Odds And Sods (Nothing Personal) 18.06.2013

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Jun 182013
 

Here’s a merry and eclectic miscellany of tit-bits and tales that have caught my attention over the past week or so. Or at least, it’s those I deemed worthy of comment.

NOT CRICKET, SURELY? (THOUGH PERHAPS STILL VERY ENGLISH)

A strange story from the Nicholas Insurance Pembrokeshire Cricket League (Division Six), not a source of news I’ve used before, nor one I ever thought I would use, but there you are. It seems that in a game last Saturday Crymych Seconds were batting against Lamphey Seconds when the Crymych batsmen walked off complaining they’d been abused by Lamphey players for speaking Welsh. An official complaint has been made to the League by the Crymych club.

Now obviously, Crymych is in north, or ‘Welsh’, Pembrokeshire, and Lamphey is south of the ‘Landsker’ (near Pembroke town); but even so, in this day and age who objects to people speaking Welsh to each other? And what would have happened if Lamphey had been playing a touring side from, say, Pakistan? Would they have subjected the Pakistani batsmen to the same treatment? If they had, I guarantee that it would have made more ripples than this story, now being quickly and quietly brushed under the carpet.

IEUAN WYN JONES STANDS DOWN . . .

. . . about twenty years too late. All Plaid Cymru needs now is a leader . . . and policies . . . and politicians somebody other than a political anorak might recognise . . . and a sense of purpose . . . and a commitment to the Welsh people (rather than to ‘Wales’) . . . and a clear-out of the dead-wood . . . and an acceptance that Wales cannot save the planet by being covered in wind turbines . . . and an abandonment of (lower) sixth form socialism by joining the real world . . .

SWANSEA, MY SWANSEA

The Llansamlet Clay Outerby-election campaign is up and running. Hitting the straps early is Robert – ‘call me “Bob”‘ – Clay, public school educated Trotskyite, former MP, political adventurer, friend of George ‘Indefatigability’ Galloway and now refugee. I was sent a copy of what I assume will be his main election leaflet, which I am pleased to share with you here. (Click to enlarge.) There are a number of observations worth making.

1/ Despite it being a large, and very wordy, example of its kind, Comrade Bob could find no room for a single word of Welsh other than the ‘Llafur’ in the party logo.

2/ He admits that he and his Austrian wife – elected to the Clay Insidecouncil last year – are political migrants, having come to Wales after hearing Rhodri Morgan talk of “clear red water”. So there you are, if anyone was still in doubt, you now know who to blame for carpetbaggers, Third Sector grant-grabbers and other undesirables coming over the border.

3/ He identifies a number of specific problems within the ward that he will tackle: listed as Rhyd-y-Felin, Lon Enfys, Trewen Road, Parc yr Helig . . . none of which he knows, nor can pronounce, for he only moved to Llansamlet last August. Though one issue he does not mention is the one he’s built his local reputation on – the fight against another Traveller site in Llansamlet. Why is he so reticent?

Staying in Swansea, but moving on to other carpetbagger Labour councillors who’ve been in Swansea no longer than the Clays, no one seems to know whether Pearleen Sangha is still in California. Her Twitter account @PearleenSangha has fallen silent, no tweet since June 13. Has she been ordered by the party to stay schtum, in the same way her equally embarrassing colleague, John Boy Bayliss, @JohnCBayliss, was ordered by the party to close his Twitter account? The third member of the student-councillor trio has also been making a fool of himself, again.

Gin drinker Mitchell Theaker, @mitchelltheaker, got in the habit of signing off council cabinet e-mails as ‘Mitchy’. (Yes, Theaker 1he’s in the cabinet, representing children and young people. I suspect he identifies better with the former.) Anyway, the suspicion is that the party took a dim view of this lack of protocol, coming on top of other little, um, annoyances. Does “signing off” mean he doesn’t write them? What exactly does he do for his £36,000 a year?

Theaker 2And come to think of it, ‘Mitchy’ has also gone very quiet on Twitter. Nothing since this gem last Saturday. (Left.) Maybe he hasn’t sobered up yet! Or perhaps some avuncular figure among the bruvvers has taken young Theaker aside and, in an arm-around-the-shoulder sort of way, whispered to him, Shut up! you embarrassing little sod!

STARSTRUCK LABOUR

The Welsh Labour Government is splashing out £50m to “attract world class scientists and their teams to Wales“. The first of these ‘stars’ has already pitched up at Cardiff University; he is Prof. Yves Barde, from Switzerland. Now you know me, I have the utmost faith in the judgement of our Welsh Government, but I can’t help wondering . . .

1/ How many jobs for Welsh people will this massive expenditure create?

2/ Haven’t we been down the road of publicity-grabbing, ‘prestige projects’ before, and don’t they invariably fail?

3/ Isn’t this scheme just disguised extra funding for Cardiff university? For how many of these academic ‘stars’ will other universities see?

4/ No disrespect to the Prof, but the high point of his career seems to have been in 1989, “with the discovery of a gene which creates a protein – brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) – which is involved in number of brain processes including memory”. Mightn’t he, and others who’ll follow, be rather like southern hemisphere rugby players, coming here towards the end of their careers to boost their retirement pots?

LABOUR SEEING THE LIGHT, AT LAST?

I was struck by something said by Edwina Hart (and it’s not often I can say that!). Watch the BBC clip I’ve linked to and see if you get the same impression – that Labour now admits pouring money into the Third Sector was a waste of EU funding. She rejects in future having “hundreds and hundreds of partners” with “pet projects”, she tallks of more involvement from the private sector, and gives other signals that a corner may have been turned.

I’d like to think I’ve helped in my small way to bring about this change of direction. What I’m certain of is that the EU funders have made it crystal clear to Edwina Hart and others in Cardiff that they’ve screwed up twice, and they’d better get it right with the third and final dollop of Structural Funds.

I’d love to be a fly on the wall when Edwina and the rest have to explain to their grant-grabbing hangers-on that the days of wine and roses are over, forever. That the EU funding will in future be used for alleviating Welsh poverty, not for subsidising the unemployable of the loony left to capitalise on that poverty.

Vroom, Vroom – The Next Gravy Train?

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Jun 172013
 

I don’t know how many of you are aware of this, but there’s a new £250m racetrack planned for Ebbw Vale, to be known as the Circuit of Wales. Promising to bring high tech, top-wage jobs; tens of thousands of high-spending visitors; and much more besides. All this promised by a company – the Heads of the Valleys Development Company – set up specifically and solely to deliver this project. I was unable to find a website in the name of HVDC so I assume this serves as the company’s website. So who’s behind the company?Ebbw Vale

Well, one of the founding directors is named as Peter Thomas. Is this ‘Peter the Pies’, the man behind that great Welsh success story, Cardiff Blues? Or is it Swansea’s Peter Thomas, who is obviously big in tyres? Either way or neither way, according to Company Check, Peter Thomas joined (set up?) the company on June 30th, 2011. Presumably with a Mr M. A. Carrick, who is listed as joining the Board on the same day. Though according to Company Check Peter Thomas left the Board roughly a year later, on July 13th, 2012.# Which appears to have left the company with just one director! Whatever, August 13th, 2012, saw four new Board Members appointed: Mr S. J. Kealey, Mr T. N. Murnane, Ms A. L. Lloyd-Carrick and Mr A. P. Woodbury. Can we assume that Ms Lloyd-Carrick is somehow related?

Oh, yes . . . perhaps I should have mentioned earlier that this exciting new Welsh venture has its global headquarters at The Coach House, 79 Mill Way, Grantchester, Cambridge CB3 9ND. (Yes, that is the Grantchester of Rupert Brooke fame: ‘Corner of a foreign field’ and all that.)

Let us return to the man who appears to have been the co-founder of the Heads of the Valleys Development Company / Circuit of Wales, M. A. Carrick. Not so long ago he was working for Merrill Lynch, which many people believe is more responsible for the current financial crisis than perhaps any other single company. In fact, he’s described as nothing less than ML’s “Managing Director and Global Head of infrastructure”. Carrick now plies his trade – whatever it might be – with Duet Asset Management, which, reassuringly, appears to specialise in hedge funds. But he also seems to run Aventa Capital Partners Ltd., which looks like another new company set up to promote, or capitalise on, the Ebbw Vale project. Listed with Carrick on the ‘Investment Committee’ of Aventa are Charles Grime and David Bates.

Another name I have unearthed in connection with this venture is Chris Herring, formerly of Honda Racing. Though he is not mentioned in the Company Check extract referred to above. Of those who are mentioned as joining the company in August 2012, information is sparse. Without, I admit, digging too deeply, I drew a complete blank with S. J. Kealey, T. N. Murnane and Ms A. L. Lloyd-Carrick. The search for A. P. Woodbury produced only this which might, or might not, be him.

One more name is worthy of mention in connection with this project . . . wait for it! – Neil Kinnock!!! Who is billed as the “Ambassador”. I don’t wish to appear cynical, or unkind (you know me!) – but any project needing Kinnochio to lend it “considerable credibility” is surely dead in the water. Though give him his due, he can still recognise a gravy train approaching, even one running on very expensive tyres.

Kinnock

 

 

Someone else plugging the project, sort of, was that famous Danish rugby international, Sebastian Barrett, writing for Click on Wales. Though he seemed to quickly lose interest in highly-tuned engines and soon started plugging the Cardiff city state and the planned Cardiff Metro system. So irrelevant had the Ebbw Vale project become to him that at one point he referred to the Circuit of Wales as the “Circle of Wales”! (What’s happened to the Institute of Welsh Affairs, it’s become just another mouthpiece for Cardiff?)

The reason I started writing this piece is that there is mounting opposition to the project from a particularly obnoxious sub-species of colon. You know who I mean, they’re always on the ‘Welsh’ News, fleece jackets and English accents; ‘Oh, you can’t do that!’ ‘Oh no, we oppose this’. All of them working for bodies funded by taxpayers, charity collections, old ladies’ legacies, EU or other funding. Dictatorial bastards who want to keep Wales unspoilt by jobs or prosperity, preserved in aspic for the English middle classes to which most of them belong. First, in November, it was the Gwent Wildlife Trust. Then in March the Open Spaces Society chipped in. Last week it was Natural Resources Wales. It begins to look co-ordinated on the part of those who ‘love’ Wales but don’t give a toss about the Welsh.

Weighing it all up, my position is as follows. If this project can deliver what it promises, primarily investment and well-paid jobs for local people, then I support it. But I have grave reservations as to whether it will deliver. Mainly because I have little faith in those behind it. I smell another Valleywood. So strong is the aroma that I would have expected our wonderful Welsh Government to be asking many more questions about those behind a £250m project that will soon be asking for a hell of a lot of public funding. (Or does Kinnock’s involvement mean that this scheme gets nodded through?) I might also be worried by what appears to be the total lack of Welsh involvement. When does ‘outside investment’ become exploitation, colonialism? As for those objecting on what they allege to be environmental grounds . . . I’m sure you think you mean well, but Carrickshut up!

 

#Though on this page (shown right) of the Circuit of Wales website, in an undated piece, Peter Thomas is still listed as a director. He is also listed as CEO of Insight in Infrastructure, another new company (set up in September 2011) and also based in Cambridge. Though this company appears dormant, if not dead. Yet these are the people running a £250m racetrack project, with only one among them who appears to have any experience of motor sport, and no obvious assets. Doesn’t that fill you with confidence?

Llansamlet By-Election: Runners And Riders

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Jun 102013
 

Following the death of councillor Dennis James a by-election will be held for one of the seats in the Llansamlet ward of Swansea council. As dealt with here, Trotskyite Bob Clay, former Labour MP for Sunderland North, will be standing for Labour. While he may have been selected by the local branch there is still some confusion over whether the selection has been ratified, or welcomed, by the brothers and sisters higher up the greasy pole.

The other candidates announced before last Friday’s deadline were, for the Conservatives, James Peter Hatton, from Morriston. For the Liberal Democrats, Samuel Rees, from Brynmill. And for the Official National Front, Claire Thomas, of Townhill. So of the four candidates, only one – Bob Clay – actually lives in the ward, and he movEight new counties with populationsed to Llansamlet less than a year ago! Of the others, one is at least from neighbouring Morriston, while the other two are from across town; the National Front candidate from the ‘troubled’ Townhill estate, the Lib Dem from an area given over to accommodation for students and other transients. There is no Plaid Cymru candidate, because the party is all but dead in Swansea. (Sad, seeing as I can recall Llansamlet being Plaid’s first council seat in Swansea when it was won by my old friend John Ball back in the ’70s.) Surprisingly, the Independents were also unable to field a candidate due, it is suggested, to the favoured hopeful being away on holiday!

So there you have it. Another example of non-local local politics in Swansea. Another example of how turned off the vast majority of local people are with their councils. Another example of how this disengagement makes it easier for political adventurers and extremists to grab the limelight, to expound their views, and perhaps even to get elected. Putting this together with all the other local government problems – the Carmarthenshire dictatorship, the Caerphilly stitch-up, the incompetent authorities stripped of various responsibilities, local authorities increasingly run by senior officers – there are no arguments left for not reforming Welsh local government. And for not making a start tomorrow. Democracy is suffering under the present system.

Eight new authorities modelled on the pre-1996 counties would be ideal. (See above left, click to enlarge.) With no more than thirty or forty councillors each, representing ten to thirteen three-member wards in each authority; or possibly, smaller, single-member wards, for multi-member wards rarely deliver the promised ‘variety’, especially if the party popular locally puts up a full slate of candidates mercifully free of halitosis and capable of holding a short conversation without covering the listener in spittle.

P.S. In an earlier post I dealt with Swansea Labour’s ex-student councillors and their vacuous tweetings. Well, as I reported even more recently, John Boy Bayliss has now closed his Twitter account, @JohnCBayliss, on orders fromPearleen Sangha California above. His colleague, the California beach girl, Pearleen Sangha @PearleenSangha was, you may recall, home in March for a wedding. Well, here we are three months on, and whaddya know – she’s back in California! No doubt she’s there on important Labour Party business! Lucky, lucky Swansea!

UPDATE 12.06.2013: For using a picture of the Official National Front candidate for Llansamlet in this post – since removed! – I was threatened with legal action by the South Wales National Front Organiser, Sion Owens. (See Sion OwensComments to this post.) Mr Owens, of neighbouring Bonymaen, was a candidate himself not so long ago, in the council elections of 2012.

Although he stood for the Official National Front last year (is there a Provisional National Front?) back in 2011 Mr Owens was a leading light in the BNP, and a candidate for the National Assembly. But he was cynically denied victory by a “politically motivated” arrest for burning a copy of the Koran. Or at least, that’s how the BNP reported it. This is how ITV’s Wales Tonight covered it. You’ll note that the WT report mentions that Owens has also been in the ‘Welsh’ Defence League. So it looks like he’s moved between different organisations . . . but only if you believe that the BNP, NF (Official or otherwise), and the W/EDL are separate organisations.

Sion Owens 2In case anyone thinks I’m taking this too seriously, just take a look at some of those we’re discussing – booze, bellies and Burberry. Who is going to vote for people like these, even in a suit and a (pre-knotted) tie? But be thankful for that. Because in many continental countries fascism has in recent decades produced charismatic leaders, it has gained sympathy from official quarters, including Christian churches. On this island all we have is an embittered section of the white underclass reacting blindly – but always reacting! – to forces it does not understand and, because it does not understand, it has no hope of directing or controlling.

And finally, remember, these are the people so proud to be “WELSH” that when they go watch the Swans they wave a flag that doesn’t even acknowledge the existence of Wales!

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