LAWYERS
It’s been an interesting few months here at Jac o’ the North Towers, what with solicitors’ letters, getting mentioned in the London dailies, and generally pissing off those who so richly deserve it. So let’s recap.
The solicitors’ letters were, one to me, two to S C Cambria (which hosts my blog), and one to a third party who had suffered at the hands of Mill Bay Homes, the company on whose behalf the signatory of three of the letters, Ms Tracey Singlehurst-Ward of Hugh James Legal, was working.
The second letter received by S C Cambria was from Capital Law, and on a different matter. (A rotund and blustering ex-AM.) But four solicitors’ letters in the space of a week is some going. To get a better understanding of what occasioned this deluge I suggest you read and .
CIVIL SERVANTS
My initial suspicion was that the spivs running Pembrokeshire Housing and Mill Bay Homes had gone to Hugh James demanding that their reputations be desullied, but after thinking about it, I wondered whether it might not have been initiated by the ‘Welsh’ Government.
Because Hugh James does very well out the public purse, having received over twenty million pounds in the past five years. Significantly, £4.34m of that was in March this year from the Housing Supply Division. (And we can assume there have been further payments in the current financial year.)
Another reason for suspecting those working for the ‘Welsh’ Labour Government is that having dealt with them for a number of years I, and others, have reluctantly concluded that they’re a bit ‘slippery’. This is because those involved with funding Registered Social Landlords (housing associations) have a vested interest in pretending everything’s hunky-dory in order to protect themselves.
Just think about it – you’re a civil servant who gives Cwmscwt Housing Association £20m to build accommodation for anticipated Mongolian refugees, fleeing mad yak disease. The sons of Genghis Khan do not materialise (yaks have calmed down), which leaves Cwmscwt Housing Association in grievous danger of going belly-up and, more importantly, embarrassing you. To avoid this calamity, you either pour in more money in a desperate attempt to save Cwmscwt Housing Association or you have it quietly taken over by another RSL, with the details forever hidden from the public gaze.
Sometimes the attempts at obfuscation are just laughable, but again, it’s a case of doing anything to avoid having to say, ‘Oops, we made a mistake’. Here’s another recent example concerning the aforementioned spivs down in Pembrokeshire and the protection given by civil servants.
In our investigations into Mill Bay Homes we (i.e. Wynne Jones, A. E. and myself) soon realised that this outfit – an Industrial and Provident Society – had filed nothing after the accounts for y/e 31.03.2013. The FCA confirmed more than once that this was the case.
Yet an e-mail I received from Simon Fowler of the ‘Welsh’ Government on July 18th declared: “We have had sight of a confirmation from the FCA that Pembrokeshire Housing and Mill Bay Homes submitted all their regulatory returns by the given deadline.” Had we got it wrong? Should I give up blogging and go back to my former career as a bingo caller?
After a few days scouring local charity shops for my purple jacket and bow tie I was saved further traipsing when, on July 21st, Wynne Jones was told by Nazmul Ahmed of the FCA (‘Supervisions – Retail and Authorisations’) that the accounts for the two missing years (2014 and 2015) had finally been received by the FCA – on June 2nd. Remember the date.
I relayed this news to Simon Fowler, who responded thus: “We are satisfied that the evidence we have seen from the FCA corroborates Pembrokeshire Housing’s story. Pembrokeshire Housing have kindly allowed us to forward you a copy of the letter of apology received from the FCA.” Here’s the ‘evidence‘.
You’ll see that it merely tells us that Pembrokeshire Housing, the parent company of Mill Bay Homes, sent two e-mails on June 8th and 15th – because given the lateness of the returns it was desperate to see them shown on the public register as quickly as possible. But nothing changes the fact that the returns were not received until June 2nd. So the returns were eventually made, 19 months late, and 7 months late.
When I suggested to Mr Fowler that his ‘evidence’ exonerating Mill Bay Homes was nothing of the sort, he replied: “We now consider the matter of closed, and will not respond to any further queries regarding PHA’s submission to the FCA.” Which is par for the course. Catch them out in a lie, or prove them wrong, and one guaranteed response will be the shutters coming down.
And if you thought that was bad . . .
To understand how far civil servants will go to avoid admitting that they, or anyone funded by them, has made a mistake, or broken the rules, then the next example I’m going to give is almost unbelievable. Breathtaking in its contempt for us, the public.
There is a scheme running now called Help to Buy, it’s a UK scheme but known here as Help to Buy – Wales. During our investigations into Mill Bay Homes we learnt that Nick Garrod, a head honcho at MBH, had built a bespoke house for a very good friend of his named Adam Uka. Not only that, but Mr Uka also availed himself of Help to Buy. All here in the title document from the Land Registry.
So A.E. wrote to those administering the Help to Buy scheme pointing out that according to their website, under the Builder Registration tab and the secondary tab FAQs, it says that builders, or ‘Providers’ – in this case Mill Bay Homes and Nick Garrod – “cannot sell to friends and family”.
More questions were asked and a great deal of side-stepping, flim-flam and bullshit came from those entrusted with administering the Help to Buy scheme, but we were assured that no rules had been broken. Which was perplexing. Because the facts seemed indisputable. (And to top it all, Adam Uka had even grabbed a bit more land after the property was completed!)
So what do you think happened next, boys and girls? Did the ‘Welsh’ Government send down to Pembrokeshire a highly-trained team of finger-waggers and tut-tutters to tell naughty Mill Bay Homes they were breaking the rules?
No. What they did was change the rules to remove the reference to ‘friends’ and change it to something much vaguer. So that it now reads:
Isn’t it reassuring to know that hundreds of millions of pounds are poured every year into social housing, that this is overseen by our wonderful civil servants, and spent by bodies like Mill Bay Homes, using public funding to build bespoke, four-bedroom, detached homes for friends of the company’s bosses?
‘WELSH’ LABOUR
It would be wrong to think of ‘Welsh’ Labour as being just another political party, like the Conservatives, or Plaid Cymru, because it’s so much more than that.
Having run Wales for decades the Labour Party can reasonably be compared to the old Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It controls the funding and the patronage, it makes the political appointments, and then there’s Labour’s private army in the Third Sector, which provides the party with foot soldiers, mouthpieces and candidates, and into which deposed or disgraced politicians can be absorbed.
Labour being in control of the gravy train predictably attracts those who view the party as ‘the way to get on’. This explains why ‘Welsh’ Labour has always had its Brown Envelope Faction and its Troughing Tendency.
But just as with their counterparts in the old USSR these shysters can be relied on to unquestioningly toe the party line and mouth the slogans because they are not really interested in ideology or policies. It’s all about the gravy train. In fact, from the perspective of those running the show, the brown envelope brigade is less trouble than those who might actually believe in something.
Over the decades Labour has built up a formidable system of nepotism and patronage. And whereas that influence was in many ways restricted to areas or regions where the party was strong, devolution has given us national organisations over which Labour can exercise its baleful influence, and reach those areas previously protected by their rejection of Labour at the polling booth. Devolution, which promised so much, has merely served to strengthen Labour’s stranglehold on Welsh life and, paradoxically, this has been happening while Labour’s support among the electorate dwindled.
If you want to know why support for Labour is dwindling, then consider Swansea. The party there has been wracked by in-fighting and factionalism for years, it has attracted carpet-baggers and single-issue obsessives, to the point where it has almost become a world unto itself carrying on its feuds with neither regard nor concern for the city it is supposedly running. Here’s my most recent post on this shower, Swansea Labour: The Farce Continues.
The latest news is that the Clays, a Trotsyite couple, both councillors for the Llansamlet ward, he English, she Austrian, are stepping down ahead of next May’s council elections. The word is that he – possibly both – have been offered some position by Jeremy Corbyn. Bob Clay certainly seems to be running Momentum in the city. So who’s replacing them?
One is a young woman named Jordan Elizabeth Pugh (aka Jordan Elizabeth), who graduated from Swansea University this year in Social Work. I’m told she’s a single mother, 24-years-old, and originally from the Valleys. Whether she lives in the Llansamlet ward is not known, but even if she does, she can hardly know it well.
The other replacement is Mo Sykes, of whom I have written more than once. (Here, here and here.) Two years ago she left her job with the YMCA in rather mysterious circumstances. Many thought there’d be a court case, but apparently not. Sykes is from the Six Counties, and so she’s another with minimal knowledge of the city.
But that’s not the point, because Sykes and Pugh, ‘Len’ Summers in the Uplands, the student-councillors, the Clays and all the others are not there to serve Swansea – they’re there to keep Labour in power! But as Labour’s support evaporates, and the party gets more desperate, Labour’s representatives take on the appearance of a freak show.
As with similar regimes, ‘Welsh’ Labour must have control of the media, and in Wales this is just so easy.
UPDATE 06.10.2016: I am now informed that, following her appointment as a social worker in the city, Jordan Elizabeth Pugh will not be standing for the council next year. So Labour found her a job by another route.
‘OUR’ MEDIA
It goes without saying that the BBC, the state broadcaster, is a disseminator of all things British and – outside the sphere of sport – regards Welshness as a subordinate or regional identity. To understand how bad BBC Wales has become just think Jason ‘Jase’ Mohammad.
As for ITV, I can only repeat what I wrote in Wales Colony of England, last November: “ITV Wales continues to plod along, a curate’s egg of a channel ranging from the engaging Adrian Masters to reporters and newsreaders who look and sound as if they’d have trouble locating Aberystwyth if they were dropped on top of Constitution Hill”.
The immediate threat to S4C seems to have passed, but with the language’s heartlands being destroyed and no one defending them the language and S4C are doomed. A glorious colonialist irony at work here: those with access to the means of exposing and combating the destruction of the Welsh language are funded by the same power that directs the destruction.
In radio, for Radio Cymru read S4C. Radio Wales is Radio West Britain, which leaves only ‘local radio’, most of the output being about as local to Wales as it is to East Anglia.
If that’s not bad enough, then the print media is a true disaster area. We have just a few daily newspapers, most of them very local in their circulation. The biggest-selling Welsh-based newspaper is the South Wales Evening Post, covering the Swansea region. The others are the South Wales Echo (Cardiff and the central valleys), South Wales Argus (Newport and the Gwent valleys), the Wrecsam (or Chester) edition of the Leader, and the Daily Post, a morning ‘paper covering northern and central parts of the country.
The only newspaper available all over the country (if you can find it) is the Western Mail. Now I’ve said a lot about this rag down the years, I’ve referred to it as ‘The Wasting Mule’, ‘Llais y Sais’ (voice of the English). Much of my criticism has been almost good-natured but I now believe we’ve passed that stage, and the time has come to view it for the malevolent influence on Welsh life it really is.
There have been worrying incidents in recent years that have seen the Western Mail go out of its way to defend the Labour Party, or attack Labour’s critics (including me), and one of the worst incidents came to light very recently, and concerned that scion of a famous Labour House, Stephen Kinnock.
Following a tip-off from ‘Stan’, I wrote about it first in, Labour: The End is Nigh (scroll down to ‘The Kinnock Family and Friends’). Then the baton was passed to ‘Anon’ and ‘Stan’, who delighted us with chart-topping A Fairytale Princess and a Web of Golden PR, following it up with, Stephen Kinnock: Another Clear-cut Clarification.
The bottom line is that Stephen Kinnock was selected as the Labour candidate for Aberavon in March 2014 by 106 votes to 105 because he withheld the truth about his daughter’s private education at Atlantic College. By deliberately asking the wrong questions, Martin Shipton of Llais y Sais was complicit in that deception.
This trickery was almost certainly done to please those multi-pensioned socialists and party legends, Baron Kinnock of Bedwelly and Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead.
If ‘Welsh’ Labour can be compared to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union then the Western Mail is surely its Pravda.
HOW FAR DOES THE INFLUENCE SPREAD?
I’ll finish with another example of how vindictive ‘Welsh’ Labour can be . . . though this case throws up deeply concerning possibilities. I shall have to tread carefully.
Back in April I wrote about the intriguing case of Carolyn Harris, the Labour MP for Swansea East and her reported assault on Jenny Lee Clark, in November 2014. The case made the London dailies, here’s the Sun‘s account of the incident, here it is in the Telegraph, the Daily Mail, and, finally, Wales Online.
Note that the London ‘papers came out with the story on March 7. Unable to ignore it the Western Mail ran it a day later – but with a totally different slant. It is now less about an assault, or a hate crime, and more an allegation against the victim of the assault. And who wrote this piece – why! it’s Martin Shipton again.
Without I hope complicating this story too much, here’s the background. The (alleged) assault took place on 24 November 2014, when Clark and Harris were both working for the MP for Swansea East, Siân James. In May 2015 Harris succeeded James as MP. But the incident wasn’t reported to the police until 27 January 2016. The following day Lee was dismissed by Harris.
The police did not pursue the assault complaint because it was made outside the six-month time limit for common assault allegations. Or rather, no prosecution took place due to someone’s decision to class the incident as common assault. A more serious charge could have been laid and the six-month time limit would not have applied.
A charge of fraudulently increasing her salary then appeared against Jenny Lee Clarke. This offence is alleged to have been committed in August 2015, but no one heard of it until March 2016, when ITV phoned Carolyn Harris MP about the assault on Lee.
What is more worrying than Swansea Labour Party in-fighting is the possible role of the police. For example . . . Just after posting Swansea Labour: The Farce Continues, I e-mailed Jenny Lee Clarke to check on something.
Her reply, timed at 01:52 on July 24, said: “I’ve also still not had 1 phone call nor a visit from anyone remotely related to south wales police +their so called investigation against me. 6months +nothing.”
But then, in an another e-mail, timed at 17:55, she wrote: “How coincidental now I’ve just been contacted by Bethan Bartlett who is on her way 2 pick me up 4 questioning.” (Bethan Bartlett is a police officer.)
Jenny Lee Clarke was taken to Swansea Central police station, interrogated for an hour and, despite having gone voluntarily, was kept in the cells for five hours, getting home at 01:30 and is now on bail until September 19.
Which strikes me as a rather crude attempt at intimidating a middle-aged woman with little experience of dealing with the police, and none of being banged up. Or maybe the message was for somebody else.
It was obviously pure coincidence that Jenny Lee Clarke was whisked downtown after I had been in touch with her for the first time in months. I mean, no one’s reading my e-mails, are they?
Equally coincidental is the fact that I had just broken the news about Stephen Kinnock’s daughter being privately educated, forcing him to respond with his July 23 Statement in response to Jac o’ The North blog.
A coincidence, just like four solicitors’ letters arriving in a matter of days . . . none before, none since.
*
‘Welsh’ Labour corrupts everything it comes into contact with because it is a totalitarian party that must hang on to power at all costs. Power for its own sake, rather than exercising power for the public good.
Internally, Labour is a party held together – if that’s the right word! – by bullying and harassment, misogyny and anti-Semitism, nepotism and favouritism, plus all manner of corruption.
The price the party pays is in falling support at the ballot box and failing to recruit, or hold on to, decent representatives. The latest example came a few days ago in Cardiff, where councillor Gretta Marshall left “vicious” and “divided” Labour to join Plaid Cymru.
The price Wales pays is inefficiency and corruption resulting in deprivation. Money is squandered on white elephants by civil servants and Third Sector apparatchiks who are above the law, given free rein by ‘Welsh’ Labour politicians who are too busy engaging in feuds, or fighting each other on the greasy pole.
Thankfully, all is not doom and gloom. The Labour Party is splitting, and cannot survive in its present form. Before long, and for the first time in almost a century, we shall be able to breathe the clean air of a Wales no longer dominated by Labour.
Prepare for the fall-out!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ END ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Another little gem I came across concerning the Kinnock dynasty. The Kinnocks elder HAVE to promote the EU, praise and bolster its corrupt influence because under EU rules from “The Commission”, if they do not support all of the corrupt dealings in Brussels for life they lose their obscenely grotesque pensions. They don’t boast about that much do they? So much for ethics and principles?
Well just to add fuel to the fire. Having now pinned dear old C.”Teflon” Jones FM, his corierie of cronies including Bennett the Ombudsman into a corner as he hid behind Parliamentary Privilege when he called me a liar in Plenary at the Senedd in 2014. This is the response now that I hold all the documenatry proofs of the lies deceit and corruption:-
“Dear Mr Bayliss
Thank you for your email of 26 July addressed to the Rt. Hon. Carwyn Jones AM, First Minister of Wales, regarding your complaint with the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board. I have been asked to reply on this occasion.
I note this matter has been a cause of concern to you for a number of years and that your Assembly Member and Member of Parliament have written in on your behalf. In the replies to their letters it was explained that no Welsh Government Minister, or official, can intervene in an individual case or complaint. These matters must be dealt with by the medical providers responsible, which in your case is Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board.
You have been provided with the relevant advice and information in relation to the formal complaints process ‘Putting Things Right’, contact details for the health board and your local Community Health Council (CHC), and information and contact details for the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales.
Whilst I appreciate you remain unhappy with this situation, there is nothing else I or any Welsh Government official can add to this advice. Therefore, given the impasse we appear to have reached, we will not be corresponding with you about this matter any further. This means that any future correspondence we receive from you on this subject will not generate a response and will simply be noted for information.
Yours sincerely
Paul Haynes
Government Business Team”
A total abdication of responsibility by a weak and cowardly man and ministers.
regards
Ian
WARNING: Some recent comments on sexuality have gone a little too far. Any further references to an individual’s sexuality will need to be more delicately worded or risk not appearing.
Apologies Jac as I appear to have trod on some sensitivities among readers. I have no objection to anyone’s orientation or proclivities on most things but when they appear to be shifting in the direction of compulsion my overdeveloped awareness/sensitivity ( paranoia to those who dislike me ) cuts in. I think it’s only Mandy that’s provoked such a rabid response in a long time
Mea culpa too and likewise an apology. I echo Dafis’ comments above. Except in my case it’s not just Mandy but the Rhondda Gay ex-Anglican Clergy who also provokes a rabid response due to persistently overplaying the hand that his God dealt him. Live and let live I say, which is something Mr Bryant seems to have difficulty with.
Hilarious and depressing at the same time. But it isn’t just that Welsh Labour is running a corrupt, one-party state, which you have pinpointed. (Actually, it is more like a two-party state now, as Plaid share some of the power with them.) You also have to consider the possibility that the corporatist ‘big state’ policies which have been advocated by Labour since 1945 will all ultimately fail because they are structurally flawed. So you need to move away from conventional ‘left-wing’ thinking altogether. I am in Ukip now – which will be to many of your readers’ distaste, no doubt – but believe me, I started off as a leftie. Anyway, have a think about this, whilst continuing to unearth your journalistic nuggets.
Correct me if I’m wrong Gareth, but have you got the general impression that many of us are ‘lefties’ here?
I think the wording on Jac’s banner at the head of this blog somewhat gives the game away. Many of us, like him, including myself, are what is perceived as ‘right of centre’ nationalists. Although this right and left nonsense is an idiotic , fabricated reference anyway.
I would consider myself a Welsh nationalist with strong views on social justice, fairness and equality. I certainly don’t subscribe to the Labour philosophies held, or spouted by the PLP. I also despise the similar direction that Plaid have veered off to since the sixties. However I am also a great admirer of Fidel Castro, who I would classify as a patriotic nationalist and not a communist leaning ‘leftie’. These are the things that make a mockery of the pigeon holes that people insist on trying to squeeze us into.
I hate (the politics of) Owen Smith because he’s *not* a socialist. Not because he *is* one.
Ultimately he is also not a patriot. His indifference towards Wales should unite all nationalists against him.
Corbyn is perceived as more genuine and authentic, and is of course hated by the Smiths and Kinnocks of this world.
Again though, he does not reflect who actually runs the Labour party in Welsh towns and cities. He is also ignorant towards Wales.
¨Corbyn is perceived as more genuine and authentic, and is of course hated by the Smiths and Kinnocks of this world. Again though, he does not reflect who actually runs the Labour party in Welsh towns and cities. He is also ignorant towards Wales.¨
Not to mention Scotland :
https://weegingerdug.wordpress.com/2016/08/07/kezias-magic-cloak-of-invisibility/
So here´s hoping that ´Welsh´ ´Labour´ soon follow their northern branch into happy oblivion. I´ve no idea what can replace them but it can hardly be any worse … maybe pitchforks-n-flaming torches time is not far away?
Jason ‘Jase’ Mohammad has always banged on about being British, he’s obviously sucking up for a good boy gong from auld Buck House Liz.
It’s guaranteed.
As a fully paid up member of Mandy’s fanclub by the sound of it Dafis, did you read Guido’s latest story on him last week? He is well known on airlines for throwing hissy fits if someone else has happened to book his favourite seat which is 1A. I also read Mandy was giving Angela Eagle a lot of advice on her leadership campaign. Lot of good it did her then.
now I’m fed &watered I can return to the fray !
Message to Big Gee and other tech wizzos out there – Put up a picture of Slimy Oily Smith alongside one of Mandelson – note the similarities especially the shifty eyes, the tendency to purse lips as in permanent anticipation ( of a forbidden treat perhaps ) slicked back hair ( bit like a modernised Adolf ) and boring suit. I know that neither of them are very interesting but indulge me. There is no comparison with the Kinnock/Mussolini show, and Smith will revert to be a nobody soon and Mandy will climb back into his coffin cos the daylight plays hell with his circulation.
Here you go Dafis – two peas in a pod!
Another great spot, Dafis and again thanks to Big Gee for the pics, which are startling. They could be related. Mandelson is 62 and Oily 46 I believe so someone should check if Mandy holidayed in Morecambe the year before Oily was born there. Don’t rely on the fact that Mandy is now a declared Brown Coal Miner, because as a young man no doubt he’d have explored any type of shaft in the hope of finding the mother lode.
At the very least these two should be guests on Jeremy Kyle for the customary DNA test.
another Smith supporter – Mandelson – puts on his “Remain” suit and starts bleating about the Brexit result, slagging Corbyn for not pulling his weight. Poor Mandy can’t come to terms with a grim truth, the harsh reality that even the gullible Brit voter has had a guts full of the posturing of him and his kind. Corbyn could have worked 8 days a week for fuckin’ years and it might not have been enough to undo the damage that this nasty ass bandit and his closet friends have inflicted for years on the regions of the U.K and Wales in particular. He should buy a few new mirrors and see the real root causes of our predicament. But the man is a vanity horror show, narcissistic nancy boy who thinks he knows what’s good for the rest of us.
Now I’ve got that off my chest I can go and feed myself.
I think the two Tory MP’s in the twitter link, kindly provided by Myfanwy, were out fishing for eels and it looks like they caught a big slippery one!!
Great article on Orwellian Wales!
Dai Smith’s boy looks out of his depth in that company.
perhaps he was bait for the day !!!
I was thinking along those lines. (Geddit!)
I was thinking more like on the end of a big harpoon in deep water trawling for seriously hungry sharks.
Or simply trying to ¨worm¨ his way into favour? (Sorry!)
They’d forgotten their spinners so borrowed a Labour one.
Thank you for what you are doing Jac, it sounds like you are really getting under their skin, if they are sending you Solicitor letters. You are making many more people aware of the corrupt, dodgy system We live under!
Thought you might like this retweet
https://mobile.twitter.com/MorrisMorris837/status/762118517906935808/photo/1
Here you go Myfanwy – to save people having to go ‘off-site’ to view it, or miss it. I’ve posted it on here for you:
For anyone who may not be familiar with ‘Slimy’ Smith, he’s the champagne socialist ‘tiddler’ in the middle.
My observations of todays socialists is that they are all the meanest, most selfish pompous lot ever. The ones who never buy their rounds, pretend they are skint when they have a shed full of money, and of course socialism to them is spending/commandeering/and expropriating other peoples hard earned money, never theirs. These are the least generous bunch you could ever wish to come across. and It’s badly damaged Wales in so many ways.
Look at our Labour MPs., past and present, that we in Wales voted for , what a bunch.
.Juan de gales
I may have asked this before, but if we follow the Soviet analogy through, can we expect a total collapse of ´Welsh´ ´Labour´ before very much longer? And if so what is there to take it´s place; what credible party or movement exits to step into the breach? The danger being that until they see something they can trust, the public will simply ¨hold on tight to Nurse, for fear of meeting something worse¨.
There doesn’t necessarily need to be any credible party or movement to step into the breach. When time is up, then time is up. Obviously, the analogy with the Soviet Union can be stretched too far because we’ll still have London control, but if Labour collapses in Wales, and there’s no obvious or credible alternative then I know quite a few candidates to fill the Yeltsin role. Personal friends, some of them.
Just came across this piece which you may find interesting for the questions it raises :
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexitvote/2016/08/02/wales-already-impoverished-is-set-to-get-even-poorer/
Dr Dan Evans is obviously on a wavelength tuning into grim realities far better than those well paid “advisers” in Whitehall and down the Bay. Perhaps Jac could invite him to write a “special” for these columns.
Good idea dafis. What do you think Jac? He certainly makes interesting reading. Here’s his e-mail address:
evansd47@cardiff.ac.uk
Who knows? Maybe he quietly follows ‘jacothenorth’ anyway!
Labour in Wales is not a totalitarian government, though it might aspire to that “status”. In its present state it is more akin to a crew of gangsters who have acquired “rights” to the local turf but are still beholden to “someone above”. The antics of these assorted crooks, sharks, fraudsters, charlatans & some downright gangsters have been well documented in these columns for ages.
From 1999 to 2010, Labour in Wales talked of “clear red water” between Morgan’s Wales and Blair/Brown’s UK -England uber reich ….. more like an occasional cup of cold piss squeezed out of a corpse . The boys in Cardiff would bend over any way called upon to please their London masters.
Since 2010 they have had, on the face of it, an opportunity to plan and execute a broad strategy that would clearly differentiate them from the Anglo Brit Tory UK regime. As you all know they have failed, worse, they ain’t even tried ! Odd snippets of confrontational gibberish such as “my NHS is better than yours….” don’t cut it, as the truth is amply evident. Welsh Labour is running the Welsh regional branch franchise under the direction of the London based Cosa Toria ( or is that Cosa Theresa ? ) .
So totalitarian it ain’t, just a failed state model now abused to feather the nests of selected vultures while the rest of us are left to pick up the bill and wonder what might have been.
I think we’re a little at cross purposes here Dafis. The ‘totalitarian’ reference made by Max, and commented on by Jac & myself is I believe to the ‘totalitarian’ establishment cogs, i.e. the civil servants and other officials. Not the Labour party in Wales. In fact ALL the parties we see (when they are in power) are the public face masks of the establishment, they are just that – a ‘mask’. We all think they run the show, but in reality they don’t, the real manipulation and guidance is in the hands of the unelected faceless ones that we never see.
They even single out individual politicians that they may think are ‘boat rockers’ and then conspire their demise. That was perfectly demonstrated in the Tony Benn era, when they conspired to get him out of the way. When you have a minute look at this documentary presented by Huw Edwards on Tony benn,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXpe7P8jKdk
In there you’ll find how he discovered that he was being given a different brief on certain subjects from what others in his own governing party were getting – a devious and underhanded attempt by the ‘officials’ to undermine him. He only found out about it when he got accidentally sent a brief that was meant for someone else in his party on the same subject.
Amazingly the same is happening today, as his prodigy is being given the same treatment at Westminster in 2016.
In the ‘Bay’ we, the public, are fooled into thinking that the politicians there have freedom to manoeuvrer policies for devolved portfolios that effect us in Cymru. The reality is that the civil servants in Cardiff take their orders from their colleagues in Westminster and act accordingly.
As for the things Labour politicians both major & minor (like councillors) get involved in and get away with is just personal compensation for being ‘good puppets’.
Further to Gretta Marshall, another female Labour activist, Siobhan Corria, also recently left to join Plaid for similar reasons.
Yes Max – you’ve focused in on exactly what the main (hidden) problem is in the larger picture – totalitarianism. Not just at state level, but at a global level.
Global totalitarianism percolates down to state level and eventually it’s tentacles reach down to the very lower levels of government – councils. The pattern is the same. See the way ‘officials’ dictate the way councillors make decisions, then you can follow it up to the Assembly, Westminster, Europe, UN & finally the enforcer – NATO – it’s a symptom of a disease that is festering globally.
Politicians take advantage of this through cronyism, ‘troughing’, fraudulent practices and favouritism. It’s more highlighted (or more blatant) in Labour ranks in Cymru, but apparent across the board. It is their reward for allowing those guys in dark suits to dictate the agenda, in little back-room offices across the land, that are hidden from public view or scrutiny and certainly not accountable to anyone through the ballot box. They have the cheek to call it democracy!
The example of the Freemasonary declaration directive, mentioned by Jac, being torpedoed by Rod Richards of all people speaks volumes about who controls what and by whom. It’s not who we are led to believe it is.
The totalitarian state is bigger and more insidious than the Labour Party. It’s the former Jac is encountering here, though of course in the service of self-seeking ‘Labour’ place-men. Rhodri Morgan tried to get rid of the WDA, – may have stopped officials’ high-life at public expense, but the same spending plans continued with even less transparency. Think of the ‘aerospace’ industry with a large military component, continued by Ieuan Wyn Jones. Think of their reversing Labour’s opposition (Rhodri and Jane Davidson) to nuclear power plants and nuclear waste in Wales. Think of their reversing the Labour government rejection of the new M4 plans. Think of the several hospital scandals in England, revealed by whistle-blowers and inquiries, yet all calls for inquiries into Welsh hospitals are refused – even the well-meaning Mark Drakeford was pressurised by officials to refuse any. I remember when Rhodri Morgan came in, he promised the Assembly would be (fully) open, better on Freedom of Information than England. It’s not – it’s worse, because of the way the officials have framed the rules and the huge exceptions on business confidentiality (including Councils as ‘businesses!). Clearly, the totalitarian state is bigger than Labour.
I agree it’s bigger than Labour, many times I have criticised the civil servants who ‘advise’ the ‘Welsh’ Government but are answerable to London. One example I focused on relentlessly was the role of the Planning Inspectorate in forcing LDPs on Welsh local authorities and the pretence that it was an independent, Welsh Planning Inspectorate. Planning Inspectors operating in Wales answer to the Department for Communities and Local Government in London.
Even so, the fact remains that Labour is represented at governmental level, both nationally and locally, throughout the Third Sector, and in other spheres such as academe, by self-serving bastards dependent on Labour remaining the controlling party in Wales. Plaid Cymru has assisted Labour well at times, and used the system to their own advantage, and I’ve condemned them for it many times.
By the way, something else Rhodri Morgan promised us in his reign of ‘openness’ was that all AMs would have to declare if they were Freemasons. This was opposed and eventually defeated by a campaign led or fronted by Rod Richards. Rod fucking Richards!
That’s brightened up my morning Big Gee. The irony that Labour has now possessed “Gay” and homosexuality in general isn’t lost on me. I’ve never seen an organisation with so many “subsets”. Ethnic minorities – there’s a group (BAME), lesbian gay bisexual and transexual – there’s a group (LGBT) , Young Labour, Labour Students, Labour Women, Disability Labour, Welsh Labour, Scottish Labour. The bastards have cornered the market in minorities. How democratic is that? I haven’t spotted Christian Labour because that wouldn’t be PC, more so because then there’d have to be a Muslim Labour and just think of the fallout from that.
Excellent post again Jac. With regard to the Pembrokeshire Housing Group correspondence with the Council and other regulators is continuing with particular reference to Mill Bay Homes development sites at Pentlepoir, Crundale and Cilgerran. You will be kept informed of any interesting development in that on-going correspondence. Thanks again. Keep up the good work.
“It would be wrong to think of ‘Welsh’ Labour as being just another political party, like the Conservatives, or Plaid Cymru, because it’s so much more than that”.
Bang on, Jac, and good to see you’ve lost none of that cutting edge in your recent sabbatical. Not that it’s been a very long one.
I’ve been listening to that odious Poison Dwarf who masquerades as a man of the people in his Labour leadership bid. And he epitomises the criticisms and assessment you make of Labour, particularly Welsh Labour. He talks of things like the NHS, education, workers’ rights, gender equality, anti-racism and such, and actually thinks these institutions and concepts are owned by the Labour Party. I listen to him and I think – am I thick or is he barking mad? In the Cardiff leadership hustings on 4 August he was banging on about UKIP actually having seats in the Assembly as if the electorate had entered some kind of Faustian pact. Now I have no more love for UKIP than I do for Oily and his Party but the sheer arrogance of the man, which is throughout his Party (at least his faction of it), to think that they have some sort of first call every time on the electorate’s vote here in Wales. And they call themselves democratic socialists.
You’ve identified the problem and it’s because we’ve effectively been a one Party state here in Wales for way too long. It’s the old adage of all power corrupts etc. But I honestly think that vice-like grip they have on government, town halls and other institutions in Wales is weakening by the day. Next year’s council elections will be the most interesting for many a year, particularly with some of the mainstream Parties in such disarray at the moment.
Indeed Stan – they have a habit of adopting things, possessing them as if they have the sole right to them and then corrupting them so that the very mention of the original word conjurers up the wrong image in everyone’s mind.
I’m not afraid to admit that I think original ‘socialist’ policies are fair, just and righteous, who wouldn’t? After all anyone who is fair minded, wants a just and equal society and wishes justice for all – it’s a fine thing. But wait, I can’t say that, why? Because the ‘Labour’ party has hijacked the rights to the word ‘socialist’ it now means something totally different. Consequently, nationalists like me, with a social conscience and an urge for fairness and justice are totally put off the thought of being socialists. On the other hand, those damned ‘Triban Coch’ types have in turn hijacked Plaid Cymru, calling themselves socialist nationalists and their party is a ‘socialist’ party, a mirror reflection of the disgusting modern Labour party. It makes me want to scream. In my days in Plaid the party was naturally split. You had those who were nationalists first, but with ‘social’ policy leanings – we were later tagged as “cultural nationalists” (like myself – nothing wrong with that). Then you had the ‘socialists’ with nationalistic sympathies, they were tagged “socialist nationalists”. The first were a branch that grew from the Saunders Lewis period, the second sprouted from the Gwynfor Evans trunk. Unfortunately the second lot have swamped the party – and what we have is what you see today – a frigging mess that I call the ‘hide behind the sofa’ party. Shit-pots on the whole, who are more concerned with world peace than fighting for equality and justice for their own country and it’s natural citizens and their indigenous culture and language. I wish they would all bugger off to the ‘Slimey’ Smith camp.
The same thing happened to the word ‘Gay’. Remember what that word meant to people of our generation? When songs had lines like this maudlin pop song by Gilbert O’Sullivan which topped the charts in the summer of 1972:
“To think that only yesterday
I was cheerful, bright and gay”
Or a little earlier songs with lyrics like:
“Oh yes, I’m the great pretender
Just laughing and gay like a clown”
Tell someone that you’re GAY today and what does it mean? You’re a HOMOSEXUAL.
The whole bloody world is upside down & inside out.
I recall the deselection of long standing MP S.O. Davies in Merthyr Tydfil, and a campaign centred on the local rugby club to defeat the Labour nominee Tal Lloyd at the general election which followed.
Father Kinnock, then a young MP on the way up, attended a meeting in support of the official candidate and gave a background to his own position, including his tortured soul at representing Labour, when he had never had a proper job in his life. He had discussed this with his father, who apparently responded with the advice ‘don’t worry boy, I have done enough work for two in my life’.
Needless to say this went down like a lead spud, SO was elected as an independent.
I used to visit Merthyr regularly in the late ’60s, spent most of my time in the Lamb Inn. But I was also there canvassing in the by-election after S O died.
Ah yes Merthyr, an interesting if not prime example of much that is wrong with Labour. The cronyism and red tories shutting public services yet doling out money to the football club via something called VVP. At least they have the good grace to publicise it in their council/cabinet meetings or was that a boobie.