Where Is Franz Kafka When You Need Him?

As regular readers will know, I have been having problems from the Wales Eye blog and the Western Mail / Wales Online, they’ve been misrepresenting what they find in my blog and, when that isn’t enough, they’ve just told blatant lies. The story of my relationship with Wales Eye unfolds, chronologically, in the following posts: Cymrophobia and the Many Identities of Jacques Protic (14.08.2013);  Wales Eye & Jacques Protic – a Marriage Made in Hell (11.09.2014); Wales Eye, Jacques Protic and North Wales Police (21.10.2014); Seeking a Latter-day Waldorf T. Flywheel (19.01.2015); I Must Be Doing Something Right! (28.01.2015); Now I KNOW I’m Doing Something Right! (03.02.2015); Helping A Man In A Hole (05.02.2015).

Things came to a head recently with Plaid Glyndŵr’s petition on social housing, for which I provide a link in my sidebar. The assault started with a strange tweet from Martin Shipton, chief reporter at Llais y Sais, on the afternoon of January 26th, asking for my phone number in order to discuss “your housing petition”. When I received the Shipton tweet I was unaware of the Wales Eye piece, because of course it hadn’t yet appeared, so I innocently and helpfully tweeted Shipton back, explaining my relationship with the petition.

Shipton request combined

Overnight the Wales Eye article by Phil Parry was published saying, “A website which urges a policy of Welsh homes only for Welsh people has been reported to the police for inciting racial hatred, Wales Eye can reveal”. Martin Shipton said the same thing in the Western Mail / WalesOnline, and despite what I’d told him, he began his piece with, “The Wales Eye news website discloses that the Jac O’the North blog has been reported to South Wales Police after launching a petition” Significantly, perhaps, the WalesOnline article soon became (and remains) unavailable.

In the hope of getting redress I contacted the legal department of Trinity Mirror, the company that owns Llais y Sais, on Februay 2nd. On the 25th I received an e-mail from a Paul Mottram, which said:

“I refer to your Wales Online apology 1complaint dated 2nd February and apologise for the late reply.

The Western Mail has obtained a statement from the police saying the following: ‘South Wales Police was contacted by a member of the public who was concerned at the language used in a blog posted under the name of ‘jacothenorth’.

The content of the blog was scrutinised and no offence was committed.

The reporting person has been spoken to and given assurances that no criminality has taken place’.

Media Wales would be happy to publish the fact that no offence was committed on the walesonline website to resolve this issue.

If that is satisfactory, I will arrange for it to be published.”

Eventually Mottram anWestern Mail apologyd I agreed on the wording that appeared on the WalesOnline website on Friday the 27th of February and on page 2 of the following day’s edition of the Wasting Mule. You can read both on the left (click to enlarge).

You may find the synchronicity in this episode noteworthy, for the Wales Eye piece by Parry was posted on Tuesday, January 27, and the WalesOnline version was timed at 06:30 on the same day. I should imagine that the Wales Eye piece appeared in the early hours, otherwise Shipton would have been quoting from a blog post that hadn’t yet appeared! There was obviously collusion, the proof being the tweet from Shipton asking about the petition. In fact, Shipton is almost acting as Parry’s researcher!

Yet the two accounts differ significantly in their conclusions. The Wales Eye piece, after relating – yet again! – the horrors endured by ultra bigot Jacques Protic, and how he was failed by GogPlod, ends thus:

“Now, it appears, the target of the Jac O’ the North website is incomers (presumably a reference to the Plaid Glyndŵr petition) and this has led to another police inquiry.

Perhaps this one will be the last.”

Whereas the WalesOnline article by Tub O’Lard ends like this:

“It is understood that South Wales Police will not forward the complaint about Mr Jones to the Crown Prosecution Service.”

So Shipton already knew that the police were not taking the complaint seriously when he wrote his piece, and seeing as he and Parry were collaborating so closely, Parry must also have known, but he chose not to say because to have done so would have undermined his attack on me. Worse, he pretends to believe that the complaint will lead to action resulting in the closing down of my blog, and yet . . .

Parry gives the game away that he knows the police have thrown out the complaint with the caption he attaches to the petition link he lifted from my blog. (My intellectual property.) For in it he says: “Petition calling for social housing for Welsh Wales Eye petitionpeople which was investigated by the police”. Not is being investigated by the police but ‘was’. Clearly Parry knew when he wrote his nonsense that the police had thrown out the complaint. But maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe all that mattered was that a complaint had been made, which allowed Parry and Llais y Sais to write their libellous bollocks.

The lies written by Parry and Shipton referred specifically to the Plaid Glyndŵr petition, but if you look at the reply I got from Trinity Mirror, it reads: “The content of the blog was scrutinised (by police) and no offence was committed”. So if this really does mean the blog, rather than the petition, are we now talking of two complaints, or more than two? Worth asking because Parry also got his knickers in a twist over the old FWA photographs on my blog, with Shipton again acting as his ‘researcher’.

Yet despite him knowing, and finally admitting, that the police were not taking the original complaint against me seriously, Parry can’t resist upping the ante in his February 4th posting, Arms Race, with:

“An earlier probe by a Police Constable and Inspector of South Wales Police into alleged racism on the blog was aborted for lack of evidence.

But now the police have received more information after several complaints about inflammatory comments and decided to take action.FWA combined

A complainant was contacted by a senior officer who said several similar protests were made to the police following the revelations about the petition and a decision has been reached to pursue the inquiry.”

What ‘racism’? Does he mean the petition? But the only group mentioned in the petition are the Welsh! ‘Inflammatory comments’. Does he really mean comments, things said by visitors to my blog? What possible ‘revelations’ could there be about a simple, self-explanatory, 21-word petition in plain English?

So if Phil Parry is to be believed (yes, I know), people are queuing up to report me to Plod! Rubbish of course, but still, we must consider the various possibilities here, which appear to be: 1/ South Wales Police misled Trinity Mirror, which means that the clarification published on Friday is unreliable. 2/ Phil Parry is privy to everything the police are doing and is therefore the only one who really knows what’s going on. 3/ Phil Parry is an obsessive fantasist who’s taken an intense dislike to me. 4/ Somebody is pulling Parry (and possibly Shipton’s) strings, and perhaps protecting Trinity Mirror’s interests by getting Parry to write the bilge leaving Llais y Sais able to argue that it’s merely relaying what someone else has written. Make up your own minds. If it helps, no police officer, from any force, has ever been in contact with me.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I submitted a Freedom of Information request to South Wales Police; it can be found here, together with the first page of the reply. Which says, in essence, ‘We can’t give you the informtion you request because that would breach your data protection rights’! There were a few other pages and a form for me to officially ask if they hold any information on me. But what’s the point, I’ve been through this rigmarole before with North Wales Police over the Protic allegations.

Looking at the four options I’ve posited above, I choose number four, because I can’t believe that Parry and Shipton believe what they’re writing. No rational and balanced individual could possibly think that a petition asking for social housing to be allocated (but not exclusively) to Welsh people ‘incites racial hatred’. And do they really believe that the authorities would be interested in photographs taken almost half a century ago of men who are now almost all dead! Or that those same authorities care that I knew these men? Or to put it another way, when it comes to my support for the FWA, or my respect for John Jenkins, do Parry and Shipton seriously believe that they’re telling the police, MI5, or anyone else, anything they haven’t known for decades? So why bother?

This is not journalists breaking stories, this is history lessons spiced up with lies, hyperbole and silly, time-wasting complaints to the police for a contemporary purpose. Another example of the desperation on display is Parry quoting my playful references to alcohol having been consumed in some of the scenes depicted in those 1960s photographs, as if this somehow damns me! Effectively saying, ‘Oh my God! look at this – a group of young men in the late ’60s, and they used to drink!’ What it really shows is that Phil Parry will use anything, however innocent or banal, in his pathetic and increasingly desperate attempts to blacken my name.

Consequently, the only conclusions I can draw are that either Parry and Shipton have lost all sense of proportion and the instinct for what makes a good story (in which case they shouldn’t be allowed near a keyboard), or that this is some kind of a silly game, in which they are no more than pawns.

Taking A Break

In recent months I have given much thought to my lifestyle. I’m spending far too much time at my computer, writing my blog and other things; reading, watching television, or just filling my head with information I’d be none the poorer for not knowing. Then there’s Twitter, Facebook, texts, e-mails. And so often I’m not even sure who I’m dealing with . . . I suspect many are socialists, or oafs in baseball caps. Even socialist oafs in baseball caps! People I wouldn’t bother with in the real world. It has become clear to me that this technology, promised to be the great servant of mankind, can, if we allow it, become our master, exerting an unhealthy influence over our lives.

Another issue encouraging my return to the real world is the new wave of US entrepreneurs and capitalists behind this revolution. They may look and sound like unworldly geeks, but when it comes to business, with their monopolistic ambitions and their tax-dodging, they are more ruthless than Ford, Rockefeller and J P Morgan ever were. Do I really want to use anything over which these amoral weirdoes have control? Do I want to use software or social networking that is all the while gathering information about me? Do I want to download a harmless ‘update’, only to find that I have, totally unwillingly and without warning, also installed a toolbar, a search engine, anti-virus software, tracking cookies and God knows what else? No, I do not.

Don’t run away with the idea that I am Thoreaurejecting new technology entirely and going live in a cave, but I will in future be drastically reducing the time I spend on my computer. My Twitter account will be closed soon, and so will my Facebook page (which I never could see the value of). As for my blog, I shall keep it open but resort to it less. Maybe a weekly or bi-weekly post, supplemented by ‘specials’ if I think I have something worth saying. For while I believe some of my postings have had an effect, particularly those dealing with the Third Sector and other obvious forms of mismanagement or corruption, at the end of the day, blogging could be viewed as a cheap form of vanity publishing.

‘Why now?’ you might ask. Well, there comes a point when you realise you’re repeating yourself. Largely because the stupidly of politicians, and the perfidy of those who manipulate them, is unchanging. As is the gullibility of  too many Welsh voters. Only the characters and the circumstances change. One Third Sector scandal is much like another. And when a blogger finds himself referring back to his own earlier posts then he should realise that he’s said it all before. Such is the situation with me.

In addition, my mother has just died, a milestone in any man’s life. So now seems the right time to make my return to the real world. Before finishing, I’d like to thank you all for reading my blog, both at its original home with Google Blogger, and more recently here, courtesy of Gwilym ab Ioan of S C Cambria. Thank you also for your support and comments over the years. What follows may be my last post for a while, in it I try to give my honest assessment of the situation in Wales today, and how we got here.

                                                                           ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~                                           

IN THE BEGINNING

When I joined the nationalist movement in the mid-ʼ60s I joined something vibrant and exciting, there was a ‘We’re not taking this shit any more!’ attitude, and a belief that change would be brought about by pressure from below, by activists like us. And for a while we had the system worried. But by 1975, the high-water mark had been reached, and Welsh nationalism was in retreat. For by now the British Establishment understood what it was dealing with. It knew how far Welsh nationalism was prepared to go, what barriers it wouldn’t cross; it had worked out who could be bought, or intimidated; and it understood that by guiding a nationalist movement without mass support into politics that that movement was never going to threaten the status quo.

And so it proved. After Plaid Cymru won Carmarthen in 1966, Meirionnydd and Caernarfon in 1974, after seventeen years of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, after the Free Wales Army (FWA), Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru (MAC) and countless other manifestations of Welsh nationalism, on St. David’s Day 1979 just 20.26% of us voted for a Welsh Assembly. That the devolution referendum of 1997 was won was due to Margaret Thatcher and eighteen years of Conservative rule. It had nothing to do with Plaid Cymru. Even then, many Labour voters argued that we didn’t need devolution – Labour was back in power! (A good example of the mentality of the ‘Donkey Labour’ voter; rejecting devolution because it’s only needed when the Tories are in power but unable to work out that the Tories will never give Wales devolution!)

DOWNHILL

By the early 1970s the English Establishment had worked out the following facts. Plaid Cymru was essentially a linguistic and cultural movement which, once the initial excitement had worn off, would have little appeal to the anglophone majority. Many of the language activists were simply after their own niche in the English system, some proving themselves to be ruthlessly ambitious. While the most sincere and selfless element of Welsh nationalism, those who resorted to direct action, were not prepared to take a human life. Just to be sure, the English Establishment put it place a colonisation strategy to encourage English settlers into Wales, using agencies as diverse as higher education and tourism, plus quangos such as the Development Board for Rural Wales.

It was downhill from there. Apart from the Meibion Glyndŵr campaign and groups such as the Welsh Socialist Republican Movement, Cofiwn, Cyfamodwyr, Wales was quiescent. Plaid Cymru went through various colour changes – red, green, pink – and Cymdeithas yr Iaith’s best days were behind it, its victories nearly all won in the first twenty years of its existence. Whatever came to us now would be gifted by our masters without them having to worry about pressure from below. Even the Meibion Glyndŵr campaign, which had widespread popular support, did nothing to remove the problem of holiday homes.

TODAY

Which brings me to a consideration of Wales today. Plaid Cymru can be discounted entirely. Exposed and discredited. Infiltrated and manipulated. A former leader openly talking about joining the Labour Party. More concerned with socialism and environmentalism than with nationalism. Its ambition limited to being junior partner in a Labour-led coalition. Quite happy to see the Welsh countryside covered with wind turbines and populated with English settlers. Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, or the wider language-cultural movement, stands exposed as a bunch of weak-kneed charlatans. Deluding themselves that another school in Cardiff is fair exchange for the loss of Ceredigion. Smug and complacent on the moral high ground, as the enemy takes over the land below. Direct action? There is none.

Ah! but we’ve got devolution, you reply. No. What we have is a system in which a bunch of second-rate politicians faff about in a leaky building down Cardiff docks while real power is increasingly exerted by English civil servants and organisations of which most of us have never heard – Planning Inspectorate, Housing Directorate, Wales Rural Observatory, countless Third Sector shyster-wagons, etc. – for which we never voted. So don’t kid yourself that this system fronted by Carwyn and his gang is devolved and democratic government, or that it’s doing anything for us. It is nothing but English colonialism with its repulsive features partly disguised with a Welsh veil.

TOMORROW?

The biggest issue facing the Welsh nation is its very survival. Partly due to ‘Wales’ becoming divorced from ‘the Welsh’. Allowing politicians and academics, journalists and others, to crow about something being ‘wonderful for Wales’ when it offers Welsh people nothing, or is even detrimental to their interests. Tourism, for example. To the point where people can even bang on about Wales being ‘a rainbow nation’, with we Welsh nothing more than another exotic component. Hand in hand with this divorce goes the trivialisation of Welsh identity, and a careful promotion of what are considered to be acceptable expressions of Welshness. So that some tart on a reality TV show would be an acceptable face of ‘Welshness’, but a dignified patriot rejecting an ‘honour’ from the English Queen would be a narrow bigot, an extremist.

EuphemismThese Orwellian interpretations dominate Welsh life. Exemplified by the approach to colonisation. Wales today has ‘incomers’ or ‘in-migrants’, and ‘people from other parts of Britain’, or even ‘from over the border’. These can be ‘retirees’, or people ‘looking for a better quality of life’ (even ‘good-lifers’ is acceptable). They can even be, in the memorable phrase of Wyn Roberts, “this beneficent influx”. You can use any bloody euphemism you choose, but they must never be called ‘English’. To do so would be ‘racist’. Exposing a pathetic self-censorship, perhaps even self-intimidation. This is the level of debate we have sunk to in Wales; one corrupted by political correctness and poisoned by a variant of socialism that would be ridiculed and rejected from Bilbao to Barcelona to Belfast.

From now on the only issue must be the fight against colonisation and the threat it poses to the survival of Welsh nationhood. Everything else is secondary or irrelevant. Whether it’s ‘saving the planet’ (as if Wales could make any bloody difference!) or the chimera of extra power for those clowns I mentioned earlier in the leaky building. Because no matter how many lies are told, how imaginative the euphemisms employed, or how many distractions promoted, WE know the truth: England is carrying out a colonisation programme in Wales that is excluding and marginalising the Welsh (apart from those needed to disguise the process) with the intention of destroying Welsh national identity. Fight this evil wherever you find it. It is the biggest threat the Welsh nation has ever faced.