A Personal Take On The Euro Elections 2024

It might seem odd for me to be writing about elections to the EU parliament 8 years after Wales voted to leave the EU, but I’m doing so because these results are important, and will have repercussions for us.

THE BIG PICTURE

There was a swing to the right across the continent, but of course the media found it almost impossible to engage in honest reporting. There were crude references to the 1930s, or even suggestions that the swing was largely due to a low turnout.

Watching the exit polls and the early declarations on Sunday night, on the BBC, CNN, and Euronews, I was struck by the way commentators used terms like ‘centre’, ‘centre left’, ‘socialists’, even ‘green-left’, but never ‘far left’.

While on the other side there’s rarely a ‘right of centre’; that side of the spectrum begins with ‘right wing’ or ‘far right’, even ‘hard right’. (Yeah, well hard!)

There’s also the ‘populist right’, whatever that means. (Answers on a post card.)

I got the impression that some of those misinforming me would have liked to slip into Antifa black bloc and yell, ‘Nazi!’, ‘fascist!‘, and ‘transphobe!’ Displaying commendable restraint the Beeb limited itself to images like this, linking Austria with Germany (Anschluss), and showing raised arms. (Nudge, nudge.)

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When it came to Gorgeous Geert Wilders, there was an early attempt (Netherlands voted on Thursday) to suggest that his Party for Freedom PVV had somehow tanked, even though projections had it increasing its representation in Brussels from 0 to 7 MEPs. (As it turned out, the PVV won 6 seats.)

Done by making the rather silly comparison with the national election last November, which the PVV won.

The talking heads were almost united in bemoaning the swing to the right, but chose to focus on the personalities, or the possible line-up in the EU parliament, rather than address the reasons for the upheaval they were witnessing.

Those reasons being unsustainable levels of immigration and the hardships being imposed by the completely unnecessary drive to net zero.

THE VIEW FROM THE EAST

The picture across the continent is too big and complicated for me to look at every country. What’s more, the picture in the east, from Finland to Romania, is coloured to a greater or lesser degree by the war in Ukraine, and attitudes towards Russia.

For Finland was ruled by Russia until 1917, then Stalin invaded in 1940. Anti-Russian sentiment is widespread in the Baltic States. Poland borders Ukraine. Hungary tries to play the honest broker. Many Romanians fear Russia will push west, towards and beyond Odessa, to link with Transdnistria, where there is already a Russian military presence.

So I’m going to focus on Central and Western Europe. Where results are marginally easier to read, and then, due to the size and influence of some of the countries involved, the consequences will be felt beyond those countries’ borders.

I should also point out that in a number of countries the EU elections were held on the same day as local or national elections. Which can confuse the picture, and also influence the result of the EU poll.

I’m going to focus on France, but I’ll also zip around a few other countries; including of course, Germany. Once the economic and industrial powerhouse of the continent . . . but then came net zero.

LA BELLE FRANCE

As I’ve suggested by focusing on France, the big story of the elections was that Macron got his ass kicked by Marine Le Pen’s protégé, 28-year-old Jordan Bardella.

Marine Le Pen fought hard for National Rally (NR) to shake off the worst of her father’s legacy, but no matter what did she was stuck with the name. Bardella, of mainly Italian background, but also having an Algerian great-grandfather, has no such problem.

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Also in the mix, almost unnoticed, was the Reconquête! party. It linked with a few others to fight under the La France fière banner, got 5.47% and 5 seats. Founded as recently as 2021 by Éric Zemmour, the son of Arabic-speaking Berber Jews from Algeria.

I mention this because Zemmour is usually said to be further to the right, and more hostile to Islam, than NR.

The map below shows that NR came top of the poll in every départment other than Paris. A reminder of a problem found across the West – the disproportionate influence of a metropolitan elite.

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By which I mean, politicians, the media, self-styled ‘progressives’, academics, countless thousands in NGOs and similar gangs living off the public purse.

In response to his drubbing Macron has gone for broke and called a parliamentary election. His job won’t be up for grabs, but he’ll be there to undermine his party, and the liberal left more generally, by reminding French voters he’s now a lame duck president.

An example of a weak man acting tough. And it invariably ends in disaster.

Something that cost Macron and his party votes was his call for what sounded very much like war with Russia. This Spectator article from March 10 suggests Macron made his remarks about intervention in Ukraine to combat NR’s 10% lead in opinion polls ahead of the EU elections.

This cunning plan was so successful that the eventual gap was 16.2%, with NR getting 31.4%, to Macron’s Renaissance getting just 15.2%.

The plan to give Putin what for was not well received by his neighbours and allies. (‘”Follow me!“, he cried, sabre held aloft . . . then looked back and saw he was alone.’)

Incidentally, the French Communist party got just 2.36%. Now if that don’t warm the cockles of your crypto fascist heart, missus, then I don’t know what will.

Back in the days of Gladio there was a real worry, in London and Washington, that France (and Italy) might actually elect a communist government. How times change!

Macron is now urging the French to ‘say no to extremes’ in the elections at the end of the month. Rejecting his brand of banality, mediocrity, and incompetence, does not make people extremists.

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Wise up, mon ami – your bateau has sailed.

A ROUNDUP

Next door to France, in Belgium, there were also national and regional elections. With a turnout of 87.42% for the federal election. The big winners in the regional elections for Flanders were Eurosceptic Flemish nationalist parties, though Vlaams Belang – the ‘separatist’ party – did not perform as well as expected.

On the national stage, the same two parties topped the poll. Other, mainly francophone parties, trotted in behind them.

As in France, the big loser was the party running the national government, but unlike France, there was also a national election, which the ruling coalition lost. This resulted in prime minister Alexander De Croo handing in his notice to the king. But he’ll hang on until a new coalition is formed.

Belgian politics is ‘messy’. A small country divided by language and regional rivalries, with its capital, Brussels, also serving as the EU capital.

In Italy, there was no big surprise. Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia, heading the national government coalition, came top. And although the usual suspects call her the ‘heiress to Mussolini’ and a neo-fascist, I fear she may be little more than a political chancer with a real talent for self-promotion.

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An example would be her visit to Albania just before the EU elections, to inspect the centres where would-be migrants will be held while Italy vets their claims. This Rwanda-style deal seems to be pissing off many of the comrades, so it has that in its favour.

And those whose applications fail will presumably be recruited by Albanian gangs and end up over here tending cannabis factories. Everyone’s a winner!

We can’t ignore Germany, the largest member of the bloc in terms of population and just about everything else. As in other countries we’ve looked at, the results were a disaster for the party or parties running the national government.

Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, who head up the ruling coalition, came a poor third with just 13.9%. The big winners were the Christian Democrats (with their Bavarian ally) on 30%, and to the right of them, the AfD on 15.9%. The Greens came fourth with 11.9%.

Catching up on reports as I wrote this I came across something that indicates how the political focus has shifted to the right.

Associated Press is one of the most reliably Globalist mouthpieces. A joke as a news organisation, it can be relied on to spout the Davos-UN line on climate, ‘refugees’, etc.

Normally, AP would be horrified by advances for conservatives, but here it seems to be taking consolation from the success of the German Christian Democrats.

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Scholz says he won’t be calling an election, but the decision may be out of his hands.

The BBC found similar comfort in a ‘resurgent’ centre-left in France. Mmm. I’m sure there was a Straw Clutchers party standing somewhere.

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Next door to Germany, in Austria, it was a similar story. A big surge in support for one of those parties that puts leftists into Wolfie Smith mode.

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We’ve looked at France, Germany and Italy, so the other large country in the west is Spain. There, it was a familiar tale, though with a strange twist.

I quote from the Reuters article I just linked to: ‘Alvise Perez, a far-right social media influencer running against what he describes as universal corruption, managed to obtain three seats with a campaign mostly conducted through the messaging app Telegram.’

Here’s a link that might tell you more about Señor Perez, who dedicated his victory to an 81-year-old man who’d been sent to prison for shooting a burglar.

I’d hoped to bring results from Ireland, where there were also local elections. But counting has been slow, and when I was finishing off this article yesterday evening the results for the Euro elections had still not been finalised.

I would also have liked to tell you about the local elections, but that would have meant a lot of digging. The insurgent parties and individuals I’ve mentioned here in recent times are probably included among Independents and Others in the box below

It’s worth noting that Sinn Féin was topping every poll until it became clear that it supports open borders, which hurts its working class base more than other groups.

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But I can tell you that John Moran is the new mayor of Limerick.

YOUNG EUROPE

In order to explain a few more things about Poland, France, the wider picture, and the standard of BBC journalism, I’m using the two clips below.

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Polish premier Tusk is a Globalist and Permanent War party puppet, and therefore a favourite with the BBC.

But Auntie disapproves of his rival, the Law and Justice party, so it has to be labelled ‘right wing’. But when there’s another party, even more likely to bring on an attack of the vapours, such as the Confederation party, it must be branded ‘far-right’.

But note, the panel also reveals that this party from beyond the Pale is the most popular among 18-29- year-olds. While the other panel tells us that in France 18-24-year-olds have swung behind Le Pen’s RN.

Across Europe young people are rejecting the parties of the centre, and the greens, to move left and right, with the right gaining far more than the left.

This swing to the right among the young is significant. For we’re not dealing with the ‘gammons’ so beloved of leftists and their media, those sad caricatures nostalgic for a time when white families appeared in TV adverts.

This support from young people is rooted in events of the here and the now. And that’s why I find it so encouraging.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I see these European elections as a blow for the Globalists. They also see it, and they’ve been quick to respond. The head of the UN’s refugee agency, Filippo Grandi, ‘criticised the politicisation of migration in European elections‘.

Listen, pal, you and your Globalist mates, the politicians you’ve won over, the European Commission, the media you control . . . you all politicised the issue long ago, by doing away with border controls, and by demonising those who oppose your plans.

You are in no position therefore to criticise decent people who’ve had enough of your behaviour. The fightback is underway, both in Europe and the USA.

For the day after he took office, your puppet Biden opened the southern border. Now that his handlers finally realise how unpopular a decision that has proven to be, and with a presidential election looming, they’re back-pedalling like crazy.

Let’s also remember the damage being inflicted by the climate scam. It’s destroying the Welsh countryside, making everything more expensive, while personal freedom suffers from the restrictions it demands.

Which is why, on July 4, I expect a rag-bag of candidates, some of them off the wall, one or two sought by various constabularies; with a back-of-a-fag-packet ‘manifesto’, and a leader used by leftist yobs for target practice, to do rather well.

Because that’s where we are. Think well on’t.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2024

Miscellany 27.07.2022

This week’s offering kicks off with assorted musings from here and there before returning home to focus on issues that have caught my eye. And if these have a theme then it’s assorted companies and individuals pretending to be what they’re not. In this case, Welsh.

This is another biggie, just over 4,000 words, but you know the spiel – ‘nourishing, easily-digestible chunks, etc., etc‘.

First stop, England, where the Conservatives have committed electoral suicide by getting rid of Boris Johnson and now have to make the choice between Sunak and Truss! Like having to choose which foot to shoot yourself in.

I don’t know the minds of Tory politicians and strategists but I do know that among the working class – male and female – there’s always been a guilty liking for a roguish toff.

And that’s what Johnson is. Nobody ever accused him of having his hand in the till or anything heinous; it was a bit of bullshitting here, a few drinks there, and an over-fondness for the ladies.

Those ‘failings’ might mean some tosser needing to be fanned with a copy of the Guardian in Islington, but they wouldn’t have lost BoJo many votes in Scunthorpe, St Helens, or Sunderland.

“Grand lad is Boris”.

The only ray of sunshine for the Tories comes in the soporific form of Labour leader Keir Starmer.

Now across the Pond, to where Joe Biden – after two injections and two boosters – has caught Covid. Oh dear, what a pity, how sad.

Sleepy Joe is, without a doubt, the worst US president of my lifetime. And I remember Gerald Ford, of whom it was said that chewing gum and tying his shoelaces at the same time was too intellectually demanding.

Though in fairness, Ford could be relied on to do as he was told. Which explains how he got to serve on the Warren Commission looking into the JFK assassination.

Joe Biden clearly has dementia or a similar condition, and looming ever larger over his presidency are the multiple horrors contained in his son Hunter’s laptop.

Many of you will be unaware of this because the left-leaning mainstream media has largely ignored the story. They can’t deny it, because they’ve all read the e-mails and seen the videos. (And laughed along with the rest of us.)

In a nutshell, crack-smoking, sex-addicted Hunter saw himself as an international businessman. Making deals in China, Russia, Ukraine and other places by trading on his father’s name when dad was Obama’s VP.

Joe Biden’s brother James was certainly getting a cut and it looks increasingly likely that Joe himself was also in on it.

The problem is that Hunter just had to keep records. And they were all stored on a laptop he took to be repaired in Wilmington, Delaware, then forgot to collect it, and so the laptop became the property of the repair shop owner.

The only questions now are: 1/ How much longer can Sleepy Joe last? and 2/ What method will his party use to get rid of him?

Finally, in Ukraine, the war grinds on with Russian forces advancing slowly and steadily on all fronts. It seems likely that the whole of the Donbass will soon be in Russian hands, and so will large swathes of territory across the south, perhaps even lovely Odessa.

Basically, those areas where a majority of the population identify as Russian. Areas where the population was treated abominably by Ukrainian forces – often Nazi units – for protesting against the US-engineered Maidan coup of 2014.

This outcome could have been achieved by a plebiscite, but certain interests in the West were determined that corruption-ridden Ukraine, generously supplied with weapons and money – which will never be accounted for – should wage a proxy war.

Jugoslavia all over again; with Russia in the role of ‘baddie’ Serbia, and Ukraine playing the white hat parts of Croatian Ustaše fascists, Bosnian Muslims and their Jihadist allies, and the organ-harvesting, gun-running, drug-smuggling gangsters of the (Albanian) Kosovo Liberation Army

On the plus side . . . it looks like Russia turning off the gas taps has killed Net Zero.

EAT YOUR HEART OUT, ELON MUSK!

An announcement last Thursday from the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ told of an exciting development hoping to overcome the problem of reliance on China for supplies of rare earth elements for electric car batteries.

Followed by a word-for-word ‘article’ in the Wasting Mule on Friday.

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What most people don’t realise (because the media prefers not to tell us), is that electric cars, wind turbines, and solar panels, all need rare earth elements, and we are too reliant for these on China.

Being an expansionist Communist country China is obviously a potential enemy. Then there’s the fact that extracting these metals is dirty and dangerous work, which might be done by members of religious or ethnic minorities undergoing ‘re-education’.

The pieces linked to say the project is being funded by the Ford Low Carbon Vehicle Transformation Fund and uses fewer of the rare earth elements.

Naturally, I got to wondering about the company involved in this exciting venture, named as, ‘Caerphilly-based Deregallera’. And that was the first disappointment, for the company seems to be based near Bradford, in West Yorkshire.

Though in fairness, it was at one time using a Caerphilly address. So let’s put that into its contextual timeline.

Deregallera began life in 2011 in Southampton. Then it was Pontypridd. Then in March 2013 it was down to Cardiff. September 2019 saw a move within Cardiff. In December 2020 it was over to Bristol. Then in April this year it was up to Bingley.

Getting further and further away from the claimed base in Caerffili.

The driving force behind Deregallera is Martin Hugh Boughtwood. His Linkedin profile modestly describes him as a ‘visionary leader’. He has a host of US patents.

So it should go without saying that he’s been involved with a number of companies. Quite a few using the ‘Deregallera’ name. Here they are in a table.

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Among them we see D G Innovate PLC. Which last year was taken over by Path Investments for £32m in a ‘reverse merger transaction’, according to the Annual Report and Financial Statements for Deregallera Ltd (March 2021).

D G Innovate was known by that name between 29.01.2021 and 05.04.2022. Before that it was Deregallera Holdings Ltd (from formation 26.11.2009). And now, since April 5, it’s Deregallera Holdings again!

God, this is confusing! With all the name changes, all the comings and goings of directors, do those involved know which company is which any more?

Talking of directors, D G Innovate PLC seems to have recruited a few this year.

Worth a mention are, Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton, former governor of Jersey; Dr Patrick Bruce Reith Symonds, formerly of Williams Grand Prix Engineering; and Trevor Gabriel, managing director at Monaco Villas. (Monaco Villas!)

I’m sure they’ll be very happy together in what is obviously another great Welsh venture.

As far as I’m concerned, the jury is out on this one. Those involved have got their hands on money from a fund administered by the ‘Welsh Government’ (which often spells disaster), but how much of that money Wales will see is another matter.

One to watch.

‘WE’RE WELSH, HONEST!’

Another company desperately trying to prove it’s Welsh is our old friend, Bute Energy. Which began life in London, then used an Edinburgh address, but now most Bute companies also use a broom cupboard in Hodge House, Cardiff.

Named of course after Julian Hodge, banker to the Labour Party. Friend and confidante of PM Jim Callaghan and George “Order, Order!” Thomas.

Remember George, Lord Tonypandy? Even by the standards of the ‘Welsh’ Labour Party George Thomas was one of the most odious bastards ever to draw breath.

Not content with a Cardiff address to prove how Welsh it is Bute has recruited Dafydd Williams as a project manager to traverse the land addressing community councils and concerned locals, promising they’ll hardly notice 250 metre tall wind turbines . . . 36 here, another 30 there . . .

Is Dafydd a replacement for David George Taylor? For more on Taylor, and Bute’s Welsh Advisory Board, click here and scroll down to the section ‘Labour Party Freedom of Information Request’.

In search of enlightenment I joined a Zoom meeting of New Radnor community council a few weeks back, where I managed to put some questions to Dafydd Williams, but all I got in return was waffle.

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One Bute site now threatened with 250m (to tip) turbines is Moelfre, inland of Abergele. To put that into perspective, the turbines put up 15 – 20 years ago were rarely more than 100m (often less), the turbines at Pen-y-Cymoedd are 145m.

But locals are fighting back. The image above is taken from a protest leaflet they’ve produced. Read the full leaflet here.

Another area threatened is to the east of Llandrindod. This being Bute’s Nant Mithil site. Here’s the briefing paper produced by Bute.

Bute has set up a company for each of its 20 planned wind farms, or as they now prefer to call them, ‘Energy Parks’. Here’s a map to help you locate them. And here’s more information on the various companies and individuals involved.

The proposal for Nant Mithil is for 36 x 220m (to hub) turbines, with ‘solar energy and battery technology’ not ruled out.

In both the Moelfre protest leaflet and the Bute briefing paper for Nant Mithil you will have seen reference to these being in a ‘Pre-Assessed Area for Wind Energy in Future Wales: The National Plan 2040’. Here’s a link to that document.

On page 94 you’ll find the map you see below. The areas bordered in black have been given over to wind farms. Planning permission is virtually guaranteed. Local resistance will prove futile. (Certainly, that’s the hope in Corruption Bay.)

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Moelfre is in area 1, and Nant Mithil in area 4. Though sources tell me that as much as 75% of Bute’s 200 hectare Nant Mithil site is outside area 4. It’ll be interesting to see how that pans out.

Progress is also being made on other sites. Here’s the Scoping Report for Rhiwlas, near Llangurig. Compiled for Bute Energy by RSK of Bristol.

Other news is that new directors, Forrest, Gruescu and Parkhouse, have joined the gang in certain companies. Aberedw Energy Park Ltd being one. These new boys represent the interests of Bute’s Danish investors.

I covered this development in February, in ‘Bute Energy Selling Wales For Danegeld?’.

Everybody’s ripping off Mam Cymru, thanks to those assholes in Corruption Bay and their obsession with a non-existent ‘Climate Emergency’.

Maybe it’s time the old girl’s sons stirred themselves again, and put a stop to this abuse and exploitation taking place before their eyes.

GILESTONE, REVISITED, AGAIN

To recap: The ‘Welsh Government’ paid £4.25m for Gilestone farm near Talybont-on-Usk which it says will be leased to the Green Man Festival.

I’ll try to avoid some of the rumours I’ve been hearing . . . oh, what the hell!

One has Green Man boss Fiona Stewart telling Minister for Economy  – ‘economy’! – Vaughan Gething that if the ‘Welsh Government’ didn’t buy her a farm she would move the Green Man Festival to England.

Another wanted me to believe that the Green Man will move to Gilestone farm in 2026 because current host, Harry Legge-Bourke of the Glanusk Estate, is getting a divorce. Which seems rather protracted. And why should a divorce make any difference?

Finally, some believe there has long been a relationship between Fiona Stewart and former Gilestone owner, Charles Weston. I had to confirm that this was a business relationship not, er . . . well, you know.

I could find nothing linking them. To help my enquiries I drew up a table of Fiona Stewart’s companies. Which makes strange reading.

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Throughout this saga we’ve been told that the ‘Welsh Government’ has been dealing with the Green Man Festival. Yet the company, Green Man Festival Ltd, formed September 2015, has always filed as a dormant company. The only director, Fiona Stewart.

What’s more, Green Man is controlled by Tree Trunk Ltd. Formed May 2012, this also files as a dormant company. And it’s behind with its filings to Companies House.

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There are two directors. Stewart and Paul Abraham Betesh of Manchester. Betesh has been involved with a number of companies.

The other company using the Green Man label is the Green Man Trust Ltd. You’ll note that it receives funding from the ‘Welsh Government’, the Arts Council of Wales, and Arts Council England.

As well as being a company registered with Companies House it’s also registered with the Charity Commission.

Two of the four directors / trustees are Stewart and long-time business associate, Ian Myers Fielder, with these two exercising control. The other directors / trustees are Natasha Hale, and Joanna Owen, a solicitor working for Commission for Equality and Human Rights in London.

Flicking through the accounts I was struck by some of the other funders, Performing Rights Society Foundation, Ashley Family Foundation, and Cardiff University.

Then, a few days ago, a secretary was appointed, Joana Margarida Martins Rodrigues. Clearly Portuguese, perhaps one of the many Lusitanians to be found in Crughywel.

If we look at the total income for the Green Man Trust we see that it’s risen from £152,643 in year ending 31.12.2020 to £347,417 in y/e 31.12.2021. Which means that the income more than doubled, and is perhaps more than the Trust knows what to do with.

I suggest that because the latest accounts show £266,835 as ‘cash at bank and in hand’.

An interesting contribution to the Gilestone saga came a couple of weeks back from senior civil servant Andrew Slade. To give him his title, Director General, Economy, Skills and Natural Resources.

Here’s the article, in which Slade says that Gilestone may not be a done deal, but also describing the Green Man Festival as the “jewel in Wales’ crown”. A curious remark, and an indicator of Slade’s ignorance of Wales.

Most of those who attend come from England. Many more Welsh people go to the National Eisteddfod, then there’s ‘The Show’ (which was on last week), and even Dolgellau’s Sesiwn Fawr. I wouldn’t expect Slade to know much about the first or the third, but he’s been to Llanelwedd a few times.

It wouldn’t be stretching it to describe the Green Man Festival as an event for the English middle classes, for less than a quarter of the attendees live in Wales.

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I even found a photo of Slade with a bunch of young farmers. (He’s right centre.) Next to him, carefully coiffed, is Gary Haggaty, looking as if he’s about to go on stage to give Mr and Mrs Gripe of Wisbech the chance to win a week for two in sunny Scunthorpe.

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Both Slade and Haggaty have appeared on this blog before. They are civil servants with Defra backgrounds, sent down to keep the natives in check and do whatever damage they could to Welsh farming.

In The Welsh Clearances from October 2018 I used an image from January 2014 of Slade alongside Alun Davies, then Minister for Natural Resources and Food, as Davies announced taking EU funding from farmers and turning it over to ‘Rural Development Projects’. (And we all know what that means!)

Haggaty eventually shacked up with his boss, Lesley Griffiths.

I quote from her official bio: ‘Lesley was appointed Cabinet Secretary for Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs on 3 November 2017. On 13 December 2018 Lesley was appointed Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs. On 13 May 2021 Lesley was appointed Minister for Rural Affairs, North Wales and Trefnydd’.

Enough of digression, back to Fiona Stewart and her companies.

The only company I can find that seems to have any serious money is Plantpot Ltd; originally GMF Festival Ltd, before changing into Pot Plant Ltd. This is also controlled by Tree Trunk Ltd.

And let’s remind ourselves that Tree Trunk Ltd is a dormant company behind with its Companies House filings.

At the end of 2020 Plantpot had £1,179,096 ‘cash at bank and in hand’. Up from £656,213 the previous year. Not bad considering the Covid ‘pandemic’. But most of this money is owed to unidentified creditors. Who are they?

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With £169,900 owed to ‘group undertakings’. So does this mean it’s owed to other companies in the Tree Trunk group?

Another concern is that there’s no indication of where the £1m+ in cash came from. What we have instead of audited accounts for Plantpot Ltd is an ‘Unaudited Financial Statement’ made out by Ms Stewart herself.

I’m not suggesting dishonesty, but I am saying there’s a lack of clarity. Which might not matter had the ‘Welsh Government’ not paid £4.25m for Gilestone farm.

Because if the Green Man is the major event it’s said to be, then it must take in millions of pounds, so where is that money accounted for? It certainly doesn’t go through any company using the Green Man name. Is there a company I’ve missed?

If we go back to the table of Fiona Stewart’s companies we see that the newest is Cwningar Ltd, formed in February this year, with its formation almost certainly linked to the purchase of Gilestone farm.

Which is why I suspect that talk of an agreement between the ‘Welsh Government’ and the Green Man Festival is misleading. Fiona Stewart is the Green Man. I believe the farm was bought for Fiona Stewart herself. And for some new venture loosely connected with the Green Man.

I suggest that because Ms Stewart is nothing if not well connected in Cardiff.

This article from May 2017 says, ‘Cardiff University and Green Man will build upon their existing partnership’. Fiona Stewart gushed . . .

“Green Man works with world class talent and Cardiff University is one of the most respected universities on the planet, so it’s definitely top of the bill with me.”

(Pass the sick bag!)

Then think back to the item about the electric car motor, telling us that ‘academics at Cardiff University’ are involved. Dafydd Williams of Bute Energy ‘holds a BSc and MSc from Cardiff University’s School of City and Regional Planning’.

Cardiff University is almost an extension of the ‘Welsh Government’. If you’re well in with Cardiff Uni then doors – and cheque books – open for you in Corruption Bay.

And if, like Fiona Stewart, you’re also connected to Coleg Soros Talgarth, then you can write your own cheque. Which may explain how she acquired Gilestone.

Apart from its location there’s nothing Welsh about the Green Man Festival – just look at the line-up for this year. If Stewart wants to move to England, let her go.

Seeing as the great majority of the visitors come from England moving to that country would be the environmentally sensible thing to do.

Then sell Gilestone and put the money from the sale back into the public purse. Where it belongs. And don’t do the bidding of any other pushy memsahibs.

In conclusion, it’s worth remembering that a great deal of bullshit is talked about the Green Man Festival. Take this June 2019 submission from UK Music to the Senedd’s Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee. (Page 7.)

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Does anyone really think there are 1,500 jobs created on site? If so, there must be almost as many people working at the festival as there are attending!

And no matter what the figure is, those are very, very temporary jobs.

Like I say, bullshit!

CHILD PROTECTION

We live in dangerous times.

Obviously, there’s a war in Ukraine. But then we have supranational organisations like the World Health Organisation and the World Economic Forum trying to impose themselves as some kind of unelected global government.

And recently we’ve had to put up with the swivel-eyed who got really swivelly because of a few fine days – in July! You could sense their disappointment when the bodies weren’t piling up in the streets; their ‘We warned you!’ taunts dying on their lips.

All joking aside, one threat, a very real threat, is shaping up under our noses, with the full support of the ‘Welsh Government’ and the Corruption Bay establishment. Because both have been infiltrated, indoctrinated, or intimidated into supporting Stonewall.

For Stonewall, which started out defending and promoting the interests of gays and lesbians, is now nothing more than a group getting ever more extreme in its promotion of ‘trans rights’ and other issues.

Stonewall is favoured in Corruption Bay, we know that from the amount of funding it’s received from the ‘Welsh Government’.

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Seeing as the Wales Council for Voluntary Action is also funded by the ‘Welsh Government’ the total comes to £241,781. Only UK government departments gave more to Stonewall in the period covered.

Being so favoured Stonewall also has influence in Wales. Influence over legislation. Even to the extent of deliberately misrepresenting existing legislation.

Specifically, the Equality Act 2010. There are 9 protected characteristics under the Act, and this is how the ‘Welsh Government’ interpreted them. They’re correct apart from the one I’ve highlighted.

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What the Act protects is gender reassignment. That is, someone who has undergone surgery. Stonewall would like it to promote ‘chicks with dicks’, and give free rein to male sexual predators pretending to be women.

The ‘Welsh Government’ chose to accept Stonewall’s wishful thinking over the law. And then desperately tried to explain its mistake as being in ‘the spirit of the law’.

The spirit of the law can be elusive, a difficult thing to pin down. But there can be no mistaking the letter of the law. In this case it is quite unambiguous. (Doesn’t the ‘Welsh Government’ have lawyers?)

The ‘Welsh Government’ got it wrong because it listened to Stonewall. That’s because Stonewall has allies in the Bay among Labour insiders.

Which helped Stonewall influence the new curriculum for Welsh schools. But the fightback has started. There will now be a judicial review of the ‘Welsh Government’s proposals.

Here’s a rather long video (almost 2 hours) of a meeting in Bethel, near Caernarfon, where opposition is being organised to the imposition of certain elements of the curriculum.

But it doesn’t end there, for Stonewall also wants to corrupt pre-school children. Those who attend playgroups. Here’s a tweet put out by Stonewall last week.

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When asked to produce the ‘research’ referred to, Stonewall was unable to do so.

Make no mistake, Stonewall wants to push its vile agenda that results in mutilating confused kids into every sphere of our lives, and certain elements on the Left will give all the assistance they can.

Of course, many nursery or pre-school groups in Wales are run by Mudiad Meithrin. Which has, unfortunately, also been infiltrated.

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When I look at the Mudiad Meithrin board of directors I can see a few possible advocates for this dangerous nonsense. One in particular, who was deeply involved in attempts last year to turn YesCymru into TransCymru.

Another, who has recently left the Mudiad Meithrin board, also did great damage to YesCymru before moving on to other things. I’m told he played a big part in turning  Cymdeithas yr Iaith Woke.

Stonewall has walked into a trap of its own making. When you argue there is an ever-expanding universe of genders you will inevitably attract the exhibitionists and the unhinged, and the general public will stop taking you seriously.

Start talking about the sexuality of children and you’ll draw the perverts and the paedophiles. And then the general public will start seeing you as a threat.

An organisation in Stonewall’s position has two options:

    • Paddle back and regain some credibility.
    • Keep paddling furiously for the rapids and prove your critics right.

Stonewall seems to have chosen the second option. Which is bad news for them, but I won’t be shedding any tears.

We must protect our kids from discredited and dangerous beliefs promoted by a few influential individuals who decided those beliefs were ‘progressive’, then bullied others into accepting Stonewall’s lunacies.

It’s time for the ‘Welsh Government’, Mudiad Meithrin, and others, to paddle back, and to root out the influence of Stonewall from all areas of Welsh life.

♦ end ♦

August is normally a slow month for news so, unless the Gorsedd starts an insurrection, the ‘Welsh Government’ announces major investment outside of Cardiff, or Powys is invaded by enviroshysters (damn! too late for that one!), I’ll be back, bright eyed and bushy-tailed, in September.

 

© Royston Jones 2022


Ukraine: A Personal View

Anyone expecting an armchair strategist’s take on the fighting in Ukraine should look elsewhere. This is a very personal attempt to explain how I believe we arrived at war between Russia and Ukraine.

This is a litany of lies, mistakes, personal failings, and geopolitical manoeuvrings.

HISTORY AND RUSSIA

Perhaps the only time Russia enjoyed near-unequivocal support in the West was when the Grand Armée was driven out in 1812. Even then, the West celebrated, not because we’d come to love Russians, but because we feared Napoleon.

After that, as England sought to extend her holdings in India she increasingly came into contact with Tsarist Russia pushing south, in what became known as ‘The Great Game’.

So hostile was the West to Russia – and so rehabilitated had France become – that Britain and France could even ally themselves with Ottoman Turkey against Russia in the Crimean War 1853 -1856.

An alliance of Protestants, Catholics and Muslims against Orthodox Russia. At a time when Muslim Turks were still enslaving Christian Europeans, including Russians.

Still, The Charge of the Light Brigade was a stirring distraction.

In 1904 / 05 there was a brief war between Russia and Japan, which saw Japan victorious, with British support.

Though when it became obvious that Kaiser Bill was shaping for a fight, and he’d roped in old Franz Joseph, then Russia proved a necessary eastern ally against Imperial Germany and the Hapsburg Empire.

That war over, and Russia now Communist, the Western powers and Japan invaded, but Lenin remained in power.

With Communism secured the Soviet Union became the enemy, admired in the West only by deluded leftists.

The role of ‘principal threat’ was temporarily usurped in the 1930s by Nazi Germany. Even so, had Germany focused its aggression exclusively on central and eastern Europe and invaded the USSR, it’s unlikely the West would have intervened.

Following WWII we entered the Cold War, and a series of proxy conflicts and situations from Korea to Cuba to Vietnam to Chile to . . . (pick any one from dozens).

Something often forgotten from this period is that the ‘Cuban Missile Crisis’ came about because the USA had placed ICBMs in Turkey, which bordered the USSR. Kennedy and Khrushchev eventually agreed to remove their missiles from both Turkey and Cuba.

The US military at this time contained a number of senior officers who sincerely believed that a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the Soviet Union was the best form of ‘defence’.

They looked almost comical when Stanley Kubrick gave them roles in Dr Strangelove. Though some of them were almost too off-the-wall to caricature.

USAF General Curtis LeMay, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force from 1961 to 1965. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979 to support a friendly regime, giving the USA its chance to arm fanatics and boost opium production. The kind of thought-through strategic decision-making – like supporting Iraq against Iran – all too common in recent US foreign policy decisions.

As US allies skinned alive Russian conscripts and took Afghanistan back to the Middle Ages the USA claimed another victory for democracy and progress.

A further Western dividend was that the Afghanistan debacle contributed directly to the disintegration of the Soviet Union between 1988 and 1991.

This encouraged NATO, a Cold War alliance set up to defend Western Europe from Warsaw Pact aggression, to move eastwards!

Though as Noam Chomsky reminded us a few days ago:

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Bush and Baker lied to Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev. The USA, EU and NATO have been lying to Russia – and to the rest of us – ever since.

UKRAINE INDEPENDENCE 1

Before moving on to more recent events mention must be made of the Ukrainian Famine, or Holodomor, in which 3 – 4 million Ukrainians died during Stalin’s forced collectivisation of agriculture in 1932-33.

There was definitely an anti-Ukrainian aspect to the project, but Stalin wasn’t really fussed who he killed. This article suggests ‘that about 20 million died in labour camps, forced collectivisation, famine and executions.’

The demise of the Soviet Union saw an attempt at a reconfigured federation of sovereign states. A kind of east European EU. This was aired by Gorbachev at the Communist Party Congress of July 1990.

Ukraine supported joining the Union if she had first achieved independence.

This prompted a last-ditch attempt by hard-line Communists to save the Soviet Union through the attempted coup of August 19, 1991; which led to the Ukrainian parliament agreeing a Declaration of Independence on August 24, 1991.

Boris Yeltsin (left, holding paper) thwarts the attempted coup. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Ukraine became independent in December 1991 following a referendum on the August Declaration. In a turnout of 84.18% some 92.3% voted to approve the Declaration of Independence drawn up a few months earlier. Roughly 55% of ethnic Russians voted for independence. Though turnout was lower in Russian-speaking areas.

Immediately following the vote both Boris Yeltsin (President of Russia) and Gorbachev congratulated Ukraine on voting for independence . . . as a first step towards a reconfigured federation along with Russia, Belarus, and some Central Asian republics.

The independence vote was able to paper over a crack that would soon become evident because it satisfied moderate Ukrainian nationalists without alarming ethnic Russians and Russian speakers.

But there were elements in the West looking to exploit divisions.

UKRAINE INDEPENDENCE 2

I suggest you find time to read this account of Ukrainian politics in the period of the October 2010 presidential (run-off) election and the 2012 parliamentary election. These saw victories for Russia-leaning Viktor Yanukovych and his Party of the Regions.

Though these elections also revealed that the ‘crack’ I just referred to had now become a chasm. Ukraine was divided. Geographically divided.

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The ostensible trigger for the subsequent violence seems to have been President Yanukovych’s refusal to sign – or his delay in signing – an EU association agreement in November 2013.

The protests against Yanukovych soon began. With Western media focusing almost exclusively on anti-Yanukovych events in Kyiv, thereby creating the impression that the whole country was against the president.

This was obviously not true. Given that he had been democratically elected not long before there was widespread support for Yanukovych. But this support was mainly outside of Kyiv, and went largely unreported by the Western media.

Regime change was effected by the USA and NATO on February 22, 2014 when Viktor Yanukovych was forced to leave Ukraine.

This set in train a number of events, not least Russian military occupation of Crimea and the secession from Ukraine of territory in the east. Here’s a useful timeline for events in that period.

And there was violence elsewhere. In May 2014, dozens of Yanukovych supporters were killed in largely Russophone Odesa / Odessa by far right thugs, many of whom had travelled south as football fans.

Oliver Stone’s documentary, Ukraine on Fire, gives excellent insights into this period.

HUNTER BIDEN ON THE MAKE

In April 2014 Hunter Biden, the current US president’s younger son, joined the board of Burisma, Ukraine’s largest oil and gas company. This was at a time when Burisma and its founder Mykola Zlochevsky were under investigation for corruption in a number of jurisdictions. Including England.

Apart from being the son of the then vice-president it’s difficult to know what use Hunter Biden was to Burisma.

The younger Biden was trading on his father’s name to further enrich himself through companies in Russia and China.

Then, as the brown stuff started moving towards the fan with Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin looking into Burisma, Biden Senior stepped in to protect his son by insisting that Shokin be sacked. Which he was, to be replaced by a man with no legal background.

The whole business stinks. There are even allegations that President Biden himself  benefitted financially from his son’s business dealings. Which would be fitting in a way, because Hunter Biden would have struggled to get a job as a janitor if he wasn’t his father’s son.

Knowledge of nefarious dealings in Ukraine and elsewhere was widespread before the 2020 US Presidential election, but all was confirmed with the emergence of Hunter Biden’s laptop.

UPDATE 14.04.2022: After reading this fascinating article by Azra Dale it’s only right that I suggest that Mykola Zlochevsky was a front man for Ihor Kolomoisky, who seems to have a penchant for using puppets. Among them the current president of Ukraine and the son of the US President.

HUNTER BIDEN’S LAPTOP 1

In April 2019 Hunter Biden left a laptop to be repaired in Wilmington, Delaware. He was said to be in an ‘inebriated’ state when he called at John Paul Mac Isaac’s repair shop. He never went back to collect the laptop.

Eventually Isaac investigated the laptop’s hard drive. He found incriminating e-mails relating to Hunter Biden’s business dealings that traded on his father’s name and influence, also videos of the younger Biden’s drug taking and cavorting with prostitutes.

The news of the laptop was broken by the New York Post in October 2020, weeks before the Presidential election. And was immediately and unanimously rejected by the liberal media, Big Tech, FBI and CIA as ‘Russian disinformation’.

Twitter took down accounts daring to link to the New York Post story. Twitter even locked the account of the New York Post itself. (Reminder: the NYP is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in America.)

This closing of ranks, this denial of the truth, put Joe Biden in the White House.

Today, with Biden’s presidency in tatters, the midterm elections already lost, the liberal media has decided the laptop story was true after all. New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, they’re all admitting what’s been known for a long time – the Bidens may have more than a few skeletons in the closet.

https://youtu.be/Tk3Hj_kFyXI

And the worst may be yet to come. It’s claimed there’s 450 GB of deleted material. And if that wasn’t bad enough, there are thought to be two other laptops (Hunter was a very careless boy); one is said to be safe with the FBI, but the other is believed to be in the hands of . . . Russian drug dealers with whom Hunter Biden partied!

HUNTER BIDEN’S LAPTOP 2

The message from the Hunter Biden laptop saga is one I am becoming increasingly familiar with. And it’s worrying.

The Woke left has persuaded itself that those ranged against it are evil. Not just wrong. Not just misinformed. But evil. That being so, then the Righteous are justified in saying and doing anything to combat this ‘evil’.

This took a new twist just this week when former Congressman Joe Walsh fabricated a statement about Ukraine and attributed it to Fox TV host Tucker Carlson, a bête noire of the left. This was relayed by thousands on Reddit, Twitter and other platforms.

When it was pointed out to Walsh that Carlson had not said what had been attributed to him, his response was, ‘No, but it’s the kind of thing he might have said’.

Thanks to the repackaged Marxism of identity politics we are in a post-reality world where ‘truth’ is whatever those who scream loudest say it is.

Which brings us back to Ukraine.

A PLEA FOR HONESTY

The USA, the EU, and NATO broke promises to Russia and made promises to Ukraine that Russia regarded as threats to her own security.

Then, to further promote Western interests, a democratically-elected leader was ousted in 2014 in yet another US-engineered regime change, with the muscle provided by, among others, Nazi militias, which now seem to be part of the Ukrainian army.

Fighters of an Azov unit with some of their flags. Is that the NATO flag on the left? Click to open enlarged in separate tab

This is what President Putin talks of when he refers to ‘denazification’. He’s not making it up.

And through their interference these Western agencies irreparably fractured an already divided country.

And further corrupted an already corrupt country. With the Biden family playing its role.

So let’s have no more black and white interpretations from Western politicians, no more propaganda masquerading as news from an already discredited Western media.

Let’s hear no more talk of every civilian casualty being a ‘war crime’, or even ‘genocide’! Because when a government arms its civilians those civilians risk being viewed as combatants. And please, let’s see fewer staged photographs using teddy bears.

To give a more balanced picture, let’s hear of the Russian PoWs being killed in cold blood. Let’s be told the role played by Ukrainian Nazis in Mariupol and other cities. And the ‘volunteers’ fighting for Ukraine.

As with Hunter Biden’s laptop, the truth will out eventually. Let’s make a start tomorrow.

GOOD v EVIL? WHICH IS WHICH?

The war in Ukraine is presented as a struggle between Western liberal democracy and something evil. The truth is more complicated.

We in the West are now surveiled 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, by CCTV, by our mobile phones, and by gizmos answering to stupid names like ‘Siri’ and ‘Alexa’.

What we are allowed to say online, what we are allowed to read, is determined by the brainwashed underlings of billionaire nerds in Silicon Valley. And their ‘fact-checkers’.

We are expected to line up like sheep to be injected with untested vaccines because of a virus developed under mysterious circumstances in a Chinese laboratory. Politicians like that demented woman in New Zealand have used this virus to put us all under house arrest and close down whole countries.

We must accept that women have penises and men have cervixes. To deny this will bring down the wrath of those who preach freedom and practise tyranny. Fanatics who have political support from Corruption Bay to the Oval Office.

We are being pushed towards a cashless society – ‘cos only crooks need cash, innit!’. The true motivation was revealed not so long ago by Pierre Trudeau’s little boy when he froze the bank accounts of those who dared oppose him.

Trudeau gives the game way. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

That was a warning in 300-feet-high flashing neon letters with an accompanying wall of sound.

Our children are being taught that they’re evil because they’re White. Leftists and liberals support this demonisation of a race oblivious to the historical precedents. Justified, they argue, because Whites are ‘privileged’.

The Nazis said the same thing about the Jews – ‘too much money, too much influence’. Hardly surprising that anti-Semitism is back in vogue with the Left and we see the Comrades marching in step with the Jihadists.

Because both wish to destroy Western civilisation. Partly through undermining from within, partly through unlimited immigration from without.

The reality is that never before have individual and national liberties been under such threat as they are today in the Western – particularly the Anglophone – world. Because never before have those seeking to take away our freedoms possessed such power.

If I was a Russian I’d do everything I could to keep my country free of this repacked-for-the-twenty-first-century Marxism.

Especially after hearing Joe Biden demand regime change in my country. Does Sleepy Joe think Russia is a banana republic in the Caribbean!

FINAL THOUGHTS, FEARS

I wish I hadn’t felt the need to write this, but I believe Russia has been forced into a conflict she would have preferred to avoid.

Due to its history, Russia is understandably suspicious of the West. And the West has lived down to Russia’s expectations time after time. But still, it needn’t have come to this . . .

Not if the USA and NATO had kept the promise made to Mikhail Gorbachev.

Not if the USA and NATO hadn’t removed a democratically-elected President of Ukraine.

Not if the USA and NATO hadn’t encouraged Nazis and gangsters in Ukraine.

My real worry now is that there are in the USA and NATO people not a lot different to those ridiculed by Kubrick in Dr Strangelove – maniacs wanting full-scale war with Russia.

I hope I’m wrong. Or, if I’m right, then I hope to God they can be slapped down.

P.S. I have been critical of the USA for a reason. That’s because I think the USA is still the greatest country on Earth, and the best hope for mankind.

But the USA is in a bad place right now. Liars, hypocrites, and the seriously unhinged are calling the shots. They increasingly control the government, the media, and the education system. Thankfully, decent people are fighting back.

That fightback must intensify and win its first major victory in November’s midterm elections. Because if the USA can’t be saved from itself then we’re all fucked.

♦ end ♦

 

© Royston Jones 2022