Monday, September 28, 2009

Cross-party linguistic alliances

When I covered this a month or so ago, an enraged prophet in the heated comments-zone predicted a spirited fightback in the Welsh Assembly...and so it has come to pass:
Four AMs campaigning to keep a fully bilingual assembly record are insisting all 60 AMs vote on the issue next week.

The four rejected a deal allowing a full translation to be published in up to 10 days, not the current 24 hours.

They say the Assembly Commission has refused to meet them and not noted the concerns of politicians across parties.

The commission, responsible for AM's facilities and services, originally hoped to save £250,000 a year by ending English to Welsh translation.

Under the commission's plans, Welsh speeches will continue to be translated into English.

It has faced a barrage of criticism over the proposals, with the Welsh Language Board and Welsh Language Society objecting to them
.
And those four AMs?
Labour's Alun Davies, Rhodri Glyn Thomas from Plaid Cymru, Liberal Democrat Jenny Randerson and Conservative Paul Davies.

Bearing in mind the question I've posed re Irish Language policy on here, that last name's interesting as will be how the Welsh Conservatives as a whole vote on this one.

3 comments:

Alwyn ap Huw said...

The Welsh Conservative AM's have indicated that they will all support the retention of the overnight translation. This is not surprising really as the Welsh Language Act that it is suggested is being breached by the proposals to change the translation practices was passed by a Conservative Government.

Dewi Harries said...

Tories will vote to overturn the decision if it evercomes to it.

Anonymous said...

The Welsh Conservatives are still on their de-Redwoodfication programme.