Welsh Referendum: IT PASSED.
Mar. 4th, 2011 09:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccatoriaOkay, this will probably not be too interesting to most of you, but I am so relieved and so thrilled that the Welsh Referendum on direct legislative powers passed today. And dammit, this is my LJ and I'm going to tell you all why.
In 1997 we got a referendum on whether or not we wanted an Assembly for Wales. This was not the same thing that was on offer to Scotland who got a parliament with lawmaking powers from the beginning - it's now devolved on more areas and has some power to vary taxes. Initially Wales was not offered anything like this, it had only the power to make policy rather than making laws. This was extended to a form of legislative power after a while, but it was this TRULY BIZARRE bastard hybrid of a system that I believe nowhere else on EARTH has because it's dumb.
Basically what happens is this. Wales has the power to make law in twenty different areas, including most of the big stuff like education, health, agriculture, that kind of thing. Though the welfare system is still centralised. However, to do this, they had to put together something called a "Legislative Competence Order" to request permission to do this on, basically, a case by case basis, slowly pulling down power until they have like...a full set of Pokemon or whatever.
So for instance, health but not mental health was devolved to Wales until 2008, when an LCO was approved that pulled down that power and Wales was then allowed to make laws about mental healthcare.
Those who like this system seem to argue two points. 1) that Wales requires handholding and it serves as a safeguard. 2) that Wales doesn't require handholding but that a legislative body should have two houses (even though the scrutiny the Lords is able to exert on our legislation is severely curtailed).
People who believe this are labouring under a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the system is supposed to work. When the LCO is sent to Westminster, it is not sent for scrutiny. It is sent for a bizarre rubber stamping process whereby Westminster goes, "Why yes! This does fall within the 20 areas of law on which you can make policy! WE HATE IT, but we can't stop you! Go forth and make a law!"
At least, you know, in theory. Except often MPs do try to tie it up and it takes years to get anything through, etc., etc. So it's a giant, weird piece of bureaucracy that makes no sense.
The referendum was about whether or not we should scrap that system and just let Wales get on with making laws in the areas it is ALREADY allowed to make laws in, just with less red tape. A No vote would have meant we carried on as we were. Every party in the Assembly, including the Tories, supported this measure, and those opposed seemed to have this confused idea either that the current system was offering security, or that one should vote no on principle because one was opposed to the idea of the Assembly, even though voting no would not get rid of it.
The No Campaign then proceeded to refuse public funds, thereby denying the right to public funds to the Yes Campaign too. I have a strong suspicion they did this because they were fairly sure they'd lose, and figured with all four parties against them, their best tactic was smothering any information in the hopes that Wales' previously ambivalent position on devolution would prevail. Stylistically it played into their "the whole Assembly is endless bureaucracy and a waste of money! (Please ignore the fact we're voting to keep more of that red tape and expensive bureaucracy...)" by saying that they didn't want to waste yet more public resources. And by ensuring everyone was confused about what the vote was even on (because, as above, it was complicated because it was so dumb in the first place) they then have a chance to attempt to delegitimise the result when there is a low turnout.
So, in terms of what this referendum actually means, practically, for Wales...not an awful lot. We don't get anything new, although hopefully we will get it in a more timely fashion. I'm certainly very pleased because I think it's important, but that's not the real reason I'm thrilled and relieved.
Basically I'm thrilled that it passed so decisively.
In practical terms, there are lots of reasons why someone who voted no in the last referendum might vote yes in this one, not least if you're going to have a system, it might as well be one that works. However, to be honest, because half of everyone was so confused what it meant and there are a lot of ~feelings~ about devolution in Wales and Welsh nationalism in general, I'm pretty sure that a lot of people were voting based on their generalised feelings about the Assembly and its role and whether they wanted Wales to be more or less independent rather than on the reality of what was on offer.
This was always, always going to be seen as a barometer on public opinion about the Assembly. Had it failed, or even passed but barely, the spectre of whether to campaign to dissolve it would have, at least potentially, reared its head.
The 1997 referendum barely, barely scraped through. The reasons for this were complex, not least the disatisfaction of what was on offer - either because people felt insulted by not being offered the same level of power as Scotland and voting against it on nationalistic principle, or people who didn't want to spend a lot of money on something they felt wouldn't do anything anyway, or people who flat out didn't want devolution, and the fact that about 25% or something of people who live in Wales don't consider themselves to be Welsh (which is obviously not a deciding factor in how they'll vote, but it is a factor), to the painful tensions between Welsh and non-Welsh speakers, between regions, the unspoken fear on both sides that the other will fuck them over somehow, either by declaring they're "Not Really Welsh" because they're not bilingual on one side, or by failing to work to protect national identity and language on the other.
I've never met a Welsh person who wasn't intensely proud to be Welsh. I've also never met a Welsh person who didn't have a complicated knot of feelings about their place in the scheme of their own country, culture and language(s). We're not a divided nation, but we are a wounded one.
To see every single county except Monmouthshire (and even there, they voted No by 320 votes as opposed to some 11,000 in '97, which is a pretty massive swing considering the population size - this time about 25,000 people voted; it was probably higher in '97 but not enormously), vote YES was more moving than I thought it would be.
Cardiff was the last to return its vote. I'd been bracing myself for that - I figured we'd pass a yes, but part of me was afraid. It's a quite diverse population and the place where the No Campaign was probably most organised. I thought it'd pass, but with a maybe 55/45 split if we were lucky - one of the lower ones, you know? We got 61% voting yes - only 2% below the national average. I really wasn't expecting that.
I just feel this is a resounding vote of confidence in the process of devolution - but more than that, of confidence in ourselves to say, okay, we're going to make our own decisions, and we're going to do it well, and learn to do it better. This is us saying, there is no deep North/South divide, no deep linguistic divide.
Of course, some are still saying that with 35% turnout it's a bad showing. It's low, yes, but nothing like as low as I feared. Local elections and referendums are always lower turnout events. It's on par with the by-election in England, on par with the Mayoral election that elected Boris Johnson in London.
I saw one dickhead from London on twitter asking why a decision that affected the Union (which it doesn't; we're not leaving the Union, and he won't notice any difference in his life) was being made by 22% of Welsh voters. I did a quick calculation. I'm pretty sure that the Tories 36% share of the vote in the 2010 General Election which had a turnout of about 65% equates to 23% of the electorate and yet they're leading our current government.
I'm also generally pissed by people saying shit like, "I wonder if it would have been different if turnout had been higher," and assuming the No vote would have done better, like there's some silent majority there's no evidence of. The best guess we have on that is the opinion polls and the end results were, pretty much, exactly on par with those. I'd say it's a true reflection of the electorate's desires.
As a final note, I'd like to take a moment to talk a little bit about media coverage and how Wales never gets any. I'm not trying to say that Scotland and Northern Ireland are somehow treated super awesomely by national media - they aren't. But at least you get non-comedy characters on television with those accents. You don't with Welsh accents. Like basically ever before Torchwood, unless you're talking local Wales-only TV. Possibly the closest I can think of is Gavin & Stacy? But then that makes me think of James Corden and how all Who fandom loves him now because he was Craig in the Lodger but how he annoys the shit out of me because when asked about the Welsh language he opined that he thought Wales was a bit miffed because they tried it and it "hadn't caught on", then cited some example of how if he goes to France everyone speaks French but you can't say the same about Wales in his, "lovable, end-of-the-day, bottom-line-is, average guy comedy take on shit" way. Which, aside from the fact he is factually wrong about it not "catching on" as the number of fluent speakers is increasing, WHAT THE FUCK JAMES CORDEN GET OUT OF BARRY.
Okay, sorry, tangent over. Point is, in the media in general, and in the national news, Wales gets fucked over. And I'm going to indulge my Angry Welsh Girl for a minute and note that Sky News today found FIVE MINUTES to talk about Labour winning a safe seat in a by-election in England (and okay there was merit to the story in that the Lib Dems got clobbered and the scary nationalist parties that did well, not saying they shouldn't report on that but) and they didn't even MENTION the referendum.
I didn't see it and it's not available on iPlayer but I heard reports the BBC News coverage was similarly massively skewed towards the by-election, though they may have covered the referendum somewhat. But like, increasing anti-government sentiment is absolutely part of why the Yes vote was so resounding? Because voters see it as a shield against the ConDem coalition?
Also, as 9PM Friday, March 4th, The Telegraph - one of our reputable national newspapers - had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the Welsh Referendum on its page on Wales. Even though there've been a bunch of debates leading up to it, voting all day yesterday and the result today. Finally, at 9:15 they appear to have put a piece up about the result - about seven hours after it was called. But that appears to be the only article they've done on, well, the entire thing.
I mean, this isn't new. I still remember how pissed I was when the BBC spent about ten minutes covering two by-elections in safe seats in England, and then gave the result in Wales as a line of dialogue from the presenter even though it was a MASSIVE UPSET because an ex-Labour candidate was standing as an independent in defiance of the Labour party's insistence on endorsing a woman because of their positive discrimination policy, and how because he won as an independent, and ended up flipping from Labour to Independent, he cost Labour their majority in the Assembly, turning them into a minority administration, which ultimately meant they failed to force through the student top-up fees (the first round from 1k to 3k, not this latest lot), which is why we don't have them in Wales. It was a major political upset with wide-ranging consequences for interesting reasons, but because it was an Assembly matter it didn't merit any national coverage.
Apparently nothing's changed.
But whatever, WE WON.
I spent part of work today nervously watching the events come in over Twitter. I felt a huge sense of connection with the English, Welsh and multilingual responses. I think perhaps my favourite part is the fact that Welsh, when written, is very formal, but when spoken, is very informal, full of contractions and shortened words and slang and regional differences and no formalised way to write them. I must have seen "I'm proud to be Welsh" and "Come on, Wales!" written spelled fifteen different ways with a bunch of different words; sometimes I could tell which part of Wales they were proud to be from just from that.
To that end, dwi'n falch, heddi, fy mod yn dod o Gymru. Dwi'n falch ces i'n nanfon i ysgol Gymraeg. Dwi'n wirioneddol diolchgar am y ffyrdd mae byw yn y wlad ma' 'di gwella fy mywyd.
In 1997 we got a referendum on whether or not we wanted an Assembly for Wales. This was not the same thing that was on offer to Scotland who got a parliament with lawmaking powers from the beginning - it's now devolved on more areas and has some power to vary taxes. Initially Wales was not offered anything like this, it had only the power to make policy rather than making laws. This was extended to a form of legislative power after a while, but it was this TRULY BIZARRE bastard hybrid of a system that I believe nowhere else on EARTH has because it's dumb.
Basically what happens is this. Wales has the power to make law in twenty different areas, including most of the big stuff like education, health, agriculture, that kind of thing. Though the welfare system is still centralised. However, to do this, they had to put together something called a "Legislative Competence Order" to request permission to do this on, basically, a case by case basis, slowly pulling down power until they have like...a full set of Pokemon or whatever.
So for instance, health but not mental health was devolved to Wales until 2008, when an LCO was approved that pulled down that power and Wales was then allowed to make laws about mental healthcare.
Those who like this system seem to argue two points. 1) that Wales requires handholding and it serves as a safeguard. 2) that Wales doesn't require handholding but that a legislative body should have two houses (even though the scrutiny the Lords is able to exert on our legislation is severely curtailed).
People who believe this are labouring under a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the system is supposed to work. When the LCO is sent to Westminster, it is not sent for scrutiny. It is sent for a bizarre rubber stamping process whereby Westminster goes, "Why yes! This does fall within the 20 areas of law on which you can make policy! WE HATE IT, but we can't stop you! Go forth and make a law!"
At least, you know, in theory. Except often MPs do try to tie it up and it takes years to get anything through, etc., etc. So it's a giant, weird piece of bureaucracy that makes no sense.
The referendum was about whether or not we should scrap that system and just let Wales get on with making laws in the areas it is ALREADY allowed to make laws in, just with less red tape. A No vote would have meant we carried on as we were. Every party in the Assembly, including the Tories, supported this measure, and those opposed seemed to have this confused idea either that the current system was offering security, or that one should vote no on principle because one was opposed to the idea of the Assembly, even though voting no would not get rid of it.
The No Campaign then proceeded to refuse public funds, thereby denying the right to public funds to the Yes Campaign too. I have a strong suspicion they did this because they were fairly sure they'd lose, and figured with all four parties against them, their best tactic was smothering any information in the hopes that Wales' previously ambivalent position on devolution would prevail. Stylistically it played into their "the whole Assembly is endless bureaucracy and a waste of money! (Please ignore the fact we're voting to keep more of that red tape and expensive bureaucracy...)" by saying that they didn't want to waste yet more public resources. And by ensuring everyone was confused about what the vote was even on (because, as above, it was complicated because it was so dumb in the first place) they then have a chance to attempt to delegitimise the result when there is a low turnout.
So, in terms of what this referendum actually means, practically, for Wales...not an awful lot. We don't get anything new, although hopefully we will get it in a more timely fashion. I'm certainly very pleased because I think it's important, but that's not the real reason I'm thrilled and relieved.
Basically I'm thrilled that it passed so decisively.
In practical terms, there are lots of reasons why someone who voted no in the last referendum might vote yes in this one, not least if you're going to have a system, it might as well be one that works. However, to be honest, because half of everyone was so confused what it meant and there are a lot of ~feelings~ about devolution in Wales and Welsh nationalism in general, I'm pretty sure that a lot of people were voting based on their generalised feelings about the Assembly and its role and whether they wanted Wales to be more or less independent rather than on the reality of what was on offer.
This was always, always going to be seen as a barometer on public opinion about the Assembly. Had it failed, or even passed but barely, the spectre of whether to campaign to dissolve it would have, at least potentially, reared its head.
The 1997 referendum barely, barely scraped through. The reasons for this were complex, not least the disatisfaction of what was on offer - either because people felt insulted by not being offered the same level of power as Scotland and voting against it on nationalistic principle, or people who didn't want to spend a lot of money on something they felt wouldn't do anything anyway, or people who flat out didn't want devolution, and the fact that about 25% or something of people who live in Wales don't consider themselves to be Welsh (which is obviously not a deciding factor in how they'll vote, but it is a factor), to the painful tensions between Welsh and non-Welsh speakers, between regions, the unspoken fear on both sides that the other will fuck them over somehow, either by declaring they're "Not Really Welsh" because they're not bilingual on one side, or by failing to work to protect national identity and language on the other.
I've never met a Welsh person who wasn't intensely proud to be Welsh. I've also never met a Welsh person who didn't have a complicated knot of feelings about their place in the scheme of their own country, culture and language(s). We're not a divided nation, but we are a wounded one.
To see every single county except Monmouthshire (and even there, they voted No by 320 votes as opposed to some 11,000 in '97, which is a pretty massive swing considering the population size - this time about 25,000 people voted; it was probably higher in '97 but not enormously), vote YES was more moving than I thought it would be.
Cardiff was the last to return its vote. I'd been bracing myself for that - I figured we'd pass a yes, but part of me was afraid. It's a quite diverse population and the place where the No Campaign was probably most organised. I thought it'd pass, but with a maybe 55/45 split if we were lucky - one of the lower ones, you know? We got 61% voting yes - only 2% below the national average. I really wasn't expecting that.
I just feel this is a resounding vote of confidence in the process of devolution - but more than that, of confidence in ourselves to say, okay, we're going to make our own decisions, and we're going to do it well, and learn to do it better. This is us saying, there is no deep North/South divide, no deep linguistic divide.
Of course, some are still saying that with 35% turnout it's a bad showing. It's low, yes, but nothing like as low as I feared. Local elections and referendums are always lower turnout events. It's on par with the by-election in England, on par with the Mayoral election that elected Boris Johnson in London.
I saw one dickhead from London on twitter asking why a decision that affected the Union (which it doesn't; we're not leaving the Union, and he won't notice any difference in his life) was being made by 22% of Welsh voters. I did a quick calculation. I'm pretty sure that the Tories 36% share of the vote in the 2010 General Election which had a turnout of about 65% equates to 23% of the electorate and yet they're leading our current government.
I'm also generally pissed by people saying shit like, "I wonder if it would have been different if turnout had been higher," and assuming the No vote would have done better, like there's some silent majority there's no evidence of. The best guess we have on that is the opinion polls and the end results were, pretty much, exactly on par with those. I'd say it's a true reflection of the electorate's desires.
As a final note, I'd like to take a moment to talk a little bit about media coverage and how Wales never gets any. I'm not trying to say that Scotland and Northern Ireland are somehow treated super awesomely by national media - they aren't. But at least you get non-comedy characters on television with those accents. You don't with Welsh accents. Like basically ever before Torchwood, unless you're talking local Wales-only TV. Possibly the closest I can think of is Gavin & Stacy? But then that makes me think of James Corden and how all Who fandom loves him now because he was Craig in the Lodger but how he annoys the shit out of me because when asked about the Welsh language he opined that he thought Wales was a bit miffed because they tried it and it "hadn't caught on", then cited some example of how if he goes to France everyone speaks French but you can't say the same about Wales in his, "lovable, end-of-the-day, bottom-line-is, average guy comedy take on shit" way. Which, aside from the fact he is factually wrong about it not "catching on" as the number of fluent speakers is increasing, WHAT THE FUCK JAMES CORDEN GET OUT OF BARRY.
Okay, sorry, tangent over. Point is, in the media in general, and in the national news, Wales gets fucked over. And I'm going to indulge my Angry Welsh Girl for a minute and note that Sky News today found FIVE MINUTES to talk about Labour winning a safe seat in a by-election in England (and okay there was merit to the story in that the Lib Dems got clobbered and the scary nationalist parties that did well, not saying they shouldn't report on that but) and they didn't even MENTION the referendum.
I didn't see it and it's not available on iPlayer but I heard reports the BBC News coverage was similarly massively skewed towards the by-election, though they may have covered the referendum somewhat. But like, increasing anti-government sentiment is absolutely part of why the Yes vote was so resounding? Because voters see it as a shield against the ConDem coalition?
Also, as 9PM Friday, March 4th, The Telegraph - one of our reputable national newspapers - had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the Welsh Referendum on its page on Wales. Even though there've been a bunch of debates leading up to it, voting all day yesterday and the result today. Finally, at 9:15 they appear to have put a piece up about the result - about seven hours after it was called. But that appears to be the only article they've done on, well, the entire thing.
I mean, this isn't new. I still remember how pissed I was when the BBC spent about ten minutes covering two by-elections in safe seats in England, and then gave the result in Wales as a line of dialogue from the presenter even though it was a MASSIVE UPSET because an ex-Labour candidate was standing as an independent in defiance of the Labour party's insistence on endorsing a woman because of their positive discrimination policy, and how because he won as an independent, and ended up flipping from Labour to Independent, he cost Labour their majority in the Assembly, turning them into a minority administration, which ultimately meant they failed to force through the student top-up fees (the first round from 1k to 3k, not this latest lot), which is why we don't have them in Wales. It was a major political upset with wide-ranging consequences for interesting reasons, but because it was an Assembly matter it didn't merit any national coverage.
Apparently nothing's changed.
But whatever, WE WON.
I spent part of work today nervously watching the events come in over Twitter. I felt a huge sense of connection with the English, Welsh and multilingual responses. I think perhaps my favourite part is the fact that Welsh, when written, is very formal, but when spoken, is very informal, full of contractions and shortened words and slang and regional differences and no formalised way to write them. I must have seen "I'm proud to be Welsh" and "Come on, Wales!" written spelled fifteen different ways with a bunch of different words; sometimes I could tell which part of Wales they were proud to be from just from that.
To that end, dwi'n falch, heddi, fy mod yn dod o Gymru. Dwi'n falch ces i'n nanfon i ysgol Gymraeg. Dwi'n wirioneddol diolchgar am y ffyrdd mae byw yn y wlad ma' 'di gwella fy mywyd.
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no subject
Date: 2011-03-04 09:46 pm (UTC)But yes, hurrah for taking more powers away from the fucking Tories.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-05 08:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 10:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-04 11:08 pm (UTC)If you want it to "catch on" then at least pick a letter of the alphabet everyone else can file your country under!!1!!
(What? I read the whole post and have nothing constructive to say! ;-P )
no subject
Date: 2011-03-05 08:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 08:44 pm (UTC)Are you a native speaker who was raised bilingually? (I'm just asking out of idle curiosity because I've always wished that I was raised with more than one language.)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 09:31 pm (UTC)The answer to your question about the language thing is a little tricky though. I'm, um, not quite a native or non-native speaker. I've been fluent since I was 5 years old, though, so I don't really remember not being able to speak Welsh.
In Wales our state education system is in English and then there are also some schools that are in Welsh, and theoretically (because sometimes the Welsh schools fill up real fast), you get to choose whether you send your kid to school in Welsh or English. The schools are set up immersion style so that children who don't speak Welsh (which in Cardiff, where I'm from, is the majority - I think it was about 70% in my school, but this will vary by area), learn because otherwise, um, we don't understand anything that's going on! Apparently it took me about three months to pick it up, but again I have no memory of this.
So basically my first language and the language I speak at home with my parents and my husband (who is English), is English. I'm more comfortable in it, I have a wider vocabulary in it too. But I spent every weekday from the ages of 5 - 18 in a totally Welsh language environment (except when we were rebels and spoke English in the corridors when the teachers weren't listening omgs!) so like, I'm also totally fluent.
I don't get a chance to speak it as much as I'd like in the near decade since I've left school - it's undoubtedly rustier than I'd wish, though I'm always surprised how fast it comes back. Basically I understand everything perfectly, but when I start speaking it, there's about an hour period when I feel like a bit of an idiot as English nouns rather than Welsh ones flash into my brain and I keep wanting to throw them into sentences! But the grammatical structures, etc., I have an instinctive a grasp on as English ones. It's just those pesky words that tend to fade in and out.
I'm actually pretty bad at languages as an adult, so I guess it'd be interesting to compare with your experience - you say you weren't raised with so many languages around but obviously you're fluent in English now. Do you feel your grasp of English grammar, etc., is as instinctive as your German? [/tangent!]
So, um, I spose the best answer is that I was raised bilingually just not by my parents? At least from the age of 5?
no subject
Date: 2011-03-13 05:45 pm (UTC)I don't get a chance to speak it as much as I'd like in the near decade since I've left school - it's undoubtedly rustier than I'd wish, though I'm always surprised how fast it comes back.
Do you practice it in anyway, e.g. by listening to BBC Cymru or consciously seeking out other Welsh speakers?
I'm actually pretty bad at languages as an adult, so I guess it'd be interesting to compare with your experience - you say you weren't raised with so many languages around but obviously you're fluent in English now. Do you feel your grasp of English grammar, etc., is as instinctive as your German?
Well, English is the only foreign language I can indeed speak fluently, but I learned it the traditional way -- by studying it at school from age 10 to 19. After graduating, I then went on to read English Literature at university and spent a year in the UK, too. I doubt that I would have achieved fluency without my university classes and my academic year abroad.
So, no, my grasp of the language is not instinctive at all. I do notice typical "L1" language interference from German when I'm tired, in a hurry or not paying attention, e.g. when it comes to verb aspects (which German doesn't have), tenses (which work differently in German) or prepositions (which are just confuding). But I am functionally bilingual in real life since I spend a lot of time speaking or writing English at work as well. However, as soon as I open my mouth, you'll notice I'm German AT ONCE. My accent continues to be dreadful.
Do you have an English accent when talking in Welsh? Heh.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-13 11:32 pm (UTC)Also thinking about it, I think I may have started to speak with confidence after three months but it may have been more like six before I was truly fluent, but still, yes, it is remarkable how fast young children learn.
I sometimes try to consciously speak Welsh to my old high school friends, and I also sometimes choose to watch Welsh TV or something for the news. Quite often I'll check out the Welsh language printed news on the BBC website. Also, and this sounds dorky, but sometimes I make a conscious effort to switch my inner monologue and then panic when I can't remember complicated words and look them up on the online Welsh dictionary. ;)
My limited observations of continental folks is that they're much, much better at English no matter the level of education than UK folks are at other languages. But it is interesting to hear that even at your level of fluency (because I'd never know you were German from reading your words) you don't feel it's become instinctive. I guess that early adoption really does make the difference. Because like you, I get it worse when I'm tired or distracted or in a hurry, but it is mostly limited to like, swapping out Welsh nouns for English ones, rather than any issues with grammar or verbs or tenses.
Accents! Um, that's an interesting question. Basically no - when I'm speaking Welsh I sound like a Welsh speaker from my area, but when I speak English I actually don't sound like most people expect a Welsh person to sound like. Torchwood lies! They all sound like they're from the valleys not from Cardiff. Cardiff has two main accents - neither of which sound very "Welsh" by traditional standards. The one I have is like, super UK neutral. I basically just sound "British" so people - even Welsh people sometimes - assume I'm from England which can be kinda irritating. ;)