Elis-Thomas Harks Back to Crusades in His Look at Today

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Byline: By MARTIN SHIPTON Western Mail

Dafydd elis-thomas will today deliver a lecture in which he characterises our age as one of 'state and anti-state terrorism'. The Plaid Cymru peer, who is Presiding Officer of the National Assembly, has called his Institute of Welsh Affairs National Eisteddfod Lecture Creating a New Europe - Enlarging our Borders. In it, he traces the concept of Europe over many centuries and describes himself as proud to be a Welsh European.

In one of the most controversial passages of his lecture, Lord Elis-Thomas compares the international situation today with the era of the Crusades.

He states, 'In the early 12th century that we …