More From Ireland Moor

The piece I put out on the 10th was quite well received, it certainly encouraged some fresh information. Which tends to put what’s happening on Ireland Moor into a wider context, and factor in fresh considerations.

At 2,600 words this is a wee bit longer than recent offerings, and maybe a bit ‘denser’, but still worth sticking with.

OWNERSHIP

In the previous piece I told of Scottish aristos the Duff Gordons, who inherited the Lewis estate at Harpton Court.

Ireland Moor is an upland grazing area to the east of Builth, around and perhaps above the pin in the map below. Bordered to the north by the A481 and the A44.

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Let’s start in 1993, when Sir Andrew Cosmo Lewis Duff Gordon (scroll down) sold some land. Here’s a Land Registry document for title no CYM427489. There may be other titles involved. If so, they’ll likely be: WA484809, WA404806, and WA667700.

There were four buyers named in the 1993 transaction. Also, three “beneficial tenants“. More information on these can be found by clicking here.

Now we go to July 2008, and a piece from Country Life informing us regular readers that Ireland Moor was for sale. A Land Registry title document from November of that year for CYM427489 probably tells us who bought the land. (We can now assume the other titles just mentioned are involved.)

Two of the names mentioned in this sale we saw among the 1993 buyers: Edward John Francis Dashwood and Peter John Horsburgh. So in case you didn’t follow the earlier link . . .

Dashwood is descended from Hellfire Club Dashwood, who was a bit of a lad.

Dashwood was a notorious rake and prankster who had once impersonated King Charles XII of Sweden at the Russian court when Charles was Russia’s great enemy. He had also tried to seduce the Russian Tsarina Anne, and he had been banned from the Papal States, all while still in his late teens and early 20s.

On the surface, Horsburgh is a devout environmentalist and trustee of the Wye and Usk Foundation. But he’s also a director of companies under the ETF umbrella, companies that profit hugely from – net zero.

Which makes perfect sense.

Organisations set up to ‘protect’ our rivers – especially in Wales – blame farmers for any and all pollution in those rivers. Environmentalists see farting cows as an obstacle to the target of net zero. Which pressurises politicians to work against livestock farming.

Environmentalism is not really about Greta Thunberg and brainwashed kids throwing paint over old masters. That’s all a distraction. ‘Environmentalism’ is major corporations seeking investments. And near the top of their ‘Dear Santa‘ list is land to be exploited for ‘carbon capture’ greenwashing and ‘natural capital’.

This Land Registry document from June 5, 2009, confirms the November 2008 sale, but without naming the buyers. Though it does tell us the four titles were involved, reveals the sale price of £900,000, gives Ireland Moor Ltd as the owner, with a Jersey company number (103322), and an address in Bristol.

Does this suggest the November 2008 buyers are now the Jersey company?

Possibly, and the third buyer might provide the clue.

CONNECTIONS APPEAR

For this is James Warren Kent, one of the ‘beneficial tenants’ in the 1993 deal. Naturally, I got to wondering who Mr Kent is, and what he gets up to.

I found he’s the sole director of Q Branch Investments Ltd. A company in the business of “letting and operating of own or leased real estate“. Though the company is owned by Benjamin Mark Peter Whitfield. Possibly living in Switzerland.

Looking more closely at Q Branch Investments I saw three outstanding charges.

One of them with the Conon Group, up in Auld Reekie, a city we visit regularly on this blog. I would guess the two directors of this financially healthy undertaking are the elderly parents of Benjamin Whitfield.

The other two charges are held by Roger Charles Adams. And this is where it gets rather interesting. For Adams is a director of RSK Environment Ltd, operating out of an address south of the river in Glasgow. Part of the RSK Group.

A bell rang when I saw ‘RSK’, “a global leader in the delivery of sustainable solutions“.

Let’s go back to this piece I put out a week before Christmas last, and scroll down to the section ‘Globalist Land Grab?’ about the ‘Welsh Government’s Sustainable Farming Scheme. Where you can read:

Tracing the ownership of RSK ADAS eventually gets us to Los Angeles and “global alternative investment manager” the Ares Management Corporation. You may not be surprised to learn that among the largest of Ares’ shareholders we find both BlackRock and Vanguard.

Someone who got a mention was Canadian Dr Liz Lewis-Reddy. She’s worked for RSK for 7 years, and before that spent 11 years at Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust.

Dr Lewis-Reddy was a co-author of the ‘Welsh Government’s Potential economic effects of the Sustainable Farming Scheme.

Her career seems to be another example of getting farmers off the land so that ‘alternative investment’ corporations can make fortunes from saving the planet.

So let’s recap. James Warren Kent, who is or was one of the owners of Ireland Moor, gets loans for his company from Roger Charles Adams, a man who works for a company that does contracts for both the ‘Welsh Government’ and Bute Energy. (Yes, Bute Energy.)

What’s the likelihood of that happening by chance?

But now it gets a little more complicated.

MORE ON OWNERSHIP

I’ve mentioned Ireland Moor Ltd, the company said to own the land in the LR title document of June 5, 2009.

That checks out with the Jersey filings.

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Here’s the Jersey Document of Incorporation for Ireland Moor Ltd, May 2009. It mentions two companies holding 45 shares each.

This ‘Persons Holding Shares’ filing for January 1, 2018, informs us that Edward Warren Filmer of Venezuela is now the sole shareholder.

Finally, here’s the winding up document for Ireland Moor Ltd dated February 23, 2018.

(Let me express my gratitude to the person who dug out, paid for, and then forwarded these and other documents to me.)

There was a problem identifying Edward Warren Filmer. But he does exist. Here he is mentioned in his father’s Will as ‘Edward Warren Filmer Cabrera’.

Which suggests his mother is from a Spanish-speaking country and her maiden name was Cabrera. Which ties in with him living in Venezuela.

This Jersey company seems to have been succeeded by Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd, run by the four sons of Sir Andrew Cosmo Lewis Duff Gordon who, you’ll recall, sold the land in 1993. (And died in April 2023.)

It seems the land was sold to the Duff Gordons in December 2015. The relevant LR titles are: WA484809 (no plan available), WA404806 (no plan available), WA667700 (with plan), and CYM427489 (with plan).

Edward Warren Filmer Cabrera remains something of a mystery man. How did he get involved? I couldn’t help notice that he shares a middle name, ‘Warren’, with the guy named in the Ireland Moor purchase in November 2008, James Warren Kent.

Could they be brothers? Cousins?

We must assume that Ireland Moor Ltd of Jersey owned the land of that name because the Duff Gordon boys bought Ireland Moor from that company.

Though I’m convinced things may not be quite as they appear when it comes to Ireland Moor. I say that because there is something on the Companies House filings that’s a real puzzle.

Go to the Land Registry title documents for which I’ve given links, above, and you’ll see a panel similar to the one below. It says the sale was concluded December 15, 2015.

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Which tallies with the December 2015 date given on the company’s outstanding debt with Edward Warren Filmer and Ireland Moor Ltd.

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Yet if we scroll down that charge document, to page 16, we see the panel below. Which says the titles were transferred to Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd in May 2015!

That’s two months before Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd was formed!

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I’m open to suggestions for this curiosity. But I will not accept ‘time travel’.

Whatever the answer, with Ireland Moor Ltd dissolved, then (on paper at least) the Duff Gordons owe the outstanding debt for the land to Señor Edward Warren Filmer Cabrera of Venezuela.

Whoever he might be.

THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL

The LR documents say the Duff Gordons bought Ireland Moor in December 2015, the purchase part-financed with a loan from Filmer-Ireland Moor Ltd.

This is something I’ve come across before, but usually when assets are moved between partners, or within a group of companies.

The charge dated that same month says:

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Which suggests the Duff Gordons handed over £560,000 as a down payment.

Then they took out two further loans, in December 2016 with Lloyds Bank. Normally when I see this (and almost always when the Development Bank of Wales is involved) the newer loans are used to pay off older debts. But not, it seems, in this case.

The accounts don’t help much. Below I’ve taken the ‘headlines’ from the first accounts filed by Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd.  (Actually, ‘unaudited financial statements’.)

The first ‘accounts’, to July 31, 2016, make sense. ‘Fixed assets’, £1,231,914, is obviously Ireland Moor. ‘Creditors’, at £678,158, is the debt owed to Filmer and Ireland Moor Ltd plus a few odds and ends.

But a year later, and after the loans from Lloyds Bank, the ‘accounts’ show the amount owed to ‘creditors’ down from £678,158 to £191,078.

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This could be explained by taking on the new debt and then paying off what was owed to Filmer and Ireland Moor Ltd. But that didn’t happen. For Companies House shows the Filmer-Ireland Moor charge is still ‘outstanding’.

The most recent accounts, to July 31, 2023, are equally confusing. Despite no new charge registered, the amount owed to creditors shot up from £693,676 in 2022 to £1,287,026. Almost the whole increase explained (page 7) as “other creditors“.

With the amount in the kitty going down, down, down every year. To the point where, in the 2023 accounts, Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd is in the red.

And where’s the £600,000 grant from the Powys Moorland Partnership? I can’t see that showing in the accounts.

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Seeing as, “This project is funded from the Sustainable Management Scheme under the Welsh Government’s Rural Communities Rural Development Programme”, ‘Welsh Government’ should be insisting on ‘fuller’ accounts.

Is Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd being used for purposes other than the conservation of Ireland Moor?

SEEING AS THIS IS POWYS . . .

. . . you just know wind turbines might be involved. And that means another trip to Edinburgh, where we find those behind Bute Energy. But don’t be fooled by that – for Bute is definitely a Welsh company!

Back in 2018 or 2019 our wonderful ‘Welsh Government’ commissioned Arup’s Bristol office to identify areas that would be suitable for solar and wind energy.

The approach seems to have been, ‘Anywhere outside national parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty will be OK’. Which was a disaster, and betrayed Arup’s ignorance of Wales.

For example, Arup declared almost the whole of Ynys Môn to be perfect for wind turbines . . . until the RAF reminded them there are jets, helicopters and other craft taking off and landing every day.

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The mess was eventually sorted by RenewableUK, whose suggestion for the area we’re interested in (top right) was used in the final version (bottom right) of ‘Future Wales The National Plan 2040‘.

That said, the ‘Welsh Government’ and corporate investors are very ‘flexible’ when it comes to the selected areas. To put it bluntly, other than NPs and AONBs (and of course, Ynys Môn), you can put up wind and solar farms anywhere.

Which is why, despite Ireland Moor being outside designated area 7, I wouldn’t rule out wind turbines appearing.

Because not far away, on Aberedw Hill (circled on the left), which is also outside the designated area, Bute Energy is planning an ‘energy park’, and has an agreement with landowner Harry Legge-Bourke.

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Reminding us that when it comes to ‘renewables’, Wales is open range; so we can definitely add wind turbines to the mix of possibilities for Ireland Moor.

The threats afflicting our countryside are very similar no matter where we look. Though more pronounced near the central border, partly due to the machinations of the wildlife trusts in Radnorshire and Montgomeryshire.

THE PERFECT STORM

Welsh livestock farming, and with it the Welsh family farm, a supporting pillar of Welsh language and culture, is under threat as never before. That threat comes in a number of guises, but all can be traced back to the Globalist ambition to control what we eat and where it comes from.

Additionally, a whole political class has been won over to the lunacy of a ‘climate crisis’, not because it’s true, but because it gives them a ’cause’, and it gives them some kind of moral authority.

A natural-born asshole gets a kick out of bossing people around. But when saving the planet, or fighting racism, is introduced, then a natural-born asshole becomes a morally superior being . . . and a bigger asshole!

Western thought has been corrupted by these caped crusaders, and all done by stealth. We elect politicians on vague, ‘something for everybody’ manifestos . . . and then the pressure groups we did not elect get to work on them.

If it’s not the pressure groups then – and certainly here in Wales – it’s the civil servants ‘advising’ our politicians. Men like Andrew Slade, who’s been a malign influence in Corruption Bay for too long.

It doesn’t matter whether Ireland Moor sees grouse shooting, wind turbines (to supply England), rewilding, greenwashing (or a combination of the four), it’s clear they will all have political backing – because they undermine farming.

And the farmers understand the threats. This is what one wrote to me:

I can’t tell how important that grazing is to hill farmers like us, we can’t afford down country grass keep, it will reduce our flocks down to a fraction, we are running on fumes as it is. And the sheep, they are old bloodlines it’s taken generations to get them hefted and thriving, I despair, and goodness knows what horrors await us in the budget, another local boy hung himself the other day, I fear there is going to be a lot more, and all the old farmers I go and visit are about in tears thinking all they have worked for and sacrificed for will be take from them and their grand-children won’t get the chance to have roots in the area where they belong, I could bloody cry.

What we see on Ireland Moor and elsewhere is plutocrats orchestrating those they fund and control against livestock farming so as to release land for corporate gain.

Their motto is, I’m told: ‘The countryside needs hedge funds not hedges.’

The ‘Welsh Government’ agrees. Politicians who’ve spent 25 years serving agendas that sound noble in the abstract but, in practice – from Port Talbot to the Powys uplands – always work against the interests of local people.

Ireland Moor is modern Wales in microcosm. Among all those you’ve read about, the ones losing out will be the ones born and raised there, who went to school in the area, who graze their animals on the moor.

For me, the lesson from Ireland Moor – and it can be applied across Wales – is this: Socialists in Corruption Bay are driving small farmers off the land so that land can be taken over by foreign corporations, landed families, and enviroshysters.

Reminding us that socialism always was a lie. The betrayal of the urban working class, and now the war on small farmers, exposes that lie to the world.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2024

Commoners, Toffs, Envirogrifters

This week’s tale comes from Powys. It’s an old story with a modern twist. Local farmers and others up against those with more money and political clout, with the twist being the environmental angle.

The Crown Estate is involved, and we also encounter that ultimate expression of the environmental scam – ‘natural capital’, which puts a price tag (in the form of grants and subsidies expected) on every blade of grass.

ON THE BLACK HILL

The area we’re going to focus on is roughly halfway between Builth and the border, an area containing Glascwm Hill (pinned) and the Black Hill. There are quite a few grouse butts in the vicinity.

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For reasons I didn’t query, the area is known as Ireland Moor. This contribution from the Ramblers confirms that and gives a little more information.

We’ll begin with establishing ownership of the land. And we start with a company called Ireland Moor Ltd (IM), registered in Jersey. Below is a clip from the Jersey companies registry.

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This company was wound up early in 2018, perhaps because it had been superseded by Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd (IMC), formed in July 2015. For more information, let’s turn to the new company.

The founding director was William Andrew Lewis Duff Gordon, and he was joined on June 6, 2016, by his three brothers. But Tom, the banker, left after just one day. He is with crypto outfit Coinbase.

Let’s turn to the charges for IMC, see who’s owed money.

I assume the first charge is for the purchase of Ireland Moor. The two creditors named are the Jersey-registered Ireland Moor Ltd, and Edward Warren Filmer. But if the land was owned by the Jersey company, does that mean the old company loaned the new company the money to buy the land?

UPDATE 16.10.2024: A comment to the blog tells me Filmer’s full name is Edward Warren Filmer Cabrera, and he’s linked with companies registered in Venezuela.

You’ll see four Land Registry title documents shown there, and here they are, in the order listed: WA484809 (no plan available), WA404806 (no plan available), WA667700 (with plan), and CYM427489 (with plan).

I’ve combined the two plans, but it leaves us with a problem.

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What we know is that the total price said to have been paid for the four titles was £1,160,000. (With £600,000 being mentioned as the buyer’s contribution in the legal charge.) But do these two plans cover the four titles, or are there plans missing?

Seeing as the Jersey registry tells us Ireland Moor Ltd is dissolved, then who now holds the debt against Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd? Has it all passed to the other name on the charge, Edward Warren Filmer?

The only company I can find with which Filmer’s involved is CGM Farming Ltd, formed in March 2015, just a few months before IMC.

Though ‘Farming’ is rather misleading, for this company’s in the business of, “Hunting, trapping and related service activities“. So I got to wondering about the name. Might the ‘GM’ stand for grouse moor(s)? And if so, what could the ‘C’ mean?

The Companies House filings give the address of an accountancy firm in Weybridge, Surry for CGM, but tell us Filmer lives in Wales.

There is another title mentioned on that first charge, under ‘Schedule 1’, page 16. This is against William Andrew Lewis Duff Gordon rather than the company.

Though the dates given in Schedule 1 do not tally with those given elsewhere. In fact, the dates given are before Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd was even formed! Something’s not right here.

It relates to “land lying to the south of Cwmpiben barn“. (Though I think that should read ‘Cwm-piban’.) It’s for a trifling £40,000. Here’s the title document and plan. And here it is pinned on the OS map. Not a million miles from Ireland Moor.

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The other outstanding charges against Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd are, first, with Lloyds Bank (December 2016). Another with Lloyds (January 2017), secured against the 7000 acres at Ireland Moor. With a further charge with Lloyds against ‘Gwaithla bungalow’, at Gladestry.

POWYS MOORLAND PARTNERSHIP

The problem relayed to me is that local farmer-graziers fear there are plans afoot that will adversely affect them, and this explains them being kept out of the loop.

Let’s start with the Powys Moorland Partnership (PMP). I was unable to establish when this outfit began life, but it visited Ireland Moor in September 2017. It’s funded by the ‘Welsh Government’ through the Sustainable Management Scheme.

Where we read . . .

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I’m sure you’ve clocked the £600,000. Is this the same sum we saw earlier, and which I assumed was the contribution made by Ireland Moor Environmental Ltd to the £1,160,000 purchase price of the four titles?

If so, then what I didn’t know then of course was the source of that money.

Though there’s also something odd about PMP. On it’s homepage it describes itself as a “3 year collaborative project“, but we know it’s been running for at least seven years. And in that mission statement there is no mention of the farmers who graze the land.

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So who exactly are the partners in this ‘partnership’?

Also note that the capture above, from the Powys Moorland Partnership website, talks of: “. . . nearly 20,000 acres of moorland stretching from the Llanthony Valley in the south of the county to Beguildy common in the north . . . ”

Which is 43 miles by road, and not a lot less for a fit and adventurous crow. What’s more, Llanthony is not in “the south of the county“, it’s in Sir Fynwy (Monmouthshire).

If we’re talking about just 20,000 acres, over that distance, and we know that 7,000 are accounted for on the Black Hill and Glascwm Hill, then the other 13,000 must be scattered about in disparate parcels.

Though something I noticed about Llanthony on the OS map was the proximity of grouse butts. Is that what the Powys Moorland Partnership is all about?

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Maybe the ‘Welsh Government’, through the Sustainable Management Scheme, and more locally, the Powys Moorland Partnership, has accepted, even encouraged, some kind of alliance between local sporting interests and the environmental lobby.

The Crown Estate may also be involved. The map below, by Guy Shrubsole, was available through WalesOnline. It shows considerable Crown Estate holdings in the area.

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Quite a concentration in a small area. But it all makes sense.

Because it seems the PMP is little more than a vehicle for the Duff Gordons and their circle. Men like Peter Hood who rents the shooting rights on 5000-acre Beacon Hill from the Crown Estate.

Hood of course is one of those listed in the Powys Moorland Partnership’s ‘Who’s Who’, along with his gamekeeper David Thomas. Also there is Will Duff Gordon.

I believe the owners of the uplands we’ve looked at, including the Crown Estate and the Duff Gordons, have reached an understanding with the environmental lobby. The planet savers will turn a blind eye to the killing of grouse and the critters that prey on them to view the whole shebang through green-tinted glasses.

And of course, seeing as some farms might became unviable without their upland grazing the acquisitive interlopers of the local Radnorshire Wildlife Trust (RWT) look forward to more land becoming available.

The RWT has received £1,161,740 from the ‘Welsh Government’ in grants over the past 4 years. And it rises every year! Corruption Bay has no money for farmers, but plenty for those who put farmers out of business, and the scavengers who benefit.

NATURAL CAPITAL

If we go back to the PMP website, we see a tab ‘Natural Capital’, so click on it. The opening paragraph reads:

The term ‘Natural Capital’ refers to the “stock of renewable and non-renewable natural resources (e.g. plants, animals, air, water, soils, minerals) that combine to yield a flow of benefits to people.” (Source: Natural Capital Protocol (2016).

Note the year, 2016. Which ties in perfectly with this document, prepared for the Fifth Assembly (2016 – 2021). Within it we find a contribution by Nia Seaton, asking. ‘Are we neglecting our natural capital?

I think it’s reasonable to assume the ‘Natural Capital’ bandwagon started rolling in Wales in or before 2015. Those ‘in the know’, those with contacts, would have had advance warning.

The natural capital report we’re looking at was prepared for PMP by environmental economist Phil Cryle, Duncan Royle, and Ian Dickie of Economics for the Environment Consultancy Ltd (eftec).

With the efforts of their labour reviewed by Dr Rob Tinch, also of eftec. Cosy!

Those involved clearly envision money being made available in the years ahead from exploiting ‘natural capital’. Yes, I know they want us to see it as conservation, but that’s no longer the motive.

The motive now is to put a price on, and thereby capitalise on, just about every square foot of heather, every cubic metre of soil. Even the air we breathe! And the payment won’t be a warm glow, it’ll be hard cash.

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And I’m serious about the air we breathe. For as you can see, it’s projected to be a nice little earner in the years ahead.

CONCLUSION

Yet again, we see politicians and others in Corruption Bay throwing money at anybody who can work the magic words ‘environment’, or ‘habitat’, or ‘conservation’, into their pitch for funding. Or into any other way of making money.

Which explains tax haven company Ireland Moor Ltd rebranding itself to Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd. For public money going to a Jersey-registered company would not look good.

The relationship between those two companies, and more especially the ownership of the original company, needs to be established. As does the identity and the role of Edward Filmer.

Because I couldn’t help but notice that the other projects funded by the Sustainable Management Scheme have as their ‘lead organisation’ a county council, a national park, a wildlife trust, or a Community Interest Company, but with Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd public funding was given to a private limited company with shares.

And those shares are divvied up within a very wealthy family.

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Discussions and planning by the Powys Moorland Partners (aka Ireland Moor Conservation Ltd), and certain other parties, seem to exclude the graziers.

You don’t need a crystal ball to see what’s happening here. And where it’s headed. Grouse shooting can be very profitable. And as we read earlier, the ‘Welsh Government’ is already funding gamekeeper jobs via the PMP.

Finally, let’s not forget natural capital, which can be greatly enhanced by activities such as planting trees. Or, to put it crudely, greenwashing. I’m told Aviva, partner to WWF, has been spoken of favourably, and more than once, by the Duff Gordons.

The graziers are being sold out; they and their sheep are in the way . . . and getting rid of them dovetails perfectly with the ‘Welsh Government’s desire to end livestock farming.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2024