91Èȱ¬

The controlling factor is how Wales is defined. The narrow definition of a political territory excludes cultural Wales which knows no limitation.

In this context I would suggest that Ms. Gillard is not Welsh, she is Australian. I think she would agree with me on that point.

Personally, it would be so much more agreeable if the Prime Minister of Australia was aboriginal to that country as opposed to one from the other side of the world.

Yes Stanilic Mr Crick is once again showing the extent of his naivety about the reality of human existence. Every day, all over the world, people are born who will forever consider themselves to be Scottish, Welsh, Pakistani, even Australian, even though they were given birth to in another country. Hence the Tartan Kiwis playing Rugby for Scotland, or the Taliban overheard by our Nimrods flying over Afghanistan, clearly speaking with Brummie and Mancunian accents.

I'm enjoying the World Cup but, as always, I feel seriously disturbed about the unleashing of nationalistic tribalistic behaviour complete with face and body painting, chanting and the ritualistic imbibing of large volumes of alcohol in preparation for battles that in the past have led to violence, death, and even the start of a war in South America.

But then, the last prime minister, presumably in desperation, sought to re-ignite the tribalism in this country when his predecessor had claimed that making this country a classless society was a major priority. Post-the last election, you could even call it the son of the manse's legacy, we are now emerging as a tribally divided society with the Labour-91Èȱ¬-TUC alliance on one side, and the coalition accepting realists on the other.

However the election was emphatically decisive. The LBT alliance can huff and puff as much as they like, and may even succeed in persuading themselves they are right to do so, but they will still fail. Why? If you really need an answer then I assume you're all woaded up already!

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It was my distant forbears who woaded up to defeat Roman civilisation - they make a desert and call it peace! We didn't woad up for Bannockburn as some foolish American-Australian would have us believe as by then we had found armour a bit more protective.

As a grand-child of the Gaidhealtacht I consider it only reasonable that I be treated with the same respect as I treat all others. I accept I can get very grumpy and obnoxious to those who consider me less than them but I return their contempt with a truly puritan anger.

Despite a love of the many cultures which are my heritage - Caledonian, Cymraeg, Angelcynn, Scandinavian, German and Normand - I have no nation other than my humanity. I also abhor divide and rule as this destroys the common wealth.

Am I missing something? Michael Crick didn't suggest that Julia Gillard was Welsh, and more than he suggested that David Lloyd George wasn't.

He was just pointing out a rather interesting quirk of political history.

It's not really interesting if you accept that our individual national identities need not necessarily be dictated by the country we happen to be born in.

The interesting quirk would actually be if it was.

The globalization of the world economy implies that our economic survival depends at this time, more on the way the small number of creditor nations feel about lending us money, than on the understandable feelings of tribal repugnance concerning austerity measures affecting all tiers of society here in the UK.


It dawned on me the other day that the only reason the western democracies have thus far been able to borrow our way out of economic meltdown is the fact that the PRC does not offer it's subsistence wage workforce, who now make an obscene percentage of everything that is manufactured in the world, anything that resembles our own NHS. This results in these workers being forced to deposit as much as they can in the vaults of the People's Bank of China to be depended on for the cost of their health care in the future, and because of this the Chinese have thus far been able to loan huge sums of money originating from their poorly paid, non-welfare state provided, workforce to pay for the relatively profligate social pampering of their western equivalents during the economic downturn. I heard recently that China now holds 1.6 trillion dollars in US bonds!

Put it like this if China was in the World Cup, when the PM says, 'Come on England', he's really saying,'Make sure you let the creditor nations like China beat us at all costs. We can't risk victory right now, if ever!'