Tag: Rocio Cifuentes

Diversity and Inclusivity in the Socialist Nirvana of Wales

On By JacIn Corruption, Local Government, Plaid Cymru, Third Sector, Welsh Government, Welsh Labour27 Comments

INTRODUCTION

The Merriam-Webster definition of Nirvana is, “a place or state of oblivion to care, pain, or external reality”. Oblivion to reality certainly applies to the socialist lunacies besetting Wales.

Who but those oblivious to truth could believe that Wales can save the planet, that decent jobs, infrastructure, education and heath care are for sissies, and that women have penises?

Merriam-Webster also mentions, “alcohol-induced nirvana”. Bloody hell! I’ve been there a few times. Does that make me a Buddhist? 

◊

IT ALL BEGAN . . .

. . . with a couple of tweets on Sunday from the BBC. Both linked to this article.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

The Women’s Equality Network (WEN) Wales is worried that not enough candidates from ethnic minorities are standing in next month’s council elections. But WEN is not an organisation dealing with ethnic minorities, so why raise the issue?

Before answering that, let’s take a look at WEN.

WEN is registered as a company limited by guarantee (‘Ltd’ exempt), and a charity. It depends mainly on funding from the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ in the form of an Equality and Inclusion Grant. In 2021 this amounted to £145,000, up from £119,904 in 2020.

There are five employees in 2022 (in addition to the Director), up from four last year. The panel below shows the staff members towards the end of last year (left) compared to the staff members now as shown on the WEN website.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

With the Director pulling down £47,677 we can be fairly certain that most of the remaining £109,375 (from a total 2021 income of £157,052) went on the other four salaries. We can also assume that the grant will be increased in 2022 because there’s now another staff member.

And it seems growth doesn’t end there. This advertisement is for a ‘Senior Partnerships Fundraiser’ on a one-year contract at £31,365.

I quote from the advertisement:

“Funded by the Third Sector Resilience Fund“. This is administered by the WCVA, a front for the ‘Welsh Government’, used to disguise funding from that source.

“We particularly welcome Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME), disabled and LGBTQ+ candidates”. Mmm, does that mean straight, White, able-bodied Welsh need not apply?

“Homebased anywhere in the UK”. Does that mean that knowledge of Wales is not required?

“Lived experience of . . . a protected characteristic”. ‘Lived experience’, that phrase so beloved of the Woke. Does WEN – like the ‘Welsh Government’ – accept Stonewall’s interpretation of ‘protected characteristics’, or does it stick to the law?

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Applicants for the job are invited to reply to the Polly Symondson Recruitment Agency . . . in Cheltenham, England.

WEN may also have been looking earlier this year for a Freelance Policy Researcher, at £250 to £300 a day.

Who says Wales is a poor country!

So, WEN is complaining there aren’t enough ethnic minority council candidates. Horrified that just 1.8% of candidates in 2017 came from ethnic minorities, while the figure quoted for the “ethnically diverse population” of Wales (2021) is 5.2%.

Thankfully this is not a problem at WEN. From a total complement of six, at least three of the staff belong to ethnic minorities. Two seem to be White English. While the sixth is the obligatory token Welsh person.

UPDATE 29.04.2022: I’ve found a petition for: “more Black, Asian, and ethnic minority women, LGBTQ+ women, disabled women, and women with other protected characteristics in . . . a Senedd that is gender balanced and reflective of the whole Welsh population.”

Click to open enlarged in separate tab.

It gained just 199 signatures. Take out WEN staff, their friends, family, and the members of the Splott Intersectional Mud Wrestling Club and this petition does not suggest massive support from the real world.

(Of the 199 votes only 148 came from Wales (74%). The others came from: Nigeria 32, England 10, Netherlands 6, and one each from Scotland, Germany, China. So which WEN staff member has contacts in Nigeria?)

◊

DIVERSITY! WHAT BOLLOCKS IS SPOUTED IN THY NAME!

So who are the six women running Women’s Equality Network (WEN) Wales? Let’s start at the top, with the director, Catherine Fookes.

Her Linkedin page tells us that she was privately educated in England (Godolphin) before attending Middlesex University where she studied Business (with two years in France). Her Masters in Development Studies was done at Bath, her thesis on Plan International.

Catherine Fookes is the longest serving staff member at WEN, having joined in September 2017. Perhaps her appointment was reward for her valiant efforts to become Labour’s Welsh Assembly Member for Monmouthshire in 2016. Here’s her election leaflet.

Her Twitter account tells she’s standing again for Labour in next month’s council elections. (And she was elected.)

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

The only other survivor from those named as WEN staff in the accounts signed off in November last year is Megan Evans, the token Welsh presence.

I can’t find much information on Megan Evans, but her profile on the WEN website tells us: “She is passionate about gender equality, intersectional feminism, LGBT rights, and racial justice”. We only need climate hysteria for a Woke nap hand.

“Intersectional” is of course another Woke mantra.

Moving on to the newcomers . . .

Evelyn James, the Diverse5050 Campaign Manager was recruited, presumably, as result of this advertisement:

The Diverse5050 Campaign is an agreement between Labour and Plaid Cymru that certain groups – primarily ethnic and (self-ID) gender – should be over-represented in politics.

The campaign is “run in partnership with our steering group ERS Cymru, Race Council Cymru, and EYST Wales”. These are bodies run by Labour Party cronies, are funded by the ‘Welsh Government’ (though it should be the Labour Party), and have appeared on this blog.

For example, Ethnic Youth Support Team is where we would have found Rocio Cifuentes as Chair before she was elevated to the £95,000 a year post of Children’s Commissioner for Wales. A post for which Labour Party membership was her best – perhaps only – qualification.

I wrote about this in January, in ”Welsh’ Labour – Corrupt To The Core’.

Turning now to Joys Njinji, Mentoring Project Manager and Annmarie Brown, Mentoring Project Officer, almost certainly recruited through the advertisements to which I’ve linked their job titles.

Which leaves Jessica Laimann, Policy and Public Affairs Officer.

She was recruited by WEN last year, and before taking up the post she was “Assistant Democratic Services Officer at Carmarthenshire County Council”.

I almost choked on my laverbread sandwich when my rheumy old eyes alighted upon “Democratic” and “Carmarthenshire County Council” in the same sentence. Somebody must have a sense of humour!

Or else things have really gone to the dogs since Mark James ceased being CEO and de facto council leader.

◊

SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW, SAME INTENTION

To understand Diversity Quotas it may be worth considering a couple of references: one from the past; the other bang up to date. And then try to synthesise them.

Writing this I was immediately struck by a parallel from the recent past and across the water. Unlikely as it might at first sound, that example is political gerrymandering in the Six Counties.

Derry. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

In Derry, for example, gerrymandering guaranteed the Protestant-Unionist minority control of the Corporation in a city with a Catholic and Nationalist / Republican majority. (Explained here in a one-minute video.)

Classic gerrymandering along those lines can’t work in Wales because we do not have segregation. Which leaves the Left seeking to limit the number of representatives from the majority population in other ways.

Of course they will deny this. Whining that they simply want “fair representation” for “under-represented” groups, and only “racists” would oppose this innovation.

But it don’t matter how you cut it, the end result will be the same – minorities enjoying representation disproportionate to their numbers in a given council area, or in Wales as a whole.

Coming up to date, and back to the poisoned well of Wokeism from which WEN has clearly drawn too many buckets . . . the demand for quotas also smacks of Critical Race Theory ‘equity’ (not to be confused with equality).

CRT’s ‘equity’ is race-obsessed discrimination that guarantees everybody loses out.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

But it still gives the Left power and influence out of all proportion to the support it enjoys among the population at large. Worse, it’s the tail of the extreme Left wagging dogs like Labour, Plaid Cymru, Greens.

But this should not surprise anyone familiar with Welsh politics; for too many of those now involved in politics and public life in Wales have previously worked for ‘charities’ and pressure groups. These outfits get their agenda implemented through influencing politicians – not from selling their programme to the public.

This is one reason Corruption Bay has no register of lobbyists.

◊

CONCLUSION

Additionally, there are two fundamental flaws in what passes for the reasoning underpinning minority candidate quotas. These fallacies are:

  1. That only a member of an identified minority can represent other members of that minority.
  2. That members of a minority will only accept being represented by someone from their minority.

It is a cause for concern that the ‘Welsh Government’ – and its little helper – agree that favoured minorities should be assured preferential treatment – at the insistence of third sector operatives, many of whom hope to benefit personally from the agreement.

And if the candidate quotas WEN is calling for are introduced, then how long until the Left demands we introduce a new method for counting the votes? Surely, it will be argued, votes from members of the majority community should count for less than votes from members of “disadvantaged” or “traditionally oppressed” minorities?

That question is not entirely rhetorical. Because that is the direction many on the Left want to take us.

∼

At present, anyone can apply to join a political party and then seek to become a candidate. Political parties are then free to choose their candidates without any outside interference.

This is how it should remain. To deviate from a system that treats all as equal could be the first step on a very slippery slope.

♦ end ♦

 

© Royston Jones 2022


‘Welsh’ Labour, Corrupt To The Core

On By JacIn Cardiff Bay, Colonialism, Corruption, Plaid Cymru, Welsh Government, Welsh Labour47 Comments

Yes, I am retiring, but it’s been postponed for a bit. There are just so many crooks, lying bastards, enviroshysters, drum-banging Unionists, head-banging Lefties, charlatans and others demanding a mention that I must yet tarry.

♦

OUR NEW CHILDREN’S COMMISSIONER

Last Monday it was announced that Rocio Cifuentes is to be Wales’ new Children’s Commissioner. The media made a big play of her being the child of Chilean ‘refugees’.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Which is interesting, and no doubt her parents experienced problems, though I’m at a loss to understand how being a Chilean-born leftist qualifies Rocio Cifuentes to be the Children’s Commissioner in Wales.

I can only assume that, apart from her loyalty to the Labour Party, what qualifies her for the £95,000 a year role is being CEO of the Ethnic Minorities and Youth Support Team Wales. Shortened to Ethnic Youth Support Team (EYST) on the Charity Commission website.

For those unfamiliar with how these things work in Wales, let me explain. In the years following the introduction of devolved government certain interests realised there were oodles of public funding on offer if the right emotions could be excited.

Among them, those who formed EYST in 2007. But unlike Cardiff and Newport there is no sizeable BAME population in Swansea, so the ‘need’ for the new organisation had to be exaggerated if not invented.

For that’s how it works. The permanently offended latch onto an ‘issue’, play it up (even import it), and demand funding; the ‘Welsh Government’ is happy to give money on the understanding that the body funded will be an asset to the Labour Party.

The page of EYST staff reminds us that in the BAME organisations of Wales some religions and ethnicities are over-represented, while others are almost totally absent.

I suggest we need a new descriptor for this particular gravy train.

◊

GRIFTING, DRIFTING

Being a Labour Party loyalist Rocio Cifuentes always supports the right causes. And one of those of course is Palestine. The problem here is the line to be walked between sticking up for the Palestinian people without being anti-Semitic.

Thinking she was walking the line might explain why the new Children’s Commissioner was at a rally in Swansea last May. The clip in the tweet below starts with one of the local MPs speaking and ends with extremists chanting anti-Semitic slogans.

(Ms Cifuentes and her mother are under the parasol.)

Unfortunately, that ‘rally’ was not Ms Cifuentes only flirtation with anti-Semitism. Her name appears here (scroll down) above that of Sahar al-Faifi.

At around 40 seconds into the video Geraint Davies hands the microphone to Nizar ‘Neezo’ Dahan, the organiser of the rally. Born and raised in Swansea, he’s a bit of a lad around the ugly lovely town.

In addition to them both being at the rally last June Dahan and Cifuentes are known to each other because EYST has given ‘Neezo’ quite a few gigs.

This article gives more information about the rally. It tells us ‘Dahan’s Twitter account talks of “Zionist scum” and “dirty Zionist rats”‘.

There’s nothing new in substituting ‘Zionists’ for ‘Jews’, and using support for ‘Palestine’ to veil anti-Semitism. We’ve seen it employed by both Islamists and the far right for many years.

Back in the ’80s I recall the National Front getting coverage through the activities of a Wyn Davies in Cardiff. This was the ‘intellectualised’ NF following the arrival in England of Roberto Fiore in October 1980, and him influencing Nick Griffin and others.

I remember one day, in Machynlleth, seeing lamp-posts bearing stickers put up by Davies’s group that read, ‘Buy Palestinian goods’!

It’s just political semantics, mis-labelling, to make certain views more palatable. Pretend that all Jews are Zionists and being ‘anti-Zionist’ then becomes the clever way to be anti-Semitic.

∼

As I suggest, ‘Neezo’ is worth a section. Here’s his Linkedin profile to help you with some background. You’ll see that he’s been about a bit, which can often be confusing. And confusion may account for the first cause for concern.

According to Linkedin Dahan was in Olchfa Comprehensive School, Swansea, 1999 – 2006; then Cardiff Metropolitan University, 2006 – 2010. But somehow, 2002 – 2007, from the age of 14, he’s also running a post office in Killay, on the west side of Swansea!

(Here’s a version I’ve saved in case the online original becomes unavailable.)

In 2015 he was putting himself about as a property developer. Here’s a piece about a chapel he’d bought in Gorseinon. The article also mentions another chapel that had been bought in Clydach.

Ebenezer Chapel, Gorseinon, owned by Nizer Dahan. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

During this excursion into the property market Dahan had two companies to his name. Renaissance Home Development Ltd*, and Grape Vine Promotions Ltd.

Neither company filed accounts with Companies House before being dissolved, so we have no way of knowing how much was made from stripping the two chapels and selling off the pews and other elements.

His career path then veered from the murky world of property to the perhaps murkier world of foreign aid. Which did not go unnoticed in Corruption Bay – for he was soon nominated for an international award. Which might suggest he has contacts.

In the ‘Welsh Government’ handout we read;

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

This is the Human Relief Foundation. It’s registered with the Charity Commission.

The panel above also mentions the charity Dahan himself had set up, ‘an initiative called SHARP (Swansea Humanitarian Aid Response Project) . . . raising funds for people in dire need’.

I’ve found a Facebook page for SHARP, but nothing more. There’s certainly no charity of that name registered with the Charity Commission. We know SHARP collects money, so how is that money accounted for?

*There was also Renaissance Home Developments Ltd. Incorporated 20.07.2017, Dissolved 21.09.2021. Who is two companies with almost exactly the same name designed to fool? 

∼

In the two companies I’ve mentioned Dahan is ‘Nizer Nizer Dahan’. But in more recent companies he’s Nizar Nageb Dahan. Did he change his name?

These new companies are, in chronological order: Afiyah Co Ltd, Neezo Ltd, and Dr Krepz Ltd. With Afiyah Dahan describes himself as an ‘International Project Manager’. For Neezo he’s a ‘Consultant’. While at Dr Krepz he’s a ‘Project Manager’.

The three companies give different Swansea addresses.

Afiyah’s only accounts thus far show a deficit of £1,900. The other two companies are too new to have submitted accounts.

Neezo Ltd is a one-man band. At Dr Krepz – which sells over-priced sneakers and little else – we find as the other director, Ataur Rahman, who was also a director at Grape Vine Promotions. While at Afiyah, the other directors are Waseem Iqbal and Ahmed Abdulla. Whose full name is Ahmed Radwan Kaid Abdulla.

And it’s to Abdulla we next turn our attention.

◊

CONTRACTS, CONTACTS?

Before teaming up with Nizar Dahan in Afiyah Abdulla had his own one-man band in Adwiya Ltd. This was another ‘mayfly’ company, here and gone without alighting long enough to file accounts with Companies House.

But in recent years the vehicle for Abdulla’s ambitions has been Digipharm Switzerland GmbH based in Basel. The company is also UK registered from a London address.

Here’s the Digipharm website and the Twitter account.

The reason Ahmed Radwan Kaid Abdulla took himself off to Switzerland was due to the fact that he was no longer able to practise as a pharmacist in the UK. This followed a rape case, in Swansea.

The charge was that Abdulla, then a pharmacist working for Boots, had raped a woman while she was asleep. At his trial in April 2012 the jury found him not guilty. (Though I can’t find a news report of the trial.)

But his professional body, The General Pharmaceutical Council, found his evidence to be ‘unreliable’, preferring to believe the woman, and struck him off the register. As the report I’ve linked to says:

‘The case was the first time the GPhC had taken forward a fitness-to-practise hearing for a serious sexual assault after a registrant had been acquitted of rape by a criminal court.’

Here’s the full report of the GPhC’s Fitness to Practise Committee. In addition to the rape the hearing discussed Abdulla’s use of cocaine and other drugs.

The committee’s report is worth reading. If you don’t have time to read the full document then skip to the conclusions, from page 43.

The committee’s conclusion in relation to the rape charge. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

The bracing Swiss air seems to have done Abdulla the world of good. For while the most recently available accounts for Digipharm tell of a deficit in excess of £100,000 things have improved since then.

To begin with, there was an £11 million share issue just under a year ago. The other shareholders are, I assume, representatives of Paris-based, Gulf owned, Gawah Holdings Inc. While ‘Smith Mike’ is Digipharm’s Chief Technology Officer.

Shareholdings in Digipharm. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

I suggest Gawah as investors because . . . well, it’s all over the internet.

The reason for that, and the reason Gawah wants a share of the action, is that Digipharm has landed contracts with the Welsh NHS. Here’s a report from a few days ago.

Though Digipharm has been crowing about the link-up for some time.

It appears that Digipharm is acting as an intermediary between pharmaceutical giant Roche and NHS Cymru / Life Sciences Hub Wales, described as, ‘an arm’s length body of Welsh Government’.

Click to open enlarged in separate tab

Which means that a man effectively found guilty of rape by his professional body is now back in Wales and coining it with a contract from the ‘Welsh Government’.

And if Abdulla has links to the Labour Party how is this Digipharm contract any different to Tory ministers in London giving NHS contracts to friends, political allies, relatives, or even the bloke running their local pub?

UPDATE: I learn that Ahmed Abdulla was an invited speaker at a ‘Value in Health Week’ in October 2020 at Swansea University. We know universities are ‘close’ to the Labour Party, but bloody hell, don’t they do any checks!

◊

RANDOM QUESTIONS

  • Rocio Cifuentes will be in post as Children’s Commissioner when the council elections are contested in May. Will she be able to canvass for her father José who is standing for Labour in the Dunvant and Killay ward in Swansea? He spoke at that infamous ‘rally’.
  • What is the purpose of the company Afiyah Co Ltd set up recently by Nizer Nageb Dahan and disqualified pharmacist Ahmed Radwan Kaid Abdulla?
  • How was contact made between Ahmed Abdulla / Digipharm and NHS Cymru and Life Sciences Hub Wales?
  • Did NHS Cymru and Life Sciences Hub Wales know that Abdulla had been struck off by the General Pharmaceutical Council as it was convinced he was a rapist and definitely a user of illegal drugs?
  • Given Ahmed Abdulla’s known liking for Class A controlled drugs is it wise to enter any arrangement with him involving, ahem, ‘pharmaceuticals’?

◊

FINAL THOUGHTS

The Labour Party is drifting further and further away from those on whom it relies for electoral support, and others in whose interests it should be working.

Instead, those important to Labour politicians, those who get the funding, those who direct ‘Welsh Government’ policy, are the lobbyists and the special interest groups, assorted shysters, ishoo-mongers, extremists.

Plaid Cymru is now propping up this corrupt and discredited system. They deserve each other. But Wales deserves so much better.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2022


Hate Crime

On By JacIn Colonisation of Wales, Environmentalism, EU Funding, European Union, Labour Party, Plaid Cymru, Police, Third Sector, Welsh Government, Welsh Labour32 Comments

Back in March I became re-acquainted with someone I’d written about towards the end of 2012, just before Google took down my old blog. At the time I wondered if there was a connection, seeing as the woman I’d written about struck me as both unwell and vindictive.

After that unpleasantness I removed one post but left this one up. (I’m afraid the comments were lost when Google pulled the plug on my old blog.)

I forgot about the Olive Trust and Denise Kingsley Acton until earlier this year when someone referred me to a piece in Llanelli Online (since removed) which prompted me to write Third Sector Nightmare followed up with Networks.

In these posts I told you that after her £1,000,000 application to the Wales European Funding Office (WEFO) in 2010 for a ‘community building’ in Swansea, Denise Kingsley Acton moved west into Carmarthenshire, from where she was again dreaming up schemes to help her get her hands on public funding.

That, as far as I was concerned, was that . . . until last Friday. When I received the most bizarre and worrying comments to my blog. In three attempts the writer managed to accuse me of being a ‘pedophile’ (sic) with mental health problems for which I have been “treated 21 times”; I also suffer unfortunate accidents in the trousers department, but help was at hand, apparently, for “we helped mop yourself up”. Who’s ‘we’?

click to enlarge

It was all so familiar because similar things had been said on the old Olive Trust website back in 2012, but then they came from ‘Jackie – volunteer at the Trust’ and  ‘Sally Ann Webster’.

The ‘Rocco’ mentioned in the comments above is actually Rocio Cifuentes, the daughter of Chileans who fled their homeland when Pinochet took power and settled in nicely with the Labour Party in Swansea, a relationship that has resulted in Rocio recently becoming CEO of the charity Ethnic Minorities and Youth Support Team Wales (EYST).

Despite being a registered charity, on the Home page of the website the charity number was almost invisible. (You can just about make something out on the left.) Surely this can’t be a third sector body making it difficult for us to check on how much of our money it has received, and how that money has been spent? Maybe the shyness has something to do with income more than doubling from 2016 to 2017. Here are the latest accounts.

click to enlarge

The increase in funding inevitably leads to EYST recruiting new staff. On the very day I posted this article Rocio and her gang were advertising for a Resilience Project Co-ordinator (don’t ask me) at a salary of £30,000. We can be reasonably certain that this post will be filled by someone from outside of Wales.

Sticking with cross-border movements, the Charity Commission site tells us that EYST – supported almost entirely with Welsh funding – operates “Throughout England and Wales”. Shome mishtake shurely?

As you’ll have guessed, we have now gone through the wormhole into that parallel dimension known as the third sector. That make-believe world where the only constants are that lots and lots of Welsh money is wasted, with very little Welsh involvement, and for pitifully little Welsh benefit.

But what the hell – Wales is rich, we can afford it!

After receiving the odious comments from Denise Kingsley Acton, or Acton Kingsley, I wondered what she might be getting up to when she wasn’t slandering me. First, I checked the Olive Trust Facebook page where I read to my horror that (she claims) the Dyfed Powys Police Crime Commissioner has awarded her a grant!

What’s more, she is to be allowed into colleges (and schools?) to teach kids about hate crimes – this woman who goes online calling me a paedophile, who can make sick jokes about mental health and incontinence! Though I suppose it could be argued that she’s ideally suited, for she knows of what she speaks.

UPDATE 11:45: A speedy response from the Dyfed Powys PCC’s office tells me that the grant came not from the PCC directly but from Safer Dyfed-Powys Diogel and it was for £1,000. Here are the details. And it’s nice to know that Labour stalwart Alan Lloyd is still involved.

In addition to support from the Labour Party Denise now claims to have backing from Plaid Cymru as well, in the form of Councillor Gilasbey. And there are clearly plans to expand, for “a new office in Llanelli” is mentioned.

And if you know a dancer who can cook curry while doing make-up and yoga, then get in touch with Denise at once. In fact, “anything in the Diversity/Ethnic field” is welcomed. Does laverbread count as ‘ethnic’?

Though isn’t ‘ethnic’ an insulting term? I would have hesitated to use it in that context. Doesn’t it suggest that anything and everything non-white, non-European, from Japan to Jamaica, can be lumped together as ‘ethnic’? Perhaps the modern equivalent of the Classical ‘barbarian’?

But Denise’s ambitions go way beyond an office in downtown Sosban and multi-tasking ‘ethnics’. For her Twitter account tells us . . .

click to enlarge

So what’s this about? Well, if you click on the image in Twitter you are transported to a French crowd-funding site. It seems she’s trying to raise one million pounds (sounds familiar), ” . . . to create an amazing community farm that is dedicated to the environment, growing organic produce, having a farm shop, Shetland pony rides, cafe and a place where people can go glamping, have a family day out or for inner city schools to visit, meet the animals and have a taste of home-grown fruit and vegetables. We will also have a community of artisans selling produce and back to old-fashioned community ideals, where crafts people sell, jams, pottery, woollens . . . “.

It’s all there, folks, almost every ‘button’ that needs to be pressed to open the public funding treasure chest – ‘community’, ‘environment’, ‘organic’, ‘glamping’, ‘inner city’, ‘home-grown’, ‘community’ (again), ‘artisans’, ‘old-fashioned’, ‘community’ (again!), ‘crafts people’, ‘pottery’.

All so reminiscent of the ‘community building’ she asked WEFO to fund in Swansea, but now moved across the Loughor and plonked on a farm.

Though can’t you just visualise it? Jez and Poppy breaking off from making their organic radish and magic mushroom piccalilli to take kids from Townhill or Ely on Shetland pony rides before ensuring the little darlings are tucked up safely in their eco-friendly glamps. Bucolic bliss!

Alternatively, this is the most vacuous bollocks. A hotchpotch of just about everything someone thinks might work – not as a commercial venture, or as a service to the community, but as a way of screwing money out of the public purse. The give-away is that Denise Kingsley Acton actually describes the project as a “money pot”.

Though thus far, the crowd-funding venture on Leetchi has raised . . . with 11 days left . . . give or take a pound or two . . . and to the nearest penny . . . Nul points! For which we should all be grateful.

click to enlarge

As it happens, there is a Salt Rock Farm for sale in Penbre. Asking price £695,000. Though Zoopla suggests a value of £426,000. Either way, it’s a lot less than the one million pounds Denise is so fixated on.

Though you have to wonder why, in the midst of acrimonious Brexit negotiations, anyone would think it a good idea to use a French crowd-funding site to raise the money. The French obviously aren’t giving anything, and by involving Johnny Frog she’s bound to upset the Kippers on her doorstep.

Kippers such as Gary Beer, whose wife Michelle was one of only two to like Denise’s FB posting about the PCC giving her a grant and inviting her to prey on impressionable young minds. The other being Jane Gwynn, of Lottery-funded Create Me Happy. With funding also coming from the county council and other sources.

All aboard! Ker-ching!

I’ve had my fill of Denise Kingsley Acton and the thousands like her who have flooded into Wales since the advent of devolution – with no purpose other than to screw the public purse.

It’s why the third sector is so big and so rich, and why Wales is so poor. The money wasted on the third sector should have been used to make Wales more prosperous, thereby removing the justification for such a bloated third sector; but that would not have served the interests of the English Labour Party in Wales :- ‘Keep Wales poor – blame Tories – pile up votes’.

Returning to Denise Kingsley Acton, I now address anyone close to her and I have this to say: On this blog I argue my case vigorously, using what I hope are reasoned and researched arguments, and I often employ colourful language, but rarely if ever do I make it personal. And never have I resorted to the level of filth that Denise Kingsley Acton posted on this blog last Friday.

If she needs help, then make sure she gets it. I want no further contact from her. Nor do I want to hear that she has been repeating elsewhere the slanders for which I have now reported her to Dyfed Powys Police.

♦ end ♦

 

AWEMA Reborn?

On By JacIn Third Sector, Welsh Labour3 Comments

The news that AWEMA probably has a successor was dropped into my lap today by a combination of ennui and serendipity. Well, when I say ‘successor’, what I mean is, we have a new all-Wales anti-discrimination body representing the black and minority ethnic population (BME). It couldn’t really be a new AWEMA, could it? I mean, Naz and the gang are irreplaceable . . . God! I miss ’em! Will we ever see their like again? (Almost guaranteed, given how the Labour Party and the Third Sector operate in Wales!)

The new outfit of which I speak is Race Council Cymru (RCC) and, like AWEMA, it is based in Swansea. In fact, just a few streets away from Castell Malik. (Though according to the website Swansea is in ‘West Glamorgan’ . . . which went out of existence in 1995.) The website suggests RCC is a somewhat new organisation, for it’s very light on information and almost devoid of history. Which should be no surprise if it is replacing AWEMA. Because this might mean it was formed in a bit of a hurry. Anyway, what does the website tell us?

YMCA
Click to Enlarge

Well, for a start, RCC seems to be run by a ‘Volunteer CEO’, Mrs Uzo Iwobi CBE, a Nigerian with a background in the police, the Commission for Racial Equality, and academe. The profile given on the website does not say if she’s a Labour Party member. If ‘Volunteer’ means unpaid then this suggests an attempt to avoid the, er, ‘misunderstandings’ of the recent past. But if Mrs Iwobi isn’t being paid, then how does she earn her crust, and does she have staff to help her run RCC? (Worth asking of course because AWEMA gave staffing arrangements and salary levels the attention they deserve. Old Naz was firm about that.) Nor could I find information about funding. For even if Mrs Iwobi is giving her time for nothing, there must be expenses; if only hers, plus office rental, website, and other incidentals.

Information was provided on the Board of Trustees. These are: Judge Ray Singh CBE (Chair); ‘Chief'(?) Mel Jehu, retired career cop (Vice Chair); Mrs. Norma Glass MBE (General Secretay); and Mr. Richard Davies (Treasurer). How nice to see a member of our Jewish community represented on the Board. The following have been co-opted to the Board: Mrs. Mutale Merrill OBE (CEO, BAWSO); Ms Rocio Cifuentes (Director, EYST); Mrs Sujatha Thaladi (Director, MEWN Cymru); Mr. Martin Jones JP (Adviser to the Board of Trustees).

As an example of the slipshod nature of the RCC website, under the photo for each Trustee we are invited to ‘Read More’, but no further information is provided for either Ms Cifuentes or Mr Jones; and for a couple of the others it merely repeats what’s on the main Trustees page. But some of these names rang bells. Rose Mutale Nyoni Merrill is the wife of Travers Merrill, Chief Executive of the troubled Rhondda Life Ltd, mentioned recently in this post. Ms Cifuentes has also caught my eye. Unsurprisingly, Mrs Thaladi’s outfit, MEWN Cymru, has also been mentioned on this blog. It begins to look like just another round of BME / Third Sector musical chairs.

WHICH GOVERNMENT?

I only found out about RCC through an item today on the BBC Wales website (which disappeared completely, even from the regional page, soon after I tweeted about it!). Anyway, this story concerned a report compiled for RCC by Professor Heaven Crawley, Director of the Centre for Migration Policy Research at Swansea University. Think about that for a minute – an organisation wanting certain ‘findings’ asks an academic who also stands to benefit from those same findings to conduct research on its behalf. And guess what? Prof. Crawley found that there is indeed a lot of racism in Wales. (Example: People ‘looking’ at women wearing the hijab. Or, “My friend, right . . .”.) Cue filling out grant application forms and smooching politicos.

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting pissed off with people moving to Wales, often getting red carpet treatment, or being given lucrative and prestigious publicly-funded posts – only for them to turn on us. It doesn’t matter whether they are ranting bigots or retiring academics; too many seem determined to portray us Welsh in the worst possible light, because it serves a certain agenda. Given away by the enthusiasm with which the Labour Party, the anti-Welsh Labour Party – often using the Third sector – joins in the attacks.

Don’t dismiss what I’m saying out of hand because you happen to be on the Left, and perhaps view me as a reactionary oddball. Just give some thought to the intellectual continuum that allows ‘respectable’ academic research such as that done by Professor Crawley to give succour to creatures like this (play video). For isn’t it a proven fact that we Welsh are intolerant and racist! (Not forgetting, “ignorant bastards”.)

That’s how it works: some drunken Jack makes an out-of-order remark to a Muslim woman and this and similar incidents are amassed and inflated by Labour’s Third Sector and supportive academics into a damning corpus of evidence against a whole nation; done in order to reduce resistance to further English colonisation and to undermine demands for more control over our national life. I can see it, which is why I will speak out. But it seems to be a bit of a blind spot for our patriotic Left.