Conservative zealots caught in their own hypocrisy

Iolo Webb
Last week, Gwynedd Council announced a plan to phase out monoglot English-medium education in the county and move towards at least 70% of their education being through the medium of Welsh.
This means that the last few non-Welsh-medium schools will transition into Welsh-medium so that pupils who have so far missed out will have the opportunity to become bilingual – that is, proficient in both English and Welsh.
Of course, the imperial-minded Conservatives in Wales have predictably thrown up their hands in horror.
Darren Millar, their leader in the Senedd has called the changes “totally unacceptable” and has called on “linguistic zealots” to “remember that there are two official languages in our country that all local councils and education authorities should cater for: English and Welsh.”
He’s also claimed that the plan would result in “a lack of choice for parents and pupils.”
Inconsistency
Darren Millar appears to be unaware of a great inconsistency in his party’s understanding and attitude towards bilingualism, support for which is immensely vocal in some places but lacking elsewhere.
In December 2024, Tory MS and the party’s former Senedd leader, Andrew RT Davies quite clearly reminded us of Wales’ bilingual status when he claimed that making Welsh-only constituency names would “disenfranchise English speakers.”
Now he’s at it again, this time claiming that “by this logic, Welsh-medium schools would be closed in majority-English speaking parts of Wales.” – something that would destroy bilingualism in many parts of Wales, rather than enhancing it as Gwynedd Council are proposing.
The Conservatives’ concept of bilingual education appears to mean monoglot English-medium education (with a dash of Welsh being thrown in now and then if they don’t object) – whereas native Welsh speakers are all expected to be bilingual.
Gwynedd’s existing English-medium schools are currently used as a way of avoiding the Welsh language.
This is unacceptable in a system that is supposed to achieve bilingualism for all students.
Insight
A former staff member with first-hand experience of Welsh language standards recently provided some insight into the inadequacy in this respect of Ysgol Friars in Bangor, one of the last monoglot English-medium schools left in Gwynedd.
The source noted that the most able learners are not confident in using even the most rudimentary, conversational Welsh; that the school culture shows no interest in creating confident speakers of the language; and that pressure on students to pass Welsh second language GCSEs result in any aspects of fun in learning being non-existent, with little or no time to improve students’ Welsh oral skills.
The former staff member was also told that “only around 15% of the school’s curriculum would be in Welsh”, and he said that “as long as they would say “bore da” and “diolch”, that would count that as “normalising the language”.
According to a 2017 Estyn report, 70% of Friars pupils could speak some Welsh, but only 16% were fluent – a dreadful statistic for a school in a majority Welsh-speaking county.
However, this wouldn’t be viewed as “unacceptable” by the Conservatives.
Whether Tory politicians like Millar and RT Davies realise it or not, monoglot English-medium schools do not enable pupils to leave the school being able to speak the two official languages of Wales (with few exceptions), whereas in Welsh-medium schools, bilingualism is assured, and pupils leave with fluency in two languages under their belt.
Monolingual education
There is no monoglot Welsh education in Wales from the age of 7, but there most certainly is monolingual English education, and that appears to be what the Tories are calling for – denying thousands of children even in Gwynedd (let alone the rest of Wales) the ability to speak their own country’s native tongue, which quite frankly, is discrimination in a country that’s supposed to be bilingual.
Gwynedd Council’s proposals set an example of ensuring bilingual education for every child to other county councils across Wales, so that every child in the country will one day be bilingual. Is this not something that the Tories would want? The only way to achieve full bilingualism is by promoting Welsh-medium education which facilitates fluency in both Welsh and English.
As Welsh language campaigner and education expert Toni Schiavone has said, “every student has the right to leave school fluent in Welsh as well as English.” In contrast, the Tories appear to want to maintain monoglot English-medium education which deprives pupils of the ability to speak Welsh, whilst loudly campaigning for ‘bilingualism’. One minute they’re calling for bilingual constituency names, and the next minute they want to maintain a system that achieves nothing but proficiency in a single language. This is pure hypocrisy.
So, Darren and Andrew, which is it? Genuine bilingualism for all, or the failing system which you monoglottist zealots are desperate to retain?
You can’t have it both ways.
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Imperial minded bigots exist alongside parochial zealots.
Whether you think it’s for good or ill, the majority of voters in Gwynedd have returned councillors who have taken the view that this is the way to go. If that decision turns out to be a radical turn-off for Gwynedd voters, those voters will have the opportunity, come the next local election, to turf out this lot of councillors and elect some different ones. No use Tories bleating. If their party had been favoured by most Gwynedd voters, then they’d now be the ruling party on the county council. But most voters didn’t do that, and in consequence they… Read more »
“a lack of choice” – Darren – I have no choice but to speak English in Cymru, due to colonisation – promoted by your party.
When Lerpwl was prif ddinas Cymru with 100 Welsh chapels and Cymraeg was spoken by communities often as their first language. Home of the gadair Ddu. Was that colonisation?
Were the Jews of Warsaw or Lviv colonialists for living there for centuries?
Liverpool at one time was the largest seaport in the World and was a multi lingual City long before the arrival of people from the commonwealth after WWII.
The Cymry who moved there were economic migrants not colonisers there’s a massive difference between the two groups.
What about the economic migrants who move to Wales? Are they any different?
You mean like English retired people moving to Wales don’t you.
I’m a bit confused, where on this map would that be?
I don’t think you are a bit confused.
No. Welsh people are native of Britain. Welsh is and was a native language in England.
You are going to say the Celts built Stonehenge! Or indeed did the Celts arrive later.
Stonehenge was built by Turkish hunter-gatherers.
Surely if parents really wanted their children to attend an English only school it wouldn’t be a problem to introduce a charge?
Pretty right wing insisting local children go to a fee paying school.
I’m not sure where you found the part “insist”?
And absolutely not, its a choice thing entirely. If English medium, or any other type of extra is required, then it should be available to anyone cheaply.
If the children got to a Welsh medium school they will be fluent English speakers anyway
You said charged. That is compulsory an insistant charge. Fair play but cheaply say sixpence a day. You would be happy with that.
Toryworld. A utopia where choice exists and where there are two languages – English & Foreign. Want to speak English? Take your choice of any school on this island. Want to speak Foreign? There are places beyond this island.
The simple reason Conservatives get so weird about an indigenous British language is that it’s a constant reminder that the Germanic language is an immigrant language.
Very interesting comment.Yet when you read the comments section on other social media platforms, far right supporter seem to think that the Germanic language you have mentioned is Indigenous to these Islands!
That’s a legacy of empire. You can’t very well rock up at a new colony and help yourself to their resources using a superiority narrative of God’s chosen people here to civilise the grateful population if your own heritage is actually one of invasion and pillage. A rewriting of history was essential to success.
reminds me of those words of that song: ‘…let your true colours shine through…’. Well Darren + R2-D2, they sure are shining now..