I’m sure it’s very
nice of Richard Branson to have spoken out in support of the Welsh Government’s
proposals for a soft opt-out on organ donation, but is it really the most
important thing which happened yesterday, from a Welsh perspective? By making it the front page lead story, the
Western Mail clearly thinks it is.
I’m not a fan of ‘celebrity
endorsement’ in the first place. I don’t
need to know which rich or famous people support or oppose a particular
proposition before making my mind up on an issue. Indeed, such endorsement is generally
counter-productive as far as I’m concerned.
It tends to lead me to the conclusion that if the best that proponents
of a proposition can come up with is a series of endorsements, then the
proposition can’t be a terribly good one.
There’s another
aspect to today’s story though. It plays
to a peculiar trait of the Welsh character, to which even the most
nationalistic of people sometimes fall prey.
In the field of politics, it affects left and right alike. We seem to have a certain need for approval
from others, rather then having the confidence just to say what we think.
It’s all too easy
to blame that on some sort of inferiority complex resulting from our history; I
suspect that it’s a great deal more complicated than that. Whatever the reason, lack of confidence in
ourselves and our ideas is one of the things which hold us back. And a media which think that getting an
endorsement from Branson is of such vital importance feeds the complex rather
than helping us conquer it.
It doesn’t mean
that we should be ungrateful for support and praise from outside Wales,
but we don’t need to be quite so gushing
about it.
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