Foundation Scam Supporting A Tower Of Bullshit

On 18/12/202424/12/2024 By JacIn Climate, Colonialism, Corruption, Corruption Bay, Development Bank of Wales, Environmentalism, European Union, Farming, Football, Globalism, Media, Sport114 Comments

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!

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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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.

Does the backdrop remind you of anything? Click to open enlarged in separate tab

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.

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.

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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.)

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.

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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.

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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 ♦

Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda

The Welsh Clearances

On 16/10/201807/11/2018 By JacIn British Nationalism, Colonialism, Colonisation of Wales, Englandandwales, Environmentalism, Ethnic Cleansing, EU Funding, European Union, Greens, Public Funding, Welsh Government, Welsh Labour36 Comments

It’s generally agreed that Welsh farming is in for a hard time after Brexit, though there seems to be some confusion as to why this should be so. So let me explain. It has nothing to do with Brexit itself, or the EU, it’s merely certain elements in the ruling apparatus using Brexit as an excuse to undermine Welsh farming.

First, understand that Wales is managed by a Labour Party in Cardiff that is hostile to the farming industry, and at best ambivalent towards rural areas in general. The only element of the Labour Party that gives much thought to the countryside is that represented by Jane Davidson, Minister for Sustainability and Rural Development in the Labour-Plaid Cymru management team 2007 – 2011.

Davidson now lives on a smallholding in the south west and is Associate Pro Vice Chancellor for External Stakeholder Development and Engagement and Director of INSPIRE at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. Her engagement with rural Wales extends no further than making it more attractive to good-lifers like herself.

These good-lifers, conservationists and others, have always had powerful friends, but Brexit is encouraging those friends to be bolder.

For as the Daily Post put it in a recent article: “Brexit is seen by many conservationists as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to boost wildlife habitats using cash currently allocated to farming and food production”.

But how would this be done, what are the nuts and bolts?

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THE DEFRA EMPIRE

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is essentially an England-only agency, but as the GOV.UK website tells us, “Although Defra only works directly in England, it works closely with the devolved administrations in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and generally leads on negotiations in the EU and internationally.”

So how ‘closely’ might Defra be working with the administration in Wales?

From information received it seems to me that the influence of Defra in Wales goes well beyond working closely with the ‘Welsh’ Government. Let’s look at a few individuals prominent in the running of Welsh agriculture and food production.

And let’s start with Andrew Slade. I was hoping to get information from the ‘Welsh’ Government’s own website, but it came up blank.

Fortunately, I was able to find something on WalesOnline which tells us that Andrew Slade came to Wales in 2013 as Director General for Agriculture, Food and Marine. In November 2017 he was promoted to Director General, Economy, Skills and Natural Resources.

Soon after arriving he was busy taking EU money off farmers and transferring it to ‘Rural Development Projects’. Or to put it another way, taking money from Welsh farmers to give to a rag-bag of hippies, good-lifers and other non-indigenous grant-grabbers.

Here, in January 2014, we see him sitting alongside Alun Davies, then Minister for Natural Resources and Food, making sure Davies doesn’t fluff the lines that have been written for him. I wrote about it here.

In this video from February 2018 we see Slade addressing some NFU gathering. He says that following his elevation he has been succeeded in his old job by Tim Render. So who’s he? Well, this video from 2016 tells us that Render was then Deputy Director at the Great British Food Unit of Defra.

Render did indeed take up a new post with the ‘Welsh’ Government in January 2018, but if his Linkedin profile is to be believed then he commutes to Cardiff from London.

It would appear that the top jobs in Welsh agriculture and food are reserved for Defra men. And I have no doubt that they are in Wales implementing Defra policy, which will not serve Welsh interests. And while there may have been the charade of a recruitment process, they were not recruited by Carwyn and his gang, they were put in place by London.

There are a couple of others worth mentioning in this context. First up is Andy Fraser, who is something of a Renaissance Man, being both Head of Fisheries and Head of Tax Strategy. So if a way can be found to make fish pay tax we could be rolling in it.

It should go without saying that Andy also has a Defra background. Which probably explains why his former employer, and of course the former employer of Andrew Slade and Tim Render, was able to acquire the food hall at the Royal Welsh Show for its Rule Britannia extravaganza in July.

Another I’m told might be worth watching is Keith Smyton, who came from the Six Counties and is now Head of the Food Division. The accent confirms he is an Ulsterman, and I’d bet on him being from the sash and bowler tradition, and therefore as determined to stick union jacks on everything as the others we’ve met.

UPDATE 22.10.2018: Another to add is Peter McDonald, who since June 2017 has been Deputy Director – Land, Nature & Forestry / Land Management Reform Unit (with the element following the forward slash added in January). But you’ll see on his Linkedin profile that he is also Deputy Director, Energy, Environment and Transport Tax at the Treasury. In fact his background is with the Treasury.

He’s obviously a money man, and I’m told his sympathies lie with conservationists and re-wilders, not farmers.

Put together it makes a nonsense of the idea that agriculture is a devolved matter. And it’s the same across the senior ranks of the civil service in Wales. Which is as it should be, for it’s a colonial civil service.

I have said it before, and I’ll say it again – Wales is run by civil servants answering to London and pursuing a BritNat agenda at the expense of Wales. The politicians in Cardiff docks are no more than collaborators, helping disguise where power really lies.

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SUMMIT TO SEA

I’ve also mentioned this project before, in the Green Menace. Now they’ve started recruiting staff. Here’s an advert from the Guardian, and here’s another from the Rewilding Britain site.

Did you spot the difference? The Guardian advert reads, “Ability to communicate in Welsh is highly desirable”. On the Rewilding Britain site (more likely to be read by potential applicants), it asks only for, “Good understanding of and demonstrable enthusiasm for the local Welsh culture and language”.

I think we can take it as read that the successful applicant will not be Welsh speaking, or even Welsh. (Though I couldn’t help wondering what might qualify as “demonstrable enthusiasm”. What a strange term!)

Natalie Buttriss, new Director of Wales at the Woodland Trust, presenting a petition for more trees to a member of England’s Cardiff Bay management team. How many signatures were collected against the Flint Sphincter and Geiger Bay? Did those petitions get this kind of reception?

The Rewilding Britain website tells us that its partner in Summit to Sea is The Woodland Trust. And it was Natalie Buttriss, the Trust’s Director of Wales, who spoke about the project on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Farming Today’ programme last Wednesday.

“Farming is subsidised” . . . says a woman whose own project has just been given £3.4m of someone else’s money! And, then, chillingly, she adds, “The policy landscape is changing”, before making it clear that her project enjoys the full support of the Cardiff management team.

Natalie Buttriss’s contempt for farmers came through strongly. Her memsahib attitude could be paraphrased: ‘The farmers will not see a penny of our funding . . . we have the whip hand . . . we’ve got political backing . . . there is nothing the farmers can do to stop us . . . we’ll squeeze them out . . . ‘

For a woman representing a project that claims it wants to work with landowners and farmers I suggest that the arrogant Natalie Buttriss has, with that interview, seriously damaged the chances of co-operation.

The area involved is huge. On the coast it runs from Aberdyfi to Aberystwyth, and then inland, following the A44 up to Llangurig (though deviating south to Cwmystwth) and then on to Llanidloes, after which it’s the minor road up to Llanbrynmair, and Glantwymyn, before heading down the Dyfi valley to Aberdyfi.

In all, 10,000 hectares of land and 28,400 hectares of sea, according to the Summit to Sea page on the Rewilding Britain website. But the very poor map used on the site seems to suggest the figures may be the other way around, unless the blue (Project area) line has not been extended into Cardigan Bay.

Clearly, this not uninhabited territory that the re-wilders can just take over, so how will they co-exist with farmers and others? Well, if we go back to the revelatory Radio 4 interview given by Ms Buttriss it would appear that those living there now can either like it or lump it.

One thing I predict with certainty, Natalie Buttriss and her gang, and lots of others like them, are queuing up, confident that a great deal of Welsh land will become available in the coming years as farmers are forced out of business.

It’s spelled out in this Daily Post article. Where Plaid Cymru AM Siân Gwenllian is quoted as saying:

“Many farmers will be denied the necessary support due to the new eligibility criteria, meaning they will lose out on help which has served as a backbone to the viability of their business. The proposed payment regime will have two elements – one offering 40% investment grants, the other paying for ‘Public Goods’ such as habitat management and tree planting.

Unlike the EU , which is beefing up its Active Farmer rule to ensure money stays in rural areas, Wales is proposing an ‘open to all’ policy in which applicants could include banks and pension funds,

The EU, as in Scotland and Northern Ireland, is also ring-fencing farm funding to safeguard against economic instability following Brexit, she added. The Welsh Government is going in precisely the opposite direction – destabilising one of our key industries,”

You have to ask yourself why the “Welsh Government” (sic) is going in “precisely the opposite direction” to the EU, Scotland and Northern Ireland? This is clearly ‘the changing policy landscape’ referred to by Natalie Buttriss of the Woodland Trust in her radio interview. And it’s what makes Wales so attractive to her and other parasites.

UPDATE 07.11.2018: There was an excellent piece in yesterday’s Llais y Sais by Farmers Union of Wales president Glyn Roberts. While today the ‘re-wilders’ have responded in a more conciliatory tone than that adopted in the past by the likes of George Monbiot and Natalie Buttriss.

Could it be that the ‘environmentalists’ have belatedly realised that they were coming across as the arrogant colonialists they are?

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Summit to Sea is a project hatched up by rootless yet well connected schemers to displace Welsh farmers from the land their families may have farmed for centuries. It’s old-fashioned colonialism and dispossession repackaged as ‘conservation’ for a twenty-first century audience.

And Summit to Sea is just the start. The beginning of the Welsh Clearances.

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The Media We Deserve

On 25/07/201826/07/2018 By JacIn British Nationalism, Colonialism, Colonisation of Wales, Demographics, Englandandwales, English Nationalism, Ethnic Cleansing, Welsh Government, Welsh Media, Welsh Nationalism34 Comments

Time to take a wee break from the Glynllifon Gang before it does my head in. Yes, I know I have referred to them in the past as the ‘Williams-Partridge Gang’ but I’m coming round to the view that Keith Partridge is a minor player in this particular criminal enterprise.

I now have so much information coming in from so many sources, and so much information is already piled up, that were it not for the help I’m receiving from my friends in Mother Russia I really would be struggling.

благослови вас Бог, владимир владимирович

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The Wasting Mule today ran a piece from the Royal Welsh Show on the continuing row over the labelling of Welsh food produce as British rather than as Welsh. Though whoever wrote the headline obviously doesn’t understand the issue.

Pay attention! it’s not about British food being promoted over Welsh products, it’s about Welsh produce losing its Welsh labelling and being branded as British.

(Here’s a link to the WalesOnline version where the 77th Brigade – CyberWarriors – is out in force.)

Anyway, the Mule sent reporter Laura Clements to Llanelwedd to write a piece about the issue. Laura Clements who is still studying journalism and normally covers the Rhiwbina and Llanishen areas of Cardiff, where farming and food production is big business. Not.

According to her Twitter profile, when she isn’t studying to be a journalist she’s either running or cycling. Or possibly drinking coffee. But there is no mention of farming or food production, let alone the labelling of food produce, anywhere in her interests or her field of knowledge

Which means that a fitness fanatic student journalist, who normally mooches around the mean streets of Rhiwbina and Llanishen, is sent to cover a politically sensitive story related to food. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, the headline for a start. Though I’m not blaming her for that.

Clements’ report, which I’ve produced above, included interviews with three people. So let’s look at what they had to say, and more importantly, who they are.

Laura Clements sets out her stall with the introduction: “On the ground, producers did not seem as concerned about the banding and wanted to concentrate on selling as much produce as possible”.

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HENRIETTA HENS(C)HER

First up to the podium is Henrietta Hens(c)her representing Llanllyr Source Water in Ceredigion, which produces expensive water, and even more expensive mixers by adding a little bit of this and a little bit of that to the water.

Henrietta was reported as saying: “I think it’s a great shame that the word ‘great’ is being twisted for political means”. By whom she thinks it’s being twisted, she didn’t make clear. She continued, “Whether you voted to leave or remain at the EU referendum, we are still one country”.

I think we can guess what she’s suggesting when we learn that Henrietta is a Tory politician who – as Y Cneifiwr told us – believes Carmarthen East is a one-party state because the natives vote for Plaid Cymru.

Though it should be said that Henrietta doesn’t actually work for Llanllyr. No, she has her own company called Simply Welsh Cakes, or maybe it’s less a company and more a crowd-funding exercise. Perhaps it recently emerged from its cocoon as Simply Welsh Restaurant and Farm Shop Ltd.

Seeing as it took wing as recently as April it will be interesting to see how long it flies.

Her Linkedin profile (available here in pdf format) tells us that she also works as a consultant, which explains her presence at Llanelwedd on the Llanllyr stand.

Going further down her Linkedin profile we see some fascinating entries taking us back to Stowe School, one of England’s most prestigious and expensive public schools.

Though one entry absent from the profile is the time she spent as General Manager at Foyles of Glasbury, an establishment which had been known for centuries as the Maesllwch Arms Hotel. The dropping of this ancient name caused widespread anger.

Predictably, the ‘Welsh’ Government – in the manly and toothsome form of Ken ‘Flint Ring’ Skates – gave the name-changing owners a grant of £150,000.

At 1:45 in the video Henrietta talks of the nearby Wye, famous for its trout and salmon. Yet a short time after this video was posted on YouTube the hotel was fined for serving up “ordinary fish” as Wye-caught produce. An obvious example of mis-branding.

I am not for one minute suggesting that Henrietta Hens(c)her was responsible for misleading customers over what fish they were paying for, and where it came from, but she was the general manager at around the time the offence took place. And as I say, ‘Foyles’ is a significant omission from her Linkedin CV.

I don’t want to be too hard on Henrietta, some of the stuff I’ve read suggests there may be hope for her, but then, when the bottle’s empty, she comes across as just another middle class English dilettante with fall-back family money of whom we have too many in Wales. From the harridan at Happy Donkey Hill to the hippies being encouraged to build what they like where they like (and sod planning permission!).

The paragraphs in the Wasting Mule report that follow Ms Hens(c)her’s contribution are a little confused, they were obviously not proof-read, so let us press on.

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OUR FLAG IS “A BIT OF A PROBLEM”

Castle Dairies seems to be a genuinely Welsh company, based in Caerffili. However, the product development manager, Marcus Beards, who was representing the company at the Show, thinks there is a problem with the Welsh flag.

The report told us that Castle Dairies has undergone a “major re-branding to try to appeal to a wider UK market”. It would be reasonable to conclude that Beards is the architect of this ‘re-branding’ because he was quoted as saying, “We felt the Welsh flag we used on our packaging was a bit of a problem and restricted sales in England”.

So is he saying English people don’t like seeing our flag, or that when they see it on produce it suggests something inferior? Or does it tell us that Beards is a bigot? Which is it, Marcus?

I don’t know the answer even though I have spoken with him today. I telephoned Castle Dairies at 15:48 and asked for Marcus Beards, I was put through, I gave my name, explained I am a blogger, asked why he felt our flag is “a bit of a problem” – and he put the phone down!

I don’t know who Marcus Beards is, he seems to have no internet presence before today, but the accent wasn’t local and so I’d like to know more about him. Someone out there must know.

And maybe Castle Dairies can explain why they employed someone with such a mindset.

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MYSTERY ICE CREAM

The third to voice an opinion was “Brian Bowman, owner of Cowpots ice cream, who hadn’t noticed the Defra branding above him”.

“Mr Bowman laughed at the suggestion that the Welsh brand had been lost”, Laura told us, “we’ve got bigger problems than that to sort out in the world”, he added. An odd thing to say, but obviously Brian Bowman of Cowpots ice cream wasn’t at all worried that his Carmarthenshire-produced ice cream was losing its Welsh identity.

So I went to the Companies House website to find out more about the company and those running it. But there’s nothing there. No Cowpots company and no Brian Bowman listed as a director.

Though there’s a website, and there’s a Facebook page, but neither gives much information about the company, certainly no company number.

But I was able to dig up this article from the Western Telegraph back in 2007 which tells us that Brian Bowman, his wife Mary Louise, and two sons Will and Martyn, moved to Wales in 2005 to Penback or Pen-y-back Farm near Whitland.

Bafflingly, something else I dug up on Linkedin mentioned a ‘Tasha Isaac’ as the ‘owner’ of Cowpots ice cream with William Bowman as her ‘partner’. All very strange.

But then – a breakthrough. I found that there is a 32-year-old Kim Natasha Isaac who is a director of West Wales Bacon Supplies Ltd of Cross Hands, also of dormant company Dragon Fine Foods Ltd. If she’s Tasha Isaac, are they now making bacon-flavoured ice cream?

If not, what is the connection?

The title document for Penback Farm suggests that the business had money injected in 2014 from both Lloyds Bank and Carmarthenshire County Council.

This article from the Welsh Country website says that Penback Farm received a grant of £74,804 towards the new ice cream parlour and bistro. But a grant is a grant, there’s no repayment, so it can’t account for the charge on the title document. Did Carmarthenshire County Council also make a loan?

And if so, to whom or to what?

Because I’d like to who or what we’re dealing with in Cowpots ice cream. I’d like the registered name of the company, its company number, its directors, who owns it; and how much it or properties associated with it have received from the public purse.

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CONCLUSION

This was a deplorable piece of journalism, even by the standards of the Wasting Mule. There was no attempt at balance; all three quoted were ambivalent or hostile to branding Welsh produce as Welsh. It’s almost as if someone selected them in advance to promote a certain viewpoint.

I find it significant that those interviewed at Llanelwedd by Laura Clements had all moved to Wales. They have come here looking for a better life, or to make money, but they don’t really care about Wales. They seem quite content to see Wales assimilated into England. In the case of Marcus ‘flag problem’ Beards he’s actively working towards it.

This is nothing more than crude and objectionable colonialism

But this is what we can expect from now on as the Britishness offensive gains momentum and scoundrels of all political colours prove Dr Johnson right. Today some MPs have even suggested updating the 1351 Treason Act, so look forward to ‘traitors’ like me getting banged up.

Here in Wales the process of Britification is well advanced. We’ve had the Mersey-Dee Alliance, the Flint Ring, Severnside, The Prince of Wales Bridge, etc., etc, so putting union flags on cheese is entirely predictable.

All happening to the background drip-drip of names being changed, our language being ridiculed, our devolution settlement being undermined, our existence as a nation and a country being questioned almost daily.

The choice is simple and unavoidable. Accept assimilation or fight for independence.

Sign up to Ein Gwlad and do it now!

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Jac o' the North

Tag: Defra

The Welsh Clearances

The Media We Deserve