Gwenno's grandfather Gwynfor Evans threatened to starve himself to death in the campaign for a Welsh-language TV channel. Her parents Ffred and Meinir Ffransis spent years in prison for carrying out peaceful direct-action protests for a Welsh language TV channel and language act. The last Welsh language campaigner to be locked up was Sioned Elin, in 1995. Plaid: Welsh a political football PLAID Cymru accused Labour of turning the Welsh language into a political football when it put its policy out for review yesterday. Language policy will be the first in a series of Plaid policy commissions in the run up to the 2007 Assembly elections. Senior party figures said there was no significance in the fact language was the first to come under examination. Commissions on health and education will follow. Plaid's deputy Assembly leader Rhodri Glyn Thomas said the Assembly government failed to deliver its language policy - Iaith Pawb (Everyone's Language) - which would increase the percentage of Welsh speakers by 5% by 2011. He said: "It was the first time a national government had made a categoric statement that they were committed to Welsh language growth. "That policy hasn't been implemented by the government of Wales." Opposition AMs complained about comments made by a spin doctor to a newspaper about the soon-to-be-abolished Welsh Language Board. Mr Thomas said culture minister Alun Pugh seemed to have a spokeswoman "who is out of control and making dogmatic statements about the Labour government". "The Welsh language has once again become a political football which is something that none of us want," he added.. Plaid's shadow culture minister Owen John Thomas will sit on the commission with party president Dafydd Iwan. The other members of the commission were not finalised yet, they said. Owen John Thomas said the study would focus on the lack of Welsh-medium education. "The cornerstone of creating a bilingual Wales will be through the Welsh-medium schools across our nation," he said.. "The Labour Assembly government's approach to the Welsh language is fatally flawed by not giving the leadership necessary to local authorities to ensure the demand for Welsh-medium education is met." More than 1,000 children are "lost" to the language every year when they leave primary school, he said. Plaid said the Welsh language was under threat in its heartlands, despite an increase in the number of Welsh speakers at the last census. | 
