Social Housing Back to Council Control?

On 11/04/201612/04/2016 By JacIn Colonisation of Wales, Corruption, EU Funding, Housing, Local Government, Planning, Planning Inspectorate (Wales), Public Funding, Social Housing, Swansea, Third Sector, Welsh Government, Welsh Labour26 Comments

THE TRAVAILS OF CANTREF

Over the years I have written exhaustively on housing associations, I’ve explained the funding they receive, their staffing levels, and the fact that at a time when politicians argue our 22 local authorities must be cut to 8 or 9 those same politicians are quite content to see Wales lumbered with 50 or so housing associations, often with three or four operating in the same area, duplicating each other’s work and sometimes competing for clients and funding.

The contradiction in the differing attitudes to local authorities and housing associations is obvious, with the result that it has become increasingly difficult to defend the generosity extended to so many housing associations. But rather than openly admit that the social housing system is a very expensive shambles, it now appears that our masters have chosen to make changes to the social housing system by subterfuge.

One housing association I have written about more than once is Cantref (formerly Tai Cantref), based in Newcastle Emlyn and operating mainly in Ceredigion, plus north Carmarthenshire and north Pembrokeshire, with an outpost in the Machynlleth area of north west Powys.

I haven’t been the only one training a beady eye on Cantref, others are the ever-watchful Wynne Jones, even the ‘Welsh’ Government! Though given the way the ‘Welsh’ Government cossets housing associations things must have been really bad for that lot to step in. But we aren’t allowed to know what ailed Cantref because the report will not be made public and FoI requests have been refused.

To fill in the background . . . It was known by July 2015 that Cantref was being investigated, the Cantref Board received their copy of the report in December, and early in the new year the chief executive, Lynne Sacale, and others, left. Cantref is now looking for a merger.

As is the way with such things, and just before it was publicly known that Cantref was being investigated, I received a revealing comment to this post alleging Bacchanalian excesses at Cantref’s expense in the grounds of Chateau Tucker. Read it for yourself.

As the writer states, one reason for Cantref’s woes was undoubtedly that it had invested in student accommodation in Aberystwyth at the very time Aber’ Uni began sliding down the various league tables, with the predictable consequence of student numbers dropping.

Though it has to be asked who funded this student accommodation. Presumably the funding originated with the ‘Welsh’ Government, which then raises the question: Should money allocated to social housing have been used for student accommodation? Perhaps not, so maybe the report is being withheld to save the blushes of Carwyn and his gang.

The good ship Cantref now appears to have at its helm a Hilary Jones, of the Bro Myrddin housing association. Ms Jones’ husband (sub fill in name) is said to be a former finance director at Grwp Gwalia HA. And according to ‘Dai the Post’ in a recent comment she, ” . . . has been trying to self promote herself by persuading Wales and West HA from Cardiff to bail out Cantref and give her a bigger job as head of their western poorer Welsh speaking colony.”

You’ll note from the Gwalia website that it has recently merged with the Seren Group of Newport to form Pobl. And this site seems to tells that Charter Housing is also part of Pobl. So mergers, or takeovers, whether voluntary or enforced, are obviously in vogue.

Another change in personnel that may be relevant to recent events at Cantref was the appointment in July 2014 of Kevin Taylor to the management board, where he now serves as interim chair. It may simply be a coincidence of timing, but the problems for Sacale and the others seem to have started soon after Taylor arrived on the scene. So who is he?

According to his Linkedin profile Taylor was employed by Forte Hotels between 1977 and 1987, then, from 1987 until 2013, he worked in Bermuda. More recently, from January 2013, he has been a ‘Hotel Financial Consultant’ for Taylor Accountants, a company for which I can find no record. (I do hope it’s not registered offshore!)

An interesting employment record that raises a number of questions:

Does he have any knowledge or experience of social housing?
Is he familiar with the social patterns and housing issues of rural Wales?
Assuming the answers to 1 and 2 are No, who appointed him, and why?

As I say, Cantref is now looking for a partner, and referring again to the comment from ‘Dai the Post’, there are said to be five suitors. One is Millbay Homes, the ‘Welsh’ Government-funded ‘subsidiary’ of Pembrokeshire Housing that builds homes for sale to ‘investors’. Another is Carmarthenshire County Council, though whether the executive board knows anything about this is open to question, and we can guarantee that the common herd of councillors is completely in the dark.

Elsewhere in his comment ‘Dai the Post’ tells us that someone answering to Robin Staines, Head of Public Protection and Housing at CCC, has been parachuted in to Cantref, possibly to prepare the ground for a takeover. ‘Dai’ further suggests that this aggressive move is viewed within Cantref as a bit of empire building ahead of local government reorganisation. I think the suspicion is correct, and we could see more such moves, all done in the shadows with the connivance of a ‘Welsh’ Government committed to ‘openness’!

Despite not having seen the WG’s report into Cantref the executive board of Carmarthenshire County Council will, on April 19th, be expected to approve in principle the council taking over Cantref. Not for the first time, chief executive Mark James will present councillors with a fait accompli. Ain’t democracy wonderful!

Another source tells me that despite what are alleged to be its failings Cantref is the largest employer in Newcastle Emlyn, it employs locals and conducts most of its business in Welsh. The fear is that if the takeover goes through then the HQ will move to Llanelli and, given the recent recruitment record of the council, it will swiftly lose its Welsh character.

The James Gang

Thinking about Carmarthenshire County Council and the record of Mark James raises the obvious question – why is he still there? After using council money to fight a private libel case, after wasting council money to fund Christian fundamentalists in building a church and a bowling alley (yes, a bowling alley!), and after turning Sir Gâr into the Welsh equivalent of North Korea, why the hell hasn’t the ‘Welsh’ Government stepped in to remove him?

Let me answer that by taking a little detour. When inexplicable things happen there is very often a simple explanation, but one that the media and our political class would rather not touch. I have recently written about the land deals conducted by the Regeneration Investment Fund for Wales that might eventually lose the public purse as much as £200m. Let’s stop beating about the bush – this is corruption, pure and simple.

Many times we see things happen in public life that are difficult to explain; contracts given without a tendering process; people being promoted above their ability; wrongdoers escaping justice. In such cases Freemasonry or other secretive groups can often be behind such corruption. Then there are the instances where outright and obvious criminals are ignored by the police. Such persons may be police informers, or relocated witnesses.

I’m not suggesting that Mark James owes his survival to any of these explanations, but I believe he does have a ‘guardian angel’. It may have been pressure from this celestial quarter that persuaded him to carry on after ‘standing down’ in 2014 rather than the council panicking when they realised the size of his severance package.

Mark James may have been put in place as chief executive of Carmarthenshire County Council, and has been maintained in that position, to oversee the anglicisation of the county.

Let me explain.

If you listen to Labour Party historians they will talk about towns or areas that are ‘iconic’ in the party’s history and development, Merthyr and the Rhondda come to mind. For those of a more patriotic bent, Carmarthenshire fills this role through Gwynfor’s 1966 by-election victory and the county delivering the votes that won the 1997 devolution referendum.

In addition, Carmarthenshire is the geographical ‘bridge’ between the rural heartland (or former heartland) of Plaid Cymru and the urban south. Add to that the fact that Carmarthenshire’s seats at Westminster and Assembly level are either held by or are vulnerable to Plaid Cymru, and the county becomes a prime target for the kind of attention I’m suggesting.

Part of this ‘attention’ is the insane and unneeded housing developments being imposed on the county . . . yet welcomed by Mark James and his circle of senior officers, almost all imported from England. Despite being born in Merthyr, Mark James has no feelings for Wales or her identity whatsoever, and is actively working to see Carmarthenshire anglicised.

That may be the reason he was directed to Wales, and why he has been allowed to keep his job when anyone else would have been forced out years ago.

But of course this does not explain the woeful impotence of Plaid Cymru in Carmarthenshire.

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NATHAN GILL MEP

News reaches me from an anonymous source concerning our much beloved UKIP MEP Nathan Gill of Hull and Menai Bridge. You may recall that I have written of Mr Gill more than once – about a dozen times in fact – so you may care to refresh your knowledge of the great man by starting here then working back from the links provided.

In particular, I would draw your attention to this post, Nathan Gill: It Just Gets Worse, because the information I have received concerns an incident mentioned in this particular post. Mr Gill owned a church in Hull that he was hoping to develop in some way, but on November 5th 2001 it caught fire, Mr Gill was quoted in the Hull Daily Mail as saying that ” . . . some residents had seen youngsters aiming fireworks at the church”.

Though a source I had in Hull a while back described the fire as “suspicious”, and insisted that Nathan Gill’s application for planning permission had been refused.

The information I received a couple of days ago says, “Before the fire in the grade 2 listed Hull church Gill had all the Oak paneling and benches stripped out, Brian Quilter sanded and reused them to Oak panel Lledr House and make window shutters.”.

Brian Quilter is one of Gill’s US Mormon brothers-in-law, married to Gill’s sister Melanie, and the couple lives in Lledr House, Dolwyddelan. Maybe the panelling referred to can be seen in this photo from TripAdvisor. Read more about Brian Quilter in Nathan Gill, Family Man.

Now there’s nothing wrong in what is described. Obviously Gill bought the church, planned to do whatever he planned to do, and in preparation for that – though perhaps in advance of receiving planning permission – stripped the building and let his brother-in-law have the panelling and the benches. All perfectly innocent.

Though less generous souls than what I am might suggest the possibility of foreknowledge.

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JOHN BOY BAYLISS

I know you’ve been asking what our wandering boy has been up to lately, and the answer is, well, a bit more wandering. You will recall that last October I wrote The Case of the Disappearing Councillor in which I expressed deep concern for the whereabouts and welfare of Councillor John Boy Bayliss of the Uplands ward in Swansea. (In fact I have written quite regularly about John Boy and his friends, most of whom have now deserted him. Sob!)

At the time of writing the post just referred to, John Boy was giving his address as a property in Cambrian Place, in the city centre, a row of fine old town houses near the marina. In fact, where his friend and fellow-councillor Mitchell ‘Mitch’ Theaker had lived ere his departure to Araby. But now, I’m informed, he has moved again.

My concern for John Boy’s whereabouts last year was two-fold. After learning that he had taken a job in Bristol I was worried that the daily travelling between Swansea and Bristol might tire the poor boy. So I was almost relieved to hear that he was in fact living in Bristol, and merely using the Cambrian Place address as a letter-box. But then I thought, ‘Hang on, if he’s living in Bristol how can he remain a Labour councillor in Swansea?’

A message over the weekend directed me to updated information on John Boy’s council website bio (see below) which now has him living in Llangyfelach, still not in his Uplands ward, and as far from it as Cambrian Place.

‘But still’, I generously and paternalistically thought (well you know me), ‘it might not be in his ward, but at least he’s got a place of his own now’, but then I read the message I’d received again, and it suggested that this address is in fact the residence of one David Collins. So who is David Collins? Here’s his Linkedin profile.

Collins is clearly a Labour professional who appears never to have done a real job, having studied History and Politics at Brunel from 1992 until 1997 and then starting work in January 2000 as a Researcher and Political Assistant to Ann Jones, the former Labour AM for the Vale of Clwyd. (Leaving two and a half years unaccounted for on his Linkedin profile.) He now works as a Political Assistant to the Labour group on Swansea council.

So is John Boy shacked up with Collins, or is he engaged in a nightly tussle with the cat for the rug in front of the fire? I think we should be told!

Put both images from your mind, because further reading of the revised bio tells us that his correspondence address is “c/o Members Support Unit, Guildhall, Swansea SA1 4PE”, which suggests to me that he might not be living in Llangyfelach at all, and that this address doesn’t even serve as a letter-box.

The PR outfit John Boy works for recruited him because he is a councillor, and for no other reason. That being so they will of course give him time off to attend the important council and planning meetings, which in turn helps the Labour group on Swansea council maintain the fiction that their boy is still living in Swansea. Everybody’s a winner . . . except the people John Boy is supposed to represent.

This ‘Now you see him, now you don’t’ could be interpreted as a conspiracy on the part of the Labour Party in general, and certain individuals in particular, to maintain the deception that John Charles Bayliss still lives in Swansea and daily represents the interests of the people in the Uplands ward. If so, then perhaps the Local Government Ombudsman might be interested.

We know Councillor John Charles Bayliss does not live in Swansea. So my advice to the Labour Party in Swansea would be: Come clean, make John Boy Bayliss resign, and call a by-election in the Uplands ward.

P.S. I almost forgot to mention that John Boy is standing for the Assembly next month, he’s third on the list for Mid and West Wales, a region he knows intimately. His chances of being elected are slim, but of course Cardiff is nearer than Swansea to Bristol, so it would easier for Bayliss to commute from Bristol and turn his back on Swansea for good.

UPDATE 23:00: I am informed that David Collins no longer works for the Swansea Labour group, he has, I’m told, “been released” . . . into the wild? If so, will he be able to fend for himself, cut adrift from the Labour Party, all he’s ever known? I await reports that he has been spotted at night, scavenging in the back streets of Morriston.

Regional Parties for the National Good

On 17/08/201518/08/2015 By JacIn Assembly, Devolution, Plaid Cymru, Ukip, Welsh Labour43 Comments

This post re-visits a subject I dealt with in September 2012. (Unfortunately, the original comments and other features were lost when Google pulled the plug on my earlier blog in December 2012. See sidebar) The reason I am returning to the subject is that, on the one hand, there has been no change for the better, yet on the other hand, there has been a change for the worse. Put it together and it gives a stronger case in 2015 for regional parties than when I originally mooted the idea almost three years ago.

There are a number of reasons for promoting the case for regional parties standing in the ‘Welsh’ Assembly elections of 2016. I try to deal with them in the various sections below. The map on the right will help you understand the boundaries, click on it to enlarge it.

1. SHAM DEVOLUTION

The first of those reasons is one that I dealt with back in 2012, namely that devolution is a sham. Wales is more firmly under England’s control than ever, but now it’s done through civil servants taking orders from London yet doubling as ‘advisors’ to the self-deluding ‘ministers’ of the ‘Welsh’ Government. In reality, of course, these civil servants / advisors are relaying orders. It is a charade of the kind we would have found in the old East Germany, or any country run by a regime reliant on US support.

Among the many agencies of this sham devolution I have dealt with, one that has received more attention than most, is the Planning Inspectorate. (To find the many articles I have written on the subject type ‘Planning Inspectorate’ in the Search box at the top of the sidebar.) It is this agency that facilitates the colonisation of Wales with its bullying of our local councillors (or working with alien and eager senior officers), justifying building new homes we don’t need with ludicrously inflated population ‘projections’, or reduced household (size) estimates.

To keep up the pretence of ‘devolution’ the Planning Inspectorate maintains an office in Cardiff, it even has a few Welsh planning inspectors, but this is all window-dressing. As we saw with the review of the Local Development Plan for Denbighshire. Two inspectors were involved in assessing the protests of the local council, which argued that the 2011 census showed the county did not need the number of new homes the Planning Inspectorate had demanded. Read about it here.

The two inspectors involved in the ‘assessment’ of March 2014 were Anthony Thickett (see panel) and Gwynedd Thomas. Within a few months Thickett was appointed chief inspector for the Wales region of the Planning Inspectorate. Poor old Gwynedd Thomas was there just to add a little local colour, in the hope of disguising that this was part of the colonisation process, and all determined in London.

It doesn’t matter how we look at, What we have in Wales is a system designed to frustrate Welsh ambitions rather than satisfy them. It is a system of devolution for the benefit of England. And this explains why the ‘Welsh’ Government can do nothing to serve Welsh interests if that might work against English interests, yet agencies like the Planning Inspectorate are daily working in England’s interests against Wales.

The ‘Welsh’ Government is, like poor Gwynedd Thomas, nothing more than a fig leaf for this colonialist reality; it’s only real power lies in being able to distribute funding handed down to it. Yet far too much of this money currently goes to Cardiff or to Labour’s cronies and hangers-on in our irredeemably corrupt Third Sector.

2. THE ‘WELSH’ LABOUR PARTY

Sham devolution of course needs willing participants in the country being flim-flammed, and this is where the ‘Welsh’ Labour Party comes into the picture. Over many, many years I have made my feelings known on this, the most corrupt political party in the Western world, but if anyone is still in any doubt as to the nature of the beast, then let them read Why I Detest the ‘Welsh’ Labour Party, The ‘Welsh’ Labour Party and its Evil Empire, Merthyr: All Aboard the ‘Welsh’ Labour Gravy Train, or more recently, ‘Welsh’ Labour and Social Enterprises – All Fall Down!.

It is the ‘Welsh’ Labour Party that, for sixteen years, has fronted the colonialist system of sham devolution I just mentioned. This explains why the only time we see the self-styled First Minister on UK-wide television is when he’s proving how loyal we Welsh are despite devolution (which for some reason, still worries many English!). Such as welcoming Bet Windsor to Wales, or spouting BritNat bollocks during last year’s Scottish independence referendum campaign. The man is an embarrassment to all right-thinking Welsh.

One feature of this sham devolution is the growth of Cardiff, due to it serving as the ‘capital’, and because so much of the colonial bureaucracy is centred there. Though this can have a damaging effect on other areas.

I travel around Wales much more than most people, and one thing that strikes me whether I’m in Llandudno, Newtown or Haverfordwest is that on any contract connected with or funded by an agency based in Cardiff, the hoardings tell me that the estate agent dealing with the sale or, in the case of a new project, the company that drew up the plans and others, will also be found in Cardiff. Suggesting to me that companies based in Cardiff have an unfair advantage when it comes to these civil servants drawing up lists of ‘approved’ estate agents, contractors, architects, and others, or else we dealing with a form of favouritism that comes close to corruption. But this Cardiff bias can take other forms.

I am indebted to a correspondent in regular contact with the aforementioned civil servants for a recent example of the way Cardiff is favoured above other areas. Regular readers of this blog will be aware of the Housing (Wales) Act 2014. Among the provisions of the Act is a new register of private landlords. This work – and the jobs it will generate – has been allocated to Cardiff City Council, without any tendering process. Why should the richest area of Wales be gifted yet more jobs when this work could have been done by any local authority? And who made the decision?

Though an irony in this situation is that even the Conservative and Unionist Party, the party of the City and big business, has finally conceded that England has an economic imbalance, with too much of the country’s wealth and power accumulated in London and the south east. Hence the talk of investing hundreds of billions of pounds in HS2 and Northern ‘Powerhouses’. Yet here in Wales, we are replicating the system England is now seeking to remedy!

3. PLAID CYMRU

My feelings on Plaid are equally well documented. I suppose Plaid Cymru: Ninety Wasted Years, from October last year, sums it up as well as anything I’ve written, but use the Search box atop the sidebar to find other posts. Nothing has improved since I wrote that piece. In this year’s General Election Plaid Cymru again performed miserably, dealt with in Election 2015: Plaid Cymru Fails, Again.

And from all quarters comes news that that Plaid Cymru continues to be the most impotent ‘national’ party in Europe, afraid of upsetting anyone. Here’s one recent example that says it pretty well.

Followers of Welsh public life will be aware of a growing problem in local government that sees senior officers take over the running of certain councils. Nowhere has this trend been more apparent than in Carmarthenshire, where the council has for some years been run by the chief executive, Mark James, with the approval of the leaders of the parties in coalition there, Labour and ‘Independents’. But recently, after a change of leadership in the local Labour Party, there was a falling-out between the former love-birds and Independent leader Meryl Gravel began smooching Plaid Cymru, which resulted in a new coalition between the two.

With Plaid Cymru the larger of the parties, and Plaid’s Emlyn Dole named council leader in May, most people expected things to change in Carmarthenshire but that, alas, has not happened. It appears to be business as before, as this little cameo, received from a reliable source, illustrates.

The trade union Unison, ” . . . had to wait 2 months to get a meeting with Dole. There were a number of items on the agenda (employment issues and the council’s plans for publicly owned assets such as Parc Howard in Llanelli). To Unison’s surprise, waiting to greet them in Dole’s office was Mark James, although the union had asked for a private meeting with the leader. The meeting did not go well.”

Emlyn Dole’s submission to The Ultimate Authority may be connected with his little ‘difficulty’, for Plaid’s leader in the seat where Gwynfor Evans won that famous 1966 victory has been caught flouting planning regulations. But never mind, for Plaid Cymru has not forgotten its primary role – sticking up for Labour. As I reminded people in my June 28th post Vote Plaid Cymru – Get Labour’, and as Plaid itself continues to remind us.

Just last Saturday, at the commemoration of the 1911 Llanelli Riots, local Labour MP Nia Griffith was getting a bit of stick from some in the crowd for making a big noise about the Tories’ austerity measures but neglecting to inform her listeners that she had abstained when presented with the chance to show her ‘opposition’ in the House of Commons vote a few weeks ago. Who rode to her rescue? Helen Mary Jones, the Plaid candidate for Llanelli in next year’s Assembly election, and Vaughan Williams, who failed so miserably to win the seat in May this year.

Plaid Cymru is now more of an asset to England than to Wales. From England’s perspective Plaid Cymru is the perfect ‘in-our-pocket’ regional party. That’s because it can still attract the votes of many who want independence / greater devolution, or who care about Welsh cultural identity, but for all sorts of reasons Plaid Cymru will never get more than 25% of the vote, even in the most favourable circumstances, yet – in the absence of an alternative – it can still be presented as ‘the Welsh nationalist party’.

If there was any danger of Plaid Cymru collapsing, perhaps due to the emergence of that alternative national party, then it would be in our masters’ interests to keep Plaid Cymru alive. It may already be happening.

4. UKIP

Finally we come to perhaps the major difference today from the situation prevailing when I wrote the earlier piece on regional parties back in December 2012. Then there was a perception that Ukip, being primarily an anti-EU party, would do well in European elections, but only European elections.

The General Election earlier this year taught us the fallacy of that belief as we saw the Ukip vote in Wales reach 13.6%, and in so doing exceed the Plaid Cymru share of the vote. But this increase in Ukip vote has been aided by the collapse of the Liberal Democrats and a weakening of the Labour Party, which was of course almost wiped out in Scotland. To help you understand how things have changed I’ve compiled a table showing the vote shares for the major parties in Wales over the five most recent elections. (The two figures shown for 2011 represent the constituency vote and the regional vote.)

The Labour Party is in turmoil and, as I write this, looking likely to elect Jeremy Corbyn as leader; the Lib Dems are unlikely to recover any time soon, if ever; and Plaid Cymru seems doomed to a slow, lingering death. Few of those turning away from Labour and Lib Dems find Plaid Cymru attractive (hardly surprising seeing as long-time Plaid Cymru voters are deserting the party), and while some of those abandoning Labour, Lib Dems and Plaid will simply not vote, many will turn to the Tories or Ukip.

One thing’s for sure, Labour will definitely not have a majority after next year’s election, and may have difficulty forming a coalition with Plaid Cymru and / or Liberal Democrats. Taking us into uncharted territory, but also presenting great opportunities.

REGIONAL PARTIES

Regional parties contesting regional list seats are the only possible way to address the various problems listed above, the only way to ensure a more equitable Wales in which Labour is not completely dominant, with the added advantage of checking the advance of Ukip.

We can be sure that Ukip will view the list for the north as one its best hopes of winning Assembly seats, especially with the party’s local hetman, Nathan Gill MEP, being domiciled on Ynys Môn. So the first regional party I want to propose is for the north. Yes, I can already hear people asking, ‘What does Arfon have in common with Deeside?’ Short answer would be that across the north you will hear, ‘Everything is down south’. This will be Ukip’s message next year to northern voters. It can also be the message of an alliance made up of people with roots in northern Wales, committed to serving the area, and hopefully objecting to the A55 corridor becoming a planned commuter belt. Because we can be sure Ukip won’t object! Neither will the other parties. (Click on image to enlarge.)

Another area where Ukip did well in 2014 and again this year is the Valleys. While the elected leaders in the region seem happy to surrender to Cardiff’s city state ambitions I’m sure there are many others in the Valleys who believe their towns and villages deserve better than a future as dormitory communities. This could be one message for a Valleys grouping. Another message for Labour could be, ‘Instead of using EU and other funding to help your cronies capitalise on our deprivation, use it to help us and our communities – the reason the EU gave it to us’.

The third region is obviously the Swansea Bay conurbation.

What I am suggesting is not formal political parties in the accepted sense. I am arguing for ad hoc regional groups with no ambitions beyond using their voice to demand fair shares for all, something that could perhaps be monitored by publishing regular figures for public spending and jobs created in each region. Because as I say, the only real power in this system of sham devolution is the power to divvy up the hand-outs. Which means that going down to Cardiff docks to play politics, to pretend that it’s a real parliament, is a waste of time. Focus on the money.

The suggestion of regional parties has both greater urgency and greater potential now than when I first mooted the subject because of the decline of three parties and the unattractiveness of those likely to gain from that decline. (And here I include the Greens.) I further predict that regional parties would get support from some of those who would not otherwise vote next year. And there’s guaranteed publicity in the interest that can be predicted from the local media.

To gather enough like-minded individuals in order to compile a raft of regional list candidates should be relatively easy, there’s no great expense involved, and for just nine months of work the rewards could be great. And with Welsh politics in a state of flux not seen in living memory, who knows where it might lead? And if that doesn’t persuade you, then do you really want to vote for any of the failed parties, or the unattractive alternatives I’ve dealt with here?

Plaid Cymru and the Green Party of Englandandwales

On 10/11/201429/01/2015 By JacIn Colonialism, Environmentalism, Plaid Cymru126 Comments

As I informed you in M ay, I have broken with the habit of a lifetime and stopped voting for Plaid Cymru, a party I ceased to believe in decades ago. One of the reasons for my losing faith in Plaid Cymru was its infatuation with the Green Party, and its desire to cover Wales with wind turbines (a position from which it has now retreated). So, as you might guess, among the parties I shall definitely not be voting for in future is the Green Party of Englandandwales. I’m dealing with this subject now because there is talk of another electoral pact between Plaid Cymru and the Greens.

Plaid began to get seriously enamoured of the Earth-botherers back in the late 1980s, which was almost certainly connected with the fact that at the June 1989 European elections the Green Party (formerly known as the Ecology Party) gained 99,546 votes in Wales, 11.1% of the total votes cast, and a massive increase of 10.9% on the party’s performance in 1984. In fact, the Green’s total vote was not far behind Plaid Cymru’s 115,062. Someone in Plaid Cymru who could do big sums calculated that if the two numbers were combined then the result would be, well . . . a big number. That’s my take on it, but Cynog Dafis would have us beleve that the links between Plaid Cymru and the environmental lobby go back further, as he explains in Plaid Cymru and the Greens: Flash in the Pan or a Lesson for the Future? which I advise you to read, as I shall refer to it later, and also because I get a mention! (Did I really say that!)

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The first test of this love-in came at the 1991 Monmouth by-election following the death of Sir John Stradling Thomas when Mel Witherden stood as a Plaid / Green candidate. He came fifth, with 277 votes, behind the Monster Raving Loony Party. Admittedly, Monmouth is not ferile ground for Plaid, but the Plaid candidate at the 1987 General Election got 363 votes. (There was no Green candidate in 1987.) In the 1992 general election Witherden stood again, this time winning 431 votes, an improvement of sorts. Though the real significance of Monmouth was what the candidate said some time later. In essence, Witherden confessed that many Greens refused to vote for a joint candidate because, quite frankly, they were anti-Welsh, and displayed crude, colonialist attitudes. Which was no more than many nationalists suspected, and for which some of us had clear evidence. Damning proof of Green attitudes from a Green Party member.

The sort of attitudes Cynog Dafis was to learn about the hard way. In the paper linked to above he talks of meeting leading Greens from Arfon and Meirion, John Nicholson and Chris Busby, who were outraged that community councils in Gwynedd conducted their business in Welsh (which presumably prevented them from taking over the meetings), and that their kids were being taught Welsh in schools. Dafis says, “I tried to respond, rather lamely, and through rational defence rather than counter-attack, but I came from the meeting feeling quite shaken”. Rarely does one come across a passage from a leading Plaidista that so perfectly sums up Plaid Cymru’s fundamental weakness when confronted with naked racism and colonialism. In such circumstances “rational defence” will get you nowhere. When faced with colonialist bigotry like that the only response must be: ‘You don’t like Wales the way it is? – then fuck off home!’

(Following the Fukishima nuclear accident in 2011 Busby sought to capitalise by selling his anti-radiation pills online and suggested that the Japanese government was deliberately spreading cancer throughout the country in order to hide or disguise the ‘clusters’! He has a number of companies selling £25 reports, his self-published books and assorted medicinal products that experts believe do nothing except enrich Chris Busby.)

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Despite this insight into the Green colonialist mindset Cynog Dafis stood at the 1992 General Election on a Green-Plaid ticket in Ceredigion and Pembroke North. He gained the seat from the sitting Liberal Democrat MP Geraint Howells with a majority of 3,193. To a number of nationalists at the time, myself included, Howells was a good old stick, a Welshman of the old school, and preferable to Dafis, especially if the latter was going to dance to some hippy tune for the duration of the parliament. Though there remains some dispute as to whether Dafis was ever a joint Plaid-Green candidate, certainly, the official record lists him for posterity as a Plaid Cymru candidate, and some grouplets within the Green Party insist he was never formally adopted. Whatever the truth of his position, Plaid’s leadership, Dafis to the fore, had convinced itself that the party needed Green votes to win Ceredigion, and perhaps other seats.

So were the Green votes influential, even decisive? Well, let’s look at the neighbouring constituencies where no deal was struck to see if they can point us towards an answer. To the south, in the Pembroke constituency, the Green candidate got 484 votes, or 0.8% of the vote. To the east, in Brecon & Radnor, the Green candidate limped in last with 393 votes, or 0.9% of the vote. Moving north, into Meirionnydd Nant Conwy, there the Greens – in the form of Busby’s mate, Bill Pritchard – were ecstatic over their 471 votes and 1.8%. Though in Carmarthen the Greens couldn’t even find a candidate. The flash-in-the-pan nature of the Green Party’s 1989 Euro election result was betrayed at the first ‘serious’ election, which also told us that Plaid Cymru would have comfortably won Ceredigion and Pembroke North without any pact or agreement with the Greens.

After which it was all downhill, and to cut a long story short . . . in July 1995 the inevitable, yet amicable, parting of the ways came, and here’s an extract from the statement announcing the divorce, taken from Dafis’ document: “‘a bridge was built between the indigenous people of Wales and those who had moved here to live’ for progressive and enlightened purposes”. (I bet you want to read that again!) So condemning Welsh community councillors for speaking their own language is progressive and enlightened! Now if I’d made up that statement in an attempt at ridicule or sarcasm I would be rightly criticised, but a Plaid Cymru luminary who bent over backwards to accommodate a bunch of arrogant, dictatorial and often racist immigrants can write such bollocks without any sense of irony. But that’s all in the past, and I’m not a man to bear a grudge (yes, that is sarcasm) so what of today’s saviours of the planet?

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One worth noting, for the wrong reasons – though I assure you I have no evidence that he sells pills of any description – is that five-letters-a-day (to the editor) man, John Childs, who has opinions on just about everything. I mention him because he has imposed himself on the Treboeth neighbourhood in Swansea, an area close to my heart, and indeed close to where I was raised. I recall my father telling me that, pre-war, once you’d left Brynhyfryd Square and started walking up Llangyfelach Road into Treboeth you automatically switched from English to Welsh. Treboeth was the home patch of Daniel James (‘Gwyrosydd’) writer of Calon Lân. Also where Dewi ‘Pws’ Morris has his roots, and I understand Cynog Dafis himself was born there. Nowadays the name Treboeth is seen in newspapers and other publications on a daily basis when people read the opinionated and offensive drivel of an English environmentalist.

Another who feels Swansea cannot do without him is young Ashley Wakeling (or Ŵakeling?), who is contesting the upcoming by-election in the Uplands ward. ‘So who is he?’ I hear you ask. Young Mr Wakeling is a student, and last year he was the Green candidate back home in Maidstone. Here we have a young Green who knows nothing about the city he’s just moved to, but clearly believes that such ignorance is no obstacle to him standing for election to the body running that city. It’s incredible. I sincerely believe that no one should be allowed to stand for election to any local authority until they have lived in the area for a minimum of five years. Why should we demand that taxi drivers have more local knowledge than those getting paid to run a city? Another candidate recently announced was Matt Cooke in Torfaen.

Then we have the much more mature – at 27 – Chris Were, alleged to be deputy leader of the Wales Green Party’, though how one can hold any position in an organisation that doesn’t exist is beyond my ken. Were may be 27 but he prefers to behave like a 12-year-old, as his mocking of Wales testifies. (And the silly boy can’t even spell ‘innit’!) Were was a Green candidate in this year’s memorable European elections, in which the Greens achieved 33,275 votes, or 4.5% of the total, proving yet gain what a blip that 1989 result was that set Plaid Cymru hearts all a-flutter. Ah! those European elections of May 2014, memorable because I sincerely believe that the Ukip MEP elected, a Mr Nathan Lee Gill, will provide hours of enjoyment in the years ahead for those of you in possession of the gift of schadenfreude. (A gift that I, alas, have been denied.)

Finally, and much closer to home, I had a run-in not so long ago with an environmentalist living just up the road. It all started with a couple of letters to the local weekly rag on the subject of raising council tax on holiday homes; one headed, ‘Second home owners keep Gwynedd economy alive’, the other arguing that it would be ‘racist’ to increase council tax, before introducng the spectre of arson. Naturally, I responded, then the following week there was a reply that concluded with a reference to “the burning of second homes by Nationalist extremists”. The two letters mentioning arson are almost certainly phoney, and the second cleverly distorts what I actually said. The exchange can be found here.

The debate rumbled on a bit, and provoked a letter from Andrew Currie, the environmentalist who lives just up the road from me. According to Currie, I had missed the point that, “coastal towns and villages came into being because of tourism in Victorian times”. In other words, there was really nothing here until English tourists ‘discovered’ Wales. This is a reminder that the most virulent and outspoken bigotry doesn’t always come from the usual suspects, because what Currie is exposing here is the traditional ‘justification’ for colonialism – ‘They couldn’t manage without us’. The full exchange can be found in this post.

*

I can only assume that whoever is gently blowing on the embers of an extinguished love is prompted not by renewed passion but by the very pragmatic consideration that with Assembly elections due in 2016, and Plaid defending a majority of just 1,777 in Ceredigion, the 1,514 votes won by Chris Simpson, the Green candidate in 2011, could be critical for Plaid’s chances of retaining the seat. It might also be worth pointing out that while this figure of 1,514 might look impressive, it should be borne in mind that Simpson was the only constituency candidate the Greens fielded in 2011, so the party concentrated almost all its resources on Ceredigion. A more meaningful assessment of Green support would be that in the (second preference) regional list section they got just 32,649 across the whole of Wales, roughly ten thousand votes ahead of the Socialist Labour Party and the BNP.

This is a party that can deliver, at most, thirty to forty thousand votes across the whole country – and that’s if all Greens are prepared to vote for joint candidates, which of course they aren’t. And not only will joint Green-Plaid candidates alienate most Green supporters, they’ll also piss off quite a few Plaid voters – and there are many more of the latter. A further consideration could be explained as follows. The Greens are an English party attracting English votes, therefore, as few of these votes will transfer to a joint candidate in the event of a pact, it makes more sense to have a Green candidate in Ceredigion, grabbing a thousand or two votes, rather than see those English Green votes transfer to a party that could beat Plaid Cymru.

Crude, electoral considerations aside, the bigger question has to be, why would Plaid Cymru – or any self-respecting party, come to that – want an electoral pact with the Green Party of Englandandwales? A party that refuses to recognise Wales as a country. A party that has members and activists who are positively racist in their attitudes to anything Welsh. A party whose luminaries see Wales as a backward territory ripe for ‘improvement’ by superior beings like them, with we Welsh viewed – at best – as obstructive primitives to be shouted down and brushed aside. Whichever way we look at it, a pact with the Greens could be very damaging to Plaid Cymru, and should call into question the political nous or motives of anyone promoting such a deal.

WalesEye, Jacques Protic and North Wales Police

On 21/10/201421/11/2014 By JacIn Police19 Comments

Just over a month ago my attention was drawn to another attack on me by the WalesEye blog, this one bizarre in the extreme as it claimed, to begin with, that something I’d written had resulted in death threats against noted anti-Welsh bigot, Jacques Protic; before quoting from what was claimed to be a North Wales Police document relating to an internal inquiry – even naming the officers involved! Maybe you should read the post before continuing.

As I suggested I would in my September 11 reply to WalesEye, I submitted a Freedom of Information request to GogPlod in the hope of finding out if Protic had indeed made a complaint about me, whether there had been an investigation, and – while I was at it – I thought I might as well ask if anyone else had it in for poor old Jac. A name I just plucked out of the air was Nathan Gill, the Ukip MEP, doss house proprietor and tyre exporter.

After a number of phone calls querying its non-arrival, and to cut a long story short, I finally received GogPlod’s response by e-mail this afternoon. Basically, it says ‘Dear Mr Jones – Piss off!‘ It seems that because I’m asking for information about myself I can’t have it! Though it does suggest in the final paragraph that I can use form SA1 to find out what they hold on me, though no ‘third part’ (sic) information can be released. I shall also have to pay a fee of £10. You can read it for yourself in this pdf document. It also helpfully sets out the wording of my request.

To reprise: the situation as I now see it is that Jacques Protic did make a complaint about me to North Wales Police. They either took it seriously, or else pretended to take it seriously in order to use Protic’s complaint against me. Either way, Protic then received a report into how his complaint had been handled that even named the officers involved. This information he (or someone) passed on to fellow Labourite, Phil Parry, of WalesEye, who used it in a blog post.

And so it came to pass – as planned – that an innocent man was publicly vilified, but was then denied sight or knowledge of the accusations against him, or the names of his accusers, making it very difficult for him to defend himself. I know the word is over-used, but this is kafkaesque.

How does Mark Polin, the head of GogPlod, feel about documentation produced by his force, naming his officers, discussing an investigation into police negligence, being used in this way? The fact that the police have raised no objections to WalesEye using a police document to slander me suggests collusion. Which is no surprise when it comes to the police, but it provides further evidence that WalesEye is not just another blog. It is somebody’s tool. (And I speak not of Phil Parry with the mention of ‘tool’.)

I was particularly struck by the passage in the GogPlod e-mail (left, click to enlarge) banging on about “personal data” and how it’s wrong to disclose information about an individual. It even talks of the information being used for “lawful purposes”, which prompts a few questions. How come protecting identities only becomes important when I’m asking for information, but can be ignored when it’s information about me? And is the WalesEye blog a “specified and lawful purpose” for police information about a third party? And has GogPlod released information about me to anyone else, maybe a casual enquirer?

There remain many other questions to which I want answers. This story ain’t over yet. Evenin’ all!

UPDATE 22.10.14: I have this morning reported the matter to the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for North Wales. I have also written to the chief constable of North Wales Police. Next step is to write to the Information Commissioner.

Nathan Gill: An Update

On 24/07/201430/07/2014 By JacIn British Nationalism, Colonisation of Wales, Ukip19 Comments

Knowing how many of you are ~~gleefully anticipating the arrest of~~ avidly following the exciting career of our new MEP, Nathan Gill, I thought I’d give you a wee update. For those arriving late to the feast let me explain that Nathan Lee Gill is a ‘businessman’ (of sorts) who was elected to the European Parliament on May 22 to represent Wales and the United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip).

I have dealt with Gill previously in these posts:

1/ Wales Euro Elections 2014: Runners & Riders. May 15

2/ Nathan Gill, Ukip No 1 in Wales. May 19

3/ Euro Elections: Picking Through The Bones. May 27

4/ Nathan Gill, Ukip MEP, Another Dishonest Politician? June 2

5/ Nathan Gill: It Just Gets Worse. June 7

6/ Nathan Gill: The Biblical Backstory (Book of Nathan). June 15

7/ Miscellany: MEWN, Oxbridge, Nathan Gill. June 19

8/ Nathan Gill, Family Man. June 26

9/ Nathan Gill MEP: Exporter, Friend of Ghana. July 11

Since writing the last of those posts there have been developments and I have received further information, which I shall now share with you.

*

I have reported Gill to H. M. Revenue and Customs, in a letter mailed on July 7th. I did this because I sincerely believe that Gill has, over many years, defrauded the tax authorities through operating a number of cash-in-hand enterprises; either alone, or in partnership with others. It could even be that some of the enterprises in which he was engaged were of a nature that made it impossible to declare earnings without admitting to unlawful activities.

*

More information has been received from my original informant since I wrote to HMRC. The first talked of Gill buying a new Citröen C5 in 2008, which was paid for with cash. Even then it would have been difficult to get the big Citröen for less than £16,000, even paying in cash. I was also told that Gill’s brother-in-law, Brian Lynn Quilter, had paid “mainly with cash” for a Lotus Elise sports car. Depending on the specification, Quilter’s car could have cost more than Gill’s C5.

My informant also talks of two classic cars used for weddings, and “a shop in the village where he lives doing wedding videos”. Does he mean Llangefni? Can readers up there rack their memories for such an enterprise. A Humvee may have been involved, one with a big TV screen in the back.

The Humvee also clears up one of the (many) mysteries in Gill’s past. In earlier posts I mentioned, among the companies with which Gill has been associated, Humview Ltd, Incorporated on March 16, 2008 and finally struck off on May 30, 2009. During its brief existence it had just three directors: Gill, his wife, Jana, and a Richard Bruce Worsey, who resigned eight days before the end, and may also be a resident of Anglesey. My informant states that the Humvee cost £26,000, but does not say if this was also paid for with readies. But knowing Nathan Gill . . .

My informant also referred back to Guy Fawkes’ Night in 2001 (refresh your memory here). It appears that the church in Hull was a Grade II listed building. Gill applied for planning permission. He was refused. There was a “mysterious fire” which Gill blamed on kids throwing fireworks. (Why am I deafened by alarm bells ringing!)

Finally, we have further evidence of what a believer Gill is in international trade. (Read about the Ghana connection.) For I am told that Gill and Quilter made a number of trips to China, and – wait for it! – were accompanied on these trips by large amounts of folding. Quite what was bought, my informant does not know, not being privy to the details of these oriental excursions; but he is in no doubt that the gruesome twosome were “avoiding duty”. Shome mishtake, shurely!

*

Moving on, as they say, I am indebted to another correspondent for informing me that he has reported Nathan Gill to the Electoral Commission, arguing that Gill is in breach of Section 106 of the Representaion of the People Act. Rather than me try to explain what I might not properly understand, I shall quote directly from the correspondence I received, which I assume to be a copy of what was sent to the Electoral Commission.

The point being, of course, that from 2009 until his election on May 22, 2014, Gill was an adviser to his predecessor as Ukip MEP, John Bufton. So he was not, “a real person with a real job”, he was precisely what he denied being – “a career politician”. Nor was he, at the time these leaflets were written and circulated, a “domiciliary and residential care services professional”, for the only income declared to the European Parliament was that which he received as an “MEP’s assistant”.

It will be interesting to see whether the Electoral Commission has the balls to proceed with this complaint.

*

Finally, let me extend thanks to a third person for directing me to Gill’s four UK assistants; they are: Major John Atkinson, Andrew Martin Haigh, Scott George Tuppen and Simon Wall.

The Major lives in Swansea and spent 33 years (1967 – 2000) in the Royal Marines, so presumably he worked his way up through the ranks. He stood for Ukip in the 2011 Assembly elections on the South Wales West regional list. He was second (of four) on the Ukip slate which managed 4.3% of the vote, just ahead of Socialist Labour on 3.3% and the BNP on 3.1%. He may have stood in other elections but I can’t be bothered to check.

Andrew Martin Haigh was Ukip candidate for Delyn in the 2010 general election, when he came home in sixth place, behind the BNP. He seems not to have excited Google since that foray into electoral politics. Haigh has this to say on Friends Reunited: “I live in North Wales and run a small mail order business. I am married to clare a marine biologist who works for the government. In my spare time I write and also play Bass in a 60/70’s rock & roll band.” (My toes are curling for him.)

The company is Vitaplankton, for which he has worked since it was Incorporated in March 2013. On DueDil the business is described as ‘Fish Farrming’ and ‘Marine Aguaculture’. I suppose it’s reasonable to assume, given his wife’s job, that she helps out or advises in Haigh’s business; maybe he has access to facilities or equipment at her place of work, or he makes use of data or contacts that she can provide through her work. But would that be allowed? Haigh currently lives in Llanrug, near Caernarfon, but has previously lived in Menai Bridge. Regular readers will know that Menai Bridge was home to Gill’s parents, and also home to the dump of tyres destined for Ghana. Haigh is of course English.

UPDATE July 25: More information has come to light on Haigh. The mail order business referred to may in fact be Vitalox, which sells a twenty-first-century equivalent of snake oil. Haigh imports oxygen (sic) from Canada that, it is claimed, can cure everything from ingrowing toenails to baldness, plus many more serious conditions. (Read the ‘Oxygen & Cancer’ section.) Though if the oxygen fails (as it presumably will), then the Vitalox website recommends prayer, with a Spirituality page; and wouldn’t you know it – Haigh is a Mormon, like Gill and all his family! The website modestly describes Haigh as a “serial entrepreneur” (for which there is no word in Welsh, incidentally), a description I’m sure Nathan Gill has applied to himself.

UPDATE July 30: Thanks to BC I now have more information on Haigh. Such as the fact that he and his wife have a little sideline in Segways. Also, that this staunch Kipper, hostile to the EU and all its works, recently sought to recruit a Lab technician for Vitaplankton, and as the advert makes clear, “The post is funded under the European Fisheries Fund”.

What is it with these Ukip Mormons; are they all hypocrites, charlatans, crooks and con men?

Scott George Tuppen seems to be yet another Kipper with a head for business. From July 11, 2011 to November 7, 2012 he was a director / company secretary of a firm called Cusu Services Ltd which according to DueDil, has a current book value of -£178,468. Though young Tuppen – for he is but 31 – started in business at the age of 15 with Tuppen and Associates Enterprises Ltd, with big sister Angela holding his hand. This venture lasted from July 31, 1998 to June 21, 2000. Tuppen and Associates was based in Brynna, Pontyclun.

Finally, we come to Simon Wall, another Englishman plaguing Anglesey. Reminding us that in many parts of Wales Ukip is little more than an English club, of the kind that might have been found in earlier times in the White Highlands or some Indian hill stations. English people away from home becoming ever more exaggeratedly English and hostile to the natives.

*

The net is closing on Gill, and those associated with him. Given his past he was always destined to be yet another embarrassment for the United Kingdom Independence Party. Which will bring nothing but joy to those of us who have come to realise what a deceitful and unprincipled bastard this man is, and yet so representative of Ukip. But before he departs the political stage let him do Wales one service in reminding us why we must be alert to him and his kind, and why we must leave them in no doubt that they are unwelcome in our country.

Housing Associations: More From The Dark Side

On 07/07/201407/07/2014 By JacIn Housing, Third Sector, Welsh Government17 Comments

My previous post drew a number of comments and provided some interesting feedback via other media. It also inspired Councillor Neil McEvoy of Cardiff to make enquiries with housing associations in the south east. (Click panel to enlarge.) One who answered to the rattling cage was Hefina Rendle, Communications and Public Relations Manager at Tai Calon. (Some will remember that before joining Tai Calon in January 2012 Ms Rendle was a broadcast journalist with the BBC.)

I hadn’t previously heard of Tai Calon, it doesn’t appear among the housing associations I dealt with in my previous post, those listed as being in receipt of the Social Housing Grant (see table from previous post). Tai Calon was formed in July 2010 from Blaenau Gwent’s council housing stock, and cheerfully admits to receiving £19.67 million from the ‘Welsh’ Government, with more promised – until 2041! But if this money is not coming via the SHG, which funding stream is coughing up? Or perhaps the question should be – just how many funding streams are there for housing associations (and not just from the ‘Welsh’ Government)?

What I assume to be Tai Calon’s mission statement reads: “We have about 300 members of staff … from building trades to administrators and neighbourhood managers. We are committed to creating as many job and work opportunities as possible. We also aim to recruit locally as possibly. We try to use firms and suppliers from the area, keeping as much of the income we generate within Blaenau Gwent for the benefit of everyone who lives and works in the county”. “We aim to recruit locally as possibly”! Apart from the obvious error, Blaenau Gwent is the poorest area in the poorest country in Europe, it should be mandatory to recruit locals.

I’m getting a bit ahead of myself now, so let me return to the McEvoy – Rendle dialogue. A few tweets passed between them, I chipped in, drew a Christmas cracker aporhism from Ms Rendle, and we didn’t really get anywhere. But seeing as Neil McEvoy had asked about the CEO’s salary, I made a bee-line for the ‘Meet the Executive Team‘ page on the Tai Calon website.

The Chief Executive is Jen Barfoot, who is of course English (this being the Third Sector in Wales). In fact, of the four listed on the Executive Board (click to enlarge), three are English . . . so much for the promise of local recruitment. It often seems that the Third Sector in Wales exists for no better reason than to provide sinecures for thousands of English people who can’t cut it in the world of real business. Because wherever you look, from housing associations to health boards, from higher education to Tony Payne, the custodian of Caerffili Castle – who so clearly identifies with those who built the castle rather than with the horrid and inferior “Welshmen” beyond its walls – all you find are English third-raters clinging to the pendulous mammaries of Welsh public funding.

Tai Calon’s Board is rather more representative of the community of Blaenau Gwent, but scrolling down past Fred Davies, and Shirley, who lives in the house in which she was born in Nantyglo, we come to yet more teat tuggers. First, Debbie Green, Group Chief Executive at the Coastal Housing Group in Swansea, who “obtained a history degree from Cambridge and moved to Cardiff in 1988 to start her accountancy training with Deloittes and subsequently PWC. Since qualifying as a Chartered Accountant she has worked in finance roles connected with Lottery grant funding in the Arts Council of Wales, before moving to Chwarae Teg in 2001 as Director of Finance and Resources”. There, laid out for you, is the perfect Third Sector career path. But of more interest is the man we find at the bottom of the column, Steve Porter, co-opted onto the Board. Steve tells us he “enjoys living locally with his family in the South valleys”. Condescending crap that could only be written by another English immigrant with free Welsh milk all over his face.

The reason I find Steve Porter interesting is that he works for that behemoth in the world of Welsh social housing, the Wales and West Housing Association Ltd which, curiously, also receives funding from the English government. Between 2008 and 2013 Wales and West received a whopping £63 million in Social Housing Grant alone from the ‘Welsh’ Government. Alarming though that is, the real reason I homed in on smiling Steve is that his Tai Calon bio credits him with setting up ‘Cambria Maintenance Services Ltd’, described as a “subsidiary building company”. Subsidiary, that is, to Wales and West.

Nothing wrong with that if Cambria had been set up to maintain Wales and West’s housing stock, that’s no more than a local authority would have done. But if that was the case, why not just call it the Maintenance Department of Wales and West? Why does Cambria need to be a fully commercial operation, registered with Companies House (Company Number 07389484)?

My concerns about Cambria Maintenance Services Ltd are encapsulated in this passage from the JobsinWales.com website (my underlining): “The company, with divisions in Cardiff and Holywell, Flintshire, has established an excellent reputation for its quality of workmanship and service to its customers. Cambria is an independent company run on a commercial basis and being part of the WWH Group provides it with considerable security as it doesn’t need to repeatedly tender for works and risk losing contracts”. How can Cambria be both “independent” and “part of the WWH group”.

It suggests to me that Cambria is an “independent company” that has its ‘bread and butter’ work guaranteed by publicly funded social housing; but, as a private company, it’s also free to chase the ‘jam’ of outside commercial work. Which gives Cambria the best of both worlds and an unfair advantage over competitors that must survive, without featherbedding, in the normal business environment. Is this how housing associations are supposed to operate? And it may not be confined to Cambria. For in among Wales and West’s ‘Services and Initiatives’ there’s Castell Catering, and Connect 24 Alarms.

Which raises the question of why Steve Porter was co-opted on to the Board of Tai Calon. My guess would be that if Cambria isn’t already working in Blaenau Gwent then it very soon will be. As might Wales and West, and Steve Porter himself. For in the dog-eat-dog world of housing associations Tai Calon is a chihuahua, Wales and West a pit bull. You read it here first, folks.

Cambria Maintenance Services is another example of Wales’ shadowy, almost Soviet-style ‘economy’, which promotes the illusion of a system based on competition and profitability, but at no real risk for many of those participating because they are underwritten by the State.

The social housing sector – and the Third Sector generally – is a monster sucking up funding and damaging our wider economic prospects. It is yet another example of the Labour Party pandering to the effects of poverty rather than tackling its causes. For if Wales had a stronger economy there would be more people buying their own homes and we wouldn’t need to pour such obscene sums into housing associations and their offshoots.

With such easy money to be made, so few questions asked, and with their documented experience in ‘housing’, I’m surprised that Nathan Gill and his brothers-in-law haven’t got involved in the housing association racket. It can only be a matter of time . . .

Nathan Gill, Family Man

On 26/06/201407/03/2016 By JacIn Corruption, Ukip8 Comments

More information reaches me from the Eastern Front (East Yorkshire, that is).

The mystery concerning the late Michael Ronald Gill’s first stretch in prison, for theft, seems to have been solved. According to my informant . . . while running the Pink Panther care home on Holderness Road in Hull Gill would pocket the pensions of those in his care and cover his tracks with false receipts. This criminality came to light when a patient’s death resulted in a police enquiry that subsequently uncovered the trousering of the old dears’ pension money. I am also informed that the Gills got hammered by the tax authorities when Gill Senior one year submitted the exact same return he had sent in the previous year!

Since I’ve been writing about our new MEP whiners and apologists have come to this and other blogs arguing that the sins of the father are irrelevant in any consideration of the son’s behaviour. Normally I would agree, but not this time. To begin with, Gill senior was the patriarch of a family abiding by the mores of a weird religious sect who would have played a major role in creating the Nathan Lee Gill we know today. Then, when Nathan Gill had grown up, he went into the family business, where I’m sure he learnt a lot more from his father.

A name we encountered in an earlier post was Brian Quilter, a co-director with Nathan Gill in Compactor Ltd (Company Number 06329258, Incorporated. July 31, 2007; Final Dissolution March 15, 2011). This company was engaged in “the manufacture of telegraph and telephone apparatus and equipment”. This was obviously a major departure for grannyfarmer and gangmaster Nathan Gill, so I assumed that whatever expertise in this field the directors possessed came from Compactor managing director, Brian Lynn Quilter. Though I was somewhat puzzled by Gill’s mother also being a director. The explanation, it turns out, is quite simple; Quilter, a US citizen, is the husband of Gill’s sister Melanie, and therefore son-in-law to Elaine Gill.

Compactor Ltd was based in Bridlington, just up the coast from Hull, but the Quilters live in Dolwyddelan, in a massive former YHA building now described as a “budget hostel” (surely not more migrant accommodation!). Bridlington is also where – according to my informant – we find another Gill family venture; this time “a day care home . . . another substantial building with flats on the top floor”.

You will also recall that in an earlier post I quoted my informant saying that Gill, together with “his brothers-in-law” (see update at foot of post) was operating migrant accommodation scams in English cities other than Hull, Portsmouth and Plymouth being mentioned. I think we can assume that Quilter is one of those “brothers-in-law”. A clue comes from Quilter Properties Ltd, registered in Dolwyddelan (Company Number 05324303), and with just two directors – Brian Quilter and Melanie Quilter (nee Gill). The company business is stated as being, “Management of Real Estate on a Fee or Contract Basis” or, as my informant put it to me, “sub-sub-letting”. (Presumably in cash.)

Quilter Properties is an outfit that on the face of it struggled along for a few years before giving up the ghost. The company was Incorporated on January 5, 2005 (less than a year after ‘stack ’em high’ Burgill Ltd came into existence), and finally struck off on April 23, 2010. The table I include (click to enlarge) shows the flatlining figures for Quilter Properties Ltd, which existed for five years and achieved . . . well, nothing. My research can find no business – other than Compactor and Quilter Properties – with which Brian Lynn Quilter was involved. Oh, yes, talking of Melanie Gill Quilter, I understand she is a Special Constable, B Special, or some such.

Which brings us to the great mystery of the extended Gill family’s business dealings. Of the businesses we know, none ever seemed to make money, yet – and as my informant notes – these people live in million pound houses, they drive fancy sports cars and big 4 x 4s. It doesn’t add up, unless:

a) businesses are, for whatever reason, being deliberately run at a loss

b) the tax authorities are being regularly lied to (for which we have some evidence)

c) these companies, Burgill, Quilter Properties and others, are simply fronts behind which dealings are done almost entirely in cash, which, again, my informant suggests is the case

d) the Gills have other, successful ventures – maybe not entirely legal – about which we know nothing.

e) A combination of any of the above

Having mentioned enterprises that might be illegal, you will recall that something else I dealt with in an earlier post was the curious business, in 2011, of the tyre dump at Bryn Aethwy, Menai Bridge. Some 5,000 tyres were found in Menai Bridge (where Gill’s parents live) and a warrant was issued to search a property in Llangefni (where Nathan Gill lives). My informant now suggests that Quilter was also involved. The worn tyres were destined for Ghana, where there is a burgeoning Mormon community. Here’s an endorsement of Gill by Dennis Kofi Asumah, a Ghanaian member of the local Ukip branch on Anglesey. Maybe the three helpers in this photo are also Ghanaian (click to enlarge). Below left is an earlier endorsement from Dennis Kofi Asumah – for the 2011 Welsh Assembly elections – in which he urges support for ‘Bishop’ Nathan Lee Gill on the regional list. Strongly suggesting that Asumah is a Mormon himself. Perhaps Asumah was involved in some way in the Ghanaian tyres deal.

We already know that Nathan Gill is a hypocrite, being a representative of an anti-EU party while personally profiting from the very EU migrants his party condemns, but could it go further? Could Gill also be helping African co-religionists to enter the UK, and if so, what’s his cut (for we know that Bishop Nathan Lee Gill don’t do nuffin for nuffin)? Just ask yourself, why else would there be Ghanaian Mormons on Anglesey? What – or who – drew them there? Whatever the answers, we have established Ghanaian connections for ‘Bishop’ Nathan Gill which help explain the used tyres scam. But when I first read the story I couldn’t understand why there had been no arrests; I mean, it appeared they’d been caught bang to rights. Now I’m wondering if Gill’s sister, Quilter’s wife, being a hobby cop with Gogplod has any bearing.

Here’s a wee pic I found in my digging; it shows Dennis Kofi Asumah with Nigel Farage (click to enlarge). People like Dennis – whose loyalty is primarily to ‘Bishop’ Gill – must nevertheless be useful to Ukip. Though the irony does not escape me of an African, and of course, Americans, challenging the right of Europeans to enter a European country to which they themselves have, by whatever means, gained entry. But, then, this is just more of the hypocrisy and double-standards we now expect from the United Kingdom Independence Party.

Finally, Gill, or his supporters, have now made use of Wikipedia, with this page devoted to their boy. Basically, it admits to what’s now in the public domain – Burgill’s debts, “bunkhouse” accommodation for migrant workers, five years working as a PA for his predecessor as MEP, being a Mormon – but nothing we don’t already know. Yet he, or whover wrote the entry, still can’t resist more lying; such as claiming that, “After leading the UKIP group for the May 2013 local elections on Anglesey and being re-elected as a councilor . . .”. Very impressive . . . until I remind you that Nathan Gill has never been elected to the local council. What is it with these people, are they incapable of telling the truth! The US spelling of ‘councilor’ suggests this puff may have been written by Gill’s wife, Jana; or even his brother-in-law, Brian Lynn Quilter.

So there you have it, yet more news on Nathan Gill and his family. All fascinating stuff, some of it disturbing, and none of it doing him or his family any favours. This man shouldn’t be allowed to hold any public office. He shouldn’t have been allowed to stand for public office. He should be an embarrassment even to a political party as ‘relaxed’ about its representatives’ moral defects and peccadillos as Ukip. But apparently not. The more I learn of Nathan Lee Gill and his kin, the more I think of a Mormon version of the Sopranos or Corleones – perhaps they’ll hire somebody to whack me!

UPDATE JUNE 30: I can now reveal that the other brother-in-law is Anson Dwayne Bentley, currently of Bridlington, just north of Hull (click on image to enlarge), born April 1965; another US Mormon, this one married to Gill’s sister Jayne. Further information received now gives me a much better understanding of both the nature and scale of the operations in which Nathan Gill and his two brothers-in-law were engaged.

The bunkhouse on Holderness Road in west Hull that Gill has admitted to, housing Poles and others, only accounts for a few dozen migrants; I am now informed there were hundreds of migrants housed, and not just in Hull, but in Plymouth and God knows how many places in between. I have even been given the names of two men – almost certainly Latvians – who acted as rent collectors, S. F. and I. S.

For the scam was all about renting or even buying property, often through shell companies, then letting and sub-letting to exploit migrants who paid in cash, which was never declared as income, thereby cheating H M Revenue & Customs. Let’s say Gill rents a substantial house for £800 per month (in 2005) sub-lets to Quilter and / or Bentley for £2,000 a month, they then pack in 20 migrants paying £50 a week each, which works out at £4,300 per month. Everybody’s happy!

I have been accused of picking on Mormons or their beliefs, but Mormonism may lie at the heart of this conspiracy. I suspect that like many fundamentalist expressions of mainstream religions Mormonism has an ‘us and them’ mentality. In which ‘them’ are unbelievers and even the enemy. Because they are not ‘us’ they are fair game, to be exploited or worse. We see this attitude around the world today, especially in extreme variants of Islam; but Hinduism, Judaism, and even Buddhism are not exempt. Christianity has always had its fair share of extreme and exclusive cults and sects (often founded by charlatans to satisfy deviant sexuality or an overactive libido).

This outlook can then be used to justify not respecting or even openly disobeying governments, for these are the works of wicked Man, and lack the approval of their God. When you reach this stage then you have the religious equivalent of the militia mentality that rejects the US federal government and all its works. (Which might explain why Mormons and other sects seem to favour the same parts of the USA as the anti-Washington militias, and why there is so often an overlap.)

For the purposes of this case, it might also explain why Mormons, especially Mormons from the USA, see nothing wrong in exploiting mainly Catholic migrants and also cheating the UK government of its due. Thought it does throw up another irony. Nathan Gill and his Kipper cronies are forever moaning about the UK taxpayer being ‘ripped off’ by devious and dishonest continentals, but he has no problem with him and his US brothers-in-law doing the same!

Miscellany: MEWN, Oxbridge, Nathan Gill

On 19/06/201421/06/2014 By JacIn English Nationalism, Swansea, Third Sector, Welsh Labour15 Comments

MEWN: ANOTHER THIRD SECTOR EMBARRASSMENT FOR ‘WELSH’ LABOUR

Another Swansea-based ethnic minorities charity is being investigated by police. This one is Mewn, the Minority Ethnic Womens Network. Funded mainly by EU money dished out by the Welsh European Funding Office (WEFO) this charity is now in liquidation. As it is a charity (No. 1082587) there are a number of documents available on the Charity Commission website. Where we learn, among other things, that the most recent accounts were received on May 6, 95 days late, and that the MEWN secretary is Yvonne Jardine, a Labour councillor in Swansea. UPDATE JUNE 20: Within 24 hours of the original post I learnt that another Labour councillor, Erika Kirchner, resigned as director on May 6. Lucky Erika! Not there when the excrement came into contact with the air-circulatory appliance! Update ends. In fact, there seems to have been a rather curious relationship altogether between the Labour council in Swansea and MEWN.

For example, and I quote now from a document issued by Swansea council: “MEWN have had their Payroll run through the Council for a number of years. The arrangement is that the Council pays their staff through our Payroll system, and MEWN reimburse the Council. Therefore due to MEWN going into administration the Council is now one of the Creditors.” How common is such an arrangement? MEWN is also registered with Companies House, Number 03965481. From a ‘Welsh’ Government letter to AMs we learn that MEWN was gazetted on June 16th, but there is no word on who initiated the liquidation.

One entry in the accounts that caught my eye was the piece about staff costs (panel, click to enlarge). You will see that between 2012 and 2013 staff costs increased from £129,479 to £235,570. I suppose this massive increase in workload is attributable to the Swansea race riots and the subsequent pogroms (which went largely unreported outside the city).

UPDATE JUNE 20: Things are becoming a little clearer, though no clearer on what exactly happened to bring about the downfall of MEWN Swansea. What I’ve now learnt is that until last year there was another outfit, based in Cardiff, called Minority Ethnic Womens Network Cymru (Mewn Cymru) which operated “throughout Wales” . . . as did, according to the Charity Commission, the Swansea-based outfit. Were they in competition?

According to the Companies House website (click on panel to enlarge), the Cardiff crew was dissolved on January 14 this year. But it was in reasonable financial health so I assume that what happened was that someone pointed out that having two organisations with the same name, doing the same work, was a pretty obvious example of the kind of duplication for which the Third Sector is rightly condemned, and so some time last year the two merged. This would account for the increase in staff and associated costs of MEWN Swansea. Update ends.

The fate of MEWN will inevitably bring back memories of AWEMA, another Swansea-based, Labour-linked outfit in the business of ~~milking EU funding~~ promoting ethnic minorities. It may be worth starting the long trawl through what I’ve written on AWEMA from this post of November 2012, which mentions MEWN. I should warn you that these posts come from my old Google blog, and may be incomplete due to Google denying me access to transfer them to my new blog.

I earlier mentioned Councillor Yvonne Jardine, a Labour councillor for Morriston. Councillor Jardine is a BME activist of Afro-Caribbean origin, and yet another Labour councillor with no local roots. I have written many times about Swansea’s non-local Labour Party councillors . . . the Scouse leader (and his wife); the students; the English ex-MP Trotskyite and his Austrian wife; the West Brom fan with responsibility for the Swans’ Liberty Stadium, and many others. (Just type ‘Swansea council’ into Search at the top of the sidebar.) There will come a time in the not-too-distant future, when the veterans of the genuinely local Labour Party, Byron Owen, Robert Francis Davies et al, will have retired and Swansea Labour Party will be just a weird and dangerous collection of drifters, chancers, political opportunists, entryists, kids fresh out of college and single-issue nutters – running a city they know nothing about! My city!

I tell you, boys and girls, the Labour Party in Wales is an empty shell waiting to be cracked. It cannot find local candidates in Swansea and other areas; it relies for votes on folk memory and convincing the stupid that everything wrong with Wales is the fault of the Tories; many of its heartland seats almost went to Ukip in the recent Euro elections . . . all we need to crack the shell is a nationalist party more loyal to Wales than some laughable belief in socialist solidarity . . . or environmental agendas . . . or keeping Wales GM free . . . or sucking up to the metropolitan left-liberal-Green ‘consensus’ . . . In other words, a party nothing like Plaid Cymru.

THE OXBRIDGE CHIMERA

(No, that is not a statue of Huw Lewis at Oxford or Cambridge. That’s just how it came out in the still from the BBC clip)

I see that another non-issue has been revived by the ‘Welsh’ media and the ‘Welsh’ Labour Party (in many respects, one and the same). This time it’s the national shame of so few Welsh youngsters going to Oxford and Cambridge. Read all about it here in this load of bollocks on the BBC Wales website telling us that Paul Murphy MP and one-time Secretary of State to Wales was appointed our ‘Oxbridge Ambassador’ by the ‘Welsh’ Government. Did you know Wales has an Oxbridge ambassador? Nor me. Sad, isn’t it; really sad.

What we have here is yet another example of what Labour does so well – telling us that ‘Everything’s better in England’. (Which of course it is, with Labour running Wales.) Designed to make us see everything English as superior . . . thereby making anyone wanting to put distance between Wales and England a complete fool. In order to amplify this blatantly political message the ‘Welsh’ Government is prepared to subsidise a brain drain while ignoring 99% of Welsh youngsters. It reminds me of my schooldays, when the headmasters of certain local schools were in competition to see who could get the most pupils to Oxbridge every year, as if the rest of their charges were unimportant. God knows I’m no socialist, but there was something distasteful about that back in the ’60s, and ‘Welsh’ Labour promoting the same exclusivity today is equally distasteful. Shame on you!

Here’s an alternative strategy. Improve the higher education sector in Wales; start promoting quality rather than quantity. Treat our universities as places to educate the future of the nation rather than businesses, making loot from piling high third-rate English students and flogging degrees in Asia to anyone with the requisite folding.

NATHAN GILL MEP

Unless you’ve been asleep for the past few weeks you will be aware that our new Ukip MEP has been making the news. (Scroll down to recent posts.) This publicity has generated much interest and prompted a few people to start their own enquiries, I’m glad to say.

Among these is someone who was as intrigued as I was by Gill’s company, Burgill Ltd, having a planning application approved by Hull city council on May 6, 2009 when the company’s petition for liquidation was heard on November 26 the previous year, and the liquidation registered by Companies House on February 12. He suspects laws may have been broken if a) Hull city council was not informed that Burgill had been liquidated or b) if someone was still trading with a liquidated company.

Another mystery for which I would appreciate clarification is the fire on November 5, 2001 (also reported in the posts below). The fire – described by my informant as “suspicious” – was at the disused (possibly converted) Plane Street Methodist Church off Anlaby Road in west Hull. The Hull Daily Mail account describes Nathan Gill as having responsibility for the building in his capacity as “general manager of Kingston Care, based in Holderness Road, east Hull”.

There was certainly a company called Kingston Care extant at that time, but based in York, not Hull. It was in the business of providing ‘lodgings’, and seems to have been run, from their home, by a middle-aged couple named Morris with no other business involvement. Which is odd, because people with a bent for business usually have more than one company to their name; some fail, some succeed. Kingston Care had liabilities of £211,938 in September 2001 which had reduced to just £4,981.00 by August 30, 2002. An insurance pay-out, perhaps?

There cannot be two companies with the same name trading at any one time. So Nathan Gill was either working for the middle-aged couple in York, or else Kingston Care was his (or his family’s) company and the Morrises were allowing themselves to be used as a front. What’s the story?

Nathan Gill: The Biblical Backstory

On 15/06/201407/03/2016 By JacIn English Nationalism, Ukip11 Comments

BOOK OF NATHAN

SYNOPSIS OF A LOST BOOK OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, RECENTLY DISCOVERED BY WANDERING BEDOUIN IN THE RUINS OF A COPTIC MONASTERY NEAR YSTRADGYNLAIS

FROM CHAPTER 1

And lo, it came to pass, when the daughter of the alderman waxed strong in the land, she who smote Argies and miners, those of a damp disposition and others who followed false prophets, that the patriarch Gill heard a voice in a dream saying, ‘Best go where you’re not known, lad’. Troubled by these words the patriarch asked, ‘But where shall I go, Lord?’ ‘Follow the setting sun into the land wherein dwell the Welshites’, spake the Lord, ‘for they are as thick as that which droppeth from a camel’s bum and will let anyone settle among them, no questions asked’.

So he and his wife (for unlike many of his Mormon creed, he had but one), forsook their dwelling in the city called Hull, in the land of Ing-er-lund, and prepared to journey into the wilderness. They took with them the fruit of their loins, prized among these was young Nathan, of whom we shall learn more anon. Though they gave away not their chattels and materialistic encumbrances, for of these and the shekels the Gillites were uncommon fond.

FROM CHAPTER 2

Arriving in the land of the Welshites they were stunned by both the beauty of the place and the gullibility of the people. Patriarch Gill saw there were many in need of the laying on of hands, so he became an homeopath, dispensing treatment to all who needed it . . . but especially women . . . and even more especially, those women who could be persuaded to disrobe. Yeah, verily, he was an horny old patriarch. Small wonder that he was condemned by the elders of the temple and thrown in a cell by the authorities.

Young Nathan, meanwhile, was growing into a man, of sorts. A faithful attendee at the temple (notwithstanding his father’s little difficulties) while being instructed in letters and figures by local wise men, and women, at the Coleg that is called Menai. But then, as he attained man’s estate, a voice spake unto him, ‘Go to Hull’, it said, ‘return to the land of your fathers and claim your patrimony’.

This perplexed young Nathan, for he knew not the voice. ‘Is that you, Lord?’ ‘Well, sort of . . . think of me as a rival network giving better service for your particular needs’. ‘What are you called?’ ‘I am known by many names, but you can call me the E O’. So Nathan forsook the land of the Welshites and travelled east to seek his fortune.

FROM CHAPTER 3

Upon arriving in Hull he laboured in the family business of offering succour to the halt and the lame, the wizened and the widows, for his parents had taught him there was lucre to be made from providing pallets for the aged. He soon betook himself a wife, and begat children, but this union ended badly, and in recriminations. (At this point the manuscript is damaged, but our experts are working to fill the lacunae.)

Nathan was next mentioned in ancient local texts when an abandoned holy place with which he was connected ‘caught on fire’, on the night that is called Guy Fawkes. ‘It was the act of wicked children’ spake the son of the patriarch, but others were less sure, and some suspicious souls even raised accusing fingers against Nathan himself.

FROM CHAPTER 4

Patriarch Gill, now bethought himself to send his son, and his daughters (for the patriarch had been married ere he knew Nathan’s mother) to a great land across the sea, wherein dwelt many of the Mormonites. There they were married to devout Mormonite spouses. After the wedding, and the celebrations, Nathan, together with his new wife, returned to Hull. His sisters also returned from these arranged marriages with their new husbands.

Soon after their arrival the E O conjured up a vision for Nathan. In this vision Nathan saw many strangers coming to his beloved Ing-er-lund, men of a strange race and a heathen faith (which made it acceptable to enslave them). These people, known as Polandites, could be employed tending to the wizened ones, and even greater wealth could be gained from also providing these Polandites with pallets (nothing too fancy, you understand).

FROM CHAPTER 5

And it came to pass that Nathan created the company known as Burgill. And it prospered. The Polandites tended to the crones and when their labours were over they returned to the straw pallets provided by Burgill. Nathan owned many tents, large and small, in the city of Hull, wherein the Polandites did dwell.

Though this harvesting of the Polandites was not without its problems. For the tax collectors came unto him saying, ‘Oi, we suspect that you are doing all your business in ready shekels, with little being entered on the parchment rolls kept by your scribe’. This vexed Nathan full sore, for he knew it to be true, but consoled himself with the knowledge that the tax collectors could prove nothing.

It was during this time of plenty – for Nathan, not the Polandites – that the E O came to him again, saying, ‘Listen, son, there’s another way you can do yourself a bit of good out of these Polandites’. ‘How so, E O?’ enquired Nathan. After a deep sigh, the E O spelled it out, ‘A lot of people are getting angry about all these Polandites and others coming to Ing-er-lund (blesséd be her name), so pretend to agree with them, tell them you’ll put a stop to it’. Nathan was delighted, ‘That’s brilliant . . . hypocritical, but brilliant’. ‘Of course’, continued the E O, ‘you’ll have to leave that shower you’re with now and join Ukip’.

FROM CHAPTER 6

And it came to pass that Nathan abandoned the sepulchre of the Toryites to become a follower of the prophet Nige. A loud and hearty fellow was Nige, much given to raucous laughter and wine, and very fond of the ladies (not unlike the patriarch Gill in the latter respect). Nathan was smitten with Nige and vowed to follow him all his days (or until one of them got banged up).

‘What is our message, O Nige, for the marketplace and the caravanserai, the highways and the alleyways, the taverns and the temples?’ ‘Simple, son, “Vote for us and we’ll stop the Polandites and all the rest coming over here taking your jobs”’. ‘But I have many Polandites in my service, Nige’. ‘Fear not, Nathan, for if anyone doth uncover thy little secret we can use it to prove thou art not racist, merely in favour of controlled immigration. Though as for the undeclared shekels you’ve trousered, you’re on your own there, my son’.

Whereupon the E O appeared unto Nathan and spake in this wise, ‘I knew you’d like the prophet Nige, think of him as my emissary on earth. And if it all goes pear-shaped for him, you can take over.’

FROM CHAPTER 7

And so it came to pass that after certain problems in his business dealings in the city of Hull Nathan returned, with his new family, to the land of the Welshites. There, he began to preach at the people saying, ‘Vote for me, lest the land of the Welshites become deluged with strangers’. ‘Too right!’ they responded, especially those who had, like Nathan, come from Ing-er-lund!

Nathan proved unelectable among those who knew him on the island where he dwelt, but in a different casting of ballots he gained many votes from those who knew naught of him. For the criers and the tellers of tales in the market place, those on whom the people relied for their news, failed to ask, ‘Who is this Nathan that comes among us asking that we heed him, and follow him?’

Nathan’s prize for victory in this ballot was being allowed to go to an far place that he claimed was the root of all evil – Eu-rope. There he was free to do more serious trousering of shekels, the ones that were called euros. And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth among the Welshites, who cried, ‘If only we’d known then what we know now . .

* AMEN *

Nathan Gill, Ukip MEP, Another Dishonest Politician?

On 02/06/201412/04/2016 By JacIn Corruption, English Nationalism, Ukip90 Comments

Evidence has come to light suggesting that one of our recently elected tribunes may have been less than honest with us. (Well, with you, actually, because I don’t believe in any of the buggers.) I appreciate that the very thought of an untruthful politician may be a shock to some of the more delicate among you, so I can only suggest you gird up your loins, grit your teeth, and perform any other contortions that might help you endure what follows.

As the title of this post informs you, the politician in question is Nathan Gill, the Ukip candidate elected on May 22 to the European Parliament. Now Mr Gill looks a presentable forty-years-old man; happily married with five beautiful children, a dutiful son and a successful businessman to boot. It can be guaranteed that he gained the votes of many women, especially those of a certain age. That’s the JFK factor, exploited, since Dallas and the arrival of wall-to-wall television and social media, by Clinton, Blair, Obama, Cameron, and many other politicians in the English-speaking world. With the predictable corollary that those who fail the JFK test often suffer politically: Richard Nixon, Michael Howard, Gordon Brown et al. Lies may have forced Nixon from the White House but liars who pass the test are more likely to escape, or at least delay, retribution. This worshiping of the photogenic is yet another example of the superficiality of the Anglo-Saxon world today, the victory of style over substance. But I digress . . .

There are three specific areas in which Mr Gill was less than honest with the electors of Wales. The first two can be dealt with fairly quickly, but the third is a little more involved, so you’ll need to pay attention. It might also help you understand this post if you could refer back to an earlier post, Nathan Gill, Ukip No 1 in Wales; I would suggest keeping that earlier post open in a different window (or browser) so you can refer to it when necessary. (Here’s the link to the Ukip website from which the information came), with the bio panel from the site below.

NATHAN GILL, MORMON

People tell me that on other election literature produced by Ukip there were references to Gill being a ‘Christian’, which is unlikely to alarm anyone, but the Ukip election leaflet delivered to my house went straight in the bin, so I don’t know what it said. This was partly due to my views on English supremacism and partly a reaction to some of the insulting rubbish put out by Ukip in Wales. Whatever the leaflets may have said, none mentioned that Mr Gill is a Mormon. My belief is that few would have refused to vote for a ‘Christian’, but many would have been less ready to vote for someone belonging to one of the more exotic varieties of Christianity such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS).

Seeing as Mr Gill is a Mormon, what is his attitude to gays and same-sex relationships? Come to that, what does he think of the kind of heterosexual relationships enjoyed by that pork swordsman, legendary drinker, and all round sybarite, Nigel Farage? Does he really see his party leader as ‘a bit of a lad’, Everyman re-born for the twenty-first century, or a sinner bound for Hell?

The fact is, we should have been told that Nathan Gill is a Mormon. We were not. The information was deliberately withheld. That was dishonest.

NATHAN GILL, PROFESSIONAL POLITICIAN

Ukip makes great play on the claim that they, unlike the ‘established’ (and discredited) political parties, are not made up of ‘professional politicians’ but of ordinary people who’ve just had enough of the professional political class. There’s no doubt that this plays well with an electorate that now puts politicians on a par with sellers of ‘pre-loved’ automobiles, and vendors of dwellings whose descriptions bear no reality to their true condition.

This situation is alleged to have come about due to young people studying politics, then working as assistants or advisors to politicians, before going on to become tribunes themselves. This process, it is alleged, divorces its practitioners from ‘real life’ and the concerns of ‘real people’, for whom Ukip of course speaks. It’s a message that resonates and, unlike most of Ukip’s messages, this one is based in truth.

In the address I used in the earlier post (right) Mr Gill first says, “From an early age I have been interested in politics . . . “, before telling us that he resigned from the Conservative Party to join Ukip in 2005. But then, confusingly, he proudly and emphatically states, “I am not a career politician”. Which is it? Maybe if we ask what he was doing prior to his election it might help. Ah, yes, he was working as assistant to his predecessor as Ukip MEP, John Bufton. So he’s a professional politician just like those his party vilifies. Another question mark against Nathan Gill’s honesty.

NATHAN GILL, BUSINESSMAN

In the earlier post I mentioned a number of business ventures with which Gill and his family had been, or still are, involved. One was Burgill Ltd, compulsorily wound up in February 2009 with debts of some £116,000. This was involved in the letting of property, Incorporated with Companies House on St. Patrick’s Day 2004. The directors at Incorporation, each having one share, were Nathan Gill and his mother; with Gill’s address given as 51 Park Road, Sproatley, Hull, East Yorkshire, England, and his mother living at a house in Bryan (sic) Aethwy, Menai Bridge, Anglesey, England (sic). The proposed Registered Office was in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, with the Agent in Preston, Lancashire.

I was unable to get much more information on Burgill at the time I wrote the earlier post, and felt disinclined to pay for documents from Companies House. That all changed late on Thursday night when I received a strange comment (since removed) to the post, some of which I can paraphrase here: “Nathan Gill . . . Burgill . . . migrants mainly from Poland . . . housed 46 people in one very large house on Holderness Road, Hull, 6 bunk beds per room . . . a perfect candidate for Ukip?” It would have been easy to dismiss this comment as coming from someone with a grudge against Gill or an anti-Ukip agenda, but when I made further enquiries things began to look less far-fetched.

Below you’ll find a series of documents linked to Burgill Ltd bought from Companies House. In chronological order, they are: 1/ Certificate of Incorporation (17 March, 2004); 2/ Debenture referring to mortgage taken out by Burgill (13 June, 2005); 3/ Annual Return (March 17, 2008) which now has the Registered Office in Llangefni, Nathan Gill living at a different address in the town, and his father having joined as a shareholder (Anglesey has now relocated from England to Gwynedd. Still wrong, but an improvement.); 4/ Details of the winding-up (12 February, 2009); 5/ the Current Appointments Report I downloaded on Friday May 30, which confirms the compulsory liquidation, tells us the accounts are long overdue, and reminds us that Burgill’s business was “Letting of own property”. (If they don’t show, then click here.)

Further enquiries revealed more information on Burgill and Nathan Gill which ties in with the mysterious comment sent to my blog. For example, trawling the internet I came across this piece which locates Burgill Ltd at 778 Holderness Road in Hull. More digging unearthed information about a planning application from Burgill, to Hull city council, for a new detached dwelling close to 709 Holderness Road. Also on Holderness Road, at 443, is a care home which seems to have been Gill’s parents’ business. Incorporated on March 27, 2001 it traded as the Pink Panther Resource Centre until it changed its name in March 2003 to Gill Enterprises Yorkshire Ltd, though now based in Menai Bridge. The attraction of Holderness Road may be explained by the fact that a Mormon church is located on this thoroughfare. No. 778 is almost directly opposite the church, across the dual carriageway of the A165 Holderness Road. (Click to enlarge aerial view below.)

UPDATE JUNE 3: I now learn there was yet another property on Holderness Road, this one No. 711 (also known as ‘Tower Grange’). This is the most likely candidate to be “the very large house on Holderness Road, Hull, 6 bunk beds per room . . . ” mentioned in the comment to the earlier post on Gill. According to my informant this substantial building was sold to another company, by Burgill Ltd, with planning permission for a two-storey extension of nine two-bedroom and five one-bedroom ‘apartments’, which would tie in with this document. Though Gill’s original planning application was for a three-storey extension of eleven two-bedroom ‘apartments’ and five one-bed. (This may also be relevant.) Elsewhere in that city with which we are becoming familiar, you may recall that on the Certificate of Incorporation for Burgill Ltd Gill’s address is given as 51 Park Road, Sproatley (a commuter village to the north east of the city). Well, I’m told that Gill “had four Polish guys living there and he never declared the cash”.

In what they say will be their last communication, my informant also refers to a church – presumably in Hull – owned by Gill for which planning permission was refused . . . with the building subsequently suffering a “mysterious fire”. (Though I make no connection between the two.) After which a compulsory purchase order was issued by Hull city council. I fear that in Nathan Gill we could be dealing with a very naughty boy, a very naughty boy indeed (even by the standards of Ukip), and a man totally unfit to represent Wales in the European Parliament. As ever, I would be grateful for more information.

Mentioning the Mormons again makes me ask out loud a question that keeps nagging at me. In my experience many religious sects have a very unChristian regard for lucre. They seem not to have read about Jesus expelling the money changers from the Temple. So while this post is premissed on the assumption that Nathan Gill was in business for personal profit, what if Burgill Ltd was in reality being run on behalf of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints?

Returning to the planning application (details below) for a new detached dwelling close to 709 Holderness Road, this is dated 3 April, 2009, despite the petition to liquidate Burgill being presented and heard at Llangefni county court by district judge Jones-Evans on 26 November, 2008, and the company registered as liquidated by Companies House on 12 February 2009! So how can a company that to all intents and purposes has ceased to exist have a live planning application? I’m open to explanations.

Next stop was the DueDil website, which has yielded much information in the past, and came up with the goods again. The chart below gives a pretty good outline of the rise and fall of Burgill. It starts in March 2005 with the company having assets of some £230,000 – a property, maybe accounting for the mortgage referred to above? – with assets peaking at £405,525 on 30 March, 2006 (was another property bought?). Things changed little until March 2007, after which it was downhill all the way, with no recording of cash after that date. Suggesting (and I stress suggesting) that after March 2007 assets were sold to pay off liabilities, for these always exceeded assets, and the last entries tell us that by March 2008 Burgill Ltd had liabilities of £116,571 and assets of just £504.00.

So what was Burgill’s business? Did it involve, as my informant suggests, Polish migrant workers and bunk beds? That scenario is not so implausible. Due to its location on England’s east coast Hull has always traded with the Baltic and would have been a port of entry for people from that region when Poland and the three Baltic States joined the EU on May 1, 2004. (Remember, Burgill was Incorporated on March 17, 2004.) An enterprising young fellow, with local links, might see money to be made. What we know for certain is that Nathan Gill was involved in the property business in Hull during that period, so if not Polish migrants packed in like sardines, what type of business was he running?

At this point let me briefly mention other information received that refers to “sub-letting”, and the suggestion that what’s on paper may not be a true reflection of Burgill’s financial position, as Nathan Gill is alleged to be a man who likes to deal in cash . . . much of which is said to have gone missing as Burgill dived south . . . which set off alarm bells with the tax authorities. It is also alleged that ‘Bishop’ Gill had another wife, with whom he was involved in an acrimonious custody battle, and that – how can I put this? – imaginative means were employed allowing the cash-rich Mr Gill to claim legal aid. These are all serious allegations, and there may be more ready to surface.

Perhaps we should expect no better, for Ukip is a Ship of Fools, skippered by an arsehole and crewed by chancers and oddballs who regard probity, fidelity, and the better angels of our nature as irritants or obstacles to the satisfying of their baser instincts. They don’t much care about the destination of their craft – they signed on simply to enjoy the cruise and rake in the hated Euros. Far from being a break with a corrupt system Ukip is all the problems of modern politics magnified and made more repugnant. Nathan Gill adds another ingredient to the Ukip mix with his Mormon beliefs. Can we in future expect to see Ukip emulate the Tea Party in the USA by attracting Christian Fundamentalists and Evangelicals?

All this would be bad enough, but for a Welshman there is another consideration. Ukip is, as I mentioned earlier, an English supremacist party; it is the political voice of every social media bigot and internet troll who thinks we Welsh are an inferior people who would be ‘nothing without the English’, and that everything Welsh is, by definition, inferior to what England has to offer. The sort of swivel-eyed nutter, eaten up with hatred – often, it must be admitted, self-hatred – who will not be happy until every last vestige of Welshness is destroyed and Wales fully assimilated into England. It is scum like these that keep the Ship of Fools afloat in Wales.

I shall end this post by calling on Nathan Gill to, finally, be honest. Tell us why you withheld the information about being a Mormon, and how that faith influences your attitudes to contemporary issues. Why did you try to present yourself as a political virgin when you clearly are not? What exactly were (or are) your business interests in Hull with Burgill Ltd, and perhaps other companies; was it the exploitation of migrants from that place you hate so much – ‘Europe’? Finally, Nathan Gill, do you really think it’s wise to go to the European Parliament accompanied by so many skeletons, with others almost certain to emerge?

Trying to bluff it out will only make things worse, Mr Gill; I suggest you reconsider your position as an MEP.

Jac o' the North

Tag: Nathan Gill MEP