Who Ya Gonna Vote For?

On 03.05.202603.05.2026 By JacIn Conservative and Unionist Party, Corruption Bay, Devolution, Elections, Globalism, Greens, Gwlad, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, Reform, Scotland, Senedd, Welsh Government, Welsh Independence, Welsh Labour22 Comments

Well, we’re almost there. Thank God! Because this has been the most uninspiring and negative election in the history of devolution.

Never have so many deadbeats, activists posing as ‘journalists’, party hacks, and nut-jobs, wasted their time trying to rouse a people who’ve just lost interest.

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RUNNERS AND RIDERS IN HEAVY GOING

This election was doomed to be uninspiring and confusing once Labour rigged the voting system. (Almost certainly with the connivance of Plaid Cymru.) It’s a party list system that no one understands, contested in 16 vast and insane constituencies.

An affront to democracy.

I detailed the various stages of the process just over two years ago in Senedd Cymru (Electoral Candidate Lists) Bill, explaining how better and fairer voting systems were rejected in order to arrive at today’s abomination.

For one thing, it’s designed to make life as difficult as possible for smaller parties and independent candidates. Jac Larner of Cardiff University calculates the system imposes a threshold of 14% before a party can hope to win a seat.

Given the quality of the debate, and the paucity of credible candidates, the election has been uninspiring. But this is to be expected. If a Senedd of just 60 Members attracts only people who’d struggle to run a stall at a village fete, what hope is there of improving the quality when the numbers are increased by over 50%?

And this couples with the negativity I also referred to in the intro. The Globalist Uniparty, the self-styled ‘progressives’, Labour, Plaid Cymru, Greens, Lib Dems, have had little to say beyond – Stop Reform!

There has been nothing positive on offer. Certainly no inspiring vision for the future. But this is only to be expected. Because with the exception of the Greens these are the parties that have failed Wales for 27 years of devolution.

Adding the Greens to the mix – and a potential coalition with Plaid – only offers something worse. While the other components of the Uniparty promise more of the same, the Greens want to double down on the mistakes of the past 27 years, and force on us new ones.

It’s also been a very ‘British’ campaign in that Welsh issues have been crowded out. For the London media has tended to lump the Senedd elections in with the Scottish Parliament and English local authority elections.

Their focus has been London-centric in debating whether Starmer will survive bad results “across the UK“. Treating May 7 almost as a general election, or a vote of confidence in the Labour party in Westminster.

And yet, this neglect of Welsh issues serves the interests of some parties. Plaid Cymru, for example, can blame Labour for the mess Wales is in, while claiming a vote for them is also a vote against the most unpopular PM ever.

Ironically, this is Labour’s old election tactic of urging punters to, “Send a message to London“. Which is what many will be doing, but now it’s working against Labour.

Reform can neglect Wales to focus on the issues that figure with the mainstream media and social media; small boat migrants, net zero, anti-Semitism, high taxes, benefit payments, knife crime, etc. Giving out mixed messages about their attitude towards devolution doesn’t do them any harm either.

The Greens have the advantage of being an unknown quantity, something different. But the Greens are universally and correctly described as ‘the Watermelon Party’. Green on the outside, red on the inside. And now attracting Islamist support.

Plaid Cymru has also been dipping its toe in that toxic oasis pool for some years. Though I’m not sure Mrs Evans in Pencader will take kindly to being told she has to wear a hijab to Capel Sion or else be branded Islamophobic.

As for the Lib Dems, does anybody know what they offer? In Wales it’s that strange Jane Dodds, with the party led at UK level by Ed Davey, who backed the Post Office in persecuting postmasters when UK Postal Affairs Minister from 2010 to 2012.

In short, and Reform excepted, various forms of that curious beast, 21st century Western left-liberalism divorced from any concerns for the once-idolised working class.

Offering socialism that can only run an economy for as long as other people’s money lasts or – as we’re now learning from Minnesota and elsewhere in the USA – if it can tap in to official funding which taxpayers thought was being properly used.

Few issues lay bare the deceit and duplicity more clearly than race. Here are a couple more things I picked up over the past week on X.

On the left we have Plaid Cymru dreaming of a multicultural Wales in which it seems white people are a minority. On the right, someone claiming that “Cymru belongs to us, not Reform“.

Now I don’t know Siân Parry, so I can’t say for sure that she’s a Plaid supporter, but she’s certainly on the political left. But what is she trying to say? Come to that, what is Plaid Cymru trying to say? Let’s attempt a synthesis.

An illegal immigrant can be Welsh; but someone who is Welsh to their core, speaks the language fluently, ceases to be Welsh – if they support Reform?

How insane, and offensive, that is. And all in the service of some transitory Woke nonsense. But too many put socialist dogma and childish obsessions above the interests of Wales.

To continue down this path Plaid risks becoming a full-blown anti-Welsh party.

For that’s the course it seems to have charted, with a Gwynedd councillor suspended for not appreciating that the false god of inclusivity is more important than the Welsh language and the community he was elected to represent.

So sod the Uniparty. And with Reform increasingly looking like controlled opposition, I’d avoid them too.

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STUDENT POLITICS AND DYING BIRDS

Twenty-seven years of virtue-signalling, ineptitude, and failure have taken their inevitable toll.

It’s an uphill task for those who’ve run devolution for 27 years to persuade people to forget about bills and hospital appointments, and instead take pride in Wales being the first country to declare a climate emergency, the first to have a Future Generations Commissioner, and to remember that Wales is working to be Anti-racist by 2030.

It’s student politics. And it’s explained very well by a young man named Owain Williams, whose one-minute video I stumbled upon last week.

When I saw “Confederacy” my heart soared!

Now student politics is all very well in its place, but the real world is not that place.

Digression alert!

There’s a little quote from Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man that was popular with the left in my younger days. Paine was responding to Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, in which Burke floridly defended the Ancien Régime. (But still a great read!)

Paine condemned Burke for being more concerned with the pomp of Versailles than with the wretchedness of most French people. It was a radical responding to a conservative, telling him to ignore the ephemeral and focus on the realities.

Paine wrote: “We pity the plumage, but forget the dying bird“.

We can turn this on its head in 21st century Wales; for here it’s the radicals, the progressives, who obsess over the plumage, the ephemeral. But who ignore the dying bird, Wales.

And things won’t get better if we let Plaid Cymru take over. For Plaid, either alone or in alliance with their new wobble-headed pals in the Greens, will only push us harder and faster down Disaster Road.

But on the plus side . . . breast enlargement will be available on the NHS from fully-trained tit whisperers, all accredited by the Zack Polanski School of Woo-Woo.

Let’s be honest, devolution has been a disaster for Wales, and so replacing one bunch of bullshitters with another won’t make a bit of difference. And people know it. This piece from last week’s Western Mail says it all.

“A majority of voters in Wales are either indifferent to devolution or opposed to it . . . only 27 per cent of those asked said they supported devolution“. A majority of those polled couldn’t name the first minister.

But what do you expect after 27 years of failure that has alienated people from the whole idea of devolution, and they see no hope of improvement?

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IS DEVOLUTION EVEN DEMOCRATIC?

A fundamental problem of devolution, and the main reason for being subjected to policies for which there is little public support is the hangers-on, the influencers, the pressure groups, the lobbyists, that attach themselves to the politicians, to by-pass and subvert the democratic process.

You vote for a party that promised this that and t’other but you end up suffering legislation that was never in the manifesto and on which you were never consulted.

That’s because most of the Uniparty members in the Senedd went into politics to promote their pet ishoos rather than represent the constituency for which they were elected. Many came from charities, pressure groups, and lobbying organisations.

The aptly-named ‘Swamp’.

Take Lee Waters. Ostensibly the Labour Senedd Member for Llanelli (though he actually lives in Penarth). Waters had worked for cycling charity Sustrans (renamed Walk Wheel Cycle Trust), and was instrumental in bringing in the 20mph legislation.

There was a petition opposing 20mph that raised almost 470,000 signatures – but the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ ignored it.

While other petitions, with little support, result in legislation – because the issue promoted lines up with the Uniparty agenda. You even get your photo took with some gurning politico in a presentation ceremony!

On the left in the image below is Mike Hedges, Labour SM for Swansea East; on the right, Natalie Buttriss, who’s represented a number of bodies trying to grab Welsh land under various ‘save the planet’/’biodiversity’ guises.

Red carpet treatment – and a chance to meet Mike Hedges! – for just 2,385 signatures!

That’s democracy, folks; the Voice of the People . . . being ignored.

Saying loud and clear that devolution is a sham. But we’re expected to believe it’s going to get better because – just like socialism – it hasn’t been properly tried yet.

Worse, there are those believing Wales could survive as an independent country with the same calibre of politicians pursuing the same policies.

This goes beyond the definition of insanity attributed to Einstein.

At present, all the lunacies we endure from Corruption Bay are funded by the block grant from Westminster. Take that away with independence, and give full powers to politicians who understand nothing about economics, but who will be determined to pursue the same Globalist-Woke agenda, and Wales will go broke within 5 years.

Then it’s into the clutches of the EU and the World Bank; allowing land and other assets to be bought up by BlackRock and the like to give the impression of economic activity, or inward investment.

Socialism has never worked as an economic model. Which explains why the only ones pushing it are either still wet behind the ears or have jobs for life on the public payroll.

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CONCLUSION

Plaid Cymru believes that a few years of the party running the Senedd will win people over to the idea of independence. Thinking of Scotland. They’re wrong.

After the SNP took control in 2008 (as a minority government) it increased its popularity under the leadership of Alex Salmond. To the point where it almost won the 2014 referendum on independence.

But Salmond, in addition to being a very astute politician and a great debater, was an economist. You know, the real world economy. He persuaded many Scots, and many economists, that Scotland could be better off as an independent country.

And it almost worked. I was in Scotland for the referendum, and I know that the polls just before the vote were showing a majority for Yes. The London parties panicked and came out with ‘The Vow’, promising Scotland just about everything short of independence.

That swung it and the vote was 55 – 45 against independence.

Worth noting that the Labour leader at the time was Ed Miliband. Who – like Cameron and Clegg – understood that a great part of the appeal of independence was the promise of oil and gas revenues staying in Scotland. So maybe him closing down North Sea oil and gas fields isn’t just about saving the planet.

Whatever, and to get back to Wales, Plaid Cymru knows nothing about economics; I think the last genuine economist in their ranks was Dr Phil Williams, a good old stick despite everything, but he died in 2003.

Wales has no oil and gas fields to speak of. And there’s been no attempt to develop an indigenous economy over the 27 years of devolution. Funding cronies and charities to run make-believe ‘businesses’, and allowing carpetbagger companies to exploit Wales, is a third world economy.

All Plaid Cymru offers is more of the same, with a different spin. Because while Rhun ap Iorwerth may come across as an affable sort of guy, behind the scenes, still running the show, are dark forces from Plaid’s recent past.

And if Plaid gets power, especially in a link-up of some description with the Greens, then even nastier specimens will start popping up.

Wales needs radical change, in the form of a return to the eternal verities and facing up to economic realities. The Uniparty will never be allowed to provide this. Reform gives no thought to Wales beyond getting votes to pursue a different agenda.

Here’s Owain Williams again. I don’t know his politics, but I suspect they’re not a million miles from my own.

The only sensible option is a party that puts Wales first and foremost. One that prioritises the economy we all need. That understands Wales needs real jobs not more gesture politics. That teaches our children to think for themselves rather than brainwashing them. That won’t wage war on the family farm. Or the family unit.

The only party that fits the bill is Gwlad. Of course, Gwlad can’t win this time round, they don’t have the strength yet. But they’ll grow and, with fair media coverage, be back stronger next time. In the meantime, I’m sure Gwlad will be fighting for Wales in council elections and other ways.

The only Welsh party willing to address people’s real world concerns is Gwlad.

♦ end ♦

Looking Ahead To Senedd Elections

On 03.04.202603.04.2026 By JacIn Conservative and Unionist Party, Corruption Bay, Devolution, Elections, Far Left, Greens, Gwlad, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, Reform, Senedd, Welsh Government, Welsh Labour73 Comments

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

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

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

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‘WELSH’ LABOUR

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

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

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

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

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

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

But chickens come home to roost.

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

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

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

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

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

NOW LISTEN, STARMER, HERE ARE YOUR ORDERS

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

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

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

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PLAID CYMRU

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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REFORM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other fractures also seem to be appearing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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GREENS

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

But how they’ve changed!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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CONSERVATIVE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Though one of the more intriguing figures was this:

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

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

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

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

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

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LIBERAL DEMOCRATS

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy days!

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

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GWLAD

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

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

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

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

By which I mean they are not professional politicians.

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

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

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

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

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

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CONCLUSION

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

♦ end ♦

Caerffili By-election: Random Thoughts

On 24.10.202525.10.2025 By JacIn Elections, English Nationalism, European Union, Far Left, Globalism, Gwlad, Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, Senedd, Welsh Government, World Economic Forum101 Comments

This piece is totally unplanned; but I want to get it out because I see so many misinterpreting the result and failing – or refusing to understand – what lies behind it.

◊

PLAID CYMRU AND LABOUR, LABOUR AND PLAID CYMRU

Let me begin by congratulating Plaid Cymru on a great victory. As I’ve mentioned more than once, I was a member of the party for many years and, back in the 1970s, a candidate for both Swansea council and the old West Glamorgan county council.

But it was a different party back then. Though the victor in Caerffili, Lindsay Whittle, seems in some ways closer to the party I belonged to than the modern party. We shall see.

The Plaid campaign was strange in that it seemed to be more about stopping Reform than offering any policies of its own. And so it was reduced to a two-horse race; portraying Reform as the agents of Putin, Trump, and English nationalism (get your head around that!), with Plaid as the standard bearer for Wales, decency, and ‘progress’.

Which was bollocks. The election was really about voters’ rejection of Labour. Everything else flowed from that.

The people of Caerffili were justifiably pissed off with Labour for two reasons.

First, 26 years of abject failure by the Labour party managing Wales from Corruption Bay. From which Plaid and Reform profited.

But let’s remember that Plaid was in coalition with Labour between 2007 and 2011, and the two are currently in some ill-defined ‘agreement’. Furthermore, and just like Labour, Plaid supports the Globalist-Woke agenda on climate, gender, race, etc., and would go further.

Second, there was Keir Starmer factor: cancelling winter fuel allowance, rocketing electricity bills thanks to ‘clean green energy’, rising taxes, rent boys, immigration, Chinese Communist Party influence, rape gangs, Digital ID. A tower of betrayals and lies that will soon topple and destroy Starmer.

So Plaid profited because they were seen by many as being a change from Labour. An improvement. And marginally preferable to Reform. With a strong local candidate, in Lindsay Whittle.

But in addition to the shared outlook I just listed, and since Plaid abandoned independence the difference between Labour and the Party of Wales is, well . . . anybody got a fag paper? Don’t bother – there’d be nowhere to fit it.

Here’s what they both really want: More political power for the Senedd and more funding from London; then they can make California Democrats look like Confederate flag-waving rednecks buck dancing by their likker stills.

And as someone has pointed out to me, the constituency itself needs to be understood.

His take is that the northern part of the constituency probably went to Reform.

But the southern part, which touches Cardiff’s northern suburbs, is home to many ‘progressives’ who realised Labour is cooked and switched to Plaid.

◊

ATTITUDES, REACTIONS, RESPONSES

One of the more puzzling outlooks came from those claiming to want independence but attacking Reform, and using choice language, for being “English nationalists“. Which exposed, yet again, that the modern nationalist movement is home to some very strange, and stupid, people.

I love to see the England flag. I want the English people to reclaim England. I want three independent countries on this island respectful of each other. The threat is not England or the English, the threat is a form of Unionism that has little respect for us and is subservient to supranational bodies and the Globalist agenda.

Yet most of those who attack Reform as English nationalists want independence in order to rejoin a bankrupt and increasingly authoritarian EU pushing for war with Russia to distract from its internal collapse. This is insane.

Reform may be Unionist – but looking at the bigger threat, to which independence under those now promoting it would sacrifice us – Reform appears to want the same things I want.

There was a post-election piece by Martin Shipton in Nation.Cymru today. Here’s one of the comments. Who’d have thought the president of Russia could be worked into a small comment on a Welsh by-election.

Though I’m at a loss as to why proximity to Cardiff should matter. Unless it links with my earlier reference to the nature of the Caerffili constituency, and the dread thought of hairy-arsed ‘flag-shaggers’ encroaching on those leafy northern suburbs.

Knowing the political sentiments of some of those commenting to this piece (even the writer), I was struck by how easy it’s been for them – and others I’ve read today – to switch from Labour to Plaid.

For them, it’s clearly the agenda that matters, not which party pushes it.

Yet we might still see Labour go for broke, and try to out-Woke Plaid before next May’s Senedd elections. That’s what Paul Embery might have suggested today in this tweet.

Did a Labour Senedd member really say that on the Home Service?

If so, how will Labour go about it? Just imagine . . . “We have set up a taskforce, with a budget of £20m, to tackle the problem of transphobia in Llanfair Caereinion“.

◊

LOSERS, WINNERS, CONCLUSION

The party I support, Gwlad made little impression; hardly surprising if you lack rich backers and the media ignores you.

But then, I remember it took Plaid Cymru 40 years before Gwynfor Evans won the Carmarthen by-election in 1966. So maybe it’s time to put Plaid’s victory in perspective.

First, Caerffili was a by-election; strange things can happen at by-elections. I recall the Orpington by-election of 1962. But it didn’t lead to a Liberal revival.

And Plaid has been here before, winning seats in the Valleys. In the first Assembly elections (of 1999) Plaid took Islwyn, and Rhondda, also Llanelli. Plus of course the usual seats further west and north.

More recently, Leanne Wood won, then lost, Rhondda.

I can even remember Plaid briefly taking control of Merthyr council.

So Plaid winning a seat in this area is not unprecedented, but they tend to be flashes in the pan. Will Caerffili prove to be any different?

The big difference now of course is that Labour is in real trouble. Is it terminal? Is Labour’s century of dominance in Wales over, just as the 1920s marked the end of Liberal hegemony?

It’s too early to say, because as I said earlier, Labour paid the price in Caerffili for both its own record in Wales, and the unpopularity of a Labour administration in London. A change of government in London would almost certainly help Labour here, but only so much.

Because I think Labour in Wales was on the skids before Starmer got elected. In the Senedd elections of 2021 Labour got 46% of the vote in Caerphilly. In last year’s UK general election, it was down to 38%.

And we may never see a majority Labour government in London again. Many younger voters, and middle class voters, will desert to the Liberal Democrats and the Greens.

And where are the Conservatives? Remember them!

Looking ahead to the Senedd elections next May, and unless something dramatic happens between now and then, we’ll see Reform with most seats, but Wales run by a Plaid-Labour coalition.

Which means that the big winner last night in Caerffili was, and the big winner next May will be, the Globalist agenda.

∼

The punters looked from Labour to Plaid, and from Plaid to Labour, and from Labour to Plaid again; but it was already impossible to say which was which.

Apologies to George Orwell, Animal Farm.

♦ end ♦

Future Generations Deserve Better Than Net Zero

On 02.01.202502.01.2025 By JacIn Abergavennyshire, Climate, Colonisation of Wales, Environmentalism, Greens, Gwlad, Labour Party, Wind Turbines20 Comments

There’s a gathering of envirogrifters on February 4 at the Pierhead Building in Corruption Bay. Here’s an invitation from Daniel Lock of Nature Service Wales, a newish outfit and local branch of the scarcely older Food, Farming & Countryside Commission (FFCC).

Reminding us that ‘environmentalism’ sees new groups spring up almost every day, proliferating like maggots on a corpse. That’s because ‘the environment’ nowadays is a great investment opportunity, just like the ‘climate emergency’. As a result, the toad-savers are now regularly rubbing shoulders with ‘investors’.

◊

DIFFICULT TO KEEP UP

As I suggest, its Welsh arm is new, and FFCC itself was officially formed in April 2020. Though it certainly existed before that date.

The guiding light seems to have been Sir Ian Michael Cheshire, chair of ‘green’ Land Securities Group. He left FFCC in July ’24.

Landsec is, according to Wikipedia, “the largest commercial property development and investment company in the United Kingdom“. Companies House can’t tell us who owns holding company Landsec Securities Group Plc, but the Financial Times throws up some familiar names, with two BlackRock companies jointly owning 10%.

But back to the Food, Farming & Countryside Commission.

If we trace back a little further we find that FFCC was incubated by the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).

I know this because I came across it by a roundabout route – in the Linkedin profile of former Labour Assembly Member and minister Jane Davidson. From which the extracts below come.

This link between Jane Davidson and FFCC is confirmed by this page from the FFCC website. Which tells us that in September 2021:

After three years, Jane Davidson is stepping down as Chair of the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission’s Wales inquiry.

The link is further confirmed by this mention on the RSA website.

The article informs us Davidson was succeeded by another Corruption Bay insider in the form of Chris Nott, senior partner at Capital Law, one of the ‘Welsh Government’s favourite firms.

The sequence seems to be that Jane Davidson became a Fellow of the RSA at the start of 2014. Before the year is out she’s chair of the RSA’s Welsh Advisory Board. In November 2017 the RSA launched the FFCC. Then, Nature Service Wales was set up in the second half of 2023.

The suggested timeline is partly confirmed by this piece by Abergavennyshire ‘farmer’ Sue Pritchard. Who became chief executive of FFCC following her involvement in the RSA incubation period.

Her Linkedin profile also tells us she attended very expensive Atlantic College. Like the daughters of Stephen Kinnock, Labour MP for Aberavon. Whose wife, former Danish PM, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, is coining it from wind turbine going up all over Wales.

Davidson herself was privately educated at Malvern Girls’ College.

It don’t matter from which angle you come at it, you soon realise the proselytisers of the climate scam, and the ‘mass-extinction-around-the-corner’ crew, belong to the middle class going through one of its periodic fits of ‘Isn’t it ghastly!‘

∼

I shall return to the FFCC and the Wales Nature Service at a later date, but for now I’m going to concentrate on the ubiquitous and very influential Jane Davidson.

◊

JANE DAVIDSON AND FRIENDS

It’s amazing how many entries you can find when searching the internet for ‘Jane Davidson’. An interesting one I turned up is an event she attended last year organised by the School of International Futures (SOIF) which is:

a global non-profit transforming futures for current and next generations

But she wasn’t lonely. For also there was the former Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, Sophie Howe; and her successor in that post, another Labour stalwart in the form of Derek Walker.

So we had three Labour insiders on the same jolly.

SOIF is organising another get-together of the hand-wringers this year at Lainston House in Wiltshire. But it don’t come cheap . . .

I wonder who’ll be there from Wales.

Among the SOIF funders we find the UN, the WHO and – it should go without saying – George Soros’s Open Society Foundations. Fitting in a way, seeing as Davidson, Howe, and Walker, are all linked to Coleg Soros in Talgarth.

Where, among the funders, is the A Team Foundation. In its latest accounts this lot explains its donation thus:

Black Mountains college curriculum challenges the basis of our destructive economy.

Yeah, we gotta do away with this “destructive economy” . . . that’s provided us with homes, jobs, cars, cheap energy, regular holidays. Let’s swap it for a future in which the only jobs will be for Davidson, Howe and their friends telling us what we can’t have, and what we can’t do.

And they’ll be funded by those who’ve grown rich from dispossessing 99% of us – but it’ll all be done for our own good!

So look on the bright side . . .

Er, no; there isn’t one.

◊

WHO IS THE REAL JANE DAVIDSON?

If we refer back to her Linkedin page, we see nothing before 2000. That source begins with her appointment as Minister for Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills, after being elected to the Assembly in May 1999.

Though the important job was Minister of Environment, Sustainability and Housing 2007 – 2011. For the ‘environment’ is her true calling. Maybe her mission.

This BBC profile from September 1999 helps fill in some gaps. So let’s deal with the purely personal first. Not because I enjoy doing it but because Davidson has been so secretive about it. For example, never using her married name. Yet, thanks to the BBC, it’s in the public domain.

And the Beeb tells us she married Guy Roger George Stoate in January 1993. Stoate was a lecturer, and here he is in 2009 protesting at our Notional Assembly – where his wife was the Labour Member for Pontypridd!

I suppose that would be a good reason not to call yourself ‘Mrs Stoate’.

Since they moved west Guy has run a second-hand bookshop in Aberteifi, called Leafed Through. It’s a ‘community’ bookshop. Stoate and his bookshop are regularly in the local rags making donations to other ‘community’ groups.

(I can’t help thinking the Cambrian News missed a glorious opportunity there. Can’t you see the headline? – ‘Stoate gives monkey to badgers’.)

As luck would have it, Tom Kearney of the Ceredigion Badger Group was also in the Labour party . . . ’til last month, when he resigned over Starmer not being socialist enough. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, the Labour party in rural Wales is almost entirely made up of middle class English interferers, more alien than the Tories ever were.

With too many of them running ‘community’ ventures in Welsh communities they know sod all about. Driven by the same belief in their superior organisational abilities that helped build the empire they now repudiate.

But back to Mrs Stoate.

Look again at the BBC profile and let me direct you to the gap from 1996 until the first Assembly elections in May 1999. Was she working her Ponty constituency, even before Labour won the May ’97 general election and confirmed we’d be offered devolution?

If not, then what was she doing? Answers . . . post card . . .

But the bigger question is, when did she become the scheming zealot we see now, involved in everything; the ambassador for Agenda 2030 and the climate scam?

It may have begun when she attended the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, where she claims to have experienced a “damascene moment“, according to this piece from the Sustainable Brands (SB) website (scroll down) following a 2017 conference in Copenhagen.

That article is interesting for two main reasons.

It tells us Jane Davidson bought into the climate scam over three decades ago.

But she had to be in Rio for the ‘conversion’ to happen. So why was she there? Because at the time – according to her BBC profile – she was working as a researcher for the late Rhodri Morgan, then Labour MP for Cardiff West.

Surely Rhodri Morgan didn’t send her? I can’t see that, especially as the House of Commons was sitting from 2 June 1992 to 16 July 1992 inclusive.

So why was she in Rio? And who paid for the trip? Again, answers . . . post card . . .

◊

CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATION

I don’t necessarily trust Wikipedia, but here’s what it says about Jane Davidson.

She was minister for environment and sustainability in Wales from 2007 to 2011 where she was responsible for the agreeing to make sustainable development its central organising principle

And yet, “sustainable development” has such a positive ring to it. Surely, only a maniac intent on destroying the planet would not want it?

Well, yes; that’s how they want us to see it.

The problems come, first, with the realisation that the ‘danger’ the planet is facing is greatly exaggerated if not entirely imaginary, and the measures demanded to mitigate a manageable or non-existent threat are destroying economies and the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

And for reasons the zealots prefer not to discuss, it’s the West that’s suffering.

But the damage didn’t end when Davidson left the Assembly in 2011. For the SB article we looked at earlier tells us Davidson confesses to having written The Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.

As a Google AI overview puts it:

The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 was a key starting point for Wales’s efforts to reduce its carbon emissions and transition to a net zero economy

Even though it wasn’t really the “starting point“, this legislation means that everything done in Wales must accord with the diktats of UN Agenda 2030.

Every economy-killing, cost-raising, poverty-increasing lunacy.

I am delighted to report that the party to which I belong is serious about repealing this legislation.

Davidson’s influence on political decision making didn’t end when she left the Assembly, nor with the passing of the Future Generations legislation. Because she never really left; she’s always there, sitting on this board, chairing that panel.

Giving her more political clout than anybody you’ve ever voted for.

One such position is chair of the Wales Net Zero 2035 Challenge Group. An unsavoury crew of bought academics, enviroshysters, assorted grifters, and fraudsters who might be banged up if they weren’t selling their duff products on behalf of ‘the planet‘.

The ‘findings’ of this crew will be even more damaging for Wales than what’s gone before. But we can’t afford any more of it.

If the wreckage of the Welsh economy and the collapse of our public services was treated as a crime scene, then Jane Davidson’s fingerprints would be everywhere. Which is why I consider her to be the most dangerous individual in the disaster that devolution has proved to be.

I say that because incompetence and stupidity are one thing (and found everywhere in devolved Wales), but what Davidson and her kind are doing is a deliberate and calculated attempt to de-industrialise and impoverish Wales in order to showcase our self-destruction to the rest of the world.

And so I say, Agenda 2030 and Net Zero must be rejected if our people are to have decent jobs; if they are to live in homes they were able to buy; in a country where public services work; where food is plentiful, cheap, and we aren’t told what we can eat.

This is the Wales we should demand for our children. Not the dystopian vision being offered by ‘environmentalists’, and used to enrich their corporate backers.

♦ end ♦

Miscellany 28.09.2022

On 28.09.202228.06.2023 By JacIn Colonialism, Colonisation of Wales, Corruption, Gwlad, History, Welsh Government69 Comments

I hadn’t planned on putting out a post this week. But people contact me and say, ‘Have you seen this, Jac?’; and most of the time I can politely respond and let it pass. But now and again I get a clutch of reports or leads that are worth bringing together in a post like this.

It’s big, 4,500+ words, but as I always say, you can take it a section at a time.

And because it’s so big, and it’s taken so much work, don’t expect anything next week.

♦

SYCHARTH UPDATE

The previous post was about my visit to Sycharth on September 16, and my disappointment with state of the site. Which prompted a reader to write to Cadw, the agency responsible for conserving our heritage.

Here are the points he raised with Cadw:

The stile to Sycharth is in a poor condition.
Car parking is insufficient.
The whole site is in a mess. An hour with a strimmer would do wonders.
The information board does not mention much of Cymru’s history.
Its neglect is a travesty and an insult to our past and heritage.
Utterly shameful behaviour on your part.

To which Cadw responded with this. Which tells us the site belongs to the Llangedwyn Estate. More particularly, Nicholas Watkin Williams-Wynn.

A couple of phrases from the Cadw response are worth focusing on.

‘Sycharth . . . forms part of a working tenant farm under the Llangedwyn estate with permissive public access and parking at its discretion’.

‘Cadw installed the car park (four cars max) and access works (stile?) in 2010-2011 but their maintenance is again the responsibility of the owners.’

So it’s up to the Llangedwyn Estate whether people are allowed to visit Sycharth. And could, presumably, block public access. It’s also the Estate’s responsibility to maintain car parking and access. To judge by what I saw there, the Estate is doing its best to discourage visitors.

Is this some old dynastic feud being played out in the 21st century?

So I ask again: If the so-called ‘Welsh Government’ can find £4.25m to buy Gilestone farm for an English music festival, for purposes that are yet to be explained, why can’t it find the money to buy a site of national if not international importance and maintain it adequately and respectfully?

♦

FREELOADERS IN FREEPORTS

Freeports are back in the news. And it seems Wales is getting one. Either in Holyhead or Milford Haven and Port Talbot.

Let’s start in Holyhead.

Now the Conservative MP for Ynys Môn, Virginia Crosbie, is a big supporter of freeports, and has staked her reputation on turning a run-down ferry port into a beacon of global trade that will bring into Caergybi the riches of the Orient, the gold of the Indies, and of course – Guinness from Dublin.

Here she is setting out her ambition in a mercifully short video.

Though in truth, freeports rarely live up to their billing. And often involve very murky dealings. Private Eye has been following the evolution of the Tees Freeport in north east England. And produced the report below in the issue before last. (Available here in pdf format.)

N.B. Political donations are not to be confused with bribes and backhanders; and if friends of London politicians get juicy contracts then it can only be because their firms are best able to deliver.

Tees-side is a heavily built-up area, with a population pushing 380,000. And after the loss of its heavy industry – particularly steel – there is a widespread perception that the area is ‘owed something’.

Holyhead, by comparison, is a small town, with not much to speak about other than the ferry port to Ireland.

Until it closed in 2009, a major local employer was the Anglesey Aluminium smelter, with its private jetty. The plant received its electricity from Wylfa nuclear power station, some 15 miles away, another major employer that is now gone.

Roughly one thousand jobs paying good wages lost, but never mind, we’ll obey those who know best and stick in a few wind turbines and wave machines – plenty of jobs and unlimited cheap energy. Not.

The vacant site was taken over by Anglesey Aluminium Metal Renewables Ltd which in January 2016 became Orthios Power (Anglesey) Ltd. The site eventually being used for a plastics-to-oil operation.

But this folded earlier this year, with debts estimated at some £200m. And the end came suddenly, certainly for the staff. I’m told there was just a 10-minute warning not to start the next shift!

There are many Orthios companies listed with Companies House, none going back further than 2009 and most formed in the past three years. The ultimate holding company seems to be Orthios Operations Ltd, formerly Orthios Group (Holdings) Ltd.

So what happens now?

Well, the old smelter site has been bought by ferry operator Stena, and this is how a source on the island explains it . . .

‘Now of course they (Stena) can shift the dockside car parks elsewhere leaving nice waterside development plots. Just the sort of place to build a cable plant so they can load directly onto ships. The sort of cable company Virginia Crosbie MP was courting … the one owned by a Tory donor’.

He’s referring to Tratos, another local company hoping to benefit from offshore wind farms. Well, when I say ‘local’, it might be local if you were living in Italy. As the report makes clear.

From North West Wales Conservatives website. Click to open enlarged in separate tab.

This further report will explain a bit more of what’s going. Though you may not need to read beyond the headline: ‘Holyhead could get 300 cable jobs if area gets freeport status – says firm run by Tory party donor’.

Not much more to say really. Stena is leading the Freeport bid, and now Stena is pulling out the stops to get an ‘anchor’ company located in Holyhead. As is the local MP.

To finish this piece on Holyhead I have to mention Jake Berry MP. Now Jake is MP for a constituency in north west England, but he owns a number of properties on Ynys Môn. During the Covid lockdown it was rumoured that Virginia Crosbie was living in a property owned by Berry.

In addition to his post as party chairman, new Prime Minister, Liz Truss (I know you’re all impressed!), has made Berry Minister without Portfolio. Which may not sound much, but it kind of gives him a free hand.

That appointment was announced September 7. The day before the announcement, Berry resigned from the Northern Research Group Ltd (northern English Tory MPs), where he held the controlling interest. Also from Ford Bridge Farm Ltd.

Now why would he do that?

Ford Bridge Farm is of course an English rendering of his – or his wife’s – Rhyd y Bont farm at Rhoscolyn, on Holy Island. This is the smaller island, off the main island, and where Holyhead is located. Which means that Jake would be very close should the freeport materialise. A neighbour!

Rhyd y Bont circled. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Does Jake Berry anticipate benefitting in some way from a freeport at Holyhead? Or am I being too cynical? Cynical! Moi!

∼

By comparison, the southern rival seems far less well advanced. In fact, we could be forgiven for thinking it’s hardly off the ground. This report would suggest that it was launched as recently as last week.

Though this piece from November 2020 suggests the Port of Milford Haven has been thinking about a freeport for some time.

Milford Waterway. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

The more recent activity may be due to the fact that in May it was announced that the 45km limit (for the extent of freeport status) could be extended in Wales. This could certainly explain the southern bid combining Milford Haven with Port Talbot.

Which are 87km apart, as the fabled crow flies.

This somewhat bizarre combination is presumably justified by links between Milford Haven and Swansea Bay. As show in the image below. Which strikes me as being a wee bit desperate. For example, the Llandarcy refinery closed in 1998.

And would a freeport in Milford make the oil, gas, or electricity flow any faster?

My insular source believes that for all sorts of reasons the southern bid will win out. I’m not so sure. For with local boy Jake Berry working his magic behind the scenes, and his good friend Virginia Crosbie staking her political reputation on it, I would not be at all surprised to see the £26m freeport pot head up the A5 rather than down the M4.

But whichever direction the loot heads the lucky recipients will need to watch out for sharks circling – but these won’t be in the water. They’ll be arriving in Beemers and hoping to dazzle with PowerPoint presentations and insincere smiles.

And, dare I say it, ‘inducements’. There, I’ve said it.

And I say it because a freeport in either Holyhead or Milford / Port Talbot will attract grifters like the fresh laverbread stall in Swansea market draws discerning gourmets.

♦

NAILING THE VOICES?

This section is decidedly odd, and I wasn’t sure about using it, so please understand if certain details are withheld. (Especially towards the end.) But I do have the information and the relevant documents.

It started when someone got in touch, saying she had information on Gilestone, but what she offered was unconnected incidents jumbled up with snippets from hither and yon.

The long and winding road somehow took us to Ammanford. And Alan Delaney Tait. If the name rings a bell it’s because Tait claims to hear voices of women and children being abused, hurt, even killed. These sounds either come from beneath his property or from tunnels nearby.

Tait has turned his ‘voices’ into a cottage industry. With many videos on YouTube and other platforms. That said, they don’t get many views. This one, with 40k, is probably the most popular.

https://youtu.be/eQvcSSl2GJo

Most people, including the local police, dismiss Tait as a publicity-seeking crank. No tangible evidence of human trafficking has ever been found. In fact, there is nothing beyond Tait’s recordings; and as has been pointed out, these could have been made anywhere.

Doing a quick check for Tait on the Companies House website turned up some interesting stuff. Now I’m not sure from where Tait originates, but he’s been living in Ammanford in recent years.

And yet Companies House gives out eight companies for ‘Alan Delaney Tait’ with addresses in Ystalyfera, in the Swansea Valley.

With other companies where he drops the ‘Delaney’ and becomes plain ‘Alan Tait’.

Such as Alan Dee UK Ltd. (I love the way some use ‘UK’, hoping their enterprise will be mistaken for the local branch of a global empire.) Then there’s UKWide Contract Services Ltd, ADT UK Wide Ltd and, finally, Number Plates Online Ltd.

In recent years the focus of operations seems to have switched to Derbyshire, in the East Midlands. With The Three Boars Guesthouse Ltd and Chal Rentals Ltd.

For these Derbyshire-based companies Tait has as co-director the gloriously monikered Carlos von Gallo. Who has his own YouTube channel, where he puts out nothing but Tait’s Ammanford ‘recordings’.

‘Von Gallo’ is listed as the sole shareholder at the two companies’ deaths, but does he really exist?

What the 14 companies I’ve given here have in common is that after a short life – in some cases very short – they all went under. There are no survivors.

Something else I found intriguing was that for almost all Tait’s companies there was an issue of a single £1 share (if it was him alone) or £2 if there was another director (Tait’s wife or ‘von Gallo’). With two notable exceptions.

These were The Old Coal Store, with a share issue of £25,000, and Barlas Eren Sezer Ltd, with a share issue of £125,000.

I don’t wish to cast aspersions but, if I had money I couldn’t account for, then disguising it as a share capital in a company doomed to fail, might have its attractions.

In his ‘voices’ videos Tait points the finger at the nearby Sophia Nails. He further claims that the leaseholder was a Vietnamese woman named Trang Thanh Tran. She is now said to run T Nail Spa in the centre of Swansea.

There is a company of that name where she is listed as sole director. But the single £15,000 share is held by Thi Hai Nhung Nguyen who gives as his address another nail bar, this one on Chepstow Road in Newport.

Tran’s partner, or husband, Quang Lam, was the leaseholder in Ammanford and also at Heaven Nails in Llanelli. He was sent down for 5 years for belonging to a gang growing and distributing cannabis.

There are a number of ‘Heaven Nail’ companies, all but one run by Vietnamese nationals.

The Vietnamese connection may be significant because some comments to the YouTube videos claim to have heard Vietnamese being spoken by the ‘voices’.

But the problem with Tait is that even if he’s telling the truth about the voices, and the Vietnamese connection, one look at his business record tells us that he is, to put it generously, ‘unlucky’, with so many failed companies to his name.

∼

Despite Tait being so ‘unlucky’, I was still left wondering . . . and so, motivated by nothing beyond idle curiosity, I Googled ‘Sophia Nails’, the name of the Ammanford salon. What popped up was the Sophia Nail Spa in Porth, in the Rhondda.

At which point things got a bit strange.

For in February this year a company, Sophia Nail Spa Ltd, was launched. The only director is a 23-year-old Vietnamese named Thien Van Hoang.

And although the company uses 22 Hannah Street, Porth, as its correspondence address, the Certificate of Incorporation gives Hoang’s address as 31 Ridley Terrace, Sunderland.

At this point is might be worth suggesting a few things.

First, whoever’s running the Porth nail bar may know nothing about the company that’s using the same name.
Next, Thien Van Hoang may not even know he is named as director of Sophia Nail Spa Ltd. I have come across other examples of people being listed as company directors without their knowledge.
Finally, Thien Van Hoang may never have visited Sunderland.

But to find another Vietnamese connection is intriguing. Not least because it seems nail bars are used by Vietnamese criminals for exploiting women and girls, also for money laundering. The same gangs that are involved with cannabis. And not just in the UK.

Just type ‘Vietnamese nail bars trafficking’ into your search engine and you’ll bring up countless news reports. It’s big business.

Which may also explain Sophia’s Nail Bar at 9 Oxford Street, Mountain Ash. (Shown in image below.) Which more recently seems to have been known as New Star Nails. Which again is odd, because a company of that name folded in July 2018.

The secretary and the only director are both of Vietnamese extraction.

Returning to Porth, if we look at the building in which Sophia Nail Spa is located we see a block – 20-25 Hannah Street – with a second floor and, in part, a third floor.

Another company listed at this block was a sporting establishment (darts, snooker, etc), on the first floor, which in July changed its name and apparently became a bar. All the old directors left and a single new director arrived, a 22-year-old woman with an unmistakably Welsh name.

I’m not saying young Welsh women shouldn’t run bars, but . . .

For a start, ingress and egress to a bar on the first floor will only be possible by a flight of stairs from the street. Would a council – even Rhondda Cynon Tâf – grant a drinks licence to a place where people would regularly fall or be pushed down the stairs?

On a weekend a fleet of ambulances would be needed to carry away the injured. And as we know, Wales doesn’t have a working fleet of ambulances.

Something’s not right. The old Jac nose is all a-quiver.

From countless previous cases in Wales and across Europe, Vietnamese nationals owning or running nail bars should have aroused the suspicions of both local councils and the police.

Finally, the company that owns that 20-25 block on Hannah Street in Porth is based just a mile and a half, as the crow flies, from Gilestone Farm!

I am not suggesting anything. It’s just a small world and Wales is a small country.

♦

THE OLD FOLKS AT HOME

Someone contacted me suggesting I might be interested in the latest in a series of bad news stories about care homes. And this one really is bad.

Like so many of the care homes in Wales, Pontypridd Nursing Home is run by a company based outside of Wales. In this case, RB Care Homes Ltd, of Chislehurst in Kent. The RB stands, presumably, for director Raqia Bibi.

I can’t find a website but there is a Twitter account with nothing posted for three years. It’s a similar story with the Facebook page.

I suspect this company has gone under. Maybe not officially, but Companies House is still waiting for accounts that should have been submitted by November 30 last year. I don’t think they’re coming.

Despite the parlous state of RB Care Homes, and other companies of hers we’ll look at in a minute, Raqia Bibi was, as late as June this year, being held up as an exemplar of good practice in the sector!

Truly amazing!

Pontypridd Nursing Home wasn’t Ms Bibi’s first venture into care homes, nor her first foray into Wales. For she has a string of companies behind her, including you’ll notice, Wrexham Care Centre.

Where some three years ago she also made the news for the wrong reasons. You’ll see that her partner in Wrecsam was Mohanananthan Kuhananthan. With whom the story takes a bit of a twist. But be patient.

For a start, Wrexham Care Centre Ltd was always a dormant company, with money going through Nant-y-Gaer Ltd, which is also in administration.

Then, you’ll remember that the news report I linked to at the top of this section said that the Pontypridd Nursing Home is run by RB Care Homes Ltd, which may be true. But that company has also been filing as dormant since it was Incorporated in February 2017.

The report made no mention of Pontypridd Care Home Ltd, owned by Mohanananthan Kuhananthan. With Raqia Bibi as co-director. Which may be explained by the fact that it’s this company that actually owns the property on Maesycoed Road, for which it claims to have paid £1.5m in May 2012.

Which means that while local authorities and others go chasing dormant companies for money those companies don’t have, the assets themselves are owned by companies they may know nothing about. It’s a popular trick.

Maybe Wrecsam and Rhondda Cynon Tâf councils, or anyone else owed money from the collapse of nursing / care homes, should consult their lawyers about refocusing any claims.

Kuhananthan has other companies. Many companies. Four under the Comfort Care Homes brand suggest operations in Wales. With, in some cases, money owed to the Development Bank of Wales. These relate to the Danygraig Nursing Home, in Newport.

What I find extraordinary is that these DBW loans were made in June, when it would have been obvious, after the most cursory of enquiries, that not only are Kuhananthan’s companies in deep trouble, but that the man himself may not be entirely above board.

UPDATE 10.10.2022: It may be worth clarifying that Kuhananthan was no longer a director of Comfort Care Homes (Danygraig) Ltd when the DBW loans were made, and Bibi had never been a director. But this company is owned by Dream Care Homes (RB) Ltd, formed in December 2021. And while they’re not shown as directors of this company either, I suspect the ‘RB’ tells us something.

Kuhananthan’s Welsh involvement doesn’t end with the examples given.

Through the company Mufulira Ltd, which Kuhananthan joined in May 2018, and was followed by Raqia Bibi in July 2021, they own Ridgeway Care Centre in Pembrokeshire, which must be worth a few bob.

The entrance to the Ridgeway Care Centre, Llawhaden, Pembrokeshire. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

In fact, the latest accounts seem to value Ridgeway at just short of two million pounds. That said, while it might be owned by Mufulira – another company in trouble – Mufulira itself is owned by Comfort Care Homes Ltd, which we know is yet another Kuhananthan and Bibi company.

Maybe Pembrokeshire County Council should also be on alert, and realise who owns Ridgeway. But then, Kuhananthan-Bibi companies appear to have no assets beyond the buildings, all of which have loans or mortgages against them.

I didn’t have the time to go any deeper, but I suggest for anyone so inclined, that Kuhananthan and Bibi are worthy of further investigation.

Before finishing this section, here’s another interesting connection.

We earlier encountered Nant-y-Gaer Ltd, which I suggested was the Kuhananthan-Bibi company actually running the home of that name in Wrecsam. (Now ‘Wrexham Care Centre’.) But there’s also a Nant-y-Gaer Hall Ltd.

When going through the details for Nant-y-Gaer Hall Ltd I noticed that Kuhananthan gave as his address 83 Dyserth Road in Rhyl. Where we find Sandy Lodge Hospital, run buy Medirose Healthcare.

A company formed as recently as November 2020 and filing as dormant.

However, 83 Dyserth Road is owned by HuaTong Ltd, a company that somehow manages to make a loss every year. The directors and owners are Chinese citizen, Wang Liu, and Sharvanandan Arnold, who has cropped up before in connection with fellow Sri Lankan Mohanananthan Kuhananthan

I conclude that care for the elderly in Wales is an utter shambles. It’s attracting unscrupulous if not crooked operators. They’re drawn by easy money and the lack of adequate oversight.

As a start, and a show of intent, I would like the ‘Welsh Government’ and Care Inspectorate Wales to announce they will not register or deal with any care home, nursing home, or other facility, where Mohanananthan Kuhananthan and Raqia Bibi are involved.

To lighten the mood a little, though not too much . . .

I genuinely worry about the care of the elderly because I’m not getting any younger myself. Will I be properly taken care of when my kids dump me in the Uncle Joe Sunshine Home for Unrepentant Fascists and Incorrigible Transphobes?

♦

SOURCES

I had planned to have a section dealing with information I’d received from a source somewhere within the ‘Welsh Government’ detailing the nepotism and corruption all around.

And of the power wielded by those connected with housing associations, often in areas that have nothing to do with housing, and how the Wales Council for Voluntary Action is almost an arm of government.

Also some of the names I’m called in Corruption Bay. Some so bad he / she couldn’t even put them into print! Well, I was mortified. Mortified, I was!

But on reflection I feel it could be dangerous for this person if I was to go into details. So I’ll leave it there.

The information I’ve received thus far was posted anonymously to Gwlad and passed on to me. But I do wish to maintain contact.

So we need to think how this might be achieved.

♦

GLOBALISTS

In recent years it has become increasingly clear to me that much of what I report on is simply the ‘Welsh Government’ and various agencies in Wales adopting and promoting agendas dreamt up elsewhere.

‘London’, is only part of the answer. And an increasingly irrelevant part.

A few years ago I wouldn’t have been writing this, but the Covid ‘pandemic’ and the way it was seized upon by politicians and others opened my eyes, and it helped me see the bigger picture.

That bigger picture of unelected, supranational bodies imposing agendas on governments and other institutions that impact on just about everybody on Earth.

In particular, I’m referring to the World Economic Forum. Made up of politicians, bankers, and multi-billionaires like Bill Gates, George Soros and Mark Zuckerberg. This self-electing elite – like almost all previous elites in human history – believes it is made up of essentially decent people, who are obviously smarter than the rest of us, and should therefore run the world.

Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

It reminds me of a couple of lines from Tom Paxton’s 1960s protest song, Daily News.

J. Edgar Hoover is the man of the hourAll that he needs is just a little more power

Just like J Edgar Hoover all the new global elite needs is a little more power. And then a little more. And then . . .

(Never agreed with his politics but I always thought Paxton was the best – certainly the most versatile – of the 60s folk / protest singer-songwriters. Love songs, political songs, humorous songs, kids’ songs, he could do them all.)

The principal tool the new elite uses to exert control and impose its agenda is climate disaster. Just like the Nazis they realise that to impose your will you need to frighten people with an imagined or overblown ‘threat’.

For the Nazis, it was the Jews, the Communists, Versailles; but for Klaus Schwab and his gang it’s global warming – and it’s all our fault. So we must change our behaviour to make up for the damage we cause, in ways that will be decided for us.

And it’s the West that must be targeted. Partly because the West is the richest and most advanced area of the globe, and also because concepts of individual liberty are more highly developed and valued in the West than most other parts of the world.

This explains the many-fronted attack on Western civilisation by the globalists and their foot-soldiers on the Left. With their initiatives denied / defended / promoted / hidden / (depending on requirements) by their allies in Mainstream Media and Big Tech.

It also explains much of what we see in Wales: the war on farmers, the lack of spending on infrastructure, the 20mph speed limit, our hills being ravaged by wind farms.

The crises we see approaching, food shortages due to the war on farmers, power cuts thanks to a campaign against fossil fuels and increased reliance on useless ‘renewables’, no petrol or diesel to run our vehicles, being locked out of your bank account for holding the ‘wrong’ views, political unrest resulting from these problems, unnecessary lockdowns and dangerous vaccinations justified by a virus with increasingly suspect origins, even the war in the Ukraine, have all been engineered, and could all have been avoided.

Because it’s all about control. Over us. By them.

Compared to forced chipping of children, and silencing those who challenge the WEF narrative, Lee Waters stuffing the National Infrastructure Commission with cronies representing housing associations, Sustrans / Deryn (Waters is ex Sustrans himself), and the M4 corridor, is small beer.

And no less than we have come to expect from Welsh politicians.

∼

I’ll end with a little history lesson cum allegory that might explain how I see things.

Carlos Marcello was the Mafia boss of New Orleans for many years, and one of the most powerful gangsters in the USA. Then in 1960 John F Kennedy became President; he appointed his brother Bobby as Attorney-General, and Bobby went after the Mob.

Predictably, many leading figures in organised crime wanted to whack Bobby Kennedy; but Marcello sagely observed that if you cut off a dog’s tail he can still bite you, so it was better to go for the head.

Which helps explain why Marcello is strongly suspected of being implicated in JFK’s assassination in Dallas on November 22, 1963. He probably was involved, but this wasn’t a straightforward Mafia hit, and they didn’t act alone.

The point I’m making is that I’m spending too much time on a ‘tail’. And while I shall continue to report idiocy like Gilestone, in future I intend paying more attention to the ‘head’.

♦ end ♦

Misplaced Trust

On 01.02.202220.04.2025 By JacIn Colonialism, Colonisation of Wales, Corruption, Environmentalism, Greens, Gwlad, Public Funding, Third Sector, Welsh Government, Welsh Media34 Comments

Retirement remains the ambition. That said, this post is produced in the hope of drawing attention to developments in one locality that may link with wider, national concerns.

♦

‘Y FOEL’

Today’s piece took wing with the article you see below. It appeared in last Thursday’s Daily Post. A strange piece in a number of ways; not least because the more I read it the less sure I was of what it was trying to say.

One thing’s for sure – it has little to do with slate landscapes.

Image 1: Click to open enlarged in separate tab

To begin with, the article tells us that the land in question ‘lies south of Conwy’. Which indeed it does; but the same could be said of Cape Town. Actually, it’s quite a way from Conwy, but just a few miles east of Blaenau Ffestiniog. So why use Conwy as a reference point?

The proximity to Blaenau is evidenced by the fact that the land we’ll be looking at contains a few old slate quarry workings. Which gave the writer the excuse to tell us that back in the industry’s heyday, ‘Wales was known as “the place that roofed the world”‘. ‘The place’!

Then, there’s the ownership. The opening paragraph talks of the land ‘being brought into the care of National Trust Cymru’. Does that mean the NT has bought the land? Is it merely looking after the land?

Finally, another possible cause of confusion are the references to ‘Y Foel’. The area we’re looking for is actually, and variously, called, ‘Foel Marchyrau’, ‘Foel Marcherau’, or even – according to the Land Registry – ‘Moel Marchyria’. Whatever you choose to call it, this area lies not far from the hamlet of Cwm Penmachno.

So who wrote the piece?

Well, it wasn’t anyone at the Daily Post. The article came from the National Trust’s website. Here’s the link. It’s a sad indictment of our media when a full-page news story turns out to be a copy and paste job.

◊

THE TREASURY TAKETH AWAY AND THE TREASURY GIVETH

I suppose my interest was piqued when I read, in paragraph 5: ‘It is estimated that the site could lock up over 350,000 tonnes of carbon once restored, the equivalent of taking almost 80,000 cars off the road for a year’.

I know carbon capture is all the rage in Wales at the moment but why would someone at the National Trust go to the trouble of making that calculation?

I also read . . .

Image 2: Click to open enlarged in separate tab

This mention of the ‘Ysbyty Estate‘ reminds us that the National Trust is a major landowner in Wales. This sizeable chunk of our country was passed to the Trust in 1951 by the Treasury, which had received it in lieu of death duties.

(What a metaphor for Wales’ relationship with England.)

Don’t mention ‘Penrhyn’ to the Wokies! Click to open enlarged in separate tab

In the hope of getting a clearer picture of what is planned for these 1,600 acres I e-mailed the National Trust and Natural Resources Wales. Both were helpful.

From the National Trust I learnt that it will be working with Natural Resources Wales, the RSPB, the Snowdonia National Park, locals and busybody retirees, to ‘restore’ Y Foel to a more eco-friendly habitat.

But this will not be done at the expense of farming. For we read in the piece we started with that the land ‘will continue to be grazed by sheep and cattle’.

In its response, Natural Resources Wales wrote:

‘We are committed to carrying on the good work and are in regular discussions with National Trust regarding . . . the Cwm Penmachno area. These opportunities have been enhanced now Natural (sic) Trust have purchased y Foel which surrounds a forest block we manage on behalf of Welsh Government.’

◊

QUESTIONS

So from Natural Resources Wales we learn that the National Trust has bought Y Foel. And the NT then confirmed it with: ‘The Trust has acquired farmland called Foel from the late Miss O.M. Williams, Freehold.’

Later, in the same message, the NT employee wrote: ‘We will also reduce sheep numbers significantly which will allow trees to regenerate naturally across the ffridd and mountain’.

But wait! The piece in the Daily Post said the land, ‘will continue to be grazed by sheep and cattle’, there was no mention of numbers being ‘significantly’ reduced.

To understand the background to, or the justification for, what’s being done in the Cwm Penmachno area, this video below might help.

In a nutshell, drainage ditches cut into peat deposits have lessened the amount of rainwater the peat can retain. With the problem exacerbated by embankments built by farmers to protect their land and livestock from flooding.

These combine to interfere with natural flooding and send more water down Afon Conwy to afflict communities like Llanrwst.

There can be little argument with saving Llanrwst and other communities from flooding.

But when terms like ‘climate change’ and ‘climate crisis’ are introduced, and used in conjunction with the promise of less grazing, and this comes with talk of carbon capture, then I think we need to be alert.

Image 3: From the National Trust website. Does it refer to a very localised ‘climate crisis’? Click to open enlarged in separate tab

The report in the Shropshire Star – a daily newspaper that circulates widely in central Wales (though of course the jobs and the money stay in Shrewsbury) – certainly gave prominence to the climate change / carbon capture aspects of the story.

Though to judge by the photographs used by the Star they were more confused than me as to the location of ‘Y Foel’. But take my word for it, boys and girls – it definitely doesn’t overlook the Dyfi estuary.

Image 4: Click to open enlarged in separate tab

One more thing, Shropshire Star; the highest mountain in Belgium and Wales is not called ‘Mount Snowdon’. Ever.

◊

THOUGHTS

Let’s go back to the ownership of Y Foel. It seems the National Trust bought the property following the death of Miss Olwen Mai Williams in April, 2018. Described in her obituary as the last of the Foel Marcherau family.

Though according to the Land Registry Miss Williams is still the owner of two titles bearing that name.

Image 5: Ordnance Survey. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

The first is for, ‘Foel Machyrau’. Scroll down to the plan and you’ll see that this title appears to cover the farmhouse, outbuildings and land nearby. The neighbour to the north east is Carrog, mentioned in Image 2, and belonging to the National Trust.

Even though it’s claimed Carrog is a working farm it’s clearly undergoing – in addition to the water works – a kind of carbon capture makeover as well, with the planting of thousands of trees and hedging plants.

The second Foel title is for, ‘Land lying to the south of Foel Marcherau’. Comparing the OS map on the left with the Land Registry plan on the right, you’ll see that it makes an obvious extension to the existing woodland managed by Natural Resources Wales.

Image 6: Click to open enlarged in separate tab

But then I uncovered a third Land Registry title for ‘Land at Foel Marcherau’. (Unfortunately there’s no plan available.) I have redacted the owners’ names, but both are Williams; one lives in Carmarthenshire, the other in the West Midlands.

∼

Putting it all together the cynic in me thinks, ‘Well, if flooding in Llanrwst is caused by peat loss and levees upstream, then dealing with those issues will solve the problem?’

The fact that so much more is planned leads to me to suspect that this extra work, additional to peat restoration and embankment removal, serves a wider agenda.

I mean, is re-forestation an activity we normally associate with the National Trust? Then, there’s the close co-operation between Natural Resources Wales and the National Trust. Almost a partnership.

Among other things, Natural Resources Wales looks after the public forestry estate, and is (nominally, at least) answerable to the ‘Welsh Government’. Yet Corruption Bay has no control at all over the National Trust.

Suspicions that carbon capture for profit is the motive, with ‘drying peatlands’ the excuse, come from elsewhere in Wales. I’m thinking now of Abergwesyn, where farmers, or more accurately, their sheep, are again being blamed.

The article I’ve linked to says that farmers and commoners are being consulted all the way, but local sources say they’re being ignored, as ‘Welsh Government’ pushes through its carbon capture plans at the expense of another Welsh community.

No matter how it’s portrayed, what we see at Cwm Penmachno, Abergwesyn and elsewhere seems to be the National Trust muscling in on the carbon capture racket.

◊

CONCLUSIONS

I have never been happy with the National Trust owning so much of Wales. It’s currently 50,000 hectares, with the size of the NT estate growing year on year.

Yet there’s nothing Welsh about the Trust. Adding ‘Cymru’ can’t hide how alien it is, and how Wales is viewed as little more than a region . . . of England, presumably. It’s just window dressing. Done to please the easily pleased.

There is only the National Trust, with income of £508,000,000 a year. Its remit: ‘To look after places of historic interest or natural beauty permanently for the benefit of the nation across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.’

So we’re one nation!

It should go without saying that Scotland has its own National Trust, a separate body. Registered in Scotland (SC007410).

Image 7: Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Just a few miles to the north of Cwm Penmachno is Tŷ Mawr, Wybrnant, home to Bishop William Morgan, who, in the late sixteenth century, translated the Bible into Welsh.

It would be difficult to over-estimate how important his work was to standardising and safeguarding the Welsh language. To proving that the Welsh language was no crude patois. And to confirming our status as a nation.

But Tŷ Mawr is owned by the National Trust. The same National Trust that believes we are not a nation. Let’s be honest here – the National Trust in Wales is just fleece jacket colonialism.

The English National Trust should have been replaced with a Welsh body soon after we entered the era of devolution. But devolution has been a disappointment in so many ways. Especially for us Welsh.

◊

THE ONLY WAY FOWARD

Let’s consider the options available to Welsh voters. Then you’ll understandable why the National Trust and other ineffably English organisations can so easily exploit Wales.

Unionists, especially those of the Right, will never object to England owning Wales; be it on an individual level, a corporate level, or of course, the national level.

Their commitment to Wales is entirely superficial. And conditional upon Wales being part of the Union. A Union that benefits only England.

On the Left, both Unionists and those claiming to want independence, reject the working class – the greater part of the nation – in order to impose ‘diversity’, support a parasitic third sector, and cheer a ‘Welsh Government’ throwing money at Stonewall.

These are now wedded to passing fancies that demand they engage in combat with ‘fascists’, ‘racists’, ‘climate deniers’, ‘transphobes’, ‘terfs’, and other figments of their easily-manipulated imaginations.

Yet this bizarre alliance, supporters of colonialism on the one hand and wokie clowns on the other, fight over ‘Welsh Government’ policy. To the detriment of the Welsh people.

Conclusion: There is only one way to escape this nightmare.

♦ end ♦

Senedd Elections 2021

On 19.04.202121.04.2021 By JacIn Cardiff Bay, Colonialism, Colonisation of Wales, Devolution, Elections, Environmentalism, Greens, Gwlad, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, Scotland, Third Sector, Welsh Independence, Welsh Parliament80 Comments

I’M IN SEMI-RETIREMENT AND THIS BLOG IS WINDING DOWN. I INTEND CALLING IT A DAY SOON AFTER THIS YEAR’S SENEDD ELECTIONS. POSTINGS WILL NOW BE LESS FREQUENT AND I WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANY MAJOR NEW INVESTIGATIONS. DIOLCH YN FAWR.

♦

This is the first of my promised reviews of next month’s elections. This initial foray into a crowded field is longer than intended, so take your time.

I’ve concentrated on those parties with a chance of winning seats, so apologies to the Communist Party of Britain, Captain Beany, the Freedom Alliance, the Socialist Party of Great Britain, the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition, the Welsh Christian Party, the Workers Party, and any others I may have missed.

A more specific and detailed approach may follow in subsequent pieces . . . unless I lose interest entirely.

The risk of simply switching off is real, partly because we lack inspiring politicians and partly because the liars and the bullshitters are already at work and – unchallenged by our wonderful media – spewing forth all manner of nonsense.

Not content with being conduits for misinformation certain elements of the media themselves contribute to the confusion by pretending that only ‘establishment’ parties are standing. Or maybe they believe that only establishment parties should be heard.

♦

WHO’S STANDING?

This time round there are more candidates representing a wider range of political perspectives than in any previous Assembly / Senedd elections. From the genuinely nationalist Gwlad to the extremes of the BritNat fringe.

While many are trying to paint these elections as being about Covid, the truth is that the big question lurking in the shadows is whether Wales should become independent or cease to exist in any meaningful form.

As for what we have now, there are few ready to speak up for it. In fact, I’m amazed that anyone has the chutzpah to defend devolution on the record of the past 22 years.

◊

LABOUR

Which might explain why the Labour Party is asking for another 5 years to do the things it’s failed to do over the past two decades and more. An example would be introducing a register of lobbyists.

On BBC Radio 4 last week, Vaughan Gething, the ‘Welsh Government’s health minister, told listeners that his party was “entirely open” to introducing such a register. Yet they could have done so in January 2018. And even earlier in 2013.

The truth is that, in Wales, the term ‘lobbyist’ is interchangeable with ‘third sector’. And the third sector is ‘Welsh’ Labour’s private army, soaking up hundreds of millions of pounds of public money in providing sinecures for Labour cronies, in return for which the third sector will support Labour in any way it can, including attacking Labour’s opponents.

Image BBC. (I used to have a suit like that, but it was more of a powder blue, with narrower lapels.)

Perhaps the major problem for Labour is that it’s beginning to look clapped out, devoid of fresh ideas, and relying more than ever on voters’ blind, family loyalty – and not being, ‘them wicked Tories’.

Which no longer works, as we saw in the December 2019 UK general election, when Welsh Labour seats fell to, ‘them wicked Tories’. More may go the same way next month. Certainly, there’s not a hope in Hell of Labour getting near the 30 seats needed to form an administration.

That said, there is a widespread perception that Labour is faring less badly here in the popularity stakes than in England. (In Scotland, of course, Labour is now neck-and-neck with the Monster Raving Loony Party.)

Why this might be so mystifies me. Could it be the magnetic personality of Mark Drakeford? Or maybe the abundance of talent we see lined up behind him? Or could it be that the other ‘major’ parties are so unappealing that by comparison any bunch of muppets might look half competent?

(Please don’t think that I’m trying to insult muppets by comparing them to ‘Welsh’ Labour politicians!)

Some argue that Drakeford has handled the pandemic and its restrictions better than Boris Johnson. I don’t buy that. Labour in Wales clearly panicked when restrictions on pubs, gyms and other establishments were lifted in England, and this explains why they brought forward the lifting of restrictions in Wales . . . which now take effect before the elections on May 6 rather than after.

Of course, there may be another explanation for the timing. If so, then it escapes me. I’m open to suggestions.

What’s not in doubt is that Labour will need all the help it can get. Poll findings published last Friday by YouGov put Labour on just 29%, with the Conservatives romping ahead on 43%. These are of course UK figures, but even so, Labour is also in trouble in Wales.

The only question is how far short of the target 30 seats Labour will fall.

◊

PLAID CYMRU

I’m turning to Plaid Cymru now not because it’s the second largest party in Wales (it’s not, by a long way) but because to have any hope of staying in control Labour will probably need to go into coalition with Plaid Cymru.

And the terms of this coalition have been discussed for months. So it makes sense to lump Plaid Cymru in with Labour. So remember, folks . . .

A vote for Plaid Cymru will be a vote for Labour.

Yes, Plaid Cymru talks of winning the election, and of becoming the largest party, but the kindest way of describing such suggestions is wishful thinking.

Because for many years Plaid Cymru has been drifting ever further left. This course to political irrelevance might appear to have changed with the crushing defeat inflicted by party members on far left leader Leanne Wood in 2018, but that would be to misinterpret the situation.

The 77.7% that voted against Leanne Wood is the silent majority, playing little part in the running of the party. Those who support Wood – a vociferous and nasty minority – still control the party’s direction of travel. Largely through intimidation.

Intimidation of the kind that can get a Member of the Senedd to apologise for daring believe that a person with a penis and testicles could be anything other than a woman. And worse, suggesting that transphobia may be rather less heinous and genocidal than pushing Jewish children into gas chambers.

Happier times. Helen Mary Jones MS meets Teifi, and a dog’s best friend, Aled Gwyn Williams.

These are the sort of people that might reluctantly agree to take action against child trafficking, but only on condition that it didn’t involve discrimination against the ‘child-trafficking community’. Because in their world just everyone belongs to a ‘community’ – which is of course oppressed – except those who are part of the white, western patriarchal system, which does the oppressing.

What a fucked-up world these lunatics have invented! Worse, many of them genuinely believe they are living this nightmare. Others just encourage them in that belief.

Even figurehead party leader Adam Price was forced to grovel to this carnival of grotesques. Because they call the shots nowadays in Plaid Cymru. Them and the anti-Semites, and those who believe that the priority for Wales should be extending Harri Webb’s Green Desert to the whole country.

The long-gone Lamb Inn, Merthyr, which Dic Penderyn is said to have frequented, and where a young Jac sank many a pint. Happy days!

A green desert with no nation, no jobs (not for us, anyway), no homes; an emptiness exploited by foreign enviroshysters and renewables mountebanks in order to ‘Save the Planet!’.

It’s no coincidence that Labour pretends to have bought into this planet-saving bollocks. Because if you’re saving the planet, then it stands to reason we don’t need jobs; for example, Port Talbot steelworks can go. And the only roads we’ll need are those to bring our neighbours to and from their holiday homes. We Welsh won’t need roads because we won’t be able to afford cars. But don’t worry, because we’ve always got our rail system – a mere three days to travel from Carmarthen to Aberystwyth. (Don’t forget to change at Scunthorpe Low Level!)

Let’s cut the bullshit. ‘Wales saving the planet’, ‘Green jobs’ (that never materialise), are simply excuses for Wales being a basket-case economy.

Anyone arguing that the future economy of Wales lies in foreign-made and foreign-owned wind turbines and solar panels, providing not a single Welsh job, is either a fool or a liar.

Regrettably, the left in Wales is replete with both.

Perhaps to distract us from its internal problems, and the lack of an economic strategy not approved of by Saint Greta, Plaid Cymru promises a referendum on independence in the first term of a Plaid administration.

Cynics will point out that Plaid is not going to win the elections. Also, that there’ll be many in the Party of Wales happy to ‘lose’ such a referendum.

I’ll conclude this section with an observation I’ve made before, and I’m not the only one to have said it. There is a growing interest in independence; one recent poll put it as high as 39%, but Plaid Cymru’s support has remained static.

It’s as if a growing section of the Welsh public is considering independence . . . but they don’t want it delivered by Plaid Cymru. To think the unthinkable (for some, anyway) . . . Plaid Cymru may be the reason more people aren’t considering independence.

My interpretation is that while it’s well chronicled that socialist parties in the West have largely lost the (white) working class through pursuing policies designed to appeal to ethnic minorities and middle class left liberals, the problem for Plaid Cymru is that it had few working class votes to begin with.

Which leaves Plaid Cymru fighting a 20th century class war with 21st century ‘Woke’ warriors. This, and the elitist obsession with ‘the environment’ – rather than the issues people care about – will not pull in many new punters.

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CONSERVATIVE AND UNIONIST PARTY

There’s no question that the Tories are riding high, but considering the opposition they face, maybe they should be doing even better.

For as we’ve seen, the opposition is composed of a Labour Party with 22 years of failure to its name, and a party even further to the left in thrall to identity politics extremists.

Add to that the popularity of BoJo and his jolly band up in London and the Conservatives should be heading for control in Corruption Bay. But that may not be the case.

One problem the Tories face is a combined opposition, one that works well because Plaid Cymru wins seats in areas where Labour is a lost cause. Whereas the Tory vote is more evenly spread across the land than the more ‘focused’ support enjoyed by their socialist opponents.

But this time around things might be different. I say that because of the BritNat parties. If I can remember them all . . . There’s the Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party, then there’s Reform UK (formerly the Brexit Party), and, finally, Ukip.

I suggest that they could combine because, with the demotion of Suzy Davies and other broad hints – not least the promotion of Suzy’s anti-devolution son – the Conservative and Unionist Party has made clear that it’s worried by the rise of the BritNats, and will defend its lawn from their tanks.

Yet when all is said and done, they have so much in common.

Where it could get very interesting would be if the Conservatives emerged from next month’s elections as the largest party.

(It should go without saying that sometimes, my brain enlivened with the produce of Argentina, I dream of Labour and Plaid Cymru combined falling short of 30 seats!)

Andrew R T Davies, Leader, again, of the Conservative and Unionist Party in Wales. Another blue suit? Mmm . . .

As the largest party the Tories could just plough on and test the resolve of opponents with popular policies. I mean, if they promised to take a chainsaw to the third sector and invest the money saved where it could do more good, who would dare object?

Well, obviously, the Labour Party would object because it wants to keep Wales poor, blame the Tories, and keep getting elected. The third sector, constantly moaning about Welsh deprivation while doing little or nothing to remedy it, is essential to this scam. Plaid Cymru’s attitude to the third sector is little different to Labour’s.

But what of the others heretofore mentioned, the Queen and Country boys; what if they cobbled together enough seats to push the Tories towards the required 30?

It’s possible, because even though this election is difficult to call, due to the number of parties and candidates involved, we can be almost sure that the three largest parties will get fewer second preference votes and therefore fewer regional members.

I could live with a Conservative-BritNat parties coalition for a number of reasons.

In the short term, I would expect it to undo the socialist webs that Labour has spun to enmesh and enfeeble Wales over the past two decades. I would also expect such a coalition to put an end to Labour’s war against Welsh farmers.

In the longer term, the unrelenting Britishness might be the kick in the nuts some people need to accept that independence is the only option.

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LIBERAL DEMOCRATS

Well, what can I say without being cruel?

I will say this . . . I’d be pleased to see William Powell back in the Senedd. He’s a decent man and his heart’s in the right place, which is more than can be said for most of those who’ll be elected on May 6.

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THE GREEN PARTY OF ENGLANDANDWALES

This is a party made up largely of Green white settlers, some of whom espouse colonialist views that might have embarrassed old Leopold II.

An attitude exemplified by their refusal a few years back to actually create a Wales Green Party, preferring to stay part of the England Green Party. In Scotland, the Green Party is Scottish, and has long supported independence.

The non-existent ‘Wales Green Party’ now claims to also believe in independence, not because they care about me or you, but because they see an independent Wales as somewhere they can wield influence that will in no way be hindered by their lack of electoral support.

Which, in a sense, takes us back to lobbying.

The shameless opportunism of the Greens is not a lot different to the entryism we’ve seen recently from far left loonies who have jumped on the indy bandwagon since Comrade Corbyn was given the bum’s rush.

The one consolation, of sorts, is that just about every other party now pays lip-service to the Greens’ message. Which is not good for Wales but, on the plus side, it makes the Green Party of Englandandwales largely redundant.

That can only be good.

◊

THE BRITNAT PARTIES

As I said earlier, these are Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party, Reform and Ukip. They are almost guaranteed to win some seats, and they will naturally align with the Conservative and Unionist Party.

These possibilities are discussed above and there’s not a lot to add.

Beowulf Headbanger celebrating VE day. Now that he’s recovered a little he’s allowed out to canvass for the Abolish the Welsh Party.

No doubt the BritNats will insist there are great ideological differences between them, but these are little more than degrees of anti-Welshness.

Of course, they’ll say they aren’t anti-Welsh, just anti-devolution. But as we know, let someone talk long enough about their opposition to devolution and before long hostility to the Welsh language and other indicators of a separate Welsh identity emerge. Such as the existence of Welsh national sporting teams.

And yet, they’re right. Devolution, and the corruption-infested swamp that is Cardiff Bay, should be done away with. But in favour of independence.

That’s why I believe the BritNats can be useful idiots in realising their worst nightmare.

◊

NORTHERN LIGHT

In the next couple of years Scotland will either become independent or else the UK will slip into some kind of ‘soft’ (maybe not so soft) totalitarianism in order to thwart Scottish independence. At this moment I can’t see any other outcome.

Either of those eventualities will be a wake-up call for Wales. Either of them will tell us that it’s time to go, time to leave the United Kingdom.

When we’ve reached either outcome, anyone still arguing in favour of the UK will be acting out of self-interest or contempt for Wales. Among them we’ll find people like the Kinnocks, discredited Tories, holiday home owners, and others whose objections must be brushed aside.

This is why I tell everyone to watch what’s happening in Scotland. Because events in the Old North could have a bigger impact on Wales’ future than anything we do down here.

◊

WALES’ BEST HOPES

As many readers will know, I had a hand in the formation of new, conservative-ish nationalist party, Gwlad. A party that was desperately needed to represent those who reject incompetent Labour, Rule Britannia Conservatives and BritNats, and Woke Plaid Cymru.

Gwlad is standing a good slate of candidates in next month’s elections. As WalesOnline said in an article last week: “Gwlad has put forward 14 constituency candidates and 21 candidates across the regional lists. Aside from Labour, Tories, Plaid, Lib Dems and Reform UK, they have the most candidates seeking election on May 6.”

Not bad for a party formed just a few years ago. Click here to download the full Manifesto.

Among the many excellent candidates is Rhydian Hughes, standing in his own patch of Clwyd West. Here’s a leaflet being distributed in the constituency.

Though I won’t be able to vote for Gwlad in my constituency of Dwyfor Meirionnydd, that’s because the party is not standing in seats held by Plaid Cymru. But I will be able to vote for our excellent list candidates in Mid and West Wales.

My constituency vote will probably go to the Propel candidate, Peter Read; but the Llais Gwynedd candidate, Glyn Daniels, is also in with a shout.

Having mentioned Propel it’s only right that I tell you a little more about this other new and genuinely Welsh party.

Most of you will have heard of Neil McEvoy. Despite what his opponents would like you to believe, Propel is not a one-man band; Neil is the leader, but he has a good team around him.

As a Member of the Senedd Neil McEvoy has made himself unpopular with Labour and Plaid Cymru through exposing the corruption and duplicity that characterises Cardiff Bay. (Anybody who can piss off both Labour and Plaid Cymru is OK with me.)

Also because, when standing for Plaid Cymru in 2016, he came within 1,176 votes of defeating Mark Drakeford in Cardiff West. Neil McEvoy is standing against Drakeford again, making this one of the more intriguing constituency contests.

(As an example of the way the media is misreporting these elections, Cardiff West is being portrayed by some as a straight fight between Labour and Plaid Cymru!)

The fact that Labour and Plaid Cymru attack Neil McEvoy with almost equal vehemence helps expose a long-standing relationship between two self-styled ‘progressive’ parties. The coalition that might emerge after May 6 would be just a continuation of this co-operation.

I’m not absolutely sure, but I’m fairly confident that Gwlad and Propel are not standing against each other in any constituency. I’m not aware of any electoral pact, I think it just panned out that way.

My advice therefore is to put Wales first by voting for Gwlad or Propel. Both parties are new, but fresh thinking is exactly what Wales needs at this critical juncture.

Because, and I repeat: the next few years are about choosing between independence and assimilation. Which do you want?

♦ end ♦

Yes, there’s definitely an election on the way!

On 13.11.202003.12.2020 By JacIn Brexit Party, Conservative and Unionist Party, Elections, Gwlad, Plaid Cymru, Welsh Independence, Welsh Labour, Welsh Nationalism, Welsh Parliament, WNP, Yes Cymru77 Comments

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

♦

A few weeks back I wrote Elections, May 2021, which some may have thought was a bit premature. Well, things have hotted up and there’s no doubting it now – the election campaign has definitely started!

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THE ‘NATIONAL MOVEMENT’

In this piece I’m going to focus on elements of what is often referred to as ‘the national movement’. Partly because I’ve been part of this movement for over 50 years and partly because that’s where much of the action seems to be at the moment.

Let’s start with Yes Cymru, which has seen phenomenal growth this year, with the trend accelerating in recent weeks. But this growing interest in independence has not resulted in any increase in support for Plaid Cymru

In fact, according to the latest Welsh Political Barometer Poll Plaid Cymru remains in third place for the constituency vote next May (but up by 2%), and in the same position for the regional list vote (down by 1%).

The poll predicts Plaid will win 15 seats, and if Labour only wins the 25 predicted then we’re in for a Labour-Plaid Cymru coalition. Five years of virtue signalling, pumping more money into the third sector, being told what to do by lobbyists and civil servants, while blaming every Tom Dick and Boris for Wales’ continuing economic and social woes.

In August, there had been a YouGov poll which suggested that, with Don’t knows removed, 51% of Labour voters would support independence if the option was put to them in a referendum. The same poll suggested that only 45% of those who voted for Plaid Cymru in December 2019 would definitely vote for independence.

Which highlights two problems for Plaid Cymru.

On the one hand, most of those who could be won over to independence do not vote for Plaid Cymru, and never will. While on the other hand, the party has in recent years attracted oddball cliques that see Plaid Cymru as just another mouthpiece for what really matters to them, and these have little or no interest in Wales or in Welsh independence.

This is bad news all round for Plaid Cymru, and yet it’s a problem that often afflicts socialist or ‘progressive’ parties, as this tweet, quoting Irish revolutionary, James Connolly, reminds us.

The message there, and certainly the lesson for Plaid Cymru, is that in Ireland, in the early twentieth century, the socialist movement stayed focused on Ireland, and independence. It did not allow itself to be sidetracked by cranks and dilettantes.

Plaid Cymru not benefiting from the growth in support for Yes Cymru, or from the increasing interest in the option of independence, explains them desperately pushing the idea that anyone leaning in that direction must vote for the party – because there is no alternative.

But when you think about the panel above, if Plaid Cymru was the party it pretends to be then it wouldn’t need people to ‘lend’ it their vote. Anyone wanting or even considering independence would already be a Plaid Cymru voter.

That Plaid’s support remains static, uninfluenced by the rise in support for independence, speaks volumes.

And of course, Plaid Cymru is no longer the only party promoting independence. We now have Gwlad and the WNP.

The argument used against these newcomers is that they will ‘split the nationalist vote’, which is laughable. By being unable to win over independence-minded supporters of other parties, and with so few in its own ranks wanting independence, Plaid Cymru is already splitting the nationalist vote.

Or, maybe, it has failed dismally to maximise the nationalist vote.

The truth is that the new parties can only increase the nationalist vote by attracting those who wouldn’t ‘lend’ their vote to Plaid Cymru if the offer came gift-wrapped and with a weekend in Tenby thrown in.

Plaid Cymru will, I’m sure, lose votes to Gwlad. I’m thinking of socially conservative nationalists who’ve stuck with the party despite the lurch to the left and who, more recently, have been alienated by the intolerant advocates of identity politics.

If these traditionalists desert in any substantial number then Plaid Cymru will be even more under the control of the aforementioned cranks and dilettantes. Irrespective of who is paraded as the party ‘leader’.

As for those Labour voters prepared to go for independence if a referendum was held, we know where they live. The great majority of them in the urban south between Burry Port and Blaenavon. And many of them voted for Brexit.

Yet Plaid Cymru has recently said that an independent Wales will be a member of the European Union, no ifs or buts. And with no mention of a referendum!

A political party talking down to those it claims to want as voters deserves to be rejected. But this contempt for the white working class seems to be the norm among socialist parties nowadays.

Though maybe some half-hearted effort will be made to reach out to the anglophone working class.

For Plaid Cymru recently applied to register a new descriptor with the Electoral Commission. That new descriptor is New Wales Party, NWP.

What a coincidence! For earlier last month the WNP applied to register as the Welsh Nation Party, WNP.

After I’d been alerted to it I put out the above tweet last Friday. On Monday, there was an article in Llais y Sais. Now why the hell would something apparently so minor justify such an article?

Though according to the article, the decision to apply to the Electoral Commission for the change was not made by the National Executive Committee of Plaid Cymru. So who was responsible? The cleaner at Tŷ Gwynfor?

Who’s running this show!

Something else that struck me about the article was that the writer, Martin Shipton, seemed to have forgotten that Plaid Cymru already had the English name Party of Wales. Is that to be dropped?

But it didn’t end with the article. There was even an editorial!

So much coverage for Plaid Cymru, insisting the change had been under discussion for yonks! A cynic might suggest it sounds like Plaid Cymru desperately trying to explain itself after being caught out in a spoiling tactic intended to confuse voters.

It also suggests that Martin Shipton might be going soft on Plaid Cymru.

Plaid Cymru’s shortcomings may be exposed to the world but it still has options for promoting itself and attacking rivals. Within Yes Cymru, Plaid Cymru supporters urge members to join the party, and last weekend we saw Plaid use an old subsidiary in the form of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (CyIG), the Welsh Language Society.

At the CyI AGM a motion was passed saying, “the pressure group would refuse to engage with anyone whom in their words: ‘promote and tolerate prejudice against any groups, be they LGBT +, black people, migrants or women’.”

And that included Gwlad!

An interesting choice of words, though. “Tolerate prejudice” rather than being prejudiced is straight from the BLM playbook, where not being racist isn’t enough. And I was struck by the use of “migrants” rather than ‘refugees’. Basically, anyone should be allowed to move anywhere without any checks.

Infantile, open borders, anti-Western drivel.

Though consistent. Because Cymdeithas yr Iaith wants Wales to be open to everybody. Which means that a group trying to keep Welsh alive as a community language seems unaware that the biggest threat to the language is inward migration to the language heartlands.

That motion suggests CyIG’s priority now is playing politics rather than saving the language.

Just like Plaid Cymru Cymdeithas suffers from the problem of grabbing off-the-shelf global positions and being unwilling or unable to modify them for Wales.

Look around Europe at small nations or minority groups, Basques, Corsicans and others. Yes, they have socialist parties or groups, but their socialism is used to benefit their people and promote their cause. Not so in Wales.

Saving the planet means covering Wales in foreign-owned wind turbines that create no jobs and put only crumbs into Welsh communities. While supporting migration makes it ‘racist’ to challenge the colonisation of Wales.

Which makes Wales unique in having ‘socialists’ unwilling to challenge colonialism in their own country!

Yet there’s humour in everything. And while Cymdeithas yr Iaith has clearly been infiltrated by the ‘wokies’ there remains the long and embarrassing shadow of Saunders Lewis.

Saunders Lewis was a founder member of Plaid Cymru, an academic, WWI veteran, a playwright, author, convert to Catholicism, and well to the right of the political centre. His 1962 radio lecture, Tynged yr Iaith (the Future of the Language) was the inspiration for the formation of Cymdeithas yr Iaith.

But the wokies cannot acknowledge Saunders Lewis. He cannot even be named! As we see in the panel below taken from the Society’s website.

It’s surely only a matter of time until the reference to “a leading academic” is also excised. I can see the next version – ‘Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg was formed at a congress of workers, peasants and intellectuals that had gathered to discuss sending volunteers to Cuba to fight US imperialist aggression’. Right on!

Joking aside, there’s little in the short term that Plaid Cymru, Yes Cymru, Cymdeithas yr Iaith, Gwlad or the WNP can do to bring Welsh independence nearer. I say that because factors beyond our control are likely to be much more influential.

I’m thinking now of Scottish independence, and the reaction to that of the Labour Party in Wales. Or perhaps it won’t be the party itself that puts Wales on the path to the final rupture but the party’s voters.

I’m suggesting that those who reject Plaid Cymru could help deliver independence. What irony that would be. So much for Plaid Cymru being ‘the only way’!

In the meantime, the UK state will do what it can to support Plaid Cymru. Because as I never tire of telling you, from London’s perspective Plaid Cymru is the ideal ‘national party’.

In a flattering light Plaid Cymru can pass for a national party, but its true benefit lies in its dog-in-a-manger role, blocking the emergence of genuine nationalist parties. Its leaders are biddable, easily seduced with peerages and other ‘honours’, but the party – and this extends to its subsidiary groups – is no threat whatsoever to the constitutional status quo or the colonisation of Wales.

For what more could Mother England ask?

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IN OTHER NEWS . . .

Limbering up for May’s elections has not been confined to the disparate elements of the national movement, and confirmation of this has come from wildly differing directions.

Let’s start with an old favourite on this blog.

You’ll recall that a couple of years back, and by a substantial majority, members of the self-styled Wales Green Party voted against becoming . . . . the Wales Green Party. Thereby and irrevocably confirming that they were naught but the local branch of the Green Party of Englandandwales.

But lo! even these colonialist carpet-baggers have sensed the changing mood and are now in favour of Welsh independence! As reported here in Left Foot Forward. (Of which I am an avid reader.)

“Wales can stand alone”, says Siân Berry . . . but not, apparently, her party’s members in Wales. Driving this inconsistency ad absurdum we could have an independent Wales in which elections are contested by the Green Party of Englandandwales.

At the very least, and if only, for once, to be consistent, the Greens in Wales should now break from England to form a genuine Wales Green Party. To not do so makes them look like opportunists jumping on a bandwagon.

Let me explain what drives this new-found enthusiasm for our national liberation. For it dovetails perfectly with what attracts the oddballs, cranks and dilettantes I mentioned earlier to Plaid Cymru.

Under devolution, and especially with the virtue-signallers managing the show, pressure groups and assorted cranks have realised they can wield influence in Wales to an extent that would not be tolerated in better regulated countries.

This unwelcome phenomenon explains, for example, why we have One Planet Developments. Put simply, Wales is becoming internationally known as a ‘soft touch’.

The thinking therefore runs . . . ‘If we can get all this in a devolved Wales, then we could control an independent Wales’. Elections would be a minor inconvenience, for cohorts of Estuary English-speaking charlatans in Corruption Bay would control the political process and the spending priorities.

The only way out of this nightmare is to stop voting for politicians and political parties manipulated by people who simply want to use our country, and our money, to fulfil their fantasies.

∼

In my earlier piece I told you about a new grouping called the Independent Alliance for Reform.

This has been formed by David Rowlands, who was elected in 2016 as the Ukip AM for South Wales East; Caroline Jones, elected at the same time for Ukip in South Wales West; and Mandy Jones, who took over the North Wales Ukip seat vacated when Nathan Gill resigned in 2018.

This could be a half-way house, and the word to emphasise may be Reform. I say that because the Electoral Commission’s website tells us that an application has recently been received, and is under consideration, to relaunch the Brexit Party as Reform UK.

If I’m right, then this would leave Neil Hamilton as the last man standing of the 7 that made up Ukip’s 2016 intake.

The other player for the Brexit / London-knows-best vote is of course the Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party. No doubt, some time between now and next May they’ll realise that what they seek to abolish has changed its name.

♦

CONCLUSION

For the first time in a long time Welsh politics is looking interesting. Partly because of what’s happening in Wales, but mainly because of what’s happening in London, and Scotland, and elsewhere.

For the arrogance, ineptitude and corruption we see from the Conservative government in Westminster has done more to make Welsh independence an attractive proposition than anything happening in Wales.

With the SNP more likely to deliver Welsh independence than Plaid Cymru.

And while Wales voted for Brexit, we did not vote for the looming disaster that will make us even poorer, perhaps turning Holyhead and Fishguard into ghost towns.

All that being so, it really is time for Plaid Cymru to adopt a little humility and accept the realities of modern Wales. Which are:

1/ Plaid Cymru is not the only party or group advocating independence.

2/ Most of those coming around to the idea of independence do not vote for Plaid Cymru and are unlikely to ever vote for Plaid Cymru.

3/ The independence movement contains individuals, groups and political parties with which Plaid Cymru will not see eye to eye. Grow up and accept it!

4/ However, if ideological purity is more important than independence, and if Plaid Cymru continues to align itself with Unionist parties, cranks and others exploiting Wales, then it must expect to be regarded with suspicion.

5/ Ultimately, Plaid Cymru is faced with a simple choice. Either be part of the movement for Welsh independence, or else remain a self-deluding obstacle to achieving independence.

6/ Things are moving in ways that leave Welsh politicians impotent. So look beyond the Corruption Bay bubble, take in the bigger picture, and be ready to seize the opportunities that will surely come our way.

♦ end ♦

Jac o' the North

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