‘Are the Welsh odd?’ asks travel writer over Iceland PR director sacking

An author and journalist has asked whether the Welsh are “odd” after a backlash against anti-Welsh language comments forced the sacking of Iceland’s Director of Corporate Affairs.

Travel writer and author Anna Nicholas said that Keith Hann had been the victim of “strict and vicious Cancel Culture” in “the current epoch where lynch mobs roam the streets”.

Writing for the Majorca Daily Bulletin, she said however that she was not “perturbed that Welsh readers will rise up and condemn me” because her father was Welsh and she spent holidays in Llansteffan, in Carmarthenshire.

“Are the Welsh odd?” she asked. “Years ago, I hired a Welsh assistant in the PR and marketing department I ran. My boss was furious. Oh God, he bawled, why did you pick the miserable Welsh cow? She’ll be a total nightmare.

“Of course, these days, he’d have probably received death threats and been sacked from his own company.”

She said however that she “felt no pity” for Keith Hann’s fate as he should have known that you should not post controversial views on Twitter.

“Should Keith Hann have got the push? I’m not sure. He was stupid, ignorant and unkind but had he really offended the Welsh nation so badly with his few cretinous remarks on Twitter?” she asked.

“Couldn’t the readers all have just man-ed or woman-ed up and taken it on the chin, and possibly laughed at or pitied him, rather than squealed to Iceland?

“It’s a Welsh company so it evidently felt it had to act quickly in the current epoch where lynch mobs roam the streets and butcher one another, at least verbally, if one holds an opposing view.

“All the same, I feel no pity for Hann. In the current climate you learn never to voice a controversial opinion on social media for fear of death or possibly worse.”