The Road To Hell

On 08.11.202313.11.2023 By JacIn Arts Council of Wales, Colonialism, Corruption Bay, Environmentalism, Greens, Public Funding, Welsh Government, Wind Turbines112 Comments

The previous post got considerable attention and it also unlocked fascinating new information. And that explains this follow-up. Which I hope will result in further revelations.

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WHERE ARE WE?

In the previous post I dealt with the Bryn Cadwgan wind farm planned by Galileo Green Energy. This is a Swiss company that set up a UK operation a few years ago to cash in on the Welsh wind turbine rip-off.

Different rules in England mean that complaints from local communities must be listened to which, in practical terms, means that no onshore wind farms get built. This sees Wales and Scotland increasingly used to supply electricity to England from a source the English don’t want.

Even to the extent of electricity from wind farms off Scotland’s west coast coming by undersea cable to Bangor, then down to Swansea, where it can connect with the main transmission lines from Pembroke power station to England.

Here in Wales, every project of 10MW or above is classed as a Development of National Significance (DNS), which means locals, and their elected representatives on local councils, will always be over-ruled by politicians in Corruption Bay who’ve declared war on a people they regard as racist, climate-denying, car-driving, transphobes.

It’s succinctly explained here. The chronology is intriguing.

In addition to the Galileo proposal I also knew that Bute Energy, a Scottish firm that rents a cupboard in Cardiff to fool us into thinking it’s Welsh, had a plan for an installation they were calling Blaencothi. Though details were scarce.

But true to form, Bute has again recruited a local to proselytise on its behalf. This one is Cilycwm community councillor Jamie Pickup. We can no doubt expect Pickup to be speaking up for all three projects.

But the third project, Waun Maenllwyd Wind Hub, being pushed by Belltown Power of Bristol, was a bit of a surprise. Possibly because it had previously been known as ‘Bryn Brawd’, and I’d perhaps assumed it had fallen though because I’d heard no more of it by that name.

Anyway . . . since putting out last week’s piece I have been told that the companies behind these three projects are combining to share a route to the plateau that forms the southern end of the Cambrian Mountains of central Wales.

In fact, the route is described here on the Belltown website (scroll down):

The proposed access route to the site for abnormal indivisible loads (such as blades, hub, nacelle and tower sections) will be from the port of origin (which is likely to be Swansea) via the M4, A48 and A40. Loads would turn off the public highway at Pumsaint and travel north for approximately 14km on a combination of existing commercial forestry tracks and new tracks to reach the wind farm location. No significant traffic flows will be associated with the operational phase of the site.

Who could argue with that? A motorway and nice wide trunk roads all the way. Problem is, the route as given is sort of incomplete. Let me explain.

As written, deliveries will turn off the A40 at Pumsaint . . . but the A40 goes nowhere near Pumsaint. Which makes what Belltown says misleading, if not dishonest. And if they could get this so wrong, what else might they have got wrong?

The truth is that after leaving Llandeilo the huge low loaders will turn onto the B4302 and head for Talyllychau (Talley). Then on to Crugybar and the Bridgend Inn (where I sank a few pints in the good old days), where they’ll join the A482 to reach Pumsaint.

Using my bestest crayons I’ve conjured up this map that might explain it better.

For those of you unfamiliar with this road, take my word for it, it will struggle to accommodate massive low loaders carrying huge turbine blades and tower sections.

Below is a capture from Google Maps showing the B4302 just after leaving Talyllychau on its way to Crugybar. Those hedgerows will have to go. And so will many other trees and hedgerows on the 13 miles from the A40 to Pumsaint.

Now we’re going to move on to Stage 2 of the environmental vandalism associated with these projects. The section that involves the National Trust (NT) and the ‘Welsh Government’.

UPDATE: I should have mentioned that Belltown is closely linked with the Foresight Group. And if that name rings a bell it’s because Foresight has been buying up farms in this area for carbon offsetting.

With the Foresight reputation damaged locally Belltown may be fronting for Foresight. Questions need to be asked. And answers demanded.

UPDATE 10.11.2023: It was learnt last night that Belltown will be taking the A482 from Llanwrda to Pumsaint. Galileo will take the Talyllychau route suggested above. No information yet on the Bute route, but it doesn’t really matter. Because there will now be two roads suffering expensive damage.

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DON’T TRUST THE NATIONAL TRUST

Once the huge low loaders reach Pumsaint, or just outside the village, they’ll take a right turn onto National Trust property.

This is the Dolaucothi estate, home to the famous ‘Roman’ gold mines, once owned by the Johnes family, who also owned the Hafod estate, to the north. Hafod fell into the clutches of the National Trust last year. With a 99-year lease and £700,000 gift from the ‘Welsh Government’.

In other words, the ‘Welsh Government’ paid an organisation worth billions £700,000 to take over a prime Welsh estate.

Despite the excuse given by Corruption Bay for this generosity it might have been due to the involvement of Dawn Bowden MS. As Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport the Hafod deal should have had nothing to do with her. But Tourism’ has since been added to her portfolio. Fancy that!

Response from ‘Welsh Government’ to FoI request. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

I wrote about it in this post, scroll to the section ‘Bristol Fashion’. And then in this post, in the section, ‘”Welsh Government” funds National Trust’.

It’s instructive to consider the organisation of the National Trust in Wales, and what happened at Hafod. Not least because it might provide clues as to why the NT would be a willing party to this planned environmental disaster.

It was early June last year when we learnt that the Trust was taking over the Hafod estate. Which seems to be owned by the ‘Welsh Government’ through Natural Resources Wales, and had until then been run by the Hafod Trust.

Just three months earlier, in March, Lhosa Daly of Bristol, had taken on the role of NT’s Acting Director for Wales, and was appointed to the post officially in September. I mention Bristol because that’s where she lives.

If we look at her career background we see that in the past seven or eight years Daly’s been chair of the Bristol branch of the Institute of directors, vice chair of the Bristol Law Centre, and she is still a business ambassador for the Western Gateway.

These positions would have brought her into contact with the glitterati of Bristol’s business community. Including, perhaps, the directors of Belltown Power, the company planning to desecrate our country with Waun Maenllwyd Wind Hub.

With Belltown, Bute and Galileo hoping to reach the site by traversing land owned or managed by Lhosa Daly’s National Trust and the ‘Welsh Government’.

The mystery of Dawn Bowden representing the ‘Welsh Government’ last year, despite it being beyond her responsibilities, could be accounted for by her also being from Bristol. She and Daly might have already known each other.

And if that’s too fanciful an explanation for you, then try this: Bowden should have known Lhosa Daly through her being Deputy Minister for Arts since May 2021 and Daly being an advisor to the Arts Council of Wales since April 2019.

Come to that, how did Bristol-based Daly get that gig with the Arts Council of Wales?

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FINAL THOUGHTS

I’m told deals have been done with farmers and other landowners along the route between Llandeilo and Pumsaint to cut corners, destroy hedges, and in places widen the B4302, and even perhaps the A482.

This will cost a considerable amount of money. So who’ll pay for it? Will it be the ‘developers’? The county council? The so-called ‘Welsh Government’? Or will there be a whip-round in the Dolaucothi Arms?

And then there’s the question of how the National Trust squares being a conservation body with the damage it’s helping inflict on the Welsh landscape by these wind farms. What would NT members say, if they knew?

Not just in the road ‘improvements’ I’ve just described, but also on the 14km journey to the sites after the low loaders turn off the A482. And then the on-site destruction.

There’ll be the vast concrete bases to support these huge turbines, the access roads, the deep trenches for the cables. How many trees will be felled? How much peat bog damaged? And let’s not forget the pylons.

I ask about the trees because I’m told new populations of red squirrels and pine martens are establishing themselves. Will they adapt to climbing pylons and turbines?

I suggest that even if they stick around they’ll be so traumatised by what’s being done to their habitat they might stop breeding.

As if that wasn’t enough, someone then tells me . . .

We also have two breeding maternity colonies of soprano pipistrelle bats on my land, they will love the sonic signature of wind turbines of course.

Don’t worry – once the poor little buggers are disorientated enough the blades will finish them off pretty quickly. (If they’re turning!)

Them and the kites, and other birds. And insects by the million.

Nothing here really surprises me, because I’ve always regarded the National Trust as a very commercial organisation and, in Wales, rather colonialist. Lhosa Daly playing the memsahib is entirely in keeping.

Not only that, but there’s something of the vulture about the NT in Wales, picking up land and estates as old Welsh families die out. Or more recently, acquiring property from the ‘Welsh Government’ or Natural Resources Wales.

For example, Daly is also a director of a National Trust company called Porthdinlleyn Harbour Company (The). This relates to Porthdinllaen at Morfa Nefyn.

Porthdinllaen once belonged to the Jones-Parry (Madryn) family. Sir Love Jones-Parry MP, was very supportive of the Patagonia settlement. Which explains why a town over there is called Puerto Madryn; and is twinned with Nefyn, I believe.

Another example of this sad phenomenon is located not far from me, a place I love to visit. I’m directing you now to Llynnoedd Cregennan.

Llynnoedd Cregennan. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Major C L Wynne-Jones lost both his sons in WWII, so in 1959 he handed over this 285-hectare estate to the National Trust.

As I hope I’ve made clear, I’m not surprised by the National Trust’s behaviour with these wind farms, and the damage they’ll cause . . . what really pisses me off is that the National Trust is still operating in Wales.

Devolution should have brought Wales a new organisation to replace the colonialist parasite that is the National Trust. We should by now have a Welsh body conserving our heritage and our history, safeguarding our landscapes.

But to set up such a body would have required political leaders with vision and courage, rather than the grubby, ishoo-of-the-month puppets Wales is cursed with.

♦ end ♦

A Change Of Tack?

On 02.11.202327.11.2023 By JacIn Colonialism, Corruption Bay, Environmentalism, Welsh Government, Wind Turbines82 Comments

The title is a nautical reference to wind, and a change of direction, which I’m entitled to use cos I was in the Sea Scouts. Right! And what I’m alluding to will, I hope, become clear before the end.

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TWM SIÔN CATI

We start in the wild and beautiful uplands between Lampeter and Llanwrtyd, once home to Thomas Jones, known to us all as Twm Siôn Cati, or Twm Shôn Catti.

In the centre of the map I have pinpointed Bryn Cadwgan; Twm’s cave is to the west, and to the south east we see Ystradffin, where Twm took a fancy to the widowed heiress, Joan, and eventually married her.

Last year I wrote about a plan for wind turbines at nearby Bryn Brawd, which you can see to the north west of the pin. It was in this post, just scroll down to the section ‘Local benefits (well, local to somewhere)’.

A company mentioned in that piece, Awel Newydd Cyf, recently issued 43,659,462 shares. Which suggests there may be something in the wind. (Geddit?)

But I wouldn’t get carried away by the company’s Welsh name, for it’s ultimately owned by Elm Trading Ltd, which has being issuing shares like they’re going out of fashion.

The Elm Trading website tells that a number of its assets are in Wales.

We’re switching our attention to Bryn Cadwgan because another wind farm is planned there, and it should go without saying that the plan comes from yet another gang of foreign investors.

So who is it this time?

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GALILEO GREEN ENERGY

This company launched in early 2020, and is headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland. Set up with . . .

. . . an initial investment of £190m from its four institutional long-term investors,

These ‘investors’ are all from Australia and New Zealand.

Since then Galileo Green Energy UK seems to have divided into a Scottish operation, now based at 7 – 9 North St. David Street in Edinburgh; and a Welsh operation at C12 Cathedral Road in Cardiff.

Galileo Green Energy Wales was set up in April 2021, and was originally known as GGE Machynlleth Ltd (until 4 June 2021). Why ‘Machynlleth’ should appear in the name is a mystery, seeing as the original address was in Bristol, and the first directors lived in Italy (2), France, and Ireland.

Was the original plan to bless the Dyfi valley with yet another wind farm?

All 10,000 shares for Galileo Green Energy Wales are held by GGE Nordics Ltd, who can now be found at the North St. David Street address. But until January this year was up on the fourth floor of 115 George Street in Edinburgh.

The majority shareholder in GGE Nordics is Empower Renewables Ltd, also of 7 – 9 North St. David Street. When we look at Empower’s UK registration we see that apart from a Dane (who lives in Killarney) all the directors are Irish, with control exercised by Diarmuid Anthony Twomey of Castleknock, Dublin.

Twomey is also a director of Galileo Green Energy Wales Ltd.

At the risk of getting distracted or bogged down . . . another company using the fourth floor at 115 George Street as an address is Vistra Ltd.

I only mention this because Vistra’s main UK office seems to be at 10 Temple Back in Bristol. Which is where Galileo Green Energy Wales started out.

Finally, we need to look at Galileo Energy UK Ltd, formed 18 February 2022, and originally known as Galileo Green Energy Management Services UK Ltd. This company is wholly owned by Galileo Green Energy Gmbh of Zurich.

I bet like me you’re excited by all the Welsh involvement in these projects!

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MYNYDD TY-TALWYN ENERGY PARK

“So where are we now?“, you’re wondering. Well, Mynydd Ty-talwyn, or Mynydd Ty Talwyn, is just to the north west of Bridgend. Outlined in red on the map.

Other than Bryn Cadwgan it’s the only Welsh site I’m aware of. Though the website tells us (scroll down to the ‘About Galileo’ section): ”

Mynydd Ty-talwyn Energy Park is one of a pipeline of our new renewable energy projects in development across Wales.

So where are the others?

Never mind that for now, because I want to concentrate on a worrying claim and a serious untruth, on the Mynydd Ty-talwyn website; and I also want to highlight a major drawback with Bryn Cadwgan.

Under ‘Specifications’ ‘Wind’ we read,

Approximately 64,643 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions saved per annum.

We don’t normally see this calculation given, so why do we see it here? One possibility must be that the calculation has been made for the purposes of carbon offsetting.

Just as medieval evil-doers would pay the Church to be forgiven their sins, and carry on sinning, carbon offsetting is a twenty-first century version of the scam.

Immediately below we read, “Up to 50-year lifetime“. If that’s the projected lifespan of the Mynydd Ty-talwyn Energy Park then Galileo must plan to replace the turbines at least once. For few turbines last 20 years.

On the other hand, if Galileo is saying that the turbines they hope to erect at Mynydd Ty-talwyn will last 50 years, then that statement is an outright lie.

Another issue is that Mynydd Ty-talwyn is home to a . . .

Cluster of nationally important medieval house platforms and settlement remains.

The reference comes from a report of March 2021 to Bridgend CBC of scoping work carried out in relation to the application for nearby Y Bryn Energy Park.

And they’re shown clearly on the OS map for the area. Though just one is shown on the map supplied by Galileo (above) there are at least three around Mynydd Ty-talwyn.

We saw Irish control of Empower Renewables Ltd up at North St. David Street, Edinburgh, and Coriolis Energy, the company behind Y Bryn, is also Irish. The other company involved at Y Bryn is ESB UK, the UK face of a further Irish company.

Mynydd Ty-talwyn is not far off the beaten track, but even so, there will be environmental damage caused hauling huge turbine blades and towers to a relatively unspoilt area.

And let’s not forget the vast concrete bases for each turbine, and the access roads gouged out of the earth, the trenches for cables . . . and then there’ll be the pylons . . .

We can take it for granted that the blades and towers will not be manufactured locally, which will probably see them shipped into Swansea docks and then taken along the M4, before the final four or five miles of their journey to the site.

But the problems that’ll be encountered there are nothing compared to what will need to be overcome at Bryn Cadwgan. From Swansea docks the loads can take the M4 west, and then perhaps the A483 up past Llandovery, but then what?

Once you leave the A483 and head for Rhandirmwyn, and the closer you get to Bryn Cadwgan, the more you’ll realise that you’re really out in the sticks.

How many wind turbines can you get in the back of a farm pickup truck? Click to open enlarged in separate tab

To reach the site itself, new roads will have to be laid. The environmental damage caused will be immeasurable . . . unless of course those clever people at Galileo can get their calculators out again.

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WHO’S WHO AT GALILEO

Let’s start by going back to the main Galileo website. In particular, to the ‘Our People‘ section where, yet again, we see a complete absence of Welsh involvement. Whereas in Scotland, those involved all seem to be Scottish.

Let’s look first at Rob Paul and Joe Winton, both described as ‘Development Manager’. These two are also directors and shareholders of One Wind Renewables Ltd of Truro, a dormant company.

We find these two, along with Simon Edward Coles, at a number of renewables companies. They’ve been knocking around the sector since they were callow youths, and both seem to have started out with Ecotricity.

Next we turn to Leslie Walker, Senior Project Manager. Very interesting, Ms Walker. Here’s her Linkedin page to give you a clue as to where we’re going. (Scroll down to her ‘Interests’.)

On that Linkedin page you’ll see that she works for Dutch company Arcadis Consulting. And has done for over 30 years.

I’d never heard of Arcadis, maybe I should have, because it gets a lot of work in Wales. Much of it from the so-called ‘Welsh Government’.

Here’s an example. A report from just last month about Arcadis working with US company Tetra Tech for the ‘Welsh Government’ on a new bridge at the Prince of Wales dock in Swansea. No mention of Swansea council involvement.

But Cardiff council is mentioned in this piece about Arcadis helping the council develop an electric vehicle strategy. (In conjunction with the local fire brigade?)

Let’s step back to 2017 and find Arcadis working for the ‘Welsh Government’ on strategic transport connections for Dinas Powys.

And talking of transport . . . From November 2020 we have this final scoping report from Arcadis on the Integrated Sustainability Appraisal of the Wales Transport Strategy.

There’s a transport strategy!

Arcadis and the ‘Welsh Government’ are ‘close’. As this piece makes clear.

I’m not for one minute suggesting that Leslie Walker is not good at what she does, but if I was in the position of Galileo, hoping to get approval for major contracts in Wales, I’d be looking for somebody who knew their way around the Bay.

And recruiting Walker might be less controversial than taking on Matt Enoch who, after 13 years as Project Manager and then Project Director with the ‘Welsh Government’, joined Arcadis in October 2019 as Project Director.

I could go higher up the food chain to people like Ingmar Wilhelm, CEO at Galileo Green Energy, but it wouldn’t tell us much more than we already know. We’re dealing with foreign individuals, foreign companies, foreign money.

Our contribution is our country – and most of us don’t even know we’re making it.

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FINAL THOUGHTS

Earlier I mentioned that GGE Nordics Ltd, which owns Galileo Green Energy Wales, had been based at 115 George Street, in Edinburgh’s New Town. When I wrote it, I thought to myself, “Jones, that address rings a bell“.

And sure enough, it’s an address I’ve seen in connection with Bute Energy. More specifically, with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), which is investing in Bute’s Welsh projects. I wrote about here.

115 George Street, Edinburgh. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Bute is a Scottish company that’s appeared on this blog many times. It has insane plans to turn our country into a vast open-air electricity generator for England. And like Galileo, Bute employs people familiar with the denizens of the Swamp.

The connection between Bute and Galileo seems to be by association, via CIP. Then again, the link could be Vistra, with companies using it as their address. Which might explain the original Bristol address for Galileo Green Energy Wales.

Food for thought.

We may have missed the public meetings for Mynydd Ty-talwyn, but those for Bryn Cadwgan are being held next week; Llanddewi Brefi on Wednesday, and Pumsaint on Thursday.

I suggest that people turn up to these meetings and demand answers to all sorts of questions. Here’s what I might ask . . .

How much environmental damage will be done transporting the turbines to and and erecting them at Bryn Cadwgan?
Where are Galileo’s other Welsh projects?
How many local jobs will be provided at Bryn Cadwgan?
Is Galileo claiming that wind turbines last for 50 years?
How much of Galileo’s business model is carbon offset ‘greenwashing’?
Is there any connection between Galileo Green Energy and Bute Energy?

And finally, always remember! wind turbines are not built to save the planet. They’re built to make a few people a lot of money, and to make our lives more difficult through an increasingly expensive and unreliable electricity supply.

♦ end ♦

A Little Place In The Country

On 24.10.202330.10.2023 By JacIn Colonisation of Wales, Corruption Bay, Environmentalism, Greens, Hippies, Housing Associations, Planning, Public Funding, Swansea, Welsh Government20 Comments

In this piece I shall look at what might be a renewed attempt to promote OPDs, or perhaps it’s just another bit of ‘affordable housing’ flim-flam. Maybe a bit of both.

For newcomers . . . the OPD system is unique to Wales; it allows people to build a dwelling in open country as long as they promise to worship the sun, name their sprogs Earthworm and Beelzebub, and grow a couple of carrots to prove they’re ‘farmers’.

I’ve written about OPDs many times. Just type ‘OPD’ in the search bar.

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GARRISON OPD

Three years ago I introduced Garrison Farm CIC, you’ll find it in this post, scroll down to the relevant section. The two principals were Ross Edwards and Chris Carree. Carree left the company in June 2021 but Edwards is still there.

I assume Garrison Farm is still a going concern because three new directors have joined since Carree left. Let’s look at them in the order they joined.

First, 04.10.2021, was Kevin John Foley, who’s worked for Admiral insurance for 20 years. Is his employer chipping in?

Next we have, 30.06.2023, Christopher Mark Kelshaw. Another Army veteran.

Finally, we have Michael Paul Smith, 05.08.2023, who is Senior Facilities and Project Officer for Swansea council, and has worked for the council for over 20 years. Swansea council contributing?

The plan is to set up – possibly in Swansea, or maybe Carmarthenshire – a kind of OPD community for former military personnel. That’s the impression I get in this video from February last year. (Watch from 38:00.)

The webinar is hosted by David Thorpe, founder / director of the One Planet Centre and co-founder / patron of the One Planet Council.

Thorpe was clearly recovering from a stroke, which he attributed to ‘climate anxiety’.

Thorpe has crossed my path a few times over the years as I’ve researched OPDs. And the idea of a community of OPDs is not new. As this tweet of Thorpe’s from January 2018 makes clear.

Though I don’t know what project was being discussed, or even if there was a specific project mooted. So much OPD discussion is little more than pipedreams.

But to return to Swansea, where there was certainly a project launched that could plausibly be called a community. This was Killan-Fach Eco-farm on the Gower side of the city. (Marginally more attractive than the Port Talbot side.)

I wrote about it in June 2020 in One Planet Developments, just scroll down to the section ‘Farmlets’.

The council knocked it back for a number of reasons. One being that . . .

There is also no evidence of how the development would meet local affordable housing needs

Which tells me that ‘affordable housing’ was one of the angles used in the hope of getting planning consent for an OPD project. This is interesting, because you’ll be reading more about affordable housing, and ‘co-operative social housing’, in a minute.

But before that it might be worth focusing on Ross Edwards a little.

From his Linkedin profile we learn that since January this year he’s been Business Development Manager for Rouute. Here’s the website. It describes its product as a, “road-based energy harvesting system“.

If I understand it . . . pads or sensors are placed on the road surface and vehicles driving over them generate electricity. Even if it works, we’re unlikely to see this technology in Wales because we’re heading towards a vehicle-free future.

There’s another military connection here at Rouute. For CEO is Antony Edmondson-Bennett, a former army officer who, according to his now disappeared Linkedin bio, is trained in ‘close protection’. (It was there last week when I was researching this.)

The Rouute website announces a link-up with a firm called Carma. Here’s a very short video starring the founder of Carma, Jim Holland.

I found the Carma website easily enough, but there is no company of that name registered with Companies House. It was only by scrolling down to the small print at the bottom that I found, “Carma is a trading name of Rewards.Earth LTD 13315107“.

So let’s see what else we can learn.

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‘I THINK THAT I SHALL NEVER SEE . . . ‘.

The arrangement between the two, as spoken by Jim Holland of Carma, is that . . .

Rouute Technologies Ltd will be planting trees for every single unit they sell in the UK or abroad.

While on the Carma website we read of: “UK trees planted by veterans via The Green Task Force“. Here’s the Companies House entry.

On the ‘Meet the Team‘ page of the website we see: “Our target is to plant tens of millions of trees in the next five years“. That is some ambition!

Rooting around for more information I naturally looked up Holland’s Linkedin page, where we see that he was in the Royal Navy for 13 years. So another military connection.

In this rooting around ‘South Wales’ appeared more than once.

One mention involved Paul Webb of Pontypool, who spent 12 years in the Royal Navy. The other mention was about planting trees for Sussex software company Tillo. On that Tillo website we read:

This March, ten members of the Tillo team will be making their way to South Wales for a day of tree planting in partnership with Carma.

Despite the nonsense about saving the planet, what we’re looking at here is greenwash; and it must be bracketed with outfits like Stump Up For Trees, and investment vehicles like Foresight, buying up Welsh farms.

Too much of Wales is being lost in this way. We don’t need any more of it.

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DRAKEFORD SPEAKS!

I’ve got a treat for you now – a video clip of our Glorious Leader! It’s from Tuesday last week (Oct 17).

Drakeford was responding to a completely unrehearsed and piercing question from Huw Irranca-Davies MS. Here’s the transcript.

Seeing ‘Mike Hedges’ and ‘fascinating’ in the same sentence is quite hilarious.

But here’s where I want to focus, on this section referencing “co-operative social housing managed and owned by the people who live in them“:

And the good news is, Llywydd, that we have a new wave of initiatives being led in different parts of Wales: the Solva community land trust, the Gower community land trust, the Taf Fechan Housing Co-operative in Merthyr—all of them initiatives designed to develop housing that will be run and managed by the people who live in them.

In his ‘question’ Irranca-Davies makes reference to “international youth leaders” in attendance, though God knows why anyone would travel to listen to those clowns. Let alone travel any distance.

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THE EXAMPLES DRAKEFORD QUOTED

Drakeford mentioned three examples of co-operative social housing. These were, to quote him verbatim: “the Solva community land trust, the Gower community land trust, the Taf Fechan Housing Co-operative in Merthyr”.

Let’s look at them, working backwards.

Taf Fechan looks like an offshoot of housing association Merthyr Valley Homes. I guess it takes over or runs MVH properties. If so, then it’s not a group of locals coming together afresh to build and manage their own community.

Now let’s turn to Solfa.

The Solva Community Land Trust was launched under the direction of, or with the help of, Planed in September 2019. “Planed delivers sustainable outcomes for communities by a collaborative, people-led approach“.

But I’m not sure what if anything’s happened since.

There’s this report from the Western Telegraph (19.02.2021) telling us that 18 affordable homes will be built on Solfa football field. But were they built?

Adding to the uncertainty is that nothing’s been posted on the ‘News’ section of the group’s website (scroll down) since January 2021. Nothing added to the SolvaCLT Twitter / X account since January 2022. And the latest accounts filed with the Financial Conduct Authority show just a few quid in the kitty.

An internet search turned up this from March this year, which suggests the properties are still not built.

The third project mentioned by Drakeford was in Gower. And I assume he was referring to Gŵyr Community Land Trust. Here’s the website.

Though it’s registered with Companies House as Gower Land Trust CIC, launched May 2021. And with just a few hundred in the piggy-bank it’s also difficult to see where this is going without a major injection of funding.

But it seems to have a rival in the Gwyr Community Land Trust Ltd, launched August 2023. This is a one-man band run by a local, Roger Brace.

I mention that Roger Brace is local because, looking at those involved in Gŵyr Community Land Trust, I see that a number of them are newcomers to Wales.

Director Adam Jefferson Land was not long ago pushing a similar venture over in Devon. (Fellow-director Niaomh Convery came to Swansea with him.) Another of the three directors, Emily Robertson, came to Wales a few years ago after working for Solace Women’s Aid in London.

Going by the bios and other evidence, this crew is sure to appeal to ‘progressive’ politicians. An impression strengthened by the image used in this WalesOnline report in November 2021.

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THE BIT AT THE END WHERE I PULL IT ALL TOGETHER

OPDs, as originally conceived, never really took off. While throwing up a shack in the countryside might appeal to many, needing to prove that you were living a largely self-sufficient lifestyle seems to have put many off the idea.

To make things worse, the idea was highjacked by unscrupulous, often unsavoury individuals and groups, buying land, often tracts of forestry, then selling or renting plots for people to put up cabins or bring in mobile homes.

The examples below are from Llangynog, Carmarthenshire, and they were sent to me a couple of years back. They’re not OPDs, and they don’t have planning permission.

But those who live in them will employ the OPD defence against council planners.

I’m not suggesting that Wade William Heames is either unscrupulous or unsavoury, but his Edible Forest projects have come in for a lot of criticism. Much of it from people who’d been tempted to buy in, or even had bought in.

Also, from those threatened with being neighbours to one of his projects.

Which brings me back to Ross Edwards and Garrison Farm. I might accept this project if it was home to Welsh ex-service personnel. But if it’s nothing more than a smokescreen for greenwashing, then I would object.

The video you saw earlier, starring Ross Edwards and David Thorpe was produced by Cwmpas. (Formerly, Wales Co-operative Development & Training Centre Ltd.)

Cwmpas is pushing co-operative and community-led housing. Naturally, I went to the Financial Conduct Authority website to get some info on Cwmpas. Here’s the annual return and accounts for year ending 31.03.2022.

Income of £6.5m from “‘Welsh Government’, European funding, other grants and sources of income“. With two-thirds of that income going on the 100 staff.

And I bet you’d never heard of Cwmpas until you read this. How many more such beasties are out there, lurking in the shadows, devouring unwary maidens and feasting on public funds?

You’ll see that the Cwmpas accounts were signed off by the then secretary, D Walker. Now Derek Walker – for it is he! – is the Future Generations Commissioner. Does he plan to breathe new life into OPDs in his new role?

Whatever Walker may have planned, Drakeford was talking about more conventional housing. But to understand why we are where we are, you need some background information.

It was always my belief that the left wing administration in Corruption Bay wanted rented housing to be the sole preserve of housing associations . . . with these in turn funded and controlled from the Bay.

But the close relationship that developed led the ONS to decide that Welsh housing associations were, effectively, public bodies. This resulted in them being privatised. Explained here from a ‘Welsh Government’ perspective.

Welsh housing associations are now building many fewer homes for rent. Some are building none at all. They, and their subsidiaries, are focused almost exclusively on private, open market housing.

This helps explain why some councils are trying to make up the shortfall.

Adding to the problem is the ‘Welsh Government’s ongoing campaign against private landlords.

Finally, and especially in rural areas, we have the issue of holiday homes, also retirees and others buying property and moving in permanently.

So . . . fewer housing association properties for rent; private landlords quitting the business; councils spending money they may not have trying to fill the gap; politicians tickling rather than tackling the rural housing crisis; to a backdrop of recession, a ‘de-growth’ agenda, and increasing economic hardship enforced by following the lunacies of Net Zero.

There could be a perfect storm approaching . . . and this storm will have bugger all to do with any imaginary ‘climate crisis’.

Which is why I would hope to see official support for local people getting together to help themselves. But the examples quoted by Drakeford do not inspire confidence.

One thing for sure – a government making major expenditure cuts, and councils that are also feeling the pinch, should not be funding good-lifers hoping to settle in scenically attractive areas with which they have only the most tenuous connection.

The only real solution is a comprehensive and national housing strategy. But it would need joined-up thinking and hard work – from a ‘Welsh Government’ that prefers soundbites and virtue signalling!

♦ end ♦

‘Welsh Government’ Declares War On Freedoms, Motorists, Farmers

On 10.10.202311.10.2023 By JacIn Colonialism, Environmentalism, European Union, Globalism, Welsh Government26 Comments

Now that we’ve had three weeks of living with the 20mph speed restrictions I think it’s time to put this measure into its wider context, make a few connections, and introduce some new faces.

I apologise for this piece being a bit long, but it’s still less than 2,800 words. And worth sticking with.

◊

THE BIGGER PICTURE

Much of the background to this new legislation was covered a few weeks back in ‘20mph, A Disaster Unfolds’.

What’s absolutely clear now is that 20mph did not suddenly appear, it’s been hatching for a while. To explain what I mean, here’s a table I’ve drawn up, though I’m sure it’s incomplete, so if you can add to it . . . .

And here it is in pdf format with working links.

I believe it starts with the Well-being of Future Generation Act 2015. This cartoon video imagines ‘Megan’, growing up under the umbrella of the Act’s protective legislation. Which promises:

And it’s failed her on almost every count. But then, grand gestures done for dramatic effect rather than to deliver lasting benefits will invariably fail.

Next, we look at the Wales Act 2017. There, in Section 26, we see that power to vary or regulate speed limits is now conferred on the ‘Welsh Ministers’.

Which makes sense if, as some suggest, Wales is being used as a testing ground for the wackier planet-saving ideas.

Now we move on to an undated publication by Public Health Wales recommending 20mph on our roads. I assume this is by Huw Brunt and Sarah Jones of Public Health Wales. It mentions the new powers to lower speed limits.

Then there’s the Clean Air Zone Framework for Wales (April 2018) where, on page 20, we read:

Consideration should be given to lowering speed limits in a CAZ from 30mph to 20mph, which some research suggests would deliver overall benefits27. Safety benefits from reduced road speed can also encourage modal shift from private cars.

Perhaps, state-owned, chauffeur-driven cars are OK?

The call was taken up by Sustrans who, in a publication dated 1 January 2019, called for 20mph speed limits across the UK, quoting Public Health Wales. Does this also show Wales being used as a testing ground?

Another example of pearl-clutching theatricality was Wales declaring a climate emergency. This happened in April 2019, just before Environment Minister Lesley Griffiths (and Gary) met with Scottish and UK counterparts.

Here’s the plan for funding the responses deemed necessary to combat this ’emergency’, produced by Future Generations Commissioner and Labour party insider, Sophie Howe. From which I’ve extracted the graphic for ‘Transport’ below.

Those who compiled that table obviously view increased car ownership as something deplorable, which must be reversed. Yet for me, and I suspect for most people, those figures represent progress and increased prosperity.

Finally, we see 20mph again in Labour’s 2021 manifesto ahead of the Senedd elections. The original manifesto seems to have disappeared, so I can only link to the update put out following the agreement with Plaid Cymru.

It’s a pity the original’s disappeared because I’m told it proposed risk-based approaches to assessing trunk road speeds. Basically, ‘Welsh Government’, or an individual minister, wanted lower speed limits on A and B roads.

Perhaps Plaid Cymru, a party of rural areas with sparse traffic on open roads, realised this would not go down well in Trawsfynydd or Nant y Caws.

So we see that the call for 20mph, and associated demands, goes back at least 5 years, and probably further. We’ll briefly consider associated issues before turning to an unattainable fantasy.

One of the associated matters is 15- 0r 20-minute cities / neighbourhoods. Which can be viewed in two ways.

The optimist might say: ‘Wow! everything I need will be within easy travelling distance; Waitrose, Pilates, accountant, Skivvyhire, Green Party constituency office, ballet class, tattooist, florist, saddler, doctor, dentist, plastic surgeon . . . .’

(Dentist? In Wales!)

The cynic might ask: ‘Yes, but is that 20 minutes there, or 20 minutes there and back? And what if I want to travel for longer than 20 minutes . . . and just keep going, into the wide blue yonder?’

Sustrans was promoting the idea in November 2019, just ahead of December’s UK general election. The local chief of Sustrans for over six years (2007 – 2013) was Lee Waters, now Deputy Minister for Climate Change.

Make no mistake, Sustrans is an anti-car organisation. And Waters himself is said to be a cycling and walking “fanatic“. Which is fine with me. Veganism is fine with me. It’s when zealots and fringe outfits are allowed or encouraged to push their beliefs onto the rest of us that I object.

The Future Generations Commissioner was backing 20-minute neighbourhoods by September 2020. To show loyal, Plaid Cymru chimed in in April 2021.

Labour-controlled Cardiff council was also on board with the “20-minute neighbourhood or 15-minute city“, as this motion from March 2021 puts it. Even crediting Sustrans.

Erm, let’s think about that for a minute. A city is made up of neighbourhoods. So obviously a city is bigger than a neighbourhood. That being so, how can a city be traversed, and its services accessed, quicker than those of a neighbourhood?

I’ll touch briefly on three more elements of the grand design.

First Minister Drakeford has described ULEZ charges as the “last resort“. But he hasn’t ruled them out. Labour’s experience in London, with people fighting back, might explain his hesitancy.

Then there’s road charging, mentioned on page 21 of Llwybr Newydd The Wales Transport Strategy 2021. Where it’s spelled out quite unambiguously:

We will develop a framework for fair and equitable road-user charging in Wales and explore other disincentives to car use, taking into account equality issues including the needs of people in rural areas, people who share protected characteristics and people on low incomes

“ . . . and explore other disincentives to car use“.

Something I found odd about this was that it said, “in Wales“. But this was produced by the ‘Welsh Government’, so which other country would it refer to? Or was it written by someone else, perhaps not based in Wales?

The reference to “protected characteristics” I assume means that women with penises won’t have to pay. (Where’s my wig?)

Finally, let us never forget that it was Lee Waters who announced earlier this year that all new road-building projects were cancelled.

To achieve this result the Welsh Roads Review Panel was created with orders to deliver the desired ‘findings’. And to guarantee that outcome the group was chaired by Dr Lynn Sloman. Who wrote ‘Car Sick‘, which rather gives away her position.

I wrote about this episode in March, scroll down to the relevant section.

◊

THE WORLD OF MAKE-BELIEVE

‘Vision Zero’ seems to have appeared in September 2012. In the ‘Welsh Government’s Road Safety Delivery Plan. Explained here in a written statement from the late Carl Sargeant, then Minister for Local Government and Communities.

Here’s how Road Safety GB reported it.

Vision Zero was a vague promise to reduce road accidents. It was re-affirmed in this ‘Welsh Government’ publication from May 2018 (pp 6, 13).

But then, just a year or so later, on page 24 of the Manifesto for the 2019 UK general election, we read that Vision Zero has become a plan to eliminate road deaths and injuries entirely!

Let’s give a little more thought to this idea of Vision Zero.

It should be obvious that Vision Zero can only be achieved by banning all vehicles, whether powered by the internal combustion engine, battery, or hydrogen.

But with more bicycles and pedestrians on the roads – as is hoped – there will still be fatalities and injuries. Either cyclists crashing or cyclists colliding with pedestrians. It happens now. With more cyclists, and with cyclists having freedom of the highways, some will be even more reckless and inconsiderate than they are now.

With vehicular transport banned – and that must also mean public transport – then people will spend far more time at home.

But most accidents happen in the home, so spending more time at home will result in more accidents. Don’t take my word for it, read what RoSPA says on the subject. So how is transferring death and injury from the highway to the home an improvement?

It’s not an improvement at all. It only makes sense if the real goal is to ban cars.

More people spending more time at home will create other problems. I can predict with certainty there’ll be more cases of domestic violence, and murder. There will be more children physically and sexually abused. Even more cruelty towards domestic pets.

Also, more suicides, due to the stress of being cooped up at home. It will be a kind of lockdown. And it will be done despite us knowing the social and psychological damage inflicted by Covid lockdown.

But then, it may be dressed up as climate lockdown. And if so, then we must accept that chasing each other round the house with meat cleavers is an acceptable price to pay for saving the planet.

Think about what you’ve just read. Put it all together and tell me it’s not a war on cars, on private transport, and the freedom the car gives us.

◊

RULE FROM THE SHADOWS

I’m returning to the idea of Wales being used as a testing ground. With most people unaware of it, and the lack of awareness even extending to the ‘Welsh Government’.

But testing ground status is easy to achieve when our politicians are controlled by pressure groups. These often directed and / or funded by individuals and organisations making up the Globalist network.

I’ve written about this phenomenon a number of times recently. In Wales: Ruled By Pressure Groups. And Who The Hell Are These People!. The ‘Welsh Government’ even pays through the nose for this Globalist influence, as I explained in Lynn Global Pushes Globalist Agenda.

The bigger picture only makes sense when you remember how it started.

With the end of Communism a new threat was needed. And so in 1991 the Club of Rome adopted ‘global warming’. Explained in this video (less than 5 minutes long).

Klaus Schwab, founder and chairperson of the World Economic Forum (WEF), makes an appearance. Schwab is also a member of the Club of Rome.

This programme of control was easy to sell to third-rate leftist politicians in Wales because socialism is fundamentally anti-human; viewing us as classes or identities, even “protected characteristics“, rather than gloriously varied individuals.

And of course, socialists love imposing “Can’t do that!” restrictions.

Now for the new faces I promised.

◊

NORTH STAR TRANSITION

This company was formed just over three years ago by Jyotir Banerjee. The website is full of silly phrases interspersed with impenetrable jargon: “multi-capital metrics” . . . “radical reframing and holistic transformation” . . .

It’s not often one encounters so much bullshit on a single website. Thankfully.

The clue to North Star’s real purpose comes in a piece written a few weeks ago by Banerjee himself. We are told that “biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change” can all be remedied – by “large-scale investment funding“.

Now you know me, when a chancer crosses my path I like to know more about him or her. Did I really say, “chancer“? (Inner voice: “Yes you did, Jac.”)

First stop was Companies House, to see what our boy has been up to over the years. There are a number of companies to his name, which are either dissolved, dormant or, if still trading, then none too buoyant, to judge by the accounts submitted.

The address currently used for Banerjee’s empire is 1 Pembroke Villas, The Green, Richmond. And a very nice gaff it looks too. But according to the Land Registry this property is leased to a firm of accountants.

The reason I’m writing about Banerjee is his Wales Transition Lab.

But what is Wales to be ‘transitioned’ into? And by whom? And for whose benefit?

This piece from the North Star website by Victoria Topham of Buckinghamshire informs us that:

Since October 2020, a group of 35 thought leaders across Wales have listened to each other and imagined a country that future generations could thrive in.

“Listened to each other“! I see a gang of interlopers discussing the future of our homeland without consulting us. This is often called colonialism.

Topham continues . . .

Why Wales? With a population of 3m people, Wales is the right size for such a living laboratory.

Now she’s gone full-on memsahib. For her and her ‘thought leaders’ our Wales is just a testing ground. With us indigenes as guinea-pigs? Or are we to be removed?

Despite this clique being anonymous one name found on the North Star website is, inevitably, Jane Davidson, who seems to serve as a kind of chatelaine to that demi-monde where enviroshysters have the ear of politicians and civil servants.

After claiming to have initially been reluctant to get involved Banerjee eventually joined Davidson’s Wales Net Zero 2035 Challenge Group. (How many different target years do these people use?)

In his homage to La Davidson Banerjee writes: “Olivier Boutellis and I set up North Star Transition to tackle the climate emergency . . . “.

My cue to introduce Olivier Boutellis and explain what I think is really happening.

Despite what Banerjee says, Boutellis was not there at the start (unless he was keeping his head down). For North Star Transition was launched 10 June 2020 and the company Olivier Boutellis-Taft SPRL climbed aboard 3 February 2021.

This company was registered in Belgium 04 October 2011.

So who is Olivier Boutellis, or Boutellis-Taft?

The capture below from the European Parliament tells us he’s a lawyer and an economist. And this tells us he’s been a magistrate and a lecturer. Also, CEO of Accountancy Europe.

But it’s his Linkedin profile that I found fascinating. The screen capture below will explain why.

It tells us Olivier Boutellis-Taft joined the Club of Rome EU Chapter at exactly the same time he got involved with Jyotir Banerjee and North Star Transition.

But there’s something not right. The website looks abandoned, and the Twitter account hasn’t been used since September 2020.

There is also a Linkedin page of the most elementary kind. But it claims the Club of Rome EU Chapter has 11 employees and that its focus is on “sustainability” and “environmental services“.

But understandable doubts to one side, let’s accept Banerjee and Boutellis-Taft at face value. I believe they’re promising to find ‘investors’ looking to buy Welsh farmland for carbon offsetting, or in other ways take land out of agricultural production.

Which fits perfectly with the Globalist agenda to destroy small- to medium-sized farms so that corporations can take control of the food supply. Because if you control the food supply then you control the people.

The opening part of this 2-minute video explains it succinctly.

∼

This Globalist agenda is welcomed by the environmental pressure groups because it destroys farming, especially livestock farming, and most of these activists seem to be vegans.

They also anticipate getting some of the grabbed land for their rewilding fantasies.

Because of course there’ll be fewer people living in the countryside. Take out the main industry and the decline begins. Impose travel restrictions, run down public transport and impose other obstacles and rural living becomes even less attractive.

At the top and the bottom both Globalists and environmental activists know what they want, and are guaranteed to benefit. It’s those in the middle of the scam who, along with the people, will lose out.

Because politicians don’t seem to realise that in the New World Order they are surplus to requirements. As Klaus Schwab explains in this very short video – in the future we won’t need elections.

“Can you imagine such a world?“, he asks. Yes, I can; and while losing politicians has its attractions . . .

Without elections we won’t need politicians, except to serve as ‘managers’ for their Globalist masters. Which is not a lot different to what they’re doing now.

Our politicians have been fooled into thinking they’re saving the planet when what they’re really doing is sacrificing Wales and other countries to the psychotic ambitions of the Globalists.

And this explains dreamers, chancers, shysters and con men flocking to Wales.

◊

CONCLUSION

As I hope I’ve explained, 20mph speed restrictions should not be viewed in isolation. They are part of something much, much bigger.

You’re free to dismiss me as a conspiracy theorist. It’s a free world. For now. But before you go . . .

Justify Vision Zero transferring deaths and injuries from highway to home without admitting it’s a plan to do away with cars. Do you think Jyotir Banerjee’s “large-scale investment funding” is designed to save the Welsh family farm? And why does Klaus Schwab talk about abolishing elections?

♦ end ♦

Link Holdings (Gibraltar) Ltd Revisited

On 29.09.202330.09.2023 By JacIn Housing, Local Government, Welsh Government, Welsh Labour38 Comments

Some seven years ago I wrote about a company called Link Holdings (Gibraltar) Ltd. It was difficult to get to the bottom of it all because the companies involved were registered offshore.

It all started when it was brought to my attention that properties in Swansea used by housing associations were leased or rented from Link. After a bit of digging I was satisfied that, in various forms and under different names, Link had been operating in and around Swansea, and across the south, for decades.

But, as I say, due to the various entities being offshore, and information hard to come by, there was a limit to how far I could go. In the end I just had to leave it and move on.

Even so, to help you understand better what you’re going to read, and for me to avoid repeating myself too much, I suggest you read the piece from 2016.

◊

THE LEASEHOLD SAGA

We are going to deal with an issue that’s been rumbling on for a long, long time; with politicians of all stripes promising to tackle it. For those unclear what I’m talking about, the leasehold system is explained here.

Here’s George Thomas demanding change in 1961, in a surprisingly impressive speech (considering who’s making it). Nothing happened.

Leasehold is again discussed in a 1985 parliamentary exchange between Ron Davies MP and Nick Edwards, Secretary of State for Wales.

Click on image to open enlarged in separate tab

To bring us up to date, Labour promises to abolish leasehold within 100 days of winning the next UK general election. The wording of the article suggests the proposed legislation will also cover Wales.

Which would of course save the so-called ‘Welsh Government’ from having to do anything. Though it might have some powers now.

I say that because the ‘Welsh Government’ has given thought to leasehold. Here’s a July 2019 report, Residential Leasehold Reform, from a task and finish group.

With the quote below from page 29, made in March 2018 by the Minister for Housing and Regeneration, Rebecca Evans.

But this report from March 2021, despite containing ‘next steps’ in the title, suggests that ‘Welsh Government’ is just kicking the can down the road.

In fairness, and as I’ve suggested, leasehold reform might be an Englandandwales matter; but if so, it hasn’t stopped Corruption Bay from creating the post of Head of Leasehold Reform. Does that job title suggest he has staff!

You won’t be surprised to learn that this job went to an insider. His name is Timothy Mann, formerly with the Labour party’s favourite housing association, Wales & West.

But FFS! If ‘Welsh Government has the power to act on leasehold, then why doesn’t it? But if it doesn’t have the power to act then why waste time and money faffing about with task and finish bullshit and sinecures for cronies?

It would appear that Labour in Wales has rowed back from outright opposition to leasehold to merely being against the sale of leases on new-build properties.

One reason might be Registered Social Landlords (housing associations), which are funded by the ‘Welsh Government’. For since their privatisation in 2018 many, perhaps most, have set up subsidiaries, which now build private housing for the open market . . . often leasehold, or ‘shared ownership’.

Also, and as I reported in the 2016 piece, housing associations are quite happy to lease property from Link Holdings (Gibraltar) Ltd, and perhaps other companies. With the ‘Welsh Government’ fully aware of this.

To make sense of it, understand that housing associations, especially in the urban south, are extensions of the Labour party. So if housing associations are doing lots of business with leasehold firms, or selling leaseholds themselves, then this might explain why ‘Welsh Government’ is reluctant to implement leasehold reform.

But if intervention comes from the next Labour government in London then the bruvvers down here can hold their hands up and say, “Nothing to do with us“.

OK, that’s a more general picture on leasehold, time now to turn to the latest news about Link Holdings (Gibraltar) Ltd, and what I’ve unearthed.

◊

WHY I’M REVISITING THE SUBJECT

This return to Link Holdings (Gibraltar) Ltd was prompted by an e-mail I received last week. Let the senders explain with this extract from that e-mail.

You must admit, it’s a worrying tale. If the couple that wrote to me hadn’t opened the innocuous-looking letter from Companies House they might have lost their home.

You’ll see Castlebeg mentioned, that we encountered earlier in the Davies-Edwards House of Commons exchange. This was another horse out of the Link stable, based in Jersey. I use the past tense because the company’s dissolved.

Also based in Jersey were Cymru Management Ltd and Cymru Investments Ltd, both of which were connected with Link Holdings. The former has filed nothing since January 2021, and the latter was dissolved in September of that year.

Was this in anticipation of the new legislation you’ll soon be reading about?

And yet . . . another document I unearthed, for a UK-registered company owned by the family I believe is behind Link Holdings, suggests there is still a company using the ‘Gwalia’ name. This document is dated 24 January 2023.

The Cymru Investments Ltd just mentioned was once known as Gwalia Investments Ltd, but the name changed many years ago. The date of the filing above suggests an active company. But in which jurisdiction?

Let’s return to the reason for this update.

Here’s the title document sent by my source (already highlighted.) I’ve made redactions for obvious reasons but you can see that in January, this property, for which both leasehold and freehold had been purchased by my contacts, was still, according to the Land Registry, owned by Link Holdings (Gibraltar) Ltd.

There are other title numbers mentioned on the document I’ve just linked to, and these refer to a property on Neath Road in Plasmarl. The freehold is held of course by Link, but the leasehold by Caredig Housing Association. Again, we see a connection between Link and a housing association.

Anyway, after reading and digesting the information I’d been sent, it was time to make fresh enquiries into Link, maybe pick up where I’d left off in 2016.

◊

BACK ON THE TRAIL

The first stop was Companies House. And there, against my expectations, I found Link Holdings (Gibraltar), registered as an Overseas Entity 23 November 2022. The only officer / director listed is Sovereign Fiduciary Directors Ltd of Gibraltar.

This registration with Companies House ties in with the Register of Overseas Entities legislation that came into force 1 August 2022, demanding that . . .

Overseas entities who want to buy, sell or transfer property or land in the UK, must register with Companies House and tell us who their registrable beneficial owners or managing officers are.

Explained again here.

There’s nothing really to see on the Companies House entry apart from the Registration document itself (OE01). Though it is quite revealing. For if you scroll down to ‘Part 13 Disposal of land’, you’ll hit a few pages of Land Registry title numbers.

Forty-nine titles in all. From my quick dip I’m guessing that most if not all of them are ‘multiples’, covering a number of properties, with a total running into the hundreds.

It would have been too much work, and too expensive, to check them all; so with each page containing 8 titles I settled for one from each page.

Despite being chosen at random, all were in the Swansea area, the furthest out being Ammanford. The others in Penclawdd, Sketty, Waunarlwydd, and Dunvant.

The first we’ll look at is Ammanford, 9 properties on Maes yr Hâf, off Dyffryn Road. Here’s a view. Next, Penclawdd. Twenty-two properties at a new development on the Gowerton Road.

Sketty is 16 properties on an older development. There seem to be 8 properties in the Waunarlwydd development. Finally, at Dunvant, we find (by my figuring) the title covering 35 separate properties. I won’t link to the title document because lessees are named. These properties are scattered about on Hendrefoilan Road, Derlwyn, Gwelfor, and a few other nooks and crannies.

All the Killay / Dunvant properties would seem to be covered by this map.

Click on image to open enlarged on separate tab

That’s a total of 90 properties on five randomly chosen Link Holdings titles.

And remember, these are just the titles disposed of between 28 February 2022 and the dates of the application, the latest of which was 7 November 2022. There will be many, many more titles held by Link.

For example, the Hirwaun title that started the ball rolling again is not listed.

Click on image to open enlarged in separate file

To give some understanding of how much property Link owns go to Private Eye‘s Tax Haven map. Or try the Excel database (the link for this is just above the map). Admittedly, these only go up to 2014, but they’re revealing; and this research helped bring about the law to register overseas entities owning UK property.

Open the Excel file and, even though there are many Link properties before, and after, if you start at 73397 (left-hand column) you’ll hit a long sequence of Link properties due to the ‘WA’ Land Registry prefix.

Most seem to be in the Swansea area, but they’re spread across the south (with the exception of Blaenau Gwent), though perhaps no further west than Llanelli.

If you’re smart enough with Excel then you can probably extract all the Link properties from the document. (In fact, I’d appreciate it if someone could do that.)

The area we’re looking at next is north east Swansea, either side of the M4. The properties in orange in the Private Eye map on the left are relatively new and all Link Holdings leaseholds.

Funny, isn’t it? ‘Welsh Government’ says it’s opposed to new builds being leasehold, but this seems to be exactly what Link’s been doing for decades.

UPDATE: Thanks to some outside help Link Holdings’ Welsh titles have been extracted from the PE data and arranged in local authority order.

◊

POACHER TURNS GAMEKEEPER (SORT OF)

If you look at the Land Registry title documents I’ve used in this article you’ll see addresses given on the first page, against ‘Registered owners’. Link Holdings is obviously listed but beneath the company name the contact details given are:

Sovereign Fiduciary Services Ltd, Po Box No 564,
Sovereign Place, 117 Main Street, Gibraltar, GX11 1AA
107 Charterhouse Street, London EC1M 6HW
3rd Floor, 11-12 Wind Street, Swansea SA1 1DP

The Gibraltar address is obviously Link’s representative on The Rock, but the other two are solicitors. One is Sayers Butterworth LLP in London, the other Smith Llewelyn in Swansea.

I saw no point in contacting Sovereign Fiduciary Services at its plush downtown offices. But I thought it might be worth approaching the solicitors, to see if they had anything to say about their client.

Quite a departure. It’s normally solicitors contacting me! “Oi! our client . . . “.

I sent each solicitor an e-mail, on Wednesday last week. But I’ve received no reply. I think they’re waiting to see what I write before contacting me.

I’m 90% sure I know who’s behind Link Holdings. It’s an established business family in Swansea. The name suggests their ancestors might have been part of the Cornish migration of the 18th and 19th centuries, following the tin and the copper to Swansea.

Though they seem to have deserted the City of My Dreams for Hampshire, Fulham, and God knows what other hell-holes!

My many admirers on the left might describe those behind Link as, “bloodsucking capitalists!“, or some other carefully-honed and rationally presented response such as we hear from the comrades nowadays.

But me, well, I see it differently. A moral and regulated capitalist system is the only way to create wealth and employment. With the prosperous and egalitarian democracy that results the surest guarantee against the extremes of left and right.

There’s more I could say about the leasehold model; for this throwback to feudalism should have been abolished a long time ago along with droit du seigneur.

Such as people contacting me who thought they’d bought their new house outright, only to discover the hard (and expensive) way that what they’d actually bought was a lease. Leasehold is a system that invites deception and corruption. It should be abolished.

But instead of signing off with a rant I’ve decided to wind up this wee opus with some harmless musing.

How many others have found themselves in the position of my Hirwaun contacts, with Link Holdings claiming to own their home?
How many others are in that situation without knowing it because they haven’t checked what’s filed with the Land Registry?
Given that in recent decades Link has concentrated on new build properties, what is the company’s relationship with the builders involved? Is Link buying ‘off plan’? Or is Link commissioning the building of these developments in order to sell the leaseholds and retain the freeholds?
What is Link’s relationship with Swansea council, which cannot be unaware of the company’s activities? What would the council say to those who’ve been denied the opportunity to buy a home outright by Link hoovering up the freeholds and only offering leasehold agreements?
Labour has argued against the leasehold system for at least 60 years, yet in 24 years of devolution has done nothing. Is this another example of Labour making promises out of power and failing to deliver when it has power?
Is the ‘Welsh Government’ comfortable with certain Welsh housing associations renting / leasing property from a company of unknown ownership hiding away in a tax haven?

♦ end ♦

Lies, Damned Lies, Opinion Polls

On 22.09.202322.09.2023 By JacIn Corruption, Corruption Bay, Globalism, Media, Public Funding, Welsh Government80 Comments

Here’s another ‘off the cuff’ kind of post; but what I’m going to write about illustrates a growing problem. Growing due to the increasing unpopularity of the so-called ‘Welsh Government’.

◊

WELSH MEDIA: FASCISTS AND FOREIGNERS OPPOSE 20MPH

The big issue this week has been the introduction of the 20mph speed limit across the country. I wrote about it in last weekend’s posting, ’20mph, A Disaster Unfolds’.

But perhaps the legislation has been overshadowed by ‘that’ petition, which at the time of writing is heading towards 400,000 signatures. Though the so-called ‘Welsh’ media has tried hard to discredit it and those who’ve signed it.

Here’s an example from yesterday’s Western Mail. Despite 95% of the signatures coming from within Wales, Llais y Sais wants us to know that people in 51 countries have signed.

There’s even an insert headed: ‘Where the global opposition has come from’. Seven from Germany, one from Hungary . . .

But what that rag is attacking is in fact perfectly reasonable. Welsh people living abroad, and English people in the Marches and elsewhere who regularly drive in Wales, are perfectly entitled to voice their opposition.

Then, at the bottom of the page, there’s a carefully worded piece inviting us to think that opponents of the 20mph restrictions are violent individuals. Probably ‘far right’.

This is not journalism; this is naked propaganda.

But then, when, like the Western Mail, you depend for financial survival on public notices and advertisements paid for by the ‘Welsh Government’, What ya gonna do?

But it was ever thus. It’s just a bit more obvious now. And it’s moving up a notch.

Which is the cue for me to tackle the meat of this issue.

◊

NUDGE, NUDGE – WHO’S THERE?

For this week also saw the release of a bizarre poll showing that more people support the 20mph restrictions than oppose them. And it was odd for a number of reasons.

First, there’s the ‘slanted’ question, worded to achieve a desired outcome. Hoping “Where cars mix with pedestrians and cyclists” will conjure up images of boy racers screeching through pedestrianised areas, knocking over old ladies and kiddies on bikes.

This is called ‘nudging’. But even this doesn’t fully account for the ‘findings’.

By way of comparison, here’s a survey from WalesOnline. It certainly overstates the strength of opposition, but it’s closer to the truth than the survey we just looked at.

Then there’s this YouGov poll, which still shows an almost two to one majority against.

No survey I have seen, and no other form of evidence, suggests anything other than a big majority against widespread 20mph speed limits.

The other thing I found strange was that the survey doesn’t tell us who commissioned it, which is normal practice. So who produced that slanted survey?

The answer would appear to be Redfield & Wilton Strategies. So what can we learn about them? Well, not a lot. Individuals named Redfield and Wilton may not exist.

Which takes us on to the next section of this post. Follow me . . .

◊

‘WE KNOW WHAT YOU’RE REALLY THINKING’

Companies House tells us that Redfield & Wilton Ltd was formed in January 2020 by Bruno Augusto Kormann Rodrigues. He remains the majority shareholder and the sole director.

So why is the company called Redfield & Wilton? Is it to make it sound more English? Whatever the answer, it’s difficult to escape the conclusion that it’s an attempt to deceive. Which is not good for an organisation trading on credibility.

Even so, it’s reasonable to assume that Rodrigues has background in polling and market research? Well, er . . . no.

For Rodrigues is a solicitor. Here’s his entry from the Solicitors Register.

Cassadys, mentioned above is a debt-ridden company that’s escaped compulsory strike-off for late returns more than once. The company is named after its founder, an Indian named Kaizad Cassad.

Rodrigues left at the end of October 2020. Just before launching Redfield & Wilton.

Around the same time, on 1 January 2020, Rodrigues took over BR Services Europe Ltd from Pakistani Umar Aqueel. A ‘Management Consultancy’ company, that was just bumping along financially.

The other entity mentioned in the Solicitors Register is the Brooke Consultancy LLP. Which seems to be a genuine sort of legal partnership, and it provides a useful profile of Bruno Rodrigues.

That profile tells us he specialises in immigration law, and he’s also into, “the niche area of fashion law“. What the hell’s that? Does it mean I could get arrested for wearing the wrong socks?

But, strangely, no mention of his new venture of opinion polls. Come to that, here’s his Linkedin profile (here in pdf format), and there’s no mention of Redfield & Wilton here either.

I find that very, very strange. If ‘niche’ interests can be mentioned, why not a new company being regularly quoted in the media, and apparently being used by politicians on both sides of the Atlantic?

One more company needs to be mentioned. This is Alghanim Capital Ltd. Rodrigues was a director along with Kuwaitis Abdulwahab Alghanem and Fahad Alghanim who, despite the slightly different spellings, I take to be related.

Abdulwahab is described on the Companies House entry as a ‘civil servant’ in Kuwait, while Fahad is said to be a student in the USA.

Their line of business was: ‘Retail sale via mail order houses or via Internet’. Mmm.

Alghanim Capital was formed in October 2018, and folded without seemingly doing anything. So why was it formed at all? This is the sort of company behaviour that gets my whiskers twitching.

But even if it was all innocent, how did Rodrigues meet the Kuwaitis?

◊

VOX POPULI, VOX DAI

When I put out a tweet asking why we weren’t told who’d commissioned the Redfield & Wilton survey, I got a response containing an image from the R&W website.

Well, I assume that’s where it comes from, but my quick search didn’t find it. Though I’m sure it’s genuine, because the font and the colouring match, and the rascal who used it seemed to think he was putting me down, or weakening my case.

“Self-commissioned“? Does that mean that Bruno Rodrigues and his little team decide amongst themselves what surveys to do, and then publish them? Or maybe get some media outlet to pay for their whimsical and random findings?

I don’t buy that. I certainly don’t think it accounts for all of their output.

The more I’ve thought about Redfield & Wilton the stronger the possibility has become in my mind that this outfit may not do any research or polling. It simply acts as a channel for what others want to promote.

Let’s say you want to push the message that more people in Wales support 20mph restrictions than oppose them, then you engage Redfield & Wilton in order to make the message look more credible than if it had come from a source that is obviously biased.

Though the R&W record is not impressive. Because for an organisation dealing in statistics, Bruno and his pals are not very good at figuring. They often seem to get things horribly wrong.

Which, when coupled with their pro-Labour bias (pro-Democrat in US polls), makes them look rather stupid. Here’s a recent example.

Bookies, as we know, like to have facts and reliable figures because there’s always money riding on them. So I was amused to read this piece in PoliticalBetting.com expose how horrendously wrong Redfield & Wilton got a recent Scottish poll.

So who in Wales might have been desperate enough to ask R&W to put out this phoney 20mph survey?

Obviously, there’s the ‘Welsh Government’. But would they run the risk?

A more likely possibility must be the company that Drakeford and his clowns have employed to promote the 20mph restrictions. I’m referring now to Lynn Global. For this is their line of work.

This brainwashing outfit appeared in last week’s post on the 20mph fiasco, and Lynn also appeared in a couple of posts last month. ‘It’s Getting Sinister‘ and ‘Lynn Global Pushes Globalist Agenda‘.

Lynn would regard what I’m suggesting as ‘countering misinformation’ and therefore perfectly legitimate. Even desirable. To most people it would be lying to get your own way.

If I’m right, then we are on a dangerous path. Let me explain why.

◊

CONCLUSION

It’s common knowledge that in recent years opinion polls, especially on politics, have been used to influence public opinion rather than to gauge it and report it.

This explains why so many polls have been spectacularly wrong; on Brexit, on Trump’s victory in 2016, on the size of the Conservative majority in 2019. All because too many pollsters allowed their left-liberal or woke prejudices to intrude.

Returning to the Redfield & Wilton survey, as I see it, there are two alternatives: either the poll result is distorted with bias, or else it’s completely and deliberately fabricated. Neither option should be acceptable in an open and democratic society.

Good governments can stand on their records, on what they’ve delivered for their people. Only liars, incompetents and aspiring totalitarians need a bought media, ‘behavioural sciences’, and phoney surveys.

♦ end ♦

20mph, A Disaster Unfolds

On 16.09.202318.09.2023 By JacIn Corruption, Corruption Bay, Environmentalism, Far Left, Welsh Government, World Economic Forum69 Comments

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

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

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

◊

LABOUR’S VERY OWN PROPAGANDA BUREAU

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In fact, Rollnick tells us he was . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

◊

THE LONG MARCH

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

20mph is beginning to sound like snake oil.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It looks a bit of a shambles.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

◊

WHERE IT ENDS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So wise up,

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

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

It’s censorship pretending to be something virtuous.

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

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

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

Even me!

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

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

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

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

♦ end ♦

Racism, Grifting, Agendas

On 08.09.202308.09.2023 By JacIn Arts Council of Wales, Corruption Bay, Racism, Welsh Government25 Comments

This is a piece that I’d planned to get out earlier in the week, but things cropped up. For example, I had to make a trip to Swansea. So for that and other reasons it got delayed.

◊

DRAMA QUEEN PERFORMS

This piece took inspiration from a report in Saturday’s Llais y Sais, but it links with other things I’ve written in recent years. Let’s start with the article.

It’s about Jessica Dunrod. Who a few days before had resigned as Amgueddfa Cymru’s “project manager of decolonising collections“.

The first point I want to make is that if you employ someone to ‘decolonise’ your collections then that’s an admission your collection needs decolonising. But who decides in the first place that a collection needs decolonising? And what criteria do they apply?

What exactly is a colonised collection? Is it a collection that has been taken over and is now being brutally exploited by another collection?

I suspect not.

In her resignation letter Dunrod accused our National Museum of high crimes and misdemeanours including a “toxic working environment“, being a den of “unresolved racism and bullying“, before sparing none with, “institutional racism across Wales in general“.

That final attack might appear to be an accusation of collective or national guilt. If so, then it’s a slander against us all. Which is why I’m going on the offensive, and not just against Jessica Dunrod.

∼

I wrote about our national museum a couple of years back, when it came under attack from certain quarters.

My coverage began with Corruption Bay and a Tale of Cymrophobia (23.08.2021), in which I related that surveys commissioned by the Arts Council of Wales and Amgueddfa Cymru concluded both bodies were racist!

Yeah, ‘surveys’.

My attention was soon drawn to the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union (WAARU).

My follow-up piece was Arts Council of Wales and Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union, an update (31.08.2021). And the third was Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union unmasked (06.09.2021).

In a nutshell, what I found was a bunch of far left shit-stirrers moaning about racism, with WAARU (in its ‘report’) even accusing the Arts Council and the Museum of “upholding white supremacist ideology“.

Wow! there’s an ideology!

But as with all the other allegations, and the cases of ‘discrimination’, there was nothing specific, nothing tangible. Just wild accusations that make the report a work of fiction more worthy of funding than anything else produced by these mediocrities.

But while the race grifters were getting the publicity, plus the jobs, grants and other goodies, they were in some ways just a distraction. For there were other beneficiaries.

Allegations of ‘racism’, campaigns to bestow ‘inclusivity’ and other joys, or funding and appointments, are all used to increase ‘Welsh Government’ influence over certain bodies, even to the point of total control.

A phenomenon I’ve dealt with more recently with, Taking Control, Of Everything (19.06.2023).

Though the use of one tactic does not preclude the use of others. And once you appreciate what’s happening then a number of things become clear. For example, the contrived furore over rappers being banned from the National Eisteddfod was clearly a warning shot about the Eisteddfod’s all-Welsh rule.

With the Eisteddfod so dependent on ‘Welsh Government’ funding, and Vaughan Gething being Drakeford’s heir-apparent, things look bleak for the Gorsedd.

Jessica Dunrod’s sinecure at Amgueddfa Cymru as project manager of decolonising collections was perhaps a result of similar manoeuvring.

∼

Following the WAARU assault Amgueddfa Cymru capitulated and set up a Decolonising Group, with Black Lives Matter apparently playing a big role!

Yes, it actually says: “The Black Lives Matter movement has fast-tracked conversations about the stories that our collections and displays present, calling for us to confront history and challenge present-day injustices.”

How thoroughly decent of them to “fast-track”.

It seems reasonable to assume that BLM also had a hand in the adoption of A Charter for Decolonising Amgueddfa Cymru’s Collection.

By 6 December 2021 we see Amgueddfa Cymru advertising the vacancy that was filled by Jessica Dunrod.

The wording says: “We are recruiting for a Project Manager, Decolonising Collections. The closing date is 13 December – apply now to be part of the de-colonization of the national collections.”

Which I find revealing.

Because so much of what passes for debate on the subject of race and racism is simply slogans imported, without adaptation, from the USA, often unfit for purpose in Europe; and especially in Wales, which had neither an empire nor slavery, and is itself a victim of colonialism.

This wholesale importation of Americanisms extends to the spelling “de-colonization” in the job advert.

One final word on Jessica Dunrod, who sees racism everywhere, to the point of absurdity.

You’ll recall the case of nurse Lucy Letby, who was recently convicted for the deaths of a number of babies in Chester. As far as I’m aware, all the babies were White, a number of them born to Welsh parents.

Well, someone tweeting as ‘Dr Ruby’, somehow linked these killings to the bizarre case of a woman kicking a big horse, and believes that the tragedy of the murdered babies and the horse incident can be attributed to “white supremacist structures“.

And Jessica Dunrod agrees, for she retweeted it.

How unhinged, how obsessed with ‘racism’, do you have to be to see white supremacist structures (whatever they might be) in the Lucy Letby case?

Or to put it another way, how far down the woke rabbit-hole do otherwise sane people have to fall to not call this out for what it is?

◊

SELECTIVE ATTITUDES TO SLAVERY

Slavery is all the rage nowadays.

Well, obviously not the real thing, or certainly not in Western countries, but talk of it often dominates certain political discussions. Based on the absurd premise that slavery was only and ever practised by White people against Black Africans.

And for this, we White folks must be forever repentant. All of us.

I do not believe in collective guilt, even less in inherited guilt. We don’t blame all Germans for WWII, or all Americans for the unspeakable horror that is basketball. And if my great-great-great-great-grandfather killed somebody then that was something he did and for which he alone was and remains responsible.

Similarly with slavery. Though others choose to see it differently.

One of those being Malik Al Nasir, described in the article below as “a poet and an author”, also a PhD history student at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge. He has focused on former MP and Assembly Member Antoinette Sandbach.

It seems that she had a slave-owning ancestor named Samuel Sandbach and Al Nasir wanted everyone to know. This resulted in death threats for Sandbach.

The article doesn’t tell us when Samuel Sandbach flourished, but seeing as Britain outlawed slavery in 1833/34, it had to be over 200 years ago.

I further assume that a man like Malik Al Nasir, so concerned with the horrors of slavery, must be aware that Black Africans are today being sold in North African slave markets by his fellow Muslims.

Come to that, how many Black Africans were enslaved by Muslims over the centuries? Why is it, as this article suggests, “a taboo subject“?

Well, we know why, don’t we? (And if you don’t know, then keep reading.)

After all is said and done, Al Nasir is free to condemn the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but he should be honest enough to accept that slavery was universal.

And by the same token, I am free to condemn the countries of the Sahel, and Turkey, for their part in enslaving millions of White, Christian Europeans in the same time frame as the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

The more I think about the left’s attitude to slavery the more I see the response from the same quarter to ’emissions’ and fossil fuels. China can open a coal-fired power station every other day, the same with India and other countries . . . but climate change is still the fault of Western countries currently impoverishing their populations with degrowth strategies in pursuit of Net Zero.

Which should tell you that it’s not really about slavery, or emissions. These are just elements of the Globalist agenda being implemented to undermine the West.

◊

WHITE BUGGERS ON BIKES

We turn now to someone who’s appeared on this blog before, it’s Gareth James, who runs Irie’s Rum Bar and Reggae Lounge in Aberystwyth. He appeared in Welsh Independence And The Left, back in January.

He got a mention because Aberystwyth seemed to be home to a number of those I wrote about, with Gareth James himself, in his piece in the Cambrian News, arguing that Dyfed Powys Police should be more Woke!

(Most people would settle for them being awake.)

His most recent offering was in last week’s Cambrian News. It’s a truly strange, and worrying article, but it’s very clear that Gareth James has issues with middle-aged White men riding motorbikes.

I won’t dissect it too much, but a few questions must be asked.

If the problem is the noise he claims they make, does it really matter that these bikers Gareth James complains about are White? To put it another way, would the noise be acceptable if these, “elderly dickheads on ear-splitting motorbikes” were Black?

But then, he seems to think that if they were Black they wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near Aberystwyth. Thanks to un-Woke local Plod.

I know Aberystwyth prom, and I’ve seen the bikers parked near the Prom Diner many a time. Yes, there are a few preening wankers among them, but by and large they’re just ordinary blokes who like motorbikes, and like getting together to talk about motorbikes.

Some are middle class, but most are not. Many come up from the south. Let me make it absolutely clear that I’m thinking now of southern Wales, not Dixie.

I make that clear because the piece gave us another jarring Americanism with Gareth’s reference to Harley Davidsons. Jarring because I don’t think I’ve ever seen one on Aber’ prom.

But Gareth’s rant is obviously informed by American movies, and the perception that all-White motorcycle gangs are inherently racist.

Slow down, Gareth; it’s Aberystwyth promenade, not Sturgis, SD.

That sad piece says more about Gareth James than it says about the problems caused by a few middle-aged bikers in Aberystwyth.

Its confessional nature was disappointing because even though rum and reggae are not my thing I was still warming to Gareth James. Possibly because I’ve spent many happy hours – days, even! – in establishments of public resort wherein alcohol may be obtained.

To the extent that I believe there’s a special place in Heaven reserved for bar-keepers. And if I’m right, then, when my time comes, you’ll find me there on a bar stool.

But I’d rather spend eternity being served by a bosomy slapper (Black or White) who enjoys a risqué joke than being lectured on the evils of Whiteness by Gareth James.

◊

CONCLUSION

If Jessica Dunrod was the best of those that applied for the post of decolonization (sic) officer at Amgueddfa Cymru then it don’t bear thinking about the unsuccessful candidates.

Malik Al Nasir is a wannabe academic riding a wave. Promoting himself by putting an innocent woman in danger was unforgiveable.

Gareth James really does need to take a long, hard look at the town and the country he lives in. It’s nowhere near as bad as he seems to think.

Combatting ‘racism’ has become a way for some to expose their own frailties by using the most absurd pretexts to attack White people. Thankfully, an increasing number of people, White and Black, see it for what it is. Which is why Dunrod, Al Nasir, James, and others, need to remember the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

Otherwise people will ignore them when the fascists really do appear.

For I see it now . . . hundreds of the noisy buggers, astride Harley Davidsons, demanding the immediate implementation of “white supremacist structures” as they ride up and down Aberystwyth prom seeking Gareth James.

♦ end ♦

Lynn Global Pushes Globalist Agenda

On 17.08.202317.08.2023 By JacIn Corruption, Globalism, Welsh Government12 Comments

This is a follow-up to last week’s piece about the brainwashers and silencers of Lynn Group Ltd and Lynn Global Ltd. The latter company seems to have superseded the former, for the website is now Lynn Global.

And the piece was very popular. It got a record number of hits the day it went out, with even more hits the following day. Maybe someone was trawling through my output for ‘wrongthink’. If so, I’m done for!

◊

RECAP

That earlier piece, ‘It’s Getting Sinister’, was inspired by a Freedom of Information (FoI) request, the response to which told us there had been a lot of interaction between Lynn and the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’, in the year from July 1, 2022, relating to the imposition of the 20mph speed limit.

Clearly, Lynn was working for the ‘Welsh Government’, using ‘behavioural science’ to promote acceptance of WG’s imposition of 20mph speed limits. Behavioural science is shortened to ‘BS’, which you’ll realise is hilariously appropriate.

Naturally, learning of this connection piqued my interest, and so I did some more digging. Since then, others have helped. Including someone who keeps me updated on Bute Energy and its grandiose plans to cover Wales in wind turbines.

◊

UPDATE

This source directed me to an article on a site, We Are The City, where in February you might have read, Inspirational Woman: Shayoni Lynn CEO & Founder, Lynn, a piece that, interestingly, mentions Covid.

In answer to the question, ‘Have you faced any challenges along the way?’ Shayoni Lynn responds:

I launched Lynn just weeks before the Covid pandemic took hold. . . . Behavioural science was critical to both Covid response and recovery. . . . Lynn was able to establish itself as a firm that deeply understood human behaviours and then embraced, interpreted and integrated these into creative communications to drive persuasive content and calls to action to deliver change for good.

We know that Lynn Group Ltd was Incorporated October 7, 2019, as Lynn PR Ltd (a name it kept until May 5, 2022). The first admitted case of Covid-19 was in Wuhan, China in December 2019. The first confirmed case in Wales, according to Wikipedia, was February 28, 2020.

So Shayoni Lynn formed her new company just in time for Covid. Such propinquity! The answer above seems to suggest that Lynn might even have had some involvement in fighting Covid.

Would that have been in Wales? And if so, might it help explain both the ‘Welsh Government’s reluctance to have an independent, Wales-only inquiry and also its refusal to answer the FoI about its dealings with Lynn?

Possibilities strengthened by learning that the company had a contract from January to April 2021 with Cwm Tâf Morgannwg University Health Board to help the board combat, “anti-lockdown sentiment and hesitancy“.

Nice work if you can get it for a company with no track record. But then, this contract would not have been awarded without the OK from Corruption Bay.

Sticking with the same February article, under the section, ‘What has been your biggest achievement to date?’, we read something explaining how Lynn and others in the field operate:

. . . most meaningfully, provided innovative behaviour change solutions that have measurably improved and saved lives.

“Behaviour change solutions” in the sense of telling people what to think and how to behave. But most importantly, telling people who and what to believe.

And it should go without saying that dictating to people “measurably improved and saved lives“.

And if you believe that then they’ve got you by the balls!

◊

GOODIES AND BADDIES

Let’s kick off this section with a mercifully short film that’s nevertheless revealing about where Lynn stands politically. In the video below the company claims to be “empathetic“, “objective“, and “packed with integrity“. (The final phrase borrowed from Amazon?)

Clearly, the good guys.

In contrast, Trump and Putin are cast as pantomime villains, by being rather crudely associated with “misinformation“. Boo!

We read the boast that, “Our campaigns have improved vaccine uptake by 77.8%.”

Given all we know now about Covid, the lies about its origin, the damage caused by lockdown – especially to children’s health and development – and the surge of deaths caused by untested vaccines, I’m amazed that video hasn’t been taken down.

What it lays out is a political position, a world view. The Globalist agenda.

The agenda of the United Nations, the World Economic Form, the European Union; assorted asset managers like BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street; various multi-billionaires like old money Rothschilds and Rockefellers, joined by arrivistes like Bill Gates, George Soros and Mark Zuckerberg.

Something else that turned up after the original piece was written is an article from the Institute of Welsh Affairs (IWA) website entitled ‘How Disinformation Arrived in Wales, and Where It’s Going Next‘.

Published last September, lead billing was given to Adam Belcher, deputy head of Lynn’s Misinformation Cell; with his boss, Stefan Rollnick, also credited.

A ‘Misinformation Cell’! Bloody hell! And here it is on the Lynn website.

I can’t be sure who Adam Belcher is, and for some reason he doesn’t appear in Team Lynn (has he left?), but Rollnick has a predictable background for this work. Here’s his Linkedin page. (Pdf format.) One section tells of his time at the ‘Welsh Government’.

It may be nothing, it may be something . . . Rollnick started working for Drakeford within a month of Lynn getting the health board Covid contract. Then he went to work for Lynn.

The IWA article might strike you as unremarkable, if slightly hysterical, but read between the lines and it betrays the nature of the beast. And it’s oh so predictable.

It’s the Globalist agenda of those listed above, promoted and defended by shills or useful idiots like those at Lynn.

We are presented with the sole accepted narrative, this is the one pushed by Lynn and others, such as Big Tech, and the mainstream media, either owned or funded by Globalists. Anyone contradicting or challenging that narrative will be guilty of “misinformation” or “disinformation“.

Or smeared in other ways. Such as we see in the IWA article, where the term “far-right” is used no less than eleven times to describe those with whom Lynn’s Disinformation Cell disagrees. Eleven bloody times!

A frame of mind perfectly illustrated by this cartoon I saw on Twitter / X when I was writing this piece. The workings of serendipity, eh!

It’s easy to ridicule brainwashed youngsters who may genuinely believe in the nonsense they spout, but those who’ve brainwashed them, and those whose agendas they promote, are not to be laughed at.

They are a threat to the democratic system, and to the liberty of the individual.

Take this segment highlighted in the IWA article. Read it and think about it.

Our major political parties have a duty to be the first line of defence, not adopting adversarial narratives for opportunism’s sake or political popularity

“Adversarial narratives” competing for “political popularity” is the lifeblood of healthy democracies. It’s almost the sine qua non of a democratic society.

Lynn wants a single, unchallenged voice; in other words, totalitarianism; yet still argues that attacking and silencing those who challenge this totalitarianism is defending “democratic institutions“.

How fucked up does your head have to be to push such bollocks?

And look who these threats to “democratic institutions” are!

Little old ladies protesting about giant wind turbines killing skylarks must be vilified and silenced because they’re opposing “large-scale green infrastructure projects“. When and how did such projects achieve sacred status?

For those who still don’t get it, let me explain . . .

The Globalists instil fear over an imaginary climate crisis in order to enforce compliance with the Globalist agenda.

Get people to believe in the ‘climate crisis’ and those behind the lies can make billions of dollars by enforcing Net Zero, and renewable energy, energy that they will of course own and control. And when they’ve forced farmers off the land they will also control the land, and the food supply, and have us eating insects and lab-made ‘meat’.

We face a future of engineered hardship and shortages designed to give more power to the Globalists, and to take away our control over own lives; whether it’s by restricting our movements with 20mph and 15-minute neighbourhoods, climate lockdowns, vaccine passports, or by removing cash so that every penny we spend is recorded, and we can be punished by a CBDC system if we step out of line.

It’s a return to feudalism, but it will be 21st century feudalism enforced by facial recognition technology and digital passports rather than private armies. (But don’t rule ’em out!) And the people at Lynn Global, together with similar companies and organisations, are the prophets and the praetorians for this New World Order.

But only if we submit, and allow it. And believe BS outfits like Lynn Global.

◊

CONCLUSION

Of course, there will be those who’ll reject what I say about the Globalist agenda and the New World Order. Perhaps because what I’m suggesting sounds too far-fetched. And there’ll be some who don’t want to believe it for fear it might be true.

Others may seek comfort in a reassuring analogy. “Come on, Jac, it’s just persuading people – like adverts on the telly, mun“. But is it?

If my wife doesn’t like Daz she can buy Persil, or Bold, or some other detergent. If I’m looking for a bottle of wine I’m spoilt for choice even in Tywyn Coop. With Lynn and its behavioural science it’s a case of, “We have a monopoly on truth, you must therefore accept what we say.”

Which means that my wife has choice over washing powder, but left to Lynn and their ilk none of us would be allowed to hold divergent views on the major issues affecting us and the world around us.

We are living under a creeping form of totalitarianism, and like all totalitarianism, from the Inquisition to 20th century Communism, it allows no divergent views.

At the moment Wales seems badly afflicted by these Green-Woke-Left servants of the New World Order. And much of it stems from Cardiff University. Which is where Shayoni Lynn would have been found ere she donned her armour to confront the twin evils that have dominated this article.

And yet, I find it revealing that Shayoni Lynn doesn’t actually want to confront them. The excuse given in ‘The Dangers of Debating Disinformation‘ is:

. . . debunking misinformation requires a careful and nuanced approach in the battle against falsehoods, with hidden risks to addressing false claims directly . . .

This is the kind of approach adopted towards a child who’s caught an adult lying, or proven an adult wrong. The little smart-ass is either ignored, ordered to shut up, or banished to the naughty step.

But the bigger problem is that behavioural science – i.e. censorship – now pervades political and public life in Wales. We see it manifest its ugly self all the time. We saw it in recent posts on this blog about Extinction Rebellion and other pressure groups with far too much influence over the ‘Welsh Government’.

A term I picked up, used by Extinction Rebellion, and then adopted by the ‘Welsh Government’ itself, was “trusted messengers“. The passage below is from page 24 of ‘Climate Change – A Strategy for Public Engagement & Action (2022-2026)‘.

I translate the opening phrase as, “We’ll only engage with people who agree with us. People who’ll tell us what we want to hear“.

It crops up a number of times in that document I linked to, and in many other ‘Welsh Government’ publications. And whaddya know – on the Lynn website Shayoni herself presents a wee opus on trusted messengers.

∼

Wales has a government failing on all fronts and still pushing what’s becoming an increasingly discredited Globalist narrative, which means those politicos are forced to rely on the pyscho-spivs at Lynn, with their ludicrous ‘behavioural science’.

And this explains why we’re fed so much BS.

♦ end ♦

It’s Getting Sinister

On 09.08.202310.08.2023 By JacIn Corruption, Environmentalism, Globalism, Welsh Government39 Comments

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

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

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

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

◊

TOO MUCH TO HANDLE

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

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

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

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

The FoI. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

◊

SOPHIE HOWE

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

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

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

And of course she joined Lynn. But why?

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

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

Don Fanucci. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

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

Which is it with Lynn and Sophie Howe?

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

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

◊

CONCLUSION

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

♦

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

♦ end ♦

Wales, Idiots And Envirogrifters

On 28.07.202329.07.2023 By JacIn Colonialism, Environmentalism, Globalism, Greens, Welsh Government41 Comments

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

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

♦

EXTINCTION REBELLION, AN UPDATE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So who is Claire Chappell?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

♦

MISCELLANEA

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

That make sense?

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RULE OF SIX

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

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

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

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

∼

THE ENVIROGRIFTERS’ MILITIA

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

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

Clearly following the third sector model.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

∼

NFU REJECTS ‘WELSH GOVERNMENT’ TREES PLAN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

∼

FUTURE GENERATIONS COMMISSIONER LOOKS INTO THE, ER, FUTURE

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

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

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

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

So what did Derek have to say?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finally, we read:

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

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

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

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

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

∼

DEVELOPMENTS OF NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An agenda the envirogrifters are increasingly dictating!

♦

CONCLUSION

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

♦ end ♦

Stonewall And The ‘Welsh Government’

On 21.07.202322.07.2023 By JacIn Welsh Government, Welsh Labour, World Economic Forum32 Comments

I hadn’t planned on writing this, but I’m on something of a crusade to make people aware of the connections between the so-called ‘Welsh Government’ and pressure groups.

It’s bad enough when these groups have their fantasies legitimised as ‘Welsh Government’ policy, but our children being involved takes it to a different level.

The promised piece on the Globalist threat will now appear next week.

◊

STONEWALL

Stonewall takes its name from the Stonewall riots in New York City’s Greenwich Village, in the summer of 1969; that began with a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar owned by the Genovese crime family.

(It seems there’d been a foul-up in communications between cops and Mob who were normally tipped off if NYPD was about to visit.)

The organisation that resulted from the riots was the Gay Liberation Front, designed to protect the interests of lesbian, gay and bisexual people. But there were a number of similar groups.

Stonewall Inn, NYC. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

The 1980s saw the AIDS epidemic which was believed by many in the gay community to have led to in increased hostility towards homosexuals. It was out of such perceptions that Stonewall was founded in 1989.

First, as The Stonewall Lobby Group Ltd, and then, from March 16, 2004, as Stonewall Equality Ltd.

Stonewall grew, gaining in acceptance and respectability, and going almost mainstream as a political lobbying group. Everything was coming up roses.

Until 2015, that is, because when Stonewall “became trans inclusive”, things changed. What had been a LGB organisation became LGBTQ+. To the point where many people – including gays and lesbians – thought Stonewall was obsessed with ‘trans rights’.

As a result of which, many gays and lesbians have disassociated themselves from Stonewall, and formed other groups. Chief among these is perhaps the LGB Alliance.

From gay friends I hear that one reason for them rejecting Stonewall is that gay boys confused about their sexuality (as they were) are pushed towards surgery to turn them into infertile, incontinent, and miserable ‘girls’ prone to thoughts of suicide.

Which makes sense; and speaking as a straight man, butchering confused kids doesn’t strike me as progress in any direction. It sounds more like regression to something that might have been performed at an Aztec religious ceremony.

Another objection was the pretence that men who dressed as women, even rapists, must be regarded as ‘transwomen’.

However we got here, in the past few years Stonewall, once the darling of left-liberals everywhere, has hit a rocky patch.

Its Diversity Champions Programme raised millions of pounds from private companies, charities, government departments and other bodies, desperate to get the Stonewall seal of approval.

But that scheme started failing as people realised that promoting child mutilation and trying to erase women was not that appealing to the public.

There was also a growing suspicion that the year-long Pride month, talk of “minor attracted persons”, and the promotion of drag shows for children, were just means for softening people up to accept paedophilia.

All of which helps explain why the skids are now well and truly under Stonewall.

But despite it all, the so-called ‘Welsh Government’ remains true in its support for what has degenerated into a dangerous organisation.

◊

‘WE’LL KEEP A WELCOME . . . ‘

From the documents available on the Companies House website, the first payment I can find from the then Welsh Assembly Government to Stonewall was in 2003. Though before that, individual donors are not listed.

The accounts for 2003 tell that WAG gave £50,000 for “lesbian and gay equality work”. In addition, Stonewall received £13,371 from Comic Relief for “a media project in Wales”.

Which suggests that Stonewall asked Comic Relief to fund a project specific to Wales. Why would it do that? And does anyone remember what that media project was?

In recent years, as other funders pulled back from Stonewall, the ‘Welsh Government’ continued to fund this now subversive organisation. Between September 30, 2017 and March 31, 2022 ‘Welsh Government’ and the Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA), controlled by WG, gave Stonewall £728,381.

Below you’ll see Stonewall’s grant funding for the past five years, the funding from Wales highlighted. The purpose for which grants are made is no longer stated, so there may be grants from organisations outside Wales intended for projects within our country.

So why has the ‘Welsh Government’ given so much more to Stonewall than the Scottish Government? We can see that NHS Scotland contributed separately, but the combined Scottish figure is still less than that for Wales.

The problem of the ‘Welsh Government’s links with Stonewall go beyond money. Because if it was confined to funding for a hands-off organisation then there’d be fewer complaints.

But as we know, Stonewall, especially in Wales, is not hands-off. Stonewall has influence throughout Welsh life; most worryingly, with the education curriculum for our children.

So how did Stonewall achieve its position of influence in Wales? Well, I suppose the answer is, partly due to politicians desperate to be seen as onside with every Guardian issue, and partly due to the ‘easy-going’ attitude towards probity and impartiality found in Corruption Bay.

Here’s a relevant example.

Back in 2021 a few activists pulled together a group calling itself the LGBTQ+ Expert Panel and presented its ‘findings’ to the ‘Welsh Government’.

Here’s the opening paragraph of the ‘report’:

These findings were published by the ‘Welsh Government’. Suggesting this was another example of the Corruption Bay Clown Show approaching a pressure group and basically asking: “What would you like us to do for you?”

When we look at the composition of the group we can see how unrepresentative it is. To begin with, membership is confined to those who agree with Stonewall. Then, it’s geographically limited to Cardiff. Finally, there’s the mis-labelling.

I’m referring now to Lu Thomas, who is described as ‘Independent’. Independent of what, or whom? To help you understand Lu Thomas, read this article.

And of course, she’s a Labour insider who, over the years, has landed a number of profitable gigs by, er . . . well, by being a Labour insider. On official documents Lu usually becomes ‘Rebecca Louise Thomas’.

But her Linkedin profile (here in pdf format) reveals none of this. Indeed, from that source it’s difficult to see how she keeps the wolf from the door of her dream home in Penarth.

For five years she was chair of Pride Cymru. Was that a paying job? Then, “Managing Director of Final Say Wales” sounds grand, but what the hell was it? I assume it linked with the ‘Welsh Government’s attempt to overturn the Brexit vote.

But again, was there a salary?

Because there’s nothing using the handle ‘Final Say Wales’ registered with Companies House, the Charity Commission, or the Financial Conduct Authority (for Mutuals).

Next up, Lu Thomas claims to be a director of a company called Re:Cognition. There is indeed such a company, with a turnover last year of £11.5m, but Lu Thomas has nothing to do with it.

She’s referring to a tuppenny-ha’penny outfit run by another Labour hack, Jon Luxton, Re:Cognition Training CIC. But Thomas isn’t a director. Never has been.

Since April she’s been Director of Gypsies and Travellers Wales. Which is intriguing, because I was unaware of her having any Gypsy or Traveller background.

Here’s a stab in the dark.

We know the ‘Welsh Government’ is taking over countless organisations, perhaps an insurance policy to – should the worst happen – make life difficult for an incoming non-Labour administration. I wrote about these takeovers recently in Taking Control, Of Everything.

Is Gypsies and Travellers Wales another takeover? The ‘Welsh Government’ is not currently listed among the organisation’s funders, but I bet that’ll change now that Lu Thomas is on board. Though there’ll be a price to pay.

Can’t you see it: “You must give up the Range Rovers and the £100,000 trailers and go back to the horse-drawn caravan – picturesque and environmentally friendly”.

And ‘trans rights’ should go down a bomb with a socially conservative group.

Then again, there are many Gypsy and Traveller groups, and so I wonder how representative of the community the one Lu Thomas has joined really is.

I’ve got nothing personal against Lu Thomas. I mention her because she represents so much that is wrong with devolution. Without a vote to her name she can access and direct public funding, and influence ‘Welsh Government’ policy.

So to whom is she and the others like her accountable?

∼

UPDATE: I was directed to these Minutes of the LGBT(Q)+ Expert Panel held in January, February and March 2021. These are the Minutes of the meetings that led to the document I linked to earlier.

They make interesting reading in a number of ways. For example, this paragraph seems to confirm our worst fears.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

The first meeting is chaired by Alyson Francis of the ‘Welsh Government’s Communities Division’. Lu Thomas is listed, but not representing any organisation.

For the second meeting we read: “Alyson explained that a suggestion had been received for Lu Thomas and Alyson to co-chair the group”. We aren’t told who made the suggestion, or why it was made.

In the third meeting, Lu Thomas welcomes everyone, and seems to be in charge, despite co-chair Alyson Francis also being at the meeting. Lu Thomas appears to have taken over from a WG official, but on what authority?

The other thing that struck me was the absence of any representatives of Glitter Cymru in the three monthly meetings, yet three are listed in the final report as being members of the Expert Panel.

One of the three, Ourania Vamvaka-Tatsi, attended all the monthly meetings, but representing ‘MEAD Cardiff University‘.

◊

WE’RE COMING FOR YOUR CHILDREN

There can be no doubt that Stonewall has a great deal of influence within the ‘Welsh Government’ and its associated agencies. The generous funding Stonewall receives is proof enough of that.

And yet, this is no more than we’ve come to expect in Wales – pressure groups forcing their agendas onto an administration with few ideas of its own and a pathetic desire to comply with the Globalists’ Woke-Green-Left agenda.

And the pressure groups actually get paid for it! Like a comedian’s gag writers.

But over and above the money is the worry about Stonewall’s influence on the education system, and our children. Though it’s strange that those involved with Stonewall and similar organisations are so concerned about children, considering so few of them have children of their own.

(If anybody thinks the previous paragraph is homophobic, or transphobic, or any bloodyphobic, well, “Frankly, my dear . . . “.)

In particular, I’m referring to the new Curriculum for Wales, and especially the Relationships and Sexuality Education Code (RSE). Which is explained as you see below. And it’s wrong on so many counts.

Fundamentally, “the world around us” remains very much the same as it has for millennia. Human males inseminate human females, who have babies, and most children are still brought up by a mother and father within a wider family network.

It’s still the case that women do not have penises, and men can not have babies.

Yet attempts to undermine the nuclear family still come from Stonewall and other pervert-friendly groups that are far too close to the ‘Welsh Government’.

Small wonder that more parents in Wales are choosing to home school their children, as this interview (in Welsh) confirms.

As Catherine says: “They’re my children, not Mark Drakeford’s children, or (education minister) Jeremy Miles’ children”.

She might have added, “And they’re certainly not Stonewall’s children“.

I expect children to be taught the irrefutable: The Earth is round, 2 + 2 = 4, Moscow is the capital of Russia, etc. Beyond that I would want children to be taught critical thinking so they can make up their own minds.

A balanced, “But on the other hand . . . “ approach.

But that’s not happening because there are so many pressure groups demanding input into the education system, and so many brainwashed teachers, that we are producing programmed kids who believe that regurgitating slogans and prejudices is thinking for themselves.

A word that’s always intrigued me is ‘stakeholder’. It’s all the rage, you see and hear it everywhere, but who or what is a stakeholder? How do you become a stakeholder?

I posed that question to a regular contact who directed me to a list of the ‘stakeholders’ involved in the education of Welsh children. And there are some surprising, even worrying, names among them.

Here’s the ‘Welsh Government’s Education Strategic Stakeholder Group. (It doesn’t seem to have been updated since July 2019, so we have to assume it’s still correct.)

The first thing that struck me was the number of trade unions on that list. Ten, by my count. But what input do trade unions need to our education system? Or, to put it another way, how do our children benefit from any such input?

And why so many voices for the ‘Welsh Government’? Are those different departments in competition?

Then I noticed three BAME outfits. Race Council Cymru (BAME Alliance), Race Equality First (BAME Alliance), and EYST. What’s their contribution – “White people are evil“? Because that seems to be all they have to say nowadays.

I would almost bet my house on the fact that ALL the organisations on that list have been won over or coerced into accepting the Globalist Woke-Green-Left agenda. So where is the balance of an alternative interpretation?

And do you know what else I don’t see there – an organisation representing parents. You know, those ultimately responsible for children.

◊

CONCLUSION

The Western world is in a bad place at the moment. For we live in a dictatorship. It might still be a relatively benign dictatorship, but a dictatorship nonetheless.

We went through a Covid lockdown in order to inject us with God knows what. We are allowed to hold only certain views, and if you move beyond this groupthink then you will be deplatformed, blocked on social media, and even lose your job.

This is because we have very rich and powerful individuals seeking to control what we eat, what’s injected into us, where we live, who lives among us, how far we can travel, and of course, what we think.

For as Nigel Farage found out, thoughtcrime can leave you without a bank account.

“We’ll provide the crises – and the solutions!”, says Klaus Schwab.

To further their ambitions the oligarchs have on their side people who pretend to believe or – God help them! – may genuinely believe that anyone opposing The Agenda must be far right or fascist, racist, transphobe, climate denier, etc, etc.

We seem to have reached a point of maximum lunacy. Biology can be denied. History can be re-written. Climate records can be changed.

“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

The problem for the Globalists is that they regularly come into contact with reality – and lose. Though the loss can usually be covered up by their apologists, especially those in their bought media.

Nowhere is the lie more obvious just now than with ‘refugees’. I’m referring to the thousands of young men, many of Muslim and African backgrounds, who land in Europe every day.

Everyone knows they are not genuine refugees, even those defending them. So we have to deal in euphemisms; ‘migrant’ being the current favourite. But we are still asked to believe that they are fleeing war or persecution or natural disaster.

Which is why recent events at the Stradey Park Hotel in Llanelli have been so fascinating, and revelatory.

To cut a long story short . . . the UK Home Office, working with the hotel’s owners, decided to move 300 undocumented ‘migrants’ into the four star Stradey Park Hotel.

The locals decided they didn’t want it to happen, and so they protested, and blocked the entrance. There has been a stand-off for a few weeks, and at the time of writing, no ‘migrants’ have arrived.

These locals are now far right, fascists, racists, etc.

Image Richard Tice. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

And yet, who are the real extremists?

Is it decent, hard-working, law-abiding Welsh people defending their community, or is it left wing fanatics driven by a corrupt ideology who don’t give a damn about Llanelli and have been bused in from as far away as Bristol?

The answer seems obvious to me.

The bigger message should also be clear. If you want to save your kids from Stonewall, if you want to protect your communities from unvetted ‘migrants’, if you want to retain your freedom of thought and movement – stop voting for socialists.

Because when it gave up on the White working class the left transferred its allegiance to the Globalists and their pressure groups. You only have to look at the state of Wales today, and where the money goes, to realise that.

A ‘Welsh Government’ that can’t find money to feed the poorest kids can still find money for those who’d like to expose themselves to those children.

This is twenty-first century ‘socialism’. It offers nothing. Wake up! before it’s too late.

♦ end ♦

Jac o' the North

Category: Welsh Government

The Road To Hell

A Change Of Tack?

A Little Place In The Country

‘Welsh Government’ Declares War On Freedoms, Motorists, Farmers

Link Holdings (Gibraltar) Ltd Revisited

Lies, Damned Lies, Opinion Polls

20mph, A Disaster Unfolds

Racism, Grifting, Agendas

Lynn Global Pushes Globalist Agenda

It’s Getting Sinister

Wales, Idiots And Envirogrifters

Stonewall And The ‘Welsh Government’