Welsh Nationalism: Cymru am byth

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Perhaps it means that you like to travel, local shows or films, dance or any other form of culture. And if you speak Welsh, you will be able to do creative things. You will be able to write a novel. The writer Jan Morris said Wales was a distinctly separate and often vehement idea. But what is that idea? Do you need to understand Welsh to grasp it? How is Wales different? And is it going to become even more unlike England? I'm Ros Taylor and this is Jam Tomorrow. Anyone who visits Wales now sees lots of Welsh as well as English. They might well hear Welsh spoken. In fact, some schools teach pretty much entirely in the language. But in the Victorian era, schools actively discouraged children from speaking it. Teachers would hang a piece of wood round a pupil's neck inscribed with the letters WN, Welsh not. Still, even in 1911, there were counties in north Wales where four in 10 people could not speak English. But by the middle of the 20th century, as more people had moved to south Wales and away from the rural north, the decline was clear. Only a quarter of people living in Wales could speak Welsh. Saunders Lewis, the Welsh nationalist, argued that unless direct action was taken, Welsh would die out completely. He quoted the 19th century English writer Matthew Arnold. Sooner or later, the difference of language between Wales and England will probably be effaced. An event which is socially and politically so desirable. In 1925, Lewis had helped found Plaid Cymru, the Welsh Nationalist Party. Its main aim was to promote Welsh. But the party's purpose went beyond that. It wanted to defend the Welsh way of life. Lewis had already been sent to jail for setting fire to an RAF base on the Clyn Peninsula. Then, in 1955, Liverpool Council decided it needed more water. Welsh water. Martin Johns is a professor of history at Swansea University. Llywelyn was a valley in north Wales that, in the 1950s, was flooded to provide water for Liverpool. It was controversial, partly because a community lost their homes. It went through for a compulsory purchase. They had no choice about this. But more importantly than that was the symbolism of it. This was an entirely Welsh-speaking community, at a time when the language and the associated culture with the Welsh language was in retreat. For some campaigners at the time, they almost felt Llywelyn was an opportunity to make a stand, that this wasn't just about protesting about the destruction of this specific community, that this was making a wider symbolic point that Welsh culture and the Welsh language were in retreat. But there was also a political issue, a political element to it as well, because it raised questions about Wales's voice within the United Kingdom. All but one of the Welsh MPs were opposed to the flooding and voted against it in the first reading in Parliament, and it required an Act of Parliament because Liverpool Council weren't the local council, so they had to have an Act of Parliament to force this through. And the fact that the vast majority of the Welsh MPs voted against it, but it still went through because England voted for it, it became symbolic of the fact that when Welsh and English interests clashed, England was always going to win because England was simply bigger. Henry Brooke was the Minister for Welsh Affairs at the time. I speak with all modesty, not being Welsh myself, but as I see it, Wales has its own language, its own traditions and its own history, and these together form a distinctive but almost indefinable Welsh way of life. Particularly in the Welsh-speaking parts of the country, such as that round Trewerin, there is a deep-down sense of belonging to a rather special community. For many years, the distinctive nationhood of the Welsh nation has been felt to be under threat of eventual disappearance through absorption into all the rest of British life. Every year, more and more tourists and holidaymakers are coming from England into Wales. More and more, the barriers which can preserve the old country way of life seem to be disappearing. More and more links are being forged between industry in Wales and industry in England, and between the economic life of Wales and that of Britain. And if integration becomes complete, Wales as a separate nation may become forgotten and the Welsh language may die out. It is from causes like this that very great numbers of Welsh people feel that it is especially important to preserve the difference between Wales and England, which does survive. That is how they come to be opposed to any semblance of pressure, even if it is quite unconscious pressure, to absorb Wales into the English way of life. At the ultimate end, the opposition which has manifested itself in Wales to the Liverpool scheme is not based on simple issues like balancing the hardship caused to 60 people by having their homes flooded and needing to move some miles down the valley against the increased rateable value, the increased employment, and the improvement in water supplies on the way down the D. It is far deeper than that. It is opposition by people who feel that perhaps the critical point is being reached in the fight to keep Wales different from England, and that it is vital on Trueryn to make a stand. So it was about the Welsh language. It was about the symbolism of the retreat of the Welsh language. It's an opportunity to make a stand on that. But ultimately, it also said something about Wales's relative powerlessness than the United Kingdom. And what happened afterwards? Because Welsh nationalist feeling grew after Trueryn. Trueryn has a longer-term impact. Whenever questions of Wales's position within the United Kingdom come up, Trueryn is something that people can look back upon. Its memory is resurrected, and it's a rallying point. And in some ways, it becomes more significant in the longer term than it ever was actually at the time itself. And today, it's used as a slogan in some ways. You know, there's graffiti across Wales called Cofioch Trueryn, Remember Trueryn. And they're not necessarily saying remember this particular village that was drowned to give water to Liverpool. They're saying remember the political issue that when Wales interests clash with English interests, we're always going to lose out because England is bigger. And ultimately, the only way to protect Wales is for Wales to exist outside the United Kingdom. There was a feeling that afterwards, so that Wales perhaps had to be placated, that something had to be done to at least try to preserve some elements of Welsh culture. So what did London do? Really, in some ways, from the Second World War onwards, there had been a feeling that Welsh culture needs to be recognised and it needs to be nurtured. I mean, all through the Second World War, there is an attempt within the kind of the British establishment, for want of a better term, to recognise the diversity of the United Kingdom. If you're going to ask people to fight for the UK, you have to represent all the different types of Britishness that exists. So even in the Second World War, there was an attempt to recognise Welshness. Straight after the war, as we create these new national infrastructures, the National Coal Board, the National Health Service, the national was always Britain. And that led to kind of questions about where does Wales fit into this? And the memory of what happened after the First World War, when industrial Wales, as happened in industrial England as well, as industrial Wales was almost thrown on the scrap heap. The fear of that being repeated is always there. So in the late 40s into the early 50s, there is a push for Wales to be recognised within government and for Welsh culture to be nurtured. So when Llywelyn happens, it feeds into something that's already happening. You know, there's already this sense that we have to look after Wales, but it creates this stronger fear that if we don't act upon it, maybe we will see the growth of political nationalism. Maybe we'll see the emergence even of a political violence, because some people did turn to small-scale violence and to protest against Llywelyn. So Llywelyn does lead to actions to recognise Welsh distinctiveness, the most significant of which was the Sunday Closing Laws. In 1881, the first kind of modern law had been passed that treats Wales differently to England. The pubs were shut on a Sunday. By the start of the 1960s, people are starting to say, this is an old-fashioned law, we don't need this anymore. The government is proposing holding a referendum on whether it should carry on or not. But there was an understanding that if there wasn't going to be a referendum, rural voices would be drowned out by urban voices within Wales. So rather than hold a national referendum within Wales, there are county referendums. And that is very explicitly, you can see it in the government archives, that is very explicitly held on a county level, rather than a national level, in response to Llywelyn. They don't want a repeat of people saying the government in London doesn't care about rural Welsh-speaking culture. And then there was the setting up of the Welsh TV channel as well. What kind of difference did that make? I mean, that's quite a long time later. The S4C, the Welsh Fourth Channel, happens in 1982. There's a trajectory. It is part of a much longer fight for Welsh culture to protect the Welsh language. By the 1980s, that has moved on to TV, because TV was seen to be one of the forces that was eradicating Welshness. It was literally bringing the English language into people's homes. So creating the Welsh language channel was seen as an important way of modernising the Welsh language. But in many ways, its real significance is not really its creation, but how it was created. When the Conservatives win the election in 1979, they had promised to create a Welsh-speaking TV channel. And then they changed their mind. It would be too expensive. And Gwynfod Evans, who was a leader of the Welsh Nationalist Party, Plaid Cymru, who had been involved in the campaign against Llywelyn and felt he'd failed there, and he felt in some ways that his political career had been a failure. He's determined to make a stand, to do something. He threatens to go on hunger strike, and the government is advised by people that he is actually going to do this. He will starve himself to death. The government doesn't want this to happen because it could spark all kinds of repercussions. People are looking at what's going on in Northern Ireland, the violence there. And the government backs down, you know, very explicitly in reaction to Gwynfod Evans's threat to go on hunger strike. And a TV channel is created. And in many ways, the memory that if Wales stands up for itself, it can do something. It can make a difference. That is more important than anything the TV channel actually achieves on its own. It's quite hard for a Welsh language TV channel because you're serving people of different generations, different tastes. Just because something is in Welsh doesn't mean that people are necessarily going to watch it. It's had some successes in broadcasting, but in many ways, it's been quite a difficult, controversial channel because it's appealed in some ways to quite old-fashioned tastes, and it hasn't really succeeded as much as it might have done in modernising Welsh language culture. And if we jump forward again to the late 90s, and Labour has given the go-ahead for the Welsh Assembly, the Senedd, what difference has the Senedd made to Welsh life and the well-being of Welsh people and the Welsh language? A bit like the creation of Ys Paiddwraig, the Welsh language channel, the creation of the Assembly, now called the Senedd, in many ways, the most important thing it did was happen. You know, in 1979, Wales got a referendum on devolution, its first chance of kind of democratic self-government in its history, and it says no, and it doesn't just say no, it says no in a resounding way. In 1997, Wales narrowly votes for devolution, but with a 50% turnout at the election, and, you know, a majority of only a few thousand in favour of devolution. And what the Assembly did was turn that position where it was only narrowly brought in, it becomes a consensus. You know, within a decade, the idea of getting rid of it became laughable. It very quickly becomes established, and the idea that you should take decisions about Wales in Wales becomes like a political norm. And that's really important because it got people thinking at a Welsh level. It created a sort of new kind of Welsh politics. It created public bodies that were going to lobby the Welsh government. You know, Wales becomes an accepted level of government, an accepted unit of government. And given how controversial the whole history of devolution was, that was a remarkable change in a very short period. Has devolution made any practical differences to life in Wales? Probably not, to be honest. The economy has got worse rather than better. Our health service is in crisis. Our education systems face all kinds of crises. You know, you could argue that the markers of the quality of life and the quality of wealth in Wales have in some ways gone backwards, and devolution hasn't done anything to improve the weak Welsh economy that we're burdened with. Now, some people will say that's because devolution doesn't have enough power. Others would say it's because our devolved politics has been too smug, too concerned with constitutional issues. It hasn't been imaginative enough. It's a cosy club where everybody knows each other. It hasn't been critical enough of itself. You know, there are a variety of different explanations, but whether the blame lies in Cardiff or in London, I think it's undeniable to say that in the last 20 years or so, the economy and the state of our society in Wales hasn't got better, that devolution hasn't solved the fundamental economic problems that Wales faces. And what would be your analysis of the main explanation of why that is? For me, there has been a lack of imagination amongst our politicians for a long time, because devolution was controversial. Those people who supported it didn't want to criticise what the Welsh government was doing, because there was a fear that criticism of the Welsh government would be confused with criticism of devolution. Now, no one in England would say if you criticise the government, you're saying Westminster shouldn't exist. But in Wales, there was this feeling that if you criticise the government, then it would be like saying, let's get rid of devolution. Now, the irony is that because we haven't been critical enough, that now people are starting to say, in much bigger numbers than they have done for a decade, for two decades, really, that actually maybe devolution is the problem. The best thing to do would be to get rid of it. The voices against devolution are creeping up, and they're allied with different causes, like Brexit and anti-immigration. In many ways, it's a right-wing campaign against devolution. So it's not a campaign that's saying, we don't need devolution, we need full independence. Well, there's two sides to it. So there are those who say, devolution has failed. And there are those who say, well, the solution to that is you get rid of devolution. And then there are others who say the solution to that is you have more devolution, and maybe even full independence. But increasingly, the people in the middle, who for so long were the dominant consensus, that devolution is a positive thing, are becoming smaller and smaller. Part of the problem is, in many ways, we have a one-party state in Wales. The Labour Party dominated Welsh politics for a century. They won every election since devolution came in. But they've never won them comfortably. You know, we've never had a majority Labour government. They've all been minority Labour governments. And that has meant that maybe the Labour Party hasn't been as confident or as ambitious as it could be, because it's been looking over its shoulder. But it's also meant that there's almost like a cosiness in Welsh politics. Because the Labour Party, you know, has had to work with other parties, that that discourages criticism. But also, Wales is a very small place. You know, if you work in public life, everybody knows each other. And that means it's really hard to criticise people, because you're criticising people that you know and you often like. And so Wales suffers from the fact it doesn't have a variety of opinions. It has a small number of politicians, a small number of academic commentators and media commentators. There just isn't the critical voice out there. And that's meant, you know, we've had one party that has dominated, and not because of anything they've achieved or not achieved within Wales. People have voted Labour, essentially, because they don't like the English Conservatives more than anything, you know. And people in Wales are still voting based upon what's happening in Westminster, rather than what's happening here. But that does seem to be changing. And there is a sense, I think, in Wales that the next Welsh election, the next Senate election, could see a radical shift and could see Labour lose its position as the largest party for the first time ever. There is a new frustration with devolution and Welsh Government that just hasn't existed in the past. So what's it like to be applied Cymru politician in the Senedd now? Heleth Thichen is a member for South Wales Central, and she's the spokesperson for Welsh language and culture. Heleth, when you think about Welsh culture and what makes it distinctive and different, what do you think about first? I do think about the language because I'm a first language Welsh speaker. So I didn't learn English until I was about seven years old. So definitely it's a strong part of my identity. But I also think of drama. I think of music. I think of the richness of our heritage, poetry. I just feel lucky and privileged to be Welsh, I have to say. There's lots of angst with being Welsh as well, as you can see from the poetry over the centuries. And obviously the fact that the Welsh language has survived and is still spoken in many communities and is a living language is something that gives me immense pride as well, and especially seeing lots of people rediscover or reconnect or learn the language today at every age. That gives me a great sense of pride as well, and that people feel a sense of pride in the language here in Wales, whether they speak it or not. When you talk about angst, I suppose it is a kind of sadness, isn't it, that often pervades Welsh poetry. Can you tell us a bit more about that and what kind of fall that takes? Well, my name, Helev, she was a sixth century princess that had a very sad tale in the fact that all her family were killed and she was left roaming the land. So maybe that's part of my name and heritage that I've looked her up and realised a sad story. But I think it is one of being a nation that's had to fight to exist, that actually the language and the nation shouldn't probably still exist if you consider that we were conquered in 1282. And you see that as a common theme throughout the centuries of people's rights being taken away, you know, no right to speak Welsh at some point, and the fact that we've still been able to exist and have our distinct heritage and culture and language. I'm so proud of it as something that I think lots of people have had to fight for. I think about the 1960s, where there were lots of establishment of key organisations like Cymdeithas Uriaist, the Welsh Language Society, and how much they fought for rights. And it's only in the 1980s then that we had our Welsh language television channel, Esb Brec, and we're still fighting today for access to Welsh media medication, access to a lot of rights as Welsh language speakers. So that angst stays with you, but also keeps people fighting. Are you worried about the decline of Welsh newspapers and media? I mean, it's been the same everywhere in the UK, where local papers have shut down or they're a shadow of their former selves, but that's happened in Wales too, hasn't it? It has, and I am. And actually, we've been, as a family, looking through lots of old newspapers and papers recently, because my father passed away earlier this year, and he'd been a columnist in various magazines, newspapers since the 1960s, and looking through old newspapers publications. You see how many publications there were in the Welsh language, how many in English as well, covering local issues, and seeing that decline, that actually you had so many people writing columns, giving points of view, being active, and now we're lucky with one magazine covering that kind of issue. So you don't have that diversity of voice opinion come through, and I think it just means that there's less discourse then. Obviously, technology has moved on in terms of online content, but you don't have as much online content in Welsh as you had of traditional media, and that's certainly a concern, and obviously less journalists as well able to delve into issues, and I think that is a weakness then, because obviously people just see their minimum of what's happening, and that does have a bearing on our democracy, I fear. Why do you think the Welsh language is so important to fostering Welsh culture? I mean, can things be Welsh if they're in English? They can most certainly be Welsh in English. I know lots of people who are proudly and fiercely Welsh, but don't speak a word of the language, but all of those are also proud that the language exists. You can still have a pride in the language, and you look at poetry such as that of R S Thomas, for instance, that was definitely something that resonated with a lot of people, and that was in English, so I don't think you can ever say that it's, you know, the Welsh language and anything written in Welsh are the only things that are Welsh. Listening to R S Thomas reading his 1952 poem, The Welsh Landscape, you can see what Heleth means about angst. There is no present in Wales, and no future. There is only the past, brittle with relics, wind-bitten towers and castles with sham ghosts, mouldering quarries and mines, and an impotent people, sick within breeding, worrying the carcass of an old song. In both languages, Welsh culture, heritage, literature, the press and publications have all declined, and that has a negative effect on Welsh democracy and discourse. What would you like to do for Welsh culture and history that you can't do at the moment? I think we need a government with a cultural strategy actually taking action. We've had, through the co-operation agreement between Plaid Cymru and Welsh Labour, agreements that Welsh history would be on the curriculum. Can you believe that? That in 2024, and it's not being normalised despite 25 years of devolution, that children in Wales should learn about Welsh history? That it could be optional in some schools? And I think people deserve to know the history of their locality, what's happened, what's helped shape it. Because you look at a lot of areas in Wales, like the one I represent, the industrial revolution had a huge bearing, not just on people, but landscape. We need to understand why the coal tips remain, what their impact are. And if you're not taught about your history, and there's so much you're missing out to understand what's going on around you, why things like climate change matter if those coal tips shift, for instance, and become unstable. And for me, I think it's extraordinary, really, that we haven't really prioritised teaching people about history and culture, although one could argue we've got the Future Generations Act here in Wales. Culture is one of the pillars there, but it's the least developed of those pillars. And for me, culture and the right to participate in culture is an ingrained human right. It's in the UN Convention of Human Rights. And yet we still see it sometimes as something nice to have. And I worry that it's becoming more elitist for people to access language, culture than ever before. What do English people and Westminster culture in particular, not always grasp about Wales? I'm always surprised when I meet people that think that I speak Welsh to make a political point, rather than realise it's my first language and that I'm not weird because of that, that actually lots of people, it's completely normal that it is your first language, that it's what you speak at home and that you can live your life through the medium of Welsh, that there's a vibrant Welsh language music scene, for instance, that you can enjoy comedy in Welsh. I think people see it as perhaps sometimes a bit twee, old fashioned, that you're just, you know, why are you bothering with a dead language? And I think when they do spend time in Wales and actually maybe attend a National Eisteddfod, which is a huge festival that happens annually, that they are blown away by this amazing, vibrant culture of seeing young children speak it completely fluently and naturally, and that they sometimes feel quite sad that they had no idea that this existed. The drive for children to learn to speak Welsh better is a live issue right now. The Welsh Government wants to hire more teachers who can speak it. It's trying to persuade teachers who've left Wales to come back. But there is plenty of pushback from people who point out that Wales' exam results are falling behind England's and would rather kids focused on other subjects. It's not just about language though. Increasingly, Wales wants to govern differently and we saw that during Covid lockdowns. The Labour administration wanted Wales to be seen as a more caring, community-led place than England. I mean, at the time, it felt like Welsh Government was having a good lockdown, you know, if that's the right word to use. Some of the rules were different. They weren't radically different but they were different and there was a lot of media attention on that because you were talking about people's lives and public safety and public health. So the media felt that it had a duty to make sure people understood the rules. But also, you know, it threw up the question that, you know, we have a very porous border with England, people are travelling back and forth and people were suddenly becoming aware that the rules might affect them in ways that they hadn't before. So there was far more attention on the fact that Wales has a separate health system and a separate kind of, you know, political framework, far more than there had been before. So partly people became more aware of the evolution, that was the first thing. The second thing was the tone of communication around it. Mark Drakeford was a good communicator. He felt like a safe pair of hands. He wasn't hysterical and over the top. He was very different to Boris Johnson. At a time when Boris didn't seem to know what he was doing, Mark almost had like this kind of, you know, safe granddad feeling about him and that reassured a lot of people. So whether you disagreed with him or not, or whether you agreed with him or not, you know, there was an awareness that Welsh rules are different and for many people there was a sense that actually, yeah, we can do things better, especially better than the crazy situation with its parties and its rule breaking that's happening in England. But ultimately a lot of this was kind of symbolism. Did it make any difference? You know, the death rate in Wales wasn't any better in England and because of poverty and an older population, in some ways, it was worse than in England. You know, our health service, you know, suffered all the same problems that the NHS faced in England. From a PR point of view, Wales or the Welsh government had a good lockdown. Did that make a difference to people's lives? Probably not. It sums up Welsh devolution. The symbolism, the news cycles is one thing. The reality on the ground is quite different. The Senedd and local councils have also tried to make it more difficult for people to buy second homes in Wales. Protests against, kind of, the English people buying holiday homes in Wales goes back into the 1970s and there is a feeling that that has undermined Welsh speaking communities and that, just as Tewerin saw the destruction of a Welsh speaking community, holiday homes will see the destruction of many more Welsh speaking communities. There is a long and emotive history to this, you know, and if you speak Welsh, it's a really integral part of your identity and who you are. And to see that culture slowly fade away is an incredibly emotional experience, you know, this is something that people get very angry about. So when this question reached the news headlines again during Covid, you know, it was an emotive issue, but it was something that in Wales people had always, kind of, felt about. But it's not a unique issue, you know, you go to the Lake District, you go to Cornwall, you go to any rural community in England, you'll find the same problems there that wealthy people from elsewhere are buying up homes, forcing up local property prices, forcing people out of the communities that they grew up in. The difference in Wales is that that has a linguistic impact because it undermines the Welsh language. So what's happening in Wales with local authorities pushing up the council tax for holiday homes and changing the rules around Airbnbs, that is part of a wider process that's happening within the UK where local authorities are looking at how they can protect their communities. Can it make much difference? It's a very different issue. There is a limited amount of evidence at the moment that some people are beginning to sell up because tripling your council tax makes it unaffordable to keep a holiday home. I don't think it's made much of a difference yet, but I think it is a step in the right direction. Some people are pushing this because they do want Wales to be different, but as I said, you know, this is part of a wider British context. These similar policies have been enacted in England and Scotland as well. But for me, it's not about the symbolism of Wales being different. Too much of our politics is about trying to be different to England, not about doing the right thing. I totally support the actions of trying to bring down the number of holiday homes because I think that's the right thing to do for rural communities, communities like the one I grew up in. But I don't think we should be doing them specifically because it's English people living in these holiday homes. If you're from Cardiff and have a holiday home in Gwynedd, you're doing just as much destruction to the local community as if you're from Lancashire and have a holiday home in Gwynedd. As a Plaid Cymru politician, you want Wales to be independent. Why do you think that that hasn't got traction with Welsh people? There's about a quarter now want Wales to be independent. It's never really approached anything like a majority. Why do you think that is? Well, it's grown massively since I was younger, where I used to be laughed at for thinking that you would support Welsh independence. And I think when you look at younger people, their views are very different to the older generation. Yes, Cymru membership has grown to a huge level. When I go around schools in Wales, so many young people just feel it's normal for a nation to be independent because they've grown up with us having a Senedd as well. They don't remember a time when there wasn't a Senedd and they don't have the same hang-ups as perhaps older generations have. So I do feel that we are on that journey with more and more people questioning what Westminster does for Wales, of seeing other smaller nations be able to be independent but connected. And certainly after Brexit, I do feel that more people have started to think about whether Wales could be independent. So you've got that growth in the people that believe in independence, but you've also got a growth in people who are indecurious, who are really worried about what it means in terms of the Welsh economy, but actually are frustrated that England-centric policies of Westminster don't work for Wales, of seeing Wales not get its fair share of funding from different things. One clear example was with HS2 project, that it was classified an England and Wales project, even though there's not even a centimetre of track being built in Wales and that Wales hasn't had its fair share of funding from that project or the consequential. As opposed to Scotland and Northern Ireland. So those kind of things, I think, start to make sense to people questioning the status quo. So, no, we're not at that 50% of winning a referendum yet, but I do believe there are more people questioning and thinking, OK, how do we make it work for Wales? Because there is an acceptance that keeping things as they are not working either, with child poverty rates increasing and so on, you know, something fundamentally has to change for Wales. Opinion polls certainly show that in Wales, as in Scotland, the younger you are, the more likely you are to support independence. You know, support for independence is much, much stronger amongst the under 40s than it is amongst older 40s. That is partly because that is a generation that's grown up with devolution, that kind of Welsh decisions and Welsh politics are just more natural. It's a generation that doesn't have some of the hang-ups around the Welsh language, that older people do. You know, the Welsh language has become less controversial than it was in the past. The old-fashioned Britishness based upon, you know, the unions and class and kind of those national bodies like British Telecom and British Gas, the memory of the war, deference towards the royal family, all of those things that older generations had, or had through their parents, all of those things are dying away. So for younger people, it is more natural to think of themselves as Welsh first and British second, or maybe not British at all. And if you feel your natural national identity is Wales, then it's much easier to accept, you know, the question of independence. But there's still a big jump between saying in an opinion poll that you support independence and actually vote for it. Because when you look at what actually happens in both Senedd elections and Westminster elections, there isn't any groundswell of support for parties that are actually promising independence. Plaid Cymru, you know, they had an okay general election earlier this year, but not a brilliant one. They secured seats where they always secure seats in the Welsh speaking areas. There's been no huge explosion of support for them amongst young people in industrial cities or urban areas. So opinion polls certainly say that young Welsh people are willing to consider independence, but they're not voting for it. That's partly because young people often don't vote at all. And that's part of the problem. But there is something deeper as well. And I think, you know, Brexit has shown that people will sometimes vote for radical solutions. But Brexit has also shown that it's incredibly difficult to deliver on these promises. Brexit has shown constitutional change is really difficult. Significant constitutional change. And, you know, how are we going to exist as an independent country if England are outside the EU? Are we going to remain outside the EU as well? And part of the attraction of independence for many people in Wales and Scotland is getting back into the EU. But if we rejoin the EU and England stays out, we'll have to have a hard border. And the border literally runs down the middle of villages in Wales. Independence has become part of the public discussion. It's not some wacky idea in the way that it was in the past. People are seriously talking about it. And that in many ways is a good thing because it encourages us to think creatively and encourages the people who believe in the union to look to strengthen the union by strengthening Wales. And that's really important, you know. And if the growth of nationalism makes people in Westminster make more concessions to Wales and do more to invest in Wales, then that's a good thing. Whether independence will actually happen is a very different question. But undoubtedly, it's been discussed in serious ways that 20 years ago would have been unimaginable. But I think we're still a very long way off it. I'm Ros Taylor, and that was Jam Tomorrow.