Hee! Well I'm glad that I provided instant commentary! ;)
I'm glad to know that you agree with some of the stuff I was thinking about the SNP and its perception there. Ramsay MacDonald! I've heard of him! :D I know he was the first Labour Prime Minister but as totally ashamed to admit I didn't know he was Scottish. *facepalm* Especially with a name like that.
There have been times in the history of the Assembly where places that go Labour without question have gone Plaid, but always as a protest vote and never enormously en masse, and I think that's the key difference there - the way the SNP have managed to take on the mantle of that in a much larger way for country.
Your comments about independence make sense too. I have to be honest, if there were a referendum in Wales on it (which would never pass; demographic and linguistic issues being part of the reason for that but obviously not the whole of it), I wouldn't vote for it, but the only reason for that would be economic issues, so it makes sense that's gonna be the key issue for Scotland. Wales is poor and just couldn't survive on its own at the level we do even currently, and we're already one of the poorest parts of Britain. I know that Scotland has similar issues, albeit it's in a much better position than Wales, not economically so much, but in terms of population and infrastructure. I mean, I'm sure technically we could survive, but practically it would probably involve becoming a poorer country and I'm not sure that's worth it for independence if we can get the Assembly working to the degree that we have more quasi independence. I mean, already I'm deeply grateful to it for doing things like protecting the NHS from the current shake-ups in England, even though the fact we rely on some of the national NHS infrastructure means that it'll affect us in some way.
Also I think that it sounds like Labour have a better reputation here - there's not a perception of them as being either corrupt or incompetent on a general scale. Which I didn't know about Scotland, so that makes a lot of sense too.
Also your stuff about the linguistic issues in Scotland is something I know a bit about and what you say makes sense to me. It's kind of ironic that in some ways it's the success of the Welsh language in surviving in difficult times to the point that it's still a large minority that screws it over. ;) Although I know that Scots Gaelic was also never a language of all the people of Scotland so even historically I think there may be less association of the language with nationality. But the thing you raise about linguistic class indicators is also interesting because Welsh is the language of the working class in areas that are still very Welsh speaking but during the explosion of the mining industry and through to the 30s, in the south, the bastion of the Labour movement that we're talking about, it was the working class that shed the language as a means of getting ahead, broadly speaking, and the middle class, the slightly more educated or professional workers - shopkeepers, ministers, etc. - who had the luxury of keeping the language alive at home. So now, I think that really contributes to the perception, in south Wales, of Welsh being seen as "superior" and of Plaid being unable to capture that working class left-wing vote.
Anyway, thanks for the response - it's really interesting to me to get a comparison on these issues.
no subject
I'm glad to know that you agree with some of the stuff I was thinking about the SNP and its perception there. Ramsay MacDonald! I've heard of him! :D I know he was the first Labour Prime Minister but as totally ashamed to admit I didn't know he was Scottish. *facepalm* Especially with a name like that.
There have been times in the history of the Assembly where places that go Labour without question have gone Plaid, but always as a protest vote and never enormously en masse, and I think that's the key difference there - the way the SNP have managed to take on the mantle of that in a much larger way for country.
Your comments about independence make sense too. I have to be honest, if there were a referendum in Wales on it (which would never pass; demographic and linguistic issues being part of the reason for that but obviously not the whole of it), I wouldn't vote for it, but the only reason for that would be economic issues, so it makes sense that's gonna be the key issue for Scotland. Wales is poor and just couldn't survive on its own at the level we do even currently, and we're already one of the poorest parts of Britain. I know that Scotland has similar issues, albeit it's in a much better position than Wales, not economically so much, but in terms of population and infrastructure. I mean, I'm sure technically we could survive, but practically it would probably involve becoming a poorer country and I'm not sure that's worth it for independence if we can get the Assembly working to the degree that we have more quasi independence. I mean, already I'm deeply grateful to it for doing things like protecting the NHS from the current shake-ups in England, even though the fact we rely on some of the national NHS infrastructure means that it'll affect us in some way.
Also I think that it sounds like Labour have a better reputation here - there's not a perception of them as being either corrupt or incompetent on a general scale. Which I didn't know about Scotland, so that makes a lot of sense too.
Also your stuff about the linguistic issues in Scotland is something I know a bit about and what you say makes sense to me. It's kind of ironic that in some ways it's the success of the Welsh language in surviving in difficult times to the point that it's still a large minority that screws it over. ;) Although I know that Scots Gaelic was also never a language of all the people of Scotland so even historically I think there may be less association of the language with nationality. But the thing you raise about linguistic class indicators is also interesting because Welsh is the language of the working class in areas that are still very Welsh speaking but during the explosion of the mining industry and through to the 30s, in the south, the bastion of the Labour movement that we're talking about, it was the working class that shed the language as a means of getting ahead, broadly speaking, and the middle class, the slightly more educated or professional workers - shopkeepers, ministers, etc. - who had the luxury of keeping the language alive at home. So now, I think that really contributes to the perception, in south Wales, of Welsh being seen as "superior" and of Plaid being unable to capture that working class left-wing vote.
Anyway, thanks for the response - it's really interesting to me to get a comparison on these issues.