Bruce Robertson: scumbag English boss of Trago Mills declares Welsh-medium education as damaging

[editor]

What a total fucking cunt

The head of discount store Trago Mills has described Welsh language signage as “visual clutter”, criticised Welsh-medium education and advised people to embrace English.

In a letter that has enraged language activists, Bruce Robertson sent his comments to Welsh Language Commissioner Meri Huws in May.

The letter from the chairman of the Cornwall-based company whose latest outlet opened in Merthyr Tydfil in April was leaked to Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, the Welsh Language Society.

A past donor to Ukip, he described Trago Mills’ policy towards bilingual signage: “Felicitations, departmental descriptions, directional, welfare and safety signage will ultimately display Welsh and English language [sic]. but beyond that we have no plans to cascade its use a great deal further at present.”

Mr Robertson stated that he had developed “an acute sense of what is important to ... customers during the last 45 years”, and held “similarly strong views on the avoidance of visual clutter, a topic that is gaining increasing awareness both in private and public sector circles, road signage being a case in point (I suffer poor eyesight thus find excessive verbiage tedious and unhelpful)”.

He said he had spent considerable time in Merthyr since the firm bought its first site in Pentrebach in the late 1980s.

“In all that time have considered English to be the locals’ language of choice, the other tongues most commonly heard being Polish, Portuguese or possibly something further south again," he said.

Trago Mills boss says Welsh language signs are 'visual clutter'

And here's just how big a piece of shit he is:

Robertson placed advertisements in the 1980s and 1990s calling for the castration of gay men. The United Kingdom Advertising Standards Authority ruled against Trago Mills and demanded the withdrawal of all advertisements in 1998.Trago still occasionally runs inflammatory copy within their ads, one entitled "For any cash strapped Moslems reading this…" appeared in the Falmouth Packet in 2009 to promote a book by senior UKIP official David Challice

With his son and successor, Bruce, Robertson supported Eurosceptic political parties, most recently the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). Robertson famously threatened to refuse to stop using imperial measures in his stores, attributing UK metricisation to the European Union (Trago today sells goods in metric quantities, sometimes with imperial equivalents, in line with the law). He remains opposed to speculative immigration from Eastern Europeans. Robertson supports job-specific immigration, more liberally than some in UKIP. In January 2007, the Mid Devon Star noted his large Newton Abbot site employed around 30 Poles.

In September 2011, the company was fined £199,588 after admitting five breaches of the Environmental Protection Act. This followed the discovery of "several thousand tonnes" of dumped waste, including asbestos, at its Newton Abbot and Liskeard sites.[15] The fine was reduced to £65,000 in January 2012 after an Exeter Crown Court judge accepted that Trago Mills had paid nearly £500,000 in clean-up costs

In 2014, Trago Mills was featured on BBC's Fake Britain, after local trading standards discovered fake top-brand shampoo on sale in store. Trago management said that the product had been purchased from a reliable source and they had worked closely with local trading standards to ensure that the product was taken off sale once it had been identified as a fake.

Trago Mills - Wikipedia

 

[ddraig]

Saw this yesterday, the front and entitlement on him!
That place is a monstrosity as well

Sadly you'll see many people saying that Welsh is forced on children and holds them back as well as being no value in comment sections etc

 

[editor]

Saw this yesterday, the front and entitlement on him!
That place is a monstrosity as well

Sadly you'll see many people saying that Welsh is forced on children and holds them back as well as being no value in comment sections etc

Yet the advantages for children learning two languages are very well documented.

 

[Poi E]

Same sort of idiots in Scotland and Ireland, and Cornwall, too, I suspect. One nation to rule them all with one language. Relic of empire. End London Rule.

 

[mwgdrwg]

It dud not affect mi in eni wê!

 

[8ball]

Yet the advantages for children learning two languages are very well documented.

Hmm, yeah. I never knew anyone who went to a Welsh-medium school or spoke it at home who was deficient in English.

Could always meet him half-way and drop the English from the signs, I guess.

 

[Poot]

It's a good job that he applies the same no-nonsense approach to clutter on his website:

Trago Mills | The South West's Original Discount Retailer

Otherwise we might think that he was just bigoted.

 

[Grump]

A Welsh speaking colleague once told me that if there is not a Welsh word for something it is common to add 'io' at the end of the English word. I asked her what the Welsh for radio was and then had to explain I wasn't taking the pissio.

 

[J Ed]

Not got any connection to Wales or Welsh, but I've met a good number of impressive speakers of Spanish as a second language who are bilingual in Welsh and English. Often find that those who attack Welsh-medium education on the basis of it being 'less useful' than French or whatever, in another context aren't especially in favour of learning other languages either.

 

[lizzieloo]

My family hate Trago Mills, you get dark looks if you even mention it, we're from Newton Abbot, my Auntie lives nearby. They/he swerved loads of planning law at the time it was built.

We went there when I was last visiting, vowed to spend no money, just wanted a look. I'm all for cheap stuff but peddling the shite they were to people is just low.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

A Welsh speaking colleague once told me that if there is not a Welsh word for something it is common to add 'io' at the end of the English word. I asked her what the Welsh for radio was and then had to explain I wasn't taking the pissio.

My Welsh colleagues don't appear to bother even doing that and just use the English word. Although was suprised they just used the English "booking form", kind of assumed there would be a Welsh word for it.

 

[Voley]

He wanted to put shoplifters in the stocks once. Think he even went as far as building some if memory serves. His rants on the weekly Trago advert in The Cornishman were always worth reading just to see how demented he was that week.

 

[Idaho]

The man is insane. We used to get an advertising pamphlet regularly stuck through our door advertising trago. It always had a small "editorial" section containing his rants. Imagine a cross between farage and someone having a psychotic breakdown let loose without a sub editor. It was hard to even get offended most of the time as it was barely coherent.

 

[ddraig]

 

[Santino]

Just thrown away all my Iron Maiden albums because of this.

 

[Steel Icarus]

Just thrown away all my Iron Maiden albums because of this.

I'll never watch Withnail & I again.

 

[mwgdrwg]

Chairman of your London Barbican Centre is a twat then:

 

[1927]

Chairman of your London Barbican Centre is a twat then:


View attachment 141618

Yes! Is there a doubt?

 

[1927]

Rememinds me of the time BBC Granstand went live to Stradey Park where Llanelli were playing Australia. The scoreboard showed “Awstralia”. Steve Rider in the studio says “ no marks for spelling!”. Twat.

 

[ddraig]

this one actually apologised

 

[editor]

 

[editor]

Amen: