In this piece I shall look towards the May 7 Senedd elections. Rather than delve into party manifestos, or expose the peccadillos of individual candidates, I’m adopting a broad brush approach.
Impressions and perhaps even informed generalisations. Digressions guaranteed, but not without a touch of whimsy and a few doses of ironic humour.
This offering is a bit longer than normal, but as it’s broken up into sections, one for each party, you can nibble a bit at a time. Like your Easter eggs!
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‘WELSH’ LABOUR
I’m starting with Labour, if only because this party has been running the show since devolution began in 1999. The name’s partly in quotes because there’s no such thing as a separate Labour party in Wales, it’s just a branch of the Islington-controlled gang we’ve know since Blair, Brown, Mandelson and a few others sat down to create New Labour.
This was the plan to broaden the party’s appeal beyond the traditional working class support. A strategy that ultimately led to the alienation of much of the working class. Labour in Wales managed to maintain the pretence longer than most party branches, but has now been found out.
But Labour, run by the Fabian Society, never really cared much for the working class, they were simply the means to power. The post-industrial age, Brexit and other factors, has seen Labour turn on the indigenous lower orders with a vengeance. Even to the extent of offering euthanasia.
For culling the poor, the sick, the disabled, the hopeless, was always Fabian Society policy. Find half an hour to watch this video.
One of the saddest features of this deception was seeing traditional, even generational Labour voters, in some of the most deprived communities in Wales, taken for granted by a party that had abandoned them and their communities.
A case of: Vote Labour – and we’ll keep kicking you in the nuts!
But chickens come home to roost.
And that’s why Labour finds itself facing humiliation thanks to an electoral system it conjured up believing this system would guarantee a permanent Labour-Plaid love-in, with the comrades always on top.
It says a lot for Labour’s foresight, and arrogance, that they couldn’t factor into their calculations the possibility of defeat. I described the system, and how it came about over two years ago, in Labour And Plaid Cymru Plot To Destroy Welsh Democracy.
But here we are, with Labour at 11% or 12% in the polls and fighting with the even more unhinged Greens for third place behind Plaid Cymru and Reform.
Because the problem for Labour is that having abandoned the working class it now relies for much of its support on racial and religious minorities (of which Wales has few), brainwashed students and ex-students, middle class liberals (another small group in Wales), third sector and other chisellers who’ve done well from Labour cronyism and patronage (a sizeable group regrettably), and the far left.
But many even in those groups are deserting Labour for Plaid Cymru and the Greens.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, there’s Starmer and his clueless, lying crew of Globalist puppets. Who’ve betrayed those who voted for them, and torn up their own manifesto, in order to serve those who came over to give them their orders soon after the 2024 election. (See above.)
A meeting of minds. For Gates’ plan to reduce the human population is pure Fabianism. And Starmer, like all previous Labour PMs, is a staunch Fabian.
Problems compounded in Wales by the growing perception that Labour has been bought by Bute Energy and other foreign companies (perhaps even the Chinese Communist party) wanting to exploit Wales in the name of ‘saving’ a planet in no real danger.
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PLAID CYMRU
This party will obviously be the main beneficiary from the collapse of the Labour vote.
And so Plaid is now doing what it always does when an election approaches – pretending there’s a gulf between them and Labour. But Plaid and Labour have been in bed too often and for too long for that deception to work.
Plaid Cymru might benefit from voters wanting to rebuke Labour without changing the general direction of devolved politics. Making Plaid the soft option for mildly disgruntled Labour supporters.
But they should be careful what they wish for. Especially those unhappy over Labour’s obsession with Net Zero, DEI, gender politics, Gaza, Trump, and all the other ishoos that often alienate left-leaning but socially conservative voters.
I say that because Plaid Cymru seems to have gone further down the fact-free rabbit-hole of Wokery than Labour. On a host of issues. And there’s no longer any attempt to hide it.
Here’s Plaid’s leader in the House of Commons (and my MP), Liz Saville Roberts, in London on March 28. At a march that brought together the far left, Islamists, environmentalists, and others.
Of course it was billed as a march against hate. The problem most people had in accepting that claim was the marchers chanting about killing Jews, threatening opponents of the murderous theocracy in Iran, condemning anyone who thinks men can’t have babies, and dancing dementedly in attempts to fight the climate crisis.
In fact, so much hate was generated by this gathering that a big profit was waiting for anyone who could have bottled it and sold it to a third world dictator.
Which perhaps brings us to Plaid’s real problem – a form of schizophrenia.
We have a party in recent times appealing to the radical left, while trying to hang on to its traditional, more socially conservative rural core vote. This is a difficult balancing act. But then, Labour got away with a similar deception after abandoning its traditional working class voters, so maybe Plaid will be lucky.
Because it takes a while for many voters to catch up with the new reality and ditch old habits. At least, that’s what Plaid Cymru is hoping.
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REFORM
Reform UK is next because in all recent polls it comes in second behind Plaid Cymru. Which seems to surprise many people, who want to believe this strand of politics is new to Wales, even an unwanted import.
The truth is that Farage’s earlier creations – UKIP, Brexit party – have been around for a few decades, and have performed well in Welsh elections, particularly the last two elections to the EU parliament. Here’s a table I drew up a few years back for a piece on the blog that should prove my point.
You’ll see that in 2014, with the Brexit referendum two years in the future, UKIP came a very close second to Labour. And in 2019 the Brexit party, combined with UKIP hold-outs, won comfortably with almost 36% of the vote.
This final EU election, after the 2016 referendum, might be seen as a victory lap for the Brexit party, yet the fact remains they won it very comfortably. But then, Wales voted Leave. Though parties on the left want to ignore this, talking of “alignment“, even re-joining. With no mention of consulting the people, let alone a referendum.
As I hinted earlier, the problem for leftist parties is that most people in Wales, as elsewhere, are socially conservative. They want policies the left is either unable or unwilling to deliver. But which Reform promises.
This goes some way to explaining why a ramshackle and often incoherent group like Reform is riding high in the polls. Topping polls in England, second in Wales.
There are identifiable groups from where Reform can expect support. First, former Labour voters awake now to the nature of modern Labour. Then, disaffected Tories, wondering what happened to their party. And the sizeable percentage of the population pissed off with establishment politicians prepared to give Reform a go. Finally, those who reject all manifestations of Welshness, from devolution to bilingual road signs.
But I see two clouds on the horizon for Reform. Perhaps only one of which will damage the party in May’s elections.
I’m referring to the reported parachuting in to Welsh seats of ex-Tories and others from outside the constituency in which they’re standing, even from outside of Wales. As this newspaper report from earlier this week illustrates.
Other fractures also seem to be appearing.
And yet, the factors just mentioned are less likely to count thanks to the absurd voting system; which means candidates 4, 5 and 6 on the party list could drop out with no effect on the outcome. And because it’s a party list system many voters won’t even know who the candidates are anyway! (Explained below.)
Perhaps a bigger threat, in the longer term, and on the UK level, is Rupert Lowe and his fledgling party Restore Britain, only launched in February. This very recent poll puts a party most people have never heard of on 8%. And I think I know why.
Farage is smooth, glib, a bit of a lad with the pint and the ciggie, and yet . . . I’ve never been able to shake the impression of the spiv. I keep waiting for him to roll up his sleeve to show us all the watches he’s flogging.
Whereas Lowe comes across as ‘serious’; what’s more, it’s that “Don’t fuck with me” kind of seriousness. Which many people respect. And I don’t see an armful of watches.
In the short term, and the context of the Senedd, I suppose we must accept the polls and prepare for Reform to come second.
Meaning four years of pantomime, with leftist luvvies clutching their pearls as they theatrically exit the chamber singing Kumbaya if a Reform MS questions net zero, or wants to end the £3,000,000 a year funding for the Dowlais branch of Hezbollah.
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GREENS
There was a time when the Greens were regarded as harmless eccentrics. Perhaps another incarnation of the brown bread and sandals wing of the Liberal party from the 1960s. (For younger readers . . . Look it up yourselves, you lazy little sods!).
But how they’ve changed!
From what I can see the modern Greens have little interest in the environment; now they seem to have positioned themselves somewhere to the left of Pol Pot. (Though I’m sure PP was a better dancer than ‘Zack Polanski’.)
Everything about the Greens in 2026 is false and/or dangerous.
Starting with party leader, ‘Zack Polanski‘, whose real name is David Paulden. Not so long ago he was a hypnotist, claiming he could enlarge women’s breasts. Did women pay him for this?
Some may think I’m being unfair, pointing out that he’s the UK leader, and we have our own leader in Wales, in Anthony Slaughter. Which is nonsense, because we don’t have a Welsh Green party.
When Green party members in Wales had the chance to form a separate Welsh party in 2018, they chose to stay as the Green Party of Englandandwales. Because most Green Party members in Wales are not Welsh. They tend to be good-lifers and others for whom Wales is nothing more than a nice place to live.
Recently the Greens have been pandering to Muslims, just like other parties of the left. To the extent that Polanski’s deputy is Mothin Ali, who recently attended a rally supporting the murderous theocracy in Iran – with critics labelled “Islamophobic“.
But try to make sense of it. Polanski is Jewish, and gay. Has he ever sat down with Ali to discuss his deputy’s religion and its attitude to both Jews and homosexuals? And does Ali have any interest in environmental matters?
It’s insane; Polanski’s relatives have said they’d leave the UK if he became PM.
The real worry should be the Islamic block vote transferring to the Greens because Labour is finished, if only in the short term. If so, then this is worrying; because on both the Welsh level, after May 7, and the UK level after the next general election, the Greens could be power-brokers.
So who in their right minds will vote in the Senedd elections for a party led by a former hypnotitist and his Islamist sidekick?
Just imagine if the Greens hold the balance of power in the Senedd, and the word comes down from Green Party HQ – “Tell Gareth Wyn Jones them sheepdogs gotta go“.
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CONSERVATIVE
What to say? Conservative politicians at every level have kept such low profiles in recent years they’ve become almost invisible. To the point where some might wonder if the party is still in existence.
In Wales, those who haven’t been kicked out of the party seem to have joined Reform. But nobody’s really noticed!
I mean, can you name the Tory leader in the Senedd? (It’s Darren Millar.)
And yet, despite the party’s near-invisibility the Conservative vote seems to be holding up. Certainly better in percentage terms than the Labour vote. Though I suppose it could be argued that Labour had more votes to lose.
Another way of looking at it might be to say that the Tories should have benefitted more from the collapse in the Labour vote. But it hasn’t. Possibly because so few people know what the Tories stand for nowadays. What is the message?
At this point – seeing as I have so little to say about the Tories! – it might be worth entertaining you with an opinion poll published in Nation.Cymru on April 1.
The accompanying article was written by Martin Shipton, who so recently had a wake-up call when an “eight-strong team from the counter-terrorism division of the Metropolitan Police“ kicked his front door down at 6am.
The survey sample was so small that I’m not sure it can be trusted; but seeing as it was commissioned by N.C, funded with ‘Welsh Government’ (i.e. our) money, I shall pick through the bones.
We see that the Tory vote is around 9/10%, which is not bad for a party that’s almost invisible. While some of the other ‘findings’ defy belief.
Though not the finding that among younger voters Plaid is very popular, and the Greens lead in the under 12 age bracket.
Though one of the more intriguing figures was this:
For people aged 35 to 54, Reform leads with 35%, ahead of Plaid Cymru on 21%, Labour on 16%, Greens 13%, the Conservatives and Lib Dems both on 6%, and others on 2%.
This is where we find those who are working, struggling to pay mortgages or rent, wondering if they can afford to light and heat their homes, bringing up children. Reminding us of what I’ve argued elsewhere – those living in the real world want real world solutions to real world problems.
Though I’m sure Martin ‘China’ Shipton and his ilk would dismiss this 35% as racists, climate deniers, etc., etc.
But this section was supposed to be about the Conservative and Unionist party, and I’m ignoring them. Yes.
I may have had a sneaking regard for their economic and social policies at one time. But that was forfeited when Boris Johnson flew to Kiev in April 2022, to ensure the little clown didn’t sign a peace deal that would have jeopardised their Globalist masters’ money-laundering operation.
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LIBERAL DEMOCRATS
If I had little to say about the Conservatives I have even less to say for the Liberal Democrats. They’re almost an irrelevance. A poll in this week’s Cambrian News suggests they won’t win a single seat on May 7.
Though I have to say that’s a strange poll, also predicting the Tories will win just one seat. I’m sure it’s wrong. Certainly at variance with the poll I quoted in the previous section.
The fact is that the Liberal party started going downhill after Lloyd George, in the 1920s, which of course coincided with the rise of the Labour party. Though my paternal grandparents were still voting Liberal into the 1950s, because they saw it as the party of the chapel, the ‘Welsh’ party.
The party we know today came about following a merger in 1988 between the Liberals and the Social Democratic Party, formed by four who’d split from Labour a few years earlier. “The Gang of Four“; David Owen, Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers, were among the smuggest buggers you could ever wish to meet.
I was once thrown out of a meeting addressed by ‘Woy’ in the Brangwyn Hall in Swansea, when he was still in Labour. Back in the late ’60s. The great man was on stage telling us that he too was Welsh; so a young Jac, in a flush of patriotic fervour (possibly influenced by beer), jumped up shouting “You’re no Welshman“.
I was then assailed by an old crow sitting behind me, who laid into me with her umbrella. A signal for the heavies to move in: “We knows ew, ew’re a trouble-maker, ew are“. And so young Jac, scarred for life by a gamp bought at Swansea market, was forcibly ejected.
Happy days!
What do the Lib Dems stand for nowadays? Your guess is as good as mine. But they’re ‘progressive’; so If Plaid needs an ally for its popular front against the far-right, Trump, climate deniers, Putin, transphobes, and other demons torturing the Globalist-Woke-left imagination, the Lib Dems will be only too glad to help.
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GWLAD
I’ve saved the best ’til last. As you probably know, I had a hand in launching this party, and I’m very proud of that. But why?
Basically because I’m a Welshman, and I’ve always wanted the best for my people, and for me that meant independence. It still does. Yet I’d hoped devolution would at least improve things. But it’s been a total failure. And it’s easy to see why. In fact, I’ve explained why in my assessments of the other parties.
Every successful country needs a functioning, indigenous economy that encourages and rewards hard work, innovation, the entrepreneurial spirit. And thereby creates well-paid jobs. But for 27 years devolution has been ruined by politicians and their hangers-on who did little but make gestures and squander money in slavishly serving agendas that divide us and make us poorer.
By comparison, those running Gwlad include people who’ve started their own companies, given people jobs, and hope, and have worked all over the world. I can’t stress this enough – they come from the real world.
By which I mean they are not professional politicians.
Not like those who did politics in uni, went to work in PR, for a pressure group, or for a politician; then got elected to the Senedd thinking that running a country is nothing more than mixing with others from the same background, having debates informed by ignorance, and choosing to die on hills far away that should have no resonance in Wales.
This political clique, this Corruption Bay bubble, regards the rest of us with contempt. The ‘progressive’ parties want us to believe that about Reform. But they’re no different, not even Plaid Cymru!
Question open borders, or challenge discrimination against the indigenous Welsh, and this makes Wales “the racist capital of the UK“, says a Plaid Cymru candidate.
To believe Elin Hywel we Welsh are an evil people that needs re-educating.
But we’re not. We’re good people ruled by clowns who’ve lied to us and lied about us for too long. So on May 7 vote for candidates who don’t belong to this isolated and self-elevated political class that looks down on the rest of us.
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CONCLUSION
The system being used in this election is complicated and corrupt, unlikely to be used again in any country wanting to be considered a democracy.
To start with, ‘we’ shall be electing 96 Senedd Members instead of 60 previously; in 16 huge constituencies, lumping together areas with nothing in common. For example, Swansea docks is in the same constituency as Llandrindod Wells.
Each elector will have one vote. Which means you’ll be expected to blindly vote for a party, while leaving the selection of candidates, and the order in which they’re ranked, to the party machines.
A system designed to benefit Labour and Plaid Cymru, also intended to make it very difficult for small parties and independent candidates to get elected. An affront to democracy.
And it could have been worse, for Labour was hoping to get away with not even naming candidates!
So as you walk to the polling station on May 7 remember 27 years of devolution under Labour, aided by Plaid Cymru or Lib Dems.
Remember net zero (15-minute cities and 20mph): running the NHS into the ground (while ‘decolonising’ midwifery); Covid (Drakeford believing it all and getting drunk on the power it gave him); covering the land with foreign-built wind turbines (also foreign owned and involving massive political corruption); waging war on farmers (to save the planet); welcoming the closure of Port Talbot steelworks (carbon, innit); promoting transgenderism (with the ‘Welsh Government’ being Stonewall’s biggest funder); using a film of 12-year-old girls to welcome migrants; brainwashing kids from shit-hole estates and abandoned post-industrial communities about their white privilege; and a host of other insulting imbecilities, from wanting Welsh schoolgirls to wear hijabs, to ‘decolonising’ the evil Welsh cake.
It would be masochistic to vote for Labour, Plaid Cymru, or Greens. You know what kind of dangerous nonsense bordering on evil you’ll get from them. Tories and Lib Dems are an irrelevance. And don’t vote Reform unless you’re so desperate to avoid the known failures that you’re ready to take a leap in the dark. (Or buy a knocked-off watch.)
When you reach the polling station, say to yourself, “Enough! Wales needs a fresh start, a new direction“. Then take the pencil in your hand and put a cross next to the Gwlad candidate’s name.
♦ end ♦
© Royston Jones 2026
Be interesting to see what demands Rhun would be willing to accept in order to be propped up by the Greens because the loons have announced they’d make motorways maximum 55mph
I’d be interested to know on what tenet your ‘sneaking regard’ for the Conservatives’ policies was based, because their ‘free’ market approaches over the years seem to have done sod all to benefit Wales.
In fact, isn’t it funny that Thatcher’s ‘small’ government seemed to primarily enrich the environs near the seat of state power, and exercised the force of the state when the ‘wrong’ sort of individual freedom was expressed? These sorts are as hypocritical as Labour and all the rest.
A number of things appealed to me. Mrs T standing up to the unions, was one. If her policies didn’t much benefit Wales I’d attribute that to the political culture here, in which damaging your own interests to score political points plays a role.
There’s no hope for Wales until enough people realise that socialism doesn’t work.
“Mrs T”? Our fault? More than a touch of self-flagellation in that response. However much a pain they can be when they get too powerful, unions are also actors in a free labour market. It goes to show it’s never about laissez-faire, but authoritarianism wielded the ‘correct’ way, the ‘standing up’ you refer to.
People voting left and for more ‘handouts’ and promises of government intervention in poor areas is a symptom not a cause, you know that full well. Perhaps you should go the whole hog and espouse that all Wales needs to do is pull itself up by the bootstraps within the union to prosper.
What I’m saying is that permanently playing the victim while doing nothing for yourself, demanding handouts, special treatment, ‘reparations’, achieves little but reinforce others’ perceptions of your inadequacy.
If enough people are to be won over to the idea of independence then devolution must improve life in Wales with the promise of independence making things even better.
Unfortunately, the independence movement in Wales is dominated by people who’d make a loss selling beer at a rugby match. They make grand gestures with money given by London while running essential services into the ground. They want independence in order to make even grander (and more futile) gestures, apparently unaware that with independence the money from London stops.
Which might explain the desire to get back in the EU, for the handouts, thereby exposing that Wales is a poor country run by clowns with not a clue how to improve things.
Perhaps we could ask England for ‘reparations’?
Dependency culture was seeded early on in the way the Welfare State was implemented in the UK. It became embedded during the Thatcher era because her minions paid inadequate attention to the matter of creating or enabling new employment for those cast out by the thinning of old staples like coal and steel. Successive government policies have served to make the prospect of weaning people off their dependency even more difficult.
Now that would be quite understandable if such dependency was limited to working men and women who became ill or were between jobs. However, the new and more costly wave of dependency grew at various levels of government and big business. As we know from recent experience the EU became popular in some regions and sectors because it dished out funds in grant aid and other forms of subsidy. Wales found comfort at the bosom of Brussels milking funds which were liberally misdirected within our country, and its political class floundered miserably when the vote to leave the EU dropped on them in 2016 with final closure in 2019.
Instead of taking the opportunity to reimagine a more vibrant economy with its attendant scope for generating funds for government our Senedd full of bleedin’ hearts just wailed away that Westminster was not giving us enough to replace the loot from Brussels. Dependency at its most depraved, that is where we are today with a raft of politicians almost indoctrinating its people that begging and entitlement are the norms they should adhere to.
Eloquently put, Dafis. And I would add that reliance on state hand-outs takes us nearer to a time when everybody relies on them, UBI – and then the state has total control.
UBI is. or at least was, a Gwlad policy.
I’m sure UBI could be applied for the right reasons. But those currently pushing UBI have dangerous motives.
The Alpha and Omega of supposed individualism and pulling oneself up by bootstraps, Thatcher the Witch, fostered benefit culture and globalism with the selling off of state-owned industries, to be snapped up by foreign interests. “You couldn’t make it up!”
Benefit dependency is a kind of chicken and egg situation. Why did we clamp on to the Brussels teat in the first place? Because failure of the benevolent British state got us to that stage. And now we’re caught in the mire. Equivalent story when it comes to individuals.
If the freer the market, the freer the people, and the stronger the economy, why is all the wealth in the back yard of the seat of state power, The City of London and Canary Wharf? Nifty state interventions like the DLR, built specifically to connect the two directly, always welcome in giving the ‘free’ market a bit of a kick in the pants.
It’s easy to condemn people consuming benefits in the modern day if you were around at a time not so long ago when you could walk out of one job on a Friday and start a new one on Monday, and could buy a house for £10k.
It’s undeniable that dependency and benefits culture became more embedded during the Thatcher era. Her ministers and major policy drivers failed abysmally to create new economic activity to divert all that available labour into new work. Indeed it is evident that they didn’t try very hard after a while. At the same time Dept of Employment that handled a lot of benefits claimants eased up on “policing” the claims no doubt instructed from up above to be less rigorous. This was dependency culture fostered from above. Arising from this lax approach whole families in my neck of the woods became claimants and it did not take long for it to run up to 3 generations “on the dole”.
At national level although UK was deemed to be a net contributor to EU, the regions especially the devolved nations thought they did allright out of EU because they received funds that they would probably never got out of Westminster. That our regimes in Cardiff Bay were often wasteful in their deployment of EU moneys is another issue but it gives us another side to dependency as a mindset. No point having funds to spend if you haven’t got a coherent plan regarding that spend.
Nothing raises the hackles of working people more than benefits scroungers, but the problem with ‘clampdowns’ is the genuine cases caught in the crossfire.
I believe those stealing a living on benefits are to be pitied. They haven’t won or got one over on anyone with their listless purgatorial existence, devoid of purpose and a reason to get up in the morning. The satisfaction of a fulfilling and stimulating career, of earning something long sought after through honest graft, eludes them. For the same reasons, I also pity the idle rich.
The creed of individualism rejects the idea that people are products of their environments in formative years, but how can it be denied when as you say, benefit dependency is generational? It’s a cycle that is hard to break.
Demands for independence are hardly the actions of a victor, are they? If so, what are we seeking independence from? We are victims of a system that shafts us, what matters is how we go about dealing with it.
You’ve said before that devolution is inherently flawed as a setup from the out – how do we now reframe it as an entity on a continuum towards independence? You’ve said before no such continuum exists.
The independence movement funded by London? That’s a good one. The Plaid contingent within the Senedd, and whatever they get up to, I’ll grant you that though. I’ve been to a few local YesCymru meetings, Gwlad ones too, and while obviously equating to but a straw poll of wider representation, I’ve found the attendees to be sound and level-headed, to a person.
I’m not in favour of an independent Wales in the EU for simple geographical reasons, but whatever you think about it, the model of small, relatively poor, even ex-communist nations joining up and turning things around for themselves economically is a proven one.
You know my thoughts on reparations and how logically the endgame is down a dodgy rabbit hole of questions of ‘racial purity’.
I’m not sure that devolution is “an entity on a continuum towards independence“. My argument is that if devolution had improved things then we could have said, ‘We can’t make things any better unless we have independence’. People might then have thought it was worth the risk.
But we have such an inept political class, an expensive and useless culture of NGOs, charities, third sector outfits seemingly controlling the inept politicos, no sensible person, and no waverers, will think that giving more power to that lot is a good idea.
Those in favour of independence now are old-timers like me who will never change (and are largely quiet), or a younger generation that seems to think our problems are all England’s fault – but nothing to do with the clowns in Corruption Bay! If I’m right, then the poorer Wales gets, then the louder will become the calls for independence.
That’s a hell of a prospect!
I’m saying devolution doesn’t exist on a continuum, the endpoint of which is full independence.
In fairness, I’ve only ever seen slogans demanding independence from London or Westminster, never England. I suppose the idea is not to be seen as Anglophobic.
Cannot fault that analysis!
Many thanks.
‘Socialism doesn’t work’—well said, Jac. It’s a dogma that centralises power, resources and wealth in a small elite that can then seem to beneficently dole it out in small amounts to the general populace. It stifles individuality and seems addicted to increasing bureaucracy and all manner of petty regulations.
Sounds a fair bit like unfettered free market capitalism – as explained by the horseshoe theory.
I have always said that Labours policies are akin to their belief that the economy can run with everybody cleaning everybody else’s windows!
First past the post would obviously be a better system to rig it for Labour than the PR they have. Why they went for this system is beyond me with this in mind.
First, they were confident of winning no matter what the system.
Second, anonymous lists, together with candidates being 50% women, would have allowed Labour to get some ‘trans women’ into the Senedd.
That’s changed the story a bit from a system rigged in their favour from the out, to a confidence of winning no matter the system. Also the anonymous lists are a recent ‘innovation’ are they not?
Not sure what you’re saying here.
No matter what he’s trying to say, the truth is that we have been shifted dangerously close to “unrepresentative democracy”. Having faith in this or that party is a big shift away from backing a person in whom you have some confidence and trust. I accept that some people have voted for a party no matter how much of a twat their local candidate may be. We had such a case in Bridgend in 2019 when the winning Tory turned out to be absolutely bonkers with a taste for “going trannie”. Real laughing stock and made worse by the fact that your dearest Leanne had outed him for running dodgy sex sites online some years earlier. This new system will facilitate even more wankers and borderline nut jobs ending up among the favoured 96. So much to anticipate when the dust settles.
Yes, there’ll be some gems among the new intake.
Well, did they not care about what the system was because they believed they’d always win regardless, or was it intentionally rigged to guarantee such favourable outcomes? These two possibilities seem mutually exclusive to me. And the anonymous lists weren’t a ‘feature’ from the start of the Senedd, they’re a more recent scam, so not a component of any apparent initial setup designed to secure outcomes.
Not sure what you’re referring to here. Something I wrote?
Indeed. In this very article!
Aberdaron in the same constituency as Shrewsbury suburbs – seems odd?
Leftist crackpots will be spoilt for choice but it’s not them I’m worried about, the right needs to coalesce at this juncture because the people I know – all of whom are Welsh and socially conservative will almost certainly be voting Plaid Cymru as they always have – and always will.
I fear a Plaid/Green coalition is on the cards and they’ll get away with anything because leftists will put party loyalties asside and divert attention onto evil Reform.
Great appraisal of the parties by the way although I don’t agree Reform is anti Welsh – just anti devolution.
These huge constituencies were created by the same people who complained that the Tories reducing Wales’ Westminster seats from 40 to 32 would create constituencies that are too big.
If Plaid does a deal with the Greens that might be what the socially conservative need to wake up to what Plaid has become.
There are definitely some in Reform who’d like to do away with “all this Welsh nonsense“.
Plaid, if not carefull, could be branded as ‘supping with the devil, with a short spoon’! Then they will show their soft underbelly!
Today’s Plaid Cymru is not the Plaid Cymru we grew up with, Eifion. Rhun ap Iorwerth tries to play Mr Reasonable – but the mask keeps slipping. And in the shadows are the nutters that no mask could disguise.
There will be ”all this Welsh nonsence” within Reform but they will be in every party – maybe even Plaid given the recent urban intake.
Rhun will have a big decision to make if he needs a partner because the Greens are crazy beyond help. he may have to take the safe option with Labour as the Greens will spend most of their time frothing at the mouth at the presence of ”far right” Reform.
They want Wales subsumed wholly within a state of which it comprises less than 5% of the population, at the same time being composed of those who crowed the UK in the EU was undemocratic. Oh, and tactical voting is not solely the preserve of the Left. You don’t half talk some bollocks.
I must say, Jac, that Gwlad does have a very good leader in Gwyn Wigley Evans. He has positioned his party at the center right – which, in my view, is spot on!
Gwyn is a true Welshman, and I’m sure he will put Wales first. If I had his enthusiasm for Wales being able to govern itself; with sane tax raising policies, coupled with Wales’ share of the national debt, to deliver a fair and prosperous Wales – then I’d happily vote for Gwlad!
Plaid Cymru are, by now, not fit to govern Wales. They are woke! Plaid are happy to sell the fantastic Welsh countryside down the river, just to chime with the net zero boondoggle!
So, if I was a Welsh nationalist – who believes Wales can succeed on its own – then vote Gwlad. However, if one is like myself, who believes in Gt Britain and Northern Ireland, then I say vote Reform…
Eifion, you are torn between two loyalties; you’re a good Welshman, Cymro Cymraeg, and yet you want Wales to stay part of Britain. That’s tricky, but consider this: independence is not on the agenda, this election’s about the composition of the next Senedd. So why vote for a party containing too many who are clearly anti-Welsh?
Point taken Jac! However, which party is best positioned to stop the rot – not in the future, but now?
Reform is a household name. When one is crying out for immediate change, then it’s difficult for a not so well known party to ‘capture the light’.
It is surprising how few people have heared of Gwlad – like Jason’s Heritage Party.
Wales need change Jac – pronto!
I too was minded to back Reform at this upcoming election because as you say we need change. However I begin to smell a rat or 2. There is no guarantee that they will disrupt the “right things”. For instance they may well be very keen to kill off Net Zero as a core policy but that does not necessarily mean that they will stop investment in the kind of wind turbines and related works that have made us angry for good sound reasons over recent years. Too many of their big backers and senior people are institutional types big on speculative gains and tilting the table so that the loot flows into their coffers. I suspect that the Bute leadership and Farage’s cohorts would get on famously.
The M4 relief road, turned into a political football by Drakeford, might be built as a toll road by Reform. Not much use to all those hard pressed folk who need to get to work on time in that busy area around Newport.
And of course the recent series of early fallers and leavers from the ranks of their candidates smacks of a party where the glue of unity is pretty thin. Sorry bud, although a vote for Gwlad may smack of “protest” I think it’s time we told all the others that we don’t trust them with our futures.
No disrespect Dafis,but I guessed you will back Gwlad. And there is nothing wrong with that! We are where we are, as I said earlier, voting for Gwyn is a natural move for a proud Welshman, And in the future…who knows??
Would have been a golden opportunity to plug my blog entry for the Gwlad site at this juncture Jac 😉. It was almost tailor-made for these sorts of discussions. gwlad.org/i-briton .
Although I regard myself as British both legally and in civic terms I have arrived at the point where sham devolution is so bad independence might be a better option.
Indeed!Everything is, by now up on the air!
There’s empirical evidence of far smaller countries doing far better than Wales worldwide. I do not understand why people who do not reject a distinct Welsh identity and sense of nationhood do not at least leave themselves open to a discussion on the idea of independence. I suppose there is something to be said for not wanting to rock the boat?
But as for believing in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’s continuance as a state from an emotional angle as opposed to the pragmatic, what is there left of any substance? There’s no British manufacturing or engineering left to have real pride in. There is nothing left of the Victorian ‘can-do’ spirit in terms of infrastructure, only paralysis and inertia in its place when it comes to anything that isn’t a ‘prestige’ project that politicians can grandstand over.
The political culture is rancid and corrupt. Egregious geographical inequality between the South East of England and everywhere else, on any metric you can care to mention. There hasn’t been any real sense of shared purpose for all Britons since WWII. The royal family? At best in irrelevance in more and more peoples’ eyes since Auld Liz died. Loyalist troglodytes in Scotland and NI who collectively operate off a single communal brain cell? Pass me the Buckfast if I’m going to embrace those sorts as my ‘countrymen’.
Mormons and Nathan Gill’s old crew are firmly in charge of Reform UK Wales. Mormon Helen Jenner is lead candidate in the locality of Gill’s family. She will be the bag-woman for that family, and the employment agency for Gill’s people!
Gill-loyalist Nigel Williams is a number 2 candidate elsewhere in North Wales.
Llyr Powell was very close to Gill.
I don’t really know the people you name other than Gill. I wrote about him extensively back in 2014. I knew then he was a crook.
Your articles on Gill back then were top-quality! I still read them today! Inspired by those articles, I simply take Gill and the Gill family and expand my thougts to the wider bubble of mormons and Gill-contacts and ask: how are they going to extract money from the system, gullible members, and taxpayers like me next?
Jenner is a big Gill-ite with connections to Anglesey. Married to Emmett Jenner. Both have been candidates for Brexit Party and Reform UK in the past. That is because, in those past elections, Nathan Gill’s right-hand-man (mormon) Andrew Haigh was campaign director for Wales: his quick and dirty way of finding candidates was to tap-up other mormons he knew.
Jenner is now Deputy Reform UK Leader in Wales potentially giving her even more access to decisions involving member money and taxpayer money.
The Gill-crowd have never left Reform UK and stretch all the way through its staffing operations in London and Wales and into its periphery of press ‘celebrities’. For example, Arron Banks once defended Nathan Gill (and attacked his opponents) in the Daily Express when he lost the Senedd leadership and once said he wanted to vett Reform UK’s Senedd 2026 candidates in a Nation.Cymru article. Alex Phillips (now of Talk TV) was once placed as staff in Gill’s European Parliament Office (paid top whack) on the orders of Farage to stop her talking to the press at the time.
The current complaining Reform-ers and ex-Reformers cannot see this. They seem to be targetting current campaign director David Thomas (Dr Squeegey or squidgy) and his mate O’Connell both of Torfaen. They never ask: Who put them where they are and who gives them orders for the absurd outcomes that they have produced? Answer: There are others above them with connections to Gill.
Not a lot is know about Reform UK Wales Leader Dan Thomas apart from his time in Barnet Council, which was mixed to say the least. A quick web search does not sugget that he is in Mormons – but might he have known Helen Jenner for longer than it appears?
I was unaware of continuing Mormon influence in Reform. I might look into it.
I would say a pro-Gillite thread runs through Reform UK in Wales and London, some of it mormon, some of it non-mormon but pro-Gill nonetheless.
Pro-Gill, Gauranteed-Mormon: Helen Jenner Emmett Jenner (possibly freemasonary also).
Pro-Gill, possibly mormon, possibly freemason, ex-police or ex-police-specials: Nigel Williams (#2 RUK list in North of Wales). Remember Gill’s sister or sister-in-law was police specials.
Pro-Gill, gauranteed-freemason: All Assembnly members that backed Gill for the 2016 UKIP Senedd group leadership (which he lost). As well as Llyr Powell who is a former Gill parliamentary aide and now #1 Senedd 2026 candidate.
Pro-Gill, possibly Freemason: Matt MacKinnon, Ed Sumner and other current Reform UK staffers. They were close to Gill via their now defunct “Centre for Wales” think-tank. The former was an aide to MS Laura Jones. The later was an aide to James Evans MS. When these MSs were Conservative in each case.
The above two people were recruited by Zia Yousuf as national Reform UK staff, whose history and back-story and Companies House activities need checking out.
Zia Yousuf and friends put David Thomas (of Torfaen NOT leader DAN Thomas) and Jason O’Connell of Torfaen in Reform UK positions covering all of Wales, titled the one “Director” of some such. The latter two are now targets of disaffected activists. But it is Yousuf, MacKinnon and Sumner that need investigating because they pull the strings of the latter two.
Prominent non-prison members of the Gill family are Elaine Gill and Jana (or Dana) Gill. Some of his children may be approaching working age now. Will they change their surname or drop it?
For investigating specifically mormons, I would suggest all top three Reform UK Senedd 2026 candidates in each constituency, with intial focus on the North and the seats Councillor Clatworthy mentioned David Thomas had difficulty placing candidates.
Emmett Jenner and MacKinnon and Sumner were linked through a man called Jamie Ross MacKenzie. The former may have connections with Croydon, London as well as North Wales.
Be careful of disaffected Reform UK people because they now seem to be anti-Farage, anti-David Thomas (of Torfaen), anti-O’Connell (Torfaen) and perhaps anti-Dan Thomas (Welsh RUK leader). However, they do not criticise other Gill-ites and sometimes are themselves Gill-ites or former Gill-ites. Their current postion is like fighting one of many tentacles of the beast, rather than cutting its head off at root source.
I often ask myself, why do ordinary and hard working peope not go places in politics? Is being a mormon a bad trait to have?
In the past, I would probably have said ‘live and let live’ and ‘should not make a difference’ on matters of faith, but you should read Jac’s excellent articles on Gill and friends. From them, I would at least conclude that some – and not all – mormons may be running networks of questionable integrity. By reading the articles and comments on them, I gained more awareness.
What about the Heritage Party Royston, we are fielding a candidate in all 16 constituencies and are very well received when talking at hustings and in the streets?
Im even coming out of my engineers box and standing in Sir Gar my self!
The problem you’ve got is that you won’t get the media coverage. That’s all going to Reform. And, as I suggest, Reform itself could be overtaken by Restore Britain in the near future. With media coverage, or a leader that demands media attention, it’s an uphill struggle.
We are hugely suppressed as we are not part of the uniparty despite my hustings videos getting hundreds of thousands of views on X and so on.
Standing against the system is not easy in 1984 Britain
But as I’ve suggested, if you’re not part of the Uniparty then you need to make a noise to get noticed. Farage has done that successfully for a couple of decades, and now Rupert Lowe is making similar waves. And in ideological terms, Jason, you’re in a crowded field.
That’s where we differ, we don’t agree that we are in the same space as Nigel Farage or Rupert Lowe.
When I look at Rupert Lowes investments in big pharma and heat pumps etc we are polar opposites. Whatever he says now he was supporting the COVID measures and net zero and has profited hugely from them
We did not, and will not.
That’s a big difference between Heritage and everyone else.
If we go back to Covid, then I dutifully lined up for my jabs. Then I started waking up, reading more about the circumstances around it. To the point where I began questioning everything. So I wouldn’t hold belief in Covid against Lowe.
In my humble opinion Covid was a genuine pandemic that was hijacked by opportunistic authoritarian types to test drive various bits of behavioural science bullshit. It became seriously scatty because the science bit was soon ignored if ever fully understood, often due to political advantage being the primary objective. “Make Boris look good” or some equally deluded nonsense was the most evident underlying theme.
Then of course big pharma got its snout in the trough because peddling unproven dope and jabs is good for trade in a crisis. I took those early jabs because I believed they might work – no proof just belief – but moved away because the Covid itself was dynamic and there was no proof that the jabs kept up.
The worst offenders of the lot were those wide boys and girls who traded in dodgy goods that were supposed to offer personal protection to front line workers but failed. That blonde bitch from up north is just one of many spivs who got awarded contracts via bent colleagues How much of that got clawed back ?
My lasting concern from all this is that having test driven some dodgy practices the ruling elites will be a bit more refined and better prepared next time to screw us down even further. This Iran crisis may yet offer the UK Gov a sweet opportunity to clamp down of various freedoms under the banner of cost savings and short term need. By early May we might know if some of this nonsense is coming shortly to our communities.
I’ve seen enough evidence to convince me Covid was planned, and for the reasons you see as a hijacking. It was always about control. After the trial run, it will come back, lessons learnt, more refined, and the excuse next time could be the climate, an oil crisis, or the threat from the ‘far-right’.
Those like Mone who profited were a sideshow. The real money was made by Big Pharma, and they were ready. Another big winner was Bill Gates who, along with Fauci and others, planned the whole thing. Gates made a pile from investing in Big Pharma – and selling at the right time.
Evidence of Covid global scam available at link below.
https://biggeesblog.cymru/index.php/posters-flyers-leaflets-for-download/
Diolch, Wynne.
He knows.
Not belief profit, and he is the same with net zero, almost like he knows it’s a scam?
Jason, I saw you at one of the hustings and you made a lot of sense. But can I ask what fields of engineering and science you are in and why this gives your knowledge some weight?
Hi Wayne
I have a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering and a master of science in environmental pollution control engineering.
I have spent the last 30 years running projects in the automotive industry with five years in mixed plastic recycling.
Does that help?
Jason
Just read your comprehensive analysis Jac. I agree, Gwlad is the only viable option.
For any sensible, level-headed Welsh person, who’s lived through 27 years of the corruption and incompetence of the existing parties, there should be no alternative.
Hi Jack, a very good article again. I totally agree Wales needs a massive change in politics. Labour , plaid, conservative have had their chances only to see Wales going backwards. As for the greens led by an absolute crack pot. The 2 parties for me is Reform and Restore. Unfortunately Restore will split the vote, which at this local elections could be devastating. I hope Reform do very well, because if Plaid or Labour do well then we might as well emigrate from this wonderful country which is WALES
Not sure Restore is standing in the Senedd elections.
Restore have said that they are not putting up candidates this time because they’re not ready. Vetting potential candidates is a long job.
A gwynt teg ar eich ôl!
Ie wir! Dim lle i’r fath gelwyddgwn.
And thanks for the coffees.