There’s no avoiding it, and I won’t bother trying. So here’s my quick preview of the general election, and my reason for voting for Reform. Not because I support Reform but because I reject the rest.
Don’t worry, I still want independence, but the immediate priority is confronting Globalism. Because an ‘independent’ Wales run from the shadows, a virtue-signalling basket-case begging to join the EU, isn’t worth having.
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THE TITANIC DECKCHAIRS ANALOGY, AGAIN
In this election I see the political parties as passengers on the Titanic. With the doomed ship heading towards the iceberg they squabble over the arrangement of the deckchairs.
Yet when you listen to the ‘deckchair’ parties arguing you realise that, from the wider perspective, it will make hardly any difference which of them wins. Because they all ignore what’s really important – the looming ‘iceberg’.
Thankfully, there may be one party that realises where the focus should lie, and that party is Reform. Which is why I shall be voting for Reform on July 4.
I know nothing of my local candidate, I don’t need to. It doesn’t matter to me if he / she has horns, chronic flatulence, and supports Cardiff City.
That’s because party politics is dead. It is now the Globalists, their media, and their uniparty, versus the rest of us – Them against us, the people.
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. . . BUT FEW NOTED ITS PASSING
You can see that politics is dead when the uniparty stresses minor differences that are barely perceptible; exploiting understandings and interpretations that no longer apply.
Done to hide the fact that both major parties have signed up to The Agenda. Labour because it’s swallowed the nonsense about a ‘climate crisis’, transgenderism, and believes the New World Order offers something better for humanity; the Tories because they’ve always been relaxed about corporate greed.
You must reject this deception that relies on long gone ideological differences.
The struggle now is for the Western way of life, national sovereignty, the family, individual freedom, traditional values, biology, and simple common sense.
Confronting us we have political placemen, a bought media, a corrupted education system, assorted activists, all working to weaken the West so that a select group of wealthy, powerful, and increasingly desperate people can take control.
They’re getting desperate because they can no longer hide. Too many people know about them. Which means more people wanting to thwart their plans.
For as the recent elections in the EU told us, the ‘iceberg’ is increasingly visible to ordinary people in many countries. This explains traditional parties suffering electoral defeats, and the ‘far-right’ doing so well.
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For while the Globalists have effectively merged ‘mainstream’ parties, giving them supporters on what are still perceived as left and right, real opposition can only come from where we have always found those who believe in the values I earlier listed.
Which explains why we’re vilified by the Globalist media and other shills as ‘far-right’, or whatever.
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TO FOCUS ON WALES
This election could not have come at a worse time for Labour and Plaid Cymru. Let me explain why.
Since the advent of devolution in 1999, which put the party in control, Labour has taken credit for anything that went right (very little), while blaming ‘London’ / Tories for everything that went wrong (a lot). But you can only get away with this, even in Wales, for so long.
Now, after 25 years of devolution, perhaps even the stupidest among us realise that the NHS is devolved, so is education. Similarly with the cancellation of desperately-needed infrastructure projects, including improvements to the M4.
With no hope of the kakistocracy pinning the 20mph disaster on anybody else.
While in the pipeline is road charging, emission charges, an intensification of the war on farmers, and even more draconian measures serving net zero.
These are all Globalist policies being pushed harder in Wales because with no successes to claim in areas that matter, the ‘Welsh Government’ thinks that leading the world in ‘saving’ a planet in no danger is the only way they’re going to get a pat on the head from anybody.
In fact, we’re entering a phase of blatant deception where we’re told to forget crass and selfish material considerations like food on the table, clothes for the kids, and dignity for your elderly parents; we should focus instead on the joys derived from greater diversity, increased toad populations, and just being nice.
This is what ‘Well-being‘ is really about. Making you accept declining standards across the board in favour of airy-fairy concepts that mean fuck all. And you’re being preached at by people who will go without nothing.
In the reality from which those clowns have long drifted it means Wales going down the tubes faster than anywhere else.
As if 25 years of failure wasn’t enough to damage their chances, Labour in Wales also has to worry about Vaughan Gething, their new leader. To begin with, he’s embroiled in a donations scandal; then two of his Senedd Members stayed away and caused him to lose a vote of no confidence, yet he refuses to stand down.
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I think that on July 4 Labour in Wales will be judged on their record in Wales to a greater extent than at any election in the past. This can not be good for them.
When we turn to Plaid Cymru, Labour’s erstwhile partners in Corruption Bay, we see another party for whom the timing of this general election has not been kind.
Plaid recently disengaged itself from Labour with the 2026 Senedd elections in mind. Done to give them enough time to go in for some gentle sparring that might persuade mug punters they are now in opposition.
Then came the announcement of the general election.
Which means that in most people’s minds Plaid is still Labour’s little helper, and only slightly less culpable for the horrors of recent years.
Looking at the bigger picture, it’s difficult to see Plaid now as anything more than a ship that long ago slipped its moorings; since when it’s been drifting aimlessly, at the mercy of wind and tide.
Plaid Cymru no longer believes in Wales and what makes Wales Welsh. It has swapped it all for an artisanal tote bag stuffed with green-woke-left lunacies. And people can see it.
In my area, UK elections saw farmers’ fields filled with Plaid Cymru placards. But not this time round. But never mind, Wil is being replaced with Sarah and others of her ilk who see Plaid as an acceptable left wing party.
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Looking at LSR in that picture it’s as if Leanne Wood never went away. Then again, maybe performative ‘socialism’ appeals to you; but it’s always left me cold.
There was a time when the media used to gleefully report ‘extremists’ in Plaid Cymru, I knew some of them. (I was one of them!) Their ‘crime’ was being over-zealous in their patriotism. Plaid now attracts real extremists who don’t give a toss about Wales.
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WHY WE MUST STAND UP NOW
So, yes, I suppose me voting Reform could be seen as a protest vote, but it goes way beyond a traditional protest vote. Because the West is at a crossroads, and we know where we’re heading unless we change course – because they’ve told us!
Into a cold, dark future, with few jobs; our movements restricted and our behaviour and speech monitored. It’s already out there with hate speech laws. And with the EU implementing online censorship.
Let me explain how ‘hate speech’ works. It begins with politicians allowing themselves to be led by groups pushing idiocies like women having penises and men being able to give birth.
Everybody knows these suggestions are biological nonsense. But the left promotes them because it’s a way of kicking back at ‘bourgeois values’, ‘the patriarchy’, even (somehow!) ‘white supremacy’.
Liberals go along with it wanting to be ‘progressive’.
And so laws are passed stating biological absurdities. These laws, of themselves, could be dismissed as a bit of harmless fun. But it never ends there. For this legislation empowers freaks, perverts, sexual predators . . . and of course, political activists.
And gives governments the power to silence any criticism.
Which was always the intention.
Your little daughter comes home traumatised because some bloke flashed his penis at her in the swimming pool changing room. You go to the police, complain – and are told, ‘But that’s a female penis, and you’re under arrest for hate speech.’
We have now arrived at a point where stating the truth has become a crime. This is the totalitarians’ nirvana. The shades of Hitler and Stalin are comparing erections!
And censorship doesn’t come alone. It is accompanied by wrecking economies in pursuit of net zero. Arguing that white people are evil, and making them pay for it. And of course, the illegal immigration of unvetted, mainly young males who have no intention of working or integrating.
For to achieve the objective of destabilising the West the Globalists have recruited environmentalists, Islamists, sexual deviants and God knows what else. And of course, the quisling left, seeking to succeed from within where the Soviet Union failed from without.
Nor must we forget Rupert and Clarissa of the dilettante left; who’ll throw paint, stop traffic, and topple statues to prove how frightfully poor and oppressed they are. Yah.
Goes down well with other spoilt brats at Glasto.
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Either we troop silently into this dystopian future, or we say no. And at the moment the best way to say no is to vote for political parties the Globalists do not control. Parties like Marine le Pen’s RN (didn’t they do well!), Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, the AfD in Germany, and others across Europe.
For that’s one thing I’ve noticed in recent years – a growing appreciation of what it means to be European by people who increasingly reject the EU. There’s a powerful message there if you think about it.
Finally, let’s not forget Donald Trump. When he’s elected US President in November he must not make the mistake he made first time round by taking into his camp too many who were not really on his side.
He must be ruthless from Day One in rooting out the enemies of the USA and the West. A great start would be keeping his promise to release all the JFK assassination files. As a first step in undoing the power of the deep state that has caused so much misery in the USA and around the world.
For one of the Globalists’ greatest successes has been to manoeuvre leftists and liberals, who so revered JFK, onto the same side as those who killed him.
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A MESSAGE TO LABOUR VOTERS
I’m going to end with a message addressed to Labour voters in Blaengwynfi and Bonymaen, the people from whom I am sprung, and with whom I identify.
The Labour party has always taken your vote for granted, knowing you’d chop your arm off rather than vote Conservative. But times have changed; there’s no difference between them any more. They march to the same drum.
Labour and Conservatives will make you and your communities poorer, both will close Port Talbot steelworks, and both will implement the half-arsed ideas of those attending the Hay Festival rather than listen to the needs of working class people.
Are you going to carry on being the mug who votes Labour?
This piece wasn’t planned until I saw reports of the ugly scenes in Llanilltud Fawr (Llantwit Major) last Saturday. But most of these reports were misleading, especially the report from BBC Wales and, to some extent, the one from S4C.
The report that came closest to giving the true picture may have been from WalesOnline, where we also got a picture of those responsible for the violence.
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And it obviously wasn’t the ‘Far Right’, or locals.
Putting it all together with statements put out on social media it soon became clear who had been responsible for the violence, and who had been arrested. But Antifa is a flag of convenience, a loose association of Far Left extremists.
So who was really behind it? Well, WalesOnline was kind enough to tell us: “Video footage shows officers clashing with hooded and masked Welsh Underground Network members”.
So who or what is the Welsh Underground Network? And no, I can tell you now, it’s not an association of former coal miners.
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WELSH UNDERGROUND NETWORK
Like so many fringe groups the Welsh Underground Network (WUN) seems made up of disgruntled youngsters. I hesitate to use the word ‘losers’, but I doubt if their ranks contain many well-balanced individuals with a decent job and a settled family life.
All of which makes them resentful and, it has been suggested, malleable.
Here’s a WUN group photo taken on the beach in Aberystwyth a year or two back. (That’s me behind them, disguised as a seagull.)
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It seems reasonable to assume that those arrested last Saturday – a man from Swansea and a woman from Gwynedd – belong to the WUN.
They may even be in the seaside snap above.
The WUN justified its behaviour at Llanilltud Fawr by arguing that it was opposing ‘fascism’. Because Antifa means ‘Anti-fascist’, and only attacks fascists.
But that’s a self-justifying claim; in practice, anyone Antifa attacks, for whatever reason, becomes a ‘fascist’ by virtue of being attacked by Antifa.
If not a fascist, then a transphobe, or a white supremacist, or a climate denier. For Antifa reveres the triptych of woke cults, and attacks those who dare question. For there must be no dissent.
Despite their violent, anti-democratic behaviour, and their opposition to freedom of expression, a former leader of Plaid Cymru has long been a supporter of Antifa.
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I don’t want to spend too much time on a bunch of unhappy kids, who’ve been led astray, and might get into serious trouble if they carry on being silly, for I want to move on and explore the bigger picture.
But before moving on from the Welsh Underground Network aka Antifa I’d like to make an oblique observation. I’ve twice been involved with groups whose members have been arrested for the criminal offence of wearing uniforms. (I believe the Public Order Act applies, or used to.)
I would suggest that those attending gatherings in ‘Black Bloc’, acknowledged to be the uniform of a violent organisation, are guilty of the same offence.
If nothing else, just a simple question – why do they hide their faces?
Below you see Antifa in Newquay, Cornwall on Wednesday, reviling locals for having the temerity to wonder who is being moved into their town. The top image shows them facing off against locals waving Cornish flags, and the bottom one is self-explanatory.
People as convinced as Antifa that they’re on the side of the angels (not that they believe in angels!) should be proud to show the world who they are, bravely standing up to the jackbooted hordes.
Or attacking emergency workers, as happened last Saturday.
The truth is that they mask up to avoid being recognised when they commit criminal acts. Which is why wearing masks should be reason enough to arrest these clowns.
Now let’s consider the bigger picture, and then the role of the media.
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THAT BIGGER PICTURE
The events last Saturday were much more complex than the media would have us believe. It was not all the locals welcoming the ‘refugees’, with fascists from elsewhere causing the trouble.
To begin with, the local community is split, and as this WUN tweet tells us, the opposition came from, ‘a coalition of anti racists from across Wales’.
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So who else might be in this ‘coalition’?
One who was there battling the fascists was Hellana Hatfield. WalesOnline told us:
‘Hellana Hatfield, a human rights activist who runs an NGO for asylum seekers, has travelled from Pembrokeshire today.
“We are here to deliver the message that refugees are welcome here in Wales and that fascists are not welcome. They have caused trouble elsewhere. Wherever they go, we will go”‘.
“They have caused trouble elsewhere”, she says. But who’s she talking about – Antifa, ‘refugees’?
And who is Hellana Hatfield, for she seems to have no online presence? Unless this is her. The hair’s certainly the same colour.
But nothing about an NGO (Non-Governmental Organisation) in Pembrokeshire. Does it really exist? And if so – are we funding it!
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And it should go without saying that the Green Party of Englandandwales was in attendance. We can be sure of that because Rob Curtis of the Green, etc., etc spoke with WalesOnline. There’s even a photo of him.
But that photo pales when compared with an image of Rob and some other guy holding a banner that I’ve tried for days to make sense of. What the hell is it trying to say?
And why is the other guy holding that stripey flag? What’s that got to do with ‘refugees’.
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I thought it was global warming that was going to make us extinct. Is the banner saying that the human race is also doomed if we refuse to accept ‘internationalism’ (whatever the hell that might mean)?
Another Green speaking there was Sam Coates. Sam comes on stage at about 2:40 in the video below. I’m not sure why he’s wearing a mask. Does he still believe in Covid? Or have all Leftists taken to covering their faces in public?
Mae angen i Gymru "fod ar ei gwyliadwraeth" rhag syniadaeth asgell dde eithafol, ac fe ddylai gwleidyddion "gymryd cyfrifoldeb" am ddefnyddio iaith ymfflamychol ar bynciau fel mewnfudo.
It reminds me of an old sign behind the bar in the subterranean snooker hall I used to frequent as a teenager. It read something like, ‘Men wearing mufflers will not be served’. For younger readers maybe I should explain that a ‘muffler’ was a kind of scarf worn around the neck by working class men.
Though I could never figure out why men wearing mufflers would not be allowed to play snooker. Or billiards.
As a further aside. It was in this hallowed cellar, to a background of clinking balls and cursed miscues, that my mates and I heard JFK had been shot. (Everybody remembers where they were.)
I mention this now because the Merriam-Webster definition of muffler is: a scarf worn around the neck, b something that hides or disguises. How apt!
To get back to Sam. In addition to being a Green Sam puts himself about with Undod and Melin Drafod. The latter called the Comrades together in January for a session of foot-stompin’ and hollering in Swansea. I wrote about it.
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Ah! But I wish I’d been invited.
I’m mentioning the Greens because in recent years they seem to have almost abandoned environmental concerns to focus on matters sexual, and gender related. And they’ve really gone overboard.
If you want to know where the pressure came from for Nicola Sturgeon to take the SNP and Scottish independence over the cliff, then look no further than the Scottish Greens. As this report from The Herald (Nov 2022) makes clear.
The female penis cult has the potential to wreak similar damage in Wales. For the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ is one of Stonewall’s biggest funders, and El Drako himself one of its most loyal disciples.
Plaid Cymru is similarly hooked on this nonsense.
Which broadens out into considerations of the wider impact of the Woke agenda.
Who can forget how YesCymru was almost captured by fanatics wanting to turn that organisation into TransCymru? If they’d been successful it would have severely discredited the independence cause.
Was that the objective?
Small wonder that I had a DM yesterday suggesting that the Welsh Underground Network are controlled by agencies seeking to discredit Welsh nationalism.
I’m not sure about that. But when we consider the disruptive and divisive effects Wokeism is having on devolution and the independence movements in both Scotland and Wales it’s worth wondering if the impressionable and the excitable are being manipulated.
For I predict with certainty that if WUN members go around masked up, insulting decent people, attacking emergency workers, whilst claiming to be advocates of independence, it will severely damage the cause in which I and others believe.
Not least because we can guarantee the media will lap it up.
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THE BOUGHT AND PAID FOR MEDIA
I’ve mentioned the media responses earlier, and some were either uninformed, or deliberately misleading. Take this headline from BBC Wales. There’s only one way to interpret that.
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As we know, those arrested did not belong to the ‘far-right’.
But then, what can you expect from the state media in a state where the political leadership is owned by the World Economic Forum, a body wanting open borders in order to undermine the West? And if that wasn’t enough, Bill ‘Vaccines’ Gates also chips in with funding for Auntie.
But this is also happening in other countries.
As you may be aware from recent tweets and posts, I’m following what’s happening in Ireland with considerable interest, and the WEF playbook being used there could be written in fifty-foot high neon letters. It is so crudely obvious.
The latest resident rebellion has been in Mullingar, a town of some 21,000 people in Westmeath. This came about when ‘refugees’ were brought to the disused Columb Barracks in the centre of the town last week.
Here’s one of the recent arrivals, an Iranian named Ikramullah Khanza, who’s been to Ireland before, then left, but now he’s back, threatening locals with throat-slitting gestures. Mr Nice Guy!
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It’s being reported that the Mullingar protests have resulted in the unvetted males being moved on. But if so, then to where?
Here’s how the scam operates in Ireland.
Politicians and media say: “Ireland will provide a home for women and children fleeing war-torn Ukraine”. Irish people respond, “That’s fine with us”.
But then buses appear in Dublin and provincial cities and towns carrying lots of young men of fighting age and Middle Eastern appearance. Locals say, “Hang on, you said women and children”.
People then object to having been lied to, and protest at having unvetted young men imposed on their community.
Politicians, their NGO shills, and media, respond in chorus, “Horrible racists object to taking in refugees”.
Which everyone involved knows is a lie.
But when the official narrative is questioned critics are dismissed as ‘Far Right’, or ‘fascist’, or ‘racist’; and therefore people with whom there can be no debate.
In exactly the same way as Antifa operates: Lie about your true intentions and then vilify critics to silence them and achieve your objective.
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This is what’s happening in Llanilltud Fawr. Locals are told those arriving will be Ukrainian women and children, and to begin with they might be. But a local source tells me that, “military houses at St Athan East camp are being cleared for Afghans”.
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But as I’ve written elsewhere recently, I’m more optimistic now than I’ve been for some time. For as the lies pile up the heap becomes unstable, and eventually it topples.
With Covid (and the vaccines), global warming, female penises, and the ‘refugee’ crisis all being revealed we are approaching the point of collapse. It won’t be pretty, and might even get nasty for a while.
But those of us who know the truth only need to stay firm to enjoy the victory. A victory not for us, but for humanity.
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.
As the title tells you, this is a guest post by former Plaid Cymru MS Neil McEvoy.
Neil has made enemies. When you know who those enemies are then, just like I did, you’ll warm to him. A man I’ve always found to be straight, honest, and approachable.
Neil’s enemies tend to have certain things in common. Almost without exception they belong to the ‘progressive’ – if not Woke – consensus that dominates the cess-pit I always refer to on this blog as ‘Corruption Bay’.
These are politicians, third sector / pressure groups (who have more influence over ‘our’ politicians than we do), unregulated lobbyists (ditto), and ‘journalists’ so supine they might as well be on the Labour-Plaid-Green payroll. Perhaps they are.
This is the new colonial elite. The creation of devolution. They will fight to keep devolution, they will demand more power (and money) from London for their gravy train, but the thought of independence terrifies them.
Now read on.
♦
In May 2016, I made the mistake of thinking that as a Plaid Cymru politician, I had been elected to hold the Government to account and to be an opposition politician.
I quickly found out that my job was to not rock the boat, not to expose scandals, but to toe the line. Plaid Cymru was furious when I asked questions about Deryn’s client ACT obtaining £113 million from the Welsh Government.
They were furious when I asked questions about Deryn’s dodgy contract with OFCOM. I was told many times to leave it well alone. I later discovered that Deryn itself had asked Plaid Cymru to rein me in. My senior advisor was told to tell me to stop asking questions about Plaid Cymru’s lobbying firm, or “face the consequences.”
I had to go home to my wife to tell her that my ability to pay our mortgage would be gone, if I continued to ask questions which powerful people did not want put. My wife was rock solid and said that if we had a choice between earning a good living, or sticking to our principles, then we would stick to our principles. Very soon after getting married, my wife realised why I told her to not take my surname. Let’s just say life is never dull.
Eleven days after the story about Deryn which I was supposed to ignore became public, I was suspended from the Plaid Cymru Senedd Group, supposedly for being found guilty of bullying by the Ombudsman for saying that I wanted to restructure Cardiff Council to change eviction processes and stop people being evicted.
Plaid just did not care about us winning seats in the Council Elections in 2017. It was clear that senior people wanted us to lose. I was reminded at the time that they did not want me elected in the first place. In 2016, we were the busiest Plaid team in Wales, but I was the only candidate in a target seat to lose party funding. They also took Senedd staff off me at a crucial point and gave them to Simon Thomas; more about him later. Anyway, as you can gather Plaid Cymru used Senedd staff to campaign politically in Senedd time. Every party does this. It would be odd if they didn’t.
Moving on, I was the first politician in 17 years to ask to see Government Ministers’ diaries. I had a whistle blower about a matter and I needed to prove certain meetings had taken place. The Government refused to publish the diaries retrospectively, but after a fuss agreed in early 2017 to publish them going forward. I was still able to prove that lobbyists had access to ministers by simply flashing around a photograph of lobbyists with ministers in the Senedd.
Both Labour and Plaid Cymru voted against my proposal to bring in rules for lobbyists in Wales. This keeps covered the awkward fact that Welsh politics is run by a small group of people, who do not want scrutiny.
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In March 2017, complaints were made about me, almost all connected to Deryn. It was pay back time.
After the 2017 election in June, I suspended my office manager. There were complaints he had harassed a young female and I had witnessed one incident myself. Members of the public had also complained about him for not doing his job; one person also witnessed the harassment. Michael Deem had also misused my office budget, causing me to have to pay for an expensive unwanted item myself. Shockingly, I later discovered that Deem had taken photographs of a child protection file and kept the details of the children on his phone. I was sickened and staggered. I sacked him.
The man who had harassed a young woman and had stored details of children on his phone was supported by Plaid Cymru and he made further complaints about me. He was later employed by the Plaid Cymru Senedd member who replaced me, Rhys ab Owen, whose brother Rhodri is a lobbyist, who worked with Daran Hill at Positif Politics. Rhodri Ab Owen is now managing partner and co-owner of a re-branded Camlas Public Affairs, listing big pharmaceuticals as clients.
The complaints process took on a life of its own. The BBC’s Aled ap Dafydd always knew more than me about what was going on. He became the first journalist who I refused to deal with. I later discovered he was in a relationship with Plaid Cymru’s Head of Communications, who was later given a top job by Plaid Cymru’s Presiding Officer at the Senedd.
I was really unhappy with the Standards Complaints process. Before it began, a key organiser of the complaints, who had known the former Standards Commissioner for decades had a meeting about me. I was not allowed to attend and there were no notes of the meeting. I stated that the former Standards Commissioner had allowed himself to be lobbied.
I was so concerned at what was happening that I requested the audio recordings of my hearings. It took some time to get them, but it was worth the wait. I heard the former Standards Commissioner making a derogatory remark about me when I was out of the room. The complainant and Standards staff were present when it was said.
In the public interest and for self-defence, I then decided to secretly record everything when I was out of the room. If the hearing was at 9am, I would place my phone under the table on record at 8.15am. I would usually irritate the Standards staff by then turning up late for the hearing, which gave them plenty of time to voice their true feelings about me. This went on for months, with hours of audio footage. I heard the investigators discussing the case with the complainant, who was offered advice and help in his career. I heard about a lack of evidence against me. I also listened to the same complaints made about another MS not taken forward. I also heard about a really serious matter just brushed under the carpet.
It was also shocking to hear about staff saying they had consulted with a senior member of the Senedd staff who was open to just seeing my appeal against guilt, “just thrown out,” before I had even made the appeal. This was the basis for the police investigation into Standards staff, which did not result in charges being laid by the Crown Prosecution Service.
Knowing what I knew, I pulled out of the farce and refused to play any further part on legal advice.
Months later, my staff member was threatened with imprisonment; I felt that things had gone too far and I pulled the trigger on the recordings. The Standards Commissioner resigned. At that point, the so called investigation should have been dismissed.
I pursued many family cases and employed a social worker to do so. Supporting a child alleging abuse in care got me called a bully again and banned from the Council for 4 months. The alleged abuser started the complaint. An issue conveniently ignored by ‘journalists’, politicians and useful idiots on new media, all eager to stick the boot in, whilst ignoring the poor child’s allegations.
I pleaded with journalists to give the child a voice, but the author of the WalesOnline article today, Ruth Mosalski and her husband Cemlyn Davies of the BBC had no appetite to find out what had happened to the child. I am still as disgusted now as I was then at how those people had such little care for what a child said happened to it. Shame on them. I can look in the mirror in the morning without guilt. I cannot see how they can do the same thing.
Shamefully, when I said that the paedophile Plaid MS Simon Thomas should have gone to jail, disciplinary action was taken against me for bringing Plaid Cymru “into disrepute”.
This made me feel sick and I ultimately withdrew my application to get back into Plaid Cymru. We backed Dewi Evans in his bid to clean up Plaid, but he was prevented from campaigning and bureaucratic means were used to stop members voting. My time with Plaid, such a disorganised hypocrisy was over in the Autumn of 2019. A once proud Plaid Cymru has been reduced to being a poodle for the corrupt Labour Party, cheaply bought off with press opportunities, appointments on public bodies and jobs.
Fast forward to September 2021 and the complaints process was complete and written up. The reports were held back until now, just as the Council election campaign is starting.
I deny doing anything other than being a politician. I did my job. My staff printed and folded material for example opposing Cardiff’s Local Development plan and I did so unashamedly. I paid for the folding machine.
I am supposedly guilty of using electricity for political purposes. Are they serious?
Who does not do that? Both Labour and Plaid Cymru Senedd Groups were also found guilty of misusing public resource for political purposes, but those details were not covered by the Welsh media. Plaid Cymru used the Senedd restricted areas for party political filming, but nothing was done.
I did interview someone on the Senedd estate about a political job; which party political group has not done that? I did attend a party political meeting on the Senedd estate for which Plaid Cymru kindly provided the invite and minutes to the Standards Commissioner. The irony is that Leanne Wood’s staff booked the room, yet it was me who carried the can. I did organise a few political meetings in my office. Which MS has not done that?
The Standards Commissioner got the most basic details wrong. I did correct him on the Committee, but that did not make the report. For example, he accused me of employing a family member who is no relation to me at all!
One staff member did have an exchange of messages with a complainant. It was not a wise move, but after being harangued in public by the same person who was worse the wear for alcohol, it was difficult to look too unkindly on the exchange.
If anyone ever has the chance to look at all the documentation regarding the complaints, they will see that the complaints changed as the process went on. I was first accused on producing 250,000 leaflets on the Assembly printer. A simple look at the manufacturing specification showed that this was impossible. Eventually, the total was boiled down to a few thousand.
When I was in the Senedd, I donated my councillor allowance to various causes. I am not motivated by money. On the grounds of natural justice, I will not pay the sum of money plucked out of thin air, because I do not owe anybody anything. I pay my way and I will not credit such a shocking stitch up with any financial contribution.
The good in all this is that Propel was born. We are still not even one year old, but have so much going for us and a collective of people in every Welsh constituency who support freedom and social equality. We have had a belly full of the rotten core at the heart of Welsh politics. A democratic Welsh revolution, underpinned by a Welsh constitution is our aim.
Propel is uncomplicated, principled, and intent of giving Wales a much better option for all our futures. I’r gad and watch this space.
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.
♦
Here we are again! But with good news to impart. Though we mustn’t get carried away, for the enemy has retreated into the bush to reflect on his next move. Indeed, I hear that in remote valleys, far, far away, the wily Wokie is regrouping and planning a fresh offensive.
And you thought they couldn’t get any more offensive!
Have I got news for you!
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OUT WITH THE OLD
Every man and his dog knows by now that YesCymru’s Central Committee – or what remained of it – resigned last Friday. Here’s the statement they put out. Gettysburg Address, it ain’t, but I’ll take it.
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Despite what this destined-for-the-archives document says, speculation abounds as to what really precipitated the decision at that time.
You may recall that in my previous post I quoted a source who’d told me: “The CC meeting to suspend Ben (Gwalchmai) was supposed to have been last Wednesday (Aug 4), then delayed until Thursday, then delayed to today (Monday), and now tomorrow.”
Could it have been that young Benji’s suspension couldn’t be put off any longer, and then, because suspending him would leave the Central Committee inquorate, they decided to go together? Perhaps holding hands and singing Abide With Me, as they jumped overboard into the icy waters of the North Atlantic?
Gwalchmai certainly had one hell of a Twitter rant on Saturday night. He lashed out in all directions. Members of the middle class seemed to particularly irk him. Whether this was an attempt to burnish his working class credentials or an attack on those he felt had betrayed him was difficult to say.
Possibly a bit of both.
Because in that rant Gwalchmai stated that he had not wanted to resign. Suggesting perhaps that he had been outvoted by the other three. (Bourgeois bastards!)
And he hadn’t calmed down by Monday, to judge by this tweet. Though this time the target was, ‘The Groups’.
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But the groups, and the members they represent, are YesCymru. How could they mount a coup against themselves? What the groups have executed is a counter-coup. They’ve been fighting to reverse a sly takeover by extremists.
Far left extremists who’d ensured that some people – Secretary Iestyn ap Rhobert and Central Committee member Dilys Davies – could not be re-elected at the May 22 AGM. While also guaranteeing that their choices would be sneaked in by keeping the number of members able to vote at the AGM down to a few hundred.
There were also people involved in the coup who were not on the Central Committee. Most notably, perhaps, Rob Lloyd of Labour for an Independent Wales.
But whether they were on the Central Committee or not it was a Woke-Left takeover involving the Leannista wing of Plaid Cymru, Undod, Momentum, and Labour for an Independent Wales. Using ‘trans rights’ as their trojan horse they sought to silence all critics by labelling them ‘TERFs’, ‘transphobes’ and, of course, ‘fascists’.
YesCymru is now in the hands of an unnamed firm of accountants. Which is no doubt costing more money. Maybe a lot of money. Who knows?
This expensive period of stasis could have been avoided if the Central Committee had agreed to an EGM as soon as possible after the Vote of No Confidence passed by local groups on July 13.
Instead of accepting that VONC, at a meeting arranged by them – a meeting at which they’d allowed the attendance of supportive non-branches (Maesteg, Bynie) – the Central Committee rejected the vote as being “anti-democratic”.
A complete absence of self-awareness is something that has been remarked on many times in this saga when people look at the Central Committee and its chorus.
Or maybe it’s psychological projection; in which someone attributes their own faults or feelings onto others.
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OUT IN THE FIELD
The High Command may have fled, jodhpurs flapping, but the indefatigable infantryman and infantrywoman carry on the fight, from north to south.
In Rhuthun yesterday they were out showing their colours. (One of my favourite towns, can’t wait to visit again.)
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While back in the City of my Dreams the local branch of YesCymru met the very day the Central Committee did a lemming and discussed a statement to submit to the Gweithgor (the working group to organise the EGM).
Note, in particular, the reference I’ve highlighted about not pre-judging ‘what an independent Wales should look like’. How encouraging to read that!
For those involved in the Woke-Left coup were so prescriptive in their vision that they’d even worked on the locations and lay-out of the gulags, and stipulated that bread queues would have agreed percentages of trans, non-binary, etc., etc.
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Despite this common sense, one from the ugly lovely town was a member of the takeover gang. This was Rachel Cooze, though her elevation to the Central Committee had little to do with support from her local group.
Cooze’s success was due to her allies within and without the Central Committee. Partly a reward for her enthusiastic involvement in the campaign against Dr Dilys Davies that saw Dr Davies suspended and therefore unable to oppose the elections of Cooze and others like her. A suspension that also helped facilitate the adoption of the Left-Woke motion to set up a Diversity and Inclusivity Sub-committee.
All carefully orchestrated, and beginning with Aled Gwyn Williams’ deliberately provocative visit to Dr Davies’ properties in Ceredigion.
The three who lodged the complaints that got Dr Davies suspended were Cooze, ‘Emrys’ Price-Jones, and Elinor Walters. For a while, Walters even renamed her Twitter account, ‘Dr Dildo Davies’.
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Which Aled Gwyn Williams thought was ‘excellent’. Silly boy!
But Cooze went further, offering discounts on her OnlyFans sex site using Dr Davies’ name. That was a new low even for these people. Perhaps worse, was her co-conspirators defending her.
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Cooze gets a mention in the next section. Though we may soon be hearing of her in another context.
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A PHOENIX RISES?
After I’d stopped laughing I got round to properly reading what someone sent me on Sunday evening. After reading it properly I laughed a lot more. Here it is.
Aled Gwyn Williams – for it must be him! – has arranged a meeting on Glyndŵr’s Day at Maesteg RFC to launch Cwm Llynfi for Indy, ‘a group advocating inclusive independence for Wales’ . . . but not if you’re Dilys Davies, or Iestyn ap Rhobert, or Niki Jones, or me, or anybody who won’t accept Marxism and women with penises.
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You’ve read about Rachel Cooze, so who are the other speakers?
Siwan Clark has not long returned from London, where she was a big fan of Jeremy Corbyn. It should go without saying that she is in Momentum.
Welsh independence seems to have become more attractive to the far left since Corbyn’s hammering in the December 2019 general election. Not because the comrades want Welsh independence – or even care about Wales – but because with the Labour Party under Keir Starmer being less welcoming they must find new platforms for their odious message.
Clark brought Momentum methods with her. One of which is the sock puppet Twitter account. She has run quite a few of these recently.
The other name is ‘Charlotte Williams from Hiraeth Films’. This outfit has been working for about seven years on a film about Capel Celyn, the village drowned to make way for the Tryweryn dam; though apart from a few short videos to be found on Twitter and Facebook it’s difficult to know if it really does anything.
But the point is, Charlotte Williams comes from Welshpool, and who else do we know in that area? The photo below will help. It’s taken on the Montgomeryshire Canal in the town.
Kneeling down, swigging from a bottle, is Charlotte Williams and behind her is Katie Bataille, another trans woman, one who never turns down an opportunity for a social media pile-on. But who is that bearded fellow, sitting there so nonchalantly, about to fall backwards into the murky water?
Why! it’s young Ben Gwalchmai!
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And is that a sticking plaster across his knuckles? Has Benji been brawling with the local fascists and transphobes? (Cos I’ve seen them many a time goose-stepping up and down Broad Street.)
Enough levity.
Aled Gwyn Williams has brought together this impressive threesome to launch Cwm Llynfi for Indy. So what is this new venture?
Worth asking because, as I mentioned, Williams represented YesCymru Maesteg in the July 13 meeting at which the vote of no confidence in the CC was passed. (AGW of course supported the Central Committee.)
Though whether YesCymru Maesteg was a legally-constituted group is debatable.
Whether it was or not, this proposed launch of Cwm Llynfi for Indy certainly suggests that Aled has now severed his links with YesCymru. The presence of Cooze, Williams and Clark suggests that they too have burned their bridges.
Worth watching, I suggest. And although I’ll be unable to make it myself on September 16 – unless I go in disguise – I’m sure I’ll get plenty of feedback.
UPDATE: An early comment tells us that YesCymru Welshpool has rebranded to Welshpool for Independence. Taken with the plan for Maesteg it looks as if this is the path chosen by the defeated takeover gang. Will there be a national structure?
And do these new groups have access to YesCymru information on members? If so, how does this square with General Data Protection Regulation? And access to YC money?
A source also tells me that Scott Mackay, one of the Woke-Left plotters who failed to be elected to the CC, has left YC Abertawe.
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BEYOND THE FRINGE
In many ways the Woke-Left coup was the work of different groups and individuals that could be viewed as concentric rings.
With the Central Committee serving as the inner ring. Aled Gwyn Williams and his social media pile-on gang as the next ring, but in close contact with the inner ring. Then beyond them, an outer ring, where we find those who can be rallied to support the others and attack the fascisti.
In the hazy outer ring we find the fascinating ‘Alan Reilly’. I’ve put his name in quotes because I’m not sure if he’s a real person.
This name first cropped up towards the end of 2018, soon after the formation of Gwlad. With vicious attacks on me, personally. Also attacks on Cayo Evans and the Free Wales Army – ‘What did you bastards ever do for Wales?’ and more in that vein.
It was strange stuff from someone professing to be a sympathetic Irish Republican and, as I say, it was very personal. With an unhealthy obsession with my bodily functions. A fascination recently exhibited by others.
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‘Reilly’ was often in the company of Shane Waters aka Séan Mac Uaitéir and Andrew McDonald aka Andras ap Alun. And despite their claims of support for Wales and Welsh independence, they often slipped up.
‘You Welshies’! Click to open in separate tab
Then ‘Reilly’ went quiet. To reappear very recently, when the pressure on the YesCymru Central Committee reached the crescendo that led to the mass resignation.
This time he was commenting to posts on Nation.Cymru. And I’m ‘Nonce o’ the North’.
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I complained to N.C about the first comment and it was taken down, so ‘Reilly’ wrote the second comment, and then I had to complain about that. It too was taken down. In an e-mail, Mark Mansfield at Nation.Cymru told me: ‘I’ve banned him and his IP address and disabled comments for the article’.
‘Alan Reilly’ is now back on the Nation.Cymru site posting as ‘Alan Reilly 1’. Presumably from a different IP address. Unless Mark Mansfield was lying about blocking him.
But he’s not using ‘Alan Reilly 1’ to attack me. No, instead, the attack last Saturday came from someone signing ‘Rwân’. (The correct spelling is of course ‘rŵan’.) How do I know it was ‘Reilly’? Because of the references to ‘old incontinent boy, sad Sac o’ the North’.
Someone saw it, drew my attention to it and, again, I had to complain to Nation.Cymru before the comment was taken down.
To express his frustration, ‘Reilly’ then turned his attention to my blog, where he posted this comment at twenty minutes to one on Sunday morning. It’s difficult to know where to start.
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He accuses me of hiding behind an alias. Yet he knows my name, everybody does, it’s Royston Jones. As it says in the old Daily Mail report from October 1968. In fact, I was ‘lifted’ by the police more than once. (Lost jobs because of it. Fortunately, I was young, and carefree. And handsome!) I did not make a complaint about Leanne Wood’s ‘arsehole’ remark, that was someone else.
How many remember the old Quarter Sessions? Happy days! Click to open in separate tab
Without thinking too much about ‘Alan Reilly’, there appear to be four possibilities:
1/ He’s a sock puppet of one of the Woke Left fanatics who nearly wrecked YesCymru.
2/ He is what he says he is, an Irish Republican with an interest in Welsh politics.
3/ He’s someone in Wales, possibly even Welsh, hostile to Welsh nationalism. And / or me?
4/ He’s working for some agency hostile to both Irish Republicanism and Welsh nationalism.
I dismiss the first two possibilities because I don’t believe anyone qualifying for those descriptions would be so dismissive of the national movement in Wales.
The third option is plausible because Alan Reilly’ seems to know quite a lot about Wales and the history of the national movement, but is clearly hostile. But if so, why adopt the Irish persona?
Then there’s option 4. Also plausible because ‘Alan Reilly’ first appeared shortly after a new political party was formed, and reappeared when it became clear that the coup to subvert YesCymru was in danger of failing.
I am not suggesting that those behind the coup work for the British state. But the British state would have been delighted to see a growing movement for Welsh independence subverted and side-tracked.
If anyone has any thoughts on ‘Alan Reilly’, then please pass them on.
And by the way, don’t think I’m whining here; I’m an old bastard and this is water off a Jack’s back. Think of it more as a warning.
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LOOKING FORWARD
The worst appears to be over, with an EGM in the offing at which all members will be able to vote. YesCymru should in future be more representative of its membership than it has been since May’s rigged AGM.
Whether YesCymru sticks with the old structure of officials and a Central Committee, or whether it becomes more professional, with full-time employees, is something else for the members to decide.
But without I hope sounding vindictive, I would warn YesCymru’s members to be very wary of those who’ve appeared on this blog recently. And think carefully about whether they are made welcome in future.
Because, politics aside, there have been some very weird people involved in recent events. Some of them seriously unhinged. Others, violent. A few, genuinely evil.
Speaking personally, I would not extend a welcome to any of them.
And though he’s a long way from being the worst among them, for God’s sake don’t allow Rantin’, Rovin’ Benji anywhere near the levers of power in YesCymru.
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I’m now hoping to take a break from the Woke-Left interlopers who tried to wreck YesCymru and re-acquaint myself with more likeable people. I’m referring now to the grant grabbers, con men, money launderers, mortgage fraudsters, etc., who’ve starred on this blog for so long.
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.
♦
At the risk of overworking clichés, YesCymru has become the gift that keeps on giving. In fact, it is developing into a veritable cornucopia of source material.
The reason for this is now obvious. There is a group of people within (and some outside) YesCymru who have persuaded themselves that they can say and do whatever they like with no repercussions.
They have been encouraged in this belief, first, by the ease with which they were allowed to take over YesCymru, and then, by the lack of opposition from politicians and mainstream media to their insane views on society, politics and gender.
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IF YOU’RE NEW TO THE SAGA . . .
YesCymru was born on a cold and gray Chicago morn in 2014 out of Welsh support for Scottish independence. The group was officially launched in February 2016, and I gave it my backing in this piece, ‘YESCymru Launch Rally 20.02.2016‘.
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As is the fate of all such groups, the Far Left soon tried to muscle in and subvert a cross-party and non-ideological group.
The initial attempt was thwarted, which resulted in certain individuals leaving and, towards the end of 2018, forming Undod, offering ‘Radical Independence for Wales’. It was soon clear that Undod was a Marxist organisation whose members turned up for any kind of protest.
Inevitably, Undod also attracted – and welcomed – Marxists with no real interest in Wales, let alone independence. For these, Wales was just another stage on which to perform, and independence another ishoo to exploit.
One of these recruits was Siwan Clark. For soon after her hero Jeremy Corbyn lost the December 2019 general election she left London to return to Cardiff. In this tweet, put out 11 days before this year’s AGM, she helpfully explains the genesis of Undod.
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Clark is of course a member of Momentum, the Marxist party within a party that cost Labour so many seats in December 2019. And now Clark has brought her winning formula to Wales!
What could possibly go wrong?
To prepare the way for the takeover completed at the May 22 AGM certain people, resistant to the Marxists and the Wokies, needed to be removed. Among them, Dr Dilys Davies.
Dr Davies had been attacked earlier, in September 2019, for defending Germaine Greer’s views on sex and gender. (Or at least, that was the excuse used.) I dealt with it here in, ‘Misogyny, bullying? Depends who’s doing it‘.
The attack was renewed at Easter-time this year when Aled Gwyn Williams went down to Ceredigion to engineer the excuse for more complaints – from Aled’s cronies – that would be used to get Dr Davies suspended from the Central Committee.
In the tweet above, from around April 23, Siwan Clark helpfully confirms that there was indeed a campaign against Dr Dilys Davies by, “Welsh trans people and their allies”. Code for, ‘Hard Left and their Woke dupes’.
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POTS, KETTLES, AND OTHER NEWS
These Woke-Left extremists do not provide much in the way of humour. Understandable, for they count many swivel-eyed fanatics in their ranks.
Which means that what laughs they do provide are entirely unintentional. Here’s a recent example from Twitter. It’s Aled again!
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It’s difficult to think of any group that has posted more ‘mad shit’ on Welsh Twitter in recent years than Aled Gwyn Williams and his gang.
Though as I may have remarked in recent postings, Aled and his fan club are much less active now. They either post innocuous stuff or else their accounts are protected. The suggestion is that they’re using private chat rooms . . . where no doubt the ‘mad shit’ still fills the ether.
But wherever they are, Aled can’t kick the selfies on Twitter: ‘This is me!’, ‘Look at me!’, ‘Look what I’m doing!’.
If anybody loves Aled half as much as Aled loves Aled then Aled is a very lucky boy.
Aled’s mate ‘BVB’ has also forsaken Twitter, having lately realised that it is “vile”. This is priceless.
For when they ruled social media, when they could slag off good people with impunity, Aled and his gang thought Twitter was the best thing since Leanne Wood becoming leader of Plaid Cymru.
But now, as more and more people realise what a pernicious influence this gang has been for too long, it becomes, ‘Oooh, nasty people on Twitter answering back’.
A case of biter bit. And he doesn’t like it. Click to enlarge
Lest we forget, here are two gems put out not so long ago, on Twitter, by ‘BVB’. Did somebody say ‘Mad shit’?
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In other news . . .
A bizarre article appear on The National website last Saturday. I knew it was going to be a treat when I saw that the author was our young friend, ‘Emrys’ Price-Jones, Chair of YesCymru’s LGBTQ+ Committee.
‘Emrys’ has a deputy, even more off the wall than her. I’m referring now to ‘George Brown’. Here are some of their recent tweets, to give you a flavour of this dysfunctional duo.
You’ll see that certain comments have been deleted. This is because they addressed parts of the original article that were soon removed by The National. But not before the article, in its original format, had been endorsed and retweeted by YesCymru.
In the section taken down ‘Emrys’ was candid enough to confirm that he was one of the complainants against Dr Davies a few months back. He even spelled out that the whole charade was staged to engineer her suspension, thereby ensuring that Dr Davies could not stand for election to the Central Committee at the May 22 AGM.
The redacted section also libelled, without naming, but clearly identifying, the woman referred to above by ‘George Brown’ in such vile terms.
Make no mistake: this article was a deliberate attempt to prejudice hearings that are yet to take place; hearings involving Dr Dilys Davies and the other woman identified in the article.
Thankfully, apart from a few ‘wonderful article’ comments from a few people, including ‘BVB’, most comments were hostile. Here’s a good example.
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The Central Committee member so grossly abused by ‘George Brown’ in the tweet above complained to Jess Harvey, YesCymru’s Diversity and Inclusivity Officer. The complainant was fobbed off with, “I know George from Plaid Pride. This is very uncharacteristic of them. I’ll have a chat with them!” (Note the pronouns.)
On the contrary, it’s all too characteristic of ‘George Brown’, and Jess Harvey must know it.
Yet this episode reminds us that Jessica – formerly Matthew – Harvey left Plaid Pride in April. ‘George’ left around the same time. Both seem to have decided that YesCymru offered more scope for their intolerant, cultist approach to trans issues; and gave them more freedom to slag off good people as TERFs, transphobes and fascists.
For while earlier forays had established a bridgehead for the Woke-Left, the war on diversity of opinion intensified once YesCymru had a Diversity Officer.
I’m assured that legal action is actively being pursued against those involved with the writing and publication of that heinous article, and other examples of defamation and intimidation. The police are involved.
UPDATE: I am informed that ‘Emrys’ was suspended late this afternoon. Which I assume prompted this rather plaintive tweet.
UPDATE 12.07.2021: ‘Emrys’ has confirmed that she has been suspended. Does this mean that the lunatic ‘George Brown’ is now acting Chair?
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SLAPPERS, MINUTES, MONEY
As if YesCymru doesn’t have enough problems with police and lawyers, more problems are piling up with questions about how YC is organised and regulated. And where the money is going.
On the day of the AGM, London-based Central Committee member Tori West put out this intriguing tweet.
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Suspicions grow that ‘Welsh creatives’ (and indeed, non-Welsh creatives) already had their fingers in the YesCymru pie when that tweet went out.
Such as whoever created this eyebrow-raising, toe-curling, stomach-churning, vomit-inducing little video. If you haven’t yet seen it, I suggest you sit down before watching.
We’ll deal with the images in a minute, but let’s focus first on the ‘lyrics’: “England, I know you love me / And I love you too”. What the fuck is that supposed to be saying?
Is anyone claiming the credit!
And why does ‘Wales’ have to be a buxom slapper on a night out down Wind Street?
I know we complain that Wales has been shafted by England for centuries, but did it have to be so graphically illustrated? And seeing as it was, shouldn’t it have come with some kind of warning?
Who the hell commissioned this? Who agreed to pay for it? And who made it?
The answer to the last question I’m told is BAK, a Cardiff company. They look like the kind of ‘creatives’ Tori West may have been thinking of. But there is no company called BAK. We need to look for Capsizing Creative Ltd, formed just last October.
The sole director is Memet Ali Alabora. A Turkish actor and playwright who fled his homeland – with his wife – when it was alleged a play of his had encouraged riots in 2013. He is now a British citizen.
Those involved at BAK are either Turkish or Welsh and, in fairness, Alabora and his wife seem to have taken to Wales, the language, perhaps even the independence cause. But nothing can justify that video. And how many others of that execrable standard has BAK turned out for YesCymru?
I’m even told that the singer is Central Committee member Carys Eleri. Is that true?
Finding out how much that video cost to produce, and how much YesCymru money has found its way to BAK, or anyone else, may not be easy because there are increasing claims that YC’s accounts are either unreliable or unavailable.
Similar claims are made for the Minutes of Central Committee and other meetings.
Another cause for concern might be Ymgyrch Yes Cyf. This being the private company that holds the rights to the YesCymru trademark. Until this year’s AGM the company had four directors. Two resigned because they were no longer officials of YesCymru.
This left just Chair Siôn Jobbins and Treasurer Gwyn Llewelyn. But with Jobbins AWOL this means that the company is in breach of Article 10 of its own Articles of Association, which says there must be 2 directors for a meeting to be quorate.
There are other matters being raised of a similar nature. It looks chaotic.
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DENOUEMENT?
The prevailing mood among members has increased the pressure on the Central Committee and that pressure is certainly telling.
A grassroots revolt, with branches demanding face-to-face meetings with the CC, resulted in this e-mail going out yesterday. It’s signed, in the absence of Siôn Jobbins, by his deputy, Sarah Rees.
It confirms that there will be a meeting of the local groups and the Central Committee on Tuesday.
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You’ll note there are certain things that cannot be discussed at the meeting “due to legal reasons”. I bet there are! I just hope that whoever represents the Central Committee doesn’t use that as an excuse to clam up on everything.
And it will be interesting to see who does represent the Central Committee at Tuesday’s meeting.
The victory of the Woke-Left has been short-lived because they were too arrogant and self-obsessed to appreciate that taking over the Central Committee in a rigged AGM would be resented by the great majority of YesCymru members.
Members who want to prioritise independence, and welcome into YesCymru all those who share that view, irrespective of political loyalty and ideological alignment.
For YesCymru to get back on track most of the Central Committee must be removed. The same goes for Diversity and Inclusivity Officer Jessica Harvey, and Campaigns Officer Harriet Protheroe-Soltani (of Momentum).
Unless swift and firm action is taken YesCymru as an organisation could find itself paying – literally! – for the disgusting and criminal behaviour of a few dozen people. That would not be fair on thousands and thousands of decent people.
If YesCymru is to be saved, those wanting to save it must be ruthless. Cut the guilty loose and let them fend for themselves. They’ve already done enough damage.
I’M IN SEMI-RETIREMENT AND THIS BLOG IS WINDING DOWN. I INTEND CALLING IT A DAY SOON AFTER THIS YEAR’S SENEDD ELECTIONS. POSTINGS WILL NOW BE LESS FREQUENT AND I WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANY MAJOR NEW INVESTIGATIONS. DIOLCH YN FAWR.
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After recent postings on YesCymru it’s time to analyse what happened at last Saturday’s AGM before considering where it might lead.
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DEMOCRACY AND THE LEFT
Let me start by spelling out what happened. And then explain why.
In a nutshell: the left, operating from its bases in Undod and elsewhere, captured YesCymru using its woke ‘guerrillas’ advancing under the smokescreen of ‘diversity’.
Among themselves the leftists justify both the coup and the future direction of travel by claiming that ‘Wales is a socialist country’. A claim supported by pointing to the fact that most of us vote for Labour and Plaid Cymru. Which in turn depends on accepting that a) these parties are indeed socialist and b) all who vote for them are socialists.
Which is just one misconception piled upon another.
While Plaid Cymru could credibly be called a socialist party Labour can be anything you want it to be, certainly the Welsh branch of the party.
As for the voters, most of those who vote Labour in Wales do so out of self-interest, believing Labour will keep taxes low, benefits high, while looking after the NHS. These Labour voters tend to be social conservatives, and most voted for Brexit.
Plaid Cymru is more obviously socialist than Labour, but the distance between the party policy-makers and the party’s voters may be greater than in Labour. People from across the ideological spectrum vote for Plaid Cymru because they want independence, while others – especially in western areas – vote for the party because they see it as the party that best supports the Welsh language.
So, only a minority of those who vote for Labour and Plaid Cymru are socialists. With self-identifying socialists increasingly concentrated in an anti-Brexit, climate conscious, gender-obsessed middle class bubble that every year drifts further away from most Labour and Plaid Cymru voters.
To the point where many on the ‘Welsh’ left now identify better with the English middle class and the metropolitan elite than with working class Welsh people.
It’s important to stress that the Conservative Party does not have this problem. People know exactly what they’re voting for because it does what it says on the tin. (This greatly annoys the left . . . but they still don’t get it!)
The reality of the mismatch was brought home to the comrades in the Plaid Cymru leadership contest of September 2018, when the socialist candidate, and then leader, Leanne Wood, came a poor third in a three-horse race.
That election was open to all members of the party. The left has not made the same mistake again.
In the Plaid Cymru party conference held in Swansea just over a year later only those present in the venue – just over 500 people – were allowed to vote. (And it was ensured that the ‘right’ people were in attendance.)
Which meant that most party members were effectively disenfranchised even though a postal ballot could easily have been organised, as was done with the leadership contest the previous year.
The scheming involved was so obvious that academic and writer Seimon Brooks was moved to compare the 2019 result with that of the previous year. While Alwyn ap Huw described the machinations as a Stalinist coup.
“2021 Plaid Government”. 🤣 Click to enlarge
These Plaid Cymru votes from 2018 and 2019 explain why YesCymru did not allow a postal ballot for the Central Committee elections and motions submitted to last Saturday’s AGM.
Instead, debate was restricted to 400 or so logged in to the online deliberations. Representing less than 3% of the 18,500 members.
Yes, Alwyn, another Stalinist coup.
Though, as you know, I’m a generous old bugger, so I’ll give YesCymru a chance to explain why it couldn’t organise a postal ballot.
I don’t expect an answer because I already know it – the left cannot afford open and fair elections because it knows it will lose.
Proving that there is nothing new in all the world. For this is how the old Communist Party used to operate in places I worked over 50 years ago. Call a meeting at short notice, at a time and place awkward for most people but for which your people are ready. At the meeting, control the agenda, decide who can and can’t speak, and then – make sure you count the votes.
What the left did with Plaid Cymru in October 2019 and YesCymru last Saturday is the old Communist Party playbook updated for the 21st century.
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BRAVE NEW WORLD
You’ll get a good idea of what sort of people support the takeover from celebratory tweets put out very soon after the AGM. Here are a couple for you to savour.
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To explain . . .
‘TERF’ means trans-exclusionary radical feminist. A silly and insulting term used to describe any woman who refuses to accept a man with penis and testicles as a woman. In other words, the attitude of most people in the real world.
This is the term that has been constantly used in the recent attacks on Dr Dilys Davies and Plaid Cymru’s Helen Mary Jones.
“Fashy phobes” means fascist transphobes. Because of course, in the black and white world of these fanatics, if you don’t agree with them then you must be a fascist. A transphobe is anyone – usually a man – who agrees with the ‘TERFs’. Roughly 95% of the population.
As of Saturday, who’s running the show?
Three of the four officers are: Siôn Jobbins (Chair); Sarah Rees (Vice-Chair); and Gwyn Llewelyn (Treasurer); all of whom were returned unopposed.
Though Jobbins may not be as secure as being returned unopposed might suggest. Someone sent me this tweet, posted on the very day of the AGM. As you’ll see, @thbuff98 was in an exchange with ‘BVB’, who appears in the panel above.
What does “playing privy” mean?
Jobbins may be too easy-going, and has perhaps not appreciated the approaching danger; so it might be karma if he is the left’s next victim. Though I’m sure he has no connection with the political party Gwlad.
Will this be the excuse used to remove him?
I can’t tell you a lot about Shane Brennan because his election statement to the members has been taken down. Perhaps because he became a shoo-in for Secretary after Iestyn ap Rhobert withdrew.
Though I do know that he first came to Wales to study at Aberystwyth, joined Plaid Cymru around twenty years ago, went home to England to work for a few years, before coming back to Wales to take a job in finance.
He was the Plaid Cymru candidate in the 2011 Assembly elections for the Alyn and Deeside constituency, and supported Leanne Wood for the party leadership.
Now let’s introduce the other members of the Central Committee. I shall do this by providing a link to their election statement supplemented perhaps by a comment.
Most of these statements contain a link to a video by the candidate.
LLYWELYN AP GWILYM (re-elected) Is the son of Eurfyl ap Gwilym (of Paxman interview fame). I don’t know if he’s in a relationship with Carys Eleri but his Twitter account carries the quote: “A wonderful human” – @caryseleri.
NIKITA JONES May be one of the more rational among the new intake. Certainly, in her favour is the fact that the wokie jackal pack turned on her just before the AGM. This is often a good sign. Time will tell.
As I’ve pointed out before, Labour for an Independent Wales is quite clear about its objective: “Socialism through independence”. Meaning independence is only desirable if it delivers socialism.
Does that mean that if an independent Wales votes to not be socialist Gwalchmai and his mates will campaign for re-joining whatever is left of the UK? Especially if there’s a Labour government in Westminster?
(But then, as a number of people have pointed out, independence wasn’t mentioned during Saturday’s AGM either.)
Soon after the AGM West put out this rather worrying tweet.
Spare a thought for “marginalised Welsh creatives”. 😥
I describe it as worrying because a possible motive for takeover I’ve avoided mentioning until now – despite numerous people suggesting it – is YesCymru’s money. The balance sheet given at the AGM showed an annual income of £365,413, expenditure of £156,792; with almost £198,348 in the bank, and stock valued at £23,500.
(As one of those “marginalised Welsh creatives” I shall of course be applying for a grant.)
ANDREW O’BRIEN Comes from Port Talbot, he’s a Swans fan (which is obviously in his favour), and seems to want independence with no distractions. Time will tell.
RACHEL COOZE Perhaps the kindest thing to say about Rachel Cooze is that she comes from Swansea. Other than that, she seems to have ordered every dish on the Woke menu. To the point where she now sees YesCymru as the agency to rid Wales of the fascists, racists, transphobes, etc that are everywhere. Everywhere!
ELIN HYWEL Seems to live a relatively quiet life. She has written for far left Undod (not encouraging) but I can’t tell you much more about her.
UPDATE 27.05.2021: This tweet, and the fact that is was re-tweeted by Mark Hooper, strongly suggests that Elin Hywel also belongs to the woke left.
In addition, YesCymru now has two full-time officials. One, the Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Jessica (formerly Matthew) Harvey, is a transsexual woman. While the other, the Campaigns Officer, is Harriet Protheroe-Soltani, of Momentum.
They complement each other perfectly because the issue nowadays for the far left is ‘transsexual rights’. With the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights being controlled by hard left Momentum.
The AGM also agreed to create an Equality and Diversity Sub-committee.
Why no place for straight white bloggers?
Put it all together and if it doesn’t convince you of the direction YesCymru is headed, then you must be a bit dim or part of the problem.
First, it somehow conflates the left’s takeover of YesCymru with the recent Senedd elections, and presents the result in the manner of a Wikipedia entry on a war or a battle.
Some of the ‘combatants’ are unknown to me, and I’m not sure that all those on the side of the left would welcome their inclusion in those ranks.
Like those behind it, it’s puerile, amusing, even superficially clever; but it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
Though it confirms and celebrates that the left has taken over YesCymru . . . but justifies it by arguing that YC has been saved from fascism!
For as I suggested earlier, when dealing with these extremists you soon learn that everyone who opposes them, and everyone they attack, is a fascist. So that makes it OK.
‘Fascist’ has been devalued to a catch-all term for a political opponent. I’m not sure who benefits from this devaluation, except perhaps, genuine fascists.
Regular readers will know that I’m not a big fan of Nation.Cymru, but my attention was drawn to something published on that site last Saturday, almost certainly to coincide with the YesCymru AGM.
“I think that changing YesCymru’s central tenet as a neutral movement would be a big mistake, for a few reasons:
Firstly, while I agree that independence for the sake of it would be pointless, no kind of independence is independence for the sake of it. Any kind would transfer more democratic power away from an established political elite at Westminster and into the hands of the people of Wales. There is no independence ‘for the sake of it’ – it’s a massive constitutional upheaval in itself and will radically change how Wales is run. Either that is, in and of itself, a fundamentally good idea or YesCymru should stop campaigning now because nothing beyond that is guaranteed.
Secondly, because nothing beyond independence is guaranteed, no one can honestly promise a single vision of an independent Wales to the people of the nation. The future ideological direction of an independent Wales would be chosen by the people of Wales, at a Senedd election after the referendum, not by any promises made by YesCymru beforehand. As much as I would personally like to see a socialist, progressive independent Wales, that’s dependent not just on independence but the public deciding, in an independent Wales, to throw their weight behind socialist, progressive parties.
Thirdly, there is no guarantee that selling a particular ideological vision to the people of Wales would be in any way effective. While everyone in YesCymru may have an idea of what a post-independence Wales would look like, they’re likely to all have different ones, and backing one of them would alienate others. As Plaid Cymru demonstrated at the recent Senedd election, voters don’t necessarily want a laundry list of specific promises. In fact, the party with the vaguest manifesto of all ended up winning.”
The fraction of YesCymru members that voted at Saturday’s AGM didn’t heed those wise words. Those who now control YesCymru intend promoting a plethora of diversionary concerns, and independence will soon be relegated to just another issue, or dropped altogether.
You’ve already read Tori West suggesting that those in control start divvying up the YesCymru money among their friends. Sorry! “marginalised Welsh creatives”.
Someone else quick off the blocks was ‘Kemp’, of @YesYBynie.
And so it begins . . . Click to enlarge
Can anyone explain what this has to do with the campaign for an independent Wales? And where will the money come from to pay ‘contributors’? (And I bet there’ll be no mention of Abram Wood.)
As I’ve said before, Yes Y Bynie (Bynea) is a one-woman show, set up because she found YesCymru Llanelli to be uncongenial, as it’s membership is made up of level-headed people who want to focus on independence.
But perhaps the most important reason that YesCymru is heading down a blind alley is because of recent developments around protected characteristics and related matters.
To explain (as best I can) . . .
I’m sure you’ve heard of Stonewall. In recent years this LGBTQ+ organisation has built up a great business advising government departments, police forces, universities, private companies, and other bodies on matters sexual and gender related.
But recent developments have exposed Stonewall to be both partisan and dishonest.
The problem is one that Stonewall brought on itself by becoming fixated with trans issues. Sound familiar?
Stonewall’s promotion of ‘trans rights’ resulted in academics being ‘no-platformed’, feminists and others being hounded as ‘TERFs’ and ‘transphobes’, and lies being told about ‘persecution’ suffered by trans people.
It all came crashing down last week with a number of announcements. These included:
As this article from the Spectator put it: “Both professors Jo Phoenix and Rosa Freedman have views which accord with our current laws on gender identity”. But Stonewall was deliberately misinterpreting the law to serve its trans agenda.
Other organisations severed their links with Stonewall and yesterday the Guardian,in this report, told us that the Equality and Human Rights Commission would no longer be linked to Stonewall’s Diversity Champions programme.
And so it was no surprise to read that the Stonewall UK media director was standing back due to a ‘tsunami of transphobia’. The truth is of course that he’s leaving because Stonewall has been caught out in lies.
But that can’t be admitted, so it has to be ‘transphobia’. Which, if you think about it, should be a reason for staying, because isn’t ‘transphobia’ what Stonewall is fighting?
It would be reasonable therefore to conclude that Stonewall has capitulated.
At the head of this section, and in the title of this posting, I suggest that YesCymru could be heading for the rocks, and there are two main reasons for me thinking this.
First, following the AGM, YesCymru is firmly under the control of ishoo-mongers, obsessives, and the hard left. These will insist on YC fighting on many different fronts, thereby dissipating its energies and making enemies unnecessarily.
Second, the one issue that unites the dangerous and intolerant fanatics that hounded Helen Mary Jones and Dr Dilys Davies, the jackal pack that piles in on its victims, is ‘trans rights’. That’s because the hard left has weaponised this issue.
With the left having relied on Stonewall for guidance and credibility, and Stonewall now itself discredited, dismissing legitimate critics of certain trans lunacies as TERFs and transphobes will no longer work. The scam is exposed.
Put the two together and we see that the present Central Committee is now on the wrong side of history. But it’s still a tragedy for YesCymru. That said, those at the top had plenty of warnings, and time enough to lance the boil.
Perhaps Ifan Morgan Jones should start working on, ‘The big question YesCymru needs to answer is: “What went wrong in 2021?”‘
I’M IN SEMI-RETIREMENT AND THIS BLOG IS WINDING DOWN. I INTEND CALLING IT A DAY SOON AFTER THIS YEAR’S SENEDD ELECTIONS. POSTINGS WILL NOW BE LESS FREQUENT AND I WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANY MAJOR NEW INVESTIGATIONS. DIOLCH YN FAWR.
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This coming Saturday sees the AGM at which the far left will seek to complete its takeover of YesCymru.
For suggesting this in recent posts I have been called all sorts of names, with ‘conspiracy theorist’ one of the more polite epithets. But once you understand the background, and the motivations then what some would like to dismiss as a wild theory makes perfect sense.
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Above you see an example of what I and others have to put up with from the woke-left jackal pack on social media. (You wonder why I drink!)
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IN THE BEGINNING
YesCymru announced itself with a rally held in Cardiff on September 13, 2014 in support of Scottish independence. This was inspired by Yes Scotland, the cross-party campaign for a Yes vote in the independence referendum that same month.
Yes Scotland disbanded soon after the referendum.
I was in Scotland myself for the referendum and on my return I gave my view of the situation with Beginning of the End. I was of course disappointed by the result, and yet, I sensed there was no going back.
The obvious difference between Yes Scotland and YesCymru was that the former had come into existence for the Scottish independence referendum while the latter had been created with no prospect of a Welsh referendum. So why was YesCymru formed?
The answer I was given was that YesCymru was born to breathe life into the idea of independence, which many felt was not being promoted vigorously enough by Plaid Cymru. Which at that time was led by Leanne Wood.
This made perfect sense.
I’m not saying that Leanne Wood wasn’t in favour of independence, but I do believe that for her independence was not a priority. Or perhaps, it was desirable only if it delivered a certain kind of independence.
What I’m suggesting might possibly be explained by Leanne Wood’s visit to Scotland in the referendum period. The writer of this September 2014 article from Open Democracy tells us, “When I met her, Leanne had just been to Glasgow to speak to the Radical Independence Campaign.”
Factionalism, on the left! Surely not! Click to enlarge
For the Radical Independence Campaign also wanted a certain type of independence, perhaps more John Maclean than Bonny Prince Charlie. And there was nothing wrong with that. They were quite open and honest about it.
The point to be made here is that those preferring a left wing approach to Scottish independence could join the Radical Independence Campaign, while anyone who did not support the RIC’s vision was free to join Yes Scotland, which was more mainstream and less doctrinaire.
Back to Wales.
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YESCYMRU, LAUNCH AND FIRST ATTEMPT AT TAKEOVER
So, from the summer of 2014, Wales had the political party, Plaid Cymru, that claimed to favour independence, plus a new organisation, YesCymru, that, by its very existence, suggested there were many unconvinced that Plaid Cymru was serious about independence.
Another take on it might be that there were people supportive of independence who had little time for Plaid Cymru but could support a non-aligned group like YesCymru.
By late 2015 things were gearing up for the official public launch, which came on February 20, 2016. I gave it a write-up here.
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The reports I received said that the Red Queen was not happy with YesCymru, she felt it needed to be ‘redirected’. Some even suggested that she saw YesCymru as an indirect attack on her leadership of Plaid Cymru.
A number of sources have told me that the infiltration of YesCymru by the left began even before the official launch in February 2016.
Though the infiltrators were resisted. Matters came to a head – in the autumn of 2018? – when a few of the infiltrators were suspended for bullying and other offences. Then, for not complying with the terms of their suspension, and refusing to hand over passwords for social media accounts, they were expelled.
The names I’ve been given are Colin / Colyn Nosworthy and Sandra Clubb.
Despite this tweet from Siwan Clark last week, the expulsions were for the reasons I’ve just given. Though the tweet is unintentionally revealing.
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According to Clark, people were thrown out because YesCymru would not “commit to being anti-racist and anti-fascist”. But why should an organisation formed to promote a single issue burden itself with ideological baggage?
And note that those opposed to such unnecessary distractions must be “right wingers”.
I’m sure you’re wondering who Siwan Clark is. I’d never heard of her myself until someone sent me that tweet and a different source drew my attention to this piece from The National last December, where Adam Ramsay had this to say:
“In Wales, socialists and progressives disappointed by Labour’s election defeat are starting to plan ahead, too.
Siwan Clark is one of the many young people who moved home for lockdown. A few years ago she had left Cardiff for London because of “a feeling that you have to be there, that it was the centre of things”. The pandemic has changed all that. “For a lot of people who’ve moved home, their sphere is turning to more local things,” she said to me over Zoom recently.
Before Covid, Clark said, she wouldn’t have expected most people in Wales to know the name of the first minister. (It’s Mark Drakeford.) “I was extremely ignorant about the Assembly. I just didn’t really engage with it,” she said.
In London, she had joined Labour “in a rage” so that she could vote for Jeremy Corbyn during the post-Brexit leadership challenge. “I was so annoyed by that. I canvassed a lot in 2017. And a lot in 2019.”
Now 26 and back in Wales, Clark has joined Undod, the campaign for radical Welsh independence.”
It’s a revealing little section. To begin with, we read that Undod is committed to “radical Welsh independence”. An echo of the Radical Independence Campaign in Scotland, which you’ll remember Leanne Wood addressed in 2014.
Adam Ramsay hints that Siwan Clark had little time for devolution, she went to London and supported Corbyn. Then, when her hero was deposed, she came home, and joined Undod.
I’m losing count of the left wingers who ‘discovered’ Wales and the cause of Welsh independence after Corbyn got the chop.
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THE LEFT SUFFERS A SETBACK BUT REGROUPS
But let’s go back to 2018 for a moment. Among the big events was the Plaid Cymru leadership contest in September. Despite having led the party since 2012 Leanne Wood came third in a three-horse race.
It’s difficult to convey how much of a shock this was to Leanne Wood’s supporters inside the party, in the Cardiff Bay bubble, and indeed to those outside Wales who viewed her as a combination of Boudicca and La Pasionaria.
But then, when you live in a closed-off world, interacting almost exclusively with those who share your views, it’s so easy to lose contact with reality
This article by Dr Huw Williams in Nation.Cymru gives a fascinating insight into the expulsions, and the thinking of the far left ahead of the YesCymru AGM held in Burry Port on October 13, 2018. He says:
” . . . it looks likely now that a movement for radical independence will come into existence in some form over the coming months.
In some respects, it’s a pity this did not happen sooner, as it may have assuaged the concerns of some of those in YesCymru who have felt it necessary to act as they have.
However, it must not be the case that this movement is perceived to be a ‘challenger’ to YesCymru – rather it should be a group that will hopefully, in future, be part of a wider movement, and one in which different people can pursue different political visions for Wales.”
By October 2018 the left had decided to set up a ‘radical’ rival to YesCymru. That decision was influenced partly by the expulsions from YesCymru and partly by the result of the Plaid Cymru leadership contest.
Invitations went out mid-December 2018 to the launch of Undod – I got one! – with the actual launch meeting held at Yr Hen Goleg in Aberystwyth on 26 January, 2019. (A place dear to old Jac’s heart!)
In his Nation.Cymru article Huw Williams, after appearing conciliatory, adopted a rather dismissive tone with, “As for YesCymru, no doubt they will continue in some form.” Indeed they did, Huw! YesCymru grew and grew and grew.
With Undod the far left had a base in which it could re-group, and from which it could mount attacks. Undod, set up by hard-core leftists, would recruit mainly young people and they would sally forth to infiltrate other groups.
So successful has the strategy been that even Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society) has been penetrated.
Welsh-speaking communities are being destroyed by tourism, holiday homes and colonisation, yet as this tweet from last week suggests, Cymdeithas yr Iaith may now have other priorities.
It reads: ‘Freedom for Palestine’.
The period 2018/19 was obviously difficult for the left. The once revered but now ‘stupid and racist’ working class had voted for Brexit, Trump was in the White House, and then, to cap it all, came the UK general election of December 2019, when Corbyn’s Labour Party was heavily defeated.
While the left seemed to be on the defensive globally, here in Wales it had regrouped and was on the march again; playing identity politics and spreading poison through the Welsh body politic by infiltration.
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CUI BONO?
Dr Huw Williams, in his Nation.Cymru piece of October 2018 suggested that YesCymru and the new movement could appeal to different sections of the population.
Which makes sense to me.
He also talked of “different political visions for Wales”. But in recent years we’ve seen the left attack and vilify alternative visions. Now we see the final confirmation of the left’s intolerance towards other views with its planned takeover of YesCymru.
To repeat: After the initial failure to take over YesCymru Undod was set up by Labour and Plaid Cymru left wingers to infiltrate various Welsh organisations to promote their leftist agenda, with YesCymru being the juiciest prize due to its large membership and the publicity it attracted through its rallies and other activities.
As shown in the image below.
Image Undod. Click to enlarge
The board held by the woman on the right reads: ‘No room for fascists in a free Wales’. Which is another way of saying, ‘Only fascists could oppose the socialist vision we have for Wales.’
Which is attempting to close a debate by vilifying those who dare to take a different viewpoint. (Or else, and perhaps worse – they really believe it!)
For that’s how the far left operates. Invent or exaggerate a problem, then demand action and dismiss opponents as racists / homophobes / fascists / transphobes / terfs / climate deniers / Islamophobes / etc.
In my lifetime the left has supported many causes but, compared with ending the Vietnam War or freeing Nelson Mandela, exploiting confused individuals with chips on their shoulders is at best exploitative, and at worst, rather despicable.
Which calls into question the motivation for taking over YesCymru. Many of Undod’s luminaries are in the Labour Party, so are they really serious about independence?
I believe they want to take over YesCymru simply to use its 18,000+ members to promote their left wing agenda. As they’re doing in Plaid Cymru, Cymdeithas yr Iaith, Plaid Ifanc, and elsewhere.
Consequently . . .
Unless it can be proven otherwise there should be a presumption that those standing for the Central Committee on the ‘diversity’ ticket either belong to or are being used by the far left that wishes to subvert YesCymru for its own purposes. They should therefore be rejected.
But if the worst happens, and if YesCymru does fall to the far left, then Huw Williams’ suggestion of two independence movements appealing to different constituencies will be the way to proceed.
I’M IN SEMI-RETIREMENT AND THIS BLOG IS WINDING DOWN. I INTEND CALLING IT A DAY SOON AFTER THIS YEAR’S SENEDD ELECTIONS. POSTINGS WILL NOW BE LESS FREQUENT AND I WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANY MAJOR NEW INVESTIGATIONS. DIOLCH YN FAWR.
♦
I know I promised a few Senedd election previews, but I’ve already had a gutsful of politics, politicians and elections.
When the First Minister can say, in an interview with the self-styled ‘National Newspaper of Wales’, and get away with: “We live in an inter-dependent world. I am interested in the future for Wales in which we are connected to other places not cut off from them”, then politics is reduced to bullshit sound-bites.
If Drakeford is right, then Estonia was better ‘connected’ with the outside world when it was part of the Soviet Union. Which is palpable bollocks. And if he knew the meaning of ‘inter-dependent’ then he might have kept his mouth shut altogether.
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BACKGROUND
This post is prompted by the treatment recently meted out to Dr Dilys Davies by a clique of mainly young and immature people that has resulted in Dr Davies being suspended from the Central Committee of Yes Cymru.
Though I suppose this really started in September 2019, when Dr Davies, lifelong patriot, respected clinical psychologist, and owner of a couple of establishments in Ceredigion, came under attack from those who haunt Welsh social media and cause such disruption in political circles.
Here’s a pdf version of the 2019 letter of complaint demanding that Dr Davies be removed from the Central Committee of Yes Cymru. I’m not sure who submitted this complaint . . . but I could have a good guess!
Dr Davies’ ‘crime’ was to quote feminist Germaine Greer. For those mercifully unfamiliar with this territory, Dr Greer is regarded as a transphobe by the zealots of the trans movement for believing – like 99% of the population – that someone with a penis and testicles is a man. And even after surgery is not fully a woman because they did not experience puberty, periods, childbirth, the menopause.
As I say, the heinous crime of quoting Germaine Greer was given as the ostensible reason for the attacks on Dilys Davies in the autumn of 2019. But I have my doubts.
Let’s refresh our memories a little more.
Just over a month before the campaign against Dr Davies began it was announced that, following a number of attacks by vandals, Dr Davies had bought the ‘Cofiwch Dryweryn’ memorial wall, on the A487 near Llanrhystud.
Now it would be easy to think that Dilys Davies’s initiative would be universally welcomed in the nationalist community, but no. For we’ve heard rumblings about ‘millionaires from London’, ‘private property’ (evil!), and other mutterings of the kind we hear from juveniles railing against ‘the system’.
Looking back, I can’t help but wonder if buying the Tryweryn wall – and perhaps just being successful – was what prompted the attacks that followed. It was an echo of old-fashioned socialist jealousy.
Those attacks on Dr Dilys Davies in 2019 were savage and very personal. Fortunately, many people rallied to her defence. Although shaken, and despite closing her Twitter account, Dilys stayed with Yes Cymru and the wider movement.
The complaints in 2019 were dismissed and her attackers, like cockroaches exposed to light, scuttled for cover.
Many hoped that that was the end of the matter. Having had some experience of these creatures myself, I was less sanguine.
Aled Gwyn Williams of Maesteg is regarded as something of a doyen among non-binaries, keyboard revolutionaries and the Woke. One of his admirers, the next mayor of Bangor, thinks Aled is the very embodiment of Indy Wales.
Perhaps, one day, there’ll be a statue of Aled (and Teifi) in Corwen, towering over the equestrian statue of Owain Glyndŵr. But I doubt it.
Aled was in the van of the attacks on Dr Davies back in 2019. Rather than giving it up, it now looks as if the attackers licked their wounds and waited for another opportunity.
It was not long in coming, and was probably engineered. Let me explain.
Over the Easter holiday Aled took himself down west. As I’ve said, Dr Davies has a couple of small businesses there, in Tresaith and Llangrannog, just small outlets employing a few local people. She bought them to save them falling into the wrong hands.
I don’t follow AGW on Twitter or anywhere else. I only know what he gets up to when people draw my attention to something particularly stupid or offensive.
While in Ceredigion Williams took photos of the homage to the ‘Cofiwch Dryweryn’ wall painted at both of Dr Davies’ premises. These photos were put out on social media. (I’m told the children are his niece and nephew.)
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Even though I believe one is judged by the company one keeps, in this case you’ll see that I have sought to protect the identities of the innocent.
Given his previous attacks on her Dr Davies understandably interpreted Williams turning up at both her properties in Ceredigion as harassment. Who wouldn’t? She tweeted on March 30 that he and his “hate filled little band” were banned from her premises.
His visit strikes me as downright creepy. Maybe that’s because every time I see an image of Aled Gwyn William I see a bald Norman Bates, with a collie. And he does still live with his mam.
Inevitably, Williams’ clique took up his cause. Though some of the responses in the panel below are strange. For example, Jamie Akerman criticises Dr Davies for “stirring up all this crap again”.
Just think about it, Jamie. It was Aled Gwyn Williams’ unnecessary and deliberately provocative visit to Dr Davies’s properties that stirred things up again.
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Though being the fair-minded old bugger I am, I’m open to other explanations for Aled Gwyn Williams travelling a considerable distance to businesses owned by a woman he had so recently vilified. And to make sure she knew he was there.
Things then seemed to fall quiet. Or at least, no one sent me anything. Until I received the tweet below, AGW responding to a young lad who had made a formal complaint to Yes Cymru about the behaviour of Dr Dilys Davies on Twitter.
Williams’ reaction is typical. He seems to have trouble with heterosexual and well-balanced women. ‘Fuck off’ seems to be his stock response to those that challenge him.
This was not the only complaint lodged with Yes Cymru against Dr Davies. The other came from ‘Elinor’ of Splott, though not originally from Cardiff.
Here’s the complaint from ‘Elinor’, and the response from Yes Cymru, plus the other complaint I mentioned, this addressed to ‘Jess’.
Though I’m told that the Central Committee decided to suspend Dr Dilys Davies without even reading the letters. Reminiscent of a Stalin-era show trial.
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Jessica is @JessicaRHarvey0 the Diversity and Inclusion Officer of Yes Cymru. Until a few days ago she was also a member of Plaid Pride, but resigned because it – Plaid Cymru? Plaid Pride? – ‘silences’ trans voices.
Well, you could have fooled me.
So, we know that Jess – a transsexual herself – ‘advised’ the Yes Cymru Central Committee on the complaints about alleged transphobia from people she almost certainly knew. And whose complaints had been prompted by what happened between their hero and guru, Aled Gwyn Williams (another member of the circle), and Dr Dilys Davies.
Let’s look at these two complaints in as much detail as they merit.
The first, from ‘Elinor’, is vague in the extreme, it harks back to “last year” (actually 2019), uses the ogress Germaine Greer to pad things out, while suggesting that Aled Gwyn Williams has been banned from THE Tryweryn wall, near Llanrhystud.
He has not been banned from that famous memorial, but even if he had, that would not be grounds for Yes Cymru to suspend Dr Dilys Davies. It would have nothing to do with Yes Cymru.
The second complaint, from the silly boy I mentioned earlier, is even more vague in its allegations. And he also thinks AGW has been banned from THE Tryweryn wall.
The Central Committee of Yes Cymru should have thrown out both of these absurd complaints. Or at least read them. Dr Davies should be reinstated as a member of the Central Committee.
I’m told that Dr Davies’ place on the Central Committee may be already filled. For Rachel Sara Cooze of Undod was among those invited to apply for the vacancy. And she has allies on the committee.
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“Ousting DD is the beginning and not the end of reforming this org”, she says. But wait! Dr Davies is only suspended, she might appeal.
Which will do her no good because the hard left – through those who believe Wales is full of fascists, racists, homophobes, transphobes and God knows what else – has captured Yes Cymru.
After learning she was to appear on this blog Rachel Cooze contacted people on Sunday evening with the messages you see below. There was even a tailored message for women! (Isn’t that sexist?) Done from what looked like a new 0 – 0 account, but she claimed it was an old account re-activated.
After I challenged her certain tweets were deleted.
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The message on the right came from someone who tracked the account. (I know nothing of such technical matters.)
I have been advised to take legal advice about this and other messages put out by a very offensive woman.
With elections to Yes Cymru’s Central Committee approaching Aled Gwyn Williams travelled to Ceredigion to re-ignite the spat with Dr Dilys Davies so that his acolytes could demand her removal. She could then be replaced by someone more to their liking, possibly Rachel Cooze of Undod.
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ENTER THE HARD LEFT
The hard left in the West can no longer pretend to be the voice of ‘the workers’, and so it has abandoned any pretence of popular support. As one questioner put it recently, “Why is it called the Socialist Workers Party when there are no workers in it?”
You know what – there never were!
The hard left has come to realise that few people in Western societies will buy into bread queues and secret police, so the only way to promote its agenda is to adopt issues, from climate change – Extinction Rebellion is a Marxist organisation – to ishoos du jour such as sexual identification, race, etc.
Painting the world black and white saves the blinkered from having to confront the complexities and nuances of the real world.
Another tactic is to infiltrate political parties. Which is what happened to the Labour Party under Corbyn (though not so much in Wales), and more recently to the Democrats in the USA.
This strategy for the twenty-first century explains the link-up in the USA between Antifa and Black Lives Matter. It also explains the hard left’s ambivalence towards Islamic terrorism. What the French perceptively call Islamo-gauchisme.
In short, anything that might undermine or cause friction in Western societies will be supported by the hard left.
Given that the hard left has no hope of infiltrating the Conservative Party, has lost the Labour Party, and the Lib Dems aren’t worth the effort, here in Wales Plaid Cymru has been the target.
And, by extension, the movement for independence represented by Yes Cymru.
One recent hard left recruit to the cause of Welsh independence was quite open in his support for the terrorists guilty of the Charlie Hebdo atrocity. He also made an interesting remark about people like him swinging behind the indy movement since Corbyn was ousted.
He concludes by admitting that he was previously banned from Twitter for talking about or threatening to throw acid in people’s faces.
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I ask you, what cause is not enhanced – nay, enriched! – by recruits like this! Incidentally, if anybody’s interested, I can name ‘Italian cool runnings reboot’. He thinks of himself as a musician.
Someone else we see in the image above is ‘BVB’, who is another recent recruit to the cause and is most definitely a representative of the hard left. From his tweets I get the impression he doesn’t know a lot about Wales, its history, or its politics.
He’s clearly another of those for whom socialism is more important than Wales. Attaching himself to the cause of independence was done solely because he sees indy as a vehicle for his socialism. And perhaps because the indy movement accepts or condones his regular threats of violence and mayhem.
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It should go without saying that BVB is another of Aled Gwyn Williams’ allies. They’re in regular contact on social media.
Someone else BVB is in contact with is the woman who may soon be on Yes Cymru’s Central Committee. For on Saturday Rachel Cooze sent him a lovely tweet for his birthday. Ahhh! It seems she has no problem with this man’s regular threats of violence. In fact, that seems to be what attracts her!
Yesterday, with the deadline to publication of this article approaching, I was receiving reports from all over the country of panic setting in among those who feared they might get a mention. Even our hero with the axe!
Let me put you straight, ‘BVB’. I’m mentioning you because you have threatened physical violence against me – did you forget? – and for this and other reasons you seem to be a rather dangerous individual. An embarrassment to the independence movement. People should be warned.
As for being being ‘reported’, some might think that posing with an axe and threatening “chaos and violence” were good reasons for reporting anyone.
You’ll note that at the bottom of the image above is a message from the person who sent it. I have been humbled these past few days by the amount of information I’ve received, most of it from people I don’t know.
Not only is this support hugely encouraging, but it also tells me there are many people out there very unhappy with the direction of travel in Plaid Cymru, Yes Cymru, and other organisations.
Those I’m writing about are nowhere near as popular as they like to think.
STOP PRESS: Brought to my attention last night were these tweets from some character in Wrecsam. I have no idea who he is, but it should go without saying that he was soon congratulated by ‘BVB’.
There are people now on the hard left in Wales, promoting independence, who come across as both more violent and more intolerant than their counterparts on the far right. Quite frankly, some of them sound absolutely insane.
Oh, I almost forgot . . . Aled Gwyn Williams also agreed that I should die.
∼
UPDATE 28.04.2021: When I wrote the article I was unaware of another recent officer appointment at Yes Cymru, that of Campaigns Officer.
The person appointed was Harriet Protheroe-Soltani, formerly Harriet Protheroe-Davis of Momentum, the hard left group that supported Corbyn and very nearly wrecked the Labour Party.
It’s clear that Harriet wants a coalition between Labour and Plaid Cymru, in which she wants a cabinet post for Leanne Wood, former hard left leader of Plaid Cymru. Minister for Gulags, perhaps? Or maybe she’ll get the ‘re-education’ portfolio. Food rationing?
I’m sure some people will still deny that there’s a hard left takeover underway. Probably the ones making the takeover. And of course, those who support it.
∼
One of the more unpleasant contributions to the latest attack on Dilys Davies was what you see below, which Aled Gwyn Williams thought was excellent.
This, I’m given to understand, is the ‘Elinor’ who made the complaint against Dr Davies to Yes Cymru.
When you see childish nonsense like this you think the national movement is in a bad place, populated by sybaritic freaks forever putting out selfies on social media. But I remain optimistic, there are good people out there; they just need to be encouraged to speak out.
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CONCLUSION
Why do I regard those I’m writing about as a threat to the cause of Welsh independence?
Well, for a start, they’re a gift to the BritNats, the media, and our other enemies.
Perhaps more important, think of some of the people you’ve just read about – who might they attract to the independence movement? More like themselves? And how many more people would that turn away from independence?
We are in this mess largely due to weak leadership in both Plaid Cymru and Yes Cymru. Leaderships that have behaved like the conservatives and the industrialists during Hitler’s rise – ‘Don’t you worry, we can control these people’.
Then it was too late.
Though in the case of Plaid Cymru, under the leadership of Leanne Wood these extremists were welcomed. Since replacing her, figurehead leader Adam Price has refused to confront them. The picture is similar in Yes Cymru.
Between them they opened the door to extremists claiming to be intolerant of intolerance. (That is, divergent views.) Which is a great system . . . especially when you and your gang get to decide what qualifies as ‘intolerance’. Also, who is a ‘fascist’, a ‘transphobe’, etc.
There is now a hard left bloc extending from the Corbynite fringe of the Labour Party through Undod to Plaid Cymru (especially Plaid Ifanc), Yes Cymru, and even Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg!
There are others who are unattached to any political party or group, just loose cannons who join in the feeding frenzy when a target is identified.
There are individuals who belong to two, three, or even four of these groups. At the moment, many of them are out canvassing for Plaid Cymru.
Because of their extremism, and the unattractiveness of what they offer, they would be rejected by the great majority of Welsh people if they operated openly, under their own banner. So they infiltrate other groups, as the hard left has always done.
True to form, they justify their takeover of Yes Cymru – and this was mentioned in both complaints against Dr Davies – on grounds of ‘inclusivity’. That is, welcoming members of self-identifying minorities.
Taken too far this results in a dictatorship of minorities that, even combined, form only a fraction of the Welsh population. Because when the sign goes up, ‘Only members of oppressed minorities need apply’, inclusivity becomes exclusivity. This is the risk Yes Cymru is running.
And Wales, Welsh independence, Welsh nationhood, will all take a back seat to the promotion of socialism through the trojan horse of Wokeism.
I suggest we look to Scotland for inspiration, and to think-tank Common Weal. Their hash tag says a lot with #AllOfUsFirst. Here’s a recent tweet by Dr Craig Dalziel.
“Future neutral” is something I can relate to. And I suggest that most Welsh people would find this ‘blank canvas’ approach to independence far more attractive than the promise of a socialist dystopia controlled by axe-wielding and acid-throwing extremists urging violence against those who dare contradict them.
ALBA believes women have the right to maintain their sex based protections as set out in the Equality Act 2010. These include female only spaces such as changing rooms, hospital wards, sanitary and sleeping accommodation, refuges, hostels and prisons.
ALBA believes women have the right to refuse consent to males in single sex spaces or males delivering intimate services to females such as washing, dressing and counselling.
ALBA believes women have the right to single sex sports to ensure fairness and safety at all levels of competition.
ALBA believes women have the right to organise themselves according to their sex class across a range of cultural, leisure, educational and political activities.
More people in Wales need to start talking common sense like this.
No doubt those I’ve discussed here would dismiss Common Weal and Alba as ‘fascist’, ‘transphobic’, ‘racist’, etc. Because that’s how they operate – they don’t debate anything, they gang up on their opponents, vilify them, shout them down, and hope to intimidate them into silence.
It happens to me, regularly. (Though obviously not the silencing bit.)
I get attacked by those who appear here for being conservative, or worse. Yes, I am a socially conservative patriot, I’m married, I’ve paid off my mortgage, I have children and grandchildren, I watch too much football on TV, maybe I drink too much Malbec . . .
But I am more representative of the Welsh population than those who attack me. And I bet that I am more representative of the Welsh people than the Central Committee of Yes Cymru.
If Yes Cymru is not representative of the nation, and if it is not ‘future neutral’ in relation to independence, then perhaps another organisation is needed. One that offers our people the kind of genuinely inclusive, ‘fresh start’ vision that many more of them will find attractive.
I’M IN SEMI-RETIREMENT AND THIS BLOG IS WINDING DOWN. I INTEND CALLING IT A DAY SOON AFTER THIS YEAR’S SENEDD ELECTIONS. POSTINGS WILL NOW BE LESS FREQUENT AND I WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANY MAJOR NEW INVESTIGATIONS. DIOLCH YN FAWR.
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This is the first of my promised reviews of next month’s elections. This initial foray into a crowded field is longer than intended, so take your time.
I’ve concentrated on those parties with a chance of winning seats, so apologies to the Communist Party of Britain, Captain Beany, the Freedom Alliance, the Socialist Party of Great Britain, the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition, the Welsh Christian Party, the Workers Party, and any others I may have missed.
A more specific and detailed approach may follow in subsequent pieces . . . unless I lose interest entirely.
The risk of simply switching off is real, partly because we lack inspiring politicians and partly because the liars and the bullshitters are already at work and – unchallenged by our wonderful media – spewing forth all manner of nonsense.
Not content with being conduits for misinformation certain elements of the media themselves contribute to the confusion by pretending that only ‘establishment’ parties are standing. Or maybe they believe that only establishment parties should be heard.
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WHO’S STANDING?
This time round there are more candidates representing a wider range of political perspectives than in any previous Assembly / Senedd elections. From the genuinely nationalist Gwlad to the extremes of the BritNat fringe.
While many are trying to paint these elections as being about Covid, the truth is that the big question lurking in the shadows is whether Wales should become independent or cease to exist in any meaningful form.
As for what we have now, there are few ready to speak up for it. In fact, I’m amazed that anyone has the chutzpah to defend devolution on the record of the past 22 years.
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LABOUR
Which might explain why the Labour Party is asking for another 5 years to do the things it’s failed to do over the past two decades and more. An example would be introducing a register of lobbyists.
The truth is that, in Wales, the term ‘lobbyist’ is interchangeable with ‘third sector’. And the third sector is ‘Welsh’ Labour’s private army, soaking up hundreds of millions of pounds of public money in providing sinecures for Labour cronies, in return for which the third sector will support Labour in any way it can, including attacking Labour’s opponents.
Image BBC. (I used to have a suit like that, but it was more of a powder blue, with narrower lapels.)
Perhaps the major problem for Labour is that it’s beginning to look clapped out, devoid of fresh ideas, and relying more than ever on voters’ blind, family loyalty – and not being, ‘them wicked Tories’.
Which no longer works, as we saw in the December 2019 UK general election, when Welsh Labour seats fell to, ‘them wicked Tories’. More may go the same way next month. Certainly, there’s not a hope in Hell of Labour getting near the 30 seats needed to form an administration.
That said, there is a widespread perception that Labour is faring less badly here in the popularity stakes than in England. (In Scotland, of course, Labour is now neck-and-neck with the Monster Raving Loony Party.)
Why this might be so mystifies me. Could it be the magnetic personality of Mark Drakeford? Or maybe the abundance of talent we see lined up behind him? Or could it be that the other ‘major’ parties are so unappealing that by comparison any bunch of muppets might look half competent?
(Please don’t think that I’m trying to insult muppets by comparing them to ‘Welsh’ Labour politicians!)
Some argue that Drakeford has handled the pandemic and its restrictions better than Boris Johnson. I don’t buy that. Labour in Wales clearly panicked when restrictions on pubs, gyms and other establishments were lifted in England, and this explains why they brought forward the lifting of restrictions in Wales . . . which now take effect before the elections on May 6 rather than after.
Of course, there may be another explanation for the timing. If so, then it escapes me. I’m open to suggestions.
What’s not in doubt is that Labour will need all the help it can get. Poll findings published last Friday by YouGov put Labour on just 29%, with the Conservatives romping ahead on 43%. These are of course UK figures, but even so, Labour is also in trouble in Wales.
The only question is how far short of the target 30 seats Labour will fall.
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PLAID CYMRU
I’m turning to Plaid Cymru now not because it’s the second largest party in Wales (it’s not, by a long way) but because to have any hope of staying in control Labour will probably need to go into coalition with Plaid Cymru.
And the terms of this coalition have been discussed for months. So it makes sense to lump Plaid Cymru in with Labour. So remember, folks . . .
A vote for Plaid Cymru will be a vote for Labour.
Yes, Plaid Cymru talks of winning the election, and of becoming the largest party, but the kindest way of describing such suggestions is wishful thinking.
Because for many years Plaid Cymru has been drifting ever further left. This course to political irrelevance might appear to have changed with the crushing defeat inflicted by party members on far left leader Leanne Wood in 2018, but that would be to misinterpret the situation.
The 77.7% that voted against Leanne Wood is the silent majority, playing little part in the running of the party. Those who support Wood – a vociferous and nasty minority – still control the party’s direction of travel. Largely through intimidation.
Intimidation of the kind that can get a Member of the Senedd to apologise for daring believe that a person with a penis and testicles could be anything other than a woman. And worse, suggesting that transphobia may be rather less heinous and genocidal than pushing Jewish children into gas chambers.
Happier times. Helen Mary Jones MS meets Teifi, and a dog’s best friend, Aled Gwyn Williams.
These are the sort of people that might reluctantly agree to take action against child trafficking, but only on condition that it didn’t involve discrimination against the ‘child-trafficking community’. Because in their world just everyone belongs to a ‘community’ – which is of course oppressed – except those who are part of the white, western patriarchal system, which does the oppressing.
What a fucked-up world these lunatics have invented! Worse, many of them genuinely believe they are living this nightmare. Others just encourage them in that belief.
Even figurehead party leader Adam Price was forced to grovel to this carnival of grotesques. Because they call the shots nowadays in Plaid Cymru. Them and the anti-Semites, and those who believe that the priority for Wales should be extending Harri Webb’s Green Desert to the whole country.
The long-gone Lamb Inn, Merthyr, which Dic Penderyn is said to have frequented, and where a young Jac sank many a pint. Happy days!
A green desert with no nation, no jobs (not for us, anyway), no homes; an emptiness exploited by foreign enviroshysters and renewables mountebanks in order to ‘Save the Planet!’.
It’s no coincidence that Labour pretends to have bought into this planet-saving bollocks. Because if you’re saving the planet, then it stands to reason we don’t need jobs; for example, Port Talbot steelworks can go. And the only roads we’ll need are those to bring our neighbours to and from their holiday homes. We Welsh won’t need roads because we won’t be able to afford cars. But don’t worry, because we’ve always got our rail system – a mere three days to travel from Carmarthen to Aberystwyth. (Don’t forget to change at Scunthorpe Low Level!)
Let’s cut the bullshit. ‘Wales saving the planet’, ‘Green jobs’ (that never materialise), are simply excuses for Wales being a basket-case economy.
Anyone arguing that the future economy of Wales lies in foreign-made and foreign-owned wind turbines and solar panels, providing not a single Welsh job, is either a fool or a liar.
Regrettably, the left in Wales is replete with both.
Perhaps to distract us from its internal problems, and the lack of an economic strategy not approved of by Saint Greta, Plaid Cymru promises a referendum on independence in the first term of a Plaid administration.
Cynics will point out that Plaid is not going to win the elections. Also, that there’ll be many in the Party of Wales happy to ‘lose’ such a referendum.
I’ll conclude this section with an observation I’ve made before, and I’m not the only one to have said it. There is a growing interest in independence; one recent poll put it as high as 39%, but Plaid Cymru’s support has remained static.
It’s as if a growing section of the Welsh public is considering independence . . . but they don’t want it delivered by Plaid Cymru. To think the unthinkable (for some, anyway) . . . Plaid Cymru may be the reason more people aren’t considering independence.
My interpretation is that while it’s well chronicled that socialist parties in the West have largely lost the (white) working class through pursuing policies designed to appeal to ethnic minorities and middle class left liberals, the problem for Plaid Cymru is that it had few working class votes to begin with.
Which leaves Plaid Cymru fighting a 20th century class war with 21st century ‘Woke’ warriors. This, and the elitist obsession with ‘the environment’ – rather than the issues people care about – will not pull in many new punters.
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CONSERVATIVE AND UNIONIST PARTY
There’s no question that the Tories are riding high, but considering the opposition they face, maybe they should be doing even better.
For as we’ve seen, the opposition is composed of a Labour Party with 22 years of failure to its name, and a party even further to the left in thrall to identity politics extremists.
Add to that the popularity of BoJo and his jolly band up in London and the Conservatives should be heading for control in Corruption Bay. But that may not be the case.
One problem the Tories face is a combined opposition, one that works well because Plaid Cymru wins seats in areas where Labour is a lost cause. Whereas the Tory vote is more evenly spread across the land than the more ‘focused’ support enjoyed by their socialist opponents.
But this time around things might be different. I say that because of the BritNat parties. If I can remember them all . . . There’s the Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party, then there’s Reform UK (formerly the Brexit Party), and, finally, Ukip.
I suggest that they could combine because, with the demotion of Suzy Davies and other broad hints – not least the promotion of Suzy’s anti-devolution son – the Conservative and Unionist Party has made clear that it’s worried by the rise of the BritNats, and will defend its lawn from their tanks.
Yet when all is said and done, they have so much in common.
Where it could get very interesting would be if the Conservatives emerged from next month’s elections as the largest party.
(It should go without saying that sometimes, my brain enlivened with the produce of Argentina, I dream of Labour and Plaid Cymru combined falling short of 30 seats!)
Andrew R T Davies, Leader, again, of the Conservative and Unionist Party in Wales. Another blue suit? Mmm . . .
As the largest party the Tories could just plough on and test the resolve of opponents with popular policies. I mean, if they promised to take a chainsaw to the third sector and invest the money saved where it could do more good, who would dare object?
Well, obviously, the Labour Party would object because it wants to keep Wales poor, blame the Tories, and keep getting elected. The third sector, constantly moaning about Welsh deprivation while doing little or nothing to remedy it, is essential to this scam. Plaid Cymru’s attitude to the third sector is little different to Labour’s.
But what of the others heretofore mentioned, the Queen and Country boys; what if they cobbled together enough seats to push the Tories towards the required 30?
It’s possible, because even though this election is difficult to call, due to the number of parties and candidates involved, we can be almost sure that the three largest parties will get fewer second preference votes and therefore fewer regional members.
I could live with a Conservative-BritNat parties coalition for a number of reasons.
In the short term, I would expect it to undo the socialist webs that Labour has spun to enmesh and enfeeble Wales over the past two decades. I would also expect such a coalition to put an end to Labour’s war against Welsh farmers.
In the longer term, the unrelenting Britishness might be the kick in the nuts some people need to accept that independence is the only option.
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LIBERAL DEMOCRATS
Well, what can I say without being cruel?
I will say this . . . I’d be pleased to see William Powell back in the Senedd. He’s a decent man and his heart’s in the right place, which is more than can be said for most of those who’ll be elected on May 6.
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THE GREEN PARTY OF ENGLANDANDWALES
This is a party made up largely of Green white settlers, some of whom espouse colonialist views that might have embarrassed old Leopold II.
The non-existent ‘Wales Green Party’ now claims to also believe in independence, not because they care about me or you, but because they see an independent Wales as somewhere they can wield influence that will in no way be hindered by their lack of electoral support.
Which, in a sense, takes us back to lobbying.
The shameless opportunism of the Greens is not a lot different to the entryism we’ve seen recently from far left loonies who have jumped on the indy bandwagon since Comrade Corbyn was given the bum’s rush.
The one consolation, of sorts, is that just about every other party now pays lip-service to the Greens’ message. Which is not good for Wales but, on the plus side, it makes the Green Party of Englandandwales largely redundant.
That can only be good.
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THE BRITNAT PARTIES
As I said earlier, these are Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party, Reform and Ukip. They are almost guaranteed to win some seats, and they will naturally align with the Conservative and Unionist Party.
These possibilities are discussed above and there’s not a lot to add.
Beowulf Headbanger celebrating VE day. Now that he’s recovered a little he’s allowed out to canvass for the Abolish the Welsh Party.
No doubt the BritNats will insist there are great ideological differences between them, but these are little more than degrees of anti-Welshness.
Of course, they’ll say they aren’t anti-Welsh, just anti-devolution. But as we know, let someone talk long enough about their opposition to devolution and before long hostility to the Welsh language and other indicators of a separate Welsh identity emerge. Such as the existence of Welsh national sporting teams.
And yet, they’re right. Devolution, and the corruption-infested swamp that is Cardiff Bay, should be done away with. But in favour of independence.
That’s why I believe the BritNats can be useful idiots in realising their worst nightmare.
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NORTHERN LIGHT
In the next couple of years Scotland will either become independent or else the UK will slip into some kind of ‘soft’ (maybe not so soft) totalitarianism in order to thwart Scottish independence. At this moment I can’t see any other outcome.
Either of those eventualities will be a wake-up call for Wales. Either of them will tell us that it’s time to go, time to leave the United Kingdom.
When we’ve reached either outcome, anyone still arguing in favour of the UK will be acting out of self-interest or contempt for Wales. Among them we’ll find people like the Kinnocks, discredited Tories, holiday home owners, and others whose objections must be brushed aside.
This is why I tell everyone to watch what’s happening in Scotland. Because events in the Old North could have a bigger impact on Wales’ future than anything we do down here.
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WALES’ BEST HOPES
As many readers will know, I had a hand in the formation of new, conservative-ish nationalist party, Gwlad. A party that was desperately needed to represent those who reject incompetent Labour, Rule Britannia Conservatives and BritNats, and Woke Plaid Cymru.
Gwlad is standing a good slate of candidates in next month’s elections. As WalesOnline said in an article last week: “Gwlad has put forward 14 constituency candidates and 21 candidates across the regional lists. Aside from Labour, Tories, Plaid, Lib Dems and Reform UK, they have the most candidates seeking election on May 6.”
Though I won’t be able to vote for Gwlad in my constituency of Dwyfor Meirionnydd, that’s because the party is not standing in seats held by Plaid Cymru. But I will be able to vote for our excellent list candidates in Mid and West Wales.
My constituency vote will probably go to the Propel candidate, Peter Read; but the Llais Gwynedd candidate, Glyn Daniels, is also in with a shout.
Having mentioned Propel it’s only right that I tell you a little more about this other new and genuinely Welsh party.
Most of you will have heard of Neil McEvoy. Despite what his opponents would like you to believe, Propel is not a one-man band; Neil is the leader, but he has a good team around him.
As a Member of the Senedd Neil McEvoy has made himself unpopular with Labour and Plaid Cymru through exposing the corruption and duplicity that characterises Cardiff Bay. (Anybody who can piss off both Labour and Plaid Cymru is OK with me.)
Also because, when standing for Plaid Cymru in 2016, he came within 1,176 votes of defeating Mark Drakeford in Cardiff West. Neil McEvoy is standing against Drakeford again, making this one of the more intriguing constituency contests.
(As an example of the way the media is misreporting these elections, Cardiff West is being portrayed by some as a straight fight between Labour and Plaid Cymru!)
Click to enlarge
The fact that Labour and Plaid Cymru attack Neil McEvoy with almost equal vehemence helps expose a long-standing relationship between two self-styled ‘progressive’ parties. The coalition that might emerge after May 6 would be just a continuation of this co-operation.
I’m not absolutely sure, but I’m fairly confident that Gwlad and Propel are not standing against each other in any constituency. I’m not aware of any electoral pact, I think it just panned out that way.
My advice therefore is to put Wales first by voting for Gwlad or Propel. Both parties are new, but fresh thinking is exactly what Wales needs at this critical juncture.
Because, and I repeat: the next few years are about choosing between independence and assimilation. Which do you want?
PLEASE APPRECIATE THAT I GET SENT MORE INFORMATION AND LEADS THAN I CAN USE. I TRY TO RESPOND TO EVERYONE WHO CONTACTS ME BUT I CANNOT POSSIBLY USE EVERY BIT OF INFORMATION I’M SENT. DIOLCH YN FAWR
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The next elections for the Welsh Parliament are just over six months away; so this week I’m taking a break from crooks, money-launderers, con men, enviroshysters, third sector leeches to focus on politicians.
Reading that, the cynics among you will say, “So no great change there, then, Jac!”.
How dare you be so disrespectful of our tribunes! Go stand in the corner!
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THE 2016 RESULT
Let’s start by reminding ourselves of the overall result from the previous election in 2016.
‘Abolish the Welsh’ refers to the Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party, a harmless bunch of anti-Welsh cranks not a gang of loonies bent on genocide. Well not yet, anyway. Click to enlarge
The first thing you might notice is that despite these elections being organised under a system of proportional representation the result, certainly for Labour, the biggest party, gives an outcome not a lot different to first past the post.
You’ll also see that the main challengers get seats roughly in line with their share of the vote, with the smaller parties generally losing out. It’s a system designed to protect the Labour-dominated status quo in Wales, while also stifling ‘insurgent’ parties.
This system has worked to perfection in Wales because the Conservatives are unlikely to ever gain a majority of seats. And when Labour fails to get a majority then Plaid Cymru or the Liberal Democrats will always be there to help.
After the 2016 election Labour went into coalition with the sole Liberal Democrat AM. Which meant that parties with a total of 38% of the vote were able to form an administration.
Is this really how PR is supposed to work?
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THE LABOUR PARTY
At the risk of sounding uncharitable, the great thing the Labour Party has had going for it is . . . not being the Conservative Party. The advertising campaigns, the policy drafting, the tub-thumping and the sloganising could all have been ignored in favour of the simple message – ‘Vote for us, cos we’re not the Tories’.
And it’s worked, for almost a century.
In England, the decline of traditional industries, and their associated trade unions, have weakened the Labour Party. Labour in Scotland suffered the same problem, exacerbated by the rise of the Scottish National Party to the point where Labour is hanging on for dear life, with just one Westminster MP left.
In Wales, Labour has fared better because we’ve been spared the corrupting influence of prosperity, and also because there is no equivalent of the SNP. Of course, Plaid Cymru likes to view itself as the Welsh SNP but the SNP set out to destroy the Labour Party in Scotland whereas Plaid Cymru seeks to keep its Welsh branch alive and in power.
How Labour will do next May depends to a considerable extent on perceptions of the Conservative government in London. For while Scotland has a vigorous national media allowing elections to be influenced by Scottish issues, the absence of a Welsh media worthy of the name means that here we tend see Englandandwales elections.
The exception being perhaps areas with high numbers of Welsh speakers who are less reliant on news from London.
On issues of the day, there is a general and widespread belief that the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ has handled the Covid-19 pandemic better than Johnson, Hancock, Jenrick and the rest of the gang up in London.
But then, being seen as less incompetent than that crew is no great achievement.
When we address purely Welsh issues, it’s difficult to think of anything Labour has to crow about. For Wales continues to fall behind other countries in areas like wealth, health, housing and education.
Cardiff seems to be prospering but away from the Lesser Wen the country can be divided into post-industrial areas experiencing managed decline and rural areas undergoing engineered population change from Welsh to English.
Labour leader, Mark Drakeford, is less oleaginous than his predecessor, Carwyn Jones, but still a difficult man to like. Despite the Brownie points gained for Covid-19 there remain plenty of bear traps for him to negotiate between here and next May.
By any criteria one cares to apply, Labour has been a failure since 2016. Labour has failed Wales since the dawn of devolution in 1999. But for the reasons I’ve given, Labour will still emerge as the largest single party, with around 30% of the vote.
But well short of a majority of seats.
If nothing else, such a result should increase calls for more Senedd Members and a system of true proportional representation.
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THE CONSERVATIVE AND UNIONIST PARTY (CUP)
The last few years have been a series of peaks and troughs for the CUP, with Brexit almost tearing the party apart under Theresa May. Things took a turn for the better when Boris Johnson became party leader and won a famous victory in December . . . since when it’s been downhill again.
In last December’s election the Tories won a number of seats in the north, most notably, Wrexham, held by Labour since 1931. But the overall vote in Wales only increased by 2.5%. The real story was that Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party saw its Welsh vote go down by 8%.
Things have not gone well for the CUP since that December election for all sorts of reasons. Such as a number of the new intake being pretty odious specimens.
The new MP for Ynys Môn, Virginia Crosby, has appeared on this blog a number of times, usually defending her colleague and MP for Rossendale and Darwen, Jake Berry. Berry owns properties around Rhoscolyn and earlier this year people were asking if he was breaking lockdown restrictions to travel between his Welsh properties, his London home, and his constituency.
The situation does not look like improving for the Tories, for two main reasons.
Let’s look first at Covid-19. As I said in the previous section, the Conservative government in London has had a disastrous pandemic: incompetence, lies, contracts to cronies, it’s all there, and this will be remembered next May.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the Tories seem determined to alienate even more people by insisting that the ‘Welsh Government’ is being anti-English when – for perhaps the first time ever – it prioritises the interests of Wales.
I believe it’s the latter, because in spouting this nonsense, the Tories are playing to a particular gallery. I’m thinking now of the anti-Welsh, gammony element that might otherwise be seduced by the growing number of splinter group parties on the BritNat fringe. (I’ll come to them later.)
The other problem of their own making is, again, Brexit. Of course Wales voted for Brexit, but I’m sure very few of us voted for privatising the NHS, chlorinated chicken, and undermining the Welsh farming industry. I certainly didn’t.
But it’s now become clear that a No Deal Brexit was always the favoured option for the CUP leadership in London. Which will mean the City of London remains at the centre of the biggest money-laundering network in the world; the NHS is opened up to US Big Pharma; and we have to get used to food products from the USA, where standards in both hygiene and animal welfare are more ‘relaxed’.
All the Welsh CUP MPs voted for this deal. Which is not clever for people representing constituencies with large numbers of farmers . . . and their extended families . . . and contractors to the industry, and so many others who rely to a greater or lesser degree on agriculture for their livelihoods.
There will be a price to pay next May for the coronavirus cock-ups and the shafting of our farmers. And while the Tories in Corruption Bay weren’t responsible, it’ll be some of them who’ll pay the price.
Other factors working against the Conservatives will be the Englandandwales media/election paradigm and the Vera Lynn Fan Clubs competing for regional votes.
For all these reasons I expect the CUP representation in the Welsh Parliament to fall.
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PLAID CYMRU THE PARTY OF WALES
Although Plaid Cymru won 12 seats in 2016 the party is now down to 10. Lord Elis Thomas, the constituency member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd, left to become a Labour-supporting Independent; and Neil McEvoy, the regional AM for South Wales Central, left to sit as an Independent before forming the Welsh National Party (WNP).
A further change since 2016 is that Plaid Cymru also has a new leader in Adam Price. Perhaps the best thing that can be said about him is that he’s not former leader, Leanne Wood.
For most Welsh voters Plaid Cymru is the party of Welsh independence, but as I’ve argued, Plaid Cymru is a party that sought more autonomy for Wales, more funding for Wales, and the creation of a new class of politicians and administrators made up of . . . well, the kind of people who populate the upper echelons of Plaid Cymru.
This was to be a system that created a new class that Djilas would have recognised enjoying prestige and influence without the responsibility of having to fund it. Devolution, with a bit more power, many more sinecures, and lots more money, is the end of the line.
Plaid Cymru was always Cymru Fydd resurrected, not a Welsh Sinn Féin. Until, that is, it moved to the left in the 1980s and really screwed itself up. Enjoying only a brief period of coherence under the leadership of Dafydd Wigley and the first Assembly elections in 1999.
Today we again see a schizophrenic party where Welsh-speaking social conservatives from the rural heartlands mix uncomfortably with some real oddballs and a few with views that should have denied them membership.
Plaid Cymru is today one of those confused leftist parties that is vehemently opposed to intolerance . . . except when it’s those it approves of being intolerant.
As a leftist party Plaid Cymru believes that, thanks to the capitalist system, we’re either going to fry due to global warming, or else we’re going to drown from rising sea levels, so Wales must play its part in trying to avert these outcomes.
In practice, that means supporting wind turbines that create no jobs and simply exploit Wales. Where profits flow to a City hedge fund, or a multinational, or a state-owned energy company from Scandinavia.
Except on issues that are largely irrelevant to Wales – where Plaid Cymru can play gesture politics – the party comes across as weak and indecisive. Take holiday homes. Plaid talks the talk but it won’t walk the walk.
At present Welsh local authorities can impose a council tax surcharge on holiday homes up to 100%. The only council that levies the 100% is Labour-controlled Swansea. (And despite what you might think, there are many holiday homes on the waterfront, in Mumbles, and of course around Gower.)
But Gwynedd, where Plaid Cymru is in control, imposes only a 50% surcharge. It’s a similar picture in Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire.
On independence, Plaid Cymru has been outflanked and overtaken by Yes Cymru. While on the party political front there are two new challengers in the form of Gwlad and the Welsh National Party (WNP). Both are unequivocal about prioritising Welsh interests, and are fully committed to achieving independence.
So you really have to wonder what Plaid Cymru stands for nowadays, and where it’s going. That’s certainly what Welsh voters will be doing in May. Many will conclude that Plaid Cymru has hit the buffers.
Which certainly seems to be the case.
For while opinion polls tell us that more and more people are prepared to consider independence, those same polls show little or no increase in support for Plaid Cymru. Recent polls show 51% of Labour voters prepared to consider independence, but only 71% of Plaid Cymru voters!
What’s going wrong for Plaid Cymru?
In a nutshell, Plaid Cymru believes that the only acceptable vision of independence must be well to the left of centre, pro EU, in favour of open borders, anti Trump, and dragging a whole baggage train of ishoo-of-the-month idiocies that turn off most voters.
Dogmatic to the point of being unelectable.
Plaid Cymru always failed to engage with the urban, anglophone population. After the disappointment of Brexit, the success of the Brexit Party (winning the May 2019 EU elections in Wales and the UK), and BoJo’s victory last December, many in Plaid Cymru – like the US Democrats – have given up trying to win over stupid, racist, poor whites.
They find it preferable to retreat into their cocoons of progressive self-righteousness in the echo chamber of social media.
Which is why I believe Plaid Cymru will lose Ceredigion and also end up with fewer Members from the regional lists.
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LIBERAL DEMOCRATS
There’s a temptation to be very unkind in this section . . . but it’s not in my nature to put the boot in when somebody’s down. And boy! are the Liberal Democrats down.
It’s an amazing decline for the party of David Lloyd George, but entirely predictable when we consider the quality of leaders and representatives in recent years at both Welsh and UK level. I’m not sure if Ms Williams holds group meetings with herself but I’m sure she will have thought the same thing many a time.
And yet, despite currently being down to a solitary representative, the Liberal Democrats could be the big winners in May next year.
As I’ve suggested, the CUP has pissed off a lot of people, and most certainly a lot of farmers. Few will know that better than Kirsty Williams, a farmer’s wife.
Obviously, I’m not privy to what goes on at Welsh Liberal Democrat Party meetings (I can never find the telephone kiosk!) but I’m sure Kirsty Williams has hopes for the seats of Montgomeryshire to the north and Ceredigion to the west. (If the students in Aber’ and Lampeter have forgiven the Lib Dems for reneging on tuition fees.)
So I’m predicting that the Liberal Democrats could double, or even treble, their representation in May 2021. These are the three constituencies mentioned, and there might even be a regional list seat.
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VERA LYNN FAN CLUBS
This is where it gets tricky, because the landscape on the BritNat right is forever shifting. Hardly surprising when we look at the personalities involved, and realise how many of them are often described as ‘interesting’, or ‘eccentric’ (code for ‘absolute nutter’).
Back in 2016, the big winner among this section of the electorate was UKIP, with 13% of the vote and seven seats. The Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party did not stand constituency candidates and got just 4.4% of the regional vote (which was still more than the share won by the Green Party of Englandandwales).
Since 2016 UKIP has had eight or nine UK leaders, numerous resignations, and in Corruption Bay is now reduced to the solitary – but dapper – form of Neil Hamilton. In fact, I’m not sure if Neil Hamilton isn’t the current party leader. Or was that last month?
Not so long ago the Abolish lot was the fringe of a fringe, but now it boasts two Members of the Senedd, Gareth Bennett and Mark Reckless. Though you’ve gotta be pretty desperate to boast about those two.
I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall at those UKIP meetings because by comparison ferrets in a sack are models of harmony and co-existence.
The most recent development is that Rowlands and the Jones women have formed a new group, the Independent Alliance for Reform. And if that name doesn’t stir something deep inside you – other than wind – then you are beyond hope.
It is obviously designed to be interchangeable with or to complement Aux barricades!
And all the while, in the wings, observing, is Nigel Farage. Will his Reform Party put in a late appearance, or will it be the promised relaunch of the Brexit Party? Though with Brexit almost done what would be the platform?
For let us remember that the Assembly elections of May 2016 were held just ahead of the EU referendum and were almost overshadowed by it. This propinquity benefited Ukip.
One thing’s for sure, if all the parties we’ve looked at in this section fight all the seats then we’ll be royally entertained by the stars they’ll recruit from Wetherspoons and other squelchy underfoot salons. A goodly number of whom will have to withdraw before the election after saying or doing something really stupid.
The BritNat right has no hope of a constituency seat, so hopes rest on the regional lists. Which means that a lot will depend on whether they fight each other or come to some arrangement.
I suspect there are still enough “Brexit means Brexit” types out there to win 3 seats.
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THE SERIOUS ABOUT WALES PARTIES
Looking around Wales and seeing the mess this country is in is painful enough, but when you realise that none of the existing parties offers any hope of meaningful change, then new parties will be formed.
And that’s exactly what’s happened; and why we have Gwlad and the WNP.
I am a member of Gwlad and played a small part in its creation, but it was easy for me to withdraw to the blogosphere because the party is in such capable hands.
I like to think that Gwlad combines patriotism with pragmatism. For example, in believing that relying on handouts from London, as Labour and Plaid Cymru prefer, only perpetuates the misconception that Wales could never stand on her own two feet economically.
There are radical yet practical proposals across the board. We’ve already touched on Plaid Cymru’s fear of upsetting second home owners – a number in their own ranks – with meaningful levels of council tax; well, Gwlad does not hesitate to demand a 500% council tax surcharge.
Predictably, the criticism levelled against Gwlad by Plaid Cymru is that we shall “split the nationalist vote”. This is nonsense, because Plaid Cymru has already split – or certainly, limited – the nationalist vote by its inflexible and off-putting socialism.
This is borne out in recent elections and in even more so in recent opinion polls.
What Gwlad will do is reach out to those who want, or would be prepared to consider, independence, but could never vote for a hard-line socialist party also lumbered with the tag of still being a party only for Welsh speakers.
Gwlad could come through a crowded field to win a constituency seat and should certainly collect 3 or 4 regional list seats.
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Of course, I’ve met Neil McEvoy a few times and we exchange the occasional e-mail, Wales is a small country after all. But I really don’t know much about his new party beyond what I read in the media.
Though I do know a few others involved with the WNP.
Over the years I’ve sunk a few pints with Councillor Keith Parry . . . and I’m still haunted by a car journey one very rainy night as I tried to concentrate on the road ahead while my mate and Keith’s Jewish wife argued over the Israeli-Palestinian conundrum.
I feared it was all going to end in a fight and a fireball car crash. Phew!
Many observers try to say that Neil McEvoy only took the course he did in forming the WNP because he was effectively thrown out of Plaid Cymru. They couldn’t be more wrong.
Neil has been in politics a long time, and he knows what’s wrong with Wales. On one level it’s London’s political, economic and cultural stranglehold, but on the local level it’s the Labour Party and Plaid Cymru.
Labour holds power on local councils and in the Senedd . . . simply to be in power; to stop someone else getting the salaries and the expenses, attending the bun-fights and the jollies. Labour has little intention – and no real incentive – to improve the lives of our people because for a century it has capitalised on Wales’ deprivation.
Plaid Cymru, as I’ve said, is a party of gestures and abstractions. It is the twenty-first century political equivalent of those medieval divines who would argue over how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.
But actually doing anything? Forget it!
But if one of his constituents persuades him they’re getting a raw deal, then Neil McEvoy will take up the case and demand something be done about it. And he sometimes ruffles feathers doing it. But if kids are sharing a bedroom with rats, or there’s water rippling down the kitchen wall . . .
Neil McEvoy is a do-er, a man who believes in the direct approach; and that makes the anguished attitudinisers of Plaid Cymru very nervous. And never more so than when he confronts the Labour Party.
Sticking it to the man may outrage the sensitive flowers of Plaid Cymru but it goes down well with real people, on the streets of Cardiff, and elsewhere in Wales. People want their problems solved, they do not want to be patronised, or taken for granted, by an aloof and self-serving political class.
The big test will come in the constituency seat of Cardiff West, where McEvoy will be standing against First Minister Drakeford. Plaid Cymru will of course be splitting the nationalist vote in the hope of securing victory for Mark Drakeford.
Neil McEvoy’s street cred and his sheer hard work might win Cardiff West next May, plus a couple of regional list seats.
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My very personal belief is that Gwlad and the WNP should not get in each other’s way next May. Neither has the strength yet to fight a full national election so it’s in their interests, and more importantly, it’s in Wales’s interests, for there to be some kind of deal.
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FINAL THOUGHTS
I obviously can’t account for all those who might be standing next May, there’s bound to be a wild card or two. But what you’ve just read is how I see it panning out.
Other factors will I’m sure influence voters. Perhaps the UK government’s Internal Markets Bill; supposedly about ‘repatriating’ powers from the EU but which, in reality, gives BoJo’s gang the power to trample all over devolution.
Perhaps it will even be used to challenge the 1707 Act of Union.
More specific to Wales is a growing awareness of and dislike for the chumminess of Cardiff Bay. The air of cronyism and unaccountability exemplified by Labour and Plaid Cymru refusing to bring in a register of lobbyists.
The problem in this area is obvious, but there are always excuses for doing nothing. This is because Labour and Plaid Cymru are too close to those who might be held to account by such legislation.
Another issue that might influence some voters to take a punt on a new party is the widespread perception that Cardiff gets everything. Which doesn’t change when an MS goes to Cardiff promising to speak up for his area . . . only to be sucked into the swamp that is Corruption Bay.
But perhaps we should remember Harold Macmillan’s response when asked what was most likely to influence or derail political plans. Supermac is said to have replied: “Events, dear boy, events.”
In other words, that which cannot be foreseen. Six months is a very long time in politics.
PLEASE APPRECIATE THAT I GET SENT MORE INFORMATION AND LEADS THAN I CAN USE. I TRY TO RESPOND TO EVERYONE WHO CONTACTS ME BUT I CANNOT POSSIBLY USE EVERY BIT OF INFORMATION I’M SENT. DIOLCH YN FAWR
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I know I promised a piece on Wales & West Housing, but I’ve put that on the back burner because something has cropped up. And anyway, W&W is not going away. (Unfortunately.) So that will be my next post.
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PLAID CYMRU KEEPS ON DIGGING
The previous post on this blog, Plaid Cymru’s new girl, was about Sonia Klein who, just a few months ago, was trying to be the Labour candidate for Ilford South in December’s general election. So she and her husband must have surprised many people with their decision to join Plaid Cymru.
Inevitably, Ms Klein was welcomed into Plaid Cymru by Leanne Wood.
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I say, ‘inevitably’, because Ms Klein ticks so many boxes for Plaid Cymru. She is a ‘strong woman’, she is BAME, and she is also a socialist.
Just a few days later it leaked out that Plaid Cymru had re-admitted Sahar Al-Faifi, who had also been welcomed into the Party by Leanne Wood. Ms Al-Faifi ticks the same boxes as Ms Klein.
There had been an outcry to Al-Faifi’s remarks about a number of incidents, including the London Bridge attacks, which led to Plaid Cymru – reluctantly – suspending her last November. But her suspension was brief, and she has been re-admitted and is hoping to stand for the Assembly.
Now members of the Jewish community have urged Plaid Cymru to rethink its position on Sahar Al-Faifi, but Plaid has responded by adopting the, ‘It was all a long time ago’ defence. Which is not going to work.
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Plaid Cymru is in this mess of its own making because despite Adam Price’s victory in the 2018 leadership contest, a contest in which Leanne Wood came a dismal third, it is still Wood’s supporters calling the shots in the party. So keep looking to the skies for more parachutists.
A number of long-time Plaid Cymru members who thought they were the agreed regional candidate for the 2021 election might be in for a nasty shock. Those who aren’t outed as fascist transphobes and closet Trump fans might be displaced by bearded ‘Olga’, formerly of the Bulgarian Workers and Peasants Alliance.
A very strong woman!
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BRYN LLYS BACH
I’ve written a few times about the criminal gang who’ve taken over this site at Nebo, near Caernarfon.
Anyone wanting to catch up should go to this post from November, 2018, and the section ‘Rockin’ to the right’. Then, on to this post from January last year and scroll down to the section headed ‘Shane Baker “the bargain basement Baldrick of Nebo” and Jonathan Duggan’.
That was followed by this post in July, scroll down to the section ‘Planners’. Next, this post from August, under ‘Gwynedd Planners’. The gang also gets a mention here, in December, in ‘Bryn Llys’. Finally here, last month, also under ‘Bryn Llys’.
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Not satisfied with exceeding planning permission to build an ‘extension’ that soon dwarfed the old house (which was then demolished), or with destroying trees and hedgerows, while continually threatening neighbours and trying to steal land, the gang has now gone a step further with arson and wasting police and fire brigade time.
Last Tuesday someone set an old Land Rover afire at Bryn Llys. It is reported that one of the gang, posing as a ‘passer-by’, phoned the fire service. A large machine was sent which could not negotiate the narrow track to Bryn Llys.
Which was the whole point of this act of arson, done in the hope of establishing that the access to Bryn Llys should be widened. Which would allow the crooks there to use large vehicles to bring in machinery and materials so they can move on to their plans for the rest of the site.
(I’m told that the chief fire officer from Caernarfon inspected the site some two years ago and stated that a ‘narrow access vehicle’ would attend any emergency at Bryn Llys. Maybe the word hadn’t been passed down the chain of command.)
The fire re-started on Wednesday and two fire engines and a police car attended.
I have been sent some images which are available below.
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Following these incidents a concerned local wrote to Plaid Cymru-controlled Gwynedd County Council, which has been reluctant to get involved throughout this sorry saga.
The council’s response said:
‘Thank you for your emails of the 25 and 26 February 2020 in respect of the above.
I acknowledge your concerns regarding vehicle fires at this site and note that these matters are being dealt with by the Fire Service as well as the Police.
Furthermore, I would advise that the issue of illegal disposal is essentially a matter for Natural Resources Wales.
From the Council’s perspective, we have taken formal planning enforcement action with the service of enforcement notices for the various breaches of planning control at this site. The Enforcement Notices relate to the subdivision of Bryn Llys, the temporary residential building and the unauthorised engineering works to create a track at the property.
The Council is currently undertaking prosecution proceedings for a breach of the Enforcement Notice relating to the subdivision of Bryn Llys, with the trial set for the 10 and 11 March 2020 in the Magistrates’ Courts, Llandudno. Furthermore, we are also considering further possible enforcement action for a breach of the Enforcement Notice relating to the temporary residential building.
With regards to the Enforcement Notice for the unauthorised access track works, an appeal against this notice has recently been submitted to the Planning Inspectorate (Welsh Government). There is a prescribed procedure for planning enforcement appeals, which includes public consultation and there will therefore be an opportunity for you and any other interested parties to provide representations as part of this process which will commence shortly.
From the Council’s perspective, I consider that we are taking the appropriate enforcement action in accordance with what the legislation allows us to do in respect of breaches of planning control.’
I’m not sure what to make of this. I suppose it’s reassuring to know that these crooks will be in court in a week or so, but there’s no mention of action for exceeding planning permission with the monstrosity that’s been built, nor for demolishing the old house.
Also reassuring, I suppose, to read that the police are involved regarding the fire, but then we read, ” . . . illegal disposal is essentially a matter for Natural Resources Wales”.
‘Illegal disposal’, be buggered! This was a calculated act of arson that could have had serious consequences. It certainly resulted in the police and the fire service having to attend – twice! – when I’m sure there were other things they could have been doing.
Baker is said to be related to Duggan, and it was him who got me interested in Bryn Llys by responding to a tweet of mine. When Baker’s not fooling himself about his musical abilities he’s mumbling ‘rhubarb, rhubarb’ in crowd scenes.
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Politically, as the Twitter image suggests, Baker’s very much a BritNat, and a Tommy Robinson fan, who may regard Wales as a colony to be exploited by the insular branch of the herrenvolk.
What a trio. The fraudster son of a professional fraudster, a Little Englander, and a property developer with a persecution complex. Though there’s one other gang member worth mentioning.
Andrew Battye owns Bryn Llys, and the land adjoining. Or rather, that’s what it says on the Land Registry title documents I’ve just linked to. And it’s what I used to believe, but I’m no longer so sure.
Refer back to the 2006 conviction of Duggan senior and we see that he owed at least £547,000, gained by fraud. This is the Duggan family business model.
Because if we look at the Companies House records for Battye and Duggan in recent years we see the same pattern. (Available here in pdf format with working links to Companies House entries.)
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From what I can see, Duggan and Battye, either acting together or working alone, formed double glazing companies, these companies set up credit accounts with suppliers; goods were received, not paid for, and sold; then the companies folded.
However we got here, this farce has been allowed to run for long enough. Let’s hope the curtain starts coming down in Llandudno magistrates court next week. And then it would be nice to see GogPlod take it beyond planning matters to feel a few collars for fraud, arson, wasting police and fire service time, threatening neighbours, damaging hedgerows, felling mature trees, etc.
Things have got this far due to the inaction over recent years of the local planning department. The planning department that said a teacher couldn’t build a home when she couldn’t afford to buy in Wilmslow-sur-Mer (Abersoch). The planning department that has allowed criminals from England to do whatever they liked at Bryn Llys. That this planning department has moved at all is due to pressure from bullied neighbours demanding action.
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‘WOODMAN, SPARE THAT TREE!’
The recent floods have inevitably been attributed to global warming or climate change by most of the mainstream media and all the bien pensants of the left. Being the heretic I am on such matters I dared posit an alternative view.
Which runs thus . . . yes, we’ve had a lot of rain in the past few weeks but might wind turbines be contributing to the serious flooding in places that have previously been less badly affected?
Two areas in particular brought these thoughts to mind, our Valleys and the areas in England close to the River Severn.
Because – and you can call me old-fashioned, or even uninformed – I’m suggesting that we cannot fell millions of trees on our hills, wreck absorbent peat bogs, then, in their place, plonk dozens or hundreds of wind turbines, and not expect more rainwater to run into the rivers below those hills.
To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, the picture below shows the size of the concrete bowl required by a single wind turbine. These are the pictures you’re not supposed to see. You, Dai Public, are expected to feel a warm, planet-saving glow from seeing gently turning turbines on some distant crest.
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And remember! each turbine is linked by an access road, giving a network of such roads on a wind farm. And each turbine has to be connected to the grid, which requires another network, this time of trenches.
So what was once a hillside covered in moss and peat absorbing rainwater, and trees sequestering CO2, has been destroyed to make an industrial site off which the water runs into the valleys below. And this has all been done in the name of the environment, of ‘saving the planet’!
A old mate of mine back home – a known trouble-maker – decided to find out how many trees had been cut to make way for wind turbines, and so he submitted an FoI to Natural Resources Wales. The response was startling. (It can be read in full here.)
Here’s an abstract.
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First, bear in mind that NRW can only tell us what trees were felled on land for which it is responsible, the former Forestry Commission estate, which only accounts for 40% of Wales’ woodland. Yet it still comes to over 2.5 million trees felled. Three-quarters of a million of them for the Pen y Cymoedd wind farm, owned by Swedish company Vattenfall, which towers over a number of Valleys communities
You’ll see that NRW has nothing to say for Powys, which has seen so much wind farm development in recent years. This is because the woodlands there are privately owned. And yet, the Severn rises on Pumlumon, not far from the Cefn Croes wind farm (owned by an Italian company), and then it runs through Newtown and Welshpool to join the Vyrnwy and cross the border just a bun throw from Elsie’s Vintage Tea Room & Pie Parlour.
And now we hear of yet another major development of 22 turbines planned for Powys, this one by French company EDF, at Garn Fach, between the A470 and the A483. I’m looking forward to seeing the ‘Welsh Government’ handle this one.
And what does the Woodland Trust have to say – will it allow EDF to chop down its trees at Garn Fach? Perhaps Woodland Trust is one of the landowners to benefit if this project goes ahead?
It seems to me that the eco-zealots need to pause, and do some hard thinking.
On the one hand they urge us to plant trees – even proposing to throw Welsh farmers off their land – because this would be good for the environment.
But it’s OK to fell millions of trees in Wales to make way for wind turbines . . . which almost certainly contribute to flooding. Flooding that will then be blamed on global warming/climate change, so the eco-zealots will insist on erecting more wind turbines . . . for which more trees will be felled and more peat bog lost . . . resulting in more flooding . . . .
I may not be 100% right on this, I rarely am, but I will say this with confidence: when it comes to the recent floods, then wind turbines are the elephant in the room.
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CROSSBOW MURDER
I’m sure that many of you have been following this case on Ynys Môn. I certainly have. If you’re new to the case, then read this article from Saturday’s Wasting Mule.
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There was never any doubt that Terence Whall was guilty and that he was going down for life. The real questions remain:
What was the motive for Terence Whall killing Gerald Corrigan?
What is Whall’s background in East London/Essex and what brought him to Ynys Môn?
What was the true role of Whall’s associates, the locals, in this case?
Is this murder just the ‘tip of the iceberg’, as has been suggested to me?
Is this conviction the end of the case as far as North Wales Police is concerned?
If we had a functioning media we could rely on it to chase down the facts, the background to this murder, but we don’t have a media.
If we did, they might wonder why Gerald Corrigan’s children needed to give evidence from behind a screen protecting their identities. The man who killed their father is going down for at least 31 years, so who are they afraid of? Or from whom do the police think they need to be protected?
The last time I remember evidence being given from behind a screen in a Welsh courtroom was in the early 1990s, and then it was MI5 operatives in a trial of Welsh nationalists accused of sending letter bombs.
If anyone wants to send me information relating to this case then they are welcome to do so. I promise not to divulge any source.
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END OF FARMING?
Another subject I’ve written about more than once is the plan to gradually remove farmers from the land so that George Monbiot and his friends can take over the Welsh countryside with their ‘rewilding’ projects. (Just type ‘Summit to Sea’ in the search box at the top of the sidebar.)
The colonialist arrogance displayed by those involved with the Summit to Sea project generated a very hostile response from farmers and others, which in turn led to funders pulling out.
But this respite might be short-lived if recent reports are to be believed.
We always knew that Monbiot and his gang had the backing of the ‘Welsh Government’ which, being Labour, hates country-dwellers in general, and farmers in particular, believing that rural Wales should accept its designated fate as a recreation and retirement area for England.
And in case anyone didn’t get the message, it was soon followed up with this . . .
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Yes, I know, the left and the eco-zealots will say, ‘Ah! but it’s the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday’. To which I would respond – Grow up! If the facts hold up it doesn’t matter if the story originated in Völkischer Beobachter or the Plovdiv Marrow Growers Weekly.
The Mail titles are most definitely Conservative-supporting papers, which I suggest adds to their credibility in this instance.
Some of the arguments put forward in support of doing away with farming are quite hilarious. One ‘expert’ cites Singapore, arguing that it is prosperous without a farming sector. But Singapore is a bloody city-state of just 725.7 square kilometres and almost six million people. (Wales is 20,735 square kilometres and 3.2 million people.)
And then we read “Ben Goldsmith, for his part, caused fury among farmers this week by tweeting that ‘overgrazing’ by upland sheep farmers — rather than near-record rainfall — was responsible for the devastating floods suffered in South Wales.”
Read who else is involved and a picture might emerge.
If farming is phased out it will be small farmers, and the family farm, that disappear. Big landowners will thrive, snapping up the farms made unviable by the decisions made by their friends and relatives in the government.
And of course we’ll see more wind turbines and other idiocies cheered on by the eco-zealots – but making fortunes in government subsidies for the very same people who’ll benefit from the destruction of Welsh farming.
Think about it, we have here what at first sight might appear to be two distinct groups – the environmentalists and the Conservative grandees. Surely, they should be on opposite sides? No.
If there’s money to be made then these members of the English upper-middle class, who know each other from school and university, Wimbledon and Henley; who move and marry within the same circles, will stick together.
The external enemies remain the same, and there’s not much we can do but resist them. But we can certainly remove the toadies in Corruption Bay who are so ready to do their masters’ bidding.
There’s no avoiding it, and I won’t bother trying. So here’s my quick preview of the general election, and my reason for voting for Reform. Not because I support Reform but because I reject the rest.
