The party have spoken, and chosen Leanne Wood, their first female party leader: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-17381377 She's quite an interesting character - very much on the left of the party and an avowed socialist, and has been very open about wanting to take the party further to the left to challenge Labour in their traditional socialist heartlands (which will make thing interesting!). She's promising to 'stay true to her left wing views': http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2012/03/16/plaid-leadership-winner-leanne-wood-vows-to-stay-true-to-her-left-wing-views-91466-30548282/ She's also not a native or fluent Welsh speaker, from the Valleys rather than from the tradtional north and west Wales Plaid heartleands, and noted for being a republican, and being suspended for a day from the assembly chamber in 2004, after refusing to withdraw her remark which referred to the Queen as 'Mrs. Windsor': [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-lAHdp56WY"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-lAHdp56WY[/ame] Note: The Presiding Officer in that exchange was one of her opponents in the Plaid leadership race (and the woman behind her in the white jacket was the other one). She's going to bring something new to Plaid, and however successful or otherwise she is as leader, she's certainly someone who is likely to make Welsh politics a little more colourful!
Socialist , speaks Welsh and discourteous to her gracious Majesty . What a CV What a Tosser , one might well reasonably add .
I think she speaks Welsh but is far from fluent . But it seems you are amending her CV to say , "Cannot speak Welsh fluently even though this is Wales , which is why I am not denying I am a Tosser ." Seems to be getting worse .
I would say the former - she has a reputation for being a bit of a 'protest politician'. I think she's pretty genuine, but perhaps somewhat naively idealistic.
I think she speaks SOME Welsh but is far from fluent . But it seems you are amending her CV to say , "Cannot speak Welsh fluently even though this is Wales , which is why I am not denying I am a Tosser ." Seems to be now some( !) thing worse .
There's an inconsistency in support for the language and socialism. The welsh language, via the public sector, leads to a wage hike independent of productivity (with other workers then suffering). Socialism, in contrast, is about ensuring compensation reflects productivity
There would only be a contradiction if one could only get employment if one spoke a particular language. One can still have socialist policies while believing strongly in both individual rights and culture - though I keep thinking that socialism/communism had an Internationalist intent - could that be to remove the native culture. Perhaps England should take up Cumbric or Brythonic language
There's contradiction, by definition. Nepotism is an inefficient discrimination that ultimately leads to increased underpayment elsewhere. Its an assault on socialist principles
We can't distinguish the two. The Welsh support for the language has ensured nepotism is a key feature in the labour market
So you keep saying but you have provided no support for this. You have to show that the Welsh are intending on favouritism to those who speak Welsh just like for centuries favouritism was given to those who most spoke standard English in the UK with a received pronunciation accent. Favouritism was given to Scot's who spoke Scot's English in favour of Scot's and favouritism was given to Scot's who spoke English over Gaelic. You have shown no proof of how the Welsh are doing this, just a theory you have. There is a fascinating history of the Scottish Languages here http://newsnetscotland.com/index.ph...a-history-of-scottish-languages-parts-1-and-2 and of course it's relationship with Britonic. Why do you want people to forget their history?
No, it hasn't. The ability to speak Welsh can be considered an advantage for certain roles where the ability to speak Welsh is advantageous, but that's not nepotism, any more than it would be nepotism to see ask for a person to have managerial skills when employing someone to be a manager! The ability to speak Welsh is NOT a primary consideration for employment, or even considered advantageous where it is actually irrelevant for the job role. That is exactly as it should be. The focus on the Welsh language being somehow incompatable with Socialism is complete and utter nonsense - Plaid has been a supporter of the Welsh language over the years, and also has socialism enshrined in its constitution. There is absolutely no mutual exclusivity between the two things. Allowing 'the workers' to use their own naqtive language in daily life does not interfere with the socialist principles of how 'the workers' are treated at all - that's just nonsense. Socialist internationalism does not mean a necessary surrendering all aspects of society, culture and language to some homogeneous 'world language' and 'world culture'. Socialists do not insist that every person has to speak only Esperanto or be considered an enemy of 'the workers'. Quite apart from which, focussing on the evils of support for the Welsh language in the context of Plaid Cymru having just elected a non-Welsh speaker to the role of party leader seems a little silly!
There's plenty of evidence. You could test it yourself. You just need excel and Data Archive data to run a Oaxaca decomposition capable of measuring discrimination. For an early example see here
Discrimination in compensation according to the Welsh language is not consistent with socialism. Its consistent with nationalism and alien to the whole point of the socialist approach: protection of property rights through ensuring we receive the value of our effort.
So any 'discrimination' in employment by expecting the person being employed to have some skill or experience appropriate to performing the job role is inconsistent with 'socialism' then?
You're not referring to discrimination, you're referring to human capital. We'd naturally expect efficient compensation differentials to exist in socialism. We do not expect to see nepotism and that's what we see in the Welsh labour market. She may ignore that reality but that only means her nationalism has warped her
If one of the skills appropriate for performing a job role is the ability to speak a certain language, why should that not be a part of the job description, and something taken into account when employing people? You have yet to show any evidence of anything remotely related to 'nepotism' in the job market in Wales - where is the evidence that people are giving jobs to their friends and family regardless of appropriate qualifications? All you have suggested is that speaking Welsh should never be considered an 'appropriate qualification', even when it is actually a relevant skill for performing the job role, which is complete nonsense, and suggested that doing so would amount to 'nepotism', which is also complete nonsense (not everyone who speaks Welsh is related to each other, or knows each other - we're talking about 20% or so of the whole population of the country, and much, much higher percentages in the North and West!). Actually, there is a certain amount of what could be called 'nepotism' involved in some areas of the job market in Wales, but that is related to the corruption involved in the entrenched and relatively unchallenged Labour Party dominance in some areas of public life: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2012/02/20/awema-police-investigating-race-relations-charity-91466-30368418/2/ It has far more to the 'Old Labour' so-called 'socialists' looking after their friends than it does to anything language related!
Had to stop you right there! You're confusing human capital and discrimination, making your post quite irrelevant. The empirical analysis necessarily controls for human capital differences
I'm confusing nothing. The claim was of 'nepotism' in the labour market of Wales based around the use of the Welsh language, which is the specific subject I am addressing. I have yet to see any evidence or argument whatsoever to suggest that this 'nepotism' exists, though, nor any suggestion of how it supposedly operates - merely making a claim does not make it true.
There's no debate in it. Nepotism refers to a wage gain unrelated to productivity criteria. All of your comments have been about efficient wage differentials reflecting the human capital model. Already provided some evidence. See above. Note its welsh analysis in welsh publication
Which shows pretty much nothing to suggest any significant kind of Welsh-speaking 'nepotism' controlling the labour market in Wales. From its own conclusion: So the main reason for the apparent statistical difference seems to be not simply the ability to speak Welsh itself, but the fact that Welsh speakers in certain areas tend to have other attractive characteristics. From the same author: and from the above paper: The author of these does not seem to be suggesting that the labour market in Wales is unduly skewed through rampant 'nepotism' over the issue of ability to speak the Welsh language itself, or that Welsh speakers will just be given great jobs purely because they speak Welsh, or that there is a significant difference in addressing the issues of Welsh speakers against non-Welsh speakers when it comes to unemployment (which there would be if non-Welsh speakers somehow had the labour market heavily skewed against them). He seems to be suggesting that there is some statistical gap between Welsh speakers and non-Welsh speakers in some areas, but that the main reasons for this are not actually just the ability to speak Welsh.
