Since I started this blog in July 2008 I have, I’m glad to say, upset countless organisations, groups and individuals. This was the purpose of the blog – either to deal with those issues the ‘mainstream media’ ignored or to present a ‘fresh take’ on those issues. Inevitably, some of those I have upset have made their displeasure known to me. But for a few days following my previous post I was subjected to a barrage of abuse and smears that is unprecedented in the long and glorious history of Jac o’ the North.

My first response was to answer back, point out the errors in my attacker’s case. This was done through an exchange of e-mails. But as it went on I began to wonder if the woman I was dealing with didn’t have problems . . . perhaps the very same ‘problems’ she suggested I was suffering from. Despite friends and supporters suggesting I take legal action against her, or report her to the police, I decided to put an end to the matter by placing her on my blocked senders list and re-writing the previous post. But then I began to have second thoughts.

This re-think was partly prompted by the Labour Party’s links with my slanderer’s organisation, and whether Swansea council might not be considering ‘outsourcing’ to the Olive Trust; perhaps copying neighbouring Carmarthenshire, which has let services formerly run by the council (e.g. day centres) or help provided by reputable agencies supported by the council (e.g. Citizens’ Advice Bureaux) be taken over by bodies that have their own agendas and should never be trusted with these roles. In Carmarthenshire, the main beneficiary of this outsourcing is the Towy Evangelical Church. (Dealt with here by me, and extensively in these Carmarthenshire blogs Y Cneifiwr and Carmarthenshie Planning.)

Before considering the Labour Party connection, I shall entertain you with some of the insults and epithets hurled at me this week. On the right (click to enlarge) you will see her attacks on me in the ‘My Blog’ section of The Olive Trust website. (Though this has now been removed.) In it – for reasons I cannot fathom – I am referred to as “Mr David Dando”. (Which is nothing compared to some of the other names I am called.) I am suffering from “mental illness” . . . my details have been passed to “the relevant authorities” . . . I will soon be “sectioned under the mental health Act, 1983, 2007” . . . I wet myself in public . . . I was arrested in the belief that I was the “Scruffy Flasher” (who he?) . . . I am succumbing to Alzheimer’s.

Of course I do not suffer from any of these conditions, nor am I a flasher (and certainly not a scruff!). Yet on the website of an organisation supposedly committed to helping people with precisely these problems, this woman can blithely hurl these insults around. Thereby trivialising these conditions and, in so doing, ridiculing genuine sufferers. What sort of people are these? The chairman of The Olive Trust, by the way, is long-serving Swansea Labour councillor Alan Lloyd.

Our e-mail exchange contained so many insults and slanders that I don’t have the space to give them all. But the first e-mail received (left, click to enlarge) will give clues as to what followed. But in case you need convincing, in a later e-mail she wrote, “You have been registered as a racist and the incident as a hate crime. They were with me for a good while those very nice Welsh police and then left, telephoning me the next day to let me know what further investigation they are undertaking. Your details are being passed on as we speak.” Before hitting the heights with, “One more thing…just to remind you I am anything but fluffy…I fight for justice every second of every day. I never give up..and used to work alongside the south Wales police hence, the lack of humour. I trust everything about me is currently being removed. I am also working with a British intelligence officer on another case I pushed to the max…”

It was at this point I concluded that this woman has serious problems. Though there remains the possibility that she has made a complaint to the police and that the police will act on that complaint, or use it as a pretext. (After all, I have been annoying them recently with FoI requests.) It is this possibility that really annoys me. Plus the fact that, given the problems she has, why is no one looking after her? And why is a senior Labour Party figure mixed up with her and her strange friends? Is the Olive Trust receiving funding from the public purse?

The last two of those questions can be, partly, answered by information I dug up from the Welsh European Funding Office (WEFO) website. (See right, click to enlarge.) This shows that in 2010 the Olive Trust applied for £1,000,000 of European funding. (Nice round figure.) The project is vague in its objectives, planning to do work that was already being done by other bodies such as local councils, charities and similar. What really struck me was that the application made reference to helping Black and Ethnic Minority (BME) groups. For remember, the Olive Trust is based in Swansea – the home of Malik Malik Malik and Malik, the family then controlling the BME racket in Wales. So was this an attempt to muscle in, maybe even whack, Godfather Naz? Whatever, it does explain the incongruous presence among the Olive Trust’s holistic twinky-winkies of Old Labour’s Alan Lloyd. Obviously these wimmin had enough nous to know that if you want to get your hands on serious loot you need – like AWEMA – influence with the Labour Party. I cannot establish whether the application was successful, rejected, or is still under consideration. I’d be grateful if anyone could find out. (And it’s safe to assume that applications were made to other funders.)

The application summary supplied above is a gem of its kind, and worth reading. If you want to know where and how the EU funding has been wasted, and why Wales is poorer today than when we first qualified for Structural Funds, read this application. It’s framed in the kind of vacuous, button-pressing language one would use if seeking employment with the Cwmscwt Disabled Single Parent Black Lesbian Co-operative. It is so far removed from the real world, and the true needs of the asylum-seekers and refugees the Olive Trust claims it wants to help, as to fatally expose it for the self-indulgent and self-virtuous bullshit it is.

So, in addition to all I said previously about the Olive Trust and those involved with it (which I now unretract), I add the following. The Olive Trust is yet another bunch of English luvvies that has slipped over the border to help ‘oppressed minorities’ appreciate herbal tea, reiki and organic Peruvian willy-warmers. In reality, of course, they are simply trying to milk EU and other funding for pet projects that benefit no one but themselves. This should not surprise us, human nature being what it is. But that the Labour Party should be so supportive of these charlatans, at the expense of the Welsh people and the Welsh communities for whom this money was allocated, is unforgivable.

UPDATE 06.12.12: This link suggests Olive Trust involvement in Llanelli with the troubled Communities First scheme. After spending £300m on CF it is now agreed that this project has not really delivered. Just another expensive failure by the Welsh Government, partly due – as so often – to having given too much of the money to too many of the wrong people.