20mph, A Disaster Unfolds

Well, here we are, on the eve of a great experiment. Are you excited about 20mph speed limits? Enthused? Or do you just roll your eyes skyward in the way that typifies modern Wales?

I suppose I could have gone about this post differently, by looking at the costs, and examining the various claims more closely, but I leave that to others, confident that I’ll return to this subject once the excrement starts moving upward.

And so what I’ll do in this post is expose the propaganda campaign (that we’re paying for); then give the local history of this 20mph madness; before explaining where I believe it’s taking us.

LABOUR’S VERY OWN PROPAGANDA BUREAU

Early last month I published It’s Getting Sinister, in which I drew attention to a relatively new PR/’nudge’ outfit called Lynn Global. The following week I brought out Lynn Global Pushes Globalist Agenda.

What we learnt was that Lynn was being paid to push the ‘Welsh Government’s 20mph restrictions for Welsh roads. And it paid well. For Tory leader Andrew R T Davies was told that Lynn had received £738,593 from ‘Welsh Government’ since 2021.

The figure for ‘2023-24 (to present)’ is £185,164. But is that figure for the calendar year or the financial year? I suspect it’s the financial year, beginning April 6, and I say that because Lynn received almost half a million pounds last year, and with the 20mph roll-out taking place this year, I think it’s reasonable to assume that 2023’s figure will be close to, or in excess of, last year’s figure.

Bumping up the costs will be Lynn’s ‘Misinformation Fact Sheet‘ for the ‘Welsh Government’. This attempts to anticipate and refute the objections raised to 20mph speed limits.

It was produced by Lynn’s very own Misinformation Cell, headed by Stefan Rollnick.

This is odd. When I wrote this on Thursday the online Linkedin page was available, but on Friday it seems to have disappeared. Fortunately I saved a pdf version last month.

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So if you’re plagued by fake news, misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, flatulence or scurvy, then Steff is the boy to contact. For having worked for Labour in London and Cardiff he knows all there is to know about bullshit.

In fact, Rollnick tells us he was . . .

Assisting the Office of the First Minister with its preparedness for misinformation outbreaks and developing a broad, proactive strategy for bolstering the spread of good information, with a specific focus on tackling anti-vax misinformation.

Ah! “good information“. Isn’t that what we’re all looking for?

The terminology used by these people is superficially reassuring, but anyone who’s studied history, particularly totalitarianism, knows exactly what’s being said. And it’s sinister.

‘We have a monopoly on the truth. Accept what we say, or suffer’.

Then, having dutifully carried out the orders of ‘Dr’ Bill Gates, in September 2021 Rollnick transferred his devious talents to Lynn . . . but still working for Drakeford’s clown troupe.

But enough background on a propagandist masquerading as a purveyor of truth, let’s get back to the origins of 20mph.

For Lynn was recruited to push the 20mph nonsense, but the story doesn’t begin there. So where do we need to go to find its origin?

THE LONG MARCH

One culprit might appear to be the pressure group, 20’s Plenty for Us; which has quite a presence in Wales, and may even have sent ‘missionaries’. Such as Fiona Andrews, who moved with her partner Piers Graham Partridge to Llandudoch from Bristol in 2018.

She got a mention in the piece I did back in June, Wales: Ruled By Pressure Groups. And here she is in a BBC report from July 2021 lauding 20mph restrictions, that had already been introduced in two Welsh communities.

One being Llandudoch, to which Andrews had so recently moved!

The other, was St Brides Major, in the Vale of Glamorgan. This video, released last Thursday by the ‘Welsh Government’, features a few brainwashed kids and a couple of other well-rehearsed locals.

If you’re convinced by that then contact me about some beans.

The BBC item about Fiona Andrews provided a link to a report that told us the Senedd had initially backed 20mph limits in July 2020. This followed a report from a group set up by the Senedd Member for Llanelli (who prefers to spend his time in Penarth).

The Wales 20mph Task Force Group was formed on the direction of Lee Waters, the Deputy Minister for Economy and Transport, in May 2019.

We aren’t told the individuals who sat on this panel, just the organisations they represented. (Appendix A, page 36.) Among them I noticed Sustrans, of which Lee Waters used to be boss-man for Wales.

The whole tone of the procedure and the report screams ‘Done deal!‘.

But can we go back any further in tracing the genesis of the 20mph restrictions?

Something I dug up (or I may have been directed to) is a report from August 2018 by Dr Adrian L Davis of Bristol. What I found significant about this was that the report was immediately promoted by . . . the ‘Welsh Government’.

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In fact, it was available on the ‘Welsh Government’ website on the first day of August, so it must have been available as soon as it was officially released. Perhaps before?

In Appendix A, which lists papers quoted by Davis, we see a reference to, ‘Twenty miles per hour speed limits: a sustainable solution to public health problems in Wales‘. Authored by Sarah J Jones and Huw Brunt.

This US site gives a brief synopsis, which saved me having to splash out £38 to buy it.

Though I was amazed by the claim that imposing 20mph limits will aid the fight against obesity. Surely driving slower gives fat people more time to get out of the way?

But if driving slower makes us slimmer, then what about hair loss? And flatulence?

20mph is beginning to sound like snake oil.

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The main conclusion arrived at in 2016, that bringing the speed limit down to 20mph would save 6 – 10 lives per year, and 1200 – 2000 casualties, is now being repeated verbatim by the ‘Welsh Government’.

So who are the authors of that 2016 report, Sarah J Jones and Huw Brunt?

Well, I found them both on the Hinkley Point C stakeholder reference group. In some interesting company.

Chairing the group is former Labour Assembly Member, mastermind of the Future Generations legislation, and mother of the OPD, Jane Davidson. Who does more work for the party and the ‘Welsh Government’ now than when she sat in Corruption Bay.

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Cardiff University, that partner with ‘Welsh Government’ in so many quixotic ventures, has two representatives. Possibly a third with Sarah J Jones.

There is another ‘Welsh Government’ spokesperson in Rachel Sharp, CEO Wildlife Trusts Wales, who appeared on this blog in The Alliance Against Livestock Farming.

She has worked assiduously for ‘Welsh Government’ and Dŵr Cymru in blaming farmers for everything in our rivers that shouldn’t be in our rivers. No surprise then to learn that she also sits on Welsh Water Independent Environment Advisory Panel.

Which seems to be another secret society; for when I asked Dŵr Cymru for the names of panel members I was refused and, as with The Wales 20mph Task Force Group, told to scroll down the page to the logos of the organisations represented.

Though we are told that the panel is chaired by “Mari Arthur, director of Cynal Cymru”. But she was secretary of Cynal, not director . . . and she left in July 2018.

It looks a bit of a shambles.

Here’s how I see it. The anti-car, restrict human movement element of the Globalist agenda, takes root in the Bay. ‘Welsh Government’ insiders Sarah J Jones and Huw Brunt are told to knock out something in support of introducing 20mph speed limits.

In the hope of disguising its origins, Adrian Davis of Bristol is roped in, and ‘Welsh Government’ quotes him rather than Jones and Brunt directly. As we saw in a response to a Freedom of Information request earlier this week.

You won’t be surprised to learn that Davis supports 20’s Plenty, Just Stop Oil, and the UN’s climate liars at the IPCC. Not only that, he also dreams of re-joining the EU, and he’s 100% opposed to fossil fuels.

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What we have with Adrian Davis is an archetypal member of Globalists’ Woke-Green-Left. Yet in the FoI response just mentioned he is the sole authority quoted by the ‘Welsh Government’ in support of imposing 20mph restrictions.

In whose universe is Davis an impartial and unbiased scientific authority?

How do his conclusions square with those of the Alliance of British Drivers?

But this kind of ‘Tell us what we want to hear‘ behaviour is all too familiar, as I’ve tried to explain on this blog over and over. Let’s just close this section, and jog your memories, with one recent example.

Back in March, in Nicola Sturgeon: Her Fall In Context, I considered the malign influence of pressure groups.

A few weeks before that article appeared the ‘Welsh Government’ announced that all new road projects were ‘paused’. This report from Llais y Sais told us the decision had been made by the Welsh Roads Review Panel headed by Dr Lynn Sloman.

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I made enquiries about Dr Sloman and this is what I wrote at the time.

Well, she lives in London, where she’s a board member of Transport for London. The bio I’ve linked to tells us she has a holiday home near Machynlleth. (To be exact, in Cwm Einion aka ‘Artists Valley’.)

So a cycling zealot who lives in London, and hates cars – but has a holiday home in Wales, to which she presumably drives – is allowed to dictate ‘Welsh Government’ policy.

This is how the ‘Welsh Government’ operates. It recruits people it calls ‘independent’ to undertake studies guaranteed to come to the desired conclusion. Then it employs propagandists like Lynn Global, or uses the tame media, to push that message.

There is never an independent voice, nor genuine public consultation.

WHERE IT ENDS

Before I start, let me make it clear that I’m sure there are people who genuinely believe 20mph restrictions will get mamgu on her bike, zooming ’round the neighbourhood frightening animals and knocking kids over.

Just as there are people who believe the planet is doomed unless we get rid of human beings. Or that men can have babies, and women have todgers. That White people are evil. And that every criminal who lands in Europe in a small boat must be looked after cos he is a ‘refugee’.

Such people are fools. But more dangerous by far are those who know these things to be lies, but promote them for other reasons. Which brings us to the Great Manipulators.

For perhaps more than any other administration and political establishment of which I know, Corruption Bay has surrendered itself to the Globalist agenda. And by so doing it is prepared to sacrifice us, the Welsh people.

This sacrifice means imposing restrictions in the name of public health, or saving the planet, or to promote inclusivity / diversity, and generally protect us from ourselves. For we are both stupid and evil.

Wales is now being subjected to the most odious form of paternalism. Odious, as it claims to be done for our benefit, but it’s not.

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Because if you understand what I’ve been saying then you’ll realise that making us drive at 20mph has absolutely nothing to do with road safety, or air quality.

This legislation is part of a wider strategy against the private motor car. Or rather, it’s to deny private transport to poorer people. For Net Zero is a war against the poorest in society waged by the middle class on behalf of an elite seeking global domination.

Further proof comes in a ‘Welsh Government’ document updated just last month, where you’ll read it spelled out, on page 45 . . .

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Just think how insane that is. They want to take away your car, on environmental and health grounds, but there’s no public transport, so you’re effectively stuck at home.

So wise up,

20mph legislation is part of the same package as ditched road-building projects, 15-minute neighbourhoods, compulsory injections with untested vaccines, the assault on livestock farming, and CBDC to keep check on every penny you spend.

If Wales had more devolution, giving Labour and Plaid Cymru the power (God forbid!), they’d introduce legislation such as we see proposed in Ireland, where there’s a Bill to impose a ‘Hate Speech Act’ . . . that fails to even define hate!

It’s censorship pretending to be something virtuous.

Should that law be introduced then a grifter from a protected group will just need to say they feel offended (or that great favourite, ‘unsafe’), and the Guards will be kicking somebody’s door down in no time.

They will even be encouraged to feel offended, and have explained to them the most lucrative ways to be ‘offended’, and ‘unsafe’, by the shysters in NGOs and pressure groups currently wreaking such damage on Ireland.

Wales would also see legislation against ‘misinformation’ and its even more evil twin ‘disinformation’. Which in practice could mean the ‘Welsh Government’ employing Lynn to police us all.

Even me!

Not a welcome prospect for those of us who believe in freedom of movement, and freedom of expression. But somehow, ‘progressives’, acting as shouty foot-soldiers for Globalist totalitarianism have convinced themselves they’re engaged in a noble struggle against fascism!

At some point in the near future historians and political commentators will marvel that, having alienated the working class, the left then shot itself in the other foot by attacking the poorest and most vulnerable in society on the orders of the world’s biggest corporations and richest individuals. 

An encapsulating irony with which to end might be that those who now fight to protect animals we breed to eat, especially perhaps battery hens, have sided with those wanting humans to live in a very similar fashion.

The ‘Welsh Government’s 20mph legislation is a step in that direction. Only a fool would see it for anything else.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2023

It’s Getting Sinister

This quickie begins with the response to a Freedom of Information request. It concerns ‘Welsh Government’ dealings with an outfit called Lynn, which former Future Generations Commissioner, Sophie Howe, joined in May as a ‘Global Strategic Partner’.

‘Global Strategic Partner’! Has she ever lived outside of Cardiff?

The sole director and shareholder of Lynn Group Ltd and Lynn Global Ltd – the latter formed just a month after Howe joined – remains Shayoni Sarkar Lynn. She studied at Cardiff University (where else?) and is married to a Welshman.

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So let’s turn to the FoI mentioned at the top, and the reason I’m writing this piece.

TOO MUCH TO HANDLE

This FoI request, dated 27 July, simply asked for . . .

a copy of all correspondence, digital or otherwise, both internal and external (including time sent) that reasonably relate to Welsh Government’s use of communications consultancy Lynn to promote the 20 MPH zone law, from 1 July 2022 to date.

It seems straightforward enough, and surely a request easy enough to satisfy, covering just a year, and a single topic.

But the response, as you can read below, makes clear that there was a lot of traffic between Lynn and the ‘Welsh Government’ in that period. For a quick shufty turned up over 2,000 documents!

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Of course, the accounts for the period covered in the FoI have not yet been filed with Companies House. But the accounts for the previous year, ending 31 March, 2022 are available. And they make for interesting reading.

The number of employees went up from 5 the previous year to 12 in y/e 31 March, 2022, and money in the bank went up from £199,227 to £1,650,756. I’ll repeat that for the hard of reading. Cash in hand, for a small company, went up by £1.45m in a single year.

Yes, creditors account for £1,172,195, but most of that figure is covered by ‘accruals and deferred income’. This probably means income from the previous year, but it’s not money owed to anybody.

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And remember, that previous year, ending 31 March, 2021, was the first year in business for the Lynn Group (originally Lynn PR). Which tells us that Shayoni Sarkar Lynn hit the ground running. Dare we assume the work was already promised and all she had to do was set up the company?

How much did Lynn earn in year ending 31.03.2023, the period largely covered by the FoI request, and how much of it came from ‘WelshGovernment’?

Did Lynn have any other clients, or was it just the ‘Welsh Government’? The Spartan website certainly mentions no clients. There are a few campaigns listed, but no claim that Lynn was involved in them.

Come to that, what exactly does Lynn do? What does it offer clients? Here’s Shayoni Lynn to tell us.

Well, whaddya know, it’s “behavioural science“. Which is getting people to believe in things they wouldn’t readily believe in. A kind of brainwashing. Or coercion.

The kind of thing politicians do when trying to push unpopular policies, like, er . . . oh I don’t know, maybe 20mph zones. Which is of course what the FoI request was about.

And she makes no secret of her admiration for the MS for Llanelli (resident in Penarth). Though given the money that association has brought her I can understand why she’s delighted to support Lee Waters and 20mph.

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But we are still no nearer to understanding exactly what she did for that money.

The Twitter / X account I grabbed the above image from contains a number of gems that leave us in no doubt as to how Shayoni Lynn operates. It’s the “Scare them shitless” UN-WEF strategy used to get people to believe in the ‘climate crisis’.

Lynn describes it as, “impactful fear appeals“. Yeah, like I said – “Scare ’em shitless“.

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From what I can see, the wonderful and universally respected ‘Welsh Government’ is paying this woman – and others – to frighten us into accepting their Globalist agenda.

Is this a proper use of public funding? And how much are we talking about?

SOPHIE HOWE

Now we have to consider where and how Sophie Howe fits into the picture.

After leaving her sinecure as the Future Generations Commissioner in February Sophie Howe was soon putting herself about.

She started her own company, Sophie Howe Associates Ltd . . . with her as the only associate. In June she became a trustee of Coleg Soros. And a Scottish source tells me she’s also got a seat aboard the Bute Energy gravy train.

And of course she joined Lynn. But why?

It couldn’t be because Shayoni Lynn needed influence in Corruption Bay, for she was already living high on the hog of Welsh public funding. There had to be another reason.

Being an aficionado of Mafia movies I know there’s often a scene when the local kingpin insists on a job for a relative. Just think of The Godfather, when young Vito Corleone loses his job in the grocery store to Don Fanucci’s nephew.

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Alternatively, the Mob moves somebody into a business they’ve invested in in order to protect that investment.

Which is it with Lynn and Sophie Howe?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not for one minute doubting Sophie Howe’s talents; but let’s be honest, we’re dealing here with ‘Welsh’ Labour, and as political parties go, this lot comes bloody close to being a criminal enterprise.

(Though mentioning ‘enterprise’ in their company might get you whacked!)

CONCLUSION

I’ve written a lot about those clowns down in Corruption Bay, and the system of third sector spongers, funded pressure groups, and assorted cronies, that serves as an echo chamber protecting them from the reality of an increasingly restless population.

But with Shayoni Sarkar Lynn we have entered new and dangerous territory. For we are being manipulated and frightened into accepting policy decisions over which we were never consulted and with which the majority of us do not agree.

This is a form of totalitarianism. And yet we are paying for it!

And it comes with a failing NHS; with our poorest kids going without meals this summer; with a community in Llanelli on edge as it waits for ‘refugees’ every man and his dog knows are not refugees; as rural Wales is turned into an open-air power station with turbines and pylons – to supply England; and as the no roads, ‘degrowth’ agenda demanded by demented Globalists is imposed.

I therefore call on opposition politicians to demand that this Freedom of Information request be answered properly. Because we are entitled to know how much public money has been paid to Shayoni Lynn and her Lynn Group Ltd to lie to us, and to frighten us.

Because if opposition politicians don’t oppose, and the will of the people can be ignored by a cult-like minority that’s persuaded itself we, the common herd, are stupid and bigoted (and they have), then democracy is as good as dead.

UPDATE: A good source directs me to this Sell2Wales entry (22/12/2021) seeking tenders for: “NPS Media Buying, Integrated Marketing Campaigns and Public Relations Services Framework”. Of 16 applications 12 were accepted.

The 12 were approached for what was now the, “20 mph National Campaign” (17/08/2022), only 5 tendered, and if we click on the tab ‘Full Notice Text’ we see Lynn PR was successful. For some reason, ‘Estimated Total Value’ is left blank.

My source points out: a) Lynn was competing with more experienced and better resourced competitors; b) tenders are not accepted from companies with less than 3 years experience, which should have ruled Lynn PR out.

That Lynn PR got the 20mph contract suggests that someone in Corruption Bay smiled on Shayoni Lynn. That Sophie Howe, the ultimate Labour insider, has joined Lynn, would seem to confirms this suspicion.

But that still leaves the mystery of the work Lynn PR was doing that paid so well before being awarded the 20mph contract.

I promised a piece on Bute Energy, its links with the ‘Welsh Government’, and a few associated snippets, but it’ll have to wait until next week.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2023

Who The Hell Are These People!

Another article begins with an apology . . . and I can’t even blame the drink! But the fact is that I have more information on Extinction Rebellion (XR), including its Welsh roots. Well, not really Welsh, just in Wales, like so many of these buggers.

I was also sent something by a regular reader who’s been invited to a conference in Cardiff next month so he can sit for six hours being told that deep down he’d really like to be in the Ku Klux Klan. (I suspect he will not be attending.)

At less than 2,200 words this is quite a bit shorter than recent offerings.

EXTINCTION REBELLION, AGAIN

In the previous episode I told you that ER was officially launched on October 31, 2018. But I didn’t tell you where, or by whom. The driving force behind the launch was Julian Roger Hallam, and at the time he was living on a smallholding in Carmarthenshire.

This WalesOnline report from September 2019 is headlined, “The Welsh farmer who became the mastermind of Extinction Rebellion“. Mmm. He may regard himself as a farmer, and he might live (part-time) in Wales, but if he’s a “Welsh farmer” then I’m a Chinese astronaut.

The second paragraph says, “His small 10-acre farm near Llandeilo sounded like something out of a John Steinbeck novel”. If the journalist is referring to The Grapes of Wrath then I must assume she hasn’t read the book.

But let’s not be too picky.

Hallam seems to have been elbowed out of XR when the others realised what an Olympic standard narcissist he is, who’ll say and do anything to draw attention to himself. And that includes trivialising the Holocaust.

Others have darker suspicions about Hallam, and XR. Touched on in ‘Roger Hallam – Extinction Deception‘, a long read but worth it for the insights it gives into the lunatic fringes of the environmental movement.

Here’s a taster.

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Hallam is gone to Just Stop Oil or wherever, but Extinction Rebellion is still with us, hardly less extreme, and with its claws firmly into the so-called ‘Welsh Government’.

What follows either complements or supplements what I’ve already told you in Wales: Ruled By Pressure Groups and Wales, Idiots And Envirogrifters. So let’s try to pick up where we left off . . .

You’ll remember that Extinction Rebellion e-mailed Climate Minister Julie James July 13, 2022, and the message was headed: “URGENT REQUEST FOR A MEETING”. (Here’s a pdf version.)

There may have been no response because another e-mail was sent on August 1, and re-sent the following day. It’s worth picking out some points. (Here I may indulge in a little imaginative paraphrasing)

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First paragraph. “OK, so we know you’re on holiday, and you’re probably surfing down Rhossili, but we gotta meet”.

Second paragraph: “This glorious summer weather gives us the perfect opportunity to scare people shitless by exaggerating the temperatures and pretending people are keeling over in Llandudno from sunstroke. We were appalled to hear your boss Starmer talk about ‘Growth’! Bloody hell! that’s the last thing we want on our Long March to turnip-munching medievalism”.

Third paragraph: “So get your skates on or Wales will not achieve the nirvana we just tantalised you with. Because if we can achieve it, then important people will flock here in private jets to fly over and admire Welsh people singing in close harmony as they work the collective turnip patch”.

In case you find some of the images I’ve just conjured up a little unsettling we’ll quickly move on to this document. Which was almost certainly influenced by XR.

It’s important for a number of reasons, not least because, as it runs from 2022 to 2026, it’s happening now. Or rather, and despite having ‘Public Engagement’ in the title, it’s a period in which others are making decisions for us, and around us.

For as it says at the foot of page 13 (and top of 14), in the section headed ‘Audience’, what the ‘Welsh Government’ is seeking is a partnership with pressure groups to spread the gospel of Net Zero to tackle ‘climate change’.

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Though I’m not sure who else is on “Team Wales“.

I was also struck by the term “trusted messengers“. Which cropped up again on page 24, and again, with “Team Wales partners“.

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But what really intrigued me about this section was the admission, at the end, that there is little public support for Net Zero. And that the ‘Welsh Government’ believes it must rely on it “partners“, like Extinction Rebellion, to push the message.

In fact, Julie James makes a very similar admission in her introduction, on page 7. (My emphasis.)

Delivering technology and infrastructure solutions to some of the key barriers to public action on climate change is also urgent. We know that households across Wales need affordable tools and solutions to make the change, and we know that many of these are out of budget-reach for many households.

XR doesn’t just have access to politicians, it also pokes its collective finger in the chests of civil servants. From reading XR”s own output I get the impression that these extremists can access all areas of Corruption Bay.

But the fundamental problem for politicians, civil servants and envirogrifters remains – saving the planet don’t come cheap. And when ignorance, apathy or half-hearted acceptance are replaced by outright hostility, when Dai Public realises how much it’s gonna cost him, then the whole scam is in serious trouble.

We are witnessing the first real signs of that with the growing resistance to the 20mph speed limit – even before it’s introduced. There will almost certainly have to be a big and face-losing climb-down.

I have more information on XR but much of it is in the form of screenshots which are out of context and undated. If I can put them into some kind of order I’ll return to the subject.

Though one thing that shines through clearly from the exchanges between the ‘Welsh Government’, Extinction Rebellion and others is that they’re desperate to give the impression of having consulted the public, and enjoy public support for their lunacies . . . without ever consulting the real Welsh public.

As I’ve suggested, it’s done by ‘consulting’ colleagues and sympathisers, assorted pressure groups and carefully selected ‘panels’, in order to give the required outcome.

It’s called ‘consultative democracy’. The term is misleading, and the process is undemocratic.

SENEDD INSIGHT / THE KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE

I was surprised to receive a rather curious document that had been sent to a regular reader, inviting the recipient to attend a conference in Cardiff. (Here it is in pdf format.) You’ll see that it originates with summat called Senedd Insight.

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Senedd Insight has a website. A Twitter / X account. And a Linkedin page.

Given the name, I naturally assumed that this outfit is in some way connected with our wonderful, talent-packed Senedd. But no.

Further perusal of the available information revealed that “Senedd Insight is a division of The Knowledge Exchange Group Ltd“.

Hold on for the ride!

The Knowledge Exchange Group has a website, and the company of that name is registered with Companies House. The address given, 1 Northumberland Avenue, off Trafalgar Square, sounds impressive. But we’re in the realm of “flexible office space“.

The latest accounts reveal a deficit of £96,089 and a debt with HSBC.

Until 2018 The Knowledge Exchange Group was known as Knowdata Ltd, and used an address at 18 The Ropewalk, in Nottingham. Which has a number of brass plaques, including one for an accountant.

So who’s behind Senedd Insight? Well, I can tell you it’s a one-man band, and that one man is named Neil Kamal Kharbanda.

Kharbanda had another company called Government Knowledge Ltd, formerly Government Knowledge Training Ltd. Which could have been the precursor to The Knowledge Exchange Group.

After it too relocated to Northumberland Avenue Government Knowledge went down the Swannee owing a lot of money. Over a hundred grand to HMRC. Disregard the “Intercompany Loans“, these are often imaginative attempts to salvage something from the debris. The ‘loans’ themselves may be entirely fictitious.

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Neil Kharbanda had yet a third company, this was The Public Service Directory Ltd. It departed this Vale of Tears in May 2017, some £76,000 in the red.

At the risk of sounding unkind, that is not a business record to inspire confidence. But let’s give him a chance, what else can we learn?

Turning back to the invitation sent out, I have to say it looks quite impressive . . . if you don’t think about it too much. There’s certainly a lot of speakers, the usual mix of academics, third sector / pressure group chisellers and others reliant on the public purse.

There are one or two who don’t fit that description, such as, “Amari Smith-Samuel,  Diversity and Inclusion Lead, Network Rail Wales & Western“.

But still, most of those attending will have their fees paid from the public purse. I mention this again because attending this festival of chip-on-shoulder ranting don’t come cheap. Here are the rates.

And, remember, it only runs from 9:30 to 3:30, with perhaps an hour for lunch.

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Let’s average it out at £350 a head and say 200 attend, that’s £70,000. Even taking out fees for the speakers that’s not bad for a day’s work.

Of course the venue will need to be paid for, which raises another interesting point, because in the invitation received by my source the venue hasn’t yet been booked. It just says: “The full-day conference will take place in a centrally located conference venue in Cardiff. The venue will be confirmed shortly.”

That brings back memories, for I used to go to meetings like that back in the ’60s, often after a summons like this:

“We are meeting in Carmarthen on Saturday. Be in Nott Square at 11:07, with a folded copy of the ‘Ferret Fanciers Monthly’ in your left hand. There you will be approached by an Oriental female who will whisper the location of the venue into your right ear. Pay close attention because her English is poor and she has a lisp.”

Ah! but happy days!

Returning to the Knowledge Exchange Group . . . the latest accounts report a deficit of £70,000, yet it claims 17 employees at the “flexible office space” off Trafalgar Square. Can that be right?

Maybe they aren’t in London, for I think Neil Kamal Kharbanda of Northumberland Avenue is also Neil Kamal Kharbanda of GroData Solutions LLP in Delhi, India.

I believe they are the same man because Knowledge Exchange Group shows on the very basic GroData Linkedin page.

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But there remains so much we don’t know, which is why I have a list of questions addressed to no one in particular. And in no particular order.

  • Given the name, most people would assume a connection between Senedd Insight and Senedd Cymru. Is there a link?
  • If so, what is that link?
  • If there’s no link, how does the Senedd feel about its name being used in this way, for after all it is the only ‘Senedd’ in the world?
  • How does the ‘Welsh Government’ feel about paying so much in fees, either directly or indirectly, to a man with a worrying business record?
  • If asked, would the Senedd provide facilities for a Senedd Insight conference?
  • Are all those speakers really signed up?
  • Will the money made from this conference in September be used by Mr Kharbanda to pay off his debt to HMRC?
  • How many conferences are there every year at which we, the Welsh people, will be excoriated by those whose salaries we pay? 

If I had the time I’d contact the organisations for which the speakers work and ask why they’re supporting an event promoting ethnic differences and racial antipathies.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I hate to be bringing more bad news, but come on, this is Wales. Where’s the good news?

Wales, where those who claim to run the country are clowns, and those who really run the show are fanatics like Extinction Rebellion. And then, feeding off this shit-show we have people like Neil Kamal Kharbanda.

Who, as we know, is not alone. Wales has more parasites than the mangiest, most flea-bitten creature on Earth. If Wales was a dog it would be put down.

There’s so much material here for Franz Kafka or Dario Fo if they were still alive. But they’re gone and so there’s no one to tell the world this tragi-comedy of leftist fuckwits given money every year and making a country worse than it was the year before . . . or the year before that . . . or the year . . . .

Think about that – more money yet they make things worse! There’s a special talent in play here. It should be studied by anyone wanting to run a country into the ground.

Because, unfortunately, that’s what’s happening to Wales.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2023

Wales, Idiots And Envirogrifters

Yes, I’ve postponed the piece on the Globalists, again, but it’s a story with no real deadline. Whereas what I’m offering below is a kind of follow-up to a piece I put out in June: Wales: Ruled By Pressure Groups. And I want to get it out before this year’s Show in Llanelwedd becomes a distant memory.

This is another biggie, but it’s segmented. So, as Buddy Holly sang, Take Your Time.

EXTINCTION REBELLION, AN UPDATE

In the piece I just linked to I established that the so-called ‘Welsh Government’ (‘WG’) has been meeting with the extremists of Extinction Rebellion since at least May 2019.

I can now confirm that first minister Drakeford himself met with Extinction Rebellion in July 2019. Did he meet them even earlier, because the letter below doesn’t say it was their first meeting?

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I can’t take it back further (unsurprising seeing as XR didn’t launch until October 31, 2018), but I can reinforce the point that XR and WG are close, and establish beyond any doubt that the pressure group is giving orders to our elected representatives.

Exhibit A, M’lud: An e-mail from XR Cymru to Julie James, who’d been re-elected in the May 6 Senedd elections and made Minister for Climate Change. Basically, the message says, ‘You’re not going far enough or fast enough’.

The message ends with a reference to, ” . . . the good relationship with Welsh Government developed in the last few years”. On the right you’ll see Julie James’ response.

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The next communication I have is from XR Cymru Political Circle and it’s to Julie James and Llyr Gruffydd, Plaid Cymru chair of the Senedd’s Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee, and it’s dated December 7, 2021.

I should add that the highlighting is not mine. And I was unable to locate the attachment referred to. (Yes, you’re welcome to try.)

Extinction Rebellion, with nary a vote to their name, tell the ‘Welsh Government’: “Of course there are areas where we want to see more action and faster responses“.

I’d tell them to fuck right off . . . but then, that’s me.

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The next billet-doux was sent on July 13, 2022, at 7:26 in the morning! From XR Cymru Political Circle to Julie James, and the subject matter, in upper case, read: “URGENT REQUEST FOR A MEETING”.

This is an interesting (and amusing) communication. For it might suggest that Julie James was not giving XR the personal attention they thought they deserved. In fact, it reads as if she fobbed them off with her deputy Lee Waters, and they weren’t impressed.

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There is the usual ‘Must do better! reprimand, but what I really want to focus on is the reference, in bold type, to “Behaviour Change Strategy“. Also, the introduction of Claire Chappell, who is said to be ” . . . working as quickly as possible with substantial resources . . . “.

So who is Claire Chappell?

Her Linkedin page (here in pdf) describes her as, ‘Head of Brand Performance’ at the ‘Welsh Government’, and she’s been in the job for more than 8 years. But what is the job? And what is ‘brand performance’?

Well, I found this explanation, and if the definition below is to be believed, then Clair Chappell and her employer are dismal failures.

Brand performance marketing, also known as brand purpose marketing, focuses on improving your brand’s reputation and of course, its performance.

Finally, we’ll read this e-mail from December 13, 2022. From XR Cymru Political Circle to Julie James and Lee Waters, cc Mark Drakeford and Llyr Gruffydd.

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Again, that reference to “behaviour change“. How exactly are we supposed to change? And change into what – mugs taking orders from Extinction Rebellion channelled through the ‘Welsh Government’?

Here endeth the chapter on Extinction Rebellion. I’m hoping the ‘Welsh Government’ and Plaid Cymru now remember that we are judged by the company we keep.

Though I suppose that advice could also be given to Extinction Rebellion.

MISCELLANEA

In this chunk of the opus I want to deal with stories that either made it into the news recently, or else came to my attention by some other route. Some of these broke at the Show, others lead on from things that broke at the Show.

That make sense?

RULE OF SIX

I’m referring to the Six Principles, and Extinction Rebellion was also involved in this nonsense from before the May 2021 Senedd elections. It’s in the form of an appeal to politicos to sign up to six principles somebody’s dreamed up at their Pilates class.

Here’s a composite of the appeal, the six principles set out, and a list of the signatories.

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One of the six organisations involved is Whale and Dolphin Conservation. Which I was delighted to see, for we really must stop the annual slaughter of dolphins at Abergele, and scupper the Aberaeron whaling fleet.

Also among the signatory bodies is CAFOD, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development. When did Wales become ‘overseas’? Or why does CAFOD keep cropping up in these envirogrifter pronunciamentos?

THE ENVIROGRIFTERS’ MILITIA

Now we’re expected to fall into line with the National Nature Service, and I bet you didn’t even know we had one. Neither did I.

I just can’t keep up with all these new bodies, overlapping, duplicating each other’s work, the same people popping up wearing different hats, and all in receipt of public funding and / or time that politicians and civil servants should be spending on real problems.

Clearly following the third sector model.

And just like the third sector envirogrifters will identify a ‘problem’, and demand funding to solve said problem; but never actually solve the problem because that would mean the end of the funding. That’s how this scam works.

I described this plan on Twitter as a militia for hobby farmers and hippies, and I see no reason to change that view. With perhaps XR providing the commissars. Just scroll down here and see who’s involved in this latest scam.

Now think about it, here we have an organisation promising to revitalise rural Wales, and yet the two farming unions are not involved, and neither is the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales.

What we see instead, are the usual suspects. Envirogrifters, Swamp dwellers, and ‘Welsh Government’ departments.

Which makes this capture from the militia website dishonest. Unless of course it refers to hippies and hobby farmers. Which I suppose makes a certain sense, given that the ‘Welsh Government wants these to replace traditional Welsh farming.

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The website is very basic and uninformative, giving it a work in progress feel but, unsurprisingly, we read that the previous Future Generations Commissioner had a big hand in its production.

Though the Commissioner is only the Welsh agent for a bit of UK-wide silliness, as we read below. The links will tell you more.

The process is being organised by the Wales Inquiry of the Food, Farming & Countryside Commission, with support from the Office of the Future Generations Commissioner, under the auspices of the Green Recovery Task Group – a cross sector group convened to act quickly and creatively in response to the impacts of the pandemic.

The Future Generations Commissioner for Wales included the proposal to create a national nature service in her Fit for the Future Programme for Government

Envirobollocks piled so high it’s in danger of blocking out the sun . . . Hang on! – is that the cunning plan?

NFU REJECTS ‘WELSH GOVERNMENT’ TREES PLAN

One of the big stories of the Show was NFU Cymru rejecting ‘Welsh Government’s demand that farmers set aside 10% of their land for tree planting. Hedgerows do not count, but possibly trees in hedgerows do count!

The proposal might work on some farms, but not others. Which is why the ‘Welsh Government’s blanket approach reveals the failing of inflexibility that we see time and time again.

We saw it with the NVZ legislation, brought in to tackle a very localised problem, yet the politicians adopted a sledgehammer and nut approach and made the legislation both national and unreasonably strict. Though the ‘Welsh Government’ has subsequently backed down a couple of times.

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But then, Labour politicians in Wales know little about farming or the countryside. Theirs is a party of cities, post-industrial areas, chip-on-shoulder minorities, and agitators with useless degrees and colourful hair.

To compound the problem Labour politicians are advised by civil servants – like Lesley Griffiths’ former paramour Gary – who’ve been shipped in from England to run down Welsh agriculture.

Further, the draconian NVZ rules were based on the false premise that farmers are solely responsible for poor water quality. Because, for reasons given elsewhere, it suited a number of agendas to give Dŵr Cymru / Welsh Water a free ride.

Among the agendas served was that of environmental / river groups, in receipt of public funds and, in many cases, seeking to appropriate farmland.

FUTURE GENERATIONS COMMISSIONER LOOKS INTO THE, ER, FUTURE

Now we turn to one of my favourite sites, Nation.Cymru. Though the unkind among you dismiss it as just another ‘Welsh Government’ propaganda outlet.

And after reading ‘We need a new long-term vision for food in Wales‘ I can see why.

This little gem was penned by Derek Walker, the new £95,000 a year Future Generations Commissioner; and just like his predecessor, Sophie Howe, he got the gig not because of any particular talent, but because he’s a trusted Labour insider.

Not only that, but Derek worked for Stonewall. In fact, he helped Stonewall set up in Wales. How much more of an insider can you be?

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So what did Derek have to say?

High food prices mean one in five people in Wales are hungry, disproportionally affecting more disabled people, Black, Asian and minority ethnic people.”

Mmm. Does that mean Derek thinks it’s OK for able-bodied White people to starve? Is this another example of ‘inclusivity’ that discriminates against the majority?

But let’s give the boy another chance. Carry on, Derek . . .

Agricultural waste pollutes our rivers” Oh dear, that may be the party line, but I was expecting better. But alright, one more chance.

And the boy comes good with: “Farmers are critical to our nation’s health, rural communities and a thriving Welsh language – they helped maintain the food chain through the pandemic, play a leading role in restoring nature and reducing emissions, and should be a vital part of this long-term food plan.”

But it raises the obvious question – if you think our farmers are so important, Derek, why is your government making life so difficult for them?

Finally, we read:

This autumn, I will publish my priorities for my role for the next seven years, and the long-term questions I’m exploring include – how can we involve communities to shift diets to meet the nature and climate emergencies and create green jobs?

What does “shift diets” mean, Derek? Because I suspect it means away from meat. I suspect that because you link it with “the nature and climate emergencies”, which I further suspect alludes to farting cows.

In a country of livestock farming you want people to stop eating meat?

And as for “green jobs” this often means hobby farmers, OPDs, etc., which don’t create many jobs. Or cheap food. It’s also used to describe greenwashing . . . often on land that was previously productive farmland.

All in all, Derek, your piece shows the confused if not contradictory thinking we’ve come to expect from Corruption Bay. Which resulted in it being cliched and vacuous.

DEVELOPMENTS OF NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE

I’ve had occasion to commend the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales (CPRW) recently and I am delighted to do so again. On Monday we saw the release of a map compiled by the CPRW showing Developments of National Significance.

Here’s a link to the press release, and here’s a link to the map. Understandably, the map is big, and detailed; so set aside some time to make sense of it. And remember, these are just the projects where planning applications have been submitted.

There are many more in the pipeline, including quite a few of Bute Energy’s 23 known projects.

This was a useful exercise by the CPRW because the ‘Welsh Government’ seems unable or unwilling to produce such a map. But also because it exposes the hypocrisy of those we are dealing with.

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It’s become obvious in recent years, and perhaps especially in Wales, that as the threat of ‘climate crisis’ loses its power to frighten people the message has linked with ‘biodiversity loss’ or ‘habitat loss’. This coupling is clear in all the documents I’ve linked with and organisations I’ve mentioned.

Taken at face value it says there has been a depletion or degradation of the natural habitat, with a resultant loss of species or of numbers within a species. And yet . . .

Those who now trumpet climate crisis and biodiversity / habitat loss refuse to criticise tens of thousands of acres of pristine upland being ruined by wind farms, or fertile lowland by solar arrays. 

For example, the RSPB refuses to acknowledge the problem despite birds being killed by turbines, especially larger birds, often belonging to rare or endangered species.

And there are wider issues. Such as China’s near-monopoly of the rare earth metals needed to produce turbines and solar panels. Transporting materials and finished products vast distances by ship. Finally, the fact that neither wind turbine blades nor solar panels can be recycled.

How environmentally friendly is all that for intermittent and very expensive power!

It’s clear that for environmentalists biodiversity loss is restricted to farmland. Explained, again, by support and funding they receive in order to follow Labour’s anti-farming agenda and thereby grab farmland for themselves.

An agenda the envirogrifters are increasingly dictating!

CONCLUSION

We are lumbered with a bunch of third-rate politicians elected in the main for no better reason than, “My nanna would turn in her grave if I didn’t vote Labour”. Blind loyalty allowing Labour to win with the support of just 20% of the electorate.

Being third-rate they tend to be impressionable. Not only did they buy in early to the Globalists’ Fear = Control agenda but went for broke by implementing legislation to prove that, “Wales can show the world . . . ” . . . how a country can impoverish itself by adopting a Green policy of degrowth.

In the early days, this idiocy came from within the administration, from people like Jane Davidson, Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing from 2007 – 2011, and now chair of Wales Net Zero 2035.

But as word spread others took notice. By 2018 the principal Globalist organisation, the World Economic Forum, was advising envirogrifters to move to Wales!

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But let’s go back to the trees for a minute. The 10% of farmland for trees demand is a condition of ‘Welsh Government’s Sustainable Farming Scheme, a replacement for EU funding.

Speaking last year, just ahead of the Llanelwedd Show, Mark Drakeford said that subsidies to Welsh farmers must be justified to Bangladeshi taxi drivers in Cardiff.

To suggest that the views of a small immigrant community are more important than the views of thousands of Welsh farmers looks like another example of ‘inclusivity’ at the expense of the indigenous majority.

Ask yourself – would Drakeford suggest consulting Ceredigion farmers if taxi drivers in Cardiff wanted to increase their charges?

Wales, a country being run into the ground by clowns who prioritise feelings above biological reality, preach economic gibberish, practice discriminatory ‘inclusivity’, and have been suckered by a global power grab calling itself “the climate crisis”.

How much more of this are you going to take? How much more can Wales afford?

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2023

Bute Energy, Update, 30.06.2023

This piece has been off / on for a while, due to other matters cropping up to grab my attention. But in the end, it worked out, because new information is emerging all the time.

To avoid going over too much old ground I shall devote most of this piece to what’s new. Those wanting more information on what’s gone before can type ‘Bute Energy’ in the search box atop the sidebar.

The whole article, including quoted passages, is roughly 3,000 words, so rather than gulp it down in one you can take it a piece at a time. You know it makes sense!

BUTE ENERGY, A SHORT RÉSUMÉ

In recent years I’ve written a lot about Bute Energy and the various companies under that umbrella. This ever-expanding empire began life in London, at 20 Primrose Street, otherwise known as the Broadgate Tower in the City.

Then it used an address in Edinburgh’s New Town (above Gant), probably because the principals, Oliver James Millican, Stuart Allan George and Lawson Douglas Steele, seem to be Scottish, or resident in Scotland.

But over the past year we’ve seen use made of an address at Hodge House in Cardiff. This being a desperate but unconvincing attempt to suggest that Bute is a Welsh company.

Pass the bara brith, Blodwen, indeed to goodness, look you!”

This change of address simply means that the invitations to meet ‘Russian brides’, the 50p off! at Tesco vouchers, and the Vote for Dai Scroggins election leaflets get delivered to Sir Julian’s old gaff.

And let’s not forget the overseas investment, for Bute is in partnership with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. The name says ‘Copenhagen’, but the money could be coming from anywhere.

Bute Energy, through a host of companies, many carrying the name of a specific project – such as Bryn Glas Energy Park Ltd – wants to build ‘Energy Parks’ the length of Wales; twenty-three at the latest count. These locations may also include solar arrays, and even hydrogen whatsits.

The map below is my best guess of where these wind farms are. I may have mis-located one or two.

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Opposition has been mounting for some time to Bute’s grand designs, but resistance has tended to be localised, confined to areas immediately affected by one of the few projects for which Bute has revealed its plans.

But most of the sites remain little more than Companies House entries offering the bare minimum of information.

Resistance increased a while ago when news broke that Bute wanted to bring power from its ‘Nant Mithil’ (Radnor Forest) site along 60 miles of pylons to link up with the grid running east from Pembroke power station.

If we accept the route map produced by Bute, then the connection with the grid is to be made somewhere south of Carmarthen town.

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Though when asked exactly where the connection is to be made, at a ‘Have Your Say’ meeting in the RWS showground, Llanelwedd, Bute head honcho, Millican, was unable to answer.

So let’s see if I can fill in any gaps.

What follows will be in some kind of chronological order; which means I’ve tried to present the fresh evidence in the order it became known to me.

LAND USE CONSULTANTS AND OTHERS

This first item takes us back a couple of years, but it seems to have been overlooked. It cropped up in this tweet from April 2021. (The link is broken.)

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Land Use Consultants was formed by Edward Max Nicholson in 1966. Five years earlier, with Sir Peter Scott and others, he set up the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). I guess LUC has been recruited in another attempt to burnish Bute’s environmental credentials.

Bute and LUC were together at the ‘inception meeting’ last December with ‘Welsh Government’s Planning & Environmental Decisions outfit to discuss the ‘Nant Mithil Grid Connection Project‘ (page 6).

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Intriguingly, LUC has been involved with the so-called ‘Welsh Government’ since at least 2010. As shown by this report, Research: Planning Implications of Renewable and Low Carbon Energy.

Though for other projects Bute seems to employ different planning consultants. For the Nant Mithil site itself it’s David Bell Planning, of Edinburgh; for Llyn Lort it seems to be Carney Sweeney, of Birmingham; and for Rhiwlas it’s RSK, of Cheshire.

LUC also seems to be picking up other work in Wales. I know it’s working with Natural Resources Wales on the Dark Skies project.

Which makes perfect sense. Because with the Corruption Bay Clown Show determined to switch to Unreliables it won’t be long before we shan’t need to travel to darkest Powys to escape ‘light pollution’.

TWO NEW ‘ENERGY PARKS’

Orddu is one of the new sites. As you can see on the map above, the nearest town is Bala. To be more precise, Orddu is north east of Bala and sits above the smallholding of Cwm-cywen in Cwm Main, where my father-in-law was born and raised.

A company has been formed with the usual three directors. Here’s the Companies House entry.

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The other new energy park, Moel Chwa, is across the A5 and just to the east of another Bute site at Mwdwl-eithin. At the time of writing there is no company bearing the Moel Chwa name, but there is a website mention.

Moel Chwa seems to be very close to an earlier project by Clean Earth Energy Ltd called Nant Bach. Are they related?

The Companies House entry for Nant Bach Turbine Ltd suggests Clean Earth erected just a single turbine. Which the filed accounts value at £2,273,106, giving some idea of the kind of money we’re talking about.

GRIDS & NETWORKS

As I mentioned, opposition to Bute’s ambitions got a boost with news of the plan for 60 miles of pylons from Nant Mithill (Radnor Forest) to the west-east grid connection near Carmarthen.

This has been linked with Bute’s Green Generation Energy Networks Cymru Ltd.

It’s also being suggested that, in a belated attempt to make up for the past two decades in which they encouraged foreign companies – many government owned – to exploit Wales with no local returns, ‘Welsh’ Labour is now pretending it can create something like a Welsh national grid.

The announcement I just linked to came a few days after the Commons’ Welsh Affairs Committee produced ‘Grid capacity in Wales’.

And while neither document mentioned Bute Energy, many observers believe that Bute Energy is heavily involved. Some believe Bute will build Julie James’ ‘Welsh grid’.

For naked corruption would be the only other interpretation for the very close, and financially lucrative, links between Bute and a number of ‘Welsh’ Labour insiders.

From the Green Gen Cymru Network video. “Endless potential” is quite chilling. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

But then, confusion abounds on the subject of networks, with Julie James, Minister for Climate Change, as confused as anyone, according to a knowledgeable contact. For this source suggests she doesn’t understand there are two different types of grid.

My source explains the difference here.

We know that Bute wants new pylons from the Radnor Forest to somewhere in the vicinity of Carmarthen, and to then take that power to Usk and over the border. This it calls “Phase 1“.

It’s suggested Phase 2 (and another line of pylons?) will start somewhere near Eisteddfa Gurig, close to the A44, inland of Aberystwyth, and run to (and here I quote my source) “Chirk Grid Supply Point’ (as yet unbuilt)“.

Although Phase 2 is still a bit hazy, there would appear to be confirmation out there. According to the documents reproduced below, Bute projects in west central and northern Wales will run to the as yet unbuilt Chirk GSP.

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References to ‘Chirk’ obviously cause confusion because Chirk GSP doesn’t exist. But what does exist is not far away at Lower Frankton. The problem here being that Lower Frankton is in Shropshire.

On this OS map the border is in purple, it shows Chirk as just about the nearest point, in Wales, to Lower Frankton. So is Lower Frankton being called Chirk to pretend it’s in Wales, and therefore boost Wales’ Net Zero credentials?

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Further evidence of grid ambitions came a few weeks back with the Infrastructure (Wales) Bill. You’ll see it talks of making it easier for the James Gang to give consent for “overhead electric lines”.

There are also links with Ireland. One comes up near Bodelwyddan, inland of Abergele. Then there’s the Greenlink Interconnector, ensuring that “Excess power can be shared between Ireland and the UK”.

Finally, let’s look at a link from Scotland. Nation.Cymru reported this last November, and parroted the National Grid’s press handout about it being to “upgrade Wales’ electricity network and take advantage of offshore power“.

In fact, and to get technical, I hear work has started on the Bangor (Pentir) to Swansea (North) 400kv double-circuit pylon line.

Let Uncle Jac explain this one . . .

England needs more electricity . . . but not the turbines and the pylons. So the turbines are in Scotland, the cables carrying the electricity run under the Irish Sea, come ashore near Bangor, go overland to Swansea, where they join the west-east line from Pembroke, and then on to England.

As my well-informed source put it, “The two grid connections out of south Wales into England currently have no constraints so it appears as if Wales is being used as a ‘transmission corridor’ from Scotland to England”.

NEWS FROM SCOTLAND

A couple of weeks ago I had an e-mail from Glasgow. As you know, I get lots of e-mails, but this is worth mentioning because it suggests that this source is keeping an eye on Bute’s operations in Scotland.

Before I tell you what it says, I’d better identify some of those mentioned.

Erik Bonino was an oil executive who joined Bute in July 2020 but left early this year due to alleged naughtiness by Bute in Senghenydd. Or that’s how I heard it.

The story made it into Llais y Sais, where Shippo covered it.

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David James Taylor was spad to Rhodri Morgan, Peter Hain and Carwyn Jones. He has profited greatly from being Bute’s entry to ‘Welsh Government’.

You’ll see that the source suggests Taylor has been replaced by the fragrant Sophie Howe, the former Future Generations Commissioner. This would fit well with her new job with Lynn. (Until May last year, ‘Lynn PR Ltd’.)

Sophie Howe has landed on her feet, again, due to her manifest and dazzling talents. Her raking it in, again, is completely unconnected with knowing everybody worth knowing in ‘Welsh Government’, ‘Welsh’ Labour, and civil service.

Happy to clear that up.

By “Reece Emmett” I think my source means Reece Emmitt. (Here in pdf format.) Though I can’t see any obvious connection with the Labour party. But after 5 years in Cardiff University that can be almost guaranteed.

There have been big divisions in Bute management. Chairman Erik Bonino lost a power struggle with Oliver Millican, the majority shareholder, now Bonino and his allies have been cleared out.

Team Millican: Stuart George, Lawson Steele, Gareth Williams.

Team Bonino: Mark Vyvyan Robinson, Gemma Hamilton, David Taylor.

Bonino was known to be nervous and raised concerns about unethical practices regarding securing land and some of the heavy legal agreements and gagging orders Bute were trying to impose on landowners and residents. He was concerned only about his own image and reputation though not about the welfare of the landowners and communities. He was also nervous about all the bad publicity Bute were getting generally and how it was impacting on him.

Bonino recruited Mark Vyvyan Robinson from EDF (where he had been for 20 years) as CEO but he left shortly after a few months. Gemma Hamilton (development director) David Taylor (comms director) were both in same camp and left soon after along with Bonino. and some junior staff.

Millican made himself chairman and installed his sidekick Stuart George as Managing Director. Both are woefully inexperienced and the whole operation is now considered a joke in the industry.

They brought in Derek Hastings from SSE to replace Gemma Hamilton. They basically are paying people 3x what they get elsewhere which is how they recruit people.

They are throwing money around and recently brought in two people to replace DT: Sophie Howe as an “adviser” to help with Welsh govt / Labour link. And Aled Rowlands a former aide to Nick Bourne to try and sort the Tories. Obviously that is failing badly cos the Welsh Tories hate Bourne.

Also Reece Emmett ex Welsh Labour apparatchik is in the comms team.

ANTZ CYMRU

I suppose we’d better start this section with the ANTZ Cymru website’s announcement of the link-up with Bute Energy. Which prompts a few comments.

First, there is no entity called ANTZ Cymru, it’s a flag of convenience for ANTZ UK Ltd of Manchester. Realising there’s money to be made in Wales ANTZ is another company that has adopted a faux Welsh identity.

A good source in Powys, sees parallels between ANTZ and something called the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT). Which says of itself, “We are the original Nudge Unit”. BIT is an international outfit with its UK office in Manchester.

Here’s a BIT website page to which I was directed called ‘How to build a Net Zero society’. I was also nudged (geddit!) in the direction of, ‘A Manifesto for Applying Behavioral (sic) Science’.

And then, from 2010, we have ‘Mindspace‘, focusing on “influencing behaviour“.

This all begins to sound like getting people to think the way you want them to think. To accept that black is white. Dare we say – brainwashing?

Will we see people stumbling out of village halls repeating, “Wind turbines are nice . . . I love pylons . . . Mark Drakeford is the most gifted and accomplished politician of his era”.

An exaggeration, I confess, but we are talking of mind games here. Getting people to think a certain way, and then there’s the careful use of language. Here’s a couple of gems from the page announcing the partnership.

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We read: “ANTZ Cymru is developing a bespoke person-centred, Social Value monitoring system on behalf of Bute Energy that tracks the individual.”

Tracks the individual! What the hell does that mean?

Then there’s this, “The renewable energy team at Bute Energy is planning to deliver a family of wind and solar farms across Wales”. A family!

“Oh look, children – there’s Daddy wind turbine, and there’s Mammy wind turbine, and all the little – 820ft! – baby wind turbines”.

Did you ever read such bollocks?

How much is Bute paying ANTZ? To judge by what my Scottish contact told us, it’s probably well over the odds.

CPRW COMPLAINT

As I’ve explained, Bute goes to great lengths in attempts to prove it’s a Welsh company serving Wales. As I hope I’ve made clear, what Bute and others are actually doing is exploiting the complicity of the Corruption Bay buffoons to turn Wales into a vast open-air power station for England.

If the wind farms planned and mooted ever get built, then Wales, apart from national parks and built-up areas, will be covered in turbines and pylons. All happening in a country that already produces more electricity than she needs!

I was encouraged therefore to read that the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales (CPRW) has reported Bute to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for making misleading claims.

Point 1 of the complaint (below) sums it up. Electricity produced in Wales goes into the UK national grid and thence to wherever it’s needed. Bute therefore cannot promise to supply Welsh homes with green energy.

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Well done, Ross Evans and CPRW. And the very best of luck.

CONCLUSION: THINGS CAN ONLY GET BETTER

What you’ve read might make you despair, but that’s because you’ve been reading about Wales. Elsewhere, things seem to be looking up.

But perhaps not in Germany. Or not yet.

Though Siemens has taken a hit recently due to component problems in Siemens Gamesa wind turbines. But many believe the problems are more widespread. Not least because the components used by Gamesa are used by other manufacturers.

More on Siemens, linking with Bute Energy. And on ‘Creaky Wind Turbines’.

In fact, the German economy is in trouble. Over-reliance on Russian gas – which NATO sabotaged – closing its last three nuclear power plants, and going hell-for-leather on ‘Renewables’ hasn’t helped.

But the Germans aren’t stupid. They’ll soon realise their mistake.

Which is what appears to have happened in Sweden, where the news is much more encouraging. The government there has turned its back on the unattainable goal of 100% renewable energy. What will Greta say!

While next door, in Norway, we read . . .

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The fact is that Western governments, under pressure from the public and the dictates of common sense, are starting to reject the Globalists’ degrowth agenda and their stooges’ insistence on Net Zero.

Yet as some countries wake up to the cost of Net Zero others continue to sleepwalk towards disaster. Unfortunately, we live in one. And it has consequences.

Just before last Christmas Tata put out a press release saying it would ‘pause’ operations at its Port Talbot steel plant, the largest in Europe, and its tinplate operation at Trostre, in Llanelli, “to reduce strain on grid”.

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As we are forced to depend more and more on Unreliables the electricity supply will become more erratic; and that means jobs paying good wages, like the thousands at Margam and Trostre, will be lost.

An absurd price to pay for the unattainable goal of 100% of electricity from ‘renewables’ – in order to fight a ‘climate crisis’ that’s not happening! The only beneficiaries are the governments, corporations, and investors owning the wind turbines on our soil.

And so every wind farm and pylon run should be treated as another Tryweryn. For they mean Cymru being exploited to satisfy the greed of strangers. And to keep the lights on in England.

♦ end ♦

Taking Control, Of Everything

I hadn’t planned on writing this, but thinking about what’s happening to our major sporting bodies left me little alternative. It’s dressed up as reorganisation, or combatting sexism, misogyny, and other evils, but I believe these are a smokescreen for the true motivations.

Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about the promised piece on Bute Energy. That will still come out early next week.

FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION OF WALES

Let’s start with an announcement made last Monday, June 11. You can see a clip below, and here’s a link to the article that appeared on the Football Association of Wales (FAW) website.

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My first thought – betraying the parochial side to my otherwise angelic nature – was, “I don’t remember any of them playing for the Swans“. I immediately slapped myself on the wrist and went on to read the article.

So who are these Independent Non-executive Directors of the FAW?

Chair Alys Carlton, on the left in the image above, was educated at Cheltenham Ladies College, Edinburgh University (French, Italian), and Nottingham Trent (Law).

She is clearly a ‘Welsh Government’ insider because nobody who wasn’t well-regarded in the Swamp would be ‘Vice Chair of Welsh Government’s Expert Panel on Supporting Entrepreneurial Women’. Nor would they be, ‘First Tier Judge – Mental Health Review Tribunal for Wales’.

Before branching out on her own, with Alys Carlton Consulting Ltd, in April 202o, Alys worked for Capital Law, one of the ‘Welsh Government’s favourite law firms, an outfit that sees a great deal of our money.

And I’m sure Capital Law has written to Old Jac after someone went running to them. “Tell him to stop being nasty!

Here’s Alys Carlton’s Linkedin page. (Here in pdf format.)

Alys Siân Carlton is the daughter of the late Keith James.

Next up is Sameer Rahman Syed, centre in the  above image. Here’s his Linkedin info. (Here in pdf format.)

This guy would also appear to be well-connected with the movers and shakers in that city some 40-odd miles east of Swansea. I suggest that because he is also a non-executive director of the Millennium Stadium and Glamorgan County Cricket Club. The latter being the reason Wales has no national cricket team.

And after a career in ‘Data’ he too went solo, in April 2021, with Datamonet Ltd. Things seem to be going splendidly, with our boy as CEO and, er, sole employee.

The third member of this troika is Dr Carol Bell. (No ding-dong jokes!) Though in her case, she was re-‘elected’.

A coalminer’s grand-daughter from Felindre, north Swansea, she made important contacts at Cambridge which may have helped her land a job with Rio Tinto on graduating.

A former investment banker in the energy field, now turned archaeologist, and another Welsh speaker. Here’s her Linkedin page (Here in pdf format.)

Dr Bell is as well connected in Corruption Bay as the other two, and perhaps well beyond the Bay. We see Millennium Stadium in her trophy cabinet too, along with a few intriguing appointments. Such as non-executive director at the Development Bank of Wales.

But what really caught my eye was Dr Bell being a director at BlackRock Commodities Income Investment Trust plc. Blackrock has been mentioned a few times on this blog; for its CEO, Larry Fink, is a leading Globalist, and big buddies with Bill Gates and Claus Schwab.

WELSH RUGBY UNION

We begin this section with a piece from last Friday’s Llais y Sais. As you can see below, it deals with two appointments to the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU).

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Richard Collier-Keywood is described as the WRU’s “first independent chair“. Which I take to mean that he was not elected by the Union’s member clubs, as has been done in the past.

The piece also tells us that these are “appointments“, but not who made them. Which is odd. And the WRU website makes it clear that Collier-Keywood is to take over from current chair, Ieuan Evans. So can we assume that the appointments have been made by the WRU Board?

Now, we all know who Ieuan Evans is, he’s one of our all-time great players, but most of you will be wondering, “Who the hell is Richard Collier-Keywood, and where by do he come from?”.

I can tell you it’s not from round by ‘ere. Though both sources are keen to tell us that his mother had some connection to Maesteg and he may have enjoyed an ice cream or two in Porthcawl.

I’ll have more for you on Richard Collier-Keywood later.

Alison Thorne is another interesting appointment. Her Linkedin page will fill in more details. (Here in pdf format.) I draw particular attention to the most recent of her appointments, which you can see below.

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Beyond any question of a doubt we are dealing with another denizen of the Swamp. A charming lady, no doubt, but as great-aunt Fastidia would say, in her characteristically earthy way: “Shit in the same latrine and you’ll share the smell“.

She even works for the ‘Welsh Government’ on public appointments!

And wearing a different hat, she’s the chair of the National Dance Company of Wales. Which – and I kid you not! – seeks “to deliver social change through dance“. Another way of saying, ‘Straight White men need not apply’.

Finally, she is the chair of trustees at housing association Barcud. This is interesting because, in theory, housing associations are now private companies. But a control-freak administration such as we see in Corruption Bay won’t give up control of anything.

A firm grip maintained by social housing bodies either having outstanding loans, or taking out fresh loans, or acquiring land from, the ‘Welsh Government’.

WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?

If I tell you that former first minister Carwyn Jones was considered for the WRU chair job it should help you understand where we’re heading.

Maybe someone decided that giving Jones the job would have been too obviously political. Though on the plus side, he is Welsh, and knows something about rugby.

Instead, Richard Collier-Keywood was appointed. And it’s an odd appointment. As was suggested to me by someone who was in university with him.

My source told me the WRU’s new chair was a good tennis player in his younger days, with an interest in other racquet sports. But no interest in rugby; and Collier-Keywood never mentioned Wales, despite knowing that my source is 100% Welsh.

Strange that, for a man with a Welsh mam.

Let’s be clear. These are political appointments.

After creating what was reported by a loyal media as “turmoil” in our sporting bodies the ‘Welsh Government’, with the help of certain individuals ‘on the inside’, was able to engineer a situation that saw people parachuted in who are dependent on ‘Welsh Government’ patronage.

Which is quite an achievement, considering that both the Football Association of Wales and The Welsh Rugby Union are not public bodies but private companies.

In the case of the WRU influence can be exerted because there are two outstanding loans on the Millennium Stadium (October 2020 and March 2022) with “The Welsh Ministers of the Welsh Government“. So it can be claimed that the appointees are simply there to safeguard the public interest.

This is the model alluded to earlier with housing associations. “We lend you money and to safeguard our investment we’ll have a big say in the running of your organisation“. Tony Soprano would immediately understand that model.

But is it ethical to use public assets to exercise political control, and promote a political agenda lacking public support?

It’s less clear how Corruption Bay got its claws into the Welsh FA.

But the important point is that both the Football Association of Wales and The Welsh Rugby Union are very high profile organisations. Many Welsh people can be influenced by them. Controlling them therefore becomes politically desirable.

Not least because either or both might go ‘off-message’. With fans supporting the national football team singing Yma o Hyd some people were getting worried.

Talking of using our sporting associations to influence public opinion, I wonder what Billy Meredith or John Charles would have made of what you see below, from last Saturday’s Pride parade in Cardiff?

The tweet was put out by Jason Webber, who is – and you’d never have guessed! – ‘Senior Equality, Diversity, Inclusion & Integrity Manager at the Football Association of Wales’. If he’s the senior manager, then there must be lesser mortals doing similar work.

Yeah, that’ll help us qualify for Euros and World Cups.

My worry is that, “Football is for everyone” means that full-grown men pretending to be women will be allowed to play with and against young girls. And of course, they must also be allowed to share facilities.

Because on matters like this the ‘Welsh Government’ takes orders from Stonewall.

What we see at the WRU and FAW are not isolated examples of political interference. For I’ve detected a growing trend of such ‘appointments’. One I wrote about earlier this year involved the then Brecon Beacons National Park Authority (BBNPA).

These appointments were justified as being done to promote inclusivity and diversity. Woman of colour, disabled man . . .

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We then had a contrived and very public debate over the change of name to Bannau Brycheiniog.  Which served to draw attention away from the fact that what had really changed was that Labour had now taken full control of the BBNPA.

So, on one level, these manoeuvrings increase the ‘Welsh Government’s control over public and other bodies. And then, given what I explained in my previous blog piece, it also gives easier access to pressure groups, whose diktats the clown show in the Bay will dress up as its own policies.

But there’s also a third element that becomes obvious the more we look at these appointments.

THOSE WHO WOULD BE KINGS

The rash of appointments being made in Wales obviously extends the influence of the ‘Welsh Government’, for the Swamp is the immediate and obvious beneficiary; and then there are the pressure groups, but it doesn’t end there.

The appointments are also being made in order to implement ESG. And if those letters mean nothing to you, let me explain that they stand for Environmental and Social Governance.

Companies, charities and other bodies are expected to sign up to ESG and, by so doing, follow the Globalist agenda. Here’s how the World Economic Forum (WEF) explains it.

Who could object to such desirable ambitions? Er, me. The awkward bugger at the back.

Because as with so much else produced by the WEF, you have to poke around behind the words to see what they really mean. Read the panel below, from the WEF website I’ve just linked to, and then I’ll explain it.

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. . . social justice protests have drawn attention to gaps in diversity, equity, and inclusion; and the impacts of climate change and the importance of environmental sustainability are becoming harder, if not impossible, to ignore.

Social justice protests” is a euphemism for the riots that caused death and destruction in so many US cities following the death of George Floyd during a botched police arrest.

And then we get “climate change” and and “environmental sustainability“, straight out of the climate alarmists’ handbook.

Which ties in neatly with Dr Carol Bell of the FAW working for Blackrock.

And it explains Alison Thorne of the WRU delivering “social change through dance“. (Did youse ever in yer natural read such sententious bollocks!)

The terpsichoreans seeking to deliver this social change can be found – in case you’re minded to join! – at Dance House, which is in the Millennium Stadium.

Where else!

SUMMING UP

The self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ is taking control, through appointees, and by other means, such as funding, of as many organisations as it possibly can.

Which means that a political party gaining roughly one fifth of the available votes will soon exert a stranglehold on Welsh life. With Drakeford and his sorry troupe of inadequates just puppets operated by pressure groups and Globalists lacking any mandate at all.

For betraying Wales in this way the so-called ‘Welsh Government’ will get a pat on the head from Uncle Claus in Davos. And then everybody’s happy – ‘Welsh Government’, pressure groups, and World Economic Forum.

But how do you feel about it?

♦ end ♦

Nicola Sturgeon: Her Fall In Context

There’s something odd, even tragic, about an intelligent woman destroying her political legacy and damaging the cause she believes in to argue that women have penises and men can give birth.

How can anyone, let alone someone as smart as Nicola Sturgeon, believe such nonsense? The answer is that she might not believe it at all. And I strongly suspect that many of the zealots pushing this lunacy do not believe it either. Few people are that bloody stupid.

But people can be brainwashed into believing that promoting such idiocy is the right thing to do; partly because it’s ‘progressive’, and partly because it pisses off the ‘fascists’.

But what straight man could possibly object – it’s a ‘feminine penis’! Click to open engorged in separate tab

For you must remember that we live in an age when everything is ideological, and agendas are promoted for political gain and / or social change, but definitely not for the public good; which means that whether what is being propounded is true or not is irrelevant.

In the post-truth era the end definitely justifies the means.

But how did we get here?

POST-SOVIET MARXISM

Following World War Two, and the USSR’s leading role in defeating Nazi Germany, Communism enjoyed a surge in popularity in western Europe, particularly in Italy and France. There were worries in Washington that Europe might even go Red without the need for direct Soviet intervention.

That appeal faded as the economy of Europe improved. Communism lost even more of its appeal with the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, and its ‘freedom-loving’ credentials took a near-fatal knock in 1968 when Red Army tanks put down the wholly peaceful ‘Prague Spring‘.

By the late 1980s, with the Soviet Union losing a war in Afghanistan, queueing for bread becoming a national pastime, and Russians themselves admitting the game was up, it was clear to most people that Communism was an experiment that had failed. Certainly clear to those of us inhabiting the ‘real’ world. (And that included the babushkas in the bread queues.)

But there remained others who insisted Communism hadn’t been given a proper chance, or hadn’t been implemented correctly. Many of those who argued like this belonged to the middle classes, a disproportionate number of them academics.

Though by the late 1980s even its staunchest adherents knew Communism could never be sold as an economic model, certainly not as a replacement for capitalism – it couldn’t deliver the goods a consumer society demanded.

A change of tack was needed.

But for the diehards the objective remained the same – to undermine, weaken, and then, hopefully, take over the Western, capitalist world. But how was this to be done now that the socialist economic model was proven to be unworkable?

The answer came in the form of ‘Cultural Marxism’, succinctly explained here.

Though according to Wikipedia (and an editor who can’t spell ‘anti-Semitic’): “The term ‘Cultural Marxism’ refers to a far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory which claims that Western Marxism is the basis of continuing academic and intellectual efforts to subvert Western culture.”

Ah, yes: “Far-right conspiracy theory”. Remember when the Wuhan lab origin of Covid was a Far Right conspiracy theory? Even ‘racist’? And so was the growing evidence that the vaccines did more harm than good.

Though “academic and intellectual efforts to subvert Western cultures” is a rather good description of, um, Cultural Marxism. Because anyone choosing to argue that our academic institutions today are bastions of free speech has an impossible job on their hands.

But how was the grand design to be put into practice?

THE ROUTE TO THE SUNLIT UPLANDS, AND THE GUIDES TO GET US THERE

With Marxists being so influential in academe this guaranteed that in Western universities students would be indoctrinated, with the new converts spreading the gospel as they dispersed into the wider world.

For a phenomenon of the past 30 years has been an increasingly bloated higher education sector catering in the main for semi-literate and impressionable natives and rich foreigners, which inevitably couples with falling academic standards.

Little more than a production line churning out the blinkered but earnest young people needed to fill the ranks of pressure groups, third sector bodies, and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs).

With the result that politics today is little more than politicians implementing the wishes of these groups, usually at the expense of the people who elected them.

Which means that democracy has, effectively, been subverted. Who you or I vote for is largely irrelevant. And it’s not just pressure groups undermining democracy, as I’ll explain later.

Which brings us back to the recent debacle in Scotland.

Nicola Sturgeon, and too many others in the Scottish National Party-Green Party coalition, fell under the influence of Stonewall pushing, among other things, the self-ID agenda that said your gender is whatever you claim it to be at any given time.

What began as an absurd and almost laughable fantasy turned darker when Adam Graham decided during his trial for raping two women that he was now transgender, and as ‘Isla Bryson’ he expected to be sent to a female prison, so he could be among more, vulnerable women

The self-inflicted disaster from which the SNP is now struggling to emerge could only have come about when politicians are beguiled by a pressure group to the point where they lose sight of reality and simply don’t care what the public really thinks.

We also have this problem in Wales, in every sphere of our national life. We suffer pressure groups and campaigners – many from outside the country – pushing agendas that are against the best interests of the Welsh people.

And the politicians in Corruption Bay obey them like zombies.

A few weeks back readers of the Western Mail were treated to the headline you see below. Pay attention to the section I’ve circled. Who is Dr Lynn Sloman?

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Well, she lives in London, where she’s a board member of Transport for London. The bio I’ve linked to tells us she has a holiday home near Machynlleth. (To be exact, in Cwm Einion aka ‘Artists Valley’.)

So a cycling zealot who lives in London, and hates cars – but has a holiday home in Wales, to which she presumably drives – is allowed to dictate ‘Welsh Government’ policy.

Yeah, that’s how I imagined devolution panning out.

More recently, my attention was drawn to a ‘Welsh Government’ document with the snappy title, Wales Innovates: Creating a Stronger, Fairer, Greener Wales. When you see ‘stronger’, ‘fairer’ and ‘greener’ grouped like that you can guarantee that we, the people, are going to be shafted.

This is what I was directed to on page 45.

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Look at that phrase, ‘Mobility as a service’. No. Mobility, and freedom of movement within one’s own country, are fundamental human rights.

I want to be able to jump in my car and drive anywhere I bloody well please. I will not be deprived of this freedom by some swivel-eyed fanatic using the excuse of a ‘climate catastrophe’ that’s just not happening.

Though I’m intrigued by the possibilities opened up by ‘bike-sharing’. Does this mean different people using the same bike at different times, or can I fantasise about some buxom lovely of a playful nature astride my crossbar?

2016 AND ALL THAT

Cultural Marxism has became more shrill and divisive in recent years, and its toxicity has increased. This I believe is due to a number of factors.

In 2016 the Anglosphere suffered two unexpected political jolts. In June of that year the UK voted to leave the European Union (or rather, England and Wales voted to leave; Scotland and Northern Ireland wanted to stay).

Then came the election of Donald Trump in November.

The far left had long been losing faith in the White working class, there was clearly a lack of revolutionary zeal among these dullards who wanted a decent home for their family and a good education for their kids. Brexit and Trump confirmed the comrades’ worst fears.

A counter-offensive was needed. And the weapons needed were already to hand.

TWO OTHER DONKEYS OF THE CULTURAL MARXIST APOCALYPSE

THE ENVIRONMENT

Concerns about global warming or climate change had been gaining traction for a couple of decades, in part due to showmen like Al Gore, who understands climate as well as I understand nuclear fusion.

Who among you could not be convinced by those “boiling oceans“?

But the Far Left wasn’t really interested in saving the planet; the Cultural Marxists simply saw a problem that could be blamed on capitalism, and could be remedied by undermining Western economies.

For it was of course the West that would have to reduce its emissions to defeat those fortune cookie ‘predictions’.

Essentially, a programme of ‘degrowth’. Being discussed here in the What’s Up With That blog quoting Japanese Marxist academic Kohei Saito.

(Not for nothing are Greens called ‘watermelons’ – green on the outside, red on the inside.)

Or to put it another way, the populations of the advanced countries would have to suffer rising fuel bills, food shortages, travel restrictions, 15-minute cities . . . all for the good of the planet.

By comparison, countries in the developing world, China in particular, could build as many coal-fired power stations as they pleased. (Two a week, at the last count.) Further proof that the Left was less interested in saving the planet than with damaging the West.

The truth is that none of the absurd predictions made over the past 50 years has come to pass. The world may be warming, slightly, but it has little to do with us humans, and far more to do with the fact that we are in an inter-glacial warm period.

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Entire nations wiped off the face of the Earth! Wow! How did I miss that?

Though a more generous interpretation that crosses my mind, especially after a glass or twa of Malbec, might be that climate hysteria is a variation on Pascal’s Wager. Or, at least, that’s how it might play out.

The great 17th century French thinker argued that believing in God was the sensible thing to do. Because if there was a God, and you’d lived a good life, then you went to Heaven. If there was no God, then you’d still lived a good life, helping others, etc.

If after all the sacrifices we are being forced to make it becomes clear there is no global warming, then those who promoted climate disaster might argue: “OK, so there’s no global warming – but those sacrifices made you a better person”.

     RACE

Another tool in the Cultural Marxists’ destabilisation armoury is race; more specifically, reminding us of the terrible things the White man has done. For as everyone knows, only Europeans ever conquered other peoples, and slavery was always and only a relationship between White masters and Black slaves.

(Anyone who knows their history and tries to speak the truth is of course a ‘racist’.)

To the point where in the eyes of many, White people can do little right, and Black people can do nothing wrong. As we saw in Minneapolis when career criminal George Floyd died in a botched arrest. And that’s all it was.

But his death led to his immediate martyrdom and resulted in riots applauded by the mainstream media.

Riots that were not simply applauded but deliberately misrepresented, even when the evidence was just over the reporter’s shoulder.

The answer to rioting was obvious – ‘Defund the police!‘.

Because if the police were not there then the riots could proceed uninterrupted, the buildings burn down quicker, and everybody could go home with their looted goods.

Surely any fool could see the advantages? (Well, obviously, not the ‘racists’.)

The USA has arrived at a situation where, one hundred and sixty years after Lincoln freed the slaves (in the Confederate states he didn’t control), and sixty years since the Civil Rights Act, the Far Left is deliberately and irresponsibly reintroducing segregation and racism into the USA.

But it can’t stop over there. For as we’ve seen, ‘racism’ must be used everywhere, and interpolated into everything nowadays, even Covid.

And football. For during the recent Word Cup Finals a Black US academic, writing in the Washington Post (where else?) accused winners Argentina of being too White. Truth is that well under one percent of the Argentine population is Black.

It gets worse – for the countryside is racist! All those jackbooted farmers belting out the Horst Wessel Lied as they round up the sheep! Back in the 1940s the West fought those who sang that song. Now we fund and arm them.

Funny old world, innit!

And if ‘racism’ is to be fully exploited there must be unrestricted immigration to Western countries. Disruptive, unjustified, increasingly unpopular . . . so now these migrants are being called ‘climate refugees‘.

And if you fall for that, then you’ll fall for anything!

THE QUISLING LEFT AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER

The Cultural Marxism I’ve described has, in recent years, come to be known as ‘Wokeness’, or ‘Wokeism’. Before that, perhaps, ‘political correctness’. There’s no point in looking for differences between them because there are too few.

The others were just Cultural Marxism rebranded, because those pushing it knew that the ‘M’ word was unpopular, far better to hide under other labels. ‘Progressive’ being particularly popular with the Far Left today.

But whatever the tag, it remains a war on the West. And given that non-White majority countries get a free ride, Cultural Marxism / Wokeism can even be seen as racist.

And why not, for the Far Left has always been unpatriotic, so there’s no great leap needed for it to extend its hatred from individual nations and states to a whole racial and cultural identity.

It was noticeable during the Covid pandemic how eagerly the Far Left embraced the restrictions on human freedoms demanded by the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) and other bodies.

Which was not surprising, for the comrades have always believed that for society to function efficiently the common herd must be directed and led by morally, intellectually and ideologically superior beings. People like Stalin. Mao. Pol Pot.

With this justified because however it might look, it’s really being done in the interests of the ruled. Little different to a theocracy. And the vision of the World Economic Forum.

I bring in the WEF because this shared belief in rule by, ‘Those Who Know Best’ has brought Cultural Marxists into alliance with mega corporations like Blackrock, Big Pharma, Big Tech, multi-billionaires, and others who want to act as an unelected world government.

Reducing our elected governments to little more than middle-men, or facilitators; implementing orders from above and obeying demands from below.

A MARRIAGE MADE IN HELL

The fundamental problem for Cultural Marxists is that, well, they spout bollocks. Whether it’s climate hysteria, anti-White racism, women with penises and, more recently, Covid.

Confronted with these realities Cultural Marxists, unable to defend the positions in which they’ve entrenched themselves, must resort to silencing critics before the truth can emerge. Which is why they openly advocate ‘No debate’.

Hoping to convey the message that the position(s) they have taken up are so incontrovertibly correct that debate is unnecessary.

Anyone suggesting maybe, just maybe, the world is not coming to a fiery end is a ‘climate denier’. Those who argue that cross-dressers are not women are ‘transphobes’. While those who believe that White people are not evil are, of course, ‘racists’.

But the catch-all term Leftists often reach for to slander their opponents when they’re cornered is ‘Far Right’. Which is what London mayor Sadiq Khan did last week to those protesting against 15-minute cites.

This is definitely a fascist sign. Click to open enlarged in separate tab.

These attempts to intimidate and silence opponents with silly labels is further enforced by denying a platform to those with the courage to speak. This of course is ‘cancel culture’.

Silencing critics is greatly aided by WEF control of the mainstream media and most social media. Resulting in newspapers and TV channels presenting only approved narratives, even ignoring some news stories altogether.

Now they want to introduce bans on what they – or their AI algorithms – will decide is ‘hate speech’. In other words: “All voices that challenge us will be silenced”.

It’s worth considering the role of Bill Gates in all this. For in many ways he is the public face of the World Economic Forum.

To begin with, Bill Gates is the second biggest donor to the WHO, and it was pure coincidence that during the Covid pandemic ‘Dr’ Gates was urging people to get vaccinated . . . with products from companies in which he’d heavily invested.

The same WHO that issued global directives during Covid, and now wants to take on itself the power to instruct democratically-elected governments to close their country down. Even the power to enforce global lockdowns.

Gates is also a big donor to media around the world, including the BBC. Now why would he do that? His fellow-‘philanthropist’, George Soros, another Globalist meddler, also gives vast sums to the media.

My understanding of the BBC was that it is funded by the licence fee in order to ensure its impartiality. (Don’t laugh!) So why is the BBC allowed to accept funding from Bill Gates? And who else is funding the BBC?

Bill Gates, friend of the late Jeffrey Epstein. (‘Suicide’, remember? Sad.)

CONCLUSIONS

The West is in a dangerous place. Those we are asked to believe are in control have been reduced to figureheads. Cardboard cut-outs.

As I explained, our elected politicians answer to the Globalists above them, and the Cultural Marxists below. With the latter acting as the ‘feet on the ground’ for the former. Neither source of real power has a democratic mandate.

Which results in the diktats of the unelected being ‘legitimised’ by being fed through national and sub-national governments.

But their agenda is clear: to make our lives more expensive and more miserable; with fewer freedoms, in expression, movement, and so much else.

To get a feel for the promised future read, ‘Welcome to 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better‘, written in 2016 by Ida Auken, member of the Global Future Council on Cities and Urbanization of the World Economic Forum.

‘No privacy’ will be dressed up as ‘smart’ and ‘convenient’.

And forget the Sunday joint, for vegans are another of the fringe outfits found among the screeching mass of Cultural Marxists. And it’s why livestock farmers are being hounded out of business around the world.

The WEF wants to control the global food supply. Vegans want us to stop eating meat. To achieve this, both will target farmers. (Though the vegans may disguise themselves as environmentalists.)

Intolerant and unreasonable vegans would never have such influence today, with a media free ride, if they weren’t carrying out the WEF agenda.

This also explains why Bill Gates is said to be the largest private owner of farmland in the USA. Not only that, but ‘Farmer’ Gates is also cornering the market in seeds.

The future is spelling itself out before our eyes.

To return to where we started . . .

Were I a cynical bastard I might wonder what really happened in Scotland. For with both Globalists and Cultural Marxists wanting to put an end to nation states why get involved with a party and a government wanting to create a new nation state?

And then I think of what happened in Wales in 2021. When a thriving organisation campaigning for independence, that had quickly gained 18,000 members, was almost destroyed by fanatics – all of a Far Left background – trying to turn YesCymru into TransCymru.

It’s a hell of a coincidence.

CONCLUSION

I believe in the family, the nation, and Western civilisation. Proud to be a husband, father and grandfather; proud to be Welsh; proud of what Europeans, people of the West, have contributed to the world.

The same West that’s being targeted today, and for a number of reasons.

Partly because Russia, China, and other states know how to deal with the kind of disruptive fanatics we’ve dealt with here. So the Cultural Marxists focus on their unfinished business with the capitalist West.

The WEF targets the West because that’s where the power and the money lies. But Klaus Schwab and his gang also understand that the obstacles to their takeover – love of democracy, respect for individual liberty, and a belief in freedom of expression – are more cherished in the West than elsewhere.

Which explains the concerted vilification of White people, and the existential threat.

No matter how it’s disguised, we are facing a global power grab. And for complete power over our lives. So let’s unite, across national boundaries, across continents, to defeat the crazies trying to ‘soften us’ up for the Bond villains.

Arise ye “useless eaters“!

♦ end ♦

 

© Royston Jones 2023


Time To Call In The OPD Scam

This week I’m revisiting One Planet Developments. The system, unique to Wales, that allows people to buy a plot of land, build a house, exempt from normal planning regulations, and pretend to be farmers.

Of course, once you’ve erected your house you have a dwelling in open country for which you would never have received planning permission through the normal channels. And which can then be sold for a massive profit.

Not only is the OPD system an affront to planning laws, an insult to local people, but its very premise is nonsense. For this legislation was justified as “reducing Wales’ carbon footprint”. Yet it actually increases our carbon footprint.

For it attracts people into Wales who keep farting animals, drive old diesel vehicles, and have wood-burning stoves. With these now living on land that was previously unused.

LIVING OFF THE (FAT OF THE) LAND

This latest piece was prompted by news reaching me from north Pembrokeshire that someone was looking to buy a farm (or may has already bought one) to be split into One Planet Development plots.

The development is near the village of Mynachlog-ddu. Which explains what you see below. It was sent to me and I assume it’s a Facebook entry.

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My source was upset by a number of things; not least, the suggestion that another Welsh name was to be lost.

But the way it’s explained in the image above, by project mastermind, Wade William Heames, makes no sense. The village itself is Mynachlog-ddu (‘Black Monastery’), there is no farm of that name.

The farm that’s been identified to me is Caermeini Ganol, just outside the village, on the Crymych road. Below you see, on the left, a plan put out by Heames; and on the right, an OS map on which I’ve coloured in the land in question.

Here’s the sales guff from Savills.

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There was a Crowdfunder appeal in the name of The Edible Forest that claimed to have raised (or been promised) £650,000. But there’s no update after April 2019. Which I suppose might be explained by the appeal having reached its target.

Scroll down to the bottom and alongside Heames (‘MIQ’?) you’ll see the name ‘Rosie Maunder’. I believe this to be her. An abandoned Twitter account tells us Rosie is / was a Human Geographer at Cardiff Uni (where else?) with an interest in . . . rewilding.

But nowhere in the appeal do I see a location given for this fund-raising. Was it a case of, “Give us the money and we’ll find the land”?

What I do know is that there was a company called The Edible Forest CIC. But it wasn’t formed until five months after the last update on the fundraiser of the same name; it filed no accounts, and was voluntarily dissolved on St David’s Day 2022.

Here’s the Facebook page. We’ll return to it in a minute.

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And then there’s the name, ‘The Edible Forest’, which seems to be quite popular. I found it in Australia. Also in England. In fact, the term, ‘edible forest’, seems to be in common usage in environmental and vegan circles.

But I still don’t understand why the name was being used to raise money before the company of that name was even formed. And why fundraising ceased before the company was formed.

That seems to be a problem with Wade William Heames. Companies come and go, there’s a vagueness about what’s being purchased, we find multiple social media accounts, and commercial entities mentioned that seem devoid of corporate substance.

Such as . . .

A short-lived, one-man band, Food For Wales Ltd. Launched 12 May, 2020, Dissolved 18 October, 2022. What was its purpose? The SIC says, ‘Retail sale of fruit and vegetables in specialised stores’. So what happened?

There was also a Crowdfunder appeal for this company. Maybe it didn’t raise enough money?

It’s a strange business model. Set up a company, in which you own all the shares, and then ask for donations. Though I can see the advantages!

Someone following developments has suggested that the company actually buying land and then selling it off in parcels is Heames Ltd. A suggestion supported by the fact that nine new directors joined this company in recent months. Would these be investors?

To go back to social media for a minute. Here is Heames’ Linkedin page. But if you go to the column on the right you’ll see three other Wade Heames Linkedin pages. Which he seems to have started, and then perhaps forgotten about.

One, is for Jean Lamour Pest Control, another for Jean Lamour Environmental Services. Are these real companies, or just flights of fancy? There’s certainly nothing registered with Companies House under ‘Jean Lamour’.

Though Googling ‘Jean Lamour’, brought up a restaurant in the French city of Nancy. And it seems Heames was there in 2010, according to ‘Life events’ on this, yet another, FB page.

Is a French restauranteur branching out into catching rats and ‘roaches, with Wade William Heames his local agent? Or is it just a bit of harmless whimsy on Heames’ part?

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Another imaginary entity might be Unleash The Drones. What the hell is that about?

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It’s all very confusing, and might make it tempting to dismiss Wade Heames as a bit of a fantasist . . . if it wasn’t for the fact that one of his projects appears to be taking off. Though this is not in Mynachlog-ddu, but in Pontypridd.

To be exact, Lan farm, off Graigwen Road. (Or maybe it’s just the land.) Which he calls ‘Graigwen Farm’. Here’s the estate agent’s puff.

Read more about it as we make the promised return to the Edible Forest Facebook page. You’ll recall that the company of that name was Dissolved almost a year ago. Yet in this recent FB entry Heames promises riches beyond the dreams of avarice.

An acre of land with planning permission for a big house in a nice village or an upmarket suburb would be worth £40,000, perhaps more. Otherwise, stop dreaming. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

And it attracted many unkind comments. When asked to justify the extravagant claims, and valuations, Heames’ response could be interpreted as suggesting using OPD legislation to greatly increase the value of the original purchase with a house in open country for which planning permission would almost certainly have been refused without employing the OPD angle.

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I referred just now to a rather confusing number of companies, and there seem to be intriguing women involved. You’ll remember that we saw ‘rewilder’ Rosie Maunder with the Crowdfunder appeal that claimed to have raised £650,000.

Now there’s a company called Heames II Ltd. The company address is 117 Llangrannog Road, Llanishen. (The one that’s ‘rewilding’ the front garden.) Set up in February 2021, yet Wade Heames is not listed as a director. The only director is Czech citizen Vera Schweitzerova. Ms Schweitzerova is also a director of Heames Ltd.

Heames II is obviously a Wade Heames company, so where is he?

Almost every angle of investigation runs up against more questions or dead-ends. And causes for concern.

Another example is a recent entry on the Edible Forest Facebook page (January 6) suggesting that Wade Heames now intends applying to the Development Bank of Wales (DBW) for funding.

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My understanding has always been that the DBW funds businesses that will create employment and generate wealth within Welsh communities. Surely OPD plots don’t qualify? And anyway, aren’t Heames’ projects self-financing?

Does the DBW do bridging loans?

CONCLUSION

The way OPD was sold to us by Jane Davidson and others suggested it would attract relics of the Swinging Sixties, who’d buy a couple of acres of unproductive land from a Welsh farmer, and live out their twilight years in a fug of marijuana smoke and joss sticks.

All set out in the so-called ‘Welsh Government’s Technical Advice Note (TAN) 6.

The reality soon proved to be very different. Here are some examples I’ve encountered in recent years.

There’s the cult-like commune with an authoritarian leader and its own temple. (Though the planning permission was for ‘a dwellinghouse’.) The leader’s wife’s got a nice line in £185 a head ‘Day Retreat of Powerful Transformation’.

How much time is actually spent tending the organic kumquat?

Then there’s OPDs that are just used on weekends. This is unlawful by the OPD rules laid down by the ‘Welsh Government’. Yet this is what I found at Rhiw Las.

There was a couple there with the husband working in the Met Office in Bristol, while his wife was a Fellow at the LSE.

There have been other examples where both the spirit and the word of the OPD legislation has been flouted by people who soon after first contact realised that Welsh politicians would paint their arses green and chase each other around wind turbines to prove their environmental credentials.

(Try not to visualise that!)

Yet perhaps the most egregious flouting of the legislation comes in examples that are very often never registered as OPDs.

I’m thinking now of unscrupulous, sometimes criminal, operators, who buy sections of woodland and sell them off in plots for people to live on, in trailer homes or chalets: “They can’t touch you, pal – if the council comes snooping, just say ‘OPD'”.

This practice very often follows planning permission secured for a ‘forestry road’.

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The images above show chalets and trailer homes at ‘Coedfryn Woods’, near Llangynog, Carmarthenshire. None of the properties shown had planning permission when the images were sent to me in early January last year.

The council, however, showed little appetite for getting involved.

I’m aware of forest squatting elsewhere. Meidrim, in north Carmarthenshire, for example. And while most residents of these plots will never apply for official OPD status, they will try to hide behind the legislation when challenged.

Secure in the knowledge that local authorities are reluctant to instigate proceedings because OPD planning consent is assured. So both parties save time and money by accepting these unofficial OPDs as the real deal.

And how could I overlook the ‘farmlets’ in Killay, on the western outskirts of Swansea. Read about them here, just scroll down to the section ‘Back to Gower’. (Though the whole article is worth reading.)

And now we have Wade William Heames and his plans for OPD collectives in Pontypridd and Mynachlog-ddu. All funded by others, including, he hopes, The Development Bank of Wales!

It begins to look like big business. And a wee bit shady. One source described it: “Buy for £5k an acre and sell for 10” (or more). If this is really what it’s come to, then we’re a long way from the old hippy looking for isolation and contentment in his declining years.

There are few Welsh people interested in OPDs, and northern Wales seems to have escaped the plague. This is explained because even Pembrokeshire has good access, via the A48 and M4, to southern England, where OPD-lovers originate.

And so, for the reasons given here (and elsewhere), I urge an end to this failed experiment that invites abuse. And which, like too much of the legislation from Corruption Bay, serves the agendas of others, offering nothing to Wales, or to Welsh people.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2023


Clear Water, Poisoned Debate

For decades we’ve been hearing that water is a diminishing commodity, and with an ever-expanding global population we’ll soon be fighting over water resources.

Though these predictions often came from the same people who at different times – or even simultaneously – could predict icebergs in Swansea Bay and no snow on Yr Wyddfa.

It was the usual nonsense from the usual sources.

And yet, in Wales now, water is being used as a weapon. Not by us against our village-drowning neighbours but by politicians and others, supposedly serving Wales and Welsh interests, against a section of the Welsh population.

If that necessitates twisting the facts, and taking control of certain bodies, either through funding or placement of personnel, then so be it.

This is another big one, so I’ll say what I always say: Don’t rush it, take your time, savour it, and you’ll enjoy it far more.

BULLSHIT FOR WHICH BULLS ARE BLAMELESS

It’s been accepted for many years that there might be a problem with nitrate discharges, from some dairy farms, mostly in the south west. This highly localised problem explained why Natural Resources Wales classified just 2.4% of Welsh farmland as ‘vulnerable’.

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When asked to revisit the issue NRW produced a report in September 2016 that (on page 13) suggested, ‘Adoption of the targeted approach would mean an increase in the total area designated from 2.4% to approximately 8% which includes those areas newly identified by NRW’.

A targeted approach was obviously the sensible and fair way to go, but then the politicians got involved. One politician in particular.

The elections of May 2016 saw Lesley Griffiths re-elected for Labour in Wrecsam. Her Senedd bio then tracks her meteoric rise to voodoo doll status in farmhouses across the land. (Soon to be accompanied by Gary.)

First, she was made Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs. In November 2017 the job title changed to Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs. Then, 0n 13 December 2018, she was handed her baton as Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs.

Despite the facts of the matter, and the sensible proposal from NRW, just before Christmas 2017 Lesley Griffiths declared that the whole of Wales was at risk of NVZ pollution. Using this to announce an all-Wales regime.

After a year of being fed a diet of undiluted pollution La Griffiths announced in November 2018 that her mind was made up and she would introduce what she considered to be the necessary legislation.

After a slight delay due to Covid the implementation date was set for April 1, 2021.

But then things started to go awry for the so-called ‘Welsh Government’.

Despite an (unsuccessful) appeal by NFU Cymru the debate was noticeably widening as others took an interest, and could see how disproportionate to the scale of the problem Cruella de Griff’s proposals were.

For in addition to the all-Wales approach the acceptable nitrogen level in Wales was to be 170kg/ha, compared to 250kg/ha in England and Scotland. This was so obviously unfair, in a country where farmers are, on average, less affluent than their English and Scottish counterparts, that it tended to give the game away.

Because there would of course be a financial burden for farmers. Though I’m sure that those trying to put livestock farmers out of business knew exactly what they were doing

The backtracking had begun. With Plaid Cymru taking the credit. For despite being Labour’s partner in a coalition that dare not speak its name, the reaction from Plaid’s large rural vote was giving the party’s leaders serious concerns.

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A Plaid Cymru source said their party had pushed Labour ministers to act‘.

Some cynics – not me! – might wonder what Plaid has offered in return.

The NVZ proposals couldn’t withstand scrutiny from any fair-minded observer because they had little to do with pollution. NVZ was a stick with which to beat livestock farmers, hopefully putting many out of business to release land for other purposes. Land coveted by many in the offstage chorus influencing our Lesley.

To support and legitimise this attack on livestock farming we were expected to believe that only farmers are responsible for polluting our waterways and seas.

Which meant that Dŵr Cymru (Welsh Water), the worst culprit, got a free pass. How did that come about?

All will be explained later in this piece.

THE MEMSAHIBS OF KNIGHTON AND CONSIDERATIONS OF CHICKENSHIT

This section is part digression, part lead-in.

A group that has figured on this blog a few times is a coven of Green-Left-Woke crones who’ve imposed themselves on the border town of Knighton. There are a few men associated with them, perhaps even more unhinged than their female comrades.

Catch up with them in Colonialism in microcosm, or Knighton.

They perform the full far left agenda:

Rather than doing the honest thing and just staying away altogether on Remembrance Sunday they insist on making a nuisance of themselves by placing wreaths of white poppies on the war memorial. (Dressed à la mode Michael Foot.)

Are they reprising a scene from a horror movie? Click to open enlarged in separate tab

You will not be surprised to learn that these biddies have formed a Knighton and District Refugee Support Group. Reluctance to welcome with open arms complete strangers from far-off lands will see you labelled a ‘racist’.

An epithet also hurled at those not condemning the fascists of the Israeli state.

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The gang’s environmental credentials are on extravagant display with Sustainable Food Knighton. Which, in practice, is little more than a vendetta against a local chicken farm.

The attack is mounted on two fronts. One, it’s cruel to the chickens. Two, intensive chicken farms are a big, big source of river pollution.

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Without being able to consult the chickens it may be impossible to address the first point. The second is more relevant to this article because it’s used over and over again by environmental Non-Governmental Organisations (eNGOs).

Especially those that allege chicken farms in Powys are severely damaging the rivers Usk and Wye.

But what are the facts?

Well, for a start, there are more, and bigger, chicken farms in Shropshire and Herefordshire, as the map below shows. So if chicken shit is a problem in Wales then it could well be coming from over the border.

Then again, it might not be a problem at all. Or, it’s a problem that’s being exaggerated.

Knighton is circled in green. Note on which side of the border the chicken farms south of the town are to found. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

For anecdotal evidence suggests there are even more chicken farms in the Severn catchment area, the Trent catchment area, etc. But there are far fewer complaints from these areas.

Which could mean that either shit from Welsh chickens is particularly toxic – in which case every one of the little buggers should be killed immediately! – or there’s a purpose behind the lying.

It’s the latter.

A suspicion reinforced by the Environment Agency recently concluding that the bigger culprit in the Wye catchment is arable farmers, who are mainly found on the England side of the border.

Confirmed by this graphic released by the Environment Agency relating to the Wye in England. Note the section I’ve highlighted in the second level. The tributaries mentioned are also in England.

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Something also worth contributing here is that arable farmers use chicken manure as a fertiliser.

So even if chicken shit is the problem, it’s more likely to come from over the border; either directly from chicken farms or indirectly from arable farms.

And there’s yet another consideration to take into account. Certain interests are pushing us towards a meat-free diet, and in this scenario many view arable farmers as part of the solution. Which might explain them also getting a free pass.

The suspicion of an anti-livestock farming agenda being served was strengthened last month by a ‘report’ on BBC Wales about pollution on the Wye. One of the most biased pieces of television journalism I have ever seen.

Let me explain why I say that:

  • Passing references were made to sewage, but we were left in no doubt that the real culprits are farmers.
  • But only livestock farmers, with the programme focusing on one particular chicken farm.
  • There was no reference to the fact that the Wye is a cross-border river.
  • Despite being fronted by Wyre Davies the star of the show was Gail Davies-Walsh, who became CEO of Afonydd Cymru Cyf on February 22 2021, and secretary on March 11.
  • Afonydd Cymru (Rivers of Wales) serves as the umbrella body for the more local river groups.
  • Her Linkedin profile (here in pdf) tells us that until September she was Head of Natural Capital for the Wye and Usk Foundation‘. ‘Natural Capital’ seems to be code for, among other things, greenwashing. Certainly tree planting.
  •  Revealingly, Linkedin also tells us that Gail Davies-Walsh worked for Dŵr Cymru for almost 14 years, up until January 2020.
Gail Davies-Walsh. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Gail Davies-Walsh took the idea for the programme to the BBC. Which would raise more concerns about linkages, and influence.

Another who joined Afonydd Cymru recently is Harriet Alvis, (Linkedin in pdf) CEO at West Wales Rivers Trust, and co-editor of FISH, the magazine of the Institute of Fisheries Management.

More on both in a mo.

And the situation herein described is very much the same with more terrestrial eNGOs. ‘Environmentalists’ opposed to livestock farming take control of existing groups or set up new ones – and never go unfunded again!

A phenomenon reported on this blog many times. Try Enviroshysters flock to Wales for easy money, Invasion of the Enviroshysters (PG), or Back to the Land!.

TINKLING RILLS AND STREAMS OF POLLUTING CASH

Time now to turn our attention to the increasingly well-funded bodies looking after our various rivers, and we find new ones forming all the time. With the money available perhaps explaining the proliferation?

Here’s a table I’ve draw up, in pdf format (with working links) that I hope lists all the various river outfits operating in Wales. If you know one I’ve left out, then please let me know.

You’ll see that some are specific to one river while others are more general, some even claiming to be national in their scope.

Let me say at the outset, there are many genuine people involved in river trusts, boards, etc; not least, anglers, whose only concerns are for the health of our rivers, fish stocks, and other environmental matters.

But unfortunately, there are others, either looking out for themselves, or involved for a different purpose.

Go through the table I’ve linked to, particularly the ‘Comments’ section, and you’ll see substantial inputs of official funding in recent years.

Take the North Wales Rivers Trust for example. Total income in the year ending 31.03.2022 was £241,790. Of which £241,690 came in ‘Welsh Government’ grants.

From the Charity Commission entry under ‘Financial history. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

And it’s a similar story with other river bodies. Though much of the increase, instead of being shown as coming from ‘government grants’ or ‘government contracts’, is disguised as, ‘Income – charitable activities’ on the Charity Commission entry.

Such as here with the West Wales Rivers Trust. The Charity Commission graph shows income soaring from just £3,750 in y/e 31.03.2017 to £541,140 for y/e 31.03.2021.

That is one hell of a jump in just four years! One way of interpreting the big increase is the ‘Welsh Government’ – or Dŵr Cymru? – paying CEO Harriet Alvis’s salary.

Because don’t you find that strange?

A river group that has meandered happily along for 15 years suddenly needs a CEO.

Equally thought-provoking is Gail Davies-Walsh becoming CEO of Afonydd Cymru.

Making me wonder if Gail Davies-Walsh and Harriet Alvis were ‘placed’ in the West Wales Rivers Trust and Afonydd Cymru to push the ‘Welsh Government’s anti-farming campaign, and also to protect Dŵr Cymru.

For there is a certain ‘circularity’ to it all. ‘Welsh Government’ and Dŵr Cymru would no doubt explain the increase in funding by the ‘state of the rivers’, which then justifies the attack on livestock farming.

A ‘circularity’ made even more suspicious by the fact that these vast increases in funding occur at exactly the same time Lesley Griffiths was hatching the absurd and punitive NVZ legislation.

If I’m wrong then maybe someone can give another reason for our river bodies being showered with cash from 2016.

Back to the riverbank . . .

On the other side of the country the wealthy Wye and Usk Foundation’s income from government grants and contracts jumped from £404,950 in 2018 to £934,670 in 2020.

Not far away is the South East Wales Rivers Trust, which also saw its income more than double between 2017 and 2021. Explained as funding from, ‘Natural Resources Wales, Welsh Water, Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council, Welsh Government with European Funds’.

The ‘disguised grants’ I referred to earlier was money paid to Afonydd Cymru Cyf and then distributed to the individual water groups. Afonydd Cymru’s own accounts tell us ‘Income from government grants’ jumped from zero in 2019 to £894,700 in 2020.

Afonydd Cymru may operate like the Wales Council for Voluntary Action does in relation to the third sector. That is, acting as a conduit for ‘Welsh Government’ funding in the hope of disguising the source of the funding.

But the money filtered through Afonydd Cymru is small beer compared to the £13.8m up for grabs in the Four Rivers For Life project, administered by Natural Resources Wales. (Though £4.5m actually goes towards ‘quaking bogs’.) The four rivers being the Tywi, Teifi, Cleddau and – it should go without saying – the Usk.

This might explain the recent formation of the Save the Teifi campaign. Though information is difficult to find. For example, the social media links at the foot of the website home page don’t work.

This report in the Tivy-side Advertiser in August links the group with Ffynnone-Community Resilience and mentions ‘spokespersons’, but gives no names. Is it a secret society?

The only name mentioned in the Tivy-side article is ‘Councillor John Davies’. This must be ‘John Cwmbetws’, of Bute Energy’s Welsh Advisory Board. Bute being a Scottish company that wants to build twenty or more wind farms in Wales, some with the tallest towers yet seen on land.

Well connected, is John. In Llanelwedd, Corruption Bay, and other places.

The Ffynnone group might be trying to stay anonymous, but one name has been given to me. It’s Jessica McQuade who, I’m told, not long ago moved to Llandudoch, across the Teifi estuary from Aberteifi.

Her Twitter account confirms the link with the Save the Teifi campaign.

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What struck me was that McQuade and Harriet Alvis, the CEO at the West Wales Rivers Trust and, since last month, a director at Afonydd Cymru, are both followed by the Brecon Beacons Mega Catchment.

This is the group created by Dŵr Cymru following its link-up with the Watershed Agricultural Council in New York State, in the area that supplies New York City with water. I wrote about this group in my previous post. It’s another outfit with very little information publicly available.

But what is McQuade’s and Alvis’s connection with this Dŵr Cymru outfit? And with Dŵr Cymru itself?

Jessica McQuade’s Save the Teifi / Ffynnone group has already received ‘Welsh Government’ funding. She could be another one ‘placed’ to push the ‘Welsh Government’s anti-farming campaign / WEF’s Agenda 2030 and, of course, to shield Dŵr Cymru.

As I suggested earlier, all the money recently being splashing around, with a veritable tsunami of new funding approaching, may also explain the new groups springing up. Here are some more.

There’s the Cardiff Rivers Group, containing a few Sherman luvvies, set up in October 2020. Bay-watchers may recognise one or two of the trustees.

Then there’s the Welsh Rivers Union, which has a website, and a Twitter account from February last year, but seems to be unregistered as either a company or a charity.

Next, there’s the Wye Salmon Association, whose Twitter account started in September last year. This too seems unregistered.

Finally, and most recently, there’s Friends of the Upper Wye. Which registered as a charity in March this year.

Let me conclude this section with a tweet from Jessica McQuade who, you’ll remember, is busy with the Save the Teifi campaign since moving to north Pembrokeshire, but whose day job is with the World Wildlife Fund.

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Now why would the WWF be interested in food? And trust me – that is human food she’s referring to.

Because, gentle reader, the WWF is no longer about saving pandas; it is a full-on, far left organisation totally committed to the anti-farming and the anti-human – ‘reduce the population’ – agenda.

And also believe me when I tell you that the WWF wields great influence with the ‘Welsh Government’, and in the Bay more generally.

‘FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE FARMERS . . . ‘

The ‘Welsh Government’ – and, indeed, the Bay establishment – has bought into the UN’s Agenda 2030 and the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset.

Both posit that burping, farting farm animals are destroying the environment; so we should switch to eating plant-based foods, insects, and gunge marketed as ‘artificial meat’.

Obviously, this will mean many fewer livestock farmers in Wales. Perhaps none. But that’s no problem, because the land vacated is already earmarked for tree planting, rewilding, conservation projects and other activities from which Welsh people will be largely excluded unless needed for window-dressing.

To facilitate this clearance programme livestock farmers must be blamed for things that are not their fault. This frees Dŵr Cymru from criticism. An objective easy to achieve given the influence the water company wields within ‘Welsh Government’.

To ensure that everyone sings from the same hymn sheet the ‘Welsh Government’, Dŵr Cymru and other official bodies are more than willing to fund assorted eNGOs which, in return, may accept ‘appointees’.

What I’m alluding to is little different to Bill Gates funding the BBC, the Guardian, New York Times, CNN and countless other media outlets around the world. He doesn’t do it in defence of the truth, he does it to ensure the media he funds will promote his and the World Economic Forum’s agenda.

‘He who pays the piper calls the tune’.

Headlines like this, frightening people into obeying the WEF agenda, don’t come cheap. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Wales, being a poor country, and a corrupt, one-party state, with no effective political opposition, and no functioning media, is especially vulnerable to powerful forces seeking to impose an agenda.

If farmers can be defeated, and the food supply controlled by forces you will have difficulty identifying, let alone challenging, then we will have already lost. Because who controls the food supply controls the world.

It’ll be too late to complain when your car is confiscated, or when your access to your bank account is blocked because you said something on social media that somebody, somewhere, didn’t like.

So stand with the farmers, and stand up to those who threaten them. Because those who threaten the farmers also threaten you.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2022


Gilestone Farm: It’s Who You Know!

As evidence trickles out about the purchase – by the so-called ‘Welsh Government’, for £4.25m – of Gilestone farm, the picture just seems to get murkier.

That’s because every new revelation, or attempted explanation, raises more questions. Though one thing becoming clear is that in this area of southern Powys and rural Gwent, there is a network of well-connected individuals profiting from political patronage, and the public purse.

CONNECTIONS

It was difficult deciding which thread to start with. The one I’ve chosen may seem innocuous enough, but stick with it because it does lead somewhere, and connections will reveal themselves.

Let’s start in July 2018, when the ‘Welsh Government’ published Achieving our low-carbon pathway to 2030. This is what it says at the top of the Introduction.

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To explain. The World Economic Forum, using the pretext of a ‘climate catastrophe’ that isn’t happening, seeks to impose an unelected global government made up of political leaders, major corporations like Vanguard and Blackrock, and multi-billionaires such as Gates, Soros, Zuckerberg and others.

One of the ploys being used to exert control over us is the claim that there is too much carbon about. We are expected to believe that an element essential to life on this planet is in fact killing us! So the world needs to ‘decarbonise’.

The document to which I’ve linked invites responses. And here’s a further link, this time to the summary of those responses.

Being badly advertised outside of environmental circles the responses predictably suggested fewer cars, more wind turbines, and increased brainwashing of children. (Scroll down to page 84 for the organisations that responded.)

You’ll see that the report on the responses was compiled by Miller Research (UK) Ltd. Here’s the company website, and if you scroll down you’ll see that the main office is in Abergavenny, fast becoming the enviroshyster epicentre of our Wye-Usk Fertile Crescent.

On the Companies House entry for Miller we see that the sole director of the company is the eponymous Nicholas FitzHardinge Miller. The unaudited financial statement (y/e 31.07.2021) would suggest that the company is doing fairly well, with 12 employees and retained earnings of £473,108.

While the website makes it obvious where the money comes from. For in addition to the ‘Welsh Government’ Miller does work for other bodies I guarantee you’re familiar with.

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There are no entities there that I’d regard as genuine commercial clients. They seem to be the kind of lucrative gigs you’d get if you were well-connected down in Corruption Bay. Or to the Labour Party.

Miller Research is also used by the ‘Welsh Government’ to research and evaluate. Here are examples. ‘Rural Wales – Evidence Base Research‘ and ‘Evaluation of the Wales Rural Network Support Unit‘. Yet I can’t see a link to any findings, any final report.

While there’s a company Twitter account Miller also has his own account where, a few months back, he recommended a book approved by the otherworldly fanatics of Extinction Rebellion.

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‘Degrowth’ is code for turning the clock back on human progress. Especially in the West, or perhaps only in the West. And not for everybody.

An administration in thrall to the World Economic Forum employed a company owned by an individual who supports Extinction Rebellion. The outcome of the ‘consultation’ on decarbonisation was beyond predictable. It was pre-determined.

GOOD MONEY AFTER BAD

Another company Miller has been associated with is Blurrt Ltd. Which is, alas, no longer with us, having gone the way of so many of the companies that appear on this blog.

As a Victorian headstone might have put it, ‘Received into the bosom of the Great . . . ‘ er, well, Receiver.

But Blurrt is a story worth telling. Here’s the link to the Companies House entry that will help you follow the tale.

Formed in June 2012, by Jason Robert Smith, Blurrt’s product, ‘allows users to listen, analyse, showcase and engage with social audiences in real time’, which television companies thought might be useful.

And yet, confusingly, in his Twitter bio, Nick Miller, of ‘Monmouthshire, UK’, describes himself as, ‘Founder at Blurrt’.

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It’s confusing because according to the documents filed with Companies House Smith alone formed the company and wasn’t joined by Miller and Andrew Paul Cargill until October of 2012. (Cargill left on February 12, 2014.)

Is Miller saying he was involved before becoming a director and a shareholder? But if so, then what form might that involvement have taken? And would it allow him to claim that he was the ‘founder’?

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The day Cargill left, two new directors joined. These were Lloyd Gooding (son of Alf Gooding), and would-be media tycoon Huw Marshall. Marshall was representing S4C, for the following month we read, S4C takes stake in Blurrt.

By an amazing coincidence, Marshall gets a mention in the latest issue of Private Eye. 

The involvement of S4C links with investment made in Blurrt Ltd. Though around the same time the company was also seeking other funding and seems to have raised £504,135 from 182 investors.

In a return made to Companies House June 26, 2014 we see that the largest shareholder was Nicholas FitzHardinge Miller, with 360 in his own name and a further 240 in the name of Miller Research.

Marshall was replaced as S4C’s representative on July 6, 2015 by Phillip Gwynne Evans, who lasted until December 21, 2018.

The investment did not work out. We know that because this report of Westminster’s Welsh Affairs Committee, from July 2019, says that: ‘S4C has confirmed to the Committee that its investments in Blurrt have since been written down to zero.’

Is that saying the debt from 2014 was written off? Presumably because there was no hope of it being recovered. And yet . . .

There was a further loan from S4C Digital to Blurrt in July 2017. A month or so later there was a loan from Finance Wales Investments (now the Development Bank of Wales). These are both outstanding.

Founder Jason Robert Smith ceased being a director in October 2017. Which left Lloyd Gooding and Nicholas FitzHardinge Miller minding the shop.

I have difficulty understanding these further loans. Partly because S4C may have had to write off the 2014 loan, and partly because by 2017, when the two loans were made, the good ship Blurrt was securely moored up Shit Creek.

The accounts for year ending December 31, 2017 show debts of £467,329. While some of this may be attributed to the two loans, the debt for the previous year was a worrying £118,085.

This looks like a gambler on a losing streak throwing good money after bad. But let’s remember who the ‘gamblers’ were, and whose money they were squandering!

The last Blurrt accounts filed were for year ending December 31, 2018. And they are not a pretty sight. It might help if you visualise the bracketed figures in red.

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It’s difficult to comprehend why so much money was pumped into a lost cause. Was it to help out certain well-connected persons?

BABYLON-ON-USK

There are a couple of other companies with which Nick Miller is associated that are worthy of mention as they help fill out the picture.

First, we have Llanvetherine Properties Ltd. This seems to be the company for the  cottages rented out at Pen-y-Wyrlod farm. This is where Nick lives with his partner, Sarah Dickins. That is, the Sarah Dickins, Economics Correspondent for BBC Wales.

Sarah is a star, and if you want to book her you’ll have to go through her agent.

Just last week Sarah Dickins did a piece on the Green Man Festival and Gilestone farm. I’m prepared to bet that Sarah Dickins and the Green Man’s Fiona Stewart know each other. Maybe quite well.

The piece told us that the new venture at Gilestone – whatever it is – will support farmers and young people. Did we ever doubt it! But will it be intersectional and carbon-neutral, that’s what we all want to know.

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In all seriousness, I get the impression that the Gilestone / Green Man story is changing from week to week. And not one version I’ve heard is plausible. Perhaps the truth can’t be told because it’s too embarrassing for certain politicians.

No wonder the ‘Welsh Government’ is now refusing to answer Freedom of Information requests about this shambles.

Nicholas FitzHardinge Miller and Sarah Dickins are of course denizens of the Fertile Crescent, where a certain milieu is especially favoured by Corruption Bay.

In addition, I bet Sarah Dickins has connections all over the place that could be of use to a company ready to . . . oh, I don’t know, maybe help various bodies go through sham consultations in order to arrive at pre-determined conclusions.

Another company registered at Pen-y-Wyrlod is Blue Egg Productions Ltd. As Sarah Dickins holds the shares this may be the vehicle through which her BBC salary is paid.

If so, didn’t the BBC put a stop to this practice some years ago?

Or is this the piggy-bank for the money earned from the speaking engagements and opening food banks?

Another of Sarah Dickins’ interests is the Abergavenny Food Festival, where she’s a director. It takes place this coming weekend. One of those performing will be Rob Penn of greenwash outfit Stump up for Trees.

An outfit looked on with great favour down the Bay.

I can’t help wondering if telling us trees are edible might be advice, preparing us for the dark times after the WEF has put farmers out of business and we are being forced to eat insects and ‘meat’ produced by Bill Gates.

Earlier we saw Sarah Dickins’ partner Nick Miller recommend Jason Hickel’s book Less is More. Sarah is also a Hickel fan. Here she is retweeting him misrepresenting this year’s monsoon in Pakistan as evidence of global climate catastrophe.

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Note the political bias and dishonesty that underpins the Green movement. To believe those carefully selected maps China, which opens a new coal-fired power station almost every day, is one of the good guys, a victim of the evil White man.

PULLING SOME THREADS TOGETHER

I’ve elsewhere referred to southern Powys and rural Gwent as ‘Cotswolds-on-the-cheap’, which on reflection is unfair, because it’s scenically and in other ways more attractive than the Cotswolds.

But property is certainly cheaper, and this draws people to the area. Which helps expand the network, that will in turn support the UN’s Agenda 2030 and the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset.

Or ‘Build back better’, as Charles III urges.

Which leads to the belief – shared by the ‘Welsh Government’ – that these objectives are so existentially important they must be achieved at any cost. Which in turn explains the war on traditional Welsh farming; covering our hills with unreliable, bird-slicing wind turbines; and making the rest of us poorer, colder, and hungrier.

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For of course it’s we who will sacrifice for these agendas, not those who promote them.

Being fundamentally Green Left the network is obviously short on political allies in a region which, at Westminster and Senedd levels, votes Conservative.

At Powys County Council level there are 9 Labour members, all from Brecon town and the top end of the Swansea Valley, otherwise it’s mainly Lib Dem and Tory, with what appear to be three unaligned groups, and three Plaid Cymru members.

Which is why, when viewed from a Labour Party perspective, funding and generally supporting its few but high-profile supporters is seen as a good investment – it gives Labour influence in an area where it has very little electoral support.

The purchase of Gilestone farm is part and parcel of the culture of cronyism and corruption that has developed under devolution, that sees the ‘Welsh Government’ and its agencies favouring organisations and individuals with a preferred ‘outlook’.

But this funding and favouritism is not like me slipping my grandson a tenner; for what Labour is doing impacts adversely on others. It involves public money. In some cases it will have national implications.

That’s because Labour’s system of cronyism and patronage works both ways. For example a few zealots in the system explains the ‘Welsh Government’ becoming a major funder for trans extremist group Stonewall, and how that group was able to influence policy decisions in Corruption Bay.

QUESTIONS

I’m going to finish with a few questions addressed to no one in particular down in Corruption Bay. Cynics might suggest I’m simply howling into the void. Again.

That void where there should be a system of accountability.

  • Was the contract to produce findings of the consultation exercise on ‘Achieving our low carbon pathway to 2030’ put out to tender? 
  • If so, how was this done?
  • How many responses were there?
  • If there was no tendering process, why not?
  • Given Nicholas FitzHardinge Miller’s clear and zealous belief in anthropogenic climate change, was Miller Research Ltd the right choice for this work?
  • Or does that bias explain why Miller Research Ltd was chosen?
  • The same questions on tendering and bias attach to the other contracts this company has secured with the ‘Welsh Government’ and other Welsh public bodies and institutions.
  • Why did S4C and Finance Wales Investments make further loans to Blurrt Ltd in 2017 when that company was clearly in financial difficulties and after S4C had seemingly written off a previous loan made in 2014?
  • Seeing as Blurrt Ltd was Dissolved in July 2021 are we to assume that these two loans from 2017 have also been written off?
  • Whether they’ve been written off or not, what amounts are involved?
  • If they have not been written off, then what steps are being taken to secure their repayment?
  • Will Miller Research Ltd be tasked with evaluating whether the purchase of Gilestone farm was public money well spent . . . and recommend that more farms be bought?

As I say, these questions are rhetorical. For the ‘Welsh Government’ is now refusing to answer FoI requests on a range of embarrassing issues, using all sorts of unconvincing reasons.

But then, when you have so much to hide . . .

♦ end ♦

 

© Royston Jones 2022


Back to the Land!

After taking August off (and enjoying the break) I’m back to report on an event planned for later this month.

In fact, I enjoyed the break so much, and found writing this such hard going, that it might be a while before the next piece appears.

HOW IT BEGAN

A couple of weeks ago someone sent me news of a gathering to be held in the Community Centre, Knighton, on September 17, when many of us will be nursing hangovers from celebrating Glyndŵr’s Day.

Knighton Community Centre has been mentioned on this blog before, after falling into the clutches of white settler Labour activists; who now wage war on local farmers, welcome refugees to an area where they themselves are not universally welcome, and generally play latter-day left liberal colonialists.

For no longer is it Bible and bullets, now it’s saving us through a combination of uplifting sermons from the Rev Monbiot and those organic thingeys they eat at Felicity’s aerobic knife-throwing class.

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But I digress.

To expose the dishonesty behind this event I shall go through those named as being involved before concluding with . . . well, my conclusions. What else?

CAMPAIGN FOR THE PROTECTION OF RURAL WALES (CPRW)

Let’s start with some background. The CPRW has been pootling along for almost a century as a charity, but now things are changing. Most significantly, with the formation of a company in late May this year.

Though I’m assured there’s no significance to this other than the trustees ensuring they are not personally bankrupted by legal action against the CPRW.

Which also means that, at the moment, the CPRW has two charities with the same name registered with the Charity Commission. One will soon be closed.

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Previous CPRW presidents have included politician Megan Lloyd George and BBC broadcaster Wynford Vaughan Thomas. Clough Williams Ellis, of Portmeirion fame, was also deeply involved for many years as both chairman and president.

The current president of the CPRW is TV celeb Jules Hudson, who is believed to live in Herefordshire. Possibly Hertfordshire. But definitely not Wales. He’s famous for programmes like Escape to the Country and Countryfile.

In his favour, he has a Labrador called Iolo.

The chair of the Brecon & Radnor branch is Jonathan Halsey Luke Colchester, who has recently moved to Clyro. From where he runs his company, Courtenay Advisers Ltd.

I am informed by a very reliable source that the Brecon & Radnor branch of the CPRW is particularly hostile towards farmers.

That being so, why is the local CPRW branch organising a bash with the title ‘Welsh Food & Farming’? The answer to that question will become clear as you read on.

There are farmers, and there are farmers.

THE FERTILE CRESCENT

One of the CPRW’s recent recruits is associated with another new outfit, Friends of the Upper Wye (FUW), registered with the Charity Commission in March this year. (Though I’m assured she’s an admirable and well-intentioned lady.)

This will no doubt complement the Wye & Usk Foundation (WUF) which is about a lot more than just angling. The WUF is based in Talgarth, close to Coleg Soros.

Over the years the WUF has received millions in funding from or via the ‘Welsh Government’, much of it handed over by an official whose attitude to money might have been compared by my dear mamgu to that of an inebriated seafarer.

An amazing episode, with apparently no oversight whatsoever. It is even suggested that some favoured bodies didn’t even need to make an application – it was a case of, “Would you like some more money?”

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For the Fertile Crescent formed by the Usk and the Wye is something of a magnet for those seeking to save us benighted natives from ourselves. And for others with even less noble intent.

There’s yet another organisation, formed last year, in the Welsh Rivers Union (WRU), based on the Usk at Llanvihangel Gobion. This claims to be a collective of ‘citizen-funded’ community groups defending our rivers.

If it gets airborne it will be made up of the usual ‘community groups’ composed of people who were living somewhere else not so long ago.

Though as yet, it’s not registered as either a company or a charity. It may be just a website, and a Twitter account.

Oh, I almost forgot Afonydd Cymru Cyf, also based in Talgarth. Where income from government grants leapt like a returning salmon from £10,000 in 2018 to £894,704 in 2020.

Afonydd Cymru’s chair is Viscount Christopher Mills, of Kensington, who served as regional director of the Environment Agency in Wales (before the creation of Natural Resources Wales). Among the trustees is Joe Pimblett, CEO of the Severn Rivers Trust, based in Worcestershire.

When it comes to the Fertile Crescent even the Blesséd Monbiot has made a film, Rivercide (what a wit!), in which one of the supporting cast was Lesley Griffiths (sans Gary), and she reminded us that no matter what the facts may say, it’s always farmers wot we must blame.

St George thought the culprits were chickens, which appear at number 2, after humans, in his forthcoming opus, ‘Species To Be Exterminated If We Are To Save The Planet’. (Chickens have apparently deposed sheep in Monbiot’s demonography.)

Why this obsession with the Usk and the Wye? Is it because they’re close to Bristol? Or is their cross-border nature, demanding ‘co-operation’, the attraction?

Of course, there are rivers within Wales in far worse condition than the Wye and the Usk, so why are these ignored? Three reasons, perhaps.

First, these other rivers run through more populated areas with few stretches of open country attractive to those in search of a rural idyll, or intent on ‘habitat restoration’ (aka ‘rewilding’).

Second, while there may be areas meeting the criteria further west, there the Welsh language would be a consideration. And after the resistance to Summit to Sea the land-grabbers are wary of getting another bloody nose.

Third, they are entirely within Wales.

Never lose sight of the fact that for many, water quality is a stalking-horse, used against farmers so as to free up their land for other purposes. And the ‘Welsh Government’ wholeheartedly supports this agenda.

UPDATE: Here’s a recent example of pollution on the Wye that clearly has nothing to do with farmers.

LOCAL GROWERS AND FARMERS

A source informs me that the ‘local grower’ is the bloke from the organic food shop in Knighton, where you buy the knobbly carrots and the misshapen parsnips. Ach y fi!

(Though there may be others attending, more deserving of the billing.)

As for the ‘local farmers’, it seems these will both come from Herefordshire, which may be fairly local to Knighton (/Tref y Clawdd) but are not, unless we want to be irredentist about this, Welsh.

More pragmatically, whether we view Herefordshire as the ‘lost lands’ or not, the area will not be affected by any legislation or initiatives emanating from Corruption Bay.

Even so, to help give a fuller flavour of the event, I’ll tell you who they are.

One is ‘RegenBen’, of Townsend Farm, near Ross-on-Wye. Which, as the name suggests, is on the River Wye. Ben is a director of the Oxford Farming Conference, an organisation I’m told represents big landowners, yeoman farmers and the like.

(I was also told that a famous Welsh farmer went there to speak a few years ago, and has never felt more out of place.)

The makeup of the Oxford Farming Conference probably explains why a rival was set up in 2010 called the Oxford Real Farming Conference.

From what I can see the older body caters for those with inherited land while the upstart is more attractive for Greens looking to get their hands on someone else’s land. I wouldn’t be comfortable with either.

The other ‘local farmer’ is from ‘Wild by Nature’, of Lower House farm, just over the border from Llanthoney, close to Llanveynoe. (These corrupted spellings!)

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Looking at a map I see that both of them are close to the border, but neither is particularly ‘local’ to Knighton. The first is roughly 45 miles away, the second almost 50.

I suspect that both have been invited because they are well-connected, and have diversified into ‘artisanal’ food produce and other activities.

The Rhug Estate model, if you like.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve stopped many times at the Rhug restaurant and shop, and like some urchin from a Dickens novel gazed at goodies I can’t afford.

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Though ‘farm shop’ really is a misnomer. It suggests Mrs Evans in a shed at the bottom of the farm drive selling goods cheaper by cutting out the middle man. In reality it’s a place where the price of everything is marked up.

Few locals can afford to shop there. That’s why the Rhug ‘farm shop’ is on the A5.

Even so, I’m sure a farm shop can be a nice little earner, and so I wasn’t surprised to learn that ‘Wild by Nature’ already has one. While RegenBen’s website tells us: ‘Our plans are to share the fruits of our labour by opening a farm shop’.

There are of course some excellent farm shops in Wales. One is Bargoed Farm / The Moody Cow, near Aberaeron, run by the former owners of Gilestone Farm, and visited very recently by Conservative Senedd leader Andrew R T Davies MS.

But how many farm shops can Wales support?

SOIL ASSOCIATION

The Soil Association, headquartered in Bristol, is another of those English organisations that recognises the existence of Scotland, but not Wales. We, presumably, are part of England.

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The Soil Association is registered as both a company and a charity. And with an annual income of over £23m it is no shoestring outfit. Of course the Scottish Soil Association is registered separately in Scotland.

In addition, there is The Soil Association Land Trust ‘established to acquire and maintain farmland sustainably’. Which might be worth bearing in mind, and could explain The Soil Association’s interest in Wales, a country I’m sure it will quickly recognise if the ‘Welsh Government’ offers to buy it a farm.

NATURE FRIENDLY FARMING NETWORK

The company of that name was launched in July 2018. Though there has been quite a turnover of directors in the four years since then. Of the eight original directors, five have left, including two who were obviously Welsh.

NFFN has an impressive website, telling us of a Welsh Steering Group, with two group members serving as directors.

Here’s a page giving some responses from the Welsh Steering Group to the ‘Welsh Government’s Sustainable Farming Scheme that emerged in July.

Hilary Kehoe, the Chair, mentions the ‘changing climate’. Rhys Evans thinks the ‘devil will be in the detail’. But Hywel Morgan was ecstatic. I was not surprised to learn that Hywel is involved with the ‘Welsh Government’s Farming Connect scheme.

The Nature Friendly Farming Network is looking to hire a £29,000 a year Communications Officer. Having recently recruited a Farmer Engagement Officer on the same salary. But who’s funding these posts?

For the financial situation is not impressive. I appreciate that it’s a company limited by guarantee, but even so, I would have expected to see more than £69 in the kitty. Which is what the latest accounts (to y/e 30.06.2021) show.

Yes, NFFN has assets of £199,317, but this sum is exceeded by money owed to creditors.

On the ‘Nature Means Business‘ page we read: ‘Right now, farm businesses are facing a multitude of challenges: climate change, unpredictable weather patterns, changes to future farm payment schemes and adjusting to new consumer demands’.

To prioritise ‘climate change’ (when it’s becoming clear that climate change has been – at the very least – exaggerated), and then virtually repeat it with ‘unpredictable weather patterns’, before mentioning farm payments, is revealing.

With no mention at all of the threat from mandatory afforestation, farms being bought for greenwashing, and restrictions applied by politicians and administrations that are blatantly anti-farming.

These priorities are evident throughout the website. The image below is from the Fund Us page. And again it’s ‘climate in crisis’, ‘wildlife declining’, ‘habitats being lost’.

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The Nature Friendly Farming Network seems to be an environmental organisation that recruits farmers. There’s nothing wrong with that, farmers care deeply about the environment that provides livelihoods for them and their families.

But it’s a question of priorities. The first of which has to be supporting farmers – who will then look after the environment

STUMP UP FOR TREES

This organisation has appeared on this blog a number of times, so I won’t dwell on it again.

Based in Abergavenny Stump up for Trees is a greenwash outfit. It’s registered as a charity, and one of the three trustees is Richard James Roderick, who farms next to Gilestone.

By ‘greenwashing’ I mean that SUFT ‘saves the planet’ by planting trees in order for companies to offset their perceived ‘carbon footprint’, which allows them to go on putting out carbon. Its major partner seems to be Utility Warehouse.

Nonsense predicated on there being a ‘climate emergency’ (there isn’t); carbon being damaging to the environment (it’s not); and replacing agricultural land with sterile, monoculture pine forests making sense (it doesn’t).

Even so, Stump up for Trees seems to be well-regarded in Corruption Bay among the connoisseurs, practitioners and dispensers of flim-flam, bullshit, propaganda and other means of deceiving poor old Dai Public.

ABATTOIR SECTOR GROUP

This is yet another organisation based in Bristol and set up as recently as 2020. Though it’s not registered as either a company or a charity because it’s an offshoot of the Sustainable Food Trust.

The ABS is dedicated to keeping smaller, rural abattoirs open, and what carnivore (bares fangs!) could argue with that?

Parent body, the Sustainable Food Trust, is an international organisation with a wider remit to support ‘sustainable farming’. By which I assume that it seeks to avoid the wrath of the swivel-eyed with a modified kind of farming that’s less damaging to Mother Earth.

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It is, as I say, based in Bristol, and I see no mention of Wales on the website. The only Welsh connection I can find is founder Patrick Holden, an organic dairy farmer from the Lampeter area.

Holder is a founder of Sustainable Food Trust and current CEO. He was a former director of the Soil Association.

OUR FOOD

You may need to pay attention with this one. For just as with the previous section we have an organisation operating under a different label. There’s even a third label.

Let’s start with the Our Food website. Scroll down and you’ll read: A project of the Conservation Farming Trust Company Number 10823532′. Which the Companies House website confirms as the number for Conservation Farming Trust.

On the Our Food website we also read: ‘This website was built with support from Monmouthshire County Council, the Brecon Beacons National Park, and the Welsh Government. It is part of a process to build a new campaign in the region to secure 1200 acres for regenerative horticulture for local markets.’

The Our Food 1200 website confirms that the figure refers to the acreage the new organisation hopes to be given. At the time of writing 24 acres had been donated. Though, in fairness, Our Food 1200 was only launched in January. It’s registered as a Community Benefit Company.

Let’s go back to the parent organisation, Conservation Farming Trust. The registered office address is in London, and the three directors live in Ireland (1) and England (2). So no Welsh connections there.

And yet, it seems the only funding Our Food gets is from Welsh sources.

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This funding is presumably justified because Our Food 1200 is looking for Welsh land to be donated. This looks very much like One Planet Developments rebranded. (I’m sure I read a reference to ‘OPD’ on the website.)

As with OPDs, those we’ll find on these over-sized allotments are unlikely to be local. So why are we funding it?

And is it a safe bet? I ask because a driving force behind it all seems to be Duncan Mark Fisher, who serves as both secretary and a member of Our Food 1200. Companies House suggests Fisher’s business record is ‘patchy’, to say the least.

The Conservation Farming Trust may have no connection with Wales, but Our Land, and certainly Our Land 1200, are trying to put down roots. Maybe they’re hoping someone will buy them a farm!

More planet-savers promoting climate hysteria, with the ‘Welsh Government’ and others happy to go along with this exploitative, colonialist nonsense.

LANDWORKERS’ ALLIANCE

What you’ve read thus far has been unadulterated, unsubstantiated and unconvincing bullshit (however sincere some of those promoting it), but this final section outdoes it all. For we are now with the horny-handed sons of toil, straight out of The Grapes of Wrath.

Or those who would imagine themselves so to be.

For I now direct your attention to the Landworkers’ Alliance. Scroll down and you’ll see that this crew aligns itself with the International Peasants Movement. (I’m afraid I let my membership lapse.)

When you join you get given a pitchfork and the addresses of local landlords. (Bastards!)

When Dominic and Eugenie re-imagine themselves as peasants you know you’ve gone so far down the rabbit-hole that you run the risk of being shot by an Australian farmer.

And doesn’t it count as cultural appropriation?

The Landworkers’ Alliance was formed in 2015, and has its registered address in Dorset. Here’s the Companies House entry.

The ‘accounts’ – as with all the outfits I’ve dealt with here – are vague, being little more than unaudited statements. Though I can tell you that the latest such statement (y/e 30.09.2020) gives assets at £151,507 (previous year £66,523). But with no indication of where the money came from.

It would also appear to be a Woke organisation. For which we should be thankful, because trans peasants are never far from my thoughts. (I hope it’s the same for you!)

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The directors are resident in England and Scotland with the exceptions of Katharine Anne McEvoy and Gerald Davies Miles, both residents of Pembrokeshire. The former seems to live in Newport, with the latter to be found at Caerhys Organic Community Agriculture (COCA), near St David’s.

I feel a tear well in old Jac’s eye, for we may finally have found a genuine Welsh farmer! Though whether he’ll be in Knighton is another matter.

Looking briefly at the ‘accounts’ for COCA, or rather, the ‘statement of financial position’, we see a paltry £3,154 for y/e 31.03.2022.

I suspect that COCA is a virtue-signalling side-line, with Caerhys farm itself run as a commercial – if organic – agricultural business, including bed & breakfast.

But the irony.

We have sought for centuries to escape being peasants, in our own country; now we face an invasion of land-hungry Green-Left-Woke carrot-growing poseurs wanting to play at being peasants . . . in our country.

CONCLUSION

The sad truth is that farmers have been badly treated under devolution. And it’s happened in identifiable stages.

It began in 1999 with Labour taking control of the new Assembly. A Labour Party in which too many saw farmers as landowners, and therefore capitalists. Though anyone who can lump together a struggling Welsh hill farmer and the Duke of Westminster really does have a problem.

This encouraged others to join in. I’m thinking now of the environmentalists, the planet savers. Though all too often it was their own interests, and the interests of their cronies, that were being served, not those of the planet.

Chief among them was Jane Davidson, Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing from 2007 to 2011. When her Labour Party was in coalition with Plaid Cymru.

Davidson, a wealthy and privately-educated Englishwoman, was determined to impose her will on us, for the benefit of others like her, no matter what the cost. To us.

Thanks to Davidson we saw TAN 6 in July 2010, the ‘Hippies’ Charter’, which allows English drop-outs to build what they like, where they like.

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In January 2014, Alun Davies, the Minister for Natural Resources and Food, announced that 15% of CAP funding would in future be transferred from Pillar One (i.e. farmers) to Pillar 2 (rural development projects).

‘Rural Development Projects’ means those self-serving ‘community’ schemes dreamed up by Jane Davidson’s friends that benefit no one else.

Wales was further blessed, just a year later, with the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. Here you see the Act’s objectives, with my comments.

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This legislation is another example of the Left window dressing a looted store (after inciting the looters with talk of ‘victimhood’ and ensuring the police didn’t get involved.)

Bullshit dreamed up to please enviroshysters and pressure groups. Which has achieved nothing for us Welsh. But it allows the ‘Welsh Government’ to say: ‘We were the first government in the world . . . ‘.

And that, for our politicians, is all that really matters.

More recently, we saw Lesley Griffiths (and Gary), introduce legislation to curb pollution of Welsh waterways. This problem is localised, and there are many culprits, including water companies.

But Lesley (and Gary) pretended to believe that the problem is national, and that farmers are solely to blame.

If you believe that traditional farming methods contribute to anthropogenic global warming, then the sensible approach would have been to sit down with farmers and work out a better way forward.

Instead, and from the outset, Labour politicians chose vilification, lies, confrontation, punishment.

An approach that becomes inconsistent, even sinister, when we think again about Knighton on the 17th. Where ‘Welsh Government’ representatives will be rubbing shoulders with lots of . . . well, farmers.

Clearly, the ‘Welsh Government’ has no problem with farmers as such, so perhaps the problem is only with Welsh farmers.

♦ end ♦

 

© Royston Jones 2022