Article from the 'Western Mail' Saturday July 17th.

LANGUAGE BOARD FACES EISTEDDFOD PICKET.

A campaign for a strong Welsh-language Act will be launched later
this month. Both Plaid Cymru and Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg describe
the Bill which will pass into law later this month as a "missed
golden opportunity".

   The language society will open its campaign on July 31st at the
National Eisteddfod at Llanelwedd with a non-stop picket of the
Welsh Language Board stand throughout the festival.

   Elfyn Llwyd, Plaid MP for Meirionydd Nant Conwy, listed the Bill's
defects, adding, "We will start a discussion between all interested
parties. I have no doubt that there will be a campaign for a new
language Act, and we will take part in this campaign."

   Mr Llwyd, once an activist in the hard-line Adfer language group
said, however, "My direct action campaigning days are over."

   The Bill passed its remaining Commons stages on Thursday night by
123 votes to 19 with Plaid and Liberal Democrats, plus Labour
members Paul Flynn and Ted Rowlands - voting against. The Bill now
returns to the Lords and is expected to be signed into law within
weeks.

   Mr Llwyd, a solicitor, listed the Bill's weaknesses for correction
in later legislation:

*) Lack of coverage of public utilities.
*) The need to extend "schemes" to private businesses.
*) No "official status" contained within the wording of the act.
*) No Welsh-language juries
*) The need for a stronger statement about education to deal with
authorities like, he said, West Glamorgan.

   Language society chairman Alun Llwyd said yesterday, "I forecast
that in three or four years time Lord Ellis Thomas, the new language
chairman, and his quango will complain that they cannot complete
anything because they have come up against a brick wall. If the
present chairman, John Elfed Jones, had resigned in December as he
and his fellow members had threatened over the waeknesses of the
Bill, we would have ended up with a very different Bill, containing
the concessions the Government talked about, but never delivered."

   Welsh Secretary John Redwood defended the Government's
Welsh-language Bill when opening the Welshpool bypass yesterday.

   "The tragedy is that the concensus that Sir Wyn Roberts has built
up was damaged by the attitude of the Welsh Nationalists. I hope they
will now co-operate with the Welsh Language Board. The Nationalists
don't seem to understand the position of the Welsh language in Wales.
I am absolutely astonished by the Welsh Nationalists decision to vote
against a very positive step."

End of Article

Note the quote by Sioni Coed Coch: "The Nationalists don't seem to
understand the position of the Welsh language in Wales".

Your essay topic this week folks is: who is more likely to understand
the position of the Welsh language in Wales? An English MP who has
been Governor General for a matter of weeks, but who has been there
once on holiday, or the Plaid Cymru MPs, who are Welsh born and bred
and who are elected by the people of Wales to represent them as best
they can in a foreign Parliament?

Answers please, on a postcard, to John Deadwood, c/o the Welsh
Office, Cardiff.
