After assorted threats from various sources – possibly a single source – to me and others associated with this blog, I plan to publish my definitive post on Pembrokeshire Housing and Mill Bay Homes within the next few days.
If certain persons in the south west, or elsewhere, don’t like what I write, then they can run – again – to a £260-an-hour Cardiff lawyer, and pay her out of the public purse, or they can just go fuck themselves. Don’t bother me one way or the other.
I’ve been reasonable, I have taken down everything that it was claimed offended these sensitive souls, but henceforth I shall stand by what I write. NOTHING will be taken down. I am calling your bluff, boys and girls.
Oh Jac , darling you need your head read. Why don’t you admit it?
Jac does not support freedom of speech per se, only for himself and those who agree with him. As for Big Gee, he has obviously been spending to much time watching conspiracy videos by the likes of Alex Jones who clearly has paranoid schizophrenia.
Let me break it to you, Gee, there is no plot for a New World Order, and the Illuminati have not existed for centuries. When they did, they were harmless. So the EU can’t possibly be connected to them. Zionism, has a bad side but I fear you’re just a deluded anti-Semite.
The world is, by and large, run by an unpleasant group of people. If you got into power, that would not change.
To Dafis
We seem to have run out of space back at 10:58
Most people can choose to pay a bit extra for goods and everyone can choose to vote for a government that insists that a decent wage be paid. But as consumers and voters we don’t. Of course there is a scheming corporate bunch and political facilitators but neither can do it without us. We’re responsible for our choices, we’re partly responsible for the outcome.
I’m not saying that a few changes in our shopping trolley is a panacea but as consumers we’re not powerless. It’s just frustrating that so few of those that can choose don’t and therefore little of that power is applied.
Those that can afford to make such choices inevitably see their vested interests as being tied to those of the ruling elite rather than the underclasses. However such is the nature of serfdom that it will steadily work its way up through the social structure/hierarchy – today’s cheap farm/factory labourer will soon be joined by a cheap accountant and even lawyers ( although the professional firms will continue to screw everybody, but make better profits ! )
So according to you when Mrs Jones buys a bar of supermarket own brand chocolate rather than its fair trade equivalent it’s because she sees her vested interests being tied to those of the ruling elite rather than the underclasses.
Quite a profound theory of chocolate selection based on a mutual alliance between socioeconomic groups.
in comparison my theory is far less grand.- Mrs Jones would rather not pay the extra 30p for a Fair Trade chocolate fix.
This hypothetical consumer is in league with Our Masters in the sense that both subscribe to the mantra of ¨I´m all right Jack¨ (or pull the ladder away now that I´ve climbed up safely). Not a personal ref to our own Jac, perish the thought.
you keep looking at the issues from a totally confused perspective – which is sufficient evidence that you have bought into the bullshit machine’s output lock stock and barrel. They love you for “blaming” consumers while they, the corrupt deviants, keep extracting money out of the system and hoarding assets into their small circle. Keep staring at those choc bars they will let you have a free one every now and then for being a good compliant serf.
This, I’m a consumer therefore I’m a victim, mentality isn’t going to change things.
Correct, but “I’m a consumer, I should beware” is more appropriate, and it still doesn’t resolve the matter of exploitation on a global scale by corporates and their political allies/stooges.
6 Things all Journalists should know about libel laws:
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/six-things-all-journalists-need-to-know-about-the-defamation-act-2013-which-is-now-in-force/
3 – The public interest
The Reynolds public interest journalism defence has been abolished and replaced by the public interest defence.
Editors can use the defence if they can prove:
The statement complained of was, or formed part of, a statement on a matter of public interest, and
they reasonably believed that publishing the statement complained of was in the public interest.
4 – More Privilege
Privileged material which is protected from defamation actions is now extended to cover:
peer-reviewed statements in scientific and academic journals subject to the usual five conditions set out in the Defamation Act 1996
reports of scientific and academic conferences and related documents
articles based on information provided by public companies and at press conferences
reports of proceedings of government from anywhere in the world, international conferences and international court proceedings.
Interesting bit of info. that . . . .
Don’t give up jac. You are expressing the views of many people across Wales who are unable to speak out for themselves but support you 100%.
The thought occurred to me that if a blogger is putting a commercial enterprise (or community benefit company of limited liability) in a bad light, then there are two options….
(a) employ a public relations spokesperson to put the record straight, or
(b) get a lawyer in to start throwing letters around with threats to sue.
The first option is considerably cheaper, often more effective, and if you have nothing to hide, considerably less risky, especially if there are political or public interest issues involved. I suggest Pembrokeshire Housing and Mill Bay Homes to immediately withdraw their legal threats, and invest in a good public relations officer.
This is particularly advisable because although a company registered under Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act can try to sue for damages, a sum which would need to be established, they cannot allow for profits or assets to be ‘consumed’ for the benefit of their members/directors. Funds must be used only to further the objects of the society by being ploughed back into the concern, or directed up to any external philanthropic concern as directed by their constitution.
Any claim for defamation would have to satisfy the court that the claim is lawful, in the furtherance of these philanthropic objects; otherwise a court would be obliged to ‘throw out’ such a claim.
No such concern exists on ‘public relations’ activity.
I honestly find the reaction by Mill Bay Homes and Pembrokeshire Housing to be quite bizarre.
Gwyrionedd did not mention housing associations, Jac, and your response to him or her only serves as a distraction from what I see is their clear contention – that by your own admission you’ve reported untruths and that’s simply not on.
It’s no argument, as you seem to be pursuing, that you tried your best to get the information, failed, and so made up your own bits to fill in the blanks, winging it.
The argument you addressed in response to Gwyrionedd, ie “why aren’t housing associations more open and transparent” is a separate and noble topic, and it was in the course of pursuing that topic where you are alleged to have committed a libel.
The two topics (1. transparency of housing associations and 2. libel) are entirely separate. You cannot rely on one to justify t’other.
Housing associations may not have a duty to provide the information you sought from them, that may be another public service/legal deficiency you wish to pursue politically and through your blog, but you have no right to libel anybody in the course of so doing, and those targeted have every right to defend against such attacks.
You suggest it’s not your fault if you got incorrect information from the Welsh Government website. Well, that isn’t exactly how I understand what happened, the data was incomplete and not incorrect as you say. But even if the data was incorrect, that doesn’t make it libellous.
The quality or plenitude of the information isn’t the issue – it’s what you did with it, jumping to wrong conclusions and making wrong accusations off the back of it.
That’s what gave rise to the cause of action, possibly among other allegations.
How you could suggest it is the WG’s or anybody else’s fault but your own if a libel is committed with the information is bizarre.
The course of action is against you, not the WG for providing you with what you thought (hoped) was a ‘smoking gun.’
Your correspondent Big Gee’s comment did raise a laugh – he says Gwyrionedd is someone who “fanc[ies] themselves as a ‘smart-arse’ – in order to show off an amateur knowledge of legal matters.”
I think recent developments are testament to the fact that there’s only one “smart-arse” around here with an “amateur knowledge of legal matters” and I don’t think it’s Gwirionedd, or me for that matter!
“Gwyrionedd (sic) did not mention housing associations, Jac”. There was no need. What the hell do you think this is all about – is Pembrokeshire Housing a supermarket, and Mill Bay Homes a travel agency?
“You suggest it’s not your fault if you got incorrect information from the Welsh Government website. Well, that isn’t exactly how I understand what happened, the data was incomplete and not incorrect as you say.” Incomplete not incorrect – tell me the material difference from my perspective. To engage in semantics like that you must be a lawyer, and a good example of why your profession is so reviled.
Though I find it very encouraging that I’m attracting such legal expertise. A week ago I was ignored, now I – and others associated with this blog – are being plagued by lawyers. Is it the sun that brings you out?
As I clearly set out, in your response to Gwirionedd’s comment you addressed issues that he or she did not raise.
Your immediate concern right now, is, clearly, the legal action. You need to separate that from the openness of housing associations. They are only linked inasmuch as you allegedly committed the libel in the course of your campaign into exposing alleged misdeeds in housing associations, but having unpublished both posts suggests to me at least that you’re accepting you libelled, so why you would try to justify your actions is unclear. Your best course is to hold your hands up, publish an apology and retraction and move on. I’m sure it’ll never be taken further.
Your reply to my comment, again, misses the point as you ask me: “What the hell do you think this is all about – is Pembrokeshire Housing a supermarket, and Mill Bay Homes a travel agency?”
What “this” is all about is an alleged libel. Maybe now you get it! That’s what’s garnering the attention, and the discussion here is about your legal plight, not your housing association ‘campaign’ – anyway there is nothing for anybody to read about that since you’ve taken it all down!
I already addressed the fig leaf you are grasping onto, (the information you got from the WG website.) The information is not the problem – it’s what you did with that information, simple.
True it may be that a week ago you were ignored, but the attention you and your blog are now receiving is not good for you or your blog and also, allegedly libelling those you wish to ‘expose’ for wrongdoing by seemingly committing a wrongdoing yourself hardly does much to further your ’cause’
Don’t you see how this harms your credibility? Investigative journalism is tough, risky business. I suggest you may wish to read Rebecca Television web site to see it is possible to tackle hard hitting stories about establishment figures and ruthless influential organisations while staying on the right side of the line. These organisations and figures as you know are very protective, but they can only claim libel if the publisher leaves the opportunity.
If you believe – as you apparently do – that the threatened libel / defamation action can somehow be taken in isolation and disentangled from what I have written about Pembrokeshire Housing and Mill Bay Homes then I disagree.
I have removed the articles complained of because to have edited them would have rendered them unintelligible. Within the next couple of days I shall publish what I want to say about these bodies in a way that will stick to the known facts with little more than fair comment and questions attaching.
Perhaps the issue that more than any seemed to rile PH and MBH was the ‘Neighbours from Hell’ claim in relation to the site at Pentlepoir, which it was claimed affected their professional reputation, might make it difficult to secure investment, etc. When confronted with the evidence Hugh James appeared to take a step back. I now have more evidence.
Since that initial contact Hugh James has tried to intimidate those affected by the bully-boy tactics at Pentlepoir and in a further development my server has been threatened by a second law firm acting on the instructions of a prominent Labour politician who recently lost the Rhondda seat.
So stop trying to narrow this down to me and and a simple libel. This is about a corrupt and backward country where public money can be used to stifle dissent.
Now go away and stop wasting my time. I have an article to research and write.
You removed the both posts entirely rather than just taking out the offending parts (the alleged libel) because “to have edited them would have rendered them unintelligible”
Translates as “there was so much misinformation, wild speculation and so little facts in them that there would be nothing left to read”
As for Brychan’s bit about your removal of both posts being no admission of guilt and a prudent thing to do in the circumstances, perrrrlease!
By Jac’s own words he accepts he got things wrong and might I suggest that taking them down is not the actions of a conscientious journalist standing by his story.
Even if you do subsequently reinstate both posts as they originally appeared, you obviously had insufficient confidence in your own ‘journalism’ to feel the libel accusation had some merit or you would have told them in your own inimitable style to “fuck yourselves” like you did in this post, and like you regularly tell people on Twitter.
I’ll await with interest your new post on MBH. Something tells me it won’t be a sensationalist effort this time. And the fact you even have to stipulate that you intend to stick to the facts this time around is so ridicukous. It should go without saying that any journalist in any field shouldn’t make up his own facts, smears and untrue allegations.
On Jacqui Thompson, you’re just like her. She can’t see the difference between the libel and that she was countersued by Mark James using public money unlawfully. She committed the libel, as adjudged by a court, and she would have committed the libel if Mark James had subsequently sued her with his own money or cash plundered from a bank robbery. The facts of the way the lawsuit came about or its funding have no bearing whatsoever on the establishment in a civil court of whether the libel has been committed or not. She basically suggests that the source of funding of Mark James’s libel action means she didn’t commit the libel, or at the least, that she should have been found not liable by default. It’s such a warped sense of logic I’m surprised you go along with it too.
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.
You are becoming tiresome. And if you’re trying to wheedle information out of me about my next post, forget it.
I’m sure Jacqui Thompson can speak for herself, but you focusing myopically on THE LIBEL misrepresents a much wider picture.
Working backwards; JT is in danger of losing her home because Mark James used public money to sue her. Had he not been able to write his own cheques using council money would she ever have been sued and in danger of losing her home? It’s not simply a matter of ‘She committed LIBEL therefore she must pay’. I suppose whether MJ was legally entitled to use council money is irrelevant?
We all commit libel and slander, it’s what we are – human beings not fucking machines. Most times we do it innocently, but to you there is nothing innocent. A child comes home from school and tells his mother, ‘My teacher’s nasty’ – prosecute the little bastard! That’ll learn him!
Like I say, you’re becoming tiresome and repetitive, this is the last of your comments to be published, so don’t waste your valuable time on writing any more.
“Having unpublished both posts suggests to me at least that you’re accepting you libelled” – PRL.
Not so. It’s just a wise course of action to further evaluate what had been said and/or published. Holding your tongue (temporarily or permanently) and removing something that is claimed to defame from the public arena is not an admission of guilt. One reason why a defender of a defamation threat may fall silent is to also allow time for the party claiming defamation to ‘seek other routes to remedy’ or take remedial action on ‘what has been said in order to clarify the facts’, or to ‘put right’ any part of what has been said if/when it is subsequently found to be true.
PRL, you are Gwirionedd and I claim my papur pum punt 🙂
Btw, not all housing associations are in any sense ´public´, some such as I´ve been involved with are purely private bodies, privately funded, and if their tenants claim HB etc. this is no different from the situation with any private landlord. However, there are other housing associations which do receive direct government funding. They must register with an official body (not sure what it´s called in Wales) and comply with all sorts of extra rules and regulations. These organisations are then ´public´ and so it would not be in the least unreasonable for them to fall under the Freedom of Information.
From links provided in previous comments to Jac’s blog there are various defences to slander/libel/defamation – chief among them being the truth of course. The difficulty is that when Jac and other investigative journalists are on many of these cases, it’s like trying to see through a pea soup fog. And it’s in the interests of such persons/bodies to keep it that way, so we don’t find out all that’s going on and they can continue unchecked in their own little worlds. Even worse of course when they are excluded from the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. I’d have less problem with this if they operated with private money instead of public funding. But where public money is involved we need to know precisely how it is being spent, who is hiring whom, who is accountable, who is checking the rules are obeyed etc. We often don’t get this and depend on people like Jac sticking their neck out to try and tell us what’s really going on. In an ideal world our public media would do it but they are usually as useless as a one legged man in an arse kicking contest.
Now call me naive (why not?) but a decent organisation with any management team worth its salt, and priding itself on good PR and transparency, might have decided to contact Jac direct if they had an issue with anything he wrote, stated their case, corrected any factual errors in what Jac had written – and ONLY AFTER that, if they felt they were still being hard done by, only then sought legal advice. To go running to Cardiff lawyers and using them as a nuclear threat, and hiding behind them, well it makes me wonder why? WTF is going on here? Is there an orchestrated campaign to shut him up? Hell of a coincidence that two lawyers are on his case concurrently.
I’m glad Jac will not go gently into that good night and will continue to rage. Like others though I recommend some caution because they will be watching for any means to trip him up and silence him. It’s a totally unfair fight because they aren’t be spending their own money either in hiring top lawyers or should matters proceed to a court.
And to Gwirionedd: “I expect nothing more than to be told to “f**k off”, such is your usual way with comments that don’t lick your derrière”. What a horrible comment. Had a shock there then didn’t you that Jac dealt with your arrogant post in a reasonable manner? Now why don’t you take your smug, gloating arse somewhere it might be appreciated like Trinity Press – and fuck off.
Call me paranoid if you like but given all this overreaction, could it just be that Jac has stumbled on something much bigger than we realise? The tip of some unsavoury iceburg?
Agree with every response. 100% behind you Jac. Go for it.
If what you wrote was entirely true and you can stand it up, you would have no need to react to the legal letter beyond saying “so sue me”.
However you’ve caved in. Not removing ‘offending parts’ but the two whole articles!
You have also removed a third blog post you published after taking down the ‘offending’ two posts, where you set out the reasons the lawyers wrote to you (including a scan of the legal letter and your reply to the lawyers, both of which I have saved for posterity – which, I might say, was probably not the most sensible thing you could have done given your difficult legal predicament!)
I’m not going to go into the thrust of the allegations for reasons which were apparently not immediately obvious to you.
All I will say is that your ‘answer’ to the lawyer’s letter’s first claim was that you reported what you did based on information you gleaned from the Welsh Government web site, which (you neglected to establish) is a non exhaustive source of the information you sought.
After you “willingly concede” you got your facts wrong, you then wrote by way of explanation = “this was entirely due to incomplete information posted on the ‘Welsh’ Government’s own web site”.
You also said = “So, not my fault”.
If you really believe that’s a sound legal argument that excuses you for reporting untruths and provides a wild card defence against any subsequently alleged legal liabilities, then you’re very mistaken and have probably been heading for something like this for a long time, and lawyers far cleverer than you will take you to task now or some point in the future. They can do so not because they want to oppress your right to free speech but to identify and tackle misdeeds and untruths – much like you claim to as a self styled “whistle-blower”.
However with a publication comes responsibilities – one of which is to tell the truth. You do a disservice to genuine whistleblowers, conscientious bloggers and the free press by titling this post “freedom of speech”, insinuating with tearful eyes that your rights to freedom of expression are somehow being oppressed by expensive lawyers protecting vested interests without merit.
If everything was above board in what you wrote you should have stood by it. The fact you’ve made such a poor judgement of error discredits you and your blog. You appear to have waded into a topic you knew little about, making claims and insinuations all over the place and have gone well out of your depth – much like Jacqui Thompson did.
I expect nothing more than to be told to “f**k off”, such is your usual way with comments that don’t lick your derrière.
Finally, you say in your response to the lawyers and their menacing letter = “I have to ask why your clients made no effort to contact me to ‘straighten things out’. Why did they run to a lawyer without any attempt at dialogue? I’m a reasonable man”.
The more appropriate question you should ask yourself is = why did you not attempt to contact Mill Bay Homes, Pembrokeshire Housing, or any number of other independent sources to “straighten things out” and establish facts before jumping to conclusions, publishing half-truths, untruths and poorly informed speculation from nothing more than google searches from your home computer and putting 2 and 2 together to come up with 6.
You’ve conducted many (what I consider to be) personal, below the belt character assassinations in the past on a range of topics. Do you contact all subjects of your hack jobs beforehand? After all, you claim to be a reasonable man.
Then again, that might allow the facts to get in the way of a good story!
You are saying that if I go to the ‘Welsh’ Government website, use information found there, and if that information turns out to be wrong, then it’s my fault. Where would you suggest I go for information?
You accuse me of doing a disservice to the “free press”. Please identify this free press in Wales.
You ask, “why did you not attempt to contact Mill Bay Homes, Pembrokeshire Housing, or any number of other independent sources to “straighten things out” and establish facts before jumping to conclusions”, so let me explain.
I have tried that route, more than once. I contacted Grwp Gwalia back in March 2011 in the case of the paedophile gang relocated from London to Kidwelly. The response I got was, from Karen Oliver, Senior Solicitor, “I would advise that Grwp Gwalia is not bound by this legislation”. The ‘legislation’ being the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Every time you ask awkward questions of housing associations they hide behind that. As you’re such a smart-arse, maybe you can explain, even justify, why housing associations should be exempt from this legislation, while council housing departments are covered.
With incorrect and misleading information on official sites, in the absence of a free press, and with housing associations not covered by the Freedom of Information Act 2000, it’s inevitable that I will have to speculate, and equally inevitable that I will get things wrong.
Which could be avoided by more openness on the part of those I’m investigating, all of whom are in receipt of large sums of public money. They’ve got nothing to hide, have they?
So who is “Gwirionedd” (Truth)? Comes across as a self styled ‘smart-arse’ who seems to have suddenly grown a pair of huge oversized balls.
Hmm – sounds as if we have a ‘gloater’ in the camp . . . . it would be interesting to discover if he/she is associated, in any way, with the possible ‘petitioners’ in this threatened case.
As the potential ‘respondent’ in this matter Jac, I would, if I were you, ignore any similar posts until you regroup. Keep your powder dry for the time being.There is no obligation on you to make any responses, or reply to any questions – especially those posed by any armchair lawyers who fancy themselves as a ‘smart-arse’ – in order to show off an amateur knowledge of legal matters.
What an extraordinary post from Gwirionedd!
Sounds like a less than professional solicitor on £260 an hour trying to justify their existence. Of course, they can always be depended on to tell the truth in support of their honourable clients eh?
I am sure that most readers are in agreement with your actions and I look forward to reading your updates in the near future.
Keep up the good work Jac 🙂
You’re not the only one to suggest that. Surely not!
Stranger things have happened on the way to the fair! Let’s not forget, these grey suited parasites are no better or more intelligent than you or I. They are just trained to know their way around legal procedures. They have their emotional baggage like everyone else in society, and they act & react the same as anyone else. They all have a crap at least once a day and their crap smells like everyone else’s. They try & project a superior image, when in fact they are on exactly the same level as most others you meet in the street. they have no special powers or abilities – they are not X-men mutants.
So quite possibly one of them couldn’t resist a stab, if only to masturbate their own ego & show off a little! I wasn’t impressed though, still strikes me as a self opinionated amateur armchair lawyer who has seized on the opportunity to spit out some bile, and gloat, because you have annoyed him/her somewhere along the line.
It would be interesting to do a reverse IP ‘lookup’ though. WordPress does log IP addresses, so I think I could probably locate the domain and the server it came from. We can have a chat about that again Jac.
‘Gwirionedd’, I neglected to address your Jacqui Thompson reference, which is relevant. The issue there was not what Jacqui might or might not have said, it was the fact that the chief executive of Carmarthenshire county council used public money to pursue what was alleged to be a personal libel. Public money.
Few have the writing skills to put it as succinctly poetic as that dafis! Excellent contribution that I cannot add to. As you rightly say, what is needed is even more shit in greater quantities to throw at the wall – some of it WILL stick – regardless of how many parasites they employ, or how hard those parasites try to hose it away.
Most, if not all, of the failings of government in Wales are traceable to the inability or disinclination of those with authority to exercise that authority in a disciplined and consistent manner. Thus it is no surprise that most things – big projects or stuff on a smaller scale – go “off the rails” because that absence of discipline is now well known.
Since 1999 there has been a steady growth of “chancers” in public sector and the financially dependent third sector, people who think it’s quite legit to write your own pay cheque if no one can be bothered to pull you up, and ” good form” to award contracts to old acquaintances regardless of merit. Those lacking “friends” can acquire some quickly by having responsibility for some major budgets which are guaranteed to draw an array of multinational service providers well equipped with the bullshit machines that can be deployed to justify decisions and outcomes. These multinationals are particularly good at organising lavish events in exotic locations to enable their clients to absorb the complexities of the new “services” that get rolled out from time to time.
Now all this nonsense can go ahead virtually unchallenged. Seldom has anyone been pulled up for serious breach, and you can’t expect a stream of disciplinary/criminal actions if nobody is scrutinising with a sense of purpose. Bit like that local authority that proudly announced that it had the cleanest paths in Wales as nobody had been prosecuted for littering and dog fouling that year. Later we heard that they didn’t employ anybody to enforce rules regarding littering and fouling !!
However the stuff that our Jac investigates is generally a lot more serious than a bit of dog shit here and there. He persists with probing into those dark corners, checking for cavalier breaches of statutory/ regulatory requirements, exposing flippant disregard for truth, waste of scarce public resources, contrived reasoning for sundry “initiatives” etc etc . Because of this dogged approach, the assorted deviants purporting to “run” this little country of ours feel threatened and have set loose the dogs of law.
Well, now is the time to bite back – gather every bit of dirt you can scrape together on anyone in “power” and marshall it into a “stockpile” of ammunition which can be the base of a countervailing power. These jokers think that they can whip people into line by instructing solicitors. Well, it can also be the action that sets off an equal and opposite reaction from the people. However it may not travel along the same fault line of dispute and may end up exposing other defects and flaws of those in positions of power. Who’s hands are in the till, who’s on the take, who’s fucking someone else’s missus while adopting a holier than thou stance, or worse still, who’s into drugs or kiddie fiddlin’ ? Believe me, I suspect when we add it all up it’s gonna be a big heap ! But that will be for them to worry about , let’s just start stock piling !
That’s almost poetic. Certainly inspiring. Diolch.
Freedom of Speech where would the bloggers be without it? Where would democracy be without it and Freedom of Expression? Plenty of people used these to express their feeling in their comments to your last blog and you gave them the opportunity to do so. Seems what has happened to you is along the lines of what took place against our local blogger carmarthenplanning.blogspot.co.uk . Basically our public servants & bodies wish to curtail our rights to both these freedoms for their own protection against accountability. The more the public know the better their decisions will be at voting time plus when people realise actions taken against themselves also happen to others it gives them the courage to stand up and protest. Public bodies have been having an easy time of it because few investigative journalists are being employed by our local media to investigate local issues so you bloggers are our only chance of gaining any information concerning wrongdoing which is not only kept under wraps from us, the public, but also to a large extent from our representatives. Good luck to you; I don’t always like your Nationalistic stance but you allow a discussion to take place ( our public bodies hate dissent of any kind and act against us with, as you say the public’s own money to silence it).
Very true indeed. I couldn’t agree more Jennifer. Through the ‘totalitarian tiptoe’ technique, the establishments are gradually, but surely, cutting down our freedoms. This is just a prelude to the introduction of the ‘thought police’ – an Orwellian vision that is unfolding in front of our eyes.
We already have the introduction of ‘political correctness’ – it’s only a small step further to shut everyone down so that everyone becomes an automated clone of the system. The biggest excuse for this at present is the ‘security’ of the citizens, that we should all realise is a licence to snoop and control. This is one of the reasons why I support the Brexit campaign, because Europe is just a step in the process of taking away individual identity and freedoms, on the way to a proposed World government which will in effect be a global police state, where you won’t even be allowed to think your own thoughts, much less express them. Refer to phrases like “new world order” (http://www.threeworldwars.com/new-world-order.htm)
We need the likes of Jac O’ The North & others to keep our society healthy in the face of this threat.
“In unity there is strength”. At the end of the day there are 7 BILLION people on this earth a tiny, tiny percentage of that population is behind this systematic world dominance agenda. Everyone who challenges that system makes it harder for them to succeed.
You are a precious resource in this fight Jac – don’t you dare falter! But remember to be “as cautious as a serpent” when dealing with this parasitic filth in grey suits.
Hi BG, I don’t see how leaving the EU will do anything worthwhile when it comes to protecting freedom of the individual. Britain has more CCTV cameras per capita than any other country – One for every thirty two people. Not content with current intrusive techniques, our Home Secretary is demanding more surveillance with her ‘Snooper’s Charter’. Fighting against the might of Government and Big Business has become more difficult due to British legislation and cuts in money available in Legal Aid. If you want to take you employer to Court, you have to stomp up £1,200 at the start just to get it onto a Tribunal.
Are you hoping that there’ll be less intrusion if we leave the EU because the Government will have a fall in revenue from tax as a result of a massive slump in the economy and therefore less money to spend on keeping us on a tight leash?
I think you’ve completely missed the point I was trying to make ‘daley’. I didn’t say that all would be hunky-dory by pulling out of Europe. What I was referring to was the reason FOR the European community in the first place. Did you actually read the material in the link I provided above? Here it is again for you:
http://www.threeworldwars.com/new-world-order.htm
Or have you just reacted by assuming that I was endorsing the surface arguments for leaving?
Your reaction is a classic myopic one, based on a narrow bandwidth of information you’ve been handed regarding what it’s all about. It’s what you’re spoon-fed via a controlled media. You need to see wood, not the immediate trees. Talk of employment tribunals, the effect on the economy one way or another, and all the other nonsense about immigration controls are all red herrings. By keeping you preoccupied with the trivia, they blind you to the bigger picture.
Pulling out of Europe through the will of the people will slow down the process – it’s not the final solution to stop this totalitarian tiptoeing towards a ‘New World Order’ where all borders and national boundaries will be done away with. Of course you’ll still have the erosion of freedom, more individual curtailment, CCTV cameras etc. even if the vote is to come out, BUT fragmenting Europe (which is a planned ‘region’ in the world order scheme of things) WILL hamper the bigger plot on a world-wide scale.
It is something you need to realise is happening, it has been orchestrated through two world wars and the eventual third world war which is just around the corner. The Zionist backed banking system are at the heart of it along with big global business & the genetically connected hierarchy, working with selected political leaders.
Wakey wakey! Smell the coffee folks . . . .
“New World Order” is like ley-lines, if the map is big enough and detailed enough and if you ignore those details that don’t fit you can join the dots and uncover your “New Age Psychic Phenomenon” or “New World Order”.
.
“New Age Psychic Phenomenon”?? Jeez – I think you’re the one smoking something suspicious. The term New World Order or NWO refers to the emergence of a totalitarian world government. If ou can’t see that looming up, then I guess you have a bad case of ‘conditioning’.
“The sheer magnitude and complex web of deceit surrounding the individuals and organizations involved in this conspiracy is mind boggling, even for the most astute among us. Most people react with disbelief and skepticism towards the topic, unaware that they have been conditioned (brainwashed) to react with skepticism by institutional and media influences.
Author and de-programmer Fritz Springmeier (The Top 13 Illuminati Bloodlines) says that most people have built in “slides” that short circuit the mind’s critical examination process when it comes to certain sensitive topics. “Slides”, Springmeier reports, is a CIA term for a conditioned type of response which dead ends a person’s thinking and terminates debate or examination of the topic at hand. For example, the mention of the word “conspiracy” often solicits a slide response with many people.
What most people believe to be “Public Opinion” is in reality carefully crafted and scripted propaganda designed to elicit a desired behavioral response from the public. Public opinion polls are really taken with the intent of gauging the public’s acceptance of the New World Order’s planned programs. A strong showing in the polls tells them that the programming is “taking”, while a poor showing tells the NWO manipulators that they have to recast or “tweak” the programming until the desired response is achieved.”
(Excerpt from http://www.threeworldwars.com/new-world-order.htm)
To Big Gee
Ley lines were my example of a “New Age Psychic Phenomenon” “New World Order “is an example of a conspiracy theory. What they have in common is a dependence on including evidence that fits and ignoring evidence that doesn’t fit. They both take a pseudoscientific approach to evaluating data.
The deceit, conditioning, media and other influence, tweaking policies using polls etc you mention are all real. However none of them individually or collectively needs a secret organisation or group orchestrating them for them to be put into effect.
And for conspiracy theorists because hard evidence for such a secret organisation or group can’t be found it just proves that there must be a conspiracy.
And as for Fritz Springmeier in addition to The Top 13 Illuminati Bloodlines” revelation he’s also convinced that there are slave colonies on Mars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feULKYRF7aY
Wow news to me.
The very term ‘Conspiracy THEORY’ & Conspiracy THEORISTS’ was cooked up by the CIA to discredit anyone who happened to venture near and found out a bit too much about their goings on – FACT.
By your obvious classical main stream reaction/ reply, it is apparent to me that you are suffering a bad case of ‘eye scale’ brought on by gullibility & submission to brainwashing. I fear you are an automaton – much loved by the establishment, and a product of their influence on the more weak minded amongst us who cannot think for themselves, but need others to control them. Sadly you are in a majority who are sleep walking like zombies into a pit. You really need to wake up to the reality and not the ‘system’ shit you’re being fed.
“The earliest appearance of “conspiracy theory’ [with the same meaning as today]in the OED goes as far back as 1909 to an article from the American Historical Review:
Amer. Hist. Rev. 14 836 The claim that Atchison was the originator of the repeal may be termed a recrudescence of the conspiracy theory first asserted by Colonel John A. Parker of Virginia in 1880. “
http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/nope_it_was_always_already_wrong
Now you might say the author is part of a conspiracy to conceal the CIA’s invention of the term “conspiracy theory” but a reference to a specific journal is given so it is possible for anyone to check page 836.
https://archive.org/stream/jstor-1837085/1837085_djvu.txt
Again you could say that the archive website is part of the conspiracy however there are other on line sources for the document and even if the CIA could control the content of every one we still have thousands of hard copies of the original journal in libraries across the world. I’m sure the Library at Aberystwyth will have a copy if anyone needs to check it.
I’ve spent about 20 minutes researching the above which is considerably more effort that typing ”FACT”.
I don’t believe that Fritz Springmeier’s 13 Illuminati Bloodlines theory is correct and I don’t believe that his theory that there are slave colonies on Mars is correct either. But then I‘m just a zombie sleep walking into a pit.
“But then I‘m just a zombie sleep walking into a pit.”
Both you and myriads more unfortunately. Blind AND brainwashed sadly.
Many thanks. Support for Brexit isn’t coming from people because they wish to see the collapse of the neoliberal capitalist system. Support is over immigration controls.
If Britain does quit the EU, expect a lot of unrest when the policies of Britain First, English Defence League and the BNP are not implemented and the collapse of the economy results in a massive fire sale. Purchasers of the fire sale items are the very people that you detest. Well done.
All I’m saying is what MY reasons are for wanting to leave Europe – based on what has been developing for an extremely long time across the globe – it goes back to pre WW1 times. I don’t particularly want to get involved in the localised myopic debates of the in or out groups. My concern is the purpose of having an undemocratic European Union in the first place.
The reason why there are ‘odd’ changes in politics – like the choosing of Donald Trump in the States, and possibly Bernie Saunders, or the new kids on the block in Europe – like Norbert Hofer in Austria, or even Jeremy Corbin in the UK is because the more alert people are slowly waking up to what is happening in the ‘establishment’ and how it is having a bad effect on them. In order to shake off this dictatorial control of the few rich & privileged over the many poor, they see anti establishment individuals as the solution to their problem. There is a very real conspiracy being played out that involves breaking the world up into regions or zones, under the control of a world government. Europe has already been established in Belgium, other regions include the Americas, Africa (including the Middle East) etc. These regions are being set-up with full military control on the ground. I, along with many others want to oppose that in any way we can. Maintaining a European block is what the powers in the shadows want. The drivel being played out as a pantomime is a side show, and marketed by the media. The big plot is something far more sinister.
“All I’m saying is what MY reasons are for wanting to leave Europe – based on what has been developing for an extremely long time across the globe – it goes back to pre WW1 times. I don’t particularly want to get involved in the localised myopic debates of the in or out groups. ”
If the UK leaves the EU Scotland will separate from the UK and stay in the EU. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK with a land border with another EU state so a scenario where NI stays in the EU is very possible.The Kingdom of Denmark only has one of it’s three constituent countries (Denmark proper) in the EU. Greenland and the Faroe Islands aren’t members. It looks like that in both Scotland and NI the stay vote will be near double the leave vote.
I want us to stay in the EU for various reasons so the following extra logic is convenient for me.
At the moment polls show England and Wales have the same split for stay/leave. A case of and evidence for “for Wales see England”. The more different the EU vote is between England and Wales and the more like Scotland and NI the better it is for Welsh nationalism. it provides evidence to the Welsh electorate that we’re not just central west Britain . For me that can only be a helpful thing for us in leaving the UK or whatever’s left of it.
The danger is of course that Scotland (and NI?) will exit the UK sooner or later leaving Wales stuck within Rump UK. Scotland will no more be inclined (or legitimately able) to assist Wales as this would be interfering in the affairs of a foreign country, in the same way that Éire won´t/can´t involve itself with internal UK devo.
That would leave all those rabid BritNats and Little Englanders free to vent their injured pride on Wales, probably be dismantling devolution and attempting to absorb in back into England. In a few decades you´d be just a bigger version of Cornwall. So please don´t say you haven´t been warned.
Disagree, Daley. Your post implies Brexiteers are mainly motivated by the issue of immigration. My experience is it’s a whole lot wider than this. Some of the support indeed touches on the points raised by Big Gee, in that numerous people have told me that they fear the increasing creep towards Europe becoming a superstate (under German dictat). There are also the concerns about a raft of other things – TTIP, Human Rights Act, the true economic cost of us being a Member, and lack of transparency and accountability of the EU being among them. Believe it or not some even see Brexit as a means of ensuring Scotland holds another “Leave UK” referendum earlier, leading to the break up of the Union – and why not? Yet another reason is the number of politicians and Lords all telling us what a good thing the EU is for us, and there is a natural healthy scepticism from the man in the street to accept anything these duplicitous buggers tell us.
Thanks Stan. You summed that up neatly.
While I don’t believe we are yet at the “reality” of NWO it is quite plausible to see that type of Order as being the endgame for a collective of global corporations and their allies in selected national governments. TTIP is a classic example of a devious attempt to undermine the policy choices made by individual states by enabling the corporates to engage in expensive legal actions against those states. T May’s current assault on personal privacy and confidentiality is just a continuing of the history of such attacks since the evolution of sophisticated electronic intrusion and the climate of fear brought on by AQ, and later ISIS.
As for immigration – consider the possibility that large numbers of low cost labour units are herded to where the work is i.e Western Europe. This serves the vested interests of global corporates as it is easier to control labour in this way than to take industry to remote often ungovernable locations and make a buck !
So us ordinary people have every right to feel a touch suspicious about anything uttered by the political classes and their partners in the media. We don’t support Farage, Gove Johnson and their kind but within the confines of this campaign we make common cause to just remove one fly from the ointment.
Clywch clywch Stan a dafis!
“As for immigration – consider the possibility that large numbers of low cost labour units are herded to where the work is i.e Western Europe. This serves the vested interests of global corporates as it is easier to control labour in this way than to take industry to remote often ungovernable locations and make a buck !”
Or
Have you considered that immigration to fill low wage jobs is because we as consumers and unwilling to pay what’s needed for locals to provide the goods and services we use.
If it’s a shitty job there are three options –
pay a local a lot of money.
give a local no option but to do it for minimum wage
pay a grateful immigrant to do it for minimum wage.
As consumers and voters we’ve chosen the third option.
Consumer choices more powerful than any Illuminati
and when did consumers determine wage rates ? The consumerist society helped do away with meaningful collective bargaining or anything else remotely connected to employee/ worker rights, but only indirectly as it was something easily seduced by “marketing talent”. Tilting the balance of the supply demand relationship in labour markets usually leads to reduction in real wages, and that’s what’s happened for last 10-15 years as the tempo was increased. I’m staggered that so many gullible people, even “left of centre” by their own jargon, are taken in by the corporatist smokescreen. Those bastards are only interested in profit wherever possible, in short, medium and long term but they are cunning/subtle enough to make a few sacrifices in the short term to condition markets for the long haul.
As for the Illuminati I make no mention of them, preferring to believe that they were an earlier invention of power crazy cabals, but their example is probably part of the background conditioning that drives today’s deviants to seek even greater power.
“and when did consumers determine wage rates ?”
They do it all the time 2 examples, 1 global the other local out of countless ones.
1. Fair Trade chocolate is more expensive than Unfair Trade chocolate – Sales of Fair trade chocolate are tiny compared with Unfair Trade sales.
2, Dairy farms across Wales are running at a loss because retailers will not pay a fair price to producers.
The reason is that to put it bluntly consumers are selfish and want more for less.
Greedy corporate bastards need greedy customers. We’re not constrained by corporations or governments or “marketing talent” the solution, (the choices we make). is in our hands but unfortunately we don’t want to solve the problem.
Oh dear, you just won’t have it that your “friends” in the corporate world are a scheming bunch. For instance our major retailers have just about tried every trick in the book to dragoon markets into the shape they want them. Then their friend Osborne brings in a “living wage” and they start hacking away at shift allowances, overtime prems and other terms and conditions to cut labour costs, yet their “leadership” enjoy 7 figure, yes 7 figure, packages. Now if all consumers were enjoying decent wages, say over £500 a week with little or no deductions, I could buy into your ideal but in their present predicament these people are being sweated for a lot less on crappy flexible or zero hours contracts. You can’t blame them for buying milk at £1 per 4pts ( or 2 litres ) and all the other “deals” that make them eat cheap factory fodder or imported crap.
Wake up, the threat is from these gangsters in large scale business and finance and it’s going to get a lot worse .
Hear, hear Jac! I could not agree more.
try the modern political mantra – “don’t let the truth interfere with a good scam !”.
Some may say that we missed our chance in early May but sadly all the options involved people who were wedded in varying degrees to that mantra and its underlying principles ( or lack of ! )
Good luck Jack 100% behind you.
I´m reminded of a lecturer who mentioned a certain line from the Gododdin, usually Englished as ¨Their high courage cost them their lives¨ which he said might better be interpreted as ¨They had more guts than sense¨!
Anyway good luck, you´ve certainly got more guts (and quite possibly sense?) than I would have 🙂