Mud-slinging at the Maes

BBC Wales's Grahame Davies reports from Denbigh

The question of foot-and-mouth was raised at the National Eisteddfod at Denbigh in more ways than one.

Eisteddfod organisers have been concerned that drawing tens of thousands of visitors to a farmland site in the rich agricultural area of the Vale of Clwyd could spread the farm disease.

In an attempt to combat the danger, they have been issuing motorists parking for the festival with badges to certify that their cars were "clean" when arriving at the site.

Beneath the mud-slinging, there is undeniably an issue for serious public debate regarding the future of the Welsh-speaking communities which have historically provided the territorial base which has ensured the language's continued viability.

But after trying to exit the morass of the car-park field after Tuesday's heavy rain, "clean" was hardly the right term for the cars of the Eisteddfod-goers as they made their way home.

The Maes itself, while somewhat drier on Wednesday, still resembles a quagmire in parts, and a pair of rubber boots are the essential fashion accessory for every eisteddfodwr this year.

The mud is an ever-present danger to the spotless robes of the gowned members of the Gorsedd.

However, it was foot-and-mouth of a different kind that was the talking point on Wednesday.

Commentators are still dealing with the aftermath of the comments on Tuesday by former Welsh Language Board chairman John Elfed Jones who said that the migration of large numbers of English-speakers to Welsh-speaking areas was causing the same kind of devastation to Welsh culture as foot-and-mouth had caused to Welsh agriculture.

It has been the latest round in an increasingly intense debate which has been developing since earlier this year, when Plaid Cymru councillor Simon Glyn made outspoken comments about the same problem, to the embarrassment of his party's leadership.

In both cases, their statements have been dismissed by their opponents as "racism", and they have been condemned for the "inflammatory" terms in which they have expressed themselves.

In return, supporters of Simon Glyn, notably the newly-formed group Cymuned, have themselves argued that it is "racist" on the part of their opponents to prevent Welsh-speaking communities from exercising the controls on property ownership which are used in places such as the Lake District.

As a result, the debate so far has been largely confined to externals of the dispute - such as the appropriateness of the terms used by the various parties, the accusations and counter-accusations of racism, and the question of how Plaid Cymru's leadership should deal with the defiance of Simon Glyn.

Majority tongue

However, beneath the mud-slinging, there is undeniably an issue for serious public debate regarding the future of the Welsh-speaking communities which have historically provided the territorial base which has ensured the language's continued viability.

The book of letters of support to Simon Glyn published on Wednesday, used by Cymuned as part of its campaign, shows the strength of feeling - among both native Welsh people and also many English people who have made their homes in Welsh-speaking areas - that something needs to be done to protect the communities in which Welsh is the majority tongue.

The whole issue has touched sensitivities around competing Welsh and English identities, and around the rival Labour and Plaid Cymru visions of Welsh society.

But even as the dispute intensifies, there is a growing feeling that on such an important issue as the future of the language, the discussion needs to progress beyond mud-slinging, and that a small country such as Wales needs to find a way for its communities to exist without tension or threat.

The crowded and muddy eisteddfod field might well suggest a suitably bardic proverb for those currently engaged in this messy problem.

In a muddy field, it is an unwise person who starts to sling the mud.