Category: Welsh Government

Looking Ahead To Senedd Elections

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

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

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

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

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‘WELSH’ LABOUR

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

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

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

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

LABOUR’S FIRST MINISTERS 1999 – 2026

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

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

But chickens come home to roost.

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

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

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

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

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

NOW LISTEN, STARMER, HERE ARE YOUR ORDERS

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

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

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

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PLAID CYMRU

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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REFORM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other fractures also seem to be appearing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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GREENS

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

But how they’ve changed!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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CONSERVATIVE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Though one of the more intriguing figures was this:

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

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

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

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

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

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LIBERAL DEMOCRATS

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

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

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

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

NICE TIE, WOY

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

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

Happy days!

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

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GWLAD

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

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

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

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

By which I mean they are not professional politicians.

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

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

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

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

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

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CONCLUSION

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2026

Buy Me A Coffee

Caveat Emptor!

On By JacIn Business and Commerce, Welsh Government, Welsh Labour45 Comments

Over the past year I’ve written a few times about companies in Wales profiting from the UK government’s ECO4 scheme, through cavity wall insulation, solar panels, heat pumps, etc.

Most recently, I’ve had to write about one of these companies going belly-up leaving dissatisfied customers; either suffering from poor workmanship that needed remedial work, or else jobs left unfinished.

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A BIT OF BACKGROUND, AND THE FIRST UPDATE

The first piece I put out was Saving The Planet – The Globalist Way! in July last year. This was followed by ‘Corruption Bay’ Living Up To Its Name? in December. Then, following the collapse of Consumer Energy Solutions, the next piece, in early January, was Grab The Money And Run!. Finally, towards the end of January, it was Cairngorm Capital – The Kiss Of Death.

Consumer Energy Solutions was part of a group of Welsh companies ultimately owned by Cairngorm Capital of Edinburgh through Dragon 2023 Topco Ltd. (Or, more likely, someone else owned them but operated through Cairngorm.)

But now there’s a new kid on the block in the form of New Dragon Holdco Ltd. The three directors of this new company, formed January 22, can be seen below. They all work for Oaktree Capital Management.

I used to see photos like those hanging up in cinema foyers when I was a kid, there from the days of silent movies. Where’s Rudolph Valentino?

Oaktree’s based in Luxembourg for its European operations, but can be ultimately traced to an address in Los Angeles. Though registered in the state of Delaware, which serves as a kind of internal tax haven in the USA. But it’s not straightforward, as the group accounts filed with Companies House for Oaktree Capital UK Ltd make clear.

Oaktree is another of those companies that makes nothing, grows nothing, and performs no service for the benefit of mankind. Just another gang of sharp-suited spivs shuffling around other people’s money to make themselves rich.

The parasite capitalism that bedevils and seeks to control the modern world.

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FURTHER UPDATE

In those earlier posts, another company that came into the frame was Quidos. Or rather, a number of companies operating under that name. Quidos seemed to provide training and accreditation for the ECO4 ‘retrofit’ companies listed in the panel above.

Originally based in Bath the Quidos companies trace back to the group through the involvement of Nick Pritchard of Bangor. Here’s a list of Pritchard’s many companies. Though now it needs updating, because a new name has appeared on the Companies House register as a minority controlling interest in Quidos Pure Ltd.

That name is Philip John Stanley. So what can I tell you about Mr Stanley? Let’s start with his Linkedin page. (Not sure about that waistcoat.)

To begin with, and to judge by the addresses of his previous companies, he lives in Liverpool. In fact, I compiled a list of companies with which he’s been involved. Here it is in pdf format.

The companies he’s formed since 2013 have a number of things in common. Most noticeably, that none of them ever turns a profit. They either fold without filing accounts or they return losses. How does the poor man survive?

And then there’s the strange matter of two companies with the same name, Love to Feel. Now I’m fairly sure that’s not allowed by Companies House. But Stanley got around it by naming one Love to Feel Ltd and the other Love to Feel Limited.

But why would anyone do that? It’s guaranteed to cause confusion.

The ‘Ltd’ company is based in Liverpool, and files as dormant. The ‘Limited’ company – Dissolved in May 2024 – gave its address as Bryn Derwen, Parc Menai, Bangor.

But the reason Philip John Stanley is appearing here is because of what seems to be a real departure for him, both in the line of business, and in locations.

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CONSUMER RIGHTS

If you go to the table I linked to above, you’ll see two Community Interest Companies (CIC). Now a CIC is not supposed to make a profit and, as the name suggests, it should serve the public interest.

One advantage of a CIC is that it’s easier to set one up with Companies House than it is to register a charity with the Charity Commission. Fewer questions are asked.

Consumer Rights Ltd was launched in November 2021, in Liverpool. It converted to a CIC January 12 2023, and the following day moved to Bryn Derwen, Parc Menai, Bangor.

Though Bryn Derwen appears to be holiday accommodation. Consumer Rights CIC seems to bounce between this address and the Business Centre, Llys y Bont.

There is a Consumer Rights website. (Here in pdf format.) At first sight I though it was an official government site. It has that ‘look’ to it, even similar colours to the Ofgem website.

Might this confuse people, like the two Love to Feel companies?

Less than a week after Consumer Rights CIC moved to Bangor Stanley launched Consumer Rights (Scotland) CIC. Giving an address in Leith, Edinburgh.

Does it link with Consumer Energy Solutions and the other companies in the group being – for public consumption – owned by Cairngorm Capital of Edinburgh?

A director in both Consumer Rights companies was James Joseph Rimmer. Here’s his Linkedin page. He spent over 17 years with Experian, one of the ‘big three’ credit bureaux. Major stakeholders in Experian are BlackRock and Vanguard.

Clearly, Rimmer would know how to use databases.

And Quidos Pure moved its address last month from Bath to Bodlondeb, Conwy, the old council offices now leased by Pritchard.

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REMEMBER NEV?

Another name we encountered in the table of Stanley companies I linked to, was Neville Wilshire. Which may sound familiar; if so, it’s because he was the star of the television series The Call Centre. He died in December 2021.

Which might answer the question: What’s the relationship between Consumer Rights CIC and the companies shown in the panel at the top? Including Consumer Energy Solutions, with its dissatisfied customers and unpaid former employees?

There clearly is a connection, for Stanley is a person with significant control of Quidos Pure Ltd. Majority control of Quidos Pure rests with Quidos Holdings Ltd, controlled by Pritchard. And Pritchard links with the other companies.

Also worth remembering that CES was based in Swansea. Like Nev’s call centre.

The company that links Neville Wilshire with Philip John Stanley is EAGA Card Ltd. It was originally based at these salubrious offices in downtown Chepstow, with accountants Macario Lewin. Which also has a presence in Swansea.

After moving its address to Llanelli EAGA Card Ltd was Dissolved in December 2022, after Neville Wilshire’s death. So I got to wondering about the EAGA or Eaga name.

There was a company of that name in Newcastle “supplying energy efficiency products“, bought up in 2011 by Carillion, and the name then disappeared, according to Wikipedia. There was also an EAGA Charitable Trust, which ceased in 2020/21.

But it seems the name was revived by someone in the same line of business as the Geordie original. And by January 2021 people were being cold called.

That may have been Neville Wilshire’s company. Or perhaps it was Philip John Stanley. For by then Stanley could have learnt how to use databases from Rimmer, and call centre know-how from Wilshire.

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THOUGHTS

Consumer Energy Solutions Ltd (CES) has departed this mortal coil, and last month the Administrator issued a Statement of Affairs. Assets available for “preferential creditors” amounted to £307,915. Yet the claims from employees alone amounted to £586,185.

Certainly, there are some creditors that’ll hardly notice the loss, such as American Express, owed £689,536. Or HMRC, owed £1,188,925. But many creditors are small local suppliers.

The total deficit was £112,671,723. With almost all that owed to ‘Alter Domus Trustees (UK) Ltd (Oak Tree)’. Presumably referring to Oaktree Capital Management, mentioned above.

This, I believe, is a debt spread across the group. Where the picture is no rosier. For all the shares in CES are held by Diversity Network Holdings Ltd, of Cardiff Business Park, Llanishen, where a Receiver was appointed February 11.

As you can see, the trading name appears to be Heatforce, or Heatforce (Wales) Ltd, which is still in business. Certainly, that’s how it appears. But the most recent accounts, up to year ending January 31, 2025 (showing a loss), acknowledged “difficulties“, restructuring, and the involvement of Oaktree.

But of course, these accounts were filed with Companies House before Consumer Energy Solutions went bust.

You’ll notice other companies mentioned in the restructuring. City Energy Network Ltd is still with us, as is City Energy Facilities Management Ltd, and so is Laver Group Ltd.

Of the other companies in the group panel at the top, accounts are now overdue with Companies House for those that haven’t officially gone into liquidation or receivership.

UPDATE 25.03.2026: First Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off has been issued against City Training Group Ltd, Simply Electric Metering Ltd, and Advance Energy Services Ltd.

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CAIRNGORM CAPITAL, A PERSONAL CONTRIBUTION

As you’ve read, Cairngorm Capital of Edinburgh is central to the collapse of CES and other companies in the group.

I earlier made a reference to “parasite capitalism” to describe Cairngorm, but maybe a better description would be ‘slash and burn’.

We invest in profitable companies that have the potential for transformative growth.

That’s Cairngorm’s business model; and yes, bankruptcy is certainly “transformative“.

In January I put out, ‘Cairngorm Capital – The Kiss of Death‘. In that piece I looked at other companies, outside of Wales, that got involved with Cairngorm. And found a very similar story with them.

One was Sentry Doors, near Doncaster. And I recently received a message from a former Sentry Doors employee. You can read it here.

That is a very unhappy ex-worker.

And yet it gives a personal insight into the Cairngorm business model we’ve seen in Wales – take over, put in (or buy) accomplices, treat the workers (and customers) like shit, run the company into the ground, grab what you can, do a runner.

The reference made to ‘ESW Knowles’ is to a linked company in Birmingham, that last June changed its name to Sentry Fire Safety Group Birmingham Ltd.

The directors there work for Cairngorm, and this company is covered by the same charge with Oaktree Bank PLC as covers Sentry Doors.

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CONCLUSION

A big part of the problem is that when governments have shovel-loads of cash to throw away on schemes like ECO4, with poor regulation and oversight (if any at all), then such schemes will draw people who, to put it kindly, will be less than honest.

And this will involve both local companies and foreign investors. With the former being used by the latter to grab the loot.

Here’s perhaps a personal example of what I’m talking about. Just last week the leaflet below came through my letter-box.

I phoned the number given, on Sunday, and again yesterday. Both times I got an American voice telling me the number was disconnected. What’s the point of distributing a leaflet with a non-working number?

The QR code links to the website. Which suggests a company called ‘FTCH Wales’. Using the same, unobtainable phone number. The Companies House registration gives the address of a Colwyn Bay solicitor.

(As for the ‘accreditations’ on the bottom – ignore them. Yer pays yer money and yer gets yer little badge, no questions asked. Or you just copy and paste.)

Googling the phone number brought up a link to FTCH Group, in Liverpool, possibly above an Italian eatery. (FTCH stands for First Time Central Heating.) The website provides the following message:

Yeah, I know the feeling.

In view of what happened to Consumer Energy Solutions (Reminder), and given the web of linked companies, some collapsed, the shady foreign investors, the missing money, the cold calling, there should be an official investigation.

But there won’t be.

Because the ‘Welsh Government’ is utterly useless. When it comes to money, business, or running an economy, those virtue-signalling clowns in Corruption Bay have been out of their depth since devolution started on May 6 1999.

They were always easy prey for sharks and shysters. But let’s look ahead.

After the Senedd elections on May 7 Labour will be out of power. Plaid Cymru looks likely to emerge with most seats, but not enough for a majority, so that’ll mean a coalition or some kind of agreement.

Things can only get worse.

A hell of a lot worse.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2026

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Devolution Is Cardiff Council On Stilts

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

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

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

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

◊

FIRST SECRETARY, FIRST MINISTER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gething is also standing down.

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

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

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

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

◊

SOME INTERESTING SENEDD MEMBERS

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

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

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

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

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

She is also standing down.

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

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

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

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

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

He’s standing down in May.

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

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

Which she’ll thankfully vacate in May.

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

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

Another one standing down.

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

Also standing down.

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

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

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

Thankfully, she’s also standing down.

◊

REGIONAL SENEDD MEMBERS

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

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

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

But did she own them?

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

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

◊

WHAT IT MEANS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

◊

WHAT MIGHT THE FUTURE HOLD?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is it?

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

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

Huw Thomas, courtesy of Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2026

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Riding Along On The Crest Of A Wave

On By JacIn Climate, Colonialism, Development Bank of Wales, Environmentalism, EU Funding, Welsh Government50 Comments

The title above is shared with a song I remember from my Sea Scout days. I can still smell those jumpers we had to wear. But by God, I looked good! And you should have seen my woggle!

This week’s contribution to help you understand Wales takes us down to Pembrokeshire. And a tip I received from the ever-alert Nicola Lund (@MrsLund1). It’s about a small company that seems to be doing remarkably well. Or maybe it’s folded.

Unless I get distracted and go down too many rabbit holes this should be a quickie.

◊

G’DAY, MATE

Yes, it’s an Australian company. By the name of Bombora Wave Power Europe Ltd, which has facilities in Pembroke. Here’s the website.

Consulting the Companies House entry we see it’s a one-man band, and that one man is Sam Russell Leighton. Turning to ‘significant control’ tells us ownership rests with Bombora Wave Power Pty Ltd in Australia. The company address given is a PO Box in the northern suburbs of Perth.

If we scroll down to the Certificate of Incorporation we see the UK company was originally named Bombora Europe Ltd, but the address given for Russell was an enterprise centre just south of the Swan River in Perth. The single share issued for the European entity is of course held by the Australian company.

To find out more about the holding company in Oz I went to the Australian equivalent of Companies House. Where I learnt the parent company was registered 04.07.2011.

Here’s the company document I downloaded. You’ll see there are two directors; Sam Leighton and Allyn Murray Wasley, who is still based in Perth. Directors who left the company last year include two Japanese, a Dutchman living in India, and Andrew Clive Buglas of Worcestershire.

Here’s the announcement from 2020 of Buglas becoming a Bombora director.

Confusingly, Buglas’ Linkedin page says he left Bombera in November 2022 but the company document from Australia says he left February 2024. Could be a typo, I suppose. The point is, he’s gone.

Why did so many directors leave Bombora last year?

Turning to the shares, 304,591,633 have been issued. Which is impressive. Though Leighton himself seems to be a minority shareholder. The biggest shareholders would appear to be the family of Glen Lee Ryan, who may have invented the wave power machine Leighton has been working on in Pembroke.

Here’s Ryan telling us about his invention.

Anyway, you can go through the shareholders yourself. You’ll see there’s a Welshpool in Western Australia, and the only shareholder from Wales I could see is Stepan Labounek, a Czech living in Bridgend.

The only other UK address among the shareholders is that for Enzen Ltd in Solihull. Now owned by NXZEN, with just over 73 million Bombora shares. The accounts for Enzen are almost a year overdue with Companies House. As are the accounts for NXZEN Global Ltd.

To cut a long story short, I believe NXZEN is owned, via the Glas Trust Corporation, by global equity firm Levine Leichtman Capital Partners of Beverly Hills. I find this interesting because in July Glas cropped up when I wrote about small companies in Cardiff suddenly hitting the big time in retrofitting homes with expensive equipment to save the planet.

It’s all here in Saving The Planet – The Globalist Way!

And now we see Levine Leichtman cropping up again in connection with a ‘green’ project in Wales. What a remarkable coincidence!

Apropos of nothing, Capital Law is a big firm in Cardiff that works for the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’. And as the website makes clear, Capital Law also works with the ‘Welsh Government’-owned Development Bank of Wales (DBW).

Google AI even tells us:

So I was not entirely surprised to read that Capital Law has also had some involvement with the boys from Beverly Hills.

◊

MONEY, MONEY, MONEY

Let’s go back to the (UK) Companies House documents for Bombora, and in particular, the finances, or rather, the loans. And Google AI Overview:

Bombora secured a £10.3 million European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) grant, administered through the Welsh Government, to support its Pembrokeshire Demonstration Project for the mWave wave energy converter. This funding is part of a total project investment of £17 million. 

So if that’s £10.3m from the ERDF, can we assume that the remainder of the project cost of £17m came from the ‘Welsh Government’ through the DBW? Which would be explained by the five outstanding charges, from 2019, with the DBW?

There was a further arrangement in 2022 with HSBC.

Also the £3.54 million from Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd of Japan. Which would account for the Japanese directors of the Australian parent company. But they left last year, so what does that tell us?

I checked addresses for Bombora, and found the correspondence address given is a residential property in Milford Haven. But the business premises is a rather strange-looking building in Pembroke Dock, which might be owned by the county council.

Clearly, a great deal of money has gone into Bombora. At least £20 million. Was it worth it? Are the wave energy machines Bombora produces viable? Is the company creating employment for locals?

I don’t want to sound overly negative, but I have many questions. And sometimes my doubts can be triggered in the strangest way. Let’s go back to the website to give you an example.

On the homepage, top right, we see the tab ‘News’. I always find this irresistible. So let’s click on it. There’s nothing after August 2022. Before that there were regular entries, but nothing for over three years. Why?

The whole website has a kind of ‘neglected’, not updated, look to it.

Then, in May this year, Companies House was notified that the man behind Bombora, Sam Russell Leighton, had either moved back to Australia, or perhaps had never left.

The most recent accounts show a company in debt to the tune of over £5 million.

It would be a hell of a lot more were it not for ‘Intangible assets’ of over £18.5 million. But ‘intangible’ could be anything, or nothing. I could value my ready wit and beguiling demeanour at £50 million. (And they’d be undervalued!)

It makes me fear these wave energy machines may already be at the bottom of Shit Creek rather than heralding a brave new dawn on the Cleddau.

◊

CONCLUSION

An Australian company turns up in Wales and gets the red carpet treatment.

This sort of thing happens all the time. Just give out some spiel about the environment, green energy, diversity, fascist farmers, misinformation, and some clown in Corruption Bay will respond with, “How much do you need?“.

But there’s no benefit to us from any of it. We’re just expected to feel morally uplifted while we watch out for the bailiffs.

So let’s finish with a mix of questions and observations.

If my fears are unfounded, and Bombora’s wave machines are a huge success, where will the profits go? Answer: back to the shareholders of the parent company in Australia. And of course, Levine Leichtman Capital Partners of Beverly Hills.

If the wave energy machines are a failure, who’s out of pocket? Answer: those who’ve put up money, including the Development Bank of Wales. In other words, you and me.

Which then prompts the question: how much exactly has DBW-‘Welsh Government’ given to Bombora? Similar question for Pembrokeshire County Council.

I’m not the first to wonder this. A Freedom of Information request was sent to the ‘Welsh Government’ about a year ago. Here’s the response. A similar request went to the county council. Here’s the very slippery reply.

I thought that the job of the Development Bank of Wales was to encourage the growth of Welsh businesses. So why did it fund an Australian company?

How odd that I should mention, twice in six months, Glas and owner Levine Leichtman.

How well known to each other are Levine Leichtman, DBW, and Capital Law? Mayhap they co-operated on the Bombora project? Other projects?

How many more foreign companies will be fawned over and funded before politicians, Development Bank of Wales, civil servants and others, realise the only way to achieve a healthy Welsh economy is to encourage indigenous businesses?

Of course, I’m assuming they want Wales to be an economic success. But after 26 years of the disaster that is devolution, I’m no longer sure.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2025

Caerffili By-election: Random Thoughts

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

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

◊

PLAID CYMRU AND LABOUR, LABOUR AND PLAID CYMRU

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

◊

ATTITUDES, REACTIONS, RESPONSES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

◊

LOSERS, WINNERS, CONCLUSION

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And where are the Conservatives? Remember them!

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

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

∼

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

Apologies to George Orwell, Animal Farm.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2025

Saving The Planet – The Globalist Way!

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

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

◊

HOW IT BEGAN

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

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

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

Click to open enlarged in separate tab.

Now I was really curious.

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

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

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

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

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

◊

THE WEB

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But it doesn’t end there.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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SURELY NOT!

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

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

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

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

Edinburgh. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

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

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

Just a thought.

◊

THERE’S MORE . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But why did it buy out the operation in Cardiff?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See what you make of it.

◊ 

FOR THE HARD OF UNDERSTANDING

Let me explain how the Globalist climate scam operates:

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

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

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

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

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

∼

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

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

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

◊

FINAL THOUGHTS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Those parasites running the most profitable scam ever devised.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2025

Whisper It In The Tramshed

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

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

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WHISPER AND LABOUR

Our tale begins with two announcements.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is Ken being lined up for a WRU job?

So what more can I tell you about Whisper Films?

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

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

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

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

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WHISPER IN THE TRAMSHED

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Was Labour’s Cardiff branch instructed to help Whisper?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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THE SLOW DEATH OF YR EGIN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A perfect fit!

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

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

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

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

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

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CONCLUSION

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

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

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

♦ end ♦ 

© Royston Jones 2024

Parabola Bute Energy, Scottish Echoes

On By JacIn Colonialism, Corruption, Welsh Government, Welsh Labour, Wind Turbines38 Comments

This piece has been prompted by information received from Scotland, which may clear up a lingering mystery, while also telling us more about the operations of those involved with Parabola Bute Energy.

I use that name because I’m convinced that Bute Energy, which wants to build some 20 wind farms in Wales, plus other installations, also mile after mile of pylons, is little more than a venture into the renewables sector by property group Parabola.

I say that because the ultimate holding company for all Bute companies is Windward Global Ltd. This company is controlled by Oliver James Millican. He is the son of Peter John Millican, who runs Parabola.

The son worked for the father at Parabola, as did the other Bute principals (though some have since left Bute). They all ‘departed’ Parabola late in 2017 or early in 2018.

But to avoid confusion, I’ll stick to the name you’ve become familiar with.

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NEWS FROM THE NORTH

I’ve written a lot about ‘Bute Energy’, in its various incarnations, but always from a Welsh perspective. And despite consistently identifying it as a Scottish company, I’ve never really looked into what Bute’s owners might have got up to in Scotland.

So let’s put that right. Starting with a warehouse, a very big warehouse, over 122,000 sq ft; it’s to the east of Glasgow, not far off the M8, which runs to Edinburgh.

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

If we turn to the Members of this LLP, we see the names of Oliver James Millican, Stuart Allan George, and Lawson Douglas Steele. These are the names we’ve become familiar with as they keep turning up as directors of the Bute companies in Wales.

At the bottom of the list we see David James Taylor, a Labour insider in Wales whose name has cropped up a few times in the Bute saga.

The warehouse had been used by Lidl, but the company decided to move out to a purpose-built warehouse of their own. So Grayling looked around for a buyer. They didn’t find one, but the Covid pandemic did provide a tenant, in the form of the Scottish government. Or rather, the Scottish NHS.

The lease runs to 31 January 2031, at £766,094 per annum. Which was a good bit of business for Grayling, but it got better. For in March 2021 the warehouse was sold for £14.326m to the Lothian Pension Fund. Ultimately owned by the City of Edinburgh Council.

Though I ask myself, why did Lothian Pension Fund pay £14.3m for a property it must have known sold for half that price just over two years earlier? Did the Auditor General get involved?

Grayling Capital LLP is now liquidated.

In the report I just linked to you’ll see the sale worded thus:

The Lothian Pension Fund has acquired a prime logistics warehouse at Eurocentral in North Lanarkshire from Windward Titan.

Windward Titan was a vehicle set up specifically for the warehouse deal in Scotland, and that explains why it hasn’t been mentioned on this blog. Though ‘Windward’ should certainly be familiar to regular readers. It crops up with a number of other companies.

Windward Titan is now dissolved.

The directors were of course Millican, Steele, and George. Control was exercised by Windward Enterprises Ltd, which is now – since St David’s Day this year – known as Windward Energy Ltd. Which is in turn owned by the company mentioned above as the ultimate holding company, Windward Global Ltd.

Here’s the warehouse disappearing from the Windward Titan balance sheet.

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You’ll see that the warehouse was valued at just over £7 million. It sold for £14.3 million. And on top of that there’s the income of £766,000 a year from the Scottish NHS until 2031. Did that lease transfer to the new owner?

What’s more, a Scottish source tells me that the value of the warehouse was increased because as part of the lease the Scottish government agreed to undertake improvements costing £2.75m.

Bizarrely, this work meant that the warehouse could not be used at the height of the pandemic – which was the reason for taking out the lease in the first place!

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One reason I find this story from Scotland so interesting is that it seems to presage what we’ve seen in Wales. More on this later.

Another reason is that those involved in the warehouse deal are now in Wales posing as planet savers, but they are first and foremost property speculators.

Never, ever, forget that.

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WHO FILLED THEIR BOOTS, AND HOW?

Windward Titan was started with a single £1 share and there was never any money in the kitty, just the value of the warehouse. The only cash money appeared at the end, from the parent company, to settle up with the liquidators.

So to follow the money we need to turn to Grayling Capital LLP.

A LLP is a Limited Liability Partnership, popular with solicitors, accountants, and other professionals working as a partnership. When used in a more commercial context it can disguise ‘opaque’ dealings.

What you see below is from the final page of Windward Titan’s financial statement for year ending 31.03.2020.

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It tells that the Titan warehouse was bought by Windward Titan with a loan from parent company Windward Enterprises Ltd. And it also confirms that everything is ultimately owned by Windward Global Ltd and Oliver James Millican.

To return to Labour insider David James Taylor. Who’d been Spad to Peter Hain MP and Welsh first ministers Rhodri Morgan and Carwyn Jones. More specifically, to the money given to his company Moblake Ltd (originally Moblake Wind Ventures Ltd).

From Moblake Ltd financial statement for y/e 31.03.2021. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

There were two possible sources for the ‘interest free loan’ of £605,872 Taylor made to himself. Both linked to Bute.

One was his shares in Windward Energy Ltd (formerly Windward Enterprises Ltd), but he held these shares until July 22, 2022. Whereas the mysterious £600,000+ had been and gone from Moblake at least a year earlier.

The answer would seem to be Taylor being a Member of Grayling Capital LLP. He ceased being a Member September 13, 2021, which ties in with the sale of the Titan warehouse in March of that year to the Lothian Pension Fund.

The question then becomes . . . why was Taylor, living either in Wales or London, involved with a Scottish company doing business in Scotland?

I think the answer may lie in the timing. Taylor joined Grayling Capital in September 2019, a year after the Bute boys seem to have found their way to Wales. They hired him to open doors in Corruption Bay and elsewhere.

So let’s look at what happened. And how I think it was done.

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BUTE COMES TO WALES

Now we’re going to look at how a clearly Scottish company manoeuvred itself into such a dominant position in Wales. But it could only have been done with the help of the Labour party.

On this blog, I first mentioned Bute Energy in November 2018, in Corruption in the wind?. But only tangentially. For I was really writing about a guy named Radford, who wanted to build three wind farms; two in Powys, the other in Pembrokeshire.

One of his projects, Hendy, near Llandrindod, was turned down by a planning inspector, but that decision was surprisingly overturned by Lesley Griffiths, who was at the time Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs Secretary in Corruption Bay.

To do that was strange enough. But it stank even more when it became clear that Griffiths did it just in time for the developer to erect a single turbine (never connected to the grid), in order to meet the Ofgem payment deadline on January 31, 2019.

Those involved even seemed to know about Griffiths’ decision in advance, to the extent of jumping the gun.

Here’s a recent update on Hendy from the CPRW.

Why did Lesley Griffiths give permission for a wind farm that was never going to be built? The answer is a 10-letter word beginning with ‘c’.

As I say, the guy involved was Steven John Radford, of Hendy Wind Farm Ltd. But he was only fronting for a big company called U+I.

The reason Bute got a mention was, and here I quote from that November 2018 piece:

In September Radford branched out again with Bute Energy Ltd, joining six days after its two founding directors.

Those two directors were Millican and Steele, who we’ve already met. Radford may have been their introduction to Wales. (Bute Energy Ltd was re-named RSCO 3750 Ltd in March 2020.)

Or maybe the key lies with whoever introduced them to each other. So let’s fit a few things into that time-frame.

Radford was already planning wind farms, and lobbying for him was Invicta Public Affairs of Newcastle. Invicta’s representative in Wales since October 2016 had been Labour Spad Anna McMorrin, now MP for Cardiff North.

The Bute Boys linked up with Radford, and Taylor might have taken over McMorrin’s role providing a link between developers and Labour party. A different Scottish source told me last year that Taylor has now been replaced by Sophie Howe, the former Future Generations Commissioner.

Here’s a table I drew up of some essential facts, with links. You might find it useful.

Among those who get a mention in the table are the four below. Vaughan is a former Labour MEP, and Uden is the husband of Labour MS Jenny Rathbone. For some reason you won’t find the panel below on the Bute website any longer.

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And even though McMorrin never seemed to work for Bute before becoming an MP in June 2017, she nevertheless declared £3,000 received from Bute earlier this year.

Throughout this story I’ve been struck by how often Newcastle crops up. It’s the city where Parabola began life. ‘Bute’ companies have used Newcastle addresses. And Invicta, the lobbyist we encountered with Anna McMorrin, is also based there.

And there are a number of Parabola outfits using a Newcastle address.

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But Invicta also has an office in Edinburgh, the city where we usually find Millican Jr, Steele, and George.

Something else worth remembering is that Lesley Griffiths and David Taylor know each other. They’re from the same area, here’s a photo of Taylor canvassing for Griffiths. Both had been involved in the Carl Sargeant tragedy.

What we looked at earlier in Scotland seems to be repeated to some degree with what we’ve seen in Wales.

On the one hand, we saw Millican and his mates do a lucrative deal with the Scottish Government. Here, Bute Energy has been adopted by the so-called ‘Welsh Government’.

In Scotland, a local government pension fund stepped in to buy Titan Warehouse for perhaps double what it was worth. Here there’s been a big investment from the Wales Pension Partnership. With some councils unhappy with the decision.

Is this all coincidence?

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WHAT NEXT?

Something worth remembering about Bute is that for all the companies, and all the wind farm projects, Bute has never erected a single bloody turbine. Perhaps because those involved are property speculators.

Which is why some people – and I’ve been one of them – think that Bute is not here to actually build wind farms. Maybe they’re just here to get exclusivity agreements with landowners and planning permissions.

Then sell up, making massive profits, without having done much other than smooch Labour politicians and sponsor Cwmscwt Annual Ferret Show.

But because there are now so many wind farm projects planned in Wales it can only be a matter of time before we see developers fighting turf wars. Maybe it’s started.

Take the case of Foel Fach and Orddu, just north of Bala.

Foel Fach Wind Farm Ltd, the company, was set up May 31, 2022. Head honcho is David Charles Murray. Orddu is a Bute project, the company formed a year later.

Murray got a mention on this blog back in October 2020 in, ‘Poor Wales: magnet for property spivs, fraudsters, and enviroshysters‘. I mentioned him due to his connection with the project between Port Talbot and Maesteg known as Y Bryn.

But Murray has been involved with many wind farm projects, and his main vehicle seems to be Coriolis Energy Ltd. It has a very basic website, and here’s the Companies House filing. Coriolis Energy is owned by Coriolis Energy Developments LLP. But again, that’s David Charles Murray.

Y Bryn Wind Farm Ltd shares a Berkshire address with Coriolis.

When we look at who’s behind Foel Fach, we see again Coriolis Energy Developments LLP and David Charles Murray.

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The map on the left shows the relative positions of the Foel Fach and Orddu summits. The map on the right gives the outline of the Foel Fach wind farm.

But this is where it gets a bit messy.

For a start, I can’t find a map for Orddu, so where will it end and Foel Fach begin? Are they contiguous? Do they overlap? Or are they two names for what will be one big site?

We’ve always been told there must be a ‘buffer zone’ between wind farms and National Parks. But Foel Fach runs right up to the Eryri boundary on the B4501. Who allowed this?

Incidentally, the ‘lake’ to the left on that map is the Tryweryn reservoir covering Capel Celyn. And Foel Fach wind farm will also overlook Frongoch, where Irish prisoners were interned after 1916.

And finally . . . I believe David Charles Murray of Coriolis is Scottish. Many of his other projects have been in Scotland. So are he and the Bute boys acquainted?

Wind farm developments in Wales are out of control, it’s a free-for-all. Planning permission guaranteed; no matter how ugly, inappropriate, or damaging the project. Wales already has too many wind farms (and too many pylons), we don’t need any more.

And because it appears we’re in this mess due to questionable links between wind farm developers and the Labour party, a thorough and impartial examination of such links is surely the best way to proceed.

Being the transparent and co-operative organisation it is, and with nothing to hide, I’m sure the Labour party will agree.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2024

Miscellany 18.07.2024

On By JacIn Climate, Colonialism, Environmentalism, Welsh Government, Wind Turbines38 Comments

I suppose I could have done a piece on Vaughan Gething’s belated resignation; but I’ve said almost all I want to say on that nice Mr Musk’s platform. He’s moving to Texas, you know. (Musk, not Gething.)

I will just add that Gething’s resignation speech was a classic of ‘Welsh’ Labour. He took no responsibility whatsoever for his fate; the mistakes, the errors of judgement, the lies, being an arrogant prick, no – it was all somebody else’s fault!

And of course, he was the victim of racism. Ideas of victimhood, and exploiting it, are now so embedded in the Labour party in Wales that they direct policy and legislation. As you’ll read in the third section of this offering.

Which is a Miscellany! A section on Woodknowledge Wales, yet another gang of enviro-shysters. Part three is on yet more tinkering by the ‘Welsh Government’ with the democratic process. And finally, some thoughts on wind turbines, and pylons.

◊

WOOD YOU BELIEVE IT!

An outfit that’s been in the news lately is Woodknowledge Wales (WKW). It encourages greater use of wood. I quote: “We champion the development of wood-based industries for increased prosperity and well-being in Wales“.

‘Well-being‘! That meaningless term used to justify anything and everything.

I have no issue with timber-framed buildings, or even buildings made entirely of wood. The issue is the politics, the funding, the peripheral messages and hidden agendas that always attach to outfits like WKW.

So who runs this show, and where might we find them?

Looking through the early directors of what was originally the Welsh Timber Forum I saw a few names I recognised, in fact, people I know personally. But there seems to have been a kind of takeover in 2016.

Of the six directors at the start of 2017, two have since left. The four remaining directors – of what converted to a Community Benefit Society (CBS) on St Patrick’s Day 2022 – all joined in 2016.

The two departures may even have been connected with the change to a CBS. Strangely, perhaps, of the 36 directors who’ve come and gone since 2001 those two were the only ones to describe themselves on the Companies House listings as ‘Welsh’.

Below you see the current WKW directors from the latest accounts (to 31.03.2023) filed with the Financial Conduct Authority. Also the companies they run or, in the case of Rachel Moxie, the day job. This filing still uses the address of one of the departed.

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Though I’m unclear on the status of Gary Newman. He was a director when WKW was a company, yet he’s signed the most recent accounts from the FCA as secretary.

But if Newman is now WKW secretary, rather than a director, this would explain why he isn’t listed as being a director of The Foundational Economy Alliance Wales Ltd.

This lot moved in November 2022 from the United Welsh housing association offices in Caerffili to an address in Porthaethwy (Menai Bridge), which is quite a move.

However, the new address for WKW, the one given on the website, is 22 Cathedral Road in Cardiff. (Possibly out back.) Also known as Pentan House, for at this address we also find, Pentan, Rant Media, Moxie People, LRM Planning, The Green Business Centre, and who knows who else?

With Woodknowledge Wales we have another outfit serving the ‘Welsh Government’s self-destructive obeisance to the Net Zero cult. With councils and housing associations made to use more wood in their new builds.

Much of which will be from timber grown by foreign corporations on what used to be Welsh family farms. Or wood from monoculture plantations poisoning land and water.

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The role I suggest for WKW would explain the presence on The Board of Shayne Hembrow of Corruption Bay’s favourite housing association.

Deputy Chief Executive / Commercial Director of Wales and West Housing Association . . .  In addition Shayne is chair of Shelter Cymru and Chair of Woodknowledge Wales.

Hembrow is yet another third sector grifter who came to Wales to help third-rate politicians wreck our country. But I can’t see him listed on the W&W website. Has he gone undercover?

In the FCA filings we see only Hughes, Meade and Moxey named as directors. So does this mean that Godefroy, Healy and Hembrow joined more recently? And why is Godefroy described in her bio as a “trustee“, for WKW isn’t a registered charity?

Finally, and in what seems to be a recurring theme, we have with Woodknowledge Wales a group close to if not controlled by Corruption Bay . . . with one of those involved getting loans from the Development Bank of Wales.

In the case of director Jasper Meade, in January 2020, he landed two loans from DBW Investments (14). One specific to a factory in Buttington, near Welshpool; the other, a more general charge over a number of his companies.

As I say, a recurring theme. Which is why I suggest the Development Bank of Wales needs to be investigated, and then taken away from the control of politicians.

∼

All that said, I could still support this push to use more wood if I thought it would result in a forestry industry employing thousands of people in rural areas, sustaining Welsh communities, complementing farming rather than being used to destroy it.

But that won’t happen. It’ll be like renewable energy, environmentalism, 20mph, and all the other results of politicians buying into the climate cult and the control agenda.

◊

BYE-BYE, PORT TALBOT

Let’s stick with Woodknowledge Wales (WKW) for just a minute. They’ve been pushing a report, ‘Serious About Green?—Building a Welsh wood economy through co-ordination‘.

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This makes it clear – as I suggested earlier – that WKW is not simply concerned with us using more wood in buildings. The agenda is much bigger.

And while the report itself seems to be the work of WISERD, the quote below is from Woodknowledge Wales, and can be found here.

Wales is a sheep, beef and dairy nation and Wales is a steel nation. These activities are deeply ingrained in our cultural identity.  They may have been rational activities for the past century but are not well-aligned to the low carbon needs of 21st Century Welsh society.

We must give up good-pay steel jobs and the Welsh family farm. And we must do so because a bunch of zealots have decided that we who belong here, working in our own country, in spheres they disapprove of, must lose everything.

◊

UNIVERSAL FRANCHISE . . . AND THEN SOME!

Now we’re going to consider the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill. Here’s a shorter summary. And this is how WalesOnline reported it last week.

You’ll see that everyone is to be put on the electoral register whether they want to be on it or not. Speaking for the Electoral Reform Society, chief executive Darren Hughes had this to say:

Automatic voter registration is a win-win for voters as it takes one more thing off their to-do list while also . . . helping to enfranchise the hundreds of thousands of missing voters in Wales.

Which is, as we psephologists are wont to say, and at the risk of sounding technical, utter bollocks.

“Takes one more thing off their to-do list“, says Kiwi Darren. But what if it was never on their to-do list? There are thousands of people in Wales who have chosen not to be on the electoral register.

Consequently, to put them on the register, without their permission, will be an infringement of their privacy and an assault on their freedoms.

As well as bulking up the electoral rolls the Bill also references candidates, and inevitably, we find ‘diversity’ mentioned. Here’s what the summary says on page 5.

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“Specific characteristics” is code for trans, as the ‘Welsh Government’ now shies away from using the legally incorrect and deliberately misleading ‘protected’. But it also introduces a new term with “socio-economic circumstances“? Does that mean preference will be given to poor people?

It’s worth asking, because the summary then takes a rather curious twist when it talks of “financial assistance“.

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(Is Section 29 written correctly, or should it read, ‘specified characteristics’?)

For me, the mention of disability is a distraction, for most beneficiaries of this largesse will in fact come from other groups.

I expect race and a certain religion to figure, but there may be another clue here.

Welsh Ministers may provide financial assistance schemes to help candidates in Welsh elections that have specific characteristics or specified circumstances overcome barriers to participation.

I went to the full version of the Bill in the hope of finding “specified circumstances” explained. But there was nothing. Leaving me to think the Labour party will sponsor candidates from certain categories on whose loyalty it can count.

Putting everyone on the electoral register only makes sense if we have compulsory voting. But we don’t, and I’m not aware of any plans to introduce it. So why put everyone on the electoral register?

Here’s another concern. This legislation might be in place for the 2026 Senedd elections, which means it will complement the Senedd Cymru (Electoral Candidates Lists) Bill. Yes, that’s the one giving us huge constituencies and closed lists.

In the WalesOnline article you’ll see mentioned Mick Antoniw, the Counsel General. Now I have concerns about this man’s role in elections.

Counsel General, Mick Antoniw. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Mainly because of his involvement in pushing through the closed lists system. I dealt with it in my piece Senedd Cymru (Electoral Candidate Lists) Bill. There I explained that Antoniw was even trying to get away with not naming candidates!

The electoral systems of Wales and the UK are screwed up enough without making things worse.

Consider, Labour has just won a landslide victory in the July 4 general election. But it was only a landslide in terms of seats, and entirely due to the peculiarities of the FPTP system. The turnout was well down on recent elections.

The problem – in addition to the Gething factor and the failure of devolution – is that too many people don’t feel engaged by politics, or feel that politicians don’t speak for them.

The priority should therefore be engaging with those who are already on the electoral registers but don’t vote. Because it makes no sense to register people who have no intention of voting.

One change we’ve already seen was the requirement on July 4 for those wanting to vote to produce photographic ID. Now as we know, from the USA and elsewhere, such a rule is racist, and so would never have been introduced by Labour.

For Labour is far more ‘flexible’ when it comes to rules relating to voting.

Which is why I predict that, in addition to putting everybody’s name on the electoral register, we shall also see moves to make postal and proxy voting easier.

In the 2026 Senedd elections we could see un-named Labour candidates, with “specified characteristics” and “specified circumstances“, benefit from “financial assistance” . . . and be elected in turnouts of 127%.

Try to argue then that democracy’s in trouble!

The truth is that once again we see Labour introducing dangerous divisions and dubious methods to serve its own narrow political interests.

◊

LINKS TO THE OLD NORTH

Many of you must be aware of Bute Energy’s plans for a pylon run some 60 miles long from that company’s wind farms in Powys south through the Tywi valley to Llandyfaelog, south of Carmarthen.

There the line from Powys will connect with the line from Pembroke to England. For of course virtually all the power generated in Wales goes to England. (Thankfully, we get the thousands of excellent jobs provided by ‘renewables’.)

The project is being handled by Bute’s Green Gen Cymru. And it’s explained, sort of, here, and if you scroll down there’s even an interactive map.

As might be expected, there is considerable opposition along the route.

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And the plan is severely testing the loyalties of some politicians. (Also, their mental dexterity.) For example, Ann Davies, the new Plaid Cymru MP for Caerfyrddin, has said she opposes the pylons . . . but not the wind turbines.

I don’t want to spend too much time on the Tywi valley project because it’s really just the intro to the other elements of this section.

As I say, roughly half of the electricity generated in Wales goes to England, and the amount will increase if all the planned wind farms get built. The situation is similar in Scotland, with electricity generated there having even further to travel to consumers in central and southern England. (With power being lost in transmission.)

And although it’s been reported once or twice, I’m not sure how many people are aware of the planned new Scottish connection. In a nutshell, it’s proposed that electricity generated off south west Scotland will be taken by undersea cable to Pentir, near Bangor, and then overland to Swansea North substation.

I’d like to be able to show you a map of the route, but there isn’t one, all I’ve seen is a vague line from Bangor to Swansea . . . through Eryri. Which obviously isn’t going to happen.

In this CPRW article Dr Jonathan Dean has this to say.

The route of this line is not yet known, despite me asking them numerous times.  As they will not get consent for pylons in Eryri national park they basically have two options:
  • along the north coast to Conwy, up the Conwy valley, past Bala then down to the Tywi valley to Swansea
  • across the top of Pen Llŷn to Porthmadog, subsea to near Aberystwyth then cross country to Swansea

Which could mean the pylons coming down the Teifi valley, where there is already a campaign fighting Bute pylons. This Bute line will carry electricity from Lan Fawr, east of Llanddewi Brefi. I assume it will also serve Blaencothi and Nant Ceiment.

Bute Energy projects in Wales. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Then the pylons will also run down to Llandyfaelog. But will they share the line coming from Powys, or will there be two pylon runs past Llandeilo? And will they interfere with the route of the planned bypass?

However you look at it, lovely Ystrad Tywi is in for a forest of steel pylons marching for mile after mile over hill and dale. Each one sunk in hundreds of tons of concrete. And all done to save the environment, innit?

∼

The reason that Scotland and Wales have despoiled landscapes in order to generate electricity for England, is partly due to their politicians buying into the climate scam, and partly due to the difficulty of building onshore wind farms in England.

The latter due to different laws that allowed communities affected by such projects to object and, effectively, block them. But the law is changing.

Clearly, if onshore windfarms can in future be built in England, where the power is needed, there’ll be less need to erect windfarms in Wales. In fact, the need might be removed entirely.

It seems obvious to me that many of the mooted projects won’t now be needed. And that might include the pylon runs in the Teifi and Tywi valleys, even the big one from Bangor to Swansea.

And seeing as Bute Energy has yet to erect a single turbine, I think the ‘Welsh Government’ should call a halt to onshore wind projects in order to assess how the new legislation in England might impact on Wales.

We don’t want the ‘Welsh Government’ (via NRW) felling tens of thousands of trees, allowing hundreds of 800ft wind turbines, and hundreds of miles of pylons, if nobody wants to buy the electricity they erratically produce.

We’ll just have to live without the thousands of £70,000 pa jobs they’d have created.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2024

Coleg Soros And Associates

On By JacIn Colonialism, Corruption, Environmentalism, Globalism, Labour Party, Welsh Government, Wind Turbines, World Economic Forum19 Comments

This wasn’t planned, but it’s too big and complicated for a tweet, and so I’m putting it out as a quickie. As the title suggests, it concerns Coleg Soros in Talgarth, otherwise known as Black Mountains College.

For those new to this blog, or regulars with short memories, I have written a few times about Coleg Soros, so just type the name in the search box to the right. This piece from June 2019 will explain why I’ve renamed Black Mountains College after that evil old bastard (scroll down).

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COLEG SOROS GROWS!

Over the years I’ve become aware of two Coleg Soros entities: the now dissolved Black Mountains College Ltd, and Black Mountains College Project Ltd.

But there was a third company I’d somehow overlooked. In my defence I’ll say that this other company wasn’t launched until just before Christmas 2022. It’s Black Mountains College Operations Ltd. Scroll down on the overview page and you’ll see that it’s devoted to education.

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It began life with a single £1 share held by director Ben Rawlence, who’s been involved with Coleg Soros from the off. But then things moved on apace.

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INTEREST FROM AFAR

In June 2023 there was a share issue with a total value of £4,480,000. A couple of weeks later, William John Lana became a director. In November 2023 the company produced a breakdown of shareholders. Here it is.

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Like me when I first saw it, you’re wondering about Rewilding Wealth Ltd. So here’s what I found. It’s registered with Companies House as an Overseas Entity. Located in that bastion of probity and openness, the British Virgin Islands.

But using a Hong Kong correspondence address.

When we seek the beneficial owner(s) we see named, Andrew James Kadoorie McAulay, of Hong Kong, and the Bermuda Trust Company Ltd based, as you’d expect, on the sun-drenched isles of the same name.

Trying to make sense of it I wondered who McAulay is. What I found interesting is the Kadoorie element of his name. Because the Kadoories were a family of Jewish merchants in Baghdad who moved to China. And became very, very rich.

◊

AND CLOSER TO HOME

William John Lana, who we met earlier, may be the UK representative of Rewilding Wealth Ltd (RWL). I’m guessing that because in the Articles of Association for Black Mountains College Operations Ltd (page 12), it says:

For so long as RWL holds any shares in issue from time to time, it shall be entitled to nominate, appoint and maintain in office one person as a director of the company and to remove (or remove and replace) such director from time to time.

So what do we know about William John Lana? Well, let’s start with his Linkedin page, which mentions a number of companies he’s involved with. Partly confirmed by this Companies House entry.

But no mention of the one run by him and his wife, Greenfibres Ltd. It’s one of those companies that charges Guardian readers over the odds for linen and suchlike so they can sleep easy at night knowing they’re superior to the common herd destroying the planet.

Though I did find Greenfibres listed separately.

◊

MAKING SENSE OF IT

I think the key here is Rewilding Wealth Ltd. For while there is a Caribbean connection, I believe the majority holding lies in Hong Kong, with Andrew James Kadoorie McAulay.

As I’ve told you, his mother is a member of the ultra-wealthy Kadoorie clan, and his father, Ronald James McAulay, is a Scottish-Hong Kong billionaire, now in his late 80s.

Apart from McAulay Jnr being chairman of Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden, it’s difficult to know how he whiles away the hours, or how he makes his contribution to the family pile.

Hong Kong was handed over to the People’s Republic of China at midnight on July 1, 1997, and Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden was quick off the mark. For Wikipedia tells us, ‘Conservation work has been extended to Mainland China since 1998’.

‘Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!’ Click to open enlarged in separate tab

In fact, digging around, it became clear that McAulay works quite happily with communist China. It looks as if he and his family are ‘flexible’ in dealing with the comrades, and have been for some time.

An example might be him sitting on the board of the China Light and Power Company (CLP) from 1997 to 2000. Which coincides with his time as a director of UK-based Solar Century Holdings Ltd, now owned by Norwegian state-owned Statkraft.

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SOPHIE GETS IN ON THE ACT

Clearly, someone has plans that involve Wales, but will probably have little or no Welsh input. (Rather like Coleg Soros itself.) Other than the necessary permissions to go ahead. But why is whoever’s behind it all using a small education establishment in Powys?

To make sense of it, let me first make clear that Black Mountains College Operations Ltd is controlled by Black Mountains College Project Ltd.

Within days of William Lana becoming a director of the new creation, Sophie Joyce Howe joined the board of the parent company.

She is of course the former Future Generations Commissioner. Her Linkedin profile claims she’s now a ‘freelance’. Which may be true, but she’s not averse to picking up a few well-paid gigs on the side.

Because a good source told me Howe’s another of the many Labour insiders on the payroll of Scottish company Bute Energy, which wants to cover our beautiful country in wind turbines and pylons.

And then, when I checked the Charity Commission entry for Black Mountains College Project I could see that Sophie Howe is also a trustee of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance. She joined in July 2023.

And let’s not forget that in the extract I used from the Articles of Association of Black Mountains College Operations, and the reference to appointing a director, Howe might also fit the bill if the clause extends to the controlling company.

But if she is the designated RWL director, then who is Lana representing?

◊

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

Rewilding Wealth Ltd may do what it says on the tin, by which I mean it seeks investors for rewilding projects. And as the Guardian told us a few years back, there’s serious money to be made.

In which case, Coleg Soros will serve as the entry point, perhaps facilitator, for foreign investors buying up Welsh farmland. Something the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ fully supports, and which might explain Sophie Howe’s involvement.

Another possibility, is that Kadoorie-McAulay is fronting for the Chinese Communist Party, and they want their slice of the Welsh renewables cake. For in its blind acceptance of the Globalists’ climate scam the ‘Welsh Government’ has laid our country wide open to exploiters from around the world.

Neither corporate rewilders nor Chinese Communist party should be acceptable to any Welsh man or Welsh woman who cares about this little country of ours. It’s all we’ve got.

Something else that is unacceptable is the way Labour insiders benefit from cwtshing up to those exploiting Wales. Selling political influence for personal gain is exactly what Labour politicians accuse their Conservative counterparts of doing.

Deluding yourselves that taking the money is justified because you’re saving the planet is rank hypocrisy. Which is of course Labour’s stock-in-trade.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2024

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

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

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

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LEO FROM THE OLD SCHOOL

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

◊

WHAT LEO DID NEXT

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

If you go to the About panel on Linkedin, and click on ‘see more’, you bring up what you see below. I’ve highlighted parts that I’ll be referring to as you read on.

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There’s nothing listed after she ended her stint with the WNO in August 2019. What followed is partly explained in the image above, with the rest filled in as we go along. But now, let’s turn to another line of enquiry.

Here’s the relevant page from Companies House. There are some interesting entries there. Let’s go through them.

The oldest active directorship is with English Touring Opera Ltd. She joined 7 June, 2021. Less than two years after leaving the WNO.

On 18 November, 2021 Leo became a director of the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales Ltd. Well, when I read that you could have knocked me down with an illegally-released-into-the-wild beaver!

Yet nothing I see in her background suggests an interest in flora and fauna. Truth is, this was a political appointment to an organisation the ‘Welsh Government’ wishes to use in its war on livestock farming.

In November 2021, with another woman, Thomson set up Studland Hill Ltd. This is a property management company in West Ealing, London. The other director gives as her address a house being renovated according to this Google map for January 2021.

On 23 March 2023 Thomson and three others set up Omidaze Productions Ltd in Penarth. Here’s the glossy website.

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Once you read, “fairer and more equal society” you know it’s about leftist propaganda rather than theatre. More ‘Waiting for Gramsci’ than anything Beckett wrote.

Can’t help wondering where the money comes from, cos I’m damn sure Omidaze don’t pay for itself.

Monk Racing Ltd is an odd one. Formed in 2000 it’s always filed as dormant. The key to Thomson’s involvement is probably Anthony Kenneth Lewis, who was a founding director, and is the joint owner with her of a house on the Taff Embankment.

Lewis resigned from Monk Racing 9 April, 2023. Thomson joined 27 June, 2023.

There have been two stints where Leo served as a Labour councillor. The first you’ve already read about, from 1998 to 2006 in the London Borough of Ealing; and now, from May 2022 for the Riverside ward in Cardiff.

Given the Philistines in Labour’s ranks, both on Cardiff council and in the Senedd, I’m sure the comrades have deferred more than once to Thomson’s knowledge of the finer things in life.

‘How do ew spell opera, love?’

Though I’m beginning to wonder if Leonora Thomson is bad luck. Let me explain.

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HARD TIMES, FOR SOME

Towards the end of September last year, it was announced that the ‘Welsh Government’-controlled Arts Council was pulling the plug on the National Theatre of Wales (NTW).

In March we learnt that Thomson was joining as interim CEO. Having already served as Interim Joint Chief Executive from October 2019 to June 2021. And now NTW has moved to the Tramshed, a nest of Labour cronies and insiders.

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Another body to lose funding recently was the WNO. Where Thomson was managing director for almost 4 years until August 2019. (Though I believe she returned in some kind of temporary capacity.)

Which means the WNO lost funding after Leonora Thomson had been involved, and while she was Chair at English Touring Opera. Seeing as the WNO performs at English venues some might see the WNO and the English company as competitors.

Though it’s difficult to explain these cuts to two such important cultural bodies as the WNO and NTW when one of their main funders, the Arts Council of Wales, saw its income increase by more than 50% in just 4 years.

Where did the extra money go? Surely it didn’t all go to Theatr Clwyd?

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A third organisation to lose funding following an association with Leo Thomson is the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and Creative Lives (RWCMD). She was working there in some unspecified ‘freelance’ role.

One organisation linked to Leonora Thomson suffering a funding cut, I could dismiss; two, I might, just, accept as coincidence; but three, and in such a short space of time? Do me a favour!

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UNDERMINE, TAKE CONTROL

What we’ve just looked at is a phenomenon I’ve seen regularly in recent years. I wrote about it a year ago in Taking Control, Of Everything. I focused then on the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) and the Football Association of Wales (FAW).

It’s the ‘Welsh Government’s method for taking control of an organisation.

The first stage is to discredit and undermine the target organisation, maybe also those running it. (Sometimes with inside help.) Stage Two is the reduction or withdrawal of funding. Stage Three, the takeover; done through a combination of restored / increased funding and the appointment of politically loyal or malleable individuals to the organisation.

A bit like the CIA handbook for regime change.

What we’ve seen done to the WNO, NTW and RWCMD could only have been achieved with the assistance of the Arts Council of Wales; which had already undergone the same treatment.

I wrote about it back to August 2021.

First in Corruption Bay and a tale of Cymrophobia (23.08.2021). In which I reported that the Arts Council and the National Museum commissioned three reports in June 2020 to look into ‘widening engagement’.

To make sense of it, remember that George Floyd died the previous month and there was fierce competition as people fought to honour his memory capitalise on his death.

The three groups commissioned were:

An unregistered entity run by Labour insiders Lu Thomas and Jon Luxton.

Richie Turner Associates. Here’s the image then being used on his Linkedin page.

To give a reminder of the period. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

(Though the company of that name wasn’t formed until February 1, 2022.)

The third outfit commissioned was The Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union (WAARU). Which had no presence anywhere – yet its anonymously submitted report was accepted!

And remember! 31 other applicants were rejected in favour of these three.

The piece in which you’ll find these joys unalloyed was followed with Arts Council of Wales and Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union, an update (31.08.2021).

And then (06.09.2021) Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union unmasked, in which I identified those behind WAARU. The usual mix of chip-on-shoulder race grifters and middle class leftists trying to live out their slogans.

Woke employees of Welsh national institutions collaborating with their Woke allies outside to discredit and undermine the organisations they worked for.

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FINALE: FITTING LEO INTO THE BIGGER PICTURE

The evidence might suggest that Leonora Hope Thomson has been employed by the ‘Welsh Government’ as some kind of hatchet woman; sent in to various bodies and asked to recommend ‘economies’ and ‘restructuring’.

Part of a pattern that sees ‘Welsh Government’ /  ‘Welsh’ Labour, take control of our public, artistic, and sporting life. Done at the behest of the shrieky and the unhinged to promote the Woke agenda.

Which explains how we see Leo, and National Theatre Wales, of which she’s interim CEO, joining the migration to the Tramshed. Which is of course good news for the owner, Cardiff council (Labour); and the lessee, the Count of Abbasock (also Labour).

And it contributes to the circular economy of which I wrote in the previous piece.

Welcome to socialist Wales 2024. The circular economy, benefitting those lucky enough to be in the ‘circle’. Where there’s no private investment, and everything is state funded, but only those close to the ruling party can benefit.

And having mentioned Cardiff council, it’s worth adding that even though she was only elected in May 2022, Thomson, who hardly knows Cardiff, is now Chair of the council’s Labour group.

I wonder who decided to give her such rapid promotion?

I suggest we watch Leonora Hope Thomson, and the Tramshed with which she’s now linked. Both might have roles in the political and public life of Wales.

In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Leo’s name isn’t already pencilled in on one of the closed lists for the 2026 Senedd elections.

Finally, what I found perhaps most disturbing when writing this was that I had difficulty telling the Labour party and the ‘Welsh Government’ apart. They should be two clearly separate entities.

That they’ve effectively merged is, for me, confirmation that Wales is a one-party state.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2024

Segregation Makes A Comeback

On By JacIn Corruption, Corruption Bay, Globalism, Public Funding, Racism, Welsh Government, Welsh Labour39 Comments

As I’ve said before, 2016 was a watershed year in Western politics. Brexit coupled with Donald Trump’s victory told leftists they’d lost large sections of the (white) working class.

This resulted in a desperate search for a replacement ‘proletariat’. Groups and issues that had been around for a while were cleaned up, eagerly adopted, and zealously promoted. Which explains many things.

Among them, the rise of climate hysteria, a career criminal named George Floyd achieving something close to sainthood, and otherwise intelligent people pretending to believe that men can have babies.

It also explains why Wales is rapidly falling apart, as the intellectually debauched denizens of Corruption Bay turn their backs on the real world, preferring to serve the Globalist’s Woke-Green-Left agenda.

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CITY OF MY DREAMS GIVING ME NIGHTMARES

There’s an outfit in Swansea called BAME Mental Health Support (BMHS). For those unfamiliar with the term, BAME stands for Black Asian and Minority Ethnic. (Here’s the Companies House entry.)

A clumsy term applied to all who aren’t white. Pretending that every non-Caucasian shares similar problems in mental health or anything else is absurd. The UK government agrees, having dropped the term a couple of years back.

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This crew in Swansea could, more honestly, call themselves the Nigerian Mental Health Support CIC, for all involved hail from that West African country.

They’re based on the High Street, sharing with the trade union Unite and Swansea council’s Housing Options, next door to Not Only Sofas Clearance Outlet.

So who’s who at BMHS?

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ALFRED THE GREAT

The driving force is Alfred Oluwafemi Oyekoya. His wife Nancy Buka is the secretary. I’m told she has a hairdressing establishment nearby, specialising in beads, braids, and extensions.

The couple achieved fame, of a sort, when they met Simon Cowell and David Walliams. Though the remark about, “doctors spreading conspiracy theories“, has not aged well. (Unless you swing it 180 degrees, perhaps.)

Oyekoya was awarded an MBE in this year’s New Year’s Honours List.

His Linkedin page tells us he got a Master’s in Accounting and Finance from Swansea University. He’s also worked for the ‘Welsh Government’ and a WG-funded outfit called Inspire Training.

Now he’s treasurer for the Books Council of Wales.

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All of which suggests that Alfred Oyekoya is well thought of in Corruption Bay.

And when he finds time he also works for the MoD in Bristol. Which either means a long commute from his Swansea home, or else he works from home.

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THE REST OF THE GANG

As I’ve said, Alfred Oluwafemi Oyekoya is an accountant. We find two other bean-counters among the directors; Adewale Dare and Monday Noutouglo. Dare lives in Nigeria, Noutouglo lives in Canada.

Why does a mental health outfit in Swansea have an accountant in Canada, and another in Nigeria? Or, to rephrase it, what possible use can they be to people suffering mental health issues in Wales?

What also struck me was that these two joined BMHS on the same day, 12.01.2023.

Fortunately, there are doctors on board.

Though Dr Adesola Samson Ademiloye is a lecturer. With a company registered to him that links back, by a tortuous route, to this private equity firm.

Then this suggests he’s a civil engineer. While this page from the Swansea University website mentions ‘biomedical engineering’.

Is any of this relevant to mental health?

While Dr Oluyinka Emmanuel Olutunde might be a medical doctor, and allowed to practise in the UK. But if this is him, then he’s certainly not registered as a GP.

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To confuse matters further, I found a Linkedin profile for an Oluyinka Olutunde, a paediatrician, who seems never to have worked outside Africa. But then, I also found this. Is it the same picture?

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THERE’S MONEY IN BOOKS

‘New Audiences‘ is a funding scheme launched a couple years ago by the Books Council of Wales.

Below you see how the grant to BMHS was listed in the projects for 2022/23. Together with a couple of grants from 2023/24 to give you a flavour of how the scheme is going.

Does being in a room with a lesbian make someone ‘lesbian-adjacent’?

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Which means that Alfred Oyekoya joined the Books Council in October 2021. Less than a year later we find his own brainchild BMHS trousering a £39,000 grant.

Do you find that mildly troubling?

Another BMHS funding source I found was foodbanks in Swansea.

But I can’t see what books or food have to do with BAME mental health; though no doubt a good book and a full belly help people feel better.

But you could make a case for sex, alcohol and a nice holiday. So if I’m feeling a bit down can I apply for a week in Tenby with a bodice-bursting slapper and a crate of Malbec?

What passes for the BMHS accounts (‘unaudited statutory accounts’) gives a turnover of £183,000 for y/e 31.03.2023, but ‘turnover’ refers to un-itemised grants and donations. ‘Administrative expenses’ totalled £164,000.

And while there was just one employee the previous year, this had risen to four in the latest accounts. What do these ’employees’ do?

BAME Mental Health Support is a misnomer in every sense. All involved are Nigerian. And it might have little to do with mental health.

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WARPED PRIORITIES

But this happens when the Woke lead the none-too-bright.

We’ve reached a stage where two Haitians in Tonypandy could launch The Haitian Anti-defamation League, demand ‘Welsh Government’ funding, and then get rat-arsed every night in The Gartered Gombeen, before rounding the evening off with sweet and sour bat (with fried rice) from the Star of Wuhan.

To ask them to account for how they spent the grant money would amount to racism. And you will be reported to – The Haitian Anti-defamation League.

Getting serious again (unless of course there are two Haitians in Tonypandy thinking along those lines) . . .

What we see at the Books Council of Wales is an organisation having to spend a bigger portion of reduced funding on Woke twaddle, of interest only to narcissist ‘artists’ and a few equally unhinged admirers.

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And everywhere we look in Wales we see the same thing: services being cut, and what is specific to Wales and its people treated with less respect than is given to assorted grifters, especially those shrieking about climate, race, or gender.

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GRIFTING AT THE GRAND

What I’m writing about is an imagined victimhood that can be a nice little earner for those who’ve figured out how to manipulate politicos and others into funding them.

An example might be British Virgin Islander Nkechi Allen Dawson, director / trustee of the African Community Centre (ACC), at the Grand Theatre’s Multicultural Hub.

I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that Nkechi Allen Dawson works for Coleg Gwent, as a Diversity, Inclusion and Well-being manager.

How did we manage before such jobs were invented?

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ACC’s 2023 ‘accounts’ show £258,665 in readies, and 7 employees (3 in 2022), but no indication of where the money came from. And the website is no help – it’s ‘being updated’.

Fortunately, we can turn to the Charity Commission, which tells us that in the past two years ACC received £263,560 in ‘government grants’. That information should be available in the ‘accounts’, and on the website.

Incidentally, the African Community Centre has 7 directors / trustees. We’ve met the two from the BVI, then there’s a Kenyan, but the other four are Nigerian.

Also appointed a director of the ACC on the same day as Nkechi Allen Dawson was another woman from tax haven BVI (Pop: 31,000), Charlotte Ajomale Evans,

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BLACK SWIMMING

Charlotte Ajomale Evans’ Linkedin profile tells us she works full-time for the Black Swimming Association (BSA).

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Yeah, that’s the way to ‘break down barriers’ – segregated swimming. Didn’t Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and a host of others fight against that sort of thing?

But then, everywhere you look in the world of DEI you encounter self-serving hypocrisy and doublespeak.

Here’s where BSA’s funding came from in year ending 31.08.2022.  (RNLI = Royal National Lifeboat Institution. LMCT = London Marathon Charitable Trust.)

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RNLI, eh? Do drowning black people have to be rescued differently to drowning white people?

Here’s the explanatory note for the RNLI in the BSA accounts, page 23:

Funds received for consultancy services, including research and
development, and community engagement.

No surprise there, because so many of the Wokie scam outfits I’ve looked at over the years have minted it from ‘consultancy’ fees.

Just think of Stonewall, which virtually blackmailed public bodies into paying to be lectured (and misinformed) in order to be a ‘Diversity Champion’.

We’ve largely freed ourselves from that particular nightmare, but there are plenty more lurking out there.

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“GROWING CONCERNS” AND “UNCONSCIOUS BIAS”

And now a report from Arise News, a Nigerian site I’ve never quoted before, and probably never will again. I do so this time because it’s about Alfred Oyekoya. It begins:

Amidst growing concerns surrounding fair treatment for ethnic minorities in the Welsh workforce, Alfred Oyekoya MBE . . . has advocated for the implementation of labour laws to tackle discrimination and unconscious bias faced by Nigerians and other ethnic minorities in Wales.

That opening paragraph gives the clear impression that racism or discrimination against “ethnic minorities” is rampant in Wales.

Or, rather, that’s the impression given to Arise News by a man who studied at a Welsh university, who’s worked for the ‘Welsh Government’, who’s treasurer of the Books Council of Wales, whose company has received tens of thousands of pounds in public funding and, on a recommendation from within Wales, got an MBE!

A man who’s been treated better since he arrived in Wales than most Welsh people ever will be – repays us with accusations of racism.

Let’s look at another worrying element of the paragraph I quoted – “unconscious bias“. It’s mentioned twice.

Legislation can tackle overt discrimination, the kind of thing perhaps exemplified with the old lodging-house sign. We’ve had such laws for 50 or 60 years.

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But Oyekoya’s “unconscious bias” takes us beyond overt discrimination. I think it even takes us beyond ‘thought crimes’, to somewhere rather scary.

For I think we’ve arrived in a place where you can be accused of prejudices you weren’t aware of, and of which you are innocent – because someone claims to know you better than you know yourself!

If “unconscious bias” can only be observed or detected by others then this will encourage false testimony from those with an axe to grind, and those who can benefit from such accusations.

And of course, an accused person will have no way to prove their innocence. If that’s not Kafkaesque, then I don’t know what is.

Just think of The Trial, which begins: “Somebody must have slandered Joseph K., for one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested.”

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FINAL THOUGHTS

Alfred Oluwafemi Oyekoya MBE needs to explain the interview he gave to (or the piece he submitted to) Arise News. From what I can see, Nigerians in Wales are doing very well. As are members of the BVI diaspora.

And I’d like to hear his explanation for, “Labour laws to tackle discrimination and unconscious bias faced by Nigerians and other ethnic minorities in Wales“.

Is Alfred Oyekoya dreaming of what we see in the States, where white people are barred from applying for certain federal government and other jobs, some colleges, and preferential treatment is given to minority groups?

So don’t be surprised if certain lobbies and individuals start demanding ‘affirmative action’ legislation to combat a problem that doesn’t exist. Legislation that they will help write, and from which they will benefit.

Let us be vigilant against any movement in that direction. And let us also ensure that the Corruption Bay Clown Show isn’t persuaded to add “unconscious bias” to the list of Wokie ‘crimes’ in another desperate attempt to appear ‘progressive’.

We don’t want some poor bugger dragged off by the Unconscious Bias Squad.

It could be me!

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2024