Annals of Leadership: Welsh Division

David Crawford

The last time I visited Japan I had to pay a $28 exit fee. The last time I visited South Korea I to pay a $16 exit fee. Plenty of countries charge you for the pleasure of visiting their countries. The difference between the USA and Japan or Korea is that the USA will charge you up front not on exit.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

David Crawford. Perhaps there is a grave misunderstanding about British Law. It is possible that so many "students" and others believe they must pay an exit fee, so instead of going home, they decide to crash permanently in these over-crowded isles.

dearieme

King Arthur was a Kelso boy, you know.

gareth

Ruth Madoc was welsh, and Phillip Madoc also , can't think of anyone else offhand. I think Robbie Williams is probably welsh.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

....and Tom Jones!

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Sorry! Meant to mention Shirley Bassey too.

The Welsh Jacobite

Edward II, born at Caernarfon, 25 April 1284.

Thirladean

I have always suspected that Margaret Thatcher, daughter of Alderman Roberts, was of Welsh extraction. Roberts is quite a common name in the Principality. And Oliver Cromwell was Oliver Williams before he took the name of hsi rich Cromwell relations. Williams is of course an even more common Welsh name than Roberts.

AB

Maybe if the English had had a few more Welshmen running their country they'd have avoided the dreadful hash that all those Scotch (sic) socialists have made of the place.

Fergus Pickering

You mean Welshmen like the pillock or the one who went looking for rentboys - whose name blessedly escapes me.

The Welsh Jacobite

Both Oliver Cromwell alias Williams and Margaret Thatcher nee Roberts are indeed of Welsh descent (and in the direct male line).

Cromwell's great great grandfather was Morgan Williams from Glamorgan who settled in London and had the good luck to marry Thomas Cromwell's sister before he became famous.

As for Lady Thatcher, the D.N.B. entry for her father states, "The Roberts family came originally from Wales, but had been settled in Northamptonshire for four generations".

Simon Stephenson

I thought I'd cheat, and search for "Famous Welshmen" on Wikipedia. And, lo and behold, who do I find but John Leslie Prescott, Lord Legover of Temple, who was born in Prestatyn on 31st May, 1938.

In fact, there was a hat-trick of Welsh Deputy Prime Ministers, with Sir Geoffrey Howe (Port Talbot) holding the office between 24.7.89 and 1.11.90, then, after a lull, Michael Heseltine (Swansea) between 20.7.95 and 2.5.97, before Prescott between 2.5.97 and 27.6.07.

Perhaps the closest there has been to a Welsh-born Prime Minister pre-Gillard is the actor Michael Sheen (Newport), who played Tony Blair no less than three times in the films The Deal, The Queen, and The Special Relationship. It needs to be mentioned, however, that in 1969, when Sheen was born, it was a matter of debate as to whether Monmouthshire, in which Newport was situated, was part of Wales or England.

Simon Stephenson

Addendum

If film roles are to be allowed, there would be some who would say that Martin Sheen is knocked into a cocked hat by Sir Anthony Hopkins, by virtue (a) of being indisputably Welsh, having been born in Margam, and (b) having played the parts of King Richard I, David Lloyd George, Yitzhak Rabin, Adolf Hitler, Richard Nixon, John Quincy Adams and the Egyptian Pharoah, Ptolemy I Soter.

Simon Stephenson

Addendum II

Very well might some believe that Sir Anthony Hopkins is a stronger candidate than Martin Sheen to be considered the ultimate Welsh power-broker - justifiably so, perhaps, since Martin Sheen is an American with a Spanish father and an Irish mother.

I meant Michael Sheen, of course.

Tom Round

NB: Julia, not Julie (unless in the vocative case). Julie-with-an-e Bishop is the top-ranking woman in the Liberal Party, at least for this week. Hence subeditors' paradise when they could caption photos of "NOW IT'S JULIE AND JULIA" as the two glared at each other across the dispatch boxes.

I assume she was originally christened [sic] "Iulliad" or something like that in Welsh.

Tom Round

Ironically, one of the few Australian States that Gillard has not lived in (except via the ACT enclave) is New South Wales. She moved from old South Wales to South Australia and then Victoria, and now Canberra.