The Welsh Way - Essays on Neoliberalism and Devolution

Dan Evans, Huw Williams, Kieron Smith

Summary

This book argues for a new Welsh Way, one that is truly radical and transformational. A call for a political engagement that will create real opportunity for change.


Neoliberalism has firmly taken hold in Wales. The 'clear red water' is darkening. The wounds of poverty, inequality, and disengagement, far from being healed, have worsened. Child poverty has reached epidemic levels: the worst in the UK. Educational attainment remains stubbornly low, particularly in deprived communities. Prison population rates are among the highest in Europe. Unemployment remains stubbornly high. House prices are rising, with the private rented sector lining the pockets of an ever-increasing number of private landlords. Minority groups are consistently marginalised. All this is not to mention the devastatingly disproportionate impact of the coronavirus pandemic on working class communities.


The Welsh Way interrogates neoliberalism's grasp on Welsh life. It challenges the lazy claims about the 'successes' of devolution, fabricated by Welsh politicians and regurgitated within a tepid, attenuated public sphere. These wide-ranging essays examine the manifold ways in which neoliberalism now permeates all areas of Welsh culture, politics and society. They also look to a wider world, to the global trends and tendencies that have given shape to Welsh life today. Together, they encourage us to imagine, and demand, another Welsh future.

Available since: 09/01/2021.

Print length: 200 pages.

Other books that might interest you

Aromabingo

David Gaffney

Aromabingo builds on the critical success of David Gaffney's 2006 collection Sawn-off Tales, offering yet more of Gaffney's weird and edgy ultra-shorts, plus several longer works, so you can spend even more time inside the baffling, hilarious and sometimes moving world of a David Gaffney story. Think Magnus Mills mashed with the League of Gentlemen with a jolt of Mark E. Smithery for grit, and you're nearly there. Though many of his stories are shorter than a Napalm Death snarl, these precision-engineered slivers of fiction leave you with the dying chords of a symphony. They are about the small people, the tiny Tardis folk with cathedrals inside them, creeping by unnoticed. These tales will have you laughing like at a Tommy Cooper video though there's something hideous gnawing at the door to get in. Be careful, a spoonful weighs a ton.

Show book

Computer Love: A Digital Anthology

Ricardo Pierre-Louis

A god overlooks the world he created with restless dissatisfaction, and contemplates ending his misery. 
A young painter sees a dazzling woman from across the coffee shop and quickly falls in love, but her past brings him unspeakable shame. 
A gambling addict hides his debts to save his marriage, until a shady executive demands her money back or she'll squeal. 
Computer Love is a collection of stories about people who have experienced a profound sense of loss and seek to deeply root their sense of self in the philosophy of love. Ordinary people are driven to extreme ends about their conviction in their common bonds. Some survive, others do not, but their collective existence answers the question, what happens when your world slips away and only love remains?

Show book

Ball-of-Fat

Guy de Maupassant

The first significant published short story of French author Guy de Maupassant, and generally acknowledged as his greatest work, "Ball-of-Fat" (French title: Boule de Suif) is the touching story of an interrupted coach ride from Rouen to Le Havre during which occurs the corruption of a principled prostitute by immoral and hypocritical members of the upper class. The story is set during the occupation of Rouen at the time of the Franco-Prussian War. (Summary by Michael Thomas Robinson)

Show book

The Interruption

W. Jacobs

W. W. Jacobs (1863-1941) is well known for humorous stories and for the most grisly of horror stories. The Interruption belongs very much in the latter category.Spencer Goddard's wife has died suddenly after a short and intense illness. Finally Goddard has his freedom and full use of his wife's wealth. But before he can begin to enjoy his new-found freedom, Hannah the cook begins to behave rather oddly. Goddard realizes that Hannah knows his secret...and a terrible power struggle begins.

Show book

All we see or seem is but a...

Rachel Lawson

When Dr Death the local coroner is invited to perform in the hospital he works in's Tv charity performance little did they know the coroner was hiding a secret he is a famous stage illusionist he goes to the audition and his hospital colleague falls in love with the man who comes in his place and refuses to believe he could ever be the same man and his stage magician partner isn't helping either.
She confronts the coroner for not having the courage to audition himself still not recognizing him he realizes he has fallen for a dream of the handsome illusionist, not himself.
A tall handsome clean shaven blue-eyed man walked on stage for the audition he looked nervous. "Who are you? You look familiar," asked a lady auditioner who fell in love with this strange young man. "Dr Blake Alexander, you know me," said the young man. "No, I don't any Dr Alexanders," said the lady. "No, he's kidding us he's Blake Fire! He's famous," said another auditioner, "He owns this theater." "Don't hold it against me," said Blake charmingly. "What are you going to do sing?" asked the lady. "I'm a magician," Blake said. "Oh, are you?" said the lady intrigued. "Where is Jack Tailor?" asked Dr Alexander. "He is sick Sally is here to do his job said the other auditioner. "Did Dr Death ask you to take his place here that grumpy nerd can't perform to save his life," said the lady who knew Dr Death as a bespectacled grouch who was always moaning, Blake tried to push up his glasses which he wasn't wearing frustratedly he looked irritated but that made him look more handsome. "I am Dr Death, I didn't ask myself anything, Sally Jack asked me to audition," snapped Blake.

Show book

The American Claimant

Mark Twain

The American Claimant is enormous fun. I'm here to celebrate the mad energy of this strange novel. In it we have the pleasure of seeing Mark Twain's imagination go berserk, writes Bobbie Ann Mason in her introduction. The American Claimant is a comedy of mistaken identities and multiple role switches—fertile and familiar Mark Twain territory. Its cast of characters include an American enamored of British hereditary aristocracy and a British earl entranced by American democracy. The central character, Colonel Mulberry Sellers, is an irrepressible, buoyant mad scientist, Mason writes, "brimming with harebrained ideas. Nothing is impossible for him.... He's totally loopy." His voluble wackiness leaves the reader reeling in the wake of inventions that prefigure DNA cloning, fax machines, and photocopiers. Twain uses this over-the-top comic frame to explore some serious issues as well—such as the construction of self and identity, the role of the press in society, and the moral and social questions raised by capitalism and industrialization in the United States. A unique melange of science fiction and fantasy, romance, farce, and political satire, Twain's least-known comic novel is both thought-provoking and entertaining.

Show book