Friends old & new: Gavin ‘Wynnborn’ Woodhouse; James ‘Fforest’ Lynch; Shane Baker, ‘the bargain basement Baldrick of Nebo’ and Jonathan Duggan

It’s always nice to meet up with old friends, and here are updates on three characters I’ve written about before, though I suppose it’s stretching it a bit to call them friends. And it also gives me the opportunity to introduce a couple of new faces.

This trip down Memory Lane will take us from Cardigan to Caernarfon and from the Afan Valley up to the Conwy Valley. (But if you want to stop somewhere for a cup of tea and a Welsh cake, that’s OK with me.)

What they have in common is that they have come to live among us and milk the public purse invest in our lovely homeland. We shall meet grant-grabbers and outright crooks all adding to the woof and weave of contemporary Welsh life.

This is another big piece but you don’t have to be greedy because it’s broken up into three distinct parts topped and tailed with this introduction and the conclusion.

GAVIN ‘WYNNBORN’ WOODHOUSE

Gavin Lee Woodhouse first intruded into the collective Welsh consciousness when, through his company MBI Hotels Ltd, he bought Plas Glynllifon near Caernarfon and tried to re-brand it ‘Wynnborn’. (Plas Glynllifon has been spectacularly unlucky in its recent owners, with the latest being Paul and Rowena Williams. Though they might by now have sold out to Myles Cunliffe. Explained in Weep for Wales 11.)

I didn’t write about Woodhouse at the time, but my interest was aroused when I learnt that together with Bore Grylls he was planning a big development behind Port Talbot. I first wrote about it in English tourism in the colony of Wales in April 2017, and followed it up in July with Colonial investments.

As time went on I began to suspect that Woodhouse was being edged out of the project, or being asked to take a back seat, because the front man soon became Peter Moore, “the man who brought Center Parcs to the UK”.

Neuadd Caer Rhun, click to enlarge

Maybe it was realised that Woodhouse, with the ‘Wynnborn’ albatross around his neck, his ‘chequered’ business record, and his tendency to come across as a bit of a wide boy, might not be viewed as a suitable recipient of Welsh public funding.

But you can’t keep him down. Soon after walking away from ‘Wynnborn’ Woodhouse bought Caer Rhun Hall early in 2016. And he was rewarded last year with a £500,000 wodge from the ‘Welsh Government’. Though a number of people are asking how this was justified, seeing as Woodhouse doesn’t own the hotel in the conventional sense. Let me explain.

Instead of the hotel letting the rooms to short-stay guests the rooms are sold to investors. Here’s a promo from Select Portfolio, and here’s a notice from Thomas Investments of Chester telling us that the rooms are sold out.

This business model was looked at by West Wales News Review in October 2017, for Woodhouse – through a worryingly large portfolio of companies – owns a number of hotels in Wales from Tenby to Llandudno.

Talking of his portfolio, according to Companies House Woodhouse has been involved with 47 different companies, of which 45 are current; while Company Check tells us he’s held 77 directorships altogether.

Either way, I believe that no one starts and closes so many companies in just seven years unless it’s done to confuse people, and to hamper investigation.

Company Check summary. Click to enlarge

In order to maximise his profits Woodhouse also wants to put overpriced sheds in the Caer Rhun gardens and call them ‘villas’. Though locals can’t understand why these nine ‘villas’ are being advertised for sale – they may even have been sold ‘off plan’ – when planning permission was refused on the 11th of January.

And yet, due to the plethora of companies it’s difficult to know which company is involved in which project. To avoid too much confusion let’s just stick with Caer Rhun.

The Daily Post article tells us the hotel was bought by Northern Powerhouse Developments Ltd in 2016. Here’s the Companies House entry. And here’s the entry for Northern Powerhouse Developments Adventure Resorts Ltd, and Northern Powerhouse Developments Adventure Resorts Management Ltd, and Northern Powerhouse Developments (Holdings) Ltd, and Northern Powerhouse Developments Hotels Ltd, and Northern Powerhouse Developments Marketing Ltd.

But if we go to this page for Caer Rhun Hall we see it linked with ‘Whisper Hotels’. There is a website for Whisper, but nothing registered with Companies House, so presumably it’s a marketing name, in which case I would expect the website to give the name of the controlling company. Of course it doesn’t.

Maybe Caer Rhun is owned by Woodhouse’s Giant Hospitality Ltd (formerly MBI Hotels Ltd). A company with net liabilities of £265,135 and Woodhouse as sole director. I make this suggestion because until last month Giant Hospitality was based at Caer Rhun before moving to West Yorkshire.

Another point of interest is Woodhouse’s funding. For the many charges against his companies are not with banks that you would recognise . . . or come to that, with any bank.

Woodhouse’s money comes from interesting sources like Fiduciam Nominees Ltd, Assetz Capital Trust Company Ltd and Mysing Capital Ltd.

Fiduciam Nominees of London seems to have little in the way of money, but has 516,000 issued shares, while on its Companies House entry its business is described as “financial intermediation“. Its directors are French, Dutch, Belgian and New Zealand. So your guess is as good as mine as to where the money really comes from.

Turning to Manchester-based Assetz Capital Trust Company Ltd, the latest (unaudited) financial statement declares no assets whatsoever. But as I say, it’s a trust, one of the shadiest of all financial vehicles.

click to enlarge

Unusually, perhaps, Mysing Capital Ltd appears to be a thing of substance. It’s one of a stable of companies using the Mysing name based in Woodhouse’s home patch of West Yorkshire. The latest accounts give total net assets of almost £1.5m . . . that is if you believe ‘unaudited abridged accounts’, the kind of ‘You can trust us, Guv’ submissions favoured by so many of those we meet on this blog.

Gavin Lee Woodhouse is a spiv, a man prepared to cut corners; he’s borrowing money from companies that are nothing more than middle men for ‘investors’ – yet the ‘Welsh Government’ is more than happy to fund this man!

JAMES ‘FFOREST’ LYNCH

Now let’s go back a little further, to July 2015, and Cardigan Castle – Ready to Fall? This was the first in a series of articles on the £12m renovation of the castle, a project that failed to enthuse many locals, who felt that its significance in Welsh history was being downplayed in order to promote the castle as a conference centre, wedding venue, and glorified B & B.

It was further suspected that the wrong direction had been taken due to the project being controlled by four women who seemed impervious to criticism and deaf to advice. These were dealt with in Gang of Four + One. The leader of the group was unquestionably local matriarch Jann Tucker of Aberporth.

Tangentially I mentioned James Lynch, who is married to Tucker’s daughter, Siân. Satisfied that he had no part in what was happening at the castle I took him off the hook and let him swim away. But now people tell me that he has become something of a predator himself in the pond that is Aberteifi.

James Lynch with Lord Elis Thomas. Click to enlarge

For Lynch seems to be branching out hither and yon, being photographed in the company of peers of the realm, which means we can guarantee that grants will follow. These will be in addition to the considerable amounts of lucre he’s already received from our wonderful ‘Welsh Government’.

And in this recent spurt of expansionism Oor Jimmie has pissed off a great number of people. (Did I not mention that Lynch is one of our northern cousins?)

Before dealing with his current and proposed ventures – and almost as many companies as ‘Wynnborn’ Woodhouse – let us consider James Lynch’s business background. I warn you, this gets complicated; but as ever, Jac has tried to make things clearer. For I have drawn up a document listing all of Lynch’s companies . . . or at least, all those I can find.

Now I’d better explain the document so that you can make sense of it. It’s here in pdf format. Maybe it would be best for you to open it in another window for easy reference.

You’ll see that there are seven column headings. Most are self-explanatory, ‘Inc’d’ means Incorporated; that is, the date the company was formed. Each company name forms a link, click to open an entry with Companies House or Company Check.

The final column, ‘Financial Health’, also contains a number of links, usually where there are outstanding charges. Where you read ‘N/A’, this refers to companies that Lynch left before they went tits up, or they may still be trading. So neither blame nor credit can be apportioned.

You will also see that some entries are shaded in yellow and others in violet, so let me explain this shading.

I assume that Lynch met Ms Tucker when both were in London, where they married and begat four sons. While there Lynch joined a number of companies where the common denominator seems to have been Ellis Elias, who I originally assumed to be Welsh. But on noticing a mention of Golders Green and a loan from an Israeli bank, I now believe that Elias is Jewish. The companies run by Elias, and an assortment of others, are shaded in yellow. Lynch’s involvement with them seems to have ended in 2003.

The companies that are unshaded – or in white – are usually Lynch companies. As are those in violet, but with this important distinction. The companies in violet have all received loans / debentures from Finance Wales. (Finance Wales has been renamed Development Bank of Wales.) In fact, in some cases it could be this funding that is keeping the companies afloat. These loans / debentures were all signed off by Val Thomas and all delivered on 2 April 2015.

Take the ‘Welsh Government’s Finance Wales out of the equation and Jimmy’s business record is anything but inspiring. Most of his non-FW companies – those unshaded – are dissolved, some with outstanding debts.

Or else, as you see under the ‘Financial Health’ column, the situation is ‘Unknown’, because I can find nothing on the Companies House website and I’m not prepared to pay Company Check for documents that may reveal little.

Then look at the four ‘Loft’ companies Incorporated 26.05.1999 – how do we explain that? Is he trying to confuse people, just like Woodhouse?

Another company that caught my eye was Beachbay Ltd. What I find odd is that Jimbo already had a number of charges against this venture before Finance Wales got involved. What’s more, we’re dealing with a property in London, which Lynch was presumably buying through those mortgages and loans.

click to enlarge

My view is that Finance Wales should have rejected any application from Beachbay Ltd, a London-based company operating property in London. And even though the office address has now – belatedly – moved to Cardigan the business is still in London.

I’m sure someone will make an enquiry about this. It might even be me! (Done!)

But how do we explain Finance Wales’s generosity? Well, it occurs to me that in controlling the regeneration of the castle Jann Tucker would have made many useful contacts in Cardiff. And so I suspect she helped facilitate the largesse bestowed on James Lynch, especially as her daughter is a director of most of the companies involved.

But what’s Jimmie been up to of late? Well we saw the photograph above of him with a veteran revolutionary who’s been valiantly fighting the system from within for nigh on fifty years. And to his credit, El Dafydd has taken the fight into the enemy citadel, where many close their eyes to avoid witnessing the carnage.

(Though nowadays he seems to be little more than Kenny Skates’ gofer.)

That photograph suggests tourism. But rather than re-purposing the places of worship mentioned in that article I linked to, and this one, the issue causing concern for a number of people in the Cardigan area is glamping. For Jimmie wants to erect glamping pods . . . in fact, he has already put up some without planning permission.

click to enlarge

Though the situation now appears to have been ‘regularised’, with permission granted, but with a number of conditions. Planning enforcement officers are still investigating the ones put up without permission!

In the piece I linked to from December you’ll read “Mr Lynch said he now employed around 50 people, most of them local young people”. While in the headline you saw the name ‘Pizzatipi’, so let’s pull these threads together and see what we get.

Pizzatipi is a pretentious fast food joint and bar by the Teifi in the middle of the town run by Lynch’s sons . . . though it’s closed until Easter (suggesting locals don’t use it). Maybe somebody should have asked Lynch how many “local young people” are employed now, in December and January.

click to enlarge

For of course Lynch is a tourism operator, and he may indeed provide dozens of jobs for young people . . . in the summer. Some of these youngsters will be local, others will be on a working holiday. Few will be paid above the minimum wage.

The word on the street is that Lynch has now bought the local mart grounds. He has no interest in livestock so speculation is rife as to his plans for the site. There is also speculation about where he’s getting the money from.

Whatever the exact source I suspect it will have ‘Welsh Government’ stamped on it.

A suspicion heightened by this truly ludicrous Visit Wales publication that has Lynch listed among “Heroic trailblazers: real-life legends of Wales”. In truth, he is a man with a mountain of debts, a trail of failed companies . . . but an influential mother-in-law.

We are entitled to ask the ‘Welsh Government’ why it is putting so much of our money into Lynch’s companies, and the companies of others like him, to build up property portfolios for themselves, but to create only low wage, no skill, seasonal jobs.

Does anyone seriously believe that ventures like Pizzatipi (closed ’til Easter), glamping, and all the other nonsense we’ve looked at will give us a healthy, balanced economy that can provide well-paid jobs for our people, allowing them to remain in their communities and compete in their local property markets?

As ever, answers on a post card, please.

UPDATE 30.01.2019: I am indebted to a source for drawing to my attention to yet another of James Lynch’s projects, this one is on the Cardigan quayside. It involves, “Refurbishment, extension and change of use of warehouse, to include mixed-use development comprising of events space (sui generis), enterprise zones providing mixed use at ground floor and hostel and spa treatment room at first floor (sui generis).”

All details may be obtained by visiting the council planning portal, and then scrolling down. In addition to just about everyone within earshot of the proposed ‘events space’ the town council is also objecting, and even Natural Resources Wales has “significant concerns”.

It seems Jimbo is trying to branch out in all directions at once. Maybe the word I’m looking for is ‘overreach’.

UPDATE 31.01.2019: Here’s a reminder from 2017 of how Lynch and too many others operate:

  1. Decide on a plan.
  2. Go through the motions of the planning process.
  3. Irrespective of how that works out push on with your plan.
  4. If planning permission refused, insist on retrospective permission.
  5. Count on council caving in on the grounds of being unable to justify spending public money in pursuing a legal case against you.
  6. You get what you want.

The only way to ensure that Lynch and others can’t get away with it is to make a few, well-publicised examples of pulling down anything put up without authorisation – and making the guilty party pay.

The message would soon sink in.

SHANE BAKER, ‘THE BARGAIN BASEMENT BALDRICK OF NEBO’ AND HIS FRIEND JONATHAN JAMES DUGGAN

We first encountered James Lynch in 2015 and Gavin Woodhouse in 2017, now we’re going to catch up with someone we met much more recently. I’m referring to Shane Baker, who topped the bill in Miscellany 25.11.2018. The first time he’s topped the bill since his gig at Twerton Liberal Club. (You missed it!)

Shane describes himself as a film extra and his social media output makes it clear that he sits on the political far right, where the sun always shines and the favourite mobile ring tone is God Save the Queen.

Shane Baker’s Facebook page, click to enlarge

It would be easy to laugh at Shane Baker, Tommy Robinson’s rocking acolyte, but he mixes with people who treat others with contempt, break the law without a second thought, and flout planning regulations with impunity.

How they met up remains a mystery but Baker seems to act as general fixer for Jonathan James Duggan, formerly of West Yorkshire. In fact, so close are they, that I hear Duggan sometimes uses Baker’s name. Why would he do that, boys and girls?

Perhaps because he’s a crook, and the son of a crook. For Jonathan James Duggan (aka Ripley) is the son of John/Jonathan Joseph Duggan. Duggan père was sent down in 2005 for six years, and described in this report as a “professional fraudster”.

Duggan senior made the news last year when he was arrested in Benllech, taken back to Yorkshire and banged up again.

After his father was imprisoned in 2005 young Duggan took over the family business of ordering goods, selling them off, not paying the original supplier, then liquidating the company involved.

By now, the Huddersfield area in which the Duggans had operated must have become unwelcoming because by 2012 or 2013 we find Duggan junior in Nebo. At Bryn Llys, an unprepossessing property . . . for which there were soon big plans.

These can be seen below. As might be expected, Duggan had no intention of keeping to the planning application that had been approved.

The new property that has been built is now advertised as Snowdon Summit View. When there are guests Duggan moves his wife Emma and seven children into a nearby shed . . . and I mean, shed, with no windows. I’m told the local fire service came to inspect it – and did no more than install fire alarms for free!

I’m also told that Duggan’s wife uses a number of names other than Duggan.

Fire alarms were not all Duggan got for free. For I’m also told that Nest Cymru installed 35 radiators and a biomass system in the new house. Though someone else tells me there’s an issue with water pressure that means the advertised baths and laundry facilities are very much luck of the draw.

Though it’s worth pointing out that Duggan doesn’t actually own Bryn Llys. It’s owned by an Andrew Battye of Huddersfield, a business partner of the Duggans. Not only that, but Battye also owns the land bought to increase the curtilage of Bryn Llys. In fact, according to Company Check, Battye himself is based at ‘Unit 1, Bryn Llys, Caernarfon, LL54 6EH’. Does the council know about this?

Whoever owns Bryn Llys we can be reasonably sure that it was bought, the curtilage doubled, and the house trebled in size, with money from criminal activities. Which might explain the police raid last April. This occurred not long after Duggan declared himself bankrupt 

To take you further in this story it’s best that you have an idea of the lie of the land. So I’ve put together a few maps that will help you locate Bryn Llys.

The map at the top shows the location of the village of Nebo, which is just off the A487 running from Porthmadog to Caernarfon. The map in the centre shows the village and the narrow roads running to and from it, with Bryn Llys the scorched earth in the centre. At the bottom you see a close-up of Bryn Llys.

It didn’t always look like this. But Duggan has cleared away hedges, walls and other features to leave a wasteland with – I’m told – topsoil buried under hardcore! Why would he do this?

Possibly because Duggan plans a large tourist attraction for Bryn Llys, with holiday accommodation. But as you can see on the map, there is only a narrow track from his property to Ffordd Cors y Llyn, the single-track road running into Nebo (and a dead-end in the other direction). This need for a wider access road explains why he has tried to steal land from neighbours, or to intimidate them into selling land.

This campaign involves threats, forged documents, claiming land that is not his, felling trees and knocking down walls. All because a great deal of money has been spent on a property that is very unlikely to receive planning permission for the kind of project Duggan has in mind, even from Gwynedd’s supine planning department.

There’s a lot more I could have written, but this is enough for now. As yet, I don’t think Jonathan James Duggan has received funding from the ‘Welsh Government’. But it’s only a matter of time.

Oh! before I forget, a mate of Duggan’s who is also interested in land outside of Nebo is Aaron Hill, who owns/owned the old courthouse in Caernarfon and who was – according to WalesOnline – victimised by “anti-English racists”. In reality, Cofis objected to him throwing his weight around.

The first reference I can find for Hill is this from October 2011, related to Plas Gwynfryn at Llanystumdwy, the home of Tory MP Ellis-Nanney. Hill is described as an “expert” on bringing derelict buildings back to life.

AARON HILL. Image Robert Parry-Jones, click to enlarge

In the same year he bought St David’s church in Picton Terrace, Carmarthen for £1 making lots of promises. This report from 2017 suggests his ‘expertise’ had deserted him for nothing was ever done to the building and Hill was off-loading it.

In July 2015 he formed a company called Capel Troedyrhiw Ltd, which had an address in Radyr, Cardiff before transferring to Caernarfon and folding. It never traded and was just a shell company.

I can’t find any other company that Hill has been associated with and so I wonder where his money comes from. All information gratefully received.

CONCLUSION

We have a ‘Welsh Government’ with no policy for rural areas beyond letting things happen; which means they have no alternative but to welcome and fund the kinds of spivs and crooks you’ve read about here – and then pretend it’s a ‘strategy’.

Because there is such a good welcome I suspect that much of what the ‘Welsh Government’ would have us believe is ‘investment’ is in fact money laundering. With tourism and the buying of hotels and isolated properties seen as an ideal conduit for dirty money.

This takes place to a backdrop of most locals unable to afford a home, and increasingly denied social housing by the practices of housing associations; and so they either leave or struggle on in communities becoming less familiar year on year. Ethnic cleansing the clever way.

Decent jobs are scarce and there is no investment in anything that will benefit Welsh people . . . yet there is unlimited funding for this invading horde of crooks and shysters who are clearly above the law and beyond any restraint.

I’m no longer sure that politics, or political change, will be enough to save Wales from the engineered extinction that is approaching. Maybe something else is needed.

♦ END ♦

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Dafis

Off topic this looks like yet another arena for the voices of reason in Merrie England

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/turning-point-uk-jacob-rees-mogg-conservative-right-wing-group-launch-tory-a8762351.html

Anything with JRM near it has to be viewed with suspicion.

Dafis

Universities are densely populated with intolerant freaks from all points of the political spectrum. However I cannot imagine JRM and his kind doing anything other than exploiting the divisions and the prejudicies that exist within these institutions. He and a number of others are out to enrich themselves and don’t give a shit about the damage visited upon the majority of ordinary folk. It’s not a Brexit thing by the way. Whether we are In or Out makes no difference, their trade is manipulation for personal gain. The man is a complete and utter fraud.

Dafis

Senior players at Ceredigion and Powys Councils now stating that a “growth deal” is needed to sustain any hope of creating worthwhile employment opportunities in the Mid Wales region. Such sentiment is admirable and I hope that they get on and secure funding.

However don’t go dishing out funds to any 3rd sector businesses ( sham entrepreneurs/ parasites) or tourism/hospitality/ leisure businesses where there is the slightest hint of involvement by any jokers from beyond Clawdd Offa. If an enterprising farmer from say Penuwch has a bright idea ( happens all the time !) then by all means put his idea and supporting plans through a grinding assessment and if it stands up to rigorous tests back him into medium/long term which is the acid test for viability.

There need to be more spinout businesses from those 2 universities instead of just spin. Given their location they should be buzzing with commercial activity attracting existing local ventures into partnerships and bridging the huge gap that exists between academia and the rest of the community.

Anonymous

Mr Duggan on the run i hear and wife arrested !He left Huddersfield with alot of debt and looks like he has had his karma!

Anonymous

He will come out smelling of roses he always does!

Dafis

Jac you tweeted yesterday about the case of Welsh language nurseries being told to teach English and attributed it to some bureaucratic slipup. Not so. As you know from your research into other aspects of policy at Y Cynulliad, the corrosive effects of senior civil servants shipped into Wales to deliver policies conceived in Whitehall is extensive. This is just another component of their multiple pincer movements aimed at snuffing out the language while maintaining a superficial commitment to “1 million by 2050”.

This works in tandem with the envisaged depopulation of large parts of rural Wales to enable cranks to indulge their re-wilding fantasies, the de-skilling of the population that chooses to reside in parts of Wales which are progressively taken over by corporate tourism hospitality and events providers, reducing native workers to low paid, seasonal status. Industry will diminish further as the deskilling makes the workforce unattractive to the newer generation of technology based businesses which will become more intensely focussed on Cardiff/South East ( Western Severnside ?) and N.E Wales ( Western Mersey/Dee?).

Major economic activities, in which Wales will become a global beacon of excellence ( Labour and Ms Woods favoured phrase, not mine) will be any kind of 3rd Sector money churning scam and anything that purports to be tourism or offering a “leisure experience” manned up by suitably grateful local labour.

And now they want the kids, even those who want to speak Welsh, to be immersed in English from an early age so they can take orders from and communicate with pleasure seeking Anglo bastards and their elite fellow travellers – A.M’s, Senior execs in 3rd sector organisations, and upper echelon public servants at the Bay and its branch offices.

Anyone still puzzled why I’m so angry, and that there are so many like me ?

Wynne

Totally agree Dafis and I am considering nominating you for the prestigious and coveted “rant of the year award”. !!

Dafis

Diolch Wynne. I’m glad you get my drift on these matters. Not much difference between genocide and aggressive assimilation – our identity goes down the tubes either way.

However we have vastly superior ranters on here so the most I could ever hope for is an invite to attend the awards ceremony, especially if there was some cwrw and cig eidon laid on !.

Al tom

Ti yn spot on Dafis! These Whitehall ba… imported into Wales have got one agenda and that is to make us as English as they are! And what do the werin do about it …nothing as usual!

Neil Singleton

You detract from your argument by using hate speech i.e. “Anglo bastards”. Some us Anglos agree with your opinions, but not the derogatory name calling.

Dafis

some Anglos are bastards, some bastards are Anglos and indeed the characteristic turns up in most other ethnic groups. Fact remains that most of the negative assimilation influences in Wales derive from Anglo origins or from those aspiring to be Anglos, so you need to get used to that fact otherwise you’ll just keep on shuffling through some kind of delusion.

Dafis

P.S Hate speech ? No just a response to the accumulation of abuse and scorn from the AngloBrit supremacist mob, endured for over 60 years personally and for a lot longer by this nation. To make matters worse the supremacist abuse has got worse over recent years. Poor old Anglos were denied by their own laws the right to slag off their traditional favoured racial stereotypes but for some peculiar reason pissing all over the Welsh, their language, culture and heritage is still fair game.

The phrase hate speech, like so many others has been stood on its head by a nation of hate perpetrators who at times can give the Nazis a run for their money. It’s kind of ironic when the supremacists resort to using it when the targets of their long term subjugation campaigns bite back.

Neil Singleton

In my experience, having lived in Wales for more than 40 years and (according to others) having been responsible for the creation of several thousand (real) jobs, I have found the majority of Welsh people proud, hardworking and gregarious. However, there appears to be an undercurrent amongst many born and bred Welsh non-Welsh speakers, that they are regarded by the more avid Nationalists as “not true Welsh, and even in some cases “traitors and Uncle Toms”, simply because they don’t speak the “language of heaven” nor are they in favour of an Independent Wales. If there ever is a referendum on independence for Wales, the only way a majority can be achieved is for people such as yourself to be a great deal more concilliatory towards non-Welsh speakers, and even then, to increase the chances of a YES vote, support may be required from some of the “Anglo supremacist mob” who have made Wales their home.

Dafis

Neil You know damn well that I am not having a dig at native non-Welsh speakers but at those people who have migrated here, mostly from England, who make no effort to adapt and integrate but instead complain that there is insufficient effort by natives to adapt to them ! Such people were seldom seen in the post WW2 period up to probably the late 60’s. Earlier migrants were people whose kids grew up in a Welsh environment even if the mums and dads struggled to learn. Also those parents did not rush out bleating about natives using their own language, which is about as low as you can get for childish supremacist intolerance. So tell me what’s changed ? Why was it easy for a person, probably less well educated, to buy a farm in West Wales and integrate
50 years ago, while today people of professional or graduate calibre don’t think its necessary and indeed think it’s bad form that natives don’t fall in with their way of thinking ?

As for Uncle Dai’s or whatever name we give them, they crop up among Welsh and non-Welsh speakers. That is often a high “dependency” condition, a servile tendency which is seen as weakness by those who choose to look down at us. Every colonial venture throughout history has such characteristics.

Gruff Williams

Once again, a superb job. Thanks

Dafis

Now now Jac, how can you expect people to read when they have their heads tucked up their arses, or someone else’s, most of the time. When their heads are out they spend most of the free time on mutual admiration sites where they massage each others’ egos and any other bits they can reach ! Such is their perverse orthodoxy and you are identified as an extreme deviant because you don’t conform and are outspoken in your rejection of these strange “norms” and priorities.

Anonymous

Duggan!! Again this name is linked to fraud
And this time not Weep for Wales ..

Red Flag

Andrew Battye? Quite an unusual surname that, Any relation to John Battye the Labour councillor in Oldham just over the hill in neighbouring Greater Manchester and no stranger to planning controversies himself over the years.

Red Flag

So the Dales are alive with Battye-boys?

Wynne

Very interesting post again Jac. It never ceases to amaze me how much research you manage to undertake in one week. Packaging it all together with all the relevant links must be very time consuming. The detail provided regarding James Lynch will be of interest to many in Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire. My own correspondence with Welsh Government has revealed that Development Bank of Wales [in administering public funds] is subject to the FOI Act and it may now be possible to follow up with various requests for copies of grant award letters / agreements to establish what grant conditions apply and how compliance with conditions is being monitored. From my experience the devil is normally in the detail. Your conclusion at end of post again is spot on. Time is running out to address these issues in Wales. Why is the local and national media in Wales not picking up and running with these issues after you have done all the hard work and pointed them in the right direction.

Dafis

DET is probably canvassing non exec director/advisor positions for his post 2021 phase. Likely to be out of Cynulliad but still a grand old Lord (!) and spivs,crims et al always like having a lord listed on the old headed paper. No wonder the old fucker is smiling

Dafis

While on a topic relating to milking the public purse and clusters of wide boys, chancers, spivs and downright criminals let me add to the reading material.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/27/revealed-the-mps-and-peers-receiving-millions-in-eu-farm-subsidies-cap

Lots of politicians of all colours and stances over Brexit engaging in extensive wringing of hands and mouthing gloomy platitudes. Yet a policy aimed at giving agriculture a degree of stability continues to line the coffers of the “great and good”.

Post Brexit the reform of “Aid” to the industry should be aimed at more closely aligning funds to outputs required to keep the nation fed with a secondary policy of “environmental/social goods” with some sort of cap to stop the stinking rich from becoming even more smelly. And no loot for scammers whose primary activity is re-wilding or similar nonsense unless it’s done with a strong local community basis.