Misogyny, bullying? Depends who’s doing it

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

A WEEKEND TO REMEMBER, FOR ALL THE WRONG REASONS

For those who don’t know Dr Dilys Davies, she’s a consultant clinical psychologist. This pdf document lists her academic attainments together with some publications. They tell us that on the purely academic level Dr Davies’ record is impressive, but Dilys is a lifelong patriot and supporter of independence.

And she puts her money where her heart is, investing in businesses so that they remain under local control, while also contributing to many good causes.

An example would be Dilys buying Canolfan Tresaith so that kids – many from deprived Valleys’ communities – could continue to enjoy holidays in Ceredigion. This has grown and is now used by other organisations, such as Say Something in Welsh. The Canolfan breaks even.

Most recently, in August, Dr Davies bought the land around the Cofiwch Dryweryn memorial so that it might be safeguarded for the nation.

Dr Davies is also a founder-member of Yes Cymru and a member of the committee.

The famous Cofiwch Dryweryn walls at Llanrhystud. Click to enlarge. Copyright Royston Jones.

So why did Dilys Davies close her Twitter account on Monday following abuse directed at her over the weekend by persons, most of whom project themselves as being totally opposed to misogyny, bullying and a raft of other crimes normally committed by bastards like me?

The answer to that question is that Dilys fell foul of a group of transextremists that I have mentioned on this blog before. She holds the view – like the vast majority of people – that a person in possession of male genitalia is a man. The extremists disagree, violently and vitriolically, arguing that if 20 stone prop Dai Psycho wants to call himself Delyth and shower with the ladies then he must be allowed to do so.

For those I’m talking about, the ladies’ changing room is just as much Dai’s ‘safe space’ as it of genuine women.

It boils down to ‘self-identification’. A form of deception with which every con man, fraudster and politician reading this post will be familiar. It means you ‘are’ whatever you want to be. Which is fine up to a point: if some bloke wants to dress like a woman, then that don’t bother me none; but if he thinks he can play House with my grand-daughters then he’s very much mistaken.

For refusing to accept that Dai in a dress is a woman Dr Davies was branded a transphobe. For these transextremists are zealots, their minds closed to other views. You either agree with them 100% or you’re completely wrong.

It’s also noticeable that they hunt as a pack on social media – once one scents prey the others give voice. As one source put it to me, the way Dilys Davies was treated reminded him of a wounded lioness being attacked by hyenas. Though, personally, I think that’s being unfair on hyenas.

Many of those I’m referring to are of ‘non-binary’ sexual identification themselves, which goes some way to explaining their excitability on this issue. But what gives them strength is that the Dai Psycho lunacy has become an article of faith for some on the left.

Some of the abuse hurled at Dr Davies last weekend was horrendous, and much it was subsequently deleted, but people screen capture shots for me and here we have one of the milder contributions, involving our old friend Aled Gwyn Williams. Russell Elliot is or was in the Labour Party, but seems very comfortable in Plaid Cymru circles. And why not!

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What a stupid yet revealing thing for Elliott to say. Young Aled – knowing his Twitter account is now closely monitored – doesn’t fall into the trap of agreeing, instead he shows his teeth by bemoaning the fact that Dr Dilys Davies had the money to buy the Tryweryn wall! It’s almost refreshing to read good old-fashioned socialist envy.

And then came the letter . . .

On Monday or Tuesday someone wrote a letter to Siôn Jobbins, chair of YesCymru, asking that Dr Dilys Davies’ position on the YC committee be ‘reviewed’. In other words, that she be removed. The letter was then circulated for signatures. Some of those approached were so angry that they contacted me, which explains why I’m able to produce that letter. (Available here in pdf format.)

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The letter is a simpering litany of lies from extremists donning the cloak of victimhood. ‘Please, Sir, this nasty woman came on Twitter and refused to agree with us, so we demand that she be vilified, and expelled; her memory expunged from the record of the nation’.

IDENTITY POLITICS

It’s amazing the connections that can be made once you join up the dots. So let’s do it.

I just mentioned Russell Elliott, and he’s a big fan of Llinos Price, because both are in the ‘Hang Neil McEvoy!’ camp. Llinos gets so worked up over McEvoy that she becomes quite irrational at times. It should go without saying that she has links with Deryn Consulting, the poison factory in Corruption Bay so deeply involved in the tragic death of Carl Sargeant.

This Twitter account has been closed down following complaints, which rather confirms John R Vaughan’s view of certain people.

Someone else who closed his Twitter account last weekend after being taken down by the same, slavering pack was Mal Humphreys, better known as ‘Mumph’ the cartoonist. Like Dilys Davies Mal has done a great deal over the years for Wales, fanning the embers of national consciousness with his unique contribution. But that counts for nothing if you don’t agree with the left, the woke and the transextremists.

Dilys Davies tells me that her problems last weekend started with a tweet in which she criticised former Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood. This is the tweet referred to in the second paragraph of the letter. What it says is that Leanne Wood has shown little interest in Welsh matters during her time as an AM, or even when party leader. Few in Plaid Cymru, or the wider national movement, would argue with that assessment. It was one of the reasons Leanne Wood was humiliated in last year’s Plaid leadership contest.

Then the onslaught began that resulted in Dilys Davies closing her Twitter account.

Those involved in the online attack were the usual suspects, among them of course Aled Gwyn Williams. Aled’s a big fan of mine. Here’s a wee collage.

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At the centre we see the Twitter account showing Teifi and his faithful human, then a very recent tweet from Aled’s alter ego, Doreen Ogmore-Pritchard. Does this make Aled a woman?

Working clockwise from top left, we have a tweet put out by him on July 13. Note that to avoid using the dread word ‘nationalists’ Aled comes up with the absurd term ‘self-determinationists’. This tweet was my introduction to the boy, I’d never heard of him before this and I’m still not sure what prompted his outburst. But clearly, if Aled is to be believed, I am one bad bugger; and elsewhere he labelled me a misogynist.

Two weeks later on July 26 Aled is telling some poor woman, ‘Oh fuck off you hateful cow’. But not to worry, for at the Caernarfon independence rally the very next day, Helen Mary Jones, the Plaid Cymru AM for Mid and West Wales – and supposedly a confirmed feminist – gave him her seal of approval!

I include the bottom two images because if I had suggested arson and used a pack of matches to make my point, or joked about monitoring English people, then I would have been attacked by all the colours of the political rainbow.

I suppose what I’m saying here is that when dealing with the woke, and the left, and the transextremists, you quickly learn that they’re hypocrites. For misogyny, bullying, insults of every kind, are just fine – as long as they are dishing it out. They preach ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusivity’ – then demand that individuals be expelled, groups banned, certain views censored.

This hypocrisy was brought home to me earlier this year when Leanne Wood called me ‘an arsehole’, and the party chair, Marc Phillips (Mr Helen Mary Jones), called me ‘a Neanderthal prick’. Covered here in Leanne Wood, my response.

But of course Aled is not alone. For as I’ve said, they hunt as a pack, visible for miles thanks to the glow of self-righteousness they emit.

Though it seems to have dimmed in recent days. Tweets have been deleted, accounts muted or closed down, people blocked. There is clearly a fear among certain pack members that the attack on Dilys Davies went too far.

Though the attack might not have come completely out of the blue. For there was already in existence a Twitter account using the name ‘Dr Dilys’.

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You’ll see that the account was opened in May 2018, obviously by someone who already had a beef with Dr Davies. If I had to guess, I’d say it was connected with her views on transgender issues and self-identification.

The spelling ‘Cymri’ is odd, especially as the account often tweets in Welsh. (More than one person involved?) The account is now closed, and I’m sure this is also a result of the backlash building against those who bullied Dr Davies.

Here’s a July tweet from the ‘Dr Dilys’ account addressed to Neil McEvoy. Does the language and tone have a familiar ring?

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It’s certainly very nasty. Also very, very personal.

ALL ROADS LEAD TO CORRUPTION BAY

What happened to Dilys Davies bears a striking similarity to attempts by roughly the same group – this time fighting ‘fascism’ – to exclude Ein Gwlad (now Gwlad Gwlad) from All Under One Banner Cymru marches.

From my enquiries, and from information supplied by others, I can say without hesitation, that these bullies are encouraged, if not directed, by certain Plaid Cymru AMs. I’m thinking in particular of two female AMs. Given these AMs’ links to Deryn Consulting it is no great stretch of the imagination to see Deryn’s hand in this, especially when so much links up. Not least the Neil McEvoy connection.

Not only that, but the Dilys Davies saga may have started before last weekend, with an attack on her by Chad Rickard, a SpAd working for Bethan Sayed AM, who is of course a former partner of Neil McEvoy.

A strange question in many ways; not least because when Neil McEvoy stands up for poor women, Rickard’s boss, Bethan Sayed, leads the charge to condemn him.

Note that this tweet was put out just after Dilys Davies bought the ‘Cofiwch Dryweryn’ site. With its mention of “poor women” it seems to be another example of socialist envy, this time of a successful Welsh professional woman who has money!

For socialists are dead set against people making money . . . unless it’s back-stabbing AMs pulling down £80,000 a year plus expenses.

The letter asking for Dilys Davies’ expulsion from Yes Cymru was addressed to Siôn Jobbins, the chairman. Even though I’ve never met Jobbins I’ve formed a positive opinion of a fairly level-headed guy, who has publicly expressed his misgivings with Plaid Cymru’s leftward drift.

Then someone sent me this screen capture of a Twitter exchange from Thursday. It obviously begins with Siôn Jobbins and ends with Aled, or Teifi, but who is Hiraeth Film?

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Hiraeth Film is Charlotte Williams, who is “in a relationship” with Katie Bataille, a native of Jersey now apparently living in Welshpool. Bataille is a pack member who snarls at me from time to time and joined the attack on Dilys Davies and ‘Mumph’ last weekend.

If Siôn Jobbins is in some kind of business relationship with Hiraeth Film (or merely opening doors), and with this obviously approved of by Maesteg’s one-man bulwark against the advance of darkness, then the letter attacking Dr Dilys Davies might have been penned with some expectation of it being favourably received.

I’d like Siôn Jobbins therefore to clarify his relationship with Hiraeth Film, and with Aled Gwyn Williams.

And does the linkage suggest that Aled has ambitions to become a movie mogul? I can see it now: there I sit, popcorn in hand, while up on the silver screen, rolls – 21st Century Collie Productions . . . 

To be fair, SJ did ask for people to calm down. Saying “everyone’s welcome in @yescymru . . . the problem being this was said just a matter of hours before the transextremists asked for Dr Dilys Davies to be thrown out!

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Ifan Morgan Jones of Nation.Cymru chipped in and seemed to suggest that easy-going liberals like me should stop “over-reacting to fringe POV’s”. And I see his point.

But the problem for both Siôn Jobbins and Ifan Morgan Jones is that they can’t be too critical of these ‘fringe points of view’ without criticising Plaid Cymru. For that’s the root of the problem.

At its Swansea conference on the weekend Plaid Cymru may confront the choice of dissipating its meagre resources fighting a succession of meaningless, Guardian issue, skirmishes or forcing the conclusive confrontation with the British state.

But I doubt it.

The conference will, perhaps fittingly, be held in the Grand Theatre, a venue that has seen so much farce and pantomime over the years.

TIME TO MAN UP

The real issue, for both Yes Cymru and All Under One Banner Cymru, is whether they are organisations – as stated by Siôn Jobbins – open to all those supporting Welsh independence.

In fact, this question is fundamental to their very existence, because if they’re nothing more than vehicles wherein a defeated faction can regroup and reassert itself – a bit like Confederate diehards heading for Mexico after Appomattox – then Yes Cymru and AUOB Cymru undermine their own raison d’être.

For that’s how it looks. We seem to be in a situation in which membership of Yes Cymru, and permission to take part in AUOB Cymru marches, is decided by those who think that Dai Psycho wearing lipstick is a woman.

And it won’t be limited to transgender issues. Once the precedent is set the questions then will be whether one agrees that Donald Trump should be impeached. ‘You don’t? – You’re out!’ Or one’s views on climate change, Brexit, French foreign policy, Bluegrass music, anything. For once the pack smells blood . . .

Either Yes Cymru and AUOB Cymru are genuinely open to all believing in independence for Wales or else the screechers and those who manipulate them are in control.

I say ‘independence movement’ but of course what I’m describing is very new, and arose – ironically enough – in response to Plaid Cymru under Leanne Wood losing interest in Wales and independence to focus on issues far more important.

Leanne Wood off on one, again. Click to enlarge

I’m not a member of Yes Cymru and I’ve never been on an independence march. Partly because I have nothing to prove and partly because it was made clear to me by the same extremists who attacked Dilys Davies last weekend that I would not be welcome, and might even be attacked.

Others, as yet uninvolved, might look on the treatment meted out to Dilys Davies, by attackers who were not even rebuked, and decide that Yes Cymru is not something they want to be associated with.

THE AFTERMATH

I have been in e-mail contact with Dr Dilys Davies in recent days and she has given me clearance to use anything from those communications. Much of it is too harrowing to be put out on a blog, but here goes . . .

This is from the most recent e-mail I received:

“Royston – this is beyond dreadful now. I really don’t think I can come back to Wales even if I wanted to. Feeling very, very low. it’s been a privilege to have been able to contribute to my country and language in whatever way I could. Never wanted thanks. But I never expected to be attacked and bullied and left so low that I can do nothing further.

On another matter – These people think poverty is a virtue to be aspired to. How on earth are they going to build a successful Independent country.

Anyway I’m done. The wall is now for sale.

Your support has meant much more than you will ever know Royston

Dilys “.

I hope you little bastards are satisfied. All of you; you fucking hypocrites, forever whining about bullying and misogyny; always preaching about being inclusive and welcoming.

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You left-woke extremists are a bigger threat to Welsh independence than anything else, internal or external. Firstly, because you don’t really care about independence, only in using the current upsurge in support as a bandwagon on which you can jump, your bedroll full of ishoos more likely to alienate than to attract.

And if it’s not the ishoos that turn people away then it’s you, yourselves, with your shrill intolerance and your certitude. The, ‘I know the truth and you must listen to me’ attitude shared by all fanatics.

We’re unlikely to hear apologies from the extremists (they’re never wrong), but it would be nice to hear Yes Cymru publicly defend Dr Davies. How about it, Siôn?

Independence will be difficult enough to achieve if we are united, and impossible if we are divided. The only way to unite everyone in the pursuit of independence is to put to one side all other issues.

Anyone refusing to stand shoulder to shoulder with people they disagree with is not really interested in independence, only with using the independence movement to promote the issues that are important to them.

♦ end ♦

FOOTNOTE/CLARIFICATION: For me, ‘transphobia’ is hostility to a person who has transitioned, via surgical procedures and other means, from male to female, or female to male. Refusing to accept as a woman a man who has not transitioned cannot be transphobia. The clue lies in the element ‘trans’. Maybe we need a new word.

 

Leanne Wood, my response

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

INTRODUCTION

As you may be aware, Leanne Wood, the Plaid Cymru AM for Rhondda, and former party leader, has been criticised by the Assembly’s Standards Commissioner, Sir Roderick Evans QC, for calling me an “arsehole” in a tweet back in January.

Here’s the WalesOnline report of the decision, and here it is on BBC Wales. I supplied a statement to WalesOnline/Western Mail some of which appeared online but the print version was all Leanne Wood with me unable to get a word in.

UPDATE 21.09.2019: Arseholegate rumbles on. In this piece in today’s Llais y Sais Ruth Mosalski claims I am “no stranger to courting controversy”. A convoluted way of calling me controversial. But nothing I say, of itself, can be controversial; it becomes controversial when I am attacked by those I’m writing about here. So if they ignored me – as they claim they want to – then there’d be no controversy.

Note that the headline in the online (WalesOnline) version reads: ‘The quandary facing AMs as they’re asked to reprimand Leanne Wood for calling Jac o’the North an arsehole’. But the print version carries the headline: ‘The Quandary facing AMs over Leanne Wood’s Twitter outburst’.

The facts are that following the tragic death of Steffan Lewis, the Plaid Regional AM for South Wales East, I made a comment on Twitter about his successor, Delyth Jewell. You can see it here, together with Leanne Wood’s response and my answer to Leanne Wood.

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Why did I say that? Partly because, according to Ms Jewell’s stated interests, she is concerned with ‘women’s right’, which were already well represented in the Assembly, and ‘international development’, for which the Assembly has no remit.

Further, Ms Jewell had a background in the third sector, and as I put it in my post, Delyth Jewell AM: a clarification, ” . . . the Welsh Assembly, and Wales, needs another representative of the third sector like the Uighurs need more concentration camps.” (A reference to China’s oppression of its Uighur minority.)

Let me finish with Delyth Jewell by saying that since she took up her seat I have, on occasions, been pleasantly surprised by her commitment to Wales and the cause of independence. The same can never be said for Leanne Wood, to whom we now turn.

But before we do, I’m sure you won’t mind me finding space for another tweet from the same thread; this contribution by Marc Phillips, Plaid Cymru treasurer, erstwhile candidate, former party chair, and consort to Helen Mary Jones, the AM for Mid and West Wales.

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“Neanderthal prick” is a curious insult, and rather dates him. For it is now agreed by archaeologists, ethnographers and others that we were always wrong to portray Neanderthals as grunting, primitive inferiors to modern humans. They were equally intelligent and culturally developed.

Which allowed the two to interbreed, certainly in Eurasia. Which in turn means that almost everyone reading this has some Neanderthal ancestry. Are we all ‘pricks’? Should we care? Who is Mr Helen Mary Jones anyway?

THE COMPLAINT AND THE RESPONSE

Let me make it clear from the outset that I did not make the complaint, nor did I encourage the person who made the complaint. I became aware of the complaint later in the process.

Here is Sir Roderick Evans’ report to the Assembly containing correspondence between him and Ms Wood, but I’m afraid much of it has been redacted, presumably by Sir Roderick’s staff. I’m going to go through the correspondence and pick out what I consider to be important.

Let’s start with the letter of complaint, which can be found on page 7. Reading it now, I note that it also mentions Marc Phillips, though I’m not clear whether he was also being complained about. Perhaps not, because he’s not an AM. All in all, a clear explanation of what the writer was complaining about.

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Now I want to turn to a few of the things Leanne Wood said in her defence.

Let us turn to page 12, where I am described as, “a persistent, pernicious influence on Welsh politics”. I found this interesting because so many of my critics, a number of them allies of Leanne Wood, tell me things like, “Nobody reads your bullshit, Jac”, or “Nobody cares what you think”, while another favourite is, “You’re a nobody”, yet they keep coming back, time after time, to tell me this . . . after reading something I’ve written!

At the risk of sounding immodest, I suggest the important word in the quote from Ms Wood might be ‘influence’.

The next paragraph refers to an article of mine that has been redacted. But speaking of it Ms Wood writes: “A prime example came during his feverish campaign to “expose” a so-called conspiracy between Plaid Cymru under my leadership and the lobbying firm Deryn (there was no such conspiracy) to oust Neil McEvoy from the party. I believe I have a strong case of defamation against Mr Jones for the blog posts he wrote on this subject.”

Again Leanne Wood gives herself away, this time by mentioning Neil McEvoy, and my support for him. She then tries to deny collusion between her and her close supporters on the one hand and Deryn Consulting on the other to marginalise Neil McEvoy, if not to destroy his political career.

To avoid any doubt, I repeat, there has most definitely been collusion, and it was no one-off meeting.

On to page 15 and the final paragraph of Leanne Wood’s letter of 31 January to Sir Roderick Evans. In which she writes: “I don’t regret using the only type of language that someone like Jones understands.”

Just 14 words, but what a huge sentence that is! It seems to be a good example of something I wrote back in June 2016. Where, in EU Referendum: Why I Want OUT!, I said, ” . . . many on the Left seem to believe they are both intellectually and morally superior to their opponents”.

Though what does she mean with, “someone like Jones”? Do I belong to a sub-species? Am I some kind of untermensch? Forget anything I’m accused of saying, this is the language of intolerant extremism, whether it comes from the left or the right.

With “someone like Jones” I am being ‘othered’. And we all know where that can lead.

CLIQUE AND CLAQUE

From her subsequent statements, it appears that Leanne Wood is refusing to accept the decision against her. Which is worrying, for the principle involved goes well beyond whether she was justified in calling me an ‘arsehole’. And for this reason.

If we allow Leanne Wood, or her collaborators and followers, free rein to decide who or what is misogynistic, or racist, or homophobic, or transphobic, or whatever, then they will abuse that freedom to their advantage; in order to silence critics and stifle political debate.

It follows that if this extreme minority – a small percentage of Plaid Cymru members and an even smaller percentage of the population at large – is allowed to dictate the terms of political discourse then democracy is in peril.

This is why there must be an impartial authority to judge on such matters.

For when a democratic system becomes intimidated by a zealous minority promoting extreme agendas and pursuing personal vendettas it ends in tragedies such as the death of Carl Sargeant, and the ongoing persecution of Neil McEvoy.

It was significant that among the first to leap to Leanne Wood’s defence were Labour politicians and Cathy Owens of Deryn Consulting. As I predicted.

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In pursuit of their objectives these cliques use insults and smears that get taken up and chanted by inhabitants of a world where there is no room for doubt. Where everything is black and white, right and wrong. Agree with them or face their wrath.

There are some in Leanne Wood’s claque of such total certitude, seeking a transcendental level of wokeness, that they have more in common with suicide bombers than with normal political activists.

This is why I challenge them at every opportunity. Someone has to.

FAULT LINES

I suppose on one level #arseholegate – as it has been dubbed by the interesting new ‘site Bubble.Wales – is a local skirmish in a global culture war, along predictable fault lines.

In this wider conflict the left has been getting hammered. There was the victory of Donald Trump; then the Brexit vote; the EU election victories, first for Ukip (2014) and then the Brexit Party (2019); plus populist/nationalist leaders and governments being elected all over the place, from Hungary to Brasil to India . . . and now, to cap it all – BoJo, and with Brexit fast approaching!

These defeats are partly explained by a shift away from the left by the (mainly) white working class in Europe, the USA and elsewhere. This is important, because for centuries middle class liberals and leftists have argued that they speak for those unable to speak for themselves.

This patronising myth is now exploded, leaving some of our erstwhile elite feeling distinctly uncharitable towards ungrateful proles. For those who were considered to be dumb and inarticulate have now found their voices, and they’re not singing the Internationale or the Red Flag.

This leaves the left scrabbling around to recruit, even invent, oppressed minorities. ‘What’s that, Mrs Jones – you’ve got ingrowing toenails! Join us and we’ll defend you against the ingrowingtoenailphobes. That Jac o’ the North is one of ’em. Bastard!’

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I have to say this, and I hope I don’t upset anyone with what needs to be put bluntly. When it comes to sex, as long as it doesn’t involve children, animals, coercion or inflatable dolls of Marge Simpson, I really don’t care what consenting adults get up to in private. (Just don’t make a cause or a career out of it.)

I felt the need to say that because a disproportionate number of my nastiest critics seem to be . . . well . . . let’s say, of non-heterosexual orientations. Attracted to Plaid Cymru by Leanne Wood they now feel bitter that she’s been deposed, and some seem to hold me responsible! So I am a ‘misogynist’, a ‘homophobe’, a ‘transphobe’, etc., etc., etc.

But I am none of those things. And that includes misogynist, despite what Leanne Wood would like people to think. Ask any woman who knows me. And valid criticism of a politician who just happens to be a woman is never misogyny.

To suggest otherwise is censorship. And usually comes from those who move in closed circles, divorced from the concerns of the general population. This too is dangerous.

But it explains why the most virulent attacks on me come from within the Cardiff Bay Bubble, and from those in other parts of Wales stupid enough to still believe that Corruption Bay is a force for good in Welsh life.

♦ end ♦