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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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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.
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.
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.
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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.
I hadn’t planned on writing this, but I’m on something of a crusade to make people aware of the connections between the so-called ‘Welsh Government’ and pressure groups.
It’s bad enough when these groups have their fantasies legitimised as ‘Welsh Government’ policy, but our children being involved takes it to a different level.
The promised piece on the Globalist threat will now appear next week.
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STONEWALL
Stonewall takes its name from the Stonewall riots in New York City’s Greenwich Village, in the summer of 1969; that began with a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar owned by the Genovese crime family.
(It seems there’d been a foul-up in communications between cops and Mob who were normally tipped off if NYPD was about to visit.)
The organisation that resulted from the riots was the Gay Liberation Front, designed to protect the interests of lesbian, gay and bisexual people. But there were a number of similar groups.
Stonewall Inn, NYC. Click to open enlarged in separate tab
The 1980s saw the AIDS epidemic which was believed by many in the gay community to have led to in increased hostility towards homosexuals. It was out of such perceptions that Stonewall was founded in 1989.
First, as The Stonewall Lobby Group Ltd, and then, from March 16, 2004, as Stonewall Equality Ltd.
Stonewall grew, gaining in acceptance and respectability, and going almost mainstream as a political lobbying group. Everything was coming up roses.
Until 2015, that is, because when Stonewall “became trans inclusive”, things changed. What had been a LGB organisation became LGBTQ+. To the point where many people – including gays and lesbians – thought Stonewall was obsessed with ‘trans rights’.
As a result of which, many gays and lesbians have disassociated themselves from Stonewall, and formed other groups. Chief among these is perhaps the LGB Alliance.
From gay friends I hear that one reason for them rejecting Stonewall is that gay boys confused about their sexuality (as they were) are pushed towards surgery to turn them into infertile, incontinent, and miserable ‘girls’ prone to thoughts of suicide.
Which makes sense; and speaking as a straight man, butchering confused kids doesn’t strike me as progress in any direction. It sounds more like regression to something that might have been performed at an Aztec religious ceremony.
Another objection was the pretence that men who dressed as women, even rapists, must be regarded as ‘transwomen’.
However we got here, in the past few years Stonewall, once the darling of left-liberals everywhere, has hit a rocky patch.
Its Diversity Champions Programme raised millions of pounds from private companies, charities, government departments and other bodies, desperate to get the Stonewall seal of approval.
But that scheme started failing as people realised that promoting child mutilation and trying to erase women was not that appealing to the public.
There was also a growing suspicion that the year-long Pride month, talk of “minor attracted persons”, and the promotion of drag shows for children, were just means for softening people up to accept paedophilia.
All of which helps explain why the skids are now well and truly under Stonewall.
But despite it all, the so-called ‘Welsh Government’ remains true in its support for what has degenerated into a dangerous organisation.
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‘WE’LL KEEP A WELCOME . . . ‘
From the documents available on the Companies House website, the first payment I can find from the then Welsh Assembly Government to Stonewall was in 2003. Though before that, individual donors are not listed.
The accounts for 2003 tell that WAG gave £50,000 for “lesbian and gay equality work”. In addition, Stonewall received £13,371 from Comic Relief for “a media project in Wales”.
Which suggests that Stonewall asked Comic Relief to fund a project specific to Wales. Why would it do that? And does anyone remember what that media project was?
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In recent years, as other funders pulled back from Stonewall, the ‘Welsh Government’ continued to fund this now subversive organisation. Between September 30, 2017 and March 31, 2022 ‘Welsh Government’ and the Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA), controlled by WG, gave Stonewall £728,381.
Below you’ll see Stonewall’s grant funding for the past five years, the funding from Wales highlighted. The purpose for which grants are made is no longer stated, so there may be grants from organisations outside Wales intended for projects within our country.
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So why has the ‘Welsh Government’ given so much more to Stonewall than the Scottish Government? We can see that NHS Scotland contributed separately, but the combined Scottish figure is still less than that for Wales.
The problem of the ‘Welsh Government’s links with Stonewall go beyond money. Because if it was confined to funding for a hands-off organisation then there’d be fewer complaints.
But as we know, Stonewall, especially in Wales, is not hands-off. Stonewall has influence throughout Welsh life; most worryingly, with the education curriculum for our children.
So how did Stonewall achieve its position of influence in Wales? Well, I suppose the answer is, partly due to politicians desperate to be seen as onside with every Guardian issue, and partly due to the ‘easy-going’ attitude towards probity and impartiality found in Corruption Bay.
Here’s a relevant example.
Back in 2021 a few activists pulled together a group calling itself the LGBTQ+ Expert Panel and presented its ‘findings’ to the ‘Welsh Government’.
Here’s the opening paragraph of the ‘report’:
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These findings were published by the ‘Welsh Government’. Suggesting this was another example of the Corruption Bay Clown Show approaching a pressure group and basically asking: “What would you like us to do for you?”
When we look at the composition of the group we can see how unrepresentative it is. To begin with, membership is confined to those who agree with Stonewall. Then, it’s geographically limited to Cardiff. Finally, there’s the mis-labelling.
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I’m referring now to Lu Thomas, who is described as ‘Independent’. Independent of what, or whom? To help you understand Lu Thomas, read this article.
And of course, she’s a Labour insider who, over the years, has landed a number of profitable gigs by, er . . . well, by being a Labour insider. On official documents Lu usually becomes ‘Rebecca Louise Thomas’.
But her Linkedin profile (here in pdf format) reveals none of this. Indeed, from that source it’s difficult to see how she keeps the wolf from the door of her dream home in Penarth.
For five years she was chair of Pride Cymru. Was that a paying job? Then, “Managing Director of Final Say Wales” sounds grand, but what the hell was it? I assume it linked with the ‘Welsh Government’s attempt to overturn the Brexit vote.
But again, was there a salary?
Because there’s nothing using the handle ‘Final Say Wales’ registered with Companies House, the Charity Commission, or the Financial Conduct Authority (for Mutuals).
Next up, Lu Thomas claims to be a director of a company called Re:Cognition. There is indeed such a company, with a turnover last year of £11.5m, but Lu Thomas has nothing to do with it.
She’s referring to a tuppenny-ha’penny outfit run by another Labour hack, Jon Luxton, Re:Cognition Training CIC. But Thomas isn’t a director. Never has been.
We know the ‘Welsh Government’ is taking over countless organisations, perhaps an insurance policy to – should the worst happen – make life difficult for an incoming non-Labour administration. I wrote about these takeovers recently in Taking Control, Of Everything.
Is Gypsies and Travellers Wales another takeover? The ‘Welsh Government’ is not currently listed among the organisation’s funders, but I bet that’ll change now that Lu Thomas is on board. Though there’ll be a price to pay.
Can’t you see it: “You must give up the Range Rovers and the £100,000 trailers and go back to the horse-drawn caravan – picturesque and environmentally friendly”.
And ‘trans rights’ should go down a bomb with a socially conservative group.
Then again, there are many Gypsy and Traveller groups, and so I wonder how representative of the community the one Lu Thomas has joined really is.
I’ve got nothing personal against Lu Thomas. I mention her because she represents so much that is wrong with devolution. Without a vote to her name she can access and direct public funding, and influence ‘Welsh Government’ policy.
So to whom is she and the others like her accountable?
They make interesting reading in a number of ways. For example, this paragraph seems to confirm our worst fears.
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The first meeting is chaired by Alyson Francis of the ‘Welsh Government’s Communities Division’. Lu Thomas is listed, but not representing any organisation.
For the second meeting we read: “Alyson explained that a suggestion had been received for Lu Thomas and Alyson to co-chair the group”. We aren’t told who made the suggestion, or why it was made.
In the third meeting, Lu Thomas welcomes everyone, and seems to be in charge, despite co-chair Alyson Francis also being at the meeting. Lu Thomas appears to have taken over from a WG official, but on what authority?
The other thing that struck me was the absence of any representatives of Glitter Cymru in the three monthly meetings, yet three are listed in the final report as being members of the Expert Panel.
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One of the three, Ourania Vamvaka-Tatsi, attended all the monthly meetings, but representing ‘MEAD Cardiff University‘.
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WE’RE COMING FOR YOUR CHILDREN
There can be no doubt that Stonewall has a great deal of influence within the ‘Welsh Government’ and its associated agencies. The generous funding Stonewall receives is proof enough of that.
And yet, this is no more than we’ve come to expect in Wales – pressure groups forcing their agendas onto an administration with few ideas of its own and a pathetic desire to comply with the Globalists’ Woke-Green-Left agenda.
And the pressure groups actually get paid for it! Like a comedian’s gag writers.
But over and above the money is the worry about Stonewall’s influence on the education system, and our children. Though it’s strange that those involved with Stonewall and similar organisations are so concerned about children, considering so few of them have children of their own.
(If anybody thinks the previous paragraph is homophobic, or transphobic, or any bloodyphobic, well, “Frankly, my dear . . . “.)
In particular, I’m referring to the new Curriculum for Wales, and especially the Relationships and Sexuality Education Code (RSE). Which is explained as you see below. And it’s wrong on so many counts.
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Fundamentally, “the world around us” remains very much the same as it has for millennia. Human males inseminate human females, who have babies, and most children are still brought up by a mother and father within a wider family network.
It’s still the case that women do not have penises, and men can not have babies.
Yet attempts to undermine the nuclear family still come from Stonewall and other pervert-friendly groups that are far too close to the ‘Welsh Government’.
Small wonder that more parents in Wales are choosing to home school their children, as this interview (in Welsh) confirms.
As Catherine says: “They’re my children, not Mark Drakeford’s children, or (education minister) Jeremy Miles’ children”.
She might have added, “And they’re certainly not Stonewall’s children“.
I expect children to be taught the irrefutable: The Earth is round, 2 + 2 = 4, Moscow is the capital of Russia, etc. Beyond that I would want children to be taught critical thinking so they can make up their own minds.
A balanced, “But on the other hand . . . “ approach.
But that’s not happening because there are so many pressure groups demanding input into the education system, and so many brainwashed teachers, that we are producing programmed kids who believe that regurgitating slogans and prejudices is thinking for themselves.
A word that’s always intrigued me is ‘stakeholder’. It’s all the rage, you see and hear it everywhere, but who or what is a stakeholder? How do you become a stakeholder?
I posed that question to a regular contact who directed me to a list of the ‘stakeholders’ involved in the education of Welsh children. And there are some surprising, even worrying, names among them.
Here’s the ‘Welsh Government’s Education Strategic Stakeholder Group. (It doesn’t seem to have been updated since July 2019, so we have to assume it’s still correct.)
The first thing that struck me was the number of trade unions on that list. Ten, by my count. But what input do trade unions need to our education system? Or, to put it another way, how do our children benefit from any such input?
And why so many voices for the ‘Welsh Government’? Are those different departments in competition?
Then I noticed three BAME outfits. Race Council Cymru (BAME Alliance), Race Equality First (BAME Alliance), and EYST. What’s their contribution – “White people are evil“? Because that seems to be all they have to say nowadays.
I would almost bet my house on the fact that ALL the organisations on that list have been won over or coerced into accepting the Globalist Woke-Green-Left agenda. So where is the balance of an alternative interpretation?
And do you know what else I don’t see there – an organisation representing parents. You know, those ultimately responsiblefor children.
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CONCLUSION
The Western world is in a bad place at the moment. For we live in a dictatorship. It might still be a relatively benign dictatorship, but a dictatorship nonetheless.
We went through a Covid lockdown in order to inject us with God knows what. We are allowed to hold only certain views, and if you move beyond this groupthink then you will be deplatformed, blocked on social media, and even lose your job.
This is because we have very rich and powerful individuals seeking to control what we eat, what’s injected into us, where we live, who lives among us, how far we can travel, and of course, what we think.
“We’ll provide the crises – and the solutions!”, says Klaus Schwab.
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To further their ambitions the oligarchs have on their side people who pretend to believe or – God help them! – may genuinely believe that anyone opposing The Agenda must be far right or fascist, racist, transphobe, climate denier, etc, etc.
We seem to have reached a point of maximum lunacy. Biology can be denied. History can be re-written. Climate records can be changed.
“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
The problem for the Globalists is that they regularly come into contact with reality – and lose. Though the loss can usually be covered up by their apologists, especially those in their bought media.
Nowhere is the lie more obvious just now than with ‘refugees’. I’m referring to the thousands of young men, many of Muslim and African backgrounds, who land in Europe every day.
Everyone knows they are not genuine refugees, even those defending them. So we have to deal in euphemisms; ‘migrant’ being the current favourite. But we are still asked to believe that they are fleeing war or persecution or natural disaster.
Which is why recent events at the Stradey Park Hotel in Llanelli have been so fascinating, and revelatory.
To cut a long story short . . . the UK Home Office, working with the hotel’s owners, decided to move 300 undocumented ‘migrants’ into the four star Stradey Park Hotel.
The locals decided they didn’t want it to happen, and so they protested, and blocked the entrance. There has been a stand-off for a few weeks, and at the time of writing, no ‘migrants’ have arrived.
These locals are now far right, fascists, racists, etc.
Image Richard Tice. Click to open enlarged in separate tab
And yet, who are the real extremists?
Is it decent, hard-working, law-abiding Welsh people defending their community, or is it left wing fanatics driven by a corrupt ideology who don’t give a damn about Llanelli and have been bused in from as far away as Bristol?
The answer seems obvious to me.
The bigger message should also be clear. If you want to save your kids from Stonewall, if you want to protect your communities from unvetted ‘migrants’, if you want to retain your freedom of thought and movement – stop voting for socialists.
Because when it gave up on the White working class the left transferred its allegiance to the Globalists and their pressure groups. You only have to look at the state of Wales today, and where the money goes, to realise that.
This piece is prompted by the ‘Welsh Government’ suggesting it wants to address the issue of lobbying. As the website puts it: “The Standards of Conduct Committee is undertaking an inquiry into lobbying and is keen to establish whether lobbying is a matter of concern to the people of Wales”.
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A disingenuously worded paragraph because the hope is that few people will even know about the exercise, fewer still will respond, and that will allow the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ to claim that lobbying is not “a matter of concern” and everything can just carry on as before.
The truth is that Wales desperately needs reform in this area, and it needs to go well beyond a simple register of lobbyists. I say this because lobbying takes a different form in Wales to most other Western countries.
What I’m going to try here is to give examples of different lobbying sectors (that would probably not regard themselves as lobbyists), while also looking at more obvious examples of lobbying.
I warn you, this is a ‘biggie’, pushing 4,000 words. But broken up into sections so you don’t have to take in the full horror of the situation all at once.
So go make a cuppa.
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THE ENVIRONMENTAL LOBBY
Since before the first elections to the then Assembly for Wales in May 1999, those looking to benefit from devolution were positioning themselves, even relocating.
For example, the RSPB, which had until then been based – very centrally for an essentially rural organisation – in Powys, decided the time had come to move its Wales regional office to Cardiff.
This had nothing to do with bird migrations, or even the rediscovery of the Lesser-spotted Splott Warbler (previously thought extinct).
No, it was all to do with access to the new decision makers.
For the RSPB and the wider environmental lobby, devolution has been like Christmas, with a constant supply of prezzies delivered by yo ho ho-ing politicians.
“At the centre of government decision making” can only mean that the WEL lobbies to influence decisions made by the ‘Welsh Government’.
But do you remember voting for the Wales Environmental Link? Do you remember being offered the chance of voting for the Wales Environmental Link? No, nor me.
As I say, the ‘Save the Planet!’ lobby was out of the blocks early on in the devolution era. Helped to a great extent by ‘insiders’. These came in two forms.
First, civil servants, often from England, always answering to London, and working to a vision of a Welsh countryside without farming.
Second, politicians who, despite what they were elected and paid to concentrate on, always prioritised their real interest of ‘reconfiguring’ – even repopulating – rural Wales.
Inevitably, the two elements worked closely together. Never more so than when Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales* Lesley Griffiths shacked up with her civil servant adviser Gary Haggaty.
But the grande dame of the sector is Jane Davidson. “Minister for Environment and Sustainability from 2007 to 2011 where she was responsible for the Welsh Government agreeing to make sustainable development its central organising principle”, as Wikipedia tells us.
Sustainable development became the “central organising principle” of governing Wales. Let that sink in.
After leaving the Assembly in 2011 Davidson took up a post of Director of the Wales Institute for Sustainability at Trinity St David University, Lampeter.
Davidson was, supposedly, Assembly Member for Pontypridd, but she’d already bought a place down west and was more concerned with pushing through the Hippies’ Charter (One Planet legislation) than with anything happening in Ponty.
From ivory tower to organic cabbage patch Jane Davidson and those she can marshal and organise have wielded an unhealthy influence over successive administrations in Corruption Bay.
The environmental lobby is now one of the most powerful in Wales. It’s why farmers have their backs to the wall, it’s why the M4 was not improved, and why smaller projects, such as the Llanbedr by-pass, have been scrapped.
If this lobby could close Port Talbot steelworks, take away our cars, confiscate all farmland, and turn us into vegans, it would. And the ‘Welsh Government’ would pass the necessary legislation without quibbling.
As gesture politics go, few things are more damaging to the Welsh national interest than deluding yourself that you’re saving the planet while damaging Wales.
*A bizarre title that makes ‘North Wales’ sound like an overseas colony of Corruption Bay.
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THE RACE LOBBY
At it’s crudest this is little more than, ‘You Welsh are racist – give us funding’. I examined this racket not so long ago, when the so-called Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union successfully blackmailed the Wales Arts Council and the National Museum.
In brief, the Arts Council of Wales was pressured into ‘commissioning’ a report from the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union. An ad hoc group capitalising on the George Floyd killing by using ‘discrimination’ as the key to future funding.
In the race lobby sector we find another grande dame, in the form of Rose Mutale Nyoni Merrill, who you can read about in the first section of this miscellany from May 2018.
Her empire is founded on Bawso, which has accumulated quite a few properties around Wales over the years. And you’ll be glad to hear that Mrs Merrill has not neglected her own property portfolio.
But that’s how it is in the ‘Welsh’ Labour Party. You work for and promote the party, and preferment and funding will be your reward. Even if it’s public money down the drain.
And the showering of goodies can extend to your loved ones, involved in other fields.
As happened with Travers Merrill, Mutale’s hubby; given the cushy number of chief executive at Rhondda Life, a ‘regeneration’ project in the Rhondda Fach. What could possibly go wrong?
Everything, by the look of it.
It 2012 it was announced that the project was in receivership. And having looked through the documents filed with Companies House I get the impression there was something akin to jiggery-pokery going on in Ferndale.
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For example, in the last accounts filed, for y/e July 31, 2012, the company is said to own freehold property valued at £1.5m. This is presumably the building you see in the image above.
The property eventually realised £295,000. Even allowing for the way liquidators dispose of such properties, that is quite a difference. But the bottom line is that the building was never worth £1.5m.
Over-valuing assets is a tactic used by many who’ve appeared on this blog over the years: money launderers, mortgage fraudsters, and other crooks.
(There is an obvious link in terms of directors between Rhondda Life and Blaenllechau Community Regeneration, which went belly-up around the same time.)
But of course, this being Wales, a ‘Welsh Government’ cock-up leads to a cover-up. It was years before the truth started coming out. Due in no small part to the persistence of Leanne Wood, a politician for whom I have the highest regard.
(Keyboard explodes!)
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THE HOMELESSNESS LOBBY
A few years back I submitted an FoI request asking about organisations in Wales “combatting homelessness”. Specifically, how many were there?
The response told me there were 48! In a country of just over 3 million people. There are probably more by now. “It’s them wicked Tories, innit”.
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But then, when you think about it, when you remember the kind of country Wales is, and the kind of lobbying I’ve described, 48 shouldn’t surprise anyone. The more the merrier. It’s only public money after all.
As with the other sectors, many of the homelessness racketeers have moved to Wales in the era of devolution. Which is bad enough, but to keep the funding flowing these people – just like their counterparts in other sectors – will import a steady stream of ‘clients’ from over the border.
It’s a form of human trafficking.
We see here the fundamental and uncomfortable truth about third sector lobbyists in Wales.
Identify or invent a ‘problem’ in order to get funding. Then, with the help of an ever-compliant media and understanding politicians, the ‘problem’ must persist – to guarantee continued funding!
Let the good times roll!
Many of those now running the dozens of homelessness organisations have worked for the Labour Party or for Plaid Cymru, others will move on to work for these parties.
Or join some other publicly-funded gravy train.
To get a taste of what I’ve written over the years on this subject try, ‘Another “homelessness” outfit!’ (16.04.2020). Or just put ‘homelessness’ into the search box on top of the sidebar to open up a library.
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THE “WOMEN WITH PENISES” LOBBY
A relatively recent arrival on the lobbying scene in Wales is the transsexual lobby. Represented by Stonewall, the former lesbian and gay organisation.
To begin with, and as you’ve probably guessed, Stonewall has its claws into the ‘Welsh Government’ for funding. The panel below shows that in the 18 months up to March 31, 2021, only the UK government gave more money to Stonewall than the boys and girls of Corruption Bay.
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But this being Wales, Stonewall has also been able to influence – if not dictate – legislation. To the extent of the ‘Welsh Government’ agreeing to what Stonewall would like to see in law rather than what the 2010 Equalities Act actually says.
As Irving Berlin put it: There May Be Trouble Ahead.
It appears that the voice of Stonewall in Wales is Lu Thomas. You’ll have noticed her name if you followed the links in the section on the race lobby. She’s a Labour insider with far too much influence in the Bay.
As I suggest, she was deeply involved, with her business partner, Jon Luxton, another Labour insider, in the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union scam.
Her Linkedin profile says she’s managing director of Final Say Wales, which seems to be a rather sad attempt to roll back Brexit. I dug this out, but I couldn’t find much more. My guess would be it’s died a natural death in the face of reality.
The other outfit mentioned on her Linkedin page is Re:cognition. An odd fish, this; not least because there’s a reputable company with a very similar name.
Lu Thomas was previously director of a company known as Cognition Training Ltd, along with Jon Luxton. This went into liquidation in December 2018 owing close on £35,000, most of it to the tax man.
The latest incarnation, Re:cognition Training CIC has only Luxton as a director. So is Lu Thomas an employee?
Whatever the answer, through political connections Re:cognition gets commissions from the ‘Welsh Government’.
For as the latest accounts tell: “We chaired and developed an LGBTQ+ strategy for Welsh Government where we managed the LGBTQ+ stakeholder group, ensuring voices from across wales (sic) was heard.”
But I bet that only certain voices were allowed to be heard.
This probably helped inform the ‘Welsh Government’s current – and possibly unlawful – position on “trans rights”. But then, when it comes to surveys, it all depends who you talk to.
What Lu Thomas and others have learned from many years of working with and influencing politicians is that if you put your mind to it you can find racism, environmental damage, transphobia, etc., etc., just about anywhere.
And then you can capitalise on your ‘find’.
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THE REFRESHINGLY HONEST AND CORRUPT COMMERCIAL LOBBY
Those we’ve looked at so far have been insiders, dealing with civil servants and politicians they know. These activist-lobbyists have, in a number of cases, previously worked for the ‘Welsh Government’, or for individual politicians.
They are invariably associated with not-for-profit organisations. Which means few jobs for anyone not linked to a particular clique of insiders, and little by way of a contribution to the wider economy beyond the increased spending power of clique members.
But we are asked to ignore this and focus instead on the incalculable benefits to society as a whole from ‘doing good’.
Though I fail to understand how a Welsh community is improved by a third sector body or a housing association importing into that community from England ex-cons, petty criminals and drug addicts.
Nor do I pretend to understand the doublespeak that gave us a policy (OPDs) designed, we were told, to reduce Wales’ carbon footprint . . . that invites into Wales people to live on previously unused land; who drive elderly diesel vehicles, keep farting animals, and cannot live without wood-burning stoves.
It’s refreshing then to be able to focus on a lobbying activity motivated by unalloyed greed and promoted through in-yer-face corruption. Though it adheres to the model herein explained in that it is facilitated using Corruption Bay insiders.
I’m referring now to the many, many companies under the Bute Energy umbrella, and their plans for at least 20 new wind farms in Wales. Shown in red print in the map below.
To understand the brazen corruption involved you’ll need a few introductions. Let us look first at Bute Energy’s ‘Welsh Advisory Board’. A totally unnecessary group formed purely to justify paying certain people for their influence with the ‘Welsh Government’.
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On the left, we see Derek Vaughan, former Labour MEP. Not known to have any knowledge of or interest in wind turbines or renewable energy of any kind.
On the right is John Uden, partner of Labour MS, Jenny Rathbone, who sits on the Senedd’s Climate Committee. His knowledge of three-arm bandits is believed to be on a par with Vaughan’s.
The other two may be there to act as a distraction. The jury’s out on them. Though I’m told ‘John Cwmbetws’ already has a bloody big turbine on his land.
Indeed, a beneficiary of the planned Moelfre site is vice-chair of the Board, Harry Fetherstonhaugh.
But of even more interest is David James Taylor, who has served as a spad to former First Ministers Rhodri Morgan and Carwyn Jones, and also former Secretary of State for Wales, Peter Hain. Quite the lad about the corridors of power, our Dai.
Taylor tends to work under the radar and is nowhere mentioned on the Bute website. But he, like Vaughan and Uden, was recruited by Bute Energy for one reason and one reason only – his contacts in the Labour Party.
His lucre from Bute Energy was channelled through Moblake Ltd. This company was wound up in April with sole director Taylor owing the company £605,872 that he’d taken out in interest-free ‘loans’ with no repayment date.
But no mention of where the money came from!
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Taylor has set up a new company, Earthcott Ltd, so maybe Bute’s future payments will be channelled through this new venture. Then again, seeing as we know about it . . .
Yes, folks, Scots, Danes, everyone gets a slice of the action, except the native Welsh. Unless of course you’re well connected down Corruption Bay.
That’s how a corrupt, third world country operates.
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THE PROFESSIONAL LOBBYISTS
In addition to those already looked at, who might be termed ‘amateur lobbyists’, there are also companies that are quite open about what they do. Which is, helping commercial outfits, often from outside of Wales, get what they want from the ‘Welsh Government’.
But they also dabble in politics. And for unregulated bodies they have far too much influence.
Let’s just look at two of them.
Starting with a company that’s appeared on this blog a number of times, Deryn Consulting. Run by former politicians and spads, but keeping up with the Woke agenda by recruiting enviromarxists and promoters of BLM.
The majority of Deryn’s shares are owned by former Labour spad Cathy Owens, with a minority nestling in the neatly-manicured hands of former Plaid Cymru Welsh Assembly Member Nerys Evans.
Over the years Deryn has been involved in a number of unsavoury incidents, I’ll just mention two.
The first was the Ofcom contract, a gem of its kind. This report from October 2017 will give you the story. And the image below of a WalesOnline headline from August 2017 leads on to another element of the Deryn saga.
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You’ll see that Neil McEvoy, was at that time, still a Plaid Cymru AM, but he’d blotted his copybook big time by challenging third sector shenanigans and exposing Deryn.
For party leader at that time was Leanne Wood, a personal friend of those whose lives were being made difficult by Neil McEvoy. He’s told me more than once that he was ordered to lay off Deryn. He didn’t.
He was too honest to stay silent when surrounded by institutionalised corruption, and so he had to go. First from Plaid Cymru, and then from the Senedd.
Around the time of the Ofcom scandal people at Deryn were briefing against Carl Sargeant, Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children in the ‘Welsh Government’.
Those at Deryn employed in this dirty work were colluding with over-wrought but ever-cooperative third sector women. Some of whom had also made unfounded allegations against Neil McEvoy.
What’s worse, there were politicians, supposed allies of Sargeant, also briefing Deryn. The conduit here was Jo Kiernan, former senior spad to First Minister Carwyn Jones.
From Carwyn Jones’ staff Kiernan knew that Carl Sargeant was to be sacked before the poor bugger himself knew, and she was briefing others.
Carl Sargeant was sacked on November 3, 2017 and took his own life four days later.
As I was writing this I got to wondering about the Deryn finances, and so I went to the Companies House website. Where I found the latest accounts. Or rather, the unaudited financial statement up to December 31, 2020.
This skeletal document tells us that Deryn, with 9 employees, has assets of just £63,836.
But where are the real figures? Where’s the rest of the money? Where’s the turnover for the year? Is everything done with brown envelopes?
There’s something squalid and distasteful about Deryn. More worrying is that Owens, Evans and Kiernan seem able to open any door in Corruption Bay.
The bad news is that Deryn isn’t the biggest PR company down the Bay. The big kid on the block now is Camlas, formerly Positif Politics Ltd. The change of name last November is linked to the departure of Positif founder Daran Hill, who ceased to be a director in September. (Though he still seems to hold a majority of the shares.)
I’ve heard rumours, involving the local gendarmerie; but you know me, I try to avoid tittle-tattle in favour of facts and informed speculation.
Back in August 2020, in the early days of investigating Bute Energy and David Taylor, I ran across Hill’s name in connection with a wind farm planning application, so I contacted him. The resultant Twitter exchange can be read below.
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The Bute account at Camlas is currently handled by Matt Hexter.
Did David Taylor direct Bute Energy to his mate Daran Hill, or was it vice versa?
But with Plaid Cymru firmly in control through Managing Partner and Co-Owner Rhodri ab Owen, brother to Plaid Cymru MS Rhys ab Owen; while the other Managing Director and Co-Owner Naomi Williams was a spad to former Plaid AMs Dafydd Elis Thomas and Dai Lloyd.
Plaid Cymru is of course in an alliance with the Labour Party in the Senedd. And even without an alliance, the two parties are never far apart.
Finally, and turning to Companies House, Camlas is another disappointment. All that’s filed is another bare bones ‘financial statement’.
I’m sure these minimalist filings are perfectly legal, but I believe that with companies such as Deryn and Camlas exercising unaccountable influence in Welsh public life we are entitled to know more about them.
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CONCLUSION
In normal countries, with normal economies, lobbying is conducted by business interests and often involves donations to political parties. In other words: lobbying decides which company or corporation gets the contracts.
And while this may be undesirable, it usually delivers jobs and generates wealth. The country benefits, the losers tend to be commercial competitors. Who, had they been successful, would also have created jobs and generated wealth.
The political elite controlling Wales wants a quasi-socialist state in which they exercise power through patronage and hand-outs. The last thing this elite wants is a decent economy and an entrepreneurial class challenging its diktats and exposing its weaknesses.
And this explains why, in Wales, lobbying takes the form of fawning and cajoling by pressure groups that share the political outlook of the elite. These demand legislation beneficial to their cause, also funding and publicly-owned assets.
This must then be disguised with flim-flam like, “public good”, “future generations”, and other specious and unquantifiable ‘benefits’. Which we are told to accept as some kind of substitute for a decent economy and a prosperous country.
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RECOMMENDATIONS
To begin with, we obviously need a definition of lobbying.
I would suggest: Anyone seeking to influence politicians, either directly or indirectly, through civil servants, advisers, or by any other means, in the hope of securing personal or corporate financial gain, or in order to influence legislation.
There should be a register of such persons. And a diary kept of all meetings between lobbyists and politicians, civil servants or advisers; both those meetings that have been held, and those planned for the future. The subject matter of these meetings must also be stated clearly and unambiguously.
Both the register and the diary should be updated daily and made available online.
To monitor lobbying will require a new post, and it will need to be filled by someone untainted by Corruption Bay. For once, I would have no objection to filling an important post in Wales with a complete stranger.
But I remain open to suggestion, so let’s have your comments. The ‘Welsh Government’ is also asking for your views, so don’t forget to write.
They’ll be delighted to hear from you! Or maybe not.
I’M IN SEMI-RETIREMENT AND THIS BLOG IS WINDING DOWN. I INTEND CALLING IT A DAY IN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS. POSTINGS WILL PROBABLY BE LESS FREQUENT AND I WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANY MAJOR NEW INVESTIGATIONS. DIOLCH YN FAWR.
♦
This is a follow-up to last week’s post, ‘Corruption Bay and a tale of Cymrophobia‘. You’ll remember that we looked at how Labour Party insiders were paid to produce reports that would guide more ‘inclusive’ policy at the commissioning bodies, the Arts Council of Wales and the National Museum.
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UPDATE
One of these submissions, from the mysterious Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union, painted a picture of Wales as some kind of Hell on Earth where ‘creatives’ of a non-Caucasian pigmentation are brutally discriminated against.
It was reminiscent of the hysteria I’ve been writing about in connection with YesCymru. Where some of those involved in the failed Woke-Left takeover wanted us to believe that ‘women with penises’ are being butchered on Welsh streets by mobs of transphobes.
What I found revealing was that neither those suggesting rampant transphobia or a whites-only arts scene are prepared to debate. Any dialogue must start from a blind acceptance of their ‘facts’.
A few tit-bits have come to light since the previous post went out. For example, someone drew my attention to the metadata naming authors for the three reports.
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The report from Labour insiders Lu Thomas and Jon Luxton named Luxton as the author. But the other two reports listed Arts Council employees as authors. Which might at first sight seem a bit odd, though there could be a simple explanation.
Such as the reports being submitted in MS Word or some other format and the Arts Council converting them to PDF.
If that is not the explanation, then what is?
Despite the ‘authorship’, there is no real issue with the Richie Turner Associates’ report because the contributors are named in the report.
It’s the third report, from the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union, that’s causing concern. Because no individual or contributor is named anywhere.
Anyway, in the hope of helping me make sense of the bigger picture, a few people made suggestions. Pointed me in certain directions. So off I went.
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NATURE OF THE BEAST
It’s fair to say that Amgueddfa Cymru was almost a ‘passenger’ in this exercise, so I’m ruling them out to focus on The Arts Council of Wales.
The current Chair is Phil George, who I speculated was a Labour Party supporter. His immediate predecessor in the post, from 2007 – 2016, was David Burton Smith, whose political leanings have never been in doubt.
For Dai Smith – father of unsuccessful challenger to Jeremy Corbyn, Owen Smith – is another creature of the left. One of those historians who, like Neil Kinnock, believes Wales isn’t worthy of study until the Industrial Revolution and the creation of a proletariat.
Smith worked for the BBC in Cardiff, from 1994, as, ‘Head of Broadcast (English Language). He was responsible for commissioning programmes on the arts and in drama and has also presented award-winning documentaries on the people and culture of south Wales’.
Through a socialist prism, of course.
An interesting insight into colonial Wales, this. For while the Labour Party rails against Tory cronyism, Old Boy networks and the rest, the Buttybond practises something very similar in Wales.
And the Tories are more than happy to let them do it. I’ll explain why a bit later.
Phil George has a long history with The National Theatre of Wales (NTW). In fact, he was one of the founding directors on September 9, 2008. He seems to have left NTW in March 2016, around the time he was appointed Chair of the Arts Council.
I’m told the National Theatre of Wales was always well favoured in Cardiff. One source reports: ‘”BBC Wales” used and uses every opportunity to promote this company. Hardly any arts documentaries are done but in its formative years, 2010, it commissioned a 30 minute advertorial dressed up as a documentary on a National Theatre production’.
It was thanks to Phil George and NTW that Abdul Shayek of London got his foot in the Welsh public funding door. For Shayek’s Linkedin page tells us that from April 2011 until April 2013 he was a Creative Associate with NTW.
Shayek then branched out to form FIO, a BAME theatre group. Though apparently reliant on funding from the Welsh public purse this didn’t stop FIO taking plays to India. And Shayek ‘representing’ FIO at symposia and the like in Sri Lanka and Australia.
Nice work if you can get it! And especially if someone else is paying.
Another source tells me FIO got some £400,000 in funding over 3 or 4 years. (It might have been more.) Which pays for quite a few trips to Oz and old Serendip.
Going back to Shayek’s Linkedin bio we see that he left FIO in August 2020 to join Tara Theatre. No, this has nothing to do with halls and High Kings, it’s yet another ‘ethnically diverse’ theatre group. This time in London.
I’m not sure of the reasons for Shayek’s departure, or where this leaves his creation, FIO. The website suggests it’s still going, and the Charity Commission entry implies he’s still involved.
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Whatever the relationship between Abdul Shayek and FIO he still appears to be involved with the arts scene in Wales. And pissing off quite a few people with his involvement in the Wales Culture and Race Taskforce (WCRT).
Which was set up in June 2020 to, ‘challenge the lack of diversity within the arts in Wales and demand systemic change’.
I’m not sure if this was Abdul Shayek’s brainchild or if he just got involved somehow. Certainly, his creation FIO was holding the money donated to WCRT by other arts groups. Said to be £20,000.
You’ll get a flavour of the dispute from the Critically Speaking blog of Jafar Iqbal. (A supporter of Leyton Orient football club.) In particular, read the lengthy comment from ‘pledging organisations’.
If you want to know more about the role envisaged for the Wales Culture and Race Taskforce then you should read this document prepared for the ‘Welsh Government’.
Strangely, in just 452 words this document manages to use the term ‘white-led’ three times. In the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union ‘report’ we encounter the phrase ‘white-led’ 10 times.
When checking the metadata for the document I’ve just linked to, I found the author named as Letty Clarke. So obviously, I wondered who she might be.
You will not be surprised to learn that Letty is also from England, but since January 2020 she has been Curator of Public Programmes at Artes Mundi Prize Ltd. From the Artes Mundi website we learn:
‘Artes Mundi Prize Ltd is a registered non-profit charity that annually relies on support from individuals, corporations, sponsors, trusts and foundations to fund the costs of all our programmes, alongside our core public revenue from Arts Council of Wales and Cardiff City Council’.
The name may sound like a character from a forgotten novel set in 19th century New England, but Letty is of the here and now. And, unfortunately, the ‘here’ is Wales.
Letty Clarke’s Linkedin profile makes it clear that she supports Black Lives Matter, and her Twitter account provides a few gems.
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As many of you will know, investigations are continuing into the death of Mohamud Mohammed Hassan, who died some hours after leaving police custody. But Letty Clarke, after being in Wales for a short time, has already made her mind up.
For according to her Hassan was a victim of ‘police brutality’ and ‘state violence in Wales’. What the hell does she mean by ‘state violence’? There is no Welsh state!
Let me explain the relationship to you, Letty . . . Your country robs my country and by way of compensation doles out money to those buffoons down Corruption Bay, who in turn distribute far too much of that cash to people like you and your friends.
Which means that, one way and another, most Welsh people get screwed twice over.
Up to now in this painful trawl through the ‘Welsh’ arts scene I don’t think we’ve met anyone who is actually Welsh, apart from a few cocks atop the dung heap.
Let’s see if we have any more luck in the next section.
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THE SEARCH CONTINUES FOR THE WELSH ARTS ANTI-RACIST UNION
In December 2019 the Wales Audit Office produced a snappily-entitled report, ‘Well-being of Future Generations Increasing Participation in Areas with Under-developed Reach of the Arts – Arts Council of Wales’. You can read it here.
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The Introduction says: ‘This document has been prepared for the internal use of the Arts Council of Wales’. Reminding us that this is an example of the additional public money wasted since the implementation of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, and the creation of the post of Future Generations Commissioner, with of course, a whole new department.
The job of Commissioner was given to Labour time-server Sophie Howe. She had previously worked under Alun Michael, the former Labour MP and now Police and Crime Commissioner for South Wales.
Under ‘Contents’ we read: ‘In its efforts to increase participation, inclusion and engagement in areas with under-developed reach of the arts, the Arts Council of Wales (Arts Council) is demonstrating commitment to the sustainable development principle but it recognises the need to further embed the five ways of working.’
Clearly, the Audit Office looked into inclusion in the arts, and made recommendations to the Arts Council. So why, just six months later, did the ACW spaff another £50,000 (minimum) doing what looks like exactly the same thing?
(Note that the Sell2Wales notice I link to is from June 2020. Which is when the Wales Culture and Race Taskforce was set up.)
This duplication produced the three reports dealt with in the previous post, including the submission from the mysterious Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union.
This digression takes us nowhere nearer identifying the person or persons behind the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union. In fact, it’s difficult to get any handle on the WAARU.
One mention I did find was on what I assume to be a podcast. It seems to be called Mostyn, or Lumin, the latter described as, ‘an artist-run radio and publisher led by Sadia Pineda Hameed and Beau W Beakhouse’.
If you scroll down to the bios of others involved, you’ll see this for the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union. But again, no name.
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I’d like to be able to tell you that Hameed is from Froncysyllte and Beakhouse from Llangyfelach, but alas . . .
Beau tells us: ‘I’m originally from Bournemouth but moved around . . . I come from a nature & craft background . . . My parents were self-employed gardeners, who then went into woodcraft . . . Eventually, I managed to study English Literature at Cardiff University’.
Hameed: ‘I’m from London. I also came to Cardiff to study English Literature at uni and decided to stay ‒ in part because I didn’t really have the money to pursue the arts back in London, but also because I really liked how open the arts scene in Wales is.’
Yes indeedy; the ‘arts scene’ in Wales is open to just about anybody . . . artistic talent is unnecessary, and knowledge of Wales undesirable.
That we are no nearer fingering who wrote the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union report is understandable, given its reception. But the Arts Council of Wales must know because the WAARU was paid well to insult us.
Which is why I have submitted a Freedom of Information request to the ACW.
But over and above that, this situation of strangers being paid to insult us could only happen in the peculiar circumstances of devolution, which sees politicians and others who superficially oppose each other agree when it comes to Wales, and the Welsh.
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UPDATE: Since publishing this piece I have received feedback, including someone drawing my attention to The Future Generations Report 2020. On page 355 we read what you see in the panel:
I have two points to make.
First, ‘learning Welsh on the job’ sounds like a good idea, until you realise it’s often a ruse to give jobs to people most of whom will do no more than go through the motions of taking a few Welsh lessons.
Mark James, former chief executive of Carmarthenshire County Council, would be a great example of this scam in practise.
Second, The Future Generations Commissioner in her 2020 report is quoting Race Alliance Wales (RAW), a body formally launched on December 19, 2019. How the hell did a newly-constituted body become so influential so quickly?
The answer is that those behind RAW are based almost exclusively in Cardiff and well connected in Corruption Bay.
While organisations elsewhere in Wales, established for far longer, representing many more people, but outside the Bay Bubble, are ignored.
This is not healthy; this is not democratic; this should not be the Wales any of us wants to see.
But it’s the Wales we live in.
∼
FURTHER UPDATE: Someone else has been in touch with an intriguing suggestion. Which is, that when an anonymous Twitter account is launched the author is often to be found among the early followers.
THE BIT AT THE END WHERE COLOMBO PUFFS ON HIS CIGAR AND . . .
Picking up again on the shared motivations, what I’m hinting at is that these otherwise squabbling interests agree that Wales must be carefully ‘managed’.
Which is why what passes for entertainment on television and elsewhere is banal and superficial. Welsh politics, social issues, and other specifically Welsh matters (when dealt with in English) are often quarantined in programmes broadcast at awkward times . . . which results in hardly anyone watching them.
The same applies more widely, in the fields so copiously manured by the Arts Council. For example, there’s not a hope in Hell of Wales having its own Abbey Theatre.
We are at a stage now where if two plays are in competition for funding, one about Welsh villages being destroyed by excessive tourism, the other about the absence of obstetric facilities for low caste birthing persons in Tamil Nadu, then you can predict with certainty which will enjoy an opening night.
Researching this piece I stumbled on an hour-long lecture by former Arts Council Chair Dai Smith, built around writer Raymond Williams. Smith is speaking at a ‘Cultural Democracy Workshop’ in November 2020.
This was of course delivered at a time when the three reports commissioned by the Arts Council were being prepared. Yes, it was all happening around that time.
Smith makes the point that in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, when Williams was at the height of his intellectual and creative powers, his writing was framed by what he saw as a class struggle. But things have moved on.
Most importantly, the political left in Europe and North America has lost the working class. Which is why Marxism is now promoted through race, environmentalism and gender. And the harder the left pushes these the more it alienates the working class.
No one living just thirty years ago could have envisioned the crazy situation we have reached today. And few political activists of the left under the age of 40 can believe that their ideological predecessors idolised those they regard as stupid, racist, transphobic, climate denying Brexiteers.
The sons and grandsons of Marxist miners are fascist white van men!
A hazy understanding of Marxism re-interpreted by Black Lives Matter almost certainly lies behind the report submitted by the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union. It also explains the report’s acceptance by the Arts Council.
But why would the Old Etonians in Westminster and their civil servant alumni of lesser schools want to push such drivel? The answer is that they share with the Woke-Left establishment in Corruption Bay a desired outcome.
This explains the funding and other encouragement for people from around the world to come here, take funding that should go to Welsh arts, and then call us racist.
London likes the ‘The Welsh are racist’ message because it explains why we oppose holiday homes, and resent being colonised. (It’s why the Telegraph used the WAARU report.) Corruption Bay modifies it to read, ‘Nationalism is racist’ because that can slander those suggesting there is a better way for Cymru than devolution’s cronyism and exploitation.
Together they tell us why the ‘Welsh’ arts scene today is a revolting mess of talentless dreamers and grant-grabbing shysters. Overwhelmingly alien; with some of those involved positively racist in their attitudes towards us.
I’M IN SEMI-RETIREMENT AND THIS BLOG IS WINDING DOWN. I INTEND CALLING IT A DAY IN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS. POSTINGS WILL PROBABLY BE LESS FREQUENT AND I WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANY MAJOR NEW INVESTIGATIONS. DIOLCH YN FAWR.
♦
This post is about the findings from surveys commissioned by the Arts Council of Wales and Amgueddfa Cymru. The project was entitled, ‘Widening Engagement’.
These reports, or certainly one of them, prompted old Shippo at Llais y Sais to give it something close to the, ‘We Are At War With Germany’ treatment. (Available here in pdf format.)
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Front page lead continued on inside page, completed with a full page of grovelling from the white supremacist running-dogs of the patriarchal imperialist-colonialist system.
The story travelled. Not only did the Daily Telegraph pick it up, but also, from that source, Andy Ngo, in Portland, Oregon, scourge of Antifa.
“At the end of June 2020 Arts Council of Wales and Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales advertised a tender to undertake a series of in-depth research conversations. Our aim was to widen engagement with communities we consistently fail to engage in our work. We received 34 submissions and after a detailed selection process and interviews we decided to appoint three organizations to undertake three very different studies.”
The reports from the three successful tenders have been submitted and are now available online. They are from: Re:cognition, Richie Turner Associates, and the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union.
So let’s look at them in that order.
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RE:COGNITION
The first problem I have with these people is the name. Let me explain.
There is a company Re:Cognition, with qualified medical people involved in specialist mental health services. And an annual turnover in excess of £10m. But this was not the company employed by Arts Council of Wales and Amgueddfa Cymru.
For as the report tells us, on the very first page, its authors are Jon Luxton and Lu Thomas, two Labour Party stalwarts from Penarth. (Where Luxton was once mayor.) And wouldn’t you know it – Lu Thomas has appeared on this blog! In ‘Plaid Cymru’s enemy within‘ (scroll down a bit).
Lu Thomas is big in Pride Cymru, and something of a trans fanatic, believing that ‘women with penises’ are being persecuted. Everywhere. By everybody.
Here’s her Linkedin profile. Where you’ll see that she claims to be a director of a company called Cognition.
Image: Mark Lewis. This appeared in a WalesOnline report in July 2018. Click to open in separate tab.
The ‘Cognition’ name was also used by Luxton and Thomas in Cognition Associates. Which produced a website where the latest ‘News’ is from July 2013. Cognition Associates was never registered with Companies House.
And now there’s Re:cognition Wales. Or rather, there’s a website. Note that Thomas and Luxton use a lower case ‘c’, whereas the ‘real’ company spells it ‘Re:Cognition’. But again, this Luxton-Thomas company is not registered with Companies House.
One Lu Thomas company that was registered with Companies House was Pitch Consult Ltd. Incorporated July 15, 2019. Struck off January 5, 2021. No accounts were ever filed.
What I found interesting about Pitch was that the other two directors were Mitchell Theaker and Pearleen Sangha, who you may remember from their appearances on this blog. They were Labour councillors in Swansea; part of the student intake needed to keep up the bruvverly numbers.
Jon Luxton has also been rubbing shoulders with celebrities lately. For listed among the directors in Sound Progression Ltd, along with Luxton, we find Cian Ciaran, of Super Furry Animals, and late of YesCymru. This company was Incorporated June 10, 2019.
Given Luxton’s record its time can not be long.
A glimpse of what Thomas and Luxton do is given in this snippet from the NHS. They work for the Labour Party, in its various forms: ‘Welsh Government’, Cardiff Council, etc.
They also work for bodies reliant on ‘Welsh Government’ funding. Reminiscent of the jobs found for the nephews of made men.
To understand how it operates imagine a phone call from Corruption Bay or City Hall: ‘Oh, hello, Lu, love, how’s it going . . . listen, we want you to do one of your surveys, yeah, here are the findings we want from you’.
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And this is why no ‘survey’ conducted by Thomas and Luxton should be given any credence. They are just Labour Party apparatchiks.
The worry should be that these beneficiaries of Labour cronyism get so much work. Work paid for by the public purse. It’s naked corruption.
But it also explains why they were one of the 3 out of 34 applicants chosen by the Arts Council and the Museum to do the ‘research’.
Page 10 of the Thomas and Luxton report tells us (rather clumsily): ‘To note: only one respondent namechecked the Eisteddfod indicating poor reach into this community of mainly English speakers. this lack of Welsh Language art and culture was also demonstrated in the responses to all other relevant questions.’
I wonder if this ‘finding’ will be used in future by the ‘Welsh Government’ to deny or reduce funding to Welsh language organisations, events, and projects, or in other ways be used to undermine the language?
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The quote above, from page 12 of the report, about sums up what Thomas and Luxton have to say – ‘Do what our friends in the Welsh Government tell you’.
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RICHIE TURNER ASSOCIATES
Whoever these are, they compiled, ‘A research report looking at the reasons why D/deaf, disabled, learning disabled and neurodiverse people do not attend arts events or visit National Museums’ Wales or attend very infrequently’.
While that may have been the ostensible reason for recruiting Richie Turner, his Linkedin profile makes his political leanings very clear. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a colourful Linkedin header.
Or one less relevant to Wales.
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Richie Turner is of course another Corruption Bay insider. His jobs and appointments listed on Linkedin suggest someone with strong Labour Party connections. For no one in Wales without Labour Party connections could dream of a CV like that.
So what does the Richie Turner Associates report have to say? Though before you read it, I should say that Richie Turner Associates is not a company or a partnership, just an ad hoc group of his friends and, well, associates.
Richie lives in Hay-on-Wye, which is handy for the books, and the festival.
Those who helped him compile his report, also live in the south east. In fact they all seem to live in Cardiff and Gwent. One of them, Lyndy Cooke, is a former director of the Hay Festival. Nice.
Though the report tells us (page 4): ‘Our research engaged with people across all regions of Wales.’
Possibly. But how well do Richie Turner and his gang know these far-flung ‘regions’?
It might also be asked how well Turner knows his associates. For the woman named throughout the report as ‘Mary Allen’ is surely Mary Allan.
There’s little to take issue with in the Richie Turner Associates report. It’s just a litany of complaints followed by a few recommendations. And concluding with some comic book-style illustrations!
Flicking through it a few things caught my jaundiced eye.
This, for example (page 27): “Arty farty type messaging on advertising, such as Gothic and trendy typefaces also make it hard to read from a few feet away in a wheelchair”.
Who could argue with that?
Whereas I found this a little confusing (page 30): “Some places like museums are too big, with too many people. I need less people to be able to go”.
We obviously can’t have empty museums. Museums that attract no visitors will be closed.
All in all, this contribution from Richie Turner Associates may be regarded as the bland filling between two very unappetising slices of bread.
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THE WELSH ARTS ANTI-RACIST UNION (WAARU)
It’s difficult to know what to make of this one. For a start – what or who is the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union?
I found a Twitter account. I think we can assume that it was started in the period of hysteria following the killing of George Floyd, some 5,000 miles away.
In fact, the WAARU Twitter account started up a week or so after the Arts Council and Amgueddfa Cymru decided to launch their ‘research conversations’ at the end of June 2020. What an amazing coincidence!
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The first tweet was on July 6, 2020, followed by a flurry of tweets that ended on August 11. There was nothing then until a retweet on Oct 20. A further retweet in November, another in December. Then nothing until April 18 and 19. A final retweet on May 14, attacking Israel, and nothing since.
Why hasn’t the Twitter account rejoiced in WAARU’s participation in this exercise? I find this very odd.
We can reasonably assume that the WAARU leans politically to the left, maybe quite far to the left.
There is no website for the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union. Just a Gmail address on the Twitter account. So I wrote on Friday morning. I’m still waiting for a reply.
It suggests that the Welsh language is racist and the Arts Council and Amgueddfa Cymru are both run by white supremacists.
There are ten references in the report to these organisations being ‘white-led’. But in a country that is 95% or more white does the writer expect them to be non-white-led? That would make them grotesquely unrepresentative.
There are also references to Black Lives Matter, reminding us that the report is very much of the post-Floyd era. Summed up perhaps with this paragraph from page 24: ‘One participant asked how Amgueddfa Cymru could see itself as combating poverty, when it’s very purpose involved displaying objects from countries whose wealth had been plundered through colonialism.’
No, that is not its ‘very purpose’. What a stupid and insulting thing to say! If Amgueddfa Cymru has a ‘very purpose’ then it’s to celebrate the history of Wales.
But that is not atypical. For a number of times this report comes across as either ignorant of recent Welsh history, or misinformed, or just mischievous. Here’s another example, from page 18.
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There is no ‘Welsh Census’, it’s organised by the Office for National Statistics in London. Not so long ago you couldn’t even describe yourself as Welsh on the census form. That’s why I was one of those protesting before the 2001 census.
But the writer of the WAARU report presents the census as more evidence of structural racism within Wales!
Having mentioned the writer, I ask again – who is it? Because there is no name mentioned anywhere in the report. It is anonymous. So why was it accepted? Or to go back to the beginning, why was the WAARU commissioned to write a report?
Are we to believe that out of the 31 rejected applicants there wasn’t one better qualified!
On page 36 we read this passage: ‘Marginalised artists and art workers should receive support to learn different languages, in addition to Welsh. This additional support is necessary because Welsh language policies in current applications can exclude Black and non-Black people of colour’.
What ‘different languages’ are needed in Wales?
The writer is clearly ignorant of the fact that many ‘Black and non-Black people of colour’ were brought up speaking Welsh, or else have learnt to speak Welsh.
And while there’s solidarity implied with the term ‘Black and non-Black people of colour’ this solidarity is not consistent. Because the Twitter account suggests that non-Black People of Colour might be little better than Uncle Toms.
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Finally, most reports end with findings and recommendations. The report from the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union ends with ‘Our List of Demands’. It sounds almost threatening. Like a kidnappers’ note.
Whoever wrote this report may have legitimate grievances, but they’ve gone about airing those grievances in entirely the wrong way.
The national institutions of Wales exist to reflect and to serve the culture, history, identity, and people of Wales. The Welsh language is central to Welsh identity, and for many centuries served as the identifier of Welshness.
Maybe the so-called ‘Welsh Government’ can also remember that.
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UPDATE 24.08.2021: Checking the metadata of the three published reports gives Jon Luxton as the author of the Re:cognition report, which is what I would expect. Him or Lu Thomas.
But listed as author for the other two reports are Arts Council of Wales employees.
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There are a number of possible explanations for this. Maybe the original documents were converted from MS Word to PDF format at the Arts Council. If so, why? Those chosen to produce these reports were well paid to do so. Was this work at the Arts council deducted from their fees?
Or is there another explanation?
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CONCLUSION
The first report we looked at was produced by Labour Party insiders who carry out research for their comrades. The ‘findings’ are often used to justify legislation and other measures that the ‘Welsh Government’ has already decided on.
I wonder if the ‘Welsh Government’ would pay me to do a survey into the third sector, or housing associations, or tourism . . . or even the ‘Welsh Government’?
∼
The second report told us nothing really except that the Arts Council and Amgueddfa Cymru are doing a bad job when it comes to catering for those with disabilities.
Though much of the feedback was about venues, over which the Arts Council may have little or no control. And as for ’empty museums’ . . .
But that will be overlooked because the report gives the ‘Welsh Government’ another stick with which to beat both organisations.
∼
The third report is just a chip-on-the-shoulder, ‘where’s our grants?’ diatribe. To give it credit for being anything more would be to legitimise the anti-Welsh prejudice running through the report.
Whoever commissioned this report must have known in advance the kind of submission they could expect from the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union. Which means that the WAARU was paid to produce exactly that kind of report.
∼
Let’s remind ourselves who heads the two organisations involved.
Phillip George of the Arts Council was previously,‘ Creative Director of the award-winning production company Green Bay Media which specialised in high-end documentary projects for broadcasters in Wales’.
He left Green Bay on March 31, 2016, when he was appointed to the Arts Council. At that time, Green Bay had 14 outstanding charges (loans, etc) with S4C and Finance Wales.
Phillip George re-joined Green Bay on June 30, 2017, as secretary, though I suppose he could have been acting as a director.
On January 14, 2019, a Declaration of Solvency was made and a liquidator appointed. Green Bay was finally struck off May 19, 2020. With George still listed as secretary.
Were those debts really cleared, or were they written off, or was some other arrangement agreed? And why was Phillip George allowed to re-join Green Bay while serving as Chair of the Arts Council?
I don’t know Phillip George’s politics, but here he is with former Labour MP Kim Howells. Does he share Howells’ attitudes to the Welsh language, devolution / independence?
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Prior to taking up the post Amgueddfa Cymru chief Roger Lewis was CEO at that most BritNat and Unionist of organisations, the Welsh Rugby Union.
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It’s the third report, from the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union that’s getting the media attention, and quite rightly so, so let’s give it a few final thoughts.
Although the report ostensibly deals with the Arts Council and Amgueddfa Cymru, by questioning the role of the Welsh language and perceptions of Welsh identity its impact goes well beyond those two institutions.
Doing it from an ethnic minority perspective is clever, because attacking Welsh identity from a BritNat position invariably generates resistance. It’s much smarter to use the race angle, and maybe get some liberals and socialists onside.
Which makes it difficult to pin down the origin of this survey. Because if someone is trying to introduce Critical Race Theory into Welsh public life, for the disruptive effect it guarantees, then that source could be Marxist left or Unionist right.
Whatever the source, if enough people can be persuaded that defending Welshness is ‘racist’, then this will impact negatively on the growing interest in Welsh independence. The ‘racist’ slander can even be used against those demanding action on holiday homes.
Where does it end?
Maybe campaigning against Tryweryn was ‘racist’. And perhaps it’s ‘racism’ that sustains our national sporting teams. Why not just merge with England and join in singing GSTQ at Wembley and Twickers?
No one should be publicly funded to question a nation’s existence. Both bodies must explain why they chose the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union.
We, who’ve paid for it, are entitled to know who wrote the WAARU report.
Finally, perhaps the real lesson from this fiasco is that Wales must have independence. Not just from England, but also from Cardiff Bay.
On September 22 Anne Greagsby appeared before a Plaid Cymru disciplinary panel charged with transphobia and abusive language against certain ‘trans’ people. The accusations were made by various Plaid members and officials including Mari Arthur, Mabli Jones and Emyr Gruffydd.
Mabli Jones had until quite recently worked for or with Stonewall.
The decision was handed down three days later. Anne Greagsby has now been ‘excluded’ from Plaid Cymru for twelve months. The panel consisted of Gwerfyl Jones (chair), Siân Thomas (Carmarthen), Alun Cox (Rhondda).
I can’t say I know Anne Greagsby, I’ve met her just once, in a Bala cafe after the 2015 Tryweryn commemoration. She seemed a sensible woman with her heart, and head, in the right place. And she was in good company, which I’m old-fashioned enough to believe is a useful indicator of a person’s character.
Anne Greagsby (click to enlarge)
We follow each other on social media and that’s about the extent of any connection or relationship between me and Anne Greagsby.
I would have liked to have provided a link to a news report of the panel’s decision, but I could find none. Type ‘Anne Greagsby’ into the BBC website and the most recent mention is from October 2008. There is nothing whatsoever on the ITV website. Using Google I did find a pressreader reference to the case in the Western Mail, but when I clicked on it I was greeted with a 404 message – the story was unavailable. Fortunately I scanned the story that appeared in the Mule and you can read it here.
Other than that, all I can offer is this from Mumsnet, written after the decision but apparently ignorant of the outcome. The only coverage I can find of the panel’s decision comes from the Penarth Daily News. And then there’s this letter from today’s Western Mail.
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Anne Greagsby and I have friends in common, and we also share critics, among them Martyn Shrewsbury, who was mentioned in last week’s Carmarthenshire Herald, where ‘Cadno’ considered the Plaid Cymru leadership election. And wrote:
“At this point Cadno would like to introduce you to Martyn Shrewsbury. A former leader of the Green Party in Wales, a convicted fraudster, Jungian psychotherapist, and enthusiastic user of fake media accounts, and publisher of a fascinating blog called ‘All too human‘.
Martyn Shrewsbury claims on his website for his psychotherapy business ‘He is laid back, relaxed and non-judgemental. Nothing shocks him and he is able to work with people from all backgrounds and identities’.
To which Cadno can say, readers, have a gander at his blog and judge for yourself. To Cadno it appears to be the random and occasionally nonsensical ramblings of someone deep into the port after midnight and who has so many chips on their shoulders that they most probably have shares in Albert Bartlett’s Rooster Potatoes.
Martyn Shrewsbury is a member of Momentum and a member of the Labour Party.
He backs Leanne Wood.
There’s your problem right there. Labour and Green activist backs leader of a party he opposes and which he opposes whether or not Ms Wood is the leader.
Mr Shrewsbury is an archetypal Leanne Wood booster. People who don’t and won’t vote Plaid support Leanne Wood to be the leader of a party whose membership, policies, and history they hold in contempt.
If you were as cracked a conspiracy theorist as Martyn Shrewsbury appears – and it seems he has been chatting with other cracked conspiracy theorists in Carmarthenshire – you might even wonder whether his support for Leanne Wood was some sort of black propaganda of the sort used by the SOE in the Second World War: a pretence at supporting Ms Wood in order to repel possible real voters for her.
With friends like these, readers, Leanne Wood does not lack for enemies.”
The reason I’ve quoted ‘Cadno’ is because Martyn Shrewsbury has attacked Anne Greagsby many times. He also attacks me regularly on his blog. He supported Leanne Wood and others you are about to meet, people in unofficial cross-party campaigns on niche issues that badly damaged Plaid Cymru, and contributed to Leanne Woods’ humiliation in last week’s leadership election.
Martyn Shrewsbury, picture courtesy of WalesOnline, click to enlarge
For we are entering the bizarre world of genitocentric politics and Scrabble dream answer acronyms, where you become transphobic for refusing to accept that ‘Felicity’, that big bearded bloke in a frock, scratching his balls, is a woman.
In some ways, I suppose, the persecution of Anne Greagsby may be viewed as the final writhings of the niche and nasty politics introduced into Plaid Cymru by Leanne Wood, which in turn attracted the unbalanced and the obsessive to the point where this vociferous, bullying element was able to dominate a party to which it has little or no commitment.
For the truth was exposed last Friday morning. The heavy defeat suffered by Leanne Wood was also a rejection of the intolerance goose-stepping behind the ‘progressive’ banner. And the defeat would have been even heavier were it not for those who have left the party or been expelled since Leanne Wood and her acolytes took hold.
Adam Price is gay, and that’s not an issue for anyone except a diminishing minority of right wing bigots and religious fanatics. So can Plaid Cymru members and supporters hope that Adam Price will reclaim Plaid Cymru for Wales, and focus on those issues that matter to most people?
Well, maybe, maybe not.
Take this article from the Plaid Cymru website, headed, ‘”Wales can not be free until our LGBT citizens are free’ says Adam Price.” I accept that Adam Price probably didn’t write the headline, so let’s read the article in order to learn what he did say.
What we find is, “There has been a significant rise in transphobia and smear campaigns directed towards the trans community in the media. Trans women in Wales in particular face significant challenges including increased vulnerability to hate crime, violence and abuse.”
I suppose it all hinges on what Adam Price means by “trans women”. If he means men who have undergone the surgery to physically resemble women then I’m sure most people would agree that these should not be anyone’s targets. But if he’s referring to people like ‘Felicity’, so-called ‘chicks with dicks’, then he can expect opposition.
Adam Price, image courtesy of PA Images via PoliticsHome.com (click to enlarge)
Because I agree with Anne Greagsby that a man in possession of male genitalia cannot ever, and must never, be regarded as a woman except in the most superficial way.
But Adam Price also talked of ‘freedom’, that most emotive of words. At a rally protesting against some obscure piece of local government legislation he said, “I do not believe that Wales can ever truly be free until our LGBT citizens are also free.”
The only way I can interpret that is that Adam Price believes the LGBT citizens of Wales or the UK are unfree. Are there gay people in prison simply for being gay? Are there discriminatory laws against gay people on the statute book?
Freedom is a very big word, and to misuse it in such a context is disgraceful. For it trivialises and debases genuine oppression and lack of freedom.
If Adam Price meant to say, ‘We haven’t yet got everything we want’, then he should have said that, but this is not an issue about freedom, or the lack of it. And it has no impact whatsoever on whether or not Wales becomes independent.
In the same speech Adam Price also said, “I am proud of Plaid Cymru’s record in championing LGBT rights and will continue to represent the LGBT community in Wales and campaign for education and tolerance. Mine and Plaid Cymru’s vision is of a Wales free from homophobia, biphobia and transphobia.”
‘Transphobia’ of course is what Anne Greagsby was accused of. So does Plaid Cymru’s new leader support the extremists who have persecuted Anne Greagsby and so many others?
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THE NETWORK
Over the years I’ve commented on the connections between Plaid Cymru and the English Labour Party in Wales. These linkages go beyond activists in two socialist parties moaning about the Tories, they extend into the social and other spheres.
The Deryn connection would be one example, in which a lobbying group containing former activists of both Labour and Plaid Cymru seem to enjoy better access to certain AMs than any of those these tribunes are supposed to represent.
It was Deryn that persuaded Plaid Cymru to take the self-damaging step of expelling Neil McEvoy AM. One day – if Labour suffers a fit of openness – we might know how deeply involved Deryn was with the sacking (and subsequent suicide) of Labour minister Carl Sargeant.
These connections made it almost inevitable that the vilification of Anne Greagsby would extend beyond Plaid Cymru. One Labourite who got involved with what was clearly an internal Plaid Cymru disciplinary procedure was Lu Thomas who tweets as @lu_luthomas.
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Like most zealots Lu Thomas paints the blackest possible picture of those who oppose her. Writing on the Pride Cymru website Lu Thomas has this to say:
“They believe that providing gender neutral toilets or allowing our trans kids to use the facilities that reflect their true selves will mean that our girls are going to be the victims of sexual assaults.
They believe that trans people are perverts, mentally unstable sexual predators that are only transitioning to attack women in women-only spaces.
They do not accept that trans women are women. They wish to exclude. To ridicule, to diminish and to deny trans people’s rights to exist.”
“They!” “They!!” “They!!!”
And note the build-up to the climactic suggestion of what I can only assume to be extermination, maybe gas chambers! How OTT can one go?
I don’t know Lu Thomas, I don’t even know whether Lu Thomas is a man or a woman, and I don’t care. But what I might care about if I was a member of Plaid Cymru is how Labour Party supporters and officials are able to exert influence in Plaid Cymru through niche politics and other openings.
Linkages that only work one way. I say that because you can be sure as hell that the obsessives don’t exert the same influence within the Labour Party. Nor have they diverted the Labour Party from its core policies and its raison d’être to anything like the same degree.
The test for Adam Price now is how he deals with the genitocentric fanatics and the hard left that kept Leanne Wood in power. If these continue to wield influence within the party, then Adam Price will have failed those who voted for him, and for a return to nationalist rather than niche politics.
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P.S. Soon after I put out this post someone linked me with this WalesOnline report mentioning Lu Thomas. She and her wife Charlie, plus their twins, live in a nice family home worth over half a million quid, yet somehow they manage to rent it out on AirBnB for £500 a night.
Where do they live when they rent it out? Never mind, Lu is described as a “public policy consultant”; in other words, someone minting it from exploiting their political connections. The parasite class of Cardiff Bay.
UPDATE 03.10.2018: WalesOnline described Louise Thomas as a ‘public policy consultant’, which I guess refers to the company she runs with another Labour time-server, and mayor of Penarth, Jon Luxton, called Cognition Training Ltd. Alas, they have had to ask Companies House to strike the company off due to its debts.
Makes you wonder, don’t it. Even with all their Labour and third sector connections these two can’t keep a little company afloat, yet they expect us to believe that their party can run our country.
But don’t you worry, because just like the businessmen they revile, closing down one company offers the opportunity to start up another with a very similar name, Cognition Associates Ltd. The website is under construction and they haven’t yet got around to registering with Companies House.
UPDATE 05.03.2019: The Cognition Associates Ltd website is still under construction, and still unknown to Companies House. I hope it was nothing I said!
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.
