Y Crafwr: Back from an enlightening break

Crafwr has enjoyed immensely some time away from the chaotic decline and fall of the UK.

The penny seems to be dropping though, Mail columnist Sarah Vine recently condemned ‘basket case Britain’ as a third world country. Perhaps even the Mail will one day appreciate that the writing’s on the wall, that the light at the end of the tunnel rapidly approaching is the end of Empire.

Meanwhile, the Spectator has been talking about broken Britain all year but things must be truly dire as France is credited as a better place to be – although the recent air traffic control chaos was still their fault. Nothing to do with a lack of resilience in UK systems of course.

Here in Wales, Andrew ‘Arty’ Davies continues to seek some relevance. This time he’s laid into the RSPB because they had the temerity to call out the UK government for broken promises and unfulfilled commitments.

In a masterful move of avoiding the issues raised completely, Arty takes a swipe at the RSPB, founded in 1889 as a charitable enterprise, calling for it to lose its charitable status. No doubt Wycliffe College alumni Arty (private school, beautiful setting in Cotswolds) won’t be in favour of removing charitable status from those questionably charitable institutions. Presumably with Tory support already in the doldrums he won’t particularly care about winding up the RSPB’s 1.2 million members either.

Enlightenment

Arty is following the gaslighting lead of his political masters in London. Cruella ‘not actually very Braverman making her contribution (front page of the Telegraph of course) to the cause by accusing the police of ‘wokeism’ and asserting – baselessly – that this is undermining public trust in the force. Same old, same old – the vacuous lack of real substance in politics today would wear Crafwr down if there was any hope of a bright future for the UK.

Fortunately, Crafwr is one of the recently enlightened and will henceforth concern themselves exclusively with the future of Wales. A small, bright and beautiful, nation of vast potential close to Crafwr’s caustic, acerbic and cynical old heart.

By contrast the UK is clearly a busted flush, its constituent parts with their eyes firmly on the exit. Northern Ireland biding its time before its inevitable border poll, Scotland trying hard to find a way to unwind the unification of its Crown with that of England in 1605, Wales, the last colony, slowly waking from its long slumber to the promise of a vibrant future in a world of small nations (almost 100 new independent states since 1945 apparently!).

Our Land of Song Rocks

It was with some delight then that Crafwr saw on their return that the extrication of this, our ‘Land of Song’, from the decaying and decrepit ghost of Empire has taken a step closer with polling showing 38% now in favour of a Wales free from its shackles. Majorities amongst the stroppy yoof and Welsh Labour voters too.

In celebration, Crafwr sat and listened to Scorpion’s classic ‘Wind of Change’. Perhaps Yma o Hyd, sung by over a million of us in Wales will be the anthem of Welsh independence, just as Winds was for the sweep of newly independent former Soviet and Eastern bloc states some 30 years ago.

For the mumblers a word to the wise

Crafwr can already hear the, as yet unenlightened, mumbling to themselves that ‘Wales can’t afford it’. This trope so regularly used to justify the perpetuation of the Union. ‘We give you £1.20 for every £1 of equivalent spending’, ‘too poor to be independent’, ‘too small to be independent’ – all claims with no substance whatsoever.

Small countries are thriving across Western Europe (doing better by far than Wales). There are plenty of arguments to suggest that Wales is poor because of the restraints of Union. The equivalent spending statistic is classic gaslighting – here’s an explainer.

To the mumblers Crafwr says – be open minded, do some quality research, try to justify subservience for Wales within the Union with good quality argument and evidence. If you manage to convince yourself that staying in is still better than independence, please share with Crafwr, who becomes more confident each day that there are fewer arguments for Union and more and more in favour of independence for Wales.

On spurious statistics

Where to start? Crafwr would take down the Office of National Statistics for the many and varied ways in which their collection and attribution of data is flawed, especially for Wales. An organisation which still collects data with paper forms voluntarily completed on the basis of trust in the era of digital ‘big data’.

Mockery from Crafwr is redundant however as the ONS manages well enough in making a mockery of itself. After revising UK growth down 1.7% in 2021, they’ve revised it back up by 1.7% two years later, based on ‘new’ growth from a single quarter in the same period. Growth largely found in the health sector it seems. £43B on PPE, vast amounts funnelled to private healthcare and the extra spend needed to deal with a pandemic may account for this – who knew?

Crafwr is not entirely sure that this economic activity should be seen as ‘growth’ mind you.

Benjamin Disraeli captured the essence ‘lies, damned lies and statistics’.

It’s good to be back!