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Huw Edwards casts withering judgement on ‘feeble’ Telegraph writers’ stereotypes about Wales

11 Aug 2022 4 minute read
Huw Edwards (Credit: BBC)

Huw Edwards has blasted Telegraph writers as “feeble” after an article criticising the Welsh Government opened by praising a list of Welsh stereotypes.

The article by Kara Kennedy in the newspaper opened by saying that Wales’ lamb was universally admired, adding that it was the “land of Richard Burton, Snowdonia, male voice choirs, Dylan Thomas and dragons”.

It then goes on to attack the Welsh Government for turning Wales into a “testing ground for ridiculous ideas” that “England subsidised”.

BBC broadcaster Huw Edwards however cast withering judgement on the article, suggesting that he could not read it as it was behind a paywall but that based on the visible first paragraph alone was not worth bothering with.

“Tragically could only see the first para – but I thought even feeble Telegraph writers had moved beyond sheep and Richard Burton,” he said. “Duw â’n gwaredo.”

He later posted a TV clip of himself herding some sheep.

The newspaper has recently taken aim at the Welsh Government in a series of opinion pieces, calling the First Minister “economically illiterate” and a “hero for the work-shy”, and saying that the new 20mph limit is due to “small-country syndrome” compensating for “feelings of insignificance”, and that plans for a four-day working week were “soviet”.

In the latest article, journalist Kara Kennedy says that out of Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and London Mayor Sadiq Khan, “Drakeford has a strong claim to being the worst devolved leader of the lot”.

“Wales has become a testing ground for all the most ridiculous ideas in politics, and I fear Mr Drakeford is turning Wales into a laughing stock,” Kara Kennedy says.

Pointing to the 20mph speed limit in built-up areas and a new website to give advice about menstruation, she said that “under Mr Drakeford, there has been a tendency to take everything to extremes”.

“The Welsh Covid lockdowns lasted longer than almost everywhere else in the UK, and the devolved government seemed to glory in introducing the most ridiculous of restrictions,” she said.

“And as if people haven’t spent enough time at home being paid to do nothing, now Mr Drakeford wants to trial a universal basic income – long a dream of those who put economic equality ahead of wealth creation.

“Perhaps this is unsurprising given that the First Minister was a lecturer in social studies before entering politics. But if the trial is extended, all it will do is universalise welfare dependency and sap what is left of Wales’s enterprise economy.”

Kara Kennedy finished: “Mr Drakeford expects England to subsidise his projects. This is bad enough, but too many on the Left seem to regard his experiments as a model for the whole of the UK to follow. That way lies madness.”

‘Rue the day’

The article is the second by columnists in the Telegraph criticising the Welsh Government in two days, after Iain Dale, a British broadcaster, author and political commentator, took aim yesterday.

He warned that the Welsh Government will “rue the day” they introduced “mad” 20mph speed limits, wrongly claiming that they are “abolishing” the 30mph speed limit.

Wales became the first UK nation to make a move towards a default 20mph speed limit in urban areas last month, in a move that the Welsh Government said would help to save lives, develop safer communities, improve the quality of life and encourage more people to ride a bike or use public transport.

The new legislation will not apply a blanket speed limit on all roads, it will simply make the default limit 20mph, leaving local authorities to engage with the local community to decide which roads should remain at 30mph.

However, Iain Dale wrongly claimed that the Welsh Government were “abolishing 30mph limits and replacing them with 20mph zones”.

“It’s fine to put lower speed limits outside schools or old people’s homes, or even on busy shopping streets where people cross the road more often, but to impose them on a dual carriageway or main A-road is the transport equivalent of political correctness gone mad,” he said.

“I know transport planners have a job to do, but to constantly kow-tow to the anti-car brigade, as many local authorities have been doing without even consulting the public, is not just infuriating, it is counter-productive.”

He added that “national politicians in Wales will rue the day they introduced this mad policy”.


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Philip John
1 year ago

You should see the ‘Welsh’ village at Legoland Windsor. A terrace of houses on a hill. Sheep blocking a bridge. A car stuck on the bridge with a sheep on the roof. Rugby. Choir. Yadda yadda.

Glen
Glen
1 year ago

Surprisingly she missed out rugby and coal mining.

South Wales
South Wales
1 year ago
Reply to  Glen

And Max Boyce……ogi ogi ogi…….

Peter Cuthbert
Peter Cuthbert
1 year ago

Nice to hear that somebody as Establishment as Huw Edwards is doing a fight back. Of course we ought really not to fall into the trap of calling the ToryGraph a ‘newspaper’ since what it publishes is usually right wing bile.

Dark Mrakeford
Dark Mrakeford
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Cuthbert

There are plenty of dic sion dafydd’s who go to london and are never heard from again. Good to see Huw Edwards embraces his background rather than hides it to pander to the London elite.

Gareth Davies
1 year ago

Typical lazy journalism from the Torygraph!

Last edited 1 year ago by Gareth Davies
One of the two witnesses
One of the two witnesses
1 year ago

So Huw, about your support for the disUnion and longing for a knighthood. That puts you firmly in the Establishment that the Telegraph Hate Pamphlet is a long established part of. To side with the disUnion is to side with those Torygraph orcs. Their endless harassment of your people may mean you will need to make a choice soon about where your loyalties lie. Do you stand for a free respected Cymru, or do you kneel for shiny baubles from an anachronistic hostage situation which loathes everything about your people and heritage? Your choice of course. There is no “middle… Read more »

DAI Ponty
DAI Ponty
1 year ago

Just the same anti Welsh jibes in the Daily Mail and Express 2 more tory rags worse than the torygraph and the beono newspaper called the sun some of the comments that crop up like today in the daily mail about Cardiff airport are RACIST if you said things like that about people of a different colour or religion you would be arrested but they allow it to be printed

Steve Duggan
Steve Duggan
1 year ago

More and more Welsh policies are being adopted by English councils. The 20mph rule and taxing second homes are just two examples. The Tories and their rag the Telegraph are behind the times. What the Telegraph hates is that the Welsh government is being proactive, trying to tackle issues head on. Unlike the UK government which is basically doing – sod all.

Windy
Windy
1 year ago

They must be really afraid of loosing Wales from the so called Union to be trying so hard to discredit our elected representatives

Erisian
Erisian
1 year ago

No reason to get excited…It’s just the Torygraph preaching to the choir again.
Nothing to see here.

The Original Mark
The Original Mark
1 year ago

I see the Spectator has come to the defence of Kara Kennedy now, by simply attacking the Welsh language, The london elites just can’t help themselves, they come across as small minded abusive pricks, and then expect us to take it with no word of complaint.

Gareth
Gareth
1 year ago

To be expected from the English press. It was a few years ago that while watching ” live at the apollo” on BBC TV, that a comedian said he had to be careful what he said, as it was ” only the Welsh are left to take the p**s out of, and not be called racists “.

Crwtyddol
Crwtyddol
1 year ago

There was a quote in the Eisteddfod of Huw’s father,’s term for describing Jeremy Clarkson and others scornful of the Welsh as: a “splatter of diarrhoeitcal (?!) Gadflies”.
This applies very well to the Torygraph

CommonSense
CommonSense
1 year ago

He was forced to apologise.

L

Notttabottt
Notttabottt
1 year ago

Remember when they attacked action on second homes, then Enland made some action on second homes? Yeah they were pretty quiet when England did it. Scummy racist rag.

Y Cymro
Y Cymro
1 year ago
Reply to  Notttabottt

The Telegraph motto: ‘Do as we say, not as we do!’

lufcwls
lufcwls
1 year ago

Surely there has to be some kind of legislation that stops papers like these just blatantly lying? Ofcom? It’s ridiculous!

Y Cymro
Y Cymro
1 year ago

We will never change the bigoted mindset & ideology of those narrow-minded journalists writing in the Telegraph. We must be doing something right for them to be talking about us. I know for a fact that the Conservative right-wing hate the idea that we in Wales are becoming more self-sufficient and Westminster & England increasingly an irrelevance. May it continue!

.

Wrexhamian
Wrexhamian
1 year ago

Huw Edwards might be part of the London Establishment, but he’s no Dic Sion Dafydd.

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