Blair asks the Foreign Office to translate (Scottish) Gaelic letters
From The Scotsman - 12th October 2005
Blair asks the Foreign Office to translate Gaelic letters
JAMES KIRKUP
WESTMINSTER EDITOR
GAELIC is a foreign language, at least as far as Tony Blair is concerned.
The Prime Minister has outraged Gaelic campaigners by revealing that his office regards the language - along with Welsh - as so alien that Foreign Office assistance is needed to understand it.
His apparent disregard for a language spoken by tens of thousands of Scots was revealed in a written parliamentary answer issued by Downing Street yesterday.
Angus MacNeil, the SNP MP for the Western Isles, has been tabling parliamentary questions to Whitehall departments asking how they deal with correspondence in non-English British languages.
Mr Blair yesterday gave Mr MacNeil a curt, one-sentence answer. "My office has arrangements with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to translate letters received in languages other than English," the Prime Minister wrote.
In a separate answer, Mr Blair confirmed that Downing Street had "no specific facilities" for dealing with telephone calls in Gaelic or Welsh, but said it would "enlist the help of other government departments where possible".
Adding insult to injury, the Foreign Office admitted it had no facility for dealing with Gaelic, in either its Scots or Irish variants.
In an answer to Mr MacNeil's question last month, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, confirmed that, while the Foreign Office does translate some "major" Welsh documents, it has no "formal policy" on Gaelic and does not routinely translate the language "on the grounds that no clear cost-benefits case exists."
Mr Blair's attitude to Gaelic left Mr MacNeil angry and predicting a backlash. He said: "It seems he knows nothing of the languages of the United Kingdom despite being Prime Minister of the UK."
Gaelic-speakers would be "very annoyed" by Downing Street's attitude, Mr MacNeil said, but he had a suggestion for assuaging that anger. "We can only hope that Tony Blair comes to Skye for Gaelic lessons," he said
In 2001, Britain ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, obliging ministers in London and in Edinburgh to encourage the survival of languages such as Gaelic.
However, Donald Martin of Comunn na Gaidhlig, the Gaelic development body, said No 10's answer suggested the Prime Minister was not taking those commitments very seriously. "I think we can conclude that the Gaelic language is being lumped in with foreign languages as far as Downing Street is concerned. There is no logic to that answer that I can see."
For all its apparent lack of recognition in Whitehall, Gaelic campaigners say the language remains very much alive.
A report earlier this week showed that, while Gaelic is on the wane in its traditional heartlands of the Highlands and Islands, its use is rising in other parts of Scotland.
The total number of Gaelic speakers dropped by about 10 per cent between 1991 and 2001, to 58,652. But, according to Census returns analysed by the registrar general for Scotland, some 92,400 people have some understanding of Gaelic, almost 2 per cent of the Scottish population.
Should Mr Blair take up Mr MacNeil's offer of Gaelic lessons, he could find himself in good company. Earlier this year, it was reported that the Queen had been learning the language.
On a visit to the West Highlands, she reportedly startled a Harris-born police protection officer by asking him: "Ciamar a tha sibh?" - or "how are you?"
