right to do so. Slogans like “Eglwys Wen is a good school” are perfectly honourable.
However rather than fight against closure on a sensible policy level developing this sort of argument, argumnets have been aired inserting rhetoric about (middle-class/elitist) Welsh-speakers taking over “local” schools. It is at this point I object to the campaigns at Lansdowne and Whitchurch. While the desire to keep Lansdowne or Eglwys Wen open is acceptable, the ethnicised language employed during the campaigns to achieve this have been a blight on the city of Cardiff.
It is discriminatory language aimed at a linguistic minority and there is little to be gained by pretending that it is anything else. My concern about Carwyn Jones’ decision on Lansdowne is that it seems to institutionalise this discrimination – i.e. the Welsh State itself has become a discriminatory entity. This is very worrying. It is obviously troubling for those of us in Canton, but it is also very, very difficult for the devolution project.
I’m again baffled and saddened by another article by a British party politician concerning Welsh medium education.
There must be a way of answering the demand by parents (the majority of whom are not ‘Welshies’ and so, for some Labour members are ‘normal people’) for an education which means their kids at the age of 11 are fluent in two languages and so are multicultural … I feel I still have to justify WM education in the capital city of Wales … which says a lot about the colonial attitude towards the Welsh language in Wales.
If the council, under pressure of Labour economic and political (mis)rule in Cardiff City for years and Labour rule in the Assembly and Westminsiter for over a decade and now Tory rule in London, schools have to close EM schools, then why blame those who want WM education?
I have no concern if Eglwys Wen, Eglwys Newydd, Landsdown or any other EM school stay open. I’d pay my taxes and even a bit more. But I’m not sure if many people are ready to vote for parties which are keeping schools with empty class rooms open, maybe they are. But something has to be done even if it doesn’t mean closing EM schools. The status quo isn’t an option. I can’t understand why its OK for some kids to have education in over flowing schools, with staggered lunch time and opening and closing time and having to travel a few miles in for (WM) education but for others (EM) it’s not. That getting a half decent school for some kids (WM) means that other kids (EM) get, what, fantastic facilities?
Labour didn’t bite the bullet when they could have. Jonathan Morgan seems to want it both ways.
Keep the EM schools open, I don’t mind, just find the money then for WM – but of course that would be ‘elitist’ and would again be painted as ‘Welshies get everything’ or ‘Welsh education costs’ as we saw in Whitchurch recently. As Simon Brooks says, why should councillors (yes Labour in Carmarthen), Plaid, Independent (Tory) in other places, go to the bother of closing schools when Labour can get away with not doing so?
Simon Brooks is right too there is a low lever feeling that the Welsh language in Cardiff is ‘abnormal’. It was obvious in BBC Wales’s ‘Carwyn Jones saves Landsdown school’ report on Wales Today a month ago … nothing that other kids are being taught for another year or more in substandard classrooms and facilities. No. Nothing that the First Minister went against his own government’s education policy. Nothing that Cardiff tax payers will have to pay more money to keep schools open. Nothing that other kids have to be bussed about. No, the ‘normal’ school had been saved. But then BBC Wales is full of Labour supporters who live in Cardiff West.
The Welsh language is no threat to the English language, English is not ‘losing’ to the Welsh langauge. But, Welsh also isn’t some errant thing either. The Welsh language is Cardiff is only winning the grownd it lost in the C19. The Welsh language is the only language spoken continiously in Cardiff since the time of the Romans (and before then).
Now, I’d please, like to hear what Carwyn Jones and his Labour friends and Jonathan Morgan as the local MP or AM (what is he now) would do? I’m still waiting.
Just very sad by the whole affair.
… the more I think about the issue, the more it seams that the rational thing from now on is the most irrational. Do nothing or at least waste tax payers money, deliberately not give the best education possible (in either WM or EM) and hope things will get better and sort themselves out.
The ‘mistake’ the LD and PC did in Cardiff City Council was try to sort out a problem. They thought that by following WAG guidelines they could solves two seperate, but not totally disconnected issues, falling numbers in EM and growing numbers in WM, together.
In hind sight, it would have been better to, well, I don’t know, build a totally new WM school and then allow numbers in EM schools to fall by parent selection and a general fall, or at least not large increase, in the birth rate. OK, you’d have had 10 years on ‘waste’ in terms of schools below capacity. WAG would have complained, but parents of WM could be fairly satisfied and parents of EM would be fairly satisfied. Lots of money ‘wasted’ in the meantime, but, at least the whole issue of EM v WM may have been avoided (… or would it?).
So, the lesson, build new schools for WM (or EM, I don’t care) but don’t close any school – it’s not worth the bother, the other parties will only campaign against you.
So, if there are any councillors reading this. Don’t bother closing any schools. Just build a new one.
Without wishing to engage in the substance of the debate, it does strike me that some of the terminology being used, especially by Simon Brooks, is unhelpful to the point of being obfuscatory. When talking, as Ci Du rightly does, of English-speaking parents who want their children to become bilingual, it cannot be right to also cast those people as a “minority group” in the same way we might think of an ethnic minority. Then, having done so, he then actually complains about the attempt to “ethnicise” (a classic made-up word, if ever there was one) the debate by those opposed to expanded WM provision.
The majority and minority in question is surely about the provision, not about the groups seeking access to that provision.
In his opening paragraph, Jonathan Morgan states that the solution to school reorganisation in Cardiff is simple – Rodney Berman and Neil McEvoy, and all those Council officers having sleepless nights “just need to listen to what parents want”. And what do all these parents say? “don’t close my school” (i.e. close theirs), “give us more welsh medium educastion places” (i.e. give them less english medium education places), “keep our community school” (i.e. maintain this school when it may not be financially and / or educationally viable). It is clear this is a classic political conundrum – you can’t please all of the people all of the time!
School reorganisation is a problem facing almost all local councils in Wales, although not always for the same reasons – falling pupil populations across the area or falling in some areas, but increasing in other parts of the same Council; increasing numbers of parents wanting welsh medium education; decreasing numbers of parents wanting Roman Catholic education (in some towns /cities); increasing demand for provision for pupils with special educational needs.
Local authorities are being criticised by WAG, the Welsh Audit Office and ESTYN, to name but three, for the cost of the “surplus” places they have in the system. Money funding these places could be providing additional funding for those children actually in schools – which facing the cuts that are to hit the public sector under this new Con / Dem coalition, is money that we can’t afford to waste. Yet almost every time a Council puts forward proposals to try to resolve these problems, proposals which they will have spent months if not years developing, some if not all of those affected will immediately launch a campaign to stop the proposals going forward. The argument, long made by the teaching trade unions, of using the surplus places pin the system to create smaller classes simply isn’t viable in the current financial climate. Ci Du’s tongue in cheek comments are easy to say, in reality a new secondary school for 1000 kids costs approximately £30M – the money simply is not there.
Tough choices have to be made – and these have to be made largely using the current school buildings available and reorganising and reallocating children between schools – there is NO other option in a city such as Cardiff. The exact reorganisation is clearly the area of debate – have pity on the Education Officers in Cardiff – they are desperately trying to find solutions that work for everyone, but they’re damned by everyone whatever they do (although I’ve often thought that in this sort of debate, if everyone hates you, you’re probably doing something right?!)
Finally, to add one issue into the mix in relation to discrimination…yes there is an increasing demand for WM education (partly driven by increasing parental want for children to speak welsh, partly still by the “middle class” pursuit of the schools with the best exam results, although not necessarily best value added results). Whilst I don’t speak Welsh (grew up in an era where you learnt your mother’s tongue, despite my father having been a welsh speaker when a child) I respect those parents who want their children to learn and who support them by learning themselves. However, there is other potential discrimination openly voiced in parts of Cardiff North (and probably in other parts of Cardiff too)…the parents who don’t want their children to go to schools which have significant asian or non-white populations, the evangelical churches who encourage their members not to send their children to schools with lots of muslim students – perhaps it’s time some participants in the debate out there (clearly not on Waleshome.org) were a little more honest with themselves? We must remember that Cardiff is a multi-cultural city too, and that this is one of the key areas of the City’s growing population.
I would say that Jonathan is speaking as a local AM rather than a “British Party Politician”, In a article in the TES it said that Conservative shadow education minister was very disturbed by this decision. Its goes against their new found “localism”. Also dont forget this is the second Cardiff Council decision to be rejected by the WAG. the failed LDP being the first. I think that cost 300K..
One of the central points of Jonathan Morgan’s article has a certain logic, even if it is not correct. He said:
“… given the decision made by the Assembly Government, any further decisions would have to adhere to the same consistent criteria employed in Cardiff West; this would in my view stop the proposals in its tracks.”
In fact it would stop every one of Cardiff’s proposals to close English-medium schools to make way for an increase in WM provision in its tracks. But the reality is that the Welsh Minister responsible (it is incorrect to call this a Welsh Government decision because the decision is quasi-judicial, exercised by the responsible minister alone) has recently approved a number of similar proposals in Cardiff. For example at Caerau, Trowbridge and Cefn Onn/Y Wern.
So the more relevant point is that the Canton decision is inconsistent with the principles that were applied to those other proposals … and it is for that reason that the Canton decision can be challenged at a judicial review.
………..
But Jonathan is by no means as reasonable as he would like to appear. I remember what he said in October when the decision to close Cefn Onn and allow Y Wern to expand was made. He said “the loss of Cefn Onn has the potential to fragment the community” and called that decision “a nail in the coffin for the community”.
He was defending the indefensible position of trying to keep an EM school with an embarrassment of surplus space open (a whole floor of the main building was empty) while the WM pupils were crammed into portacabins. Please look at this post on Syniadau for more details:
A one-sided Blue Print
This previous form makes it hard to avoid the conclusion that Jonathan Morgan is simply against the closure of any EM school to make way for a WM school, no matter what the circumstances.
So when it comes to the situation in Whitchurch, I expect his motivation is just the same: that he simply doesn’t want an EM school to close, irrespective of the need to expand WM provision. He is trying to jump on a bandwagon, but fails to realize that the Canton decision was made on political rather than objective grounds (as I outlined here) because Labour were determined to get their way on what they are anxious to keep as “their patch”. The circumstances are not the same in Whitchurch because Whitchurch is not their patch … it is solidly Tory. There is no need for a Labour Minister in the Welsh Government to play the same party political card.
That said, I think Cardiff Council are doing themselves no favours in the details of what they are proposing for Whitchurch. I think the solution I outlined here would achieve the same aims with far less disruption.
The statement by Leighton Andrews to which Jonathan Morgan refers can be viewed here.
Mike wrote: “I would say that Jonathan is speaking as a local AM rather than a “British Party Politician”,
Quite. And he has a democratic mandate to do so. If any article written by a Conservative on this site was about local issues and a Wales dimension, with no reference whatsoever to a “British mentality”, it was this one.
Jonathan wrote: “I certainly welcomed some of the core objectives that the review is set out to achieve, like establishing a new levels of trust, simplifying systems of governance and ensuring that local people should continue to have a significant say in developing proposals in their communities. ”
I share that perspective.
Adam brings up interesting points disagreeing about my view on discrimination and this decision. I do believe that the decision is discriminatory and that the “no school closure campaign” (in Canton in particular) has also played on the language of discrimination.
The rhetoric in Canton which I find difficult is that which claims that a monied minority from west and north Wales speaking a different language are somehow “taking over” local schools which should properly belong to the “local” population. This rhetoric is wrong, and has caused considerable anxiety.
I reiterate that I do not believe that this means that English-speakers are somehow to blame. Just as homophobic discourses circulate in society with which the vast majority of heterosexual men and women disagree, so too there can be no basis for believing that English-speakers are responsible because they are English-speakers for some of these anti-Welsh language views which have poisoned the debate in Canton.
The point that those wishing their children to learn Welsh (rather than those who can speak Welsh) cannot form a minority in the same way as an ethnic minority is an interesting one. Clearly those who do speak Welsh do form a minority. Many would agree with you that those on the other hand who merely desire that their children learn Welsh cannot be regarded in the same way. My concern with this point of view is that I would like the Welsh-language community to be as open and “liberal” as possible, and treat those who can speak Welsh, and those who desire to speak Welsh, in a similar manner.
My partner is complaining that I am posting messages under her name by using the computer in the kitchen rather than the one in my study upstairs. Mared is not responsible for my views, and is more than capable of giving her own opinion which I believe is normally rather more militant than my own.