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
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After the Jake Berry saga it’s time to move on, though we stay on Ynys Môn for the first couple of pieces, before pushing on, even visiting the city of my dreams.
This is another ‘biggie’ but as usual with this format it’s broken down into digestible portions. So there’s no need to rush, you can take your time. Enjoy!
♦
YNYS MÔN
As we used to hear in the old black and white movies, ‘Dead men tell no tales’. Maybe not, but on Ynys Môn dead men do put in planning applications.
In the previous post, Jake Berry MP, Part 4, I mentioned a property that had swum into view in the course of my investigations into Berry’s little empire. This property may have nothing to do with him, but it became interesting in its own right when I realised that a planning application was submitted in August 2019 – by a man who died early in 2017.
Let me explain, for those who may be unfamiliar with the planning system, that you don’t need to own a property to submit a planning application. A builder, an architect, a relative, even a prospective buyer, can submit a planning application, but this must be done with the consent of the owner. Which presupposes that the owner has not departed for the celestial realm.
Now in this case on Ynys Môn the owner was long dead, and those submitting the planning application knew he was dead. We know they knew because they’d put his name on the planning application with ‘(Deceased)’ alongside it!
Which is difficult to explain; the Will was a straightforward transfer, so why didn’t the person who’d inherited the property put her name on the planning application?
Another curious feature – though it obviously links – is that the Land Registry title document still shows the late Mr Cuddy as the owner. Which might explain why, after putting out a tweet asking why the council had accepted this application from a dead man, I got a Twitter response from the Land Registry.
The LR reminded those in the thread that there is no legal obligation for anyone to update a title document. Which is unfortunately correct. But I believe we are all entitled to know the ownership of property. And money being laundered through property transactions is another reason for making immediate re-registration mandatory.
Does the so-called ‘Welsh Government’ have the power to legislate in this area? And if so, does it have the balls to do what needs to be done?
On the planning matter, I cannot believe that a dead man can be named as the applicant on a planning application. Which calls into question why Cyngor Sir Ynys Môn accepted that planning application.
Again, if this is legal, it should not be. And if the ‘Welsh Government’ can legislate to outlaw the absurdity of dead men making planning applications, then it should do so. Pronto.
Land Registry documents not updated after three years and planning applications in the name of a dead man suggest something is not quite right.
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YNYS MÔN 2
I don’t want to paint Ynys Môn as Wales’ Sicily, but strange things do seem to happen there. One I dealt with fairly recently was the sale of the Shire Hall in Llangefni to Tristan Scott Haynes.
Last year I wrote Not another one! about the sale, and there was a January follow-up in Wales, colonialism and corruption (scroll down to ‘Llangefni Shire Hall’).
To put it mildly, Haynes has a ‘colourful’ past, but the county council saw no problem in selling him their old Shire Hall. And the sale was completed 22 August 2019 with money Haynes had borrowed from Together Commercial Finance Ltd.
The caption tells that Haynes is managing director of Chief Properties Ltd and he also runs a “successful haulage firm”.
Chief Properties was set up in August 2018 for the purpose of buying a property like the Shire Hall. The accounts tell us that the company has fixed assets of £201,942 (the Shire Hall) but is in debt to the tune of £12,460.
As for the “successful haulage firm”, well the next meeting of shareholders will be delighted to learn that Falcon Transportation Ltd‘s total net assets come to £21,282. Roughly what they were the year previously. A truck?
Go back to the caption under the photograph and you’ll read, “(Haynes) had never been to Anglesey before identifying Shire Hall as a possible location”. Which suggests that he found it online. And that any building, anywhere, might have done.
But for what purpose?
As far as I’m aware no work has been done on the Shire Hall, certainly no planning permission has been applied for, so why did Haynes borrow money to buy a building that he seems to have lost interest in?
And having bought it, why is Haynes so reluctant to inform the Land Registry? For the title document says that the council still owns the Shire Hall. So why doesn’t the council contact Haynes and ask him to update the LR document?
And if the county council has washed its hands of the Shire Hall don’t the burghers of Llangefni worry about the fate of one of their town’s prime assets?
♦
RHODRI MORGAN AND THE WDA
It’s generally agreed that despite certain failings the Welsh Development Agency was doing a good job in attracting inward investment, and to this day many people still don’t understand why it was done away with.
A comment to the previous post seemed to provide an answer:
“If any target should be in your sites (sic) 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 . . . A person present . . . 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’ . . . 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 . . . 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 . . . 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 . . . 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.”
This contribution was reinforced in an e-mail from another source which, after a few tweaks, I’m allowed to publish as you see below. This source was also close to the action at the time in question.
“I don’t know (the writer of the comment), but the account with regard to Graham Hawker (CEO) telling Rhodri Morgan he’s screwed the Welsh economy is correct.
While there is much talked about the WDA and it’s dealings in its early to mid years, in its later life it was an organisation of people (predominantly Welsh people) who actually gave a fuck about trying to lift the prosperity of the country. To this day, I am convinced that the termination of the WDA was done out of both jealousy by Welsh Gov and also a disregard by WDA to service the needs and wants of Ministers as they became more and more demanding for information from the organisation. It was not designed to service Welsh Government. It was designed to deliver economic development to external customers and it did it well.
To be fair to Hawker, he had instigated a re-organisation programme that would have addressed some of the issues, but Morgan had made his decision for the bonfire of the quangos. Hawker had resigned in front of Senedd committee. He made Morgan look stupid, who then asked him publicly to reconsider his resignation. He didn’t and he left.
Following Hawker, Gareth Hall was installed as Welsh Gov’s puppet CEO. Rhodri Morgan stated publicly that WDA staff would not see any change in the transition to Welsh Gov. That was total bollocks. There was a culture of cleansing any entrepreneurial spirit and drive in the organisation and a clear move from answering to the WDA board to Ministers. Hall was very close to Marc Clement of Swansea Uni fame. The WDA was being steered by Andrew Davies as Econ Dev Minister at the time, again with close links to Swansea. Make of that what you will.
It is clear that the politicisation of economic development has killed off any hope of raising Wales’s GDP above 75% of the UK average. We are still below it and I blame total and utter mismanagement of EU funds coupled with what you write about regularly – pushing funding to the third sector ‘economy’, crap pet projects (Cardiff Airport) and shysters.
Welsh Gov is a broken organisation. It cannot deliver economic development, full stop.
The wind up of the WDA is a case study of how to destroy exemplar economic development practice and then replacing it with fantasy policies of inclusion, sustainable development, socialist ideologies and then paying those organisations who advocate such tripe to turn up in the Senedd committees to back you up.”
Most students of Welsh politics know that Rhodri Morgan was the kind of man Doctor Johnson would have described as ‘clubbable’; a man who could be relied on for the witty quip or the diverting anecdote, but hard work was not really his bag.
The manner of the WDA’s demise tells us a lot about Rhodri Morgan and the Labour Party. Both quite happy to destroy what they cannot control however damaging such a course of action might be for Wales.
The incident also exposes the damning contradiction of ‘Welsh’ Labour – forever banging on about employment, blaming ‘London’ or the Tories for Wales not having enough decent jobs, but the beast itself is ideologically and temperamentally opposed to the business and commerce that would provide good jobs because it cannot control them.
‘Keep Wales poor, keep Wales dependent, keep Wales voting Labour’?
The first source reminds us that with the WDA gone Wales’ share of the UK’s inward investment fell from 22% to 2%. While the second source tells that the loss of the WDA saw the rise of the third sector, which is under the control of the Labour Party because the ‘Welsh Government’ controls the purse funding.
To the point where, in the parallel dimension that is Wales, third sector bosses receive awards for achievements in business.
From 2007 until 2011 Labour was in coalition with Plaid Cymru, but Plaid made no attempt to bring back the WDA, for Plaid Cymru is another party made up of social workers, academics and others who think making profits and creating jobs is dirty.
‘Filthy capitalism, innit!’
Much better to live on hand-outs from England. Then enjoy the power of patronage that goes with distributing someone else’s money without the bother of creating it. That is, without the hard work involved organising a national economy.
Which is exactly how the Labour Party views devolution.
And explains why the cycle of decline will continue after next May’s election when Labour will fall short of a majority and need another coalition with Plaid Cymru to stay in power. Plaid Cymru will jump at the opportunity.
And Wales will continue to decline . . . with regular ‘dead cat on the table’ episodes of virtue signalling.
♦
BRIGHTON GREENS DISCOVER GOWER
In my younger days I spent a lot of time on Gower. Oh yes. An aunt and uncle had a house above Port Eynon when such properties could be bought cheaply because most tourists came from within a radius of 40 or 50 miles. They came for a day trip or a holiday, but few of them thought of moving there permanently.
It was on their doorstep, they could visit whenever they liked.
School holidays spent crabbing at Port Eynon were succeeded by teenage years fishing just about everywhere for bass, with Worm’s Head a favourite spot.
In the twenty-first century it was inevitable I suppose that Gower would attract the eco-colonists, those who want to ‘live off the land’ . . . usually someone else’s land, often thanks to big dollops of public funding, and invariably by ignoring planning regulations.
And lo! it has come to pass.
To read the WalesOnline report from which the above image is taken just click here.
The Furzehill project is the brainchild of the Ecological Land Cooperative of Brighton. That is Brighton on the south coast of England. What attracts them to Wales is the One Planet lunacy, which proclaims that in order to reduce Wales’ carbon footprint people must be attracted to Wales to farm virgin land, burn wood, drive vehicles, and generally impose themselves on what were often pristine landscapes.
This is virtue signalling, big time, introduced when Jane Davidson was Minister for the Environment, Sustainability and Housing from 2007 to 2011. This may also have been the period when the ‘Welsh Government’s ‘All Farmers are Bastards’ strategy was formulated. (Was ‘Game Show Gary’ [ahem] ‘advising’ Davidson?)
Nominally, Davidson was AM for Pontypridd, but she didn’t give a toss about Ponty. She was in Corruption Bay to promote her environmentalist friends’ agenda. The rest of the Labour Party could see the advantage in this because it gave scope for virtue signalling on a global stage while putting the boot into rural electorates that refuse to vote Labour.
Davidson went on to become an academic (of sorts) and an even more outspoken advocate for eco-invaders like herself.
Here’s Davidson’s book on her work in government that culminated in One Planet Developments (OPD) and Future Generations legislation. Which have done nothing for us Welsh (it wasn’t intended to) but has achieved brownie points for a party and a system that, while running Wales into the ground, gets plaudits from people like Nikhil Seth who know sod all about Wales.
Furzehill is important, and should be watched, for the following reason.
Up until now OPDs have argued that they improve marginal land or even bring life back to abandoned farms. But Gower is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AOUB). The first area given AOUB status in the whole of this island.
I expect Swansea council to refuse planning permission for these ‘hobbit houses’. If that happens, then there will almost certainly be an appeal to the ‘Welsh Government’. And if those clowns allow the Furzehill project to proceed then National Parks will be the next target for the eco-colonists.
Which makes this application the thin end of the wedge. So watch it carefully. Click here for the council planning portal and enter 2020/0744/FUL into the Search box.
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THE LABOUR COUNCILLOR WHO DESTROYED YMCA WALES
For those unfamiliar with the area, the Llansamlet ward is on the east side of Swansea, above Bonymaen and east of Morriston, straddling the M4. At its edge, Birchgrove runs into Skewen merging Swansea with Neath.
It was an area where the Welsh language was still strong when I was a boy, and Swansea’s first Plaid Cymru councillor was elected by Llansamlet’s voters in the youthful form of my old mate Dr John Ball.
Since then, it’s been pretty much downhill. The ward has been represented by a succession of Old Labour time-servers, enlivened recently by a few exotic imports.
I’m thinking now of Robert (‘call me Bob’) Clay, privately-educated former MP for Sunderland North and his Austrian-born wife Uta. Both moved on in 2017 and I’m told that these devout Marxists now live in a very agreeable detached property in rural Carmarthenshire.
Llansamlet returned another four Labour councillors at the 2017 elections, among them Maureen ‘Mo’ Sykes, of whom I have written before. To remind you . . . Mo Sykes was CEO of YMCA Wales yet under her ‘leadership’ things went to hell. To the extent that YMCA Wales ceased to exist.
The organisation leaked money, she herself left under a big cloud in July 2014, YMCA Wales went into administration in September, the jewel in the crown – Newgale Outdoor Education Centre in Pembrokeshire – was flogged off for £507,000 in June 2015, and the abandoned branches of YMCA Wales were told to affiliate to YMCA England.
They were welcomed with open arms by YMCA England for adopting the ‘national brand’.
So in the age of devolution we took another step backward. The ‘Welsh Government’, which had funded Mo Sykes and should have been asking what the fuck had gone wrong, showed no interest. After buying a nice detached house on a quiet street in Clydach (for a surprisingly low price) Sykes was handed a safe seat for the 2017 city council elections.
All this is covered in YMCA England(andwales) with links to previous articles.
And now, if my sources are correct, she’s going home to the Six Counties after living off the public purse for years and doing her bit to integrate Wales into England.
If so, good riddance.
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LEENA SARAH FARHAT
Soon after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis Nation.Cymru insulted us with an article by Leena Sarah Farhat telling us that Wales was full of racist cops. I made a comment, suggesting she apologise to our police, but my comment was removed. Bizarrely, left up were comments from an unhinged wokie (not from Muskogee) attacking me in very personal terms!
This moron seemed to think I’d deleted my comment, and even when told he’d taken a wrong turn he kept marching purposefully into the bog. I’ve had dealings with him before, and he’s typical of his kind. Because I’d called him ‘little boy’ or something he tried to brand me a paedophile by suggesting I thought I was dealing with a child!
No, ‘Alan’, I’m know exactly what I’m dealing with, son. A twat.
It got so fractious on the state-subsidised mouthpiece for Plaid Cymru run by the saintly Ifan Morgan Jones that he had to pull all the comments. Something he had to do again on Friday when reporting that Martin Shipton, Chief Correspondent of the Western Mail, had lost his judging job at the Book of the Year Awards, run by Literature Wales, after being targeted by the wokies. (Tell me about it!)
(And if you want a definition of colonial establishment, look no further than Literature Wales.)
But I digress. Who is Leena Sarah Farhat?
From what I could gather, she works at Aberystwyth University. She is also Diversity Officer for the Welsh Liberal Democrats, and their candidate for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr. I’m sure she knows Castell Newydd Emlyn and Llanfihangel Rhos-y-Corn like the back of her delicate hand.
Anyway, later that evening I had one of the strange e-mails I get quite regularly. What I’m describing is the internet age’s equivalent of some bloke emerging out the shadows, collar pulled up and hat pulled down, looking furtively around before handing me the slip of paper that will unravel the mystery.
Or maybe I watch too much film noir.
The terse message contained a link, which I was loath to open in case it contained a virus. But I took a chance and the link took me here. To begin with, I wasn’t sure where I’d landed (I feared it might be one of those pornographical sites I’ve read about), but as I took it in I realised it was some kind of social media platform with people asking Leena Sarah Farhat questions.
Some of her answers were quite strange, others disturbing. Here’s a selection.
Make of it what you will, but here’s my interpretation. Here we have another ‘progressive’ party desperate to be seen to be ‘inclusive’ recruiting someone on whom they haven’t done enough checks, and who turns out to be, if not anti-Semitic, then certainly tacking towards that port of call.
With Plaid Cymru it was Sahar Al-Faifi, with Labour . . . well, take your pick, and now, not to be left out, the Lib Dems will incur the wrath of the Board of Deputies. Good.
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ONLY HERE FOR THE MONEY?
An e-mail I receive daily (but often don’t have time to read properly) comes from Business News Wales, which last Wednesday carried tidings of a £750,000 investment by the Development Bank of Wales and others in Agxio Ltd.
Both the headline and the opening paragraph report that Agxio is based in Aberystwyth. Yet according to Companies House Axgio’s address is actually in leafy Dorking, in Surrey.
What’s more, Agxio is a one-man band, and that one man is Dr Stephen Christie. To read Dr Christie’s Linkedin bio he’s been there, done that, and got the T-shirt. It’s only a matter of time before that photo on his mantelpiece of great-uncle Hamish in his pith helmet makes way for a Nobel Prize.
From Linkedin we learn that since 2011 Christie has been CEO of Neural Insights Ltd, another company based in Dorking. His wife is the only other director. The latest accounts show a company where liabilities exceed assets, though the figures are small. The accounts are ‘filleted’.
Then there’s his chairmanship of MemberMatch Ltd, which helps golfists find playing partners. But he doesn’t seem to have ever been a director, let alone chairman. The latest unaudited financial statement reveals another company in the red.
Dr Christie’s only other extant company, formed in August 2018, is Inbotiqa Ltd. This has Net Liabilities of £107,131 for 2019; which was, admittedly, a big improvement on 2018. The accounts are unaudited.
Something that struck me about Inbotiqa was the massive share issue. Hundreds of thousands of shares.
And it looks similar with Agxio, which is getting funding from the Development Bank of Wales. Dr Currie seems to have spent a great deal of his time figuring out the share issues, just check the filing history.
Don’t get me wrong, Dr Stephen Christie might be a very clever bloke, but his greatest talent may be issuing and selling shares rather than producing anything, or creating jobs.
Furthermore, his ‘presence’ in Aberystwyth may be no more than a letter-box, and so I question whether Agxio should be receiving a penny of Welsh public funding.
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INDEPENDENCE PUSH LEAVES PLAID CYMRU BEHIND
The latest poll findings from Professor Roger Awan-Scully for ITV Wales and Cardiff University are intriguing.
To begin with, Coronavirus seems to have impacted on the Conservative vote as if the party’s voters had been confined to care homes; down 11 percentage points from the April poll to 35% for Westminster elections. Labour is up 4 to 39% and Plaid Cymru also up 4 to 15%.
For Welsh Parliament elections, the figures are (constituency first, list second):
Those figures were fairly predictable. Of more interest were the responses when people were asked questions such as: “If there was a referendum tomorrow on Wales becoming an independent country and this was the question, how would you vote? Should Wales be an independent country?”
In answer, 25% said Yes, but 54% said No. When asked whether the Assembly should be abolished, 25% said Yes, 48% said No.
To the multi-option constitutional question the responses were:
As you’re probably aware, a great deal has been made of a figure of 33% in favour of independence. This figure is only arrived at when respondents are given the stark choice between doing away with devolution or going for independence. When the returns were:
Certainly, these findings are generally encouraging. But there’s a long way to go. What I extrapolate from these polls is the following:
- Devolution is increasingly discredited. After more than two decades of failure it is under pressure from both those who want independence and those who want integration with England. (Which is what abolishing the Senedd would amount to.)
- Plaid Cymru is making little progress despite the increase in numbers prepared to consider independence. There is clearly scope for other parties, especially if those parties are more focused on Wales and Welsh issues.
- No account is taken in these polls of how events in Scotland could impact on Wales. I believe that Scotland becoming independent would greatly increase the numbers in Wales choosing independence.
There’s a lot to play for in next year’s elections. And beyond.
♦
As you may know, following a complaint by Jake Berry, the MP for Rossendale and Darwen, currently building a property empire on Ynys Môn, Facebook took down the links I’d posted to the articles about him on this blog.
Well now I’m locked out of my Facebook account altogether, yet it appears to still be open to others. There seems to be no appeal process so is there any way I can just close my Facebook page?
All help gratefully received.
♦ end ♦
There was a chap called Clive. He was the ‘agent’ of the East India Company.
In Bengal he committed atrocities like forcing farmers to grow crops on occupied land and exporting them to Britain before leaving the natives to famine. He ransacked cultural artefacts from India into his personal collection. Clive of India then inherited Powis (sic) Castle, where he housed the loot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmzr8UE4KD4%5Bremovetoplay%5D
This property is now owned by the National Trust. They gets grants from the Welsh Government to promote tourism to the castle. They describe this loot as “Clive also brought the superb collection of treasures from India to Powis Castle which are displayed in the Clive Museum.” No mention of how the loot was obtained.
Should the National Trust return the artefacts to India, the woke in the Senedd stop being upper hypocrites like Bethan Sayed? Hand the land the building back to Wales? Evict the National Trust from our country?
Think you’re woke?
Will gift green paint and sledgehammer.
Selectively woke, as one would expect from a political and social fashionista.
I’ve always said we should chuck the NT out of Wales and have a Welsh body to look after what is, after all, our heritage.
PENRHYN CASTLE.
The National Trust should also be forced to hand over Penrhyn Castle to CADW.
Then the next Welsh Government can get CADW to display the REAL history of Wales. Open up a ‘slavery museum’ in the east wing and a ‘quarrymans museum’ in the west wing.
This will result in turning away the mainly white nostalgic clones of empire visiting from England wearing those fleece jackets adorned with oak leaves, and open up our heritage to the rest of the world.
Does the National Trust publish a breakdown of their membership by country and ethnicity?
Another example of AngloBrit scumbag behaviour.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/13/man-pictured-urinating-pc-keith-palmers-memorial-protests/
This buffoon may by now have registered the irony of the situation – pissing on the memorial to a PC who gave his life protecting “the mother of parliaments” which assorted AngloBrit supremacist groups normally elevate to sacred status.
Probably drank too much in anticipation of a dust up with the other daft crew of vandals on the loose today.
I was hoping the police would let them get at each other.
Would have bought tickets to watch that especially if it was play till last man standing.
Exactly. Let them destroy each other.
To Jac
So your reasons for maintaining Picton’s statue, portrait and name of a school prominent is because:
1. For his military exploits( in the name of England and the British Empire)
2. his dying at Waterloo (and having the good “fortune” reputation wise that a higher ranked officer didn’t also die)
3. The 14 year old girl he allowed to be tortured was no little innocent (well how could she was given away to be a mistress when she was 11 the hussy)
4. That Picton was a racist but that’s irrelevant.
5. He’s a dead white man and so being targeted by black activists is prejudice (you don’t say if the white people who target him are similarly prejudiced )
6.People are jealous of him (by what you wrote I think you mean envious of him – you really think opponents are envious of Picton’s 1 to 4 !)
The point I’m making, as you well know, is that Picton’s alleged racism is not irrelevant but it’s being used to outweigh the reasons for his erstwhile celebrity. Furthermore, the cruelty he is alleged to have displayed in his treatment of that girl was of its time. Men of his status treated white people no better. But there is a tendency to be very selective in interpreting history, so that only crimes against black people are remembered. To the point where many people believe slavery was only ever practised by white people against black people.
An example I used earlier, which you might have missed, is that of lynching. To believe political activists lynching was carried out only in the South – the old, Confederate South – and only by white people against black people. The truth is that lynchings were carried out all over the USA, and in territories before they became States, often because there was no working legal system or because what did exist was not trusted.
In the post-Civil War South the white population was effectively disenfranchised. The former slaves were given top jobs, and to add to the whites’ resentment there were the carpet-baggers ripping them off. Lynching must have seemed the only ‘justice’ available. But even so, the practice of lynching was colour blind. Perhaps the worst example occurred in New Orleans in 1891 following the murder of a popular Irish-American cop by the Mob. Eleven Italians acquitted of the murder, were lynched. The city of New Orleans apologised last year.
When you consider the facts about slavery and lynching Black Lives Matter begins to sound more like White Lives Aren’t So Important.
You’re arguing that lynching in the USA was not something that disproportionally and significantly adversely affected black people and you’re topping it with a “carpet baggers” explanation means that I don’t need to even attempt to put forward the opposing argument.
Thank God for that! You were getting a wee bit sanctimonious.
Black Lives Matter was founded by extreme anti-white racists which include Yusra Khougali/Yusra Ali, who the left wing Huffington Post described as “directing violent, hateful language towards people with white skin.” There are various other sites via search engines which expose what BLM is really about.
BLM are heavily funded by The Ford Foundation and Borealis Philanthropy via the formation of the Black-Led Movement Fund [BLMF]
That funding comes in addition to more than $33 million in grants to the Black Lives Matter movement from top Democratic Party donor George Soros through his Open Society Foundations, as well as grants from the DNC’s Center for American Progress.
Soros makes his billions from promoting the destabilising of the economies of countries of all political persuasions. He (in)famously has stated “I aim to make money, and I do not care about the consequences that has on people.” Bottom line is that BLM is a money making racket, funded by Soros and DNC related organisations, using ANTIFA and other anarchist groups to try to destabilise the western world economically and politically.
The less “woke” i.e. less gullible, are beginning to realise what BLM is really about, especially when they are continually pestered to give to “the cause” by BLM crowdfunding sites.
You have to hand it to them though, as a marketing slogan, Black Lives Matter is a brilliant name for a scam.
Re your tweet column – Is that the Billy of “Fuck King Billy fame” ? Well of course it is.
First time I ever saw that for real was on a wall in the Six Counties when we drove over the border via a back road at a “Troubled time”. The advice south of the border at that time c.1970 was that the regular army guys were O.K but the RUC and UDR units were absolute bastards so we went down the back lane for a quick look around. Seriously daft thing to do but when you are 20’ish there is that profound sense of immortality and infallibility which fades later on in life !
Yes, it’s that King Billy.
Good news – on the face of it !
https://www.insidermedia.com/news/wales/south-wales-preferred-location-for-landmark-battery-gigafactory?utm_source=wales_newsletter&utm_campaign=wales_news_tracker&utm_medium=top_story_article
Clean and green production of lithium cells – I’ll believe that when I see it. This is where the green story turns out to be as dirty if not more so than coal and gas. If they can produce these cells without fouling a large surrounding area then well done but there is no evidence right now that the types of materials involved are remotely “clean”.
I see from the tweets that others have picked up on this story from the finance angle which I guess is a major concern although Skates would peel the hide off his mam if he thought it would help to raise the cash to bring in this deal. However the environmental issues should concern this government after all dear Lesley is obsessed with them when it comes to dealing with relatively small agricultural businesses. Last I heard Lithium and sundry other compounds used in battery manufacture are more toxic than cow shit. Probably smells worse too.
The way it works is you take some Arab with a pocket full of oil cash and call it seed one. Then you farm a government grant and you call it seed two. Combine the two so seed one owns rights over seed two. Then the liquidate the venture. The value of seed two is almost doubled and the venture is liquidated, returning profits to the oil pockets. The scam is run by a Swedish tax exile living in United Arab Eremites who earns a crust punting for start up venture capital using this mechanism. It’s a business model used effectively in Russia during the Yelsin years. I’m surprised Skates is falling for it. Does anyone know where he lives? I know a traveller with new type of tarmac for his driveway. It’ll look good for a few weeks before Declan dissappears.
A “Welsh Hall of Shame” does not have to be yet another Public Building built at great public expense down in new privileged area of Cardiff Bay. That’s the sort of place that most of Welsh politicians like spending our money on in edifices of concrete. How many of you “Jac” readers know of the “Welsh Hall of sporting fame?”. It is not a building. It is a simple but large stylish gilded BOOK into which our sporting heroes are dedicated with a scrolled page each by nomination for posterity and honour. The cost of this book is nominal but its a great honour to get one’s name in it. Conversely a “Welsh Hall of Shame” could simply be another solid book volume open for public perusal forever at some public venue to preserve the record of the dishonourable people of Wales who were racists and bigots and slave owners and slave traders. Let us shame and disgrace them at little cost for eternity, together with explanatory modest plaques under their statues and monuments around Wales.. Why pull them down at great cost? Let them stand in utter shame forever.
Good idea, except those wokies would want to burn the book ! Such is the madness of fundementalists.
If the “woke” burn down the museums that Colston et al end up in you could well be right that the “woke” are our version of the Taliban. I they don’t then perhaps you’re being a tad hysterical.(in a lost all sense of proportion rather that funny ha ha way).
You make an interesting point about ” the transient fashionable ishoo laden nature of it all”. Wasn’t it the transient fashionable ishoo laden nature of English exceptionalism and imperialism that caused these statues to be erected in the first place,
Not hysterical at all. If wokes thought they might get away with it, they would be torching or blasting away merrily. 2 things deter many of them – fear of being banged up, and fear that they might burn or blow themselves up in the act ! They share with Taliban the profound conviction that only their world view is right and that they alone must set the agenda.
On your last point/question – Probably, and it seems to be a recurring flaw in a nation that regards its exceptionalism and (neo) imperialism as essential to its “rightful place” in this world. Those statues and castles and other follies do a good job of reminding us what a bunch of cnuts they really are.
You’re describing those you identify as “wokes” as though they belong to some homogenous organized even neofascist movement.
“Ein Woke” perhaps!
You’re also projecting motives, rationals, aims and even personalites onto what you’ve decided is a group of likeminded people.
Practically all the people who you label “wokes” don’t want those statues destroyed but removed and interpreted fully so that people are educated about our past.
Similarly with those Edward I castles. Anyone who wants them to be interpreted by CADW from the Welsh perspective rather than a Norman/English one is effectively a “woke”.
It looks to me like you’ve decided that the definition of “woke” largely depends on if you agree with what they do or not.
So damaging a statue of a slaver = woke
And I suspect that damaging an English only road sign in the sixties = not woke
The news for you and others is that they’re both “woke” activities.
What we are experiencing goes way beyond statues. It takes in gender issues, such as J K Rowling being hounded for suggesting that “people who menstruate” are women. ‘What!’ they cry, ‘how dare’ you?’, because what she said apparently discriminates in some way against transgender women.
We are dealing with a small, vociferous and intolerant minority by-passing the democratic system to enforce its thinking on the rest of us.
To achieve their objectives they try to spread the guilt. A number of persons representing the ‘BAME community’ have argued on Nation.Cymru and elsewhere that we Welsh are terrible people because a tiny number were directly involved in slavery, and because of Welsh place names outside of Wales. This kind of group guilt wasn’t even tried at Nuremberg, the Nazi leaders were put on trial, not the whole German nation.
And who or what is the ‘BAME community’, who does it really represent? I don’t see any Chinese getting involved, they just want to work hard and save money. Are Jews involved? No. The truth is that the ‘BAME community’ is a few extreme leftists of colour speaking for a small number of malcontents and being exploited by a much larger number of white leftists that failed to get their way after infiltrating the Labour Party in the UK and the Democratic Party in the USA.
The Welsh examples you quote are a poor analogy because Welsh people taking up issues that directly affect them, in their own country, is a hell of a lot different to a bunch of wokies cynically exploiting issues that have nothing to do with them in pursuit of a wider political and social objective.
There will be a backlash, and it might not be pretty. And if it plunges the US and Europe into a damaging culture war that weakens both, then the wokies will be delighted, because their ultimate objective is the undoing of Western society. And for that to happen they have to promote the idea that all white people are guilty . . . of something.
This is why they’re only interested in white on black slavery, and why an Afrikaner child butchered by terrorists on a remote farm ‘deserves’ it because of the sins of its fathers. Yet Pol Pot, Idi Amin and every other non-white mass-murderer gets a free pass. In fact, they encourage black and other minorities to seek ‘redress for centuries of oppression’ by indiscriminately attacking anything representative of European and white American society.
It might have begun with statues of Confederate generals, and now it’s moved on to statues of people with links to slavery, but it won’t end there. Now that these fanatics have tasted the success of public confessions and support from the mainstream media their demands will increase. They want control over society that is impossible through the electoral system.
The bottom line is that these people are nihilists. They want to destroy what the West has built up since the Renaissance but they have nothing with which to replace it. That is why they must be confronted, not with guns but with reasoned arguments. Expose them for the screeching and intolerant hate-mongers they are.
Because if they’re not faced down then the beneficiaries will be the extreme right, and in Wales that means the BritNats. Which is not something to look forward to, unless we can take advantage of it. The problem is that too many in Plaid Cymru and elsewhere have bought into the trans-Atlantic ‘struggle’ and want to import it into Wales. All they’ve found so far is Picton.
But I remain optimistic. Something good can emerge from times of trouble for those who can see beyond the hullabaloo. As great-aunt Fastidia used to say, ‘Keep your eyes on the prize and take advantage of any opportunities that come your way’.
“We are dealing with a small, vociferous and intolerant minority by-passing the democratic system to enforce its thinking on the rest of us”
That’s a good summing up of.how we arrived at where we were pre “woke”.
It’s how the statue of Picton got included in the collection of Welsh heroes. He didn’t even get enough votes from the readers of theTory supporting Western mail to be included fairly.
Reappraising the role of Welsh individuals and Welsh society played (or didn’t play) in slavery as something that we should do per se and if we’re genuine about it I can’t see it as doing anything but assist Welsh independence.
Lumping such a reappraisal with whatever other ishoos you have with ishoos like transgender, bame, wokes, Pol Pot not being brought to justice. public profiles of Confederate generals etc isn’t.
Pol Pot hasn’t been given a “free pass” by Cambodians whether or not he’s been given a “free pass ” by the Bame community in the UK isn’t an issue.
“The Welsh examples you quote are a poor analogy because Welsh people taking up issues that directly affect them, in their own country,”
That only makes sense you think the Bame community in the UK isn’t in their own country.
“Reappraising the role of Welsh individuals and Welsh society played (or didn’t play) in slavery as something that we should do per se and if we’re genuine about it I can’t see it as doing anything but assist Welsh independence.”
How could ‘Welsh society’ play any role in slavery? It’s absurd to even consider the question. The fact that you could put that into words suggests you are little better than the extremists trying to apply ‘blanket blame’.
As for your final paragraph, the BAME community (that does not include Chinese, Jews and many others) is using the death of a man thousands of miles away and somehow linking that with what may have been done by people with Welsh estates, throwing in what they allege Churchill thought, and coming up with an alphabet soup of grievances.
There is a world of difference between that and Welsh people, in their own country, dealing with specifically Welsh issues.
https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/article/section/history-of-slavery/the_welsh_abolitionists/
Iolo Morganwg and William Williams Pantycelyn, a couple of “wokes”
On the opposite end of the spectrum that Slate Quarry owner.
In between people with varying attitudes including those who manufactured goods that were traded for slaves but who either carried on working or were sacked and they and their families made destitute, those that chose not to think about the issue, those that thought slavery was ok as it provided them with cheap sugar.
Together they made up Welsh society. Together their actions and attitudes affected slavery.
“There is a world of difference between that and Welsh people, in their own country, dealing with specifically Welsh issues.”
Every country has issues specific to that country. Every country has issues that are common to other countries or even globally. That racism is not specific or unique to Cymru doesn’t provide any logic for not addressing it and that includes becoming aware of our historic connections with slavery.
Iolo Morgannwg and William Williams weren’t ‘wokes’, they simply took one side in what was an ongoing debate. Do you think they’d agree that a bloke in a frock should be treated as a woman when he’s in full possession of his dangly bits? And are you reduced to arguing that consuming cheap sugar made every man, woman and child in Wales complicit in slavery?
Where does nonsense like that end? Because we accepted US aid in WWII in the fight against fascism and Nazism, and no doubt much of it was produced by black labour paid below the rate for white workers, should we have refused this aid and let Hitler win? And although this is an an argument you won’t hear from the left; were those who manned the ships in the Arctic convoys supplying the USSR complicit in Stalin’s crimes? Because they certainly helped the Soviet Union, and Stalin, survive the Nazi attack.
You and your wokie friends like to spread the shit like a drunken farmer with a muck-spreader stuck in overdrive – making sure everybody’s covered.
The other thing you’re doing is using a very flawed and dangerous syllogism that runs: ‘Hiram P. Bumblebee, the Confederate general, was a cruel slave-owner and an absolute bastard; Hiram P Bumblebee was white; therefore all white people of the period were cruel slave-owners and absolute bastards’.
From the Oxford English Dictionary
woke, adjective: Originally: well-informed, up-to-date. Now chiefly: alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice;
But you think that description can’t be applied to Iolo Morganwg and WW Pantycelyn’ anti-slavery activism!
If people bought sugar being aware that it was produced using slavery then they were complicit. I think you’ve pointed out that slavery still exists so do you think those who buy goods from that source today are complicit. Or are they to be excused as well.
WWII was a war to survive. If you want to make it synonymous with adding sugar to tea and making Welshcakes that’s your choice I’m not following you there.
You’re projecting some simplistic Bumblebee pseudo logic onto me. For what it’s worth here’s some alternative logic
Thomas Picton in his own time by a jury of his peers no less was basically found guilty of being a sh1t.
Someone who was a sh!t should not have a school named in his honour,
Someone who was a sh!t should not have his portrait hanging in a courtroom.
Someone who was a sh!t should not have his statue included in a gallery of Welsh heroes.
I’d be interested in your logic for maintaining the prominence of Picton themed artifacts in our country. if possible without reference to such things as Arctic convoys, Pol Pot and “dangly bits”. Diolch.
Picton’s fame rests on his military exploits and his death at Waterloo. The circumstances surrounding the treatment of that girl – who was hardly a demure little miss – are little more than a footnote. What we see happening here is everything else being disregarded to focus on the footnote.
But some want to pretend that Picton and the others were honoured because they were racists!
Seeing as all human beings – Churchill included – are flawed, there is no one above reproach. But given the prejudice inherent in Black Lives Matter, and the extreme leftists who control the movement, the targets will always be ‘dead white men’, who have been targeted by black activists and the left for a few decades.
Why? Because they achieved so much. It’s pure jealousy.
“Practically all the people who you label “wokes” don’t want those statues destroyed but removed and interpreted fully so that people are educated about our past.”
So you are distancing yourself from the behaviours of those who tipped Colston into the drink and would have knocked a few more down had they gained access ? You now appear to be moving to a more rational position where these objects could be used to enable a better understanding of our history, despite the difficulties that “white on white” colonialism seems to pose for some people. Those castles are particularly gruesome but as I said before they are valuable in reminding us of what went on in our history and what remains a part of the subliminal relationship that exists to varying degrees today.
Authorities either manage change or run the risk of change being forced on them. The authorities in Bristol had decades in which to a compromise with those who wanted the statue removed. They avoided the opportunities they had and we saw the result. I won’t condemn those that toppled the statue otherwise I feel I’d then also have to condemn those that did similar to English only road signs in Cymru in the sixties.
I think the ball is now in the authorities’ court and it depends as much on their response as it does on the response of protesters as to what happens next. Let’s see if authorities take the opportunity to manage change.
I’ve never heard anyone suggest demolishing the Norman castles apart from in jest. But I imagine that we both agree that the interpretation of them is dire from a Welsh perspective. Therefore they come nowhere near being as useful as a nation building resource as they could be (the nation being Cymru of course).
I’ve seen many wokist social media accounts saying leave the statue of Colston in the drink and advocating the same treatment for Picton and others. That’s not an enlightened, measured response in the current climate, which quite definitely is a form of hysteria. It’s time for the heat to be taken out of this. People who are rejoicing because ropes are put around statues and they are stamped on and thrown into the docks should consider how quickly things can switch to those ropes being put around the necks of actual people. Mob rule is not a pretty thing.
“I’ve seen many wokist social media accounts saying leave the statue of Colston in the drink and advocating the same treatment for Picton and others.”
And you won’t need to try hard to find many “”wokist ” comments saying that the statues should be placed in museums and interpreted fully. Or maybe it’s that you don’t consider those making that sort of comment to be “wokist”
I find it bizarre that on a blog that is pro independence for Cymru that so many are sympathetic to the viewpoint of present and past authorities and their allies who are nothing but the arch promoters of English exceptionalism, nationalism and imperialism masquerading as British.
And you won’t need to try hard to find many “non-wokist” people who would go along with some of these statues being better placed in museums rather than public squares, with full explanation as to how they got there. Because I’m one of them. I’d like to think that’s a stance that the majority of people would support. But I don’t think they support the kind of actions witnessed in Bristol and London recently, not least because the overwhelming majority of people in the UK are doing as asked, and avoiding mass gatherings as we’re still in the middle of a pandemic.
“woke” isn’t standardized. For some your view of statues being placed in museums with full explanation as to how they got there makes you a “woke”.
I’d like to think that a majority of people would support putting them in a museum also. However the stubborn reactionary grandees of Bristol did not and ensured that Colston was not moved to a museum despite decades of campaigning.
The video of the statue being dragged and dumped into the harbor reminded me of the film of Welsh language activists jumping on and smashing English only road signs,
Similar energy, passion, excitement, satisfaction and even joy at making a statement those grandees couldn’t ignore.
Make no mistake those that refused to move Colston’s statue and those that refused bilingual road signs are members of the same species.
Colston’s statue is in England. Bilingual road signs are in Wales. I think those who call themselves “woke” should start doing something for their own country rather than pontificating over those of others
The statue of Picton is in Cymru. Do you really think that there are no Welsh people that want it removed from the gallery of Welsh heroes in Cardiff City Hall?
If it bothers you that much you can have it for your front room. That way you can have total control over who looks at it ! Job done.
I second that.
I want it in a museum where it can be used to inform us all of our country’s past including the fact that his inclusion into the gallery of Welsh heroes was a “fix” in order to help maintain the Union (GB and Ireland at the time) binding our history using “our” “hero” Picton closer and tighter to the Anglocentric .
But I suppose you’ll disagree, me being a “woke”.
The Picton one in Carmarthen is not a statue. The statue, the original one, him being the highest raking officer killed at waterloo with money left over from Nelsons column in London, fell down many years ago. The plinth that remains is made out of the salvaged stone. Trinidad might want it for their ‘horrors of imperial occupation park’.
The Picton one in Cardiff is in City Hall. I understand that a prominent councillor and sits in the Senedd (who is of ethnic heretige and not allowed ask questions) wants it moved out of public view. Technically, being of British military origin it should be donated to the military museum in London. Perhaps they can hire a van and pick it up?
You should contact the Trinidad authorities with an offer of the Picton memorial. I suspect they’ll politely tell you that the UK is probably in greater need of something that increases an awareness of the “horrors of imperial occupation” than Trinidad is.
“Technically, being of British military origin it should be donated to the military museum in London.”
I thought the statues were a gift to Cardiff City. if so a Military museum has no more claim to the one of Picton than to the remainder of the box of Airfix soldiers I was once given for Christmas!
…or even practice using explosives on the bloody thing !
It is rather odd though that one of Wales’ few politicians of mixed heritage raised the matter a few years ago and was totally fuckin’ ignored by the popinjays in power at City Hall. Maybe he wasn’t sufficiently white, middle class and fashionable to gain the right kind of cred with those who run that bubble ?
SPOTTED THIS ON ANOTHER BLOG TODAY. WHAT DO YOU THINK JAC ?
All lives matter, is an important belief to hold, particularly of today’s downtrodden; the abused; the hungry; the deprived and homeless and stateless whatever their origins or backgrounds. The list is very long. About a decade ago the monument to Colonel Picton in Carmarthen was dismantled, as its base had become unsafe. It was stored for rebuilding at a lesser height which was later done at some considerable cost. At that time I personally wrote to a few prominent Carmarthen Councillors suggesting it should not be returned in situ, as it was a gesture of idolising a powerful man who had so cruelly abused slaves. My communication then was ignored. Either they revered Picton then, or simply would not take an advice suggestion from me a Swansea Jack.
I think the appropriate thing to do now is to place solid secure, but modestly costed, plaques at the bases of all such Statues and works of Arts and Monuments, that in ignorance at the time of their placing, glorified known slave traders and slave owners and other despots, explaining their evils. The plaques should be headed as dedications of shame to these evil people. Prominently “Dedicated to a National Hall of Shame”. Our future generations should know the historic truth. Why waste time and money now on removing them at public cost to some bizarre corner of local museums or galleries. Let them stand for eternity proclaiming their shameful evil deeds.
I. Richard, Craigcefnparc, Swansea.
The problem with establishing a hall of shame of historical figures in a museum is that a curator would have to make a ‘moral judgement’ as to what statue or exhibit qualifies.
The most cruel and oppressive slave owner in Wales was Caracalla. He was the Roman emperor from 211 to 217 AD. His claim to fame was that in 208AD there was a spot of rebellion in Wales so his father Septimius Severus, took him on a suppression campaign in Britain.
Geta, his brother was put in charge of civil administration, and Caracalla was in charge of military matters, which included building roads and forts using the local slaves. Caracalla then killed his father who died at Ebaracum (York) in 211AD and he ruled as emperor alongside his brother.
This might pose as problem for the ‘woke’. Should the marble busts sit alongside Picton in the ‘hall of shame’ in Amgueddfa Cymru, Caerdydd? They were black.
In more recent times we’ve seen the “woke” of Afghanistan, a.k.a Taliban, destroy the Buddist statues of Bamyian which is an undisputed act of vandalism on a site of genuine value in world history. I doubt whether it ever crosses the tiny minds of these part time rebels in the West that there are similarities. Taliban felt an urge to purge history as everything pre-Islam was considered apostasy, heresy, idolatry or something similar. Now our nitwits are passing through a similar phase. By rubbing out history you end up failing to learn from it. It also heralds arrival of a new wave of intense intolerance – a new form of neo fascism, maybe nouveau fascism, to reflect the transient fashionable ishoo laden nature of it all.
Jac – When you went to take the head off that statue in ’69 did you use a burner or was it a slow hacksaw job ? I remember the fuss, the local loyalist arselickers wanted your head off but I think some of the local Old Bill saw the funny side of it. They knew that FWA and CyIG were not likely to cause a total breakdown in law &order, it was the petty loyalists like our dear George and the Turk who needed to stir the pot. Of course when they couldn’t find J Jenkins for ages that really wound them up as they thought they had real trouble brewing and had no means of working out where it was coming from.
It was a hacksaw job. My mate Ted had a selection in the boot of his Riley 2.5. On the way up, near Talyllychau, a van full of hippies crashed into the back of us and damaged the boot so that we had trouble opening it. But we managed to get it open. But of course the cops knew about our little jaunt and that area where the statues are is fenced off, so there was no escape. The father of a mate of our was desk sergeant that night. ‘Duw, you weren’t caught, boys!’ He also knew.
No question that JJ was really getting under their skins, and with an Investiture just months away they were fearing the worst.
Just a reminder about another aspect of the late A A Gill’s criminal racism towards Wales and the Welsh – when he was writing the above (and more) he was at the time married to Amber Rudd. She later divorced him for other reasons and she went on to be the Home Secretary in the Conservative UK Government. So one can presume Gill wrote these racist columns under the same roof of the future Home Secretary – columns which Plaid Cymru at the time dubbed as “humour”. I wonder what Plaid Cymru’s present regime would say about all this if it was now. They are already hellbent in hounding a man of Yemen background out of politics altogether!
… the lilly white poseurs of Plaid can’t hide their nasty racist side when it comes to McEvoy. I wouldn’t be at all surprised that whenever N.Mc gets mentioned they dash round to Deryn and don their KKK hoods and gowns as therapy ! Shame we can’t access a film of it.
Examples of offensive, sexist and racist ANTI WELSH material. All printed several years ago in “The Sunday Times” in the regular column of the late A A Gill:-
(1) [referring to Wales] It ought to be called the un-principality.The Welsh would not recognise a principle if sheep wore them as underpants.
(2) {referring to a Film about Wales] This film was a story of incontinent,mendacious fornication, child abuse, drug addiction, prostitution, depression and despair, all on the dole. In fact, it was an every day story of Valley girls. There was so much thoughtless serial rutting that it should have been called La Rhondda. It was brilliantly convincing…………….. By God, it was Wales.
(3) Now the Welsh women and make-up. If you look Welsh, you do see the problem. You either mortgage the house and go for it with a trowel, or just forget about it as being a bigger job than painting the Forth bridge.
(4) Valley kids were revealed as the most likely to be criminal no hopers who believe further education and training is a stupid waste of time.
(5) The Welsh are particularly mean about vowels. They are mean about everything, of course, but they hoard their vowels for eisteddfods.
(6) [referring to a Welsh Hotel] I know it’s actually in Wales, but it has got a carpet, so it counts as English.
(7) A group of sporting personalities were asked to drop-kick an amusing goal over quarter sized posts. They all failed. So Wales will be seriously considering them for next season.
(8) His guardsmen were typically Welsh; mournful, pudding-faced stoical moaners. You could see why the regiment’s nickname is “the Sheepshaggers” they spend a lot of time crouching with intent in fields.
(9) I hate Japanese tourists most of all. I would hate the Welsh even more, but there aren’t any Welsh tourists; they are too mean and they do not have the wanderlust of the Japanese.
(10) Being my agent is about as profitable as being a Welsh dental hygienist.
(11) Gastronomically, Wales is a foodie “diversion-free” zone. You can easily travel from Cardiff to Anglesey without ever stimulating a tastebud.
(12) Wales enjoys a panoramic range of prejudice. We all know they are loquacious dissemblers, immoral liars, stunted, bigoted, dark ugly, pugnacious little trolls. If you find a two faced Welshman, then back home in the valleys they think he’s been short changed in the boat race department. Television has tried to create a series made up entirely of Welsh people, but only the Welsh have the stomach to watch them. God knows what they say about the rest of us on their own channel. As Rabbie Burns said “a man’s a man for a’ that” – unless of course he’s Welsh.
(13) I yield to nobody in my deep concern for the malingering man of Europe – the gargoyle-visaged Welsh. With innate disregard for veracity they have traduced my charitable concern for their hideous blighted country and are reported as saying that I called them “hideous trolls”. Nothing could be further from the truth. They go on to whine that my honest observations are affecting inward investment, that the truth may damn the cornucopia of Asian electronic companies paying them to lift televisions and videos a skill all Welsh lads learn as children in the holiday homes of their English neighbours. The clear light of truth may hurt.
(14) ..the Welsh. All they’ve ever been systematically humiliated with are copious Giros and repeat prescriptions of pessaries for ovine cystitis.
ALL ABOVE ARE QUOTES FROM A.A.GILL IN “THE SUNDAY TIMES” .
After a protest by one Swansea man, the Metropolitan Police formally cautioned A A Gill for the Offence of “Incitement to Racial Hatred”. Not one single Welsh Politician protested about this racism. Plaid Cymru said at the time that it was just humour and Plaid Cymru did not wish to upset “The Sunday Times”.
A.A Gill is now dead, has been for a while. Good news when it happened, and better still he remains and will remain dead. Last laff on him, snobby bastard.
Here’s another for a scrapbook of perverse thinking.
https://nation.cymru/opinion/how-the-welsh-independence-movement-could-be-more-inclusive/
Too true the indy movement needs to be more inclusive. However that inclusivity must reflect the range of people who are recognising the need for independence, not a reshaped concept that gets moulded around all sorts of ideas just to get people to buy in. If a person of whatever ethnicity or persuasion is already a member of a Unionist party then it does offer some idea of their core values, some of which may be of value to an independent Wales.
However a Unionist party member is highly likely to place a higher value on the UK than on any of the 4 nations and that will detract from an “independence” mindset. I find many ethnic groups highly compliant in that they may seek change but within a framework of the British state. They appear to ignore that their nation of origin may have engaged in a long and bitter struggle to get out from under the Anglo Brit yoke. Can anyone do a succinct diagnosis of that mindset ?
ITV had that supposedly funny guy Omid Djalili on this morning talking about racism. Oh yes, the same silly wanker who didn’t see anything wrong in using Welsh to poke fun at recently. Omid, poor dear, can’t see that white minorities are shat upon by the elites, just that it’s done differently in many cases. To prove how well he’d integrated into the English ways and norms he indulged in one of their pastimes.
None of the media burks talking to him had the wit to pull him up on it. Best advocates for any ethnic group feeling any kind of discrimination are those people who have to undergo their daily tasks without grinning into a camera. Omid should go back to trying to be funny, he might get good at it one day.
Here is a video of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ demo at Aberystwyth. Notice that all the speakers have London accents and the speeches and placards are wholly in English.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnIa_MJf1KY%5Bremovetoplay%5D
Message for these affluent day trippers – Go home and “STAY AT HOME!”
More bleating for government handouts !
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jun/08/universities-face-460m-loss-from-expected-drop-in-east-asian-students-coronavirus?utm_term=RWRpdG9yaWFsX0d1YXJkaWFuVG9kYXlVS19XZWVrZGF5cy0yMDA2MDg%3D&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUK_email&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUK
Only a few months ago universities including our lot here in Wales were crowing about the need to be allowed an unfettered “market-led” approach and to continue enjoying real commercial freedom. Bang ! the market goes pear shaped and the little shits are in there with the rest of UK’s great “free market” corporate thinkers waving their fuckin’ begging bowls like a bunch of starving kids. So typical of the gutless showers running most aspects of the UK and here in Wales it’s no different. Now’s the time for severe waste reduction programmes. A bit of tough love won’t hurt those stuffy bastards who have enjoyed the good life for too long.
Ironic at a time when Unis are bleating about being short of cash they are being pressed to clean up their history i.e blank out the bits that wokes don’t like. Oxford gets told to dump its statue of Rhodes, yet Rhodes is a sound exemplar of the Anglo-Brit supremacy that is sustained and fed by institutions like Oxbridge. BLM types should say ” keep that old bastard up there so we can be reminded what you two faced manipulative shits are really all about”. But too many BLM activists are all about empty gestures, deep and passing emotion with no intention of lasting any long march. Indeed in a decade or two they will be in posh jobs pissing down on the rest of us, blacks and whites.
I’m surprised the “wokies” have not started jumping up and down about the Brangwyn Panels in Swansea Guildhall. Commissioned from Sir Frank Brangwyn R,A. by the House of Lords just after WW1, to commemorate “the glories of Empire” by the time they were finished in the early 1930’s references to “the empire”:were already somewhat non-PC, and the panels were rejected. They were put up for sale by tender and the City of Swansea bid the highest (narrowly beating Coventry). The Council was desperate to have the panels to decorate the concert hall within it’s newly completed Guildhall. The venue was, of course, subsequently renamed Brangwyn Hall. The huge panels illustrate various jungle settings with wild animals and lots of people “of tanned appearance”. Hundreds of thousands were spent a few years back on renovating the panels, if anyone wants to look at them, I suggest they nip round soon, before the revisionists press the supine Labour Council to pull them down.
Ah, yes, the Brangwyn Hall. I got thrown out of there once. Roy Jenkins was speaking, and in his plummy voice he said, ‘I’m Welsh, just like you’. I jumped up and shouted ‘You’re no fucking Welshman’, whereupon an old biddy sitting behind started laying into me with her umbrella, then the Labour stewards closed in and I was ‘escorted’ from the building. Happy days!
The death spasms of the English Universities are caused by two self inflicted wounds.
(a) Domestic debt. They are being used as a repository for the unemployable offspring of the English middle classes in the form of student loans. This debt is piling up and is not being repaid to the treasury. It’s a bucket with a hole. Domestic students with useless makey-uppy degrees do not repay their debts by flipping burgers.
(b) The status of English institutions is diminishing in the ‘international’ market. Why would the sons or daughters of Shanghai choose Cambridge or Oxford when better certificates are now made in Singapore or Switzerland?
Packing campuses with thick English flunkies does not fund cutting edge achademic attainment, quite the reverse, it erodes it. Gone are the days of an Oxford nod and the Cambridge punt.
The issue for Welsh Universities is when they are going to break free from the corpse across the border and start concentrating on our own remit, like Edinburgh or Dublin. It won’t happen with nanny Kirsty as minister, nor by gowned spivs and eco-manseys as chancellors.
A structural change is required with financial reward for achivement. There are levers within the tax system (conditional rate variance) that can be used to draw in foreign academic sponsorship to Wales alongwith inward investment. There’s something happening in Africa, the Chinese are transforming bushmen into bridge builders. It seems to be working.
Interesting that more than a few English flunkies beat their merry way to Aber, Uni. as they seem to perceive it as a hotbed of radical wokeism. More than a few English wannabe revolutionaries have cut their collective teeth pretending that they are committed Welsh Nationalists, when they aren’t.
I am pleased that the Land Registry gave the same answer which I provided under a previous post 🙂 ! The situation referred to is a bit circular. Dead people cannot own property. However, if their heirs do not update the Title at the Land Registry, and the heirs wish to submit a planning application, then the application has to be in the name of the deceased, so that the name of the owner is the same in both the planning application and the Land Registry Title. Odd but totally legal. There is no deadline or obligation to update the Title after probate has been granted which is how this particular situation has occurred. The question remains – why would an heir not update the Title particularly as the new owner’s details are available in another application on the Natural Resources Wales website?
Patience
Two points. First, the system is absurd, it should be mandatory to update a title document. Second whatever the situation with the title document and the Land Registry councils should not accept planning applications from dead people.
As to why this has happened, it seems clear that something is being hidden. An e-mail I received from the LR told me that the title has been split and a new number given, CYM795618. I look forward to seeing what this new document tells us.
The Land registry is just a third party holder of the title document. There is a period of time between the death and the disbursement of an estate when the executor of the will, or actor in absence thereof, holds title. However, when this is completed, in other words the powers expunged, the new owner needs to register title. If not, the executor is exceeding their power by acting after the date of disbursement. Surely, seeking a new planning application is such an act. Or, if the new holder of title is doing so in the name of a completed disbursement, by exculpation, is doing so by deception. The problem arises because there is no method of legal enforcement to register such title. I don’t know if some still exists, but there used to be land held in ancient custom as title and therefore no record at the land registry. Something about Monks and Tudors. Looks like this loophole needs to be closed.
Around 15% of the land in England and Wales is unregistered. See the map here:
http://unregistered.whoownsengland.org/
Thanks for that, David. I can see that much of the land around me is not registered because it’s farmland that’s been held by the same family for decades, or generations. And that includes the Peniarth estate.
But in the case we’ve been looking at the property was registered. The problem being that it hasn’t been updated since the previous owner died over 3 years ago.
The takeaway from the multi option poll, for me is that autonomists of varying degrees, taken collectively, are a clear majority. That is ground in which gains can be made for hearts and minds for full autonomy, despite the Senedd being a shit show.
If my retriever Mussolini joined right now, is he too late to stand as a candidate in the South West Wales Regional List? Just asking.
You have a retriever called Mussolini?
A mate and I were reminiscing a while back, recalling that in the 1950s we both knew men with black Labradors called ‘Nigger’. (It was a common name.) Yet these dogs’ owners were not racist, they both thought the world of Paul Robeson; it was just that the ‘N’ word came naturally, it could be used by working class, Labour-voting Welshmen without any negative or hostile connotations.
If you want an example of the past being a different country, then that’s it, but it was within my lifetime.
Yes, I had heard of such things. Now, of course, it would be unacceptable. I suppose much like you’d be hounded if today you called your dog Winston and who knows in thirty years, Boris or Trump.
Hard as it may be to believe, that is certainly true. In my father’s youth, ‘Nigger’ was considered about as offensive as ‘Scouser’, while my ex had neighbours in South Pembrokeshire with a dog called Nigger during her childhood. It became a pejorative term in the UK some time in the 1970s.
The opposite happened with the word ‘booze’ (alcohol), which in the 18th and early 19th centiruues was considered a vulgar and offensive term but which was requisitioned by posh people in the early 20th centry and is now used freely in informal conversations by everyone.
I’ve noticed that ‘Spaniard’ has also gone out of fashion in the media; the BBC uses ‘Spanish man’. Since TV is the main driver of culture creation, ‘Spaniard’ will probably disappear. How satisfying it would be, then, if the BBC were to begin referring to Wales as Cymru (as per Mumbai, Beijing, etc.) We might in a generation see the gradual abandonment of ‘Wales’. Likewise ‘Welshman’. which, as well as meaning ‘foreigner’, also means ‘slave’. Personally, I’m not offended by ‘Welshman’ (‘Welsh man’ is seldom if ever used), but in the United States, where such things most evidently matter, Americans of Welsh descent protested against the use of ‘to Welsh on a deal’, and the expression is hardly ever heard stateside now. It was reported on Newsnight by a smirking Jeremy Paxman who clearly felt that a mountain had been made out of a molehill (it’s the Welsh, it’s just ‘banter’).
” In my father’s youth, ‘Nigger’ was considered about as offensive as ‘Scouser’,”
Really and your opinion is based on many conversations with members of the Black community is it!
“my ex had neighbours in South Pembrokeshire with a dog called Nigger during her childhood. It became a pejorative term in the UK some time in the 1970s.”
I wouldn’t fancy your ex’s neighbour’s chances if they’d called for their dog to come to them in Notting Hill, Toxteth, Brixton etc in the sixties.
The fact remains that in earlier times decent people who were in no way racist, and probably didn’t know any black people, called their pets ‘Nigger’. You are guilty of projecting today’s mores onto earlier times, which is both unfair and dangerous.
And as for the ‘N’ word, it has always been used, and is still used today – by black people.
You’re making pronouncements that are a hotch potch of facts taken out of context and non facts “Nigger” applied to black people by white people has never been used in any typical everyday way as a term of respect or an acknowledgement of equality.. Same as English people do not use “Sheep shagger” as a way of showing respect/equality to us.
You make it sound like in these earlier times there was only one way of doing things. There was not. People then as now could choose. Whether it was using names or contributing to slavery.
As just one example.
Iolo Morganwg was one of those who advocated only buying sugar sourced from plantations that did not use slave labour. However there were plenty of people in Cymru from all walks of life who were more than content to satisfy their sweet tooth with cheap sugar from the slave plantations.
The word was used in a purely neutral way. No offence was intended. Just as the Robertson’s golliwog was not intentionally offensive. It might have been unthinking and insensitive, but it was of its time. That was then and now is now.
Instead of being pleased that progress has been made in this field you want to go back and put the dead on trial.
You’re coming across as a real extremist. And thoroughly irrational.
It’s a pity to have to be patronising but if you insist that
“The word was used in a purely neutral way. No offence was intended. Just as the Robertson’s golliwog was not intentionally offensive.”
indicates that you don’t really understand what racism is. At least not the White Black variety. I suspect you would recognize and understand English Welsh racism when you see or experience it.
Out of curiosity how would you feel if a heard an English person refer to you as a “sheep shagger” and told you that they were using the term in a in “a purely neutral way”, no offence intended?
“…you want to go back and put the dead on trial.”
The dead aren’t some special case immune to review and history didn’t just stop in the olden days.. Statues of Saddam Hussain and Josef Stalin have bit the dust, Colston went for a dip.
Have you considered that your support for the preservation of memorials to those who I doubt you actually admire is out of fear that if a precedent is set then memorials to those who you do admire will also be judged by today’s standards?
The fact that there was no opposition to the Robertson’s golly should tell you that it was accepted. It was of its time. Though if you believe it represents racism then how many black men were lynched by mobs composed of people wearing Robertson’s golly badges? So the ‘racism’ to which you’re objecting would appear to boil down to attitudes. People having the wrong thoughts.
And the left has a glorious record when it comes to getting people to think the right way.
If someone called me a ‘sheep-shagger’ I would object a) because it would be factually untrue and b) because it’s a slur against my people. It cannot be used in a neutral way, and you know it.
As for history and memorials, history is always being reinterpreted and characters from the past re-evaluated. The issue here is whether we condemn a great man because he had shares in some company that invested in slavery or whether we let the good things he did outweigh this inadvertent mistake. But the left wants to do it by applying today’s values to earlier times, which is both wrong and unfair.
But if we are to do it, then what about Genghis Khan, who built up the greatest land empire ever seen, and slaughtered and enslaved millions of people? Will the left demand the removal of his statues in Mongolia? No. Because a) he was not white, b) because he and his people came close to destroying Christian Europe, c) because the left is made up largely of hypocrites operating by double standards.
Having mentioned Christianity . . . many on the left want it removed entirely from the education system. How you would explain the history of Europe and the world since the Middle Ages without Christianity is a mystery to me.
History is history, we can all view it differently, but if people lived by the laws and mores of their time then it’s wrong to judge them by today’s values and dismiss everything else they might have achieved.
There is a statue of Oliver Cromwell at Westminster. The statue of a regicide in a monarchy. That’s how democracies operate. That’s how history should be interpreted – ‘Warts and all’. It’s how mature, adult people think and behave.
Last 2 sentences sum it up neatly. Leave all statues as many like the castles serve to remind us of the oppression. All those statues of rebel Confederates in the US serve the same purpose. A minority will see them as memorials to good old boys in grey but the majority will recognise them as losers in a critical conflict. Sadly many victorious Union officers went on to greater “glory” slaughtering Native Americans by the thousands. Did any one take down memorials to those agents of genocide? The same conclusion applies. Leave them up to remind us what a bunch of cnuts they were.
Here in Wales there must be a sycophantic memorial somewhere to that royalist arch pervert Lord Thomas. Keep it up and add a new plaque. Any offers on a succinct statement to describe that creep ?
George Armstrong Custer was always a glory-seeker. As Lee’s army was marching to Appomattox and surrender the rearguard was harangued by a young officer with long blond hair, ‘Surrender to me. Surrender to me!’ he demanded. He was told that the Army of Northern Virginia would surrender when General Lee said, and not before.
Custer went on to a glorious military career in the West, attacking Native American villages. As we know, he came unstuck at Little Bighorn. And despite what Hollywood might want us to believe he was not the last man standing, he was probably among the first to die because the Lakota hated him so much and because he was always determined to stand out.
You’d have to be careful with the George Thomas statue, though, Dafis, otherwise there’d be accusations of homophobia.
You’re giving me a lot of material to work with so apologies if I don’t cover everything.
“The fact that there was no opposition to the Robertson’s golly should tell you that it was accepted.”
The opposition was from black people or at least those black people who felt secure or courageous enough to complain. For others it was not really acceptance but more like having to endure.
“If someone called me a ‘sheep-shagger’ I would object a) because it would be factually untrue”
So for you the difference is that when black people were called “Golliwogs” it was factually true because they are “Gollywogs”
“and b) because it’s a slur against my people.”
You’ve decided that it’s a slur so perhaps you should offer the same option to black people and let them decide if “Golliwog” is a slur against their people or whether they feel it’s a neutral term.
“History is history,”
And it doesn’t stop. By definition yesterday is history. So was last weekend when we saw history being made as Colston’s statue was dumped into Bristol harbour. An act of much greater historic significance than the erection of the statue was in he first place.
” …but if people lived by the laws and mores of their time then it’s wrong to judge them by today’s values….” .
As I’ve said previously there was not just one inevitable more or one immutable law in those or any other time. There were options and people made choices. I think it’s reasonable for our judgement of them to include the choices they made.
‘Golliwog’ is a meaningless children’s word, used innocently. Once it became clear that it offended many black people it fell from use.
‘Sheep-shagger’ implies an unwholesome act by the person to whom it is applied, and can never be used innocently. Yet it is still used. But we Welsh ‘lack a sense of humour’ for making a fuss about such things. In which case other nations and ethnic groups have no sense of humour at all.
CapM claims an intimate knowledge of what people thought, spoke and did half a century ago.
Not bad for a teenager.
As my father used to say, ‘you weren’t there’.
Welching on a deal (different spelling) has nothing to do with Welsh. Just saying.
As a postscript to comments about the demise of the WDA, it was Graham Hawker’s replacement as CEO, Gareth Hall, who collaborated with “Professor” Marc Clement, then of Swansea Uni., in hatching the notoriously unsuccessful Technium project. Using oodles of EU funding, a number of these “iconic” buildings were developed in all parts of Wales. Where Clement came in was by way of his Uni. Dept. undertaking the “after management” of several Techniums (Technii?). All well and trebles all round, until EU funding for management ran out after 3 years. The Uni.then walked away. Clement also vetted tenants for the buildings, most of which were “spun out” of universities. There were scurrilous rumours, obviously false, that as an “entry fee” into the property, Clement received shares in any incoming company. It’s all history now, so that’s all right then.
I am flabbergasted!
“To welch” and “to welsh” have the same meaning; they are variant spellings of the same verb (cf. “Royal Welch Fusiliers”). But “to welch” is heard less often now.
Of course men had black Labradors called Nigger. They were just copying Wing Cmdr Guy Gibson VC who commanded the Dam Buster Raid, who had a black Labrador called Nigger and they thought Gibson was a hero. The classic film came out at about the time you’re talking about, and all its in there. Unless you’re watching a censored version The radio codename for success in the raid was Nigger. After the dog, not because anyone was particularly racist.
Cracking article Jac!
Thanks for reminding us about Guy Gibson. Glad you enjoyed the article.
That’d be a good entry for re-enactment of the dambusters film at Aberaeron carnival.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-mid-wales-41093074
The complainant was the newly arrived Labour party candidate but the winner is now called Llywydd.
Would your suffering of a float depicting an event(with accompanying patriotic British theme tune) that’s continually used by Brit Nats as a promotional tool really be worth it in order to annoy someone in Plaid you don’t like?
Since my late father in law was in 617 Squadron, the Dambusters, I have always taken a great interest in that story of great heroism. Most will remember the old black and white film starring Richard Todd. Over the last several years, attempts have been made to produce a new film, using computer digital technology etc. However, the main stumbling block, as I understand it, concerns the refusal of the literary estate of Paul Brickhill (author of the Dambuster’s book) and other copyright holders, to allow film makers to change the name of Guy Gibson’s black labrador , Nigger. The film makers dare not allow that name to appear in a new film of the story, but the owners of the rights to film are steadfast in their defence of insisting on including what was actual history. Result – impasse. On a personal note, I often had it drummed into me by father in law, that those brave airman were in their teens or early twenties (53 were killed and 3 were captured). Contrast that with most (but not all) of similar aged “wokey” snowflakes we see “demonstrating” today.
One important aspect that appears to go right over the heads of the “peaceful” demonstrators pulling down statues, is that It is a historical fact that not many (if any) of the offending statues was paid for by the subject of the statue. The majority of statues were paid for and erected by public subscriptions (we would recognise it today as “crowdfunding”). The former slave traders would and did expend their ill-gotten fortunes on erecting universities, hospitals, libraries, schools, civic buildings etc. using money DIRECTLY derived from their abhorrent businesses. Therefore, would it not be more appropriate, and in accord with anti-racial principles, to raze all these buildings to the ground, instead of pulling down statues for which not a penny of slave trade derived money was expended?
Even if demolishing hospitals and schools was not a silly idea it’s near certain that the original source of funding for their founding has been dwarfed by the additional funds and resources that those establishments have received since in order to maintain, run and update them.
As you point out the original money came from founders whose “ill-gotten fortunes” “derived from their abhorrent businesses.”
Therefore it seems only just, fair, reasonable and sensible to find alternative names for these hospitals schools etc. For example Thomas Picton school in Hwlffordd.
Though this important aspect might go right over the heads of those that disagree.
As a former member of Plaid Cymru, reading this BLOG regularly, and other similar Blogs like Neil McEvoy’s, I’ve come to the serious conclusion that Adam Price has no control over his Party and neither do any traditional Gwynfor / Wigley followers. It is all now being manipulated by the Wombmen. Some of my butties think we need a concerted group of people to use as many media “phone in” channels we can muster and “Letters to the Editor columns” in Welsh newspapers to initiate a hostile barrage of calls and letters asking for Adam Price to either weed out the oddities or resign himself. We know the Plaid Cymru hierarchy read this BLOG. So Adam Price you must oust the weirdos or resign from the sinking boat that has a bar that only sells Watneys’ Pale Ale. That means it’s close to water and sinking fast from its own wombmen’s torpedo tubes!
Adam Price is a figurehead. The Leannistas still control the party. And they will use the Jonathan Edwards business to strengthen their grip.
Your tweet said “But the @Plaid_Cymru vote is stuck. Clearly, there are people wanting independence who won’t vote Plaid Also, there are people who could be converted to independence – but not by Plaid The way to maximise the Indy vote is through a range of parties, not a single, far left party ” .
I see it far more simply – Plaid is dripping soppy wet. It’s not even a left – right – centre thing. It’s about a party which operates in the realms of fantasy, always telling us about their confused dreams, but, given that confusion, never able to describe a coherent pathway to ever realising any of it. Have circled the plughole for a while and now about to pop down it. Ta ta Plaid.
I like the image of circling the plughole. I might use that.
Bizarrely, Plaid Cymru are boasting a big increase in party membership. Strange when you consider the university campus are closed, no door knocking going on, elections and stuff like street stalls are suspended, due to Covid-19 lockdown.
A few weeks ago I looked into my email ‘junk folder’ which has a Plaid Cymru section (Yes, they still send me stuff). I noticed that at the beginning of May they launched a membership drive by offering free membership via Plaid Ifanc. All you do is fill in a form, confirm you are within the required age bracket, and send it back and then you are counted as a party member.
Have since spoken to a few other former Plaid Cymru members in the Llanelli constituency, and rather than re-join the party they’ve signed up their pets via this route. This includes a lame horse from Pontyberem and a cat called Ianto from Mynyddygarreg. Both have been accepted.
I’ve just been talking to a mate of mine in the constituency who tells me there are some 450 members and supporters of YesCymru in Llanelli. Which would seem to bear out what I said in today’s blog about more people wanting independence but Plaid Cymru not seeing the benefit of this swing in increased support. Unless you include Ianto and the rest.
Stephen Christie appears to be that specific type of trilobite who preys on the periphery of academic institutions waiting for opportunities to snaffle a few quid in consultancy from small innovative companies.
I smelt a rat as soon as I heard the phrase “business intelligence solutions”. He’s on the advisory board of L3F, the L stands for long and the F stands for finance.
https://www.longfinance.net/
The MO is they find some budding innovation company who gone to a university for some lab work and loiter around the water fountain waiting to pounce. They then offer a long term investment portfolio which involves the entrepreneur taking all the risk, cream off some commission from the loan book, and if the innovation is a goer they own the exploitation rights to plant this seed back inside the academic institution on a license basis to cream a revenue stream.
https://aberinnovation.com/
His ‘letter box in Aber’ is probably related to the university.
He’s definitely linked somehow to the university, but he has no real presence in Aberystwyth. He’s just there for the easy money.
There’s a specific opportunity that relates to Brexit and GM. The testing standards required by the EU are so high that many of these innovations have not been able to progress to the field-testing stage. The innovations have so far only been modelled electronically. A knowledge bank mutation by gene editing innovation is held by Prof Huw Jones, Professor of translational genomics for plant breeding at IBERS, Aberystwyth University.
https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/ibers/
I expect that there is big money to be made in this field (forgive the pun) and the issue of planting experimental genetically modified crops in the grain belt of England is too politically sensitive to be done there. There’s a foreign place where the people are poor and desperate, just over those far yonder mountains, which the native call Aberystwyth, where this can be done. This is why we have Agxio, and probably explains the ‘slicing and dicing’ of share capital ready for issue, and the appearance of Christie, the forecourt sales rep.
Interesting reference to active TRILOBITES….they became extinct over 200my ago.
Dai, mun! It’s you!
“I believe that Scotland becoming independent would greatly increase the numbers in Wales choosing independence.”
Another reading, especially if Ireland is re-united, is the opposite. An Englandandwales unitary state has great attractions for the tidy-minded, especially if the legal system remains undevolved, if Wills gets his investiture, and if the stable door gets very deliberately slammed once the kelpies have bolted. Yes, Scottish indy could narrow the options down to two but if polls in Wales are showing 45% for assimilation and 33% for indy then the ground to be made up is massive. Remember that Scots aren’t debating whether their parliament should be abolished: the Welsh (or at least the residents of Wales) constantly are. They pick at it like a scab. The Brexit vote will be one long-lived stick with which to beat the Cymry: ‘you voted to follow England’s lead, didn’t you, to not go your own way like the others?’ Another stick is to point out how well integrated Wales is, with Liverpool, Shrewsbury, Hereford, Bristol, to invalidate any Scottish comparison. Any post-Scottish-indy London government will be pouring billions into strengthening those links, at the expense of improved links within Wales. It could make this an argument for abolishing the Senedd, to ensure that money is well spent, ‘in the way that best benefits the whole country, both sides of the border’, perhaps adding that ‘it’s now been shown Wales isn’t viable geographically and devolution just complicates people’s lives without adding value’. There will be reassuring noises about Wales having been under London rule much longer than Scotland and the Welsh having an innate loyalty to their betters. King Arthur and the Matter of Britain may be mentioned.
The Abolish the Assembly Party and others who agree with them can correctly argue that devolution has failed. With only a far left, virtue-signalling party of extremists and incompetents promoting independence the percentage for independence is remarkably high, especially bearing in mind the almost total lack of a balanced Welsh media. Or any Welsh media.
As things stand, if next year there was a straight choice between independence and assimilation, then assimilation would win. However, throw into the mix Scottish independence and political parties that can talk to people in Grangetown, Froncysyllte and Morriston and things could be very different.
But the argument I would use to undermine the Abolish the Assembly argument is quite simple and will appeal to more Welsh people than anything else. Tell them that by abolishing the Assembly they will be voting for Wales to merge with England. (Which is what it will amount to.) And when that happens it’s inevitable that we shall lose our national rugby team and our national football team.
The argument could be justified by pointing to ‘Welsh’ cricket. At one time we had a national cricket team, it voluntarily agreed to merge with England so that Cardiff could host a few test matches. Now we have an England and Wales Cricket Board, but the team is just called ‘England’. The same could easily happen in rugby. We know the kind of people that run the WRU. Offer them knighthoods and the promise that England and Wales will play in Twickers and Cardiff and they could go for it.
I would expect The Football Association of Wales to resist for a bit longer than the WRU, but pressure could still be applied. Blandishments offered.
Obviously the opposition would try to discredit these arguments – but how? Let’s remember that the only reason we have national teams in rugby and football is because when the English had invented and codified the rules of these games someone said, ‘Wouldn’t it be splendid if we could play other countries?‘ Problem was, the only other ‘countries’ playing these games were part of the (then) United Kingdom.
(Now there are World Cups in rugby and football, with every country on the planet playing football. England doesn’t need games with Wales!)
It was a mistake that served to strengthen national identity in these countries. I remember reading a French philosopher – Levy? – arguing that if France had invented football and rugby Paris would never have allowed ‘national’ teams in Brittany, the Pays Basque and other areas.
You could argue that what I’m suggesting is an appeal to emotion and sentiment rather than to reason. Possibly, but it is underpinned by logic and precedent. And it could prove decisive.
England would not abolish the Welsh national football and rugby teams in the event of an Englandandwales being established. For rugby there are so few teams capable of performing at the highest level that it would be financially detrimental to the world game to cut one team. For football, what’s in it for England. Why create hassle when an easy cheap sop is already available. Although if the members of Fifa were to demand it then I doubt England would lose any sleep over it.
The fear of losing the national football team would be useful to independence but that would probably be part of a more general lack of trust in the English establishment.
Many countries question the existence of the Wales and Scotland national football teams and have done for years. It could be argued that since the break-up of the Soviet Union and Jugoslavia there are too many national teams in Europe. And Wales and Scotland playing provide powerful inspiration for Basques, Catalans and others.
The argument you’re using against the national rugby team didn’t save our national cricket team.
And at the end of the day politics will trump everything.
If the nightmare scenario of complete assimilation is ever achieved by the London regime and their Cardiff lackeys then we will probably have rugby and football teams, probably a squad at Commonwealth Games and a host of other small tokens just like the Yanks give to Native Americans, you know, reservations and all that shit. Then when the assorted international boards – blazeratti from various major powers – decide to clip UK’s wings they’ll just make them roll it up into a unified team. As far as I’m concerned if that assimilation happens I couldn’t really give a toss whether a sporting team exists or not. By then it would be a fake identity anyway.
Welsh estate agents in some parts are already overwhelmed with enquiries from our English friends , heard from a source in the business in Gwynedd
That doesn’t surprise me. Covid-19 has highlighted the unpleasantness of living in a large English city, and they must be looking with envy at those who have previously relocated over the Clawdd. Expect more of same, once the virus becomes manageable and we arrive at ‘Lockdown’s End’. If the ban on non-essential incoming traffic remains in place until the next Senedd election, a pro-Wales government in Cardiff Bay could play the lockdown for all it’s worth.
Swansea’s Llansamlet happenings again – a couple of points to add – or round off – Bob & Uta Clay were Trotskyites not Marxists who flagrantly used Traveller Site issues as election platforms.. There is a boring lefty difference for readers to check between Marx and Trotsky which are not for me to try to explain. KINDER is a clue to another Councillor, because of lock down, oops ‘shut down’, I cannot meet you in a KAFE to explain an interesting Receivers’ Report that’s floating around with the Council as a Creditor. The UK Pornographer of the Year was warned quietly at least twice. The question is – by whom? As for the Swansea Teacher and his fisticuffs that conduct should be a matter for his School’s Governors and not this BLOG but they do answer communications about the situation.
Excellent work as usual Jac. I see the wokists are now out in force demanding that the Thomas Picton memorial in Carmarthen be torn down because of his links to slavery. Yes, he was an unpleasant man but if we go down this road, do we then demolish all Norman churches and castles in Wales as they were largely built by enslaved local Welshmen?
Please keep going Jac.
What is being demanded is not that we remove reminders of an unpleasant past but that we re-write history. If we go down this road then, eventually, we will have to remove every Roman and Ancient Greek monument.
What’s more, millions of Europeans were enslaved by Turks and North Africans at the very time Africans were being shipped to the Americas. Is anyone asking them to apologise? Pretending that slavery was only ever white on black is dangerous, politically motivated nonsense.
May I suggest that if the Picton Obelisk is taken down in Carmarthen then the tomb, where he was buried, inside St Paul’s Cathedral in London be also exhumed and destroyed? Of course, Picton was not a slave owner. He was a shilling taker, an officer in the British army. Removing the Picton obelisk ‘because of links to slavery’ would also apply to all other military officers of the time, many having statues and monuments around the Palace of Westminster and along the Thames embankment in London. There is of course another obelisk to his comrade-in-arms from the Navy. It’s called Nelsons Column. Best of luck with removing that one.
But I challenge those who claim to be opposed to slavery to be honest and equitable about it.
If we are to remove that which which was built upon the proceeds of slavery then most of modern Istanbul would have to go. Perhaps more interestingly, there is the lovely city of St Petersburg, built by serfs (not freed until 1861?), thousands of whom died building it. So let’s demolish St Petersburg. Yeah!
Though seeing as Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is a St Petersburg boy, born and bred, and loves his home town, I suggest the wokies will have more trouble there than with the weegies and the scousers. If fact, old Vlad do not take kindly to anybody crossing him. It is usually fatal.
Not forgetting the statue of a (former) terrorist which stands in Parliament Square, but I have not heard of any proposals to cast the obelisk of Nelson Mandela into the Thames. Perhaps a start could be made with Karl Marx’s memorial in Highgate Cemetery.
I’d echo that, Joanne.
With regard to the Shipton affair, just as happened to Dilys Davies when she fell foul of the Woke Wolfpack, I saw it happen almost in real time. Shipton dared to have an opinion on people marching in this country at the time of pandemic restrictions on gatherings outdoors which didn’t conform to theirs. He was harassed and bullied on Twitter for hours, eventually saying something he probably regretted as he deleted the tweet. But not before these ravenous bastards had had their fill of him. Tweets were screenshot and circulated to people who could damage him. They included Bethan Sayed MS, who never seems to miss an opportunity to shit stir on her social media account, and probably in the background, on such matters. She was busy that evening copying in Shipton’s employers to the twitter exchange. The parallels to what happened to Dilys were uncannily similar.
I don’t hold to Shipton’s politics but I believe he’s an honourable, decent man. He was recently very ill and I note that when people wished him well on social media following him coming out of hospital, he responded with a courteous “thank you” to each and every one of them, no matter who they were. He’s not racist IMO but happens to have a white skin, his own mind, and he doesn’t buy into the narrow wokist ideology of those that did for him. That’s all that it takes, as many before Shippo have found out, and he won’t be the last to suffer at the hands of this rabble.
I have a lot of respect for Shipton, after all he is happy to dig up dirt and a good journalist. I support his concerns about the protests in London, with regards to the lack of social distancing, if it cannot be self policed, potentially it is a danger. Typical knee jerk reaction by Welsh establishment who virtue signal for every cause that is of no concern to them but do not really practice what they preach.
I have asked town council a few years back to remove the portrait of Picton from the old court room, i think its a disgrace that it is still left hanging there. Not particularly woke, just happy to challenge the welsh establishment’s love affair with commemorating and honouring repressive posh English blokes ie Nott, Clive of India, Picton and every bloody royal sycophant that walked our land. Let’s remember our own home grown men and women for the good things that they did. I do not agree with dismantling the column, waste of resources.
If people want to show their opposition to racism, great, I hope it makes people in west Wales think twice before saying bloody Paki, Pole, black etc, I hear it enough from hambones who never come across coloured people. In work it is the Asian, African and Arab busy saving lives.
But we need to remember that our priority is Cymru and the fact that at at the moment in the disunitied Kingdom, 50k people have died as a result of the ambivalence, idleness, recklessness, of the English elite once again, the inheritors of the mantle of General Picton and his ilk. Men who seem to be happy to see ordinary, poor people from all races die, they too have metophorical blood on their hands.
Lions led by donkeys
Best keep all those statues to remind us of our past, warts and all. Every Anglo-Norman castle should send a shiver down your spine, especially that which has hosted investitures. If the wokeish wankers had their way we would end up with a new wave of statues to those who practice a new style of oppression. Dim diolch !
I will not accept re-writing history. It happened, and it shouldn’t be changed by modern fads.
At the risk of repeating myself . . . if we are to get rid of buildings built by slaves, or with money from slavery, then we’d have to demolish the pyramids, the Parthenon, the Colosseum, and just about every other ancient building.
But if the wokies are only interested in more modern slavery, believing that ‘slavery’ was an evil practised only by whites on blacks, then a great many of the finest buildings in Glasgow and Liverpool will have to go. Best of luck explaining that to the weegies and the scousers.
Sticking with slavery of recent centuries; in the same centuries Africans were being transported to the Americas millions of Europeans were enslaved by the Turks and Arabs from North Africa. Will they be asked for apologies and reparations? Do you know those lines in the US Marines song that go something like, ‘From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli’, well the second part refers to the US Navy’s raid on Tripoli in 1805 to free European and US captives from being sold into slavery.
Come to that, black Africans trying to get to Europe are still being sold as slaves in the markets of Tripoli. Slavery happening here and now but the wokies aren’t interested. Why? Because they can’t blame white people.
The left’s very selective concern for slavery is purely political. They don’t give a shit for George Floyd or any other black man killed by police, these are just used as pretexts for the left to attack ‘the system’ and, especially, Donald Trump.
Malcolm X saw through patronising white liberals in the 50s and 60s; it’s a pity so many of his people today are fooled by the children and grandchildren of the white liberals he despised.
It’s not re writing it is taking a closer look at these ‘great’ men of history and looking objectively at it. That goes for all history also teaching our history through our prism not that of the British state
I managed to find an old article on WalesOnline that was printed in the Wasting Mule a few years ago. It claims Wales was complicit in the slave trade.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/uncomfortable-truth-wales-industrial-revolution-15272677
The article tried to project slavery guilt on Wales by saying that copper ore mined in the West Indies was used in various Welsh copper works, so Welsh people are guilty.
The article goes on to identify ‘Welsh Slave Masters’ as follows..
Edward Hamlin Adams.
Adams of course, was not Welsh, he was a slave owner born and traded in Jamaica. He arrived in Wales when he purchased a second home, Middleton Hall in Carmarthenshire, after abolition.
John Foster Barham.
The article also identifies John Foster Barham. He was from Stockbridge in Hampshire, and he inherited a landed estate at Trecŵn in Pembrokeshire from his father Joseph Foster Barham the MP in Hampshire.
Samuel Bosanquet.
The article then gets desperate and identifies Samuel Bosanquet a London banker, who bought a holiday home in Monmouthshire and had cousin who was a slave owner.
Richard Pennant.
There was only one significant slave owner in Wales and that was Richard Pennant who used the proceeds to build Penrhyn Castle prior to effectively enslaving Welsh people to work the quarries of Bethesda. That castle was handed over to the National Trust to avoid tax.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25ak-jZXMmc%5Bremovetoplay%5D
I Can’t Breathe.
The message is clear, Black Lives Matter, and so we need to evict any English people in Wales who have holiday homes, especially if they are Tory MPs and the National Trust should also hand over Penrhyn Castle to the people of Wales.
The agenda at work here goes way beyond slavery. It’s the extreme left trying to unpick the fabric of Western society. As I’ve already mentioned in this thread, if the issue was really slavery per se then it would expand beyond whites enslaving blacks in recent centuries.
Another point worth making is that European and US ships went to Africa to buy people who had already been enslaved. So who was responsible for the original enslavement? Either rival African peoples or Arab slave traders. But the hard left is not going to go there. They must present an image of white men going into the bush and dragging off whole villages of people. The truth doesn’t suit the agenda. But by pointing out the facts I become a ‘defender’ of or an ‘apologist’ for slavery. That’s how it works.
We see the same tactics with the wokies in Wales. Find a target, latch on to it, shout very loudly making absurd and exaggerated allegations – ‘homophobe’, ‘transphobe’, ‘racist’, ‘fascist’, etc – ignore all counter-arguments (including the truth) until you wear down and defeat the opposition. Unfortunately this tiny but extreme minority has the active support of Plaid Cymru, the passive support of the Labour Party and the third sector, but perhaps most worryingly, the media comes out with badly-researched and poorly written pieces about how we all benefited from slavery.
Yet it has to be done this way because the hard left has no real support base among the public. Their only hope is to infiltrate existing political parties. They took over Plaid Cymru, but once members realised what had happened Leanne Wood was out on her arse. They’ve done it with the Labour Party more than once, and it’s always led to civil war within the party and defeat at the polls. Most recently last December.
But they’ll always be there, and they’re not stupid. Find the right cause, the right battle to fight, and they can effect change that would be impossible for them any other way.
“Another point worth making is that European and US ships went to Africa to buy people who had already been enslaved.”
Have you thought that perhaps the huge demand by Europeans for slaves for the plantations in the Americas led to millions of extra African people being enslaved by Africans in order to supply the demand?
Or do you think that those millions would have been working on African plantations in any case if they hadn’t been shipped across the Atlantic?
I was reading only today that when slavery had been abolished in the USA and Europe there was no respite for black Africans, all that changed was that the destinations moved east. With no evil white men involved.
The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 specifically excluded “the Territories in the Possession of the East India Company” along with the “ Island of Ceylon ” and the “Island of Saint Helena.”
“I was reading only today …”
Where did you read that?
In this BBC article. The bit that reads: “It’s ironic that when the Atlantic slave trade was abolished the Eastern trade expanded, suggesting that for some Africans the abolition of the Atlantic trade didn’t lead to freedom, but merely changed their slave destination.”
In the recent conflicts in Iraq and Syria we’ve seen Christians, Yazidis and other groups enslaved by Sunni ISIS. Slavery in the 21st century being played out on television night after night. Where was the left then? Telling me that ‘slavery’ is just another ishoo for the hard left to exploit to justify rioting. The left was pretty muted in its criticism of homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, racist ISIS. Why was that?
I’ll tell you why. Because the left will support and exploit anything it can – internal or external – to attack and undermine western society. Its hatred for the west that rejects it at the ballot box explains why it will support or be muted in its criticism of butchering fuckers like ISIS. The left, that represents ‘progress’, refuses to condemn a murdering, enslaving cult that wants to take the Islamic world back a few centuries. And destroy the West in the process.
Surely you’re not silly enough to believe that slavery was only ever white on black?
So you didn’t read ” that when slavery had been abolished in the USA and Europe there was no respite for black Africans, all that changed was that the destinations moved east.”
You read “that when the Atlantic slave trade was abolished the Eastern trade expanded, suggesting that for some Africans the abolition of the Atlantic trade didn’t lead to freedom, but merely changed their slave destination.”
“no respite for black Africans” replacing ” suggesting that for some Africans the abolition of the Atlantic trade didn’t lead to freedom”.
Granted not much consolation for those enslaved and transported east but a significant positive for others who would have been enslaved and transported west.
Slavery is much more complex than black and white as you point out but the present day consequences of the UK’s role in slavery exist and need addressing regardless of what the “left” or ISIS get up to or what the rest of the world does or did.
If viewing history through blinkers makes you happy, then stick with it. Just don’t expect me to accept it when I can see the bigger picture.
I think it’s about time the Wokies turned their attention to that racist furry bastard, Rupert Bear. Every year without fail my parents bought me the annual for Christmas and I can distinctly remember him visiting Coon Island and meeting “darkies”. Surely that’s racist speak in any language, even if Rupert was actually quite friendly with them (I can’t remember back to 1960 when he paid Coon Island a visit). One thing’s for sure – I’m pretty convinced they never successfully boiled the bugger in a cauldron because he had an annual in 1961 and beyond.
I’m actually thinking of having my parents’ names taken off my birth certificate for exposing me to such blatant racist propaganda at an age when I was incapable of making my own choices. In fact, if they were still alive I reckon I’d have a case for suing them for child abuse.
I hope someone influential in Plaid Cymru reads this and gets on the “Let’s Burn Rupert Bear Books” bandwagon first. You never know – it might just be what inde-curious voters are waiting for.
World’s gone bloody bonkers if you ask me.
I remember as a child in the 1960s collecting the labels off Robinsons marmalade jars, which had a ‘golly-wog’ on them. If you collected enough, you sent them away and got a ‘golly-wog’ doll in the post. It was a gift for my sister. Many would be horrified by such a thing today, but it was obviously a cynical marketing punt to sell more product by initiating child pester power.
Thing is, it was not considered a bad thing back then. It didn’t mean that marmalade eaters were racist. It originally meant that Robinsons had an ‘good ethical policy’ of only sourcing their supply of tropical fruit peel from the newly independent countries in the Caribbean, rather than aparthied South Africa. The depiction was ‘happy black man’. It was the name ‘wog’ that was at issue, domestic ‘ishoo’ issues at the time.
I find it quite sad that when you go to toyshops today, all the dolls are white.
There’s another more recent example of ‘corporate virtue signalling’. Putting rainbows on food products, plane tails, trains and police cars in solidarity with LGBT. It’s a cynical public relations exercise saying ‘look at us, how with it and nice we are’. Question to ask is, why is there a need and a marketing traction on such a symbol, and why is it unique to the UK, US (and Israel for different reasons)?
Last year I picked up a friend from Sweden at the airport and she asked why British Airways had the rainbow tail fin. The whole concept is absent in Scandinavia, has no public relations traction, not because they discriminate by sexuality, quite the opposite, for it has not been an ‘ishoo’ there for decades. Discrimination by gender or sexuality is an alien concept and such symbols are not needed.
The only time I have ever experienced colour-based racism was when I won the Karaoke competition on the Stena Jutlandica between Göteborg and Frederikshavn for banging out this in Swedish (easy lyrics)..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty1dwBCR6D0%5Bremovetoplay%5D
They tried to give the prize to a mate of mine from London because my ‘voice sounded black’.
The recent ‘Black Lives Matter’ is a reaction to an act of police violence US mid-west but it’s social media fall-out has planted people of colour, back into the dark days of 1960s America and now, bizarrely back in 1830s England.
In the 1990s I worked out of an office in London, and looking back, there was a guy in charge of credit control who was black of Trinidad heritage, the lady in charge of purchasing was Asian from Indian heritage, and most white people were from Scotland, Wales or Ireland. The main boss was from Japan who had to get a works visa. Never in the 11years working there did ‘race’ or discrimination in the workplace or in our social life become an ‘ishoo’. I’ve only had to think about it recently. The black guy was paid more because he spoke French. There was only one white English guy at the top table; he was from IT, the company only recruited by meritocracy.
And another thing while I’m at it. I learnt to sing like a “black” off a girl from a Tonyerefail orphanage. Used to meet up to go to Capel Sul. She gifted the voice and I gifted the lyrics.
She sings here..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJmF_2oTYPo%5Bremovetoplay%5D
This was a time to meet up at Rabaiottis, trip down Cardiff for a coffee made by real Italians, not corporate shit, then go for a swim at the Empire Pool. They changed the name to commonwealth games. But that doesn’t change history.
Those who know down Cardiff will see that all that heritage has now been demolished to accommodate the BBC. The same imperial shitfest of a corporation who has the gall to run a news bulletin this morning implying because I’m white I’m the one who’s guilty, and all Wales is included.
Perhaps the BBC should get off their fucking chariot.
You are looking at this slavery/ racism/ monument issue from the POV of wokies. Don’t as you belittle the problem. You should look at the matter from the POV of black people and the racism they have experienced, down the years and the problems that are faced today. All these issues from the 17th to 21st century have been caused by greedy, rampant, brutal, robber capitalists
The view expressed to me (from my time in London) is that people of colour are most often the victim of their own community.
There is a small minority of black people who do peddle drugs, mug, rob houses, and carry knives. Whilst ‘stop and search’ is one side of their burden, the other side of their burden is that they are victims of crime committed by other black people. Most stabbings of black kids are committed by other black kids. This means when police, for example, are looking for a suspect in such crimes, they are looking for an IC3 male.
Have witnessed a black police officer arrest a black youth in possession of a blade. The abuse from the offender towards the police officer included terms such as ‘white nigger’, ‘chalky slave’ and ‘plastic brother’. Had it been a white suspect resisting arrest using such racist abuse, it would be considered an aggravating feature of the offence.
I don’t think that BLM will play any positive role in combating racism because it is cantered on virtue signalling rather than grass-roots community activism from within communities affected. When Kirsty and Imogen go back to their semi in the affluent white suburbs, to find the next ‘ishoo’ to champion, there will still be black people working night shift picking up their discarded pizza boxes from the streets with their kids afraid to go through the school gates where Leroy the pusher is waiting to recruit the next mule.
In Wales, it’s a bit different, however, the aspirations of people of colour in Cardiff is not championed by the sons of affluent foreign office delegations born in Zambia and raised in Dorset (Gething) but championed by sons of dock workers, raised in the streets of Ely who fights for the rights of black families over day-to-day concerns of real disadvantage (McEvoy).
All black people do not have the same POV, that very concept is in itself racist
I had a discussion with this guy at a history conference years ago. When I made the exact point you make above, he became angry Indeed.
Our surroundings can get very heated politically. In eastern Europe, streets and whole towns get renamed with dizzying regularity.
There’s an often too subtle distinction between recognising the labour in something even an enslaved workman has made, and the genuine history it embodies, and deliberately locating it, controversially and provocatively, where it appears to glorify the power it represents. That’s the argument about moving certain statues to a museum context, if practical. (Again, see eastern Europe and many former British possessions.) It’s also why demolishing castles, or the pyramids, or Auschwitz, isn’t yet on any serious agenda. It will be, judging by calls (Prince Wills among others) for historic ivory artworks to be destroyed as ‘objects of shame’ (while saving not a single living elephant).
I’m not a fan of Black History. Or White History. World history, that fairly represents everyone’s contribution, would be better by far. White-on-black slavery gets all the oxygen but black-on-white was real and black-on-black was – AND STILL IS – present across much of Africa. It’s not PC to say so, because whites are always held to a higher moral standard. Which is condescending. It’s also staggeringly racist unless you believe that human rights are not universal, making lower standards acceptable, in which case why have universal human rights anywhere? I think we’ll see a real battle over that point this century, with Chinese, Islamic and other rival moral codes pushing for dominance over the values of Dead White Men. Take nothing for granted.
No-one yet has mentioned Nathaniel Wells of Piercefield, so I will. Sheriff of Monmouthshire in 1818 and a slave-owner. And also half black.
Some balanced and sensible thoughts there, David. I suspect that like me you wonder why ‘slavery’ for these protesters is always white on black slavery, and why they have no interest in slavery being practised today. Which suggests to me the usual suspects promoting the usual, anti Western agenda.
Extending the concept of discrimination of and violence on black people (allegedly) perpetrated by the police, it is a statistical fact that most discrimination and violence is perpetrated by other black people.
I find it interesting that an unaccredited opinion piece on Nation Cymru about Thomas Picton bangs on about what a terrible man he was, but lets the British Empire off the hook (no pun intended). When Picton was appointed governor of Trinidad it was on condition that the Spanish laws continue to be in force, which not only provided for torture but mandated it if ordered by the local magistrate. Picton was eventually found not guilty in London, upon appeal. There is a serious risk of projecting the brutality of the British Empire upon stone plinths and bronze sculptures, allowing the true history of what went on to remain hidden. Sadly Nation Cymru prefers to hide the facts with stunts, rather than expose the reality of British rule.
“When Picton was appointed governor of Trinidad it was on condition that the Spanish laws continue to be in force, which not only provided for torture but mandated it if ordered by the local magistrate. ”
Where did you see that torture was mandated if ordered by a magistrate?
All the articles I’ve seen say the magistrate made a request to Picton that torture be used on the fourteen year old girl.
From that request Picton made the choice to allow the torture to go ahead. The fact that it was legal to torture under Spanish law was Picton’s defence but it also exposes what sort of man he was, even allowing for the different time he lived in. It was also legal for him not to permit the torture.
Statues are one of the ways Anglocentric British nationalism has always set and maintained it’s agenda. The toppling either literally or metaphorically of these statues may well bring out a new version of Anglocentric British nationalism and that presents us with a new challenge but also an extra opportunity for furthering independence.
I understand the BritNats are having a knees-up in London on Saturday.
To answer your question CapM, the full description of the Picton events are best recounted by the country and it’s own people It is here, the history of policing in Trinidad.
https://caribbeanhistoryarchives.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-trinidad-and-tobago-police-service.html
There were hundreds of ‘torture events’ as Picton enforced British martial law specifically ordered to enforce the pre-existing Spanish Laws of the Indies. The question arises as to whether Picton, against orders, should or could have done differently.
The irony is that the spike torture of Louisa Calderon was highlighted because she was racially “mulatto”, freewoman half cast of Spanish heritage. Had she been wholly black and a slave, like all the other tortures, there would have been no outcry at the time. The woke appear to call for Picton to have spared the torture, but in the event he applied the law universally, regardless of race, his white sailors were ‘keel hauled’ for theft.
Fighting statues subverts the horror of the British empire, tucks it away to be forgotten.
When I look up at Cydweli castle, it is not in reverence, but in remembrance of the brutality of our invaders (glossed over by Cadw). Shouldn’t the same opportunity to the people of Trinidad? Should be consulted on the plight of the Carmarthen plinth?
They might want it, to plant in their Independence Square at Port of Spain, a reminder of the events they endured. Up to them. Anglo-centric British nationalism is the ‘we knows best’ approach, and you can still see it today with the woke twitterati.
Thanks for the link but I can’t see anything there that supports what you said about Picton having no choice in allowing the torture of Luisa Calderon to proceed.
You’re choosing to see a supposed irony in the Luisa Calderon incident and missing the importance of the fact that a jury found him guilty. This was a jury that considered the way Picton behaved soon after the event and so the excuse that we are judging him unfairly by modern standards is void.
The idea that the “woke” argument can be trumped because Picton was some sort of equal opportunites torture facilitator only works if you insist that your supposed irony is real and you ignore the reality of the jury verdict.
“Fighting statues subverts the horror of the British empire, tucks it away to be forgotten.”.
You’ll have to explain why you think that is if you want to convince me, What I’ve seen and heard relating to the Colston statue affair in the past few days has revealed the horror of the British empire and to many who were previously unaware.
Campaigns to rename places and remove statues aren’t something that’s confined to Britain and those you identify as “woke twitterati”. The statue of Stanley in the Congo was smashed to pieces a few years ago. Are you suggesting the woke twitterati were behind that.
I understand that there’s also a campaign in Trinidad to rename places currently named after slavers. We could ask them but they probably don’t need a Picton obelisk to remind them of their past.
Thomas Picton Snr was charged with three offences. (a) Burring alive and beheading hundreds on black slaves, (b) Hanging a white soldier without court martial, and (c) signing off the torture of a ‘mulatto’. The first two charges were dropped as the privy council decided that they were lawful. He was found guilty of the third offence, mainly because of political reasons, as Luisa was mistress to a Spanish slave owner. At re-trail, because the procuring interest was found, Picton was found not guilty.
The atrocities against the black slaves were considered lawful by the British because it was instrumental in the acquisition of the island from the Spanish. The hanging of white soldiers under the Spanish laws of the Indies, was standard practice. Court martial was a British invention. I therefore conclude that Picton was not a racist but a psychopath and that ‘icon assassination’ lets the British Empire off the hook.
Interesting stuff but none of it supports your original assertion that Picton had no choice but to allow the torture of LC to go ahead.
The memory and perception of the British Empire’s is built on icons based on actual people. those who commissioned the statues knew and understood this and those who seek to maintain those statues in positions of prominence today know and understand this.
if the importance of statues and other artwork in creating public perception of history and culture wasn’t known or understood then why was the Ring at Fflint both proposed and objected to.
Regards Picton. it’s possible to be both a racist and a psychopath. The minutae of his trial are a distraction. the fact that he was brought to trial and the jury found him guilty show that he was found wanting even by the standards of his day. If anyone wants to therefore excuse the British Empire of it’s culpability then bring it on there’ no shortage of evidence to incriminate it with.
With the abolition of slavery sums of compensation were not paid to slaves, but to slave owners for their loss of property. Thomas Picton Snr was dead by then, so a sugar estate in Trinidad, which was owned by his wife, was inherited by the son. This was Rev Thomas Picton Jr, of Iscoed. The remains of the family estate, the sum total of slave value as recorded at the time, is Iscoed Mansion. It is here.
This mansion is located between Glanyferi and Carmarthen. It has a few live-able cottages in the courtyard, which appears to be used at holiday cottages. The planning application for the renovation has tickled my curiosity, which is still under investigation.
In a woke tweet, a desperate attempt to associate the Welsh nation with slavery, some place names have been highlighted. Llandovery and Llandeilo in Jamaica, a Cwm in the Himalayas and Llandudno in South Africa.
The two Jamaican names were not after slave plantations, but by Baptist minister who worked for ‘emancipation’ in the Christian sense. The Cwm in the Himalayas was named by Mallory (English climber) on his expeditions, a name chosen because he learnt his craft in north Wales. The Llandudno near Cape Town is actually a beach and was named in 1903 after photography and postcards were invented. The bays looked similar.
All these place names can be reverted by the people of these independent countries, which Wales is not, should they so desire. All have no connection to slavery.
I trust you’re doing your bit to inform those who thought otherwise.
Shipton’s removal from the Literature Wales panel reminds me of Robespierre’s ruling at the height of the Terror. The one that hearing the defence was unnecessary, because it only delayed justice, and offensive, because it impugned the character of the conscientious citizen making the accusation. The roots of wokism.
That’s where we’re at. One side only has to make the allegation and it’s acted on.
If I make a planning application for a giant kiddies’ castle in my garden, can I put it in the name of Mr. E. Longshanks (deceased)? Cyngor Sir Ynys Môn surely won’t spot that: are they still working on the Completion Notice for Beaumaris?
Jac you mention Llansamlet Ward in Swansea, but you forgot to mention a few things. It is a strange Ward in that not so long ago the leading Councillor there was barred from Office because his Council Computer was fully loaded with a great number undesirable strange images of adult nudity and he got the “Private Eye” magazine annual award title as “UK Pornographer of the Year”. Then after that, in a not so long ago Council General Election, Labour held all four seats in Llansamlet, but the fascists in the British National Party BNP came second beating Plaid Cymru & Conservatives & Lib Dems. There is KINDER more to unravel after YMCA and tales of a Swansea schoolteacher Llansamlet resident who takes to fisticuffs with neighbours.
How could I have forgotten Lawrence Bailey. Hell of a boy, mun.
I had considered including the fascisti but the whole piece was getting a bit long, and they have been mentioned in the past. I take it ‘KINDER’ is a clue, a lead? And who is the schoolteacher who gets into fist fights with his neighbours?