Tag: Wales Eye

Cardigan Castle: Bullies and Cowards, Liars and Victims

On By JacIn British Nationalism, Colonialism, Colonisation of Wales, Labour Party, Plaid Cymru47 Comments

The ‘resignation’ of Glen Johnson due to “online harassment” and “virtual persecution” continues to reverberate, here’s an update. (Though what is virtual persecution? Is it something less than real persecution?)

To begin with, it’s worth remembering that the press release announcing the resignation was issued by Equinox, the Castle’s PR company. Given how these things are done, with the Castle paying the bills, it’s reasonable to assume that the press release was sent to Equinox ready-written, with instructions for the agency to merely issue it to its media contacts.

Glen Johnson Cambrian News
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One of those contacts was of course the Cambrian News . . . or maybe the Cambrian News got the resignation story directly from the Castle . . . or maybe the Cambrian News didn’t need to be informed at all . . .

Seeing as both my blog and I were mentioned in the Cambrian News report I wrote to managing editor Beverly Davies making it clear that the only references to Glen Johnson on my blog were positive, and so I should not have been mentioned in a way that obviously tried to implicate me in the alleged ‘harassment’. I was refused an apology but given a few hours to make a comment to a follow-up story . . . without being given any details of that follow-up!

Even so, I did give her a statement, though I doubt if it will be published. Here it is. ‘I want nothing to do with the Cambrian News because it cannot be trusted to report honestly on any issue where its over-riding political, ethno-cultural and constitutional prejudices come into play’.

In my exchange of e-mails with Beverly Davies I made the point that, “The Facilities Officer at Cardigan Castle is Sue Lewis, who was, prior to that job being created for her, a trustee. She is one of those I have criticised in my blog. She is also a freelance reporter for your newspaper, and her husband Mike is your South Ceredigion reporter. What a cosy arrangement!”

Beverly Davies responded with, “While Sue Lewis does do some freelance work for our paper, she only covers Aberporth Town (sic) Council and Cardigan Town Council meetings. She has had no involvement in our Cardigan castle stories.” My incredulity becomes clear in my response, “Do you seriously expect me, or any other sentient being, to believe that Sue Lewis has no input to articles written by her husband (or even his colleagues) about the place she works!”

But what if it’s true! Picture the scene chez Lewis, gentle reader, He: ‘I’m working on a story about the place where you work, Sweetie Pie, but you mustn’t tell me anything, or try to influence the article in any way – is that clear?‘ She (eyelashes fluttering): ‘Of course not, Big Boy, you know I wouldn’t do that, I’m an obedient lickle wifey‘. Yes, that must be how things are done in the Lewis household, or maybe not . . .

For there must, regrettably, be the possibility that that image of connubial bliss exists nowhere but in my imagination, and that in the real world the press release and the Cambrian News article were both written by Sue Lewis. In which case, is Glen Johnson just a willing dupe in the machinations of others? If not, if he is the author of the resignation statement, how does he feel about the trustees and the Cambrian News using his resignation to attack me, a man who has done him no wrong, and said nothing about him that was hurtful or even critical?

Let’s have some straight answers, Glen. Are you accusing me of harassing you? If not, how about correcting the impression your resignation has allowed others to create  – people you recently worked with – that I am some kind of ogre stalking the internet terrorising women and children. The time for vague allegations and innuendo is past. Things are coming to a head. Let’s have some straight answers, Glen.

Elsewhere, an old comrade, completely unprompted, complained to the BBC about its treatment of the Johnson resignation. His point about cut and paste journalism, and treating press releases as news items, are worrying reminders of the state of the Welsh media. Read it here.

Time now to turn to a recurring theme in the saga of Cardigan Castle, money being squandered.

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WEBSITE? THAT’LL BE FORTY-FOUR GRAND, LOVE.

One of the complaints levelled again and again against the project is that there is little to see for the £12m expenditure. People go there and wonder what that vast sum was spent on. One specific complaint made more than once is that the display cabinets are of a similar standard – and cost – to those housing the English crown jewels in London, even though Cardigan Castle has little if anything of value to display. This complaint puzzled me, but recent information may throw some some light on this issue.

A former trustee has sent me a quote, from September 2012, to set up a website for the Castle. The quote comes from a firm called Haley Sharpe Design of Leicester, in England. The quotation – just for a website, remember! – is £44,000. Read it here for yourself; read it through, item by item, and you’ll realise what a rip-off it would have been. Of course, this was three years ago, no doubt HSD would now charge £50,000.

This is what happens when public money is involved and there is no adequate oversight from the funders’ representatives, as is the case with Cardigan Castle. The customer thinks, ‘What the hell, it’s not our money!’ and the supplier rubs his sweaty hands thinking, ‘They’re getting millions in grants, let’s get our snouts in the trough’. Incidentally, I’m told that all the other quotes for a website came in under £5,000.

One obvious question is, why did the trustees ever go to a firm like this, so far away, so expensive, to get a quote for something that could have been provided by Dai Jones down the road for one tenth of the price? Does someone connected with the Castle know someone involved with HSD?

Thankfully, HSD did not get the website contract. An outlay like that would have been difficult to explain, even with the cosy relationship between Lady Tucker and the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Gareth ‘Yes, Ma’am’ Gregory. The website now running appears to the creation of Sugar Creative of Cardiff, though there are many firms much nearer to Cardigan that could – and should – have been given the work.

Let us conclude this section by returning to Haley Sharpe Design, for despite losing out on the website rip-off contract the company was asked to fit out the Castle with display cabinets and similar equipment, and also to hold exhibitions. (See left sidebar when page opens.) Knowing how much HSD wanted to charge for a website we can be fairly sure that Cardigan Castle has paid over the odds for its display cases and much else. But then, it’s only public money.

I ask again, who is the link between Cardigan Castle and HSD?

Alas, problems rarely come singly, do they, boys and girls? and poor old Jac has also been assailed by that master of the vituperative, that Woodward and Bernstein of the Welsh blogosphere, Phil Parry of Wales Eye.

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IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE ME?

Every so often, when the bile rises, or I have criticised his belovéd Labour Party too effectively, Phil Parry girds his loins and sallies forth to engage with the evil dragon of nationalism – me! These attacks invariably take the form of Parry telling his vast readership that I am about to be banged up because someone has reported me to the police. This ‘someone’ is usually Jacques Protic, a Serbian gent living on Ynys Môn, a man who manages to be a Labour Party member while simultaneously believing that Rhodri Morgan and Carwyn Jones are closet nationalists! (No, I did not make that up, as the panel below testifies. It is a comment Protic made to a BBC blog.)

Parry’s latest assault on the dragon can be found here. I recommend that you be sitting down when you read it, and without a hot drink in your hand. (I should also warn you that in this latest piece Parry offers links to earlier works of fiction in which I star – apparently forgetting that these are behind a paywall!) Now, where to start?

Protic-Labour
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Well, Parry begins with some bizarre story about an investigation by GogPlod into comments on my blog. He writes, “An investigation was launched by North Wales Police after a complaint from a member of the public about the website ‘Jac o’ the North’, and the Editor, Royston Jones, was officially warned to remove abusive comments or it may be closed down, according to sources.” I have received no such warning. North Wales Police has not contacted me.

Other than that, almost everything in the article is a re-hash of what he’s written before. Protic predictably appears, there is yet another mention of the Cayo Evans photograph, the social housing petition is regurgitated, and then he flaunts his powers of investigation with, “Mr Jones is currently embroiled in a controversy which centres on Cardigan castle”. Wow!

The thing about Parry is that he is consistent . . . consistent in attacking me for things I have not done. Let’s start with Protic. The basis for this story is that Protic alleges he was threatened over the telephone and had his car’s tyres slashed, and all because of something I’d written about him on my blog. As if Protic doesn’t draw enough attention to himself by expressing his odious views on every forum he can find.

The Cayo Evans photograph. I don’t know who took it, I don’t appear in it, but putting it up on my blog makes me guilty of . . . well, something. The social housing petition was launched by Dennis Morris of Plaid Glyndŵr. I put it on my sidebar because I’m unreasonable enough to believe that local people should enjoy priority in the allocation of social housing. And of course the ‘hook’ for the latest Parry article is that someone – but not me – wrote something some arsehole somewhere considers ‘racist’.

If online racism really concerns Phil Parry then let him visit MailOnline or Guido Fawkes or a host of other ‘mainstream’ sites, where he will find all the racist comments a man in search of them could desire, made against the Welsh and just about every nation other than the English. But of course Parry won’t do that, because he’s not really interested in racism per se; he is, just like the Cambrian News, and politicians in Wales and elsewhere, simply interested in using the slur of racism to silence people whose views he doesn’t like.

Though let us not be too harsh on Phil Parry for I fear he may be losing it, or maybe someone is playing jokes on him. In what I assume to have been a desperate attempt to say something new about me Parry wrote, “He retired as director of a Barmouth air conditioning firm . . . “ Who? Me! Accusing me of being a gun-toting, ethnic-cleansing, bodice-ripping, baby-eating nationalist I can live with, but you go too far when you accuse me of being a director of an air conditioning firm in – of all places – Barmouth!

I don’t know who, or what, you’re talking about, Parry . . . and neither, I suspect, do you.

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IT WAS THE CAMBRIAN NEWS WOT WON IT!

Apart from learning that Beverly Davies has a sense of humour, something else I learnt yesterday was that Elin Jones AM has been asked for a comment on the Johnson resignation, and it will appear in this week’s issue of the rag. No doubt it will be in with the comments from the Pope and the mayor of Wagga Wagga, both outraged by my criticisms of certain Cardigan Castle trustees.

This, I’m told, is what she will say: “Glen Johnson has been a long-time champion of the castle and its history. He is one of the local experts and was influential in convincing me and others of the merits of the need to invest and restore the castle. I am sure he has spent years of voluntary effort in researching and supporting the castle. It is a travesty that he now feels pressured by social media to withdraw as a trustee. We need to thank him for all he has done and hopefully he can continue to contribute in other ways to the project.” So the local AM appears to have swallowed the Cambrian News story hook line and sinker . . . or maybe not, because here’s my interpretation.

Elin Jonres

Elin Jones will be standing for re-election next May which, let me remind you, is just over eight months away. She is very mindful of how the Cambrian News may have destroyed her colleague Mike Parker’s chances of becoming Ceredigion’s Plaid Cymru MP just three months ago, in the May General Election. For anyone who has perhaps forgotten, check out my post, Mike Parker and Huw ‘Tipp-Ex’ Thomas in Full Agreement.

What the Cambrian News did with that piece of gutter journalism was deliberately misrepresent something Parker had written many years earlier. For soon after moving to Wales he wrote a piece for Planet magazine telling of his shock at realising many English people move to rural Wales to escape the multiracial towns and cities of England. (But he never used the word ‘Nazi’.) He also told us that many of the English who move to Wales look down on their Welsh neighbours with contempt. Read the original 2001 article here. Compare it with what the Cambrian News wrote and you’ll realise what a squalid distortion the latter was.

Remarkably, it was left to the Western Mail to put this story into its correct perspective, with Martin Shipton writing, “The purpose of this attack on Mr Parker, of course, is to dissuade people from voting for him.” In other words, it was an attempt by the Cambrian News to influence the outcome of the General Election in Ceredigion by telling lies about the candidate the ‘paper did not want to win. And it may have worked.

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THREAT TO DEMOCRACY?

Its victory over Mike Parker, and the muted response from Plaid Cymru, has emboldened the Cambrian News, making it believe that it can control the political debate, certainly in Ceredigion, and perhaps beyond. Given who owns the ‘paper there is nothing surprising here.

The Cambrian News is part of the Tindle Group, still run by the eponymous, and 88-year-old Sir Ray Tindle. Sir Ray is a patriot of the old school, the man who told his editors, once Bush and Blair began their illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, “to ensure that nothing appears in your newspapers which attacks the decision to conduct the war”. (Read full article here.)

When it comes to Wales, we can be sure that Sir Ray’s views are unequivocally Unionist, which means doing everything possible to portray nationalists as a dangerous and evil enemy . . . especially when they look like winning. The only way dissenting voices can hope to avoid the Tindle treatment is to dissent as little as possible . . . the course Elin Jones has so clearly adopted. With the result that debate is stifled, truth takes a kicking, and democracy in Wales is further weakened.

This assault on truth and democracy in the service of English interests becomes increasingly more obvious as Tindle and other owners ship in journalists recruited in England, journalists who don’t know their patch, and thus make a mockery of ‘local journalism’. The pretence can only be maintained with the assistance of a ‘Welsh’ veneer provided by the likes of Beverly Davies.

The Cambrian News and many other ‘local’ newspapers are now a threat to the democratic process. They promote a viewpoint that is hostile to Welsh interests, they try to intimidate those who dare challenge them and their viewpoint, and they have lost that fundamental connection with local communities that should justify their existence.

The Elin Jones approach is nothing less than surrendering to the diktats of a warped old man who cares nothing for Wales. How does a Plaid Cymru politician justify such a stance, even to herself? The way forward must be to challenge the Cambrian News and all the other BritNat propaganda rags. If Plaid Cymru isn’t prepared to stand up to this bullying, then it does not deserve to survive.

UPDATE 27.08.2015: Yesterday, some 30 people, including ex-volunteers, gathered outside the Castle to make a presentation to sacked Director Cris Tomos. There were young and old there, Welsh and English, to present him with gifts, including a blooming apple tree, showing the gratitude of the townspeople for all the work he has done for Cardigan. Inside, the remaining trustees plotted at their monthly meeting.

UPDATE II 27.08.2015: In this week’s online South Ceredigion edition of the Cambrian News Glen Johnson seems to saying something different regarding his family. Last week it was, “The main reason for my resignation is to protect my family from the virtual persecution being dealt out . . . “. This week, the writer of the article says, ” . . . with his family bearing the brunt of ‘overheard conversations'”.

The implication is inescapable – nothing was said directly to his family. That his family overheard unflattering conversations around the town only proves what a hot topic the running of the Castle has become. Even then, I guarantee that if ‘them trustees’ were getting a slagging, it wasn’t Glen Johnson the critics had in mind. I’m beginning to worry that the saintly Glen Johnson may be developing a martyr complex.

Curiously, although the article is headed ‘AM steps into Cardigan Castle row’ there is no quote from Elin Jones. Perhaps you have to pay for the full edition to read what Elin Jones said. Which I’m sure you’re prepared to do, especially after seeing the subscription page.

If Third-Rate Journalism Reliant On Endless Repetition Was A Crime Then Phil Parry Would Have Been Banged Up Long Ago

On By JacIn Labour Party, Welsh Media14 Comments

I was warned on Monday . . . someone had seen a tweet by Phil Parry who runs the Wales Eye blog, that home to ‘exclusives’ and ‘revelations’ that are so exclusively revelatory that you must pay to read them. There was to be yet another piece on that poor, persecuted soul Jacques Protic, still living in fear of assorted assassination squads. (I can scarcely believe I’m writing this crap, but it’s what Parry and Protic want you to believe.) Read it for yourself, here or below:

This latest offering is obviously a re-heating of what has previously been served up, more than once, with Parry now hoping to disguise just how stale and overcooked the whole thing has become by adding thimblefuls of fresh ingredients. It hasn’t worked. (For those unfamiliar with this epic, here’s a recent post of mine from which it can be traced back.) Wales Eye Protic 'threats'

The first ‘thimbleful’ is the news that “A critic of Welsh language education has been assigned police protection after his life was threatened, Wales Eye can reveal. Jacques Protic, who lives in North Wales, was given a dedicated police officer to monitor possible law-breaking. Threats on Mr Protic’s life are constant and in one recent incident a telephone caller said: “I’m going to do your fucking head in”.

So Parry wants us to believe that Protic now has his very own copper, though there’s a contradiction in the opening sentences. The first, with its reference to “police protection”, conjures up an image of 24-hour armed guards. Yet the second deflates that effect with, “a dedicated police officer to monitor possible law-breaking”. In other words, some unlucky sod who’s been given the thankless task of returning Protic’s phone calls.

Something else that’s very odd about this ‘news’ is that the alleged threat against Protic was made – as Phil Parry himself has previously told us – after a post of mine in August 2013, so this is not “a recent incident”, as Parry now wants us to believe. And there have obviously been no further ‘threats’, for if there had been then Parry would have regaled us with every detail . . . in a revelatory and paywalled ‘Exclusive!‘ So why has it taken North Wales Police a year and a half to respond to this single, alleged, ‘threat’? Jacques Protic could have been dead and buried by now, lynched by a mob of crazed Eisteddfodwyr, or maybe shot by a Day of the Jackal-style hit-man hired by Cymdeithas yr Iaith. The fact that no one has said ‘Boo!‘ to Protic for eighteen months also undermines Parry’s hyperbolic “Threats on MrWestern Mail apology short Protic’s life are constant”. He just can’t help being a journo, can he?

Parry then goes on to remind his readers (there must be some!) what a frightful fellow I am, supporting the Free Wales Army, and using my blog to show 50-year-old photographs of men who are all now dead. Perhaps worse, I’ve called Parry and his friend Shipton, chief reporter over at Llais y Sais (who doubles as Parry’s researcher), all sorts of horrid names. I am also condemned for promoting this petition on social housing. Though he neglects to remind us that Llais y Sais was forced to issue a correction on February 28th after repeating some of his earlier lies about me. How could this fact have slipped the mind of such a meticulous and conscientious journalist?

Apart from the ludicrous suggestion that Jacques Protic now has his own police protection unit there are just two other ‘thimblefuls’ in Parry’s latest outgushing that differentiate it from his earlier ventures into character assassination. First, he tells us that I have now been placed by the police on a “security watch-list”. If this actually means anything then I’d be grateful to have my new status explained. Second, in previous Wales Eye posts Parry has not hesitated to name the unfortunate young copper who was, allegedly, reprimanded for not properly investigating the Protic complaint, but now Parry has come over all coy and refers to the officer as “Pc xxx”! (Yes, ‘Pc’.) Has somebody had a word in Parry’s shell-like?

Protic Labour
Comment to a BBC Wales blog. Protic believes Rhodri Morgan and Carwyn Jones are closet nationalists because they speak Welsh. This exposes his obsession with the Welsh language and also tells us how divorced from political realities this man has become.

Though as ever when I’m dealing with these people there is unintentional humour. Protic is quoted in the latest Wales Eye post referring to North Wales’ finest as “buggers” for not taking him seriously, for not believing in the bogeymen he sees all around. Now for all I know, ‘buggers’ may be Serbo-Croat for fine upstanding fellows, then again, it might not. If it means what I think it means, and if it typifies his attitude when dealing with the police, then I’m not surprised they’re loath to take Protic seriously.

Protic buggersThough if Protic is no longer “involving the (police)”, how come they have just given him, according to Parry, “a dedicated police officer”? This suggests Protic is either lying or else he is being given protection without his knowledge. But if Protic is ignorant of what’s being done on his behalf, how does Parry know – does he have a hotline to GogPlod HQ in Bae Colwyn? Or is he making this up as he goes along? You know, I feel quite ashamed of myself for even thinking such a thing. (Slaps wrist.)

No matter what the answer, I shouldn’t even be writing about Protic, because these attacks on me from Wales Eye and the Wasting Mule are not really in defence of Jacques Protic, and something I wrote going on two years ago? Parry and Shipton couldn’t give a toss about Protic, he’s just an excuse to get at me. So why am I a target? Because I attack the Labour Party, its sponging cronies in the Third Sector, and all the other manifestations of colonial Wales. The system Parry and Shipton support and defend.

So I confidently expect more attacks in future, because when it comes to putting the boot into the Labour Party, and exposing the system of sham devolution that ‘Welsh’ Labour is happy to front, I’m just getting warmed up.

UPDATE 26.03.2015: I am indebted to D I for leading me to the Samizdata blog, previously unknown to me, and a posting entitled, ‘What do the Maori and Welsh languages have in common?’ by Essex girl ‘Natalie Solent’. According to Natalie, and to most of those commenting, what the two languages have in common is that both are being forced down Protic Samizdat fullpeople’s throats using lots of public money. Sound familiar?

It should come as no surprise therefore to learn that among those commenting is Jacques Protic. I have collected up his comments and present them here for your judgement. (Click to enlarge or right click to open in a new window.) Among the lunacies flying from the Protic keyboard is that, “Everything that matter (sic) or should matter in Wales, Education, NHS, Economy and so on is in terminal decline and largely down to the Welsh language imposition”.

He goes on to tell Samizdata of the death threats against him, how it is almost impossible for anglophones to get public sector jobs in Wales, how Cardiff is “under siege” from Welsh speakers, how his little girl “was got at by few Y Fro arrogant parents”, etc., etc. Protic also tells us his 16-year-old son is a pupil of Ysgol John Bright in Llandudno, but D I tells me that on his Facebook page Protic says that his son is a pupil at Ysgol David Hughes.

To fully appreciate the almost unique combination of ignorance and bigotry on show in both the article and the comments you have to read it for yourself. Here’s the link again. When you do, you’ll run across a number of comments from ‘J Jones’. Now I am 99.9% certain that this is Protic by another name. If not; if there is a J Jones (sometimes Jon Jones), then he and Protic must be telepathic, for they always turn up on the same blog, and are always in full agreement, quoting from and complimenting (and complementing) each other, as we see on Samizdata.

The more I think about Protic, the less sure I am who and what he is. He lives on Ynys Môn, almost certainly in Porthaethwy. We know this from him standing for the Aethwy ward in the council elections of May 2013. Yet I am told that he works over the border and drops his children off at school in Llandudno, Conwy, in the hope of them escaping the Welsh language education systems of Ynys Môn and Gwynedd. Which must make for a long day, leaving home well before 8 am and getting home at around 6 or 7 pm. Yet he still finds time to submit his odious opinions to countless blogs, using God knows how many names, and most of them timed during the working day! In addition to which he has time to seek out information he thinks useful from countless sources, just look at the links he provides in his comments to Samizdata, to the BBC and even Hansard (from an obscure House of Lords debate in 1958!).

It’s almost as if attacking the Welsh language and those who speak it is his full-time job, and even that he has assistance. Don’t laugh! because it doesn’t matter what we think of him; when he makes his contributions on Samizdata and countless other blogs and outlets we know nothing about there will be many reading them who’ll believe his insane distortions. Then we have Phil Parry and others playing their part, depicting him as a martyr, and that “Threats on Mr Protic’s life are constant”. There could be more going on here than we realise.

UPDATE 02.04.2015: Realising that his previous post on ‘under-threat’ Jacques Protic was just regurgitated nonsense Phil Parry knew he had to come up with something more recent. It arrived in his post of March 31st (though it would have been more appropriate if he’d left it for a day).

It seems that someone commenting on the Samizdata blog (see above, Update 26.03.2015) ‘threatened’ Protic, and this resulted in North Wales Police assigning 30 armed detectives to the case! OK, I’m exaggerating, but the lone copper Parry claims is one too many. Read the thing for yourself. The ‘threat’, from someone signing as ‘Arrango’ says, “As for you Jacques, your time is coming”. Now as threats go, this one is rather ambiguous – and it doesn’t even end with an exclamation mark! It could even be predicting a Lottery win or some other piece of good fortune. If GogPlod has really chosen to interpret this as a threat on Protic’s life, and is wasting police time and public money on it, then somebody needs to have a word. Wales Eye first tweet

As for Parry himself, well, I’m almost beginning to feel sorry for him, especially as I understand now how Wales Eye works. It was started in order to run propaganda against opponents of the Labour Party and also to put out stories that Parry’s friends in the Cardiff media bubble are afraid to break themselves, from fear of legal action or of alienating the powerful. Once Parry has put these stories ‘in the public domain’ this allows Shipton and others to run with them, now quoting Parry. It’s all there in the early postings. And the Wales Eye Twitter timeline also gives plenty of clues as to the nature of the beast.Wales Eye WRU

Such as the great WRU scoop stopped by the threat of legal action. Neither the Beeb nor Llais y Sais would dare be first to use such a story . . . but if Parry could oblige by breaking it for them then that would let them off the hook. Rhun ap Iorwerth was another who came in for a lot of attention around the time he was leaving the BBC to stand for Plaid Cymru in the Ynys Môn by-election of August 1st, 2013. Much of what Parry wrote about the Plaid candidate could only have come from inside BBC ‘Wales’. (Though it also betrays a certain personal animus.) Some of it was crude and racist, but it’s what we expect from ‘Welsh’ Labour and those who push its message. Then, in researching my most recent post, about nepotism and the Labour Party, I noticed that Parry hadRhun moniker written about the Business School at Swansea University, then, making it obvious how the relationship works, Shipton wrote up the same story in the Wasting Mule.

Phil Parry is no more than a kept man, reliant for his ‘exclusives’ on what his friends feed him, these being stories they prefer – for whatever reason – not to use themselves, or not until he has put them in the public domain. Or else attacking Labour’s political opponents – Plaid Cymru more than others – in ways that the mainstream media could not get way with, not least because of the crude racism, and blind hostility to the Welsh language. All very squalid, but no more than we have come to expect from the Labour Party in Wales and the Cardiff media bubble.

The ‘Welsh’ Labour Party and its Evil Empire

On By JacIn Cardiff, Welsh Government, Welsh Labour31 Comments

As regular readers will be aware, certain people have been saying all sorts of nasty things about me, even trying to get my collar felt. These attacks almost certainly result from my criticisms of the Labour Party, its scrounging cronies in the Third Sector, and the influence of London-loyal civil servants wielding far too much power in a country we are asked to believe James Pritchardis now running its own affairs in so many spheres.

Unintentionally perhaps, these attacks on me exposed the linkages between the Labour Party, the police, and certain elements of the Labour-supporting media, specifically, Martin Shipton at Media Wales and his venomous little sidekick, Phil Parry at the Wales Eye blog. I am not the only one who has found himself on the receiving end of such machinations. Indeed, the other victim, who has recently been in contact, has suffered more than me, and although now hors de combat still suffers petty harassment and vindictive behaviour, but to cut a long story short . . .

A name mentioned to me, that might suggest – until very recently, anyway – a link between the police and Media Wales, is James Pritchard, see his Linkedin profile here, or here in pdf. You will see that Pritchard, educated at Rydal School, Bae Colwyn, and Swansea University was, between 2001 and 2004, the London Editor of Media Wales, and from January 2013 to October 2014 Assistant Director, Corporate Communications at South Wales Police. After leaving Media Wales Pritchard worked for Westminster City Council for a couple of years, where he gained a brief notoriety for an incident reported here in the Daily Telegraph. And here’s a nice picture of Jimmy (fourth from left, front row), back in Swansea with his London cricket team; though why does his captain refer to him as the “Ageing lothario”!

When he’s not sating his overactive libido Pritchard likes to gamble, in fact, looking at his Twitter account I see that he follows dozens of bookies, tipsters and others associated with the Turf, with many following him! Clearly, Jimmy Boy loves the ladies and the gee-gees, and so can’t help coming across as a bit of a chancer, certainly a swordsman, talking of which, and staying with the police . . .

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The elections for Police and Crime Commissioners in November 2012 didn’t exactly have people fighting to get into the polling stations. In the South Wales Police area the turnout was a risible 14.7% and it saw Alun Michael, former Labour MP (and, very briefly, First Secretary), get 47% of the first round vote and 54.4% in the second round run-off against his Independent rival Michael Baker. So Alun Michael became the Labour PCC for South Wales with the votes of some 8% of the electorate. A ringing endorsement for him and the Labour Howe tweetParty to take control of the Police and Crime Commissioner office.

Control helped when, in February 2013, Sophie Howe, former Labour councillor and Special Adviser to both Rhodri Morgan and Carwyn Jones was – “after a public advert and open selection process” (i. e. ‘open’ to Labour Party members) – appointed Michael’s deputy. Her Linkedin profile (here in pdf) suggests that like so many others associated with ‘Welsh’ Labour she’s a) a lawyer, and b) has never had a ‘real’ job; by which I mean that all her positions have been gained through her membership of the Labour Party. Though it seems that despite having been close to so many top Labour men she is currently on the cardboard chicken circuit and dodging the gropers while seeking a seat. So with three young children to care for and her other work for the party, it’s reasonable to assume that Deputy PCC is just another political sinecure rather than her first real job.

Despite this being another dreary saga of Labour Party corruption and nepotism, with undesirable linkages and malicious leaking thrown in, this being Labour, the laughs are never far away. For example, Alun Michael appears to have two Twitter accounts, oneSophie Howe other merged as Alun Michael, the other as the PCC, which might seem reasonable enough. Though many PCC tweets go out on his ‘personal’ account! Curiously, he has more followers as himself than as PCC, so is he that interesting?

Naturally, Alun Michael follows Sophie Howe, and as a loyal underling desperately seeking a seat, she reciprocates. But Alun Michael also follows another Sophie Howe, many of whose own followers’ tweets are ‘secured’, suggesting . . . well, I’d rather not think about it. Is this Sophie Howe the deputy PCC’s alter ego or someone else entirely? And if she is a different young woman, why is Alun Michael, the Police and Crime Commission for the South Wales Police, following her?

This idea of the alter ego on Twitter amuses me. Take this from the ‘real’ Sophie Howe, retweeting a tweet of Leighton Andrews (the grotesque on the right in the picture above). The tweet attacks a Plaid Cymru AM who, along with others, had raised the issue of the unhealthy links between the Third Sector and the Labour Party, and how Labour’s private army, dependent on patronage, harasses AMs on behalf of the party. (Andrews chose to deliberately misinterpret this criticism of the Labour – Third Sector nexus as ‘sexism’!) Despite this tweet from Andrews being so obviously party political, it’s apparently OK for the ‘impartial’ Deputy PCC to join in because it’s done on her personal Twitter account!

But then, given the Labour-leaning media that Wales suffers, who’s going to make an issue of such hypocrisy and double standards when it comes from a woman who may officially be the Deputy PCC but, no matter what her title, is always working for the Labour Party, and can brazenly display that bias.

UPDATE 20.03.2015: I have now been informed that Sophie Howe is the daughter of another Labour apparatchik, Peter Howe. He was at one time the office manager for Julie Morgan and, allegedly, something of a bully. Julie Morgan was of course Labour MP for Cardiff North until 2010 and is the wife of Rhodri. Howe was an unsuccessful Labour candidate in 2008 for the Whitchurch and Tongwynlais ward, where electors found him considerably less attractive than his daughter, which might account for him subsequently being passed over by Labour selection panels, something that might have embittered him.

*

The fellow-victim to whom I’ve referred has provided me with an insight from the other side, as it were, having had experience inside the Cardiff bubble. The story he tells substantiates much of what I knew, or had worked out, with other behaviour that I – having led a sheltered and blameless life – never suspected.Howe retweet More of which anon . . .

Let’s take Our Glorious Leader. I’ve always argued that he is a weak and vacillating individual who pipes up only when squeezed like some child’s toy, and then usually with something idiotic like his pre-referendum threat to veto any currency union between the FUK and an independent Scotland following a Yes vote in the independence referendum. As if he could! My contact confirms what I have long suspected, Carwyn Jones is a plaything of his special advisers and civil servants, pulled this way and that, but he always ends up serving the interests of London and the Labour Party.

This is allowed to happen – by the ultimate controllers up in London – because in Wales Labour is the ‘establishment’ party, and viewed as the bulwark against any Scottish-style ‘problems’ (not that Plaid Cymru poses much of a threat). It could be that someone up in London follows the old US State Department dictum and looks at ‘Welsh’ Labour thinking, ‘They may be sons of bitches, but they’re our sons of bitches!’. How else do we explain Labour being allowed to build up a vast network of cronies and hangers-on to support it and keep it in power, with virtually all those making up this network – even the media – dependent to a greater or lesser degree on the public purse? A network whose members contribute nothing to the wealth of Wales other than their spending power, which of course is derived from the public purse in the first place! And you still wonder why Wales is so poor!

This network guarantees Labour – and, consequently, Unionist – control over many aspects of Welsh life. If that makes no sense to you, or you think I’m exaggerating, then just remember that in Scotland at the moment, though obviously to a much lesser degree in Wales, ideological politics is dead, or at least in suspended animation, for what matters is the constitutional debate and holding the Union together. This is why we hear commentators speculate on a previously unthinkable Conservative – Labour coalition. And why people in MI5 and GCHQ who think Hitler was a dangerous liberal will be doing their best – with the help of their tame media – to make Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy look like a composite of William Wallace, Jimmy Reid and Superman as we near polling day on May 7.

*

While much of what I have learnt lately accords with what I previously knew or suspected, my new source was able to tell me of behaviour of which I was previously unaware; which is hardly surprising, given its nature. I’m talking now about sex. More specifically, a very easy-going attitude that you wouldn’t need to be a maiden aunt to regard as rather shocking. For example, there’s the ex-minister universally known as ‘Shagger ______’. Then there’s the very senior civil servant who likes to film himself having sex, and uses his official credit card to pay for rooms in London where his epic performances can be saved for posterity on video and still footage. In addition, there’s wife-swapping and group sex available down the Bay with very little of this involving, ahem, professionals. For we are talking here of talented and enthusiastic amateurs.

Yet despite Cardiff being a relatively small city, and with the Bay bubble throbbing with scandal, little of this will be reported in the ‘Welsh’ media. The only cases tKeith Davies 2o surface are instances of laddish drunkenness, and incidents where there are witnesses. One gem in this category was provided by the ever-thirsty Keith Davies, AM for Llanelli, when he took some slapper back to his five star hotel. (He has to stay in Cardiff because Llanelli is 700 miles away . . . and his wife lives there.) Here’s a photo of Keith Davies taken at last year’s National Eisteddfod in Llanelli. He’s the one on the floor suffering, according to Labour, from a virus. I know the feeling, I had a ‘virus’ of Argentine red Saturday night, and very nice it was too, Shiraz.

Then, a few weeks ago, while looking into something totally different, I ran across this example of hanky-panky among the comrades. It’s almost as if fidelity and sobriety are rejected as bourgeois values that should not apply to the right-on, morally superior, posture-adopting, self-congratulatory (but still angst-ridden), freedom-loving, eco-friendly paragons of ‘Welsh’ Labour.

And while writing this piece I learnt of this story of a Labour councillor from Cardiff who’s moved 100 miles to Pembrokeshire, but intends to stay on as a councillor and collect her Cardiff council allowances. Though I’m assured by another Cardiff councillor that she is hard-working and dedicated to serving her ward. It is further suggested that she is on the wrong side in the civil war currently raging inside the Cardiff Labour Party. (Who shouted, ‘Arm both sides!‘?) Giving us another example of how Labour operates – make waves, or challenge those in power, and you will, at the very least, be briefed against. But your problems could be even worse if you leave Labour and have the potential to seriously damage the party with your revelations.

Which is what has been happening recently to my fellow-victim, and why he describes the Labour Party in Wales as being like a cult. For just as with a cult, it was after he’d left the party, and his job in the Bay, that his problems really began. Police came to the house he shares with his teenage son over a minute book belonging to a charity he himself had founded and had handed over to someone else eight months previously. Now the thing to understand here is that there was no police investigation into the charity so the whereabouts of that minute book had nothing to do with the police. This heavy-handed visit is inexplicable . . . unless South Wales Police was harrasing him at the behest of ‘Welsh’ Labour. A worrying thought.

But a valid one, because it soon became clear to my contact that he was being watched, and that someone, somewhere, was carefully sifting through his every action and utterance, present and past, in a search for anything that could be used to discredit him. He has been further pursued by the police over trivial and domestic matters. He has suffered electronic and other sabotage, such as being unable to use his credit cards, having unsummoned taxis arrive, and being accused of insane things by persons who appear to be manipulated by Labour’s Third Sector cronies.

In my case, I have recently been called an ‘extremist’, attacked for being a member (forty-odd years ago) of the Free Wales Army, and accused of launching a ‘race hate’ social housing petition (see it in my sidebar) that a) was perfectly reasonable and b) had nothing to do with me. Yet neither Phil Parry nor Martin Shipton would have taken any interest in me, and would certainly not be trying to get me arrested, if I wasn’t a regular critic of their Labour Party and its empire of evil. The question I ask is, are they doing this off their own bat, or are they acting on instructions from within ‘Welsh’ Labour? Either way, I promise to keep them busy.

*

The Labour Party in Wales is now comparable to the ruling party in a crumbling totalitarian state. Due to the absence of any real opposition it is out of control, a law unto itself. There is no independent media to hold it to account beyond a few websites and lone bloggers. Enough power has been devolved from the centre to allow this situation to develop, but we are consistently denied a judicial system that might hold it to account. (Is this coincidence?) And before our eyes we see this party that always places its own survival above the best interests of the people become ever more corrupt and desperate as its power ebbs. This party that once acted as a magnet for idealists now draws careerists, shysters, single-issue obsessives, and probably contains more spin doctors than socialists. Without its regular intake of activists – mainly English – from the universities, the Third Sector, the trade unions and elsewhere, the Labour Party in Wales would find it very difficult to continue functioning at grass roots and local authority level. (This is one reason Labour wants to reduce the number of councils.) But perhaps worst of all, Labour doesn’t seem to understand that it’s doing anything wrong. Or if Labour does understand, then maybe it thinks itself untouchable.

Labour is coming to the end of a long road, but unlike in Scotland there is no obvious successor, so we may be entering a period in Welsh Assembly politics that sees no party enjoy an overall majority. In which case, Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats should start thinking of persuasive excuses if they’re considering going into coalition in 2016 with this corrupt and decadent party that is, in all that really matters, no different to the Conservatives. The reputation of Wales, the prosperity of her people, the integrity of her public life, and the vitality of her democracy, all demand that the Labour Party be denied power, and then the evil empire Labour has created to keep it in power must be dismantled.

Where Is Franz Kafka When You Need Him?

On By JacIn Welsh Labour, Welsh Media13 Comments

As regular readers will know, I have been having problems from the Wales Eye blog and the Western Mail / Wales Online, they’ve been misrepresenting what they find in my blog and, when that isn’t enough, they’ve just told blatant lies. The story of my relationship with Wales Eye unfolds, chronologically, in the following posts: Cymrophobia and the Many Identities of Jacques Protic (14.08.2013);  Wales Eye & Jacques Protic – a Marriage Made in Hell (11.09.2014); Wales Eye, Jacques Protic and North Wales Police (21.10.2014); Seeking a Latter-day Waldorf T. Flywheel (19.01.2015); I Must Be Doing Something Right! (28.01.2015); Now I KNOW I’m Doing Something Right! (03.02.2015); Helping A Man In A Hole (05.02.2015).

Things came to a head recently with Plaid Glyndŵr’s petition on social housing, for which I provide a link in my sidebar. The assault started with a strange tweet from Martin Shipton, chief reporter at Llais y Sais, on the afternoon of January 26th, asking for my phone number in order to discuss “your housing petition”. When I received the Shipton tweet I was unaware of the Wales Eye piece, because of course it hadn’t yet appeared, so I innocently and helpfully tweeted Shipton back, explaining my relationship with the petition.

Shipton request combined

Overnight the Wales Eye article by Phil Parry was published saying, “A website which urges a policy of Welsh homes only for Welsh people has been reported to the police for inciting racial hatred, Wales Eye can reveal”. Martin Shipton said the same thing in the Western Mail / WalesOnline, and despite what I’d told him, he began his piece with, “The Wales Eye news website discloses that the Jac O’the North blog has been reported to South Wales Police after launching a petition” Significantly, perhaps, the WalesOnline article soon became (and remains) unavailable.

In the hope of getting redress I contacted the legal department of Trinity Mirror, the company that owns Llais y Sais, on Februay 2nd. On the 25th I received an e-mail from a Paul Mottram, which said:

“I refer to your Wales Online apology 1complaint dated 2nd February and apologise for the late reply.

The Western Mail has obtained a statement from the police saying the following: ‘South Wales Police was contacted by a member of the public who was concerned at the language used in a blog posted under the name of ‘jacothenorth’.

The content of the blog was scrutinised and no offence was committed.

The reporting person has been spoken to and given assurances that no criminality has taken place’.

Media Wales would be happy to publish the fact that no offence was committed on the walesonline website to resolve this issue.

If that is satisfactory, I will arrange for it to be published.”

Eventually Mottram anWestern Mail apologyd I agreed on the wording that appeared on the WalesOnline website on Friday the 27th of February and on page 2 of the following day’s edition of the Wasting Mule. You can read both on the left (click to enlarge).

You may find the synchronicity in this episode noteworthy, for the Wales Eye piece by Parry was posted on Tuesday, January 27, and the WalesOnline version was timed at 06:30 on the same day. I should imagine that the Wales Eye piece appeared in the early hours, otherwise Shipton would have been quoting from a blog post that hadn’t yet appeared! There was obviously collusion, the proof being the tweet from Shipton asking about the petition. In fact, Shipton is almost acting as Parry’s researcher!

Yet the two accounts differ significantly in their conclusions. The Wales Eye piece, after relating – yet again! – the horrors endured by ultra bigot Jacques Protic, and how he was failed by GogPlod, ends thus:

“Now, it appears, the target of the Jac O’ the North website is incomers (presumably a reference to the Plaid Glyndŵr petition) and this has led to another police inquiry.

Perhaps this one will be the last.”

Whereas the WalesOnline article by Tub O’Lard ends like this:

“It is understood that South Wales Police will not forward the complaint about Mr Jones to the Crown Prosecution Service.”

So Shipton already knew that the police were not taking the complaint seriously when he wrote his piece, and seeing as he and Parry were collaborating so closely, Parry must also have known, but he chose not to say because to have done so would have undermined his attack on me. Worse, he pretends to believe that the complaint will lead to action resulting in the closing down of my blog, and yet . . .

Parry gives the game away that he knows the police have thrown out the complaint with the caption he attaches to the petition link he lifted from my blog. (My intellectual property.) For in it he says: “Petition calling for social housing for Welsh Wales Eye petitionpeople which was investigated by the police”. Not is being investigated by the police but ‘was’. Clearly Parry knew when he wrote his nonsense that the police had thrown out the complaint. But maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe all that mattered was that a complaint had been made, which allowed Parry and Llais y Sais to write their libellous bollocks.

The lies written by Parry and Shipton referred specifically to the Plaid Glyndŵr petition, but if you look at the reply I got from Trinity Mirror, it reads: “The content of the blog was scrutinised (by police) and no offence was committed”. So if this really does mean the blog, rather than the petition, are we now talking of two complaints, or more than two? Worth asking because Parry also got his knickers in a twist over the old FWA photographs on my blog, with Shipton again acting as his ‘researcher’.

Yet despite him knowing, and finally admitting, that the police were not taking the original complaint against me seriously, Parry can’t resist upping the ante in his February 4th posting, Arms Race, with:

“An earlier probe by a Police Constable and Inspector of South Wales Police into alleged racism on the blog was aborted for lack of evidence.

But now the police have received more information after several complaints about inflammatory comments and decided to take action.FWA combined

A complainant was contacted by a senior officer who said several similar protests were made to the police following the revelations about the petition and a decision has been reached to pursue the inquiry.”

What ‘racism’? Does he mean the petition? But the only group mentioned in the petition are the Welsh! ‘Inflammatory comments’. Does he really mean comments, things said by visitors to my blog? What possible ‘revelations’ could there be about a simple, self-explanatory, 21-word petition in plain English?

So if Phil Parry is to be believed (yes, I know), people are queuing up to report me to Plod! Rubbish of course, but still, we must consider the various possibilities here, which appear to be: 1/ South Wales Police misled Trinity Mirror, which means that the clarification published on Friday is unreliable. 2/ Phil Parry is privy to everything the police are doing and is therefore the only one who really knows what’s going on. 3/ Phil Parry is an obsessive fantasist who’s taken an intense dislike to me. 4/ Somebody is pulling Parry (and possibly Shipton’s) strings, and perhaps protecting Trinity Mirror’s interests by getting Parry to write the bilge leaving Llais y Sais able to argue that it’s merely relaying what someone else has written. Make up your own minds. If it helps, no police officer, from any force, has ever been in contact with me.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I submitted a Freedom of Information request to South Wales Police; it can be found here, together with the first page of the reply. Which says, in essence, ‘We can’t give you the informtion you request because that would breach your data protection rights’! There were a few other pages and a form for me to officially ask if they hold any information on me. But what’s the point, I’ve been through this rigmarole before with North Wales Police over the Protic allegations.

Looking at the four options I’ve posited above, I choose number four, because I can’t believe that Parry and Shipton believe what they’re writing. No rational and balanced individual could possibly think that a petition asking for social housing to be allocated (but not exclusively) to Welsh people ‘incites racial hatred’. And do they really believe that the authorities would be interested in photographs taken almost half a century ago of men who are now almost all dead! Or that those same authorities care that I knew these men? Or to put it another way, when it comes to my support for the FWA, or my respect for John Jenkins, do Parry and Shipton seriously believe that they’re telling the police, MI5, or anyone else, anything they haven’t known for decades? So why bother?

This is not journalists breaking stories, this is history lessons spiced up with lies, hyperbole and silly, time-wasting complaints to the police for a contemporary purpose. Another example of the desperation on display is Parry quoting my playful references to alcohol having been consumed in some of the scenes depicted in those 1960s photographs, as if this somehow damns me! Effectively saying, ‘Oh my God! look at this – a group of young men in the late ’60s, and they used to drink!’ What it really shows is that Phil Parry will use anything, however innocent or banal, in his pathetic and increasingly desperate attempts to blacken my name.

Consequently, the only conclusions I can draw are that either Parry and Shipton have lost all sense of proportion and the instinct for what makes a good story (in which case they shouldn’t be allowed near a keyboard), or that this is some kind of a silly game, in which they are no more than pawns.

OMG! I Have Offended The ‘Progressives’!

On By JacIn Labour Party, Welsh Media24 Comments

Campbell mergedLast Friday I started receiving tweets from a Denis Campbell @UKProgressive. A complete stranger to me (thank God!), it was immediately apparent that he is a friend or colleague of Phil Parry at Wales Eye. Some of these tweets are worth repeating here (click to enlarge), the full exchange can be found either on his Twitter timeline or mine.

It seems that Campbell along with Parry and a Dario Llinares are the self-proclaimed UK Progressives. (Though Campbell has a North American accent.) They have a blog, or rather, some kind of news feed, with most of the news – perhaps unsurprisingly – coming from the USA. Better yet (for the masochists among you), these three produce a weekly podcast of comment on politics and current affairs as The Three Three MuckrakersMuckrakers. Not a name I would have chosen, but there you are.

If you’ve got the stomach for it, a list of their podcasts is available here. And here’s a YouTube link to one on Ukip. It was posted over four months ago but has attracted just 130 views, most of which – to judge by the comments – have come from outraged Kippers. Anyway, this whole podcast concept strikes me as being very, very weird. It’s basically three blokes talking to each other, on film, and somehow believing that out there, in the big wide world, somebody cares. I’m holding a £20 note that says there is nobody out there who gives a fuck about what these three self-deluding tossers think about anything.

Something else worth noting is that while I have no doubt they would describe themselves as being anti-war and against militarism, especially that daemon of the Strangelove era the Military-Industrial complex, Campbell does love his martial metaphors and allusions – “When I go into battle against the inept Govt here . . . @WalesEye covering my back!” And “Shoot at one, you shoot at us all.” (Now there’s a thought!) All this from a keyboard warrior; no different to me, you might argue, except that I haven’t always been one.

*

Then, on Sunday, I received a strange tweet from another unrecognised source, which simply read Parry kids tweet#SonofaVermin. I eventually worked out that it must be from Parry’s son. (The boy’s command of the English language is on a par with his pa.) On Monday I received a similar tweet from – presumably – Parry’s daughter. Rather surprised by these interventions I responded to both with the tweet on the left. To explain the reference to ‘Vermin’. This is the word I used to end my previous post. I used it because anyone familiar with Welsh political history will know it’s a word employed by Aneurin Bevan to describe Conservatives. I believe the actual phrase was, ‘lower than vermin’. I then received a few more tweets on the ‘vermin’ theme, presumably from friends of Parry’s kids. I was very Chris Waredisappointed to see Parry rope in his kids and their friends, but then, if the man can report me to the police for things I haven’t done, and get his fat friend on Llais y Sais to repeat those lies, why should I be surprised at anything? Can I now expect a hostile tweet from his Auntie Gwladys? (‘He’s being nasty to me, Auntie Gwlad’.)

Monday saw someone else join in the attack with a series of tweets from a Chris Ware, who lives in ‘Penarth, UK’. I soon established that Ware belongs to the Cardiff menutter tweetdia bubble. The Labour-supporting Cardiff media bubble. We had a fairly heated exchange which Ware concluded by reminding me that “the world has far bigger problems than these tiddly ones in Wales”. Our exchange was obviously being followed because one of Ware’s tweets was re-tweeted twice – once by Phil Parry and once by, er, Wales Eye! Early in this exchange there was an interjection from Wales Eye, favourited by Ware. I publish it, and my response, on the left. (Click to enlarge.)

*

I think we are dealing here with the slithery, sneering, self-righteous soft Left that wet its knickers when Tony and Cherie arrived in Downing Street. In Wales they preach ‘internationalism’ as a way of avoiding the mess their party has made of Wales, preferring to waffle impotently about things over which they can have no influence and then condemn as ‘racist’ anyone wanting to make things better for our people in our country. Because of course, to even suggest that Wales is less than perfect is to condemn the record of their party.

These creatures are to be found everywhere, they almost form a ruling class, representing no one but themselves . . . and of course, the Labour Party, ‘Welsh’ Labour, that rag-bag of third-raters that serves no useful purpose beyond being colonial England’s agent, in return foProtic Labourr which it is allowed to dish out the funding and the jobs to its supporters.

Given that Protic is Labour, as are Parry and Shipton, and so probably are the other two Muckrakers, while the latest poodle to join the attack is most definitely a bruvver, this probably explains why Parry and Shipton have been reading through my blogs, checking old photographs, following my tweets, looking for something to use against me in the hope of discrediting me and what I write about the Labour Party. The only question is whether they’re doing it off their own bat, or whether somebody in the Labour Party has had a word, and asked them to go after me.

Either way, I’m fairly certain now that these attacks on me from Wales Eye and Llais y Sais are retaliation for my attacks on the Labour Party. That being so, I shall not waste any more time on Parry and his gang unless they go too far or unless there are developments in other quarters. With an election approaching it’s only right that I concentrate on putting the boot into ‘Welsh’ Labour, and doing it hard and often.

Helping A Man In A Hole

On By JacIn History, Nostalgia, Welsh Nationalism55 Comments
FOR THE BENEFIT OF PHIL PARRY AT WALES EYE,
WHO CLEARLY NEEDS ME AND MY BLOG FOR INSPIRATION

 

It was a cold and dark January day threatening snow when (the late) Glyn Rowlands and I drove down to Lampeter in the vehicle I’d just carjacked. (Took me ages to get the bugger out, and then another ten minutes to get used to the disabled driver controls.) To break up the journey we set a couple of holiday cottages ablaze on the way down. At one point we got chased by cops but we forced their car into a hedge just outside of Llanrhystud. Oh, the fun we used to have in those days!

Arriving at Glandenys it was wonderful to see the stately pile look so warm and inviting. We were stopped at the gates by members of an elite unit of the Free Wales Army who, together with their dogs, were patrolling the grounds. We were escorted up to the main entrance and there he was, our host – Commandant Julian Cayo-Evans of the Free Wales Army, looking every inch the officer and the country gentleman.

We were ushered into the big dining room where everything was prepared for the ceremony: the roaring fire, the flickering candles casting their eerie shadows in a room full of invited dignitaries. There was the KGB representative, a man from the IRA Army Council, an imposing individual from ODESSA with an eye-patch (surely not Skorzeny!), a top capo from the Chicago Outfit, and assorted emissaries from Argentina and other countries that had a beef with England. In fact, there was very little space to move in that vast dining room. Additionally, there were of course many high-ranking FWA men.

Before the ceremony began there was the customary mingling, small talk, and exchanging of business cards. I found myself in a fascinating conversation with a charming fellow from the Orient. I’m not sure if he was trying to sell me a rubber plantation or offering me his sister in marriage. (The hand signals are very similar.) Whatever, not being sure what I’d end up with – and having no need for either – I smiled politely, declined his enticing offer, and insisted that we have a skinful next time he was in my neck of the woods.Medals

All the while the drinks flowed, and before John Barleycorn could take his disruptive hold of the proceedings our host called for everyone’s attention. “Friends, comrades, even those of you who’ve just turned up for the booze, we are gathered here today to present our comrade Jac with his medals”. “Hooray” went the shout around the room, “Good old Jac” was heard echoing from the throng.

I stepped forward – careful not to trip over the entrails of the virgin we’d just sacrificed – and stood facing our Commandant. “Jac” said he, “you’ve been an absolute bastard lately, and to show our appreciation I am presenting you with these medals”. Well, I was overcome, tears welled up as I thanked Cayo and the assembled host . . . among which I could see the man I had previously been talking with, still making hand signals, only this time it looked as if he was propositioning me! But as I say, the gestures are easy to mis-read.

The ceremony over, we all got down to serious drinking. The man from the KGB jumped up onto the long dining table and did a Cossack dance before falling off onto the prostrate figure of a Salvation Army Colonel who’d overdone it on the single malt. Next it was the turn of the Papal legate to denounce, in Latin, the evils of drink, whilst emptying his second bottle of Sambuca. Everybody was having a great time, but then we noticed that the snow was now falling rather more heavily and so, despite Cayo’s insistence that we stay, Glyn and I grabbed a few bottles and staggered to the car for the trip home.

What a trip it was! First we knocked down a couple of old ladies on their way to chapel in Felinfach, then we hit a cow just outside Aberaeron! I know we shouldn’t have been in the field, but it was snowing and we were pissed. After that things got a bit better . . . though that cyclist in Aberarth was definitely asking for it. We got through Aberystwyth without hitting too many pedestrians and eventually reached home. What a day!

*

OK, maybe it wasn’t quite like that. But the day I got my medals was certainly a snowy Sunday, and Cayo and Glyn were definitely there, but after that it gets a little hazy. It was all a long time ago . . . but not too long that it can’t be twisted by a vindictive little bugger with an ignored blog who relies for readers on his fat friend at Llais y Sais and other contacts in the colonial media.

I cherish those medals; I wear them at Cilmeri and to old comrades’ funerals. They belong to a time when it looked, if only for a while, as if we Welsh had re-discovered our self-respect, and decided to stand up for ourselves. Sadly, that bright dawn of the 1960s was soon overtaken by the reaction to it, to the point where, today, people who really should know better believe that our sham devolution is some form of self-government. When in truth it is the antithesis of self-government; more decisions about Wales are taken in London today than ever before. And all the while, those who claim to love Wales refuse to challenge the system that is making us a minority in our own country.

And the medals, what were they for? That’s between me and men who are all dead. Better men than the despicable scribblers who denigrate and ridicule those who are unable to answer back. Vermin!

Now I KNOW I’m Doing Something Right!

On By JacIn History, Welsh Media, Welsh Nationalism24 Comments

As you might guess, this (originally short) post is a follow-up to my previous one, I Must Be Doing Something Right. It seems that Phil Parry at Wales Eye and Martin Shipton at Llais y Sais just won’t let go . . . though their persistence is not to be compared to slavering pit bulls, more like drowning men clutching at straws. FWA combined

Yesterday afternoon I received a tweet from Fat Boy, you can see it for yourself on the right, together with my response. (Click to enlarge.) Yes, I was flippant, partly because I have difficulty taking the man seriously and also because I’d caught some bug that had me in bed by seven o’clock. I should have guessed that this was the prelude to another attack on me but, as I’ve said, I was feeling rough and on my way to bed.

Refreshed by fifteen hours of sleep I powered up my computer this morning to learn that after I’d gone to bed Shipton had tweeted again, this time about paramilitary Shipton JJ combinedactivity and John Jenkins. His tweet and my response can be found on the left. (Click to enlarge.) What was it all about? I soon found out thanks to an e-mail from a supporter directing me to a tweet from Phil Parry at Wales Eye. (Below.) Again, I replied, and again, the response was somewhat flippant because, quite frankly, and with the best will in the world, I regard the man as an arsehole.

Anyway, it seems I am a “controversial commentator” (thank God for that!) and I support a paramilitary organisation. Which organisation would that be? I certainly support the various Kurdish militias fighting their people’s many enemies, but somehow I don’t think Parry is thinking of the Kurds. Given Lard Boy’s tweets yesterday we can safely assume that tomorrow, Wales Eye will run a World Exclusive! that I, Jac o’ the North, Swansea Jack, Royston Jones, supportWales Eye paramilitary combed the Free Wales Army . . . an organisation that ceased to exist around 1970.

This Earth-shattering news will be taken up by media outlets around the globe, Muscovites will stop complete strangers in a Red Square blizzard to ask, ‘Have you heard about that bastard Royston Jones supporting the Free Wales Army?’ And the response will be, ‘That’s nothing, I’ve heard he used to go drinking with that Cayo Evans in Lampeter’. Before they both shuffle off safe in the knowledge that President Putin would know how to deal with the likes of me. Then again, the coverage might be limited to Fat Boy at the Western Mail. In fact, I’m prepared to bet that the uptake will be limited to Llais y Sais.

So what’s going on here? It started off with Wales Eye, from out of a clear blue sky, attacking me in this concoction on September 2nd. A week or so later Wales Eye ran another piece about the persecution fantasies of Jacques Protic due (allegedly) to something I’d written about him, and this resulted in a North Wales Police enquiry. Then Wales Eye told us that I had been reported to South Wales Police for launching a ‘racial hatred’ petition . . . a petition that I did not launch. (But, understandably, Wales Eye neglected to tell us exactly who reported me.) This lie was then repeated almost verbatim by Martin Shipton in the Western Mail, and in WalesOnline, even though I’d put him straight. (See below.) Now it seems I am to be ‘outed’ as a supporter of paramilitary activity, a member of the Free Wales Army, and an admirer of John Jenkins. (Thank God they don’t know about that statue in Aber’!)

Shipton request combined

What sort of an arrangement is this that sees one of Wales’ most respected journalists (though not respected by me, obviously) acting as researcher for a vindictive blogger? Does Trinity Mirror plc pay Shipton’s salary for him to behave in this demeaning manner? But then, Shipton and Parry are both Labour, and Trinity Mirror has a record of supporting the Labour Party in Wales; who can forget the short-lived Welsh Mirror that crept from under a stone in the wake of Labour’s failure to gain a majority in the first Assembly elections of 1999? This rag was nothing but a platform for Paul Starling Parry, Shipton compositeto spew his hatred for all things Welsh, dressed up of course as ‘combatting the evils of nationalism’.

With an election approaching, is Trinity Mirror doing ‘Welsh’ Labour another favour by targetting me? For those tempted to answer with, ‘You’re not important enough, Jac’, I would answer that I’m obviously important enough for the chief reporter of Llais y Sais to sift through my blog postings, check my photographs, and to monitor my tweets, looking for anything that could be presented as remotely incriminating. It’s clearly a concerted attempt to discredit me and, by extension, what I write. So why is it happening?

Anyway, the whole point of writing this was to prepare my easily shocked readers for the news that tomorrow, on the Wales Eye blog, ace investigator and top notch political analyst, Phil Parry will break the news that I supported direct action. This will then be relayed by his fat friend over at Llais y Sais. And that, my friends, just about sums up the dire state of what today passes for ‘the Welsh media’. Stop Press: Here’s Parry’s World Exclusive!, in pdf format (saving you having to pay to read it). Oh, yes, make sure you’re not eating anything, otherwise you might choke laughing.

P.S. To save certain ‘journalists’ unnecessary delving into my past I shall set the record straight on a few things.

  • I did not sink the Titanic, honest!
  • I may have met Gavrilo Princip at a social event.
  • I was not responsible for the Wall Street Crash.
  • I played no part in the invasion of Abbysinia.
  • I never served in the SS . . . well, not before 1944, anyway.
  • I was never a hippy in the 1960s (though I did wear flares).
  • I did not kill JFK, it was the New Orleans Mob (I was with the Chicago Outfit).
  • I had no hand in the break-up of the Beatles.
  • I was nowhere near Watergate.
  • I have no idea where Jimmy Hoffa is buried (God bless him).
  • I did not invade Las Malvinas The Falklands.
  • I had no involvement in the collapse of the Soviet Union.
  • I am not related to Slobodan Milosovic (try Protic on that one).
  • I was never formally introduced to Saddam Hussein.
  • I did not vote Yes in last September’s Scottish independence referendum.
  • I have recommended you both for the very highest awards your profession can bestow.

I Must Be Doing Something Right!

On By JacIn Colonisation of Wales, Third Sector, Welsh Media28 Comments

I had hoped to have a few days off after posting my previous piece but would you believe it – Wales Eye is having a pop at me again, this time helped by the Wasting Mule. It began – though I had no way of knowing it at the time – with a Twitter message from Martin Shipton on Monday about the link at the top of my sidebar, to which I replied. See the exchange for yourself below.

Shipton request combined

I thought no more of it until yesterday morning when I was alerted to the fact that there was a piece about me on the WalesOnline website, though the article was soon ‘pulled’. Fortunately it’s available here in pdf format. Despite what I’d told Fat Boy, he begins his piece thus: “The Wales Eye news website discloses that the Jac O’the North (sic) blog has been reported to South Wales Police after launching a petition”. Why write that when he knew I had not launched any petition? A few tweets Exchange with Shipton 1were exchanged yesterday, you can see them on the left where they appear in chronological order. (Click to enlarge.) A revealing phrase, “predominant language”.

Anyway, the origin of this ‘story’ was obviously Phil Parry over at Wales Eye. Regular readers will know that I’ve had a run-in with Wales Eye over infamous bigot Jacques Protic and him (allegedly) reporting me to North Wales Police. All the relevant information and links are available in my recent post Seeking a Latter-day Waldorf T. Flywheel. I assume Parry has been kicking cats and plotting his revenge since that piece appeared on January 19th. So what exactly was Parry saying? Seeing as the Wales Eye blog hides behind a pay wall, and to save you wasting your money, the article is available here in pdf format.

                        *

The opening paragraph, which contains the essence of the ‘story’, says: “A website which urges a policy of Welsh homes only for Welsh people has been reported to the police for inciting racial hatred, Wales Eye can reveal”. It goes on to say that “an investigation was undertaken by a police constable and inspector” of South Wales Police. The rest of the piece is rehashed nonsense about Protic and old comments taken out of context. Let us focus on this first paragraph.

Obviously, seeing as it’s not my petition, my website is not “urging” anything, I merely offer visitors to my blog the chance to sign a petition I support, and which I have signed. The petition does not argue for “Welsh homes only for Welsh people”, it merely says that Welsh people should have social housing that has been paid for with Welsh public funding . . . is there an objection to that? Now, moving on to “racial hatred”. The only nation mentioned in the petition is the Welsh, so whoever is making this mischief is reading something into the petition that isn’t there.

Elsewhere in the Wales Eye piece there is a graphic of some houses in Kidwelly explained by, “In another post, endorsed by the blog with a re-tweet, families from London who took houses from a Welsh housing association were called ‘perverts'”. WalesOnline says it this way: “In another Twitter posting, re-tweeted by the blog, families from London who took houses from a Welsh housing association were called “perverts”. An aerial picture singles out a number of homes and the tweet says: “Just in one small Welsh town all these houses were allocated to perverts from London by a Welsh housing association.”

Note that this, like the petition, is something else that did not originate with me. Parry is getting pretty desperate now, so here’s the truth. The case referred to is one of a paedophile gang living Dennis' Kidwelly tweetin Kidwelly that was imprisoned in 2011. Here’s a report on the case from the Daily Mail. Here’s a blog post I wrote around the same time. At the risk of frightening Parry and Shipton with facts, here they are: These people had moved – or been moved – from London; they were housed in Kidwelly by a Welsh housing association (Grwp Gwalia); they were all found guilty of paedophilia and other sexual perversions in a court of law. So what is the issue here? The caption to the picture in the tweet is 100% correct. Parry seems to take offence because the tweet calls them “perverts” – so what would he call them, the perfect neighbours? Or maybe he doesn’t like the fact that it was re-tweeted 21 times.

The reason Parry uses this case – which he obviously hasn’t researched – is because it concerns Welsh social housing being given to English people who are labelled “perverts”; which he hopes to use as an example of ‘racial hatred’ in order to confer something resembling credibility on his hysterical reaction to a perfectly reasonable petition. Trouble is, for Parry, that these people weren’t called “perverts” because they were English, they were called “perverts” because they were . . . you paying attention, Parry! Shipton! – PERVERTS.

Here’s an update on the case from last September. Note the English flag outside Colin Bately’s house – for he was a patriot! Complete with two rottweilers. Just think, Welsh housing associations are taking in people like this, knowing what they’re like, because this gang had Phil Parryconvictions before they moved to Wales.

Anyway, I don’t fancy wasting much more time on Parry and Shipton, I’ll just conclude with the final lines from Shipton’s contribution to this joint-venture into fantasy. He says: ‘”Mr Jones said: “Not my petition. I’m just promoting it for Plaid Glyndwr.” It is understood that South Wales Police will not forward the complaint about Mr Jones to the Crown Prosecution Service.’ This was obviously added after the piece had been written, otherwise he wouldn’t have started by saying I’d “launched” the petition. But it also raises other questions.

For example, seeing as Parry and his fat friend were in cahoots over this attemped smear, and the pretext was the ‘racist’ petition, why was I / my blog reported to the police when they both knew it was not my petition? Because even before my tweet to Fatso on Monday the most cursory check would have shown who actually launched the petition. Are these people really journalists!

“South Wales Police will not forward the complaint about Mr Jones to the Crown Prosecution Service” – well, I am relieved; I feared I was bound for the Colonies! But will the police charge whoever made the complaint against me with wasting police time? Come to that, who did report me, for Wales Eye neglects to tell us. Now, I wonder . . .

 *

The truth is – as any perceptive reader will have guessed – these attacks on me have nothing to do with Protic or petitions, it’s an exercise in black propaganda, or to put it an another way, mud slinging. Done so that anyone Googling ‘Royston Jones’ or ‘Jac o’ the North’ in future will turn up crap like this by Parry and Tub O’Lard. And see that I have been reported to the police. Done to discredit me and, by extension, anything I write. So who’s behind it?

Well, my guess is that it can explained by what I write about. My usual targets are the Labour Party and the Third Sector, which is simply an extension of the Labour Party. It may be no coincidence that this latest attack from Wales Eye comes just days after the latest – possibly final – edition of Cambria magazine became available, which contains my article on housing associations, in which I ask why we have so many of them, and why these quasi-private companies receive so much public funding, and why so much of the money they’re given ends up over the border.

Another subject I’ve touched on recently is Canoe Wales and the National White Water Centre on Afon Tryweryn. Today I received the response from Sport Wales to an FoI I’d submitted about funding to Canoe Wales. Read it here. In a poor country where so much needs to be done, how can anyone justify wasting almost two million pounds in just five years on canoeing, an activity that has little or no Welsh involvement? (And there’s almost certainly public funding from other sources.) That’s how Wales is run today, but you aren’t supposed to know. Ask yourself, are you going to get the truth from the BBC, or ITV, or the Western Mail?

I know how corrupt this country is, and I’m beginning to understand just how much money is squandered year after year on a system of sham devolution designed to encourage colonisation and managed decline rather than make Wales a better country for those who belong here. That’s why I have enemies. Enemies so desperate to discredit me they’ll even use clowns like Parry and Shipton. What will they try next?

P.S. Don’t forget to sign the petition!

UPDATE: In the personal attack on me in his latest post Phil Parry refers back to the Jacques Protic case. I have covered most of the angles in this recent post. Parry seems to think he’s on a winner with this, and keeps bringing it up, almost showing off. What I’m saying can perhaps be explained by this extract.

Wales Eye NWP docs

The “inquiry” referred to is a North Wales Police investigation into me or my blog for nasty things it’s claimed I said about Jacques Protic. Reading the extract in the panel, a number of questions arise.

  • By what route did Phil Parry obtain internal police documents; did they come directly from the police, did they come from Protic, or from some third party?
  • As the officers involved in the “inquiry” were first named on Wales Eye on September 10th last, and North Wales Police was made aware of this in my letter received (and acknowledged) on September 17th, we must assume that NWP has no objection to the contents of confidential police documents being aired on a blog.
  • That being so, what is the relationship between Parry and the North Wales Police? Is he working for them, or are the police merely a conduit for some other agency?
  • Even if Parry has no relationship with North Wales Police, then we still need to know why NWP has allowed confidential documents, naming and embarrassing its officers, to be in the public domain for over four months.
  • I wonder what the police response would have been I’d got hold of internal police documents and splashed them on my blog?

I believe it’s time for a little honesty from those involved in this ongoing smear campaign against me.

Dummies, Motorways and Bloodless Genocide

On By JacIn Colonisation of Wales, Devolution, Welsh Government19 Comments

If you scroll down my sidebar you’ll see that, under ‘Jac’s Reads’, one of the blogs I follow is Wales Eye, written by Daran Hill, managing director of Positif, a political lobbying firm in Cardiff docks and an integral part of the self-important but ultimately impotent Cardiff bubble. Don’t think I’m being nasty to Daran Hill, I don’t know the man; to the best of my knowledge our paths have never crossed. But today he posted a piece that made me think, ‘Why doesn’t he get it?’

The information for the piece I’m referring to had probably been fed to him by disgruntled BBC journos. It seems that Edwina Hart, the minister for Economy, Science and Transport does not give live interviews, everything must be pre-recorded. The piece on Wales Eye contained much harrumphing about ‘democracy’ and ‘accountabilty’ but none of those expressing their concerns to Hill understood the real reason for Hart not giving live interviews – the truth is, shAlun D dummye doesn’t know what she’s talking about. And she’s not the only one. Let me explain.

Back in January I posted this, about a statement made by Alun Davies, at the time Minister for Natural Resources and Food, trying to explain why he was taking money from Welsh farmers and transferring it to ‘rural development projects’, i.e. subsidising good-lifers, hippies, Greens and others Wales would be better off without. Here’s a link to the excruciating footage of a squirming, stuttering, Alun Davies telling us why he has decided to do this. (Skip past DET’s intro to 2:03.) The thing to note here is the two civil servants flanking Davies, like prison officers with the defendant in the dock, making sure chummy don’t do nuffin stupid.

After watching Davies’s performance I gave him the benefit of the doubt by thinking that he didn’t believe what he was saying, or that he may not even have understood the full implications of what he was saying, and that he was simply repeating, parrot-fashion, what someone had told him to say. The civil servants were there to make sure he didn’t succumb to a debilitating attack of conscience or patriotism that might have rendered him unuseable.

In short, he was no more than a ventriloquist’s dummy, and the same applies to other ‘ministers’ in the absurdly named ‘Welsh Government’. This is why Edwina Hart doesn’t give live interviews – it’s because she can only repeat what she’s been told to say in a recording that can be re-started when she fluffs her lines. Because, obviously, live interviews run the risk of her being asked questions she cannot answer about policies she had no part in formulating.

Edwina dummyThe piece in Wales Eye was prompted by Hart’s announcement of the Newport by-pass, welcomed by very few in Wales (none that I can see outside of Cardiff). The clue to Hart’s camera shyness is that chancellor George Osborne has been consistently urging the ‘Welsh Goverment’ to improve the M4: here on November 29, 2011; April 3, 2013; March 19, 2014 (and there have been other occasions). Make no mistake, this was a decision taken in London; but rather than have London fund it, the ‘Welsh Government’ was given new powers to get into debt! Once the details were worked out the scheme was passed on to civil servants in Wales, who then coached Hart in her delivery. Result: Wales will get at least £1bn into debt, other projects around the country will be shelved, and all to facilitate the flow of English goods into Wales. Wasn’t that good of Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne, children?

Because believe me, that’s what will happen. Improved communications mean that ‘peripheral’ areas can be served and supplied from further away. Always. Take the example of the A55 in the north. Great benefits were promised from this ‘Highway of Opportunity’ by Wyn Roberts et al, but one of the first changes to materialise was the Post Office transferring its sorting office from Bangor to Chester. And the PO was not alone. Once the M4 is improved, depots serving the south from Cardiff and Newport will start to be lost because, for example, if south Wales and the west of England can both be supplied from its Avonmouth depot then Tesco won’t keep its depot in Magor open. In a colonial economy such as Wales, where the overwhelming majority of retailers, utilities, major contractors, financial services, etc., etc., are headquartered in England, improved communications always means job losses. So we are paying £1bn for the economic benefit of England! Welcome to devolved government, ‘Welsh solutions for Welsh problems’.

The bigger problem, as I’ve hinted above, is civil servants operating in Wales but taking orders from London. I have dealt with this in countless posts, often when I write about planning and housing. I remind people that, despite a cupboard in Cardiff, the Planning Inspectorate is an executive agency of the Department for Communities and Local Government in London. The ‘Welsh Government’s own StatsWales also answers to the DCLG. The housing directorates that control social housing and other areas are also subject to the DCLG. They have a presence in Wales, and a ‘relationship’ with Welsh ministers, but it’s a ventriloquist and dummy relationship. This is why Carl Sargeant always looks out of his depth when dealing with LDPs, because just like Edwina Hart he has difficulty remembering details about policies and decisions he had no hand in determining.

It also helps explain why the EU funding has been squandered. In the south it has been wasted on professional grant-chasers, invariably English, who, instead of combating poverty and deprivation, have celebrated it, made a political and social cause of it, in order to secure funding and careers for themselves. As for those they are supposed to be helping . . . well, they’re only a bunch of losers anyway! In the west and the north the EU funding has been used to subsidise the same people who will benefit from the announcement made by Alun Davies back in January. That’s because the complete colonisation of rural Wales faces one last obstacle – too much land is still owned by the natives, farmers and the like. So fund the good-lifers and the Greens to buy land for fluffy environmental projects, protect our countryside from nasty over-grazing (i.e. farming), and let’s turn rural and coastal Wales into a land fit for the jodhpured heroes of the English middle class, escaping those frightful, multi-racial cities.

Welsh Assembly building, Cardiff

All of which makes devolution the biggest load of old bollocks in Welsh political history. We had less interference from London back in the 1950s before we had a Welsh Office or a Secretary of State than we have today, fifteen years into devolution. Because back then we were considered no threat and so we were just left to get on with things. That all changed in the 1960s, as did London’s attitude towards us. The long term policy decided upon was colonisation leading to assimilation. Devolution is just another stage in that process. We have the delusion of a ‘government’ in Cardiff, but the big decisions are taken in London. All part of the wider strategy for Wales: turn Cardiff into one of the more agreeable English provincial cities; allow the north east to merge into England’s north west; oversee the managed decline of the rest of the south (west and north of Cardiff); use rural and coastal Wales as retirement and recreation areas for England.

And that’s why Edwina Hart doesn’t give live interviews – because she’s just a ventriloquist’s dummy. But maybe no more a dummy than those who think this M4 project is good for Wales. Or those who can’t see what’s being done to this country.