Is it such a good thing to be able to fill in a form stating that you are Welsh?

One of our readers was celebrating recently because he and his fellow campaigners had won the right to claim Welsh as their nationality in the census.

But would they be so happy to tell the machine they are something it might not like.

I have noticed in recent years pressure from some areas - including government departments and even, barmily, the local library, for me to tell them if I am Afro-Caribbean, Chinese, Pakistani or many other things.

Of course they are collecting that information for innocuous reasons. But it needs just a small shift of official policy for those reasons to become sinister.

Now, as a white Anglo Saxon Protestant I know I am in the great majority and am unlikely to be on the list when the secret policeman comes knocking at the door.

And that's why, when someone wants to know if I am black or Jewish, or a Pole or Kosovan, I will tell them mind your own businress'. John Arlott, when asked to designate his race in Apartheid South Africa, wrote human'. I am prepared to stand alongside the persecuted. So, I know, are most of you.

It's important to be proud of being Welsh or a Welsh speaker. But it's even more important to be the man in the way when the forces of evil come for your less fortunate neighbours.