I’M IN SEMI-RETIREMENT AND THIS BLOG IS WINDING DOWN. I INTEND CALLING IT A DAY SOON AFTER THIS YEAR’S SENEDD ELECTIONS. POSTINGS WILL NOW BE LESS FREQUENT AND I WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANY MAJOR NEW INVESTIGATIONS. DIOLCH YN FAWR.
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I am indebted to a source for this fascinating story of Labour cronyism, concerning individuals who have previously appeared on this august site.
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BACKGROUND
When my source mentioned the name Luke Holland Jac’s aural appendages went all a-quiver. For Holland was one of those named as being implicated in the shameful campaign against Carl Sargeant. A campaign that resulted in Sargeant’s suicide in November, 2017.
Here’s what I wrote in a pot pourri post in May 2018.
“I’m told that following Sargeant’s death, Christina Rees, MP for Neath and Shadow Secretary of State for Wales, had to be forced by other Welsh MPs to make a statement of condolence. Because, I’m told, she, or perhaps her political adviser, former Cardiff councillor, Luke Holland, had been briefing against Carl Sargeant, and that the briefings continued against former AM Leighton Andrews, Sargeant’s friend and defender.
There was outrage within the Labour Party over the behaviour of Rees and Holland, which the bruvvers managed to keep within the party (easy given the absence of a Welsh media) but even so, Holland’s position became untenable and he left, or was forced to leave, Ms Rees’ office.”
Carl Sargeant died on November 7; Holland was forced out soon after, and then, on November 30, Holland did what all political insiders in his position do – he formed a PR outfit. This one named Cathod Du Consultancy. (Cathod du being Welsh for ‘black cats’.)
And Holland was soon picking up work from his old boss, Christina Rees. According to TheyWorkForYou Rees has slipped £33,164.95 Holland’s way since he branched out on his own. (Though I may have missed some payments.)
The most recent accounts available – or rather, the ‘Filleted Unaudited Financial Statement’ – doesn’t give much away, and appears to show a company just bumping along. According to his Linkedin profile Holland has no other source of income.
But those ‘accounts’ are dated November 30, 2019, so maybe things have picked up since then. Certainly, that is what’s being suggested.
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COMRADES
If we go back to the Cathod Du website, on the Our Clients page we see Learning & Work Cymru. (Though why isn’t Christina Rees MP listed among the clients?) This is the name used by the local manifestation of The National Learning and Work Institute (NLWI), with offices in London and Leicester. The Cardiff office was established in 2016.
The ‘National’ in the name refers of course to England. And even though it now covers two nations, no one saw any need to change it.
Running the Cardiff branch we find Dave Hagendyk. Some readers may recognise the name. For as his Linkedin profile reminds us, Hagendyk is another Labour insider. In fact, from November 2010 until he left to take up his new post with the NLWI in March 2017, Hagendyk was General Secretary of ‘Welsh’ Labour.
The figures I’ve been given – which my source obtained from a Freedom of Information request to the ‘Welsh Government’ – tell that from the time it set up its branch office in Cardiff NLWI started receiving money from the ‘Welsh Government’. Which, if nothing else, tells a lot about devolution in Wales.
Rather than set up a new body suited to Wales, serving Wales, and answerable to Wales, the Labour Party preferred to invite in and fund an English organisation. All it asked in return was that the money given was used to provide sinecures for Labour time-servers. Pure cronyism.
And make no mistake, it is just a branch office in Cardiff. Using ‘Cymru’ in the name is just deception. The website gives Companies House number 02603322, which is the company number for the England-headquartered organisation.
Despite claiming to have a distinct Welsh presence, and despite being in receipt of ‘Welsh Government’ funding, the National Learning and Work Institute maintains no separate accounts for its Welsh operations.
And we are not talking small change here. Between setting up in Wales in 2016 and April 2020 the National Learning and Work Institute received £2,080,035.90. It’s probably closer to three million now.
Thus far, we have established that Holland and Hagendyk are both Labour insiders, Holland’s company Cathod Du Consulting counts Hagendyk’s National Learning and Work Institute as a client, and of course, the NLWI gets oodles and oodles of Welsh public money.
What could better explain both how devolution has been corrupted and also how the Labour Party operates in Wales? But it gets even cosier!
If you compare the two Linkedin profiles you’ll see that when Hagendyk was General Secretary of ‘Welsh’ Labour he had for a while as his Head of Press and Broadcasting none other than Luke Holland.
And then, when Hagendyk left for NLWI, you’ll never guess who replaced him as General Secretary of Welsh Labour – Luke Holland’s wife, Louise Magee!
Magee is yet another of those who came to Wales to study, got involved in student politics, and then stayed to started climbing the greasy Labour pole. A career punctuated by stints helping sister parties in the Antipodes.
Does she know much about Wales? I doubt it. But that may suit the Labour Party perfectly. For the less she knows the less likely she is to question or contradict her political masters.
Where would ‘Welsh’ Labour be without the regular supply of English student careerists from our universities to actually run the party? And of course, the third sector?
So, let’s recap. The ‘Welsh Government’ gives millions to the English National Learning and Work Institute; money which is then used to provide what all concerned hope will be mistaken for real jobs; while also keeping disgraced Luke Holland out of the local food bank.
And to cap it all, and show his gratitude, Holland then sponsored the kit of Hagendyk’s daughter’s football team.
The ones who should really be thanked are us, the Welsh public. For this is just public money being recycled.
Or, to put it another way, what passes for the Welsh economy under Labour.
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QUESTIONS
My source appended questions to the tract, and here they are:
- Given the huge sums of public money given by the Welsh Government to Learning and Work Institute (L&W Cymru) – over £2 million over four years, there are questions to be answered about transparency and ‘cronyism’ concerning the relationship between L&W Cymru (Dave Hagendyk) and Cathod Du (Luke Holland).
- Cathod Du state on their website that L&W Cymru are their “clients”. How much were Cathod Du paid by L&W Cymru for this work and was this work tendered for – given how much public funding L&W Cymru receive each year?
- Is the Chief Executive of the Learning and Work Institute, Stephen Evans, aware of the close personal relationship that exists between his Director in Wales and his client, Luke Holland’s company, Cathod Du?
- Will the Chief Executive of the Learning and Work Institute, Stephen Evans, disclose how much L&W Cymru paid Cathod Du for their services and whether this work is ongoing?
- Given the personal relationship between Hagendyk and Holland, is the Chief Executive of the Learning and Work Institute, Stephen Evans, aware that his Director in Wales is in receipt of a sponsorship donation to fund his private hobby – a donation from a company that refers to L&W Cymru as one its “clients”?
- What guidance and oversight does the Learning and Work Institute give to L&W Cymru in relation to ensuring there is maximum transparency about how it conducts its financial affairs and how its spends its money and there is sufficient separation and no overlap between how its employees conduct themselves professionally and privately? In other words – would Dave Hagendyk have received sponsorship from Cathod Du for a private concern (hobby) had Cathod Du not been clients of L&W Cymru?
- Considering the large sums of public money given by the Welsh Labour Government to L&W Cymru (year-on-year), what conditions are imposed by the Welsh Government to recipients of such funding, to ensure there is maximum transparency about how the money is spent – and to avoid any allegations or perception of ‘cronyism’?
- What is the view of the Auditor General for Wales, Adrian Compton in relation to this matter? Would he be satisfied there was sufficient transparency about the financial relationship (both private and public) between L&W Cymru and Cathod Du given the huge amounts of public money L&W Cymru receives from the Welsh Government each year?
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FINAL THOUGHTS
Call me a cynical old bastard (and many do!) but nothing here surprises me. This is how devolution has operated for 22 years – a vast trough for Labour insiders and hangers-on, regularly topped up with public funding.
Devolution serves the Labour Party but the Labour Party does not serve Wales. The areas that vote Labour are taken for granted, while the areas that don’t vote Labour are ignored or punished.
What have we got to show for devolution?
A third sector so big it can be seen from outer space. Thousands of otherwise unemployable misfits jostling for their hand-outs. An ugly nest of back-stabbers briefing against each other in Corruption Bay.
Wales deserves better.
Devolution has failed. We can either move on to independence or just do away with devolution altogether. Either way, the only real loser will be the Labour Party and the parasitic networks attached to the beast.
Don’t be fooled by talk of ‘home rule’ or ‘federalism’. It doesn’t matter how much lipstick is put on the pig of devolution it will remain a pig.
Pigs and troughs – what an epitaph for devolution!
♦ end ♦
Keith Parry reports that : Cardiff Council have purchased a house in St Fagans to be used as a childrens’ home. In the bird nesting season they have cut down every tree in its heavily wooded garden. Total Labour humbug when they say they are planting trees for the future.
This is typical of the ruling Labour clique’s duplicious attitudes on almost every matter. They are very sanctimonious about the environment when it suits them – crap like some sort of levy on cars accessing the centre of the city – yet the reality is that they are wedded to a fixation with clerarance. Witness the steady gentrification of parts of the city filling those areas up with aspiring toffs who do nothing other than drive up house prices. Lot of work to be done sorting that city out so that normal people can live there in harmony.
“We must develop from being non racist to being anti-racist” – now that is a fine piece of idealism, and in a completely fair and unbiased world I would completely endorse the underlying sentiment. However, in another tweet we get as big a contradiction as one could ever ask for. It is demanded that BAME and POC history should be leveraged to a more advantageous position in the curriculum for Welsh schools.
FFS, we haven’t even got a decent representation yet for our own history – something more detailed about what we are, where we came from, and what it was like to be on the receiving end of Roman occupation, Anglo Saxon aggression and Anglo Norman invasion and slow assimilation into the post Plantagenet Greater England. Thereafter we experienced the Industrial Revolution ( where Kinnock’s awareness of history starts !) and the more modern version of colonial exploitation up to the present day.
Indeed there are many parallels with the aggressions and exploitations experienced by the various homelands of BAME and POC communities. Perhaps the real time bomb is contained in the teaching of a comparative history where those communities now domiciled here in Wales can see that by adopting an Anglophonic identity and its superficial gibberish they are now betraying their new homeland in much the same way as their countries of origin were screwed by the Anglo Brit colonists of earlier centuries. That’s a prospect that could give a lot of Unionist wankers down the Bay a bad case of the bilious.
Worth a read despite finding some of the content a bit shy of realism.
https://nation.cymru/opinion/why-attacks-on-anglo-welsh-tory-mps-show-the-dark-side-of-civic-nationalism/
I don’t disagree with Seimon’s contention which boils down to an acceptance that newcomers to our country should have every opportunity to embrace the identity – not all of it at once obviously but to be seen making an effort. In the case of politicians I think this is essential. The practice of parachuting some “promising” Tory boy or Socialist clone is a serious insult to the very concept of representation, unless that person is seen to be integrating in something more than a superficial manner. Some of Seimon’s examples of those shabbily treated by rival politicians and/or media leave something, indeed much to be desired. Newly elected Tory M.P’s have shown a distinct willingness to toe the line despite some of the issues voted upon being clearly not in the interests of large segments of their constituency.
Right now this is manifestly a “Tory problem”,but in the event of the next UK government being Labour led we will no doubt be visited by a similar attitude from that party’s elected representatives here in Wales.
So I conclude that those behaviours to which Seimon refers are not a “dark side” per se. They are more of a reminder to these parachuted candidates that a sincere commitment is now expected rather than some kind of exception. While we’re at it we can remind candidates from within Wales for both the Westminster and Y Senedd that they too are pursuing a serious mandate that cannot be treated flippantly without risk of constant comment and criticism.
On the one hand, I can see the point he’s making – Saunders Lewis and Dafydd Wigley were born outside of Wales. A century or so ago, across the water, Eammon De Valera was born in the USA to a Spanish father, James Connolly was born and raised in Edinburgh.
So it’s not really about place of birth of degrees or consanguinity, it’s surely about commitment.
It’s also an issue affecting all parties, just think of Owen Smith and Stephen Kinnock in Labour. But as you say, Dafis, this seems to be more of a Tory problem at the moment.
Turning specifically to the MP for Ynys Mon, she keeps banging on about her miner grand-dad from the Rhondda. Which is fine, and to be commended, but I fail to understand how that prepares her to serve a largely rural constituency at the other end of the country. It’s clutching at straws.
Something Brooks fails to grasp, it would seem, is that it’s not just Virginia Crosbie’s tenuous Welsh links and her ignorance of the island that go against her. It’s also the business she’s in, and the company she keeps. For example, jumping in to defend Jake Berry when it was obvious that the MP for Rossendale and Darwen was breaking lockdown to stay at one of his Anglesey properties. (With her reportedly using another Berry property as her constituency base.)
What Seimon Brooks has tried to do is take a rather complicated story, simplify it, and then use it to have a moan about the reception he’s had from certain quarters. But it doesn’t work.
Met Police showed their true colours, with a big streak of yellow, when dealing with the unofficial Sarah Everard vigil. Hiding behind an excuse linked in some way to the Covid “crisis”, Plod showed a willingness to suppress the event in a manner they failed to display when the far more militant BLM hooligans went on the rampage a few weeks ago with Plod UK wide taking the knee and kissing arse instead of drawing batons and brandishing cuffs. There again the murderer in this case was one of their own and its probably a bit much to expect moronic Plod to accept that they recruit( or create) killers just like any other part of society. Fine line between cops and serious crims.
Here’s a good Welsh boy maxing out on his “connections” !
https://nation.cymru/news/cairns-becomes-vice-chair-of-westminster-taxi-group-just-months-after-new-job-as-advisor-to-taxi-company/
Fill yer boots while you can boyo.
Also consultancy fee of £15k per annum to a company developing a home Covid 19 testing kit.
https://biggeesblog.cymru/index.php/a-running-journal-of-written-correspondence/#45%20Enquiry
Being an M.P is meant to provide unlimited opportunities to represent the interests of constituents when holding government to account. Nowadays it has become an opportunity for chancers to grab any old deal doing the rounds mostly just representing the interests of those businesses willing to dole out moneys to “influencers”. We have 40 M.P’s and 60 A.M’s and most of them willing to grab money and/or goodies from any source.
Doesn’t that little exchange between 2 zealots in the tweet column amount to a real threat of violence against an identifiable person ? Probably prompted by some well meaning person within Plaid/YesCymru who can’t be seen getting his/her/its hands dirty but willing to set loose a couple of ultras sympathetic to the fashionable ishoos of the day ( or just thugs looking for a spot of nonsense). Pass it to HeddluGog to check out. Maybe, just maybe, these 2 are resident on their patch and perhaps the boys in blue will enjoy shaking them down as a nice change from chasing Covid curfew breakers.
I have reported it to Twitter.
Will the women in Plaid Cymru, and several Labour Senedd Women, call for and follow, this Green Party lead as in the LINK BELOW. It really seems to fit in with Plaid Cymru Policy these days. Sod Independence. Sod the economy. Sod jobs. Sod local housing needs. Sod our culture and language. Sod real farmers.Sod pseudo men trannies. Come on Leanne & Bethan & HMJ & Adam & Elin tell us. See all you girlies behind the bike shed well before 6pm. LINK :-
https://news.sky.com/story/sarah-everard-green-partys-baroness-jones-suggests-6pm-curfew-for-men-12243194 Remember a vote for Plaid is now a vote for a Welsh Labour Coalition with a few Trannies!
All “cisgendered, heteronormative” men (fathers, to use that currently contemptible word) are doing now is constantly defending themselves against accusations of misogyny (as if misandry does not exist when it blatantly and very obviously does), racism, homophobia and transphobia, so having to prove they are not KKK-caped, queer-hating potential rapists when they open a door for a woman, give her directions or, even, pat her on the back (currently, of course, outlawed on health and safety grounds).
Prince William tells us his family is not racist and it now sounds like a desperate plea in mitigation because somebody had the temerity to ask the poison dwarf if her baby might be darker in colour to all the others perfectly innocently and innocuously.
A man compliments a woman in the street and he is scanned on CCTV, the exchange monitored and stored for possible later action.
He refuses to join the Pride parade alongside the police commissioner dressed in pink bra and panties carrying a giant inflatable penis furiously spurting water while chanting “I am what I am” at the top of his voice so is suspected of being a dangerous dissident or enemy of the state.
The narrative strand has to change urgently with the Police Federation making it crystal clear that all these offensive, totalitarian measures to destroy our basic human rights more despicably by the day will not be pursued. In short, our police and military need to say “enough is enough” and stand with us not against us on a clear line drawn in the sand. The church, also, needs to step up.
Has anyone noticed that the BBC in Wales reports only on COVID-19 and the response to it? I wonder why?
The more I learn about Harry and Meghan – and I avoid the saga as much as possible – the more I wonder about the true motivations.
What I’m hinting at is the question over who is Harry’s father? There have always been suggestions that Harry is the result of a fling Diana had with an army officer named James Hewitt. There is certainly a strong physical likeness. If Hewitt is Harry’s father then getting Harry out of the Firm and away from the succession will have been an aim for many years.
Jac bach. Bastards were 2 a penny within royalty for centuries just like they are today in many parts of Wales and the UK. The fact that Harry might be one is neither here nor there especially now that his older brother has been fathering kids, all within wedlock as far as I know, with impressive reliability and frequency, which bumps Harry way down the pecking order. Shame if we find out at a much later date that William, like his dad, had some help in bumping up the numbers.
Cronyism in the Labour Party has been a well known fact since well before the assembly was born. Trying to blame it on devolution is just another one of Jac’s ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater’ ideas.
And if you got rid of the Assembly all that would happen is that cronyism in the Labour Party would be replaced by cronyism by the Conservative Party. You only have to look at the questions being raised in Westminster about vast billions of public money being dished out to friends of the current government.
Yet again another informative and interesting article devalued by a pointless, petulant comment at the end.
“Pointless, petulant comment at the end”! Listen to me, good boy; any extra level of government creates added opportunities for cronyism and corruption. The absence of an effective media further encourages it. The Mafia gangs of southern Italy have been ripping of the EU for decades – simply because the EU has provided a new trough.
…which prompts speculation that if Plaid ever have a bigger share of power in Y Senedd we might see “trannie gangs of South Wales” and “green OPD gangs of West Wales” ripping off even bigger slices of Senedd funds. Mind boggles.
And that’s before the zip wire gangs of North Wales and holiday/2nd homes gangs of Bae Ceredigion get into gear !
2 questions :
1. How long were the thumbscrews attached to HMJ’S digits before she put her name to that horrendous note ?
2. How long before Aston Martin pull out ? More like – How long before Aston Martin implodes and the brand gets sold for coppers to some Chinese or Indian corporate ? Ably assisted by Welsh Government writing off all those £millions pumped into this crazy venture.
I’ve never been a fan, but HMJ’s ‘confession’ was quite chilling in what tells about freedom of expression, or the lack thereof.
As for Aston Martin, I think it’s only a matter of time before it all goes belly-up. But I bet the ‘Welsh Government’ will pump even more money in just to keep it going until after May’s elections.
Seeing McEvoy’s tweet reminds us that Plaid have form for this sort of thing. Does this mean that hard core trannie militants will see it as a cover up of sorts, or will they conclude that they now have the Plaid leadership and hangers on tucked up neatly in their bag and can now move on to higher political ground ?. Plaid on the other hand have fired yet another heavy guage round into both feet. Makes me wonder whether they got anything left to stand on.
Plaid Cymru is now a hostage to the wokies. But I still don’t understand why or when ‘trans rights’ became THE issue for the left. Can anyone explain?
How can Plaid Cymru to be “woke” when they are fielding an anti-Semitic candidate in South Wales Central?
They are desperately attempting to be seen to as “woke”, rather than be part of the communities to which the “woke” seek sustenance. Instead of trying to recruit and represent locally, they have sought to impose from above, manoeuvre, lay cuckoos and dictate via party apparatus.
This can most clearly be seen in Cardiff.
Trans rights is the same as rights of any other citizen of Wales. The right to be free, the right to self determination, the right to be represented, the right to independence.
“Islamo-gauchisme certainly exists — as it does in Britain and other countries — as a wilful blindness by part of the radical Left to the violent, anti-western, anti-feminist, anti-Semitic teachings of radical Islam.”
My view is that there is a new and nihilist form of leftism that will ally itself with anyone, adopt any cause, that it believes will help undermine Western society. And it will ignore the obvious contradictions.
It is not new. It’s always been the case. Classic example – The left championed the Jewish cause relating to the establishment of the state of Israel. When that state was established, they switched sides and championed the opposing cause. Plenty of examples. The trendy left have no coherent interest in transsexuals, other than to use the ishoo as a vehicle for publicity and recruitment.
I don’t believe there’s any sincerity in the HMJ statement.
It’s only appeared now because Plaid Cymru have suddenly realised not only is she an appalling candidate for Llanelli, a constituency they threw away a few years ago with a purge of local activists and candidates, but she is now damaging electoral prospects for PC right across Wales. I don’t believe she woke up yesterday purged of bigotry, and as Jac knows I disagree with him on the ishoo. HMJ is a liability to the national movement.
Aston Martin is only in Wales because it creamed some grants, and Labour pushed for it as it’s a badge that relishes as a Brit icon. Think about it. You cannot impose a 50mph speed limit on the M4 round Baglan to save the planet and then sponsor the construction of gas guzzling poshmobiles a few miles further down the M4 at St Athan. Doesn’t make sense. It’s just a chest wig for Ken Skates.
Why hasn’t Adam Price proposed a added value investment into native product, like a creamery near Llandeilo? Instead of dumping cash on OPDers goodlifing a gravy train from Sussex, we need to invest in native dairy product from Welsh farmers providing local jobs and prosperity. I’m more interested in those udders than what HMJs objects to on humans should they so choose.
As you say, we don’t always agree on this, and I’ve never been a fan of HMJ. That said, those who forced that statement, those who are now celebrating their victory – people like Hurcum – are no asset to Plaid Cymru, and this episode will lose Plaid votes.
Spot on there. The unheralded men and women who are transitioning into their new identity seldom if ever arouse concern other than that “things should go well for them”. It’s the political opportunists and publicity seeking showmen/women that cause an adverse reaction. Those “ultras” who do their best to spark off disputes and confrontations on the most spurious and illogical grounds.
The apocryphal tale of the big butch with full set of male tackle turning up at the local ladies rugby club claiming to be Felicity or Sonia and demanding immediate participation may be a touch extreme but this is the very scenario that the “ultras” as seeking to enforce. Fascism by any code or yardstick. And Plaid have abandoned any hope of “winning” middle ground on this one, they have gone full on Nazi and have no way back.
Dafis, your comment highlights the reason why HMJ is wrong and using her position in Plaid Cymru to spread false claims about some citizens of Wales. The Equality Act does not force the governing body of a sport to include transsexual participation where physical prowess is a feature of that participation.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/195
The way in which legislation is defined is that it’s up to the WRU to decide not to include a M-F transsexual be included in the ladies team, but it would be discrimination to apply such, for example, if the local chess club. HMJ has been pedalling such falsehoods, even after I directly pointed this out to her directly, as her constituent, she continued to do so.
Most people are fairly easy-going when it comes to trans issues, though certain exhibitionist extremists are not doing their cause any favours. Partly because they seem incapable of debate. You either agree with their full agenda or else you’re a transphobe, a fascist, a racist. There’s nothing in between, that’s why they’re extremists.
Physical strength plays a part in almost all sports. Chess is not really a useful example. That said, sport could provide the crunch, because if major sports do start accepting biological men as women, then the tide will turn. Indifference or support will turn to hostility. Women will either stop playing sport or else set up parallel organisations for biological women only.
How would that help the trans cause?
There is no biological issue here, other than rare cases intersex births. This was the case of the South African runner, a person and photo HMJ wrongly tweeted as an example of a male to female transsexual. Not only did she do this knowing the falsehood, but her motive was either personal hate and bigotry or an attempt to garner appreciation from those of hate and bigotry. The ridiculous situation is that Dr Dilys Davies pointed this out, but was expelled from Plaid Cymru if you remember, but HMJ kept peddling this bigoted mythology and continues to be a Plaid Cymru candidate.
I think you have contradicted yourself, Jac.
You are right that most people are easy going about trans issues, as you say. Then you go on to say Hurcum is not an asset to Plaid Cymru. He is evidently not a liability, as you’re ‘easy going’ comment confirms. Question arises as to whether there are some communities of Wales where he is an asset, a connector. Undoubtedly so. As long as he stops the teeny bitchfest on social media.
HMJ on the other hand, is a liability. There are people in Wales, evident in the support of the independence movement, who are alienated by her vitriol. There suggestion that her stature is an asset, and probably why she’s on the preferred candidates list. This is misguided. Anyone remaining committed to voting PC in Llanelli, would do so regardless of the candidate, but she has alienated sections of the community.
I’ll be using my vote to get Gwlad elected. The type, and possession or otherwise of reproductive organs, or claimed gender, or outward appearance, plays no role in my decision. Why should it?
We are almost at the point where the most relevant question will be : What parts, if any, of the economic and social fabric of Wales remain untainted and uncorrupted by Welsh Labour and its web of allies/cronies ? Jac is coming to the end of his long period of investigations – a saga in its own right – and we have seen little or no evidence of integrity in any of the areas he has addressed. The colonialist, assimilation agenda is proceeding nicely and a whole raft of parasitic people and entities are thriving. Just like the days of the old Empire.
One of the reasons I’m standing down from the blog is because nothing changes. And as you say, nothing can change for as long as Labour has Wales in a death-grip. What I find suspicious is the publicity Drakeford is getting. TV progs, newspaper articles – double-page spread in todays WM – all attributed to Covid but with an election less than 2 months away the real motive is pretty obvious.
Seldom does so much praise get heaped on a non achiever. I was mildly on his side in the early stages of Covid because no one, absolutely no one, had a clue and the Steady Eddie approach was reasonable as a starting point. However Drakeford and his crew have done nothing other than manage a curfew since Caerphilly got shoved back into lockdown, and slipped in the odd sly bit of politics – like the new Nitrates regulations- when they thought no one was watching. It looks ominously likely that they will be voted back in for another term possibly aided by the Plaid block of ishoo fetishists. I would love to be proved wrong and will vote to get the bastards tipped out or at least eat into their majority. One last push but I fear that we are approaching the end of the road, and we will be announced as the first Woke Colony of the New English Empire.