Monday 22 January 2007

Babytalk breeds spoon-fed nation

"Independence will lead to the Balkanisation of Britain" - Wales and Northern Ireland Secretary, 'Governor' Peter Hain.

We talk to our children in a language we assume reflects their comprehension of the world around them. What we tell them is what they believe, amd they believe what we tell them.

This kind of babytalk is what the Welsh nation is spoon-fed by the Labour administration on a daily basis. Inherent in such language as that used by Governor Hain above is the notion that we Welsh are little children who have no capability for an independent comprehension of our own.

That we are expected to believe that Britain will become an ethnic warzone if the Union is dismantled is both patronising, arrogant and insulting. But it is just the kind of spoon-fed propaganda that breeds both an apathetic, negative and defeatist attitude to our own capabilities, and a blind acceptance of the lie that we could never make it alone. While small sovereign nations across the world govern their own affairs, and prosper, here in Wales 'Mummy knows best.'

Last week, as the findings of the BBC's opinion poll on independence were published, BBC Wales' 'news' programme, Wales Today, 'went out and about in the country to ask the nation what they thought of independence.' As usual, they never found their way further north than a stone's throw from the M4 corridor. And so it was, in Pontypridd - an Unionist Labour Party stonghold - that they went 'out and about to ask the nation' if they supported independence.

And it was here, in Pontypridd, that one street respondent's reaction clearly demonstarted the end result of decades of spoon-fed Labour babytalk. A local lady was asked if she thought independence would be a good thing for Wales. Pointing to the run-down street behind her she replied "No, we couldn't survive without London could we? What would we do without Britain - I mean, just look at the place, look how bad it is, it's all run-down!"

No, she wasn't being sarcastic, and the irony of what she said wasn't pointed out to her.

If this would be the woman's view, and the streets around her still rundown, after a few decades of an independent Welsh state, her reply would make some reasonable sense. But being that the place is rundown and economically deprived because of centuries of British rule, her response was typically irrational, and demonstrated the subservient, childish mentality of a spoon-fed nation; a perfect example of the perverse comprehension of our position, surroundings and status.

It is not too absurd to surmise that this person and thousands like her, do indeed swallow everything that Mother Hain and Uncle Rhodri feed them. No wonder Hain feels he can get away with such hysterics as his 'Balkanisation of Britain' blurb.

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