Category: Plaid Cymru

Plaid Cymru And ‘Independence’

On By JacIn Europe, European Union, Globalism, Plaid Cymru, Welsh Government, Welsh Independence, Welsh Nationalism13 Comments

A few days after Plaid Cymru’s conference in Llandudno seems a good time to examine where the party stands on independence. And related issues.

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INTRODUCTION

As most of you know, I have always wanted independence for Wales. Partly because I felt Wales was constantly short-changed and could do better with independence; and partly because I saw my people as a European nation and I wanted us to take what I viewed as our rightful place among the nations of Europe.

Unlike many of my contemporaries I did not identify with anti-colonial struggles in the third world. My focus tended to be on Scotland, Brittany, Ireland, Quebec and the Basque Country, rather than with peoples I’d never heard of and with whom I found it hard to identify.

I felt this was entirely natural. And I still do. Most of the human race feels, acts, and reacts in the same way.

We identify first with ‘our own’, our immediate family, and then those closest to us. After that, it’s the ripples a stone makes when it’s thrown into a pond. This doesn’t rule out the Good Samaritan, but nor does it encourage ignoring our own in favour of the stranger.

And so I joined Plaid Cymru around 1965 because it was a Welsh-focused party wanting independence. I stood as a candidate a few times and did my fair share of door-knocking, and tramping wet Swansea streets with bundles of leaflets.

I left Plaid Cymru many years ago, and since then we’ve drifted further apart.

So let’s consider what Plaid Cymru offers in its vision for independence.

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EUROPEAN UNION

Starting with the European Union. Which is rather complicated for me because a long time ago I supported a united Europe. That was when I saw such a creation as a force for good in the world, and a mediator between the USA and the USSR.

In recent decades I have swung 180 degrees. To the point where I voted for Brexit in 2016. For even when I believed in European unity, I never wanted the authoritarian, regulation-ridden monster we see today.

My vision was Gaullist: a culturally unified Europe “from the Atlantic to the Urals” that included post-Communist Russia. Where political legitimacy resides exclusively in the sovereign nation-state – not supranational institutions where power is exercised by shadowy cabals through unelected bureaucrats.

I wanted Wales to be one of those sovereign nation-states.

Did you ever see a shiftier-looking git in your life?

The EU today is a Globalist capture and an enemy of the West. Run like the old Soviet Union, with real power in the hands of the unelected Politburo-Commission, ruled since 2019 by Ursula von der Leyen. (Whose husband did so well out of Covid vaccines.)

I recall Plaid promoting the EU, or the Common Market as it still was at the time, with ‘Europe of the Regions’. There was a parade in Machynlleth in 1988, on Glyndŵr’s Day, led by the party leader at the time, Dafydd Elis Thomas.

The message being pushed with Europe of the Regions was that the nation-state was outdated, and would soon wither away; replaced by historic regions and submerged nationalities under a loose, pan-European superstructure.

What happened to that idea, I wonder? For as I’ve outlined, the EU has become ever-more centralised and undemocratic. Though the war on the nation-state continues.

On a purely practical and contemporary level, the economies of the EU are tanking, thanks to the deindustrialisation imposed by net zero; and especially in Germany, the largest EU economy and main funder for the whole farrago.

In May 2027, Marine le Pen will be elected President of France. And despite the Breton origin of her name I doubt if she’ll welcome supplicants from Wales looking for hand-outs. For that’s what it’s about for many in Plaid Cymru.

Funding that was squandered when the UK was still in the EU and Wales was run by another socialist party.

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NATO

Some years back I checked the linkage between NATO’s eastward creep and EU membership. The message was clear: ‘Join NATO and you’ll be allowed into the EU. Then, because you’re poor, we’ll give you lots and lots of money’.

NATO is a military alliance. An attack on one is an attack on all. Which was fine, when the threat was the Soviet Union and the combined forces of the Warsaw Pact. (And it’s why NATO should have been scrapped in 1991.)

That NATO continued, and expanded towards Russia, made it clear the Globalists had turned an erstwhile political and military threat into a target for conquest and exploitation. The Russians certainly saw it.

And are alliances that desirable anyway? Remember how the First World War started. A Serb nationalist killed an Austrian Archduke in disputed territory after the Archduke’s chauffeur took a wrong turn. It should have been left to the Serbs and the Austrians to sort it out; with other countries either holding their coats or trying to separate them.

Instead, millions of men died because other, bigger countries were tied to alliances that swung into action because of that lucky shot in Sarajevo.

Who benefited from that war? Best not to go there.

Plaid Cymru’s position on the EU might lack clarity, but its position on NATO is even more cloudy and confused. Let’s just remember what party leader Rhun ap Iorwerth has said in recent months.

Towards the end of June, with Plaid in control of the Senedd, he was interviewed by Ciaran Jenkins of Channel 4, a very left wing outlet. Here’s the relevant section.

Ciaran Jenkins: We live in pretty uncertain times. Do you think an independent Wales should not be a part of Nato?

Rhun ap Iorwerth: I think an independent Wales would want to have a very close relationship with Nato that is an associate membership people have. Ireland, for example, with Nato. That would be a decision for an independent Wales.

First off, there is no such thing as “associate membership” with NATO. In 2024 Ireland joined the Individually Tailored Partnership Programme. Though after seeing Georgia, Bosnia, Moldova and Kazakhstan listed, I conclude it’s designed to annoy Russia without poking the bear too hard by granting full membership.

Though you have to wonder why Japan, South Korea and Colombia should be included in any NATO line-up. Along with other bizarre choices.

Anyway, more recently, this report from Sky News has Rhun ap Iorwerth saying “Wales would join a ‘NATO-type’ organisation“. He stumbles through the interview but suggests there’s some alternative out there to NATO.

What was he thinking? NATO Lite?

The only thing that comes to my mind is the idea that’s been floating around for many, many years of a European Army, which seems to go back to 1952 and the European Defence Community. There have been a few false starts but I can see why the idea might be re-surfacing.

Donald Trump is pissed off with Europe and most of its leaders, he’s not going to war with Russia over Ukraine, and things will stay the same if – as seems likely – he is succeeded as president by J D Vance (possibly Marco Rubio) in 2028.

And so a European military, under the command of the EU (and Ursula von der Leyen), with a more aggressive approach towards Russia, would replace or ‘complement’ NATO. But Russia isn’t threatening Western Europe. The threats are internal, as I’ll explain in a moment.

Let Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth come clean about exactly what he’s trying to say with relation to NATO. Perhaps someone could help him.

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UNITED NATIONS

It has long been Plaid Cymru’s policy to join the United Nations.

The Charter was signed in June 1945, and the UN came into existence in October, designed to maintain international peace and stability.

But it has now degenerated into a vehicle for third world despots and kleptocracies to dictate to the more advanced countries and demand that the latter keep paying for whatever past crimes can be dreamed up.

Recently, in Gaza, we’re seen UN representatives on the ground being Hamas terrorists under a different badge. And when UN spokespersons on human rights, women’s rights, and other issues, come from countries where such rights don’t exist, then the UN stands exposed for the money-laundering farce it’s become.

And let’s remember that it was the United Nations that gave us, in December 2018, the Global Compact on Refugees. Operated through the UNCHR. This is now used by Globalist European ‘leaders’ to justify open borders.

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency works to ensure that everybody has the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge, having fled violence, persecution or war at home.

In reality, those arriving illegally in dinghies, or being secretly flown in, haven’t ‘fled’ anything. They’re here to get whatever they can take and get away with.

They’re not Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany; nor can they be compared to Basque kids taken into Welsh homes during the Spanish Civil War. Or even the East African Asians expelled from Uganda by the Muslim dictator Idi Amin in the early 1970s.

As you might guess, I have no time for the United Nations. My views on the UN are not a million miles from those of President Trump. It’s a Globalist body pushing a distinctly anti-West agenda.

The world might be a better place without the United Nations.

∼

The EU, NATO and UN have been drinking for too long from the same poisoned well. Which is why an independent Wales should avoid all three organisations.

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SO WHAT IS MODERN PLAID CYMRU?

In a nutshell, nothing more than an agglomeration of grievance-pedlars, with the same undergraduate obsessions we hear everywhere – climate, gender, race, etc – with the only obstacle to heaven on earth being the ‘far-right’.

Plaid wants a socialist Welsh republic. And looking at the party’s Senedd Members, all I see is a marginally more mature and better dressed Welsh Underground Network.

I’m not being flippant here. The policies, attitudes, and ambitions of the party governing Wales and a far-left fringe group are almost identical. But the Welsh Underground Network is just more honest about theirs.

Plaid is also hypocritical. On the one hand, it still defends the Welsh language and the wider identity – yet rejects ‘whiteness’ and the European civilisational norms to which they belong.

In an attempt to square this circle Plaid (and others) pretend Wales has always been multi-racial. This leads to Black History Month, which uses public funds to support race grifters and indoctrinate schoolchildren into accepting mass migration.

But thank God for the decolonised Welsh cake!

Truth is, the malaise is everywhere. Labour controlled by the Fabians has turned on the working class. The Conservatives are no longer conservative. The Greens have ditched the environment for anti-Semitism. Though the Lib Dems are the same odious and buyable little crew they always were – should we be thankful for that?

While Plaid Cymru has lost interest in the real Wales, and the best interests of Welsh people. And it can’t be hidden when Plaid is . . .

  • More energised about the lack of gender mutilation services than it ever was about the closure of Port Talbot steelworks.
  • Cosying up to foreign ‘renewables’ companies that enrich themselves from desecrating our homeland.
  • Siding with ‘environmentalists’ and rewilders from God knows where to destroy Welsh farming.

I could go on, but it’s so depressing. I’ll try to introduce a lighter way of looking at it.

When it comes to having an independent Wales run by Plaid Cymru – or the Welsh political establishment in general – I’m reminded of that wonderful character from Blackadder, Mr Hardwood. When it’s suggested that his daughter should marry the Prince Regent he responds thus:

I’d no more place her in the hands of an unworthy man than I’d place my John Thomas in the hands of a lunatic with a pair of scissors.

That sums up my feelings about Plaid Cymru and the ‘independence’ it’s offering.

Because there’s no point in leaving the UK only to surrender control to agencies less interested in Wales than any in London. Of course it’s argued that it’ll be different because “Wales will have its own voice” in these chambers. So what?

In Globalist organisations – like the EU, NATO, UN – small countries will be ignored or punished if they don’t toe the line.

Which means that to be heard, and favoured, an ‘independent’ Wales would have to follow the agenda: increasing censorship and surveillance, aided by a controlled media; net zero resulting in job losses and higher energy bills; unlimited immigration leading to rising crime and social dislocation.

All of which are damaging. With the real worry that the dire consequences listed are in fact the desired outcomes.

An independent Wales couldn’t isolate itself from the wider world. And I would never argue for isolation. But independence must mean real independence or it’s just a sham. And not worth having.

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FINAL WORD

Before you think all is lost, and reach for the whisky and the revolver, let me tell you there’s a sensible party that still cares about Wales and the Welsh people. A party that wants the best for Wales without joining organisations that don’t give a damn about us.

It just so happens that Gwlad is holding its AGM this coming Saturday in Llandrindod, starting at 10am (’til 4pm) in the golf club. You’re welcome to attend even if you’re not a member. So come along, meet people, hear what they have to say.

You’ll find decent people talking common sense. It’ll be so refreshing.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2026

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Power To The People! (Our People, Of Course)

On By JacIn Corruption Bay, Devolution, Globalism, Labour Party, Plaid Cymru, Senedd, Welsh Government, Welsh Labour71 Comments

In my previous post I wrote: “. . . one thing Labour was good at over 27 years of devolution was cronyism. That is, using public money to create pointless jobs for party loyalists, and to fund their organisations. To the point where there are now hundreds of these organisations and thousands of jobs“.

Done to extend Labour influence or control into almost every corner of Welsh life.

But not in my wildest, Malbec-fuelled dreams, did I think Labour would prove me right so quickly. (I need a drink!)

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DEVOLVING POWER TO KEEP POWER

Yet over the weekend, at the Labour party conference in Liverpool, we heard calls from the party in Wales and Scotland to devolve power to local authorities and communities. Now, if I wanted to be generous, I could say that this chimes with what we’ve heard from the unelected Globalist puppet in No 10.

But I don’t feel like being generous. And neither will you after reading this.

Going back to the 1990s, one of the great selling points of devolution – certainly for sceptics within Labour – was that Scotland and Wales would always vote Labour, and so devolved parliaments in Edinburgh and Cardiff could be useful for making life difficult for Conservative governments in Westminster.

And of course, they’d stymie the SNP and Plaid Cymru. (Though the latter was not thought to be a real threat.) Older readers may even remember George Robertson.

In 1995 George Robertson – then the Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland – argued that the creation of a Scottish Parliament would quench the Scottish thirst for the decentralisation of power. Devolution, according to Robertson, would kill the idea of an independent Scotland “stone dead”

The SNP may be less popular following the Sturgeon (and hubby) years, but it’s hardly stane deid, eh, George.

We must also remember that the Tories were in power from 1979 until 1997, which encouraged the thinking I just outlined. And so devolution became Labour policy before Blair was installed as PM in 1997.

Even so, there were those who went along reluctantly with this constitutional change, maybe even Blair himself. And many within Labour – certainly in Wales – who were vehemently opposed.

Perhaps what these diehards realised, or what Labour strategists failed to factor into their calculations, was that many who voted Labour in Scotland and Wales did so in the hope of avoiding a Conservative government in London, rather than from any great love for Labour.

And while devolution offered a kind of ‘filter’ to direct London rule it also meant no threat of Tory administrations in Edinburgh or Cardiff, which allowed voters to relax, even ‘shop around’.

Here we are in the autumn of 2026: Labour hasn’t been in power at Holyrood since 2007, and has just lost control of the Senedd. To compound Labour’s problems, we have an unpopular Labour government in London, polling consistently under 30%, led by a phoney whose gloss is wearing off fast.

You can therefore understand why Labour now wants to devolve power away from Edinburgh and Cardiff. But to where? And to whom?

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LOCAL GOVERNMENT

The situations of Scotland and Wales are different, but as this blog is about Wales we’ll consider who power might be devolved to here.

The obvious place to start is the level of government below the Senedd, which is our local authorities. All twenty-two of them, and all 1,234 councillors – in a country of just over three million people!

Maybe it’s also worth mentioning the 730 community and town councils, which are served by over 8,000 community and town councillors.

The three major cities, Cardiff (pop 382,000), Swansea (249,000) and Newport (169,000), all have Labour-majority councils. The third largest local authority, by population, is Rhondda Cynon Taf (241,000), which is also run by Labour.

Four other councils in the south are Labour controlled; with a combined population of 485,000. Adding them together gives us some 50% of the country’s population.

In Monmouthshire, Labour’s the largest party, but with no overall control. There are Labour minority administrations in Flintshire and the Vale of Glamorgan. In Merthyr, Labour and Independents are tied. No overall control in Neath Port Talbot, Conwy, Denbighshire. With Plaid running things in Gwynedd, Ceredigion, Ynys Môn, and Carmarthenshire.

Elsewhere, Pembrokeshire is fought over by competing gangs of Independents. The Lib Dems are the largest party in Powys. While in Wrexham it’s a coalition between Independents and Conservatives.

It’s easy to see how devolving power away from Corruption Bay to local authorities could benefit Labour. For with Plaid Cymru ruling it’ll be they who’ll get blamed by sub-Senedd level Labour for everything that’s wrong in Wales.

But it doesn’t begin, and certainly doesn’t end, with local authorities.

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CRONYISM RULES!

Now I’ll turn to the cronyism referred to at the start. This is power and influence that’s less obvious than local authorities because there are no elections, and party labels are not obvious.

As I said, Labour spent 27 years of devolution building networks that would support the party. Or else corrupting organisations, often through funding, and bending them to do Labour’s bidding. For example, if you want to understand the chaos at the Welsh Rugby Union, it can be traced back to the WRU saying that biological males would not be allowed to play against women.

That outraged certain Labour Senedd Members, and so the wheels were set in motion.

Let’s also remember the housing associations, many of which are controlled by Labour loyalists. One example would be Wales & West, our biggest provider of social housing.

But it’s no longer just housing associations, and social housing, for many of them now have subsidiaries, which seem to focus on building open-market private housing. Even leasehold properties. Wales & West has Cambria Maintenance Services Limited, Enfys Developments Limited, and Enfys Homes Limited.

Google AI says of the last named:

Enfys Homes Limited: Focuses on mixed-tenure developments to deliver extra affordable housing without requiring grant subsidies.

The bit about grant subsidies may be right. But funding goes to the parent body from the so-called ‘Welsh Government’ and is then diverted to the subsidiary.

There are thirty housing associations registered with Community Housing Cymru. Most, if not all, have subsidiaries. And those subsidiaries, which we hear less about, rely on funding from their parent body. Something we are never told.

As we see with the latest accounts for Enfys Developments Limited.

What a strange set-up this is. I’m waiting for the response to a FoI request I submitted, and I might do a piece on these providers of social housing.

Next, we must consider our health boards. Labour spent many years emplacing trusted people. Whether these were capable of running a health board may never have entered the comrades’ collective thinking.

Then there are the countless third sector outfits and charities. And the duplication involved. Which means funding dozens of organisations to do basically the same job.

One example is homelessness. In a reply to a FoI request I was told that Wales had 48 organisations ‘tackling homelessness’ – in a country of just over three million people and less than 200 miles from one corner to the opposite corner.

In addition to the homelessness racket there’s the race racket, which is catching up fast in these days of enforced diversity. Though you have to wonder if there might not be a symbiotic relationship between the two.

One established outfit in the race racket is BAWSO. Here’s how it bills itself:

Bawso provides practical and emotional prevention, protection and support services to Black Minority Ethnic (BME) and migrant victims of Domestic Abuse, Sexual Violence, Female Genital Mutilation, Forced Marriage, Honour Based Violence, Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking.

BAWSO gets over £3.5m a year from the ‘WG’ alone in grants and contracts. For many, many years it was the fiefdom of Mutale Rose Merrill. Under her leadership BAWSO built up quite a property portfolio. (It’s alleged her personal portfolio is also quite impressive.)

Even hubby got in on the third sector racket. For Labour put Travers Merrill in charge of the doomed Rhondda Life. But why worry – it’s only public money!

The thing to remember about third sector bodies, charities, and others in the various rackets is that they must never solve the problem they were set up to tackle. Because to do that would mean an end to funding and the loss of many cushy jobs.

So it serves their purpose to invent or exaggerate problems. ‘Homelessness is rising’, or ‘racism is rampant and increasing’, means more funding and more jobs. Almost an economy in itself. And all funded from the public purse.

I swear to God someone could launch a third sector body that claimed to offer counselling to the non-binary yak herders of Ceredigion – and there’d be funding available with few questions asked! (For let’s not forget the gender racket.)

And then of course we have the Future Generations legislation. For all the bodies we’ve looked at must dutifully obey the commandments inscribed into the tablets received from the Future Generations Commissioner.

The first to fill that post was Labour stalwart Sophie Howe, daughter of a Cardiff councillor. She has since moved on to launch her own business, and she’s also joined a host of ishoo-mongers including Coleg Soros.

She was replaced by another Labour apparatchik in Derek Walker. Who’d led another What-the-fuck-is-that-about group in Cwmpas. Which seems to be people with no experience in business giving advice to businesses.

But when you look at who they ‘help’, these are not genuine businesses as you or I might understand that term. In the main, they’re just more third sector gangs.

Though in recent years it’s ceased to be exclusively Labour. Here’s an image from the Our Services section of the Cwmpas website.

I know what you’re thinking – who da honky? You don’t recognise him! It’s one of our new Plaid Cymru Senedd Members, Mark Hooper. The Deputy Minister for Transport who believes in “actively discouraging car use“.

And if you think that’s worrying, Hooper’s boss, Dr Dafydd Trystan Davies, promised to ditch his car when he was elected. If he’s just dumped it somewhere then I expect to see him arrested and charged with being a sanctimonious and insufferable little git.

Yes, indeed, as George Carlin so memorably put it: “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it” – unless you belong to a Globalist-left party.

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CONCLUSION

As I just suggested, on most issues you can’t get a fag paper between Labour and Plaid Cymru. Whether it’s climate, open borders, re-joining the EU, DEI, ‘trans rights’, or any of the other issues designed to weaken the West and increase the power and wealth of supranational elites.

But voters realising there’s little difference between the two is no good for either party, so minor differences must be exaggerated and new ones invented. And there are of course areas – like independence – where Labour and Plaid do disagree.

So devolving power out of Cardiff might just be something dreamed up to remind punters that Labour in Wales is different to Plaid – and here’s a policy to prove it.

But if Ken Skates, Kinnock, Burnham and others, are serious about devolving power within Wales then a good place to start would be moving the Senedd out of Cardiff. For all devolution has really achieved is allowing Cardiff to enjoy some of the capital benefits London has always enjoyed.

Moving the Senedd could be funded by cutting the number of local authorities from twenty-two to the eight we knew in the days of two-tier local government.

More money could be found by reducing the number of housing associations. Having thirty, plus subsidiaries, is insane. Or why not do away with them altogether and hand the responsibility for social housing back to eight local authorities?

Finally, there’s the morass of the third sector. Hundreds of publicly-funded bodies, most doing work of no discernible public benefit, with dozens of almost indistinguishable gangs fighting turf wars in each and every sector.

But for Labour to agree to anything I’ve suggested would mean weakening the party’s crony network. And that would defeat the object of calling for ‘greater devolution’.

There’s a big test here for Plaid Cymru. They could devolve out of Cardiff, and fund it as I’ve outlined. But if Plaid was to suggest that then Labour would oppose it.

Reminding us yet again that Labour will always act in its own selfish interests.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2026

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Is Plaid Cymru Deaf To The Drone Of War?

On By JacIn Colonialism, Plaid Cymru, Welsh Government30 Comments

This piece is about what can only be described as the militarisation of the west coast of Wales. It takes us from within sight of Harlech Castle to where you can hear the bells of St. David’s Cathedral.

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BACKGROUND, LLANBEDR

I’ve written a few times about Llanbedr over the years after receiving information from locals wondering what the hell is going on there. Naturally, I did some digging. So it’s worth looking at what’s happened over the past six years or so, what was promised, and how it all might impact on the wider area.

Let’s start by telling you the airfield is owned by the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’. That’s what I learnt when I downloaded the Land Registry title document in February 2022. I went back to the LR a few days ago and there’s been no change.

The transfer or purchase was done in August 2006. Here’s the LR title doc.

Next, it was leased to Llanbedr Airfield Estates LLP, with the help of two loans delivered in June 2012. One from The Secretary of State for Defence, the other from ‘The Welsh Ministers’.

This company was renamed Snowdonia Aerospace LLP in August 2015. Among the directors we find Lee John Paul and his wife Gillian.

Then a second lease was taken out on April 1 2020, with a different title number, and this time the lease was in the name of Snowdonia Aerospace Estates LLP. Here again we find Mr and Mrs Paul.

UPDATE: I should have remembered that this second lease is in fact a 30-year sub-lease. Granted by the leaseholder to himself. I explained it back in December 2023 in Come Fly With Me . . . But Not From Llanbedr.

This company was formed in October 2019, which suggests it was set up specifically for the new lease. But why two leases? Were there material changes?

The money for this second lease seems to have come from Compass Point Estates LLP (the Pauls again), and the two loans involved were cleared in June this year. So let’s look a little more closely at Compass Points Estates LLP.

The first thing I noticed was the name. Because Compass Accountants is the firm that works for most if not all of Lee Paul’s companies.

Something else worth noting is that in addition to Mr and Mrs Paul the only designated member of Compass Point Estates is Ocean Park Investments Ltd. The directors here are Lee John Paul and Inspired By Ltd. With the latter also acting as company secretary and controlling interest.

The only directors of Inspired By Ltd are Lee and Gillian Paul. Though in these times of economic uncertainty it’s nice to report a company on the up. For in the three years between 2022 and 2025 fixed assets increased by over six million pounds.

What can account for this? I might have an explanation later. But we can safely assume that, while others have come and gone in the Llanbedr saga, and no matter what company and LLP names pop up, the one constant is Lee John Paul.

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RECENT DEVELOPMENTS AT LLANBEDR AND ELSEWHERE

Let’s start in November last year with an announcement from European Security & Defence that reads: “Anduril UK launches new test site in northwest Wales“. The unnamed site is of course Llanbedr.

Anduril UK announced on 11 November 2025 the launch of a new test site in Wales.

The site is being used to test “a suite of AI-powered products for UK military use, including reconnaissance, command-and-control, and targeting capabilities”, the company stated, adding that “several of these sovereign capabilities are actively flying in the Welsh countryside while they are evaluated by Anduril engineers”.

So who or what is Anduril? Well, here’s the Anduril website. It’s an arms company closely associated with the US military establishment. Formed as recently as 2017, and specialising in drones.

And to judge by the quote above, these drones were already “flying in the Welsh countryside” in November 2025. Who knew? Because I don’t recall any media coverage, nor hearing anything from politicians.

A report from July 24 tells that Anduril is expanding fast.

Though I’m reliably informed that: “Anduril Industries is not directly ‘approved’ as an entity by the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), but the company actively navigates UK airspace regulations through partnerships with certified specialists“.

So we have a site owned by the ‘Welsh Government’, leased to Lee John Paul, that would appear to be a base for a US company testing drones for the UK military.

And yet, the lease agreement expressly forbids Llanbedr airfield being used “to develop drones for military purposes“. But this is exactly what’s happening there now.

The lease agreement also stipulates the airfield must be open to commercial and general aviation. Which I take to mean private planes. Is this still the case? I doubt it.

And Llanbedr airfield must benefit the local economy. How many locals does it employ?

An AI response I was sent.

In fact, it’s all being done with little regard for the locals. Here’s a letter dated July 1 from Lee John Paul to Cyngor Cymuned Llanbedr (Community Council) addressing complaints about the activities currently being carried out. Presumably for Anduril.

In this open letter he promises that in future there’ll be no “engine start-ups and departures” before 7 am Monday to Friday. Which means locals must have been subjected to noise from the airfield very early in the morning. (Or at night?) And you don’t need to be a sluggabed to think 7 am is still a bit early.

Paul also promises the drones will fly over the sea a little more in future. Which must mean that heavy military drones have been flying across land. Are they armed? Even if they’re not armed, a crashing drone is very, very dangerous. And Llanbedr’s record is not inspiring.

There was a drone crash there about a year ago. The Windracers Ultra Mk II involved can – depending on payload – weigh up to 670 kg. That ploughing into the bar of the Queen Vic would have been the ultimate last orders for many members of the drinking classes!

And there was an earlier mishap in September 2024.

One final thought on Llanbedr. Those familiar with the area will know that the main coast road hits a bottleneck here, partly due to a narrow stone bridge. A bypass was promised, but then cancelled late in 2021 by the ‘Welsh Government to meet “net-zero carbon targets“.

A substitute arrangement has since been mooted, but it might be worth remembering that the original bypass planned would have gone to the west of the village – towards the airfield.

Just a thought.

Let me return now to the uptick in fortunes for Inspired By Ltd, which I alluded to earlier. If we go to the two charges held against this company by Lloyds Bank we see reference to Brawdy, the former Fleet Air Arm base in Pembrokeshire.

You won’t be surprised to learn there have also been developments at Brawdy. Some of you may already be aware of them. Maybe you’ve been protesting.

The latest news is that the plan to install 20 metre high ‘deep space’ radar dishes has now been called in by the ‘Welsh Government’.

Lee John Paul was originally involved with Brawdy through a company called Brawdy Business Park Ltd, which was Dissolved in April 2013. Leaving behind a number of unpaid loans, including one from the Welsh Development Agency.

More recently – as you’ve read above – a loan naming Brawdy has been taken out by Paul’s company Inspired By Ltd. There may be other companies involved, Paul has quite a number.

It could well be that the increase in assets filed by Inspired By Ltd can be explained by a deal Paul struck with those who clearly have big plans for Brawdy. Or maybe Llanbedr.

Moving up the coast we find, just north of Aberteifi, the airfield at Aberporth, which has for some time been used for drone testing, with quite a few mishaps there as well. Such as the one that crashed too near a school for comfort.

Aberporth was taken over about a year ago by Portuguese outfit Tekever. (Here’s the company website.) And as with Llanbedr, “It’s not clear at the moment whether General Aviation access will continue“. Suggesting it’ll be restricted to military use.

UPDATE: 06.08.2026: Here’s what the latest Tekever accounts tell us:

So there’ll be jobs in England, while we have to put up with the noise and the danger. Nothing changes.

◊

CONCLUSIONS AND THOUGHTS

It would appear that these three facilities on our west coast are being turned over entirely to the testing of military drones and associated technology. This will almost certainly mean no access for other users, and no jobs for locals.

All on the west coast, eh – are we being threatened from Ireland? My wife and I had visitors from County Galway on Sunday and they showed no sign of hostile intent. But then, those Irish smiles can beguile.

The reasonable conclusion to draw is that this increase in drone testing is being done to drag out the war in Ukraine, and to keep the Kokehead Klown of Kiev afloat for a bit longer – with more deaths – before he makes the territorial concessions he and everyone else knows he’ll have to make.

From another angle, and a more domestic viewpoint, there’s an interesting timeline involved. For the developments at Llanbedr, Brawdy and Aberporth, while external in origin, seem to have been announced, or took place, when the Labour administration in Corruption Bay was in its final tailspin.

With everybody knowing Labour was going to lose this May’s Senedd elections.

Were these developments some kind of poisoned chalice for Plaid Cymru? They certainly pose a big, big problem for that party.

Not least because Plaid Cymru is, fundamentally and historically, a pacifist party. To explain what I mean, and seeing as we’re dealing with military installations on the west side of the country, let’s remember what happened at Penyberth, on Llŷn, in 1936.

When three Plaid Cymru luminaries, including party president (and World War One veteran) Saunders Lewis, made a symbolic attack on an RAF bombing school.

Plaid Cymru remains a pacifist party. So how it responds to the developments at Llanbedr, Brawdy and Aberporth, will be interesting. We see that the new Plaid government has called in the plans for Brawdy, but of course it doesn’t own that site.

But it does own Llanbedr.

My fear is that these three sites will become some kind of ‘sovereign territory’, beyond the control of any level of government within Wales. Employing no locals, closed to private aviation, contributing little or nothing to the economies of the areas around them, and even putting local lives at risk.

Which is why the Plaid Cymru ‘Welsh Government’ needs to make its position clear, as a matter of urgency. And I’m not sure it can wait until they they get back from their summer hols in mid September.

To not do so – especially if that inaction is on the orders of the UK government – will be another reminder that devolution is a sham.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2026

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Plaid Cymru Turns Against The Dragon

On By JacIn Far Left, Globalism, Plaid Cymru41 Comments

I wish I didn’t have to write this, but it needed to be written. Not least because it highlights how Globalism, through the capture of leftists and their organisations, like Plaid Cymru, promotes its agenda.

◊

GLOBALISM, SUMMARY

Globalism is very wealthy families and individuals, supranational bodies and major corporations hoping to benefit from an undemocratic form of world government that imposes censorship and other controls on the population at large.

They target the West because, for obvious reasons, China, Russia, India and other big players are beyond their control. Though China is perhaps the inspiration. In that it’s the perfect combination of a one-party political system and almost unfettered capitalism.

To help enforce its agenda, by weakening the West economically, Globalism has for decades used an invented climate crisis demanding net zero and other costly sacrifices. Also, and certainly since 2016 – Brexit and Trump’s election – open borders.

Immigration is needed partly to replace the working class support lost by leftist parties. And also to justify censorship and creeping authoritarianism through a two-tier policing and justice system deemed essential to combat “racism” and the “far-right“.

To help them achieve The New World Order Globalists recruited Marxism and Islam. These have been co-opted because they share a desire to destroy the West. Which then explains the alliance between them we see today.

The obstacles to the Globalists’ ambitions are freedom of speech, family, private property, people’s pride in national identity, cultural homogeneity, social cohesion, Christianity, and any other focus of loyalty or affection.

These must all be vilified.

Globalism is further facilitated by ‘the long march through the institutions’ (© ‘Red’ Rudi Dutschke) defended and protected by Globalist control of the ‘legacy’ media.

Globalism often employs bribery or kompromat. More likely to be the latter with many politicians, certainly the current UK prime minister.

Though the tactic of capture is not without humour. Perhaps the funniest example is The Green Party, which used to be about saving the whale; now it’s open borders, trans rights, and the crusade against Islamophobia.

Watching these clowns is now more entertaining than anything put out as ‘comedy’ by the BBC.

◊

THE MIND READERS OF WRECSAM

My attention was drawn to this issue by a piece in the Western Mail on Monday. I don’t think I was aware of the matter before this; but after reading the article I naturally got curious.

It seems to link – or certainly that’s the allegation made – with a planned hostel for ‘refugees’ or illegal migrants in Rhosllanerchrugog, famous for its male voice choir, and memorably described by Harri Webb when the Cross Foxes ran dry.

The council objected, and the plan was dropped. This was all back in January. It’s claimed this episode led to Welsh flags being put up around the city. Certainly, that’s what’s alleged in a petition launched May 18. Here it is: Remove illegally placed banners from lampposts in Wrexham.

The wording of the petition is fascinating, and worrying. Let’s begin with the opening paragraph.

Recently, our beloved community in Wrexham has been under siege by a wave of illegally placed banners and flags that have appeared on lampposts and other public fixtures. These banners, adorned with national symbols, have been commandeered by right-wing agitators and racists, turning what should be a representation of pride and unity into tools of fear and intimidation.

Wrecsam “Under siege“! Banners “Adorned with national symbols“. No, it’s our national flag. And it’s a dragon. But then comes the assumption that these flags have been “commandeered by right-wing agitators and racists“.

But if they were “commandeered“, then who put them up in the first place?

And if a flag is “a representation of . . . unity“, then surely it doesn’t matter who put them up. Rally ’round the flag, boys!

The clear message here is that the Welsh national flag – our flag – is only acceptable when it’s flown by people approved of by whoever worded the petition. That is, leftists.

The second paragraph reads:

The situation is particularly distressing for our vulnerable immigrant communities, who feel targeted and alienated by these divisive displays. The right of every citizen to feel safe and welcome in their own neighbourhood is fundamental, yet this basic right is being undermined by a few with harmful agendas.

Why are the immigrant communities “vulnerable“? Are they under attack from the same marauding horde that’s put the whole city “under siege“? After diligently searching, but failing to find le mot juste, I’ll dismiss this claim as hyperbolic bullshit. Where’s my violin?

Though I agree that every citizen should feel safe in their own neighbourhood. But if the allegations made are true, and the flags link with the property in Rhos, then doesn’t the indigenous population also have a right to feel safe?

Or are natives of Wrecsam concerned about such hostels, and the threats they pose, automatically “right-wing agitators and racists“?

Why shouldn’t they be concerned? For as we know, there’s far more likelihood of a local being attacked by an immigrant than there is of a migrant being beheaded by Tyrone from Caia Park.

The change.org website gives the “petition starter” as ‘Lower the Flags Wrexham’.  But who’s behind it?

Someone named in the article I linked to at the top, and a number of other reports, is Iolanda Banu Viegas. Originally from Mozambique, and a Portuguese citizen. I suspect she’s involved.

Iolanda was a Plaid Cymru candidate in 2017, and again in 2022. She’s also the Regional Coordinator and TSPC representative for North Wales / Community Support Officer for North & East Wales in Race Council Cymru. A body that relies heavily on ‘Welsh Government’ funding.

She was also involved with Black History Wales. That rather desperate exercise that tried to make us believe a few black individuals scattered here and there, over centuries, amounted to a distinct historical narrative.

Inevitably, perhaps, she was involved with BLM, mourning and celebrating the drug overdosed career criminal George Floyd.

Clearly, Ms Viegas has something of an obsession with race. And it seems she rarely misses a chance to tell us Welsh what racists we are.

But at the end of the day, what is a flag? First and foremost, it’s a form of identification. It says: ‘This is who I am, this is where I belong, this is my country’. Whereas raising a flag, or removing one, is symbolic of resistance, change, even conquest.

I know that. And so do those wanting to take down my flag.

I can’t help but compare this flags farrago to a certain demographic objecting to people having dogs.

◊

THE LONG MARCH THROUGH THE INSTITUTIONS

I mentioned this in the first part, and now I’m going to explore it a wee bit more. Perhaps I first became aware of it back in 2021, with the capture of the independence movement YesCymru by people wanting to subvert that group into a bullhorn for the Woke agenda. (Covered extensively on this blog.)

By ‘Woke agenda’ I mean the climate scam, trans rights, DEI, CRT, and all the rest mentioned earlier. And there’s always something new, a new minority, a fresh evil to be combatted. These are ever changing in order to confuse.

The takeover of YesCymru was noticeable because of the speed and the manner of it. But it had already happened to Plaid Cymru. And to Welsh language bodies from nursery group Mudiad Meithrin to the Urdd and the National Eisteddfod.

When I looked into it I was even given names of individuals whose poison-spreading paths could be traced from one group to another. With the message backed up by the threat of ‘Welsh Government’ funding being withheld from any body not falling into line.

Another example of Plaid Cymru and Labour working hand in glove.

For many of the intellectual lightweights pushing the Woke mind virus it’s a case of seeing how much they can get away with before the adults in the room tell them enough is enough.

Just look at the class clown smirk on the face of new Plaid Senedd Member Sarah Rees. Read the article. Sarah Rees was of course involved in the YesCymru fiasco.

Meanwhile, up in the House of Commons, Plaid’s four MPs voted to oppose single-sex spaces for women. Cos it would be transphobic.

Despite all the pre-election promises about the economy, education, the NHS, infrastructure, etc, Plaid’s priority seems to be figuring out a way to ignore the Supreme Court’s decision that sex is biological.

And why did South Wales Police put out an instruction to its officers that they should record non-crime “instances of anti-Muslim hostility“?

After a letter from the Shadow Minister for Equalities Claire Coutinho SWP has agreed to withdraw this ‘guidance’. But why issue it in the first place? The answer is that senior ranks of the police service – and the Police College – have been captured.

◊

CONCLUSION

The broad church Plaid Cymru was when I joined in the 1960s is long dead. The drift to the left began in the 1980s under the leadership of Dafydd Elis Thomas then, under Antifa-supporting Leanne Wood, we saw a moderate, almost reasonable kind of socialism, degenerate into the name-calling and label-attaching silliness of Wokery.

But it mustn’t be dismissed lightly because the fuss over flags in Wrecsam is simply a bigger production scaled down for a local stage. We’ve seen Antifa and other fanatics burn flags in the USA; or it’s councils in England tearing down Union flags or St George crosses because the permanently offended claim to feel ‘unsafe’ or ‘threatened’.

Now it’s come to Wales.

Remember that the council rejected the plan for the Rhos hostel in January, and the plan was dropped. That should have been the end of it. But in mid-May a petition was launched claiming the Welsh flags flying in Wrecsam were linked with the hostel, they were intimidating minorities, and they should be removed.

Does that make sense?

No, but it fits into the bigger picture of the ideological capture of Plaid Cymru. Plaid now promotes the idea that only people on the left care about Wales. Or, perhaps more worryingly, that only leftists are allowed to care about Wales.

Plaid has set itself up as the arbiter of who can, and who can’t, fly our national flag.

Thus delegitimising the views of anyone to the right of centre. Even someone like myself; who’s always defended Wales, Welsh identity, and always wanted independence.

This can only be explained by realising that Plaid Cymru is a hollowed-out sham. It claims to want ‘independence’ – in order to give it away by rejoining the European Union, submitting to the United Nations . . . and the Globalist agenda.

That agenda includes the ending of borders and the erasure of national identities.

Submit to this insanity in Wrecsam and those behind it will be emboldened. They’ll be able to claim that any Welsh flag, anywhere in the country, is the work of racists and the far-right, offensive to somebody or other, and demand it be taken down.

Because that is the bigger agenda to which Plaid Cymru has submitted. Oblivious to the irony, the contradiction, in preaching that Wales is open to all – but only certain people are allowed to fly the flag.

How long now before Owain Glyndŵr is ‘re-evaluated’? For a start, he was far too white. Those who followed him were not diverse. Then there was the fighting, clearly a case of toxic masculinity. And he was obviously straight – all those kids!

◊

FINAL WORD

It’s been strange writing this because when I joined Plaid Cymru we were struggling to get Y Ddraig Goch flown on public buildings and elsewhere. Now that same party is campaigning to have our national flag removed.

Let me say to anyone who’s arrived in Wales, from Mozambique or Manchester . . . If you find my flag objectionable, or if you feel “targeted and alienated” by it, you really should ask yourself whether Wales is the place for you.

But any attempt to tell me I can’t fly MY flag in MY country because my wider political stance doesn’t align with that of Woke activists will get a crisp, two-word response.

And the second word will be “off!“.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2026

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Things Are Never So Bad That They Can’t Get Worse

On By JacIn Climate, Corruption Bay, Environmentalism, Far Left, Globalism, Plaid Cymru, Renewables, Senedd220 Comments

First, a brief look at the new Plaid Cymru administration. Then an analysis of ‘Well-being’. Before looking at the looming threat of AI data centers.

This piece is bigger than usual, some 2,700 words. But you know it’ll be worth it!

◊

PLAID CYMRU IN POWER

Plaid Cymru emerged from the May 7 Senedd elections as the largest party, winning 43 out of the 96 seats contested. So we have a minority government that will almost certainly need support from Labour (which won 9 seats) to run things.

And even though the Guardian might view Plaid as “centre-left“, I see a far-left party. Which might not be too bad, if it was an old-fashioned left wing party intent on improving the condition of the working class and governing in the interests of a majority of the population.

But the working class, normal people, level-headed people, are now the enemy for the Antifa Irregulars and the Hamas Support Brigade so influential in Plaid.

Let’s start by looking at the cabinet selected by new first minister Rhun ap Iorwerth.

OMG! Where’s the diversity?

Perhaps the only one in whom I might have confidence is Llŷr Gruffydd who, if nothing else, seems to understand rural issues. But then I curb my enthusiasm by remembering that before May 7 he was the SM for the largely rural North Wales region; whereas he now represents the smaller Clwyd constituency, dominated by the urban fleshpots of Rhyl, Prestatyn, and Colwyn Bay.

And then we must consider the description of his ministerial role: Cabinet Minister for Rural Resilience and Sustainability.

‘Sustainability’ for Plaid Cymru, Labour, Greens and the Globalist left generally means: net zero, Agenda 2030, wind turbines and solar panels everywhere; while promoting veganism and using various deceits to get farmers off the land for the benefit of corporate investors.

But what the hell is ‘Rural Resilience‘? Does anybody know?

Even just skimming over the rest of the bunch is really depressing.

For example, in newly-elected Mark Hooper, Deputy Minister for Transport, we have a man on record as saying that “private car travel is a massive problem“. His colleague, also new, Dr Dafydd Trystan Davies, Cabinet Minister for Government Effectiveness(?) and the Constitution, is equally if not more hostile to the freedom bestowed on us peasants by private transport.

For Davies is a sanctimonious planet saver; determined to punish those going to work, dropping the kids off at school, or running granny to her chiropodist appointment.

If these sinners paused for a moment in their attempts to make ends meet, or hold the family together, and instead gaze up to the moral high ground (just above the sunlit uplands), they’d see Dr Daf, wagging his finger admonishingly.

This saintly individual has for some time been a big wheel (spoked, and fully pumped) in the 20mph Sustrans outfit, now renamed Walk Wheel Cycle Trust.

And don’t get me started on Sioned Williams and some of the wimmin. If former Plaid leader Leanne Wood was Medusa they’d be the snakes. One of the new intake, Sarah Rees, admits to being “a campaigner at heart“, perhaps to explain why she’s never done a real job. Perfect for the Senedd!

Despite the widespread ‘optimism’, Plaid Cymru seems as much in thrall to pressure groups and ishoo pedlars as Labour. The useful idiots of Globalism, a form of capitalism so ruthless, so anti-human and authoritarian, that it would repulse the most heartless 19th century ironmaster or coal owner.

◊

BEING TOLD TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT BEING POORER. AND THE ENDGAME

Now I’m going to focus on something I’ve mentioned in connection with other topics. It’s the vast superstructure built on the Well-being of Future Generations Act 2015.

Everything done in Wales since then must follow the stipulations of the Act. It’s used to influence everything. I’ve seen planning applications contain phrases like, ‘This development accords with Future Generations legislation’.

So let’s give Well-being itself more attention. With this section inspired by Nicola Lund, and this piece she wrote back in October 2023.

Nicola’s work is impressive, and extensively researched. So I won’t go over the ground she’s covered; but it’s worth noting her references to the usual suspects: Club of Rome, WEF, EU, WHO, and others.

The way I see it . . . national and individual wealth has traditionally been gauged by metrics such as GDP, disposable income, home ownership, number of private cars per head of population and other determinants.

But by following the Globalist agenda we in the West are becoming poorer by those traditional ways of assessing wealth. Consequently, something was needed to hide the reality and change the focus. This is where Well-being enters the frame.

Let’s go through the ‘Welsh Government’ graphic you see above.

Starting with, at the top, ‘A Prosperous Wales’. So vague as to be meaningless. And how does a country de-industrialising while simultaneously being trampled on by the new robber-barons of the ‘renewables’ racket and the digital age become prosperous?

‘A Resilient Wales’. That word again. But what does it mean? Taking all the crap forced on us without complaining?

‘A Healthier Wales’. Yeah – with the NHS on its knees.

‘A More Equal Wales’. Which means what, DEI and anti-white discrimination?

‘A Wales of Cohesive Communities’. Impossible when you destroy the economic foundations that made communities cohesive. And how does welcoming illegal immigrants to the Nation of Sanctuary aid community cohesion? This is delusional.

‘A Wales of Vibrant Culture and Thriving Welsh Language’. I suspect ‘vibrant’ here means diversity. Again. As for the language, no one who’s destroying farming, a bastion of the language and the economy in so many areas, should be taken seriously.

‘A Globally Responsible Wales’. Probably means student politics and virtue signalling. More bollocks. The sole responsibility of any ‘Welsh Government is Wales.

“Forget about the kids going hungry, Mrs Evans – improve your well-being by thinking about the non-binary lynx we’ve released in the area. Look, there’s one now, making off with little Carys’s rabbit!”.

Once you accept the fundamental lie of the ‘climate crisis’, and agree to the sacrifices demanded, then you’ll accept the resultant decline. But it’ll be you making the sacrifices, not those asking you to make them.

And because the threat is global it must be tackled globally. Which inevitably means trans-national bodies taking control. The next step will be a kind of world government. But you’ll have no say in electing this world government. For elections will be things of the past.

We’re already on our way to an unelected world government with what masquerades as electoral politics in the West today. At a stage where it matters little who you vote for; as most politicians – the Uniparty – sing from the Globalist hymn sheet.

Another feature of such systems is the ‘Chosen One’. Often a graduate of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders programme.

Back in 2024, in Canada, when it became clear that Justin Trudeau had been rumbled by the electorate, Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of England and arch Globalist, appeared from nowhere. Carney wasn’t even a sitting MP, but it had been decided, somewhere, by someone, that he would be the next prime minister of Canada.

First, he was made leader of the ruling Liberal Party, then a seat was found for him and he was elected for Nepean, Ontario, in the general election of April 2025.

Over here, Starmer’s a dead man walking. And so a suitable replacement had to be found. The one chosen is mayor of Manchester Andy Burnham. But like Carney, he’s not even an MP. So a Labour MP has stood down and now there’s a by-election in Makerfield on June 18.

If Burnham is elected he’ll become party leader and therefore prime minister. He might be worse than Starmer, but he’ll be a fresh face to fool the plebs for a bit longer.

What I’m describing is not old-fashioned party intrigue, or political jockeying. Because Carney and Burnham were not chosen by their respective parties. (Let alone the members of those parties.) They were chosen by people you’re not supposed to know about; and the role and power of these oligarchs will never be discussed in the media they control and want you to rely on.

To implement their agenda of wealth and asset transfer, Digital ID, Central Bank Digital Currency, and Universal Basic Income, you must be brainwashed into believing that not only are the sacrifices you’re making unavoidable, but also that you should feel good about making them.

Which is all you need to know about the Well-being scam.

◊

AI DATA CENTERS

This part puts me in debt to David Powell. Specifically, this piece he put out last November. Scroll down to the part dealing with AI data centers planned for Wales. Mainly in the south, which is a designated AI Growth Zone.

Here’s a section:

One facility matches a city of 50,000’s water consumption, straining drought-hit valleys and jacking up Dŵr Cymru rates for everyone else.

What’s clear, and what no one denies, is that data centres consume vast amounts of water and electricity. So let’s consider water first. For as David Powell tells us, “One facility matches a city of 50,000’s water consumption“?

Though Google AI suggests the demand will be even higher:

A typical large data centre consumes between 11 million and 19 million litres of water per day—roughly equivalent to the daily usage of a town of 30,000 to 50,000 people. Facilities dedicated to Artificial Intelligence (AI) demand even higher volumes.

Do we have that much water to spare? The answer is obviously no, so it’ll be existing consumers, in the urban south, that’ll find themselves going without. And paying Dŵr Cymru more for less.

In Ireland, there’s even talk of transferring water from the River Shannon, in the west, to the AI data centers in Dublin, on the east coast. Here’s a follow-up article from Gript. (Paywall, I’m afraid.)

But what’s the purpose of these date centers? Listen to Sam Altman, founder of OpenAI, speaking at the BlackRock US Infrastructure Summit.

But we see a future where intelligence is a utility, like electricity or water, and people buy it from us on a meter.

Clearly, AI data centers will need vast amounts of water that the current system will struggle to supply. But electricity will perhaps be even more of an issue.

Parts of England ran dry last week

Those who support ‘renewables’ argue wind and solar will make a huge contribution to supplying AI data centers. That’s wishful thinking; an intermittent supply from wind farms and solar installations, even with their unreliability mitigated by Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), isn’t going to cut it.

UPDATE: It’s estimated that AI data centers use 22% of Ireland’s electricity.

Though there are many BESS planned for southern Wales. One by RWE at Pembroke, alongside the power station. Another on the site of the old Uskmouth power station in Newport. A second Newport site is at Quinn Radiators. One is in Cardiff. Finally, one at the old Ford engine plant in Bridgend.

There are many other projects, including those planned by ‘Welsh’ Labour’s favourite company, Bute Energy. Additional to the BESS installations incorporated into the various ‘Energy Parks’ (windfarms & solar soil destroyers) Bute’s formed BESS companies that specifically name; Cilfynydd, Rhigos, Carmarthen.

But BESS are springing up everywhere. One I’m just hearing about is Castell Llwyd, just west of Ystrad Mynach. The company behind it, Qair, is French owned.

No doubt there are others in the pipeline. For as Google AI tells us:

Wales is rapidly developing into a major UK hub for AI and cloud computing, driven by billions in inward investment, massive hyperscale data center construction, and official AI Growth Zone designations by the UK and Welsh governments

Yes, of course there’s a National Grid. But AI data centers are springing up in England, too, increasing the demand on a system that, like the water supply, will struggle to cope. And will struggle even worse the more it relies on ‘renewables’, the price of which is set to double by 2030.

Then there’s the impact on health. Data centers emit a continuous noise. Here’s David Powell again:

Vantage’s Cardiff operations clock 46-48 decibels at the doors – officially “minor adverse” per standards, but stack multiple facilities in clusters and it becomes a symphony of sleepless nights and shattered quality of life.

Google AI suggests it’s even worse:

AI data centers are notoriously loud. Driven by the need to cool thousands of dense servers, they produce constant, 24/7 noise pollution that can reach 55 to 85 decibels—and sometimes up to 100dB right next to the facility.

A problem exacerbated by the back-up generators:

On-site diesel generators or natural gas turbines used during power grid shortages sound like low-flying planes

All this can affect property values close to the centers.

But do AI data centers have a purpose over and above that outlined by Sam Altman?

Fundamentally, AI data centers are being built so someone, somewhere, can collect as much information as possible on as many people as possible: So as to know what they do. And what they buy. Their reading and viewing preferences. What they think. And what they say.

Information is power.

And this power, in a world where oligarchs are trying to take control through making a sham of democratic politics, will not only know your views and your preferences; for when combined with Digital ID, CBDC, and UBI it will be able to control you.

You’ll find that expressing certain views not only loses you your internet connection, it will also mean you’re unable to access your money. (Cash will already be outlawed.)

You’ll become a non-person except to those you can interact with on a physical level. But you’ll find that few will want to be seen talking to you due to the ubiquitous cameras.

◊

CONCLUSION

‘Well-being’ is obviously a deceit. A form of manipulation that expects people to put up with less or worse for a noble objective that, when analysed, itself turns out to be a lie.

Now let’s have a few final thoughts on AI data centers. Because powerful voices are coming out against them, and even those behind them are getting nervous.

First, the Pope has spoken out. In fact, His Holiness issued an encyclical. And Pope Leo didn’t mince words.

Some of the Pope’s strongest imagery in the document related to slavery, warning parallels between the historical tragedy of traditional slavery and the emerging threats of “new digital slaveries”.

It should be noted that Leo XIV is the first Pope from the USA. I mention that because another American is worth quoting in this context – Larry Fink, BlackRock CEO and Interim Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum.

As you might guess, Larry and his multitudinous investment arms have put a whole lot of money into AI data centers. But Larry fears the peasants will rise up, and attack the data centres with cheap drones! (An update to pitchforks and blazing torches?)

Here’s Neil Oliver’s take on it. It’s worth watching.

Neil also reminds us that the power and reach of “Caesar” Fink’s empire is built on the savings and pensions of millions of little people. Which means that Joe Schmuck in Ohio and Dai Williams in Ponty pay for their own “digital slavery“.

Will the new Plaid Cymru administration stand up for Wales, and humanity, and against the proliferation of AI data centres and the misery they’ll inflict?

And what about the inconsistency – many might say hypocrisy – of allowing AI data centers to drain the electricity grid and monopolise water supplies while constantly hectoring us mere mortals into consuming less of everything?

Thankfully, more and more people see the nature of Globalism, and the threat it poses. While Wokism is increasingly rejected as a load of dangerous tosh. Now the UN has pulled back on its more hysterical climate claims. While NASA shows CO2 greening large areas of the planet, thereby making attempts to reduce or ‘capture’ it insane.

Wales can’t continue in a cartoon world created by brainwashed or unhinged useful idiots where cows are a threat to the planet and Welsh cakes must be decolonised.

Wales has more than enough real problems. Plaid Cymru must tackle them.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2026

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Who Runs The White House, Abersoch?

On By JacIn Business and Commerce, Corruption, Development Bank of Wales, Plaid Cymru, Public Funding, Senedd, Welsh Government, Welsh Labour38 Comments

Don’t panic, this isn’t about US politics. Following information received it’s an update to something I wrote back in 2020.

As you will understand, I’m sure, what I’d promised for Monday, ‘Things Are Never So Bad That They Can’t Get Worse’, will now be delayed. (And anyway, I’d forgotten that Monday is a Bank Holiday.)

◊

RECAP

In December 2020 I put out Lucky Gwynedd – More ‘Investors’! Scroll down to ‘The Phoenix Hotel, Abersoch’ and you’ll get the background to what you’re going to read.

In a nutshell, chancers from N W England had bought the old White Hall Hotel in Abersoch and had big plans, expensive plans. I wrote in that earlier piece:

This establishment closed in 2004 or 2005, inevitably fell into disrepair, and was eventually demolished in the early part of 2016.  In the report I’ve linked to we read, “A 40-bedroom hotel and spa will now be built in its place and is set to open in 2018”.

Well, 2018 came and went. It’s now 2026, and it’s still not finished.

Two of the principals behind the project were: Charles Marshall Openshaw and Anthony John Hayton. Each had a string of failed companies to their name. I mentioned one of Openshaw’s companies, Rooftop Solutions Ltd, going bust in 2012 and owing almost half a million quid.

And yet, it seemed that Messrs Openshaw and Hayton were welcomed by Cyngor Gwynedd and certain agencies in Corruption Bay as bona fide investors with a string of glittering successes to their names.

And also getting positive, uncritical write-ups in the local media.

UPDATE 24.05.2026: You can get your very own piece of Abersoch – a beach hut is for sale at £200,000.

◊

CON MEN, POLITICIANS, BANKRUPTS

Let’s start the update proper with a piece that appeared last July in Boutique Hotelier. The property is now known as Tŷ Gwyn. The article mentions a series of delays, and suggests that the original plan may have been to lease or sell the individual rooms.

This of course is a model we’ve encountered before, perhaps most notably with con man Gavin Lee Woodhouse, from Yorkshire. He bought run-down hotels from Llandudno to Tenby, and was the inspiration behind the Afan Valley Adventure Resort which now employs thousands. Or maybe not.

To jog your memories, here’s something I put out around the time I was writing about Woodhouse.

Labour got hammered earlier this month in the Senedd elections, but you’ll be delighted to hear that Skates and Irranca-Davies were both re-elected. No doubt Plaid’s new team will be seeking advice from these financial whizz-kids.

In the Boutique Hotelier article, you’ll see that the sooper-dooper new “hotel and apartment complex” at Abersoch will be run by Bespoke Hotels of Warrington.

Problem is . . . Bespoke Hotels International Ltd was Dissolved in January. Then again, it might be Bespoke Hotels (North West) Ltd, Dissolved in February ’22. Or maybe it’s . . .

And what of the two entrepreneurs who kicked off this project, Charles Marshall Openshaw and Anthony John Hayton?

Well, it’s sad news there, too. Both were declared bankrupt just before Christmas. Below are the notices from the The London Gazette.

So who’s running things now? Who owns the Tŷ Gwyn hotel and apartment complex?

According to the Land Registry title document the property is now owned by Providence Gate Abersoch Ltd. But in March this year the company’s name changed to Abersoch Development Ltd.

◊

INTRODUCING ANIL KUMAR PITALIA

Abersoch Development Ltd, which bought the project in July 2022, is owned by Anil Kumar Pitalia. Here’s Pitalia’s Linkedin profile. He has many companies. Not all successful; here’s just a few of those that have gone to the wall.

The latest accounts for Abersoch Development Ltd (year ending 31.03.2025) show a ‘total equity’ deficit of £4,945,191. This might be accounted for by the loans, which are worth looking at.

The first two loans came from an outfit in Preston called E3C Solutions Ltd, 14.07.2022. Since renamed Quarry Rock Solutions Ltd. Another two from Gemini Finance Ltd, 23.08.2022, another back-street lender, this time in Liverpool.

All four loans, against the White House Hotel in Abersoch, were settled 05.04.2023. Then four more loans were taken out. Let’s look at the new loans.

The first, 14.03.2023 – three weeks before the first four loans were paid off – was with Crossbaron Ltd of Bolton. A company owned by – Anil Pitalia! Always nice when you can lend yourself money. Was this used to pay off the earlier loans?

The next, 21.07.2023, was with Lyell Trading Ltd of Cheltenham.

Closely followed by two loans, 25.07.2023, from Development Bank of Wales (DBW).

Which is somewhat confusing, because this response to a FoI request, dated 03.06.2024, says nothing has been offered.

I can only assume the FoI request went to the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ rather than to the DBW. In which case, the response is, strictly speaking, true, even though the DBW is controlled by the ‘Welsh Government’.

Was it a bit naughty not referring the inquirer to the DBW? Anyway . . .

Anil Pitalia has also branched out into charity work. Which always warms the cockles of my cynical old heart. His particular charity is The Pitalia Charitable Trust – previously The Visionary Charitable Trust – bringing succour to those in distress in the mythic Englandandwales . . . also India.

At the risk of sounding unkind, the objectives look a bit, well, pro forma; like they were downloaded from the internet. Or found in a solicitor’s drawer.

Turning to the finances, for the period ended 05.10.2022 we see a huge leap in the charity’s income.

This is accounted for in the accounts filed with the Charity Commission as you see below. Wasn’t that nice of him! Though I suppose it might be reasonable to ask, why so much in one dollop? Why so little before or since?

And perhaps, where did it come from?

So, I got to wondering what might explain this outpouring of charitable zeal. And the timeframe is interesting: Pitalia paid over four million pounds into his charity around the time he paid off loans and took on new ones.

He was a busy boy in 2022/23.

Whatever, and moving on . . . I couldn’t find a website for this charity, but the accounts filed with the Charity Commission for the years following the arrival of that huge sum tell us this:

Little seems to be going out to worthy causes; the charity could even be mistaken for an investment vehicle. But if so, then what might it be investing in?

◊

THE DEVELOPMENT BANK OF WALES

However we got here, the fact is that Anil Pitalia, through his company Abersoch Development Ltd, has obtained loans from the Development Bank of Wales, a body owned by the ‘Welsh Government’.

Over the years, I’ve been critical of the DBW, and ‘Welsh Government’ funding in general. Getting good publicity often seems to be more important than acting wisely; or of doing background checks on the companies and individuals seeking funding.

This approach has led to so many mistakes over the years. Earlier I mentioned Gavin Lee Woodhouse, con man and instigator of the Afan Valley Adventure Resort. One of the properties he bought was Caer Rhun.

And the ‘Welsh Government’ agreed a tourism grant of £500,000. That’s a grant, not a loan. Nothing to be repaid. (Though it was later insisted that no money was ever handed over.)

I’m convinced that the word is out among a certain class of ‘investor’ that Wales is a soft touch for getting your hands on public money. All you have to do is buy some old pile, send a press release to the media, promise investment/jobs/visitors, have your photo taken with a politician or two, and wait for the money to roll in.

Such people will inevitably be attracted when they hear of organisations desperate to get money out the door as proof they’re doing their job, coupled with an almost total absence of serious checks.

With the result that Welsh public funding that could have been better used will be wasted.

As for the Development Bank of Wales itself, I went to the accounts, to see what I could turn up. Not easy because what’s filed with Companies House (or certainly what appears on the CH website) is a sometimes messy photocopy.

But if I’m reading it right, then profit for the last financial year was half of the previous year. (Full accounts available here in pdf format.)

I believe the Development Bank of Wales is a dysfunctional body. I also believe that description extends to the grant-awarding system throughout the administration.

◊

CONCLUSION

My belief is that a competent and legitimate businessman or businesswoman coming to Wales with a viable project should be able to find funding from the usual commercial sources.

Too many of those who’ve been awarded loans or grants, or been given publicly-owned land, and other forms of help over the years, have been out-and-out crooks.

But even when the recipients of funding are genuine, there’s always the danger that money given to be spent on a project in Wales will be lost through some intra-group dealing and end up somewhere else.

The ‘Welsh Government’ and the Development Bank of Wales should therefore focus on funding identifiably Welsh businesses and Welsh entrepreneurs, especially young entrepreneurs, operating solely within Wales.

Because building up an indigenous Welsh economy must be a priority. Also, building on what we already have, such as agriculture. Will the new Plaid Cymru administration do better than its Labour predecessor in this regard? Not a hope.

Because Plaid’s SMs know little and care even less about business. And anyway, when you’re saving a planet, while simultaneously fighting fascism and defending women with penises from genocide, you don’t want distractions like the economy, and jobs.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2026

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Senedd Elections 2026: Picking Through The Bones

On By JacIn Conservative and Unionist Party, Greens, Plaid Cymru, Reform, Senedd, Welsh Labour68 Comments

Where to start? A truly momentous result. But will it make much difference? Join me as I ramble through the results.

◊

THE VOTING SYSTEM

Let’s start with the widespread and growing feeling that the party list system, in 16 vast constituencies, was a mistake, and one that must not be repeated. But how did we end up with this monstrosity?

It started well enough, in February 2017, when the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ appointed an ‘expert panel’ of academics to look into various electoral systems and come up with recommendations. Which the panel did. But Labour (possibly also Plaid Cymru) didn’t like those recommendations.

The panel favoured the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system. And it specifically rejected the system used last Thursday. In this piece I put out a couple of years ago, I wrote:

On page 128 of the report we read the ‘closed list proportional representation’ system was rejected. It’s ‘weakness’ spelled out as, “No choice for voters between individual candidates. No accountability for individual Members directly to voters.”

Through a series of further – more political – groups, we arrived at the abomination forced on us last week. Based on the understanding that Labour would be the biggest party, with less than 40% of the vote in a low turnout, propped up by Plaid Cymru.

To put that into context: In 2016 Labour won 30 out of the 60 seats with 34.7% of the vote. Plaid Cymru came third with 11 seats and 20.5%. The turnout was 45.3%.

Never was it imagined that Labour would finish many lengths behind in third.

But it’s happened; and now Plaid Cymru needs to promise something better before the elections of 2031. With Wales now having 32 Westminster constituencies one obvious option is to elect three Members from each.

A simple system that would mean:

1/ Parties putting up three candidates in each constituency. Giving each party a total of 96, the same as we had on May 7.

2/ This  system would be far more representative in that it would allow voters to pick and choose from candidates. Even vote for three different parties 1, 2, 3.

3/ It would be fairer for smaller parties and independent candidates.

But will Plaid Cymru want to change the system that gave them victory, at last?

◊

PLAID CYMRU, REFORM, ALSO-RANS

Not for nothing do people say of me: “That bloke’s no curmudgeon“, and now I’m going to prove it . . . without getting carried away, you understand.

The victory last Thursday eclipsed everything Plaid Cymru has achieved in its century-long existence. Without wishing to sound ungracious, I believe Plaid did so well, in part, from negative voting. Because much of the Plaid vote was against other parties.

There’s an irony here. In campaigning ahead of the election Labour and the rest of the ‘progressive’ parties urged us to vote against Reform; but Labour didn’t appreciate just how many people also wanted to vote against them.

Now if people decide to vote against Reform and Labour – where they gonna go?

This can be seen in my home city. Swansea has been a wasteland for Plaid for decades; no councillors, hardly any presence whatsoever. Yet in the Gŵyr Abertawe constituency, corresponding roughly with the old seats of Swansea West and Gower, Plaid Cymru won 3 of the 6 seats, but with just 31.9% of the vote.

Another factor in the Swansea results was the feeling that the city has been short-changed by Cardiff-obsessed Labour governments in Corruption Bay. I’ll return to this aspect of the picture later, when I address what Plaid should do to live up to the hopes of those who voted for the party.

Especially those who voted Plaid for the first time. Hoping for real change.

It might be worth mentioning that of the Plaid intake 27 are women and just 16 are men. Plaid has been pushing ‘equality’ for a long time, but it appears they might have gone too far.

For as George Orwell warned us in 1984:

It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy.

Substitute Globalist-Woke agenda for Party.

Reform UK could have done better. Had they remembered this was an election in Wales, to the Senedd. Not a lot to ask, you might think. But it seems to have been too much for Reform. And many of their candidates.

What Reform offered was the usual England/UK spiel with a few unconvincing tweaks, offered by candidates many of whom seemed unsure where they were.

And yet, Reform got a good vote with 29.3%, and 34 of their candidates elected. With a better campaign Reform might have come out on top. If nothing else, the vote for Reform reminds us that we’re in uncharted territory.

And nothing shows this change more than the collapse of Labour’s vote. But this was long overdue. For too long Labour relied on the ‘hereditary’ vote in post-industrial and urban areas. Appeals to remember Nye Bevan and other emotive distractions from the embarrassing reality of modern Wales.

Throw in ‘Two-tier Keir’, and 27 years of failure from the Bay, and maybe Labour should be thankful they got 11.1% of the vote and 9 seats.

The Conservatives were almost squeezed out of the debate, and this wasn’t helped by the party’s woeful recent performance in Westminster. That said, 10.7% and 7 seats is not to be sniffed at. Just 0.4% behind Labour.

Reminding us that the Tory vote may be low, but it’s always there. Had things worked out differently they could have come third and been the junior partner in a coalition. That may be stretching it a bit, but an arrangement of some sort might have been agreed with Reform.

A month ago the Greens looked set for 7 or 8 seats, but recent revelations about the leader and some of his cronies put paid to those hopes. It’s all very well being weird, but when you’re weird and dangerous, then people will turn away.

The Lib Dems got their one seat with Jane Dodds in that ‘camel’ of a constituency, Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd. Nationally, they managed 4.5% of the vote.

I won’t dwell on the minor parties and independent candidates except to show you this from the Welsh Communist Party statement. It was put out after the election. I show it because it tells us what’s wrong with Wales. (I didn’t know we had a Welsh Communist Party!)

“Fair, green and socialist Wales“. . . “progressive coalition between Plaid Cymru and Welsh Labour” . . . “extra-parliamentary pressure“.

In other words, more of the same. Too many thinking that way explains why Wales is in the mess she’s in.

◊

OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW?

Plaid Cymru has a golden opportunity – and a popular mandate – to put right the mistakes of the past 27 years.

For the first time Plaid can genuinely claim to be ‘The Party of Wales’, for it now has a better geographical spread in its support than Labour ever enjoyed, having been confined to the south (east of Llanelli) and the north east.

As I mentioned earlier, many in the Swansea area voted Plaid because they feel the city has been neglected by Labour administrations in Cardiff. This feeling is not confined to the city of my dreams.

Because administrations in the Bay have behaved as if they were an extension of Cardiff council. I pointed out a few months ago that five (of six) first ministers had served on the city council. (Carwyn Jones is the only exception.)

The leader of Cardiff’s Labour-controlled council, Huw Thomas, was elected last Thursday, the party’s only successful candidate in Caerdydd Penarth. No doubt he’s being lined up for bigger things. Or he was.

Remembering that they sit in Senedd Cymru not Senedd Caerdydd will be a big test for Plaid Cymru. But it’s essential.

On one of the post-election programmes former Plaid leader Dafydd Wigley was asked what the party should focus on in power. His answer was short and simple: “Economy, economy, economy“.

And as BusinessNewsWales reported on the Monday following the election:

‘Joshua Miles, Head of Wales at the Federation of Small Businesses calls on the new Welsh Government to provide “a clear economic strategy, with achievable targets and genuine accountability”.’

‘Russell Greenslade, Director, CBI Wales, also called on the new government to focus on partnership working, including with business.’

If Plaid Cymru is to honestly focus on building up the Welsh economy then they’d have the support of other parties. Certainly Reform. Or would they reject that to stay on the same path of failure with their soul-mates in Labour and Greens?

In her powerful farewell speech outgoing first minister Eluned Morgan faced her Ceausescu moment by arguing that Labour needs to re-connect with the working class. This is the working class that relies mainly on jobs provided by the business sector.

We need to go back to being the party of the working-class. We need the Labour Government nationally to change course. We need the wealth of this nation to be more equally distributed away from the South East.

Though working with business would be unpalatable to many in ‘progressive’ parties who have neither experience nor knowledge of real world economics. Worse, many believe job provision should be the preserve of the state, local councils, third sector, and nationalised industries.

With workers ‘represented’ by trade unions answerable to the state.

But the real obstacle to fulfilling Eluned Morgan’s vision is that the Labour party, like socialist parties elsewhere in the West, lost a large component of working class support through net zero costing jobs and raising bills; then further alienated the toiling masses with open borders, CRT, self-ID, and all the other ishoos from the Student Activist Toolkit™.

Fundamentally, Plaid needs to distance itself from all the things Labour did wrong.

One worth mentioning is the obsession with Wales saving the planet single-handed which, in practice, meant allowing windfarms and solar complexes, BESSs and pylons just about everywhere, all to benefit foreign companies providing no jobs.

Plaid talks the talk on community ownership of renewable energy projects. Give it a go; but to walk the walk community projects must be more than vehicles for activists to push their political hang-ups and soapboxes for enviro-nut good lifers.

Oh yeah, and make sure there’s a reliable backup supply.

◊

DR DAF GETS ON HIS BIKE

So will Plaid Cymru be an improvement?

Worth asking because Plaid may be more Woke than Labour; and even more in hock to the pressure groups, the lobbyists, and the single-issue fanatics.

Too many of Plaid’s intake view business – and the jobs it provides – as the capitalist enemy. Of the 43 Plaid SMs I doubt if more than a handful have experience of the real world economy.

Telling me that Plaid will follow the same disastrous path as Labour, forcing on us unpopular policies dictated by pressure groups. One such policy will be the war on private transport and the undesirable freedom it gives individuals.

As I pointed out in my previous piece Who Ya Gonna Vote For? Labour SM Lee Waters had worked for cycle group Sustrans (now Walk Wheel Cycle Trust), and he was the driving force behind 20mph speed limits, even on rural A roads.

Waters stood down last week, but he has a successor in newly-elected Plaid SM for Caerdydd Ffynnon Taf, Dr Dafydd Trystan Davies. And it didn’t happen yesterday.

And what a performance Dr Daf put on in his acceptance speech! He talked of the climate emergency, and he promised to go everywhere by bike, train, bus, or else he’d walk. But if it was pouring down and the bus didn’t turn up then he might resort to a car – but he’d record it so everybody would know what a good boy he is.

I’m sure most of the 151,198 registered voters in his constituency wanted to hear something better, hope for the future; but all they got was this sanctimonious little bugger telling them nothing is going to change.

And let’s remember that much of Plaid’s support is still in rural areas. Where there are few trains, sparse bus services, and ageing populations; so how will “on yer bike” be received?

Bad enough; but the whole concept of ‘Active Travel’ has been an expensive failure.

◊

CONCLUSION: PLUS ÇA CHANGE, PLUS C’EST LA MÊME CHOSE

Devolution has failed Wales because for 27 years Labour, either alone or in alliance with Plaid or Lib Dems, has ignored the economy, the NHS, and the real needs of the people. Choosing instead to play student politics; making gestures and taking ‘positions’.

Jo Stevens MP for Cardiff East and Labour’s Secretary of State for Wales, agrees. She also agrees with me that, “Plaid’s victory in this Senedd election was not a reflection of nationalist fervour or a genuine enthusiasm for independence. It was a rebuke of our own performance and a vote to stop Reform in Wales.”

IMAGE: @20NPHartleyHare

Those responsible for Labour being ‘distracted’, and the only ones to benefit from it, have been gangs of swivel-eyed activists. The “extra-parliamentary pressure” demanded by the Welsh Communist Party.

In the process, this failure created, and is now perpetuated by, a new political class that Djilas would have recognised. Members of this class were brainwashed in school and university. They then got jobs as spads and advisors to politicians. Or they joined lobbying outfits and pressure groups. Maybe they worked in the third sector and for other bodies reliant on the public purse. Some became ‘journalists’.

This political caste, this New Class, is increasingly distanced from the people, and is now entrenched. It’s become generational. It’s self-perpetuating. And it’s concentrated on the left. A very real threat to representative democracy.

Plaid Cymru won because people want change. But if Trystan Davies is any guide they’ll be disappointed, as Plaid will make the same mistakes Labour made.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2026

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Who Ya Gonna Vote For?

On 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 Labour52 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.

◊

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.

◊

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?

◊

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.

◊

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.

UPDATE 04.05.2026: Well, bless me! Young Owain is the son of Rhodri ‘Billions’ Williams, former boss of S4C and various other bodies. Owain is, or was, a Labour stalwart. The doubt might be justified by the party excluding him from being selected.

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 ♦

© Royston Jones 2026

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Looking Ahead To Senedd Elections

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

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

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

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

◊

‘WELSH’ LABOUR

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

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

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

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

LABOUR’S FIRST MINISTERS 1999 – 2026

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

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

But chickens come home to roost.

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

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

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

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

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

NOW LISTEN, STARMER, HERE ARE YOUR ORDERS

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

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

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

◊

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.

◊

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.

◊

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“.

◊

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.

◊

LIBERAL DEMOCRATS

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

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

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

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

NICE TIE, WOY

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

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

Happy days!

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

◊

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.

◊

CONCLUSION

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2026

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Devolution Is Cardiff Council On Stilts

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

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

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

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

◊

FIRST SECRETARY, FIRST MINISTER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gething is also standing down.

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

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

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

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

◊

SOME INTERESTING SENEDD MEMBERS

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

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

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

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

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

She is also standing down.

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

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

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

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

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

He’s standing down in May.

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

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

Which she’ll thankfully vacate in May.

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

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

Another one standing down.

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

Also standing down.

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

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

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

Thankfully, she’s also standing down.

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REGIONAL SENEDD MEMBERS

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

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

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

But did she own them?

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

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

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WHAT IT MEANS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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WHAT MIGHT THE FUTURE HOLD?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is it?

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

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

Huw Thomas, courtesy of Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2026

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Plaid Cymru – Party Of Nowhere

On By JacIn Plaid Cymru, Welsh Nationalism26 Comments

I’ve been meaning to write this, or something like it, for some time. So, with the Senedd elections roughly three months away, now seems as good a time as any.

In some ways I suppose this is an update to a piece I put out in February 2019, back when I was young, handsome, and gay: ‘Wales: nationalism ethnic and civic‘.

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THE PLAID CYMRU THAT ONCE I KNEW

The party I joined in the mid-Sixties was unambiguous in its call for independence. This was based on the belief in a distinct Welsh identity, coupled with the perception that Wales didn’t get a fair deal from the UK government in London.

We believed that independence was the only way to respect and protect Welsh identity while also improving the economic and other conditions of our people.

But I also flirted with ‘fringe’ groups. Though back in the heady days of the 1960s it was possible to see Plaid Cymru as the political wing of  a wider movement that included ‘militant’ groups like Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru and the Free Wales Army.

Maybe that’s stretching it a bit, but there was certainly ‘rubbing along’, maybe an acceptance that we were all on the same side, wanting the same thing. Here’s an image that might be seen to capture this acceptance, from Cilmeri in 1982, the 700th anniversary of the killing of Llywelyn II.

On the left of course, is Gwynfor Evans, then leader of Plaid Cymru, and former MP for Carmarthenshire. With two good mates of mine. In the centre, Peter ‘Gun’ Williams, and on the right, Gareth ap Siôn.

I often wonder what was going through Gwynfor’s mind when he found himself in such company. That bemused look is intriguing.

Happy days!

Plaid luminaries are rarely seen at such events now. Maybe like those they align with they view Llywelyn as a ‘medieval war-lord’, an ‘oppressor of the people’.

For history can cause Plaid Cymru bouts of confusion and convenient amnesia, with this applying to even modern history. As I was reminded in 2015 at the 50th anniversary of the drowning of Capel Celyn.

Plaid MPs and others were there reminding us how awful it had been: “Liverpool Corporation . . . Welsh-speaking village . . . injustice . . . something should have been done . . . blah . . . blah“.

But no mention of those, risking life and liberty, who actually tried to do something.

A TASTER FOR THE SECTION THAT FOLLOWS

I’ve taken this trip down Memory Lane as the first step in explaining how Plaid Cymru has gone from being a nationalist party with policies to improve Wales to the benefit of the Welsh into just another bunch of Globalist-Woke-left sloganistas.

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EPIPHANY, AND THE NEW BELIEF SYSTEM

The year 2021 was a watershed for me, and for many, many others. To begin with, there was Covid, and the vaccines. Once the lies involved in that whole episode became clearer, I saw many things in a new light.

(And now we learn that Bill Gates, global emissary for Big Pharma [in which he’d judiciously invested], caught the pox from Russian whores he met through Jeffrey Epstein. What a role model!)

Around the same time, in Wales, my eyes were opened to another threat. I’m referring to the takeover of ‘independence movement’ YesCymru by some of the weirdest and most unhinged people I’d ever encountered. (And believe me, I’d known a few!)

I knew such creatures were ‘out there’, but until they were all gathered together in the spotlight I hadn’t appreciated how fucked up they really were.

For until then I held the views from my formative years; which meant that I still believed ‘the opposition’ was fairly rational, and though wrong, still wanted the best for Wales.

I suppose I was still thinking of the socialists I’d grown up with, even within my own family. Decent people who’d read their Marx and Lenin, with deeply held views they could rationally (if unconvincingly) defend.

But the events of 2021 made it clear there were new kids on the block. Unread, incapable of rational debate, who could only deal in insults, defamation, and even death threats. (This episode was covered extensively on this blog.)

They wanted Communism . . . to give them freedom to do whatever they wanted!

It’s difficult to explain to anyone unfamiliar with those events how ugly some of these interlopers into adult debate really are. But here’s an attempt. This stuff’s water off a duck’s back to me, but like rabid animals they could turn on anyone.

Even a youngster who’d had the temerity to like a tweet of mine!

A key to understanding – or appreciating – this change between what I’d been familiar with and the new Woke left is the differing attitudes towards the working class.

Old-style socialists eulogised the working class. The Revolution would be achieved by them, and it would be for them. To the Wokies, and certainly after Brexit, the working class was the enemy, for the proletariat is socially conservative and rejects neo or cultural Marxism.

In simple terms: level-headed people in the real world want sod all to do with Wokism.

I’ve dealt here with YesCymru because it’s Plaid Cymru in a different wig. It was almost as if Plaid Cymru was using YesCymru, and other groups, to float some of the crazier ideas they weren’t quite ready to put in their election manifestos.

Just to familiarise us with them.

Admittedly, there was a guy up on the north coast claiming to represent ‘Labour for Independence’, though I suspect Bob Lloyd (bless him!) was founder and sole member.

What considers itself today to be the ‘broader independence movement’, includes not only Plaid Cymru, and YesCymru, but also fruitcake gangs like Melin Drafod, the Welsh Underground Network (should an ‘underground’ group have a social media presence?), and then there was mercifully short-lived Undod.

Did I say ‘broader‘! (Slaps wrist.) For these people independence is only worth having if it delivers a Marxist shit-hole implementing the Globalist-Woke agenda

And the same applies to Plaid Cymru.

The lone voice of sanity is Gwlad.

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A CLOSER LOOK AT PLAID CYMRU TODAY

The party that is Plaid Cymru today may be at its highest point in the polls, and predicted to win May’s Senedd elections, but I believe it’s also at a crossroads, perhaps a high-water mark it will never achieve again.

Such a bold declaration obviously requires an explanation. Let’s start with a few facts that I challenge anyone to dispute.

First, Plaid is riding high in the polls because enough voters belatedly realise that the Labour party in Wales (and beyond) is a bunch of lying, posturing, hypocritical incompetents. Many see Plaid as an acceptable alternative.

Second, there is a drive among the ‘progressive’ parties and the Globalist-run media to ‘Stop Reform!‘. As if we’re in some existential struggle with the forces of darkness. Plaid Cymru, seen as the best chance in Wales, will benefit hugely from tactical voting.

Neither of these can be considered positively voting for Plaid Cymru.

But switching from Labour to Plaid Cymru is pointless anyway. For closer inspection reveals that Plaid is very little different. On all the policies that have made Labour unpopular Plaid Cymru is in agreement, or would go further.

Let’s start with Net Zero. Plaid Cymru wants more investment in ‘renewables’ such as wind turbines. When confronted with local hostility to the exploitation of Wales and the blighting of our landscapes by foreign companies Plaid retreats to a position that argues against pylons – but still in favour of wind farms!

The only way to square this circle is to bury all the cables so we don’t have pylons. Which will incur further costs that will inevitably be passed on to commercial and domestic consumers. Result: Higher bills and even more job losses. Misery all round.

If you haven’t seen it yet, watch Plaid Cymru SM for Mid and West Wales, Cefin Campbell, and lead candidate for Carmarthenshire in the upcoming elections, get savaged at a recent public meeting organised by the CPRW. It’s painful.

On the issue of open borders and excessive immigration, party leader Rhun ap Iorwerth, has said that Wales – or maybe parts of Wales – must have more immigrants.

The justification for this position seems to be “depopulation“, and the effect this has on schools and services. But what about jobs for the parents of the kids he wants to fill rural schools?

Depopulation, in almost any area, at any time, is invariably an economic issue. Which can only be remedied in one way.

And that is to build a rural economy to retain and draw back the indigenes.

Or else disguise the problem by bringing in a new population that will not seek work, in order to massage the population figures. This has been widely practiced in rural areas for some decades.

But ap Iorwerth wasn’t thinking about the retirees and good-lifers we’ve known. He was thinking of a new population from places more exotic than Edgbaston and Esher.

So there’ll be no economic strategy for the rural areas of Wales.

Then there’s the debilitating anti-white racism, and Islamophilia.

Listen to former Plaid Senedd Member Bethan Sayed complain about too many white people on Welsh language television channel S4C. I would guess that 98% of Welsh speakers are white. But who cares about silly facts?

More recently, she’s suggested that Welsh schoolgirls should wear hijabs.

The sensible approach would be to remind new arrivals and those from other backgrounds that the obligation is on them to adapt to the country they live in, rather than to take girls from the host community back to the 7th century and a foreign culture.

Any attempt by new arrivals to impose their ways, their values, on a host community, is a form of colonialism. I would expect Plaid Cymru, of all parties, to realise that.

The modern left’s flirtation with Islam reminds me of the fable of the scorpion and the frog. But this time the scorpion will get to the other side before stinging the frog.

(Fittingly, this story may have originated in medieval Persia as the scorpion and the turtle. Fitting, because in 1979 middle class leftists cheered the return of Ayatollah Khomeini to Iran . . . then they were dealt with.)

With gender, it should go without saying that Plaid is right there, on message. Here’s another Senedd Member, Sioned Williams, imploring us to remember “transgender people whose lives were lost in acts of anti-transgender violence.”

How many are there? And how do the numbers stack up to all the school shootings and other killings carried out in the USA by unhinged individuals claiming to be trans?

The fundamental problem is that Plaid Cymru has lost the common touch, and with it its sense of what people in the real world want. It’s no longer a case of, ‘What does Wales need?‘ Now it’s, ‘What have we been persuaded to believe Wales needs?‘.

Because what’s important for Plaid is meeting with the approval of those whose opinions they care about – the campaigners, the pressure groups, the minority interests. For Plaid’s politicians, staff, activists, move in closed circles, echo chambers where their own prejudices are confirmed and their errors reinforced.

Go back and watch Cefin Campbell floundering when confronted by real people voicing genuine concerns about something that really impacts on their lives.

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CONUNDRUM

Plaid Cymru has swallowed the Woke agenda, accepted the Globalist narrative, and is ready to play its part in implementing the New World Order. This means a world without borders, and of course, without nations.

The Globalist agenda to de-industrialise, destabilise, limit individual freedoms, control the food supply. Then take over completely.

Which is why the Globalists work with those who share that agenda, Neo/cultural Marxists and Islamists. Who also want to bring down the West.

Yet to its traditional supporters, Plaid Cymru pretends it still believes in Welsh identity and nationhood. While assuring its new members and activists that it wants open borders, Welsh schoolgirls in hijabs, and replacing St David’s Day with a day of mourning for ‘trans victims’.

Unless you’re a Cossack, riding two horses rarely ends well.

And the economy? Our essential services? Not important when there are gestures to be made, lobbies to be pandered to, and dangerous minorities to prioritise over your own people.

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CONCLUSION

The point I hoped to make earlier about Plaid Cymru is that the party I knew was more easy-going, more welcoming. It was a broad church rooted in the real Wales.

Despite my ‘colourful’ associations in the 1960s, and a conviction in 1968 for trying to decapitate a statue, I was still accepted as a candidate more than once for local elections in the early 1970s.

But since then, and certainly in the past decade, Plaid Cymru has become a hard left party. One in which no deviation from the Globalist-Woke agenda is tolerated.

This combination of Stalinist mindset and extreme Wokism will be the hallmarks of a Plaid Cymru government in the Senedd. Which is why anybody thinking of voting for the party in May, as an improvement on Labour, and better than the other options, would be making a huge mistake.

Think again!

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2026

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Nadolig 2025

On By JacIn Plaid Cymru, Senedd, Welsh Labour53 Comments

Happy Christmas to all those who’ve supported this blog through another year. And may next year be good for you. I suspect 2026 could be a big year, both in Wales and the world. So buckle up!

My priority for 2026 is to persuade those who are clearly deserting Labour that Plaid Cymru is the wrong option. To make people understand that if Labour is the frying pan, then Plaid Cymru is the fire.

Plaid is now so off the wall with its Wokeism that it makes the most indoctrinated student sound rational; while its anti-white racism outdoes BLM, and its anti-Western rhetoric would gain approval from the maddest of mad mullahs.

While the party’s attacks on ‘ethno-nationalism’ undermine its raison d’être.

Plaid is at the point where, compared to the lunacies uttered by Liz Saville-Roberts, Sioned Williams and others, the old-fashioned Marxist wittering we get from Leanne Wood sounds almost coherent.

The message: Anyone who thinks Plaid Cymru would be an improvement on Labour in any way needs to be introduced to reality. Starting January 2nd.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2025