PLEASE APPRECIATE THAT I GET SENT MORE INFORMATION AND LEADS THAN I CAN USE. I TRY TO RESPOND TO EVERYONE WHO CONTACTS ME BUT I CANNOT POSSIBLY USE EVERY BIT OF INFORMATION I’M SENT. DIOLCH YN FAWR
♦
Here we are again! For more news has come in about Jake Berry, the MP for Rossendale and Darwen who is also a property owner on Ynys Môn.
Though there have been moves behind the scenes to stop the word getting out. Facebook refuses to carry any mention of Jake Berry, or even a link to the blog when that link makes no mention of him! Now I can no longer access my Facebook page.
Telling me that this platform for despots, pornographers and election fiddlers may be closer to the Conservative and Unionist Party than I’d suspected. Thankfully I only ever used Facebook for carrying links to this blog.
So let’s hope President Trump carries through his threat to rein in these social media platforms.
Even if you’re new to the saga you will have guessed that with this being part 4 there have been three previous instalments. If you haven’t read them then you might want to catch up. They were Jake Berry MP: ‘They seek him here, they seek him there’; Followed by Jake Berry MP, Part 2 and Jake Berry MP, Part 3.
♦
AN INTRODUCTORY DIGRESSION
In order to explain what’s new I need to tell you about legislation introduced by those wonderful and talented people down Corruption Bay who go by the name of the ‘Welsh Government’.
I’m referring to the Housing (Wales) Act 2014. Like so much ‘Welsh’ legislation this was, essentially, updating earlier legislation with the addition of a few expensive and virtue signalling tweaks for the benefit of sectors in Wales close to the Labour Party.
The perks included increased influence for housing associations, which saw their Englandandwales role enhanced, allowing them to import more tenants from over the border.
The influence of housing associations also became clear with The Regulation of Private Rented Housing (Designation of Licensing Authority) (Wales) Order 2015.
This gave us Rent Smart Wales (RSW), a registration body for private landlords which began operating in November 2016. Responsibility for running RSW was given to Cardiff City Council. (Yet another example of Welsh jobs being unnecessarily concentrated in Cardiff.)
On the one hand, who could argue with asking private landlords to register and meet certain standards?
Yet those of a less trusting bent saw Rent Smart Wales as the ‘Welsh Government’ being pressed by housing associations into making life difficult for their biggest rivals. If it benefited tenants, then fine, but that wasn’t really important.
Housing in Wales is a contentious issue, perhaps more so than elsewhere, and this is only partly due to the proliferation of holiday homes and the extension of English commuter belts along the A55 and the M4.
To compound their errors the ‘progressive’ parties then voted to abolish Right to Buy. For being socialists they’re opposed to lesser mortals enjoying the benefits of private property; they want control over the people, they want a population beholden to the state. To them.
Labour and Plaid Cymru justified abolishing Right to Buy by arguing there was a shortfall in social housing. Yet strict local allocations would have dealt with any shortfall without having to deny many Welsh people their only chance of ever owning a home.
The three candidates in Plaid Cymru’s 2018 leadership contest owned, between them (with spouses/partners) nine or ten houses. It may be more by now.
But however we got here, we now have Rent Smart Wales.
But when attempts were made to introduce similar legislation in England in 2016, Jake Berry, the Conservative MP for Rossendale and Darwen voted against. As did every other landlord Conservative MP.
◊
Jake Berry’s position was perhaps understandable given that he owned rented property in Liverpool. You can see that in the Register of Members’ Interests declaration from October 2016 that he also declared a house and a share of a house in Rhoscolyn ‘North Wales’.
By the time of the most recent declaration, earlier this month, the Liverpool properties had disappeared and more properties had appeared on Ynys Môn.
The house with associated farmland is Rhyd-y-Bont, bought late last year for £780,000.
One of the rental properties is Plas Coch, which seems to have been owned by the Berry family for some time. Last week I had a message from the former tenant of Plas Goch. He gave me his phone number and I rang him earlier this week.
He told me he had been the tenant of Plas Coch since 2012 but then, last summer, Jake Berry and his father turned up and gave him two weeks notice to get out. (I’m told Jake never came alone.)
When the tenant asked if the landlord or the property was registered with Rent Smart Wales Jake backed off and graciously allowed him a little longer before he had to sling his hook.
Clearly Jake Berry knew about Rent Smart Wales, and equally clearly, he wasn’t registered. To clarify the position I visited the RSW website. Searching for ‘Jake Berry’ turned up nothing. So I looked for and found an entry for Plas Coch. Which told me that our boy was calling himself ‘James Berry’.
What seems to have happened is that after being challenged by the then tenant of Plas Coch Jake Berry went to the Rent Smart Wales website and made some kind of initial registration, but this was not followed through, indicated by ‘Licence Not Yet Submitted’.
There are a number of benefits for a landlord not registering with Rent Smart Wales. As a landlord who contacted me explained:
“I find that people who ‘accidentally’ don’t register usually haven’t bothered with gas safety certification, deposit protection etc. Which begs the question, did your contact have his deposit protected? Was it returned? If he googles ‘is my deposit protected’ he can find out. He can claim back up to three times the deposit he paid if it wasn’t.
Rent Smart keep telling me they are actively issuing fines for those who don’t comply as we’re coming up to the fifth year of this being in place.
There’s something going on up in Anglesey, when I look on Zoopla at properties to rent there’s hardly any with Energy Performance Certificates which is another legal requirement.
If you want me to look into anything, I can do my best.”
Naturally, I took him up on his offer. For the idea that something odd is happening on the island raises all sorts of intriguing possibilities. Is Rent Smart Wales up to the job? Is a blind eye being turned on Ynys Môn to these irregularities?
The contact mentioned Energy Performance Certificates (EPC), and these can be found by following a link on the RSW website for each property. The EPC is very important because, from April this year, it has been illegal to “create new tenancies in England and Wales without an EPC rating of E or above“.
The EPC for Plas Goch, according to the certificate issued 21 March 2013, was 50, putting it in the E (39 – 54) band. But that was 2013, God knows what the rating is now. The fact that no test has been done for 7 years might suggest that Jake Berry is not confident of passing.
As we’ve seen, the declaration in the Register of Members’ Interests lists a number of properties, but the problem lies in the wording: ‘Land and property portfolio: (i) value over £100,000 and/or (ii) giving rental income of over £10,000 a year’, which makes it difficult to know if what is being declared is ownership or rental income.
CORRECTION: It has been drawn to my attention that more careful reading of Berry’s Commons declaration tells us that (i) and (ii) can be differentiated. Which means that the final part, which must refer to Rhyd-y-Bont, says that the house (i) was bought at the end of September and the land (ii) rented out from December.
Enquiries are further hindered by two of the properties being shared, which opens the possibility of them being registered under another’s name. So I checked the RSW records again, where all properties under each specific post code are listed, for Cerrig and Mountain View. The former was listed but unregistered, while the latter wasn’t even listed. Is it known by another name?
So I tried looking under Jake’s Berry’s father, David, and I found an entry that fits the bill. A David Berry successfully registered with Rent Smart Wales last July, the same month ‘James’ Berry made contact. David Berry operates through agents Peter Large and Company Ltd on the north coast.
But irrespective of these considerations we can be sure that Jake Berry MP was illegally letting Plas Coch from 23 November, 2016, when the Rent Smart Wales legislation came into effect, until the middle of last year. And he knew it.
What action does Rent Smart Wales, or indeed the ‘Welsh Government’, plan on taking?
◊
WALES, THE RENTIER PARADISE
The former tenant of Plas Coch also told me that from conversations with a neighbour familiar with the Berry family’s holdings that the clan may have as many as 16 properties on Ynys Môn.
In addition to the ones we know, a few more possibles have been identified by various sources, including one where the local MP, Virginia Crosbie, is said to stay during her visits to the constituency. It’s difficult to check because the Land Registry documents show this property as still belonging to a man who died over three years ago.
But death didn’t stop him putting in a planning application last year. Praise the Lord!
As a result of the ‘Welsh Government’s war on farmers, its environmental virtue signalling that benefits none but malodorous dropouts on their OPD communes and eco-shysters covering our hills with flood-causing and bird-killing wind turbines, coupled with its refusal to build a rural economy beyond tourism and granny dumping, the greater part of our country is now given over to interlopers cleansing northern villages of their indigenous inhabitants so that the Cheshire Set can demand £3,000,000 for properties in ‘Abbasock’.
Is this the Wales you want; where your children or grandchildren have to leave because there are no homes and jobs for them, or else remain as a members of a helot population subservient to a new master race?
In more than twenty years the ‘progressive’ parties in Corruption Bay have done nothing for the Welsh people. In fact they have consistently legislated against the Welsh national interest.
The Berry family and the other rentier networks are the result of ‘progressive’ party policies being enacted in Corruption Bay. Socialist policies that have achieved the same result we would have seen if Unionist-conservative parties had been running things since 1999 – the steady but relentless anglicisation of Wales.
Ideological considerations are largely irrelevant in a colonial context because it’s the colony against its masters. Those within the colony who promote their own interests by trying to disguise or ameliorate colonial rule are little different and certainly no better than those whose interests they serve.
The only way to put an end to this cycle of decline is to abandon the self-serving middle men and women to vote for one of the new parties that puts Welsh interests first, above the deceits and delusions of ideology.
So join Gwlad or the Welsh National Party, and get active ahead of next year’s Welsh Parliament elections. Because we can’t afford to keep voting for the same old liars.
♦ end ♦
UPDATE – 02/11/2020.
Alicia Kearns the Conservative MP for Rutland and Pork Pies (Melton Mowbray) has just asked the Health Minister for England, Nadine Dorries, if their new national lockdown includes parents with babies in their number of people meeting up lockdown rule.
Example.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EQgVD9fWkAUxQqI?format=jpg&name=900×900
River Thames and the new borns, taken just before driving to north Wales.
Cute baby.
It’s always been the case in both England and Wales that children under school age who are with their parents will not count towards the limit on people meeting up. The rule, on both sides or the border, just says stuff about where they meet and whether travel is essential.
Anyone recognise daddy?
Well, bless my soul – it’s Jake Berry, who has a holiday home on Ynys Mon. But I’m not clear how the picture links with the story. Was it used as an illustration?
Elin Jones, Y Llywydd, is now critisizing Neil McEvoy MS for his ‘body language’ while doing the remote Senedd plenary on Zoom. So here are some tips from the Bundestag.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5WPVLljm1A%5Bremovetoplay%5D
That woman (Elin Jones not Angela Merkel) has become a joke. Does anyone outside her Cardiff Bay coterie take her seriously?
Is Elin Jones a woman ? the question is purely rhetorical and need not be discussed further as she is a waste of space.
Decolonize Conservation – looks like a movement worthy of support. Wonder why our native UK liberal leftie tossers don’t pipe up about this instead of the rewilding bullshit ? Oh dear the mask slips, rewilding is just another front for new age colonialism anyway.
Wildwood Trust (charity number 1093702) is a zoo that operates in Kent, England, and it’s latest annual return counts Welsh Wildlife Trusts and Natural Resourses Wales as it’s ‘stakeholders’.
It’s the place to go to get caged animals for release onto sites designated for ‘re-wilding’. They provide a species for sale or for rent from their ‘captive breeding programme’, lynx (Borth), bison, konik horses (Cors Caron), and wolves.
https://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/Accounts/Ends02/0001093702_AC_20190331_E_C.pdf
Apparently, the Covid-19 lockdown has hit them hard because their zoo in Kent remains closed and have launched a political campaign to re-open the facility.
https://wildwoodtrust.org/news/donate-now-and-join-the-fight-to-save-wildwood/
They give the example of the botanic gardens at Kew near London of this claimed unfairness, although I hear that no cactus or eucalyptus tree has yet escaped from Kew.
By definition, the ‘Wildwood Trust’ re-wilding activities cover all countries in the UK including Wales and Scotland where different lockdown rules apply. They are asking English MPs to allow their operation to re-open.
Jesus. I feel like someone’s got their knee on my throat right now but it’s the guilt-tripping liberals like Leanne are the cause, not a uniformed lawman.
I’ve been signed up to a few mountain bike suppliers recently to change the one that’s done me proud for so long. Yesterday the owner of a UK firm who build bikes emailed me. Bloody hell, that’s good, I thought. Bikes are as rare as rocking horse shit right now. Could I have finally sourced one? Er, no. Instead I was treated to a long email, with links to anti racism articles, about how it wasn’t enough not to be racist but we must do things to show we are, especially in the light of recent events. So even though he was white, middle class, privileged blah blah, the company was to take more positive steps to show such credentials. Needless to say, I am now unsubscribed. Just as I would have done if they’d written to me professing some Aryan, white supremacist credentials. I want a fucking bike to ride, not a lecture in ethics or morality.
In 2011, Mark Duggan was shot by police in London. It led to what became known at the Tottenham riots. The violence, looting and arson spread to other cities in England like Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Liverpool and Nottingham. One of our politicians at the time, Leanne Wood MS, commented that such behaviour only led to more victims and that Welsh cities were spared such rioting because the strong sense of community. Ten years on, in 2020 the same politician, now glorifies the violence, looting and arson because police kill George Floyd in Indianapolis.
https://twitter.com/stclairashley/status/1268212559317831680
In both cases had police behaved more professionally there would have been no casualties, however, Leanne Wood MS has abolished all sense of principle and now seeks only to use such deaths and the resulting fallout to ingratiate herself by means of virtue signalling.
A further example of misplaced virtue signalling is her recent outbursts of more BAME deaths due to Covid-19. She should be reminded that the virus is not racist and makes no clinical discrimination between ethnicity. The statistic just indicates that poor people with reduced access to medical provision, employment status or lifestyle suffer worse. This is most stark in the US.
https://coronaviruscymru.wales/animated-bars
Progression of Covid-19 in Wales.
In Wales, however, the two local authorities that have suffered most in Covid-19 are Merthyr and RCT. Both these areas have the lowest BAME ratio in Wales, compared with Swansea, Cardiff and Newport. Leanne Wood might be better employed highlighting the fate of the residents of her Rhondda constituency, regardless of ethnicity, instead of trying to win brownie points by impressing the guilt complex pangs of the beneficiaries of the British Empire, not Wales.
Having just listened to some dribble on the radio this morning saying that white people in Wales owe a debt for slavery, I wish to add this comment.
The proceeds of slavery are actually owned by England. It’s the National Trust. One example is castle near Bangor built by Lord Penrhyn, the younger brother the 17th Earl of Morton and his wife, Juliana Pennant.
They were the slave owners. The cash the family got from slavery was then used to open the Penrhyn quarry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25ak-jZXMmc%5Bremovetoplay%5D
I can’t breathe.
In solidarity with the black people on Indianapolis, perhaps we should be burning the zip wires and trampolines that now bypass our own gravestones?
I see this as the left being manipulated by the UK state, again. Rather than teach Welsh kids their own history to make them proud/angry, let’s tell them their ancestors were complicit in slavery and cow them into a guilty silence.
Leanne Wood is a fanatic who cannot resist exploiting death and suffering.
Time to remind Leanne Wood MS that Boris Johnson is not in charge of health and social care or the response to Covid-19 epidemic in Wales. That responsibility lies with Mark Drakeford, our first minister. It’s devolved.
Leanne “Lenin” Wood, tweeted her support weeks ago for the violent, anarchist (now, officially terrorist) thugs, ANTIFA, commonly known in most of the USA as AntIFirstAmendment.
Because she sees ‘fascists’ everywhere. Anyone she disapproves of, anyone who contradicts her, risks being labelled ‘fascist’.
It’s getting like that scene in Spartacus. “I’m a fascist”. “No, I’m a fascist”. “No, I’m a fascist”. Before long everyone who thinks outside of the Groupthink of a narrow band of shouty Woke nutters will be fascists. I should wind the bastards up by calling my dog Mussolini!
Mussolini – It should be remembered that, prior to WW1, was editor of the socialist newspaper Avanti. He was thrown out for supporting the war on the side of the British for which he was paid £100 a week by the British Government. After the war, he promoted violence and he supported the thugs set up by Dino Grandi who burnt and looted shops called themselves squadre d’azione (action squads) who wore black shirts, a mode of uniform adopted from the anarchists. Eventually he signed a ‘pact of pacification’ with the Italian Socialist Party, which consolidated his power. The rest is history. It should be remembered that Fascism does not arise from genuine national liberation movements but from the ‘trendy left’, those who romantically promote a brand of socialism that is not rooted in the industrial working class, while at the same time weasel power and money (like the third sector) from imperial power. Does such a profile this look familiar?
£100 a week was serious money in those days.
Clare Fox!
Oh dear, we are sooooo old fashioned on here, soooooo out of step with the current emotional wave sweeping through Wales. Hot on the heels of Adam Price’s call for yet another enquiry comes this :
https://nation.cymru/news/petition-for-teaching-of-bame-history-in-wales-schools-signed-by-10000-in-12-hours/
What a load of old fudge ! We can’t even get those in authority to adopt our own history as a core theme in education and now we get a progressive wave spouting this line of nonsense. Don’t these clowns realise that if we had a curriculum that covered the History of Wales then those factors that generated immigration and the evil commercialisation of human life would be explored. But it might need teachers to dump dear old Queen Victoria, the English civil war and other mainstays into a minor corner of their teaching materials. Like so much else there is much evidence of knee jerk reaction and not much else.
As for John Boyega well he’s a really good example of empty gesture behaviours. Fuckin well paid and probably a tax “mitigator” telling others how to live their lives. Well fuck off John, I can make up my own mind and am more likely to be influenced by that cop in Milwaukee who shows up on a tweet giving his rational yet emotional take on the crisis that kicked off in that city. He so summed up the frantic journos who are now buzzing but when the next “routine” killing of a young black happens they are notably M.I.A. Sooner place my trust in his judgement.
… and if that’s not enough someone is trying to get UK government to quit supplying riot control kit to the USA ( as if they can’t make their own in large quantities!) . How about stopping the supply of seriously heavy armaments to the Saudis who seem to enjoy strafing Yemen with all sorts of overkill but don’t have the stomach to clamp down on their own festering nest of Wahabbist terror promoters. Oh yes those Saudis are rich and Islamist so it’s hands off despite them being among the most reactionary bastards to walk this earth. And they have helped keep London’s inflated property market going for decades.
Hot off the nation.cymru press or website or whatever machine they use :
“Price calls for inquiry into structural racism in Wales”
I guess this must be another of their contributions for their bumper annual of sick jokes. These are the scumbags who recruit a known racist Jew hater ( probably because jew hating is fashionable in certain circles !) and continue a vicious vendetta against a successful member of our Senedd/Assembly/Cynulliad who happens to be of mixed race and has a proven track record of reaching out and helping people in that sector of society that are most commonly ignored or manipulated by the chattering political class.
Tut, tut.
Jesus wept! Only the other day he was calling for one into the handling of Covid-19 in Wales. There might be a case for the Covid one, with over 1,300 deaths, the debacle over testing, lack of PPE etc, but not yet.
Far better in my opinion if resources were allocated to an inquiry into structural wokism in Wales, which seems to permeate every level of our systems and politics. This is causing far, far more problems than any real or imagined racism/sexism/ageism/homophobia/transphobia – delete as necessary.
What the hell is the matter with our politicians these days? If Price walked into the pubs and clubs I’m familiar with (if only they were open) and said, ” Boys, you don’t know me from Adam, but I’m actually leader of Plaid Cymru and I’ve just asked that we hold an inquiry in Wales due to that black fellow being murdered in the USA. Oh, and I hope you’ll vote for us next time around?” Guess what the answer would be? What a twat!
Hard to get more woke than Mrs Bethan Sayed at the moment, who has a new Twitter handle:
“Bethan Sayed MS/AS signalling a virtue and proud”.
Y’ch a fi.
If you’d have gone down Oystermouth Road to by the LC site in Swansea yesterday there’s two things you’d have noticed.
(a) quite a few people of various ethnicities going to work in Singleton hospital, Tesco or Sainsburys, or to Amazon who are ‘key workers’, and
(b) a bunch of posh white students with English accents standing on the green.
Picture..
Swansea with white statues outside on the green, as well as inside the museum.
Black Lives Matter, so please can the white English people from Bristol remain there. Stop bringing Covid-19 to Wales.
That’s a great pic you’ve pointed out there, Brychan. But why aren’t they bending the knee?🤔
It’s in Swansea.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WyqKowWrWI%5Bremovetoplay%5D
Football players in Swansea have no need to stoop to their knees.
They stand together, tall and proud, whatever the colour of skin.
This item Jake Pt 4 appeared on 29th May. Jake Pt 1 appeared earlier in May. Yet I can’t find much evidence of any of the “internationally acclaimed” media, TV, newspaper, online scandal sheets etc etc picking up on it, other than regional press in N.W / Lancs picking up press releases which issued the standard patter about family self isolating. In the meantime lazy journos in Wales give this a wide berth and politicians, usually eager to have a go at anything that paints the “other party” in bad light, treat old Jake to unusual levels of kindness by ignoring him. Where is the uber activist A.S for Ynys Mon ? Normally good for a series of quotes before returning to his slumber or engaging in whatever it is that consumes his time. Is he self isolating somewhere else other than on yr Ynys that he might find embarrassing to explain ? or is he treating the Covid crisis as a good time to just handle light duties and walk his dog ? Perhaps he could drop us a line to reinforce our interest in him.
I’m at a loss to explain why the media didn’t pick up on the Jake Berry story, there was that initial press release from “him” (?) and that was it. Despite real evidence that lies were told by him and Virginia where’s my social ladder Crosbie that he was actively moving about both before and after lockdown despite his wife being in hospital probably with Covid-19 and anecdotal evidence he deposited their children with their grandparents potentially being the source of the outbreak here on Ynys Mon. Then why the Plaid cronies haven’t jumped on this is another mystery, the whole island is up in arms about this, literally everyone I spoke to (at a distance) about a month ago was banging on about it. Add it to other cases like Cummings there is one hell of a story there.
There’s more to this story than meets the eye I’m convinced, either that or the press and other politicians haven’t got the brains/mynadd/guts to go with it
I’m not clear, Stan, what has Parry mentioned?
He’s having a regular pop at IWJ of Nation Cymru, on the basis of his affinity to Plaid, making the point you did that NC receives money from public funds. Therefore NC should be impartial politically. He’s got another beef that IWJ isn’t properly qualified as a journalist, unlike the esteemed editor of Wales Eye, Parry himself, who has qualified (and probably has the certificate still on his wall). Obviously, these concerns of his are lost in the ether as it were, because the viewing figures for the Eye are shown on every article, and if you deduct Parry and his fellow contributors from them, then sad gits like me, I doubt any article would see more than a few dozen hits.
But he hasn’t mentioned you for a while, Jac. Perhaps he’s lost that photo of Cayo😂
Whats happened to comments on Nation Cymru? ” He who pays the piper call the tune?
My comment was taken down on Sunday – but the comments attacking me were left up! But what else can you expect?
Nation.Cymru and its saintly editor get state funding to promote the colonialists’ perfect ‘nationalist’ party, and silence that party’s critics. That’s how it works. And it makes Nation.Cymru no better than the BBC or ITV, just a little less obvious. But becoming more obvious all the time.
Bless Angharad Tomos. Her article about the Epynt Clearance of 80 years ago has just appeared on IMJ’s site. It is a wonderful antidote to the mealy mouthed hand wringing bullshit we had the other day from the LibDem Conformity and Compliance Officer. More important the land grab at Epynt followed earlier peacetime grabs for reservoirs and the later infamy of Capel Celyn. If our government was so keen to celebrate VE surely it can show some respect and remember this which permanently dispossessed so many families for that great cause they so fondly recall.
That fine tradition of colonialist misbehaviour continues today with those deviant ideas for clearing large swathes of Welsh farming. Their aim is to accommodate the latest fashionable cobblers to come from the “on-trend” green fashionistas who have the ear of most of the corrupt and pliable thicko’s that inhabit our governments.
Someone sent me a link last night to the ramblings of Leena Sarah Farhat while she was a student in the USA.
I extracted a few of her bon mots, which suggest that in addition to telling us that she is perhaps anti-Semitic also tell us she supports blood sports, thinks buying a knife is a good way to spend $5 and could commit murder. Apart from that, she seems a perfect addition to a party on the edge of oblivion.
Here’s a link to a pdf version of what I collated.
Seems like a nice young lady. As you say, if she offends the LibDems she will be welcomed into the Plaid Antifa salon set.
So obvious in fact that even that famous prize-winning, investigative journalist Phil Parry has mentioned it on his The Eye Wales blogging/news site. It gets a regular airing there, along with a few other things he is fixated about.
One is Lucy Owen, who regularly gets a roasting (no – not on a spit) because she is allegedly in a relationship with BBC Radio Wales (RW) Editor Colin Paterson.
Then there’s Andrea Byrne, another newscaster who gets a roasting because she tweeted things about her new baby.
There’s Jonathan (Jiffy) Davies who gets a regular appearance. To be honest, the write ups are so shite I can’t even remember what Jiffy is supposed to have done or not done.
But none of the above come anywhere near the attention afforded “a right wing blogger who posted a picture of a paramilitary group leader holding a gun”. That poor bastard gets a right slagging from Parry almost as often as we see a Full Moon. In fact there’s a full moon on 5 June so Jac’s about due another article by my reckoning.
Sorry, Ifan Morgan Jones, IMJ, not IWJ! Had a late night.
A good friend of mine who’s a Leanne devotee and well connected within Plaid said its all out war on the 2 new parties, but the interesting bit she told me was that Welsh Labour are fully on board.
Make of that what you will ?
Labour is resigned to losing seats next year under ‘Interesting’ Drakewell and Plaid under ‘Sound Bite’ Price. Drakewell’s had a good lockdown but unless Covid returns the memory will have faded by the time of next year’s elections. So Labour and Plaid are expecting to have to go into coalition. But if the new parties do too well, with the Tories still experiencing the ‘Boris bounce’ (unlikely as that might seem at the moment), then in their worst case scenario the ‘progressive’ parties might fall short of the 30 seats needed for a coalition.
Speaking as a mere supporter, if the Conservatives emerged as the largest party I would have no issue with Gwlad doing an issue by issue deal with them as long as it was made clear that the objective remained independence and supporting the Tories in the short term could advance the cause of independence in the longer term.
Were I an AM my support would be conditional on three things. 1/ Moving investment out of Cardiff into other parts of the country. 2/ Deal with the third sector and the Cardiff Bay Bubble of lobbyists and other parasites. Divert the money into wealth creation. 3/ Help farmers and rural areas in practical ways rather than pandering to hippies, rewilders and other interlopers.
Those three measures, that would require very little if any extra funding, would certainly damage Labour in its heartlands by showing how Cardiff-centric it has been for 20+ years, and it could finish off Plaid Cymru in its heartlands.
What’s not to like!
If Joe Stalin came along and gave some priority to those three policy items you describe I would vote for him and if he dealt with empire builders in the property sector I would help eliminate anyone who stood in his way !!!! Does that make me a bad person or just helping out our communities ?
By “Boris Bounce” are you saying that this lying, odious toff, a personification of the English upper crust in all its supremacist hideousness, holds some kind of affection amongst the Welsh electorate? Is this tied into Brexit or are people just stupid and brainwashed? Or is it simply a case of “Best of a bad bunch”?
You can call him all the names you like, but there’s no disputing that Boris is a vote winner. He won the London mayoral contest and last December’s election when no other candidate could have. The Tories increased their vote in Wales. There was unquestionably a ‘Boris bounce’. And if that is still around next year then it will damage Labour in the Welsh Parliament elections because Labour’s ‘Send a message to London’ will be, ‘We loves you, Boris.’
I’d argue that the simple and powerful slogan of “Get Brexit Done” was the decisive factor last year. How many people were sick of the whole three year dragged out charade and wanted an end to it, one way or another, probably even a fair few remainers too?
Too much attachment to a loveable rogue character – which is Boris playing one of his favoured roles ( his only ?) when in reality he is shyster in chief. He’ll need a major re furb to get past next election although if that’s years away our dopey lot will have forgotten and possibly forgiven.
Just about the best of a bad bunch. Can you imagine the chaos if Jezbollah and Dianne Abbacus were in charge?
I’d be careful about the friends you keep if I were you. Though it’s pretty obvious that when Plaid are the bridesmaid yet again next election and Welsh Labour don’t have a majority, the two will be jumping into bed together faster than two nymphos meeting up after lockdown.
‘Nympho’! What, pray, is a ‘nympho’?
Pray you never find out, Jac. I still live in hope.
I thought you were in Neath.
It’s a type of fly, from Spain I believe. Seems to be a permanent infestation in the houses of parliament
I’ve haven’t heard of Spanish fly for a long time.
Trump reckons a table spoonful of Dettol keeps everything in check. A rubdown with Vaseline helps keep the skin moist too apparently.
Followed your tweet thread starting with that bit of nonsense from Undod. The bits that really caught my eye were from Leanne, one illustrating her genius and the other her flaws.
Leanne – “U ok hun? ”
Lord Digby Jones – ” Something that’s concerning me: how come with enforced social distancing, Nicola Sturgeon’s hair is immaculate? All done herself? Always? I think we should be told! C’mon Nicola! All your own work? Surely not! One rule for the rulers…”
From that subtle piece of abrupt insight she tumbles into the liberal leftie faux revolutionary mode : “If they come for me in the morning, they will come for you in the night.” Angela Davis.
Ms Davis was a rebel when she had to be a rebel, no options, no easy way out. Blacks were shat upon from a great height. The only shit Ms Wood has to cope with is that of her own making.
Nicola Sturgeon’s husband and coincidentally, SNP Chief Executive, Peter Murrell, is said to be a dab hand at the ironing, keeps house and probably does hairdressing too..He does not seem to be blessed himself with a rich mane but I’m sure he can turn his talents to the daily wash and blow dry.for the wife.
With the money going in to that house you’d think Nicola would employ her own cleaner and hairdresser. Peter Murrell may not have a rich mane but between them the buggers have certainly tapped into a rich vein.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/who-peter-murrell-snp-chief-executive-and-why-he-facing-calls-quit-1422320
Stan You are a bright bloke so just admit that you have difficulty with the concept of a house husband.
Old Pete cracks on with the domestic duties and prepares her sandwiches in the morning, a flask of her favourite drink just in case she has to confront a substandard bit of hospitality on her rounds and has her dinner ready for the evening. When she gets home he bathes her feet and delivers all manner of service that she enjoys from time to time. Spot of hairdressing is no bother to a versatile boy like himself. And you know, given that she puts in such a terrific shift most days, I think I would do it too if I was in his place. Good luck to the pair of them.
Here’s one for the compilation album of daft articles May/June 2020.
https://nation.cymru/opinion/police-discrimination-isnt-just-a-problem-in-the-usa-we-need-to-tackle-it-in-wales-too/
Author is diversity officer for Welsh Lib Dems ! Probably cleans the telephone kiosk they all meet in a few times every year too. What a shower, well meaning but so far removed from reality it even makes some of the Plaid people look realistic – whoops, did I just say that ? There again NC may have run it deliberately so people would come to that very same conclusion.
It is an absurd article. To support her case she dredges up some riots from 1919. Then she tries stop and search, quoting figures from the ghettos of Haverfordwest and Porthmadog. It is so divorced from reality that she could only be a Lib Dem.
As you suggest, Brychan, this makes Plaid Cymru look reasonable. Maybe Ifan Morgan Jones has a Baldrick side to him.
Cunning plans ? I see a leading light from the Gwlad party has written an eminently rational letter to Golwg As yet I have not seen it on their 360 site but they too are toeing some sort of establishment line so it may not go much further.
Looking forward to the day that this site goes all restrained and behaves like a bootlicker’s convention. I guess it’ll take a mighty 7 figure annual grant from Lesley’s environmental bullshit fund to secure that kind of compliance. That should fund a few rounds of Malbec with cwrw chasers while we plot a new site without those suckers knowing about it !
Some of those who submitted comments lashing out at those who are sceptical of the value of Miss Farhat’s article are employed by various WAG-based or WAG-funded organisations, or the big trade unions. My conclusion is that there’s a Welsh Labour link there somewhere, but more importantly they clearly all know each other and had been primed to submit their comments. Apparently you’re a proto-fascist now. If only I’d known!
It seems that we are, once again, into the season for crypto-fascists, neo-fascist and multiple variations of that theme. Indeed it’s getting to look like the season lasts 12 months, bit like football on T.V before Covid did for it. Unlike football you just can’t switch these fuckers off. They bang on in that mechanical drone, obviously taught in the academy specially built for producing mindless morons. They just don’t get the irony of the situation, that they with their rantings are becoming the closest thing to Adolf’s prized brownshirts and Youth movement. And they claim to be socialists ! With that level of intolerance of any contrary view they are well suited to jobs with death squads and running extermination camps.
They’re everywhere! Have you looked under the bed? To believe these hysterical loonies I only need to look into a mirror!
Talking of “Planters and Colonists” I see that an outfit called the “Ecological Land Cooperative” of “Brighton Eco Centre” has lodged a “One Planet” planning application for two residences (timber clad caravans) and a shared barn on 5 hectares of mostly wet land with a bit of scrub woodland in the heart of the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in Ilston village central South Gower, Swansea. Check it out on the Swansea Council website by GOOGLING “Swansea Council Planning” and enter “Planning Search” and then enter reference 2020 / 0744. Gower already has a rather similar venture called D2E “Down to Earth”.
Ilston is the village that gave birth to the Welsh Baptists. Gower has very strict Planning Design Guides,so this is a very bold move by the “good lifers” and “WWHOOFers”. The Application Form is very complex and seems to have ticked all the boxes of the “iffy” Wales Assembly Government WAG land policies. WAG has become the only Government in the world to appear hellbent on destroying its real farming by “rewilding” and very generous in planning consents and multiple grants to this new type of questionably viable smallholding type of operation.
Let’s see what Swansea Council does with it, as there are several Corbynite Labour Council Members in the “Jackland” Guildhall these days that have little time for rural Wales and its culture or its agriculture. No doubt the Gower Society is on full alert and champing at the bit as should be Gower folk.
This could be a very major precedent for Gower’s AONB. What do the five local / regional Senedd members think of it? Gower residents should ask these Senedd Members and the Gower MP to commit themselves one way or another immediately now. They can give opinions publicly now as they do not sit on the sub-judice Planning Committee.
It’s actually the Brighton and Hove Green Party. The planning application for this OPD encampment is here.
https://property.swansea.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?keyVal=Q9ASHSEVFMW00&activeTab=summary
It’s for two residential units and construction of a barn.The applicant is Ruth Munns of Ecological Land Cooperative, Brighton Eco Centre, 39-41 Surrey Street, Brighton, Sussex, BN1 3PB.
So who exactly are they? Google street view tells us.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.8282908,-0.1419197,3a,75y,102.72h,81.12t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sWwpL9HhsQ4Ov0km6bnnG2A!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
39-41 Surrey Street, Brighton is in fact the HQ of the Brighton and Hove, Green Party. As can also be seen here..
https://www.brightonhovegreens.org/
I also managed to find the organisation which they have set up as a trading name, of the business using the Charity Commission website.
https://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/Showcharity/RegisterOfCharities/ContactAndTrustees.aspx?RegisteredCharityNumber=1158032&SubsidiaryNumber=0
They got a contributory grant of £15,000 in order to buy the land.
Ruth Munns, the applicant says she “has 4 years planning experience working with Ruston Planning Ltd” which was based in Shepton Mallet after moving from Bristol, strange as this company has never employed anyone.
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08556158
The engagement manager of Ecological Land Cooperative who’s behined this OPD application is Oliver Bettany who works as a Counselling and Psychotherapy therapist in Brighton and Hove.
https://sussexcounselling.space/
The operations manager is Sonia Sinanan, who works in the voluntary sector in homelessness and drug misuse. She’s from London, now based in Cornwall. Which probably explains her photo, here..
http://www.coda-international.co.uk/sonia-sinanan/
They state that the Gower peninsular is ‘marginal land’ that needs ‘helping’.
I think this will be going in the next post, another Miscellany.
There’s a bizarre event in the life of our Sonia.
She used to be the UK Grants Officer at Comic Relief. She was then appointed director and board treasurer on 14th September 2017 (link above) of Coda International. The company was in receipt of a £200k to £250k per annum from Comic Relief. Their business was ‘training’ poor people in Africa (Ghana and Zambia) and had done so since 1990.
But in the year Sonia was appointed director, they spent a huge £320k on ‘projects’ and the enterprise is now effectively closed down, submitting only ‘micro company accounts’ in 2018. This was the year she washed up in Cornwall, and now the 2019 accounts are overdue to the charity commission.
That’s just the sort of record that appeals to the ‘Welsh Government’ – third sector, Africa, loses money. ‘How much do you want, Love?’ I wonder who she knows in Wales, who might open doors for her?
In the publicity backing their initiative they highlight the ‘success’ of nearby enterprises.
(a) One is called “Big Meadow” near Llangennith. This received a grant of £30k. The enterprise based on a residential programme called Surf n Turf, where students on gap year who like to go surfing stay in exchange for doing a bit of carrot harvesting from the polytunnels.
https://businesswales.gov.wales/walesruralnetwork/local-action-groups-and-projects/projects/big-meadow-community-supported-agriculture-csa
(b) Another is called ‘Cae Tân’ next door, who operate a similar operation with salad crops, but in March launched proposal to graze a small herd of cattle on nearby Fairwood common. They have dubbed this Cowtan.
http://www.caetancsa.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Cowtan-launch.jpg
The ‘management plan’ is supported by Derek Murphy and what appears to be his son, Rhys. Derek is from Lancashire and worked a Tapas bar in Swansea after arriving in Wales in the 1970s. He’s a chef and ran the ‘Gofalu am Bobl’ third sector organisation in Llangennech.
Rhys says he travelled to Sweden but eventally washed up as a cook at an out-door activity centre on the Isle of Mull in Scotland. On returning to Wales he says he has extablished connections with Gut Instinct, Swansea Community Growing Network, Hoogah, Nomad and Big Meadow.
Derek is into rugby as well as a foodie in Llangennech third sector, so he will be good mates with Tonia Antoniazzi MP.
This is what the likes of Ms Griffiths and Smiler Ken think passes for agriculture and “a vibrant business economy”. Good old country boys had better luck with Stalin and Pol Pot !!
Brychan, yes, your bang on, lots of small time green grant grabbers on Gower. One however has grabbed over five million. How the hell can you go from living in a shack off grid, to a number of expensive properties?
Plaid Cymru and the Green lot in Brighton are big mate’s. So perhaps a little Quid pro Quo, for veg provide on Gower.
These grant assisted land grabbers has complete disregard for the existing agriculture as well as native Welsh enterprises. Gower has always had a vibrant ‘market garden’ type produce as anyone familiar with Swansea market can testify. The iconic ‘earlies’ of root veggies, Gower strawberries, salad crops and there are even fruit variaeties of plums named after Gower. This is pre-existing Welsh agriculture, yet these ‘eco-settlers’ completely ignore what they arrive to displace or ignore.
It should be noted that those ‘trendy food outlets’ these eco-settlers claim to justify their grant stream and to back up their punt for ‘off-grid’ planning applications (mentioned in my comment above) is actually owned and developed my a Welsh lady who buys produce from throughout Gower from pre-existing market gardens. It’s Tamara Williams, Swansea girl, who owns and runs the café’s and bars, as well as a bakery near Pennard. Mills in that part of Gower go back to the previous occupation of Norman landowners.
The reality is that these grant assisted ‘eco-settlers’ are putting existing framers and growers at unfair competition. They are the ones to employ local people, do not rely on hand-outs, pay full business taxes or try to eco-exempt themselves from responsibilities which the local pre-existing agricultural businesses honour. There is no ‘marginal land’ on Gower, and it is not ‘barren needing help’. These new arrivals are just wealthy spongers from Sussex seeking a free ride on the Welsh planning and grants system.
Don’t know if you came across my post on Twitter regarding the hotel/restaurant in Rhosneigr who are ripping of a local builder?
The story: The Sandymount club an old club for the “better” types in the village was bought a couple of years ago by some people from Wilmslow (these same people also bought the Glan Neigr pub/hotel in the village too). They had a lot of work done to the building turning it into a bigger more modern establishment, all this work was done by a building company from Cheshire with Welsh government funding (as always with this type). They opened last year and sort of cleaned up in the village putting pressure on some of the other cafes and restaurants of which we have a few. Around new year work started again doing something at the side of the building, this time using a local builder, the work continued until the beginning of April some time. I learned this week from an old friend who would know the exact details that the owners of the Sandymount House as it is now called that the work totalled £70,000 but they won’t 30% off or they won’t pay him. That is the sum total of my knowledge of the affair but given the source I know it to be true.
Something similar happened to the builder who used to live across the road to me, he ended up in court having to pay huge barrister bills until he almost went bust trying to defend himself, ending up with the loss of his house. I assume this is the same ploy that will be used here to force the builder into giving them the discount rather than go bust fighting to be paid fairly for the work and expenditure given to the job
With some information from Jac it seems the very same people just last week have taken over another two local hospitality businesses in the area, the Oyster Catcher in the same village and the White Eagle in Rhoscolyn, good ole Jake’s neighbourhood. So in a nutshell these people now control all but one of the larger hospitality establishment in south west Ynys Mon. The single other establishment (other than small cafes) has been bought by a local consortium who got together to employ local people only and that was after the other people tried also to buy it. That place is called “Starvation”, so if you ever want to eat in Rhosneigr, that’s the place to go
I plan on using this case in my Miscellany posting planned for next Monday. So keep me updated, Colin.
Your description is incorrect and the answer to that question is no-one.
Just a note to say that I didn’t ‘wash up’ in Cornwall but I moved there in the normal way people do. Your reporting of my work history is incomplete and deliberately misleading to try to support your theory. I’m pretty transparent and you can see my full work history on LinkedIn if you really want to.
You mention Coda International which is an organisation that provided support and capacity to community organisations in developing countries across the world. Coda did not lose money, it raised it and spent it on projects in the normal way.
I’m not sure what you mean about my picture but I’ll put that comment down to general ignorance and I won’t assume any other prejudice on your part.
Sonia
Brighton…….says it all.
What other country in the world exports talent and imports old biddies, planters and second home colonists and thinks that’s the way to build an economy? It’s pathetic that so many people buy into this shit about being “Better Together” when there’s any number of small countries in the world doing fucking much better than Wales, but that’s the colonised mindset for you. That, coupled with the shit-pump that is the state propaganda machine perennially conning people into believing that this union really is one of mutual benefit. Mustn’t also forget that sprinkling of nostalgia about a war that few people still alive today were directly affected by, and and a soupcon of cutesy bollocks pictures of Ponce Willy and Page 3 Kate’s brats. An argument could be made for this state being the North Korea of the west in propaganda terms.
When I’ve had these debates with people, I often as a counter argument get the old chestnut of “We’d be no better off cos then it’ll be all about Cardiff then”. My response is to say that it’s a chance to rip up the rule book and do something new and different, instead of the “Same old” of doing a poor imitation of the British model of concentration of priority and wealth in the south east of the country. I’d appreciate it if anyone could offer any other thoughts on how I could counter this argument?
David relating to some of your points check out the link in Jac’s tweet column to the nation.cymru article about universities faced with shortage of funds. That article sums up the daft mindset so prevalent within Wales. More sacred cows than you need to keep a major Indian city in spiritual health !
Critics, like Jac, point out that those universities are nothing more than overloaded degree factories turning out thousands of people ill equipped to enter the kind of jobs they aspire to. The crude exploiters who run these ventures in deception ( some deceiving themselves!) then have the gall to whip out their begging bowls and start howling. FFS they have done nothing much other than create a dumbed down population whose aspirations are way beyond their abilities. In addition in places like Bangor and Aberystwyth they have been at the forefront of demographic distortion turning these places into havens for Sais and others who aspire to be Saeson. Colonialism at its very worst. Lampeter was going the same way but that has been sacrificed to the new wave of empire building among our native crachach and their fellow travellers/sponsors who are now shipping all sorts into Carmarthen and Swansea.
So we are left with a seriously damaged mix of population. The good news is that there remain a stock of talent and those people, young and older, need to be given the right sort of responsibility to dig this nation out of the gutter it has been deliberately driven into. These would need to have the backbone, the resilience, to ignore the traditional deferential ways of doing business with the U.K /Londoncentric puppets who only operate for the benefit of those cliques of self appointed elites that inhabit our politics, business and finance institutions.
Big job, big challenge, but if we don’t see it in those terms we will continue as a branch operation of Greater England eternally.
You’re right about Bangor. The university is far, far too big in proportion to the size of the town. Not to be xenophobic about it but a snap poll of the accents of young people done by ears and brain, in any bar there at any time, would probably yield a 50:50 mix of local to incomer. How such a situation is good news to those looking to retain some semblance of a Welsh identity there, I’ll never know.
David. Re your question about what else can be said to counter the ‘we’d be no better off because it’ll all be about Cardiff then’ argument. Maybe come up with different ways of saying the same thing.
For example, we currently have virtually no power in deciding who controls Westminster, and therefore Wales. If Independent we’d have ALL the power in deciding who runs Wales.
And if whoever is in Government doesn’t govern the way we want (for the benefit of ALL of Wales not just Cardiff) then we’d have ALL the power in kicking them out.
The constant jibes about “English Colonists” is wearing a bit thin, particularly on those English incomers who have settled in Wales, love the country and have made significant contributions to the economic prosperity of Wales over many years. If any target should be in your sites in terms of Wales’s failing economy, it should be the former First Minister “Saint Rhodri Morgan”. It was he, in a temper tantrum, midway through a phone call with the CEO of the Welsh Development Agency, threw his toys out of the pram when his instruction that the WDA should spend a chunk of it’s budget in a constituency of Cardiff where a certain Mrs Morgan was sitting MP. The CEO politely advised that this request could prove difficult because Cardiff was not in an EU Assisted Area and would, therefore, be in conflict with State Aid Rules. A person present in Morgan’s Office related that the First Minister threw his phone across the room. When he had calmed down (10 minutes later) he rang the CEO back and said that he was scrapping the WDA and bringing it’s functions under Assembly control. The CEO replied “congratulations First Minster, you have just ruined the economy of Wales” So it has come to pass. In the 1980’s,1990’s and into the 2000’s Wales, largely but not exclusively, due to WDA activities, secured 22% of all inward investment into the UK, an incredible achievement. Wales could be truly said to be “punching well above it’s weight“. Sadly, the Assembly, with it’s suspicion and dislike of any “specialisms” and groaning under the dead hand of so many “Sir Humphreys” presided over the rapid decline of inward investment so that today, it stands at 2% of the UK figure. When the WDA was scrapped, Development Agencies in other countries were delighted. A world wide known brand, the ubiquitous dragon, was air brushed from history. I was present at the party held by the Scottish Development Agency to celebrate the demise of it’s principal competitor for inward investment. English Estates, the Development Agency for England, was equally delighted for the same reason.That’s the real story of Wales’s decline as an economic force from 2004 onwards. It will be a huge challenge to reverse this decline, but with the right approach, and a massive change of attitude in Cardiff Bay it conceivably could be achieved.
I never said “English colonists”, I said “Second home colonists”, and I think it’s obvious the statement was never intended as some summary of a comprehensive analysis of migration patterns. Some might have even called it a bit of a rant! I know from personal experience how hard it is in the north west to get skilled employment and I’ve had to move over the border to achieve such. Jac’s written the articles on the demographic makeup of reciprocal migration so we all know the deal.
I’d even quite happily say that you can’t hold it against a middle aged English couple who are well off and want to retire to the Welsh coast using money they’ve worked honestly for years for. My issue is, is that the system (“Our Precious United Kingdom” in snivelling, cloying Tory Twat Speak) is tilted in their favour in terms of opportunity and affluence, and not in favour of young, qualified, aspirational Welsh who want to do well for themselves while staying their own country.
Of course to flip the scenario on its head, well-to-do Welsh speaking professionals looking to retire in Torquay or Brighton are not going to threaten the status of the world’s lingua franca in these places. The language issue further reinforces the lopsided distribution of the benefits of cross-border migration between these two countries.
I wasn’t particularly having a go at you David, but having read Jac’s blog for some time there seems to be a regular feeling from many contributors, generally, about “English colonists“, even in the headline in one of the boxes at the top of this particular thread. I readily agree that some incoming English are rip off merchants (not helped by a supine administration in Cardiff Bay). However, many have contributed to the well being of Wales, and are not just retirees. Continuing on my tack of economic prosperity in Wales, as private sector property professional and later as a WDA insider, I witnessed on many occasions (to my frustration) indigenous businesses being discriminated against by Assembly politicians and others, in favour of companies from outside Wales seeking to locate here. The most striking example I recall was being advised to relocate the registered office of a Swansea based company to England (Bristol was mentioned) whereby an application for financial assistance would result in a “more sympathetic hearing”. Where did this advice come from? Directly from the then Minister of Economic Development ( a rather portly lady), who also displayed a penchant for disregarding “due diligence” advice from officials, and throwing money at iffy companies which subsequently went tits up in short order. After she retired from politics, there were rumours of. investigations being initiated into her and one particular private sector advisor, but all has been quiet on that front for some years. I think it can be truly said (certainly from my experiences) that whatever economic successes Wales has achieved, have been despite the Welsh Government, and not because of it.
I’m sure I would describe anyone moving to Wales to provide jobs as an ‘investor’. Though let’s remember that the crooks and shysters who appear on this blog have been described as ‘investors’.
But I condemn retirees; ex-cons being dumped here by assorted agencies and housing associations; tourist trappers buying small businesses that will be family-run and provide no meaningful employment; drop-outs, hippies and rewilders; holiday home owners; commuters; good-lifers who can sell up in England buy a nice property for half the price (or less) what it would cost in England and live comfortably; or those who move here to take jobs that could and should be done by locals.
Those listed in the second paragraph outnumber genuine investors by about 10,000 to 1.
One phenomenon I alluded to towards the end of that second paragraph is those working for Englandandwales organisations who plan to retire to their Welsh holiday home getting a pre-retirement transfer. This is a problem unappreciated in Corruption Bay yet widespread in rural and coastal areas. Hundreds of jobs are lost every year to pre-retirement transfers.
To return to ‘investors’, one who has just been promised £750,000 will appear in the next piece, out on Monday. I’d appreciate your opinion.
How about incomers who have worked in Wales all their lives and then continue to live here after they retire? Should they bugger off? It would make a lot of housing available!
I don’t think I’ve ever suggested that.
Jac you are doing a good job exposing the likes of Jake Berry. Please readers don’t take the heat off this Lancashire Tory MP and his investments in Ynys Mon property or the Ynys Mon MP who covered up for this £ millionaire opportunist. This is not the time and place to distract by writing in about the skirmish between Trump and Twitter. Concentrate on the rotten sleaze in Ynys Mon and Cardiff Bay. Use your time campaigning for Cymru !
If what is globally planned comes to fruition Ioan – and it’s heading that way fast, there will not be a Cymru or any other self governed country. It will be a totalitarian military run World Government.
The writing has been on the wall for an extremely long time, but ignored by those who assume that this nasty little virus (borne along by propaganda) will soon blow over and then we’ll all get back to normal. Bad mistake, normal as we knew it has already gone, whilst many have been busy hiding behind their soffas, occupying their time staring at their navel.
It may not be a tasteful thought, but at this time we have to group together in all nations of the earth to stop this totalitarian onslaught – otherwise who lives on Ynys Môn will be dictated by those in Global control. and you and I will not even be allowed to talk about it, let alone protest against it.
An interesting article, rather spoiled by Jac’s insistence that the only answer is to vote for two politically insignificant parties that are going down the pan faster than last night’s Vindaloo.
Recent Welsh history has numerous examples of pop-up political groups which get elected under one banner then decamp to something new. So you get a preening group of non-entities, with all the political substance of a cardboard soufflé, who then disappear when they appear under their new banner come the elections.
Well, lovely boy, if you think voting for the same old failures is going to bring about the changes Wales needs, then I would advise you to get in out of the sun.
Vlad still hanging out with the undead ? – well there are plenty of those “active” in the Bay Bubble, not particularly productive or orientated to the interests of Wales, but enjoying sucking up the goodies. And they have the capacity to be at it in daylight hours !
It’s been many a years since I last replied on Jac’s blog, mainly because I don’t have anything of value to contribute but the two new parties. Bloody hell we have put up with the three Westminster controlled parties whose sole objective is to keep us in servitude whether Mark Drakeford realises it or not, I suspect not, I do think the man’s heart may be in the right place. We have Plaid who let’s face it fall short on every level on a daily basis. The best we can expect from them is a loud blurt of some topic they think might be trending in order to fool people they’re on track and to keep the sheep like followers onside. The truth is Wales is going nowhere, absolutely nowhere as we are, the only way we will ever see any difference in the way our nation is run is to drop the old parties for they will never ever do anything for us and bring in some more who will put Wales and it’s inhabitants first.
This whole Jake Berry affair, at it’s heart was the second home story, a phenomenon that has ravaged the communities of coastal Wales but what exactly have any of these parties done to help those people who are being forced out of their home territories? Two words the second is “all” They seek to bring investment into the country, they hand out grants to companies that fold or shut up shop. We have an MP on Ynys Mon who’s sole purpose seems to be to shut the island down as a place for locals to work and turn it into some sort of holiday park, she even tried to stop the planes out of RAF Valley from flying because they were noisy, a British MP trying to stop the defence of Britain? Aside, what exactly have any of the Welsh government done to try and bring this to rights, nothing. When Ein Gwlad announced it was standing a candidate on Ynys Mon next year there was a minor noise from Plaid, Rhun al Iorwerth said second homes were not tourism but fell short of advancing on the token comment, Leanne Wood tweeted “buy local buy Welsh” and they were good to go.
The political system in Wales is crap at best, the way it is we’d be better off being run directly from Westminster, at least we would expect to be done over instead of half the nation living in hope that Plaid might actually do something some day instead of scratching around trying to look like they’re doing something. We have to face the stark truth, Wales is going nowhere fast, if we want it to get better we need to change the parties that run it and have a fully democratic system that puts Wales’ future at it’s heart. It may turn out that the WNP and Gwlad go nowhere but if we want that change we have to try because if history has taught us nothing else it is that it isn’t going to change the way things are.
Rant over, aside from that, I think there is a lot more to this Jake Berry story than meets the eye, the way they have jumped on top of Jac’s Facebook page is astounding, surely not an over reaction because Mr Berry feels persecuted? I’m finding it hard to believe that the press haven’t picked this up alongside the Cummings story too
You’re right. Things have gone backwards under devolution. Drakeford and his mates moan about the lack of a Welsh media contributing to the fact that people in Wales don’t get their message over coronavirus then it’s announced that Swansea Sound has been taken over by some music and adverts group from Manchester and nobody says a word!
At the elections next year the message should be, ‘Vote for independence or vote to abolish devolution’. Because sticking with the status quo would be insane.
P.S. Apart from Nation.Cymru I can’t find any mention of the loss of Swansea Sound in the ‘Welsh’ media. And it hasn’t been taken over; the owner remains Bauer, but it will lose its local identity.
Trump has really put the cat amongst the pigeons – and not before time. Social media has become a law unto itself, and has been the prime instigator of censorship. THEY have taken on the mantle of deciding what THEY think is right or wrong, and whose voice can be heard, or drowned out. They should have been reigned in a long time ago.
There was a press conference last night (around 10 pm our time) when Trump declared his latest Executive Order, basically declaring war on the out of control social media. You can see it HERE.
Not much stirring on this story on MSM this morning – fancy that? They’re up to their necks in it as well, and got called ‘false news’ by the president during his press conference yesterday. More power to his elbow (on this subject at least) I say.
What you are witnessing is a battle (of sorts) between one big liar and another big liar in the form of a corporate distorter/manager of truth (lies of all sizes !). I seriously doubt whether any outcome will be of benefit to us mere mortals unless it’s purely coincidental collateral and might be taken away as soon as it’s recognised as such.
The one great advantage of Trump threatening to curb the social media giants is that we won’t hear the ‘anti-American’ allegation we’ve heard in the past when the EU or anyone tries to curb the power of these irresponsible platforms. It has to be done.
The challengers to Trump lined up by the Republicans for their primaries are…
Donald Weld – Governor of Massachusetts, a brainy libertarian from the New England tradition. Is likely to get the Irish, Italian and educated vote, as well as the industrial working class of the rust belt, but drop the white trailer trash voters of the southern states who voted Trump. Might do well on the West Coast too.
Mark Sanford – South Carolina governor, but a bit of a gigolo which will loose votes in the bible belt but he does has the backing of New York banks. Likes stabbing his mates in the back and passing brown envelopes and is hounded by his history.
Rocky De La Fuente – Sophisticated southern entrepreneur and has cornered the thinking man, also has support of black republicans. Has support of ‘dispossessed America’, the Trump core support but knows how to use social media much better. Considered a safe pair of hands when the men in the white coasts take Trump away to the loony bin.
Trump himself is now at his most exposed, starting to haemorrhage his core support as the body bags mount. He’s looking for a diversion like a cop killing and a burning liquor store in middle America. People are starting to think he’s gone off the rails.
The Democrats have not learned the lessons of ignoring poor America from last time and are unlikely to mount seriously challenge. This comment will be news to many as the BBC only cover US politics through the lens of posh sneering Brits. It’s also important to understand that TweetFace are toys.
Excellent piece as ever, Jac. But can I give you and Dafis a different view on Trump? Been following him since 2015 daily, half the time in North Carolina, a swing state, so a good vantage point. OK, the allegations against Trump….
“Trump is a liar” – on my personal fact-checking (as a lawyer) I caught him out in 1 porkie: the size of the crowd on Inauguration Day. 1 in 4 years. Because his opponents call him a liar doesn’t mean he is one. He is an American and a New Yorker at that. Dem and R N.Yorkers (Cuomo and Giuiliani) have agreed its OK to exaggerate/shoot from the hip to get more ventilators, which Cuomo did. New Yorkers, and all Americans, talk big. This is not the same as lying in my book.
“Trump is a racist” – on my personal assessment I have never caught him out on this. Because his opponents call him a racist doesn’t mean he is one. He is a typical American of the post-LBJ Civil Rights era. He is colour blind. N.Carolina is good example of how USA 2020 is not the same as USA 1960.
To me Trump is like quite a few people. He is around 70, he’s always followed politics but never dived in. (He used to be pretty much Dem) Then he sees his country going down the tubes and realises – if he doesn’t put his head over the parapet nobody will. He thinks ‘I can’t do worse than the professional politicians’ so he stands for President.
He stood up to the Chinese Communist Party (not Chinese people). He is standing up to Twitter etc. He shook NATO up – needed it! He will lean on the EU/UK to get a good deal on trade for the US – he is their President after all, not ours! We in Europe are not Americans and differ on certain things, notably health provision. But we need them as allies and Trump would agree.
Think before you knock him. Who have we got. Lord Sumption – talks sense but, er, put it this way, he is very English. Who have we got in Wales? Er…..er…..Usually when you need a leader one does eventually emerge. Even in Wales. But he/she won’t be perfect. Nobody says Trump is perfect. No leader is.
This is the kind of defence that, in summing up not long before the inevitable ‘Guilty’ verdict, the Bench will characterize as ‘gallant’ or ‘attractive’.
I have seen YouTube vids which show Trump’s Inauguration Day with crowds much larger than Obama’s. What the non-Main Stream Media reported was that photographs of Obama’s Inauguration were taken whilst it was happening, but photos of Trump’s were taken some 4 hours before it started and, as has not been unusual, the MSM broadcast this Fake News. I happen to think that Trump is a buffoon but the way the MSM media has treated him is shameful. If you think British media is biased, you cannot conceive of the libellous anti Trump/Republican reporting goes on in the USA. These reports would be actionable in the majority of countries but the MSM is protected by the 1st Amendment in the States.
I would have been happier if this had been done by someone with a bit more credibility, just as I would have been happier if the Republicans had decided on a better candidate in 2016 to take advantage of the prevailing mood, but we are where we are. So the best of luck to him.
A bad Democrat cop, under a Democrat Chief of Police, under a Democrat Mayor, under a Democrat State Judiciary, under a Democrat Governor……..and this is Trump’s fault?