THE STATE WE’RE IN
If the title confuses anyone, let me explain that it’s adapted from the song, Stuck in the Middle with You, by Scottish band Stealers Wheel. The song got a later boost – and some notoriety – from being used in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs.
But it’s apt, because everywhere I look I see shysters and crooks, and I know why they’re here. They’re here because Wales is poor, and Wales is poor because she’s a colony of England, and because she’s a colony of England Wales must be run in the interests of England, and this makes Wales poor . . .
In our rural areas, and increasingly in our post-industrial areas, this poverty is made worse year on year by England shipping in its problem cases via a host of organisations you’ve never heard of. This serves a number of purposes.
It relieves England of ‘burdensome’ individuals, from the elderly to the morbidly obese, the drug addicts and those who sell them the drugs. This not only adds an unnecessary burden to Welsh public spending, it also influences indices that can be used to argue that Wales is a ‘basket-case economy’, a country that could never support itself.
Just imagine robbing your neighbour while simultaneously transferring your debts and obligations onto him – then ridiculing him for being poor!
The puppet show in Cardiff docks, acting as a mouthpiece for the London regime, would have us believe that the economic salvation of our rural and post-industrial area now lies with tourism. Anyone who accepts this is a fool.
Tourism is forced on Wales for three reasons:
- It keeps us disheartened and dependent, grateful for anything.
- Money spent by English tourists in Wales will by one route or another make its way back to London, unlike money spent ‘abroad’.
- Tourism helps anglicise and integrate Wales, partly by the sheer weight of tourist numbers and partly because tourism encourages English people to move to Wales.
And as I have reported a number of times, much of what passes for tourism – especially property development in that sector – is often money laundering. But no one cares, there is no action taken, because in the UK financial crime is acceptable. That’s because the UK is the most corrupt country on earth.
The City of London lies at the centre of a web of offshore tax havens – beginning with the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man – through which pass the world’s dirty money, money from which Britain’s elite benefits. (If you’ve got an hour and twenty minutes to spare I urge you to watch The Spider’s Web.)
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‘A55, THE HIGHWAY OF OPPORTUNITY’
That’s how Wyn Roberts, MP for Conwy, and long-time Minister of State for Wales under Margaret Thatcher described the north’s main artery. He was wrong, of course, unless the A55 is viewed from England.
But then Wyn Roberts was a rum cove in many ways. He even got a mention in Paul Foot’s seminal work on Northern Ireland Who Framed Colin Wallace? with the clear suggestion that Roberts was involved in the MI5-MI6-right wing loonies’ plot to mount a coup and overthrow the Wilson government. (Strange how certain ideas keep coming round.)
I suppose this section started with information I was sent last week which resulted in me putting out a tweet and someone then sending me further information. You’ll get a better idea of what I’m talking about from the picture below.
It shows two Plaid Cymru AMs, and a couple of other people. One of them, the academic, Dr Wendy Dossett, is from the Chester Studies of Addiction, Recovery and Spirituality Group at Chester University . . . which for some reason is funded by our wonderful ‘Welsh Government’.
Clearly, this is a cross-border project, and experience has taught us that anything cross-border – be it water, electricity, retirees, roads and railways or drug addicts – can be guaranteed to work to the disadvantage of Wales. So why are two Plaid Cymru AMs giving it their – and presumably their party’s – support?
The bearded bloke in the woolly headgear is one James Deakin of Bangor, presumably representing North Wales Recovery Communities, a charity (1160531) that has seen its income rocket from £96.6k in 2016 to £389.0k in 2018. (Nice to see that something in Wales is booming!)
Or maybe Deakin is representing North Wales Recovery Communities Cyf, which is a registered company (Inc 21 July 2014), based at Penrhyn House, with Deakin as sole director and shareholder. But there are other companies with which Deakin is associated.
The first is North Wales Recovery Support Services Ltd (Inc 9 Feb 2018), of which Deakin is again the sole director (since Claire Deakin – wife? – left) and the only shareholder.
The other company operates across the water, it’s the Anglesey Gwynedd Recovery Organisation (AGRO) Cymru CIC (Inc 25 March 2014), where Deakin is one of six directors. But seeing as he was in at the start, and AGRO was based in Bangor before moving to Holyhead, it’s reasonable to view it as another Deakin company. An assumption strengthened by one of the directors being John Redican, a drug addict from Manchester, who moved to Gwynedd and became one of Deakin’s clients at Penrhyn House.
There is a further company I’ll come to in a minute.
It’s pretty obvious that these companies help drug addicts and alcoholics, but where do their clients come from? As the latest accounts for North Wales Recovery Communities (the charity) tells us:
“Multiple referrals” from HMP Altcourse on Merseyside and HMP Berwyn.
I ask you to pause for a moment, and consider this triumph of the colonialist’s dark art. A massive prison we don’t need – HMP Berwyn – is dumped on us, in which the great majority of the prisoners are from England, but because it’s in Wrecsam drug addicts leaving HMP Berwyn are our responsibility and are referred to agencies in Wales.
Even so, I suspect that Jimmie Deakin hopes to cash in on the HMP Berwyn bonanza, for his new company North Wales Recovery Support Services Ltd may have been set up last year for that very purpose.
Now let’s turn again to the latests accounts for the charity North Wales Recovery Communities, where we read at the foot of page 14:
Clearly, the charity receives the funding, so why can’t the charity provide the service? I ask because I’m concerned to see such a close relationship between this charity, of which Deakin is the leading trustee, and the company, North Wales Recovery Communities Cyf, of which Deakin is the sole director and only shareholder. It don’t look good.
Perhaps realising there’s money to be made from the extra work provided by HMP Berwyn the image above tells us that Deakin also set up a cleaning company, North Wales Contract Cleaning Ltd in June 2017. (This is the ‘further company’ I alluded to earlier.)
The cleaning company was formed with two directors, Deakin and a Kevin Beaumont. Deakin resigned as director 6 October 2018, leaving Beaumont in sole charge . . . apparently. Yet a day later, Beaumont’s 50 shares were transferred to Deakin giving him the full 100. So it’s Deakin’s company.
I am also unhappy – though not surprised – to see Plaid Cymru politicians giving unquestioning support to this venture, and equally unsurprised to see the ‘Welsh Government’ funding a cross-border operation that puts more of England’s burden on the Welsh public purse. But hey! if you can get away with it . . .
I’m sure that, like me, you’d love to know how many clients of Deakin’s expanding empire have roots in our north west.
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ANOTHER HIGHWAY, ANOTHER CONDUIT
Next we look at the south’s major artery, the M4. In fact, below you’ll see a tidy map. It shows the operational area of ategi, a Welsh company that administers the Shared Lives scheme in a territory running from Swansea . . . to Essex. In fact, the length of the M4.
Shared Lives (formerly Adult Placement) is a scheme that pays carers to take in adults with learning and other difficulties. Ategi is both a charity (1077595) and a company limited by guarantee.
I suppose the big question is why this Welsh organisation is operating along the M4 corridor and beyond. The suggestion has been made that English local authorities pay ategi to take some of their workload into Wales, and to Welsh carers.
Which may be true, it may even go further.
Across the mighty Llwchwr dividing Jack from Turk West Wales Shared Lives operates on a three-county basis with its HQ in Carmarthen. For some reason, perhaps because it’s still administered by local authorities, West Wales Shared Lives is neither a charity nor a company registered with Companies House. So getting information is difficult.
But information still reaches me in roundabout ways.
Consider this; there is a small town west of Llanelli, just off the main Carmarthen road, called Cydweli (Kidwelly in English); if it rings a bell, that might be because it achieved some notoriety a few years back due to Gwalia Housing providing homes for a gang of paedophiles from London. Gwalia is now part of the Pobl group.
The latest excitement in the town is provided by a by-election for the town council, caused by Siôn Jones taking up a teaching post in far Cathay. Hoping to replace him is Labour’s Beryl Williams, pictured below enjoying a spliff while she tries to make sense of a mural. (They’re big flowers, love.)
You’ll see that I have circled Beryl’s final election ‘promise’, which reads, “Support older and socially excluded people in Kidwelly, which I will help to make an autism and dementia friendly town”.
That’s a very strange promise to make to a small town in Carmarthenshire, what about the rubbish collections and the dog poo? What does it mean?
I suggest it means that the Labour Party is either au fait with or complicit in a plan by its friends in the third sector to import people who are autistic, or suffer from dementia. (Another term for autism is Aspergers Syndrome.)
I say that because I’m told it’s already happening, with these arrivals living in properties owned by Pobl. With Carmarthenshire County Council and the ‘Welsh Government’ meeting all expenses.
There is a possibility that not only those needing care are being brought into Cydweli but also their carers. If so, then households with no connection to Wales are living in properties built with Welsh public money, with all living costs met from the same source, and placing additional burdens on our NHS and other services.
We know it’s happening in Cydweli, both from witnesses and Beryl’s election address, how many other communities are affected so that Labour and others can claim the moral high ground with, ‘Well, Wales may be poor but we’re a caring country’.
Quite. A poor country allowing itself to become poorer through this corrupted and colonialist interpretation of charity.
Some system, eh?
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AND FINALLY, WHO AM I?
Now we travel from the far north east to the distant south west, and in the course of this migration the caterpillar that left Deeside as Sean Keven Patrick Pullen emerged from his pupa in Milford Haven as dazzling butterfly Fabian Sean Lucien Faversham-Pullen.
Come on, don’t laugh, give the boy credit; if you’re gonna change your name, then go for broke.
First stop is Baron Security (UK) Ltd based at the Armoury Building, Hawarden airport, a company struck off in 2015. Sean Keven Patrick Pullen was the only director. This company never seems to have done much and must have been often confused with Baron Security Services Ltd of Essex.
Although Pullen was the sole director he was not the only shareholder. He held 80% of the shares with the other 20% allocated to ‘Merlin Inspection Technology Ltd’, at the same address. But I could find no such company, though Googling the name brings up this website for ‘Cokebusters’.
Scroll down on the site and you’ll come to the name David Thewsey with a Chester phone number. Looking for Thewsey on the Companies House website we find that the company is in fact called Cokebusters Ltd. What’s more, Cokebusters has received support from Finance Wales Investments (6) Ltd.
(And if that rings a bell it’s because Finance Wales Investments (6) Ltd was very generous to Jimbo Lynch down in Aberteifi, of whom I recently wrote.)
There are two other, linked outfits based at the Armoury Building. One is the D-Day Revisited Society (Charity No 1129753) and the other is Camp Valour CIC, a company formed as recently as June 2018 and for which there is very little information.
While Pullen was previously confused as to both his own name and whether Hawarden was in Wales or England he now seems won over to Wales. Not only that, but it addition to becoming Fabian Sean Lucien Faversham-Pullen with Camp Valour he’s gone all irredentist and claimed Cheshire for Wales!
How do we account for this? Well, as I’ve suggested, the answer is to be found in Aberdaugleddau (Milford Haven). Where, we are told, Camp Valour plans to open a ‘Veteran Transition Centre’ at Fort Hubberstone which is (confusingly) in Hubberston.
The charity I mentioned earlier, D-Day Revisited, has three trustees. In addition to Lucien we find Victoria Phipps and Jonathan Harry Phipps. The accounts for this organisation are interesting,
They tell us that income for y/e 31.12.2016 was £1,214,474 with expenditure of just 359,716. But for the following year income was down to £21,596 with expenditure of £421,909.
The spike is accounted for by funding received from the LIBOR Fund, raised from fines levied on bankers for rigging exchange rates. Whether the charity needed the money, or could use it, is another matter, for at the end of 2016 the D-Day Revisited Society had over one million pounds in cash reserves.
Much of that was used up the following year, and now the good times are over, so a new source of income is needed.
I’ve just told you that the other trustees are a couple named Phipps. And while checking on Jonathan Phipps I found that there was indeed a company named The Merlin Organisation Ltd, which went belly-up in 1998 owing the National Westminster Bank quite a bit of money.
So how could The Merlin Organisation Ltd, wound up in May 1998, own shares in Baron Security (UK) Ltd in 2013? Answers on the usual post card, please.
In fact, Phipps has quite a colourful business background. And now, via the charity, he’s almost certainly involved with Fabian Sean Lucien Faversham-Pullen in the project for Fort Hubberstone. Whatever that plan may be, for there’s something odd going on here.
The news report that I linked to tells us that Camp Valour plans, “A new transition centre based at Hubberston Fort in Milford Haven is set to benefit veterans. The centre, which will be the first of its kind in the world, will be developed by veterans for veterans to support them in their transition from military to civilian life.”
And yet, according to the Companies House entry Camp Valour seems to be in the holiday business. For under ‘Nature of Business’ it clearly says, ‘recreational’, nothing about rehabilitation.
The Phipps couple are from the Wirral, but using Welsh addresses to get their hands on Welsh public funding, and Finance Wales has already given them the taste for it. Now they want more.
If the story given is true, then we can expect many ex-service personnel being moved to Fort Hubberstone, where they will require treatment from the NHS and other services. An unquantifiable number will settle in the area and this will inevitably place a demand on local housing, which will either need to be specially adapted or purpose built. And this will all be paid for from the Welsh public purse.
Alternatively, the veterans story is a cover, and the real intention is to turn Fort Hubberstone into a caravan and camping site. For which funding will, again, be requested, either from the Development Bank of Wales (successor to Finance Wales), or else it will be tourism funding of the kind dished out to assorted spivs.
I just hope that the Milford Haven Port Authority, which owns the site, Pembrokeshire County Council, and the ‘Welsh Government’, have enough sense not to get involved with these people. And certainly not to give them any of our money.
If nothing else, anyone who changes his name from Sean Keven Patrick Pullen to Fabian Sean Lucien Faversham-Pullen should be given a wide berth. A very wide berth.
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CONCLUSION
There are countless other examples of Wales being taken advantage of. For that’s how colonialism operates. The Conservative Party of course supports Wales being exploited in this way – it’s ‘investment’. Being a collaborationist and Unionist party Labour willingly does its bit. But what of Plaid Cymru?
Unfortunately Plaid Cymru is now a self-emasculated grouping that is little more than a loose alliance of minority-interest obsessives whose cross-border or global concerns inevitably neglect our homeland while assisting Wales’ exploitation and assimilation.
Blind to the national question and blatant colonialism Plaid Cymru has become colonialism’s great asset – the ‘national party’ representing nothing more than a geographical expression and anyone who lives in it (or is dumped in it), rather than the people to whom this territory belongs.
Fortunately there is now a new nationalist party, one that will contest the next Assembly elections on a platform of unashamedly prioritising Welsh interests. Maybe you should join Ein Gwlad, for it’s Wales’s last hope.
♦ end ♦
I’ve had the misfortune to have met Kevin Beaumont “well what a compulsive liar” he’s usually crawling in the pub sniffing coke. He was banned from driving due to drugs and alcohol
usually when someone is hiding behind the name ANONYMOUS I find they’re a creature of society with no balls to expose who they really are. I would love the misfortune of knowing who you are just so I could drop kick.you back to reality.
Have a nice day
Hi
I’m the “Jimmi Deakin” referred to in the hatchet job posted above.
Whilst everyone is entitled to their opinions of me personally I feel a duty to clarify a few of the glaring inaccuracies contained within your piece.
Firstly the reason why we receive a significant Number of referrals from HMP Altcourse is that rather than it being a “triumph of the colonialist’s dark art” it is actually the main resettlement prison for North Wales prisoners and the only jail within the prison estate that has a provided a dedicated Welsh “unit
The mutual aid facilitation project led by CSARS is delivered solely in Wales by Welsh residents who have contributed massively to the growth of recovery from addiction in North Wales. Dr Wendy Dosset personally funded a group of individuals to attend this years UK Recovery March.
At least 90% of our current community members are Welsh with 3/4 being from Gwynedd and Mon. As such a significant number are of Welsh first language and are encouraged to converse in their first language in order to maximise their potential for positive change and as such a number of courses and groups are delivered through Welsh by individuals who’ve successfully gone through the recovery process and rebuilt their lives.
One of these individuals was personally known to our local AM who was therefore keen to visit the project that had helped her friend overcome multiple years of addiction.
Far from being a “drug addict”, John Redican is an upstanding member of the community who has won the Police & Crime commissioners individual award for outstanding achievement in recovery and works tirelessly to help better the lives of those affected by addiction and mental health issues. To attempt to tarnish him as simply a “drug addict” is shameful. Any article you used to research him would have referenced his recovery journey but you chose simply to ignore this as it does not fit your biased narrative. Instead you chose simply denigrate his character whilst trying to occupy the moral high ground..this makes you not only a hypocrite but also a sorry excuse for a human being.
The company information you shared is a matter of public record. What you don’t know or choose to ignore is that several are either community interest company’s (CIC’s), none for profit or small business’ set up in order to provide employment opportunities for individuals in established recovery (“drug addicts” to you)
As a registered charity our accounts are a letter of public record but I’d be happy to answer any further queries/scurrilous rumours you’d like to ask/start.
Ultimately I doubt you’ll have the courage to post this reply as it doesn’t fit with your twisted narrative of the English using Wales as a dumping ground for its weak and broken.
Whilst I imagine you view yourself as some kind of defender of the Welsh identity, in reality all you are is a nasty little bigot whose ilk will continue to damage the fight for independence by alienating large parts of the Welsh population.
“Jimmi”
Nice of you to reply, Jimmie, but you’re rather selective in the points you choose to address. For example, you defend the link with Altcourse, but ignore Berwyn, where we know most of the prisoners come from England. Berwyn is specifically mentioned in the accounts for North Wales Recovery Communities where it talks of HMP Berwyn ‘making multiple referrals‘.
Then there’s the little business empire you’ve built up. One issue I raised – but you ignored in your reply – was North Wales Contract Cleaning Ltd. On his Facebook page Kevin Beaumont describes himself as ‘Owner/Managing Director’. But how can that be when Companies House tells us you hold all the shares? What’s the explanation?
On the bigger picture, we both know that the north coast of Wales is used by all sorts of agencies in England to dump problems. Rhyl becoming the shit-hole it is was not the work of Welsh people. And the problems are no longer confined to Rhyl. Yet you want us to believe that just about everybody you deal with is descended from Glyndwr’s foot-soldiers . . . yet the only names I find associated with you suggest otherwise.
As for the presence of the politicians, what politician turns down the opportunity of a photo op?
I can answer that question for your own fantasy if you like, firstly it is non of your business any of this regarding the business , but I would be very interested to know who you are but the world wide Web is a great thing to hide behind a keyboard. Such a shame as it would be interesting to see the face behind the speculator. Right down to business, stop.speculating and give me.a call on my business number which you will find on my business page as you will have seen already as you are snooping all.over. I can answer any questions you may have then if.you wish.
I’m guessing you will.not call as you will be afraid of being exposed.
Have a nice day,
How can you “expose” me? My name is Royston Jones and I live in the Tywyn area (though I’m originally from Swansea). I’m known to politicians, media, police, and thousands of regular readers of my blog. You’ve already threatened to “drop kick” someone today, Kevin, so I suggest you leave it there.
Live in the tywyn area, that is a large area my friend so not quite specific. Yes I have and il drop kick.you too if you like.
I’m sure your name is made up. And hiding behind a fake profile picture. See you soon sugar tits xxx
This has now been referred to North Wales Police.
Excellent, look forward to a knock on the door. Thank you. And I’m sure I will see you soon.
Mr Beaumont has numerous mental health issues. The person who he threatened to drop kick is my young daughter whose carpets were destroyed by him (2018) being drunk or drugged whilst cleaning the house. It’s a shame that he can’t accept criticism. She can’t put her name on here as he has already threatened her with physical attack
That doesn’t surprise me one bit.
No carpet has ever been destroyed by me you weird prick so stop making stories up . Again hiding behind the name anonymous you absoloute tool. Be interesting to know your name but the power of net allows unto hide behind a keyboard all hard. And I’ve never threatened physical harm to a female so screw u. And mental health issues. Right not sure where ur getting your info from but thanks for your bullshit.
Just read a report this morning about the Chinese “imperial” regime’s aggresive treatment of the substantial Uyghur population in far Western China.
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2018/10/01/an-internment-camp-for-10-million-uyghurs
This is composite of the extermination and assimilation programmes so favoured by domineering big powers. They assimilate those Uyghurs that are sufficiently frightened or compliant, and execute those who choose to defend their identity.
So far we here in Wales only have the matrix of assimilation programmes at work in this country but the post Brexit frenzy of AngloBrit Nat sentiment may well see their xenophobia become increasingly weaponised. Of course, Muslims, people of assorted colour and some E.Europeans may be ahead in their order of “priority”, but be assured some of the AngloBrit headcases already based in our part of these islands will be activated sooner rather than later. Be prepared, these cnuts won’t go away quietly.
What the Chinese are doing to the Uighurs (and Tibetans) would be condemned were China a smaller country we weren’t courting economically. It pisses me off that these big US internet companies can do nothing to protect young people in democratic societies but can jump through hoops when China demands control over their systems if they want to operate in China.
And you’re right, Dafis, the BritNat nutters are on the rise. I welcome it. Things will get worse before they get better and the worse they get the less chance there is of returning to the status quo we have known in recent decades.
Dead right there Jac. UK regime sucking up to Chinese as though those fuckers give a tuppeny toss whether UK is in or out of EU. As far as they are concerned UK is a dot on the world map with big capacity for shouting the odds but way past being able to do anything about it. And it’s that capacity for exaggerated self importance that underlies the growing Loyalist sham – not tough enough to really cut the mustard in World rankings but let’s instead have a go at supressing the minor ( Celtic) neighbours so UKBrits can kid themselves they got what it takes. Seriously sick supremacist mindset.
Because Wales is a colony of England the Welsh are expected to see the world through the lens of the English guilt complex about empire, slavery, racism and it’s imperial past. To get a better view on China, for example, you have to see through the lens of a nation who does not have these hang-ups. A country which has no racism, and laugh when accused thereof, a country which doesn’t care how ‘big’ their opponents are, a country who’s politics mirror endemic cultural principles. Here is something that would never get on the BBC…
https://youtu.be/DeU13fWzp1Y{removetoplay}
Laff!! One day we can make programmes like this.
Brilliant!
Fun fact:
Saltney is right on the border, which runs down the middle of the high street (as in Llanymynech on Powys/Shropshire border). There is a dollop of industrial land just to the west of the Welsh side of the street (i.e. also in Wales) where ‘Fabian Sean Lucien Faversham-Pullen’ has his business, but which, like other places close to the border, has been allocated an ‘English’ post code. Therefore his address should read “… Flint Road, Saltney, Flintshire, Wales”.
Like others with a BritNat perspective, he may have chosen “…Chester, Wales” for reasons of cudos (Chester is posher than Flintshire) — in the same way that self-styled ‘comedian’ Russ Abbot bought a house in Rossett, a mile from the Cheshire border but in Wrexham Maelor, and in an article in the Daily Telegraph he referred to it as his new “house in Cheshire”; his son went to the village comprehensive — in Wales, not Cheshire. I could name others.
Something I wonder is whether Welsh addresses on Deeside are used simply to access Welsh funding. Is any physical check done to ensure that a company or individual applying for Welsh funding from a border address actually operates from that address?
That leaflet you replicate above, Jac, is from Beryl-Ann Williams the Labour candidate in the Cydweli by-election. She likes to make out she wants to help people with autism and dementia. This is the same Labour Party who wants to end the Welsh Independent Living Grant (kept by Scotland). The Labour party hypocrisy. Stopping disabled people who are Welsh a few extra quid for a taxi to visit the dementia club or a Welsh person in a wheelchair get a trip to the day centre, while at the same time handing over millions to third sector spivs to import said unfortunates from England. This is a disgrace. Beryl should be ashamed to show her face in Cydweli and Mynyddygarreg. Make Cydweli a Labour free zone and kick the bastards out!
Well said, have a 1001 “upticks” or “likes” or whatever else passes for approval on these kind of sites.
I see the anti-Semites of the Llanelli Labour Party have just surfaced on Twitter.
“Does anyone really care about an undemocratic bunch of dummy spitters bent on getting a second ref and using a religious faith to add to their attacks.” – Cllr Greg Jones, Labour.
(Don’t know how to copy a twitter screenshot).
It is ‘liked’ by Cllr Crish Davies, Labour deputy mayor of Kidwelly. It’s a comment about a Labour MP in Liverpool who yesterday resigned from the Labour Party detailing to anti-Semitic attacks against her.
It is not about ‘using a religious faith’. It’s about not tolerating attacks on people because they hold such a religious faith. Llanelli, of course has a long tradition of protecting those of the Jewish faith, having a synagogue in town and settling Kindertransport in WW2. In Wales, such principles go right back to the English invasion when Edward Longshanks hung the Jews from the ramparts of Caernarfon castle.
Whatever the war that’s erupted in the Labour Party, it’s no excuse for attacking the Jews. I wonder that the MP (Shadow Defence Secretary) in the Westminster House will have to say about Cllr Greg Jones, latest outburst.
RE: Camp Valour, I work in Milford Haven, the general consensus is, that the estimated cost of £2 million to redevelop the site, might be enough to clear the undergrowth, just Google image search Hubberston fort and you’ll get the idea. Here is a link to an article from the Milford Mercury from January. https://www.milfordmercury.co.uk/news/pembrokeshire_news/17396178.converting-hubberston-fort-into-a-support-centre-for-former-soldiers-could-cost-2million/
Since publishing my piece about 24 hours ago I’ve seen a stack of fresh information from someone who came at the Camp Valour project from a different angle. I’m hearing that there’s a great deal of bullshitting involved, Walter Mitty behaviour, fictional military records, even SAS backgrounds claimed. All will be revealed in the near future, if not here then by some other outlet.
Stanley In your opening para you say ……”its revival will need energy and that you havent got in your MP’s, councillors and quite frankly many of your people.” That is quite correct in so many ways. Wales like so many other “peripheral” parts of the UK has a well developed dependency culture with a big reliance on “someone else” to deliver income, lifestyle and related services.
Oddly enough many of the roots of this malaise can be found in UK Tory government policies dating back to the 70’s and 80’s, with some traces earlier. Thatcher’s attack on the overweight traditional industrial base led to a proliferation of benefits and handouts. Indeed had the Tories of that time really desired to deliver sustainable changes they would have pumped more cash into the drive for new technology and industrial applications and less into keeping people idle and on superficial retraining programmes which often gave people skills for which there was little or no demand. In 1997 Bliar and his team arrived and instead of adopting real change they too went down the benefits and superficial palliative approach. So there you have a major policy reason for the dependency conditions that developed here in Wales.
In parallel with the dilution or dumbing down of large swathes of the labour force we also saw the development of a similar dependency culture among our business leaders. The culture of “grant entitlement” grew as fast as “benefit entitlement” with businesses, ranging from small owner driven units up to local divisions of large multinationals, tapping into all sorts of grants, handouts and rent holidays as they passed costs and risk over to the public purse. Thus the words entrepreneur and enterprise, so favoured by our talking heads, is devalued. Indeed the situation is so bad that bullshit has long overtaken rational business cases as the main trigger for securing funds. To make matters worse many of our financial institutions are party to all this as they have long been partners with Welsh Office/ Assembly in funding the weird and wonderful.
I won’t be tempted to debate your critique of health, education, tourism,as we could fill this site and overflow ! On the grey influx, they may be blessed with assets but other than buying their property they are often visibly reluctant to invest in anything that has a local flavour to it. Also and possibly more significant is their unwillingness to adapt, often showing hostility to the language, culture and related heritage of Wales. This in turn maybe what drives their general indifference to the possibilities of investment.
Government and its inability to operate in a way that builds for the future is the major obstacle here in Wales. There is talent, and yes we could always do with more. That talent will only emerge when we have government that enables progress rather than stifles with petty rule books and an infrastructure of financial institutions that are prepared to look beyond the narrow limits of their vested interests. It’s all these negative factors that drive thinking people to the conclusion that we are in a “colonial” condition and that big changes are needed to depart from that state. You are correct to use the word Revolution in your opening para as rebellion or independence may not prove to be enough.
First time commenter on the blog, I believe, but regular twitter contributor. My question is, somewhat off topic, but even with a sort of benelux/Scandinavia esque rejigging of these isles as a proper “family of nations” when proper sovereignty is returned, wouldn’t England be the almost literal elephant in the room in many of the same ways as it is now because of its vast population?
Almost certainly, but it’s better than the status quo. Gwynfor Evans used to ask what Denmark would be like today if Prussia in 1866 had annexed the whole country and not just Schleswig-Holstein. Denmark survived. Ireland too has managed to have its own way despite its massive neighbour. Having friends in surrounding countries other than that neighbour always helps. Nothing empowers England more than the idea of the ‘British’ Isles as a unit whose bubble must never be burst. Any ‘British family of nations’ is bound to be a dysfunctional one. Wales would be well-advised to seek a Celtic context instead, especially if it gets up the noses of the French and Spanish governments.
Your analysis does bring out many important points but fails to address others. Wales will need a revolution to change the way it views itself and how you allow others to treat it. You have a complex mixed economy and its revival will need energy and that you havent got in your MP’s, councillors and quite frankly many of your people.
Your health service in mid wales is non existent so you have one fact that is missing, if your seriously ill then Wales either pays for your very expensive treatment from England or you have to travel to Cardiff. Thats fact, and having sat on the Powys Health team that looked what this means to the patients I can tell you its very expensive for Wales and fails the patient. A high proportion of your health service budget goes out in buying UK services.
Setting up and buying in the expensive services in England from Wales is just playing with the economics. You have cheap labour and thats how the Welsh Govt see you so they will encourage this. This sector no matter where it is always attracts crooks and in Wales thats worse because where ever you look thats what the Welsh Govt know and support. They cant cope with real business people – and in fairness good business people cant cope with these muppets either.
Rather than give concrete illustrations of what you can do to attracti inward investment your officials like to hand out endless policy documents that mean F all to a serious business man. And they think this enough well its not.
As for the ‘greys’ many coutries welcome them because at least they have assets and money, unlike the younger people who havent got a pot to piss in, until theyre in their 40’s and the bank of mom and dad give them cash. So again Wales are being bloody stupid, they have them but havent a clue what to do with them. The greys market in getting them to make big contributions to local economies is sophisticated and Wales cant even get to the start line here. So your way off the mark here.
Your young people fail. The education is awful, schools are poorly set up and when they get out of the hills they run like mad and simply wouldnt return. Wales cant attract the companies of tomorrow – why because the welsh MP’s are thick and havent a clue how to think through a long term strategy. Instead they take the soft stuff and spend millions kidding themselves they are world leaders. They arent, they are either not even known or laughed at ‘oh them lot’ but the expenses they charge on their giddy world trips are no doubt ridiculous when judged against what they return.
On tourism your wrong. You have the most wonderful country but the value you place on it is £40 a night. If you take out economic differences Wales values itself lower than the shit holes of the world. If you took your nose from out of your backsides your true value is £180 a night the same as London. But that means you would have to pay London rates and train people professionally and offer accomodation that was impressive. Could you do this yes, but having just bought someone to the table to invest £15 million in two of your towns they walked away because Wales is so corrupt and they cant trust the goverment muppets who basically think your shit and fail to protect your assets instead filling it with junkies who shit up the land.
Everything you’ve just recanted, to my mind at least is a symptom of the situation we are in. Are the Welsh predisposed to be thick, incompetent and credulous? Of course not. Stretched to its logical conclusion, your remark is as egregious as to say that Africans are predisposed to starve or live in mud huts, and nothing to do with the pre-existing conditions they find themselves in.
Stanley – The answer to your question is repatriation. If you look at the ‘born in Scotland in the 40-50 age group change on the census figures we see an increase. Even more marked in Ireland. These are not people who’ve jumped from being a teenager into middle age using a time machine, these are people who were born and educated in Ireland/Scotland left to work in the 80s and 90s, usually high skilled, made their wealth, paid taxes most often in England, and have returned as the economic powerhouse in Scotland and Ireland. This is the ‘get on yer bike’ generation of Thatcher. The Channel Tunnel, Øresund, Crossrail, Millau Viaduct etc were not built by cockneys in grey tracksuits or Brummies on benefits. They were bult by Welsh engineers. The science director at Cern is from Aberamman. The ‘exodus’ of our most skilled and economically productive generations is marked. Those are the people will play a role in contributing to the economic viability of an independent Wales. Importing English grannies needing hip replacements from Wolverhampton or shelf stackers at Asda from Bristol with Asbergers so natives can be ‘carers’ is not our future. In fact, it’s people trafficking. In London they do an introductory exemption of council tax for doctors, nurses and teachers. Same can apply in Wales. We voted for the legislative powers to do this but have only applied in to ‘care leavers’, which, of course is also available to those who migrate to Wales to milk the system, rather than those who have most to offer.
Let me clarify a few points.
I am all for inward investment when it has benefits for Welsh people. If there are no such benefits then we can do without it because we won’t miss it. Though I would always prefer to see native initiative.
The ‘greys’ you refer to may have money, much of which they use to buy domestic property and in so doing push prices way beyond the reach of local youngsters. Then, inevitably because of their age, they become a burden on the Welsh NHS (a devolved matter) and social services. Further, with the wrong age profile an area changes in subtle kinds of ways. I live between Machynlleth, Dolgellau and Tywyn. There are more pubs in both Machynlleth and Dolgellau than in Tywyn. Why? Because these towns have a younger population. What Tywyn does have is an amazing number of hairdressers, kept in business by doing ‘perms’ and the like for older women. That’s because Tywyn, Aberdyfi, and that stretch of coast is a ‘retirement area’. At the 2011 census two-thirds of the over 65s were born in England.
We may agree on tourism. People driving from Manchester to Snowdon with a packed lunch and a thermos flask then driving home without even putting petrol in their tank is not my idea of tourism because there are no benefits for Wales, only a downside. I want tourists to come here and pay as much as we can screw out of them. I also want a tourist tax, with the money collected used to benefit the locals in areas – like Snowdonia – suffering from excessive and unsustainable levels of tourism.
I agree a new party is needed urgently, but may I just say that the name of the new party needs to be not Welsh as the majority are English speaking. I am a Welsh man, but do not speak Welsh, if you want to succeed think again and I would support a new party
Robert – point about language. Anyone schooled in Wales with English as a first language is within a gnats whisker of becoming a fluent Welsh speaker given the opportunity and immersion. A massive head-start on anyone from England. I know no Welshman or woman in the valleys who doesn’t know Gwlad or Hiraeth. That’s the starting point. The enrolment of children from English speaking families to Welsh medium education in the valleys and is evident.
@ Robert…. Well, I prefer Ein Gwlad to “Their Colony.”
You say: “not Welsh” and “I am a Welsh man, but do not speak Welsh.”
Seems like you are a Welsh man that dosen’t know Welsh history and how the English tried to eradicate the Welsh language.
Are you a neo-Welsh notter?
Perhaps you should think again and learn some history and realise why you are a Welsh man that doesn’t speak Welsh.
Perhaps the new party that you think is urgently needed should be called “Their Colony.”…..then again, we already have Welsh Labour who fully support the colonisation of Wales.
With reference to the author’s headline of the article…….
Boom boom Ein Gwlad all over! Boom boom Ein Gwlad all over! (To the tune of a well known Dai Clarc Pump song)
Come on Robert – don’t try and use that old chestnut! Surely the most vacant and under educated non Welsh speaking Welsh person in Wales is not so thick as to never have heard the words Gwlad! Gwlad! when our national anthem is being sung.
Or are you still puzzled at what it means? Come, come, a pretty insipid comment to say the least! Almost on a par with saying that we all speak English in the pub, but only use our national language when an English speaker walks in. It’s a very yesterday myth that everyone has had a good laugh about due to it’s stupidity and moved on.
Ein Gwlad means “Our Country” or “Our Land” – pretty simple don’t you think? I’m sure you know what “Vive la France” means and those words aren’t even in their national anthem “La Marseillaise”.
Can I ask you to pop over to our News Portal? http://www.eingwlad.wales/NewsPortal Do a search for economy whilst you’re there, it will open the eyes of those who have made equally ridiculous comments about the ability of the Welsh to run their own economy and survive as an independent country. Another myth: “The Welsh are too poor, too small and too stupid to run teir own country”
It might also do you good to follow this link:
https://eingwlad.wales/NewsPortal/index.php/2019/01/28/death-of-a-nation-through-wrong-education/
Please Robert, try moving forward from the 19th century world of the British Empire, and try and cast off the effect their brainwashing propaganda has had on people like you.