Boors & Crooks; Cowards, Spooks & Idiots

BOORS: ENGLAND 25 – 28 WALES

Well done, boys. That was a truly epic game last Saturday night.

Though I must admit that I’ve been losing interest in rugby for a few years now. Maybe it’s because skills seem to have been sacrificed for bulk, ‘upper body strength’, ‘big hits’ and a litany of other cliches that don’t sound any better even if they’re spoken by Jiffy or Eddie Butler.

Or perhaps it’s the scrum, which nobody understands, and I mean nobody. Certainly not the referees, who seem to come to decisions using the tried and tested ‘Eeny, meeny, miny, moe’ system. Then there’s the rolling or driving maul, sixteen suspiciously muscular men grunting, grappling and pushing each other. Anyone finding that attractive might be in need of help.

Then there’s the way the game is organised in Wales, or rather, who organises it. Here of course I’m talking about the Welsh Rugby Union, one of the most blatantly Anglophile and Unionist bodies we’ve got (and that’s saying something!). Obvious from the feather duster badge with it’s ‘Ich Dien’ motto to the patrons, and from the refusal to use the Welsh language to the Prinz Wilhelm Cup. The last being a meaningless trophy for which Wales competes against a team that is still mainly Afrikaner, in other words, the descendants of those Boer republicans who took up arms more than once rather than be ruled by England and her royals. An insult to two nations.

And what of those who attend rugby internationals? We’ve all read of corporate ‘hospitality’ taking over, with the best seats taken up by men who couldn’t tell a flanker from a banker, and women who are there to be seen seen rather than to watch any irritating distractions on the field. Apart from these, we all know people who go to rugby internationals who wouldn’t cross the road to watch their local side. Just look at attendance figures for regional and club rugby (with Ponty’ and a few other commendable exceptions). How different to football.England fans

It may be even worse in England. The braying of Swing Low Sweet Chariot by thousands of inebriated middle-class Englishmen is one of the weirdest phenomena in sport. Or indeed in any context. I won’t try to analyse it. And what of the dressing up, as medieval knights (often slaying dragons), or 19th century colonial administrators, replete with pith helmets! Do they realise what prats they look, and what message they’re sending out about themselves, and their attitudes to others?

Perhaps they don’t care, for within the dark heart of an England rugby crowd you will find the most dangerous elements of the species; arrogant, intolerant and utterly convinced of their own superiority. Worse by far than the racists one finds at the fringes of England football crowds, because the Barbour-clad yob being carried home by his sweet chariot will too often have the power to indulge his prejudices in ways more far-reaching and pernicious than the outbursts of violence to which his working class compatriot is limited.

But I don’t want to come across as curmudgeonly at this time of officially-sanctioned national euphoria. So let me wish the boys the best of luck on Thursday against Fiji. Though if we should be knocked out, and if England should go through to the quarter-finals in our stead, don’t forget to switch your support to England. Believe me, it’s what the Welsh Rugby Union, and our political class, expects of you.

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CROOKS: SOCIAL HOUSING

Over the past sixty years rural and coastal areas of Wales have seen many tens of thousands of new homes built that were never intended for local buyers. This may once have been more obvious in areas such as the north coast, but it is now national. Even out-of-the-way villages in Powys such as Abbey Cwm Hir are no safer from ‘developers’ (what a curious use of the word!) than Abergele or Aberystwyth. To the point where, contrary to the nonsense we are fed about a ‘rural housing shortage’, rural Wales actually has a housing surplus when the housing stock is judged against any future indigenous demand.

Moreover, the situation we find in rural parts of Flintshire and Wrecsam (currently being re-branded and marketed as ‘West Cheshire’), Denbighshire, Conwy, Gwynedd, Ynys Môn, Ceredigion, Powys, Monmouthshire (sic), Pembrokeshire and large parts of Carmarthenshire, is that locals are often priced out of a housing market distorted by external forces. Which is then cleverly used by planners and aforementioned ‘developers’, estate agents and others, as an argument to build yet more new housing . . . from which most locals are again excluded. Which presents us with the dystopian choice in which house prices can only be brought into line with local purchasing power by a) either collapsing the market through building enough houses to satisfy all demand from over the border, or b) introducing legislation to reserve a percentage of the housing stock for local buyers.

But the housing problems of rural Wales are not confined to the private sector. Regular readers of this blog will know that I have written on the subject of housing associations many times before, and for a number of reasons.

1/ It annoys me to see public money being given to what are effectively private companies for them to spend on housing for which there is often no local need, and where local need does exist the mechanisms at play in the Englandandwales social housing sector ensure that many properties in Wales – paid for out of the Welsh public purse – are allocated to applicants from England having no connection with the places to which they’ve been deported.

2/ Despite being given inordinate amounts of public funding there is no obligation on housing associations to detail how the money has been spent.

3/ Nor is it possible to find other information, because housing associations are exempt from the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act.

4/ At a time when the ‘Welsh’ Government argues for fewer and more efficient local authorities it funds dozens and dozens of housing associations. Giving us the absurd situation where an area might have ten housing associations, in competition with each other, doing the job that would once have been done – and far cheaper – by the local authority housing department.

In the hope of explaining the problem of out-of-control and unaccountable housing associations let me use a couple of examples supplied by Wynne Jones of Cardigan. I’ve never met Wynne Jones I. Eng. A.C.I.W.E.M., but he got in touch a few months back and let me see letters that have passed between him and various representatives of the ‘Welsh’ Government, local councils, and housing associations on a number of issues.

One is a development in Cardigan that has already swallowed up a great deal of funding but now seems to have hit the rocks. This is / was a project to convert a building on the High Street into 16 flats, and for which the Tai Cantref housing association has already received £782,543 in Social Housing Grant from the ‘Welsh’ Government. I’ll repeat that for the hard of reading – £782,543! As you can see, the photograph was taken on May 1st (by Wynne Jones), but little has changed since then, as the main contractor has gone into receivership. (The photo is taken from a car park behind Cardigan High Street. Click to enlarge.)

Are there local tenants lined up for these flats? If so, then they’ve got a long wait. If not, then – as is so often the case – this becomes a speculative development using Welsh public funding to house people who, as yet, have no idea they’re going to be moved to Wales.

Another example of the freedom enjoyed by housing associations is shown in the case of Tai Ceredigion at the former Meugan Centre in the town. (See picture below by Wynne Jones.) Seeing as the land in question is – it is believed – owned by the county council Mr Jones first wrote to the council on April 11th asking if planning permission had been granted a) for the demolition of the Centre and b) to allow the site to be used as a builder’s yard. He wrote again on May 6th . . . and May 26th . . . June 25th . . . July 14th (twice) . . . August 17th . . . then, finally, on August 18th he received a reply which told him that the ‘developers’ (that word again!) had now been told to apply for retrospective planning permission to use the Meugan site as a depot, but on the other matter that, “A determination decision was made on the demolition of the Centre in 2014 – planning reference A140036 – deciding that prior approval was not required for the proposed works”. (My underline.)

When Mr Jones pointed out that the planning reference A140036 was not available online, he was told that he could view a hard copy at the council’s offices in Aberaeron. He went through the advised procedure and made an appointment for 9am on August 15th . . . which was not confirmed.  After another exchange of correspondence in which he again asked to view the document, and also requested the council’s reasons for withholding it, he was told, “The request is considered to be exempt under S21 of the Freedom of Information Act since what you have asked for is reasonably accessible by other means. The information you require is available for viewing at Neuadd Cyngor Ceredigion, Penmorfa, Aberaeron.” This Kafkaesque response ignores the fact that Wynne Jones wants to see the document, and is prepared to turn up in Aberaeron at 9am, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but the council is refusing to co-operate.

I suspect that this document may not exist, perhaps it has not yet been written. But whether planning reference A140036 exists or not, it’s quite clear that Cyngor Ceredigion is reluctant to let Wynne Jones see it for himself. What’s also clear is that Cyngor Ceredigion allows housing associations degrees of latitude that private citizens or other companies can only dream of.

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COWARDS: THE ‘WELSH’ MEDIA

One problem with ‘Welsh’ housing associations and the Englandandwales allocation system into which they’re currently locked is that Welsh communities get lumbered with some very unsavoury  people, partly because housing associations (and indeed private landlords) can make more money from housing those euphemistically described as ‘vulnerable’ (i.e. criminals) and those with ‘issues’ (ditto) than from housing law-abiding locals.

This allocation system – plus the workings of the Englandandwales criminal justice system – often explains why Welsh communities end up hosting criminals and dysfunctionals such as these.

A more recent case was this one. ‘Notorious convicted paedophile flees North Wales after he was outed online’ screams the Daily Post headline. Good. But the real story here, the one the DP should have looked into, was who relocated him to Nantlle? And who is responsible for dumping known and dangerous English criminals in Rhyl, Blaenau Ffestiniog, Kidwelly and countless other Welsh towns and villages? But to answer that question would expose another form of abuse, one in which Wales is taken advantage of by our mighty neighbour . . . so our ‘Welsh’ media backs off.

Yes, our wonderful ‘Welsh’ media; never asking the difficult questions but always ready to put the boot into Wales and things Welsh if the assault can be presented as a principled condemnation of ‘extremism’, ‘racism’, ‘narrow nationalism’ and anything else that doesn’t conform to the view that ‘Welshness’ is just a quaint and touristy regional oddity, little different to Englishness (except in a harmless and manageable sporting context) and always subservient to Britishness.

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SPOOKS: CAMBRIAN NEWS

As the Welsh weekly newspaper with the largest circulation, covering an area running from north Pembrokeshire all around Cardigan Bay to Pen Llŷn, and containing constituencies and local authorities where the Welsh voice is strong, it was inevitable that the Cambrian News would be a vital cog in this permanent propaganda offensive.

The role played by the Cambrian News was first brought home to me some twenty years ago when the ‘paper carried what purported to be a letter from a survivor of the Holocaust, now living in the USA, who had visited the National Eisteddfod and been appalled because the youngsters he saw on the stage there reminded him of the Hitler Youth. The letter was typical black propaganda, designed to traduce things Welsh and thereby put Welsh people on the defensive, make them question or be less ready to defend the things they hold dear.

I recognised this letter for what it was, and in the hope of exposing the fraud I wrote to the address given for the letter writer, making sure that my own address was there on the envelope as ‘sender’. The address given for the writer was in “Upper State New York”, no zip code and, as most of you will know, Americans use the term ‘Upstate New York. My letter was returned by the US Postal Service, along with two other letters from Wales sent to the same, non-existent address.

When you know what you’re looking at, or what you’re looking for, then you can go through a rag like the Cambrian News and pick out examples of this strategy quite easily, especially when our masters wish to make a specific point. Such a case came towards the end of 2013 when Cyngor Gwynedd debated raising the council tax on holiday homes. The mere suggestion prompted a letter to the CN arguing that raising council tax on holiday homes would be ‘racist’ (that favourite allegation!), before suggesting that such a measure might lead to a resumption of arson attacks!

The debate rumbled on, I got involved, ridiculing the suggestion that anyone would be incited to burn holiday homes if those properties paid more council tax, which in turn encouraged someone to suggest that I had made the suggestion of arson attacks but, cleverly, without actually saying I’d said it.

In the post I’ve linked to there are two letters worthy of note. The first is from a ‘Pat Beaumont of Shropshire’, and the second from a ‘Stephen Smith of Sunbeach Holiday Park, Llwyngwril’. Both are gems. They are full of non-sequiturs, scaremongering, misrepresentation, and getting people to believe that raising council tax on holiday homes is little different to burning them down. I believe Cambrian News Nazisboth letters are as genuine as the one from the Holocaust survivor in ‘Upper State New York’.

This bizarre defence of holiday homes is quite easy to explain, and has nothing to do with economics. From ‘a certain perspective’ holiday homes are viewed as a weapon in the armoury being used to ‘integrate’ Wales with England. In other words, they help anglicise Wales and thereby remove the threat of nationalism. Consequently holiday homes must be defended. Simple as that.

A more recent example of how the Cambrian News is used by others as a conduit and an outlet for anti-Welsh propaganda was the attack on the Plaid Cymru candidate in Ceredigion prior to this year’s General Election. I dealt with it here. To understand this extraordinarily vicious attack you must appreciate the wider political context.

Ceredigion was held by a Liberal Democrat MP, yet after five years in coalition with the Tories the Lib Dem vote was collapsing. Also, after five years in government, the Tories themselves were expected to lose votes and seats. In Scotland, the only question was whether the SNP would have a clean sweep of MPs. Everyone expected a hung parliament, with Labour running the UK in coalition with the SNP, Plaid Cymru, SDLP and Greens. In fact, it was the English tabloids frightening their readers with the prospect of Alex Salmond in charge (despite him no longer being leader of the SNP) that won the election for the Conservatives. In that context, anything that the darker forces of the British State could use to damage the prospect of Labour-SNP-Plaid Cymru rule was worth a try. The Cambrian News played ball, as always.

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IDIOTS

Though sometimes the Cambrian News’ desperation to push its anti Welsh – and in our local edition, anti-Plaid Cymru and anti-Gwynedd – message is sometimes almost funny. Take this story from last week’s Meirionnydd edition. (No, of course I didn’t buy it.) Some Englishman named Paul Taylor living in Bryncrug, about two miles out of Tywyn, received what everyone has received recently, the electoral registration form, but claims he got confused because the form was ‘labelled’ in Welsh. (‘Labelled’? Does he mean ‘addressed’?)

Cambrian News voting

So here we have someone who receives what is obviously a communication from the council, one being delivered to every home in the county; if it had been written in Chinese its nature and purpose would have been obvious – yet he cannot see it for what it is, and when he consults his friend – who is “pretty proficient in Welsh” – these great brains conclude that the mysterious communication is addressed to a woman called Annwyl ddeiliad! (I know her intimately.) Eventually he is told what it means. Now seeing the dastardly plot for what it is – an attempt to deny a free-born Englishman his rights, the outraged Paul Taylor contacts the Cambrian News.

I have no way of knowing whether this man is just stupid, or whether he’s a fully-fledged bigot. But any responsible newspaper would at this point have spared him embarrassment by declining the ‘story’; and any reporter worthy of the name would have laughed out loud on hearing it. But this is the Cambrian News, the spooks’ mouthpiece, and so it does what it does and publishes this unadulterated bollocks, conveying the predictable messages that, ‘ . . . shouldn’t use Welsh on official communications . . . anti-democratic . . . discriminatory . . . anti-English . . . whatever next? . . . God Save the Queen!’

Here’s some advice for Paul Taylor, who clearly gets confused by anything that’s not ‘labelled’ in English. Next time you buy a bottle of Scotch don’t hand over your cash ’til you get a translation of Glenfiddich! And avoid French restaurants . . . Italian restaurants too. And if you win the Lottery, don’t start celebrating until them Champagne labels are translated. (Bloody Frogs!) Then, when you’ve sobered up, and are looking around for a motor, don’t write the cheque until them Eyties translate the Ferrari label into English. Same with flying to they there foreign places with funny names – Rio de Janeiro? come off it!

And this place where you’re living, called Bryncrug, it’s obviously part of this massive anti-English conspiracy of which you are so clearly a victim, so demand that it be ‘re-labelled’. In fact, get in touch with the Cambrian News, they’ll probably start a campaign on your behalf.

UPDATE 01.10.2015: There was a very good letter in today’s issue of the Cambrian News responding to the bigotry and intolerance displayed last week. Had I written this letter I would also have criticised the Cambrian News‘ editorial judgement in treating such ugly views as a worthwhile news item. But as I point out in the post, this is how the Cambrian News has operated for many years.

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Wynne

Jac. I shall keep you informed on my ongoing correspondence on the subject of public funds used by Housing Associations.

The Earthshaker

Totally agree anon, all about the money I went to a local Business Club meeting about 12 months ago with a bloke form the WRU presenting, he only talked about money and the ‘elite’ team as he called it, fair enough they had big Stadium debt, but without investing in the grassroots there is no international team, he was asked about it and couldn’t answer.

Don’t forget it’s also the World Cup more event goers than usual and sky high prices, anyone see the Aus v Fiji game in Cardiff where Swing Low, Sweet Chariot was sung by the crowd towards the end of the match, awful stuff.

It’ll be interesting to see if there’s much singing tomorrow because Gatland has asked for vocal support for the boys, that’ll tell us how many welsh rugby fans are in the crowd and not bandwagoners or event goers.

As for the Cambrian News any chance of it going the same way as the Wasting Mule, it’s beyond parody.

Llais Sir Benfro

What happened to the Daily Wales?

Carnabwth

Red Flag,

Do you have a link to the developers on Mon wanting to change the nature of the schools there?

Red Flag

see response above to Colin

E Jenkins

That’s a bit depressing Anon. It’s been a few years, but I always found the Ruperts/Henrys/Nigels to be desperate company.

Anon

I was at both the Millenium Uruguay and the Twickenham England matches. In the Millenium I was surrounded by us ‘Welsh’, together with daffodil faces, leeks on their heads, sparkly cowboy hats and dragon costumes. The standard of rugby knowledge was pitiful and, wrth gwrs, they couldn’t get past the first line of Hen Wlad. They were embarrassing in their behaviour and were more interested in the occasion and the drink than the rugby. This is what Welsh rugby has become to the WRU under the previous board, a money spinning show with the rugby taking a back seat.
In Twickenham I was by myself in a sea of English supporters. They were all in good voice and good humoured and at least knew the first verse of God Save (I did a Corbyn and stood in respect but in silence).
The English guys next to me were knowledgeable, good fun and insisted on buying me a drink. At the end it was handshakes all round and the only bit of nonsense came from a leek wearing ‘Welshman’ three rows in front who insisted on goading the English and was a disgrace and lucky he didn’t get sorted out – as would have happened in the old days. Talk about a villagist.
I’m off to the Fiji match tomorrow – I wish it was in Twickers.
We are lucky so far that at least on the pitch we haven’t lost our heroes.

Red Flag

Marconatrix – It isn’t anti English rhetoric, it’s anti-England rhetoric.

Nor is it thinly veiled racism. It is in no way racist unless you belong to the group of onanists known as ‘Common Purpose’. You must know that Jac has been investigated several times by Plod over allegations of racism and each time nothing racist was found – not even advised to moderate.. The laws on racism are perfectly clear – and what he says is not racist – it’s an uncomfortable truth that needs screaming from the roof tops until the authorities stop moving Englands misfits and criminals into Wales. It really is quite a simple thing to do – if you are causing a problem in England then England sorts it out within England using England’s resources. And likewise if you cause a problem in Wales then Wales sorts it out within Wales using it’s own resources. We even have a situation on Ynys Mon where developers want some Cymraeg schools converting back to English because not having English schools won’t attract the right sort of buyer. That’s racist.

An example is the prposed super prison in Wrecsam. Why there? To satisfy the overcrowding issues in Liverpools Walton and Manchesters Strangeways while at the same time being close enough to them for the inmates families to visit.. Has solved absoulutely no similar problems for the vast bulk of the population of Wales. Purely an English answer to an English problem imposed by England.

Colin

Two schools on Ynys Mon have reverted back to English, Ysgol Y Tywyn and Ysgol Caergeiliog both of which have RAF based children attending. Another English stronghold is Rhosneigr but the school is still Cymraeg and should remain so (my cousin is head there and will be disowned if she ever does anything so reckless!). There is however a load of development going on in Rhosneigr, every back yard big enough to walk away from a fart is having a block of “exclusive apartments” built on it to sell on as second homes but only second homes. Whereof do you speak Red Flag, I’m interested?

Red Flag

The some of developers connected to the housing that is part of the Land & Lakes project (the 380 4/5 bedroom detached houses designated for the fringes of Kingsland near the new lorry park) have expressed ‘concern’ that the shortage of English schools will ‘discourage’ the right sort of buyers.

The ‘right sort of buyers’ therefore must be non-local, non-welsh speaking.

Red Flag

Initially, these houses are destined for the longterm management of the proposed Wylfa Newydd construction and their concern is that they won’t come here if they can’t send their kids to English schools.

Every cloud has a silver lining eh?

Colin

I do remember hearing this about the schools now I’m reminded.

That’s all the island needs, another excuse to bring more incomers here to take jobs from locals as if there isn’t enough unemployment here already. Mark my words these construction companies when the come (and they will come no matter how much we protest) will bring a large workforce of their own with them. Locals will get the shit jobs in the bottom of wet holes unless the Polish workforce snaps them up first. The same happened when they built Anglesey Aluminium back in the 60’s

Ian Perryman

It appears that your knowledge of rugby appears to have been derived from glaring at a black and white TV through a half empty glass!

Ian Perryman

It’s a euphemism for only seeing things as two opposite sides. i.e. in black and white with no shades of grey in between.

Rugby supporters wear all sorts of strange things to support their teams. The Welsh wear miners’ helmets and daffodil hats, the Italians dress up as Roman Centurions, the Irish as Leprechauns, the French wear cockerel hats on their heads : and yes, they look silly: but why? Because they go to a rugby match to enjoy themselves.

Which is why, unlike the football supporters you extol, they don’t have to be escorted from the ground by riot police, locked in steel cages or kept apart by electrified razor wire fences patrolled by security guards with nuclear tipped, heat seeking missiles.

The real irony of the St George kit is that he was probably Greek speaking, born in what is now Turkey and died in Palestine – and never saw a dragon (or England) in his lifetime.

It’s just an English delusion – like their over-rated rugby team and the idea that they invented rugby.

Every Welshman knows that rugby is derived from old ball games like Cnapan and that St George, were he alive today, would be declared an illegal migrant and refused entry at the ferry port, should he ever try to travel to England.

And yes lots of us do understand what goes on in the scrum. Stop listening to the crap spouted by Jiffy – who was an outside half.

Marconatrix

TBH I’ve always felt a little uneasy whenever the Urdd is mentioned. I mean, imagine there was an “English National Youth League” or somesuch, wouldn’t you have your suspicions? Clearly this is where we need Annwyl Deiliad (Mrs) on the case, she ought to have a regular column in the CN, or failing that a blog maybe.

Meantime you’re doing a grand job turning out anti-English rhetoric, but as I see it the problem isn’t English people moving to Wales (and vise-versa) because that has been going on for centuries. The problem is surely that the Welsh have somehow lost their self-confidence as a people, and with it the ability to ‘convert’ incomers. That is to present an attractive and positive image of Welshness that people will want to sign-up to.

Constantly characterising English immigrants as criminals and deviants is hardly going to endear them to your cause, rather it will simply put their backs up. Not to mention laying you open to charges of thinly veiled racism. There are many other small countries throughout Europe, where there is now freedom of movement etc. but they seem on the whole well able to maintain their languages and cultures. What’s wrong with the Welsh?

dafis

“Constantly characterising English immigrants as criminals and deviants is hardly going to endear them to your cause,…..”

That’s a bit rich coming from M’trix who I thought was Cornish, or does he just live in Cornwall. Spent a couple of weeks there recently and every time I touched on anything remotely to do with “identity” the eyebrows shot up or some other tic appeared and the folks were quick to emphasise that they had only lived there ” 20 – 30 – more” years and that real locals were a “strange bunch” or something similar !

Indeed apart from some tourist related stuff and some excellent food marketing the native identity is not visible as it has been well and truly swamped by swanky types from London and other major cities occupying south and north coast villages, towns and anything they can buy up. The only openly hostile ( and healthy ) response was from a young guy selling fast food who had to exist through the winter on benefits and work his nuts off in the summer on a minimum wage to catch up on a meagre life style. He catalogued the way Rock/Padstow and points north & south of there had been turned into a playground with little or no other economic activity to support a local working population full time.

On the Urdd, hasn’t he read of the fuss when the Chief Exec, soon to depart, accepted a Royal gong last year ?. The Urdd has always been regarded as a bit of a loyalist Taff operation – in fact a posture not unlike the Scouts in some ways !, although I concede that there have been exemplary individuals involved in its day to day running.

Moira Lewis

I agree with you completely. But how do we fight against what is happening? We must be more courageous I think as a nation.