The ‘Welsh’ Labour Party and its Evil Empire

As regular readers will be aware, certain people have been saying all sorts of nasty things about me, even trying to get my collar felt. These attacks almost certainly result from my criticisms of the Labour Party, its scrounging cronies in the Third Sector, and the influence of London-loyal civil servants wielding far too much power in a country we are asked to believe James Pritchardis now running its own affairs in so many spheres.

Unintentionally perhaps, these attacks on me exposed the linkages between the Labour Party, the police, and certain elements of the Labour-supporting media, specifically, Martin Shipton at Media Wales and his venomous little sidekick, Phil Parry at the Wales Eye blog. I am not the only one who has found himself on the receiving end of such machinations. Indeed, the other victim, who has recently been in contact, has suffered more than me, and although now hors de combat still suffers petty harassment and vindictive behaviour, but to cut a long story short . . .

A name mentioned to me, that might suggest – until very recently, anyway – a link between the police and Media Wales, is James Pritchard, see his Linkedin profile here, or here in pdf. You will see that Pritchard, educated at Rydal School, Bae Colwyn, and Swansea University was, between 2001 and 2004, the London Editor of Media Wales, and from January 2013 to October 2014 Assistant Director, Corporate Communications at South Wales Police. After leaving Media Wales Pritchard worked for Westminster City Council for a couple of years, where he gained a brief notoriety for an incident reported here in the Daily Telegraph. And here’s a nice picture of Jimmy (fourth from left, front row), back in Swansea with his London cricket team; though why does his captain refer to him as the “Ageing lothario”!

When he’s not sating his overactive libido Pritchard likes to gamble, in fact, looking at his Twitter account I see that he follows dozens of bookies, tipsters and others associated with the Turf, with many following him! Clearly, Jimmy Boy loves the ladies and the gee-gees, and so can’t help coming across as a bit of a chancer, certainly a swordsman, talking of which, and staying with the police . . .

*

The elections for Police and Crime Commissioners in November 2012 didn’t exactly have people fighting to get into the polling stations. In the South Wales Police area the turnout was a risible 14.7% and it saw Alun Michael, former Labour MP (and, very briefly, First Secretary), get 47% of the first round vote and 54.4% in the second round run-off against his Independent rival Michael Baker. So Alun Michael became the Labour PCC for South Wales with the votes of some 8% of the electorate. A ringing endorsement for him and the Labour Howe tweetParty to take control of the Police and Crime Commissioner office.

Control helped when, in February 2013, Sophie Howe, former Labour councillor and Special Adviser to both Rhodri Morgan and Carwyn Jones was – “after a public advert and open selection process” (i. e. ‘open’ to Labour Party members) – appointed Michael’s deputy. Her Linkedin profile (here in pdf) suggests that like so many others associated with ‘Welsh’ Labour she’s a) a lawyer, and b) has never had a ‘real’ job; by which I mean that all her positions have been gained through her membership of the Labour Party. Though it seems that despite having been close to so many top Labour men she is currently on the cardboard chicken circuit and dodging the gropers while seeking a seat. So with three young children to care for and her other work for the party, it’s reasonable to assume that Deputy PCC is just another political sinecure rather than her first real job.

Despite this being another dreary saga of Labour Party corruption and nepotism, with undesirable linkages and malicious leaking thrown in, this being Labour, the laughs are never far away. For example, Alun Michael appears to have two Twitter accounts, oneSophie Howe other merged as Alun Michael, the other as the PCC, which might seem reasonable enough. Though many PCC tweets go out on his ‘personal’ account! Curiously, he has more followers as himself than as PCC, so is he that interesting?

Naturally, Alun Michael follows Sophie Howe, and as a loyal underling desperately seeking a seat, she reciprocates. But Alun Michael also follows another Sophie Howe, many of whose own followers’ tweets are ‘secured’, suggesting . . . well, I’d rather not think about it. Is this Sophie Howe the deputy PCC’s alter ego or someone else entirely? And if she is a different young woman, why is Alun Michael, the Police and Crime Commission for the South Wales Police, following her?

This idea of the alter ego on Twitter amuses me. Take this from the ‘real’ Sophie Howe, retweeting a tweet of Leighton Andrews (the grotesque on the right in the picture above). The tweet attacks a Plaid Cymru AM who, along with others, had raised the issue of the unhealthy links between the Third Sector and the Labour Party, and how Labour’s private army, dependent on patronage, harasses AMs on behalf of the party. (Andrews chose to deliberately misinterpret this criticism of the Labour – Third Sector nexus as ‘sexism’!) Despite this tweet from Andrews being so obviously party political, it’s apparently OK for the ‘impartial’ Deputy PCC to join in because it’s done on her personal Twitter account!

But then, given the Labour-leaning media that Wales suffers, who’s going to make an issue of such hypocrisy and double standards when it comes from a woman who may officially be the Deputy PCC but, no matter what her title, is always working for the Labour Party, and can brazenly display that bias.

UPDATE 20.03.2015: I have now been informed that Sophie Howe is the daughter of another Labour apparatchik, Peter Howe. He was at one time the office manager for Julie Morgan and, allegedly, something of a bully. Julie Morgan was of course Labour MP for Cardiff North until 2010 and is the wife of Rhodri. Howe was an unsuccessful Labour candidate in 2008 for the Whitchurch and Tongwynlais ward, where electors found him considerably less attractive than his daughter, which might account for him subsequently being passed over by Labour selection panels, something that might have embittered him.

*

The fellow-victim to whom I’ve referred has provided me with an insight from the other side, as it were, having had experience inside the Cardiff bubble. The story he tells substantiates much of what I knew, or had worked out, with other behaviour that I – having led a sheltered and blameless life – never suspected.Howe retweet More of which anon . . .

Let’s take Our Glorious Leader. I’ve always argued that he is a weak and vacillating individual who pipes up only when squeezed like some child’s toy, and then usually with something idiotic like his pre-referendum threat to veto any currency union between the FUK and an independent Scotland following a Yes vote in the independence referendum. As if he could! My contact confirms what I have long suspected, Carwyn Jones is a plaything of his special advisers and civil servants, pulled this way and that, but he always ends up serving the interests of London and the Labour Party.

This is allowed to happen – by the ultimate controllers up in London – because in Wales Labour is the ‘establishment’ party, and viewed as the bulwark against any Scottish-style ‘problems’ (not that Plaid Cymru poses much of a threat). It could be that someone up in London follows the old US State Department dictum and looks at ‘Welsh’ Labour thinking, ‘They may be sons of bitches, but they’re our sons of bitches!’. How else do we explain Labour being allowed to build up a vast network of cronies and hangers-on to support it and keep it in power, with virtually all those making up this network – even the media – dependent to a greater or lesser degree on the public purse? A network whose members contribute nothing to the wealth of Wales other than their spending power, which of course is derived from the public purse in the first place! And you still wonder why Wales is so poor!

This network guarantees Labour – and, consequently, Unionist – control over many aspects of Welsh life. If that makes no sense to you, or you think I’m exaggerating, then just remember that in Scotland at the moment, though obviously to a much lesser degree in Wales, ideological politics is dead, or at least in suspended animation, for what matters is the constitutional debate and holding the Union together. This is why we hear commentators speculate on a previously unthinkable Conservative – Labour coalition. And why people in MI5 and GCHQ who think Hitler was a dangerous liberal will be doing their best – with the help of their tame media – to make Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy look like a composite of William Wallace, Jimmy Reid and Superman as we near polling day on May 7.

*

While much of what I have learnt lately accords with what I previously knew or suspected, my new source was able to tell me of behaviour of which I was previously unaware; which is hardly surprising, given its nature. I’m talking now about sex. More specifically, a very easy-going attitude that you wouldn’t need to be a maiden aunt to regard as rather shocking. For example, there’s the ex-minister universally known as ‘Shagger ______’. Then there’s the very senior civil servant who likes to film himself having sex, and uses his official credit card to pay for rooms in London where his epic performances can be saved for posterity on video and still footage. In addition, there’s wife-swapping and group sex available down the Bay with very little of this involving, ahem, professionals. For we are talking here of talented and enthusiastic amateurs.

Yet despite Cardiff being a relatively small city, and with the Bay bubble throbbing with scandal, little of this will be reported in the ‘Welsh’ media. The only cases tKeith Davies 2o surface are instances of laddish drunkenness, and incidents where there are witnesses. One gem in this category was provided by the ever-thirsty Keith Davies, AM for Llanelli, when he took some slapper back to his five star hotel. (He has to stay in Cardiff because Llanelli is 700 miles away . . . and his wife lives there.) Here’s a photo of Keith Davies taken at last year’s National Eisteddfod in Llanelli. He’s the one on the floor suffering, according to Labour, from a virus. I know the feeling, I had a ‘virus’ of Argentine red Saturday night, and very nice it was too, Shiraz.

Then, a few weeks ago, while looking into something totally different, I ran across this example of hanky-panky among the comrades. It’s almost as if fidelity and sobriety are rejected as bourgeois values that should not apply to the right-on, morally superior, posture-adopting, self-congratulatory (but still angst-ridden), freedom-loving, eco-friendly paragons of ‘Welsh’ Labour.

And while writing this piece I learnt of this story of a Labour councillor from Cardiff who’s moved 100 miles to Pembrokeshire, but intends to stay on as a councillor and collect her Cardiff council allowances. Though I’m assured by another Cardiff councillor that she is hard-working and dedicated to serving her ward. It is further suggested that she is on the wrong side in the civil war currently raging inside the Cardiff Labour Party. (Who shouted, ‘Arm both sides!‘?) Giving us another example of how Labour operates – make waves, or challenge those in power, and you will, at the very least, be briefed against. But your problems could be even worse if you leave Labour and have the potential to seriously damage the party with your revelations.

Which is what has been happening recently to my fellow-victim, and why he describes the Labour Party in Wales as being like a cult. For just as with a cult, it was after he’d left the party, and his job in the Bay, that his problems really began. Police came to the house he shares with his teenage son over a minute book belonging to a charity he himself had founded and had handed over to someone else eight months previously. Now the thing to understand here is that there was no police investigation into the charity so the whereabouts of that minute book had nothing to do with the police. This heavy-handed visit is inexplicable . . . unless South Wales Police was harrasing him at the behest of ‘Welsh’ Labour. A worrying thought.

But a valid one, because it soon became clear to my contact that he was being watched, and that someone, somewhere, was carefully sifting through his every action and utterance, present and past, in a search for anything that could be used to discredit him. He has been further pursued by the police over trivial and domestic matters. He has suffered electronic and other sabotage, such as being unable to use his credit cards, having unsummoned taxis arrive, and being accused of insane things by persons who appear to be manipulated by Labour’s Third Sector cronies.

In my case, I have recently been called an ‘extremist’, attacked for being a member (forty-odd years ago) of the Free Wales Army, and accused of launching a ‘race hate’ social housing petition (see it in my sidebar) that a) was perfectly reasonable and b) had nothing to do with me. Yet neither Phil Parry nor Martin Shipton would have taken any interest in me, and would certainly not be trying to get me arrested, if I wasn’t a regular critic of their Labour Party and its empire of evil. The question I ask is, are they doing this off their own bat, or are they acting on instructions from within ‘Welsh’ Labour? Either way, I promise to keep them busy.

*

The Labour Party in Wales is now comparable to the ruling party in a crumbling totalitarian state. Due to the absence of any real opposition it is out of control, a law unto itself. There is no independent media to hold it to account beyond a few websites and lone bloggers. Enough power has been devolved from the centre to allow this situation to develop, but we are consistently denied a judicial system that might hold it to account. (Is this coincidence?) And before our eyes we see this party that always places its own survival above the best interests of the people become ever more corrupt and desperate as its power ebbs. This party that once acted as a magnet for idealists now draws careerists, shysters, single-issue obsessives, and probably contains more spin doctors than socialists. Without its regular intake of activists – mainly English – from the universities, the Third Sector, the trade unions and elsewhere, the Labour Party in Wales would find it very difficult to continue functioning at grass roots and local authority level. (This is one reason Labour wants to reduce the number of councils.) But perhaps worst of all, Labour doesn’t seem to understand that it’s doing anything wrong. Or if Labour does understand, then maybe it thinks itself untouchable.

Labour is coming to the end of a long road, but unlike in Scotland there is no obvious successor, so we may be entering a period in Welsh Assembly politics that sees no party enjoy an overall majority. In which case, Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats should start thinking of persuasive excuses if they’re considering going into coalition in 2016 with this corrupt and decadent party that is, in all that really matters, no different to the Conservatives. The reputation of Wales, the prosperity of her people, the integrity of her public life, and the vitality of her democracy, all demand that the Labour Party be denied power, and then the evil empire Labour has created to keep it in power must be dismantled.

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dafis

We read with interest the disclosures that the late Leo Abscess, pillar of Welsh Labour mythology, is now being “investigated” for assorted sins/unnatural behaviour/serious crimes. What took them so long ? You only needed to look at him once and you knew the Bastard was obviously up to no good, specialising in one or more of the deviant behaviours so popular among the Anglo Brit ruling elites.

Are we obliged now to listen to a long drawn out exposure of his nonsense while those pervs who are still alive are given a bit more time to cover their tracks ? Much better to go after them first, cos old George & Leo ain’t going anywhere !! However, stripping them of the last vestiges of respectability & prestige will be quite therapeutic in due course.

dafis

Nice to see Leanne piping up about this dimwit architect’s drug induced ideas ( well he’s got to be on something, hasn’t he ? or was he put up to it by his political backers ? ).Shame she was so polite but there again it’s getting near to an election so a more considered, analytical response is the “right thing” rather than just telling the guy to F*** Off !

http://dailywales.net/2015/03/20/leanne-wood-slams-clear-the-valleys-call-made-in-bbc-wales-show/

My view on the matter is spelt out in the comments under the story.

treforus

When I read that story I was reminded of something which I have now tracked down to Professor K O Morgan’s book “Wales 1880-1980”. There was a proposal “apparently in all seriousness, that Merthyr Tydfil be written off as a town and its population transferred en bloc and rehoused on the coast…It was unfair to ask the British taxpayer to subsidise so unproductive a wasteland. It was inhuman to the people of Merthyr to keep them in such an insanitary and forbidding terrain”.

Some things never ever seem to change. No doubt the idea will be resurrected again in a few decades.

dafis

Heads of Valleys communities are seriously at risk of becoming prime development zones for 3rd sector scammers looking for dumping grounds for dysfunctional units relocated from English conurbations. Plus we will have the “Burnley/Nelson/Colne effect” where disproportionate numbers of migrants from E Europe and Commonwealth Asia are housed in relatively low cost units. No surprise then that local Industrial Estates become dominated by transient, minimum wage type employments with isolated pockets of better pay to keep the whole racket respectable.

Marconatrix

Isn’t that bound to be the case, unless or until the people of those places organise their own structures and enterprises, and where necessary raise their own funds, appealing directly to Jo Public and so cutting out both government and the ‘third sector’ middlemen you so hate? This is not impossible, all the legal structures etc. exist. Of course it require people to trust one another, which is probably only possible when some semblance of a community remains.

dafis

Saw this comment at the close of an article on some news website and it delivers a succinct description of the condition of our political class, especially those in elected positions – ……. the trivial-minded gasbags and laddish swindlers who govern us, who run down our institutions, fondle small boys, lie about what they know, think destiny is five thousand smackers a day and a motor yacht, and don’t know when it’s time to quit……… Didn’t that hit the bull’s eye nicely within hours of watching the morons at Westminster enjoy their thrash about the Budget while not really giving a damn about anything other than the vote count in May ?

Carnabwth

O/T Have you come across this Community Housing Cymru Jac ? It’s worth having a look at their twitter account: @CHCymru

Not sure exactly why they’re off to a London rally today as housing is meant to be devolved.

green dragon

“there’s wife-swapping and group sex available down the Bay with very little of this involving, ahem, professionals. For we are talking here of talented and enthusiastic amateurs” writes Jac.

A glance thru this motley bunch suggests that speculation as to which ones among them might be swapping what and with whom should be be undertaken only by those with the strongest possible consitution. http://www.senedd.assembly.wales/mgMemberIndex.aspx

While it would also appear that the British state’s favourite spook should be breathing a big sigh of reliefi that the previously unheard of Assembly Commission has spared him from the terrifying possibility of stumbling upon any shenanigans in the Siambr – even if some AMs were wetting themselves at the prospect of the profesional killer’s visit. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-31868336

We couldnt also help but notice from your picture that the third sector lobbyists most compliant Welsh minister bears more than a passing resemblance to the hapless benny hill character fred scuttle. (let’s hope for his sake he has a bit more luck with the ladies than poor fred ever did) Good Evening viewers indeed!

Rhodri

Thanks again Jac, always well written and revealing. Dal ati!

dafis

Further to my earlier rant I find out now that the gravy train is running flat out here in Sth Wales with politicians standing down from Westminster cos there’s an even better one nearer home! or chance to be bigger fish in small pond. Your comments prompted me to take a look at the South Wales Police Commissioner’s website, and now I’ve got a very sour gut, after experiencing a nasty “I don’t belive it” moment !!

The Commissar, Mr Michael, has 6 senior Execs plus assorted entourage – look at this lot

http://www.southwalescommissioner.org.uk/en/Your-Commissioner/Commissioners-Team/Support-Team.aspx

with Ms Howe sitting pretty on top of that pile !

Who was the crackpot who designed this bureaucratic dream of paper shuffling buffoons on top dog salaries and benefits ? The South Wales Police Force has its management structure to direct and control its assorted policing mandates, so why on earth create another parallel entity ?

Fits in neatly with your 3rd sector/Labour model of corruption. Compare it with Tory led Dyfed Powys where the guy at least tries to run a tight ship, so not (yet ) roped into the wasteful, jobs for the boys and girls circle.

Marconatrix

Very interesting, thank you.

Ieu

Blair gave £1,000 each to the 106 constituencies on the Labour Target List. At least three candidates have tried to refuse this blood money, but it seems they can’t. According to Labour List 8 of those seats are in Wales, but I have seen no mention of them or any reaction.
Labour List. Labour’s 106 battleground target seats for 2015
Today the Labour Party unveiled the target seat list for the 2015 election campaign, which is “entirely offensive” – containing no Labour held seats.
The list is published below in order of uniform national swing required to take the seat

4 Cardiff North
45 Arfon
62 Carmarthen West & South Pembrokeshire
63 Vale of Glamorgan
66 Carmarthen East & Dinefwr
82 Aberconwy
84 Preseli Pembrokeshire
97 Cardiff Central

Welsh not British (@welshnotbritish)

http://www.welshnotbritish.com/2015/03/scumbag-labour-tony-blairs-blood-money.html

I messaged all eight of them asking if they had handed it back, didn’t get a single reply.

Also they are not meant to be held by Labour, they are non Labour seats that Blair is using his blood money to fund.

Linda Ware

Keep going Jac – many of us in Wales are not blind but fight against what we see as an impassable wall. Welsh Labour is as corrupt, if not more so, than you say. My mother left the Labour Party because of its corruption about 40 years ago. She has been dead for 20 years and in all that time it has got worse and worse. They have lost all thought of democracy in their pursuit of power, aided and abetted by Westminster, as they keep the natives in check. Well while they throw me whisky and beads I crave for honesty, transparency and democracy. Have no doubt no one in this whole family could vote Labour if you held their hand to make that cross.

dafis

In your last para you say ……”Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats should start thinking of persuasive excuses if they’re considering going into coalition in 2016 with this corrupt and decadent party that is, in all that really matters, no different to the Conservatives”………

You appear to overlook the other scary fact – that Plaid and Libs also carry a quota of card carrying members of the Cardiff Bay freeloading and schmoozing cabal, for whom “snouts in the trough” is an inadequate description of the extent to which they have adapted into the “Bay Lifestyle”. Quite frankly the entire political class is riddled with shits of varying degrees sharing a common contempt for the communities that put them into office.

Earlier today I read of that arch creep Shapps and his antics while currently engaged in politics at Westminster and much of what goes on in Wales is just a smaller scale variation on the same shabby theme. Westminster offers more scope for seriously big bucks, major league fiddling, but Cardiff Bay allows little turds to develope a platform of corrupt behaviour that prepares them just in case they step up to the bigger league.

Port Tennant

Talking of Coalitions – nothing is impossible after the next election. From year 2004 to year 2012 a Coalition of Lib Dems and Independents ran Swansea City & County Council. For much of that time the Tories and Labour and Plaid Cymru were in an unofficial but firm PLC coalition. They worked together and voted together in every attempt to slow down progress in Swansea. Their then Leaders were David Phillips, Labour (now deposed into total oblivion), and Rene Kinzett, Conservative (now in London exile) and Darren Price, Plaid Cymru (now in Carmarthen – and he ruined Plaid Cymru in Swansea into utter non existence). These three were always all huddled together. It was known as the Swansea PLC Coalition. Sorry to sidetrack Jac, but your posting above is one your best yet and it does mention Coalition possibilities. Will we see a UK PLC forming to thwart the Scots and UKIP? Welsh Labour activists are already on loan to Scottish Labour as boasted and evidenced by the cute Californian Labour sweety Pearleen Sangha in recent weeks in her public Tweets from Cardiff.

Daley Gleephart

Utter bollocks. Rene Kinzett was a Lib Dem who switched to the Tories and the Tory Party were part of the Lib Dem and so-called Independents @ Swansea coalition. Kinzett took the Tories out of the coalition because of the amount of waste and mismanagement by Holley’s Wallies. Stating that the Parties in opposition up to May 2010 were in cahoots is utter nonsense. David Phillips is still a Councillor and very much a part of Welsh politics. As for Plaid Cymru, see the Art of Seppuku.
Are you permanently in an alternative universe of make believe or is it just in the run up to elections?

treforus

I live in that alternative universe called Swansea . We had decades of Soviet style one party rule by Labour and all we saw was continual mismanaged decline. It was assumed that this state of affairs was eternal. It took epic uselessness on Labour’s part to lose it but they managed it. When the other parties got in ,strange things like cranes started to appear on the skyline and projects started to be undertaken. Council decisions were made in the open and not in closed door party meetings. Now that they’re back we have a set of student wannabees from away as voting fodder because the local party is hollow and disengaged. They are not of Swansea, from Swansea or have any connection it it other than as a place where their careers can be advanced. As far as policies are concerned they are individually capable of nothing and collectively are deciding nothing can be done. Swansea will never prosper whilst Labour control it.

Daley Gleephart

Total BS. Holley’s crew did behind closed doors meetings,
went for vanity projects like the bendy bus,
wasted £thousands on a failed attempt to get opposition party councillors done for contempt,
made one of their kind cabinet member for finance even though he couldn’t read a balance sheet, did nothing about bringing new business,
claim about success when all they did was open charity shops,
fuck up the catering installation contract at the Liberty Stadium which then meant that the Council had to ‘lend’ StadCo money followed by writing off the loan as bad debt and
make a complete arse of it by sending a badly worded begging letter to Vince Cable.

Oh they did ask people for views about things like the Slip Bridge but then they completely ignored public opinion and did what they wanted to do in the first place

Daley Gleephart

Damn. I forgot to include Cap Gemini. Mustn’t leave out Cap Gemini. Leaving decisions about a massive overhaul of the Council’s IT system to people who can barely manage a word processor was bound to be a disaster.

treforus

I seem to have hit a nerve. I had no idea that you were such a sensitive soul. No need to worry .There will be no disasters such as a “fucked up ..catering installation at the Liberty Stadium ” under Labour’s watch. Nothing of that nature will be built at all. We will just resume our slow decline further and further away from prosperity.

Daley Gleephart

Are you saying that the Liberty Stadium was a Lib Dem project? If you are then, you’re a neighbour at ‘Port Tennant’s’ alternative Swansea*. As for future developments, business is perking up and, with Sir Terence Matthews involved, looking far, far better than the gloom and general feeling of hopelessness under Holley’s Wallies.

* Treforus/Morriston isn’t next door the Port Tennant is the real world but it’s close.

Daley Gleephart

A proposal that may do immense good if enough motivated people get involved and win seats. Don’t hold your breath if your thinking that the Independents @ Swansea have any life in them to undertake such a task.