Ah! the Brangwyn Hall. I remember being slung out of there many years ago. It was a Labour Party do, with that son of Abersychan, Roy Jenkins, topping the bill. (Ere he and others left to form the SDP.)
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Anyway, Woy had got to the bit in his peroration where he proclaimed to the assembly that he too was Welsh . . . at which point a young Jac jumped up and shouted ‘You’re no Welshman!’ (My outburst may have contained an expletive attributive.)
I was immediately attacked by some old crow sitting behind me, who laid into me with her umbrella! A possible headline from the Evening Post flashed through my mind – ‘Nationalist yob beaten to death by umbrella-wielding Labour granny’.
I was saved from this undignified and premature fate by the ‘stewards’ (i.e. Labour heavies) dragging me off towards the huge front doors. With a few reminders along the way that my contribution was not appreciated. (‘Troublemaker, ew are!’)
Happy days!
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‘PROGRESSIVE’ MELIN DRAFOD
In this section I shall refer more than once to the briefly successful far Left takeover of YesCymru in 2020 and 2021.
I wrote about this extensively at the time and so, to catch up with what I wrote, type ‘YesCymru’ in the search box atop the sidebar.
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The event later this month in the Brangwyn is organised by think tank Melin Drafod. And you don’t need to think too hard to realise what anyone attending is likely to hear.
All the speakers are on the Left. Or the far Left. Or the Woke Left. Call it what you will.
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But ‘progressive’ is the label behind which they all hide nowadays. Such a nice word, harmless and unthreatening. Who among us could object to ‘progress‘?
Me. Because I recognise rebranded Marxism.
Helping me appreciate that the ‘progress’ demanded by those who’ll gather where a young Jac was assaulted by a Bolshie harridan is worrying.
But let Melin Drafod speak for itself:
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‘Not independence for its own sake’. What is that trying to say – patriotism is not enough? Or is it a veiled threat to scupper any form of independence that doesn’t meet with the approval of the far Left?
There is so much to read into that section.
My views on ‘climate change’ are well known – it’s not happening. The myth is being kept alive by ‘environmentalists’ and others who’ve staked their reputations on it and can’t afford to backtrack, with supranational bodies thinking ‘global warming’ gives them the excuse to control human behaviour worldwide.
And does anyone seriously believe that racism is a ‘scourge’ in modern Wales? Who but the seriously unhinged could insult us by equating Wales in 2023 with Arkansas or the Transvaal a few decades back?
Only perhaps those with a vested interest in using the allegation of ‘racism’ to slander political opponents and to promote their own interests.
The latter might apply to Melin Drafod National Committee member Harriet Protheroe-Soltani, of the Wales Refugee Council. Like all third sector bodies, this one thrives by inventing or exaggerating a problem – and then demanding funding to tackle that problem.
Ms Protheroe-Soltani of Momentum was also employed by YesCymru when it fell briefly under the control of the far Left in 2020 / 2021.
Sam Coates is another member of the National Committee.
His Twitter account tells that he is a socialist first, then a Welshman. Which would appear to bear out that for these ‘progressives’ Wales comes second to their ideological priorities.
Significantly, perhaps, there’s no mention of independence.
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And, again, it’s worth returning to the far Left takeover of YesCymru, for Coates wrote this essay in July 2021, and it’s revealing. (Available here in pdf format.) Not just about Coates but about the others who’ll be at the Brangwyn later this month.
He writes: ‘In 2017, I rocked up to the Hen Coleg yn Aberystwyth on a baking hot day to attend YesCymru’s AGM. It was a friendly room of about 50 people, mostly middle age, and mostly white.’
‘Mostly white’ – in a country that is 95% White! Would Coates and the comrades be happier if YesCymru was a majority non-White organisation, and therefore grotesquely unrepresentative of Wales?
As unrepresentative as those who’ll be at the Brangwyn Hall.
Referring to the rigged YesCymru elections of May 2021 that saw the far Left briefly take control, Coates writes: ‘Hundreds of members attended the online event, and used a voting tool used by many other political organisations to choose members of the new Central Committee’.
It would appear that when he wrote of those ‘hundreds’ voting Coates had forgotten that a few paragraphs earlier he’d talked of YesCymru having 18,000 members. Presenting us with the obvious question: why were just 2-3% of the members able / allowed to vote?
But let’s remember some of the tweets from ‘progressives’ celebrating victory!
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Coates’ whole essay is an apology for an attempted far Left takeover; and it’s riddled with inaccuracies, misrepresentations and outright lies.
The other members of Melin Drafod’s National Committee seem to be Plaid Cymru members, and others who were involved in the near-destruction of YesCymru in 2021. I’m thinking of Llywelyn ap Gwilym, and Siôn Jobbins, Chair of YesCymru who eventually jumped ship.
Then we have Elin Hywel and Colin Nosworthy of Undod, the source of so much of the poison that almost finished off YesCymru.
And of course there are one or two on the National Committee from the Labour Party.
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WHO’S COMING TO THE SUMMIT AND WHO’S NOT INVITED?
Let’s start by listing those political parties and organisations that are not invited by Melin Drafod (or whoever) to the portentously dubbed ‘Independence Summit’.
First off, there’s the party to which I belong, Gwlad. Then there’s Propel. There’s also the Sovereign Party / Plaid Sofren. So without going too far, we’ve already found three registered political parties, with councillors, made up of serious and experienced people, with all three parties committed to Welsh independence.
So why didn’t Melin Drafod invite them?
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The listed speakers are advertised as follows . . .
‘Anthony Slaughter (Wales Green Party Leader), Adam Price MS (Plaid Cymru Leader), Cllr Rachel Garrick (Welsh Labour for Independence), Sam Coates (Undod), Gwern Evans (YesCymru), Luke Fletcher MS, Mirain Owen (Cymdeithas yr Iaith) and others’.
So let’s begin with Slaughter, and remind everyone that there is no Wales Green Party! There is only the Wales branch of the Green Party of England.
In 2018 Green Party members in Wales had the chance to create a separate Wales Green Party, they voted not to. The main reason for that was that most Green Party members in Wales are English.
Then, last year, the Green Party of England in Wales claimed to be in favour of Welsh independence! Plaid Cymru fell for it and was happy to enter some sort of agreement with them.
No individual, group, or party, sincere about Welsh independence, should even talk to a colonialist outfit that refuses to even recognise the existence of our country.
Plaid Cymru I’ll leave until last.
‘Welsh Labour for Independence’ (WLfI) is another piece of nonsense. Labour is a Unionist party. Any Labour member who wants independence is in the wrong party. Maybe some now realise that.
But is (WLfI) the same as Labour for an Independent Wales (LfIW)? Or, and this is the frightening bit – are there two of them!
During the struggle for YesCymru LfIW was prominent in undermining sensible committee members and replacing them with some real nutters. Working from the shadows was Rob Lloyd of Prestatyn, while out there on the Welshpool barricades was Benji Gwalchmai.
Where are they now? How I miss them!
We already know all we need to know about Sam Coates and Undod.
YesCymru is represented by Gwern Gwynfil Evans. He was announced as YC’s first-ever full-time CEO in September. The piece I’ve linked to says he has ‘a business background’. Which is true; one of his companies was Dissolved in the very month he was appointed.
Yet he brings another Aberystwyth connection to the party. Which I’ll explore shortly.
Cymdeithas yr Iaith is not worth dwelling on. Hopelessly Woke it overlaps with Undod and other far Left groups like Plaid Cymru’s youth wing, Plaid Ifanc, where pronouns are of paramount importance.
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So, finally, let’s give some thought to Plaid Cymru which, in most people’s eyes, is ‘the nationalist party’, and the leading voice for Welsh independence.
On the one hand, Plaid activists seem to be more at home at Gay Pride parades than at marches for independence; while the party is being eaten away from the inside by a combination of back-stabbing and sexual misbehaviour.
The party tries to keep things under wraps but news of the obsession with other people’s ‘bits’ inevitably reaches the public domain.
MS Rhys ab Owen was suspended a few months ago for unwanted sexual advances to a female. But he was only suspended after the party had sat on the case for some time in the hope the complainant would go away.
Last month, the party’s chief executive, Carl Harris, finally stepped down after it emerged he had made unwanted sexual advances to a young party worker.
When it’s like this at the top of the party – and I mean, the very top – then no one should be surprised that lower down the pecking order we find bizarre behaviour.
The image below (which I pixelated) is of someone who works for a Plaid Cymru MS showing what he proposes to do when he catches whoever is behind an anonymous ‘I know what you did!’ Twitter account accusing him of . . .
Plaid Cymru is a mess, however you look at it, and from top to bottom. To say it’s lost its way would be wrong . . . for that would suggest Plaid’s leadership in recent decades ever knew where it was going.
I think Plaid Cymru is now too far gone for the change of leadership Arfon Jones calls for to make any difference. My view is that Plaid should do the honest thing and merge with Labour.
They deserve each other.
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RUM, REGGAE, AND ‘AN UNTAINTED, LEFT-WING, WELSH ALTERNATIVE’
I mentioned earlier that Aberystwyth businessman, Gwern Evans, is CEO of YesCymru. And he’s not the only one speaking at the Brangwyn bash from that lovely town where a dashing young blade spent a weekend in the police cells.
Happy days!
For Melin Drafod Chair, Dr Talat Chaudhri is mayor of the town. Also living in Aber’ is secretary Mererid Boswell, and former chair of YesCymru, Siôn Jobbins.
UPDATE: I am indebted to Jon Coles for telling us that Colin Nosworthy is a press officer for Aberystwyth University.
And there may be others with Aberystwyth connections. Not Sam Coates, obviously; not after his chastening experience of stumbling into a gathering of the Llanbadarn chapter of the Afrikaner Broederbond.
However you cut it, Aber’ will be over-represented at this Swansea gig. And then I came across something last week, which is intriguing, but needs an intro.
There is an intermittent column in the Cambrian News by a Gareth James.
This was the piece drawn to my attention, last November. It contained this line: ‘Like it or not, mid Wales is woke, for mid Wales is about sharing mid Wales with everyone’, plus a few passages that the source interpreted as threats against those who refused to accept Wokeness.
Then, a couple of weeks later, came this extraordinary piece calling for Dyfed Powys Police to be more ‘woke’, following what the writer interpreted as racial profiling that targets his sons. (Here in pdf format.)
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You’ll also see, at the top of the article ‘The View from the Vaults’, these being the Weston Vaults pub in Aberystwyth. Now renamed Irie’s Rum Bar and Reggae Lounge.
Aberystwyth is a fairly small town, so I’d be surprised if the ‘progressives’ of YesCymru, Melin Drafod, etc, don’t frequent a bar run by a man who wants Plod to be more Woke.
A consideration that brings us to the most recent contribution from Gareth James, that appeared in the Cambrian News last week. (Available here in pdf format.) Also available on Irie’s Blog.
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Another long, rambling piece, but when I read the final paragraph a light went on in my head – a new political party that is ‘an untainted, left-wing, Welsh alternative’.
Is Gareth James trying to tell us something?
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Is this what Talat Chaudhri, Sam Coates and the rest have in mind? Is this what Melin Drafod is hoping comes out of the Brangwyn Hall meeting?
Whether it’s a new party or simply closer co-operation between existing far Left groups, this Independence Summit looks like another attempt by the far Left to take over the independence movement.
If so, then it becomes the duty of those of us with a broader view of Wales to challenge these people. For if it became accepted among the general public that these fanatics are the only ones wanting independence then Wales is finished.
Independence must promise, and deliver, the inclusivity the far Left always demands of others but never practices itself.
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CONCLUSION
I have warned many times before, and I make no apologies for doing so again, that what these Green-Woke-Leftists want is independence for a small country whose politicians can then be bullied and blackmailed into implementing their fantasies.
This capture from the website of Labour for an Independent Wales reminds us that, for them, independence is simply the route to socialism.
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It’ll be something like the Wales we know today: a country falling apart at the seams because weak politicians are dominated by lobbyists, pressure groups and third sector organisations. But it’ll be a hell of a lot worse!
There’ll be nothing in it for you and me, Dai. For our people; or for our Wales.
As the title suggests, this week’s offering is a miscellany, bits and pieces from hither and yon. Covering . . .
Wind turbine disposal.
Fears for the planning system in the north west.
Awkward locals opposing the hundreds of executive homes Aberdyfi so desperately needs.
A development in the ongoing saga of the Llanbedr by-pass.
A new environmental group (cos we haven’t got enough).
More on Gilestone farm.
My unanswered FoI to the ‘Welsh’ Labour Party.
‘Welsh Government’ funds National Trust (cos NT’s a bit short at the moment).
Is ‘Welsh Government’ flogging off executive homes in Cardiff?
Enviroloonies saving Wales from the curse of employment.
Stumping up for the ‘Welsh Government’s favourite farmer.
‘Welsh Government’ wants more trees . . . but fewer farmers.
Ukraine.
Enlarging the Senedd, or making the pig-sty bigger.
This is a monster issue, over 5,000 words; but you can take it a piece at a time. And because it is such a substantial offering late in the week, don’t expect anything next week.
Capice?
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WHERE WILL ALL THE TURBINES GO?
A couple of weeks ago I submitted a Freedom of Information request to the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ asking who was responsible for disposing of wind turbines when they come to the end of their working lives.
Given that the lifespan of a turbine is 15 – 25 years we must have in Wales a few hundred turbines approaching decrepitude. With hundreds more in their ‘middle age’, and plans in the system to erect God knows how many others. (Bute Energy alone wants 20 new wind farms.)
It seems to me to be an important question. Hence the FoI request.
When we add the birds and bats they kill wind turbines’ environmental credentials are on a par with Jack the Ripper’s contribution to the welfare and well-being of streetwalkers. Click to open enlarged in separate tab.
It tells me that, ‘Responsibility for decommissioning wind turbines lies with the developer/operator of the site’.
Richard Spear of the Planning Inspectorate concludes his response with: ‘In addition, developers/operators should ensure that sufficient finance is set aside to enable them to meet restoration obligations. A local planning authority may require financial guarantees by way of a Section 106 planning obligation / agreement, as part of the approval of planning permission to ensure that restoration will be fully achieved.’
It’s worth pointing out that in most cases it was the ‘Welsh Government’ that gave planning permission for wind turbines, often over-riding local authorities. The ‘Welsh Government’ should therefore have seen to it that each developer paid a ‘bond’, up front, to ensure there will be enough money to restore each site.
But those buffoons down Corruption Bay were so concerned with making ‘planet-saving’ gestures that they couldn’t see beyond their own wagging fingers.
I predict with certainty that in the near future, we – by which I mean Wales – will find ourselves lumbered with ‘orphan’ wind turbines that will cost us a hell of a lot of money to demolish. And then more money to restore the sites they’ve come from.
On the plus side, it means that turbine blades from the Continent can come to landfill sites in Wales!
Should this come to pass then it will doubtless be claimed as ‘foreign investment’.
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WILD WEST SHOW?
I am indebted to a regular source for news of concerns about the Gwynedd and Môn Joint Planning Policy Committee. To be clear, this is not the planning committee, deciding on planning applications, but the policy committee that determines in more general terms where development will be allowed.
Although Gwynedd is a large council in area, much of the planning responsibility falls to the Snowdonia National Park; which leaves the council to oversee a few ‘islands’ – Tywyn, Barmouth, Blaenau Ffestiniog – then Porthmadog and Llŷn, and finally, the northern coastal strip taking in Caernarfon and Bangor and running to Abergwyngregyn.
Crossing over, readers may remember that for a few years Ynys Môn council was in special measures. This was ostensibly for failings in education delivery, but it went well beyond that.
For like many rural authorities Ynys Môn is prone to being controlled by a few forceful individuals, often holding sway through membership of an organisation claiming to be heirs to the Knights Templar and other exotic fraternities.
Never more true than in keeping to the Templar talent for accruing wealth. Though I’m unsure if the medieval predecessors were as cunning as their heirs in planning matters and the allocation of contracts.
For who could forget Ceredigion when Dai Lloyd Evans and his merry men ruled the roost? Those were the days! The late Paul Flynn, sitting on the House of Commons Welsh Affairs Select Committee, referred to Ceredigion Council as “The Wild West Show”.
But then, as we saw in Carmarthenshire during the halcyon days of Mark James, sometimes, with largely rural authorities, the boss man doesn’t even have to be a councillor.
My source’s concern is that the chairman of the joint planning policy committee is a member of this group to which I have alluded. And while I’m sure he’s a splendid fellow, with a good firm handshake, I can understand my source’s misgivings.
Someone else giving my informant food for thought is the young man who’s now Senior Executive Officer at Gwynedd’s Housing and Property Department.
Don’t get me wrong, he’s an educated boy, studied . . . Welsh, and, er . . . Music.
But then, it is suggested by cynics that the boy’s father’s friendship with Gwynedd’s Head of Finance may have played a role in the appointment.
O tempora! O mores!
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ABERDYFI EXECUTIVES MUST BE HOUSED!
When I first saw this news item I thought to myself, ‘Hang on, Jones, isn’t this the development Ann Clwyd was banging on about decades ago?’ And I’m sure it is.
For the woman who went on to become MP for the Cynon Valley has connections to Aberdyfi and the wider Dysynni area. I have a photo of a young Ann Clwyd with my sister-in-law when the latter was the village carnival queen back in the mid-sixties.
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It’s difficult to comprehend how this project has resurfaced, or why it wasn’t killed off decades ago. What does it say about our planning system?
Aberdyfi may be a sizeable village; a few pubs, a few caffs, shops, and an unhealthy number of estate agents. But it backs up to a cliff, with the sea on the other side, and there’s just one road in and out, the A493. A crash or some other hold-up on that road and Aberdyfi is almost inaccessible except by boat or helicopter.
Sticking to housing, Aberdyfi may be the financial, commercial, and industrial hub of the south Meirionnydd coast, but the village needs 401 ‘executive homes’ like our cat needs fleas.
The company behind this zombie scheme is Hillside Parks Ltd, run by Christopher John Madin, who I believe is the son of John Hardcastle Dalton Madin, the architect responsible for much of post-War central Birmingham.
So stick that up your Bullring!
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LLANBEDR BY-PASS
One of the more intriguing stories to make the news recently was the report that Gwynedd County Council is to appeal to the UK government for funding to build the Llanbedr by-pass, a project cancelled last year by the ‘Welsh Government’.
The reason this is intriguing is because the council is controlled by Plaid Cymru, and down in Corruption Bay that party is in cahoots with the local branch of the Labour Party, an arrangement generally referred to as an ‘alliance’.
Though the Senedd Member representing Llanbedr seems to be going out of his way to piss off his supposed allies.
Last month he dared ask the ‘Welsh Government’ why it paid £4.25m for Gilestone farm when the asking price appeared to be £3.25m. A good question. We’d all like to hear the answer. (More on Gilestone below.)
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Another explanation might be that despite most Plaid SMs self-flagellating for the heinous sins of the White man and the harm they themselves do the planet by simply existing, many Plaid supporters still associate ‘woke’ with getting up in the morning.
They inhabit the real world where decent infrastructure and communications still matter. That mythic land far, far away, where people have to drive to work. And to the shops. To the doctor, dentist, etc., etc.
You know, the Welsh countryside, of which Labour is so wilfully ignorant.
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TIR NATUR
I’ve tweeted a few times about this rather mysterious group, I may even have mentioned it here, on the blog. One reason I call it mysterious is because all I knew about it was gleaned from a GoFundMe page. (You’ll see there’ve been two donations in the past three months.)
Another reason for the ‘mysterious’ tag was that neither the website nor the GoFundMe page gave any names. And I get rather suspicious of organisations that run themselves.
Why ‘Wales-Based’, can’t they bring themselves to say ‘Welsh’? Click to open enlarged in separate tab
And when you read the justification for Tir Natur you immediately think, ‘Hang on, I’ve read that before!’ And so you have, many times. It probably comes from an environmental / rewilding template available online.
Now a source informs me that Tir Natur has finally gone legit and registered as a charity. This move is mentioned on the GoFundMe page, though when I checked a few days ago it hadn’t been updated since the application in March to the Charity Commission.
The contact address given on the Charity Commission website is, ‘Y Beudy, Lanlwyd, Pennant, Llanon, Ceredigion SY23 5JH’. This is on the B4577 between Cross Inn and Llanarth.
To confuse the picture, the GoFundMe page says, ‘Newport, Pembrokeshire’. Though my source and I suspect those involved don’t live in either Ceredigion or Pembrokeshire.
And does Wales really need yet another environmental / rewilding group?
STOP PRESS!
My source has now sent me this from a recent release by Tir Natur. Knowing more of such things than I he tells me that the image shows a European bison and a golden eagle. Neither of which of course is native to Wales.
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Though breeding pairs of European bison can be found at the Wildwood Trust’s Wildlife Discovery Centre in Kent.
They were introduced to the Trust’s other site in Devon, but removed due to fears of bTB. And they had to leave another site in Scotland when the government concluded they were dangerous and non-native.
A number of Freedom of Information requests – in addition to my own – have been submitted regarding the purchase by the ‘Welsh Government’, for £4.25m, of Gilestone Farm at Talybont-on-Usk.
I was a bit perplexed by the reference in the second FoI to the ‘James Report’. And then it came back to me . . .
Julie James. Click to open enlarged in separate tab
Julie James, the current Minister for Climate Change in the ‘Welsh Government’ has been involved with Gilestone for many years, before she was even elected to what was then the Welsh Assembly in 2011.
It’s a strange affair, with some dark corners, some very dark corners indeed. What I’ve been told involves the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority, certain environmental busybodies, previous owners of Gilestone and a supporting cast that includes a retired Met cop with an ‘interesting’ record.
And of course, Julie James, then a solicitor in Swansea; whose relationship with some of those involved is worth looking into. No, nothing like that. (Really!)
I may be in a position to say more in the near future.
Also worth mentioning is that a number of people are convinced the money to buy Gilestone came from Julie James’ department’s piggy-bank.
If true, then why did Vaughan Gething, Minister for Economy, take the rap in the Senedd? Maybe his ignorance of the deal explains why he spent so much time extoling the virtues of the Green Man festival rather than answering questions he’d been asked about the purchase of Gilestone.
Finally, might these shenanigans explain why the ‘Welsh Government’ is so far behind with its accounts?
Though another explanation for the delayed accounts might be that the ‘Welsh Government’ is virtually broke. For that’s what another source tells me.
If true, then this might explain the Llanbedr by-pass and other projects being scrapped.
‘O what a tangled web we weave . . . ‘.
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LABOUR PARTY FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST
As you know, I’ve written about Bute Energy a number of times. They even got a mention at the end of paragraph 2 in the first section of this post.
What became clear once I started looking into Bute’s activities in Wales was that this company had very quickly realised that Labour Party support would be a big help in realising its plans for 20+ wind farms.
Which explains why Bute recruited to its Welsh Advisory Board redundant Labour MEP Derek Vaughan, and John Uden, the partner of Labour MS Jenny Rathbone, who sits on the Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee.
Bute Energy’s Welsh Advisory Board. Click to open enlarged in open tab
Quite what this Welsh Advisory Board advises on is not stated, but I think we can all guess. And the recruitment didn’t end there.
Also taken aboard the treasure ship Bute was David James Taylor, former spad to Labour stars, from Peter Hain to Rhodri Morgan and Carwyn Jones. Taylor was made a partner in Bute-linked outfit Grayling Capital LLP (though he’s since left), and also given shares in Windward Enterprises Ltd, another Bute company. (Which he still holds.)
It occurred to me that if Bute Energy was so keen to cwtsh up to Labour then political donations should be considered. And so I wrote to the Bruvvers’ HQ in Cardiff.
On June 8 I sent this e-mail:
‘Bute Energy Ltd (Co No: 12474011), in various guises, seeks to build – or at least, obtain planning permission for – some 20 wind farms in Wales. A company has been formed for each wind farm.
Has the Labour Party in Wales / ‘Welsh Labour’ party received a donation or donations from Bute Energy Ltd, or from companies under the Bute Energy umbrella, or from leading director Oliver James Millican, or from other persons, perhaps former employees of Labour politicians?’
But I have received neither acknowledgement nor reply. Can you believe that – the Comrades ignoring me!
The article in the Cambrian News to which I’ve linked suggests there may have been funding involved. To clarify this point I submitted a Freedom of Information request to the ‘Welsh Government’.
The ‘Welsh Government’ has gifted an English organisation worth billions of pounds a Welsh asset and also handed over £700,000 for ‘capital investment’. From which the National Trust will profit, through charging visitors.
Many of whom will be Welsh.
And there will almost certainly be more than £700,000. For a well-informed contact with whom I shared this information in advance reminded me that the National Trust will now be eligible for Glastir woodland grants.
Note that this generosity is explained by quoting the “‘Welsh Government’ wellbeing objectives”. This refers to the Well-being of Future Generation (Wales) Act 2015. Airy-fairy nonsense that has since been used to justify every insanity hiding under the ‘environmental’ blanket.
Environmental concerns are used to disguise giving away our homeland piece by piece – ‘Cos we are savin’ the planet, like’.
The truth of course is that this legislation simply rolled out the red carpet for colonialist exploitation.
It even talks of future generations. But those future generations won’t be Welsh.
Main points seem to be that negotiations with the National Trust have been going on since June 2019; no one else was invited to express an interest; NRW has no idea why Dawn Bowden was involved; NRW will continue to manage the Hafod Estate forestry operation.
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GREEN HOUSING
My attention has been drawn to this rather curious site which suggests some kind of partnership between the ‘Welsh Government’, the National Eisteddfod, and a company called LivEco, to build “sustainable homes at affordable prices”.
The location of these desirable properties being Great House Farm in Cardiff, between Culverhouse Cross and St Fagan’s National Museum of History.
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So let’s look at this company, LivEco. Companies House tells us LivEco Homes Ltd was formed in September 2018, but it’s dormant. The sole director is a Welshman, Daniel James Ball, who seems to live in West Sussex.
Ball’s active company is Mulcare-Ball Ltd. The other director being a woman I assume to be his wife.
So why are we being asked to believe that a dormant company is building these dwellings at Great House Farm?
Mulcare-Ball has an arrangement (charge) with the Principality Building Society. Though the date given here is February 2, 2013, the document itself takes us back a year and also mentions Hale Construction Ltd.
If it’s this company, then Hale Construction was a one-man band on Merseyside, Incorporated December 2011 and Dissolved August 2015 without, apparently, making a penny.
Another company worth mentioning is Great House Farm Community Ltd, which I assume to be a residents’ association. This was Incorporated in March 2013, which makes sense; though the only director or member was Ball until June 25 last year. When he was replaced by two others using Great House addresses.
Something else that makes me a little wary of this whole project is what I learnt from the Land Registry title register.
First, it tells us that Daniel James Ball and his wife bought this land in July 2009. We also learn that the properties built by Mulcare-Ball Ltd are being leased rather than sold.
The ‘Welsh Government’ has more than once expressed a desire to phase out leasehold in Wales, so why is it in partnership with a company building properties to lease?
Or, to put it another way, why does the ‘Welsh Government’ need to be involved at all? The same question could be asked of the Eisteddfod.
I may return to this subject.
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NO COAL
The Aberpergwm mine, near Glyn-Neath, produces highest quality anthracite coal that is used for all manner of purposes, including water filtration. But it will not be chucked on a fire or shovelled into a furnace.
It is rarely if ever burned.
In January, approval was given for mining operations to continue. This prompted the Green Party of Englandandwales to burst into, ‘When will they ever learn’, with Julie James’ deputy Lee Waters joining in the chorus.
(In an eye-watering falsetto because someone had him by the balls!)
The latest news is that a legal challenge is to be mounted by a group called the Coal Action Network (CAN). If you’ve never heard of them, that may be because the company wasn’t formed until February 16.
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And it is a standard, commercial entity. Not a Community Interest Company (CIC), or any form of community benefit framework. I suspect it claims to be an umbrella group for smaller, more local organisations.
Though I’m not aware of any genuinely local opposition at Aberpergwm itself. Certainly not from the 200 or so people who work there. Nor from the businesses benefitting from the money those workers put into the local economy.
The address given for the Coal Action Network is Halton Mill, in Lancaster, north west England, owned by Green property developer Lancaster Cohousing. Which suggests it’s little more than an accommodation address for CAN. They certainly don’t get a mention on the website.
It would be easy to dismiss the Coal Action Network as just another little gang of over-excited eco zealots. But these groups often front for bigger players, or there’s serious money behind them.
So be watchful out there. Protect Welsh jobs and Welsh interests from the misguided attention of the brainwashed foot-soldiers of the World Economic Forum and others with globalist agendas designed to crush the little guy. Agendas enthusiastically endorsed by socialists.
And, finally, look out for these clowns sending letters to local papers, lobbying politicians, and pretending they’re local objectors.
Though cut through the enviro-bullshit and SUFT seems to be little more than a greenwashing operation for Utility Warehouse.
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Most of those involved with SUFT have either relocated to Wales or don’t even live in Wales. For as with all these ‘conservation’ land grabs, Welsh involvement is minimal.
Though the website informs us, of the man in the photograph, and founder of SUFT, ‘Dr Keith Powell is a seventh-generation Black Mountains farmer and a vet’. Though I don’t think he’s actually done much farming, and came home when he realised there was serious money to be made in trees.
Stump Up For Trees is registered as a charity. Though when I went to the Charity Commission website to check the details I was somewhat surprised not to see Powell listed as a trustee. I assume the desired impression is that of hands-off trustees.
But who do we see there!
Why! it’s Richard James Roderick, who farms across the Usk from Gilestone farm. As I told you in my earlier post ‘Gilestone Revisited’, Roderick was taken to the USA in 2018 by Dŵr Cymru. After which he was debriefed by Natural Resources Wales’ Land Management Forum Agri-Pollution Sub Group.
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Then he and his companion on the US trip (and at the debriefing), Keri Davies, set up the Beacons Water Group. And do you know who joined them at BWG – none other than Charles Weston, the man who sold Gilestone to the ‘Welsh Government’ for the ludicrous sum of £4.25m!
As if that wasn’t enough, another BWG director, Tony Martineau, teaches at Coleg Soros, Talgarth. While George Soros’ favourite educational establishment, Bard College, has links with the Watershed Agricultural Council, the hosts for the 2018 US trip.
Enough! Old Jac can’t take any more connections.
Why should the ‘Welsh Government’s favourite farmer be involved with Stump Up For Trees? Then again, why not, he seems to be involved in everything else?
And even though the Bruvvers in Corruption Bay love Roderick, he’s a ronk Tory.
♦
MORE TREES . . . OR ELSE!
To make sense of the ‘Welsh Government’s latest assault on the farming industry you must understand the Labour Party’s relationship with the Welsh countryside.
Labour has no MPs and no SMs representing rural constituencies. For these seats either vote Conservative, Plaid Cymru or, irregularly, usually in Powys, Liberal Democrat.
It wasn’t always so.
There was a time within living memory when Labour could rely on the votes of farm labourers, and even smaller farmers. Also, other rural, working class people. The Merionethshire seat – now part of Dwyfor Meirionnydd and held by Plaid Cymru for almost 50 years – was a straight fight between Labour, centred on the slate town of Blaenau Ffestiniog, and the Liberals, still relying to a great extent on the chapel vote.
Will Edwards, last Labour MP for Merionethshire, 1966 – 1974. Click to open enlarged in separate tab
Then came the 1960s, and the national reawakening. The protests and the bombs. Tryweryn, Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru (MAC), the Free Wales Army (FWA), Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg CyIG) . . . and the rise of Plaid Cymru.
Labour now saw its hegemony in Wales threatened by a new force that it believed to be essentially rural in character. Certainly rural in origin. And Labour has been wary of the countryside, and its native inhabitants, ever since.
In many Labour politicians this suspicion became outright and undisguised hostility.
The rise of the environmental movement, coupled with the powers given by devolution, have allowed the Labour Party through successive ‘Welsh Governments’ to exert control over rural areas where it has little or no electoral support. While more recently, under the influence of ‘environmentalists’ eyeing Welsh land, exacting what can only be interpreted as revenge.
Which brings us up to date.
Labour’s activists in rural areas tend to be English, middle class, vegetarian (if not vegan, or subsisting entirely on water and good karma), most of them climate / environment ranters who compare hard-working farmers to concentration camp guards.
Though this latest pronunciamiento from Corruption Bay also helps us understand the long-term objectives. And makes a few other things clear.
The ‘Welsh Government is attempting a divide and rule strategy with farmers. Certain farmers are being wooed, and so perhaps is the National Farmers Union. And it seems to be working.
It’s no coincidence that these favoured farmers tend to be Tory-voters, on better land, suited to tree planting, and in almost exclusively English-speaking areas.
Which means that the excluded farmers are more likely to be found on marginal land, more difficult for growing trees, possibly tenant farmers, and certainly more likely to be Welsh speaking. (And Farmers Union of Wales members?)
In fact, areas such as the Summit to Sea rewilding project was hoping – with ‘Welsh Government’ support – to take over. The areas from where Labour, in the 1960s, perceived the ‘threat’ to have emerged.
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Which means that this assault on farmers might be interpreted as an attack on the Welsh language, and Welsh rural culture in general. If so, then the politicos in Corruption Bay, and the enviroshyster land-grabbers whispering in their ears, are in for a fight.
Predictably, the announcement was welcomed by Kate Beavan. Who’s she? You haven’t been paying attention, or following the links, have you?
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Kate Beavan, as the Stump Up For Trees website tells us, ‘ . . . joined SUFT at the beginning of 2021. She is actually employed by our partners and friends, Coed Cymru.’
Kate Beavan may have been recruited to Coed Cymru by director Philip David Jayne, who lives in Crughywel.
Yet more bloody connections!
To explain . . .
Coed Cymru is one of the 357 (and rising) ‘woodland’ groups currently operating in Wales. Fighting like ferrets in a sack to take over Welsh land and get their sweaty mitts on Welsh public funding.
When you check out the Companies House entry for Coed Cymru Cyf you realise that, despite the company name, there’s little Welsh involvement.
But plenty of Welsh funding.
‘Plus ça change . . . ‘.
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UKRAINE AND THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
It would be inhuman to suggest that anything good is coming from the death and suffering in Ukraine. And I won’t do that, but harsh lessons are being learnt.
Among them, the realisation that to pretend an advanced economy can rely on intermittent renewables to supply its energy needs is madness. As Germany is learning.
The drive for ‘Net Zero’, orchestrated by The United Nations and the World Economic Forum, is taking hits daily as collateral damage from the conflict in Ukraine. With Germany perhaps the biggest loser.
We are in dangerous times. Supranational bodies like those mentioned want to regulate all aspects of human behaviour. They have captured many national governments, media outlets, and social media giants, who are urged to suppress divergent views as ‘disinformation’.
The justification being that the planet is in grave danger, and so we need to be saved from ourselves . . . all for our own good, of course.
With the result that we are sleepwalking into a form of totalitarianism that sits astride the unicorn of environmentalism.
And this is another reason we – through arming and exploiting brave Ukrainians – are waging war on Russia – because Vladimir Putin refused to bow to these supranational tyrants.
But the ‘Welsh Government’ surrendered long ago. And gave up Wales for sacrifice.
But part of the bigger package was a change in how Senedd members will be elected in future. And this proved much more contentious. With four constituency Labour Parties (CLPs) – Merthyr Tydfil, Rhondda, Swansea East, Llanelli – voting against.
To explain . . .
Under revised parliamentary boundaries Wales will have 32 Westminster seats. (Down from the current 40.) What Labour proposes (and Plaid Cymru presumably agrees with) is that these new constituencies should be paired, giving us 16, and that each of them should elect six Senedd Members, thus making up the 96 total.
This is to be done using the ‘closed list’ system. Voters choose a party and have to then accept the party’s choice of candidates.
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This is a system designed to favour larger parties and to inhibit the emergence of new parties. Which is no more than we should expect from Labour. For like so many political parties with a socialist heritage Labour is fundamentally undemocratic.
I’m still waiting for Labour’s partner in the current alliance down Corruption Bay to explain why it’s gone along with this system. Though I get the impression Plaid would rather not discuss it.
Labour has tried desperately to polish this turd by promising gender equality. But as Labour has signed up to self-identification, and is a major financial backer of Stonewall, it will obviously accept as ‘women’ men who identify as women.
Which could mean that the new system, designed to achieve gender balance, actually gives us a lower percentage of biological females than we see in the Senedd today!
And then there are other minorities, those so vocal in “breaking down barriers” . . . most of which they themselves have erected. (Or simply imagined.) They’ll demand to be ‘excluded’ no longer. And because they support the Labour Party because the Labour Party funds them their wishes will be granted.
That could give us a Senedd in which the majority is grossly underrepresented.
But who cares – ‘Cos it’s progressive, innit!’
My position is that I do not accept this anti-democratic nonsense. And I would support the UK government stepping in to block it. In fact, I would support the UK government putting an end to devolution itself.
For devolution has delivered nothing to those with whom I identify.
Whereas the SNP in Scotland, returned time after time, has made many Scots believe their country could be even better with independence, here in Wales, the incompetence and waste our people have experienced from malleable mediocrities in Corruption Bay for 23 years makes too many Welsh believe that independence would be even worse.
I remain a nationalist who wants independence, but I see devolution not as a stepping-stone but an obstacle. Maybe that was the intention all along.
And when you think back to what you’ve read here, can you disagree?
I’M IN SEMI-RETIREMENT AND THIS BLOG IS WINDING DOWN. I INTEND CALLING IT A DAY IN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS. POSTINGS WILL PROBABLY BE LESS FREQUENT AND I WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANY MAJOR NEW INVESTIGATIONS. DIOLCH YN FAWR.
♦
This post is about the findings from surveys commissioned by the Arts Council of Wales and Amgueddfa Cymru. The project was entitled, ‘Widening Engagement’.
These reports, or certainly one of them, prompted old Shippo at Llais y Sais to give it something close to the, ‘We Are At War With Germany’ treatment. (Available here in pdf format.)
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Front page lead continued on inside page, completed with a full page of grovelling from the white supremacist running-dogs of the patriarchal imperialist-colonialist system.
The story travelled. Not only did the Daily Telegraph pick it up, but also, from that source, Andy Ngo, in Portland, Oregon, scourge of Antifa.
“At the end of June 2020 Arts Council of Wales and Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales advertised a tender to undertake a series of in-depth research conversations. Our aim was to widen engagement with communities we consistently fail to engage in our work. We received 34 submissions and after a detailed selection process and interviews we decided to appoint three organizations to undertake three very different studies.”
The reports from the three successful tenders have been submitted and are now available online. They are from: Re:cognition, Richie Turner Associates, and the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union.
So let’s look at them in that order.
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RE:COGNITION
The first problem I have with these people is the name. Let me explain.
There is a company Re:Cognition, with qualified medical people involved in specialist mental health services. And an annual turnover in excess of £10m. But this was not the company employed by Arts Council of Wales and Amgueddfa Cymru.
For as the report tells us, on the very first page, its authors are Jon Luxton and Lu Thomas, two Labour Party stalwarts from Penarth. (Where Luxton was once mayor.) And wouldn’t you know it – Lu Thomas has appeared on this blog! In ‘Plaid Cymru’s enemy within‘ (scroll down a bit).
Lu Thomas is big in Pride Cymru, and something of a trans fanatic, believing that ‘women with penises’ are being persecuted. Everywhere. By everybody.
Here’s her Linkedin profile. Where you’ll see that she claims to be a director of a company called Cognition.
Image: Mark Lewis. This appeared in a WalesOnline report in July 2018. Click to open in separate tab.
The ‘Cognition’ name was also used by Luxton and Thomas in Cognition Associates. Which produced a website where the latest ‘News’ is from July 2013. Cognition Associates was never registered with Companies House.
And now there’s Re:cognition Wales. Or rather, there’s a website. Note that Thomas and Luxton use a lower case ‘c’, whereas the ‘real’ company spells it ‘Re:Cognition’. But again, this Luxton-Thomas company is not registered with Companies House.
One Lu Thomas company that was registered with Companies House was Pitch Consult Ltd. Incorporated July 15, 2019. Struck off January 5, 2021. No accounts were ever filed.
What I found interesting about Pitch was that the other two directors were Mitchell Theaker and Pearleen Sangha, who you may remember from their appearances on this blog. They were Labour councillors in Swansea; part of the student intake needed to keep up the bruvverly numbers.
Jon Luxton has also been rubbing shoulders with celebrities lately. For listed among the directors in Sound Progression Ltd, along with Luxton, we find Cian Ciaran, of Super Furry Animals, and late of YesCymru. This company was Incorporated June 10, 2019.
Given Luxton’s record its time can not be long.
A glimpse of what Thomas and Luxton do is given in this snippet from the NHS. They work for the Labour Party, in its various forms: ‘Welsh Government’, Cardiff Council, etc.
They also work for bodies reliant on ‘Welsh Government’ funding. Reminiscent of the jobs found for the nephews of made men.
To understand how it operates imagine a phone call from Corruption Bay or City Hall: ‘Oh, hello, Lu, love, how’s it going . . . listen, we want you to do one of your surveys, yeah, here are the findings we want from you’.
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And this is why no ‘survey’ conducted by Thomas and Luxton should be given any credence. They are just Labour Party apparatchiks.
The worry should be that these beneficiaries of Labour cronyism get so much work. Work paid for by the public purse. It’s naked corruption.
But it also explains why they were one of the 3 out of 34 applicants chosen by the Arts Council and the Museum to do the ‘research’.
Page 10 of the Thomas and Luxton report tells us (rather clumsily): ‘To note: only one respondent namechecked the Eisteddfod indicating poor reach into this community of mainly English speakers. this lack of Welsh Language art and culture was also demonstrated in the responses to all other relevant questions.’
I wonder if this ‘finding’ will be used in future by the ‘Welsh Government’ to deny or reduce funding to Welsh language organisations, events, and projects, or in other ways be used to undermine the language?
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The quote above, from page 12 of the report, about sums up what Thomas and Luxton have to say – ‘Do what our friends in the Welsh Government tell you’.
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RICHIE TURNER ASSOCIATES
Whoever these are, they compiled, ‘A research report looking at the reasons why D/deaf, disabled, learning disabled and neurodiverse people do not attend arts events or visit National Museums’ Wales or attend very infrequently’.
While that may have been the ostensible reason for recruiting Richie Turner, his Linkedin profile makes his political leanings very clear. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a colourful Linkedin header.
Or one less relevant to Wales.
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Richie Turner is of course another Corruption Bay insider. His jobs and appointments listed on Linkedin suggest someone with strong Labour Party connections. For no one in Wales without Labour Party connections could dream of a CV like that.
So what does the Richie Turner Associates report have to say? Though before you read it, I should say that Richie Turner Associates is not a company or a partnership, just an ad hoc group of his friends and, well, associates.
Richie lives in Hay-on-Wye, which is handy for the books, and the festival.
Those who helped him compile his report, also live in the south east. In fact they all seem to live in Cardiff and Gwent. One of them, Lyndy Cooke, is a former director of the Hay Festival. Nice.
Though the report tells us (page 4): ‘Our research engaged with people across all regions of Wales.’
Possibly. But how well do Richie Turner and his gang know these far-flung ‘regions’?
It might also be asked how well Turner knows his associates. For the woman named throughout the report as ‘Mary Allen’ is surely Mary Allan.
There’s little to take issue with in the Richie Turner Associates report. It’s just a litany of complaints followed by a few recommendations. And concluding with some comic book-style illustrations!
Flicking through it a few things caught my jaundiced eye.
This, for example (page 27): “Arty farty type messaging on advertising, such as Gothic and trendy typefaces also make it hard to read from a few feet away in a wheelchair”.
Who could argue with that?
Whereas I found this a little confusing (page 30): “Some places like museums are too big, with too many people. I need less people to be able to go”.
We obviously can’t have empty museums. Museums that attract no visitors will be closed.
All in all, this contribution from Richie Turner Associates may be regarded as the bland filling between two very unappetising slices of bread.
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THE WELSH ARTS ANTI-RACIST UNION (WAARU)
It’s difficult to know what to make of this one. For a start – what or who is the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union?
I found a Twitter account. I think we can assume that it was started in the period of hysteria following the killing of George Floyd, some 5,000 miles away.
In fact, the WAARU Twitter account started up a week or so after the Arts Council and Amgueddfa Cymru decided to launch their ‘research conversations’ at the end of June 2020. What an amazing coincidence!
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The first tweet was on July 6, 2020, followed by a flurry of tweets that ended on August 11. There was nothing then until a retweet on Oct 20. A further retweet in November, another in December. Then nothing until April 18 and 19. A final retweet on May 14, attacking Israel, and nothing since.
Why hasn’t the Twitter account rejoiced in WAARU’s participation in this exercise? I find this very odd.
We can reasonably assume that the WAARU leans politically to the left, maybe quite far to the left.
There is no website for the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union. Just a Gmail address on the Twitter account. So I wrote on Friday morning. I’m still waiting for a reply.
It suggests that the Welsh language is racist and the Arts Council and Amgueddfa Cymru are both run by white supremacists.
There are ten references in the report to these organisations being ‘white-led’. But in a country that is 95% or more white does the writer expect them to be non-white-led? That would make them grotesquely unrepresentative.
There are also references to Black Lives Matter, reminding us that the report is very much of the post-Floyd era. Summed up perhaps with this paragraph from page 24: ‘One participant asked how Amgueddfa Cymru could see itself as combating poverty, when it’s very purpose involved displaying objects from countries whose wealth had been plundered through colonialism.’
No, that is not its ‘very purpose’. What a stupid and insulting thing to say! If Amgueddfa Cymru has a ‘very purpose’ then it’s to celebrate the history of Wales.
But that is not atypical. For a number of times this report comes across as either ignorant of recent Welsh history, or misinformed, or just mischievous. Here’s another example, from page 18.
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There is no ‘Welsh Census’, it’s organised by the Office for National Statistics in London. Not so long ago you couldn’t even describe yourself as Welsh on the census form. That’s why I was one of those protesting before the 2001 census.
But the writer of the WAARU report presents the census as more evidence of structural racism within Wales!
Having mentioned the writer, I ask again – who is it? Because there is no name mentioned anywhere in the report. It is anonymous. So why was it accepted? Or to go back to the beginning, why was the WAARU commissioned to write a report?
Are we to believe that out of the 31 rejected applicants there wasn’t one better qualified!
On page 36 we read this passage: ‘Marginalised artists and art workers should receive support to learn different languages, in addition to Welsh. This additional support is necessary because Welsh language policies in current applications can exclude Black and non-Black people of colour’.
What ‘different languages’ are needed in Wales?
The writer is clearly ignorant of the fact that many ‘Black and non-Black people of colour’ were brought up speaking Welsh, or else have learnt to speak Welsh.
And while there’s solidarity implied with the term ‘Black and non-Black people of colour’ this solidarity is not consistent. Because the Twitter account suggests that non-Black People of Colour might be little better than Uncle Toms.
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Finally, most reports end with findings and recommendations. The report from the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union ends with ‘Our List of Demands’. It sounds almost threatening. Like a kidnappers’ note.
Whoever wrote this report may have legitimate grievances, but they’ve gone about airing those grievances in entirely the wrong way.
The national institutions of Wales exist to reflect and to serve the culture, history, identity, and people of Wales. The Welsh language is central to Welsh identity, and for many centuries served as the identifier of Welshness.
Maybe the so-called ‘Welsh Government’ can also remember that.
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UPDATE 24.08.2021: Checking the metadata of the three published reports gives Jon Luxton as the author of the Re:cognition report, which is what I would expect. Him or Lu Thomas.
But listed as author for the other two reports are Arts Council of Wales employees.
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There are a number of possible explanations for this. Maybe the original documents were converted from MS Word to PDF format at the Arts Council. If so, why? Those chosen to produce these reports were well paid to do so. Was this work at the Arts council deducted from their fees?
Or is there another explanation?
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CONCLUSION
The first report we looked at was produced by Labour Party insiders who carry out research for their comrades. The ‘findings’ are often used to justify legislation and other measures that the ‘Welsh Government’ has already decided on.
I wonder if the ‘Welsh Government’ would pay me to do a survey into the third sector, or housing associations, or tourism . . . or even the ‘Welsh Government’?
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The second report told us nothing really except that the Arts Council and Amgueddfa Cymru are doing a bad job when it comes to catering for those with disabilities.
Though much of the feedback was about venues, over which the Arts Council may have little or no control. And as for ’empty museums’ . . .
But that will be overlooked because the report gives the ‘Welsh Government’ another stick with which to beat both organisations.
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The third report is just a chip-on-the-shoulder, ‘where’s our grants?’ diatribe. To give it credit for being anything more would be to legitimise the anti-Welsh prejudice running through the report.
Whoever commissioned this report must have known in advance the kind of submission they could expect from the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union. Which means that the WAARU was paid to produce exactly that kind of report.
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Let’s remind ourselves who heads the two organisations involved.
Phillip George of the Arts Council was previously,‘ Creative Director of the award-winning production company Green Bay Media which specialised in high-end documentary projects for broadcasters in Wales’.
He left Green Bay on March 31, 2016, when he was appointed to the Arts Council. At that time, Green Bay had 14 outstanding charges (loans, etc) with S4C and Finance Wales.
Phillip George re-joined Green Bay on June 30, 2017, as secretary, though I suppose he could have been acting as a director.
On January 14, 2019, a Declaration of Solvency was made and a liquidator appointed. Green Bay was finally struck off May 19, 2020. With George still listed as secretary.
Were those debts really cleared, or were they written off, or was some other arrangement agreed? And why was Phillip George allowed to re-join Green Bay while serving as Chair of the Arts Council?
I don’t know Phillip George’s politics, but here he is with former Labour MP Kim Howells. Does he share Howells’ attitudes to the Welsh language, devolution / independence?
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Prior to taking up the post Amgueddfa Cymru chief Roger Lewis was CEO at that most BritNat and Unionist of organisations, the Welsh Rugby Union.
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It’s the third report, from the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union that’s getting the media attention, and quite rightly so, so let’s give it a few final thoughts.
Although the report ostensibly deals with the Arts Council and Amgueddfa Cymru, by questioning the role of the Welsh language and perceptions of Welsh identity its impact goes well beyond those two institutions.
Doing it from an ethnic minority perspective is clever, because attacking Welsh identity from a BritNat position invariably generates resistance. It’s much smarter to use the race angle, and maybe get some liberals and socialists onside.
Which makes it difficult to pin down the origin of this survey. Because if someone is trying to introduce Critical Race Theory into Welsh public life, for the disruptive effect it guarantees, then that source could be Marxist left or Unionist right.
Whatever the source, if enough people can be persuaded that defending Welshness is ‘racist’, then this will impact negatively on the growing interest in Welsh independence. The ‘racist’ slander can even be used against those demanding action on holiday homes.
Where does it end?
Maybe campaigning against Tryweryn was ‘racist’. And perhaps it’s ‘racism’ that sustains our national sporting teams. Why not just merge with England and join in singing GSTQ at Wembley and Twickers?
No one should be publicly funded to question a nation’s existence. Both bodies must explain why they chose the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union.
We, who’ve paid for it, are entitled to know who wrote the WAARU report.
Finally, perhaps the real lesson from this fiasco is that Wales must have independence. Not just from England, but also from Cardiff Bay.
I’M IN SEMI-RETIREMENT AND THIS BLOG IS WINDING DOWN. I INTEND CALLING IT A DAY IN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS. POSTINGS WILL PROBABLY BE LESS FREQUENT AND I WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANY MAJOR NEW INVESTIGATIONS. DIOLCH YN FAWR.
♦
The picture with YesCymru is becoming clearer, which makes those who clouded it ever more desperate. And dishonest.
♦
“Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies.”
Senator Barry Goldwater
I shall offend certain people by quoting this early influence on my political development. But it doesn’t matter how you try to twist it, what Barry Goldwater says there could have been written about recent events in YesCymru.
For when it comes to YesCymru, there may have been those among the takeover gang who sought to do, “what they regard as good”, but there were many driven by political fanaticism, and a few by self-interest.
And now it’s all over. The coup has failed and the plotters are slinking away.
So let’s have an update.
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WHO’S LEFT THE BUILDING?
It’s been difficult at times keeping up with events, but here’s how I believe things stand after collating information from a number of sources.
Llywelyn ap Gwilym has been keeping a low profile, making me wonder if he was hoping to hide, Claudius-like, and then emerge after the blood-letting to be acclaimed emperor.
But no, for a number of sources tell me ‘Ein Llyw Nesaf’ has promised to stand down and not seek re-election at the EGM. That said, others warn that he’s a ‘slippery customer’, and needs to be watched.
Then, some time over the weekend before last Tori West bade her farewell. But there was no presentation of a clock followed by a few pints down the Red Lion, where anodyne speeches were delivered about ‘Good old Tori‘, and her responding with, ‘I’ll be back to see you all from time to time‘.
Instead, she suggested that YesCymru should be razed to the ground. Which, if nothing else, calls into question her commitment to Welsh independence.
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One source suggests that West may still consider herself ‘resignation fluid’. After that tweet she should be toast. And burnt toast at that.
I’m told the next to leave, on Monday last week, was Carys Eleri.
She will be best remembered for the video below. Even though it’s more of an exhibition of posterior than a gift to posterity I still see it as somehow fitting.
YesCymru members’ money was given to a company few had heard of. (Hardly surprising seeing as the company is less than a year old.) Then there are questions as to how this company gained the contract. Was there a tendering process? Does the Turk running the company know someone who may have been influential in YC? Is this company still receiving money from YesCymru?
As I say, I see this video as a metaphor – for the unfocused, spendthrift, self-indulgent and ultimately laughable organisation YesCymru became under the clowns now seeking the shadows.
On Tuesday last week Elin Hywel did her disappearing act. Like so many – all? – of those involved in the attempted and now defeated coup she is a member of Far Left Undod.
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While some took to the shadows as the pressure mounted, one who tried to put on a show of resistance was Ben Gwalchmai of Labour for an Independent Wales.
But something has clearly happened with Gwalchmai and it might have been linked with complaints to the Central Committee about his online behaviour. One complaint was signed by some 50 people.
A source tells me: “The CC meeting to suspend Ben was supposed to have been last Wednesday, then delayed until Thursday, then delayed to today (Monday), and now tomorrow.” I hear feet being dragged.
Whether the Rasputin of the Severn Valley has been or will be suspended is unknown, but his YC Twitter account was certainly shut down last Wednesday. A couple of days later he used his personal account to put out a rant against the 16 local groups that mustered a vote of no confidence in the Central Committee at the recent sit-down.
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Note that critics are ‘crazies’, and a democratic vote open to all is a ‘coup’.
Though Benji attempted to clarify his remark about ‘violent harasser’ by saying that he was not referring to himself, but to an online critic of the Central Committee, the so-called ‘Cornish Crow’, a Twitter account that was taken down on Sunday night.
The personal account was putting out YC stuff today. Which might suggest that Benji remains part of the gang, but perhaps semi-detached? ‘We’ll pretend you aren’t with us’ kind of thing.
There could be a good reason for this. As I’ll explain in a mo.
Ben Gwalchmai has a terrible problem with the truth. He should be receiving treatment. Click to open in fresh tab.
Whatever his status vis-à-vis the Central Committee, Gwalchmai is a spent force. Utterly discredited, and perhaps now viewed as a liability even by the remaining CC members. (Which would really be saying something!)
There may also be legal action pending against him.
Ben Gwalchmai’s fundamental problem is that he’s ‘imaginative’. (Yes, that is a euphemism.) Take the recent example below.
Now, to read Benji, one might think that those awful ‘Fash’ had enlisted the help of the Kremlin to mount a full-scale assault against the organisation he and the comrades had so recently snatched from their evil clutches.
The Central Committee had to put out a statement clarifying that it was just a minor, personal matter. And no mention of PayPal.
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Talking of the Central Committee, who is left?
Let’s recap . . . there’s possibly Llywelyn ap Gwilym, no doubt carefully weighing up the best move for Llywelyn ap Gwilym. Then there’s Sarah Rees, the vice-chair, and interim chair since Siôn Jobbins stepped down. And finally, there’s treasurer Gwyn Llewelyn.
And that, without suspended Niki Jones, is that. Apart from the indeterminate status of Ben Gwalchmai, which might even have changed between me writing this on Monday evening and you reading it.
UPDATE: The news has been broken now so I can tell you that Niki Jones resigned from the Central Committee tonight.
Which means that the Central Committee might have less than four members and consequently be inquorate. If so, then the only power it has is to call an EGM pretty damn quick to get a new CC elected.
A last-ditch attempt to remain quorate would explain ap Gwilym hanging on and Gwalchmai being allowed to mooch around. Because without them it’s just Rees and Llewelyn, and definitely inquorate.
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One who seems to have slipped under my radar is Shane Brennan. In an earlier post I pointed out that with Iestyn ap Rhobert not seeking re-election as secretary his rival for the post, Shane Brennan, was a shoo-in.
What I didn’t know was that Brennan had been offered a job with The National and told that if he was taking it then he couldn’t be YesCymru secretary. Though when you think about it, working for Huw Marshall puts you on the same side as the Woke-Left takeover gang anyway.
Here’s Marshall crowing over the Twitter demise of the Cornish Crow. (Though I suspect he’ll be back soon.) Note that I remain a target. God! it brings a tear to the old Jac eye.
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It has been suggested to me that the Cornish Crow’s fate might be attributable to media persons knowing others of that ilk in the employ of Twitter. Who knows?
For obvious reasons, the Central Committee kept quiet about Brennan’s non-arrival. Which means that in addition to possibly being inquorate the CC has also been stumbling along without a secretary since before the May 22 AGM.
YesCymru is an utter shambles!
Another departure was that of Diversity and Inclusivity Officer Jessica Harvey. One of those determined to turn YesCymru into TransCymru. She will not be missed.
The sole remaining employee is Harriet Protheroe-Soltani. Though I don’t recall hearing anything from her or about her for months. Is she still there? If so, what is she doing for £32,000 a year in her part-time job? (For she is also an official of Momentum.)
Putting it all together makes me wonder why the first mate and the purser pretend that the good ship YesCymru is sailing merrily along with a full complement of officers and a not-at-all-mutinous crew.
Obviously there’s the matter of remaining quorate, which we’ve just read about. But there are also suggestions that this pretence must be maintained because there are things to hide. And money to be accounted for.
Just one more thing that might need to be cleared up is the Equality and Diversity Sub-committee, which was a motion passed at the May 22 AGM. Were appointments made to this sub-committee? Can a sub-committee exist independently of the committee to which it is subordinate?
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Questions. Questions. So many questions.
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FINAL THOUGHTS
The Woke-Left coup has failed, partly because those involved were just so bloody incompetent. But if you want specifics . . .
1/ The Far Left entryists believed that by using terms like ‘fascist’ and ‘far right’ for their critics they could swing more moderate socialists behind them. But this didn’t work. In fact, it may have had the opposite effect.
This I find very encouraging. It tells me there are decent people out there, reasonable and fair-minded socialists, prepared to work with others in the cause of Welsh independence.
2/ Once those who’d taken over began to assert themselves, and it became clear that for many outing ‘TERF’s and ‘transphobes’ was more important than working towards independence, they both revealed their true intentions and sealed their own fate.
3/ In some ways, those who joined the Central Committee were the reasonable face of the Woke-Left fringe. Because out there, on the howling peripheries, roam some seriously unhinged nutters! You have met many of them on this blog.
But those on the inside did themselves no favours by their social media interaction with the loonies. Both encouraging them and being encouraged by them.
An example of the behaviour of these loonies cropped up a few days ago. I don’t know this guy, I’ve had no dealings with him, but he is not alone in his experience of the Woke-Left extremists.
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These evil and dangerous bastards mimic their heroes in the anarcho-nihilist cult Antifa: ‘We are absolutely in the right, which means we can do whatever we choose to those who oppose us and those we decide are in the wrong’.
The sort of attitude that leads to Inquisitions, pogroms, persecution, and the public beheading of unbelievers. So far we’ve only reached the de-platforming stage, and social media censoring, but the trajectory is clear.
An illustration of the co-operation between those on the inside and those on the fringes came to light tonight. It’s in a tweet from former Central Committee member Niki Jones, responding to Ben Gwalchmai, who claims never to have made or signed a complaint to YC.
He is of course lying, again, as the complaint from June 4 proves.
But just look at those names! Central Committee members mixed in with the worst of the gang. They’re all there: the mad axeman, ‘Dr Dildo Davies’, that disgusting creature who wrote the obscene tweet to a boy mourning his mother, the mayor of Bangor, and of course, the leader of the pack – Aled Gwyn Williams.
You can see the lines of communication, the links, for organising a pile-on.
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Benji’s fiery pants must be visible from the Long Mynd.
UPDATE 10.08.2021: There was a reaction last night to the publication of the list of complainants against Niki Jones, made when it was realised she would not fall into line with the exclusionary Woke-Left agenda. It came from Benedict Belli, ‘BVB’, @no_pasaran90, one of those complainants.
After a chorus of, ‘Non, Je ne regrette rien’ he goes on to blame “that joke organisation” for a breach of confidentiality. It’s always somebody else’s fault.
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YesCymru, as it is currently constituted, is no longer fit for purpose. There must be root and branch change, in both personnel and organisational structure.
Those involved in the takeover, and their social media foederati, must return from whence they came and never be allowed back into YesCymru.
For with their undoubted talent, their tolerant and inclusive behaviour, I have no doubt that those of whom I have writ could build up Undod into a movement that both captures the souls of our people and, by so doing, strikes terror into the black hearts of our enemies.
Then again, I could just be taking the piss. (Cos I enjoys a good laugh, I do.)
I started with a little something from Barry Goldwater, and I’ll end with some more wisdom from the great man.
“Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
I’M IN SEMI-RETIREMENT AND THIS BLOG IS WINDING DOWN. I INTEND CALLING IT A DAY IN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS. POSTINGS WILL PROBABLY BE LESS FREQUENT AND I WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANY MAJOR NEW INVESTIGATIONS. DIOLCH YN FAWR.
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Yes, folks, this is another episode in the ongoing tale of YesCymru. Another report of damage inflicted on the independence movement by a gang of Woke-Left extremists, their assorted hangers-on, others too weak to resist, and a few who thought they could ride the wave for personal advancement.
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UPDATES
In the previous post in this series, YesCymru, light at the end of the tunnel?, I had to add a few updates, so in case you didn’t catch them, here they are. With one snippet I didn’t use as an update.
Siôn Jobbins, long time Chair of YesCymru – and after a couple of weeks AWOL – finally announced he was stepping down within hours of my previous post going live. I am not claiming cause and effect.
Rachel Cooze, one of the Central Committee members elected at the May 22 AGM, resigned after – among other things – it came to light she had used suspended Central Committee member Dr Dilys Davies’ name to offer discounts on her OnlyFans porn site.
The article named Dr Davies, even though her appeal against suspension is still to be heard. ‘Emrys’ also clearly identified, but without naming, the Central Committee member elected at the May 22 AGM who has also been suspended.
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I reached out an avuncular and comforting hand, but the offer was politely rejected. (Since deleted?) Though someone in the gang made a suggestion on Twitter that my approach to ‘Emrys’ was creepy, possibly sexually motivated.
Maybe somebody can find the tweet.
Just when you think there’s nothing new to surprise you about these clowns they manage to plumb new depths.
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THE PART WHERE JAC EXPLAINS HOW IT ALL FITS TOGETHER
Bottom line: There was a conspiracy to take over YesCymru. It was mounted by people I shall name below. Marxists and others belonging to the Far Left justifying what they did as being in the cause of, “progressive socialism”.
Facilitated to some degree by fools who think Communism is ‘cool’, some too stupid to appreciate the danger, and others who just proved too weak to mount any opposition.
The conspiracy has failed because too many people were involved; some of them none too bright who gave the game away, others so convinced they were on the side of the angels that they bragged about their involvement.
But over and above that, once you put the facts together – it’s just so obvious!
I shall try to lay it out in chronological order without, I hope, repeating myself too much. But if I do, then it’s justified because previously I have dealt with disparate pieces, whereas this is the near-complete jigsaw.
The genesis of YesCymru can be found in earlier posts. But it’s worth mentioning that among the founders we find Dr Dilys Davies, Siôn Jobbins and Iestyn ap Rhobert.
Inevitably, the Far Left infiltrated YesCymru early on, but an attempt at takeover was rebuffed and the plotters – or some of them – went off to found openly Marxist Undod towards the end of 2018. A group promoting ‘socialism through independence’ or ‘socialism and independence’.
Though the Undod website now reads, rather anaemically: ‘We are a democratic, socialist republican movement established to secure independence for Wales’.
About as ‘democratic’ as the long gone and unlamented German Democratic Republic. (East Germany.)
The defeat of Jeremy Corbyn in the general election later that year resulted in Momentum taking an interest in Welsh independence. One member, Harriet Protheroe-Soltani, is now YesCymru’s Campaigns Officer, while still serving as an officer of the North West and Wales region of Momentum.
Another, who returned to Wales from London following Corbyn’s fall, is Siwan Clark. It’s claimed she has more ‘sock puppet’ Twitter accounts than anyone. I couldn’t possibly comment.
To clear the way for the Far Left to take control at the May 22 AGM certain people needed to be ‘neutralised’.
In the case of Dr Dilys Davies this was achieved by @AledGwynWiliams (Single ‘l’!) travelling to her properties in Ceredigion and engineering a spat that resulted in complaints being made to the Central Committee by ‘Emrys’, @sheikyerbouti_ and Rachel Cooze. Dr Davies was suspended from the Central Committee and unable to participate in the AGM.
But this Ceredigion foray was part of a bigger scheme.
We’ve met a number of manipulators in this series on YesCymru but one, almost overlooked, whose name has cropped up a few times recently, is moustachioed Robert Lloyd of Prestatyn, President of Labour for an Independent Wales.
Lloyd became head honcho of this group in January this year. And sources say that the plotting to take over YesCymru began soon afterwards. Plotting in which Lloyd played a bigger hand than he has previously been given credit for.
And you know me, I’m all for giving credit where credit is due.
What’s crucial for the purposes of this article is Lloyd’s role in the run-up to the May 22 AGM, his part in selecting who served on the Central Committee. And I’m sure it will interest you, as well.
Lloyd recently confessed on Twitter that he had indeed been involved in a group that brought together those of a certain ideological disposition seeking to ensure that the incoming Central Committee was to their liking.
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This ” . . . very loose campaign, but ultimately a successful one” (note the use of ‘campaign’) pulled together serving Central Committee Members, retiring Central Committee members, and candidates seeking election to the Central Committee for the first time.
In the first category we find Llywelyn ap Gwilym, Elin Hywel and Carys Eleri. In the second there’s Mark Hooper. While in the ranks of the hopefuls, bright of eye and bushy of tail, were Ben Gwalchmai and Rachel Cooze.
These Signal app meetings were set up to delete everything after 5 minutes, and so that option proved unsuitable. Future meetings were held on Zoom, and a fresh initiate was Scott Mackay of Swansea. (Endorsed by Aled Gwyn Wiliams.)
It was now that ap Gwilym and Hooper pushed the “Iestyn must go” line and urged everyone to support Shane Brennan for Secretary. This proved unnecessary because Iestyn ap Rhobert withdrew from the race.
But Lloyd fits into none of the three categories – so why was he there? Who was he representing? Obviously, Labour for an Independent Wales, which I have previously described as about as convincing as DUP for a United Ireland.
Lab4Indy overlaps with Momentum and links with Undod. There are fellow-travellers in Plaid Cymru, especially its youth wing, Plaid Ifanc. There has also – believe it or not – been a Far Left takeover of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society).
But YesCymru was the big prize due to its 18,500 members and the ‘reach’ such a figure gave the organisation.
Of course a membership of that size also presented problems for the Marxist plotters. Selecting and screening Woke-Left candidates for the Central Committee in secret meetings was one thing, but an open and fair election at the AGM, with all members voting, could have undone all the plotting.
To guarantee the election of those they’d chosen the Woke-Left ensured that as few members as possible would be able to vote at the May 22 AGM.
The leaders of the takeover plot were Robert Lloyd, Ben Gwalchmai, Mark Hooper, and Llywelyn ap Gwilym. Representing Undod, Labour/Momentum, and the Leannista wing of Plaid Cymru.
Some of the foot-soldiers, hangers-on and social media warriors I’ve already listed, but there were others. A few too many for the plot to succeed.
Many have justified the takeover as ‘protecting YesCymru from ‘fascism”. Just as the Soviets were fighting ‘fascism’ and ‘revisionism’ when they put down the Hungarian Rising of ’56 and the ‘Prague Spring’ in ’68.
Perhaps the biggest worry in that comparison should be that Marxism prefers big units and is invariably hostile to the aspirations of small nations unless pretending to support those aspirations can be used to promote Marxism.
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Footnote: Vice-president of @Lab4IndyWales is our old friend Martyn J Shrewsbury. A source points out that both Lloyd and Shrewsbury might have escaped prison terms.
Shrewsbury is a convicted fraudster who escaped jail. (Strangely, the link to the court case is broken.) After causing disruption in the Green Party of Englandandwales for a few years he moved to the Labour Party, and of course Momentum. Shrewsbury had quite a reputation for fake social media accounts.
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Read more about Shrewsbury here, in ‘Plaid Cymru’s enemy within‘. In fact, type his name in the sidebar search box because he’s appeared on this blog a few times.
President and Vice-president of Labour for an Independent Wales both dealt with leniently by the authorities with subsequent careers as political wreckers is obviously just a coincidence.
The high point for the plotters was around mid-day on May 22, just after the AGM, when their supporters were putting out celebratory tweets like these.
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It’s been downhill for them ever since.
For it soon dawned on YesCymru members that the new Central Committee had been elected with the votes of some two per cent of the total membership. (Many members didn’t even know there was an election!) Not even in the socialist Utopias dreamed of by the plotters would such a blatant con have been pulled.
Where were the Minutes? Why couldn’t members see detailed and independently audited accounts?
Regarding the latter, there was a growing suspicion that YesCymru money was being appropriated by Central Committee members, or being diverted to their friends.
A suspicion that began on the day of the AGM. Encouraged by another celebratory tweet; this one from re-elected Central Committee member Tori West.
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Recently, London-based West went on strike. How a Central Committee member withdraws their labour is not clear. But anyway, she’s back.
As I’ve said, the pressure on the Central Committee has been relentless, and it has increased week on week. To the point where the Central Committee was forced to agree to a meeting with the branches, which took place on July 13.
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I’m not sure what purpose the Central Committee thought the meeting would serve. Was it intended to be a show of strength? An attempt at reconciliation?
I can’t answer those questions. What I can tell you is that from the Central Committee’s perspective it was a disaster.
To begin with, and in an obvious attempt to show that there were branches siding with the Central Committee, those attending the meeting were entertained by . . .
Aled Gwyn Wiliams, tormentor of Dr Dilys Davies, and a veritable keyboard samurai. (Though he’s a bit too fond of the saké and often has to do a lot of deleting the morning after.) He was there representing YesCymru Maesteg. Reports says he waffled without contributing anything.
Then there was ‘Kemp’ who set up @YesYBynie because she didn’t want to mix with all those horrid transphobes and fascists in the thriving Llanelli branch of YesCymru. This Bynea ‘branch’ is just her, and therefore should not be regarded as a branch.
Aware of this she put out a sorry tweet a couple of months ago hoping to rope in waifs and strays. I wonder if anybody answered the call?
Someone else who spoke was Central Committee member Ben Gwalchmai – on behalf of the Welshpool branch! This should not have been allowed.
The letter sent to the branches promised that two members of the Central Committee would be in attendance. In fact, they were all there. Well, those who haven’t resigned or been suspended.
Seeing as ‘Emrys’ is suspended, and his deranged deputy at YesCymru LGBTQ+, ‘George Brown’ has presumably been locked in the attic, being fed through a hatch at the bottom of the door, it fell to young Tyler Griffiths to represent this section.
He did not impress. After ranting about a suspended Central Committee member running ‘sock puppet’ Twitter accounts he didn’t really have a lot to say.
Llywelyn ap Gwilym remained largely silent and seemed to wish he were somewhere else. Whilst Elin Hywel did not enhance her reputation with a number of rather silly comments.
The good news from last Tuesday’s meeting is that most genuine branches want an Extraordinary General Meeting and fresh elections to the Central Committee.
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AND FINALLY . . .
As was reported on Politics Wales yesterday, there’s a lot of crazy stuff flying around on social media. I can state with confidence that 80 to 90 per cent of it comes from defenders of the takeover. And participants therein.
One of the leaders in the field is Rachel Cooze who put the knife into Dr Davies and anybody else she took a dislike to – including me! First, by telling my Twitter followers that I was a fascist and a transphobe, and suggesting they unfollow me. (Which about 40 or 50 did, but now I have more followers than before her attack!)
Then, she came out with a bizarre – and actionable – claim that former YesCymru Secretary, Iestyn ap Rhobert, had been feeding me confidential information. I can swear on a stack of Bibles that the claim is untrue.
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I assumed that she had dreamt it up, or been fed it by one of her poisonous consœurs. But then, last week, along came @YupCymru. One of the weirdest accounts to appear in this saga.
Mention has been made of ‘sock puppet’ Twitter accounts, which are shell accounts used by people wanting to hide their identity and/or pretend that their position has more support than is truly the case.
To begin with, it was opened in 2013, before YesCymru was even thought of, and there were only ten or a dozen tweets until very recently. Yet this almost inactive account made the same allegation on April 29 of Iestyn ap Rhobert leaking me information.
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So who was @YupCymru?
It’s a question many are asking because in a brief flurry of activity before closing the account @YupCymru also released confidential YesCymru documents. To wit, the Minutes of the Dr Dilys Davies disciplinary hearing held on May 5.
This hearing was a kangaroo court. The decision to suspend Dr Davies had already been taken by the plotters named earlier. She had to be removed before the AGM because she was a threat to their plans and would certainly have opposed the two motions the plotters had framed.
The Minutes are already in the public domain so I feel able to offer them here.
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It’s a strange business. One minute (no pun intended) @YupCymru was fighting for the takeover gang, attacking Iestyn ap Rhobert and me; and then, by releasing the Minutes, seems to be trying to damage YesCymru.
I suppose any investigation will have to start by asking who had copies of or access to those Minutes.
For this breach of security and confidentiality is a serious business. And it’s not the only example we’ve seen recently of unauthorised or unlawful use of confidential YesCymru information.
Perhaps attributable to the fact that those who mounted the coup, and those who support them, know that their time is running out. Of course, they can’t accept that the fightback is coming from ordinary members who want to welcome everybody to a broad-based movement working for Welsh independence.
No, it has to be a fascist takeover. Because anybody who doesn’t agree with these lunatics is a fascist. That’s one of the big mistakes they’ve made – absurd slanders alienating so many decent people.
But then, when you dream of driving a Red Army tank along the boulevards of Budapest or Prague this intolerance of differing views will often betray you.
It’s alleged that ‘Arson Sam’ is one of Siwan Clark’s many sock puppet accounts. Now putting her Momentum experience to the service of the Far Left in YesCymru. Click to enlarge.
Where now for YesCymru?
It would be absurd to suggest that all those involved in the takeover of YesCymru are working for the British state. Equally absurd would be to think that the British state would ignore a movement with 18,000 members pushing for Welsh independence.
The damage done is so severe that none of those responsible for the coup or supportive of it can be allowed to stay. If they don’t resign they must be removed.
There must then be a fresh start with a more professional structure in place to ensure it can’t happen again. Otherwise YesCymru is as good as finished.
I’M IN SEMI-RETIREMENT AND THIS BLOG IS WINDING DOWN. I INTEND CALLING IT A DAY IN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS. POSTINGS WILL PROBABLY BE LESS FREQUENT AND I WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANY MAJOR NEW INVESTIGATIONS. DIOLCH YN FAWR.
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I had intended putting out Weep for Wales 19, but events in and around YesCymru meant that my attention was drawn there. What’s more, with the YC story developing as I write this it may be more stream of consciousness than you have come to expect from me.
In a nutshell, YesCymru, an organisation formed and dedicated to campaigning for Welsh independence has, over recent years been first, infiltrated, and then taken over, by the Woke-Left obsessed with issues that have little or nothing to do with Welsh independence.
The AGM of May 22, rigged so that as few as possible of YesCymru’s 18,500 members could participate, sealed the takeover. Less than 2% of the members voted for the new Central Committee and two contentious Motions.
The takeover has been accompanied by a campaign of lies, intimidation, and the vilification of anyone standing up to the extremists. Yet those behind this takeover have cleverly turned the facts on their head to present themselves as victims of intimidation, ‘transphobia’, etc., etc.
As you’ll have read in the posts I linked to the extremists now running YesCymru – and their allies outwith that organisation – first came to my attention with the hounding of Dr Dilys Davies. This followed her purchasing the ‘Tryweryn Wall’ on the A487 in July 2019.
The memorial had been subjected to two attacks earlier that year and was in danger of complete collapse. So, you might think that a Welsh patriot buying it for the nation would be welcomed by those claiming to be patriots or nationalists.
Mais, non. For Dr Davies was almost immediately attacked, and for bizarre reasons, most of which seemed to focus on the fact that she had the wherewithal to make the purchase.
It was pure, old-fashioned, socialist envy of the, ‘I hates rich people, I do’ variety. The sort of thing you often get from failures, malcontents, and social misfits.
Some even talked of demolishing the wall. Though now they insist they were only joking. Of course they were. Though it does raise an interesting possibility.
For it has been suggested to me that Dr Davies stepping in to buy the Wall may have thwarted a plan for our heroes to buy it – probably with crowdfunding – thereby guaranteeing their places in the pantheon of Welsh nationalism. When their hopes were dashed they had to ensure that Dr Davies was not deified in their stead.
Whether that theory is plausible or not, it may be worth mentioning that no one was ever charged with causing the damage to the Wall in 2019. Or even accused on Twitter. Which, in the febrile world of Welsh social media, is quite something.
Who could have done it?
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TAKEOVER AND AFTERMATH
And so it came t0 pass that at the YesCymru AGM on May 22 the Left-Woke extremists, influenced by Momentum and operating out of Undod, took control of YesCymru.
This was achieved by the old Communist Party ploy of fixing things beforehand and keeping participants down to a manageable number and a favourable disposition.
Undod was formed towards the end of 2018 by leftists who’d previously attempted to take over YesCymru but had been resisted. Its website tells us, “Our members are involved in political campaigning across Wales on a wide range of issues”. Which is fine for an avowedly left wing campaigning group.
But why would the Undodistas want to take over YesCymru and have it do exactly the same thing? The answer, gentle reader, comes down to numbers, and the perceptions of the general public.
Let me explain.
Undod has a few dozen members. At best, a Far Left outfit could hope for a few hundred members. YesCymru has – or had until very recently – 18,500 members.
If Undod protests about US involvement in Laputa they will be dismissed as ‘the usual suspects’. By which will be meant a tiny minority unwilling to come to terms with a liberal democracy and a market economy.
But, if YesCymru demands that the US withdraws its troops from Laputa then the public response might be different. It won’t be, ‘Them lefty nutters!’, it’ll be, ‘Oh, hang on, there’s somebody in YesCymru who works with me – tidy bloke’.
And this is why the Left wanted to take over YesCymru – credibility. And not just with the public, but also with the media, and with politicians.
However . . .
Since the takeover, resistance to it has grown as people who joined YesCymru to work for independence see the organisation’s energies – and money? – dissipated on causes that should have nothing whatsoever to do with YesCymru.
Not least because above and beyond the more general Leftist agenda there are other issues causing concern. First, is the obsession – and that is not too strong a word – with ‘trans rights’. Then there is the growing realisation that some of those involved in the takeover, and their allies, are very unpleasant people.
Very unpleasant indeed. With quite a few of them absolutely unhinged. And those who encourage and exploit them are of course unwilling to rein them in.
One of the new members of the YesCymru Central Committee is Rachel Cooze of Swansea.
Rachel appears on OnlyFans, an online pornography site. Here’s a recent WalesOnline piece that might give you a better idea of what OnlyFans offers.
Some will disapprove of a YesCymru Central Committee member being involved in that kind of thing, others will rush to her defence . . . ‘How is a working-class girl supposed to make money?’ I’m sure there are a million answers, but we don’t have the time . . .
Though the reason Rachel Cooze is coming under pressure now is not – as her defenders pretend – because she is a sex worker, but because she joined in a second attack on Dr Dilys Davies and linked it with her sex work. This second attack was instigated to get Dr Davies removed from the Central Committee ahead of May’s AGM.
To explain. From what I can gather, punters pay money to see Rachel Cooze and others ‘perform’ on OnlyFans. In April she offered a ‘Happy Fuck Off Dilys Day’ discount voucher, the kind of thing you get from your local supermarket.
Well, perhaps not quite.
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The renewed attacks on Dr Davies were set in train by Aled Gwyn Williams of Maesteg, something of a guru to those being discussed here. Over Easter he made a trip to Ceredigion in order to provoke Dr Davies into doing something out of which her suspension from YC’s Central Committee could be contrived.
Here’s another photo; this one shows Aled Gwyn Williams with Rachel Cooze.
The person on the right has had her face pixelated. She doesn’t really look like that. Click to enlarge
Rachel Cooze’s reward for sticking it to Dr Davies may have been membership of the Central Committee, to which she was duly elected at the rigged AGM on May 22.
Rachel Cooze’s position within YesCymru must surely now be untenable, as must the positions of those who drew her into the conspiracy against Dr Davies, and those who persist in supporting her despite the evidence.
Among his other qualities Aled is forthright . . . especially after a few drinkies.
Here’s an example I was sent today that is completely in keeping with our hero’s behaviour: “Looks like Aled has a habit of saying “f**k off” to women on Twitter and deleting tweets. He told C—– H—– to “f**k off” at 12:06 am and by 9 ish this morning the tweet had gone….It was there at 8 ish this morning. By the looks of it he spent some time in a pub yesterday too…”.
Some previous examples of Aled Gwyn Williams’ chivalry. Where are the troubadours when you need one? Click to enlarge
The latest news on Dr Dilys Davies’ suspension is that her appeal was heard on Tuesday and the final decision on whether she’s re-admitted will rest with . . . the Central Committee! The very people who engineered her suspension.
No, I am not making this up!
Iestyn ap Rhobert was a YesCymru founder and served as Secretary until withdrawing just before this year’s AGM.
Iestyn ap Rhobert had a bit more to say about his own position today in this Twitter thread. It’s worth reading.
Motions 1 and 2 to which Iestyn ap Rhobert refers – and which I mentioned earlier – were put before the last AGM:
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Motions ensuring that as many as possible of YesCymru’s decision makers are non-binary, transsexual, and belong to other ‘oppressed’ minorities. In this set-up there is little room for straight White people . . . unless they’re pulling the strings.
When I started writing about the shenanigans in YesCymru, and wondering who Rachel Cooze was, she put out a message to my Twitter followers asking them to unfollow me.
She asked others to put out the same lies, among them Tessa Marshall of Cardiff. I’d never never heard of Marshall before this, and she certainly didn’t know me. But that didn’t stop her going even further than Cooze.
On Wednesday Marshall was back, defending Rachel Cooze. And attacking Dr Dilys Davies, someone else she doesn’t know.
Tess Marshall is still retweeting Stonewall. Reminding us that much of what I’m writing about is a desperate, rear-guard action by those who know they’re on the losing side.
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These people are no different to members of a cult. They are incapable of reasoned argument, so they scream slogans. Their world is black and white, without nuance. Everything is exaggerated: they always feel ‘unsafe’, words are violence, any attempt to engage or debate is ‘harassment’, ‘fascists’ are no longer hiding under the bed – they’re trying to jump in with you like some jackbooted incubi belting out the Horst Wessel Lied.
But then, all manner of strange behaviour is to be found with these people. Some of it truly disturbing, to the point where you wonder how twisted a mind has to be to produce such filth. Take this for example, addressed to a boy of 18 who had recently lost his mother.
This came with illustrations. I’ve spared you those. Click to enlarge
The person who wrote is also 18. It’s a boy wanting to be a girl or a girl wanting to a boy. Either way, the confusion has clearly affected ‘George’, and made him / her both irrational and vicious. Which is something encountered time and again when dealing with Wokies and those obsessed with gender issues.
Despite these obvious and troubling problems, ‘George Brown’ is the vice chair of YesCymru’s LGBT Committee. And was recently defended by Montgomeryshire’s answer to Rasputin, Ben Gwalchmai.
For even though Gwalchmai is a relatively intelligent individual, a member of the Labour Party (and of course, Momentum), he knows that unhinged individuals like ‘George’ have paved his crew’s way to control of YesCymru. And it’s not time to ditch them, yet.
In other news . . . YesCymru Chair, Siôn Jobbins has been missing since Monday. Or at least, his Twitter account was closed on that day.
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So what does the future hold for YesCymru?
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THE ROAD AHEAD
Last Saturday there was a meeting of the Central Committee. At the meeting was YesCymru’s Diversity and Inclusivity Officer, Jessica – formerly Matthew – Harvey, who harangued Andrew O’Brien of Port Talbot for daring to suggest that YC should focus on independence.
Didn’t he realise that the streets of Wales ran red with the blood of trans martyrs! Ripped limb from limb by TERF mobs! Where were his priorities?
Soon after, Andrew O’Brien resigned from the Central Committee. Here’s the statement he issued:
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Andrew O’Brien is a decent, level-headed guy from the steel town of Port Talbot. The sort of man that Plaid Cymru has struggled to recruit, but YesCymru was able to attract. But is now alienating.
It is reported that just one member of the Central Committee spoke up in defence of Andrew O’Brien, so this man’s days on the CC may also be numbered.
Which leaves Niki Jones, who is hanging on by her fingertips. Niki could not attend last Saturday’s Politburo lecture. Though I’m sure she can empathise with Andrew O’Brien because she too has been attacked by people inside YesCymru aided by their social media allies. To the point where it is now a matter for the police.
There’s an irony in the fact that the Far Left, using its Woke foot-soldiers, has finally captured YesCymru; yet as they settle in, hoping to take advantage of their success – the whole thing starts falling apart!
We are at the stage now where YesCymru is alienating people so fast, and bringing the idea of independence into such disrepute, that if the Central Committee is not working for the British state then it is certainly doing the work of the British state.
In his statement, Andrew O’Brien asked, “Who is it who is actually guiding the direction that YesCymru is currently taking”.
A good question. Here’s my answer.
Wales may be at a constitutional crossroads, even First Minister Drakeford is dropping hints about an unbalanced Union not working for Wales. Others sense that Wales may be closer to independence now than at any time since Glyndŵr’s day.
Having captured YesCymru the Far Left has a credibility and influence that would never be bestowed by the ballot box. This gives the Marxists a platform from which to not only influence events in the here and now but also, should independence be achieved, the development of the new state.
More credibility and influence than Undod could ever hope for under its own banner.
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CONCLUSION
From my observations, from what I’m being told, and from what insiders are now making public, YesCymru has become TransCymru, and should be allowed to drift away to irrelevance.
I believe TransCymru is too far gone to save. Any attempt would be lengthy and acrimonious, would almost certainly involve lawyers (which those holding the YesCymru purse-strings could afford), and attract the attention of Wales’ enemies in London and elsewhere. All of which would damage the independence cause.
A new organisation is needed. One rooted in Wales. An organisation that will speak out on the real world issues that affect our people; and by doing this build up support for independence, through proving commitment to Welsh people and their physical rather than their imaginary communities.
We must start again. And this time – get it right.
I’M IN SEMI-RETIREMENT AND THIS BLOG IS WINDING DOWN. I INTEND CALLING IT A DAY SOON AFTER THIS YEAR’S SENEDD ELECTIONS. POSTINGS WILL NOW BE LESS FREQUENT AND I WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANY MAJOR NEW INVESTIGATIONS. DIOLCH YN FAWR.
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This coming Saturday sees the AGM at which the far left will seek to complete its takeover of YesCymru.
For suggesting this in recent posts I have been called all sorts of names, with ‘conspiracy theorist’ one of the more polite epithets. But once you understand the background, and the motivations then what some would like to dismiss as a wild theory makes perfect sense.
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Above you see an example of what I and others have to put up with from the woke-left jackal pack on social media. (You wonder why I drink!)
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IN THE BEGINNING
YesCymru announced itself with a rally held in Cardiff on September 13, 2014 in support of Scottish independence. This was inspired by Yes Scotland, the cross-party campaign for a Yes vote in the independence referendum that same month.
Yes Scotland disbanded soon after the referendum.
I was in Scotland myself for the referendum and on my return I gave my view of the situation with Beginning of the End. I was of course disappointed by the result, and yet, I sensed there was no going back.
The obvious difference between Yes Scotland and YesCymru was that the former had come into existence for the Scottish independence referendum while the latter had been created with no prospect of a Welsh referendum. So why was YesCymru formed?
The answer I was given was that YesCymru was born to breathe life into the idea of independence, which many felt was not being promoted vigorously enough by Plaid Cymru. Which at that time was led by Leanne Wood.
This made perfect sense.
I’m not saying that Leanne Wood wasn’t in favour of independence, but I do believe that for her independence was not a priority. Or perhaps, it was desirable only if it delivered a certain kind of independence.
What I’m suggesting might possibly be explained by Leanne Wood’s visit to Scotland in the referendum period. The writer of this September 2014 article from Open Democracy tells us, “When I met her, Leanne had just been to Glasgow to speak to the Radical Independence Campaign.”
Factionalism, on the left! Surely not! Click to enlarge
For the Radical Independence Campaign also wanted a certain type of independence, perhaps more John Maclean than Bonny Prince Charlie. And there was nothing wrong with that. They were quite open and honest about it.
The point to be made here is that those preferring a left wing approach to Scottish independence could join the Radical Independence Campaign, while anyone who did not support the RIC’s vision was free to join Yes Scotland, which was more mainstream and less doctrinaire.
Back to Wales.
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YESCYMRU, LAUNCH AND FIRST ATTEMPT AT TAKEOVER
So, from the summer of 2014, Wales had the political party, Plaid Cymru, that claimed to favour independence, plus a new organisation, YesCymru, that, by its very existence, suggested there were many unconvinced that Plaid Cymru was serious about independence.
Another take on it might be that there were people supportive of independence who had little time for Plaid Cymru but could support a non-aligned group like YesCymru.
By late 2015 things were gearing up for the official public launch, which came on February 20, 2016. I gave it a write-up here.
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The reports I received said that the Red Queen was not happy with YesCymru, she felt it needed to be ‘redirected’. Some even suggested that she saw YesCymru as an indirect attack on her leadership of Plaid Cymru.
A number of sources have told me that the infiltration of YesCymru by the left began even before the official launch in February 2016.
Though the infiltrators were resisted. Matters came to a head – in the autumn of 2018? – when a few of the infiltrators were suspended for bullying and other offences. Then, for not complying with the terms of their suspension, and refusing to hand over passwords for social media accounts, they were expelled.
The names I’ve been given are Colin / Colyn Nosworthy and Sandra Clubb.
Despite this tweet from Siwan Clark last week, the expulsions were for the reasons I’ve just given. Though the tweet is unintentionally revealing.
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According to Clark, people were thrown out because YesCymru would not “commit to being anti-racist and anti-fascist”. But why should an organisation formed to promote a single issue burden itself with ideological baggage?
And note that those opposed to such unnecessary distractions must be “right wingers”.
I’m sure you’re wondering who Siwan Clark is. I’d never heard of her myself until someone sent me that tweet and a different source drew my attention to this piece from The National last December, where Adam Ramsay had this to say:
“In Wales, socialists and progressives disappointed by Labour’s election defeat are starting to plan ahead, too.
Siwan Clark is one of the many young people who moved home for lockdown. A few years ago she had left Cardiff for London because of “a feeling that you have to be there, that it was the centre of things”. The pandemic has changed all that. “For a lot of people who’ve moved home, their sphere is turning to more local things,” she said to me over Zoom recently.
Before Covid, Clark said, she wouldn’t have expected most people in Wales to know the name of the first minister. (It’s Mark Drakeford.) “I was extremely ignorant about the Assembly. I just didn’t really engage with it,” she said.
In London, she had joined Labour “in a rage” so that she could vote for Jeremy Corbyn during the post-Brexit leadership challenge. “I was so annoyed by that. I canvassed a lot in 2017. And a lot in 2019.”
Now 26 and back in Wales, Clark has joined Undod, the campaign for radical Welsh independence.”
It’s a revealing little section. To begin with, we read that Undod is committed to “radical Welsh independence”. An echo of the Radical Independence Campaign in Scotland, which you’ll remember Leanne Wood addressed in 2014.
Adam Ramsay hints that Siwan Clark had little time for devolution, she went to London and supported Corbyn. Then, when her hero was deposed, she came home, and joined Undod.
I’m losing count of the left wingers who ‘discovered’ Wales and the cause of Welsh independence after Corbyn got the chop.
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THE LEFT SUFFERS A SETBACK BUT REGROUPS
But let’s go back to 2018 for a moment. Among the big events was the Plaid Cymru leadership contest in September. Despite having led the party since 2012 Leanne Wood came third in a three-horse race.
It’s difficult to convey how much of a shock this was to Leanne Wood’s supporters inside the party, in the Cardiff Bay bubble, and indeed to those outside Wales who viewed her as a combination of Boudicca and La Pasionaria.
But then, when you live in a closed-off world, interacting almost exclusively with those who share your views, it’s so easy to lose contact with reality
This article by Dr Huw Williams in Nation.Cymru gives a fascinating insight into the expulsions, and the thinking of the far left ahead of the YesCymru AGM held in Burry Port on October 13, 2018. He says:
” . . . it looks likely now that a movement for radical independence will come into existence in some form over the coming months.
In some respects, it’s a pity this did not happen sooner, as it may have assuaged the concerns of some of those in YesCymru who have felt it necessary to act as they have.
However, it must not be the case that this movement is perceived to be a ‘challenger’ to YesCymru – rather it should be a group that will hopefully, in future, be part of a wider movement, and one in which different people can pursue different political visions for Wales.”
By October 2018 the left had decided to set up a ‘radical’ rival to YesCymru. That decision was influenced partly by the expulsions from YesCymru and partly by the result of the Plaid Cymru leadership contest.
Invitations went out mid-December 2018 to the launch of Undod – I got one! – with the actual launch meeting held at Yr Hen Goleg in Aberystwyth on 26 January, 2019. (A place dear to old Jac’s heart!)
In his Nation.Cymru article Huw Williams, after appearing conciliatory, adopted a rather dismissive tone with, “As for YesCymru, no doubt they will continue in some form.” Indeed they did, Huw! YesCymru grew and grew and grew.
With Undod the far left had a base in which it could re-group, and from which it could mount attacks. Undod, set up by hard-core leftists, would recruit mainly young people and they would sally forth to infiltrate other groups.
So successful has the strategy been that even Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society) has been penetrated.
Welsh-speaking communities are being destroyed by tourism, holiday homes and colonisation, yet as this tweet from last week suggests, Cymdeithas yr Iaith may now have other priorities.
It reads: ‘Freedom for Palestine’.
The period 2018/19 was obviously difficult for the left. The once revered but now ‘stupid and racist’ working class had voted for Brexit, Trump was in the White House, and then, to cap it all, came the UK general election of December 2019, when Corbyn’s Labour Party was heavily defeated.
While the left seemed to be on the defensive globally, here in Wales it had regrouped and was on the march again; playing identity politics and spreading poison through the Welsh body politic by infiltration.
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CUI BONO?
Dr Huw Williams, in his Nation.Cymru piece of October 2018 suggested that YesCymru and the new movement could appeal to different sections of the population.
Which makes sense to me.
He also talked of “different political visions for Wales”. But in recent years we’ve seen the left attack and vilify alternative visions. Now we see the final confirmation of the left’s intolerance towards other views with its planned takeover of YesCymru.
To repeat: After the initial failure to take over YesCymru Undod was set up by Labour and Plaid Cymru left wingers to infiltrate various Welsh organisations to promote their leftist agenda, with YesCymru being the juiciest prize due to its large membership and the publicity it attracted through its rallies and other activities.
As shown in the image below.
Image Undod. Click to enlarge
The board held by the woman on the right reads: ‘No room for fascists in a free Wales’. Which is another way of saying, ‘Only fascists could oppose the socialist vision we have for Wales.’
Which is attempting to close a debate by vilifying those who dare to take a different viewpoint. (Or else, and perhaps worse – they really believe it!)
For that’s how the far left operates. Invent or exaggerate a problem, then demand action and dismiss opponents as racists / homophobes / fascists / transphobes / terfs / climate deniers / Islamophobes / etc.
In my lifetime the left has supported many causes but, compared with ending the Vietnam War or freeing Nelson Mandela, exploiting confused individuals with chips on their shoulders is at best exploitative, and at worst, rather despicable.
Which calls into question the motivation for taking over YesCymru. Many of Undod’s luminaries are in the Labour Party, so are they really serious about independence?
I believe they want to take over YesCymru simply to use its 18,000+ members to promote their left wing agenda. As they’re doing in Plaid Cymru, Cymdeithas yr Iaith, Plaid Ifanc, and elsewhere.
Consequently . . .
Unless it can be proven otherwise there should be a presumption that those standing for the Central Committee on the ‘diversity’ ticket either belong to or are being used by the far left that wishes to subvert YesCymru for its own purposes. They should therefore be rejected.
But if the worst happens, and if YesCymru does fall to the far left, then Huw Williams’ suggestion of two independence movements appealing to different constituencies will be the way to proceed.
I’M IN SEMI-RETIREMENT AND THIS BLOG IS WINDING DOWN. I INTEND CALLING IT A DAY SOON AFTER THIS YEAR’S SENEDD ELECTIONS. POSTINGS WILL NOW BE LESS FREQUENT AND I WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANY MAJOR NEW INVESTIGATIONS. DIOLCH YN FAWR.
This latest post is in part an update of, and in part a sequel to, last week’s post.
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INTRODUCTION
In that previous piece I explained the infiltration of Yes Cymru by left wingers who are more likely to be promoting their own agendas than serving Welsh interests.
I also tried to explain the linkage between the doctrinaire ‘hard’ left and the ‘fluffier’ wokies, especially those who believe transsexuals are a persecuted minority in Wales that must not just be protected, but promoted and grown.
Following that piece I suffered considerable online abuse, people saying they wanted to attack me, even kill me. Moi! loveable old Jac!
This is the kind of thing I’m talking about.
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Aled Gwyn Williams, poisonous little troll of Maesteg, was no doubt angry that my blog piece had been taken up by Llais y Sais, where Martin Shipton gave him a few mentions.
This was perhaps payback for Shipton being attacked last year by the usual suspects for daring to wonder why BLM protests were allowed during Covid lockdown.
For this he was removed from a judging panel by the touchy-feely, state-funded, left liberals of Literature Wales, an organisation where ‘diversity’ now takes precedence over good writing.
Shipton was quoted in a Nation.Cymru article saying, “Many of the tweets questioned my right to express an opinion, called into question my credentials as a journalist and attacked me on the basis of my age.”
Tell me about it!
But it was all rather naïve of Shippo. For as we learnt from the USA and elsewhere, marches, riots, arson, looting, even murder and mayhem, were perfectly acceptable during lockdown – as long as it was BLM or Antifa doing it.
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Further news came in after last week’s post was published, some of which I added as an update, and so you may have missed it. Also, information to which I’ve been directed in recent days.
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HARD LEFT INFILTRATES, PROMISES SOCIALIST UTOPIA OF . . . GULAGS
As a late addition to last week’s post I mentioned that Yes Cymru had taken on a Campaigns Officer. Her name is Harriet Protheroe-Soltani (formerly Protheroe-Davis), originally of Merthyr.
What’s important about her is that she comes from Momentum, or Welsh Labour Grassroots, as it tends be more popularly known in Wales. By either name this is the hard left group that gathered around Jeremy Corbyn capturing and, for a while, controlling the Labour Party.
Since Corbyn’s fall parasitic Momentum has sought new hosts.
When standing for the Momentum NCG last year this is what she had to say to the Momentum membership in her election pitch:
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The penultimate sentence is chilling. It suggests that those who are democratically elected to the Senedd by the Welsh people will be dictated to by left wingers like her.
Another hard left woman who has adopted the cause of Welsh independence is infamous anti-Semite Kerry-Anne Mendoza, editor-in-chief of far left media site The Canary. I think she has ‘bought a place’ near Abergavenny.
I don’t accept that these women really care about Wales, or about us. I say that because the left is inherently unpatriotic. To them, patriotism is either passé or downright evil.
One of Aled Gwyn Williams’ playmates’ recently used the term ‘flagshaggers’ to describe Welsh patriots. (He’s the one in the centre of the picture below.)
Not long before, in a truly bizarre tweet – even by their standards – he challenged ‘flagshaggers’ to a cage fight! Everybody had a good laugh.
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The hard left supports Welsh independence for its own reasons. Reasons that would be of no benefit to the Welsh people. For example, the left would do nothing to combat the ethnic cleansing taking place in our rural areas as they believe in open borders and free movement of people.
Consequently, the independent Wales they promise would be an absolute nightmare. As we were reminded by the comedian in the centre of the picture above . . . who fantasises about gulags!
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And he is not joking! That’s how unhinged the hard left / wokies have become.
These are the people taking over and reshaping the movement for independence, and it makes sense.
For reading Momentum literature certain things become obvious. Regular references to the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights tell that this issue is being used by Momentum to cause disruption in ‘target groups’.
It worked its magic on the Labour Party and now we see the hard left using its useful idiots the wokies to cause disruption with transphobia allegations in Wales. Especially within Plaid Cymru and the independence movement.
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THE HARD LEFT UNDERMINING THE NATION
When it’s not talk of gulags and cage fights with ‘flagshaggers’, or dictating policy to the ‘Welsh Government’, then leftists engage in other attacks on the nation.
Here are two examples from last week.
To believe the first, the movement for Welsh independence owes virtually nothing to white, heterosexual Welsh people!
“Bigots and fascists” is code for, ‘anyone who refuses to accept the hard left / wokie message’. That is, most of us.
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According to Welsh Communalists of the World Yes Cymru was “only possible” due to the LGBTQ community and the Kurds. Now, I have supported the Kurds ever since I became aware of their plight – and this was long before the clowns I’m writing about were born – but to give the Kurdish diaspora in Wales such influence would probably embarrass the Kurds themselves.
Yet – and this is surely the clincher! – what Welsh Communalists of the World says is “a scientific fact”. So there!
Who are these idiots?
A brief background may be needed for you to understand the second example.
This has excited the representatives of the ‘visitor economy’ (love that term!) who claim the tourists won’t like it. Citing the fact that no one visits Mont Blanc or Benidorm.
It’s this suggestion from Cllr Roberts that encouraged the Twitter contribution you see below from @henpbapur.
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It’s difficult to know where to start with this, but let’s try some facts. Colonel Sir George Everest was born into a family of butchers turned lawyers from London. They’d made enough money to buy a sizeable estate near Crughywel.
There is some dispute as to where George Everest was born, in 1790, but he was certainly baptised in London and educated in England before joining the East India Company as a cadet and sailing for India in 1806. He died at his London home in 1866 and is buried in London.
His connection with Wales, therefore, is tenuous in the extreme. He may never have set foot here! For all sorts of reasons, to call him a Welshman is absurd.
But none of this matters to those, infected with transient lunacies, who want to paint us Welsh as colonialist oppressors. Though even if Everest was Welsh, would that make us all guilty?
Following World War Two the Allies decided that guilt for the Holocaust and other crimes would be borne by those who were guilty – not by the whole German nation. That was the correct thing to do then, and now.
But under the influence of Black Lives Matter, and its mantra that all white people must carry the guilt for slavery and colonialism some young person in Wales uses George Everest to pin the guilt of colonialism on the whole Welsh nation in 2021!
And by so doing, she lines up with some Cheshire Set shite in Abbasock who thinks using the name Yr Wyddfa is racist!
Whose side is she on?
She doubled down on her silliness with the tweet you see below.
No, I’ll tell you what’s ‘toxic’ and ‘shallow’ – blaming people for things they had no hand in, and arguing for collective guilt. Because that’s how dictators and genocidalists ‘justify’ their crimes.
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THE HARD LEFT, YES CYMRU, AND THE COALITION
One of the many curiosities of the Welsh political scene nowadays is a group calling itself Labour for an Independent Wales. As you can see if you click on the link, the homepage of the group’s website proclaims ‘Socialism through independence’, leaving us in no doubt of its priority.
(Mercifully, there’s no mention of gulags. Or of challenging ‘flagshaggers’ to a scrap.)
On the executive committee of @LabforIndyWales we find Martyn Shrewsbury, snake oil salesman of Swansea and former luminary of the Liberal Democrats. Shrewsbury has appeared on this blog more than once. (Just put his name in the search box atop the sidebar.)
The rest seem to be the usual mix of dinner party socialists, those still fighting Brexit, and yet more opportunists dreaming of exploiting an independent Wales.
The leader and spokesperson for this merry band is Ben Gwalchmai, who is the fourth of Labour’s four candidates on the Mid and West Wales list for Thursday’s election. Which means he’s got as much chance of being elected as I have.
I mention Comrade Gwalchmai because, idly searching the web the other night, I came across a podcast in which he appears, alongside Harriet Protheroe-Soltani of all people. She of Yes Cymru and Momentum.
If nothing else, it tells us that they know each other. Which is no great surprise.
But the reason I mention it is because I’m told Gwalchmai has been having discreet talks with the leadership of Yes Cymru. The organisation that so recently attracted Protheroe-Soltani. This might be significant.
Because despite Yes Cymru’s claims to not be aligned with any political party, it became obvious soon after YC’s launch that it was an extension of Plaid Cymru. While the claim to being ideology-free has been destroyed by Yes Cymru’s surrender to the far left and the left’s wokie dupes.
Then, other sources tell me that the details of the post-election coalition between Labour and Plaid Cymru have already been settled. Plaid Cymru is being coy about it so as not to alienate its supporters.
I’ll remind them: A vote for Plaid Cymru is a vote for Labour.
It would make perfect sense for potential partners in any coalition to have made the initial contact through proxies. Or should we view it as Yes Cymru acting as matchmaker?
One thing is absolutely certain. The hard left has extended its influence in Wales without ever putting its agenda to the electorate. It has achieved this influence through the time-honoured methods of entryism and operating through surrogates.
The little chart I’ve drawn up explains how I see the flow of left wing influence. You’ll note that while Labour is obviously targeted, the ultimate targets are Yes Cymru and Plaid Cymru. In fact, Plaid Cymru might be seen as the end of the line.
Making the party of Saunders Lewis and Gwynfor Evans the Labour Party by another name.
The trickle down effect.
Undod is a far left group containing a number of extremists and oddballs, some of whom crop up in the company of Aled Gwyn Williams. With its emphasis on class war it’s about as relevant to the 21st century as whalebone corsets.
“One of the reasons we decided to call ourselves Undod was as a permanent reminder that the working class have more in common with one another than they do with the political and business elites in this country.”
As I said earlier, the left is always unpatriotic, and Undod is no exception. It seeks to divide the Welsh nation on class lines while forging alliances with the toiling masses elsewhere. It’s almost nostalgia socialism; the sort of thing that can only appeal to the truly embittered or the too-young-to-know-better.
Plaid Ifanc, the youth wing of Plaid Cymru, is another far left organisation, with its number one objective being to make Wales independent . . . and then join the EU! Being generous, I’ll suggest its members are too young to remember the 2016 referendum in which Wales voted to leave the EU.
There is no mention on the Plaid Ifanc website of the citizens of an independent socialist Wales having a referendum to decide whether they want to join the EU.
There are other groups and social media accounts that I could have mentioned but these would be more peripheral.
Though one deserving a mention, which seems to be another front for Momentum, is Acorn. Formed in 2014, it describes itself as “a mass membership organisation and network of low-income people organising for a fairer deal for our communities”.
Deliciously vague . . . but who could criticise!
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LOOKING AHEAD
There will be a Labour-Plaid Cymru coalition after Thursday’s elections, but the real victor will be the hard left, which has infiltrated both parties, and will, as Harriet Protheroe-Soltani warned, “set the narrative” for the ‘Welsh Government’. It could be argued that this infiltration made the coalition almost inevitable.
Can merger be far behind?
From then on it will be virtue signalling on steroids!
The planet will be saved by banning private transport while also getting rid of farmers and their farting livestock; the world’s refugees will be encouraged to come to Wales; police will be defunded and their bicycles emblazoned with ‘ACAB’; England’s homeless will be housed; gender dysphoria counselling will be available to foetuses; the stocks will be brought back for flagshaggers; the currently under-funded third sector will enjoy a golden age of largesse; anyone asking, ‘But what about the economy?’ will be re-educated . . . and Wales will sink into (even greater) poverty and utter chaos.
I can only hope that a few years of the lunatics running the asylum leads to our people coming to their senses, and from then on voting for parties with no hidden agendas, and only Wales’ best interests at heart.
I’M IN SEMI-RETIREMENT AND THIS BLOG IS WINDING DOWN. I INTEND CALLING IT A DAY SOON AFTER THIS YEAR’S SENEDD ELECTIONS. POSTINGS WILL NOW BE LESS FREQUENT AND I WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANY MAJOR NEW INVESTIGATIONS. DIOLCH YN FAWR.
♦
I know I promised a few Senedd election previews, but I’ve already had a gutsful of politics, politicians and elections.
When the First Minister can say, in an interview with the self-styled ‘National Newspaper of Wales’, and get away with: “We live in an inter-dependent world. I am interested in the future for Wales in which we are connected to other places not cut off from them”, then politics is reduced to bullshit sound-bites.
If Drakeford is right, then Estonia was better ‘connected’ with the outside world when it was part of the Soviet Union. Which is palpable bollocks. And if he knew the meaning of ‘inter-dependent’ then he might have kept his mouth shut altogether.
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BACKGROUND
This post is prompted by the treatment recently meted out to Dr Dilys Davies by a clique of mainly young and immature people that has resulted in Dr Davies being suspended from the Central Committee of Yes Cymru.
Though I suppose this really started in September 2019, when Dr Davies, lifelong patriot, respected clinical psychologist, and owner of a couple of establishments in Ceredigion, came under attack from those who haunt Welsh social media and cause such disruption in political circles.
Here’s a pdf version of the 2019 letter of complaint demanding that Dr Davies be removed from the Central Committee of Yes Cymru. I’m not sure who submitted this complaint . . . but I could have a good guess!
Dr Davies’ ‘crime’ was to quote feminist Germaine Greer. For those mercifully unfamiliar with this territory, Dr Greer is regarded as a transphobe by the zealots of the trans movement for believing – like 99% of the population – that someone with a penis and testicles is a man. And even after surgery is not fully a woman because they did not experience puberty, periods, childbirth, the menopause.
As I say, the heinous crime of quoting Germaine Greer was given as the ostensible reason for the attacks on Dilys Davies in the autumn of 2019. But I have my doubts.
Let’s refresh our memories a little more.
Just over a month before the campaign against Dr Davies began it was announced that, following a number of attacks by vandals, Dr Davies had bought the ‘Cofiwch Dryweryn’ memorial wall, on the A487 near Llanrhystud.
Now it would be easy to think that Dilys Davies’s initiative would be universally welcomed in the nationalist community, but no. For we’ve heard rumblings about ‘millionaires from London’, ‘private property’ (evil!), and other mutterings of the kind we hear from juveniles railing against ‘the system’.
Looking back, I can’t help but wonder if buying the Tryweryn wall – and perhaps just being successful – was what prompted the attacks that followed. It was an echo of old-fashioned socialist jealousy.
Those attacks on Dr Dilys Davies in 2019 were savage and very personal. Fortunately, many people rallied to her defence. Although shaken, and despite closing her Twitter account, Dilys stayed with Yes Cymru and the wider movement.
The complaints in 2019 were dismissed and her attackers, like cockroaches exposed to light, scuttled for cover.
Many hoped that that was the end of the matter. Having had some experience of these creatures myself, I was less sanguine.
Aled Gwyn Williams of Maesteg is regarded as something of a doyen among non-binaries, keyboard revolutionaries and the Woke. One of his admirers, the next mayor of Bangor, thinks Aled is the very embodiment of Indy Wales.
Perhaps, one day, there’ll be a statue of Aled (and Teifi) in Corwen, towering over the equestrian statue of Owain Glyndŵr. But I doubt it.
Aled was in the van of the attacks on Dr Davies back in 2019. Rather than giving it up, it now looks as if the attackers licked their wounds and waited for another opportunity.
It was not long in coming, and was probably engineered. Let me explain.
Over the Easter holiday Aled took himself down west. As I’ve said, Dr Davies has a couple of small businesses there, in Tresaith and Llangrannog, just small outlets employing a few local people. She bought them to save them falling into the wrong hands.
I don’t follow AGW on Twitter or anywhere else. I only know what he gets up to when people draw my attention to something particularly stupid or offensive.
While in Ceredigion Williams took photos of the homage to the ‘Cofiwch Dryweryn’ wall painted at both of Dr Davies’ premises. These photos were put out on social media. (I’m told the children are his niece and nephew.)
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Even though I believe one is judged by the company one keeps, in this case you’ll see that I have sought to protect the identities of the innocent.
Given his previous attacks on her Dr Davies understandably interpreted Williams turning up at both her properties in Ceredigion as harassment. Who wouldn’t? She tweeted on March 30 that he and his “hate filled little band” were banned from her premises.
His visit strikes me as downright creepy. Maybe that’s because every time I see an image of Aled Gwyn William I see a bald Norman Bates, with a collie. And he does still live with his mam.
Inevitably, Williams’ clique took up his cause. Though some of the responses in the panel below are strange. For example, Jamie Akerman criticises Dr Davies for “stirring up all this crap again”.
Just think about it, Jamie. It was Aled Gwyn Williams’ unnecessary and deliberately provocative visit to Dr Davies’s properties that stirred things up again.
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Though being the fair-minded old bugger I am, I’m open to other explanations for Aled Gwyn Williams travelling a considerable distance to businesses owned by a woman he had so recently vilified. And to make sure she knew he was there.
Things then seemed to fall quiet. Or at least, no one sent me anything. Until I received the tweet below, AGW responding to a young lad who had made a formal complaint to Yes Cymru about the behaviour of Dr Dilys Davies on Twitter.
Williams’ reaction is typical. He seems to have trouble with heterosexual and well-balanced women. ‘Fuck off’ seems to be his stock response to those that challenge him.
This was not the only complaint lodged with Yes Cymru against Dr Davies. The other came from ‘Elinor’ of Splott, though not originally from Cardiff.
Here’s the complaint from ‘Elinor’, and the response from Yes Cymru, plus the other complaint I mentioned, this addressed to ‘Jess’.
Though I’m told that the Central Committee decided to suspend Dr Dilys Davies without even reading the letters. Reminiscent of a Stalin-era show trial.
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Jessica is @JessicaRHarvey0 the Diversity and Inclusion Officer of Yes Cymru. Until a few days ago she was also a member of Plaid Pride, but resigned because it – Plaid Cymru? Plaid Pride? – ‘silences’ trans voices.
Well, you could have fooled me.
So, we know that Jess – a transsexual herself – ‘advised’ the Yes Cymru Central Committee on the complaints about alleged transphobia from people she almost certainly knew. And whose complaints had been prompted by what happened between their hero and guru, Aled Gwyn Williams (another member of the circle), and Dr Dilys Davies.
Let’s look at these two complaints in as much detail as they merit.
The first, from ‘Elinor’, is vague in the extreme, it harks back to “last year” (actually 2019), uses the ogress Germaine Greer to pad things out, while suggesting that Aled Gwyn Williams has been banned from THE Tryweryn wall, near Llanrhystud.
He has not been banned from that famous memorial, but even if he had, that would not be grounds for Yes Cymru to suspend Dr Dilys Davies. It would have nothing to do with Yes Cymru.
The second complaint, from the silly boy I mentioned earlier, is even more vague in its allegations. And he also thinks AGW has been banned from THE Tryweryn wall.
The Central Committee of Yes Cymru should have thrown out both of these absurd complaints. Or at least read them. Dr Davies should be reinstated as a member of the Central Committee.
I’m told that Dr Davies’ place on the Central Committee may be already filled. For Rachel Sara Cooze of Undod was among those invited to apply for the vacancy. And she has allies on the committee.
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“Ousting DD is the beginning and not the end of reforming this org”, she says. But wait! Dr Davies is only suspended, she might appeal.
Which will do her no good because the hard left – through those who believe Wales is full of fascists, racists, homophobes, transphobes and God knows what else – has captured Yes Cymru.
After learning she was to appear on this blog Rachel Cooze contacted people on Sunday evening with the messages you see below. There was even a tailored message for women! (Isn’t that sexist?) Done from what looked like a new 0 – 0 account, but she claimed it was an old account re-activated.
After I challenged her certain tweets were deleted.
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The message on the right came from someone who tracked the account. (I know nothing of such technical matters.)
I have been advised to take legal advice about this and other messages put out by a very offensive woman.
With elections to Yes Cymru’s Central Committee approaching Aled Gwyn Williams travelled to Ceredigion to re-ignite the spat with Dr Dilys Davies so that his acolytes could demand her removal. She could then be replaced by someone more to their liking, possibly Rachel Cooze of Undod.
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ENTER THE HARD LEFT
The hard left in the West can no longer pretend to be the voice of ‘the workers’, and so it has abandoned any pretence of popular support. As one questioner put it recently, “Why is it called the Socialist Workers Party when there are no workers in it?”
You know what – there never were!
The hard left has come to realise that few people in Western societies will buy into bread queues and secret police, so the only way to promote its agenda is to adopt issues, from climate change – Extinction Rebellion is a Marxist organisation – to ishoos du jour such as sexual identification, race, etc.
Painting the world black and white saves the blinkered from having to confront the complexities and nuances of the real world.
Another tactic is to infiltrate political parties. Which is what happened to the Labour Party under Corbyn (though not so much in Wales), and more recently to the Democrats in the USA.
This strategy for the twenty-first century explains the link-up in the USA between Antifa and Black Lives Matter. It also explains the hard left’s ambivalence towards Islamic terrorism. What the French perceptively call Islamo-gauchisme.
In short, anything that might undermine or cause friction in Western societies will be supported by the hard left.
Given that the hard left has no hope of infiltrating the Conservative Party, has lost the Labour Party, and the Lib Dems aren’t worth the effort, here in Wales Plaid Cymru has been the target.
And, by extension, the movement for independence represented by Yes Cymru.
One recent hard left recruit to the cause of Welsh independence was quite open in his support for the terrorists guilty of the Charlie Hebdo atrocity. He also made an interesting remark about people like him swinging behind the indy movement since Corbyn was ousted.
He concludes by admitting that he was previously banned from Twitter for talking about or threatening to throw acid in people’s faces.
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I ask you, what cause is not enhanced – nay, enriched! – by recruits like this! Incidentally, if anybody’s interested, I can name ‘Italian cool runnings reboot’. He thinks of himself as a musician.
Someone else we see in the image above is ‘BVB’, who is another recent recruit to the cause and is most definitely a representative of the hard left. From his tweets I get the impression he doesn’t know a lot about Wales, its history, or its politics.
He’s clearly another of those for whom socialism is more important than Wales. Attaching himself to the cause of independence was done solely because he sees indy as a vehicle for his socialism. And perhaps because the indy movement accepts or condones his regular threats of violence and mayhem.
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It should go without saying that BVB is another of Aled Gwyn Williams’ allies. They’re in regular contact on social media.
Someone else BVB is in contact with is the woman who may soon be on Yes Cymru’s Central Committee. For on Saturday Rachel Cooze sent him a lovely tweet for his birthday. Ahhh! It seems she has no problem with this man’s regular threats of violence. In fact, that seems to be what attracts her!
Yesterday, with the deadline to publication of this article approaching, I was receiving reports from all over the country of panic setting in among those who feared they might get a mention. Even our hero with the axe!
Let me put you straight, ‘BVB’. I’m mentioning you because you have threatened physical violence against me – did you forget? – and for this and other reasons you seem to be a rather dangerous individual. An embarrassment to the independence movement. People should be warned.
As for being being ‘reported’, some might think that posing with an axe and threatening “chaos and violence” were good reasons for reporting anyone.
You’ll note that at the bottom of the image above is a message from the person who sent it. I have been humbled these past few days by the amount of information I’ve received, most of it from people I don’t know.
Not only is this support hugely encouraging, but it also tells me there are many people out there very unhappy with the direction of travel in Plaid Cymru, Yes Cymru, and other organisations.
Those I’m writing about are nowhere near as popular as they like to think.
STOP PRESS: Brought to my attention last night were these tweets from some character in Wrecsam. I have no idea who he is, but it should go without saying that he was soon congratulated by ‘BVB’.
There are people now on the hard left in Wales, promoting independence, who come across as both more violent and more intolerant than their counterparts on the far right. Quite frankly, some of them sound absolutely insane.
Oh, I almost forgot . . . Aled Gwyn Williams also agreed that I should die.
∼
UPDATE 28.04.2021: When I wrote the article I was unaware of another recent officer appointment at Yes Cymru, that of Campaigns Officer.
The person appointed was Harriet Protheroe-Soltani, formerly Harriet Protheroe-Davis of Momentum, the hard left group that supported Corbyn and very nearly wrecked the Labour Party.
It’s clear that Harriet wants a coalition between Labour and Plaid Cymru, in which she wants a cabinet post for Leanne Wood, former hard left leader of Plaid Cymru. Minister for Gulags, perhaps? Or maybe she’ll get the ‘re-education’ portfolio. Food rationing?
I’m sure some people will still deny that there’s a hard left takeover underway. Probably the ones making the takeover. And of course, those who support it.
∼
One of the more unpleasant contributions to the latest attack on Dilys Davies was what you see below, which Aled Gwyn Williams thought was excellent.
This, I’m given to understand, is the ‘Elinor’ who made the complaint against Dr Davies to Yes Cymru.
When you see childish nonsense like this you think the national movement is in a bad place, populated by sybaritic freaks forever putting out selfies on social media. But I remain optimistic, there are good people out there; they just need to be encouraged to speak out.
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CONCLUSION
Why do I regard those I’m writing about as a threat to the cause of Welsh independence?
Well, for a start, they’re a gift to the BritNats, the media, and our other enemies.
Perhaps more important, think of some of the people you’ve just read about – who might they attract to the independence movement? More like themselves? And how many more people would that turn away from independence?
We are in this mess largely due to weak leadership in both Plaid Cymru and Yes Cymru. Leaderships that have behaved like the conservatives and the industrialists during Hitler’s rise – ‘Don’t you worry, we can control these people’.
Then it was too late.
Though in the case of Plaid Cymru, under the leadership of Leanne Wood these extremists were welcomed. Since replacing her, figurehead leader Adam Price has refused to confront them. The picture is similar in Yes Cymru.
Between them they opened the door to extremists claiming to be intolerant of intolerance. (That is, divergent views.) Which is a great system . . . especially when you and your gang get to decide what qualifies as ‘intolerance’. Also, who is a ‘fascist’, a ‘transphobe’, etc.
There is now a hard left bloc extending from the Corbynite fringe of the Labour Party through Undod to Plaid Cymru (especially Plaid Ifanc), Yes Cymru, and even Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg!
There are others who are unattached to any political party or group, just loose cannons who join in the feeding frenzy when a target is identified.
There are individuals who belong to two, three, or even four of these groups. At the moment, many of them are out canvassing for Plaid Cymru.
Because of their extremism, and the unattractiveness of what they offer, they would be rejected by the great majority of Welsh people if they operated openly, under their own banner. So they infiltrate other groups, as the hard left has always done.
True to form, they justify their takeover of Yes Cymru – and this was mentioned in both complaints against Dr Davies – on grounds of ‘inclusivity’. That is, welcoming members of self-identifying minorities.
Taken too far this results in a dictatorship of minorities that, even combined, form only a fraction of the Welsh population. Because when the sign goes up, ‘Only members of oppressed minorities need apply’, inclusivity becomes exclusivity. This is the risk Yes Cymru is running.
And Wales, Welsh independence, Welsh nationhood, will all take a back seat to the promotion of socialism through the trojan horse of Wokeism.
I suggest we look to Scotland for inspiration, and to think-tank Common Weal. Their hash tag says a lot with #AllOfUsFirst. Here’s a recent tweet by Dr Craig Dalziel.
“Future neutral” is something I can relate to. And I suggest that most Welsh people would find this ‘blank canvas’ approach to independence far more attractive than the promise of a socialist dystopia controlled by axe-wielding and acid-throwing extremists urging violence against those who dare contradict them.
ALBA believes women have the right to maintain their sex based protections as set out in the Equality Act 2010. These include female only spaces such as changing rooms, hospital wards, sanitary and sleeping accommodation, refuges, hostels and prisons.
ALBA believes women have the right to refuse consent to males in single sex spaces or males delivering intimate services to females such as washing, dressing and counselling.
ALBA believes women have the right to single sex sports to ensure fairness and safety at all levels of competition.
ALBA believes women have the right to organise themselves according to their sex class across a range of cultural, leisure, educational and political activities.
More people in Wales need to start talking common sense like this.
No doubt those I’ve discussed here would dismiss Common Weal and Alba as ‘fascist’, ‘transphobic’, ‘racist’, etc. Because that’s how they operate – they don’t debate anything, they gang up on their opponents, vilify them, shout them down, and hope to intimidate them into silence.
It happens to me, regularly. (Though obviously not the silencing bit.)
I get attacked by those who appear here for being conservative, or worse. Yes, I am a socially conservative patriot, I’m married, I’ve paid off my mortgage, I have children and grandchildren, I watch too much football on TV, maybe I drink too much Malbec . . .
But I am more representative of the Welsh population than those who attack me. And I bet that I am more representative of the Welsh people than the Central Committee of Yes Cymru.
If Yes Cymru is not representative of the nation, and if it is not ‘future neutral’ in relation to independence, then perhaps another organisation is needed. One that offers our people the kind of genuinely inclusive, ‘fresh start’ vision that many more of them will find attractive.
I’M IN SEMI-RETIREMENT AND THIS BLOG IS WINDING DOWN. I INTEND CALLING IT A DAY SOON AFTER THIS YEAR’S SENEDD ELECTIONS. POSTINGS WILL NOW BE LESS FREQUENT AND I WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANY MAJOR NEW INVESTIGATIONS. DIOLCH YN FAWR.
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This is the first of my promised reviews of next month’s elections. This initial foray into a crowded field is longer than intended, so take your time.
I’ve concentrated on those parties with a chance of winning seats, so apologies to the Communist Party of Britain, Captain Beany, the Freedom Alliance, the Socialist Party of Great Britain, the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition, the Welsh Christian Party, the Workers Party, and any others I may have missed.
A more specific and detailed approach may follow in subsequent pieces . . . unless I lose interest entirely.
The risk of simply switching off is real, partly because we lack inspiring politicians and partly because the liars and the bullshitters are already at work and – unchallenged by our wonderful media – spewing forth all manner of nonsense.
Not content with being conduits for misinformation certain elements of the media themselves contribute to the confusion by pretending that only ‘establishment’ parties are standing. Or maybe they believe that only establishment parties should be heard.
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WHO’S STANDING?
This time round there are more candidates representing a wider range of political perspectives than in any previous Assembly / Senedd elections. From the genuinely nationalist Gwlad to the extremes of the BritNat fringe.
While many are trying to paint these elections as being about Covid, the truth is that the big question lurking in the shadows is whether Wales should become independent or cease to exist in any meaningful form.
As for what we have now, there are few ready to speak up for it. In fact, I’m amazed that anyone has the chutzpah to defend devolution on the record of the past 22 years.
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LABOUR
Which might explain why the Labour Party is asking for another 5 years to do the things it’s failed to do over the past two decades and more. An example would be introducing a register of lobbyists.
The truth is that, in Wales, the term ‘lobbyist’ is interchangeable with ‘third sector’. And the third sector is ‘Welsh’ Labour’s private army, soaking up hundreds of millions of pounds of public money in providing sinecures for Labour cronies, in return for which the third sector will support Labour in any way it can, including attacking Labour’s opponents.
Image BBC. (I used to have a suit like that, but it was more of a powder blue, with narrower lapels.)
Perhaps the major problem for Labour is that it’s beginning to look clapped out, devoid of fresh ideas, and relying more than ever on voters’ blind, family loyalty – and not being, ‘them wicked Tories’.
Which no longer works, as we saw in the December 2019 UK general election, when Welsh Labour seats fell to, ‘them wicked Tories’. More may go the same way next month. Certainly, there’s not a hope in Hell of Labour getting near the 30 seats needed to form an administration.
That said, there is a widespread perception that Labour is faring less badly here in the popularity stakes than in England. (In Scotland, of course, Labour is now neck-and-neck with the Monster Raving Loony Party.)
Why this might be so mystifies me. Could it be the magnetic personality of Mark Drakeford? Or maybe the abundance of talent we see lined up behind him? Or could it be that the other ‘major’ parties are so unappealing that by comparison any bunch of muppets might look half competent?
(Please don’t think that I’m trying to insult muppets by comparing them to ‘Welsh’ Labour politicians!)
Some argue that Drakeford has handled the pandemic and its restrictions better than Boris Johnson. I don’t buy that. Labour in Wales clearly panicked when restrictions on pubs, gyms and other establishments were lifted in England, and this explains why they brought forward the lifting of restrictions in Wales . . . which now take effect before the elections on May 6 rather than after.
Of course, there may be another explanation for the timing. If so, then it escapes me. I’m open to suggestions.
What’s not in doubt is that Labour will need all the help it can get. Poll findings published last Friday by YouGov put Labour on just 29%, with the Conservatives romping ahead on 43%. These are of course UK figures, but even so, Labour is also in trouble in Wales.
The only question is how far short of the target 30 seats Labour will fall.
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PLAID CYMRU
I’m turning to Plaid Cymru now not because it’s the second largest party in Wales (it’s not, by a long way) but because to have any hope of staying in control Labour will probably need to go into coalition with Plaid Cymru.
And the terms of this coalition have been discussed for months. So it makes sense to lump Plaid Cymru in with Labour. So remember, folks . . .
A vote for Plaid Cymru will be a vote for Labour.
Yes, Plaid Cymru talks of winning the election, and of becoming the largest party, but the kindest way of describing such suggestions is wishful thinking.
Because for many years Plaid Cymru has been drifting ever further left. This course to political irrelevance might appear to have changed with the crushing defeat inflicted by party members on far left leader Leanne Wood in 2018, but that would be to misinterpret the situation.
The 77.7% that voted against Leanne Wood is the silent majority, playing little part in the running of the party. Those who support Wood – a vociferous and nasty minority – still control the party’s direction of travel. Largely through intimidation.
Intimidation of the kind that can get a Member of the Senedd to apologise for daring believe that a person with a penis and testicles could be anything other than a woman. And worse, suggesting that transphobia may be rather less heinous and genocidal than pushing Jewish children into gas chambers.
Happier times. Helen Mary Jones MS meets Teifi, and a dog’s best friend, Aled Gwyn Williams.
These are the sort of people that might reluctantly agree to take action against child trafficking, but only on condition that it didn’t involve discrimination against the ‘child-trafficking community’. Because in their world just everyone belongs to a ‘community’ – which is of course oppressed – except those who are part of the white, western patriarchal system, which does the oppressing.
What a fucked-up world these lunatics have invented! Worse, many of them genuinely believe they are living this nightmare. Others just encourage them in that belief.
Even figurehead party leader Adam Price was forced to grovel to this carnival of grotesques. Because they call the shots nowadays in Plaid Cymru. Them and the anti-Semites, and those who believe that the priority for Wales should be extending Harri Webb’s Green Desert to the whole country.
The long-gone Lamb Inn, Merthyr, which Dic Penderyn is said to have frequented, and where a young Jac sank many a pint. Happy days!
A green desert with no nation, no jobs (not for us, anyway), no homes; an emptiness exploited by foreign enviroshysters and renewables mountebanks in order to ‘Save the Planet!’.
It’s no coincidence that Labour pretends to have bought into this planet-saving bollocks. Because if you’re saving the planet, then it stands to reason we don’t need jobs; for example, Port Talbot steelworks can go. And the only roads we’ll need are those to bring our neighbours to and from their holiday homes. We Welsh won’t need roads because we won’t be able to afford cars. But don’t worry, because we’ve always got our rail system – a mere three days to travel from Carmarthen to Aberystwyth. (Don’t forget to change at Scunthorpe Low Level!)
Let’s cut the bullshit. ‘Wales saving the planet’, ‘Green jobs’ (that never materialise), are simply excuses for Wales being a basket-case economy.
Anyone arguing that the future economy of Wales lies in foreign-made and foreign-owned wind turbines and solar panels, providing not a single Welsh job, is either a fool or a liar.
Regrettably, the left in Wales is replete with both.
Perhaps to distract us from its internal problems, and the lack of an economic strategy not approved of by Saint Greta, Plaid Cymru promises a referendum on independence in the first term of a Plaid administration.
Cynics will point out that Plaid is not going to win the elections. Also, that there’ll be many in the Party of Wales happy to ‘lose’ such a referendum.
I’ll conclude this section with an observation I’ve made before, and I’m not the only one to have said it. There is a growing interest in independence; one recent poll put it as high as 39%, but Plaid Cymru’s support has remained static.
It’s as if a growing section of the Welsh public is considering independence . . . but they don’t want it delivered by Plaid Cymru. To think the unthinkable (for some, anyway) . . . Plaid Cymru may be the reason more people aren’t considering independence.
My interpretation is that while it’s well chronicled that socialist parties in the West have largely lost the (white) working class through pursuing policies designed to appeal to ethnic minorities and middle class left liberals, the problem for Plaid Cymru is that it had few working class votes to begin with.
Which leaves Plaid Cymru fighting a 20th century class war with 21st century ‘Woke’ warriors. This, and the elitist obsession with ‘the environment’ – rather than the issues people care about – will not pull in many new punters.
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CONSERVATIVE AND UNIONIST PARTY
There’s no question that the Tories are riding high, but considering the opposition they face, maybe they should be doing even better.
For as we’ve seen, the opposition is composed of a Labour Party with 22 years of failure to its name, and a party even further to the left in thrall to identity politics extremists.
Add to that the popularity of BoJo and his jolly band up in London and the Conservatives should be heading for control in Corruption Bay. But that may not be the case.
One problem the Tories face is a combined opposition, one that works well because Plaid Cymru wins seats in areas where Labour is a lost cause. Whereas the Tory vote is more evenly spread across the land than the more ‘focused’ support enjoyed by their socialist opponents.
But this time around things might be different. I say that because of the BritNat parties. If I can remember them all . . . There’s the Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party, then there’s Reform UK (formerly the Brexit Party), and, finally, Ukip.
I suggest that they could combine because, with the demotion of Suzy Davies and other broad hints – not least the promotion of Suzy’s anti-devolution son – the Conservative and Unionist Party has made clear that it’s worried by the rise of the BritNats, and will defend its lawn from their tanks.
Yet when all is said and done, they have so much in common.
Where it could get very interesting would be if the Conservatives emerged from next month’s elections as the largest party.
(It should go without saying that sometimes, my brain enlivened with the produce of Argentina, I dream of Labour and Plaid Cymru combined falling short of 30 seats!)
Andrew R T Davies, Leader, again, of the Conservative and Unionist Party in Wales. Another blue suit? Mmm . . .
As the largest party the Tories could just plough on and test the resolve of opponents with popular policies. I mean, if they promised to take a chainsaw to the third sector and invest the money saved where it could do more good, who would dare object?
Well, obviously, the Labour Party would object because it wants to keep Wales poor, blame the Tories, and keep getting elected. The third sector, constantly moaning about Welsh deprivation while doing little or nothing to remedy it, is essential to this scam. Plaid Cymru’s attitude to the third sector is little different to Labour’s.
But what of the others heretofore mentioned, the Queen and Country boys; what if they cobbled together enough seats to push the Tories towards the required 30?
It’s possible, because even though this election is difficult to call, due to the number of parties and candidates involved, we can be almost sure that the three largest parties will get fewer second preference votes and therefore fewer regional members.
I could live with a Conservative-BritNat parties coalition for a number of reasons.
In the short term, I would expect it to undo the socialist webs that Labour has spun to enmesh and enfeeble Wales over the past two decades. I would also expect such a coalition to put an end to Labour’s war against Welsh farmers.
In the longer term, the unrelenting Britishness might be the kick in the nuts some people need to accept that independence is the only option.
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LIBERAL DEMOCRATS
Well, what can I say without being cruel?
I will say this . . . I’d be pleased to see William Powell back in the Senedd. He’s a decent man and his heart’s in the right place, which is more than can be said for most of those who’ll be elected on May 6.
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THE GREEN PARTY OF ENGLANDANDWALES
This is a party made up largely of Green white settlers, some of whom espouse colonialist views that might have embarrassed old Leopold II.
The non-existent ‘Wales Green Party’ now claims to also believe in independence, not because they care about me or you, but because they see an independent Wales as somewhere they can wield influence that will in no way be hindered by their lack of electoral support.
Which, in a sense, takes us back to lobbying.
The shameless opportunism of the Greens is not a lot different to the entryism we’ve seen recently from far left loonies who have jumped on the indy bandwagon since Comrade Corbyn was given the bum’s rush.
The one consolation, of sorts, is that just about every other party now pays lip-service to the Greens’ message. Which is not good for Wales but, on the plus side, it makes the Green Party of Englandandwales largely redundant.
That can only be good.
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THE BRITNAT PARTIES
As I said earlier, these are Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party, Reform and Ukip. They are almost guaranteed to win some seats, and they will naturally align with the Conservative and Unionist Party.
These possibilities are discussed above and there’s not a lot to add.
Beowulf Headbanger celebrating VE day. Now that he’s recovered a little he’s allowed out to canvass for the Abolish the Welsh Party.
No doubt the BritNats will insist there are great ideological differences between them, but these are little more than degrees of anti-Welshness.
Of course, they’ll say they aren’t anti-Welsh, just anti-devolution. But as we know, let someone talk long enough about their opposition to devolution and before long hostility to the Welsh language and other indicators of a separate Welsh identity emerge. Such as the existence of Welsh national sporting teams.
And yet, they’re right. Devolution, and the corruption-infested swamp that is Cardiff Bay, should be done away with. But in favour of independence.
That’s why I believe the BritNats can be useful idiots in realising their worst nightmare.
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NORTHERN LIGHT
In the next couple of years Scotland will either become independent or else the UK will slip into some kind of ‘soft’ (maybe not so soft) totalitarianism in order to thwart Scottish independence. At this moment I can’t see any other outcome.
Either of those eventualities will be a wake-up call for Wales. Either of them will tell us that it’s time to go, time to leave the United Kingdom.
When we’ve reached either outcome, anyone still arguing in favour of the UK will be acting out of self-interest or contempt for Wales. Among them we’ll find people like the Kinnocks, discredited Tories, holiday home owners, and others whose objections must be brushed aside.
This is why I tell everyone to watch what’s happening in Scotland. Because events in the Old North could have a bigger impact on Wales’ future than anything we do down here.
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WALES’ BEST HOPES
As many readers will know, I had a hand in the formation of new, conservative-ish nationalist party, Gwlad. A party that was desperately needed to represent those who reject incompetent Labour, Rule Britannia Conservatives and BritNats, and Woke Plaid Cymru.
Gwlad is standing a good slate of candidates in next month’s elections. As WalesOnline said in an article last week: “Gwlad has put forward 14 constituency candidates and 21 candidates across the regional lists. Aside from Labour, Tories, Plaid, Lib Dems and Reform UK, they have the most candidates seeking election on May 6.”
Though I won’t be able to vote for Gwlad in my constituency of Dwyfor Meirionnydd, that’s because the party is not standing in seats held by Plaid Cymru. But I will be able to vote for our excellent list candidates in Mid and West Wales.
My constituency vote will probably go to the Propel candidate, Peter Read; but the Llais Gwynedd candidate, Glyn Daniels, is also in with a shout.
Having mentioned Propel it’s only right that I tell you a little more about this other new and genuinely Welsh party.
Most of you will have heard of Neil McEvoy. Despite what his opponents would like you to believe, Propel is not a one-man band; Neil is the leader, but he has a good team around him.
As a Member of the Senedd Neil McEvoy has made himself unpopular with Labour and Plaid Cymru through exposing the corruption and duplicity that characterises Cardiff Bay. (Anybody who can piss off both Labour and Plaid Cymru is OK with me.)
Also because, when standing for Plaid Cymru in 2016, he came within 1,176 votes of defeating Mark Drakeford in Cardiff West. Neil McEvoy is standing against Drakeford again, making this one of the more intriguing constituency contests.
(As an example of the way the media is misreporting these elections, Cardiff West is being portrayed by some as a straight fight between Labour and Plaid Cymru!)
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The fact that Labour and Plaid Cymru attack Neil McEvoy with almost equal vehemence helps expose a long-standing relationship between two self-styled ‘progressive’ parties. The coalition that might emerge after May 6 would be just a continuation of this co-operation.
I’m not absolutely sure, but I’m fairly confident that Gwlad and Propel are not standing against each other in any constituency. I’m not aware of any electoral pact, I think it just panned out that way.
My advice therefore is to put Wales first by voting for Gwlad or Propel. Both parties are new, but fresh thinking is exactly what Wales needs at this critical juncture.
Because, and I repeat: the next few years are about choosing between independence and assimilation. Which do you want?
I’M IN SEMI-RETIREMENT AND THIS BLOG IS WINDING DOWN. I INTEND CALLING IT A DAY SOON AFTER THIS YEAR’S SENEDD ELECTIONS. POSTINGS WILL NOW BE LESS FREQUENT AND I WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANY MAJOR NEW INVESTIGATIONS. DIOLCH YN FAWR.
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Over the years I’ve read a lot of political nonsense and outright bullshit in the Western Mail, much of it emanating from the Labour Party. But all records were broken on Friday, February 26, 2021 when Llais y Sais gave us a sneak preview of a speech to be delivered by First Minister Mark Drakeford.
To help you fully appreciate the levels of dishonesty contained in the speech I shall produce the offending article and then walk you through it paragraph by numbered paragraph.
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Let’s start with the headline and the opening paragraphs. Home rule within the UK is impossible, for without a written constitution it could, like devolution, be undone at any time. (Come to that, how does ‘home rule’ differ from devolution?)
And even with a written constitution, an unequal Union such as the UK allows the dominant partner to do what it damn well likes. As England has for centuries.
No, let’s be honest, home rule is an unworkable nonsense. The truth is that Labour in Wales is alarmed by the possibilities unveiled by the Internal Market Act, which allows London to ignore the devolution settlement almost entirely.
Home rule would have offered no defence against the Internal Market Act.
Though Labour’s hostility to this Act was not prompted by thoughts of what’s best for Wales but by the fear that Boris Johnson and his mates might start threatening Labour’s hegemony in Wales, and the crony networks the party has built up over the past 22 years.
I hate to say it, but Secretary of State for Wales, Simon Hart, was not far off the mark when he said that the ‘Welsh Government’ was simply worrying about its own little status.
Now let’s go through the rest of the article, focusing on the more interesting paragraphs.
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PARAGRAPH 4: “Internationalist not nationalist. Outward facing, not inward looking”, says Drakeford. Now this could either be a call to arms and a commitment to global humanity or a pathetic justification for having done nothing for Wales for the 22 years of devolution.
Because we’re dealing with ‘Welsh’ Labour, it is of course the latter.
Wales is the poorest country in Europe. Not so long ago I would have said ‘Western Europe’, but now the countries of the former Soviet bloc have caught us up and in many cases overtaken us.
Little Estonia – which the Russians swore would starve if it went independent – is now “one of the most tech-savvy societies in the world”. Here in Wales there are still communities without a decent internet connection.
The truth is that ‘Welsh’ Labour and its so-called ‘Welsh Government’ should be doing a lot more looking inward; then they might appreciate this country’s problems, its real needs, and address them before riding off on Quixotic crusades to save the planet.
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PARAGRAPHS 5 & 6: These continue in the same toe-curling vein, with the predictable use of, “progressive” (‘pass my revolver, wife!’), and even “destiny”!
Though, chwarae teg, I did agree with, “Yes to a Wales that takes ownership of its own destiny” . . . but home rule ain’t gonna deliver that.
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PARAGRAPH 7: Drakeford believes the coming Senedd election is a contest unlike any other. Indeed it is, and it could be his last. Go for it, Neil!
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PARAGRAPH 8: This is where we learn that Labour has a new strapline – ‘Moving Wales Forward’. God! I wish I’d thought of that!
Can’t you just hear kids shouting it as they whizz by on their bikes! Young women having it tattooed on their intimate parts! Football and rugby crowds – when they’re allowed back, of course – chanting it on the terraces!
What a response to all those who want to move us back. Though Nationalists like me also want to move forward, to independence; and even the anti-Welsh mob want to move forward, by consigning devolution to the dustbin of failed political initiatives. (Where it belongs.)
When you think about it, the only ones who want to stand still, maintain the status quo, are the devolutionists, and where are they to be found? Er, in the Labour Party.
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PARAGRAPHS 9 – 12: Here it’s appeals to, ” . . . our tenacity . . . our institutions and sense of social solidarity . . . characteristics that will shape . . . generations to come”. Then it’s, “from the coal field (sic) to the rugby field . . . work together . . . shared experience . . .”.
The kind of vacuous rambling that would shame a be-medalled Latin American caudillo.
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PARAGRAPHS 13 – 16: I was obviously unfair in suggesting that 22 years of devolution under ‘Welsh’ Labour has been a disaster – for we are a “world leader in recycling”!
That will be a great consolation to those queuing at food banks, and those being forced out of the communities in which they were born and raised, and where they’d hoped to die.
Twice we see the “National Forest” mentioned. Does this mean that the ‘Welsh Government’ has a plan to develop a forestry industry in Wales, generating wealth, creating jobs, and sustaining communities?
Don’t be silly, Jac, it’s, “for people to further enjoy Wales’ natural beauty”. In other words – more fucking tourism! But worse, this project could also be seen as meeting the demands of Monbiot and his disciples, those who want to dispossess our farmers and take over their land.
The war on farmers becomes clear again with, “tackling agricultural pollution”, presumably into our waterways. Yet most of the pollution in our rivers has nothing to do with agriculture.
Of course this truth does not serve the ‘Welsh Government’s anti-farming agenda. Consequently, it will never be admitted by Natural Resources Wales, or Lesley Griffiths, Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs. And certainly not by Lesley’s civil servant lover Gary Haggaty.
But I suppose what pissed me off most in this section was the reference to “investment in new green jobs”. This is not new, we’ve been hearing it for over twenty years. But how many jobs has ‘green energy’ created?
Think of the massive Pen y Cymoedd wind farm, one of the largest in Europe. Does it employ any local people? Certainly, no jobs were provided at earlier stages because the towers, motors, and blades were made in Germany and Denmark.
The only real benefits the local community sees is the £1.8m doled out every year as a Community Fund by the owner of the wind farm, Swedish company Vattenfall. Which only makes me wonder how much of a killing Vattenfall is making.
This Community Fund is just crumbs from our own table.
Despite Labour claiming for two decades or more that renewables would create jobs, and be a great boost to the Welsh economy, the reality is that the ‘Welsh Government’ has simply allowed Wales to be exploited, with no benefits at all for us.
It’s no longer coal mines, slate quarries, or dams and reservoirs, it’s wind and solar farms, and wave energy. But Wales continues to be exploited by strangers.
Therefore only a fool would believe Labour’s promise to deliver in the future what it has already been promising to deliver for so long. ‘Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me’.
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PARAGRAPHS 17 – 22: Here, gentle reader, we reach new heights of hifalutin vacuity before plumbing the depths of cringe-inducing attempts at eloquence.
Though it started encouragingly, because when I read “generations who come after us” I thought at first it was a reference to Burke’s Contract, but no.
This is followed by. “We are so lucky in our country, to have all the natural resources we need to put Wales at the forefront of the global energy revolution which the world will need: wind, water and wave”.
And here, Drakeford is absolutely right – we do have all these resources! But we don’t own any of them. They don’t generate wealth or jobs for us. For as I say, that’s because ‘Welsh’ Labour encourages strangers to exploit our homeland as if it was some 19th century African ‘possession’.
Then comes the empty promise of jobs, again. Before we are exhorted to, ” . . . make our contribution to securing the future of our beautiful but fragile planet”.
(Cue violins and rustling Kleenex.)
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CONCLUSION
This sententious drivel exposes where Labour has gone wrong and how it has failed Wales.
Saving the planet – as if we could! – has done nothing for us. The promised jobs never materialised. Even if they had materialised we would have been working for foreign companies because Labour does not want successful Welsh companies, with Welsh businessmen regularly exposing the bruvvers’ idiocies.
No, Labour wants the quiet life of foreign companies uninterested in Welsh politics and a third sector of Labour cronies forever finding problems for Labour to fund while blaming someone else.
But nothing exposes the reality of Wales today, and Labour’s shortcomings, more than the fact that nowhere in Drakeford’s waffle does he say, ‘Vote for us on our record’.
All he can offer is pie in the sky, recycled promises on green jobs, and more saving the planet. Nowhere does he talk of what really matters to most Welsh people: health, education, jobs (that might actually materialise), and housing they can afford.
Labour has pandered to certain alien lobbies at the expense of the Welsh people for too long, and this cannot go on. Labour must be removed from power in May.
And remember! a vote for Plaid Cymru is a vote to keep Labour in power.
I’M IN SEMI-RETIREMENT AND THIS BLOG IS WINDING DOWN. I INTEND CALLING IT A DAY SOON AFTER THIS YEAR’S SENEDD ELECTIONS. POSTINGS WILL NOW BE LESS FREQUENT AND I WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANY MAJOR NEW INVESTIGATIONS. DIOLCH YN FAWR.
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For this, another of my infrequent, pre-retirement postings, I’ll explain why I would vote to abolish the Senedd in a referendum offering the straight choice of to keep or to abolish.
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BACKGROUND
In a recent post, ‘Welsh independence: Why? for whom?’, I explained why, when a teenager, I became convinced that independence was the only answer for Wales. I wrote:
I wanted independence to improve the lives of the people I cared about: my family, my neighbours, my community, and my nation. I wanted independence to protect my country from neglect or exploitation, and to defend what made us Welsh.
Devolution is obviously not independence but still, judged against those criteria devolution has been an abysmal failure. For the only beneficiaries have been cliques, claques, and the assorted parasites of a vast and burdensome stratum smothering the nation.
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LET ME GIVE SOME EXAMPLES
While the greater part of Wales, and the nation, has seen no benefits, this constitutional tinkering must have brought some benefits, to someone, somewhere, otherwise it would be universally damned and consequently unsustainable.
So let’s try and identify some beneficiaries. I’ll use examples of us losing out and others benefitting at our expense. (You’ll soon get the hang of it.)
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THIRD SECTOR
The ‘stratum’ I referred to earlier is the third sector. Bigger than ever in Wales, and bigger in Wales than in any other country.
Wales is a rich country made poor by English rule, and the Labour Party has capitalised on our deprivation both for electoral gain – by blaming ‘London’ / Tories – and also by using that deprivation to create a whole new ‘poverty sector’ for its cronies.
Wales is now smothering under the weight of duplicating and competing third sector gangs, most of which seem to be staffed by strident memsahibs from over the border. Cohort after cohort of Common Purpose’ finest, goose-stepping from conference to workshop to those regular meetings in which they dictate policy and funding priorities to politicians.
This third sector is fundamentally and irredeemably parasitical. Preying on Wales’ deprivation in order to suck money from the public purse. A vast network of self-polishing turds who would not be missed if they ceased doing tomorrow whatever they claim to be doing today.
Both Labour and the third sector exploit and capitalise on Wales’ poverty and deprivation. If the money wasted on the third sector was spent in combatting that poverty and deprivation then Wales would be a much better place.
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ENVIROSHYSTERS
Perhaps to make us feel guilty for wanting decent jobs, decent homes, an acceptable road and rail system, etc., our gaze is directed away from such crass materialism to the altruistic, the selfless, in the form of saving the planet.
This crusade – for it is nothing less! – is done without providing jobs or any other material benefits to us Welsh. This national insult takes many forms.
Here’s a recent re-working of the theme.
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Is this supposed to be a consolation prize for the Circuit of Wales? Or for more false hopes raised over the TVR car plant? (Which is not coming, by the way.)
Blaenau Gwent is the poorest part of the country. What it needs is decent jobs, housing, NHS dentists, etc., not bullshit publicity stunts from Corruption Bay.
We are told that “50 residents will be selected to create the first Climate Assembly in Wales”. I hope Gwent Police have the riot gear ready for the trouble that will surely erupt in Ebbw Vale and Tredegar as people fight over those 50 places.
Here’s the latest in the ‘Save the planet’ offensive: “I think if political parties are not putting addressing the climate and nature emergencies right at the top of their manifesto agenda then they will be letting down both the current and future generations in Wales,” says Sophie Howe, Labour apparatchik being paid £100,000 a year in a non-job created specially for her.
The message from our leaders is: ‘Wales may be the poorest country in Europe and getting poorer, but fuck that, cos we – on £100,000 a year – are saving the planet’.
I want to see a healthier nation living in a greener land making its contribution to a cleaner planet. But Wales has more immediate priorities. And it’s positively insulting for overpaid Labour Party nobodies to lecture those worrying about feeding their kids and paying their rent.
Yet more arrogant – almost racist – envirocolonialism. It seems Kiwi Anderson has been won over to Welsh independence. A reminder that the reason Greens and others are jumping on the indy bandwagon is because they want our land.
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GRANNY FARMERS
Wales has the oldest population in Europe and it’s getting older. An unwanted accolade achieved by a number of factors combining. The lack of a decent economy being one. The other is the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ going out of its way to attract elderly people to Wales.
This is done because, due to the lack of a balanced economy in rural areas and the regular exodus of young people that results, population levels need to be maintained; for nothing says ‘area going to hell’ more clearly than a falling population. How better to maintain population levels than by attracting retirees? (Actually, I can think of many better alternatives, but bear with me.)
No only does the ‘Welsh Government’ see no problem with our ageing population, it even tries to present it as something to be celebrated, as I discovered a few years ago in a reply to a Freedom of Information request.
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An influx encouraged by the ‘Welsh Government’ legislating so that people entering care homes can keep £50,000 before they start paying for their care. The figure for England is £22,500.
Yet the ‘Welsh Government’ would like to go further, doing away with care home charges altogether by introducing a tax so that we actually pay for wealthy English biddies who’ve been dumped in Welsh care homes by relatives safeguarding their inheritances.
How difficult would it be to introduce a rule insisting that a person must have lived in Wales for 20 years prior to entering a care home before they can benefit from the £50,000 allowance?
Do that and Welsh people won’t lose out and we curb the plague of granny dumping.
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HOLIDAY HOMES
I recall, back in the 1980s, during the Meibion Glyndŵr campaign, politicians getting up on their hind legs to proclaim that they would not be influenced by ‘terrorists’. God! they sounded so brave and principled. It brought a tear to my eye.
Thirty years on from the end of that campaign, and after 22 years of devolution, nothing has been done beyond the ‘Welsh Government’ allowing councils to impose a 100% surcharge on holiday home council tax. But it has refused to close the loophole that sees holiday homes classed as businesses to escape council tax entirely.
Oh, I almost forgot, there is also a tiny and insignificant increase in Land Transaction Tax of one per cent per valuation band, introduced 22 December. Which is no deterrent at all to those who can buy a second, third, or fourth home.
In fact, the so-called ‘Welsh Government’ refuses to do anything that might save Welsh communities and allow Welsh people to buy a home in areas cursed with tourism. When pressed on the matter just yesterday by the impressive Delyth Jewell the woeful Julie James could only respond with a promise to . . . kick the issue into the long grass.
From BBC Wales’ ‘Senedd Live’ 03.02.2021 (Alun Jones). Click to enlarge
With the holiday homes problem at crisis levels due to Coronavirus, with Welsh communities being destroyed before our eyes, the fact that those useless bastards down Corruption Bay refuse to act should tell you all you need to know about devolution.
But you have to wonder who made the initial decision not to fund.
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THE WAR ON FARMERS
Part of the problem lies in the fact that devolution is controlled by civil servants who may be based in Wales but take their orders from London. Civil servants such as Gary Haggaty, beau to Lesley Griffiths, the Labour MS for Wrecsam, and Minister for the Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs.
L to R: Gary Haggaty, civil servant; Lesley Griffiths MS, Labour, Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs; Caroline Hitt, writer for the ‘Western Mail’; Elin Jones MS, Plaid Cymru, Senedd Llywydd (Speaker). The cosiness of Corruption Bay made corporeal in a Dublin bar. Click to enlarge
“Plaid Cymru’s Llyr Gruffydd says the minister is on the record as saying that these Nitrate Vulnerable Zone regulations would not be introduced while the pandemic was in existence – no less than ten times.”
And many of these spillages have nothing to do with farmers. I am reliably informed that the testing done by Natural Resources Wales (yes, them!) cannot differentiate between farm slurry and raw sewerage from other sources.
And let’s remember that the biggest spillage ever occurred last year when a train transporting oil from Milford Haven derailed near Llanelli. No doubt, in a few years time, when people start forgetting about it, it will be blamed on farmers and used to introduce legislation even more burdensome.
This is just the latest assault in a war on Welsh farmers by the ‘Welsh Government’. Done because ‘Welsh’ Labour hates farmers, and also because there are others queuing up to take over Welsh land. Friends of Jane Davidson, ‘rewilders’, Tory MPs.
Significantly, in England, the NVZ legislation targets problem areas and culprits rather than penalising all farmers.
So, we see that under devolution Welsh farming is another area of our national life being targeted and damaged. And it could not have happened without devolution. Because if London had singled out Welsh farmers for such treatment there would have been rioting, and possibly worse.
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I could give plenty more examples where devolution has failed us. Here are just a few snapshots:
There’s colonisation, resulting in the Welsh element in the population decreasing year on year. As a prominent citizen of a border town told me a few weeks back: “Some of the attitudes retired people come here have towards the locals are shocking, their sense of superiority is unbelievable.”
Then there’s a crass and exploitative form of tourism that is destroying Welsh communities, especially Welsh-speaking communities.
No other country on Earth has allowed One Planet Developments. Yet here in Wales hippies and enviroshysters are encouraged to take over land, flout planning and other regulations, bring up children in unsanitary and dangerous conditions, and then this colonisation is justified as part of OUR contribution to saving the planet.
Under devolution we have seen Cardiff grow and prosper, largely at the expense of the rest of Wales.
Wales produces twice as much electricity as we need and the rest goes to England free of charge, the same applies to our water resources, stolen by Severn Trent.
The ‘Welsh Government’ pays some of our brightest young people to go to English universities and then makes no attempt to bring them home after graduation. While filling our universities with mediocrities from over the border who stay on to fill third sector and public sector jobs.
Publicly-funded housing associations build ‘affordable’ homes that most locals can’t afford while neglecting the social rented sector for which there’s a local demand.
Let’s not forget the shysters – so many of whom have appeared on this blog – who get showered with funding after turning up with their ‘exciting’, ‘job-creating’ projects meticulously outlined on the back of a fag packet.
Then there’s the cess-pit that is Cardiff Bay, where those we elect to represent us rub shoulders daily with unregistered lobbyists and others trying to influence them – and almost always against the best interests of the nation.
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FINALLY, A VERY TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY EXAMPLE
This pretence of devolved power is a very thin veil behind which England’s interests are served. A great example was supplied to me last week by someone involved in matters technological which went a bit over my head, but I’m sure you’ll get the gist of it.
This source wrote:
” . . . dotCYM had no hope when Plaid Cymru was useless, Labour and the civil servants were working against it, and then Nominet came in with their money and used it to destroy them. The money from .cymru and .wales domains are now going to Oxford instead of Wales.”
The source continued:
“The Welsh government is clever in creating schemes to develop Welsh language technology and software. They come out with a new scheme with millions to develop Welsh software but there’s a maximum of about 30k per project, which isn’t enough to get anywhere or develop anything of use. Also, the money they give for research into Welsh language technology comes with the proviso that the research is then open sourced. What happens then is that large companies from outside Wales can take it, add it to their software as token Welsh support that doesn’t work well, and then sell it back to the Welsh”.
My source then explained to me what’s happening in New Zealand, where those working on a similar project for the Maori language successfully fought against their work becoming open source. The Maoris defended their stance thus:
“By simply open sourcing our data and knowledge, we further allow ourselves to be colonised digitally in the modern world.”
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THE TRUTH DAWNS
More and more people grasp that devolution is an unworkable nonsense, even if they don’t understand why. This explains the growing polarisation between those wanting to do away with the Senedd and those wanting independence.
When all devolution’s defenders can muster is, ‘But it’s recognition’, or ‘free bus passes’, then you know that even they have given up.
Successive ‘Welsh’ Assembly Governments and ‘Welsh Governments’ have not only failed to remedy the problems inherited in 1999 they have introduced new measures to work against the national interest.
This is not what I voted for in the September 1997 referendum. It’s no exaggeration to say that what we’ve experienced over the past 22 years is a form of anti-Welsh devolution.
Consequently, in a referendum offering the simple choice between keeping the Senedd or abolishing it I would vote to abolish, because abolition would be the best option for the greatest number of Welsh people.
kicking off 2023 with thoughts on independence; more exactly, the kind of independence being offered by those who’ll be gathering in the Brangwyn Hall, Swansea, on the 28th of this month.
