Tag: Leckwith Ltd

Labour Apparatchiks Associated With Bute Energy Arrested In China Spy Probe

On By JacIn Bute Energy, China, Corruption Bay, Welsh Labour, Wind Turbines66 Comments

You must know what this is about. But in case you’ve been sleeping for a week . . . three men, with close ties to the ‘Welsh’ Labour party, were arrested last Wednesday “on suspicion of assisting a foreign intelligence service“. They were released on bail the following day.

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WHO’S INVOLVED?

The first, is David James Taylor. Originally of Ruthin, now perhaps London. But he spent most of the intervening years working as a special advisor (spad) to a number of prominent Labour politicians.

These were Rhodri Morgan, first secretary of Wales between 2000 and 2009. Peter Hain, one-time anti-Apartheid campaigner, MP for Neath, who held a few posts in the UK government, and now sits in the House of Lords. I seem to think Taylor might also have done a stint with Morgan’s successor, Carwyn Jones.

Around a decade ago Taylor got himself involved in wind energy. More on this later.

Last year he started working for Asia House. (It’s been taken down from the website.)

Next up is Steven Jones. He has already been removed from the website of the lobbying group Camlas Cymru, for which he works in Cardiff. He definitely worked for Carwyn Jones. As this report makes clear.

Also non-personed by Camlas is the third man arrested last Wednesday, Matthew Aplin.

‘Camlas’, I suggest, might be translated into English as canal or channel.

Camlas was founded, as Positif Politics Ltd, in January 2006 by Daran Hill and his wife. But Hill was sent down in July 2023 for sharing images of child abuse.

Hill links with Taylor through a company called (after a couple of name changes) Leckwith Ltd. This was started by Taylor in November 2011 and taken over by Hill on New Year’s Day 2018. Leckwith was Dissolved just over a year after the exchange.

Was Hill killing off a possible competitor? If so, how much did he pay Taylor?

Whatever, Taylor then became a client of Hill. As I found out in a DM exchange back in August 2020. (Full version here.)

The other individual named in media reports, but not arrested, was Taylor’s wife Joani Reid, Labour MP for East Kilbride and Strathaven. The grand-daughter of Jimmy Reid. (Despite his politics, I always had time for him.)

They might have met when Reid was a councillor in Islington from 2014 to 2022.

Reid claimed no knowledge of her husband’s business activities. But why would she link the arrest to his business dealings? He was arrested on suspicion of spying.

Following Taylor’s arrest, Reid said in a statement that she is “not part of” her husband’s business activities.

So what have we got? A young MP, only elected in 2024, on the right of the Labour party, and certainly not privy to state secrets.

Of the three men, none is a nuclear scientist, or a high-ranking military officer, so I think we can rule out slipping the Chinese Communist Party important information.

Which leaves me to conclude that what they’re suspected of is commercial in nature. Unless of course, the CCP is planning to take over the ‘Welsh’ Labour party. But if the comrades in Beijing rummage in the drawers, and check down the backs of the sofas, they might find a receipt for that shower.

Whatever they paid – they wuz robbed!

Let’s proceed on the assumption that any offence committed is of a commercial or financial nature.

UPDATE: 01.04.2026: This incredible story just took another crazy turn with the suggestion that Joani Reid had ‘relationships’ with two captains of nuclear submarines. Read it for yourself.

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MORE ON DAVID JAMES TAYLOR, INTRODUCING BUTE ENERGY

For perhaps ten years David James Taylor has been involved with renewable energy. More specifically wind power. His involvement is due to developers realising how useful he is through his contacts in the Labour party that’s run the Welsh parliament for 27 years, either alone or with a junior partner in the Lib Dems or Plaid Cymru.

All this is covered in the many, many pieces I’ve put out on Bute Energy.

A good place to start might be Hendy Wind Farm, not far from Llandrindod. Where nary a turbine has turned. The eponymous company was launched in May 2011 by Matthew Simon Weiner, Graham Prothero, Michael Henry Marx, and Charles Julian Barwick.

There were linked projects at Bryn Blaen, near Llangurig, and Rhoscrowther on Milford Haven waterway.

Behind it was an outfit called U+I, taken over late in 2021 by Landsec.

The original directors were joined in August by Steven John Radford who, in May 2011, had launched Njord Energy Ltd. This company is in the process of being wound up. A new Radford company launched last year is Njord Wind.

Planning permission for Hendy was refused by the local council in April 2017, and this decision was upheld by an inspector in May 2018. At the council meeting a lobbyist tried to hand a note to the councillors and she had to be ushered away.

The woman was Anna McMorrin, working for Invicta Public Affairs of Newcastle. A Labour stalwart, she became MP for Cardiff North in the general election of June 2017.

As I say, permission for this windfarm was refused; but then came a strange incident that defied – and still defies – explanation. In October 2018, Lesley Griffiths, the Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs Secretary for the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ said she would ignore the planning inspector’s decision and allow Hendy Wind Farm to go ahead.

By this time David JamesTaylor had developed an interest in wind turbines (which may link with his failure to be elected North Wales PCC in May 2016). Taylor’s an ally and friend of Griffiths. Here he is campaigning for her.

A month before Griffiths’ bizarre decision a company was launched called Windward Generation Ltd. Later re-named Bute Energy Ltd, then RSCO 3750 Ltd, and Dissolved in September 2023.

The original directors, from Scotland, were Oliver James Millican and Lawson Douglas Steele. They were joined six days later by Radford.

Bute Energy has since spawned many companies planning windfarms, solar arrays, Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), and pylon runs from central Wales; one to just south of Carmarthen where it’ll meet the main grid from Pembroke running through the south and on to England, the other running north east and over the border near Oswestry.

The ultimate holding company for them all is Windward Global Ltd, formed 16 May 2017. The only shareholder is Oliver James Millican. He’s the son of Peter Millican of real estate company Parabola. Millican, Steele, and the other member of the Bute troika, Stuart Allan George, had all worked for Parabola, and all ‘left’ at the same time.

Taylor was soon involved. Becoming a partner in Grayling Capital LLP. And holding shares in Windward Energy Ltd, both in his own name and that of his company Moblake Associates Ltd. These shares seem to have been sold in July 2022.

But why was Taylor given these shares in the first place? Why was he a partner in the LLP? What was he doing for Bute?

I’ll conclude this section on Taylor by saying that in the Moblake Ltd accounts for year ending 30 April 2021 we find this entry.

There’s no explanation of where the money came from that he gave himself as a ‘loan’. Even though it’s before the sale of the Windward Energy shares I still assumed this money came from Bute, for services rendered.

Moblake soon went into liquidation.

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POSITIF, CAMLAS, BUTE

In the first section I mentioned David Taylor’s link to child pornography fan Daran Hill, and Hill’s company Positif. Since renamed Camlas. And we saw that the other two men arrested with Taylor are Camlas employees.

Camlas is owned by Rhodri ab Owen. Rhodri’s brother is Senedd Member Rhys ab Owen, who sits as an Independent following a minor lapse that saw the pearl-clutchers of Plaid Cymru distance themselves.

These brothers are the sons of lifelong Plaid activist and Assembly Member the late Owen John Thomas, with whom I had a few jars back in The Good Old Days when the party prioritised Wales and Welsh interests before going far left then Woke.

Camlas seems to be another Plaid-Labour hybrid. (Like Deryn.) For as we’ve seen, and despite Plaid ownership, there’s plenty of Labour involvement. Another from that quarter worth mentioning is Naomi Williams, the partner of Labour SM Jack Sargeant, who did 14 years with Positif-Camlas and ended up as Managing Partner.

Another Camlas-Labour connection is provided by Matthew Hexter. He worked for Camlas for over three years, as a Senior Political Consultant, before becoming a Special Adviser at the Wales Office.

Bute Energy is a client of Camlas. And as I’ve established above, Taylor has a lengthy association with Bute. But Taylor’s now moved on, and since September last year he’s been Head of Programmes for Asia House in London.

I don’t know much about Asia House, but it has many contacts in China. That’s almost inevitable, with China being the largest Asian country. And there needn’t be anything suspicious about it. Except that China is a country controlled by a Communist regime with its hand in everything.

Taylor’s most recent company is Earthcott Ltd. Launched 1 September 2021. The latest accounts, to year ending 30 September 2024, show a big increase in assets and cash. And, as we saw earlier with Moblake, there’s no explanation for where it comes from.

Is this to be paid to himself as a loan that doesn’t need to be repaid?

Idly flicking through the Asia House accounts filed with Companies House, I soon came upon the capture you see below, which rang a bell. But why?

Rathbones is a major investment company, with its roots in Liverpool. Like most asset and investment companies nowadays it’s keen to make money from ‘renewable’ energy. But let me explain why I found Rathbone’s involvement interesting.

The Rathbone family still benefits handsomely from such investments. One member of the family sits in the Senedd, Jenny Rathbone, SM for Cardiff Central since 2011. As Wikipedia tells us:

Rathbone descended from the Rathbone family, with many members being notable merchants and politicians. Rathbone’s great aunt is Eleanor Rathbone, one of the first women elected as a Member of Parliament.[16][17][18] Her great grandfather was William Rathbone V, who was Lord Mayor of Liverpool.[19]

Jenny Rathbone is a big supporter of ‘Renewables’. And “sits on the Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee“. But it don’t end there.

Her husband, or partner, John Uden, who knows bugger all about wind energy, had a sinecure created for him by Bute Energy on its ‘Welsh Advisory Board’ a few years back. Another member recruited was redundant Labour MEP Derek Vaughan.

In fact, Bute has been hoovering up people with influence in the Labour party for some years. A recent addition is Sophie Howe, former Future Generations Commissioner, who’s now a director of Bute Energy Ltd.

And it seems to have started with David James Taylor, because the boys from Edinburgh didn’t know anybody here until they recruited him.

But now, with the wind in their sails, Plaid Cymru seem to be the target. One notable recruit being 29-year-old Baroness Carmen Smith. She was selected for the Lords by the party hierarchy over the members’ choice of former MP Elfyn Llwyd.

Did Bute have a hand in that? Because Smith works for Bute.

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UPDATES

Martin ‘Shippo’ Shipton, of ‘Welsh Government’-funded Nation.Cymru, had his door kicked in just after 6am last Wednesday by an “eight-strong team from the counter-terrorism division of the Metropolitan Police“. As he reports here.

To believe him this was all a misunderstanding due to a completely innocent visit he made to Hong Kong, with David James Taylor, to meet representatives of the Chinese Communist Party.

Fair enough, squire . . . except that Shippo has made his admiration for Communist China clear on a few occasions.

He sounds like a visitor to Stalin’s Russia in awe of the grain harvest.

And on Friday the Western Mail gave him a big spread. Though I was initially confused by the reference to “top Welsh journalist“.

Shipton is a biased lefty propagandist subsidised with our money. If it was up to me I’d have him ‘cuffed, dragged off to some quiet place, where he’d be encouraged to respond to the gentle persuasion of a rubber hose.

But, then, I’m a far-right bastard . . . who respects democracy, who wants to defend freedom of speech, who rejects censorship and Digital ID, who realises that Net Zero is a Globalist scam, who knows that Covid was engineered by some truly evil bastards.

Just another nobody who loves his country, and realises who its real enemies are.

And I’ve got a sense of humour!

In other news, Taylor’s wife, Joani Reid, has resigned the Labour whip.

Another property has been searched. So who is it? Well, he’s a former aide to Tom Watson, former deputy leader of the Labour party, who now sits in the House of Lords.

Watson became a director of Bute company Windward Energy Ltd in September 2024.

I could go about Labour party connections with Bute. For example, funding is said to be coming from Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, where we find a former Danish PM, who happens to be the wife of Stephen Kinnock, Labour MP for Aberavon.

With more investment coming from the Welsh local government pension pot.

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CONCLUSION

Welsh politics is corrupt. It’s a cess-pit. There could be no other way after a century of Labour party dominance and the cronyism and nepotism that goes with it.

With devolution third-rate politicos have been bossed around by spads and advisers, civil servants answering to bosses in London, and bullied by lobbysists and others. All of whom have more influence in Corruption Bay than we, the people they were elected to represent.

Which explains so much. Such as why Wales is the only country in the Western world without a register of lobbyists. Because the lobbyists didn’t want it!

In recent years, new players have added to that corruption.

Among these new players, Bute Energy is prominent. It wants to plaster rural Wales in 250-metre-tall wind turbines, cover good land with solar panels, and destroy what remains with pylons.

And Bute’s done this through buying political influence. The boys from Auld Reekie know how the game is played. And it was so easy when you’re dealing with thick-as-shit politicians, with no business sense – but stupid and gullible enough to believe that human beings are destroying the planet!

And for what? Unreliable and expensive ‘renewable’ energy. While China builds one coal-fired power station after another. While supplying us with components for wind turbines and complete solar panels.

And there is already Chinese interest in ‘renewables’ in Wales. Brenig wind farm, in the Clocaenog forest, is owned by the China General Nuclear Power Corporation of Guandong Province.

Wales & West Utilities is Chinese owned. After trawling through a labyrinth of ownership you eventually come to West Gas Networks Ltd. Check out the shareholders. Tracing back to Li Ka-shing.

It would relatively easy for China to begin a takeover of the UK energy market in Wales. There’d be little or no oversight from incompetent politicians who’d dress it all up as ‘diversity’ or ‘foreign investment’, or some such nonsense.

With the mainstream media, aided by the likes of Martin ‘China’ Shipton and Wee Willy Hayward, denouncing critics as racists and Sinophobes.

I don’t want it to look like I’m picking on Bute Energy, but it’s certainly a link between those who were pulled in. Bute, and of course the ‘Welsh’ Labour party that Bute’s so successfully infiltrated.

On top of which, people are telling me that Bute, perhaps due to mounting local opposition to its plans, is looking to sell up.

I’ll say no more. Form your own conclusions from the evidence I’ve presented.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2026

Buy Me A Coffee

Corruption in the wind 2, Labour snouts in the trough

On By JacIn Corruption, Wales, Welsh Labour, Wind Turbines22 Comments

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

♦

In November 2018 I published Corruption in the Wind? I suggest you read it to get the background to what’s written here. You might notice that for this report I’ve dropped the question mark used in the original piece.

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BRIEF BACKGROUND

That earlier piece (plus updates) was about Hendy wind farm south of the hamlet of Llandegley, which is a few miles east of Llandrindod, and just off the A44.

The planning application was rejected by the council in May 2017. There was an appeal by the developers, and the council’s decision was upheld by a Planning Inspector in May 2018.

That seemed to be the end of the matter.

But, then, in October 2018, Lesley Griffiths, the ‘Welsh Government’s Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs, suddenly and unexpectedly overturned that decision.

This led to developers cutting all sorts of corners in their rush to get one turbine erected before the end of January 2019, in order to beat OFGEM’s accreditation deadline for onshore wind subsidy hand-outs.

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THE STORY SO FAR . . .

As Julie Andrews trilled in The Sound of Music – a movie I manage to avoid every Christmas! – “Let’s start at the very beginning”.

The planning application for Hendy wind farm was received by Powys County Council in July 2014. From Hendy Wind Farm Ltd through agent Cunnane Town Planning of Manchester. Among the directors of Hendy Wind Farm we find Steven John Radford.

To guarantee himself another slice of the Hendy pie Radford had set up two weeks earlier Njord Energy Ltd, with his wife as the other director. They describe themselves as ‘environmental consultants’.

Here’s the plan that accompanied the planning application. The A44, heading roughly north west to Crossgates, forms the eastern boundary.

Click to enlarge

In the early days of this project we were also looking at the involvement of U + I Group PLC, which seemed to be the controlling force behind everything.

As I wrote in ‘Corruption in the wind?’ “A curious beast, U and I. It was known as Development Securities plc until 5 November 2015. And on the very same day a previous incarnation of the U + I Group Ltd changed its name to Development Securities Ltd.”

Development Securities (No 71) Ltd was the original name of Hendy Wind Farm Ltd until April 2012; so you have to wonder what it had been doing in the 27 months between the name change and submitting the planning application.

In fact, companies changing or exchanging names is quite common among those we’re dealing with. Why do they do it? Well, your guess is as good as mine. Though confusing the curious must be one possibility.

Here’s a table I’ve put together in which I try to show, in chronological order, when various individuals and companies became involved. You will probably find it easier to use the pdf version with the company names serving as hyperlinks.

My attempt to set out the companies and the individuals involved with the Hendy wind farm. Click to enlarge

In addition to the web of interlinked companies I mention here, also involved are companies under the Parabola banner, also based at 20 Primrose Street, London. But there are so many others . . . It really is a maze.

Those I mentioned in the original piece seem to have been joined recently by a new set of players. As if one team has been responsible for getting planning permission and now, that achieved, another team will take over.

That is certainly what is suggested on page 6 of the Annual Report for the U + I Group. Where we see that Hendy Wind Farm is lined up for sale. You’ll also see Rhoscrowther wind farm mentioned. Which is strange.

Originally there were three wind farms planned by U + I, each with its own company. (All covered in ‘Corruption in the wind?’) Bryn Blaen, near Llangurig, went ahead relatively straightforwardly, and has now been sold. Hendy you’re reading about here, and then there was Rhoscrowther.

Rhoscrowther wind farm was planned for the Milford Haven Waterway. The county council vetoed it, a planning inspector agreed, ‘Welsh Government’ accepted that decision, and it even went as far as a High Court hearing when the investors wouldn’t accept those decisions.

My understanding is that the Rhoscrowther project is dead. So why does it appear as an ongoing project in U + I’s annual report? Which appears to suggest that the application will be submitted again. But why expect a different outcome? Do those involved know something we don’t?

Image: U + I Group PLC. Click to enlarge

Quite obviously, U + I cannot maximise its profit from Hendy until the sale is completed, and for that to happen there are still a couple of hurdles to overcome. With niceties to be observed.

A recent letter from Steven Radford to the County Council asks for some irksome conditions to be lifted. Specifically, Condition 38 of the planning permission, which relates to bats and birds. The council of course agreed, with worrying alacrity.

A remarkable document this. Tantamount to a wind farm developer admitting that wind turbines kill birds and bats, something that’s usually denied.

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ENTER ANEURIN GLYNDŴR, IN MOOD POSITIF

For those of you for whom Aneurin Glyndŵr means nothing, let me explain . . .

Back in the early part of 2009 a bright lad in the Labour Party launched a website attacking his party’s political opponents. The site’s name cleverly linking the names of Labour icon Aneurin Bevan and national hero Owain Glyndŵr. As background music it even employed Tom Jones’s Delilah.

How we laughed!

But it all came unstuck and caused the bruvvers considerable embarrassment. First Minister Rhodri Morgan was particularly irked because Plaid Cymru leader Ieuan Wyn Jones had been portrayed as a clown. In normal circumstances this wouldn’t have mattered, but Labour was in coalition with Plaid Cymru at the time.

The website itself has long disappeared into the ether, but this old blog will give you a flavour. Though the Aneurin Glyndŵr Twitter account lives on. As does another account using the name that seems to have no connection with Wales.

Now the bright young thing behind Aneurin Glyndŵr was David James Taylor. He’d first came to public attention in 2004 with another website, this one attacking Labour rebel Clare Short. Remember her?

In the first article I linked to you’ll see mention of Peter Hain and Alun Davies. Taylor had worked as an advisor to Hain when that Son of Africa was Secretary of State for Wales. While I’m not aware of any connection between Davies and Taylor, Anna McMorrin, Davies’s partner, had been a lobbyist working for those behind Hendy and other wind farms.

She’s mentioned in my spreadsheet thingy in April 2017.

In 2016 Taylor stood for the post of North Wales Police and Crime Commissioner, losing out in the second round to the Plaid Cymru candidate Arfon Jones. These PCC elections were held at the same time as the elections for the Welsh Assembly and here’s a picture of Taylor out canvassing for . . . well, bless me! – he’s canvassing for Lesley Griffiths, who shocked us all by giving Hendy Wind Farm Ltd planning permission in October 2018.

From the 2016 Assembly election campaign. Click to enlarge

So maybe it’s no surprise to learn that Taylor now has his snout in the wind farm trough. Where he acts as path-smoother for developers.

Those involved in the campaign to protect this beautiful area tell me that Taylor is now handling ‘community liaison’ for the developers . . . but there’s little or no liaising. Yet somehow reports are still submitted!

Taylor is also said to be busy trying to revive the Rhoscrowther project. Who would he need to influence to achieve that?

Whatever he’s doing, the network of interlinked and shape-shifting companies he’s involved with seem to value his contribution enough to have let him join the gang at Grayling Capital LLP.

Taylor has also been slipped a few shares at Windward Enterprises Ltd, some in his own name and some in the name of his company, Moblake Associates Ltd.

I’m sure his new friends have high hopes for David James Taylor, because they plan more wind farms and other developments in Wales.

∼

Another Labour insider now involved is Daran Hill of lobbyists Positif.

This company is acting on behalf of Grayling Capital – where David Taylor is a (non-designated) member – and Bute Energy Ltd, a company set up earlier this year and owned by Windward Enterprises Ltd, the company in which Taylor has shares.

To give you a flavour of the interconnectedness I’ve referred to, Windward Enterprises is owned by Windward Global Ltd, and all shares in Windward Global are held – at the time of writing! – by Oliver James Millican.

Millican is one of the new boys on the block. He is invariably accompanied by Lawson Douglas Steele and Stuart Allan George. They either use the Primrose Street address in London, or the New Town address of the Edinburgh Solicitors’ Property Centre Ltd.

Office of ESPC, 90A George Street, Edinburgh. Click to enlarge

I suggest that this Scottish involvement may have brought with it a better understanding of devolution, and an appreciation of the need for contacts with influence at the highest local level.

Which would of course explain the involvement of McMorrin, Taylor and Hill.

I contacted Daran Hill by Twitter DM yesterday, hoping he’d contribute, but he seemed a bit, well, guarded. And when I asked if he had contact details for David Taylor, his reply surprised me.

Click to enlarge

Why would Taylor need a lobbying firm?

Though Taylor and Hill have known each other for a while. Taylor had a company called Leckwith Ltd, which he’d formed in November 2011. On 1 January 2018 Taylor left and Hill arrived. The company was dissolved 5 February 2019.

A company not much more than a shell, so I can’t understand why Taylor didn’t just go for voluntary liquidation. Does it look better on his record that somebody took it over?

Another, rather bizarre connection, between Taylor, Hill and Lesley Griffiths is the late Carl Sargeant, who committed suicide in November 2017, shortly after being sacked as Secretary for Communities and Children.

Hill claimed to have been Sargeant’s best friend at the time of his death. Taylor was also a close friend. Both are mentioned in this report from the inquest. Lesley Griffiths was on the train to Cardiff with Sargeant to attend the meeting with First Minister Carwyn Jones at which he was sacked.

All seemed to take the anti-Carwyn Jones line following Sargeant’s death. Though Griffiths was kept on, and even took over Sargeant’s post, which might be interpreted as accepting a proffered olive branch.

Then, as we saw in a picture above, Taylor was canvassing for Griffiths in 2016. And as far back as 2012 Hill was sticking up for a beleaguered Lesley Griffiths.

They do seem to help each other out.

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PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER

Lesley Griffiths over-ruled the planning inspector in October 2018 even though nothing had changed in the five months since the planning inspector delivered his judgement – which Griffiths had accepted.

So why did Lesley Griffiths do it?

Maybe the investors hoping to make millions from Hendy wind farm lobbied friends in London. This resulted in Griffiths being ‘leaned on’.

Then again, maybe the lobbying, and the ‘leaning’, was done in Wales.

Wherever it was done, the developers knew what was going to happen, and this explains why they were on site three days before Lesley Griffiths wrote to the developers’ solicitor to tell him she’d decided to over-rule the planning inspector.

Anyone arguing that I’m wrong about the lobbying should come up with a plausible explanation for Lesley Griffiths’ intervention, and for the prescient surveyors.

She certainly didn’t wake suddenly one night and shout, “Gary, love, I’ve had a vision, and a voice said to me . . . “.

No, she was wide awake, and the voices she heard were more familiar to her.

Surveyors on site at Hendy wind farm 3 days before Lesley Griffiths wrote to developers’ solicitor telling him that she was overturning the planning inspector’s decision. Click to enlarge

Hendy wind farm isn’t the end of the story. It’s not the end of anything. It could even mark the start of Wales sinking to new lows of corruption, that will see companies from outside the country use local influencers to get their way and screw the rest of us.

Through lobbyists and others that are unregulated and unregistered. The fault of a cronyist Labour Party; as this brilliant essay by Matt Smith puts it:

“The Welsh Labour establishment recruits networked left-wing careerists. Of their 29 AMs, 24% worked on the party payroll (as Labour advisers or staffers), 21% worked for third sector organisations, 21% worked in the media and 14% worked for trade unions or a union-affiliated law firm before being selected. Only two fifths of Welsh Labour AMs did not work in professional politics or associated sectors.”

Which is music to the ears of those Taylor and Hill now work for, because the new boys from Yr Hen Ogledd, have further plans for Wales. They formed three new companies as recently as 29/30 April.

In addition, talks are underway with landowners across the A44 from the Hendy site. Which means that the Three Amigos and their Welsh recruits could do very well for themselves in the years ahead.

But what about the rest of us?

In ‘Energy Wales: A Low Carbon Transition‘ we are told about the ‘community benefits’ of renewable energy, and the ‘community-owned’ projects – but where are they?

Take a look at the companies and individuals involved at Hendy, Pen y Cymoedd and other wind farms. The only Welsh beneficiaries seem to be Labour Party insiders like Anna McMorrin, David Taylor, and Daran Hill. Possibly Lesley Griffiths.

And of course, the landowners. For wind turbines are to energy generation what caravan parks are to tourism – they provide no jobs, they put little money into the local economy, and the only real beneficiaries are the landowners who have the turbines or caravans on their land.

Which exposes Labour’s position, yet again, as vacuous, virtue-signalling bollocks.

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THE BIT AT THE END WHERE JAC GOES OFF ON ONE

Certain persons in London long ago decided that Wales would take an unfair and disproportionate number of wind turbines in order to protect the vistas of the New Jerusalem.

Taffy doffed his cap, shuffled his feet, and mumbled, “Oh! tidy, mun.” For this diktat could be repackaged as saving the planet. With more sugar added to the pill by promising jobs and community benefits, with free rides for children and pensioners – as outlined in ‘Energy Wales: A Low Carbon Transition’.

I suggest that because covering Wales with wind turbines was a gift for a party with no economic strategy beyond throwing money at shysters while integrating eastern parts of the country with adjoining areas of England and encouraging tourism to ethnically cleanse areas further west.

All that was needed then to implement the cunning plan was persuadable landowners and complaisant councillors. Wales has never lacked for either.

The first turbine at Hendy wind farm, with Llandegley Rocks forming the horizon. Click to enlarge

The hypocrisy and deceit is further exposed by wind turbines creating no jobs beyond the construction stage, and the ‘community benefits’ being restricted to hand-outs from the foreign companies making the profits. (With Labour Party loyalists often deciding who gets these crumbs.)

Which leads me to conclude that the ‘progressive’ consensus in Corruption Bay has done more for the City of London than for the city of Swansea . . . and most other parts of Wales. It takes the likes of Johnson, Cummings and Hancock to make them look remotely competent.

Time is up for the Labour Party and its little helpers. Make sure you give them the message in next year’s election. Wales deserves better.

But even before then, Lesley Griffiths’ position is now untenable.

♦ end ♦

Finally, thanks to the wonderful people in Powys who are fighting these bird slicing, bat dicing, flood causing monsters that despoil our environment so as to protect someone else’s and allow charlatan politicos and their cronies to enjoy their parasitic existence.

I’m sorry I wasn’t able to use everything you sent me. Special thanks, and apologies, to ‘A’ for the photos sent late last night. I’m afraid I’d already finished the article.

 




Assembly Elections 2016

On By JacIn Devolution, EU Funding, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, Public Funding, Third Sector, Ukip, Welsh Assembly, Welsh Government, Welsh Labour94 Comments

This is the post I promised in which I shall tell you who I’m voting for on Thursday and why.

CONSTITUENCY SEAT

I live in the Dwyfor Meirionnydd constituency and my Assembly Member is Dafydd Elis Thomas, or Lord Elis Thomas if you prefer. I’ve known him for many years, and when I arrived home last Friday afternoon, there he was, large as life, talking to my missus at the front gate. When I got out of the car we had a little chat.

Now I don’t dislike Dafydd, but obviously we don’t see eye to eye on much . . . if anything. Even so, I’ve usually voted for him; but this time round I’m changing. It’s not a single utterance or deed that accounts for this decision, more a build-up of little things with nothing to maintain balance – hence my arrival at the tipping point.

Many of these little disaffections can be grouped under DET’s fondness for the Labour Party. His liking, even preference, for Labour surfaced again a week or so ago when he urged Plaid, Tory and Liberal Democrat supporters to give their second vote in the North Wales Police and Crime Commissioner election to the Labour candidate David Taylor. (Here’s a link to information on all five candidates.)

The explanation he gave at my front gate last Friday was the same he gave to the media – it was a calculated attempt to stop the UKIP candidate being elected on the second ballot.

In PCC elections, as in the Assembly elections, we get two votes, and if no candidate gets a majority first time round then the two with the most votes go into the second round, in which the second preferences of the eliminated candidates are allocated. I shall return to the PCC elections, and young Mr Taylor, later.

My Choice

So who am I voting for? (Drum roll!) Well the answer is that my vote will go to a shy, retiring local councillor with whom I have enjoyed many a profound political discourse in the aisles of Tywyn Co-op. I’m referring to Louise Hughes, who is standing as a (genuine) Independent.

Louise Hughes
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Some may condemn me for ‘wasting’ my vote and arguing that, even if elected, Louse will be unable to achieve anything down Cardiff docks. I disagree.

What we have down Cardiff docks is a branch office of the London government, run by civil servants answering to their London masters. The politicians we elect may strut and puff, but apart from being allowed ‘gimmick’ legislation every now and again, they have little real control over anything. Much of the legislation the ‘Welsh’ Government claims as its own is nothing but English legislation with ‘(Wales)’ squeezed into the name. Perhaps their only real power is being able to dish out the lolly.

Yet far too much of this funding goes to Labour’s allies in the Third Sector in blatant patronage and cronyism, or else is ‘invested’ – ‘for the good of Wales’ – in Cardiff. One of the most disappointing results of devolved politics is how AMs of all parties end up following the party line and squandering money on Third Sector spongers like these.

Click on the link I’ve provided, scroll down to the second section, and ask yourself who, apart from Jill Tatman and her gang of colons, benefits from all the money they’ve been given? Or to put it another way, would Llandovery be any poorer, any more deprived, if she and her co-conspirators had been denied public funding?

I’m voting for Louise Hughes because if she is elected, and even if she is ignored, she’ll still be speaking for those that elected her. Though take my word for it, Louise can make herself very difficult to ignore.

Finally, and perhaps decisively, there is the dishonesty in Plaid Cymru asking the voters of Dwyfor Meirionnydd to vote for a candidate who could have the Plaid Cymru whip withdrawn if re-elected, and who might be in the Labour Party a few months down the line.

THE REGIONAL LIST

An Assembly Member who has received favourable mention in this blog is William Powell, the Liberal Democrat AM for the Mid and West Wales region. (That I’ve been complimentary to any AM may surprise a number of you.)

There are two reasons for this. First, Powell turns up at Cilmeri for the annual December commemoration of the slaying of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd (Y Llyw Olaf). You could argue that as a local AM he is obliged to attend. He’s not obliged to attend at all; I believe he comes because he shares some of the sentiments of those, like me, who have been going to Cilmeri for longer than we care to remember.

Perhaps William Powell should be an example to Plaid Cymru politicians whose enthusiasm for Cilmeri tends to waver, and can perhaps even be influenced by ‘Shippo’ down at the Wasting Mule. (Which is what he, his mate Phil Parry, and their Labour cronies would like to believe.)

My second reason for choosing Powell is his response to a petition I submitted to the Assembly a few months ago, and how his response contrasted with that of the Assembly’s Petitions Committee. I dealt with it back in January, in Local Democracy Endangered, here’s a brief summary.

Petitions Committee
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I submitted a petition asking the ‘Welsh’ Government to consider intervening when it became clear that a chief executive, acting alone or in concert with others, was subverting the democratic process by acting beyond his powers and / or without consulting the elected councillors.

When my petition was discussed on January 19th the Petitions Committee consisted of Joyce Watson, the Labour AM for Mid and West Wales, and Elin Jones, the Plaid AM for Ceredigion. This is how I reported their ‘consideration’ of my petition:

Watson Elin Jones
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I would expect no better from a Labour time-server like Watson, but against my better judgement I still thought Elin Jones might have had a contribution to make.

William Powell clearly understood what my petition was about, and tried to get a discussion going with, “It (the petition) does raise some very serious issues”. To no avail. Mesdames Watson and Jones had no intention of discussing anything that might have discomforted Mark James or embarrassed the ‘Welsh’ Government.

So for these and other reasons, and secure in the knowledge that the Liberal Democrats are very unlikely to gain more than a single list seat in Mid and West Wales, I shall be giving my second vote, my regional list vote, to the Liberal Democrats. Though had anyone other than William Powell topped the list my vote would have gone to another party, or I might not have used my second vote at all.

THE PCC ELECTION

Quite frankly, and despite what Dafydd El professes to fear, I believe the chances of UKIP winning in the second round of the North Wales PCC election are slim, and simply exposes again his Labour leanings. But even if there was a threat from UKIP I cannot see how anyone outside of Labour could possibly be attracted to David Taylor.

Taylor first came to the attention of an incredulous public as an acne-plagued hobbledehoy living somewhere near Rhuthun. This was in 2004, when he set up a website to “undermine Labour rebel Clare Short”. Note that the Daily Post account I’ve linked to tells us that 18-year-old Taylor was already secretary of the Clwyd West constituency party and also sat on Labour’s ‘Welsh’ executive.

The boy was obviously destined for greatness, and it duly arrived when he became advisor to Leighton Andrews AM in 2005. Though he soon embarrassed his party with another childish, and similarly unsavoury stunt, this time the infamous Aneurin Glyndŵr website. Around the same time he tweeted what might have been interpreted as a distasteful reference to the Hillsborough disaster.

Taylor also spent a short period as Special Advisor to Peter Hain, when the Man of Tan was briefly Governor-General, a post he lost in the 2010 general election. But Taylor seems to have stayed on in London as a ‘Senior Political Adviser’ to the Labour Party.

David Taylor canvassing
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Since 2012, according to his Linkedin profile, he has been a director of a company called Leckwith, which has undergone a few changes of both name and address. It was originally known as Albacore Associates before morphing, in July 2012, into Westgate Strategy Ltd, before changing again, just a month later, to Leckwith Ltd. There were also physical moves from Cardiff to Newport to London. (Here’s the website.)

It’s reasonable to assume that this PR company was set up to capitalise on Taylor’s proven talent in the field of influencing people and also to exploit his contacts in the Labour Party. Though to judge by the accounts Leckwith has been slow to take off.

Taylor is also a non-executive director of Westgate Cyber Security Ltd of Newport, formerly London. This company also was incorporated in August 2012, but this is not a one-man band, for Taylor has a co-director, one David Wyn Jones, whose business background can be seen by clicking on his name under the ‘Officers’ tab. (Here’s the website.)

Having mentioned Leighton Andrews, I am indebted to ‘STaN‘ of Neath Ferret fame for reminding me that Andrews came quite late to the party, having been a leading light in the Liberal Democrats until just over a decade ago. Here’s a piece by Michael Meadowcroft lamenting Leighton Andrews’ departure. (I kid you not!)

I’ve also mentioned Peter Hain, and for information on the bête noire of the Boers, STaN‘s yer man.

David Taylor is a Labour insider of the worst kind. The type who joins the party before he starts shaving and spends the rest of his life in a cocoon, while determining what’s best for people of whose feelings and aspirations he knows nothing. He is exactly the kind of person – the professional politician – that either turns people off politics or else drives them towards more ‘colourful’ politicians.

Sorry, Dafydd, this is another wrong call. And if it was a straight fight between David Taylor and the UKIP candidate for North Wales PCC, and if I was forced to vote, then I couldn’t promise that I wouldn’t vote UKIP.

My Choice

I shall be voting for Arfon Jones as our PCC. As coppers, or ex-coppers, go, Arfon’s not bad, he was our village bobby for a while. And he’s never been afraid to speak out and question his former employer, something we encounter all too rarely.

Arfon leaflet 1
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In addition, having served and lived in Gwynedd, and also having spent many years on the other side of the region, Arfon knows the north from Holyhead to Bangor-on-Dee a lot better than most.

He’s also a sociable individual, going for the occasional drink at the Saith Seren, with which he has been long involved, and following Wrexham football club home and away, while not neglecting the rugby. He’s married, with children and grandchildren, in Wales and Scotland, so I wouldn’t hesitate to describe him as a ’rounded’, mature individual of many interests . . . unlike, I fear, David Taylor.

CONCLUSION

Looking at the wider picture, my reluctance to vote for Plaid Cymru at this election (over and above my longstanding criticisms) can be summed up in one word – Labour. And I’m not referring now to Lord Elis Thomas’ as yet unconsummated attraction.

It seems very likely that Labour and Plaid will be in coalition after Thursday’s election. That’s unless Plaid’s nightmare scenario materialises in which Labour can cobble together a coalition with two or three Lib Dem AMs, and possibly even a Green.

Now my views on the Labour Party generally, and ‘Welsh’ Labour in particular, are well known. A clue may be found in the title of my post, Why I Detest The ‘Welsh’ Labour Party. I urge you to read it.

What Wales desperately needs is wealth creators, visionaries prepared to take risks and by so doing create jobs and a wealthier country. But such people are frowned on by socialist parties like Labour and Plaid Cymru, for they cannot be controlled like a publicly-funded client class masquerading as an ‘economy’.

So generous is this system now that its fame has spread; spongers and leftie bandwagon-riders flock to Wales to take advantage of ‘our’ generosity. And the funding given to alleviate Wales’ poverty, to educate and train us, to build infrastructure, achieves nothing because it is squandered on a Third Sector the greater part of which achieves nothing beyond generous salaries and pensions for the charlatans involved.

Wales needs radical change; a new national mindset. None of the parties involved in this election provide anything other than tired and discredited ideas dressed up and repackaged. Consequently it matters little what emerges after Thursday.

The Welsh people deserve better. They just need to realise it. Who’s going to make them realise it? And how?

~ ~ ~ END ~ ~ ~