MORNING SERIAL
IT may be that this was the result of Welsh identities becoming more important, filling a void created by class fading in its emotional hold over people due to social mobility and the decline of traditional industries.
At the same time, some of the key pillars of Britishness – the nationalised industries, trade unions, the memory of the Second World War and the popularity of the Royal Family – were also losing their grip on the popular imagination. In their place, Welshness was now more evident in everyday life than it had been in 1979.
The Welsh media has been growing since the 1960s and, particularly at sporting events, the BBC, HTV and Welsh newspapers could be very patriotic. The education system was also pushing ‘Welshness’ more, with all children now having to learn Welsh and attention to Welsh issues a curricular requirement in other subjects.
From arts councils to economic development bodies, there were new national institutions to add to the traditional sporting ones, and their control over much of public life was significant.
The National Assembly was simply a democratic executive to control an administrative devolution that had already taken place. This all happened at a time when so many of the traditional pillars of Wales were wavering in the winds of social and political change or even being blown away altogether. Whereas once Wales had been defined by Liberalism, socialism, Nonconformism, the mines and the Welsh language, now it was somewhere defined by institutions that in effect said ‘here is a nation.’
Most of all, this mattered because none of those defining features had ever encompassed the whole population of Wales and all were now in retreat. But now the imagined community was something more tangible: a nation with an administrative structure that touched everyone’s lives.
In theory, this should have meant the relationship with England mattered less but those institutions still had to operate within a political framework dominated by decisions made in England.
> Wales: England’s Colony? by Martin Johnes is published by Parthian in the Modern Wales series www.parthianbooks.com