Wales, Colony of England

Let me start by establishing what I mean by a colony. A colony is a territory or country run in the interests of another country, and for the benefit of the elite or the population in general of that other country. The colony does not need to be far away, nor do its indigenes need to be of a different pigmentation or religion, what matters is the economic and other relationships between the two countries. By which criteria Wales is most definitely a colony of England.

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Historically, we Welsh had to be conquered and brought under English rule a) because we resisted Anglo-Saxon / Anglo-Norman / English attempts to control the whole island of Britain and b) because we, as the original inhabitants of Britain, served to remind these invaders of our prior claim to their land as well as our own.

For centuries we suffered under a discriminatory legal system then, with the Industrial Revolution, we started to see Wales and the Welsh exploited in a more organised fashion, with the motive this time being profit rather than imperialist aggrandisement. In a modified form this system persists today, and although discrimination may no longer be on the statute book it still exists in myriad subtle forms.

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Something I was reminded of recently with the re-surfacing of a story I’d been vaguely aware of before. A Welsh businessman named Clive Hughes had planned to build two biomass plants employing hundreds of people, one near Kidwelly, the other on Swansea docks, reported in the panel on the right (click to enlarge).Biomass Swansea docks It seems that Mr Hughes had no help in his endeavours from either Mark James Carmarthenshire council or the ‘Welsh’ Government. In fact, he received no reply after writing to First Minister Carwyn Jones.

The reason this story has re-surfaced is because Clive Hughes was understandably peeved to learn that while his projects were either ignored or refused planning permission, civil servants and councils are now falling over themselves to help Chinese investors build two biomass plants, one on Ynys Môn, the other in Port Talbot, just a few miles from his planned Swansea docks site.

Something Clive Hughes was quoted as saying hints at where I’m going with this example. He said, “I have been fortunate to have enjoyed successful multi-million-pound businesses all over the world – however, I have never been treated so badly as in my home county”.

How do we explain this curious tale of Welsh agencies refusing to support indigenous enterprise while generously supporting foreign investment  – to do exactly the same thing! In a word, colonialism. (Yes, I know the report mentions nimbyism and “opposition from residents”, but believe me, it goes way beyond that.)

Clive Hughes was wasting his time appealing to Carwyn Jones, who is just a figurehead for a form of sham devolution. Wales – as I have said time and time gain – is run by civil servants, invariably masquerading as ‘advisors’ to Carwyn and his gang of deadbeats, and these civil servants take their orders from London. The wisdom for some years in London has been that it is a good thing to ‘open up’ the UK to foreign investment, particularly from China. Once you know that, then it’s easy to understand why no Welsh businessman will be allowed to queer the pitch for Chinese and other foreign investors.

A further example of the colonial economy at work is often articulated as the question, ‘Isn’t it strange how Welsh people (insert here, Terry Matthews, Chris Evans et al, or Clive Hughes) have to leave Wales to be successful?’ Er, no, there’s nothing strange about it, for two very good reasons. First, too many successful Welsh businesspeople might give us natives silly ideas about our ability to do things for ourselves. Second, any successful Welsh business is almost bound to come into competition with English companies. Both are undesirable in a colonial set up.

Of course after making his money in Canada Matthews returned to Wales and built the very successful Celtic Manor resort outside Newport. But the Celtic Manor poses no threat to the colonial arrangement. To begin with, it does not really compete with English rivals in the way that a company chasing consumers in a competitive market would. In addition, with its NATO conferences and Ryder Cup golf tournaments, the Celtic Manor helps integrate Wales with England.

Note that in the piece I’ve linked to about Matthews, Michael Moritz is described as “the richest person in Wales”, which is stretching it a bit. He was certainly born in Cardiff, but left for the USA in his early twenties, made his fortune in Silicon Valley, and never returned. He still lives in San Francisco with his family. Perhaps the most successful business based in Wales, and the only one quoted in the FTSE 100, is Admiral Insurance, started up and still owned by Henry Engelhardt . . . from Chicago. Which is fine, because it confirms that the Welsh must have outsiders to provide them with work.

Let’s end with another feature of the colonial economy, and again, something that draws bewildered comment from people who refuse to see the system controlling the economic life of Wales. I’m referring now to the phenomenon of successful Welsh companies being taken over by larger companies before they can grow too big, with this often resulting in redundancies or even closure of the now subsidiary Welsh operation. If you don’t understand why this happens then you haven’t been paying attention.

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The Roman system of coloniae settled army veterans and their families in conquered territories and border regions, and was employed for two main reasons. First, to keep an eye on the natives and, if necessary, confront any insurgency until the army arrived. Second, coloniae spread the use of the Latin language and Roman ways of doing things.

This example of settling people from, or loyal to, the ruling country in recently conquered territories and colonies is one that has been imitated globally down to the present day. The British have done it across the world, even to Christian European populations. There was the Irish Plantation, the ‘repopulating’ of eastern Canada after the expulsion of the Acadians (Cajuns), and the flooding of the independent republic of Transvaal with British settlers once it was realised that the land beneath the Boers’ feet contained gold and diamonds.

In more recent times, France sees a steady exodus of loyal French people to Tahiti, New Caledonia, Guadeloupe, Martinique and other specks in the ocean in the hope that these emigres will help the natives see the benefit of maintaining ties with France. While on a bigger scale, and in a much more brutal fashion, China has created all sorts of incentives for Han Chinese to settle in, with the intention of dominating, Tibet and Xinjiang.

So why be surprised that Wales has been undergoing a process of colonisation since the 1960s? A process that has taken many forms, some so bleeding obvious you wonder how they got away with it.

Take the Development Board for Rural Wales, an agency set up – so we were told – to stem the depopulation of the five central counties of Montgomeryshire, Cardiganshire, Merionethshire, Breconshire and Radnorshire. It operated by paying English companies to relocate to central Wales, with their workforces (all paid for), while spending many more millions building thousands of new houses for this influx. And while all this cash was being showered on English companies local firms could not apply for a penny of DBRW funding. As blatant a colonisation strategy as Mother England has ever deployed. But Welsh politicians, media, and others still applauded every relocation as ‘New jobs coming to —————‘.

Many countries pay companies to set up in areas needing employment, but I have never come across another case like the DBRW, where a state paid firms to transfer lock stock and barrel, plus workers, to another area. It makes no sense, until you see it for what it was – plain, unvarnished colonisation.

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The colony of Wales also serves as a receptacle for those who are not making a contribution to the common weal in England. Those in this category range from geriatrics to young criminals and drug addicts. To the point where in some areas of Wales – such as where I live – two-thirds of the over 65s were born in England. But, hey! looking after old people is a ‘growth industry’.

Gwynedd SW Wards merged
CLICK TO ENLARGE

If it’s not wrinklies then it’s a feckless white underclass. Some towns have been almost destroyed by this phenomenon, and none have come closer to implosion than Rhyl. This link reports a story of a woman living in Rhyl sent down after police found a dead body and a stash of heroin in her flat. An everyday story of Rhyl folk.

When it’s not drug addicts then it’s paedophiles. So many such deviants from over the border are now turning up in Wales that it just has to be organised, perhaps by the Probation Service. I have written about this problem before, one of the most notorious recent cases was a whole gang of paedophiles relocated from London to Kidwelly. Read about it and other cases. Within the past few days I have learnt of two more paedophiles who, by some unspecified route, arrived in Wales. This one in Ciliau Aeron and this one in Llanbadarn Fawr.

In the great colonialist scheme of things it really doesn’t matter whether those coming into Wales are sweet old dears straight out of an Ealing comedy or dangerous perverts, they all make their contribution to skewing Welsh statistics in a way that is unflattering to us, put a strain on an already overburdened health service, and of course, make their contribution to anglicising Wales. ‘Poor Wales’, ‘Ageing Wales’, ‘Wales’ Drugs Problem’ writes Phil Space, and intones Jamie Owen, but no one has the balls to really investigate these issues and give us the truth.

But then, in a colony, the last thing you can expect is an honest media.

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I can’t be absolutely certain when I first realised the media lies (maybe it was when I was first lied about), but the reporting of the Balkan wars in the 1990s was something of a watershed because that coverage was not simply a lie here and there, or some vague and ill-defined bias, it was an unwavering adherence to a propaganda line originating in the Pentagon.

Done in pursuit of a strategic objective dictating that Jugoslavia should be dismembered and Russia’s Serb allies at the core of that State be internationally isolated. To achieve this objective the fascist Croats of the Ustaše, and the gangster Albanians in the Kosovo Liberation Army, were depicted as knights in shining armour, while a blind eye was turned to foreign jihadists killing Serbs in Bosnia, leaving us to focus solely on the beastly Serbs, the only ones guilty of any atrocities.

Obviously, when dealing with ‘internal’ matters the UK media is different, but even here, the bias has long been unmistakable, and especially in television. Just about everyone has noticed the recent plethora of programmes with titles beginning ‘Great British’, in fact, it’s become so obvious that it’s something of a joke. A regular orgy of cringe-worthy ‘patriotism’, on sets bedecked with union flags, and all done in the hope of persuading Scots and other disaffected minorities that it don’t get no better than singing the worst national anthem on earth.

While on another level we see some elements of the BBC – Newsnight comes to mind – becoming almost schizophrenic in their desire to maintain their Left-liberal bias while simultaneously following the BritNat line in the hope of pandering to those in the Tory party who wish to dismantle the Beeb. Though in its coverage of the Scottish independence referendum last year all pretence at impartiality went out the window for the BBC in general, and Newsnight in particular.

Here in Wales, with its recent acquisition of the Evening Post, we have Trinity Mirror taking a stranglehold on the ‘Welsh’ print media. We can now look forward to Swansea’s daily paper, the largest selling Welsh daily, being written in Cardiff. And why not? With the political and economic life of the country being centralised on the capital like some tin-pot dictatorship it makes perfect sense.

Our self-styled ‘National Newspaper of Wales’ is now little more than a desperate amalgam of showbiz news, columnists nobody reads, sport, and a daily promotion of all things Cardiff. To the extent that a new restaurant opening, or a celebrity being spotted in the city, somehow becomes a news item that Llais Y Sais deludes itself will be of interest to people in other parts of Wales. No wonder so few people outside of the Cardiff area buy the bloody thing.

Perhaps the best way to explain how this Cardiff-obsessive system operates is by introducing that famous bullshit duet the Barry Brothers. Mark Barry runs M&G Barry Consulting and gets paid to promote the Metro system and other projects designed to further enrich Cardiff at the expense of the rest of Wales, while brother Siôn is the Business Editor for Media Wales, which of course covers the Wasting Mule. So Mark Barry’s clients tell him what they want promoted, he passes ready-made promos on to brother Siôn, who ensures that they appear in Llais y Sais as ‘news’! This is how low ‘journalism’ in Wales has sunk.

In the panel below (click to enlarge) you’ll see a piece by Siôn Barry that appeared in the Western Mail on Monday (23.11.2015). I’m using it because it brings together a couple of the points I’m making in this post. First, we have another successful Welsh company being taken over. This company is based in Swansea, but it’s left to a spokesperson for the company to tell us that.

Sion Barry Francis Estate Agents

Because the purpose of this business news report is to give a plug to “Cardiff-based business advisory firm Greenaway Scott”. Something Siôn Barry does quite regularly. Here in May 2013, March 2015, May 2015, and there may be other write-ups by Barry that I’ve missed. Puffs for this company have certainly appeared on Media Wales attributed to others. Would a law firm in any other part of Wales get so much free publicity? So how do we explain it – is Greenaway Scott a client of M&G Barry Consulting? And if so, why is Trinity Mirror allowing the Wasting Mule to be used in this way? Whatever the answer, this is not journalism.

On the television front, S4C looks to be on its last legs as the Tories consider that if its funding is withdrawn no one will complain other than those with a vested interest in so doing. There certainly won’t be any protests of the kind that brought the channel into existence.

ITV Wales continues to plod along, a curate’s egg of a channel ranging from the engaging Adrian Masters to reporters and newsreaders who look and sound as if they’d have trouble locating Aberystwyth if they were dropped on top of Constitution Hill.

While over at the Talfan Davies patrimony things get weirder and weirder. The Monday following the Paris outrages Wales Today carried a piece about Islamophobia! Over a hundred people were dead in Paris, killed by Muslim extremists, yet for BBC Wales the real horror was that some Welsh person might say something nasty to a Muslim! Rarely in a human lifetime does one encounter such a corrupted sense of values, such an absence of proportion. The interviewee, living in mortal fear of being shouted at, claimed to have previously been subjected to abuse, but this must of course have happened before the Paris massacres. She was shrouded from head to foot with just a slit for her eyes, so I suppose she could have been an actress. I began to wonder if this interview had been in the can for a while, just waiting for the next killing spree.

Something becoming more regularly noticeable on BBC Wales is the adherence to the Question Time dictum – ‘When in Wales, listen only to English opinions’. Because even when reporting on news items from the Swansea Valley and similar places with very few English residents BBC Wales will find those English residents, and interview them, ignoring locals. There is an echo here of the British media’s attitude when working abroad – find someone to interview who speaks English, even if that person knows sod all about the issue being covered.

Jason Mohammad

In other areas BBC Wales follows the ‘Great British’ line, and few do it more loyally than Jason Mohammad. His recent interview with Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood is a gem of its kind. But then, his ‘ethnic’ background, the fact that he speaks Welsh (but is a devoted Brit), makes ‘Jase’ an absolute treasure who will do anything for the cause. Hang on, it wasn’t him in the niqab, was it?

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Though if you seek an area, an industry, an activity, call it what you will, that ticks all the colonialist boxes, then look no further than tourism. Read Tourism: Creating a ‘Wales’ Without the Welsh.

It is beneficial to the UK economy because – seeing as Wales is tied to England – most of the money spent by tourists in Wales will find its way to England in the form of taxes, payments to suppliers, etc.

‘Welsh’ tourism provides thousands of business opportunities for English people thanks to their greater purchasing power coupled with the unwillingness of some Welsh to engage in the prostitution of their homeland.

Tourism attracts a few million English tourists to Wales every year, many of whom decide to settle here. And even if they don’t immediately settle, then they might buy a little place to use as a holiday home.

Nothing is anglicising Wales faster and more comprehensively than tourism and the colonisation that is its inevitable corollary and consequence. This explains why tourism is being forced on us as ‘the economic salvation of rural Wales’.

Yet we Welsh are expected to accept all this in return for a few thousand low paid, seasonal jobs, and a pat on the head accompanied by, ‘You Welsh should be so grateful that all these English people come here’.

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Wales in 2015 is a land being ripped apart, with a national identity under the kind of pressure it is unlikely to survive.

Our former mining valleys are now among the poorest and most wretched areas of Europe. But, due to the low property prices – among the lowest in the UK – we can predict that the Valleys will see more bail hostels and properties housing persons and groups that English communities are glad to see the back of. And the ‘Welsh’ Government – plus local politicians – will welcome this, because appearances are everything, and anything looks better than derelict houses and a rapidly declining population.

Our rural and coastal areas have been condemned to serve as recreation and retirement areas for our neighbours because, ‘There’s nothing else around here, is there?’. No of course there isn’t, not after decades of allowing the rural economy to decline, and doing nothing to bring in decent employment, for local people.

And while the Welsh population is engineered into decline, in both rural and urban areas, a new, replacement population is encouraged to move in, not least through building new homes that Welsh people either cannot afford or else will not be allocated. ‘Oh look! the population of Wales is rising – things must be good there’.

And while this social engineering goes on older forms of exploitation persist. English cities steal our water resources, but it’s justifiable we are told because these cities built the dams. Mmm, try going to Iran and claiming the oil because the original infrastructure was built by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.

Wales is a colony of England, and we Welsh are still bottom of the pile. The only Welsh who make it – outside certain spheres such as sport and entertainment – are those who submit, or those who collaborate with the colonialist system.

You reading this can either accept this system, or you can fight it; but let no one – certainly not the professional liars in politics and the media – pretend that our relationship with England is anything other than colonial, and designed to eventually destroy Welsh identity.

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‘Are You Welsh? I’ll Tell You For £250!’

I first came across the name of Alistair Moffat when I read his book Arthur and the Lost Kingdoms, in which he suggests that his native Kelso may be the capital of the obscure Hen Ogledd kingdom of Calchfynydd, and there is much to recommend it. There is even a Chalkheugh Terrace. More intriguing is the mound and few remaining ruins of Roxburgh castle (which first appears in the written record in 1107 as ‘Marchidun’, which could be Old Welsh for something like ‘cavalry fort’), a natural defensive position close to the confluence of the rivers Tweed and Teviot, just outside the Looking across to Floorsmodern town.

Amazingly, no archaeological work has ever been undertaken on this site of national importance due to the fact that the Duke of Roxburghe, on whose estate the ruins lie, forbids digging. He may even set the dogs on anyone looking remotely like an archaeologist. The Duke’s palatial castle of Floors can be seen in the photograph across the Tweed from the old castle and burgh of Roxburgh / Marchidun, which often served early medieval Scotland as an informal ‘capital’. (Click to enlarge.) If I was that Nicola Sturgeon I’d be on the old dog and bone in no time, ‘Oi, Dukey, I’m sending some boys down to do a bit of digging – don’t get in the way!’ But perhaps that’s not her style.

About six or seven years ago the wife and I were on holiday in the Borders (I often take her with me) and we visited Floors Castle. A party of us was shown around by what I took to be a faithful family retainer, who gave us the rehearsed spiel, and eventually came to the bit about the then Earl of Roxburghe being elevated in 1707 to Duke of Roxburghe. I was too polite, and hungover, to start singing Parcel of Rogues but the significance of the date was not lost on me. Yet his descendant denies access to an important centre of post-Roman Britain; one that might even be connected to Arthur. Why would he do that?

I have digressed too long with Alistair Moffat’s book, with which I broadly agree, despite its flaws. If ‘Arthur’ existed, then I believe he would have come from the Roman-trained military elite of the land between Hadrian’s wall and the territory of the Picts, the frontier zone and ‘trip-wire’ to any incursion from the north. Regrettably, Alistair Moffat’s latest venture into the Welsh past is less commendable.

I’m referring now to Cymru DNA Wales, a series to be broadcast on S4C with its ‘findings’ already being reported in what passes for our national print media (Trinity Mirror). As the website puts it: “This is a project with an epic ambition – nothing less than the discovery of the ancestral genome of a nation.” So which respected scientific institution is carrying out this research? Well, actually, it’s The Moffat Partnership Ltd, set up in 1999 by the eponymous Alistair Moffat, whose background is in journalism and television. His company has already ‘investigated’ Scotland’s DNA, and Ireland’s DNA, even Yorkshire’s DNA! and now it’s our turn to get screwed researched.

For this is a crude, money-making exercise dressed up as ‘science’, DNAusing Welsh celebrities in order to get Dai and Delyth Public to part with £250 each (£200 using the vouncher off the website!) in the hope of discovering that they are descended from Owain Glyndŵr or Nest. The whole thing is, as we respectable geneticists are wont to say, a load of old bollocks, that abuses advances in understanding human makeup while also capitalising on the current fad for tracing one’s roots. But don’t believe me, read what Private Eye has to say in the panel on the right (click to enlarge).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking DNA research and what it can achieve. If it helps solve crime, then fine; if it can be used in anthropology and other fields, then all well and good; if it can unravel the reasons for certain medical conditions then, with reservations, I’ll support that too, but I draw the line at it being used as a high tech (and expensive) parlour game for the twenty-first century.

We have already been told that Gwaun Cae Gurwen’s own Gareth Edwards has DNA from central Europe and the Volga region; Dafydd Iwan is linked to Romano-Welsh aristocracy; Siân Lloyd is related to Tsar Nicholas II; while Bryn Terfel – who is, we are told, comfortable singing in German – has Rhineland roots. It’s only a matter of time before it is exclusively revealed that Jason Mohammad is descended from Penclawdd cockle-pickers. That’s what it’s all about; use celebs, and make sure that the ‘findings’ elicit the ‘Well fancy that!’ response that might persuade Dai and Delyth to cough up £500 become involved with this ground-breaking research..

DNA Google

As someone quoted in the Private Eye piece says, “There is no genetic marker for nationality”. Which is true. If we look at central Europe, where populations have swirled and been displaced for centuries, we can find Magyars with the same genetic markers as Czechs; while the Prussians, those hate figures from an earlier era, held up as the embodiment of the Germans’ aggressive tendencies, were in reality Germanised Balts.

Another example, one I have used in the past, is that of Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims. They speak the same language and at one time were a single people, but over the centuries the adoption of different religions led to a widening gulf between them, to the point where they can quite happily butcher others sharing the same DNA. Or maybe this earlier, apparently homogenous and undivided group, didn’t share the same DNA.

So while it’s possible to identity the gene that gives red hair, going beyond that to say, ‘You are Welsh because of this gene’ is nonsense. Which is why it’s sad to see S4C mixed up in this, with so many vultures circling. As for the others, well, celeb trivia like this – when not attacking innocent bloggers (sob!) – is now the staple at Llais y Sais because it’s easier than having to deal with real news, or focus on anything happening outside of Cardiff.

Anyway, DNA testing is soooo yesterday. The coming thing is phrenology. So send me £5,000 and I will dispatch a team of my highly-trained technicians to take lots of measurements of your head and tell you everything about yourself. You want to be descended from Julius Caesar? We can arrange that! You want to be the rightful heir to the throne of the pharaohs? Leave it to us – we’ll even provide the paperwork in hieroglyphics! Of course, we’ll resist the temptation to tell you the most important thing about yourself – that you’re very, very gullible.

UPDATE 10:45: I am indebted to Terry Breverton for this link, proving that I am not the only one with serious reservations about this whole project.

FURTHER UPDATES: Here are a couple of links to other postings about Cymru DNA Wales I’ve been made aware of, both in Welsh. Here’s cymru fyw; and the Syndod blog.

UPDATE 12.06.2015: This piece appeared in Private Eye No 1394 June 12

PE Moffat

UPDATE 27.11.2015: In the first update I supplied a link to the Cruwys News blog, based in Devon, and written by Debbie Kennett. I can now link to another post by Ms Kennett following the transmission on S4C last Sunday of the latest ‘findings’. It’s worth reading because where my forte lies in sniffing out shysters, charlatans and scammers, Ms Kennett really does know about DNA.

A Glimpse Behind The ‘Curtain’

My son lives and works in Machynlleth, with his partner and their two young children in a small house they’re buying in a cul-de-sac. Last night his partner was parking their W Reg car when she had a slight coming together with the vehicle from the larger house next door, coming out of that property’s driveway.

The damage was slight, but words were exchanged and my son’s partner called the police. They turned up and calmed things down. This morning, the woman next door shouted at my son’s partner, “Time to put up the ‘For Sale’ sign. We’re gonna make your lives hell”. The neighbours were reported to their landlord, Powys County Council.Cadillac-Escalade

My son’s partner – who, in addition to bringing up two children under 5 works as a part-time carer – is Machynlleth born and bred. The neighbours moved in about five years ago, from somewhere in the English Midlands. These neighbours, neither of whom works, have seven (7) kids and they drive around in a 6.2 litre, 4 x 4, 15mpg, LHD Cadillac Escalade. Nice.

Now obviously, ‘benefit scroungers’ with 7 kids and a massive and very expensive to run American car would normally be meat and drink for the Daily Mail, but we know they’re not going to be interested in this one. If these people were Welsh, maybe. For as we know, the English media is very keen to run anti-Welsh stories at the moment.

Though our own ‘Welsh’ media is not blameless. Jason Mohammad did a phone-in on Radio ‘Wales’ this week about some young man badly beaten in Cardiff because, allegedly, he was English. The suggestion of an ethnic motive came from no one but the victim himself, who thought the attack might have been provoked by his English accent. Not much to go on, but of course that didn’t stop Radio West Anglia reporting it as Gospel. Though I wonder if ‘Jase’ would have been interested in a case of English on Welsh Jason Mohammadviolence, even with hard evidence? No, he wouldn’t have touched it.

Inevitably, the English media – including the aforementioned Daily Mail – ran with this story about racist Welsh thugs attacking entirely innocent English people. But that’s what we expect. What I found really disturbing was that there was no appeal for moderation from either our political establishment or our police. I can only assume that both decided it was best to say nothing, and to let this smearing of a nation (and possibly influencing of judicial process) go unchallenged.

I wonder if any Welsh people living in England were verbally or physically abused as a result of this gutter press journalism? If they were, then we can guarantee that the Daily Mail would not have reported it. Worse, the ‘Welsh’ media would not have reported it either.

It has become clear of late that Wales and all things Welsh are under attack from all sides. It’s almost as if someone has declared open season on us. Part of this offensive is selective and prejudicial reporting by news media, both in England and in Wales. Another aspect is an attempt at redefining what Welshness means; thereby making anyone who steps beyond this definition an ‘extremist’. The sort of idiot who kicks shit out of someone because they have an English accent.

This brings me back to ‘Jase’ Mohammad and others, such as Wasting Mule columnist Caroline Hitt. (But there are plenty more.) For this group ‘Wales’ is defined by (and confined to) things like sport, tourism, showbiz, Cardiff. It is the dumbing down of any consideration of Welshness to the point where someone from Wales appearing on a ‘reality’ TV show becomes the most important thing happening in the country. No place here for history, traditions, culture, language, economics, politics, or the worsening poverty and increasing deprivation. In fact, no place for anything of real consequence. This is bread and circuses tailored for twenty-first century Wales.Carolyn Hitt

All done to distract us from the colonisation, the exploitation, the calculated attacks on Welsh identity from all quarters. Those who should be defending us are part of the problem rather than part of the solution. While the English media can attack us head-on, what remains of the ‘Welsh’ media operates more subtly. It’s message is, ‘Oh, don’t get worked up over that (you’ll be an ‘extremist’) . . . ‘Look! Catherine Zeta Jones is home in Swansea’ . . . ‘George North’s injured’ . . . ‘There’s a new branch of Gobshite & Co opening in Cardiff’ . . . ‘Prince William lives on Anglesey’ . . . ‘Some twat said something stupid on Facebook’, etc., etc. Weaving a ‘curtain’ of trivia and superficiliality behind which to hide the uncomfortable truths of modern Wales.

I can’t predict the outcome of my son’s spat with his Cadillac-owning neighbour, but I guarantee the neighbour will be blameless of anything – he’s English, my son’s Welsh. No one will dare ask why these undesirables moved to Wales. Or why a Welsh local authority is housing them. Or why they are getting so much benefit they can afford to own a vehicle with three or four times the running costs of a normal car. There are people like my son’s neighbours all over Wales, their numbers increasing; but we mustn’t complain, it makes us ‘racist’.

Yet it’s not racist to relentlessly vilify, intimidate, exploit, traduce, atomise, ridicule, colonise a nation . . . and make it clear that we can expect even worse treatment if we stand up for ourselves! When a minority is treated like this it is often the precursor to something even uglier. So I say, ‘Fuck ’em!’ Enough is enough. Reject the stinking English system and its Welsh quislings. Fight it wherever you can. However you choose.