Housing for Wales or housing for the Welsh?

PLEASE APPRECIATE THAT I GET SENT MORE INFORMATION AND LEADS THAN I CAN USE. I TRY TO RESPOND TO EVERYONE WHO CONTACTS ME BUT I CANNOT POSSIBLY USE EVERY BIT OF INFORMATION I’M SENT. DIOLCH YN FAWR

We are confronted by a paradox. The stock of housing in Wales is growing, yet less and less of it is accessible to Welsh people.

INTRODUCTION

What I’m describing is a bizarre housing system that works against the native population while promoting the interests of strangers. A system too complex and too consistent in its outcomes to be attributed to incompetence or happenstance.

Once the bigger problem is deconstructed and its component parts exposed, then remedies present themselves. All that’s needed then is the political will to implement those remedies.

In this article I shall explain a problem and then make one or more suggestions for tackling it. I’m sure many of you reading this will have your own ideas – so let’s hear them.

PRICES, TOO HIGH AND TOO LOW

When dealing with house prices we find problems at both ends of the scale. On the one hand, houses are being built in many areas that most locals can’t afford – but that’s OK because they’re not intended for us.

Take Newport, Pembrokeshire, a ‘holiday hotspot’. Locals are being squeezed out of the local housing market and this shortfall is then used to justify building new housing . . . that is also beyond the reach of locals!

Such as this modest – and rather ugly – three-bedroom home for £425,000.

While at the other end of the scale, in declining seaside resorts and post-industrial areas, property prices are so low that they attract those who buy in bulk and ship in problems.

Which takes us to Llanelli, and the Ty Isha neighbourhood, by the railway station. Third sector bodies, private landlords and others have moved in, bought up terraced houses and flats, and dumped petty criminals and drug addicts from England.

I’m not sure how to read this without more information, but it’s pretty, and some people enjoy this kind of thing. Blame WalesOnline for ‘Tyshia’. Click to enlarge

Those who profit from trading in undesirables – with the full support and financial backing  of the ‘Welsh Government’ – were initially attracted to Ty Isha by low house prices, and they have succeeded in driving property values down even more!

Some of those interviewed in the report are now trapped in houses they have lived in all their married lives but can only sell at a price below what a house such as theirs would fetch in a normal neighbourhood.

Yet in a system that prioritised Welsh needs the small terraced houses of Ty Isha would make ideal starter homes for young people.

SUGGESTIONS: In the case of Newport, Pembs and countless other such developments, the answer is that we simply do not allow the building of new properties that locals either do not wish to buy or cannot afford to buy.

I’ll explain later how we could both achieve this and forecast local need.

To argue that allowing such properties takes the pressure of the existing stock, thereby making many such properties available for local buyers, is absolute bollocks. The numbers wanting to relocate to Wales is limitless, and the demand for holiday homes insatiable.

As for Ty Isha, funding should be withdrawn from any third sector body importing problems from outside of Wales to any part of Wales. The same should apply to housing associations.

I shall also offer suggestions for achieving these objectives.

Those whose properties have been devalued, and their lives affected by the riff-raff dumped around them, should be compensated by the ‘Welsh Government’.

THE NUMBERS GAME

Let’s now focus on the problem of houses being built in numbers greatly in excess of what Wales needs. And, again, at prices most of us can’t afford. This is particularly noticeable in the eastern parts of the country as English commuters look west for cheaper housing and nicer scenery.

Black-spots are along the A55 in the north and the M4 in the south and, since the removal of tolls on the Severn Bridge, increasingly evident in southern Gwent, including the city of Newport. An example would be the 900 dwellings of the ‘urban village’ planned for Mamhilad, north of Pontypool, towards Abergavenny, but close enough to the M4 for Bristol commuters.

Building in Wales to meet a demand from England has also become noticeable around Wrexham in recent years. It begins with the ‘Welsh Government’ producing absurd population projections to justify building an excessive number of new houses.

Then, when the projections are shown to be exaggerated, the Planning Inspectorate insists on sticking with the original number of new houses. This article explains it well.

I looked into this problem back as March 2014 in a piece I wrote about Denbighshire. The council said, “Look, the latest projections suggest a smaller population increase, so we don’t need to build so many new houses”.

The Planning Inspectorate’s response was, “Yes, you’re right about the population projections . . . but we insist on sticking with the original number of new dwellings”.

Planning Inspectorate insisting that discredited population projections still be used to determine housing provision. Click to enlarge

A response like that sort of gives the game away, doesn’t it?

Back in 2011 the ‘Welsh Government’ was insisting that the population of Wrexham would increase by 20% in the near future, then the projected increase reduced to 10%, and the latest calculation is that the borough’s population will actually fall by 1.5% by 2028! Yet the number of houses ‘needed’ must remain the same as when an increase of 20% was forecast.

Major housing developments planned around Wrecsam. None to the south or the west. Quelle surprise! Click to enlarge

As the map above makes clear, the planned developments are all to the north or the east of the town, in other words, convenient for Cheshire. Or rather, convenient for those who aren’t wanted in Cheshire, in order to preserve property values in Wilmslow, Alderley Edge and the other communities of the ‘Golden Triangle’.

Add to all the new housing the proposed road improvements and the fate allotted to Wrecsam becomes clear. The A483 is of course the road to Chester.

Here’s a late addition about 200 more houses at Rhosrobin, right next to the A483.

What has clearly been happening is that the ‘Welsh Government’ (or others acting in its name) has been producing what it knew to be inflated, contrived, population projections. Done to justify building excessive numbers of new dwellings.

When the population projections were exposed as bogus, and revised downwards, the Planning Inspectorate stuck with the discredited figures in order to push on with building what were now clearly excessive numbers of new houses.

And by so doing the Planning Inspectorate exposed a dishonest system.

SUGGESTIONS: To begin with, calculations to determine how many new homes an area needs must be based on what the people of the area need, not on how many properties developers think they can sell. In fact, I can’t think of any good reason why developers need to be involved in assessing demand.

The Wrecsam area being used to take pressure off Cheshire is part of the wider integration strategy of the Mersey Dee Alliance. A giveaway is estate agents referring to the area as ‘West Cheshire’.

The Planning Inspectorate does not serve Welsh interests, it never has. It must be replaced with a new Welsh body free from political interference and divorced from commercial interests.

Why can’t we have a register of those who think they’ll be looking to buy a new home within an area; something similar to the waiting list for social housing. Once people grasp that contributing to such a database will make it more likely they’ll find the home they need then the more likely they’ll be to participate.

HOLIDAY HOMES

A perennial issue in Wales and the Covid lockdown has highlighted the problem. First, it was people sneaking to their holiday homes for lockdown rather than staying at their usual residence, while more recently it’s been the increased demand for holiday homes.

The latest figures for Gwynedd suggest that 40% of the properties being sold in the county are now bought for use as holiday homes. Take the towns out of the calculation and it’s reasonable to assume that a majority of the properties in villages and in the countryside are being sold as holiday homes.

Gwynedd council is run by Plaid Cymru but it has only imposed a 50% surcharge on holiday homes. Yet another example of Plaid Cymru wringing its hands, “Oooh, isn’t it awful, something should be done”, yet when a roar of defiance was needed Plaid Cymru could only whimper.

This is Plaid Cymru terrified of being called ‘anti-English’. That mauling Glenys Kinnock handed out to Ieuan Wyn Jones on Question Time in February 2001 has left a deep and painful scar.

Swansea waterfront. Click to enlarge

Compare Gwynedd to Swansea, where the Labour-controlled council has imposed a 100% surcharge, (which also applies to properties left empty for a long period). And in case you think this is only a gesture because the city has few holiday homes, there are many hundreds in the waterfront area, and of course, on Gower.

All the arguments used in defence of holiday homes are self-serving bullshit. “Nobody else wanted the place” . . . “But we put so much money into the local economy!” . . . “An essential part of the tourism industry”, etc, etc.

SUGGESTIONS: One simple change in the law would go a long way to easing the misery of holiday homes.

Legislation stating that only 10% of properties in any electoral ward can be registered as holiday homes, with the figure reducing to 5% in 2030 would have a number of immediate effects.

First, in wards where more than 10% of properties are currently registered as holiday homes such legislation would immediately curtail future demand. Knowledge of the change in 2030 would remove the threat of further properties being bought as holiday homes.

Resulting in more properties, at reduced prices, becoming available for locals.

Severe penalties must be imposed for using a property as a holiday home when it is not registered for that use. And the loophole allowing holiday homes to escape council tax by registering as a business must be closed.

To further reduce the demand for holiday homes and increase their contribution to the local community council tax should be charged at a rate of 200%.

Some may think that a 5% figure is too low, others that it’s unduly generous. My belief is that no area of Wales should suffer more than 5% of its housing stock being used by strangers flaunting their greater wealth.

RETIRING TO WALES

An often overlooked factor in inflating house prices is retired and elderly people moving to Wales. The negatives increase when we remember that the older a person is the more likely they are to need medical care of some kind. This is a universal truth.

Which means that this influx will obviously impact on our NHS and other services.

In fact, it’s difficult to think of any benefit Wales derives from people in the older age brackets moving in. But that doesn’t stop some from trying.

Some three years ago I wrote to the ‘Welsh Government’ with a few questions on this subject. What I received by way of an answer contained a paragraph that has caused either mirth, or head shaking, whenever people read it. (For the full letter, click here.)

Click to enlarge

On a planet where all other countries view an ageing population as a ‘ticking time-bomb’ Wales alone sees the takeover by alien wrinklies as something positive. Or rather, the ‘Welsh Government’ wants us to believe it does.

This is the sort of nonsense that officialdom spouts when it’s cornered. I say that because while the letter I received makes highfalutin’ references to “liberty of movement” the truth is that the ‘Welsh Government’ has enacted legislation that encourages retired and elderly people to move to Wales.

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Don’t get me wrong, it’s fine that Welsh people going into care can hold on to £50,000, I might benefit from such a provision myself one day. But it also encourages into Wales people who have spent their working lives elsewhere. And the cost of looking after these elderly goes into the debit column of our national accounts and is used to prove that Wales is a financial basket-case.

I see a boy at the back with his hand up, “How big is the problem, Sir?”

Here’s a table I compiled using data from the 2011 Census. You’ll see that in some local authority areas only a minority of the population in the 65+ age bracket was born in Wales.

Click to enlarge

With the problem not confined to the north, just look at Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire. There’s a definite correlation between tourism and the numbers of retired and elderly people moving to an area.

Though Flintshire would appear to buck the trend in that it is not a tourism hotspot, but even so, half of the over 65s were born in England. While this can be partly explained by maternity services being located in Chester I can also suggest another explanation.

Let’s say you’re a likely lad living on the Wirral. Aunt Mabel is going to leave you her money, a nice round figure of £100,000. If she goes into a local care home you might only see £23,350, but take her to Mold or Connah’s Quay and you’re guaranteed at least £50,000. More if you can get the local authority to cough up.

And, anyway, is the old girl going to know where she is!

Finally, let’s not forget the political dimension to this phenomenon. It has been proven time after time that the older an English voter is the more likely that person is to be royalist, patriotically British, pro-Brexit, conservative and Conservative.

From a Welsh perspective, encouraging retired and elderly English people into Wales is both an economic and a political disaster. But it benefits England for the same reasons.

SUGGESTIONS: There’s no need to deny Welsh people the £50,000 limit, but insist on 20 years residency in Wales before anyone qualifies.

And let’s stop building retirement bungalows and flats to be advertised over the border. Many of those who move to such properties may be fit and active when they arrive, but Father Time will soon do his work.

Only a country run by idiots drives out its own young people and replaces them with another country’s elderly.

SOCIAL HOUSING

At one time it was so simple – local authorities built and rented council houses. You put your name down on the list and you waited your turn. Obviously there was favouritism shown in certain allocations, but by and large the system worked to the benefit of Welsh communities.

Then came the housing associations and the transfer of council housing stock.

There’s a general and touching misconception that Registered Social Landlords (RSLs), more commonly known as housing associations, have simply replaced councils, and that social housing is universally available for those who cannot afford to buy a home but would rather not rent from a private landlord.

Er, no.

That was the intention, and that may have been how it started under the new system, but things got much more complicated as years went by. Much more complicated.

There are a number of fundamental problems with the way RSLs now operate.

1/ To begin with, social housing in Wales is locked into an Englandandwales system. This was explained to me in December 2010 in a response I received from Nick Bennett, who was then CEO of Community Housing Cymru, the umbrella organisation for housing associations.

He wrote, “There are over 2 million people on waiting lists for social housing”. This figure cannot be for Wales alone, and yet it was provided by the head of the body supposedly responsible for social housing in Wales. And only in Wales.

Bennett emerged a couple of decades ago from under a lily pad in Cardiff Bay as a fully-formed Spad, before becoming a business partner of Labour’s Alun Davies. He then served as CEO at Community Housing Cymru from 2006 to 2014, and since leaving CHC he has guarded the posterior regions of our politicians and civil servants as the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales.

Corruption Bay in mortal form.

Who gets a vacant house may be decided by a third sector body, in contact with a sister body in England, which has ‘recommended’ Chardonnay and her six semi-feral children; the little darlings having been chased out of their last home by neighbours fed up with the thieving and the vandalism.

They get priority treatment, “Cos they is homeless, innit. Little kiddies, look”.

This rehousing of ‘priority cases’ can have catastrophic consequences. As we learnt when Grwp Gwalia of Swansea housed a network of Satan-worshipping paedophiles from London in Kidwelly.

It was never explained why this was done. And no politicians asked . . . because they didn’t want to know. ‘Priority cases’ are still being dumped in Wales, every day.

2/ A more recent problem with housing associations – and there are dozens of them, competing with each other – is that they are now privatised, but still in receipt of public funding.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, nearly all of them have subsidiaries, or private companies that are not subsidiaries but still members of the group. And then there are the partners.

This diversification has led to the mis-use of public funding, an almost complete lack of monitoring and accountability, and RSL group members building private housing for open market sale. Sold to retirees (officially ‘downsizers’), buy-to-rent landlords (officially ‘investors’), and even as holiday homes. While also selling shares in leasehold properties, with the agreements poorly explained and many duped into thinking they’re buying a freehold property.

This, remember, is the hated leasehold system that the ‘Welsh Government’ elsewhere opposes. Yet it is funding RSLs who then slip money under the table to subsidiaries, or partners, to con people into buying a share in a leasehold property.

To explain how confusing it can become, I suggest you read this piece I wrote recently on Cartrefi Conwy and its offshoots. (Scroll down to the section ‘Cartrefi Conwy, Associates, Chinese investors’.)

Brenig Construction, with Chinese investment, is in partnership with Creating Enterprise, which is a subsidiary of RSL Cartrefi Conwy. Wales and West is Labour’s favourite RSL and the only one that operates all over the country. It has a bad record for housing drug addicts and petty criminals from outside of Wales in towns like Lampeter and Fishguard. Click to enlarge

What a system! What a ‘government’! What a country!

SUGGESTIONS: The bottom line is that what Wales needs is social landlords renting decent housing to Welsh tenants. Nothing more.

We don’t need subsidiaries of RSLs using diverted public funding to build and sell buy-to-rents in Pembrokeshire. Nor do we want convoluted arrangements using Chinese money to build more retirement bungalows and flats on the north coast.

Housing associations are past their sell-by date. A root-and-branch reform of the social housing system is needed. Wales must leave behind the mess created by ‘diversification’ and adopt a system closer to the original council housing model.

One big question will be what happens to the housing stock currently held by RSLs. Seeing as almost all of it was either built by local authorities, or built since stock transfer with money from the ‘Welsh Government’, a strong case could be made to bring it back into public ownership.

This twilight zone of private bodies living off the public purse while also taking out commercial loans with banks and behaving like private developers must end.

In the meantime, to avoid the dumping of undesirables, no one should be allocated a social tenancy by a RSL unless that person has been resident in Wales for at least 10 years.

CONCLUSION

We have a housing sector in Wales that has for years been steadily divorcing itself from the needs of our people. The situation has worsened under devolution.

There is clearly a strategy to settle in Wales as many people as possible who are loyal to the UK or England, in order to ‘secure’ Wales. We can expect this assault on Welsh identity to intensify with Scotland looking more and more likely to choose independence in the next few years.

There is one final weapon in the armoury that can be employed to stem the tide of colonisation. That is the Land Transaction Tax (LTT). It replaced Stamp Duty and it’s already in operation.

Below is a table I’ve compiled showing the current LTT rates with higher rates I’m suggesting as a way to curb the invasion. ‘Existing main residence’ is self-explanatory. Holiday homes are covered by ‘Existing higher residential’.

My suggestions are at the bottom, in yellow. What I’m proposing is higher rates all round for those not already living in Wales. Exceptions could be made for key workers, investors and others deemed necessary for the national good.

Click to enlarge

I am also suggesting that LTT kicks in lower down the price scale, and there’s a good reason for this. In the Valleys, post-industrial towns, even parts of Swansea, properties sell at prices buyers from prosperous areas of England find irresistible. Many are being bought for the wrong reasons.

Just think back to Ty Isha, Llanelli.

What’s more, most properties bought by retirees will be below the £250,000 threshold, so why should they be free of LTT?

I suppose one response to everything I’ve written will be, “It all depends on the political will”, and clearly that political will is absent. For the following reasons.

  • Civil servants of the ‘Wales would be better without the Welsh’ mindset ‘advising’ – some shagging! – ‘Welsh Government’ ministers.
  • A zealously Unionist Labour Party containing too many politicians who can dismiss concern for Welsh identity as ‘ugly and narrow-minded nationalism’. And then of course they have their third sector and housing association cronies to think about.
  • A Conservative Party (plus a rag-bag of BritNats) who will never object to English people moving to Wales, or the votes they bring. “All British . . . free to move anywhere . . . God Save the Queen.”
  • A so-called ‘national party’, Plaid Cymru, scared witless of being called anti-English by the anti-Welsh. And anyway, national survival is nowhere near as important as trans rights, BLM, refugees, getting Trump out of the White House . . . 

You’ve read that 40% of the properties now sold in Gwynedd are to be used as holiday homes. I’ll bet that another 40% are bought by people moving from England into Gwynedd permanently. And it’s the same in other rural areas.

Thanks to the refusal of successive ‘governments’ in Corruption Bay to build a rural economy, the forced reliance on ‘shit anywhere’ tourism, the neglect of everywhere other than Cardiff . . . Wales, thanks to the ‘progressive’ parties’ refusal to confront the assimilation agenda, is approaching the point of no return.

To refuse to challenge the assimilation agenda is to accept it.

♦ end ♦

 




Phil Parry, a reply

Following Phil Parry’s latest attack on me I asked for the right to reply, but he hasn’t responded. I’d prefer to ignore the irritating little git but he is now making serious and misleading allegations that have to be answered.

Not only that, but his latest piece, on Tuesday, was – by my reckoning – the fifth he’s written about me in as many weeks. Normally this amount of attention might be flattering, but the fact that this odd little man is obsessed with me is mildly disconcerting.

His latest contribution to the oeuvre of Welsh political blogging is Armed to lying teeth. In case it gets taken down, I have saved it for you, and I suggest you open it in a fresh window for ready reference.

This latest offering purports to be satire, and comes with the byline ‘Edwin Phillips’. I have no idea who Edwin Phillips is, or if he even exists.

Anyway, let’s get down to the meat of it, for as ever, it’s the same morsels, re-cooked, dressed slightly differently, and served up again, and again, and . . .

The article is in the form of an advertisement for the post of press officer with our new party, and lists the qualities required of applicants for the post.

“Arms are to be welcomed, and you should be able to promote their use.”

This is presumably a reference to a 50-year-old photograph of Free Wales Army leader Cayo Evans that I have used on this blog. It might or it might not show Cayo holding a real gun. It could be a water pistol, who knows? Certainly not Parry.

But it’s enough for ‘Edwin Phillips’ to suggest that those involved with the new party will be using guns.

~

“You will be expected to describe anyone who disagrees with us as “a mad dog” and slash car tyres.”

“You must also prompt supporters to make threatening phone calls to those who attack us, like the one that was made to a critic with the message: “I will do your fucking head in”.

These must be references to alleged incidents involving Jacques Protic, an infamous critic of all things Welsh.

Yes, I’ve written about Protic a few times. Cymrophobia and the Many Identities of Jacques Protic (14.08.2013); Cymrophobia 2: The ‘Reverse Midas’ (21.08.2013); WalesEye & Jacques Protic – a Marriage Made in Hell! (11.09.2014); WalesEye, Jacques Protic and North Wales Police 21.10.2014).

Parry’s story is that following something I’d written Protic received threatening phone calls, his car tyres were slashed, he was given 24-hour police protection, and I was questioned by North Wales Police.

There is no evidence for anything happening to Protic, and I have never been questioned by the police for anything I’ve written on this blog or my previous (pre-2013) blog.

The only time I’ve dealt with the police was when I made a complaint earlier this year about these leaflets.

The inference from what appeared on Parry’s website is that I incite people to threaten others and either slash tyres myself or urge others to do so.

~

“You must be able to . . . publicise the views of other fellow-travellers, like the one who promoted a petition calling for social housing only for people from Wales.”

The “fellow-traveller” is Dennis Morris, of Pembrokeshire. Dennis’ petition actually called for an end to the practice of many social housing providers prioritising outsiders ahead of locals. It did not call for “social housing only for people from Wales” as is alleged on The Eye. Read the petition for yourself.

Revealingly, this nonsense was picked up by Martin Shipton at Llais y Sais who went on to tell readers that it was my petition, and that it had been referred to the police. Eventually I got an apology out of Trinity Mirror.

But as with the Protic case, I question if the police were really involved. Though if they were, was the person who made the complaint charged with wasting police time?

~

“You should be able to attack families from London who took houses from a Welsh housing association, and call them ‘perverts’ as we did on our blog.”

Yes, on my blog I did describe as “perverts” a group that had come down from London and been housed by Grwp Gwalia. This is them.

What would Parry call them? Though if he’s criticising me for calling the members of this gang perverts, then I can only conclude that he believes they were not perverts.

Here we see Phil Parry at his journalistic best, and it reminds us why so many people despise journalists. He begins with a kernel of truth – my use of the term ‘pervert’ – strips it of context and suggests that I’ve applied the term to completely innocent people!

~

“However you will not be expected to attack the Paralympics and call them a “Victorian freak show” as we did on our blog, or that you are awarded the ” Full of Shit award” by The Republic website like we were.”

I’m not quite sure why this is included, for it says ” . . . you will not be expected . . . “. So why does it feature in what is written as a job description? Obviously it’s having a go at me in some oblique way, so I’ll respond.

What I wrote was a criticism of the system that tries to determine degrees of disability and incapacity; how arbitrary and subjective such classifications must be, and how open to abuse the whole system is. Something that has been exposed very recently.

The reference to a “Victorian freak show” was my belief that some of those showing interest in paralympics are not a lot different to those attracted to the freak shows of earlier times. Not all, but some.

As for the ‘award’, well I’m sorry to disappoint, there weren’t thousands in contention, and it’s not an annual event, it was just one person’s way of saying that she disagreed with me.

Parry knew that, yet still had to create the impression of me sweeping through a field of thousands to be acclaimed International Bastard of the Year. (It’s a wonder I wasn’t accused of groping the hostesses at the awards ceremony!)

As I say, there have been five such attacks in as many weeks, and countless more over the years. Some people have suggested to me that this constitutes harassment. I’m not sure about that, but Parry is beginning to worry me in the way that the unhinged paying you too much attention always do.

He would be easier to ignore if he wasn’t able to get his lies repeated in the Western Mail; and if he wasn’t constantly trying to involve the police. Who else is he trying to use against me?

So let me make my position clear: this blog has never been used to incite violence, against persons or property. It has certainly not advocated the use of firearms. If Parry believes otherwise, then let him produce the evidence.

To my knowledge, nothing I have written on this blog has ever been investigated by the police. Certainly I have never been approached by the police. If Parry knows different, then let him give us the details.

And is he so desperate to put the knife into me that he attributes to me a petition that wasn’t mine and then, amazingly, exonerates those convicted of raping children! Which is what he’s effectively done by suggesting I was wrong to have called them perverts.

I believe Phil Parry has a family, perhaps he even has a few friends left, so I suggest they have a word with him; tell him he’s making a fool of himself.

To these I say: If you care about him, take him in hand before his lies go too far.

♦ end ♦

Llais y Sais

HORNY TEACHER ‘OF TREGARON’

Whilst relaxing over a coffee a while back, and reading Llais y Sais, mine eyes alighted upon the report you see below. Straightforward enough, a story we read all too regularly; horny young teacher gets involved with pupil.

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This report in Llais y Sais suggests that the accused, Christopher Wood, “lives in Tregaron” and started working at the school in Solihull, Birmingham, in September 2015. Yet on the website of its Daily Mirror sister-paper we read the prosecutor saying“Wood, previously from Dorridge, Solihull, but now from Tregaron in Ceredigion, Wales, had started working at the school in September 2015.”

The difference is obvious. The Daily Mirror report tells us that Wood has recently moved from Solihull to Tregaron, while Llais y Sais hopes we’ll believe that he’s native to Ceredigion.

However, when I went to the WalesOnline website, I was confronted with a story that was similar, but all references to the alleged offences having taken place in Solihull had been removed. We were left with a naughty teacher from Tregaron. There’s no point in giving a link because the original version has now been updated to more closely follow what appeared in the print version.

In a normal country, any journalist writing up – even copying and pasting – this story would have asked himself or herself, ‘Hang on, why is this guy now living on our patch?’ To ask would be both good journalism and natural human curiosity. But Wales is not a normal country.

THE PAEDOPHILES ‘OF KIDWELLY’

No case in recent years highlighted this lack of curiosity better than that of the Satanic paedophile gang relocated to Kidwelly and housed by Grwp Gwalia. To believe the ‘Welsh’ media these scumbags were all Welsh.

But the English dailies reported quite properly that they had come down from London. Here’s the Daily Mail report of the case from 11 March 2011.

This is the report from WalesOnline. The original WO report of 10 March 2011 made no mention of the gang having come down from London, this was added in the extensive update of 20 September 2014.

click to enlarge

It’s difficult to explain the September 2014 update. There was no appeal or any other development in the case. And anyway, the update was all background stuff – so why? Was it down to the bad publicity Llais y Sais was getting from me and others?

Whatever the answer, it appears that neither the ‘Welsh’ Government nor the Notional Assembly wanted to know how, why, and by what route, a gang of paedophiles could be moved down from London to cause misery in Carmarthenshire.

Presumably our AMs saw nothing wrong with such a system. Which might explain why it goes on all over Wales.

THE PAEDOPHILE ‘OF PEMBROKE DOCK’

More recently, a few days ago in fact, I read of another paedophile in Llais y Sais, this one in Pembroke Dock. Though he was on trial in Somerset, as the offences with which he was charged had taken place in Somerset.

To be fair, Llais y Sais did say that the convicted man was “originally from Bridgwater in Somerset”. Though given the facts it would have been difficult to pretend that this paedo was as Welsh as you and me, look you.

click to enlarge

Which takes me back to the question I asked earlier when dealing with the teacher now living in Tregaron and the paedophiles dumped in Kidwelly – why did no one dealing with this story, in Wales, ask themselves how Somerset paedophile Boyle had reached Pembroke Dock.

I think we can safely assume that Graham Boyle “of Laws Street, Pembroke Dock” was moved to Wales by some agency or other. Perhaps the same agency responsible for moving a paedophile to Monkton just across the Cleddau, a decision that resulted in a near-riot.

I’m talking now of the reorganised and privatised probation service. If you want to know how it all fits together, this might help. As might the graphic below.

click to enlarge

The Community Rehabilitation Company for Wales is owned by Working Links which is in turn owned by . . . well, your guess is as good as mine because we end up offshore. The picture is further confused by the relationship between these probation companies and third sector bodies such as Pembrokeshire Care and Cymdeithas Gofal of Ceredigion, which I wrote about recently. Then the police are involved, as are the local councils.

So not only is the system deliberately labyrinthine in order to deter investigators, the community rehabilitation companies – being private companies – are not subject to Freedom of Information legislation.

It’s a hell of a system, but ideal for dumping English paedophiles and other criminals in Wales.

THE ‘WELSH’ NEO-NAZI

Returning to the wonderful Llais y Sais, another remarkable tale emerged over the weekend.

You may have read about a number of squaddies arrested on suspicion of being neo-Nazis and belonging to National Action, a proscribed group. One of those arrested is a fitness instructor based at the Brecon barracks.

The accused appeared in court at the Old Bailey in London a few days ago. According to Llais y Sais on Friday Lance Corporal Mikko Vehvilainen, based at Brecon, is “a Welsh soldier”. The report was attributed to David Wilcock and Emily Pennick. I did a search and found that both work for the Press Association.

So I assumed that describing Vehvilainen as Welsh was a mistake made by London-based journalists. Even so, I was still angry and put out a tweet correcting them . . . and got an interesting response from David Wilcock.

So why would someone working for Llais y Sais, someone who knows that Vehvilainen is not Welsh, insert that misinformation? Why not just run the PA report unadorned? Was it a crass attempt to make the story more interesting for a Welsh readership, or was there some other motive?

The answer is that this was no clumsy attempt to give the report a Welsh angle, it was something more sinister.

THE INVISIBLE ENGLISH

There is a convention in ‘Welsh’ journalism, an unwritten rule, that wrongdoers must never be described as ‘English’. This rule applied even to Colin Batley, leader of the Kidwelly paedophile gang – despite him having an England flag flying from his drainpipe!

The Batley house in Kidwelly, courtesy of the Daily Mail. I’m fairly certain that this picture was not used by the ‘Welsh’ media

‘English’ and ‘England’ are verboten because they might give us a bad impression of our neighbours and thereby encourage an ‘us and them’ mindset. Far better to passively, by omission, suggest that these people are Welsh!

You’ve just had a lesson in elementary colonialist psychology.

But Llais y Sais seems to be going further. For not only does this rag withhold the truth about paedophiles and others being English, it actively promotes the idea that they’re Welsh. Most blatantly and recently with the case of the fascist squaddie, where someone in Cardiff inserted ‘Welsh’ into a story from the Press Association.

JENNY LEE CLARKE

Being the fair-minded old bastard that I am, I’m now going to offer Llais y Sais a chance to take a small step towards far-off redemption.

Regular readers will recall the disturbing case of Jenny Lee Clarke, who worked with Carolyn Harris in the Swansea East Labour Party office, and then for Harris after she became the MP in May 2015.

The comradely harmony prevailing in the Brynhyfryd office was shattered when Clarke accused Harris of assaulting her over her sexuality. This was witnessed by a Labour councillor. In retaliation, Harris accused Clarke of theft, by the curious route of giving herself a rise without the proper authority.

Carolyn Harris, Labour MP for Swansea East (centre) at the Gay Pride Cymru rally in August 2017. Reports from what are now smoke-free rooms suggest that she too has ‘crossed over’. If true, then it offers a number of fresh interpretations to her assault on a colleague for being a lesbian and for wearing “dyke shoes”.

Bizarrely, it was through the London ‘papers reporting of the (alleged) assault in March 2016 that Ms Clarke learnt she was under investigation, but she wasn’t arrested – and then bailed – by South Wales Police until two months later on June 24.

(As might be expected, the Labour-supporting Llais y Sais and WalesOnline exonerated Harris to go with the ‘thievin’ lezzer’ narrative.)

She was re-bailed on September 19, and again on November 7. It wasn’t until February 17 this year that the papers went to the Crown Prosecution Service for evaluation and a decision on whether to proceed with the case.

When Ms Clarke attended Swansea Central police station on May 17th she was told that she was being released with no charge . . . but was also threatened with, “You may in future be asked to attend voluntarily to be re-interviewed”.

We are now coming to the end of September and Ms Clarke’s ordeal drags on. South Wales Police is making this woman’s life a misery on behalf of a vindictive politician and on the ‘advice’ of the South Wales Police DPP, who is of course former Labour MP Alun Michael.

This should not be happening in a democracy. And if Llais y Sais still harbours ambitions to be regarded as a newspaper then it would be reporting on this disgusting case of persecution and the abuse of political and police power.

But Wales is not a democracy. As I said earlier, Wales is a colonial society, and to facilitate this arrangement the Labour Party is allowed free rein to indulge in petty vindictiveness and to build up a vast network of cronies paid for out of the public purse.

Llais y Sais is just another part of the colonial system. Making Wales a very corrupt country indeed.

But there is hope. Watch this space!

♦ end ♦