Foundation Scam Supporting A Tower Of Bullshit

There’s been a two-week gap since my previous opus, A Case Study In ‘Rewilding’; so here’s a pre-Christmas treat for you to get your teeth into before those Brussel sprouts. Yum! yum!

THE FOUNDATION SCAM

Here, I am of course referring to the ‘climate crisis’. It’s foundational because if you buy into this, or even if you just silently accept it, then you help erect the ‘Tower of Bullshit’ that’s built upon it.

In this ‘tower’ you’ll find net zero, behavioural control, loss of personal freedoms, open borders, wealth transfer, anti-white racism, personal carbon allowances, and a host of other evils that George Orwell might have warned us about if he’d lived long enough to write a sequel to 1984.

The evils we see around us, the ways in which everything becomes more expensive, and our lives more miserable, can only be imposed if enough of us accept we need to make sacrifices to combat (they love that word!) their ‘climate crisis’.

Because if we buy into the climate scam then we’ll dutifully vote for uniparty politicians and parties controlled by those who dreamed up and now profit from the scam.

STORM DARRAGH BLOWS AWAY THE COBWEBS (TOGETHER WITH THE SOLAR PANELS UNDER WHICH THE SPIDERS WERE HIDING)

Among the most obvious measures being promoted to fight the ‘climate crisis’ is renewable energy. This usually means wind turbines and solar panels.

A truly disastrous combo.

On the plus side, Wales sees a lot of wind. What we don’t get a lot of is sunshine. Which is why solar panels are an insult to our collective intelligence.

To begin with, solar ‘arrays’ take up a hell of a lot of space, often good agricultural land. Which then gets poisoned. Even the so-called ‘Welsh Government’ admitted as much in this report from March 2023.

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The problems mentioned occur if the panels stay in place, but as we saw with Storm Darragh the other week, they don’t always stay in place. For the winds caused chaos at Porth Wen, near Cemaes, in the northern part of Ynys Môn.

It was soon reported in the Daily Mail, and the New Civil Engineer. But it was a full six days before the ‘National Newspaper of Wales’ got around to mentioning it.

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The problem is of course that Ynys Môn sees a lot of wind. That wind often comes straight off the Atlantic. To make matters worse, the island is relatively flat, with no sheltering hills.

So you might think it’s a good place for wind turbines. Well, no.

For as the New Civil Engineer also reported, just nearby, at Llanbadrig, a wind turbine had its blades ripped off.

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And yet, despite the obvious problems, there are plans for even bigger solar installations on Ynys Môn.

I heard of other incidents where solar installations broke up, and panel parts took wing. One incident involved Aberystwyth University’s £2.9m solar farm at Penglais.

An investment that’s inspired . . .

Four new degrees . . . International Relations and Climate Change, Biology and Climate Change, Business and Climate Change and English and Climate Change.

English and Climate Change” must have a module, ‘Selling this crap to the plebs’.

For those unfamiliar with the area . . . Penglais is a hill above the town, perfect for catching the wind coming off Cardigan Bay. Though not so good for ground-mounted solar panels, which positively invite levitation.

Penglais solar farm circled. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Even if they reach the grand old age of 20, wind turbines and solar panels will never ‘repay’ the environmental damage they caused in being created and installed.

In addition, massive subsidies are demanded. And when there isn’t enough of our money on offer, developers go off in a huff. As was the case recently in Denmark.

Governments are then advised to come up with “healthier pricing” . . . by the wind industry. If it was up to me, I’d tell them to . . .

The Danish Government must now quickly . . . adapt their auction design to market realities. The industry needs healthier pricing and fairer risk allocation

Once installed, turbines and panels offer unreliable, intermittent supply – that has to be backed up by something more reliable; usually nuclear, or fossil fuels.

And as we’ve seen with Storm Darragh – which was nothing out of the ordinary – ‘renewables’ can’t cope with serious wind.

In fact, turbines have to be switched off in anything other than a strong breeze. And of course they produce nothing in windless conditions. Solar panels obviously generate nothing at night, or when there’s no sun, or if they’re covered in snow.

Which means that on those cold, overcast, windless winter days we experience so often, ‘renewables’ contribute bugger all to the grid.

So the idea that a country can rely 100% on ‘renewables’ is utterly insane. Yet this is what ‘Mad Monk’ Miliband is demanding. Though he’s being paid handsomely to push this bullshit by those who’ll benefit.

BOLLOCKS IN THE WIND

If we’re talking of wind turbines, then we can’t ignore Bute Energy; maybe the biggest player in Wales, with many wind farms planned, plus solar installations, Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), even its own power lines.

And of course, Bute is well connected with Labour in Wales, having created sinecures for party insiders. Then there’s the Danish connection, with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. Which matches funders with Bute projects.

A 25% stake in CIP is held by another Danish outfit, Vestas, and on the Vestas board is former Danish PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt. Alternatively known as Mrs Kinnock, for she’s the wife of Stephen Kinnock, MP for Aberavon, son of former Labour leader Neil, and the late Glenys, for many years a MEP.

(Talking of Vestas, here’s a very recent mishap with a new Vestas wind turbine in Scotland. And there have been others.)

Mrs Kinnock has her own company, Thorningschmidt Global Ltd, and she also sits on the board of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.

The address given for her company is Acre House, 11/15 William Road, London NW1 3ER. Other companies at that address appeared in the Paradise Papers. This is the UK end of Rontec Group (Jersey) Ltd, the empire of Sir Gerald Ronson OBE. For those old enough to remember, Ronson was one of ‘The Guinness Four’.

Mrs Kinnock’s also worked with the World Health Organisation and the Trilateral Commission.

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I’ve made the point before that the principals involved in Bute came from property company Parabola. The holding company for the Bute empire is Windward Global Ltd. This is controlled by Oliver James Millican, son of Peter John Millican, chair of Parabola.

Is Bute just a front for Parabola? I ask, because one might need to be very generous to believe that four young executives, including the boss’s son, cut their ties with Parabola at the same time to take a leap into the unknown.

I just wrote “four young executives“, which may confuse some of you familiar with the principal players. For in addition to Millican Jr the other ex Parabola people prominent with Bute are usually Lawson Steele and Stuart George.

But there was a fourth departure from Parabola, Barry Woods. If you look at the list of related companies, you’ll see that Steele, George and Woods each had a ‘Windward’ company formed for them 31.05.2018.

Woods’ company was dissolved in September 2019 when, I assume, he broke with Bute.

If you go down that list you’ll see Windward JR Ltd. Those initials stand for John Reilly. He’s the Project Manager for Bute Energy, and a bit of a joker. For here he is quoted by NorthWalesLive in May 2023.

John Reilly, project manage . . . said: “As a nation we’re in a Climate Emergency, and a cost-of-living crisis.

The cost-of-living crisis is partly caused by Net Zero, forced on us to fight a non-existent ‘Climate Emergency’, yet Reilly tries to turn facts on their head. It’s too late for this bullshit, pal. Too many people now see through it.

The latest accounts for Windward JR, which became available to view earlier this month, show a remarkable upturn in fortunes.

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A company that never had more than a few hundred quid in the kitty now has over a million. With the filed accounts offering no explanation for this windfall. So where might it have come from?

Answers on the usual postcard.

UPDATE 22.12.2024: The accounts for Windward LS have become available on the Companies House website. They show the arrival of roughly £5 million. We can expect a similar amount to appear in Windward SG Ltd. And probably a larger sum in some other company for Oliver James Millican.

UPDATE 23.12.2024: The accounts for Windward SG Ltd (to 31.03.2024) are also now available. They show an unexplained increase in Assets from the previous year’s £87,950 to £4,722,225.

A WOMAN OF SOME IMPORTANCE

In June ’23 I put out Taking Control, Of Everything, where I tried to explain how, through funding, appointments, and other means, the ‘Welsh Government’ seems to take over bodies that should be non-political.

In particular, I drew attention to recent changes at the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) and the Football Association of Wales (FAW).

I mentioned Dr Carol Bell who, according to this bio from Chapter Zero (one of her many directorships), leads (the FAW’s) sustainability strategy“. Which, given how ‘sustainability’ operates in the wider world, will probably bankrupt Welsh soccer.

Since I wrote last year Dr Bell has taken up a number of new appointments.

In January she started Aileni Ltd, with crachach luminary Geraint Talfan Davies, and Geoffrey Hunt of Arup. In March, she became Treasurer of Glamorgan County Cricket Club. Then she got involved in three archaeological bodies. And on April 23 Dr Bell joined Bute’s Windward Energy Ltd.

She is a non-executive director of Norwegian Bonheur ASA. A non-executive director of Cyprus-based  platinum and chrome mining company Tharisa. Dr Bell’s Market Screener bio mentions Hafren Scientific Ltd, another mining and drilling company, which for some reason isn’t mentioned in her Linkedin profile. Strange, seeing as she’s the chair.

Hafren Scientific has three outstanding loans with the Development Bank of Wales (DBW), of which Dr Bell was a director until a year ago.

The first DBW loan was made in December 2014. And in that very same month Dr Bell joined both Hafren Scientific and BlackRock Energy and Resources Income Trust Plc. (Though it appears she left BlackRock in March.)

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I used to think that Dr Bell and others worked for the ‘Welsh Government’, pushing the Globalist agenda. Now I wonder if she works for a higher authority to ensure Welsh politicos follow orders.

And as we’ve seen, earlier this year, and within weeks of leaving(?) BlackRock, Dr Bell joined Anglo-Scottish investment company Bute Energy. Intriguing.

FINAL THOUGHTS

John Reilly’s “Climate Emergency“, was concocted by very rich individuals and corporate entities wanting to exercise political and social control through uniparty political systems in Europe and North America.

Their strategy is to destabilise and weaken the West from within, thereby making the Globalist takeover easier. Using tactics like DEI, ESG, CRT, Net Zero, open borders, and a comprehensive rejection of Western traditions and values.

To promote this strategy Globalists have recruited environmentalists, Islamists, vegans, sexual deviants, and of course, the Quisling Left. For all the measures designed to weaken Western societies are promoted as ‘progressive’, with critics dismissed as ‘far right’, etc., etc.

Of course, politicians come and go, whereas other institutions and structures are more enduring, even self-perpetuating. Higher education and the civil service might come into this category.

Academe is obviously in the service of the Globalist agenda, and it’s long been rumoured that senior levels of the UK civil service have been ‘captured’. More than that, it’s said they – not the politicians – now make (or convey) major policies.

It can be seen in Wales. I’ve chronicled the assault on Welsh farming for a decade or more, and it’s usually led by civil servants sent down from London by Defra. Which is believed to have devised (or conveyed) the Starmer regime’s inheritance tax.

CONCLUSION

Matters are coming to a head. The lunacies that have prevailed for too long are in retreat. We shall see major change in 2025. And it may not be bloodless.

The German government has effectively fallen, there will be elections in February. Already moves are afoot to stop the ‘populist’ AfD from winning. In France, De Gaulle’s Fifth Republic totters from one crisis to another, the country run by pygmies not fit to utter the great man’s name.

Across the West, Globalism and Cultural Marxism (Wokeism) are in retreat, and people realise the threat posed by Islam. Change is coming.

Here in the UK there’s talk of cancelling some of next year’s local council elections in England due to ‘reorganisation’. The truth is, Reform must be stopped.

As I write this, it’s rumoured Canadian PM Justin Trudeau will resign. Whether he does, or whether he clings on until next year’s elections, he’s finished.

Down in Argentina, President Milei has taken a chainsaw to bureaucracy and socialist corruption – and the country is thriving.

And finally, it’s just a month until Donald J Trump becomes the 47th president of the United States of America. And then things are really going to change.

I’m looking forward to 2025 so very, very much.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2024

    Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda

Budget Boost For Rewilders And Globalists

This post is about a group I’ve mentioned before, Tir Natur. It’s not a big outfit, it was only launched in 2022. I’m writing about it again because my attention has been drawn to what might be a major development.

Which coincides with the UK government’s decision to make most family farms liable for punitive inheritance taxes. This measure will leave many farming families with little alternative but to sell up.

Which is almost certainly the intention.

For the Treasury only expects to benefit by £520m a year from this legislation. Inconsequential when set against the harm that’ll be caused to the rural economy; and in Wales, the damage inflicted on a culture and a way of life.

THE OPPORTUNITY

Here’s the Tir Natur website piece on the development. It reads:

An opportunity has presented itself to Tir Natur. A significant area of land which has been deemed unsuitable for commercial forestry and the dominance of purple-moor grass and bracken undermine its grazing value.

But is it being grazed now, or not? If it is, then do the graziers agree with that evaluation? I ask because later we’re told: “Overgrazing over the years has restricted natural regeneration and reduced not only the ecological, but agricultural value of the land“.

And yet, things can’t be that bad. For the place seems to be swarming with wildlife; on the ground, in the trees, in the water, and above our heads.

A skylark . . . over our heads . . . whilst a male roe deer, springs up . . . Pine marten are known to be neighbours whilst red squirrel are seen here . . . Otter . . . sandpipers and goosanders. Red Kite and buzzard hunt for . . . small mammals in the thick tussocks . . . osprey patrol the water . . . trout and pike abound.

Despite this picture painted of a Cambrian Eden, a paragraph or two later we’re asked to: “Imagine, then, a new approach. Ancient Welsh cattle and ponies enter the land“.

So there must be good grazing available, just not for sheep and cattle.

It also talks of pigs “disturbing tussocks” . . . presumably the tussocks wherein dwell the small mammals providing prey for kite and buzzard.

The section outlining Tir Natur’s plans concludes with looking forward to: “Ground nesters such as golden plover and curlew make their triumphant return“. How will they cope with the trampling horses and cattle, or the gobble-up-everything porkers?

From the area Tir Natur says it wants to buy. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

What is graphically described is a flourishing ecosystem, so I can’t see how Tir Natur’s vision improves on that. Am I missing something?

Maybe in writing this glorious example of bucolica the writer got carried away and ended up contradicting himself, or herself, or theyself.

And let’s bear in mind that this land could be bought by a commercial entity from outside of Wales. The new owner could then make lots of money from allowing Tir Natur to graze reindeer or anything else they fancy.

NEW ARRIVALS

When I looked at Tir Natur a couple of years back there were four trustees (of the charity), but there have been changes. One of the founders, Stephen Jenkins, is no longer a trustee, but serves as a Development Officer. Here he is with the rest of The Team.

He may be one of only two Welsh people still involved. The other being Gwenan Jenkins-Jones. She is also a trustee at Keep Wales Tidy.

This is a body becoming increasingly political, with a Woke and ‘inclusive’ emphasis. Explained by ‘Welsh Government’ funding trebling from £1.52m in 2019 to £4.71m in 2023.

(It should go without saying that Andrew Stumpf, chair of Keep Wales Tidy, lives in the White Highlands of Abergavennyshire. A sink hole for Welsh public funding)

When we look at the changes in personnel at Tir Natur it tells us by whom and for what purpose Tir Natur has been captured.

First up is David Kilner. Who’s also involved with Climate Cymru. It was this lot’s BAME section that produced the internationally ridiculed recommendation to ban ‘racist’ dogs from the countryside.

Yet another outfit in receipt of Kilner’s wisdom is Natur am Byth. Here’s a piece he penned in April last year for Friends of the Earth.

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The other member of The Team is Dan Ward. Who has worked, and may still work, for Natural Resources Wales. But for the purposes of this article, I want to focus on his link to North Star Transition (NST).

To give you a better understanding of where we’re heading, go to this post of mine from a year ago and scroll down to the section ‘North Star Transition’. Below is a clip from the NST website I used back then.

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And here’s the full article, written by North Star co-founder Jyotir Banerjee. It begins: “Large-scale investment funding is missing in action when it comes to transforming landscapes.”  (“Missing in action”! Are we at war?)

A more recent article on the NST website, by Jérôme Tagger, warns that:

There is an urgent need for large-scale funding of nature-based solutions across many landscapes if the UK is to achieve net zero, environmental, social and health transformations.

So who’s Jérôme Tagger?

Well, he’s American, based in Brooklyn, New York, and he may still be hiding under his duvet after Donald Trump’s election victory. Here’s his Linkedin profile.

You’ll see that Tagger is CEO of Preventable Surprises, and when skimming through the website my eyes were drawn to “climate finance and behavior“. He’s also co-founder of White Label Impact.

Time to turn to the Tir Natur trustees. And when you see who’s recently joined, you’ll be in no doubt as to what Tir Natur is up to.

In May 2023 Richard Wheat came aboard. He’s an ecological consultant at Middlemarch Environmental Ltd, of Coventry. Companies House tells us the company is controlled by Warwickshire Wildlife Trust.

In June this year, it was Sally Weale, documentary film maker. She was, until March 2022, a director of The Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales.

Next, in July, it was our old friend Tim Birch of Extinction Rebellion. He fled Derbyshire a few years back with a posse of gamekeepers in pursuit. He is now a director of Wildlife Trusts Wales . . . which voted itself out of existence a few years ago to become a county branch of the English parent body.

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And, finally, on September 26, it was James Hitchcock. If that name rings a bell, it’s because he’s appeared on this blog a number of times after coming to Wales to be CEO of the Radnorshire Wildlife Trust.

He quit that job last month, and became Advocacy Coordinator – Wales for Rewilding Britain. Wales, a country he doesn’t even know. But he does know who’s who in Corruption Bay, and that’s what matters.

That’s quite a cast. Why are they all now involved with Tir Natur, a small outfit, with an income that last year doubled to just over twelve grand?

GLOBALIST BONANZA

You might be wondering why this Labour government would want to destroy farming, and why its supporters welcome the move. Let me explain.

Taking the supporters first . . . the Pinkhairs may genuinely believe they’re sticking it to the super-rich (and perhaps even freeing the serfs), because they really are that fucking stupid. Whereas old-style leftists may have a hazy recollection of kulaks being vilified in the smoke-filled rooms of yore.

But above all that, the government in Westminster is a Globalist tool . . . one that was not made by Keir Starmer’s father, but by some very unpleasant people indeed.

These Globalists, who I’ve identified on the blog before, want to take over (among other things) farmland. Firstly, to profit from insane subsidies and payments given to those claiming to be saving the planet. Secondly, to take them nearer their ultimate objective – control of the food supply. And by that means, to control human behaviour.

To help them achieve this they must control what we see, hear, and say. This explains their puppets demanding hate speech legislation, and laws against ‘misinformation’. Also, banging people up for social media posts.

For they must control the narrative. But it’s more difficult for them now because their mainstream media is no longer trusted, and there are channels they do not control.

Another problem they have is that the ‘climate crisis’ isn’t co-operating, and hasn’t been for years. There’s no marked deterioration in the weather, and the net zero lunacy imposed to combat this ‘threat’ is being increasingly resisted.

The fallback position is the ‘nature crisis’, or ‘biodiversity loss’, which asks us to believe that species are disappearing almost daily. And just as with the ‘climate crisis’, it’s all our fault. This looming tragedy can only be averted by us making major sacrifices – which again, will involve assaults on farming.

For to save the dormouse we must stop eating cheese.

Just as the ‘climate crisis’ relied on con men like Al Gore, and voodoo ‘science’, so, when it comes to species depletion, we are expected to heed the sermonising of those who want big dollops of cash to put things right. And of course, they also want land.

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The more I’ve learnt and thought about environmentalism the clearer it’s become why top environmentalists found it easy to work with the Globalists – because they’re one and the same.

Let’s start with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Which modestly says of itself:

Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status of the natural world and the measures needed to safeguard it.

And I bet you’ve never heard of it! But I’m not sure you’re supposed to.

DARKER PAST

The IUCN was formed in 1948 and took up residence in Gland, Switzerland. Feeling it needed a more public face, in 1961 the IUCN helped launch the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), also headquartered in Gland.

The founder and first president of the WWF was Prince Bernhardt, consort to Queen Juliana of the Netherlands. Though he himself was German and had, like many other princelings, joined the Nazi Party in 1933.

Prince Bernhardt was also a member the shadowy Club of the Isles, another organisation that helped give birth to the WWF. This group of royals and business tycoons uses environmentalism to protect and promote their post-imperial interests. Especially in Africa.

Involved in both was Philip, consort to the late queen of England. His sisters all married German princes, and three of them became Nazis. In 1948 Elizabeth’s father, George VI, banned Philip’s family from his daughter’s wedding.

Among the activities of the WWF and associated movements that get less publicity than saving pandas is taking over vast areas of Africa for game reserves, and ‘parks’. When the evicted populations protest they are dealt with as trespassers, or even shot as ‘poachers’.

Larry Fink, BlackRock CEO, comes to give Starmer his orders. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

There are incredible allegations made against the WWF and those behind it, but let’s ignore the more outlandish claims – such as ‘anthropological reserves’ in Amazonia – to consider two features that are undeniable.

Firstly, there’s the link with fascism or, more specifically, Nazism. Secondly, there’s the belief the world is overpopulated.

Seeing as we’re 80 years on from WWII, we can perhaps ignore a (direct) Nazi link. But the belief in an overpopulated world is central to the modern Globalist-environmentalist agenda.

It explains so why many refer to that agenda as being “anti-human“. Critics can see it, but may not understand the background that makes their suspicions correct.

Let me end this section by explaining how the agenda is already making us poorer in ways other than immediate costs like higher electricity bills.

Earlier we looked at Keep Wales Tidy. It receives huge amounts of ‘Welsh Government’ funding, not to keep Wales tidy, but to promote the Globalist agenda. And the same applies to countless other ‘charities’, third sector outfits, even pressure groups.

It’s amazing . . . the Welsh NHS is falling apart, kids leave school unable to read and write, but Corruption Bay can always find money for organisations that are actually working against our interests. Even threatening our national identity.

CONCLUSION, AND WARNING

The West is in a dangerous place, with the Globalists controlling politicians and uniparty systems. And this control costs lives, tens of thousands of young lives in the war in eastern Europe, from which BlackRock profits hugely.

Take a few minutes to watch this 3 minute video by Robert F Kennedy Jr.

If the West is in dangerous waters, then Wales is docked up Shit Creek.

Yet I have such a low opinion of Senedd Members that I think they might genuinely believe they’re doing the right thing. They’ve certainly swallowed all the Globalist scams. But it’s not just our clowns.

Not long before they dined with Larry Fink of BlackRock, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves were granted an audience with ‘Dr’ Bill Gates, of Covid fame. Look how attentive and respectful they are!

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In Cardiff, London, Brussels and elsewhere politicians are in thrall to Globalism, with the leftist majority in the Senedd pre-disposed to imposing petty regulations and restrictions on personal freedom.

Which makes them putty in the hands of kings, princes and others who are used to exercising power. Those who once marched with the workers now dance for Hapsburgs and Bourbons.

Having mentioned BlackRock a few times, here’s an example of how it operates. Some ten years ago planning permission was granted for a wind farm in Blaenau Gwent. Within months it was snapped up by you know who.

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Many suspect the wind farms planned today, by Parabola Bute and others, will go the same way once planning permission is obtained.

That Blaenau Gwent example wasn’t a one-off. The Labour party has been dealing with BlackRock for many years. In 2016 BlackRock took control of the £2.8bn Welsh public pension pot.

That’s how BlackRock and the rest operate. They don’t make or create anything, they just use other people’s money to buy up things, corporations and assets which then give them vast economic strength, and with that strength, political power.

And it’ll be the same with land acquired by Tir Natur, and all the other land from which Welsh farmers will be evicted. If it’s not BlackRock then it’ll be some other Globalist corporation working to exactly the same agenda.

Helped by BlackRock having the WWF in its pocket. It’s the same with all the other organisations, down to your local wildlife trust. Globalists have ‘environmentalists’ doing the dirty work for them, ‘greenwashing’ their activities.

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So don’t be fooled by these machinations pretending to save the planet. It’s the biggest asset grab in history. And as I’ve explained, it has worrying antecedents.

Always remember that behind the cuddly image of environmentalism lurk the shades of those who thought Hitler was the good guy. Which helps explain why Globalism is just another attempt at world domination.

Demanding reduced population levels in order to tackle the ‘climate crisis’ is no more than the ugly eugenics of a century ago made more palatable.

At root, it’s just repackaged Nazism. So wake up and realise it.

♦ end

UPDATE 27.11.2024: Today Nation.Cymru put out a piece in defence of the Tir Natur project, and almost certainly in response to the piece above I’d put out two days earlier. It was written by Stephen Price, N.C’s Senior Reporter.

Price lives in Abergavennyshire, has a background “working in the third and charity sectors“, and a “voluntary role as a Keep Wales Tidy Litter Champion“.

Which says it all.

© Royston Jones 2024

More From Ireland Moor

The piece I put out on the 10th was quite well received, it certainly encouraged some fresh information. Which tends to put what’s happening on Ireland Moor into a wider context, and factor in fresh considerations.

At 2,600 words this is a wee bit longer than recent offerings, and maybe a bit ‘denser’, but still worth sticking with.

OWNERSHIP

In the previous piece I told of Scottish aristos the Duff Gordons, who inherited the Lewis estate at Harpton Court.

Ireland Moor is an upland grazing area to the east of Builth, around and perhaps above the pin in the map below. Bordered to the north by the A481 and the A44.

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Let’s start in 1993, when Sir Andrew Cosmo Lewis Duff Gordon (scroll down) sold some land. Here’s a Land Registry document for title no CYM427489. There may be other titles involved. If so, they’ll likely be: WA484809, WA404806, and WA667700.

There were four buyers named in the 1993 transaction. Also, three “beneficial tenants“. More information on these can be found by clicking here.

Now we go to July 2008, and a piece from Country Life informing us regular readers that Ireland Moor was for sale. A Land Registry title document from November of that year for CYM427489 probably tells us who bought the land. (We can now assume the other titles just mentioned are involved.)

Two of the names mentioned in this sale we saw among the 1993 buyers: Edward John Francis Dashwood and Peter John Horsburgh. So in case you didn’t follow the earlier link . . .

Dashwood is descended from Hellfire Club Dashwood, who was a bit of a lad.

Dashwood was a notorious rake and prankster who had once impersonated King Charles XII of Sweden at the Russian court when Charles was Russia’s great enemy. He had also tried to seduce the Russian Tsarina Anne, and he had been banned from the Papal States, all while still in his late teens and early 20s.

On the surface, Horsburgh is a devout environmentalist and trustee of the Wye and Usk Foundation. But he’s also a director of companies under the ETF umbrella, companies that profit hugely from – net zero.

Which makes perfect sense.

Organisations set up to ‘protect’ our rivers – especially in Wales – blame farmers for any and all pollution in those rivers. Environmentalists see farting cows as an obstacle to the target of net zero. Which pressurises politicians to work against livestock farming.

Environmentalism is not really about Greta Thunberg and brainwashed kids throwing paint over old masters. That’s all a distraction. ‘Environmentalism’ is major corporations seeking investments. And near the top of their ‘Dear Santa‘ list is land to be exploited for ‘carbon capture’ greenwashing and ‘natural capital’.

This Land Registry document from June 5, 2009, confirms the November 2008 sale, but without naming the buyers. Though it does tell us the four titles were involved, reveals the sale price of £900,000, gives Ireland Moor Ltd as the owner, with a Jersey company number (103322), and an address in Bristol.

Does this suggest the November 2008 buyers are now the Jersey company?

Possibly, and the third buyer might provide the clue.

CONNECTIONS APPEAR

For this is James Warren Kent, one of the ‘beneficial tenants’ in the 1993 deal. Naturally, I got to wondering who Mr Kent is, and what he gets up to.

I found he’s the sole director of Q Branch Investments Ltd. A company in the business of “letting and operating of own or leased real estate“. Though the company is owned by Benjamin Mark Peter Whitfield. Possibly living in Switzerland.

Looking more closely at Q Branch Investments I saw three outstanding charges.

One of them with the Conon Group, up in Auld Reekie, a city we visit regularly on this blog. I would guess the two directors of this financially healthy undertaking are the elderly parents of Benjamin Whitfield.

The other two charges are held by Roger Charles Adams. And this is where it gets rather interesting. For Adams is a director of RSK Environment Ltd, operating out of an address south of the river in Glasgow. Part of the RSK Group.

A bell rang when I saw ‘RSK’, “a global leader in the delivery of sustainable solutions“.

Let’s go back to this piece I put out a week before Christmas last, and scroll down to the section ‘Globalist Land Grab?’ about the ‘Welsh Government’s Sustainable Farming Scheme. Where you can read:

Tracing the ownership of RSK ADAS eventually gets us to Los Angeles and “global alternative investment manager” the Ares Management Corporation. You may not be surprised to learn that among the largest of Ares’ shareholders we find both BlackRock and Vanguard.

Someone who got a mention was Canadian Dr Liz Lewis-Reddy. She’s worked for RSK for 7 years, and before that spent 11 years at Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust.

Dr Lewis-Reddy was a co-author of the ‘Welsh Government’s Potential economic effects of the Sustainable Farming Scheme.

Her career seems to be another example of getting farmers off the land so that ‘alternative investment’ corporations can make fortunes from saving the planet.

So let’s recap. James Warren Kent, who is or was one of the owners of Ireland Moor, gets loans for his company from Roger Charles Adams, a man who works for a company that does contracts for both the ‘Welsh Government’ and Bute Energy. (Yes, Bute Energy.)

What’s the likelihood of that happening by chance?

But now it gets a little more complicated.

MORE ON OWNERSHIP

I’ve mentioned Ireland Moor Ltd, the company said to own the land in the LR title document of June 5, 2009.

That checks out with the Jersey filings.

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Here’s the Jersey Document of Incorporation for Ireland Moor Ltd, May 2009. It mentions two companies holding 45 shares each.

This ‘Persons Holding Shares’ filing for January 1, 2018, informs us that Edward Warren Filmer of Venezuela is now the sole shareholder.

Finally, here’s the winding up document for Ireland Moor Ltd dated February 23, 2018.

(Let me express my gratitude to the person who dug out, paid for, and then forwarded these and other documents to me.)

There was a problem identifying Edward Warren Filmer. But he does exist. Here he is mentioned in his father’s Will as ‘Edward Warren Filmer Cabrera’.

Which suggests his mother is from a Spanish-speaking country and her maiden name was Cabrera. Which ties in with him living in Venezuela.

This Jersey company seems to have been succeeded by Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd, run by the four sons of Sir Andrew Cosmo Lewis Duff Gordon who, you’ll recall, sold the land in 1993. (And died in April 2023.)

It seems the land was sold to the Duff Gordons in December 2015. The relevant LR titles are: WA484809 (no plan available), WA404806 (no plan available), WA667700 (with plan), and CYM427489 (with plan).

Edward Warren Filmer Cabrera remains something of a mystery man. How did he get involved? I couldn’t help notice that he shares a middle name, ‘Warren’, with the guy named in the Ireland Moor purchase in November 2008, James Warren Kent.

Could they be brothers? Cousins?

We must assume that Ireland Moor Ltd of Jersey owned the land of that name because the Duff Gordon boys bought Ireland Moor from that company.

Though I’m convinced things may not be quite as they appear when it comes to Ireland Moor. I say that because there is something on the Companies House filings that’s a real puzzle.

Go to the Land Registry title documents for which I’ve given links, above, and you’ll see a panel similar to the one below. It says the sale was concluded December 15, 2015.

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Which tallies with the December 2015 date given on the company’s outstanding debt with Edward Warren Filmer and Ireland Moor Ltd.

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Yet if we scroll down that charge document, to page 16, we see the panel below. Which says the titles were transferred to Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd in May 2015!

That’s two months before Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd was formed!

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I’m open to suggestions for this curiosity. But I will not accept ‘time travel’.

Whatever the answer, with Ireland Moor Ltd dissolved, then (on paper at least) the Duff Gordons owe the outstanding debt for the land to Señor Edward Warren Filmer Cabrera of Venezuela.

Whoever he might be.

THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL

The LR documents say the Duff Gordons bought Ireland Moor in December 2015, the purchase part-financed with a loan from Filmer-Ireland Moor Ltd.

This is something I’ve come across before, but usually when assets are moved between partners, or within a group of companies.

The charge dated that same month says:

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Which suggests the Duff Gordons handed over £560,000 as a down payment.

Then they took out two further loans, in December 2016 with Lloyds Bank. Normally when I see this (and almost always when the Development Bank of Wales is involved) the newer loans are used to pay off older debts. But not, it seems, in this case.

The accounts don’t help much. Below I’ve taken the ‘headlines’ from the first accounts filed by Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd.  (Actually, ‘unaudited financial statements’.)

The first ‘accounts’, to July 31, 2016, make sense. ‘Fixed assets’, £1,231,914, is obviously Ireland Moor. ‘Creditors’, at £678,158, is the debt owed to Filmer and Ireland Moor Ltd plus a few odds and ends.

But a year later, and after the loans from Lloyds Bank, the ‘accounts’ show the amount owed to ‘creditors’ down from £678,158 to £191,078.

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This could be explained by taking on the new debt and then paying off what was owed to Filmer and Ireland Moor Ltd. But that didn’t happen. For Companies House shows the Filmer-Ireland Moor charge is still ‘outstanding’.

The most recent accounts, to July 31, 2023, are equally confusing. Despite no new charge registered, the amount owed to creditors shot up from £693,676 in 2022 to £1,287,026. Almost the whole increase explained (page 7) as “other creditors“.

With the amount in the kitty going down, down, down every year. To the point where, in the 2023 accounts, Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd is in the red.

And where’s the £600,000 grant from the Powys Moorland Partnership? I can’t see that showing in the accounts.

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Seeing as, “This project is funded from the Sustainable Management Scheme under the Welsh Government’s Rural Communities Rural Development Programme”, ‘Welsh Government’ should be insisting on ‘fuller’ accounts.

Is Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd being used for purposes other than the conservation of Ireland Moor?

SEEING AS THIS IS POWYS . . .

. . . you just know wind turbines might be involved. And that means another trip to Edinburgh, where we find those behind Bute Energy. But don’t be fooled by that – for Bute is definitely a Welsh company!

Back in 2018 or 2019 our wonderful ‘Welsh Government’ commissioned Arup’s Bristol office to identify areas that would be suitable for solar and wind energy.

The approach seems to have been, ‘Anywhere outside national parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty will be OK’. Which was a disaster, and betrayed Arup’s ignorance of Wales.

For example, Arup declared almost the whole of Ynys Môn to be perfect for wind turbines . . . until the RAF reminded them there are jets, helicopters and other craft taking off and landing every day.

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The mess was eventually sorted by RenewableUK, whose suggestion for the area we’re interested in (top right) was used in the final version (bottom right) of ‘Future Wales The National Plan 2040‘.

That said, the ‘Welsh Government’ and corporate investors are very ‘flexible’ when it comes to the selected areas. To put it bluntly, other than NPs and AONBs (and of course, Ynys Môn), you can put up wind and solar farms anywhere.

Which is why, despite Ireland Moor being outside designated area 7, I wouldn’t rule out wind turbines appearing.

Because not far away, on Aberedw Hill (circled on the left), which is also outside the designated area, Bute Energy is planning an ‘energy park’, and has an agreement with landowner Harry Legge-Bourke.

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Reminding us that when it comes to ‘renewables’, Wales is open range; so we can definitely add wind turbines to the mix of possibilities for Ireland Moor.

The threats afflicting our countryside are very similar no matter where we look. Though more pronounced near the central border, partly due to the machinations of the wildlife trusts in Radnorshire and Montgomeryshire.

THE PERFECT STORM

Welsh livestock farming, and with it the Welsh family farm, a supporting pillar of Welsh language and culture, is under threat as never before. That threat comes in a number of guises, but all can be traced back to the Globalist ambition to control what we eat and where it comes from.

Additionally, a whole political class has been won over to the lunacy of a ‘climate crisis’, not because it’s true, but because it gives them a ’cause’, and it gives them some kind of moral authority.

A natural-born asshole gets a kick out of bossing people around. But when saving the planet, or fighting racism, is introduced, then a natural-born asshole becomes a morally superior being . . . and a bigger asshole!

Western thought has been corrupted by these caped crusaders, and all done by stealth. We elect politicians on vague, ‘something for everybody’ manifestos . . . and then the pressure groups we did not elect get to work on them.

If it’s not the pressure groups then – and certainly here in Wales – it’s the civil servants ‘advising’ our politicians. Men like Andrew Slade, who’s been a malign influence in Corruption Bay for too long.

It doesn’t matter whether Ireland Moor sees grouse shooting, wind turbines (to supply England), rewilding, greenwashing (or a combination of the four), it’s clear they will all have political backing – because they undermine farming.

And the farmers understand the threats. This is what one wrote to me:

I can’t tell how important that grazing is to hill farmers like us, we can’t afford down country grass keep, it will reduce our flocks down to a fraction, we are running on fumes as it is. And the sheep, they are old bloodlines it’s taken generations to get them hefted and thriving, I despair, and goodness knows what horrors await us in the budget, another local boy hung himself the other day, I fear there is going to be a lot more, and all the old farmers I go and visit are about in tears thinking all they have worked for and sacrificed for will be take from them and their grand-children won’t get the chance to have roots in the area where they belong, I could bloody cry.

What we see on Ireland Moor and elsewhere is plutocrats orchestrating those they fund and control against livestock farming so as to release land for corporate gain.

Their motto is, I’m told: ‘The countryside needs hedge funds not hedges.’

The ‘Welsh Government’ agrees. Politicians who’ve spent 25 years serving agendas that sound noble in the abstract but, in practice – from Port Talbot to the Powys uplands – always work against the interests of local people.

Ireland Moor is modern Wales in microcosm. Among all those you’ve read about, the ones losing out will be the ones born and raised there, who went to school in the area, who graze their animals on the moor.

For me, the lesson from Ireland Moor – and it can be applied across Wales – is this: Socialists in Corruption Bay are driving small farmers off the land so that land can be taken over by foreign corporations, landed families, and enviroshysters.

Reminding us that socialism always was a lie. The betrayal of the urban working class, and now the war on small farmers, exposes that lie to the world.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2024

Parabola Bute Energy, Scottish Echoes

This piece has been prompted by information received from Scotland, which may clear up a lingering mystery, while also telling us more about the operations of those involved with Parabola Bute Energy.

I use that name because I’m convinced that Bute Energy, which wants to build some 20 wind farms in Wales, plus other installations, also mile after mile of pylons, is little more than a venture into the renewables sector by property group Parabola.

I say that because the ultimate holding company for all Bute companies is Windward Global Ltd. This company is controlled by Oliver James Millican. He is the son of Peter John Millican, who runs Parabola.

The son worked for the father at Parabola, as did the other Bute principals (though some have since left Bute). They all ‘departed’ Parabola late in 2017 or early in 2018.

But to avoid confusion, I’ll stick to the name you’ve become familiar with.

NEWS FROM THE NORTH

I’ve written a lot about ‘Bute Energy’, in its various incarnations, but always from a Welsh perspective. And despite consistently identifying it as a Scottish company, I’ve never really looked into what Bute’s owners might have got up to in Scotland.

So let’s put that right. Starting with a warehouse, a very big warehouse, over 122,000 sq ft; it’s to the east of Glasgow, not far off the M8, which runs to Edinburgh.

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It was reported on October 2, 2018 that the Titan warehouse had been bought for £6.5M by Grayling Capital. This is Grayling Capital LLP, formed just over a year earlier.

If we turn to the Members of this LLP, we see the names of Oliver James Millican, Stuart Allan George, and Lawson Douglas Steele. These are the names we’ve become familiar with as they keep turning up as directors of the Bute companies in Wales.

At the bottom of the list we see David James Taylor, a Labour insider in Wales whose name has cropped up a few times in the Bute saga.

The warehouse had been used by Lidl, but the company decided to move out to a purpose-built warehouse of their own. So Grayling looked around for a buyer. They didn’t find one, but the Covid pandemic did provide a tenant, in the form of the Scottish government. Or rather, the Scottish NHS.

The lease runs to 31 January 2031, at £766,094 per annum. Which was a good bit of business for Grayling, but it got better. For in March 2021 the warehouse was sold for £14.326m to the Lothian Pension Fund. Ultimately owned by the City of Edinburgh Council.

Though I ask myself, why did Lothian Pension Fund pay £14.3m for a property it must have known sold for half that price just over two years earlier? Did the Auditor General get involved?

Grayling Capital LLP is now liquidated.

In the report I just linked to you’ll see the sale worded thus:

The Lothian Pension Fund has acquired a prime logistics warehouse at Eurocentral in North Lanarkshire from Windward Titan.

Windward Titan was a vehicle set up specifically for the warehouse deal in Scotland, and that explains why it hasn’t been mentioned on this blog. Though ‘Windward’ should certainly be familiar to regular readers. It crops up with a number of other companies.

Windward Titan is now dissolved.

The directors were of course Millican, Steele, and George. Control was exercised by Windward Enterprises Ltd, which is now – since St David’s Day this year – known as Windward Energy Ltd. Which is in turn owned by the company mentioned above as the ultimate holding company, Windward Global Ltd.

Here’s the warehouse disappearing from the Windward Titan balance sheet.

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You’ll see that the warehouse was valued at just over £7 million. It sold for £14.3 million. And on top of that there’s the income of £766,000 a year from the Scottish NHS until 2031. Did that lease transfer to the new owner?

What’s more, a Scottish source tells me that the value of the warehouse was increased because as part of the lease the Scottish government agreed to undertake improvements costing £2.75m.

Bizarrely, this work meant that the warehouse could not be used at the height of the pandemic – which was the reason for taking out the lease in the first place!

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One reason I find this story from Scotland so interesting is that it seems to presage what we’ve seen in Wales. More on this later.

Another reason is that those involved in the warehouse deal are now in Wales posing as planet savers, but they are first and foremost property speculators.

Never, ever, forget that.

WHO FILLED THEIR BOOTS, AND HOW?

Windward Titan was started with a single £1 share and there was never any money in the kitty, just the value of the warehouse. The only cash money appeared at the end, from the parent company, to settle up with the liquidators.

So to follow the money we need to turn to Grayling Capital LLP.

A LLP is a Limited Liability Partnership, popular with solicitors, accountants, and other professionals working as a partnership. When used in a more commercial context it can disguise ‘opaque’ dealings.

What you see below is from the final page of Windward Titan’s financial statement for year ending 31.03.2020.

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It tells that the Titan warehouse was bought by Windward Titan with a loan from parent company Windward Enterprises Ltd. And it also confirms that everything is ultimately owned by Windward Global Ltd and Oliver James Millican.

To return to Labour insider David James Taylor. Who’d been Spad to Peter Hain MP and Welsh first ministers Rhodri Morgan and Carwyn Jones. More specifically, to the money given to his company Moblake Ltd (originally Moblake Wind Ventures Ltd).

From Moblake Ltd financial statement for y/e 31.03.2021. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

There were two possible sources for the ‘interest free loan’ of £605,872 Taylor made to himself. Both linked to Bute.

One was his shares in Windward Energy Ltd (formerly Windward Enterprises Ltd), but he held these shares until July 22, 2022. Whereas the mysterious £600,000+ had been and gone from Moblake at least a year earlier.

The answer would seem to be Taylor being a Member of Grayling Capital LLP. He ceased being a Member September 13, 2021, which ties in with the sale of the Titan warehouse in March of that year to the Lothian Pension Fund.

The question then becomes . . . why was Taylor, living either in Wales or London, involved with a Scottish company doing business in Scotland?

I think the answer may lie in the timing. Taylor joined Grayling Capital in September 2019, a year after the Bute boys seem to have found their way to Wales. They hired him to open doors in Corruption Bay and elsewhere.

So let’s look at what happened. And how I think it was done.

BUTE COMES TO WALES

Now we’re going to look at how a clearly Scottish company manoeuvred itself into such a dominant position in Wales. But it could only have been done with the help of the Labour party.

On this blog, I first mentioned Bute Energy in November 2018, in Corruption in the wind?. But only tangentially. For I was really writing about a guy named Radford, who wanted to build three wind farms; two in Powys, the other in Pembrokeshire.

One of his projects, Hendy, near Llandrindod, was turned down by a planning inspector, but that decision was surprisingly overturned by Lesley Griffiths, who was at the time Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs Secretary in Corruption Bay.

To do that was strange enough. But it stank even more when it became clear that Griffiths did it just in time for the developer to erect a single turbine (never connected to the grid), in order to meet the Ofgem payment deadline on January 31, 2019.

Those involved even seemed to know about Griffiths’ decision in advance, to the extent of jumping the gun.

Here’s a recent update on Hendy from the CPRW.

Why did Lesley Griffiths give permission for a wind farm that was never going to be built? The answer is a 10-letter word beginning with ‘c’.

As I say, the guy involved was Steven John Radford, of Hendy Wind Farm Ltd. But he was only fronting for a big company called U+I.

The reason Bute got a mention was, and here I quote from that November 2018 piece:

In September Radford branched out again with Bute Energy Ltd, joining six days after its two founding directors.

Those two directors were Millican and Steele, who we’ve already met. Radford may have been their introduction to Wales. (Bute Energy Ltd was re-named RSCO 3750 Ltd in March 2020.)

Or maybe the key lies with whoever introduced them to each other. So let’s fit a few things into that time-frame.

Radford was already planning wind farms, and lobbying for him was Invicta Public Affairs of Newcastle. Invicta’s representative in Wales since October 2016 had been Labour Spad Anna McMorrin, now MP for Cardiff North.

The Bute Boys linked up with Radford, and Taylor might have taken over McMorrin’s role providing a link between developers and Labour party. A different Scottish source told me last year that Taylor has now been replaced by Sophie Howe, the former Future Generations Commissioner.

Here’s a table I drew up of some essential facts, with links. You might find it useful.

Among those who get a mention in the table are the four below. Vaughan is a former Labour MEP, and Uden is the husband of Labour MS Jenny Rathbone. For some reason you won’t find the panel below on the Bute website any longer.

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And even though McMorrin never seemed to work for Bute before becoming an MP in June 2017, she nevertheless declared £3,000 received from Bute earlier this year.

Throughout this story I’ve been struck by how often Newcastle crops up. It’s the city where Parabola began life. ‘Bute’ companies have used Newcastle addresses. And Invicta, the lobbyist we encountered with Anna McMorrin, is also based there.

And there are a number of Parabola outfits using a Newcastle address.

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But Invicta also has an office in Edinburgh, the city where we usually find Millican Jr, Steele, and George.

Something else worth remembering is that Lesley Griffiths and David Taylor know each other. They’re from the same area, here’s a photo of Taylor canvassing for Griffiths. Both had been involved in the Carl Sargeant tragedy.

What we looked at earlier in Scotland seems to be repeated to some degree with what we’ve seen in Wales.

On the one hand, we saw Millican and his mates do a lucrative deal with the Scottish Government. Here, Bute Energy has been adopted by the so-called ‘Welsh Government’.

In Scotland, a local government pension fund stepped in to buy Titan Warehouse for perhaps double what it was worth. Here there’s been a big investment from the Wales Pension Partnership. With some councils unhappy with the decision.

Is this all coincidence?

WHAT NEXT?

Something worth remembering about Bute is that for all the companies, and all the wind farm projects, Bute has never erected a single bloody turbine. Perhaps because those involved are property speculators.

Which is why some people – and I’ve been one of them – think that Bute is not here to actually build wind farms. Maybe they’re just here to get exclusivity agreements with landowners and planning permissions.

Then sell up, making massive profits, without having done much other than smooch Labour politicians and sponsor Cwmscwt Annual Ferret Show.

But because there are now so many wind farm projects planned in Wales it can only be a matter of time before we see developers fighting turf wars. Maybe it’s started.

Take the case of Foel Fach and Orddu, just north of Bala.

Foel Fach Wind Farm Ltd, the company, was set up May 31, 2022. Head honcho is David Charles Murray. Orddu is a Bute project, the company formed a year later.

Murray got a mention on this blog back in October 2020 in, ‘Poor Wales: magnet for property spivs, fraudsters, and enviroshysters‘. I mentioned him due to his connection with the project between Port Talbot and Maesteg known as Y Bryn.

But Murray has been involved with many wind farm projects, and his main vehicle seems to be Coriolis Energy Ltd. It has a very basic website, and here’s the Companies House filing. Coriolis Energy is owned by Coriolis Energy Developments LLP. But again, that’s David Charles Murray.

Y Bryn Wind Farm Ltd shares a Berkshire address with Coriolis.

When we look at who’s behind Foel Fach, we see again Coriolis Energy Developments LLP and David Charles Murray.

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The map on the left shows the relative positions of the Foel Fach and Orddu summits. The map on the right gives the outline of the Foel Fach wind farm.

But this is where it gets a bit messy.

For a start, I can’t find a map for Orddu, so where will it end and Foel Fach begin? Are they contiguous? Do they overlap? Or are they two names for what will be one big site?

We’ve always been told there must be a ‘buffer zone’ between wind farms and National Parks. But Foel Fach runs right up to the Eryri boundary on the B4501. Who allowed this?

Incidentally, the ‘lake’ to the left on that map is the Tryweryn reservoir covering Capel Celyn. And Foel Fach wind farm will also overlook Frongoch, where Irish prisoners were interned after 1916.

And finally . . . I believe David Charles Murray of Coriolis is Scottish. Many of his other projects have been in Scotland. So are he and the Bute boys acquainted?

Wind farm developments in Wales are out of control, it’s a free-for-all. Planning permission guaranteed; no matter how ugly, inappropriate, or damaging the project. Wales already has too many wind farms (and too many pylons), we don’t need any more.

And because it appears we’re in this mess due to questionable links between wind farm developers and the Labour party, a thorough and impartial examination of such links is surely the best way to proceed.

Being the transparent and co-operative organisation it is, and with nothing to hide, I’m sure the Labour party will agree.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2024

Miscellany 18.07.2024

I suppose I could have done a piece on Vaughan Gething’s belated resignation; but I’ve said almost all I want to say on that nice Mr Musk’s platform. He’s moving to Texas, you know. (Musk, not Gething.)

I will just add that Gething’s resignation speech was a classic of ‘Welsh’ Labour. He took no responsibility whatsoever for his fate; the mistakes, the errors of judgement, the lies, being an arrogant prick, no – it was all somebody else’s fault!

And of course, he was the victim of racism. Ideas of victimhood, and exploiting it, are now so embedded in the Labour party in Wales that they direct policy and legislation. As you’ll read in the third section of this offering.

Which is a Miscellany! A section on Woodknowledge Wales, yet another gang of enviro-shysters. Part three is on yet more tinkering by the ‘Welsh Government’ with the democratic process. And finally, some thoughts on wind turbines, and pylons.

WOOD YOU BELIEVE IT!

An outfit that’s been in the news lately is Woodknowledge Wales (WKW). It encourages greater use of wood. I quote: “We champion the development of wood-based industries for increased prosperity and well-being in Wales“.

Well-being‘! That meaningless term used to justify anything and everything.

I have no issue with timber-framed buildings, or even buildings made entirely of wood. The issue is the politics, the funding, the peripheral messages and hidden agendas that always attach to outfits like WKW.

So who runs this show, and where might we find them?

Looking through the early directors of what was originally the Welsh Timber Forum I saw a few names I recognised, in fact, people I know personally. But there seems to have been a kind of takeover in 2016.

Of the six directors at the start of 2017, two have since left. The four remaining directors – of what converted to a Community Benefit Society (CBS) on St Patrick’s Day 2022 – all joined in 2016.

The two departures may even have been connected with the change to a CBS. Strangely, perhaps, of the 36 directors who’ve come and gone since 2001 those two were the only ones to describe themselves on the Companies House listings as ‘Welsh’.

Below you see the current WKW directors from the latest accounts (to 31.03.2023) filed with the Financial Conduct Authority. Also the companies they run or, in the case of Rachel Moxie, the day job. This filing still uses the address of one of the departed.

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Though I’m unclear on the status of Gary Newman. He was a director when WKW was a company, yet he’s signed the most recent accounts from the FCA as secretary.

But if Newman is now WKW secretary, rather than a director, this would explain why he isn’t listed as being a director of The Foundational Economy Alliance Wales Ltd.

This lot moved in November 2022 from the United Welsh housing association offices in Caerffili to an address in Porthaethwy (Menai Bridge), which is quite a move.

However, the new address for WKW, the one given on the website, is 22 Cathedral Road in Cardiff. (Possibly out back.) Also known as Pentan House, for at this address we also find, Pentan, Rant Media, Moxie PeopleLRM Planning, The Green Business Centre, and who knows who else?

With Woodknowledge Wales we have another outfit serving the ‘Welsh Government’s self-destructive obeisance to the Net Zero cult. With councils and housing associations made to use more wood in their new builds.

Much of which will be from timber grown by foreign corporations on what used to be Welsh family farms. Or wood from monoculture plantations poisoning land and water.

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The role I suggest for WKW would explain the presence on The Board of Shayne Hembrow of Corruption Bay’s favourite housing association.

Deputy Chief Executive / Commercial Director of Wales and West Housing Association . . .  In addition Shayne is chair of Shelter Cymru and Chair of Woodknowledge Wales.

Hembrow is yet another third sector grifter who came to Wales to help third-rate politicians wreck our country. But I can’t see him listed on the W&W website. Has he gone undercover?

In the FCA filings we see only Hughes, Meade and Moxey named as directors. So does this mean that Godefroy, Healy and Hembrow joined more recently? And why is Godefroy described in her bio as a “trustee“, for WKW isn’t a registered charity?

Finally, and in what seems to be a recurring theme, we have with Woodknowledge Wales a group close to if not controlled by Corruption Bay . . . with one of those involved getting loans from the Development Bank of Wales.

In the case of director Jasper Meade, in January 2020, he landed two loans from DBW Investments (14). One specific to a factory in Buttington, near Welshpool; the other, a more general charge over a number of his companies.

As I say, a recurring theme. Which is why I suggest the Development Bank of Wales needs to be investigated, and then taken away from the control of politicians.

All that said, I could still support this push to use more wood if I thought it would result in a forestry industry employing thousands of people in rural areas, sustaining Welsh communities, complementing farming rather than being used to destroy it.

But that won’t happen. It’ll be like renewable energy, environmentalism, 20mph, and all the other results of politicians buying into the climate cult and the control agenda.

BYE-BYE, PORT TALBOT

Let’s stick with Woodknowledge Wales (WKW) for just a minute. They’ve been pushing a report, ‘Serious About Green?—Building a Welsh wood economy through co-ordination‘.

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This makes it clear – as I suggested earlier – that WKW is not simply concerned with us using more wood in buildings. The agenda is much bigger.

And while the report itself seems to be the work of WISERD, the quote below is from Woodknowledge Wales, and can be found here.

Wales is a sheep, beef and dairy nation and Wales is a steel nation. These activities are deeply ingrained in our cultural identity.  They may have been rational activities for the past century but are not well-aligned to the low carbon needs of 21st Century Welsh society.

We must give up good-pay steel jobs and the Welsh family farm. And we must do so because a bunch of zealots have decided that we who belong here, working in our own country, in spheres they disapprove of, must lose everything.

UNIVERSAL FRANCHISE . . . AND THEN SOME!

Now we’re going to consider the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill. Here’s a shorter summary. And this is how WalesOnline reported it last week.

You’ll see that everyone is to be put on the electoral register whether they want to be on it or not. Speaking for the Electoral Reform Society, chief executive Darren Hughes had this to say:

Automatic voter registration is a win-win for voters as it takes one more thing off their to-do list while also . . . helping to enfranchise the hundreds of thousands of missing voters in Wales.

Which is, as we psephologists are wont to say, and at the risk of sounding technical, utter bollocks.

Takes one more thing off their to-do list“, says Kiwi Darren. But what if it was never on their to-do list? There are thousands of people in Wales who have chosen not to be on the electoral register.

Consequently, to put them on the register, without their permission, will be an infringement of their privacy and an assault on their freedoms.

As well as bulking up the electoral rolls the Bill also references candidates, and inevitably, we find ‘diversity’ mentioned. Here’s what the summary says on page 5.

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Specific characteristics” is code for trans, as the ‘Welsh Government’ now shies away from using the legally incorrect and deliberately misleading ‘protected’. But it also introduces a new term with “socio-economic circumstances“? Does that mean preference will be given to poor people?

It’s worth asking, because the summary then takes a rather curious twist when it talks of “financial assistance“.

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(Is Section 29 written correctly, or should it read, ‘specified characteristics’?)

For me, the mention of disability is a distraction, for most beneficiaries of this largesse will in fact come from other groups.

I expect race and a certain religion to figure, but there may be another clue here.

Welsh Ministers may provide financial assistance schemes to help candidates in Welsh elections that have specific characteristics or specified circumstances overcome barriers to participation.

I went to the full version of the Bill in the hope of finding “specified circumstances” explained. But there was nothing. Leaving me to think the Labour party will sponsor candidates from certain categories on whose loyalty it can count.

Putting everyone on the electoral register only makes sense if we have compulsory voting. But we don’t, and I’m not aware of any plans to introduce it. So why put everyone on the electoral register?

Here’s another concern. This legislation might be in place for the 2026 Senedd elections, which means it will complement the Senedd Cymru (Electoral Candidates Lists) Bill. Yes, that’s the one giving us huge constituencies and closed lists.

In the WalesOnline article you’ll see mentioned Mick Antoniw, the Counsel General. Now I have concerns about this man’s role in elections.

Counsel General, Mick Antoniw. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Mainly because of his involvement in pushing through the closed lists system. I dealt with it in my piece Senedd Cymru (Electoral Candidate Lists) Bill. There I explained that Antoniw was even trying to get away with not naming candidates!

The electoral systems of Wales and the UK are screwed up enough without making things worse.

Consider, Labour has just won a landslide victory in the July 4 general election. But it was only a landslide in terms of seats, and entirely due to the peculiarities of the FPTP system. The turnout was well down on recent elections.

The problem – in addition to the Gething factor and the failure of devolution – is that too many people don’t feel engaged by politics, or feel that politicians don’t speak for them.

The priority should therefore be engaging with those who are already on the electoral registers but don’t vote. Because it makes no sense to register people who have no intention of voting.

One change we’ve already seen was the requirement on July 4 for those wanting to vote to produce photographic ID. Now as we know, from the USA and elsewhere, such a rule is racist, and so would never have been introduced by Labour.

For Labour is far more ‘flexible’ when it comes to rules relating to voting.

Which is why I predict that, in addition to putting everybody’s name on the electoral register, we shall also see moves to make postal and proxy voting easier.

In the 2026 Senedd elections we could see un-named Labour candidates, with “specified characteristics” and “specified circumstances“, benefit from “financial assistance” . . . and be elected in turnouts of 127%.

Try to argue then that democracy’s in trouble!

The truth is that once again we see Labour introducing dangerous divisions and dubious methods to serve its own narrow political interests.

LINKS TO THE OLD NORTH

Many of you must be aware of Bute Energy’s plans for a pylon run some 60 miles long from that company’s wind farms in Powys south through the Tywi valley to Llandyfaelog, south of Carmarthen.

There the line from Powys will connect with the line from Pembroke to England. For of course virtually all the power generated in Wales goes to England. (Thankfully, we get the thousands of excellent jobs provided by ‘renewables’.)

The project is being handled by Bute’s Green Gen Cymru. And it’s explained, sort of, here, and if you scroll down there’s even an interactive map.

As might be expected, there is considerable opposition along the route.

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And the plan is severely testing the loyalties of some politicians. (Also, their mental dexterity.) For example, Ann Davies, the new Plaid Cymru MP for Caerfyrddin, has said she opposes the pylons . . . but not the wind turbines.

I don’t want to spend too much time on the Tywi valley project because it’s really just the intro to the other elements of this section.

As I say, roughly half of the electricity generated in Wales goes to England, and the amount will increase if all the planned wind farms get built. The situation is similar in Scotland, with electricity generated there having even further to travel to consumers in central and southern England. (With power being lost in transmission.)

And although it’s been reported once or twice, I’m not sure how many people are aware of the planned new Scottish connection. In a nutshell, it’s proposed that electricity generated off south west Scotland will be taken by undersea cable to Pentir, near Bangor, and then overland to Swansea North substation.

I’d like to be able to show you a map of the route, but there isn’t one, all I’ve seen is a vague line from Bangor to Swansea . . . through Eryri. Which obviously isn’t going to happen.

In this CPRW article Dr Jonathan Dean has this to say.

The route of this line is not yet known, despite me asking them numerous times.  As they will not get consent for pylons in Eryri national park they basically have two options:
  • along the north coast to Conwy, up the Conwy valley, past Bala then down to the Tywi valley to Swansea
  • across the top of Pen Llŷn to Porthmadog, subsea to near Aberystwyth then cross country to Swansea

Which could mean the pylons coming down the Teifi valley, where there is already a campaign fighting Bute pylons. This Bute line will carry electricity from Lan Fawr, east of Llanddewi Brefi. I assume it will also serve Blaencothi and Nant Ceiment.

Bute Energy projects in Wales. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Then the pylons will also run down to Llandyfaelog. But will they share the line coming from Powys, or will there be two pylon runs past Llandeilo? And will they interfere with the route of the planned bypass?

However you look at it, lovely Ystrad Tywi is in for a forest of steel pylons marching for mile after mile over hill and dale. Each one sunk in hundreds of tons of concrete. And all done to save the environment, innit?

The reason that Scotland and Wales have despoiled landscapes in order to generate electricity for England, is partly due to their politicians buying into the climate scam, and partly due to the difficulty of building onshore wind farms in England.

The latter due to different laws that allowed communities affected by such projects to object and, effectively, block them. But the law is changing.

Clearly, if onshore windfarms can in future be built in England, where the power is needed, there’ll be less need to erect windfarms in Wales. In fact, the need might be removed entirely.

It seems obvious to me that many of the mooted projects won’t now be needed. And that might include the pylon runs in the Teifi and Tywi valleys, even the big one from Bangor to Swansea.

And seeing as Bute Energy has yet to erect a single turbine, I think the ‘Welsh Government’ should call a halt to onshore wind projects in order to assess how the new legislation in England might impact on Wales.

We don’t want the ‘Welsh Government’ (via NRW) felling tens of thousands of trees, allowing hundreds of 800ft wind turbines, and hundreds of miles of pylons, if nobody wants to buy the electricity they erratically produce.

We’ll just have to live without the thousands of £70,000 pa jobs they’d have created.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2024

Coleg Soros And Associates

This wasn’t planned, but it’s too big and complicated for a tweet, and so I’m putting it out as a quickie. As the title suggests, it concerns Coleg Soros in Talgarth, otherwise known as Black Mountains College.

For those new to this blog, or regulars with short memories, I have written a few times about Coleg Soros, so just type the name in the search box to the right. This piece from June 2019 will explain why I’ve renamed Black Mountains College after that evil old bastard (scroll down).

COLEG SOROS GROWS!

Over the years I’ve become aware of two Coleg Soros entities: the now dissolved Black Mountains College Ltd, and Black Mountains College Project Ltd.

But there was a third company I’d somehow overlooked. In my defence I’ll say that this other company wasn’t launched until just before Christmas 2022. It’s Black Mountains College Operations Ltd. Scroll down on the overview page and you’ll see that it’s devoted to education.

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It began life with a single £1 share held by director Ben Rawlence, who’s been involved with Coleg Soros from the off. But then things moved on apace.

INTEREST FROM AFAR

In June 2023 there was a share issue with a total value of £4,480,000. A couple of weeks later, William John Lana became a director. In November 2023 the company produced a breakdown of shareholders. Here it is.

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Like me when I first saw it, you’re wondering about Rewilding Wealth Ltd. So here’s what I found. It’s registered with Companies House as an Overseas Entity. Located in that bastion of probity and openness, the British Virgin Islands.

But using a Hong Kong correspondence address.

When we seek the beneficial owner(s) we see named, Andrew James Kadoorie McAulay, of Hong Kong, and the Bermuda Trust Company Ltd based, as you’d expect, on the sun-drenched isles of the same name.

Trying to make sense of it I wondered who McAulay is. What I found interesting is the Kadoorie element of his name. Because the Kadoories were a family of Jewish merchants in Baghdad who moved to China. And became very, very rich.

AND CLOSER TO HOME

William John Lana, who we met earlier, may be the UK representative of Rewilding Wealth Ltd (RWL). I’m guessing that because in the Articles of Association for Black Mountains College Operations Ltd (page 12), it says:

For so long as RWL holds any shares in issue from time to time, it shall be entitled to nominate, appoint and maintain in office one person as a director of the company and to remove (or remove and replace) such director from time to time.

So what do we know about William John Lana? Well, let’s start with his Linkedin page, which mentions a number of companies he’s involved with. Partly confirmed by this Companies House entry.

But no mention of the one run by him and his wife, Greenfibres Ltd. It’s one of those companies that charges Guardian readers over the odds for linen and suchlike so they can sleep easy at night knowing they’re superior to the common herd destroying the planet.

Though I did find Greenfibres listed separately.

MAKING SENSE OF IT

I think the key here is Rewilding Wealth Ltd. For while there is a Caribbean connection, I believe the majority holding lies in Hong Kong, with Andrew James Kadoorie McAulay.

As I’ve told you, his mother is a member of the ultra-wealthy Kadoorie clan, and his father, Ronald James McAulay, is a Scottish-Hong Kong billionaire, now in his late 80s.

Apart from McAulay Jnr being chairman of Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden, it’s difficult to know how he whiles away the hours, or how he makes his contribution to the family pile.

Hong Kong was handed over to the People’s Republic of China at midnight on July 1, 1997, and Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden was quick off the mark. For Wikipedia tells us, ‘Conservation work has been extended to Mainland China since 1998’.

‘Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!’ Click to open enlarged in separate tab

In fact, digging around, it became clear that McAulay works quite happily with communist China. It looks as if he and his family are ‘flexible’ in dealing with the comrades, and have been for some time.

An example might be him sitting on the board of the China Light and Power Company (CLP) from 1997 to 2000. Which coincides with his time as a director of UK-based Solar Century Holdings Ltd, now owned by Norwegian state-owned Statkraft.

SOPHIE GETS IN ON THE ACT

Clearly, someone has plans that involve Wales, but will probably have little or no Welsh input. (Rather like Coleg Soros itself.) Other than the necessary permissions to go ahead. But why is whoever’s behind it all using a small education establishment in Powys?

To make sense of it, let me first make clear that Black Mountains College Operations Ltd is controlled by Black Mountains College Project Ltd.

Within days of William Lana becoming a director of the new creation, Sophie Joyce Howe joined the board of the parent company.

She is of course the former Future Generations Commissioner. Her Linkedin profile claims she’s now a ‘freelance’. Which may be true, but she’s not averse to picking up a few well-paid gigs on the side.

Because a good source told me Howe’s another of the many Labour insiders on the payroll of Scottish company Bute Energy, which wants to cover our beautiful country in wind turbines and pylons.

And then, when I checked the Charity Commission entry for Black Mountains College Project I could see that Sophie Howe is also a trustee of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance. She joined in July 2023.

And let’s not forget that in the extract I used from the Articles of Association of Black Mountains College Operations, and the reference to appointing a director, Howe might also fit the bill if the clause extends to the controlling company.

But if she is the designated RWL director, then who is Lana representing?

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

Rewilding Wealth Ltd may do what it says on the tin, by which I mean it seeks investors for rewilding projects. And as the Guardian told us a few years back, there’s serious money to be made.

In which case, Coleg Soros will serve as the entry point, perhaps facilitator, for foreign investors buying up Welsh farmland. Something the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ fully supports, and which might explain Sophie Howe’s involvement.

Another possibility, is that Kadoorie-McAulay is fronting for the Chinese Communist Party, and they want their slice of the Welsh renewables cake. For in its blind acceptance of the Globalists’ climate scam the ‘Welsh Government’ has laid our country wide open to exploiters from around the world.

Neither corporate rewilders nor Chinese Communist party should be acceptable to any Welsh man or Welsh woman who cares about this little country of ours. It’s all we’ve got.

Something else that is unacceptable is the way Labour insiders benefit from cwtshing up to those exploiting Wales. Selling political influence for personal gain is exactly what Labour politicians accuse their Conservative counterparts of doing.

Deluding yourselves that taking the money is justified because you’re saving the planet is rank hypocrisy. Which is of course Labour’s stock-in-trade.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2024

The Tramshed, The Loans, The Leases, The Lord 2

This began as an update to the piece I put out a few days ago. But it grew too big. So I had to admit that the only way to do it properly was as a follow-up, a second part. Which explains what you’re about to read.

LEO FROM THE OLD SCHOOL

A source, someone who’s given me some good stuff in the past, tells me a name to watch for in relation to the Tramshed and other matters is Leonora ‘Leo’ Thomson. She already plays a big role, and may have an even bigger role in future.

Leonora Thomson was educated at Oakham School, and then Leeds University, where she did philosophy. Yet another product of a public school helping to fill the thinning ranks of Labour in Wales.

One day I might put aside some time and see just how many of them there are. For now, I’ll just remind you of two.

There’s Senedd Member Jenny Rathbone of the uber wealthy Rathbone dynasty, who goes big on the environment, and whose partner, John Uden, was given a sinecure by Bute Energy, which wants to cover Wales in wind turbines and pylons.

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And of course, there’s the Green Goddess herself, Jane Davidson, who wrote the Well-being of Future Generations legislation that dictates so many of the restrictions on our personal freedoms, and also the damage being done to our economy.

What was once the party of the Welsh working class has to keep applying an increasingly unconvincing Welsh veneer as it falls further under the control of pressure groups, fanatics, sexual deviants, and career politicians.

Among them we find the privately-educated, conflicted between guilt at their privileged upbringing and the old impulse to shout at the natives.

WHAT LEO DID NEXT

To help you start, here’s Leo’s Linkedin profile. It’s all media, arts, PR. Also a brief stint with the Metropolitan Police, plus 8 years as a Labour councillor in Ealing. All in London until she arrived in Cardiff, December 2015, to become managing director of the Welsh National Opera Company (WNO).

If you go to the About panel on Linkedin, and click on ‘see more’, you bring up what you see below. I’ve highlighted parts that I’ll be referring to as you read on.

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There’s nothing listed after she ended her stint with the WNO in August 2019. What followed is partly explained in the image above, with the rest filled in as we go along. But now, let’s turn to another line of enquiry.

Here’s the relevant page from Companies House. There are some interesting entries there. Let’s go through them.

The oldest active directorship is with English Touring Opera Ltd. She joined 7 June, 2021. Less than two years after leaving the WNO.

On 18 November, 2021 Leo became a director of the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales Ltd. Well, when I read that you could have knocked me down with an illegally-released-into-the-wild beaver!

Yet nothing I see in her background suggests an interest in flora and fauna. Truth is, this was a political appointment to an organisation the ‘Welsh Government’ wishes to use in its war on livestock farming.

In November 2021, with another woman, Thomson set up Studland Hill Ltd. This is a property management company in West Ealing, London. The other director gives as her address a house being renovated according to this Google map for January 2021.

On 23 March 2023 Thomson and three others set up Omidaze Productions Ltd in Penarth. Here’s the glossy website.

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Once you read, “fairer and more equal society” you know it’s about leftist propaganda rather than theatre. More ‘Waiting for Gramsci’ than anything Beckett wrote.

Can’t help wondering where the money comes from, cos I’m damn sure Omidaze don’t pay for itself.

Monk Racing Ltd is an odd one. Formed in 2000 it’s always filed as dormant. The key to Thomson’s involvement is probably Anthony Kenneth Lewis, who was a founding director, and is the joint owner with her of a house on the Taff Embankment.

Lewis resigned from Monk Racing 9 April, 2023. Thomson joined 27 June, 2023.

There have been two stints where Leo served as a Labour councillor. The first you’ve already read about, from 1998 to 2006 in the London Borough of Ealing; and now, from May 2022 for the Riverside ward in Cardiff.

Given the Philistines in Labour’s ranks, both on Cardiff council and in the Senedd, I’m sure the comrades have deferred more than once to Thomson’s knowledge of the finer things in life.

How do ew spell opera, love?’

Though I’m beginning to wonder if Leonora Thomson is bad luck. Let me explain.

HARD TIMES, FOR SOME

Towards the end of September last year, it was announced that the ‘Welsh Government’-controlled Arts Council was pulling the plug on the National Theatre of Wales (NTW).

In March we learnt that Thomson was joining as interim CEO. Having already served as Interim Joint Chief Executive from October 2019 to June 2021. And now NTW has moved to the Tramshed, a nest of Labour cronies and insiders.

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Another body to lose funding recently was the WNO. Where Thomson was managing director for almost 4 years until August 2019. (Though I believe she returned in some kind of temporary capacity.)

Which means the WNO lost funding after Leonora Thomson had been involved, and while she was Chair at English Touring Opera. Seeing as the WNO performs at English venues some might see the WNO and the English company as competitors.

Though it’s difficult to explain these cuts to two such important cultural bodies as the WNO and NTW when one of their main funders, the Arts Council of Wales, saw its income increase by more than 50% in just 4 years.

Where did the extra money go? Surely it didn’t all go to Theatr Clwyd?

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A third organisation to lose funding following an association with Leo Thomson is the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and Creative Lives (RWCMD). She was working there in some unspecified ‘freelance’ role.

One organisation linked to Leonora Thomson suffering a funding cut, I could dismiss; two, I might, just, accept as coincidence; but three, and in such a short space of time? Do me a favour!

UNDERMINE, TAKE CONTROL

What we’ve just looked at is a phenomenon I’ve seen regularly in recent years. I wrote about it a year ago in Taking Control, Of Everything. I focused then on the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) and the Football Association of Wales (FAW).

It’s the ‘Welsh Government’s method for taking control of an organisation.

The first stage is to discredit and undermine the target organisation, maybe also those running it. (Sometimes with inside help.) Stage Two is the reduction or withdrawal of funding. Stage Three, the takeover; done through a combination of restored / increased funding and the appointment of politically loyal or malleable individuals to the organisation.

A bit like the CIA handbook for regime change.

What we’ve seen done to the WNO, NTW and RWCMD could only have been achieved with the assistance of the Arts Council of Wales; which had already undergone the same treatment.

I wrote about it back to August 2021.

First in Corruption Bay and a tale of Cymrophobia (23.08.2021). In which I reported that the Arts Council and the National Museum commissioned three reports in June 2020 to look into ‘widening engagement’.

To make sense of it, remember that George Floyd died the previous month and there was fierce competition as people fought to honour his memory capitalise on his death.

The three groups commissioned were:

An unregistered entity run by Labour insiders Lu Thomas and Jon Luxton.

Richie Turner Associates. Here’s the image then being used on his Linkedin page.

To give a reminder of the period. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

(Though the company of that name wasn’t formed until February 1, 2022.)

The third outfit commissioned was The Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union (WAARU). Which had no presence anywhere – yet its anonymously submitted report was accepted!

And remember! 31 other applicants were rejected in favour of these three.

The piece in which you’ll find these joys unalloyed was followed with Arts Council of Wales and Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union, an update (31.08.2021).

And then (06.09.2021) Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union unmasked, in which I identified those behind WAARU. The usual mix of chip-on-shoulder race grifters and middle class leftists trying to live out their slogans.

Woke employees of Welsh national institutions collaborating with their Woke allies outside to discredit and undermine the organisations they worked for.

FINALE: FITTING LEO INTO THE BIGGER PICTURE

The evidence might suggest that Leonora Hope Thomson has been employed by the ‘Welsh Government’ as some kind of hatchet woman; sent in to various bodies and asked to recommend ‘economies’ and ‘restructuring’.

Part of a pattern that sees ‘Welsh Government’ /  ‘Welsh’ Labour, take control of our public, artistic, and sporting life. Done at the behest of the shrieky and the unhinged to promote the Woke agenda.

Which explains how we see Leo, and National Theatre Wales, of which she’s interim CEO, joining the migration to the Tramshed. Which is of course good news for the owner, Cardiff council (Labour); and the lessee, the Count of Abbasock (also Labour).

And it contributes to the circular economy of which I wrote in the previous piece.

Welcome to socialist Wales 2024. The circular economy, benefitting those lucky enough to be in the ‘circle’. Where there’s no private investment, and everything is state funded, but only those close to the ruling party can benefit.

And having mentioned Cardiff council, it’s worth adding that even though she was only elected in May 2022, Thomson, who hardly knows Cardiff, is now Chair of the council’s Labour group.

I wonder who decided to give her such rapid promotion?

I suggest we watch Leonora Hope Thomson, and the Tramshed with which she’s now linked. Both might have roles in the political and public life of Wales.

In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Leo’s name isn’t already pencilled in on one of the closed lists for the 2026 Senedd elections.

Finally, what I found perhaps most disturbing when writing this was that I had difficulty telling the Labour party and the ‘Welsh Government’ apart. They should be two clearly separate entities.

That they’ve effectively merged is, for me, confirmation that Wales is a one-party state.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2024

Bute Energy And Friends: Corrupting Wales

For a second week running, I’m focusing on Bute Energy. This time, looking at its links with the Labour party, and how, through that and by other means, Bute encourages corruption and spreads discord.

This will also serve to bring those who haven’t been following the Bute saga up to date.

THE FLOODGATES OPEN!

I first became aware of Bute’s links to Labour when I was told that someone was visiting people close to a planned wind farm. This was (the now abandoned) Moelfre site inland of Colwyn Bay, a real outlier from Bute’s other projects.

This Bute representative was David James Taylor, Labour insider who’d been Spad to a number of high-profile figures; UK government minister Peter Hain and Wales first ministers Rhodri Morgan and Carwyn Jones.

In 2016 Taylor stood to become the North Wales Police and Crime Commissioner. After losing maybe he considered his career options. Or perhaps he was approached, for Labour was already helping wind farm developers.

We saw this when Anna McMorrin lobbied Powys councillors on behalf of Hendy wind farm in April 2017, just a month before she was elected Labour MP for Cardiff North.

Taylor formed three companies in October 2018: Moblake Wind Ventures Ltd (which became Moblake Ltd 11.11.2020); Moblake Energy Trading Ltd (folded 2020); and Moblake Associates Ltd (now being struck-off).

The timing is intriguing, because Taylor’s companies were formed a week before his friend and colleague, Lesley Griffiths, set the precedent of over-ruling a planning inspector to give Hendy windfarm planning consent. She did so using the relatively new Developments of National Significance (DNS) legislation.

DNS made it clear that Wales was free range for wind turbines; free of interference from locals, their council representatives, or even planning inspectors.

Taylor was rewarded by Bute with shares in Windward Enterprises Ltd (now Windward Energy Ltd), both in his own name and that of Moblake Associates Ltd. He was also a (non-designated) member of Grayling Capital LLP.

Money magically appeared in Moblake Ltd, which Taylor then paid to himself in ‘loans’ totalling over £600,000 that did not need to be repaid.

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There was an attempt to liquidate this company a couple of years ago, but the liquidator was removed last August. Since when there’s been no further news.

Taylor was useful to Bute because of his closeness to Lesley Griffiths, and his insider knowledge of the Labour party machine.

Which is why it’s suggested that Taylor’s personal payment came in shares and other ways; and that most if not all of the £600,000+ was really a donation from Bute to the Labour party.

‘YOU SAY VISTRA, AND I SAY, ER . . . VISTRA‘?

Someone has contacted me arguing there are two companies called Vistra, and in last week’s post I conflated them. One is a big Texas energy company, the other is a provider of secretarial services.

To explain . . .

Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) is funding Bute through CI IV Dragon Lender Ltd, owned by CI IV Dragon Holdco Ltd. All holdco shares owned by Copenhagen Infrastructure V SCSp, which has its address at 16 Rue Eugene Ruppert, L2453, Luxembourg. At the same address is ‘Vistra’.

Now I took this to mean the Texas energy firm, but my contact insists it’s the other one. He’s probably right. But in my defence:

Vistra Company Secretaries Ltd of Bristol (which you’ll read about in a minute) was, until April 2019, Jordan Company Secretaries Ltd. The Vistra name was adopted because it was taken over and joined many companies under the Vistra banner.

Vistra is now owned by Sweden’s EQT, an equity outfit big in green energy.

So there are two Vistra companies. But with both involved in ‘renewable energy’ projects, often the same projects, confusion was almost inevitable.

Especially when we see BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard behind both.

THE GANG OF FOUR

Soon after landing in Wales, and perhaps in an attempt to establish Welsh credentials, Bute set up a Welsh Advisory Board. You can see the members in the image below.

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Left to right: Derek Vaughan, redundant MEP; Dr Debra Williams, businesswoman and academic; John ‘Cwmbetws’ Davies, man of many hats and big shot in the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society; John Uden, partner of Jenny Rathbone MS.

THE NEATH PORT TALBOT-BRUSSELS-COPENHAGEN CONNECTION

Derek Vaughan was leader of Neath Port Talbot (NPT) council and would certainly know Stephen Kinnock, the Labour MP for Aberavon, the Port Talbot seat.

Vaughan was an MEP from 2009 to 2019, preceded by the late Glenys Kinnock. The wife of former Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, and mother to Stephen.

Stephen Kinnock MP is married to Helle Thorning-Schmidt, former Danish PM. She serves as a director of Danish wind turbine producer, Vestas, reputed to be the biggest in the world.

From Windpower Monthly of March 2024. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

In 2020 Vestas took a 25% stake in Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. As you’ve just read, CIP is the conduit for funding the Bute projects.

Derek Vaughan’s political background and contacts explain him being chosen as the chairman of Bute’s Welsh Advisory Board. He was a ‘good fit’.

THE ACADEMIC BUSINESSWOMAN

I can’t tell you much about Dr Debra Williams other than the fact that she was managing director of Confused.com. Now she’s taken a gig at Lampeter, which some might view as a step backwards.

I suppose ‘Top things to do in Lampeter’ is part of the Creative Writing course. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

That said, since Jane Davidson landed there after ‘leaving’ Corruption Bay, Lampeter has tried to re-invent itself as a centre for alternative living. And why not, there are enough ‘alternatives’ in the shacks, tepees, and OPDs thereabouts.

Even so, I keep thinking there’s something I’m missing about Dr Williams, unless she was viewed by Bute as their entry to what passes for the Welsh business community.

GALILEO AND THE FAVOURED SON

A number of sources have told me that Bute has assiduously courted the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society (RWAS). Which makes sense, for the RWAS gives access to many of the landowners on whose property Bute would like to erect turbines and pylons.

And this explains Bute’s recruitment of John Davies, who from 2012 was RWAS chairman. As I read through his other appointments I recalled Harri Webb’s reference to, “the public men on the boards and panels“.

Put it all together and it made him very attractive to Bute.

I have been told that John Davies was instrumental in seeing Aled Rhys Jones appointed CEO of the RWAS. Nothing wrong, I suppose, with a man of John Davies’s standing promoting a protégé. But there may be more to it.

As you might have read in the link, Aled comes from, “the family’s hill farm near Cwrt-y-Cadno in North Carmarthenshire“. To be exact, Tyllwyd, which I’m told the family still owns, but rents out.

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The thing about this area is that it’s being targeted by other wind farm companies in addition to Bute. As I wrote last November, in ‘A Change Of Tack?

One of those companies is Galileo Green Energy UK, eyeing a site at Bryn Cadwgan. With another Welsh site planned for Mynydd Ty-talwyn.

The parent company, Galileo Green Energy, is headquartered in Zurich.

Curiously, when based in Bristol – at the Vistra address – Galileo was known as GGE Machynlleth Ltd. Now it’s using a Cardiff office and the name has changed to Galileo Empower Wales Ltd.

From what is now Galileo Empower Wales Ltd documents filed with Companies House when it was knowns as GCE Machynlleth Ltd.. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

A quick shufty at the directors will tell you how Welsh it really is.

Anyway, I hear that Aled Rhys Jones, CEO of the RWAS, stands to gain financially from the Bryn Cadwgan wind farm. A map I’ve been sent shows the outline of the wind farm in red, with the Tyllwyd land edged in green.

You’ll see four turbines planned on Tyllwyd land. With access to the others perhaps over Tyllwyd land. All perfectly legal, but it don’t look good.

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The forested land is owned by Natural Resources Wales, which will mean mature trees felled to accommodate wind turbines, access roads, cable trenches, etc.

That’s protecting the environment, that is.

Correction: Just received some clarification: ‘I am informed: There are two machines on Tilhill managed land, but nearly all the others are on ——— — ——– (Ilchester Estate) plantation, with a few on Tyllwyd and other individual land owners.’

THE MAN FROM GOD KNOWS WHERE

The fourth member of the quartet is John Uden, whose only qualification is being the partner of Senedd Member, Jenny Rathbone, who sits on the Senedd’s Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee.

And so to understand why Bute recruited Uden we need to focus on Rathbone.

Rathbone was born in Liverpool and is a member of the Rathbone dynasty, once very influential in that city. The influence continues through Rathbones Wealth & Investment Management.

Jenny Rathbone and other family members are looked after from the investments made. This presumably accounts for the shares in her Register of interest.

An earlier declaration of Rathbone’s says that Uden was getting payment from Bute, but that’s absent from the latest Register. So is he working for free, or is payment being made in some other way?

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Interestingly, he set up John Uden Consulting Ltd in March 2020. A company that (apparently) has never turned a penny. Was he planning to go down the same route as Taylor, but backed off after I first mentioned Taylor and Moblake (August 2020) in Corruption in the wind 2, Labour snouts in the trough?

I shall conclude this section by dazzling you with yet another example of propinquity.

A fascinating connection revealed itself shortly after I put out the previous piece. Copenhagen Offshore Partners A/S has an office at 10 George Street, Edinburgh. In the same building we find Rathbone Investment Management (£60bn assets).

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It’s probably just another of the coincidences that plague the Bute saga.

SLICING THE PENSION POT TURKEY

As an example of how Wales is ripped off by the pushers and pimps of the ‘renewable energy’ industry, the Wales Pension Partnership investment takes some beating.

The Welsh local government pension pot (WPP) is investing at least £68m in Bute Energy. Reading the article on the WPP website you might think this money is going directly from the pension fund to Bute. For no intermediaries are mentioned.

Yet the WPP was ‘advised’ by law firm Burges Salmon of Bristol. Then this article in renews.biz gives more names: ‘WPP has been advised by independent clean energy asset manager Capital Dynamics and by the law firms TLT and Burges Salmon’.

That is, Capital Dynamics of London, Birmingham and various cities around the world. Top man is Thomas Kubr, who can be found at the Zug office, south of Zurich.

The registration with Companies House tells that Capital Dynamics has 49 outstanding charges, and is heavily indebted to if not controlled by State Street.

TLT is another Bristol law firm. (It’s s shame we don’t have lawyers in Wales.)

QUI BONO?

After all is said and done, do we really know who owns the wind farms in Wales? For as I suggested in last week’s piece, Bute Energy, run by Oliver James Millican, is an offshoot of the property and investment company Parabola, run by his father, Peter John Millican.

Also, in last week’s piece (and elsewhere in recent years) I mentioned Njord Energy Ltd and Steven John Radford, the man behind Hendy wind farm, where we earlier met lobbyist – now Labour MP – Anna McMorrin.

Another of Radford’s projects, not far away, was Bryn Blaen. The ownership history is instructive. It starts with Radford leaving Bryn Blaen Wind Farm Ltd in February 2020.

Bryn Blaen is now said to be owned by Elm Wind Holdings Ltd. Which leads back to Elm Trading Ltd, where the latest accounts say:

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But does this apparently leaderless outfit have any connection with a foreign entity of the same name registered on the Isle of Man?

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Or is this just another coincidence?

If so, then maybe we should focus on the labyrinth of companies linked with Elm Trading at the London address. Companies like Time Nominees Ltd, which holds all the Elm Trading shares and is controlled by Alpha Real Property Investment Advisers LLP. Which is owned by Philip Sidney Gower of Guernsey.

Who’s Gower? Well, he’s described here as a ‘serial entrepreneur’.

The point I’m making is that when it comes time to dismantle, recycle, or bury, the clapped-out wind turbines on Bryn Siencyn, and restore the site to its earlier condition, the ‘Welsh Government’, the local council, and Natural Resources Wales, will be met with, ‘Nothing to do with us, squire, we sold it to a company on an island somewhere‘.

And we’ll have to pay for dozens of Bryn Siencyns.

CONCLUSION

But the immediate danger remains the corruption engendered by wind farm ‘developers’.

Through the influence they wield inside ‘Welsh’ Labour, where corruption is endemic. As we’ve been so recently reminded by the new first minister. Now the poison has spread to Plaid Cymru, exposed to the world when Carmen Smith, Bute lobbyist, was made a peer.

Beyond politics these ‘developers’ cause resentment within the farming industry by making some farmers offers they can’t refuse – a position into which many have been manoeuvred by the ‘Welsh Government’s war on livestock farming.

And finally, there’s worry and division inflicted upon communities across Wales.

It really pisses me off to see the country I love reduced to third world level; where a few chiefs can be bribed so the rest of us can be exploited, our country wrecked.

We’re in this mess because leftists believe they’re fighting the evils of capitalism by buying into the climate scam dreamed up to further the ambitions of the wealthiest individuals and the biggest corporations on Earth.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2024

River Action UK Investments Inc

This week’s piece links Globalist corporations, environmental groups, and politicians. What unites this unsavoury trio is their shared desire to destroy livestock farming.

THE CIRCUS COMES TO TOWN

Last week there was a court case brought by the charity River Action UK against the Environment Agency (EA) for not dealing with the problem of chicken manure pollution on the river Wye. Even though the EA is responsible for England, the High Court case was heard in Cardiff.

Which encouraged a bunch of exhibitionists to turn up and piss people off with their ‘street theatre’. Even Morris dancing! Here’s the report from Llais y Sais last Thursday.

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As you can read, the article itself reported: “A large amount of organic manure has been spread over the area . . .

Yet it also reported: “River Action insists a loophole in the law is allowing poultry farming to poison the Wye“.

The first quote makes clear the problem is caused by arable farms using chicken manure as organic fertiliser. Yet River Action UK chooses to blame chicken farms.

Of course, most of these arable farms are on the English side of the border, which makes the nonsense in Cardiff last week even more misplaced.

But why would River Action want to blame chicken farmers when they know the run-offs causing the pollution are coming from arable farms? Stick with me and I’ll explain.

First, let’s see what we can learn about River Action UK.

WHO’S WHO: JAMES EDWARD MACPHERSON

River Action UK registered as a CIO-Foundation 29 June, 2021. Though as you’ll see in a minute, it existed in some form from 01 January 2021.

Though new, it’s expanding, and the most recently filed accounts, for year ending 31.03.2023, showed a healthy income of £485,398 (previous year, £278,080), ‘Cash at bank and in hand’ £249,786 (£48,202), and three employees (none).

That’s quite impressive. So who’s running this outfit?

Well, according to the website, there is a veritable host involved, none of whom seem to be Welsh. Unless we include a Vietnamese woman named Bic Jones, who is said to live in that mythic realm, ‘North Wales’.

Among the others listed I see Jeremy Wade, who is often on the telly, filmed in exotic locales wrassling with big ugly fish.

And of course George Monbiot is there, his icon-like countenance staring back at us planet-destroying sinners.

But we’re going to focus on James Edward MacPherson, who’s bio we find to the right of Wade’s.

Because according to the Charity Commission, MacPherson was the first trustee to be registered, which gives him a kind of founder status, I suppose. So why isn’t he playing a more prominent role in River Action?

Or to put it another way, why was he the founding trustee? Come to that, who is he?

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His Linkedin profile tells us that he’s a big shot in the world of finance and investment. Having worked for Warburg Pincus, Merrill Lynch, and BlackRock.

To bring us up to date . . . he became a non-executive director of J P Morgan Global Growth & Income Plc in April 2021, and since March 2023 has also been a senior advisor at Hambro Perks Environmental Technology.

At the foot of MacPherson’s Linkedin profile we see a kind of ‘Jimmy loves Larry’.

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However you look at it, that’s an impressive CV. But it also suggests MacPherson sees the great outdoors as an investment opportunity.

At the time he became founder-trustee of River Action UK MacPherson was a director of The Investor Forum. And if you want to know the meaning of ‘vacuous’, then just turn to ‘What we do‘.

It seems to be a collection of commercial entities burnishing their environmental credentials by investing in Green stuff. MacPherson ceased to be a director just two weeks after becoming the original trustee of River Action UK.

Before moving on, I’d like to point out that among the Investor Forum Members we see Hambro, J P Morgan, Rothschild, and Rathbones.

The Rathbones are a wealthy Liverpool family, and family members still get their cut from associated companies. And that includes Jenny Rathbone MS.

She sits on the Senedd’s Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee. Her partner, John Uden, was given a no-show job by Bute Energy, the Scottish company wanting to throw up a few dozen wind farms in Wales.

WHO’S WHO: CHARLES BASIL LUCAS WATSON

Described as “founder and chair” is Charles Watson, who you can see in the mercifully short video below. Charles also has an interesting background in the world of business, which we’ll look at in a mo’.

Also in the video is Nicola Cutcher, who made the Rivercide video with Monbiot. Which is of course about the Wye. Delivered with the balance that so delights Monbiot’s fans.

I’m sure that most appearing on the website have only a tenuous connection with River Action. So what do the filings with the Charity Commission tell us?

As we can see above, the trustees other than MacPherson, are: Charles Basil Lucas Watson, who we just saw in the video, and Marina Gibson, who appears on the Advisory Board next to fish-wrassler Jeremy Wade.

Like MacPherson, Watson has a fascinating business background. According to Companies House these are the companies he’s been involved with. Though I can only see one active company where he’s still on board.

Two that he left in May and June 2020 were companies in the Teneo group. And among Teneo’s ‘People’ we find Lord Davies of Abersoch and Lord Hague of Richmond, but resident in Powys.

In 2019 Teneo sold a majority stake to CVC Capital Partners, which has assets of $140 billion (2022).

The third company that Watson left, in May 2020, is Blue Rubicon (Holdings) Ltd. Another part of the Teneo setup. Specialising in ‘PR and Communications’.

The only active company that Watson is still with is The Conduit Connect Ltd.

Conduit Connect directors. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Most of the companies Watson has been involved with have had a US presence on the board. Sometimes more than one American director.

WHO’S WHO: MARINA GIBSON

Ms Gibson is the third of the trustees named on the filings with the Charity Commission. Here’s her Linkedin profile.

And here’s a clip from the River Action website.

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Seeing as Marina Gibson knows her fish, and was taken on as trustee a year after MacPherson and Watson, I guess she was recruited to give River Action some credibility.

Her Linkedin profile says she is a ‘brand ambassador’ for YETI, a big company making ‘outdoor’ stuff. So it would make sense to team up with Marina Gibson. And yet . . .

YETI came knocking at the very time Gibson joined River Action, which was at the beginning of 2021. And YETI is another big US company, headquartered in Austin, Texas. But it does have a UK presence, registered with Companies House.

And although the company’s address is in London, the two US directors give a Bristol address. River Action UK is also based in central Bristol.

And YETI UK must be doing something right, because turnover leapt from £901,389 at the end of December 2019 to £18,712,613 31 December 2022.

WHO’S WHO: THE LOST BEATLE

According to this River Action website article, from two days before Christmas 2021, another trustee was to have been James Wallace. Instead, he became CEO.

Now I can’t tell you much about Wallace except that he’s keen on rewilding, especially re-introducing beavers. His bio on the River Action website makes him sound like Indiana Attenborough:

James is Chief Executive of River Action. He is a naturalist, archaeologist and social entrepreneur and has established enterprises ranging from renewable energy, regenerative agriculture and green finance to ecotourism, nature restoration and deep sea exploration. Prior to helping Charles Watson develop River Action into a national charity, James was CEO and Co-founder of Beaver Trust where he led the coalition to protect and live alongside native beavers.

He’s also concerned with London going short of water. And while the Independent may say this is due to, over-abstraction, over-use and wastage through leaking pipes“, we know from where, in the long-term, London hopes to get its water.

Was it not foretold by Boris Johnson?

SUB-CONTRACTING

In the filings with the Charity Commission I noticed a mention of the Radnorshire Wildlife Trust. So I wondered what it was about.

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Looking at the Radnorshire Wildlife Trust accounts two possibilities present themselves. (Highlighted in green.) First, the Trust is being paid to host a ‘beaver project officer’, and we know that River Action CEO James Wallace is into beavers.

Another possibility is that the payments were connected with a ‘Save the Wye’ petition put out by the Trust. Which, of course, targets chicken farmers.

But if so, why couldn’t River Action have put out that petition itself?

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Talking of money, and as you can see from the panel above, Radnorshire Wildlife Trust received £1,862,146 in y/e 31.03.2023, and its property portfolio qualifies for farming grants and funding from just about everywhere.

By my calculations, in y/e 31.03.2023, Radnorshire Wildlife Trust received £666,103 from ‘Welsh Government’ sources alone. (Highlighted in pink.) Here’s one example.

That’s the state of Wales in 2024. Those who’ve farmed the land for centuries are being driven off, while environmentalists and investors are showered with money to take over the cleared land.

THE GREEN MONSTER DEVOURING WALES

In case you haven’t already guessed, I’ll spell out for you why (and despite evidence to the contrary) River Action UK chose to blame chicken farmers for the pollution in the Wye.

In 1971 the Club of Rome issued an apocalyptic vision of the future dreamed up by a few scientists using ‘models’ from primitive computers. In 1991 the ‘threat’ was re-framed to replace the collapsed Soviet Union.

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Globalists have used that ‘threat’ to bend politicians and populations to their will. Corporations like BlackRock, Vanguard and the rest, want to take over farmland in order to capitalise on that scam.

The land can be used in a number of ways; such as planting trees to grab the carbon offset and other grants they’ve fooled politicians into offering; or putting up wind farms and solar farms, then raking in the exorbitant profits from these unreliable forms of electricity generation.

Here is Wales we see the problem manifest itself in many ways, and in many different places. In Carmarthenshire, a company called Foresight is buying up farms to plant trees.

It should surprise no-one that Foresight is working with BlackRock. Foresight may even be owned by BlackRock.

So unless we believe in Damascene conversions it’s obvious to me that River Action is just another environmental group fronting for Globalist investors seeking to undermine livestock farming in order to grab the land.

The same applies to many other bodies. In Wales we have a constantly growing number of ecological and river groups funded by the ‘Welsh Government’ and other bodies for no reason other than to tell lies about farmers.

And it has to be livestock farming rather than arable farming (for now), because the Globalists have been clever in recruiting vegans.

A few years ago vegans were cranks that nobody paid much attention to, but now fanatical vegans are found leading the fight against livestock farming – and it has nothing to do with pollution, or the loss of biodiversity.

This is why Wales is especially at risk.

Earlier we read that the first trustee of River Action, James Edward MacPherson, works for the giant US bank and investment house J P Morgan.

Last year top man of J P Morgan, Jamie Dimon, came straight out and said private property should be confiscated in order to meet the net zero targets he and the other Globalists had set!

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And he wasn’t talking about Auntie Megan’s back garden.

Outfits like the Radnorshire Wildlife Trust know the score; they accept that the major landowners in a post-farming world will be Globalist corporations, even governments, but these will – they believe – allow window dressing in the form of rewilding and other fantasies.

That’s the deal they’ve struck.

But what of the politicians?

If the politicians we suffer in Wales have genuinely fallen for the Globalists’ climate / net zero scam, then they’re too stupid to hold public office.

If they know it’s a scam but still push on with it because they’re too weak to resist those directing them, then they deserve nothing but contempt.

But if they enjoy the power enforcing the scam gives them over people fighting for their livelihoods and their way of life, then they are, “lower than vermin”.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2024

Snake Oil And Land Grabs

I know, I know . . . I said last week’s post would be the last before Christmas, but those devious buggers in Corruption Bay sneaked out a couple of things that can’t go without comment.

GLOBALIST SNAKE OIL

This section begins with a tweet I picked up last week relating to Bute Energy, a Scottish company that wants to cover Wales in wind turbines and pylons. It claims to be ‘Welsh’ because it operates here.

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So what is ‘Social Value’?

Well, from what I can see, Social Value is on a par with fairy dust, the Emperor’s New Clothes, and the whole Wokie belief system; in that it relies on people denying their better judgement to go along with what they know is unadulterated bollocks.

A kind of snake oil for the senses peddled by earnest, often intense, people who really should be receiving treatment. Alternatively, it’s done by charlatans.

Still, in fairness, I looked for an alternative definition, and this is what the Local Government Association (England) offers.

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It strikes me as a flagrant attempt to inflate the value of something, perhaps a contract awarded; or even a way of salvaging something from a failure. Putting a gloss on something. Dare I say, turd polishing?

Taken ad absurdum you could say, “Well, yes, Hitler may have been a genocidal maniac – but he liked dogs.”

The outfit pushing this with Bute Energy is ANTZ. I assume this is its Companies House registration. Another company using the ANTZ label at the same Manchester address is ANTZ Junction, in the business of social work.

There’s also ANTZ Network Ltd of Ormskirk, a management consultancy. And until 30 March 2021 there was also an ANTZ Group Ltd of Bolton. There are many other companies using the ANTZ name but I know these four are related through the shared directors.

As I say, one is dissolved, and the other three are all in the red according to the accounts filed with Companies House.

But there’s also a charity by the name of ANTZ Junction. I know it’s linked because the entry on the Charity Commission website gives the company number for ANTZ Junction.

But now it gets odd. For the Charity is doing very well financially.

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In my experience, when an entity is both a company, registered with Companies House, and a charity, registered with the Charity Commission, then the directors of the company are always the trustees of the charity. Also, the accounts filed with Companies House and the Charity Commission will be the same.

That is not the case with ANTZ Junction, and I’d like to know why.

In fact, the only director I can find serving as a trustee is (I assume) Nicola Joanne Geddes, who appears among the trustees as ‘Jo Geddes Hold’. I even found a Linkedin profile for a Joanne Geddes-Hold, but with no mention of ANTZ.

So who are the other trustees?

And why is money going into the charity but not showing in the company accounts?

I’m asking these questions because ANTZ is getting a lot of work in Wales. Not least from the South East & Mid Wales Collaborative Construction Framework (sewscap).

And, as we saw at the start, Bute Energy.

ANTZ’s man on the ground, so to speak, is Kerdiff boy Paul Shackson, who has a PR company called Camarilla. And good for him, I say, because Cardiff is desperately short of PR outfits . . . and lobbyists, and nudgers, and shysters of all kinds.

Here’s his Linkedin bio, but again, no mention of ANTZ.

Something’s not right here. But then, when you deal in bullshit like Social Value you shouldn’t be surprised if magic bean salesmen appear.

I suggest questions need to be asked about the structure and financing of ANTZ.

UPDATE: Last week Plaid Cymru MS Llyr Gruffydd left Rural Affairs Minister Lesley Griffiths floundering by asking how farmers would be compensated for their land being devalued by her administration forcing them to plant trees.

She was rescued by senior civil servant Gian Marco Currado; but the best he could offer was . . . “Social Credit”. Which will mean absolutely nothing for farmers.

This takes us neatly into part two of this offering where we look at the wider threat to Welsh farming.

GLOBALIST LAND GRAB?

This section was inspired by a tweet I saw on Saturday morning about the publication of a report entitled Potential economic effects of the Sustainable Farming Scheme.

The Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS) being ‘Welsh Government’ policy, read about it here. Yes, it’s the one about planting trees everywhere.

The document that came out a few days ago, as the title suggests, calculates the effects of the SFS. You can either go through all the tables, or you can skip to the last page, where you’ll find the Summary.

And you’ll see some worrying figures. Not least, a decline of 11% in “on-farm labour”, which means thousands of jobs lost.

It’s no secret that the ‘Welsh Government’ wants to do away with farming as much as it can. There are a number of reasons for this. Among them, the old socialist hostility towards ‘kulak’ landowners.

I suspect most are using a contemporary fad to serve the pre-existing bias. But that does not exclude the possibility that some of them are stupid enough to really believe in the Armageddon potential of cow farts.

What struck me about the new report was who the ‘Welsh Government’ had chosen to do it. The report tells us, “This work has been undertaken in accordance with the quality management system of RSK ADAS Ltd“.

One of the authors of the report, Dr Liz Lewis-Reddy, works for RSK ADAS.

So what am I driving at?

OK, let’s start with the company, RSK ADAS Ltd. Or rather, ADAS, which is an agricultural advisory service that was acquired by RSK, resulting in the new company, formed some seven years ago.

ADAS has done a lot of work in Wales, scroll down here to see some projects. Much of it has been for the ‘Welsh Government’.

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Tracing the ownership of RSK ADAS eventually gets us to Los Angeles and “global alternative investment manager” the Ares Management Corporation. You may not be surprised to learn that among the largest of Ares’ shareholders we find both BlackRock and Vanguard.

Let’s go back to Liz Lewis-Reddy, the RSK ADAS representative and leading member of the trio that produced the recent report. What’s her background? Well, to begin with, she’s Canadian.

Before joining RSK ADAS Dr Lewis-Reddy worked for the Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust. At first sight I thought that was a rather startling career change, from bucolic bliss to the cut-throat world of alternative investment.

But when you think about it, it makes perfect sense.

Let me explain that by using Dr Lewis-Reddy’s Linkedin profile. In particular, note her role at the Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust.

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We are told she: “Maintained the Trust portfolio of Rural Development Plan funding streams and oversaw the management of over 1000acres of Nature Reserve”.

That 1000+ acres was once agricultural land. Bought with funding from the ‘Welsh Government’. The reference to “funding streams” tells us Lewis-Reddy knows how to get money from politicians to buy farmland.

Remembering Ares, and reminding ourselves that carbon offsetting is now one of the most popular alternative investments, RSK ADAS recruiting Dr Liz Lewis-Reddy makes perfect sense.

And just as with the politicians, she can kid herself she’s saving the planet by getting farmers off the land . . . so it can be bought by her employer’s clients.

And it could get even worse. Because the ‘Welsh Government’ and Plaid Cymru have both bought into the climate crisis scam, and the next stage will be governments forcibly confiscating farmland and other private property.

J P Morgan CEO, Jamie Dimon, let the cat out of the bag a few months back.

But of course it’s got nothing to do with saving the planet. It’s about concentrating wealth and assets in the hands of those who want to own and rule the world.

Welsh farmers need to realise that you can’t negotiate with brainwashed thickos who believe farm animals are killing the planet. And the same applies to those pretending to believe it in order to grab farmland for ‘alternative investment’.

And when you see the two coming up the road, arm in arm, singing the same tune, then the only option is to dig in and fight.

Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda

© Royston Jones 2023

The Road To Hell

The previous post got considerable attention and it also unlocked fascinating new information. And that explains this follow-up. Which I hope will result in further revelations.

WHERE ARE WE?

In the previous post I dealt with the Bryn Cadwgan wind farm planned by Galileo Green Energy. This is a Swiss company that set up a UK operation a few years ago to cash in on the Welsh wind turbine rip-off.

Different rules in England mean that complaints from local communities must be listened to which, in practical terms, means that no onshore wind farms get built. This sees Wales and Scotland increasingly used to supply electricity to England from a source the English don’t want.

Even to the extent of electricity from wind farms off Scotland’s west coast coming by undersea cable to Bangor, then down to Swansea, where it can connect with the main transmission lines from Pembroke power station to England.

Here in Wales, every project of 10MW or above is classed as a Development of National Significance (DNS), which means locals, and their elected representatives on local councils, will always be over-ruled by politicians in Corruption Bay who’ve declared war on a people they regard as racist, climate-denying, car-driving, transphobes.

It’s succinctly explained here. The chronology is intriguing.

In addition to the Galileo proposal I also knew that Bute Energy, a Scottish firm that rents a cupboard in Cardiff to fool us into thinking it’s Welsh, had a plan for an installation they were calling Blaencothi. Though details were scarce.

But true to form, Bute has again recruited a local to proselytise on its behalf. This one is Cilycwm community councillor Jamie Pickup. We can no doubt expect Pickup to be speaking up for all three projects.

But the third project, Waun Maenllwyd Wind Hub, being pushed by Belltown Power of Bristol, was a bit of a surprise. Possibly because it had previously been known as ‘Bryn Brawd’, and I’d perhaps assumed it had fallen though because I’d heard no more of it by that name.

Anyway . . . since putting out last week’s piece I have been told that the companies behind these three projects are combining to share a route to the plateau that forms the southern end of the Cambrian Mountains of central Wales.

In fact, the route is described here on the Belltown website (scroll down):

The proposed access route to the site for abnormal indivisible loads (such as blades, hub, nacelle and tower sections) will be from the port of origin (which is likely to be Swansea) via the M4, A48 and A40. Loads would turn off the public highway at Pumsaint and travel north for approximately 14km on a combination of existing commercial forestry tracks and new tracks to reach the wind farm location. No significant traffic flows will be associated with the operational phase of the site.

Who could argue with that? A motorway and nice wide trunk roads all the way. Problem is, the route as given is sort of incomplete. Let me explain.

As written, deliveries will turn off the A40 at Pumsaint . . . but the A40 goes nowhere near Pumsaint. Which makes what Belltown says misleading, if not dishonest. And if they could get this so wrong, what else might they have got wrong?

The truth is that after leaving Llandeilo the huge low loaders will turn onto the B4302 and head for Talyllychau (Talley). Then on to Crugybar and the Bridgend Inn (where I sank a few pints in the good old days), where they’ll join the A482 to reach Pumsaint.

Using my bestest crayons I’ve conjured up this map that might explain it better.

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For those of you unfamiliar with this road, take my word for it, it will struggle to accommodate massive low loaders carrying huge turbine blades and tower sections.

Below is a capture from Google Maps showing the B4302 just after leaving Talyllychau on its way to Crugybar. Those hedgerows will have to go. And so will many other trees and hedgerows on the 13 miles from the A40 to Pumsaint.

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Now we’re going to move on to Stage 2 of the environmental vandalism associated with these projects. The section that involves the National Trust (NT) and the ‘Welsh Government’.

UPDATE: I should have mentioned that Belltown is closely linked with the Foresight Group. And if that name rings a bell it’s because Foresight has been buying up farms in this area for carbon offsetting.

With the Foresight reputation damaged locally Belltown may be fronting for Foresight. Questions need to be asked. And answers demanded.

UPDATE 10.11.2023: It was learnt last night that Belltown will be taking the A482 from Llanwrda to Pumsaint. Galileo will take the Talyllychau route suggested above. No information yet on the Bute route, but it doesn’t really matter. Because there will now be two roads suffering expensive damage.

DON’T TRUST THE NATIONAL TRUST

Once the huge low loaders reach Pumsaint, or just outside the village, they’ll take a right turn onto National Trust property.

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This is the Dolaucothi estate, home to the famous ‘Roman’ gold mines, once owned by the Johnes family, who also owned the Hafod estate, to the north. Hafod fell into the clutches of the National Trust last year. With a 99-year lease and £700,000 gift from the ‘Welsh Government’.

In other words, the ‘Welsh Government’ paid an organisation worth billions £700,000 to take over a prime Welsh estate.

Despite the excuse given by Corruption Bay for this generosity it might have been due to the involvement of Dawn Bowden MS. As Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport the Hafod deal should have had nothing to do with her. But Tourism’ has since been added to her portfolio. Fancy that!

Response from ‘Welsh Government’ to FoI request. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

I wrote about it in this post, scroll to the section ‘Bristol Fashion’. And then in this post, in the section, ‘”Welsh Government” funds National Trust’.

It’s instructive to consider the organisation of the National Trust in Wales, and what happened at Hafod. Not least because it might provide clues as to why the NT would be a willing party to this planned environmental disaster.

It was early June last year when we learnt that the Trust was taking over the Hafod estate. Which seems to be owned by the ‘Welsh Government’ through Natural Resources Wales, and had until then been run by the Hafod Trust.

Just three months earlier, in March, Lhosa Daly of Bristol, had taken on the role of NT’s Acting Director for Wales, and was appointed to the post officially in September. I mention Bristol because that’s where she lives.

If we look at her career background we see that in the past seven or eight years Daly’s been chair of the Bristol branch of the Institute of directors, vice chair of the Bristol Law Centre, and she is still a business ambassador for the Western Gateway.

These positions would have brought her into contact with the glitterati of Bristol’s business community. Including, perhaps, the directors of Belltown Power, the company planning to desecrate our country with Waun Maenllwyd Wind Hub.

With Belltown, Bute and Galileo hoping to reach the site by traversing land owned or managed by Lhosa Daly’s National Trust and the ‘Welsh Government’.

The mystery of Dawn Bowden representing the ‘Welsh Government’ last year, despite it being beyond her responsibilities, could be accounted for by her also being from Bristol. She and Daly might have already known each other.

And if that’s too fanciful an explanation for you, then try this: Bowden should have known Lhosa Daly through her being Deputy Minister for Arts since May 2021 and Daly being an advisor to the Arts Council of Wales since April 2019.

Come to that, how did Bristol-based Daly get that gig with the Arts Council of Wales?

FINAL THOUGHTS

I’m told deals have been done with farmers and other landowners along the route between Llandeilo and Pumsaint to cut corners, destroy hedges, and in places widen the B4302, and even perhaps the A482.

This will cost a considerable amount of money. So who’ll pay for it? Will it be the ‘developers’? The county council? The so-called ‘Welsh Government’? Or will there be a whip-round in the Dolaucothi Arms?

And then there’s the question of how the National Trust squares being a conservation body with the damage it’s helping inflict on the Welsh landscape by these wind farms. What would NT members say, if they knew?

Not just in the road ‘improvements’ I’ve just described, but also on the 14km journey to the sites after the low loaders turn off the A482. And then the on-site destruction.

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There’ll be the vast concrete bases to support these huge turbines, the access roads, the deep trenches for the cables. How many trees will be felled? How much peat bog damaged? And let’s not forget the pylons.

I ask about the trees because I’m told new populations of red squirrels and pine martens are establishing themselves. Will they adapt to climbing pylons and turbines?

I suggest that even if they stick around they’ll be so traumatised by what’s being done to their habitat they might stop breeding.

As if that wasn’t enough, someone then tells me . . .

We also have two breeding maternity colonies of soprano pipistrelle bats on my land, they will love the sonic signature of wind turbines of course.

Don’t worry – once the poor little buggers are disorientated enough the blades will finish them off pretty quickly. (If they’re turning!)

Them and the kites, and other birds. And insects by the million.

Nothing here really surprises me, because I’ve always regarded the National Trust as a very commercial organisation and, in Wales, rather colonialist. Lhosa Daly playing the memsahib is entirely in keeping.

Not only that, but there’s something of the vulture about the NT in Wales, picking up land and estates as old Welsh families die out. Or more recently, acquiring property from the ‘Welsh Government’ or Natural Resources Wales.

For example, Daly is also a director of a National Trust company called Porthdinlleyn Harbour Company (The). This relates to Porthdinllaen at Morfa Nefyn.

Porthdinllaen once belonged to the Jones-Parry (Madryn) family. Sir Love Jones-Parry MP, was very supportive of the Patagonia settlement. Which explains why a town over there is called Puerto Madryn; and is twinned with Nefyn, I believe.

Another example of this sad phenomenon is located not far from me, a place I love to visit. I’m directing you now to Llynnoedd Cregennan.

Llynnoedd Cregennan. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Major C L Wynne-Jones lost both his sons in WWII, so in 1959 he handed over this 285-hectare estate to the National Trust.

As I hope I’ve made clear, I’m not surprised by the National Trust’s behaviour with these wind farms, and the damage they’ll cause . . . what really pisses me off is that the National Trust is still operating in Wales.

Devolution should have brought Wales a new organisation to replace the colonialist parasite that is the National Trust. We should by now have a Welsh body conserving our heritage and our history, safeguarding our landscapes.

But to set up such a body would have required political leaders with vision and courage, rather than the grubby, ishoo-of-the-month puppets Wales is cursed with.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2023

A Change Of Tack?

The title is a nautical reference to wind, and a change of direction, which I’m entitled to use cos I was in the Sea Scouts. Right! And what I’m alluding to will, I hope, become clear before the end.

TWM SIÔN CATI

We start in the wild and beautiful uplands between Lampeter and Llanwrtyd, once home to Thomas Jones, known to us all as Twm Siôn Cati, or Twm Shôn Catti.

In the centre of the map I have pinpointed Bryn Cadwgan; Twm’s cave is to the west, and to the south east we see Ystradffin, where Twm took a fancy to the widowed heiress, Joan, and eventually married her.

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Last year I wrote about a plan for wind turbines at nearby Bryn Brawd, which you can see to the north west of the pin. It was in this post, just scroll down to the section ‘Local benefits (well, local to somewhere)’.

A company mentioned in that piece, Awel Newydd Cyf, recently issued 43,659,462 shares. Which suggests there may be something in the wind. (Geddit?)

But I wouldn’t get carried away by the company’s Welsh name, for it’s ultimately owned by Elm Trading Ltd, which has being issuing shares like they’re going out of fashion.

The Elm Trading website tells that a number of its assets are in Wales.

We’re switching our attention to Bryn Cadwgan because another wind farm is planned there, and it should go without saying that the plan comes from yet another gang of foreign investors.

So who is it this time?

GALILEO GREEN ENERGY

This company launched in early 2020, and is headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland. Set up with . . .

. . . an initial investment of £190m from its four institutional long-term investors,

These ‘investors’ are all from Australia and New Zealand.

Since then Galileo Green Energy UK seems to have divided into a Scottish operation, now based at 7 – 9 North St. David Street in Edinburgh; and a Welsh operation at C12 Cathedral Road in Cardiff.

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Galileo Green Energy Wales was set up in April 2021, and was originally known as GGE Machynlleth Ltd (until 4 June 2021). Why ‘Machynlleth’ should appear in the name is a mystery, seeing as the original address was in Bristol, and the first directors lived in Italy (2), France, and Ireland.

Was the original plan to bless the Dyfi valley with yet another wind farm?

All 10,000 shares for Galileo Green Energy Wales are held by GGE Nordics Ltd, who can now be found at the North St. David Street address. But until January this year was up on the fourth floor of 115 George Street in Edinburgh.

The majority shareholder in GGE Nordics is Empower Renewables Ltd, also of 7 – 9 North St. David Street. When we look at Empower’s UK registration we see that apart from a Dane (who lives in Killarney) all the directors are Irish, with control exercised by Diarmuid Anthony Twomey of Castleknock, Dublin.

Twomey is also a director of Galileo Green Energy Wales Ltd.

At the risk of getting distracted or bogged down . . . another company using the fourth floor at 115 George Street as an address is Vistra Ltd.

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I only mention this because Vistra’s main UK office seems to be at 10 Temple Back in Bristol. Which is where Galileo Green Energy Wales started out.

Finally, we need to look at Galileo Energy UK Ltd, formed 18 February 2022, and originally known as Galileo Green Energy Management Services UK Ltd. This company is wholly owned by Galileo Green Energy Gmbh of Zurich.

I bet like me you’re excited by all the Welsh involvement in these projects!

MYNYDD TY-TALWYN ENERGY PARK

So where are we now?“, you’re wondering. Well, Mynydd Ty-talwyn, or Mynydd Ty Talwyn, is just to the north west of Bridgend. Outlined in red on the map.

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Other than Bryn Cadwgan it’s the only Welsh site I’m aware of. Though the website tells us (scroll down to the ‘About Galileo’ section): ”

Mynydd Ty-talwyn Energy Park is one of a pipeline of our new renewable energy projects in development across Wales.

So where are the others?

Never mind that for now, because I want to concentrate on a worrying claim and a serious untruth, on the Mynydd Ty-talwyn website; and I also want to highlight a major drawback with Bryn Cadwgan.

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Under ‘Specifications’ ‘Wind’ we read,

Approximately 64,643 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions saved per annum.

We don’t normally see this calculation given, so why do we see it here? One possibility must be that the calculation has been made for the purposes of carbon offsetting.

Just as medieval evil-doers would pay the Church to be forgiven their sins, and carry on sinning, carbon offsetting is a twenty-first century version of the scam.

Immediately below we read, “Up to 50-year lifetime“. If that’s the projected lifespan of the Mynydd Ty-talwyn Energy Park then Galileo must plan to replace the turbines at least once. For few turbines last 20 years.

On the other hand, if Galileo is saying that the turbines they hope to erect at Mynydd Ty-talwyn will last 50 years, then that statement is an outright lie.

Another issue is that Mynydd Ty-talwyn is home to a . . .

 Cluster of nationally important medieval house platforms and settlement remains.

The reference comes from a report of March 2021 to Bridgend CBC of scoping work carried out in relation to the application for nearby Y Bryn Energy Park.

And they’re shown clearly on the OS map for the area. Though just one is shown on the map supplied by Galileo (above) there are at least three around Mynydd Ty-talwyn.

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We saw Irish control of Empower Renewables Ltd up at North St. David Street, Edinburgh, and Coriolis Energy, the company behind Y Bryn, is also Irish. The other company involved at Y Bryn is ESB UK, the UK face of a further Irish company.

Mynydd Ty-talwyn is not far off the beaten track, but even so, there will be environmental damage caused hauling huge turbine blades and towers to a relatively unspoilt area.

And let’s not forget the vast concrete bases for each turbine, and the access roads gouged out of the earth, the trenches for cables . . . and then there’ll be the pylons . . .

We can take it for granted that the blades and towers will not be manufactured locally, which will probably see them shipped into Swansea docks and then taken along the M4, before the final four or five miles of their journey to the site.

But the problems that’ll be encountered there are nothing compared to what will need to be overcome at Bryn Cadwgan. From Swansea docks the loads can take the M4 west, and then perhaps the A483 up past Llandovery, but then what?

Once you leave the A483 and head for Rhandirmwyn, and the closer you get to Bryn Cadwgan, the more you’ll realise that you’re really out in the sticks.

How many wind turbines can you get in the back of a farm pickup truck? Click to open enlarged in separate tab

To reach the site itself, new roads will have to be laid. The environmental damage caused will be immeasurable . . . unless of course those clever people at Galileo can get their calculators out again.

WHO’S WHO AT GALILEO

Let’s start by going back to the main Galileo website. In particular, to the ‘Our People‘ section where, yet again, we see a complete absence of Welsh involvement. Whereas in Scotland, those involved all seem to be Scottish.

Let’s look first at Rob Paul and Joe Winton, both described as ‘Development Manager’. These two are also directors and shareholders of One Wind Renewables Ltd of Truro, a dormant company.

We find these two, along with Simon Edward Coles, at a number of renewables companies. They’ve been knocking around the sector since they were callow youths, and both seem to have started out with Ecotricity.

Next we turn to Leslie Walker, Senior Project Manager. Very interesting, Ms Walker. Here’s her Linkedin page to give you a clue as to where we’re going. (Scroll down to her ‘Interests’.)

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On that Linkedin page you’ll see that she works for Dutch company Arcadis Consulting. And has done for over 30 years.

I’d never heard of Arcadis, maybe I should have, because it gets a lot of work in Wales. Much of it from the so-called ‘Welsh Government’.

Here’s an example. A report from just last month about Arcadis working with US company Tetra Tech for the ‘Welsh Government’ on a new bridge at the Prince of Wales dock in Swansea. No mention of Swansea council involvement.

But Cardiff council is mentioned in this piece about Arcadis helping the council develop an electric vehicle strategy. (In conjunction with the local fire brigade?)

Let’s step back to 2017 and find Arcadis working for the ‘Welsh Government’ on strategic transport connections for Dinas Powys.

And talking of transport . . . From November 2020 we have this final scoping report from Arcadis on the Integrated Sustainability Appraisal of the Wales Transport Strategy.

There’s a transport strategy!

Arcadis and the ‘Welsh Government’ are ‘close’. As this piece makes clear.

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I’m not for one minute suggesting that Leslie Walker is not good at what she does, but if I was in the position of Galileo, hoping to get approval for major contracts in Wales, I’d be looking for somebody who knew their way around the Bay.

And recruiting Walker might be less controversial than taking on Matt Enoch who, after 13 years as Project Manager and then Project Director with the ‘Welsh Government’, joined Arcadis in October 2019 as Project Director.

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I could go higher up the food chain to people like Ingmar Wilhelm, CEO at Galileo Green Energy, but it wouldn’t tell us much more than we already know. We’re dealing with foreign individuals, foreign companies, foreign money.

Our contribution is our country – and most of us don’t even know we’re making it.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Earlier I mentioned that GGE Nordics Ltd, which owns Galileo Green Energy Wales, had been based at 115 George Street, in Edinburgh’s New Town. When I wrote it, I thought to myself, “Jones, that address rings a bell“.

And sure enough, it’s an address I’ve seen in connection with Bute Energy. More specifically, with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), which is investing in Bute’s Welsh projects. I wrote about here.

115 George Street, Edinburgh. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Bute is a Scottish company that’s appeared on this blog many times. It has insane plans to turn our country into a vast open-air electricity generator for England. And like Galileo, Bute employs people familiar with the denizens of the Swamp.

The connection between Bute and Galileo seems to be by association, via CIP. Then again, the link could be Vistra, with companies using it as their address. Which might explain the original Bristol address for Galileo Green Energy Wales.

Food for thought.

We may have missed the public meetings for Mynydd Ty-talwyn, but those for Bryn Cadwgan are being held next week; Llanddewi Brefi on Wednesday, and Pumsaint on Thursday.

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I suggest that people turn up to these meetings and demand answers to all sorts of questions. Here’s what I might ask . . .

  • How much environmental damage will be done transporting the turbines to and and erecting them at Bryn Cadwgan?
  • Where are Galileo’s other Welsh projects?
  • How many local jobs will be provided at Bryn Cadwgan?
  • Is Galileo claiming that wind turbines last for 50 years?
  • How much of Galileo’s business model is carbon offset ‘greenwashing’?
  • Is there any connection between Galileo Green Energy and Bute Energy?

And finally, always remember! wind turbines are not built to save the planet. They’re built to make a few people a lot of money, and to make our lives more difficult through an increasingly expensive and unreliable electricity supply.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2023