What's wrong with Welsh, Mark Tami?

As readers of the Daily Post will already know, Richard Brunstrom, North Wales Police Chief Constable, is to speak at Cymuned's upcoming Annual Conference in April. Apparently, Brunstrom will talk about increasing the use of Welsh within the North Wales Police and respond to Cymuned's calls for other councils to adopt language policies similar to that of Gwynedd Council.

A good thing, right? Not according to Mark Tami, Labour MP for Alyn and Deeside, who thinks it’s "inappropriate for him to take part. I would think he would have better things to do”. Geez, Mr Tami, when did it become inappropriate or a waste of time for a Chief Constable to talk about the use of Welsh within the North Wales police force? Anyone would think you don't care. Oh, that's right, you don't.

In a further attack he said, “[Cymuned] want to reduce the wealth of hard working people by taking capital out of homes, ban the use of English on public signs and dictate how we lead our lives, to the point of when and where we shop. This is not the sort of message a chief constable should be supporting.”

This tripe is so misleading it's embarrassing.

Cymuned chief Aran Jones responded: “This is an absolutely appalling statement from a serving Member of Parliament.

“If Mr Tami does not believe in the value of listening to other people’s views, he most certainly should not be representing the people of Alyn and Deeside in Westminster. We have supporters in his constituency – does he believe that they are non-people whose views he can freely ignore? He should either apologise, or resign.”

An even better response came from former Archdruid Dr Robyn Léwis, from Nefyn:

In your story ‘Brunstrom to address Welsh pressure group’ (Daily Post, January 25) it was of great interest to read that Cymuned chief Aran Jones and Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom had been learning Welsh for approximately the same length of time.

Both are to be heartily congratulated for the fluency they have achieved.

However, I fail to understand why the Labour MP for Alyn and Deeside, Mark Tami, takes the view that it is inappropriate for the Chief Constable to address Cymuned’s annual conference.

Surely it is part of the duties of our chief of police to explain his acts and his policies to various organisations and representatives of the public when invited to do so.

I have noticed that, since Mr Tami’s election in 2001, there has been a deafening silence from him in respect of any moves to help disseminate and safeguard the Welsh language.

If I am wrong, Mr Tami will doubtless tell us how, and by what means, he has assisted the cause of the Welsh language and bilingualism in Wales.

Has he himself been learning Welsh? Or, if he has children, is he ensuring that they are being brought up with a knowledge of Welsh? I think we should be told.

Otherwise we might conclude that Mr Tami is being negatively anti-Welsh just for the sake of being obstructive.

Dr Robyn Léwis, Nefyn