Category: Corruption Bay

Looking Ahead To Senedd Elections

On By JacIn Conservative and Unionist Party, Corruption Bay, Devolution, Elections, Far Left, Greens, Gwlad, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, Reform, Senedd, Welsh Government, Welsh Labour73 Comments

In this piece I shall look towards the May 7 Senedd elections. Rather than delve into party manifestos, or expose the peccadillos of individual candidates, I’m adopting a broad brush approach.

Impressions and perhaps even informed generalisations. Digressions guaranteed, but not without a touch of whimsy and a few doses of ironic humour.

This offering is a bit longer than normal, but as it’s broken up into sections, one for each party, you can nibble a bit at a time. Like your Easter eggs!

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‘WELSH’ LABOUR

I’m starting with Labour, if only because this party has been running the show since devolution began in 1999. The name’s partly in quotes because there’s no such thing as a separate Labour party in Wales, it’s just a branch of the Islington-controlled gang we’ve know since Blair, Brown, Mandelson and a few others sat down to create New Labour.

This was the plan to broaden the party’s appeal beyond the traditional working class support. A strategy that ultimately led to the alienation of much of the working class. Labour in Wales managed to maintain the pretence longer than most party branches, but has now been found out.

But Labour, run by the Fabian Society, never really cared much for the working class, they were simply the means to power. The post-industrial age, Brexit and other factors, has seen Labour turn on the indigenous lower orders with a vengeance. Even to the extent of offering euthanasia.

For culling the poor, the sick, the disabled, the hopeless, was always Fabian Society policy. Find half an hour to watch this video.

LABOUR’S FIRST MINISTERS 1999 – 2026

One of the saddest features of this deception was seeing traditional, even generational Labour voters, in some of the most deprived communities in Wales, taken for granted by a party that had abandoned them and their communities.

A case of: Vote Labour – and we’ll keep kicking you in the nuts!

But chickens come home to roost.

And that’s why Labour finds itself facing humiliation thanks to an electoral system it conjured up believing this system would guarantee a permanent Labour-Plaid love-in, with the comrades always on top.

It says a lot for Labour’s foresight, and arrogance, that they couldn’t factor into their calculations the possibility of defeat. I described the system, and how it came about over two years ago, in Labour And Plaid Cymru Plot To Destroy Welsh Democracy.

But here we are, with Labour at 11% or 12% in the polls and fighting with the even more unhinged Greens for third place behind Plaid Cymru and Reform.

Because the problem for Labour is that having abandoned the working class it now relies for much of its support on racial and religious minorities (of which Wales has few), brainwashed students and ex-students, middle class liberals (another small group in Wales), third sector and other chisellers who’ve done well from Labour cronyism and patronage (a sizeable group regrettably), and the far left.

But many even in those groups are deserting Labour for Plaid Cymru and the Greens.

NOW LISTEN, STARMER, HERE ARE YOUR ORDERS

And if that wasn’t bad enough, there’s Starmer and his clueless, lying crew of Globalist puppets. Who’ve betrayed those who voted for them, and torn up their own manifesto, in order to serve those who came over to give them their orders soon after the 2024 election. (See above.)

A meeting of minds. For Gates’ plan to reduce the human population is pure Fabianism. And Starmer, like all previous Labour PMs, is a staunch Fabian.

Problems compounded in Wales by the growing perception that Labour has been bought by Bute Energy and other foreign companies (perhaps even the Chinese Communist party) wanting to exploit Wales in the name of ‘saving’ a planet in no real danger.

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PLAID CYMRU

This party will obviously be the main beneficiary from the collapse of the Labour vote.

And so Plaid is now doing what it always does when an election approaches – pretending there’s a gulf between them and Labour. But Plaid and Labour have been in bed too often and for too long for that deception to work.

Plaid Cymru might benefit from voters wanting to rebuke Labour without changing the general direction of devolved politics. Making Plaid the soft option for mildly disgruntled Labour supporters.

But they should be careful what they wish for. Especially those unhappy over Labour’s obsession with Net Zero, DEI, gender politics, Gaza, Trump, and all the other ishoos that often alienate left-leaning but socially conservative voters.

I say that because Plaid Cymru seems to have gone further down the fact-free rabbit-hole of Wokery than Labour. On a host of issues. And there’s no longer any attempt to hide it.

Here’s Plaid’s leader in the House of Commons (and my MP), Liz Saville Roberts, in London on March 28. At a march that brought together the far left, Islamists, environmentalists, and others.

Of course it was billed as a march against hate. The problem most people had in accepting that claim was the marchers chanting about killing Jews, threatening opponents of the murderous theocracy in Iran, condemning anyone who thinks men can’t have babies, and dancing dementedly in attempts to fight the climate crisis.

In fact, so much hate was generated by this gathering that a big profit was waiting for anyone who could have bottled it and sold it to a third world dictator.

Which perhaps brings us to Plaid’s real problem – a form of schizophrenia.

We have a party in recent times appealing to the radical left, while trying to hang on to its traditional, more socially conservative rural core vote. This is a difficult balancing act. But then, Labour got away with a similar deception after abandoning its traditional working class voters, so maybe Plaid will be lucky.

Because it takes a while for many voters to catch up with the new reality and ditch old habits. At least, that’s what Plaid Cymru is hoping.

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REFORM

Reform UK is next because in all recent polls it comes in second behind Plaid Cymru. Which seems to surprise many people, who want to believe this strand of politics is new to Wales, even an unwanted import.

The truth is that Farage’s earlier creations – UKIP, Brexit party – have been around for a few decades, and have performed well in Welsh elections, particularly the last two elections to the EU parliament. Here’s a table I drew up a few years back for a piece on the blog that should prove my point.

You’ll see that in 2014, with the Brexit referendum two years in the future, UKIP came a very close second to Labour. And in 2019 the Brexit party, combined with UKIP hold-outs, won comfortably with almost 36% of the vote.

This final EU election, after the 2016 referendum, might be seen as a victory lap for the Brexit party, yet the fact remains they won it very comfortably. But then, Wales voted Leave. Though parties on the left want to ignore this, talking of “alignment“, even re-joining. With no mention of consulting the people, let alone a referendum.

As I hinted earlier, the problem for leftist parties is that most people in Wales, as elsewhere, are socially conservative. They want policies the left is either unable or unwilling to deliver. But which Reform promises.

This goes some way to explaining why a ramshackle and often incoherent group like Reform is riding high in the polls. Topping polls in England, second in Wales.

There are identifiable groups from where Reform can expect support. First, former Labour voters awake now to the nature of modern Labour. Then, disaffected Tories, wondering what happened to their party. And the sizeable percentage of the population pissed off with establishment politicians prepared to give Reform a go. Finally, those who reject all manifestations of Welshness, from devolution to bilingual road signs.

But I see two clouds on the horizon for Reform. Perhaps only one of which will damage the party in May’s elections.

I’m referring to the reported parachuting in to Welsh seats of ex-Tories and others from outside the constituency in which they’re standing, even from outside of Wales. As this newspaper report from earlier this week illustrates.

Other fractures also seem to be appearing.

And yet, the factors just mentioned are less likely to count thanks to the absurd voting system; which means candidates 4, 5 and 6 on the party list could drop out with no effect on the outcome. And because it’s a party list system many voters won’t even know who the candidates are anyway! (Explained below.)

Perhaps a bigger threat, in the longer term, and on the UK level, is Rupert Lowe and his fledgling party Restore Britain, only launched in February. This very recent poll puts a party most people have never heard of on 8%. And I think I know why.

Farage is smooth, glib, a bit of a lad with the pint and the ciggie, and yet . . . I’ve never been able to shake the impression of the spiv. I keep waiting for him to roll up his sleeve to show us all the watches he’s flogging.

Whereas Lowe comes across as ‘serious’; what’s more, it’s that “Don’t fuck with me” kind of seriousness. Which many people respect. And I don’t see an armful of watches.

In the short term, and the context of the Senedd, I suppose we must accept the polls and prepare for Reform to come second.

Meaning four years of pantomime, with leftist luvvies clutching their pearls as they theatrically exit the chamber singing Kumbaya if a Reform MS questions net zero, or wants to end the £3,000,000 a year funding for the Dowlais branch of Hezbollah.

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GREENS

There was a time when the Greens were regarded as harmless eccentrics. Perhaps another incarnation of the brown bread and sandals wing of the Liberal party from the 1960s. (For younger readers . . . Look it up yourselves, you lazy little sods!).

But how they’ve changed!

From what I can see the modern Greens have little interest in the environment; now they seem to have positioned themselves somewhere to the left of Pol Pot. (Though I’m sure PP was a better dancer than ‘Zack Polanski’.)

Everything about the Greens in 2026 is false and/or dangerous.

Starting with party leader, ‘Zack Polanski‘, whose real name is David Paulden. Not so long ago he was a hypnotist, claiming he could enlarge women’s breasts. Did women pay him for this?

Some may think I’m being unfair, pointing out that he’s the UK leader, and we have our own leader in Wales, in Anthony Slaughter. Which is nonsense, because we don’t have a Welsh Green party.

When Green party members in Wales had the chance to form a separate Welsh party in 2018, they chose to stay as the Green Party of Englandandwales. Because most Green Party members in Wales are not Welsh. They tend to be good-lifers and others for whom Wales is nothing more than a nice place to live.

Recently the Greens have been pandering to Muslims, just like other parties of the left. To the extent that Polanski’s deputy is Mothin Ali, who recently attended a rally supporting the murderous theocracy in Iran – with critics labelled “Islamophobic“.

But try to make sense of it. Polanski is Jewish, and gay. Has he ever sat down with Ali to discuss his deputy’s religion and its attitude to both Jews and homosexuals? And does Ali have any interest in environmental matters?

It’s insane; Polanski’s relatives have said they’d leave the UK if he became PM.

The real worry should be the Islamic block vote transferring to the Greens because Labour is finished, if only in the short term. If so, then this is worrying; because on both the Welsh level, after May 7, and the UK level after the next general election, the Greens could be power-brokers.

So who in their right minds will vote in the Senedd elections for a party led by a former hypnotitist and his Islamist sidekick?

Just imagine if the Greens hold the balance of power in the Senedd, and the word comes down from Green Party HQ – “Tell Gareth Wyn Jones them sheepdogs gotta go“.

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CONSERVATIVE

What to say? Conservative politicians at every level have kept such low profiles in recent years they’ve become almost invisible. To the point where some might wonder if the party is still in existence.

In Wales, those who haven’t been kicked out of the party seem to have joined Reform. But nobody’s really noticed!

I mean, can you name the Tory leader in the Senedd? (It’s Darren Millar.)

And yet, despite the party’s near-invisibility the Conservative vote seems to be holding up. Certainly better in percentage terms than the Labour vote. Though I suppose it could be argued that Labour had more votes to lose.

Another way of looking at it might be to say that the Tories should have benefitted more from the collapse in the Labour vote. But it hasn’t. Possibly because so few people know what the Tories stand for nowadays. What is the message?

At this point – seeing as I have so little to say about the Tories! – it might be worth entertaining you with an opinion poll published in Nation.Cymru on April 1.

The accompanying article was written by Martin Shipton, who so recently had a wake-up call when an “eight-strong team from the counter-terrorism division of the Metropolitan Police“ kicked his front door down at 6am.

The survey sample was so small that I’m not sure it can be trusted; but seeing as it was commissioned by N.C, funded with ‘Welsh Government’ (i.e. our) money, I shall pick through the bones.

We see that the Tory vote is around 9/10%, which is not bad for a party that’s almost invisible. While some of the other ‘findings’ defy belief.

Though not the finding that among younger voters Plaid is very popular, and the Greens lead in the under 12 age bracket.

Though one of the more intriguing figures was this:

For people aged 35 to 54, Reform leads with 35%, ahead of Plaid Cymru on 21%, Labour on 16%, Greens 13%, the Conservatives and Lib Dems both on 6%, and others on 2%.

This is where we find those who are working, struggling to pay mortgages or rent, wondering if they can afford to light and heat their homes, bringing up children. Reminding us of what I’ve argued elsewhere – those living in the real world want real world solutions to real world problems.

Though I’m sure Martin ‘China’ Shipton and his ilk would dismiss this 35% as racists, climate deniers, etc., etc.

But this section was supposed to be about the Conservative and Unionist party, and I’m ignoring them. Yes.

I may have had a sneaking regard for their economic and social policies at one time. But that was forfeited when Boris Johnson flew to Kiev in April 2022, to ensure the little clown didn’t sign a peace deal that would have jeopardised their Globalist masters’ money-laundering operation.

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LIBERAL DEMOCRATS

If I had little to say about the Conservatives I have even less to say for the Liberal Democrats. They’re almost an irrelevance. A poll in this week’s Cambrian News suggests they won’t win a single seat on May 7.

Though I have to say that’s a strange poll, also predicting the Tories will win just one seat. I’m sure it’s wrong. Certainly at variance with the poll I quoted in the previous section.

The fact is that the Liberal party started going downhill after Lloyd George, in the 1920s, which of course coincided with the rise of the Labour party. Though my paternal grandparents were still voting Liberal into the 1950s, because they saw it as the party of the chapel, the ‘Welsh’ party.

The party we know today came about following a merger in 1988 between the Liberals and the Social Democratic Party, formed by four who’d split from Labour a few years earlier. “The Gang of Four“; David Owen, Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers, were among the smuggest buggers you could ever wish to meet.

NICE TIE, WOY

I was once thrown out of a meeting addressed by ‘Woy’ in the Brangwyn Hall in Swansea, when he was still in Labour. Back in the late ’60s. The great man was on stage telling us that he too was Welsh; so a young Jac, in a flush of patriotic fervour (possibly influenced by beer), jumped up shouting “You’re no Welshman“.

I was then assailed by an old crow sitting behind me, who laid into me with her umbrella. A signal for the heavies to move in: “We knows ew, ew’re a trouble-maker, ew are“. And so young Jac, scarred for life by a gamp bought at Swansea market, was forcibly ejected.

Happy days!

What do the Lib Dems stand for nowadays? Your guess is as good as mine. But they’re ‘progressive’; so If Plaid needs an ally for its popular front against the far-right, Trump, climate deniers, Putin, transphobes, and other demons torturing the Globalist-Woke-left imagination, the Lib Dems will be only too glad to help.

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GWLAD

I’ve saved the best ’til last. As you probably know, I had a hand in launching this party, and I’m very proud of that. But why?

Basically because I’m a Welshman, and I’ve always wanted the best for my people, and for me that meant independence. It still does. Yet I’d hoped devolution would at least improve things. But it’s been a total failure. And it’s easy to see why. In fact, I’ve explained why in my assessments of the other parties.

Every successful country needs a functioning, indigenous economy that encourages and rewards hard work, innovation, the entrepreneurial spirit. And thereby creates well-paid jobs. But for 27 years devolution has been ruined by politicians and their hangers-on who did little but make gestures and squander money in slavishly serving agendas that divide us and make us poorer.

By comparison, those running Gwlad include people who’ve started their own companies, given people jobs, and hope, and have worked all over the world. I can’t stress this enough – they come from the real world.

By which I mean they are not professional politicians.

Not like those who did politics in uni, went to work in PR, for a pressure group, or for a politician; then got elected to the Senedd thinking that running a country is nothing more than mixing with others from the same background, having debates informed by ignorance, and choosing to die on hills far away that should have no resonance in Wales.

This political clique, this Corruption Bay bubble, regards the rest of us with contempt. The ‘progressive’ parties want us to believe that about Reform. But they’re no different, not even Plaid Cymru!

Question open borders, or challenge discrimination against the indigenous Welsh, and this makes Wales “the racist capital of the UK“, says a Plaid Cymru candidate.

To believe Elin Hywel we Welsh are an evil people that needs re-educating.

But we’re not. We’re good people ruled by clowns who’ve lied to us and lied about us for too long. So on May 7 vote for candidates who don’t belong to this isolated and self-elevated political class that looks down on the rest of us.

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CONCLUSION

The system being used in this election is complicated and corrupt, unlikely to be used again in any country wanting to be considered a democracy.

To start with, ‘we’ shall be electing 96 Senedd Members instead of 60 previously; in 16 huge constituencies, lumping together areas with nothing in common. For example, Swansea docks is in the same constituency as Llandrindod Wells.

Each elector will have one vote. Which means you’ll be expected to blindly vote for a party, while leaving the selection of candidates, and the order in which they’re ranked, to the party machines.

A system designed to benefit Labour and Plaid Cymru, also intended to make it very difficult for small parties and independent candidates to get elected. An affront to democracy.

And it could have been worse, for Labour was hoping to get away with not even naming candidates!

So as you walk to the polling station on May 7 remember 27 years of devolution under Labour, aided by Plaid Cymru or Lib Dems.

Remember net zero (15-minute cities and 20mph): running the NHS into the ground (while ‘decolonising’ midwifery); Covid (Drakeford believing it all and getting drunk on the power it gave him); covering the land with foreign-built wind turbines (also foreign owned and involving massive political corruption); waging war on farmers (to save the planet); welcoming the closure of Port Talbot steelworks (carbon, innit); promoting transgenderism (with the ‘Welsh Government’ being Stonewall’s biggest funder); using a film of 12-year-old girls to welcome migrants; brainwashing kids from shit-hole estates and abandoned post-industrial communities about their white privilege; and a host of other insulting imbecilities, from wanting Welsh schoolgirls to wear hijabs, to ‘decolonising’ the evil Welsh cake.

It would be masochistic to vote for Labour, Plaid Cymru, or Greens. You know what kind of dangerous nonsense bordering on evil you’ll get from them. Tories and Lib Dems are an irrelevance. And don’t vote Reform unless you’re so desperate to avoid the known failures that you’re ready to take a leap in the dark. (Or buy a knocked-off watch.)

When you reach the polling station, say to yourself, “Enough! Wales needs a fresh start, a new direction“. Then take the pencil in your hand and put a cross next to the Gwlad candidate’s name.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2026

Buy Me A Coffee

The Windward-Bute Empire, Fresh Insights

On By JacIn Bute Energy, Corruption Bay, Renewables, Welsh Labour63 Comments

I had something else planned to go out on Monday, but I’ve held it back in light of fresh information I’ve received about the activities of Bute Energy. Information that raises wider considerations.

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INTRODUCTION

Let me start with an apology. I’ve been writing about Bute’s activities in Wales for seven or eight years. This meant ignoring projects elsewhere, and overlooking Bute and Windward companies that had no obvious Welsh connection.

That may have been a mistake. And in view of recent events suggesting dubious links with China, no longer tenable. Dealt with on this blog.

Apology made, one company I have mentioned, one I could never make sense of, was Storagefolk Ltd. Presumably involved in . . . warehousing?

Launched 23.09.2017 Storagefolk appears to be the oldest surviving Windward-Bute company apart from Windward Enterprises Ltd (until very recently Windward Global), the ultimate holding company, where Oliver James Millican, capo di tutti capi in the W-B world, is in sole charge.

But what’s its purpose, and how does it fit into the wider empire? Information received offers some answers. And opens up a new line of inquiry.

As you can see from the Companies House entry for Storagefolk the address is in Mayfair, that upmarket district of London. The sole director is Millican. But he gives his address as Hodge House in Cardiff, where we find virtually all the companies relevant to Wales. Or at least, those we know about.

Listed as ‘person with significant control‘ (PSC) is Windward Global Ltd.

Though if we go through the main CH listing for Millican’s companies we see Storagefolk using the Hodge House address. (More Millican companies are listed here, here, here, and here.)

At the address in Curzon Street, hosting Storagefolk, we find Turcan Connell Company Secretaries Ltd. Scottish legal eagles with their HQ in Edinburgh. A company regularly used by Millican and his mates.

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MY! WHAT A BIG WAREHOUSE YOU’VE GOT. AND SO MANY OF THEM!

Of the companies registered at that address, we’re interested in the ones shown in the panel below. Particularly those to which I’ve been directed. (Storagefolk appears on the previous page.)

Beginning with Windward Eurocentral MD Ltd. Sole director Oliver Millican. PSC is Windward RE Holdco Ltd (more on this company later). PSC for Windward RE Holdco Ltd is Windward Enterprises Ltd, the ultimate holding company mentioned earlier.

Turn to the charges and you’ll see one taken out in July 2023 and satisfied in April 2025. The lender was private bank Brown Shipley & Co Ltd. Brown Shipley is owned by Quintet Private Bank (Europe) SA of Luxembourg, which is in turn owned by Precision Capital:

Precision Capital is a Luxembourg-based holding company that represents the private interests of members of the Al-Thani family of Qatar.

The charge was against a building just to the east of Glasgow, close to the M8 that runs to Edinburgh. A property offering 127,000 square foot of space.

The next company is Windward Badentoy Ltd. Directors are Millican and TC Directors Ltd with an Edinburgh address. ‘TC’ of course is Turcan Connell again. The PSC is Windward RE Holdco 2 Ltd.

The charges, again with Brown Shipley, refer to industrial storage units such as this one, all near Aberdeen. Plus a floating charge.

The third is Windward RE Project Co 1 Ltd. Here are the players. It’s the Mayfair address with PSC again being Windward RE Holdco 2 Ltd. There are/were two outstanding charges with Brown Shipley. One a fixed and floating charge, the other refers to three properties in Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

Another company worth looking at is Windward Z3B Ltd, with the same pattern. Funding from Brown Shipley for two more storage facilities on industrial or technology parks around Aberdeen.

And there was another company, one that I wrote about in August 2024. And other warehouse not far from the M8.

It was reported on October 2, 2018 that the Titan warehouse had been bought for £6.5M by Grayling Capital. This is Grayling Capital LLP, formed just over a year earlier.

David Taylor, one of those recently questioned by police in relation to China ‘spying’, was made a partner in Grayling Capital LLP in September 2019.

I could go on, but you should get the picture. Companies in the W-B empire have, for perhaps a decade, been buying up big warehouses, often borrowing from a ’boutique’ bank owned by an oil-rich family in Qatar.

A name mentioned in connection with W-B’s activity in the Aberdeen area is IKM. Said to be a tenant of properties owned by Windward-Bute. Here’s a piece from December last year and the Aberdeen Press & Journal.

In another major milestone, IKM Testing UK today opens its third facility as it pushes ahead with plans to expand into international markets, the renewables sector and increase its UK decommissioning work.

But IKM only accounts for some of W-B’s real estate, so the question remains: Why does it need all this storage space?

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PLANNING AHEAD?

First, let me clear up the purpose of Storagefolk before telling you how Windward-Bute buying up vast areas of storage space was explained to me:

(Storagefolk) is purely a negotiating shell for projects in Scotland and NE England; it is used in proposals to financiers, a distinct legal entity is then formed post-investment decision to ring fence properties and interests – and distance from the risk of course.

As for the warehouses, it seems that W-B has been importing parts and components for turbines, solar installations, and Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) for quite a few years.

This stockpiling is in anticipation of a crackdown on imported parts for ‘renewable’ energy projects. This seems plausible as the opposition mounts to increasing energy prices resulting from ‘Mad’ Ed Miliband’s Net Zero death-wish.

The real estate arm of the Windward portfolio . . . is working with multiple overseas businesses and at least one national government to house interests and commodity items relating to renewables infrastructure. There are warehouses in Wales and Scotland filled to the rafters with BESS and pylon materials – rented and landed for resale exclusively to the UK market to artificially appear to restrict overseas procurement and brand it as available when supply chains pinch in the late 2027 to early 2029 drive.

Is it just forward planning, or is there more to it?

As an example of ‘more to it’, can we assume these imports come from China? I’d put a few quid on it. And if I’ve picked the right nag, then this explains a few other things.

For as we’ve recently learnt, it’s impossible to escape the China connection when dealing with Windward-Bute. So I was not surprised to be told that two of the Big Three (Oliver James Millican, Stuart Allan George, and Lawson Douglas Steel) have even stated they’d sell to “interested parties from China at the right price“.

But none of these machinations would be possible without political influence, and that influence is not confined to Labour in Wales.

Let’s remember that Tom Watson, former deputy leader of the UK Labour party, now Baron Watson of Wyre Forest, is a non-executive director of Windward Energy Ltd, where he’s listed as plain old Thomas Anthony Watson.

It’s suggested this provides a good connection through Great British Energy to ‘Mad’ Ed Miliband himself, the apostle of Net Zero, de-industrialisation, and electricity consumer impoverishment.

To sum up: there is a concerted effort not only to increase expenditure and reliance on ‘renewables’, but also to remove cheaper and more reliable alternatives. This explains why the UK is closing down North Sea oil and gas . . . only to buy from Norway, which extracts from the same North Sea source.

Proving it has sod all to do with saving the planet.

This is the ugly world inhabited by Windward-Bute. It’s not limited to wind turbines despoiling landscapes, it’s about using political influence to remove competition providing more reliable and cheaper alternatives.

In Wales, this has resulted in the infiltration of the Labour party to the point where it’s hopelessly compromised. Election posters for May’s Senedd elections should read: ‘Vote for Dai Jones – your Bute Welsh Labour candidate‘.

We know W-B is also making inroads into Plaid Cymru. The Greens were always on side. But does it end there?

Maybe not.

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TITBITS, THOUGHTS

In this section I’ll look at a few other items that have come my way and how they perhaps fit with what we already knew.

First, I’m told that Nigel Farage had a closed-door meeting in January with Windward Energy Ltd Chairman Steve Scrimshaw. So let’s have a statement from Reform on where it stands on ‘renewable energy’ and rising electricity prices.

More closed door negotiations preceded the decision by the Wales Pension Partnership to invest £68m (for starters?) in Windward-Bute. A source says that very influential in the ultimate decision was Cardiff Lib Dem councillor Rhys Taylor.

Taylor of course sits on the council’s Pensions Committee, but I bet you can’t guess where his day job is. Let me help . . .

So we see that Windward-Bute also has its claws into the Lib Dems.

Leaving Gwlad the only honest party left.

I’m told the investigations into Taylor and Aplin might result in a number of Senedd Members, MSPs and MPs being invited to ‘help police with their inquiries’.

Understandably, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), the main funders for W-B’s renewable energy projects, is said to be pissed off by the recent news and allegations of spying for China.

Which provides yet another link to ‘Welsh’ Labour. Through Helle Thorning-Schmidt, former Danish PM, her directorship of Vestas since 2019, and that company’s 25% stake in CIP.

Helle Thorning-Schmidt is the wife of Stephen Kinnock, MP for Aberavon Maesteg. He is of course the son of former Labour party leader now Baron Kinnock of Bedwellty in the County of Gwent, and the late Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead, long-time Member of the European Parliament.

Her seat on the Brussels gravy-train was taken by Derek Vaughan who, following Brexit, was given a non-job by Windward-Bute on its Welsh Advisory Board.

Kinnock the Younger’s constituency is home to Port Talbot steelworks, so recently and shamelessly allowed to die. Welcomed in certain circles because it reduces Wales’ output of some evil dreamed up by Greenhairs.

∼

I’m going to throw out an idea that might sound outrageous, yet it’s plausible. Just think about it.

Millican, Steele and George all worked for real estate outfit Parabola, where Millican’s father Peter is head man. They all left Parabola towards the end of 2017. (Or that’s what we’re encouraged to believe.)

They had no experience in ‘renewables’; and to my knowledge they’ve still not erected a single turbine. Certainly not in Wales. But is this missing the point?

They now have sites designated, landowners signed up, planning applications submitted, politicians and others bought, financial backing for the projects arranged, and warehouses stacked to the gunwales with the wherewithal to complete the projects.

So if Windward-Bute only gets half or less of the planning consents applied for – even no planning approval at all – they could still sell up and make a massive profit. Especially if the anticipated crackdown on (recently) imported parts comes into play and the components they bought years ago rocket in price.

Maybe that was always the business model. Not actually building anything.

If nothing else, it’ll be a very lucrative fall-back position.

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CONCLUSION

Windward-Bute has corrupted Welsh political and public life. And it was so predictable.

With a form of devolved government designed to fail. And with ‘progressive’ politicians too stupid and gullible to have made even a good model work.

Made worse by those same politicians seriously believing Wales alone could save a planet being destroyed by humans – and their farting cows!

Politicians believing that lobbyists and pressure groups should determine policies, and that they should be able to do so free from regulation or restraint.

Resulting in overlapping and incestuous circles in one relatively small city, circles of perhaps no more than two or three thousand people in total, damaging the lives of over three million people.

This shit-show was bound to attract the kinds of ‘developers’ we’ve seen over the past 27 years. With Windward-Bute perhaps the worst, the most pernicious example.

Windward-Bute already has the shadow of ‘China spying’ hanging over it, and the stain of buying political influence, but it doesn’t end there.

The West’s lemming-like rush over the cliff of ‘renewables’ isn’t just good news for China, on which we depend for everything from rare earth minerals to completed solar panels; it’s also welcomed in the oil-rich Gulf states because ‘renewables’ are also unreliables, and need back-up.

Some might think that a UK-based company or individuals enriching themselves from helping de-industrialise and impoverish the West is tantamount to treason.

And I would agree. For ‘renewables’ are a response to nothing but avarice.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2026

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Labour Apparatchiks Associated With Bute Energy Arrested In China Spy Probe

On By JacIn Bute Energy, China, Corruption Bay, Welsh Labour, Wind Turbines66 Comments

You must know what this is about. But in case you’ve been sleeping for a week . . . three men, with close ties to the ‘Welsh’ Labour party, were arrested last Wednesday “on suspicion of assisting a foreign intelligence service“. They were released on bail the following day.

◊

WHO’S INVOLVED?

The first, is David James Taylor. Originally of Ruthin, now perhaps London. But he spent most of the intervening years working as a special advisor (spad) to a number of prominent Labour politicians.

These were Rhodri Morgan, first secretary of Wales between 2000 and 2009. Peter Hain, one-time anti-Apartheid campaigner, MP for Neath, who held a few posts in the UK government, and now sits in the House of Lords. I seem to think Taylor might also have done a stint with Morgan’s successor, Carwyn Jones.

Around a decade ago Taylor got himself involved in wind energy. More on this later.

Last year he started working for Asia House. (It’s been taken down from the website.)

Next up is Steven Jones. He has already been removed from the website of the lobbying group Camlas Cymru, for which he works in Cardiff. He definitely worked for Carwyn Jones. As this report makes clear.

Also non-personed by Camlas is the third man arrested last Wednesday, Matthew Aplin.

‘Camlas’, I suggest, might be translated into English as canal or channel.

Camlas was founded, as Positif Politics Ltd, in January 2006 by Daran Hill and his wife. But Hill was sent down in July 2023 for sharing images of child abuse.

Hill links with Taylor through a company called (after a couple of name changes) Leckwith Ltd. This was started by Taylor in November 2011 and taken over by Hill on New Year’s Day 2018. Leckwith was Dissolved just over a year after the exchange.

Was Hill killing off a possible competitor? If so, how much did he pay Taylor?

Whatever, Taylor then became a client of Hill. As I found out in a DM exchange back in August 2020. (Full version here.)

The other individual named in media reports, but not arrested, was Taylor’s wife Joani Reid, Labour MP for East Kilbride and Strathaven. The grand-daughter of Jimmy Reid. (Despite his politics, I always had time for him.)

They might have met when Reid was a councillor in Islington from 2014 to 2022.

Reid claimed no knowledge of her husband’s business activities. But why would she link the arrest to his business dealings? He was arrested on suspicion of spying.

Following Taylor’s arrest, Reid said in a statement that she is “not part of” her husband’s business activities.

So what have we got? A young MP, only elected in 2024, on the right of the Labour party, and certainly not privy to state secrets.

Of the three men, none is a nuclear scientist, or a high-ranking military officer, so I think we can rule out slipping the Chinese Communist Party important information.

Which leaves me to conclude that what they’re suspected of is commercial in nature. Unless of course, the CCP is planning to take over the ‘Welsh’ Labour party. But if the comrades in Beijing rummage in the drawers, and check down the backs of the sofas, they might find a receipt for that shower.

Whatever they paid – they wuz robbed!

Let’s proceed on the assumption that any offence committed is of a commercial or financial nature.

UPDATE: 01.04.2026: This incredible story just took another crazy turn with the suggestion that Joani Reid had ‘relationships’ with two captains of nuclear submarines. Read it for yourself.

◊

MORE ON DAVID JAMES TAYLOR, INTRODUCING BUTE ENERGY

For perhaps ten years David James Taylor has been involved with renewable energy. More specifically wind power. His involvement is due to developers realising how useful he is through his contacts in the Labour party that’s run the Welsh parliament for 27 years, either alone or with a junior partner in the Lib Dems or Plaid Cymru.

All this is covered in the many, many pieces I’ve put out on Bute Energy.

A good place to start might be Hendy Wind Farm, not far from Llandrindod. Where nary a turbine has turned. The eponymous company was launched in May 2011 by Matthew Simon Weiner, Graham Prothero, Michael Henry Marx, and Charles Julian Barwick.

There were linked projects at Bryn Blaen, near Llangurig, and Rhoscrowther on Milford Haven waterway.

Behind it was an outfit called U+I, taken over late in 2021 by Landsec.

The original directors were joined in August by Steven John Radford who, in May 2011, had launched Njord Energy Ltd. This company is in the process of being wound up. A new Radford company launched last year is Njord Wind.

Planning permission for Hendy was refused by the local council in April 2017, and this decision was upheld by an inspector in May 2018. At the council meeting a lobbyist tried to hand a note to the councillors and she had to be ushered away.

The woman was Anna McMorrin, working for Invicta Public Affairs of Newcastle. A Labour stalwart, she became MP for Cardiff North in the general election of June 2017.

As I say, permission for this windfarm was refused; but then came a strange incident that defied – and still defies – explanation. In October 2018, Lesley Griffiths, the Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs Secretary for the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ said she would ignore the planning inspector’s decision and allow Hendy Wind Farm to go ahead.

By this time David JamesTaylor had developed an interest in wind turbines (which may link with his failure to be elected North Wales PCC in May 2016). Taylor’s an ally and friend of Griffiths. Here he is campaigning for her.

A month before Griffiths’ bizarre decision a company was launched called Windward Generation Ltd. Later re-named Bute Energy Ltd, then RSCO 3750 Ltd, and Dissolved in September 2023.

The original directors, from Scotland, were Oliver James Millican and Lawson Douglas Steele. They were joined six days later by Radford.

Bute Energy has since spawned many companies planning windfarms, solar arrays, Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), and pylon runs from central Wales; one to just south of Carmarthen where it’ll meet the main grid from Pembroke running through the south and on to England, the other running north east and over the border near Oswestry.

The ultimate holding company for them all is Windward Global Ltd, formed 16 May 2017. The only shareholder is Oliver James Millican. He’s the son of Peter Millican of real estate company Parabola. Millican, Steele, and the other member of the Bute troika, Stuart Allan George, had all worked for Parabola, and all ‘left’ at the same time.

Taylor was soon involved. Becoming a partner in Grayling Capital LLP. And holding shares in Windward Energy Ltd, both in his own name and that of his company Moblake Associates Ltd. These shares seem to have been sold in July 2022.

But why was Taylor given these shares in the first place? Why was he a partner in the LLP? What was he doing for Bute?

I’ll conclude this section on Taylor by saying that in the Moblake Ltd accounts for year ending 30 April 2021 we find this entry.

There’s no explanation of where the money came from that he gave himself as a ‘loan’. Even though it’s before the sale of the Windward Energy shares I still assumed this money came from Bute, for services rendered.

Moblake soon went into liquidation.

◊

POSITIF, CAMLAS, BUTE

In the first section I mentioned David Taylor’s link to child pornography fan Daran Hill, and Hill’s company Positif. Since renamed Camlas. And we saw that the other two men arrested with Taylor are Camlas employees.

Camlas is owned by Rhodri ab Owen. Rhodri’s brother is Senedd Member Rhys ab Owen, who sits as an Independent following a minor lapse that saw the pearl-clutchers of Plaid Cymru distance themselves.

These brothers are the sons of lifelong Plaid activist and Assembly Member the late Owen John Thomas, with whom I had a few jars back in The Good Old Days when the party prioritised Wales and Welsh interests before going far left then Woke.

Camlas seems to be another Plaid-Labour hybrid. (Like Deryn.) For as we’ve seen, and despite Plaid ownership, there’s plenty of Labour involvement. Another from that quarter worth mentioning is Naomi Williams, the partner of Labour SM Jack Sargeant, who did 14 years with Positif-Camlas and ended up as Managing Partner.

Another Camlas-Labour connection is provided by Matthew Hexter. He worked for Camlas for over three years, as a Senior Political Consultant, before becoming a Special Adviser at the Wales Office.

Bute Energy is a client of Camlas. And as I’ve established above, Taylor has a lengthy association with Bute. But Taylor’s now moved on, and since September last year he’s been Head of Programmes for Asia House in London.

I don’t know much about Asia House, but it has many contacts in China. That’s almost inevitable, with China being the largest Asian country. And there needn’t be anything suspicious about it. Except that China is a country controlled by a Communist regime with its hand in everything.

Taylor’s most recent company is Earthcott Ltd. Launched 1 September 2021. The latest accounts, to year ending 30 September 2024, show a big increase in assets and cash. And, as we saw earlier with Moblake, there’s no explanation for where it comes from.

Is this to be paid to himself as a loan that doesn’t need to be repaid?

Idly flicking through the Asia House accounts filed with Companies House, I soon came upon the capture you see below, which rang a bell. But why?

Rathbones is a major investment company, with its roots in Liverpool. Like most asset and investment companies nowadays it’s keen to make money from ‘renewable’ energy. But let me explain why I found Rathbone’s involvement interesting.

The Rathbone family still benefits handsomely from such investments. One member of the family sits in the Senedd, Jenny Rathbone, SM for Cardiff Central since 2011. As Wikipedia tells us:

Rathbone descended from the Rathbone family, with many members being notable merchants and politicians. Rathbone’s great aunt is Eleanor Rathbone, one of the first women elected as a Member of Parliament.[16][17][18] Her great grandfather was William Rathbone V, who was Lord Mayor of Liverpool.[19]

Jenny Rathbone is a big supporter of ‘Renewables’. And “sits on the Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee“. But it don’t end there.

Her husband, or partner, John Uden, who knows bugger all about wind energy, had a sinecure created for him by Bute Energy on its ‘Welsh Advisory Board’ a few years back. Another member recruited was redundant Labour MEP Derek Vaughan.

In fact, Bute has been hoovering up people with influence in the Labour party for some years. A recent addition is Sophie Howe, former Future Generations Commissioner, who’s now a director of Bute Energy Ltd.

And it seems to have started with David James Taylor, because the boys from Edinburgh didn’t know anybody here until they recruited him.

But now, with the wind in their sails, Plaid Cymru seem to be the target. One notable recruit being 29-year-old Baroness Carmen Smith. She was selected for the Lords by the party hierarchy over the members’ choice of former MP Elfyn Llwyd.

Did Bute have a hand in that? Because Smith works for Bute.

◊

UPDATES

Martin ‘Shippo’ Shipton, of ‘Welsh Government’-funded Nation.Cymru, had his door kicked in just after 6am last Wednesday by an “eight-strong team from the counter-terrorism division of the Metropolitan Police“. As he reports here.

To believe him this was all a misunderstanding due to a completely innocent visit he made to Hong Kong, with David James Taylor, to meet representatives of the Chinese Communist Party.

Fair enough, squire . . . except that Shippo has made his admiration for Communist China clear on a few occasions.

He sounds like a visitor to Stalin’s Russia in awe of the grain harvest.

And on Friday the Western Mail gave him a big spread. Though I was initially confused by the reference to “top Welsh journalist“.

Shipton is a biased lefty propagandist subsidised with our money. If it was up to me I’d have him ‘cuffed, dragged off to some quiet place, where he’d be encouraged to respond to the gentle persuasion of a rubber hose.

But, then, I’m a far-right bastard . . . who respects democracy, who wants to defend freedom of speech, who rejects censorship and Digital ID, who realises that Net Zero is a Globalist scam, who knows that Covid was engineered by some truly evil bastards.

Just another nobody who loves his country, and realises who its real enemies are.

And I’ve got a sense of humour!

In other news, Taylor’s wife, Joani Reid, has resigned the Labour whip.

Another property has been searched. So who is it? Well, he’s a former aide to Tom Watson, former deputy leader of the Labour party, who now sits in the House of Lords.

Watson became a director of Bute company Windward Energy Ltd in September 2024.

I could go about Labour party connections with Bute. For example, funding is said to be coming from Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, where we find a former Danish PM, who happens to be the wife of Stephen Kinnock, Labour MP for Aberavon.

With more investment coming from the Welsh local government pension pot.

◊

CONCLUSION

Welsh politics is corrupt. It’s a cess-pit. There could be no other way after a century of Labour party dominance and the cronyism and nepotism that goes with it.

With devolution third-rate politicos have been bossed around by spads and advisers, civil servants answering to bosses in London, and bullied by lobbysists and others. All of whom have more influence in Corruption Bay than we, the people they were elected to represent.

Which explains so much. Such as why Wales is the only country in the Western world without a register of lobbyists. Because the lobbyists didn’t want it!

In recent years, new players have added to that corruption.

Among these new players, Bute Energy is prominent. It wants to plaster rural Wales in 250-metre-tall wind turbines, cover good land with solar panels, and destroy what remains with pylons.

And Bute’s done this through buying political influence. The boys from Auld Reekie know how the game is played. And it was so easy when you’re dealing with thick-as-shit politicians, with no business sense – but stupid and gullible enough to believe that human beings are destroying the planet!

And for what? Unreliable and expensive ‘renewable’ energy. While China builds one coal-fired power station after another. While supplying us with components for wind turbines and complete solar panels.

And there is already Chinese interest in ‘renewables’ in Wales. Brenig wind farm, in the Clocaenog forest, is owned by the China General Nuclear Power Corporation of Guandong Province.

Wales & West Utilities is Chinese owned. After trawling through a labyrinth of ownership you eventually come to West Gas Networks Ltd. Check out the shareholders. Tracing back to Li Ka-shing.

It would relatively easy for China to begin a takeover of the UK energy market in Wales. There’d be little or no oversight from incompetent politicians who’d dress it all up as ‘diversity’ or ‘foreign investment’, or some such nonsense.

With the mainstream media, aided by the likes of Martin ‘China’ Shipton and Wee Willy Hayward, denouncing critics as racists and Sinophobes.

I don’t want it to look like I’m picking on Bute Energy, but it’s certainly a link between those who were pulled in. Bute, and of course the ‘Welsh’ Labour party that Bute’s so successfully infiltrated.

On top of which, people are telling me that Bute, perhaps due to mounting local opposition to its plans, is looking to sell up.

I’ll say no more. Form your own conclusions from the evidence I’ve presented.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2026

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Devolution Is Cardiff Council On Stilts

On By JacIn Cardiff, Cardiff Bay, Corruption Bay, Devolution, Plaid Cymru, Senedd, Welsh Government, Welsh Labour23 Comments

To explain the title . . . Back in the 1960s and 1970s, when there was any talk of a Welsh Parliament, Home Rule, or devolution, one of the arguments used against the idea was that such a creation would just be “Glamorgan County Council on stilts“.

The implication being that other parts of Wales would be ignored. That investment, jobs and other goodies resulting from self-government would be concentrated in that area.

In this piece I’ll try to persuade you that what we’ve seen since 1999 is even worse.

◊

FIRST SECRETARY, FIRST MINISTER

I’m going to begin by looking at the first secretaries and first ministers we’ve had since the beginning of the devolution experiment.

The first, said to be Tony Blair’s choice, even “Blair’s poodle“, was Alun Michael. He was never very popular, either within the Labour party or the country at large, and was first secretary for just nine months, until May 2000.

A former Cardiff City councillor, he later served as Labour MP for Cardiff South and Penarth. Then Regional Assembly Member for Mid & West Wales. And PCC for South Wales.

Michael was replaced by the much more popular Rhodri Morgan. Who stayed in the first minister role until December 2009.

Cardiff-born Morgan was MP (until 2001 GE) and AM for Cardiff West from 1999.

Next came Carwyn Jones. Despite being born in Swansea, and practising law there for a number of years, he represented the Bridgend constituency. His Cardiff connection was established by being a tutor for a few years at Cardiff University.

I’ve said it many times on this blog, and I’ll say it again, Cardiff University is joined at the hip to the local Labour establishment. The School of Journalism should be renamed the School of Globalist-Left Propaganda.

Jones stood down as leader in December 2018. He now sits in the House of Lords as Baron Jones of Penybont.

He was succeeded by Mark Drakeford, a former South Glamorgan County councillor who became the Assembly Member for Cardiff West in the May 2011 elections.

Drakeford was born and raised in Carmarthenshire, but moved to Cardiff over 40 years ago. And was a lecturer at Cardiff University.

From 1985 to 1993, Drakeford represented the Pontcanna ward on South Glamorgan County Council, with fellow future Welsh Assembly members Jane Hutt and Jane Davidson as his ward colleagues.

(Jane Davidson was at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, Labour AM for Pontypridd (1999 – 2011), and wrote the Well-being of Future Generations legislation that enforces ESG and DEI in every aspect of Welsh life.)

Drakeford stood down as first minister in March 2024. He will not stand again in May.

Then came the brief tenure of his successor Vaughan Gething. After serving as councillor for the Butetown ward on Cardiff City Council he became the Senedd Member for Cardiff South & Penarth in 2011.

Gething is also standing down.

Gething was succeeded in August 2024 by the current incumbent, and former MEP, Eluned Morgan, the Regional Member for Mid & West Wales.

Born and raised in Cardiff she sits in the House of Lords as Baroness Morgan of Ely.

So we see a Cardiff connection with all first secretaries or first ministers Wales has known in 27 years of devolution. And with five out of the six a strong connection.

Given that Cardiff makes up some twelve per cent of Wales’ population, this statistic is truly remarkable. And should be concerning.

◊

SOME INTERESTING SENEDD MEMBERS

Beginning with Bridgend, where we find Sarah Murphy. Who was born and raised in Pontypridd then, after Reading University, worked in Seoul and London. She came back to Cardiff; held posts with the Labour party, and the University. More exactly, the School of Journalism.

Next, Cardiff Central. The patch of uber wealthy Jenny Rathbone since 2011. She’s a member of the Rathbone dynasty of Liverpool, where she was born. Her knowledge of Wales is on a par with that of a stay-at-home Eskimo. Limited to Cardiff and the area around her holiday home up in Llanfihangel Glyn Myfyr.

Hubby, John Uden, who knows as much about wind power as the heretofore mentioned Innuit knows of Wales, somehow managed to get on the ‘Welsh Advisory Board’ of Bute Energy. Which was handy, seeing as Mrs Uden sits on the Senedd’s Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee.

She’s standing down in May. Her vacuous wittering will not be missed.

Cardiff North is where we find Julie Morgan, widow of Rhodri. Cardiff born and bred, she is a former South Glamorgan and Cardiff City councillor, and was elected to the Senedd in 2011 after losing the Westminster seat of Cardiff North in 2010.

She is also standing down.

Cardiff South & Penarth is held by former first minister, Vaughan Gething. (See above.)

Cardiff West is held by former first minister Mark Drakeford (See above.)

Cynon Valley brings up Vikki Howells, who was born and raised in the constituency, and attended Cardiff University.

The SM for Llanelli Lee Waters is definitely a member of the Corruption Bay in crowd. A former ITV Wales journalist, director of think tank IWA, then director-lobbyist for bike charity Sustrans, he’s the man responsible for the 20mph restrictions.

Despite being SM for a seat west of Swansea, he lives just outside Cardiff.

He’s standing down in May.

Now we head up to Merthyr where the local representative is Bristol City fan Dawn Bowden. Another Bay insider who worked her way up through union ranks but who knows as much about the Heads of the Valleys as the denizen of the frozen north I mentioned earlier.

But that doesn’t matter – she was promised a safe seat.

Which she’ll thankfully vacate in May.

Another carpet-bagger can be found in Pontypridd in the form of Mick Antoniw. He came to Wales to study at Cardiff University, and stayed. One of those who drove through the absurd and corrupt voting system we’ll be using in May.

Of Ukrainian descent, he’s made a number of very public trips there to deliver ‘aid’. If Wales was independent he’d want us to declare war on Russia.

Another one standing down.

A odd one now, in Julie James, SM for Swansea West. Odd, because even though she was born in Swansea, travelled around a lot in her early life, she was involved in the Gilestone farm saga before being elected to the Assembly in 2011. As a solicitor working against the then owners, which paved the way for the land to be bought by someone’s chosen buyer.

Also standing down.

Moving east to Torfaen, ‘though born in Merthyr, Lynn Neagle is definitely part of the Bay Bubble. Wife of former Labour AM Huw Lewis.

Neagle has worked for, “Shelter Cymru, Mind and the CAB. She was Carers Development Officer with Voluntary Action Cardiff and also worked as a researcher for Glenys Kinnock MEP“.

And, finally . . . Jane Hutt, who sits for the Vale of Glamorgan, is another who moved to Wales to involve herself in charities and third sector bodies: National Co-ordinator of Welsh Women’s Aid, South Glamorgan Women’s Workshop, Tenant Participation Advisory Service and Chwarae Teg (Fair Play) . . .

Thankfully, she’s also standing down.

◊

REGIONAL SENEDD MEMBERS

Due to winning so many seats in the south and the north east Labour has just three Regional SMs. One in the North. Here are the two from the Mid & West.

One of course, is Eluned Morgan, the current first minister. (See above.)

The other is Joyce Watson. And she may be unique among Labour SMs because her official bio says: “Joyce has run several small businesses – public houses, restaurants and retail outlets – in Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire.”

But did she own them?

But even that ray of hope is dimmed by the usual charity/third sector involvement: “Joyce managed the Wales Women’s National Coalition . . . senior member of the Wales Gender Budget Group . . . NHS Equality Reference Group”.

Watson is another jumping the sinking ship of devolved politics in May.

◊

WHAT IT MEANS

Let’s start with a statistic. The population of Wales grew between the census years of 2001 and 2021 by 6.8%. In the same period Cardiff saw growth of 18.7%. According to some, Cardiff is now the fastest-growing city in the UK.

Most areas of Wales saw negligible growth, with some even recording a fall. Ceredigion, Blaenau Gwent and Gwynedd have declining, and ageing, populations; while Merthyr and a few other areas struggle to maintain their numbers.

Newport’s population increases steadily since charges on the Severn Bridge were abolished, which allowed buyers from England to access the cheaper housing in south east Wales and commute daily to Bristol, or even further. While in many rural areas population increase is due to retirees and good-lifers moving in.

But turning Newport into a Bristol suburb and rural areas into al fresco retirement homes is neither desirable nor sustainable.

Welsh life is increasingly focused in Cardiff, for the benefit of Cardiff. This can be explained by a number of factors. The first, quite obviously, is political power. Then there’s the third sector, charities, pressure groups, which both feed off and feed into the political system.

A political machine serviced by regiments of spads, assistants and researchers, whose loyalty can be guaranteed by the carrot of a council seat, or, for the very lucky – a seat in the Senedd.

But let’s not overlook other beneficiaries, such as those to be found among the movers and shakers of the local business community.

An example would be the Thomas brothers, of the pie and pasty dynasty. It’s universally accepted that the ‘Welsh Government’ paid way over the odds to buy Cardiff airport. But who was the vendor?

And who bought that criminally undervalued land on the outskirts of Cardiff?

In both cases the lucky boy was Stan Thomas. Hot pies all round!

If you want a fuller picture, read a couple of pieces I put out ten years ago. Pies, Planes & Property Development, and Pies, Planes & Property Development 2.

But it’s not just the Thomas brothers. There are others.

Then there’s sport. Through funding, the ‘Welsh Government’ effectively took control of the Football Association of Wales and the Welsh Rugby Union.

Which explains why, when Cardiff Rugby went bust the WRU stepped in to buy it. And why the most successful region, the Ospreys, based in Swansea, is threatened with extinction.

The last-but-one owner of Cardiff Rugby was the late Peter Thomas, Stan’s brother.

The clowns currently wrecking Welsh rugby are political appointees, and they’ve been told to prioritise the interests of Cardiff. To the detriment of Welsh rugby as a whole.

Finally, there’s the media. Based in Cardiff and little more than a mouthpiece for those I’ve described above.

And all the while, our economy and our essential services decline and decay.

◊

WHAT MIGHT THE FUTURE HOLD?

If polls are to be believed then Plaid Cymru will emerge in May with most SMs, but not a majority. This will mean Plaid going into coalition, or having an ‘agreement’, or an ‘understanding’, most likely with Labour, possibly with the Greens.

We might even see a ‘progressive’ alliance of all the Globalist-Woke parties. It really won’t make much difference. (But what a nightmare that could be!)

Now some might think that with so much of its support being in the west and the north Plaid Cymru will adopt a different approach. And there might be a few moves away from the obsessive focus on Cardiff, but Plaid would be no real improvement.

Because Plaid wants to take Wales further than Labour on ‘ishoos’ such as Net Zero, trans ‘rights’, DEI, Gaza, ‘Islamophobia’, and decolonising Welsh cakes. And faster down the road of economic implosion and civilisational decline.

Party leader Rhun ap Iorwerth may be the Senedd Member for Ynys Môn, the seat furthest from the Bay, but he’s a former BBC journalist. He was educated at Cardiff University and he’s lived in Cardiff.

And ap Iorwerth may be a figurehead; for many believe the party is still controlled by the acolytes of a previous leader, the PoundShop Pasionaria of Penygraig.

Whatever the outcome in May in party terms, it won’t make much difference. Plaid, Greens, Labour, Tories, Lib Dems, they’re all just differently-badged elements of the Globalist Uniparty. That’s why they repeatedly tell us the upcoming election is solely about defeating Reform.

Is it?

Then again, Labour might welcome a ‘break’. Shun any co-operation, then come back untainted and refreshed in 2031. Hoping electors will have forgotten their record in the Senedd.

And who might lead the Labour comeback? If I was a betting man I’d put a few quid on Huw Thomas. If you’ve never heard of him, let me introduce him.

Huw Thomas, courtesy of Getty Images

He’s 41 years old and from Aberystwyth, he’s bilingual, and he’s been leader of Cardiff Council for nearly 10 years. In May, he’s top of the Labour list for the Caerdydd Penarth constituency.

He’s guaranteed to be elected because Cardiff is an area where Labour will do well.

UPDATE: Soon after posting this article at 9am I went to Tywyn, picked up a Western Mail, read it while having my first coffee of the day. In this article Huw Thomas gets a mighty plug.

If it comes to pass as I predict, and Labour gets back into power in 2031, under his leadership, then everything will revert to the status quo ante Plaid, with Cardiff grabbing the lion’s share of investment and jobs.

Which, to respectfully amend Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, will mean a return to: Government of Wales, by Cardiff, for Cardiff.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2026

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Grab The Money And Run!

On By JacIn Corruption Bay, Public Funding, Welsh Business Community31 Comments

In this piece I’m going to look at the collapse of Consumer Energy Solutions (CES) earlier this month, ask what could have gone wrong, and consider what the future might hold.

◊

BACKGROUND

There is a group of companies in south Wales involved in ‘retrofitting’ homes with cavity wall insulation, solar panels, loft insulation, heat pumps, etc., capitalising on the UK government’s ECO4 and related schemes.

They’ve experienced rapid growth in recent years. Most seem to be still in business, but the largest among them, in terms of turnover and profit, is in administration.

These companies are all owned by Dragon 2023 Topco Ltd, which is in turn owned by Cairngorm Capital Partners LLP, part of the Cairngorm Capital group of Edinburgh.

I’ve written about these companies a couple of times. Most recently with, ‘Corruption Bay’ Living Up To Its Name? just last month. I urge you to read it so you understand better the background. Also, the histories of some of the principals involved.

It’s quite fascinating.

◊

CONSUMER ENERGY SOLUTIONS

Something I remarked on last month was the huge increase in turnover and profits being reported by CES in its returns to Companies House. Here’s a clip from the most recent accounts (to 31.01.2024) which will explain what I’m talking about.

By any criteria, in any sphere of business, these figures are remarkable. So where did all the money go? And why is CES in administration?

Go to the accounts and scroll down to Note 25, where you’ll see under ‘Related party transactions’ that £74,326,749 came as revenue from City Energy Network. You’ll also see mention of the companies we’ll be looking at in a minute.

The directors who must claim credit for these profits have all now left the company.

The three I wish to focus on are: Ahmud Saleem Furreed, Lewis Edward John, and Stephen Mark Williams. All joined CES 19.01.2016, when the company was formed. They left either in June or September last year.

What are these talents of the retrofitting business up to now?

Before proceeding, it might be worth throwing out there that Furreed is a Labour party donor. I can’t speak for the political affiliations of the other two.

Here’s the Companies House list of Furreed’s companies. I’ll ignore some of the older ones and start with Assure Connect Ltd, where we find the three I’ve just introduced.

This company was formed in September 2019, has filed no accounts, uses as its address the old Evening Post offices in Swansea, and is presumably facing strike-off.

Next up is Majasala Ltd. And now it gets interesting. Formed in March 2023 this company’s ‘investments’ jumped from zero in year ending 31.03.2024 to £4,443,982 in a year! Furreed is the only director and sole shareholder of this ‘management consultancy’.

Though thanks to ‘creditors’ Majasala returned a deficit of £447,961.

Now we turn to WRYL Ltd, also based in the SA1 Waterfront district. This outfit was born 10.03.2023 and buried unmourned 20.08.2024. During its brief existence Furreed, John and Williams were the directors. It filed no accounts.

But before its demise, WRYL was taken over, in March 2024, by View Investments Ltd. Where we find Nicholas Simon Pritchard! (More on Nick later.) View Investments was formed 19.10.2023, yet in is first accounts, 30.10.2024, Pritchard’s company could declare assets of £5,486,684.

Where could it have come from?

We now turn to Secret Squirrel Property Ltd. What a lovely name! Is it a reference to squirrels hiding their nuts? This company was launched 18.11.2024, so it hasn’t needed to file accounts yet.

But a confirmation statement tells us that each of the following owns 1,000 shares: Majasala Ltd (which we’ve already looked at), LEJ Holdings Ltd, and TWE Partnership Ltd. So let’s see what entertainment they can provide.

LEJ Holdings, launched 9 March 2023 is, as the initials suggest, the company of Lewis Edward John. The most recent accounts paint the following picture.

Total assets of over ten million pounds, all arriving between the end of March 2024 and the end of March 2025, but virtually all wiped out by creditors. With the  accounts saying only, “owed to related parties“.

TWE Partnership Ltd paints a similar picture. Some five million pounds in assets, most of it accounted for by ‘debtors’, with creditors leaving just £217,000 in the piggy-bank.

Back to Furreed, and his most recent venture, Claimwise (UK) Ltd. Launched three days before Christmas just past. Four directors; Furreed, a younger man of the same name, perhaps his son, plus his regular partners, John and Williams.

The younger Furreed has a real estate company, JFurreed Property Network Ltd, formed in August last year. And just before Christmas he started up JFurreed Holdings Ltd.

So . . . after the most recent accounts for Consumer Energy Solutions, and before it was announced that the company had gone belly-up, ∼£25,000,000 appeared in the accounts of companies run by the three individuals who’d been directors of CES, and another company that was transferred to Nick Pritchard.

Companies that had virtually, or even literally, nothing before these windfalls.

You can draw your own conclusions on these rags to riches stories.

UPDATE 03.02.2026, RUMBLING ON:

This article is from today’s Western Mail. It also appeared in the Daily Post.

◊

CAIRNGORM CAPITAL PARTHERS AND THE ‘LAST MAN STANDING’

Earlier I wrote, “These companies are all owned by Dragon 2023 Topco Ltd, which is in turn owned by Cairngorm Capital Partners LLP, part of the Cairngorm Capital group of Edinburgh“.

But as the website tells us:

Cairngorm Capital is a specialist private equity firm providing investment capital, strategic insight and sector-specific expertise to leading UK companies. We invest in private mid-market companies that have the potential for further substantial growth.

Which suggests that Cairngorm can act as a conduit between investors looking for “companies that have the potential for further substantial growth” and companies that fit the bill and need investment.

And that might be the case with Consumer Energy Solutions and the linked companies in the group. But if so, then where might the money be coming from to begin with?

After doing work like this for a few years I’ve noticed that ‘background’ companies will often have a representative serve as a director and/or a senior officer within the company invested in to keep an eye on things.

With the retrofitting group we’re looking at, we saw Cairngorm Capital LLP had its representatives in the forms of Matt Anstead, former managing director, and Andrew Steele, managing partner.

Steele succeeded Anstead on the board of holding company Dragon 2023 Topco Ltd just before Anstead left to join Benoil Services Ltd.

When we look at who’s left in the companies subordinate to the Topco, we see one name, the sole director, and that name is Robert Benjamin Nathaniel Brodie. So it’s worth asking if Brodie might be representing someone else. And if so, then who?

One possibility – and admittedly I’m flying a kite here – is the company he left in March 2024, Ensera UK Bidco Ltd. Which for some reason is not listed in his Linkedin page.

This company is owned by Stark UK Topco (Guernsey) Ltd, owner of Jewson, the builders supplier. Which is where it gets a bit messy. For Google AI tells us:

Stark UK Topco (Guernsey) Ltd is part of the larger Stark Group, a major building materials distributor, and is ultimately owned by CVC Capital Partners Fund VII, a global private equity firm that acquired the STARK Group in 2021. CVC manages investments for various global institutions, including pension plans, meaning it’s owned by many investors worldwide. 

And there seems to be little doubt about it. “Fund VII will have over €16 billion of equity capital available to invest. It is the largest European fundraising on record.”, says Simpson Thacher.

Though there has been the odd hiccup.

We are clearly dealing with major investors. And serious money.

But the point is that Brodie was tied up with this lot, then joined the retrofitting companies we’re looking at. So let’s look at when Brodie joined the companies that were out in the field, as it were, doing the work. Which excludes the ‘Dragon’ companies. (Click on date for details.)

In all these companies he is now the sole director. After leaving Ensera UK Bidco Ltd, ultimately owned by CVC Capital partners Fund VII, on March 22, 2024.

Diversity Network Holdings Ltd 28.05.2024.

Advance Energy Services Ltd 28.05.2024.

City Energy Facilities Management Ltd 28.05.2024.

Simply Electric Metering Ltd 28.05.2024.

City Training Group Ltd 28.05.2024.

Consumer Energy Solutions Ltd 31.05.2024.

City Energy Network Ltd 24.06.2024.

Heatforce (Wales) Ltd 01.07.2024.

Still clutching the string of my ever-so-pretty kite . . . Robert Benjamin Nathaniel Brodie could be representing those behind CVC Capital Partners Fund VII, who’ve been investing in these Welsh companies through Cairngorm Capital Partners LLP.

If I’m wrong, then why did Brodie get involved in the first place, and why is he the last man in the wheelhouse when everybody else has abandoned these sinking ships?

UPDATE 20.01.2026: A fresh comment to my earlier post on these companies suggests that getting involved with Cairngorm often results in going bust. So I checked. And it’s true. Here’s what I put out on X.

◊

WHAT ELSE IS NEW?

Earlier I mentioned Nicholas Pritchard, Bangor City ultra, businessman. To help you appreciate what a busy boy he’s been, I compiled a list of companies he’s been involved with for the piece I put out last month. Here it is.

There have been a few developments.

When writing last month’s piece I was particularly intrigued by Pritchard’s involvement with the company Quidos of Bath which, as you’ll see from the image below, provides both training and accreditation.

Some might think that a company wanting to take advantage of government schemes, and then send out untrained – but ‘accredited’ – operatives to do sub-standard work, would find a company like Quidos attractive.

There is now a long list of Quidos companies, some even giving Welsh addresses. Such as Quidos AI Ltd, Quidos Capital Ltd, Quidos Facilities Ltd, and Quidos Protect Ltd. These new companies or acquisitions were launched, or changed name, less than a year ago.

Control is often exercised through Quidos Holdings, or another Pritchard company giving an Essex address, where Quidos Group Ltd is based. Just look at who’s funding Quidos Group – Pritchard himself and View 2 Investments Ltd.

The latter, a company set up in October 2024, is due to be struck off by Companies House for not filing a confirmation statement.

Think about it . . . View 2 Investments, set up 29.10.2024, is lending money to another Pritchard company, Quidos Group, formed April 2024, and giving a Romford, Essex address, to buy substantial semi-detached properties in Holyhead!

Another Pritchard company giving an Essex address is Hathaway House Holdings Ltd.

In the address given for a number of Pritchard companies you will have seen the name ‘Bodlondeb’ a few times. This is the fine old council building in Conwy, now leased to Quidos Investments Ltd.

I wonder what Pritchard has planned for the old pile?

Enough! I’m going giddy.

◊

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Let’s think again about the 25 million quid we looked at earlier; will Furreed, John, Williams and Pritchard really be keeping it, or is it going somewhere else? Maybe after they’re taken their cut?

And let’s not forget they have shares.

The three CES directors were paying themselves big salaries, and also paying CES money into their private companies. It was probably the same throughout the group. And “close family members” were recruited as “subcontractors“.

But beyond the financial, there are other considerations.

Not least, the customers left in the lurch. With shoddy work that needs fixing, or jobs that have simply been left unfinished. Disgruntled customers even have a website. Here’s how it reported ‘The Collapse of Consumer Energy Solutions‘.

One homeowner with whom we are in contact felt forced to sell their home after the devastating impact of a CES install. Another was moved into a care home pending restoration of their heating. And another family with an ill child claims to have been temporarily rehoused by their local authority

We’ve looked at the possible role of Quidos in training and accrediting those who worked for CES. But what about TrustMark, which seems to be funded and owned by the very companies it should be monitoring?

And local authorities that put companies like CES on their ‘Approved’ list? We know that Ahmud Saleem Furreed is a Labour party donor in the Merthyr Tydfil & Aberdare constituency, are there other political connections?

The reason for the collapse of CES and the other companies is almost certainly the impending end of the ECO4 scheme, scheduled for March 31. With so much public money having been allocated, there should be a forensic investigation of whether the money was well spent.

Seeing as we’ve been looking at Welsh companies that operate across the UK, and have gained a bad reputation, for themselves and for Wales, it should be a matter of concern for our politicians. And our media.

But our politicians are virtue-signalling clowns who spend most of their time trying to outdo each other in Wokery. While our media regurgitates their vapid utterances, trying to make us believe such laughable posturing will do anything to improve the real world we poor mortals inhabit.

There should now be a thorough investigation into what went wrong with CES and associated companies. But it won’t happen. There may be attempts to put right the botched work, the unfinished jobs – which will use up more public money.

But otherwise, there’ll be little more than hand-wringing and platitudes.

That’s due to the fact that too many of those who should have been monitoring the activities of these companies, protecting the public interest, were either negligent, or complicit.

Because that, gentle reader, is the state we’re in.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2026

Buy Me A Coffee

What’s Up With eHarley Street, Doc? And Where’s The Money?

On By JacIn Corruption, Corruption Bay, NHS, Public Funding26 Comments

Problems with primary health care provision in parts of south east Wales have been reported for a while. You’re about to read a fuller account. And the fuller it gets, the more disturbing it becomes.

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TO EXPLAIN . . .

It seems the contract to run a number of GP surgeries was awarded to a ‘GP management company’ which then employed the doctors and the other staff required.

But problems soon emerged. And these seemed to fall into two broad categories.

First, there was the quality of the service provided to patients. In some cases, no service at all. Even where there was a rudimentary service, questions arose over hygiene and other matters.

And then there was the issue of non-payment of staff, including doctors. Also, non-payment of suppliers, which resulted in sites being without oxygen and other necessities.

I believe the contract was awarded some time in 2024 because I suspect it links with legislation that came into effect late in 2023. I’m referring now to The National Health Service (General Medical Services Contracts) (Wales) Regulations 2023.

This legislation was an attempt by our respected tribunes down in Corruption Bay to ‘streamline’ and simplify health care provision. What could possibly go wrong?

Now let’s get something straight before going any further. Politicians’ contributions and media reports keep telling us that the contract was awarded to a company called ‘eHarley Street’, but are always vague on the details.

The truth is, as this FoI response from the ‘Welsh Government’ makes clear, the contract was awarded to two GPs: Dr Jalil Ahmed and Dr Jonathan Edward Allinson.

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(While I found two Jalil Ahmads registered on the GMC website, one of whom could be our man, I couldn’t find Allinson.)

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These two are directors of some 50-odd companies in the eHarley Street stable. All formed in the past five years, and almost all of them shell companies, filing as dormant.

All using the address: ‘Hollybush, Upper Bond Street, Hinkley, Leicestershire LE10 1DA’. Which might sound like a nice upmarket property, but is in fact a former pub, of the type knocked up in the 1950s and ’60s. (I knew a few back in Swansea.)

Hollybush Inn, Hinckley, Leicestershire. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

More recently, it’s served as a restaurant, or pizzeria. Possibly with a flat above.

If I’d seen that those applying for the contract to look after tens of thousands of people in some of the poorest part of Wales were using a run-down pub as their corporate HQ, then alarm bells would have sounded.

At the very least, I would have done some background checks!

◊

WHO’S WHO AT eHARLEY STREET AND LINKED COMPANIES

Ahmed and Allinson are named as the directors of all the eHarley Street companies. Control over these companies is exercised by Harley Street Health Online Ltd, using the same imposing address in Leicestershire.

Though this company also files as dormant, with no money going through the books. At the most recent declaration, the 100 shares were allocated to: Ahmed and Allinson, 25 each; with 50 to Mrs Nabeela Siddiqi who is also named as ‘the person with significant control’ (PSC) over the company.

And, by extension, the eHarley Street empire. Though this seems to be an empire devoid of both funds and tangible assets.

So, again, how were those involved offered GP contracts in south east Wales?

For there’s no question that those involved with eHarley Street were suspect. I say that because they seemed to follow the same MO in other areas. Here’s a report from Northamptonshire.

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As I’ve mentioned, the PSC for what appears to be the parent company, is Mrs Nabeela Siddiqi. And before her it was Mr Faizul (Faiz) Aqtab Siddiqi, who I take to be related. Her husband?

He describes himself as a barrister, but I can find no trace of him on the Barristers’ Register website.

He has a number of companies to his name. There’s HSA Property One Ltd, HSA Property Two Ltd, and HSA Property Three Ltd. All using the Hollybush address. These three companies also filed as dormant, and were all dissolved in July 2023.

His partner in these companies was Halima Ali, or Halima Ali-Fehrmann. Who has or had her own company in H A Audiologists Ltd. This never seemed to turn a profit, now files as dormant, and has avoided a number of attempts at compulsory strike-off.

Another of Siddiqi’s companies is Select Villages Ltd, in the hotel and accommodation business. Also at the Hollybush. The other director here is Dutch resident/citizen Archino Faried Afzal Ali Chedie.

Then there’s Weight Mangement 360 Ltd. Where we find Ahmed Jalil and Jonathan Edward Allinson keeping Siddiqi company. This gives as its address: Suite 5a, 2nd Floor 1-9 Castle Street, Hinckley, Leicestershire, LE10 1DA. We’ll look at this address in a mo.

Another company where we find Chedie, formed as recently as 30 May this year, is Halalification Ltd. I can’t think of any way to interpret that name other than the promotion – imposition? – of Islamic dietary rules.

I wonder what might happen to someone starting a company called ‘Porkification’, promoting bangers, bacon, and Homer Simpson’s favourite – pork chops?

Let me just conclude this section with information on the erstwhile watering-hole in Hinckley. The Land Registry title document tells us it’s owned by Narrative Options Ltd of Watford. But that company appears to have relocated to the Hollybush. Or at least, that’s the address it’s using.

The sole director is an Imran Khan. But the Narrative Options PSC is given as Pearlsfield Enterprises Ltd, also of the Hollybush. And directors of this outfit are given as Chedie, and another Meneer in Mohamed Annes Fatehmahomed.

In fact, Fatehmahomed is or was a named director of no fewer than 171 property and real estate companies, all of which seem to run by Pearlsfield Enterprises. And guess the address for this array of companies!

Who runs Pearlsfield Enterprises? Well it’s Faizul Aqtab Siddiqi. Again.

Siddiqi is also named in the Pandora Papers, linked with MAQ Group Inc of the Seychelles. And I know it’s him because in this diagram we also see Fatehmahomed.

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And to clinch matters, MAQ Group was registered with Companies House in January as an Overseas entity. Giving an address in the Netherlands but confirming that it’s a Seychelles-registered company.

And confirming Faizul Aqtab Siddiqi as beneficial owner.

The Abid Mahmood Mughal mentioned in the diagram above is yet another Dutch resident or citizen living in England. And you’ll never guess where the office is for his AMM Design Consultancy Ltd. Go on – have a guess!

∼

UPDATE 13.08.2025: I’m indebted to a good source for further information.

In January 2023, following the suspension of Dr Adem Akyol, the Isle of Thanet News told its readers that Newington Road GP surgery was under new management.

The new directors are listed as Dr Jalil Ahmed and Dr Jonathan Allinson

In December, the surgery was put up for sale with an asking price of £900,000. Here’s one of the comments from readers. Interestingly, Uden is an estate agent.

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And I think this is the key. A group of people with medical credentials now view surgeries and other primary health care facilities as real estate opportunities.

No health board should be doing business with these people.

◊

CONCLUSION

I could go on, but it would just be more in the same vein. Such as the 22 new companies formed this year with Allinson and Ahmed fronting, Nabeela Siddiqi posing as the person with control, the shares divvied up between them . . . but you just know there’s an unnamed presence in the shadows.

These new companies use names like ‘GP Medical Property (number)’, and ‘GMPS (number)’. They were all formed this year, some as recently as this month. After it became obvious the game was up with eHarley Street.

The only change is that they’re using a new address, but still in Hinckley. Now it’s 1st Floor, 1-9, Castle Street.

This has been a complex investigation and, as I suggested at the top, somewhat disturbing. Because the more I dug the more I wondered what the hell was going on. And why it was allowed to happen.

On the face of it, someone decided to a give contracts to provide GP services to two characters who would have been rumbled by the most elementary background checks. So who made that decision?

Was it the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board?

Was it the ‘Welsh Government’?

Was it civil servants?

Those who made the decision(s) owe the people of Brynmawr, Blaenavon, Pontypool, Tredegar, Liswerry, Butetown, Ystrad Mynach, and other areas an explanation.

Then there’s the money. Ahmed Jalil and Jonathan Edward Allinson were being paid to provide GP services. They failed. They also failed to pay their staff, and their suppliers, both in Wales and in England. So where did the money go?

Did it pass through the labyrinth of companies controlled by Faizul Aqtab Siddiqi and end up in his Seychelles nest egg?

Leaving the world of healthcare we find that Siddiqi has had an inglorious business career, with a string of failed and dissolved companies to his name. Either short-lived shells that never filed, and sank without trace, or else companies going under with major debts.

And let’s not forget the companies where he’s ‘Faiz’ Siddiqi.

One thing’s for sure . . . not paying doctors, cleaners, suppliers, was a planned and organised rip-off. And it should be treated as such. We are dealing with crooks.

And so, I believe it’s time for the police to get involved.

Also, perhaps, the General Medical Council.

Most important of all is putting in place measures to ensure that treatment of the sick and elderly in our poorest communities is never again handed over to outside contractors without rigorous background checks being carried out.

There must be no repeat of this débâcle.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2025

Saving The Planet – The Globalist Way!

On By JacIn Cardiff, Climate, Colonialism, Corruption Bay, Environmentalism, Globalism, Senedd, Welsh Government, Welsh Labour, Wind Turbines40 Comments

This is something I considered putting out on X; in fact I did, briefly. But more digging made me realise it was so illustrative of the state of Wales it merited a piece on the briefly revived blog.

◊

HOW IT BEGAN

It all started when I noticed a couple of unfamiliar vans in our street. I didn’t recognise the livery, they carried 03333 phone numbers. One had been registered in Bath, the other in Nottingham.

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Curiosity aroused, I thought I’d check out the website given on the vans. But when I tried to reach www.advanceenergy.co.uk I hit the brick wall you see below. Nothing’s been posted on the Facebook page since January 2024.

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Now I was really curious.

Next stop, the Companies House website. And from here, a picture started to emerge.

Advance Energy Services Ltd began life in October 2016 as Bright Plumbing and Heating Ltd of Pontypridd. It failed to take off, and in January 2019, with compulsory strike-off just averted, two new directors came aboard: one being Michael Ian Wayman.

I mention Wayman because while he was a director at Advance Energy Services he and another man started a company called Advance Energy (UK) Ltd. Formed in October 2019 it gave up the ghost in July 2021 without ever filing accounts.

At the same time, another Wayman family company, Smart Energy Homes Ltd, saw an upsurge in fortunes. Though the sketchy accounts offer no explanation.

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Meanwhile, directors came and went at Advance Energy Services, and the company address changed a few times.

But something might then have gone awry. I say that because I turned up this notification on the Financial Conduct Authority website dated February 2023. Wayman and his associate are named.

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From this point on I shall avoid naming Welsh or Wales-based individuals unless I feel it’s necessary. It may be possible to find the names on official documents by following the links. That’s unavoidable.

Just over a year on from the FCA mention, in May 2024, Robert Benjamin Nathaniel Brodie became a director. In fact, he joined a host of companies giving addresses mainly in south east Wales. Here’s his Linkedin profile.

He was joined in March this year, at a number of the companies, by Christopher McLain. McLain seems to have had no directorships before then. Here’s his Linkedin profile.

McLain is CEO of City Energy Network Ltd, while Brodie is the Chief Financial Officer. Here’s the Cairngorm Capital takeover reported.

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Returning to Advance Energy Services Ltd, the company secretary works full-time for solar panel and heat pump installer, Heatforce. Where we find Brodie (but not McLain). In fact, Brodie is the sole director now listed for Heatforce.

This company uses an address where we’ll find a few other companies in the table below: Unit 10, Lambourne Crescent, Cardiff Business Park, Llanishen, Cardiff CF14 5GP.

◊

THE WEB

I think the best way to join up the dots is to look at the companies where Robert Benjamin Nathaniel Brodie recently became a director. For he seems to be the key, the link to the ultimate owner.

Here’s the list of Brodie’s companies supplied by Companies House. And below a table I compiled of those companies. (Here in PDF format with working links.)

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It might look complex, but believe me, everything leads back to Dragon 2023 Topco Ltd and, ultimately, Cairngorm Capital.

There are six names that crop up more than once in the companies found in the table, prior to the takeover by Brodie and McLean. I shall refer to these as The Six.

We find them in Mudrock Investments Ltd. Launched in August 2020, a year or two before they started paving the way (apparently) for Cairngorm Capital.

Mudrock’s into real estate. I know that, partly because Companies House tells us, but also because Mudrock last year applied to Swansea council for a change of use.

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If we turn to the Companies House registration we find only two directors. But the other four can be found on the Certificate of Incorporation, where, if you scroll down, you’ll see The Six have 10 shares each.

The first (skeletal) accounts filed (as at 29.08.2021) showed fixed assets of £390,000. In the most recent (equally skeletal) accounts (to 31.12.2023), Mudrock’s fixed assets had rocketed to £3,142,088.

The address given for Mudrock on the Certificate of Incorporation is Coptic House 4-5 Mount Stuart Square, Cardiff. Though the address used now is a nice little gaff out in Cyncoed.

But it doesn’t end there.

Another strange entity associated with some of those named above was WYRL Ltd, giving an address on Langdon Road, which runs alongside the old Prince of Wales Dock in Swansea. (Where a boy I knew a long time ago used to go fishing.)

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The 120 WYRL shares were distributed between Diversity Network Holdings (80) and one of The Six (40). WYRL was launched 10 March 2023 and folded 20 August 2024 without filing accounts.

Diversity Network Holdings leads back to Cairngorm Capital. (See table above.)

Just before the end, control passed to View Investments Ltd, where we find two of The Six as directors and shareholders. This company has just avoided strike-off.

There are other companies linked to this lot, but life is short. All I will say is that over the years I’ve reported on many companies that start up and then fold without apparently doing anything, without filing accounts.

This often denotes shady dealings, even criminality. I’m not saying that any referred to here are involved in such activities, but it never looks good.

Since the arrival of Cairngorm Capital, financial support for most of the companies named here and listed in the table has come from Alter Domus.

One thing is clear from looking into these companies, and those involved: A lot of money became available around the time Cairngorm Capital showed up.

Footnote: At the time of publication the accounts for, CEN Holdco Ltd, Dragon 2023 Topco Ltd, Dragon 2023 Midco Ltd, Dragon 2023 Bidco Ltd, were overdue with Companies House.

Though I suspect most of these companies, having served their purpose, will now be dissolved. But perhaps not Dragon 2023 Topco Ltd. Not yet, anyway.

For last November there was a share issue amounting to some £100,000,000. Here’s how those shares were divvied up.

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As you can see, The Six came out of it very well.

◊

SURELY NOT!

Something struck me while writing about Cairngorm Capital, operating through companies using ‘Dragon’ in the name.

Because it reminded me of the funding for Parabola Bute Energy and its 666 wind farms (none yet built), which have been getting their funding from Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners through companies using ‘Dragon’ in their names.

One is CI IV Dragon Lender Ltd. Another is CI IV Dragon Holdco Ltd. (Though both have recently changed to CI V.) I suppose using the term is a way of showing these companies operate in Wales.

Something else that struck me was that both Parabola Bute and Cairngorm Capital are based in Edinburgh. Now I appreciate that the Scottish capital is a sizeable city, and a major financial centre, so maybe it could all be dismissed as a coincidence.

Edinburgh. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

But Bute and Cairngorm are both in the electricity business; at different ends, admittedly, but they could complement each other.

Parabola Bute’s wind farms could generate the electricity, be stored in their Battery Energy Storage Systems, distributed by GreenGenCymru, with Cairngorm companies installing the unnecessary but expensive equipment to maximise the profits.

Just a thought.

◊

THERE’S MORE . . .

While I was writing this I received information about something similar happening in the same part of the country and similar kinds of businesses. The name given to me was the Cardo Group.

Naturally, I looked into it. Typing ‘Cardo’ into the Companies House website brings up many options, but here’s the one we’re interested in.

A company Incorporated February 2015 as LCB Construction Holdings Ltd changed its name to LCB Group Holdings Ltd in October 2022, before finally bursting forth as Cardo Group Ltd in May 2023.

LCB was started by a local businessman who is now CEO of Cardo. The website tells us that Cardo provides: ‘A total solution for maintaining and retrofitting homes’.

One cause for concern might be the list of Cardo directors. I suspect that of the 8, our local businessman and a long-time associate may be the only ones living in Wales.

When we turn to ‘person with significant control‘ we see that in May 2023 this passed to BP INV Bidco Ltd. Checking who controls this outfit tells that our local has a minority shareholding, with control exercised by Buckthorn Partners LLP of Jersey.

Here’s the Buckthorn website. It lists Cardo as one of its companies. And three of its directors – Chaichian, Connolly and Fletcher – also sit on the Cardo board.

That Buckthorn board is truly impressive. Two Conservative peers and two chaps called Jonty. Break out the Pimms!

But why did it buy out the operation in Cardiff?

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The answer is that LCB gave Buckthorn entry to the Welsh social housing sector, for heat pumps and all the other bollocks. (But mighty lucrative bollocks.)

Then, because the ‘Welsh Government’ has bought into the climate scam, and it funds housing associations, they must fall into line. Social housing tenants have no choice.

‘Hello, Mrs Evans . . . just to let you know there’ll be a team coming round tomorrow to put a carbon capture plant in your back garden, right love’.

Knowing how close housing associations are to the ‘Welsh Government’, and the Labour party, there is no way that Corruption Bay would have been unaware of Buckthorn’s arrival.

One rabbit hole I sniffed without venturing too far in was Glas Trust Corporation Limited, a funder associated with Cardo, BP INV Bidco, and possibly others since the Buckthorn takeover. (I initially thought it might be Welsh!)

By a tortuous route I found that the ultimate owner is Unicorn Topco Ltd, which is itself said to be currently parentless. Though I suspect a connection with Levine Leichtman through Unicorn director and LL partner Josh Kaufman.

UPDATE 04.08.2025: Since writing this piece there’s been a lot of activity with BP INV6 Bidco Ltd. Many ‘replacement filings’ and ‘clarifications’ related to the allotment of shares, suggesting some confusion.

See what you make of it.

◊ 

FOR THE HARD OF UNDERSTANDING

Let me explain how the Globalist climate scam operates:

1/ Globalist corporations, private equity funds, etc, often working through pressure groups, ‘persuade’ governments to provide funding for green energy projects. In other words, anything that can be sold as saving the planet.

2/ Governments find the funding, even if it means taking money from schools, pensioners, the NHS, neglecting infrastructure, or even raising taxes.

3/ Those who started the process now take over the companies that will be doing the work and serving as conduits for the loot. Or even create new ones.

4/ Globalist corporations, equity funds and the rest then trouser the money they themselves persuaded governments to shell out in the first place.

They might keep the names of local companies, or give new companies Welsh-sounding names, to create the impression that it’s all owned by tidy boys from roun’ by ‘ere.

∼

Let me pause here and make something clear. I believe in independence and the capitalist economic model. I want to see Welsh entrepreneurs and Welsh companies employing Welsh people and building a strong Welsh economy.

But what we’ve looked at here, what we see with the ‘Welsh economy’ in general, is window-dressing. The control always lies elsewhere, and that’s where the profits go.

Because the socialists wrecking Wales prefer silly gestures to building an economy. Apparently believing we Welsh must be protected from the corrupting influence of prosperity.

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FINAL THOUGHTS

What you’ve read here is so typical of Wales after 26 years of devolution and Welsh politicians being suckered into obeying the Globalist agenda.

Yet stupid enough to believe they’re doing the right thing!

I keep referring to the ‘climate scam’, because that’s what it is. Dreamt up by a corrupt and decadent elite that bribes, blackmails, or brainwashes politicians and others.

Here we see that class in pursuit of greater wealth and total control.

The wealth comes by many routes, not just the Net Zero lie I’ve just described.

Authoritarianism creeps up through censorship we’re told is vital to protect us from ‘misinformation’, ‘disinformation’, the ‘far right’, ‘climate deniers’, ‘transphobes’, Nigel Farage, ‘Islamophobes’, Donald Trump, and Uncle Tom Cobleigh an’ all.

Authoritarianism to shout down the truth about the ‘climate crisis’; to defend rape gangs and open borders; to spread anti-white racism, gender nonsense, and to wage war on farming . . . all of which is designed to result in societal breakdown.

At which point the global elite will step from the shadows and offer to put everything right through total censorship, property seizures, digital ID, climate lockdowns, bans on private transport, and other means.

We shall then have reached the Nirvana promised by the WEF, where we own nothing, are surveilled 24/7 – and yet we’ll be happy!

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The only light relief – or is it gallows humour? – to be found as darkness encroaches is the sight of po-faced socialists believing they’re engaged in a noble, existential struggle to save humanity from itself, when in reality they’re enriching the biggest corporations and the wealthiest individuals on the planet.

Those parasites running the most profitable scam ever devised.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2025

Foundation Scam Supporting A Tower Of Bullshit

On By JacIn Climate, Colonialism, Corruption, Corruption Bay, Development Bank of Wales, Environmentalism, European Union, Farming, Football, Globalism, Media, Sport123 Comments

There’s been a two-week gap since my previous opus, A Case Study In ‘Rewilding’; so here’s a pre-Christmas treat for you to get your teeth into before those Brussel sprouts. Yum! yum!

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THE FOUNDATION SCAM

Here, I am of course referring to the ‘climate crisis’. It’s foundational because if you buy into this, or even if you just silently accept it, then you help erect the ‘Tower of Bullshit’ that’s built upon it.

In this ‘tower’ you’ll find net zero, behavioural control, loss of personal freedoms, open borders, wealth transfer, anti-white racism, personal carbon allowances, and a host of other evils that George Orwell might have warned us about if he’d lived long enough to write a sequel to 1984.

The evils we see around us, the ways in which everything becomes more expensive, and our lives more miserable, can only be imposed if enough of us accept we need to make sacrifices to combat (they love that word!) their ‘climate crisis’.

Because if we buy into the climate scam then we’ll dutifully vote for uniparty politicians and parties controlled by those who dreamed up and now profit from the scam.

◊

STORM DARRAGH BLOWS AWAY THE COBWEBS (TOGETHER WITH THE SOLAR PANELS UNDER WHICH THE SPIDERS WERE HIDING)

Among the most obvious measures being promoted to fight the ‘climate crisis’ is renewable energy. This usually means wind turbines and solar panels.

A truly disastrous combo.

On the plus side, Wales sees a lot of wind. What we don’t get a lot of is sunshine. Which is why solar panels are an insult to our collective intelligence.

To begin with, solar ‘arrays’ take up a hell of a lot of space, often good agricultural land. Which then gets poisoned. Even the so-called ‘Welsh Government’ admitted as much in this report from March 2023.

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The problems mentioned occur if the panels stay in place, but as we saw with Storm Darragh the other week, they don’t always stay in place. For the winds caused chaos at Porth Wen, near Cemaes, in the northern part of Ynys Môn.

It was soon reported in the Daily Mail, and the New Civil Engineer. But it was a full six days before the ‘National Newspaper of Wales’ got around to mentioning it.

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The problem is of course that Ynys Môn sees a lot of wind. That wind often comes straight off the Atlantic. To make matters worse, the island is relatively flat, with no sheltering hills.

So you might think it’s a good place for wind turbines. Well, no.

For as the New Civil Engineer also reported, just nearby, at Llanbadrig, a wind turbine had its blades ripped off.

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And yet, despite the obvious problems, there are plans for even bigger solar installations on Ynys Môn.

I heard of other incidents where solar installations broke up, and panel parts took wing. One incident involved Aberystwyth University’s £2.9m solar farm at Penglais.

An investment that’s inspired . . .

Four new degrees . . . International Relations and Climate Change, Biology and Climate Change, Business and Climate Change and English and Climate Change.

“English and Climate Change” must have a module, ‘Selling this crap to the plebs’.

For those unfamiliar with the area . . . Penglais is a hill above the town, perfect for catching the wind coming off Cardigan Bay. Though not so good for ground-mounted solar panels, which positively invite levitation.

Penglais solar farm circled. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Even if they reach the grand old age of 20, wind turbines and solar panels will never ‘repay’ the environmental damage they caused in being created and installed.

In addition, massive subsidies are demanded. And when there isn’t enough of our money on offer, developers go off in a huff. As was the case recently in Denmark.

Governments are then advised to come up with “healthier pricing” . . . by the wind industry. If it was up to me, I’d tell them to . . .

The Danish Government must now quickly . . . adapt their auction design to market realities. The industry needs healthier pricing and fairer risk allocation

Once installed, turbines and panels offer unreliable, intermittent supply – that has to be backed up by something more reliable; usually nuclear, or fossil fuels.

And as we’ve seen with Storm Darragh – which was nothing out of the ordinary – ‘renewables’ can’t cope with serious wind.

In fact, turbines have to be switched off in anything other than a strong breeze. And of course they produce nothing in windless conditions. Solar panels obviously generate nothing at night, or when there’s no sun, or if they’re covered in snow.

Which means that on those cold, overcast, windless winter days we experience so often, ‘renewables’ contribute bugger all to the grid.

So the idea that a country can rely 100% on ‘renewables’ is utterly insane. Yet this is what ‘Mad Monk’ Miliband is demanding. Though he’s being paid handsomely to push this bullshit by those who’ll benefit.

◊

BOLLOCKS IN THE WIND

If we’re talking of wind turbines, then we can’t ignore Bute Energy; maybe the biggest player in Wales, with many wind farms planned, plus solar installations, Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), even its own power lines.

And of course, Bute is well connected with Labour in Wales, having created sinecures for party insiders. Then there’s the Danish connection, with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. Which matches funders with Bute projects.

A 25% stake in CIP is held by another Danish outfit, Vestas, and on the Vestas board is former Danish PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt. Alternatively known as Mrs Kinnock, for she’s the wife of Stephen Kinnock, MP for Aberavon, son of former Labour leader Neil, and the late Glenys, for many years a MEP.

(Talking of Vestas, here’s a very recent mishap with a new Vestas wind turbine in Scotland. And there have been others.)

Mrs Kinnock has her own company, Thorningschmidt Global Ltd, and she also sits on the board of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.

The address given for her company is Acre House, 11/15 William Road, London NW1 3ER. Other companies at that address appeared in the Paradise Papers. This is the UK end of Rontec Group (Jersey) Ltd, the empire of Sir Gerald Ronson OBE. For those old enough to remember, Ronson was one of ‘The Guinness Four’.

Mrs Kinnock’s also worked with the World Health Organisation and the Trilateral Commission.

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I’ve made the point before that the principals involved in Bute came from property company Parabola. The holding company for the Bute empire is Windward Global Ltd. This is controlled by Oliver James Millican, son of Peter John Millican, chair of Parabola.

Is Bute just a front for Parabola? I ask, because one might need to be very generous to believe that four young executives, including the boss’s son, cut their ties with Parabola at the same time to take a leap into the unknown.

I just wrote “four young executives“, which may confuse some of you familiar with the principal players. For in addition to Millican Jr the other ex Parabola people prominent with Bute are usually Lawson Steele and Stuart George.

But there was a fourth departure from Parabola, Barry Woods. If you look at the list of related companies, you’ll see that Steele, George and Woods each had a ‘Windward’ company formed for them 31.05.2018.

Woods’ company was dissolved in September 2019 when, I assume, he broke with Bute.

If you go down that list you’ll see Windward JR Ltd. Those initials stand for John Reilly. He’s the Project Manager for Bute Energy, and a bit of a joker. For here he is quoted by NorthWalesLive in May 2023.

John Reilly, project manage . . . said: “As a nation we’re in a Climate Emergency, and a cost-of-living crisis.

The cost-of-living crisis is partly caused by Net Zero, forced on us to fight a non-existent ‘Climate Emergency’, yet Reilly tries to turn facts on their head. It’s too late for this bullshit, pal. Too many people now see through it.

The latest accounts for Windward JR, which became available to view earlier this month, show a remarkable upturn in fortunes.

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A company that never had more than a few hundred quid in the kitty now has over a million. With the filed accounts offering no explanation for this windfall. So where might it have come from?

Answers on the usual postcard.

UPDATE 22.12.2024: The accounts for Windward LS have become available on the Companies House website. They show the arrival of roughly £5 million. We can expect a similar amount to appear in Windward SG Ltd. And probably a larger sum in some other company for Oliver James Millican.

UPDATE 23.12.2024: The accounts for Windward SG Ltd (to 31.03.2024) are also now available. They show an unexplained increase in Assets from the previous year’s £87,950 to £4,722,225.

◊

A WOMAN OF SOME IMPORTANCE

In June ’23 I put out Taking Control, Of Everything, where I tried to explain how, through funding, appointments, and other means, the ‘Welsh Government’ seems to take over bodies that should be non-political.

In particular, I drew attention to recent changes at the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) and the Football Association of Wales (FAW).

I mentioned Dr Carol Bell who, according to this bio from Chapter Zero (one of her many directorships), leads (the FAW’s) sustainability strategy“. Which, given how ‘sustainability’ operates in the wider world, will probably bankrupt Welsh soccer.

Since I wrote last year Dr Bell has taken up a number of new appointments.

In January she started Aileni Ltd, with crachach luminary Geraint Talfan Davies, and Geoffrey Hunt of Arup. In March, she became Treasurer of Glamorgan County Cricket Club. Then she got involved in three archaeological bodies. And on April 23 Dr Bell joined Bute’s Windward Energy Ltd.

She is a non-executive director of Norwegian Bonheur ASA. A non-executive director of Cyprus-based  platinum and chrome mining company Tharisa. Dr Bell’s Market Screener bio mentions Hafren Scientific Ltd, another mining and drilling company, which for some reason isn’t mentioned in her Linkedin profile. Strange, seeing as she’s the chair.

Hafren Scientific has three outstanding loans with the Development Bank of Wales (DBW), of which Dr Bell was a director until a year ago.

The first DBW loan was made in December 2014. And in that very same month Dr Bell joined both Hafren Scientific and BlackRock Energy and Resources Income Trust Plc. (Though it appears she left BlackRock in March.)

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I used to think that Dr Bell and others worked for the ‘Welsh Government’, pushing the Globalist agenda. Now I wonder if she works for a higher authority to ensure Welsh politicos follow orders.

And as we’ve seen, earlier this year, and within weeks of leaving(?) BlackRock, Dr Bell joined Anglo-Scottish investment company Bute Energy. Intriguing.

◊

FINAL THOUGHTS

John Reilly’s “Climate Emergency“, was concocted by very rich individuals and corporate entities wanting to exercise political and social control through uniparty political systems in Europe and North America.

Their strategy is to destabilise and weaken the West from within, thereby making the Globalist takeover easier. Using tactics like DEI, ESG, CRT, Net Zero, open borders, and a comprehensive rejection of Western traditions and values.

To promote this strategy Globalists have recruited environmentalists, Islamists, vegans, sexual deviants, and of course, the Quisling Left. For all the measures designed to weaken Western societies are promoted as ‘progressive’, with critics dismissed as ‘far right’, etc., etc.

Of course, politicians come and go, whereas other institutions and structures are more enduring, even self-perpetuating. Higher education and the civil service might come into this category.

Academe is obviously in the service of the Globalist agenda, and it’s long been rumoured that senior levels of the UK civil service have been ‘captured’. More than that, it’s said they – not the politicians – now make (or convey) major policies.

It can be seen in Wales. I’ve chronicled the assault on Welsh farming for a decade or more, and it’s usually led by civil servants sent down from London by Defra. Which is believed to have devised (or conveyed) the Starmer regime’s inheritance tax.

◊

CONCLUSION

Matters are coming to a head. The lunacies that have prevailed for too long are in retreat. We shall see major change in 2025. And it may not be bloodless.

The German government has effectively fallen, there will be elections in February. Already moves are afoot to stop the ‘populist’ AfD from winning. In France, De Gaulle’s Fifth Republic totters from one crisis to another, the country run by pygmies not fit to utter the great man’s name.

Across the West, Globalism and Cultural Marxism (Wokeism) are in retreat, and people realise the threat posed by Islam. Change is coming.

Here in the UK there’s talk of cancelling some of next year’s local council elections in England due to ‘reorganisation’. The truth is, Reform must be stopped.

As I write this, it’s rumoured Canadian PM Justin Trudeau will resign. Whether he does, or whether he clings on until next year’s elections, he’s finished.

Down in Argentina, President Milei has taken a chainsaw to bureaucracy and socialist corruption – and the country is thriving.

And finally, it’s just a month until Donald J Trump becomes the 47th president of the United States of America. And then things are really going to change.

I’m looking forward to 2025 so very, very much.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2024

    Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda

Commoners, Toffs, Envirogrifters

On By JacIn Colonialism, Corruption Bay, Environmentalism, Farming, Greens82 Comments

This week’s tale comes from Powys. It’s an old story with a modern twist. Local farmers and others up against those with more money and political clout, with the twist being the environmental angle.

The Crown Estate is involved, and we also encounter that ultimate expression of the environmental scam – ‘natural capital’, which puts a price tag (in the form of grants and subsidies expected) on every blade of grass.

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ON THE BLACK HILL

The area we’re going to focus on is roughly halfway between Builth and the border, an area containing Glascwm Hill (pinned) and the Black Hill. There are quite a few grouse butts in the vicinity.

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For reasons I didn’t query, the area is known as Ireland Moor. This contribution from the Ramblers confirms that and gives a little more information.

We’ll begin with establishing ownership of the land. And we start with a company called Ireland Moor Ltd (IM), registered in Jersey. Below is a clip from the Jersey companies registry.

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This company was wound up early in 2018, perhaps because it had been superseded by Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd (IMC), formed in July 2015. For more information, let’s turn to the new company.

The founding director was William Andrew Lewis Duff Gordon, and he was joined on June 6, 2016, by his three brothers. But Tom, the banker, left after just one day. He is with crypto outfit Coinbase.

Let’s turn to the charges for IMC, see who’s owed money.

I assume the first charge is for the purchase of Ireland Moor. The two creditors named are the Jersey-registered Ireland Moor Ltd, and Edward Warren Filmer. But if the land was owned by the Jersey company, does that mean the old company loaned the new company the money to buy the land?

UPDATE 16.10.2024: A comment to the blog tells me Filmer’s full name is Edward Warren Filmer Cabrera, and he’s linked with companies registered in Venezuela.

You’ll see four Land Registry title documents shown there, and here they are, in the order listed: WA484809 (no plan available), WA404806 (no plan available), WA667700 (with plan), and CYM427489 (with plan).

I’ve combined the two plans, but it leaves us with a problem.

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What we know is that the total price said to have been paid for the four titles was £1,160,000. (With £600,000 being mentioned as the buyer’s contribution in the legal charge.) But do these two plans cover the four titles, or are there plans missing?

Seeing as the Jersey registry tells us Ireland Moor Ltd is dissolved, then who now holds the debt against Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd? Has it all passed to the other name on the charge, Edward Warren Filmer?

The only company I can find with which Filmer’s involved is CGM Farming Ltd, formed in March 2015, just a few months before IMC.

Though ‘Farming’ is rather misleading, for this company’s in the business of, “Hunting, trapping and related service activities“. So I got to wondering about the name. Might the ‘GM’ stand for grouse moor(s)? And if so, what could the ‘C’ mean?

The Companies House filings give the address of an accountancy firm in Weybridge, Surry for CGM, but tell us Filmer lives in Wales.

There is another title mentioned on that first charge, under ‘Schedule 1’, page 16. This is against William Andrew Lewis Duff Gordon rather than the company.

Though the dates given in Schedule 1 do not tally with those given elsewhere. In fact, the dates given are before Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd was even formed! Something’s not right here.

It relates to “land lying to the south of Cwmpiben barn“. (Though I think that should read ‘Cwm-piban’.) It’s for a trifling £40,000. Here’s the title document and plan. And here it is pinned on the OS map. Not a million miles from Ireland Moor.

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The other outstanding charges against Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd are, first, with Lloyds Bank (December 2016). Another with Lloyds (January 2017), secured against the 7000 acres at Ireland Moor. With a further charge with Lloyds against ‘Gwaithla bungalow’, at Gladestry.

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POWYS MOORLAND PARTNERSHIP

The problem relayed to me is that local farmer-graziers fear there are plans afoot that will adversely affect them, and this explains them being kept out of the loop.

Let’s start with the Powys Moorland Partnership (PMP). I was unable to establish when this outfit began life, but it visited Ireland Moor in September 2017. It’s funded by the ‘Welsh Government’ through the Sustainable Management Scheme.

Where we read . . .

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I’m sure you’ve clocked the £600,000. Is this the same sum we saw earlier, and which I assumed was the contribution made by Ireland Moor Environmental Ltd to the £1,160,000 purchase price of the four titles?

If so, then what I didn’t know then of course was the source of that money.

Though there’s also something odd about PMP. On it’s homepage it describes itself as a “3 year collaborative project“, but we know it’s been running for at least seven years. And in that mission statement there is no mention of the farmers who graze the land.

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So who exactly are the partners in this ‘partnership’?

Also note that the capture above, from the Powys Moorland Partnership website, talks of: “. . . nearly 20,000 acres of moorland stretching from the Llanthony Valley in the south of the county to Beguildy common in the north . . . ”

Which is 43 miles by road, and not a lot less for a fit and adventurous crow. What’s more, Llanthony is not in “the south of the county“, it’s in Sir Fynwy (Monmouthshire).

If we’re talking about just 20,000 acres, over that distance, and we know that 7,000 are accounted for on the Black Hill and Glascwm Hill, then the other 13,000 must be scattered about in disparate parcels.

Though something I noticed about Llanthony on the OS map was the proximity of grouse butts. Is that what the Powys Moorland Partnership is all about?

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Maybe the ‘Welsh Government’, through the Sustainable Management Scheme, and more locally, the Powys Moorland Partnership, has accepted, even encouraged, some kind of alliance between local sporting interests and the environmental lobby.

The Crown Estate may also be involved. The map below, by Guy Shrubsole, was available through WalesOnline. It shows considerable Crown Estate holdings in the area.

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Quite a concentration in a small area. But it all makes sense.

Because it seems the PMP is little more than a vehicle for the Duff Gordons and their circle. Men like Peter Hood who rents the shooting rights on 5000-acre Beacon Hill from the Crown Estate.

Hood of course is one of those listed in the Powys Moorland Partnership’s ‘Who’s Who’, along with his gamekeeper David Thomas. Also there is Will Duff Gordon.

I believe the owners of the uplands we’ve looked at, including the Crown Estate and the Duff Gordons, have reached an understanding with the environmental lobby. The planet savers will turn a blind eye to the killing of grouse and the critters that prey on them to view the whole shebang through green-tinted glasses.

And of course, seeing as some farms might became unviable without their upland grazing the acquisitive interlopers of the local Radnorshire Wildlife Trust (RWT) look forward to more land becoming available.

The RWT has received £1,161,740 from the ‘Welsh Government’ in grants over the past 4 years. And it rises every year! Corruption Bay has no money for farmers, but plenty for those who put farmers out of business, and the scavengers who benefit.

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NATURAL CAPITAL

If we go back to the PMP website, we see a tab ‘Natural Capital’, so click on it. The opening paragraph reads:

The term ‘Natural Capital’ refers to the “stock of renewable and non-renewable natural resources (e.g. plants, animals, air, water, soils, minerals) that combine to yield a flow of benefits to people.” (Source: Natural Capital Protocol (2016).

Note the year, 2016. Which ties in perfectly with this document, prepared for the Fifth Assembly (2016 – 2021). Within it we find a contribution by Nia Seaton, asking. ‘Are we neglecting our natural capital?‘

I think it’s reasonable to assume the ‘Natural Capital’ bandwagon started rolling in Wales in or before 2015. Those ‘in the know’, those with contacts, would have had advance warning.

The natural capital report we’re looking at was prepared for PMP by environmental economist Phil Cryle, Duncan Royle, and Ian Dickie of Economics for the Environment Consultancy Ltd (eftec).

With the efforts of their labour reviewed by Dr Rob Tinch, also of eftec. Cosy!

Those involved clearly envision money being made available in the years ahead from exploiting ‘natural capital’. Yes, I know they want us to see it as conservation, but that’s no longer the motive.

The motive now is to put a price on, and thereby capitalise on, just about every square foot of heather, every cubic metre of soil. Even the air we breathe! And the payment won’t be a warm glow, it’ll be hard cash.

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And I’m serious about the air we breathe. For as you can see, it’s projected to be a nice little earner in the years ahead.

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CONCLUSION

Yet again, we see politicians and others in Corruption Bay throwing money at anybody who can work the magic words ‘environment’, or ‘habitat’, or ‘conservation’, into their pitch for funding. Or into any other way of making money.

Which explains tax haven company Ireland Moor Ltd rebranding itself to Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd. For public money going to a Jersey-registered company would not look good.

The relationship between those two companies, and more especially the ownership of the original company, needs to be established. As does the identity and the role of Edward Filmer.

Because I couldn’t help but notice that the other projects funded by the Sustainable Management Scheme have as their ‘lead organisation’ a county council, a national park, a wildlife trust, or a Community Interest Company, but with Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd public funding was given to a private limited company with shares.

And those shares are divvied up within a very wealthy family.

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Discussions and planning by the Powys Moorland Partners (aka Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd), and certain other parties, seem to exclude the graziers.

You don’t need a crystal ball to see what’s happening here. And where it’s headed. Grouse shooting can be very profitable. And as we read earlier, the ‘Welsh Government’ is already funding gamekeeper jobs via the PMP.

Finally, let’s not forget natural capital, which can be greatly enhanced by activities such as planting trees. Or, to put it crudely, greenwashing. I’m told Aviva, partner to WWF, has been spoken of favourably, and more than once, by the Duff Gordons.

The graziers are being sold out; they and their sheep are in the way . . . and getting rid of them dovetails perfectly with the ‘Welsh Government’s desire to end livestock farming.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2024

The Development Bank Of Wales

On By JacIn Business and Commerce, Climate, Colonialism, Corruption Bay, Development Bank of Wales, Globalism, Public Funding, Tourism29 Comments

The Development Bank of Wales (DBW) has been in the news a lot recently, and it’s usually bad news. About loans for individuals or companies of questionable probity and / or dubious commercial viability.

The case that’s gained most publicity was the £400,000 loan made to the generous, landfill-owning mate of our mercifully short-lived first minister Vaughan Gething.

The (R) you’ll see next to some names will be explained at the end.

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BETWS-Y-COED

I should warn you that what might appear to be a simple tale of the DBW making a loan to some guy opening a hostel in Betws-y-Coed gets rather complicated. But interesting, so it’s worth paying attention.

For those unfamiliar with this large village in the Conwy valley, maybe it’ll help if I tell you the wife and I avoid it between Easter and October. It’s a tourist trap; nice for all that, but best enjoyed when it’s not choked with coachloads of wrinklies from Warrington and Wolverhampton.

The piece you’re about to read took off when a comment to last week’s posting drew my attention to this item in the Daily Post. Intrigued, I naturally got to wondering about the man named, Rowern Wong (R), so I made enquiries.

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It turns out that Mr Wong has a number of property companies, and many associates. Put together it paints an interesting picture. And opens up quite a few possibilities.

Before delving into who’s who and what’s what, I can tell you that whoever now owns Bryn Llewelyn, the change of ownership has not yet been notified to the Land Registry. So there’s little point in me showing you the title document I downloaded.

Though this Google image from May this year suggests the builders are at work.

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CONNECTIONS

Mr Wong’s company is named as Base Camp Snowdonia. Here’s the website. And here’s the Companies House entry.

You’ll see that the company in Wales was formed in December last year, and has since been joined, in July, by Base Camp Hathersage Ltd. Hathersage being a village in the Peak District. Both are controlled by Base Camp Hostels Ltd, formed in April last year.

So who’s behind the parent company?

If we turn to the ‘Persons in significant control’ tab it tells us that Wong was running things until the first of January, but now there’s no one listed as PSC. This probably links with the arrival of Mr Alexander Gibbs as a director on New Year’s Day.

And who is Alexander Gibbs?

Well, if it’s this guy (R), then he’s the Principal of Terra Firma Capital Partners. Here’s the Companies House entry. And if we click on the ‘significant control’ tab, we learn that the company is owned by Mr Guy Hands, who lives in sea-girt Guernsey.

UPDATE: Alexander Gibbs left Base Camp Hostels Ltd on September 19, the day after this blog piece appeared.

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Someone who became a Terra Firma director in May was Ajay Kumar Bahl, a chartered accountant. Looking at Bahl’s other directorships, among them is Pant y Maen Wind Ltd, which he joined in July.

This company is said to be owned by Brenig Wind Holdings Ltd. Which I can’t find. I can only find Brenig Wind Holdings II Ltd, based in Guernsey. So can we guess who’s behind this?

The only other director of Pant-y-Maen Wind is Oliver Gordon Hughes, who is a very busy boy indeed. With a number of Welsh names among the ‘renewables’ companies he’s been involved with.

The most recent among them is the International Sustainable Forestry Coalition, which Hughes joined in April. This looks like greenwashing. Finding land on which to plant trees and harvest whatever grants are going. Only formed last December.

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‘Social justice’! ‘Circular bioeconomy transitions’! Did youse ever read such simpering bollocks! The company is owned by Australian Ross Hampton. The other directors are Aussies, Americans, Japanese, a few Scandinavians, a Brazilian and an Englishman.

Under the ‘About’ tab, we learn . . .

The ISFC is a Company limited by guarantee (not for profit) registered in the United Kingdom. Each member company has the right to nominate one individual to become a Director of the ISFC.

So each director of this cuddly, not-for-profit front is there representing a major corporation looking to plant trees in order to save the planet make lots of easy money out of the ‘carbon is evil’ nonsense.

Before pushing on, let’s recap. This story started with someone opening a hostel for hikers in Betws-y-Coed, and landing a £500,000 DBW grant.

But the parent company, Base Camp Hostels Ltd, links with a big-shot financier in the Channel Islands, and various green scams, quite a few of which seem to be in Wales, including Pant-y-Maen wind farm south west of Denbigh.

I’ll end this section by mentioning two other companies run by Rowern Wong.

The first, Mount Fitzroy Partners Ltd, was launched in October 2016 and dissolved two years later without apparently doing anything.

July 2023 saw the birth of Walbrook Ventures Ltd (originally The Marylebone Trading Co Ltd). Now six weeks late with the first confirmation statement.

◊

SHARES

On the same day in April Base Camp Hostels moved its address from Wong’s pad to the second floor at 168 Shoreditch High Street an intriguing share distribution was registered with Companies House.

These are divided into Founder shares and Ordinary shares. Wong has 100,000 of the former, Gibbs 75,000.

The Ordinary shares introduce a number of interesting players. I’ll take them in the order they appear on the Companies House document. Leaving aside Wong and Gibbs, the first name we come to is:

BERNIE BOYLAN, and I think this is our boy.

BARTOSZ JASKULA (R), may be this guy. But Companies House says he’s no longer with Mergerlinks Ltd. He goes climbing with Wong.

CALLUM LAITHWAITE must be this guy.

TERANCE LI. Is it this guy?

ALEXANDER MAXWELL-SCOTT. I’m fairly sure this is him.

B72 VENTURES UG. As the name suggests, is German, based in Mannheim.

LIDEN HOLDINGS LTD, is registered in Gibraltar.

NANKILLY INVESTMENTS LTD. Is registered with Companies House.

You must admit, that is a very eclectic collection of investors in what is after all just a small company running one, possibly two, hostels. And they’re all money men.

◊

THE MANCHESTER CONNECTION

Let’s move over now to the land of the Mancs, for Mr Wong has been busy there buying up property. Done through his company Kaltain Ventures Ltd. The other director, with an equal number of shares, is Babaola Alabi Omiyale (R).

Omiyale is also a director of Bisley Solar Ltd. I found, by a tortuous route, that this company is owned by Impax Asset Management. Which ‘pioneers’ . . .

. . . investment in the transition to a more sustainable global economy and today is one of the largest investment managers dedicated to this area.

Kaltain Ventures Ltd has bought six properties in Manchester with loans or mortgages from the Paragon Bank PLC (5) and The Mortgage Works (UK) PLC (1). Other properties might have been bought without loans, or with loans that do not need to be declared to Companies House.

But clearly, Rowern Wong and his mate Omiyale, are into the buy to rent sector. Which would appear to be something of a departure for Omiyale.

Because from his Linkedin entry it seems he’s representing planet-saving Impax at Bisley Solar. Which makes sense. But how do we explain his involvement with Wong in Manchester? Is he freelancing, making some pocket-money?

UPDATE: Interestingly, Omiyale was witness to the signatures on both DBW loans. Isn’t a witness supposed to be impartial, unconnected with either party? Admittedly, Omiyale seems not to be involved in the hostel companies, but he is certainly a business partner of Wong.

◊

FURTHER QUESTIONS

The Development Bank of Wales loan was delivered January 15, a month after Base Camp Snowdonia Ltd was launched. Which was remarkably quick, especially as Christmas and New Year intervened.

It’s reasonable therefore to assume the DBW was dealing originally with Base Camp Hostels Ltd (launched April 2023), and perhaps advised that English company to set up a Welsh entity to avoid exciting the likes of me.

Though if we look closely at the DBW deal we see that it’s actually two transactions. There’s a mortgage for Bryn Llewelyn, and then . . .

All other freehold and leasehold property now or in the future belonging to the company together with all buildings, trade and other fixtures

July saw the launch of Base Camp Hathersage Ltd. Presumably after buying a property in the village of that name. Was it bought with DBW money? Because no charge is shown against the company.

If that is the case, then not only did DBW give an English company money to buy property in Wales, it might even have funded the purchase of property in England.

Then, and as I mentioned earlier, there’s the fact that although Bryn Llewelyn must have been bought earlier this year, the change of ownership has not yet been registered with the Land Registry.

And until the new title document is available we won’t know a) who actually owns the property, or b) if there’s another charge, for money received from some other source.

We’ve already considered the share issue at the parent company, Base Camp Hostels Ltd, in April. But what brought them all together? What’s the common denominator?

◊

CONCLUSION

It’s a long time since I’ve written a piece with so many unanswered questions, so many loose ends. But that’s how it’s worked out. Because, I suspect, there may be a lot more going on here than just a hostel in Eryri.

Now it’s time to explain the (R) you’ve seen after a few names. And I’ll do it by showing you Rowern Wong’s Linkedin profile.

For without checking all whose names have cropped up here I was still struck by how many of those mentioned had, like Wong, worked for Rothschild & Co. Of course, it could all be pure coincidence. But maybe not.

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Returning to his Linkedin bio, we see that Wong’s day job seems to be Chief Operating Officer of an outfit called General Projects. I eventually found it on the Companies House website.

Their Linkedin profile says:

A creative-led real estate developer that builds innovative and inspiring buildings wholly designed for the new economy

What’s the “new economy“?

I also found the website. But there’s no mention of Wong. Has he left? Is he now a full-time hostelier? (Is there such a word?) Does he need to update his Linkedin bio?

On the General Projects website, under ‘Purpose’, I found this chilling statement, leaving us in no doubt about the kind of people we’re dealing with:

A commitment to be operationally Net-Zero Carbon across our whole portfolio by 2030 in addition to the supply of energy from 100% renewable sources

Which ties in with something else that struck me, almost a thread running through every involvement and angle I looked into, was corporations seeking profitable investments that could be dressed up as saving the planet.

Is there a link between Rothschild and the planet savers? If so, where might Rowern Wong fit in?

Look at it this way. If you were a company, even an individual, in the greenwashing business, and you were looking for ‘pliable’ politicians who’d already bought into the climate scam and would therefore guarantee you easy money, then Wales would be very attractive.

Maybe Rowern Wong is testing the water with his hostel in Betws-y-Coed; getting to know people in Corruption Bay, seeing how things are done. Just a theory.

But whether I’m right or wrong, given all the money men involved with Base Camp Hostels the Development Bank of Wales should not have dished out £500,000 of our money. Especially if some of it was used to buy a place in the Peak District.

Though it may be significant that the money men appeared after Rowern Wong’s ventures had been primed with DBW money.

That said, the apparent change in control of the parent company, Base Camp Hostels Ltd, may have taken place before the DBW loan.

Does the Development Bank of Wales know who it’s really dealing with?

∼

UPDATE: As you’ll have read, I was struck by the number of times Rothschild & Co cropped up while researching this piece. And so I’m indebted to a regular reader for drawing my attention to Kerdiff boy Kevin Gardiner. Whose day job is Global Investment Strategist at Rothschild & Co Wealth Management.

Which fits well with those we’ve looked at in this post: asset / wealth investment types looking for a profitable home for their money. And few bets are safer or more profitable today than saving the planet. With few administrations on Earth more completely suckered by the climate scam than the ‘Welsh Government’.

Kevin Gardiner has been an advisor to those clowns, and is now a member of the Cardiff Capital Region’s advisory board. From these and other links we can safely assume that Gardiner is very well connected in Corruption Bay.

The Betws-y-Coed hostel may be a red herring, or a sprat to catch a mackerel. The question now might be: Is Kevin Gardiner of Rothschild & Co Wealth Management using his Corruption Bay connections to introduce his clients to Wales, and the profits they can make?

Here’s a nice group photo from 2014; also in the frame is Lord Davies of Abbasock, owner of The Tramshed. If you’ve got the right connections in Corruption Bay then Wales is your oyster!

Fill yer boots!

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2024

Whisper It In The Tramshed

On By JacIn Cardiff, Corruption, Corruption Bay, Media, Welsh Government35 Comments

This is another of those pieces I wish I didn’t have to write. Another sorry tale of political bias and incompetence, and the wasting of large amounts of public money.

◊

WHISPER AND LABOUR

Our tale begins with two announcements.

The first came from the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ last Friday. Informing us a “Wales-based” company, that televised the Paris Paralympics for Channel 4, had been awarded £800,000.

We were further informed,, “Whisper began its operations in Wales in 2018” and was then, “Named Business of the Year at the Cardiff Business Awards in 2022“.

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Which is odd. For Whisper Films Cymru Ltd wasn’t launched until September 2. Just over a week ago! So how could it cover the Paris Paralympics, which began a week before it was formed, and how could it have been so busy in Wales since 2018?

The answer is of course that it’s been operating under a different name. For if we turn to the Companies House website entry for Whisper Films Cymru, and the Certificate of Incorporation, we see that it’s owned by the parent company.

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Whisper Films Cymru Ltd is just the local label for a company of the same name based in Kingston-upon-Thames (down the lane).

Then on Monday I read Cardiff Capital Region was investing a further £1.5m. Making it £2.3m over one weekend. (Since the fall of Monmouthshire, all the councils in that region are now controlled by Labour.)

So let’s see who’s running this “Wales-based” company, Whisper Films Cymru Ltd.

The three directors are: Allan Handley, of the parent company, Whisper. Sunil Ramanbhai Patel, CEO and co-founder. And, to give a little Welsh flavour, Carys Owens.

Carys Owens is the wife of recently-retired captain of the national rugby team, Ken Owens. Which probably explains why Ken has been seen in dodgy company of late.

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Gething’s already gone and Starmer’s the most unpopular prime minister since Pitt the Positively Infantile. Keep it up, Ken.

On a more serious note . . . Ken Owens’ involvement might be linked to the ‘Welsh Government’ taking over the Welsh Rugby Union last year. I explained this in ‘Taking Control, Of Everything‘.

Is Ken being lined up for a WRU job?

So what more can I tell you about Whisper Films?

We know it’s been operating in Wales for some years without feeling the need to adopt a Welsh persona, but now that it’s gone legit there are 23 Whisper Cymru staff listed on its website.

Among them, and listed as another co-founder, is Jake Humphrey, formerly of BT Sport. He seems to be a fan of Keir Starmer.

Whisper Films Cymru Ltd is owned by Whisper Films Ltd, but we can follow the trail back to Sony Pictures Television Production UK Ltd, owned by Columbia Pictures Corporation Ltd, with everything ultimately owned by the Sony Group Corporation.

Should you be minded to write, here’s the head office address, 1-7-1 Konan, Minato-Ku, Tokyo 108-0075, Japan.

◊

WHISPER IN THE TRAMSHED

You may not be surprised to learn that the newly-minted Whisper Cymru is based in The Tramshed, so generously funded and in other ways favoured by the Labour party.

I gave the low-down at the end of May with, ‘The Tramshed, The Loans, The Leases, The Lord’; and a few days later, ‘The Tramshed, The Loans, The Leases, The Lord 2‘.

What I established in those pieces was that, like the shop in League of Gentlemen, The Tramshed is, ‘A Labour shop for Labour people’. Outsiders are not welcome.

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But why is Whisper officially taking on a Welsh identity at this moment? One answer is obviously to get its hands on the £2.3m funding you’ve just read about. And I’m sure there’ll be more.

For I can almost smell a loan from the Development Bank of Wales. Which would have been difficult if not impossible to arrange if Whisper had remained a company registered solely in England.

I also believe it links to the July 4 election. Because if you go back to Monday’s press release about the Capital Region investment you’ll see Dame Nia Griffith MP, of the Wales Office, mentioned.

But why is she involved? Isn’t this a Welsh company getting Welsh funding?

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Maybe the explanation is that Whisper Films is favoured by those who recently came to power in London. Which might mean that this deal couldn’t have been done before Comrade Starmer got his feet under the No 10 desk.

Was Labour’s Cardiff branch instructed to help Whisper?

Handley and Patel have another company at the Tramshed, CBC Broadcast Centre Ltd, launched in March. Though until last month it was known as Furnace Broadcast Centre Ltd. (Is that Furnace, Llanelli, or the one just north of Aberystwyth?)

Control again rests with Whisper in Richmond. Understandable, for both directors live in England. It’s worth dwelling on CBC for a minute because when you see who’s involved with this outfit other things start to make sense.

Which is a cue to look at recent developments at the Tramshed, including the opening of this facility last month.

No matter how it’s dressed up, and despite being funded from within Wales, this looks like a facility for Whisper, Channel 4, CBC, and other English companies. Such as Timeline Television of London:

Timeline TV . . . will operate the space following the conclusion of The Paralympics.

I’m not disputing that Wales will get a few jobs, some training, and Cardiff will get a lot of plugs, but looking at the bigger picture, Wales loses out. Certainly if you believe that Wales extends beyond Cardiff.

It’s all very well dressing up Whisper Cymru as ‘ground-breaking’, and the new facilities at the Tramshed as ‘exciting’, but in truth, there’s nothing new here at all.

It’s just more companies from outside Wales being gifted expensive facilities and showered with public money. All done to create a few jobs and give the impression of an indigenous media sector.

Little more than the branch factory / inward investment strategy updated for the digital age. Which, by a curious twist, brings us back to Sony!

Something else that brings us up to date is Labour-controlled councils investing pension funds and similar money in companies where Labour insiders are well looked after. The Bute Energy model repeating itself.

◊

THE SLOW DEATH OF YR EGIN

In answer to the constant claims that devolution was resulting in everything being located in Cardiff, S4C decided to build a new HQ in Carmarthen, known as Yr Egin.

Though the obvious location was Aberystwyth. Partly for its centrality, and partly because it was the most popular choice among S4C employees. It was even reported that many staff were refusing to leave Cardiff for Carmarthen.

But for reasons that were never quite clear, Carmarthen was chosen. Though good road and rail links to Cardiff and London were mentioned.

This is important because if we look at the Whisper Facebook page, we see that at the start of 2019 it tells the world that Whisper’s new home is Yr Egin. Suggesting it might have been this facility that drew Whisper to Wales in the first place.

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Is Whisper still at Yr Egin? It may have a presence, but my guess would be that Whisper is firmly ensconced at The Tramshed. That’s certainly the address used for both Whisper and CBC.

The point of Yr Egin was to take direct and spin-off jobs to places away from Cardiff. To spread the jam. Which is why Yr Egin is a failure. Yes, it’s being used, but not for its intended role.

But we’ve been here before. When S4C was established we were told the Caernarfon area would see a cluster of independent TV companies, providing hundreds of well-paid posts. Those jobs the Cofis were promised went to Cardiff.

It was the same with devolution. The people of Cardiff voted against, the movers and shakers were even more firmly opposed, but once it happened, then the Assembly had to go to Cardiff.

More than that, it had to go to the Bay, to benefit Nick Edwards and his pals in Associated British Ports. To boost their Cardiff Bay Development Corporation. In need of a boost after failing to land either an opera house or the new rugby stadium.

It was this episode that saw me coin the term Corruption Bay.

Finally, and on the political level, the new development in the Tramshed sees a socialist regime in Wales help Channel 4, whose news programmes are often compared to Romanian state television under Ceausescu.

A perfect fit!

As I’ve said, there was always resistance from within Cardiff to Yr Egin. And it went beyond staff being reluctant to move.

To begin with, the city stood to lose hundreds of skilled, 21st century jobs. Jobs that brought Cardiff a lot of money and considerable prestige.

Then, working on the assumption that Yr Egin would be full of ‘Nashies’, the Cardiff comrades could have justified The Tramshed, if only to themselves, on political grounds.

So Cardiff council set about developing The Tramshed. Using both its own money and ‘Welsh Government’ money.

Of course, WG was also supporting Yr Egin. Backing both horses in a two-horse race really is a mug’s bet.

◊

CONCLUSION

We are now told we need 36 more Senedd Members in Corruption Bay to make Wales a better place. Bollocks! Here’s my suggestion.

Keep to 60 SMs, but move the Senedd to Aberystwyth, or Machynlleth, Llandrindod or even Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant. No fancy new building, put the buggers in a barn or a village hall. Any member of a pressure group or third sector body sighted within three miles is to be shot, and fed to the hogs. Then provide the SMs with electric bikes and oilskins to get back and forth to their constituencies.

I guarantee that a few years of such an arrangement will do more good, for more parts of Wales, than having 36 more Senedd Members living it up at our expense in the corrupt capital of a corrupt country, heading down the tubes at a rate of knots.

♦ end ♦ 

© Royston Jones 2024

The Tramshed, The Loans, The Leases, The Lord 2

On By JacIn Corruption, Corruption Bay, Welsh Government, Welsh Labour63 Comments

This began as an update to the piece I put out a few days ago. But it grew too big. So I had to admit that the only way to do it properly was as a follow-up, a second part. Which explains what you’re about to read.

◊

LEO FROM THE OLD SCHOOL

A source, someone who’s given me some good stuff in the past, tells me a name to watch for in relation to the Tramshed and other matters is Leonora ‘Leo’ Thomson. She already plays a big role, and may have an even bigger role in future.

Leonora Thomson was educated at Oakham School, and then Leeds University, where she did philosophy. Yet another product of a public school helping to fill the thinning ranks of Labour in Wales.

One day I might put aside some time and see just how many of them there are. For now, I’ll just remind you of two.

There’s Senedd Member Jenny Rathbone of the uber wealthy Rathbone dynasty, who goes big on the environment, and whose partner, John Uden, was given a sinecure by Bute Energy, which wants to cover Wales in wind turbines and pylons.

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And of course, there’s the Green Goddess herself, Jane Davidson, who wrote the Well-being of Future Generations legislation that dictates so many of the restrictions on our personal freedoms, and also the damage being done to our economy.

What was once the party of the Welsh working class has to keep applying an increasingly unconvincing Welsh veneer as it falls further under the control of pressure groups, fanatics, sexual deviants, and career politicians.

Among them we find the privately-educated, conflicted between guilt at their privileged upbringing and the old impulse to shout at the natives.

◊

WHAT LEO DID NEXT

To help you start, here’s Leo’s Linkedin profile. It’s all media, arts, PR. Also a brief stint with the Metropolitan Police, plus 8 years as a Labour councillor in Ealing. All in London until she arrived in Cardiff, December 2015, to become managing director of the Welsh National Opera Company (WNO).

If you go to the About panel on Linkedin, and click on ‘see more’, you bring up what you see below. I’ve highlighted parts that I’ll be referring to as you read on.

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There’s nothing listed after she ended her stint with the WNO in August 2019. What followed is partly explained in the image above, with the rest filled in as we go along. But now, let’s turn to another line of enquiry.

Here’s the relevant page from Companies House. There are some interesting entries there. Let’s go through them.

The oldest active directorship is with English Touring Opera Ltd. She joined 7 June, 2021. Less than two years after leaving the WNO.

On 18 November, 2021 Leo became a director of the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales Ltd. Well, when I read that you could have knocked me down with an illegally-released-into-the-wild beaver!

Yet nothing I see in her background suggests an interest in flora and fauna. Truth is, this was a political appointment to an organisation the ‘Welsh Government’ wishes to use in its war on livestock farming.

In November 2021, with another woman, Thomson set up Studland Hill Ltd. This is a property management company in West Ealing, London. The other director gives as her address a house being renovated according to this Google map for January 2021.

On 23 March 2023 Thomson and three others set up Omidaze Productions Ltd in Penarth. Here’s the glossy website.

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Once you read, “fairer and more equal society” you know it’s about leftist propaganda rather than theatre. More ‘Waiting for Gramsci’ than anything Beckett wrote.

Can’t help wondering where the money comes from, cos I’m damn sure Omidaze don’t pay for itself.

Monk Racing Ltd is an odd one. Formed in 2000 it’s always filed as dormant. The key to Thomson’s involvement is probably Anthony Kenneth Lewis, who was a founding director, and is the joint owner with her of a house on the Taff Embankment.

Lewis resigned from Monk Racing 9 April, 2023. Thomson joined 27 June, 2023.

There have been two stints where Leo served as a Labour councillor. The first you’ve already read about, from 1998 to 2006 in the London Borough of Ealing; and now, from May 2022 for the Riverside ward in Cardiff.

Given the Philistines in Labour’s ranks, both on Cardiff council and in the Senedd, I’m sure the comrades have deferred more than once to Thomson’s knowledge of the finer things in life.

‘How do ew spell opera, love?’

Though I’m beginning to wonder if Leonora Thomson is bad luck. Let me explain.

◊

HARD TIMES, FOR SOME

Towards the end of September last year, it was announced that the ‘Welsh Government’-controlled Arts Council was pulling the plug on the National Theatre of Wales (NTW).

In March we learnt that Thomson was joining as interim CEO. Having already served as Interim Joint Chief Executive from October 2019 to June 2021. And now NTW has moved to the Tramshed, a nest of Labour cronies and insiders.

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Another body to lose funding recently was the WNO. Where Thomson was managing director for almost 4 years until August 2019. (Though I believe she returned in some kind of temporary capacity.)

Which means the WNO lost funding after Leonora Thomson had been involved, and while she was Chair at English Touring Opera. Seeing as the WNO performs at English venues some might see the WNO and the English company as competitors.

Though it’s difficult to explain these cuts to two such important cultural bodies as the WNO and NTW when one of their main funders, the Arts Council of Wales, saw its income increase by more than 50% in just 4 years.

Where did the extra money go? Surely it didn’t all go to Theatr Clwyd?

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A third organisation to lose funding following an association with Leo Thomson is the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and Creative Lives (RWCMD). She was working there in some unspecified ‘freelance’ role.

One organisation linked to Leonora Thomson suffering a funding cut, I could dismiss; two, I might, just, accept as coincidence; but three, and in such a short space of time? Do me a favour!

◊

UNDERMINE, TAKE CONTROL

What we’ve just looked at is a phenomenon I’ve seen regularly in recent years. I wrote about it a year ago in Taking Control, Of Everything. I focused then on the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) and the Football Association of Wales (FAW).

It’s the ‘Welsh Government’s method for taking control of an organisation.

The first stage is to discredit and undermine the target organisation, maybe also those running it. (Sometimes with inside help.) Stage Two is the reduction or withdrawal of funding. Stage Three, the takeover; done through a combination of restored / increased funding and the appointment of politically loyal or malleable individuals to the organisation.

A bit like the CIA handbook for regime change.

What we’ve seen done to the WNO, NTW and RWCMD could only have been achieved with the assistance of the Arts Council of Wales; which had already undergone the same treatment.

I wrote about it back to August 2021.

First in Corruption Bay and a tale of Cymrophobia (23.08.2021). In which I reported that the Arts Council and the National Museum commissioned three reports in June 2020 to look into ‘widening engagement’.

To make sense of it, remember that George Floyd died the previous month and there was fierce competition as people fought to honour his memory capitalise on his death.

The three groups commissioned were:

An unregistered entity run by Labour insiders Lu Thomas and Jon Luxton.

Richie Turner Associates. Here’s the image then being used on his Linkedin page.

To give a reminder of the period. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

(Though the company of that name wasn’t formed until February 1, 2022.)

The third outfit commissioned was The Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union (WAARU). Which had no presence anywhere – yet its anonymously submitted report was accepted!

And remember! 31 other applicants were rejected in favour of these three.

The piece in which you’ll find these joys unalloyed was followed with Arts Council of Wales and Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union, an update (31.08.2021).

And then (06.09.2021) Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union unmasked, in which I identified those behind WAARU. The usual mix of chip-on-shoulder race grifters and middle class leftists trying to live out their slogans.

Woke employees of Welsh national institutions collaborating with their Woke allies outside to discredit and undermine the organisations they worked for.

◊

FINALE: FITTING LEO INTO THE BIGGER PICTURE

The evidence might suggest that Leonora Hope Thomson has been employed by the ‘Welsh Government’ as some kind of hatchet woman; sent in to various bodies and asked to recommend ‘economies’ and ‘restructuring’.

Part of a pattern that sees ‘Welsh Government’ /  ‘Welsh’ Labour, take control of our public, artistic, and sporting life. Done at the behest of the shrieky and the unhinged to promote the Woke agenda.

Which explains how we see Leo, and National Theatre Wales, of which she’s interim CEO, joining the migration to the Tramshed. Which is of course good news for the owner, Cardiff council (Labour); and the lessee, the Count of Abbasock (also Labour).

And it contributes to the circular economy of which I wrote in the previous piece.

Welcome to socialist Wales 2024. The circular economy, benefitting those lucky enough to be in the ‘circle’. Where there’s no private investment, and everything is state funded, but only those close to the ruling party can benefit.

And having mentioned Cardiff council, it’s worth adding that even though she was only elected in May 2022, Thomson, who hardly knows Cardiff, is now Chair of the council’s Labour group.

I wonder who decided to give her such rapid promotion?

I suggest we watch Leonora Hope Thomson, and the Tramshed with which she’s now linked. Both might have roles in the political and public life of Wales.

In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Leo’s name isn’t already pencilled in on one of the closed lists for the 2026 Senedd elections.

Finally, what I found perhaps most disturbing when writing this was that I had difficulty telling the Labour party and the ‘Welsh Government’ apart. They should be two clearly separate entities.

That they’ve effectively merged is, for me, confirmation that Wales is a one-party state.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2024