All professions have their annoying buzzwords and shibboleths they use to talk to each other and the Welsh political bubble is no exception.
When it comes to political speeches and contributions I’ve always valued content and substance over style and delivery. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve gone through various Senedd speeches thinking to myself, “Just get to the point”, as much as you probably have with my tomes.
It gets to a stage though where some words just lose their meaning entirely. Here’s a tongue-in-cheek look at a few of them.
Normal usage: “To bring about, or believe in, extreme social or political change.”
Welsh usage: “Any half-decent ‘progressive’ policy idea that hasn’t had the chance to be strangled yet.”
Welsh political synonyms: groundbreaking, transformative, visionary
Wales has always had a funny relationship with the word “radical”.
Quite a lot of people have the idea in their heads that there’s a socialist vanguard out there just crying out for the leadership to deliver us to the promised land. In reality, Wales is to a great extent a small-c conservative country run by a small-c conservative establishment. As a rule, we’re reluctant to get on board with sudden and extreme change to the point where relatively minor examples of social progress are held up as “radical”.
Just to prove how conservative Wales is, not building roads, changing the planning system slightly to address second homes and ensuring young children don’t go hungry at school are now hailed as “radical” rather than “common decency” or “good ideas”.
“Radical”, as I understand it, means ideas and people at the very fringes of political thought – both good and bad. It’s all the stuff that’s never been done. It’s also all the stuff that hasn’t been worked out properly, has been proven not to work (but is still worshipped like a cargo cult) or is just batshit insane.
Default 20mph speed limits? Meh.
Force all drivers to put their shoes loosely on the roof of their vehicle when driving. Totally rad, dude.
If this Welsh social democratic radicalism was a person, they would go into a restaurant thinking, “I’ll spice things up and order the tikka instead of the korma”.
The true radical is tube-fed phaal and invites the neighbours around the next day to watch their toilet being replaced.
Has post-devolution Wales delivered a “radical” agenda? Or are all the things being labelled as radical in Wales just moderately progressive, largely pragmatic ideas. Ideas to which a little bit of left-wing street cred has been attached by politicians and think tanks to make them sound more transformative than they actually are?
