Wales’ First Minister Eluned Morgan was accused of a “slap down” of former Conservative politician and podcaster Rory Stewart. Mrs Morgan was appearing on the show he co-hosts with former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell when they asked her about the Welsh language.
Mr Stewart, a former government minister, presents the hit political podcast The Rest is Politics along with Mr Campbell, who admitted knowing her socially as both are friends of the Kinnock family. In their post-interview remarks, both said they were impressed by Mrs Morgan after her 40 minute interview with the pair in their spin-off show “Leading” where they speak to political leaders.
Mr Stewart told her: “I would like everybody in every nation in the United Kingdom to learn a little bit of each other’s languages. My dream would be that a schoolchild in Dorset or Darlington would get an acquaintance with a little bit of Welsh and a little bit of Scottish Gaelic, not fluent, but some greetings, a little bit of awareness of the language. Do you think that’s something worth doing, as a bilingual person?”
She replied: “We’re trying to do that in Wales to start. Let’s try that to start, even within the civil service, it’s like, come on guys, answer the phone and say ‘bore da’ So I’d like to just start in Wales if you don’t mind Rory, and this look to the rest of the country after that. We’ve got an ambition. We got about 500,000 people who speak Welsh now but we’ve got an ambition to go to a million by 2050.”
“It’s been it’s been dying forever, it’s been dying for a century and what’s happened though now is it’s levelled out. There’s a big push now to get far more into Welsh language schools.”
Mr Stewart said: “I’m astonished by how many people in England have never actually heard anybody speak Welsh. Could you say a couple of sentences so most of people get a sense of what a different language it is?”
She replied: “Beth fi eisiau gweud yw, bod hwnna’n syniad diddorol dros ben ond naw ni ganolbwyntio ar pethe sydd yn fwy pwysig” which she translates as: “Thanks very much Rory, that’s a very good idea, but I think we’re going to focus on much more important things”.
Asked then: “Are you conscious of the fact that so many people in England are barely aware of what Welsh sounds like?” The First Minister replied: “There’s a real lack of understanding but my focus is on Wales. But my focus is on, let’s get this sorted out in Wales before we go anywhere else. I love your enthusiasm Rory, I applaud it. I’ll focus on Wales if you want to champion that across England, then you be my guest.”
In their post-podcast remarks Mr Stewart said: “Look, I really liked her. One small grumble that I get a little bit occasionally with interviewing Labour people is their tendency to kind of slap down Tories who are trying to beat you and slap you down.”
Mr Campbell interjected to say she didn’t slap him down, but Mr Stewart continued: “Well, it was my my idea about exposing people to a little Welsh language in schools because I think it would have cost her nothing to say ‘oh, interesting idea Rory, I’m glad that people take an interest in Welsh culture.’ but instead of which she chose to kind of make a slight comment in Welsh, make me feel stupid about it.” For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here
Mr Campbell said he didn’t see it like that, but accepted: “It’s a fair point” while his colleague said: “Lacked a bit of skill there”.
Mr Campbell said: “I thought she came over really nicely. I’ve known her for a long time, but more as a kind of family friend through the Kinnocks.” He continued: “I was impressed, she came in no ‘what we’re talking about’ no papers sitting there, no aides hovering around saying ‘don’t say this, don’t do that’ just answering every question.”
Mr Stewart praised her as saying she was “I really liked her, I think there was a bit of the Nancy Pelosi, Rosa DeLauro [both American politicians] or Angela Merkel [former German chancellor] about the whole feel of her”.