This began as an update to the piece I put out a few days ago. But it grew too big. So I had to admit that the only way to do it properly was as a follow-up, a second part. Which explains what you’re about to read.
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LEO FROM THE OLD SCHOOL
A source, someone who’s given me some good stuff in the past, tells me a name to watch for in relation to the Tramshed and other matters is Leonora ‘Leo’ Thomson. She already plays a big role, and may have an even bigger role in future.
Leonora Thomson was educated at Oakham School, and then Leeds University, where she did philosophy. Yet another product of a public school helping to fill the thinning ranks of Labour in Wales.
One day I might put aside some time and see just how many of them there are. For now, I’ll just remind you of two.
There’s Senedd Member Jenny Rathbone of the uber wealthy Rathbone dynasty, who goes big on the environment, and whose partner, John Uden, was given a sinecure by Bute Energy, which wants to cover Wales in wind turbines and pylons.
And of course, there’s the Green Goddess herself, Jane Davidson, who wrote the Well-being of Future Generations legislation that dictates so many of the restrictions on our personal freedoms, and also the damage being done to our economy.
What was once the party of the Welsh working class has to keep applying an increasingly unconvincing Welsh veneer as it falls further under the control of pressure groups, fanatics, sexual deviants, and career politicians.
Among them we find the privately-educated, conflicted between guilt at their privileged upbringing and the old impulse to shout at the natives.
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WHAT LEO DID NEXT
To help you start, here’s Leo’s Linkedin profile. It’s all media, arts, PR. Also a brief stint with the Metropolitan Police, plus 8 years as a Labour councillor in Ealing. All in London until she arrived in Cardiff, December 2015, to become managing director of the Welsh National Opera Company (WNO).
If you go to the About panel on Linkedin, and click on ‘see more’, you bring up what you see below. I’ve highlighted parts that I’ll be referring to as you read on.
There’s nothing listed after she ended her stint with the WNO in August 2019. What followed is partly explained in the image above, with the rest filled in as we go along. But now, let’s turn to another line of enquiry.
Here’s the relevant page from Companies House. There are some interesting entries there. Let’s go through them.
The oldest active directorship is with English Touring Opera Ltd. She joined 7 June, 2021. Less than two years after leaving the WNO.
On 18 November, 2021 Leo became a director of the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales Ltd. Well, when I read that you could have knocked me down with an illegally-released-into-the-wild beaver!
Yet nothing I see in her background suggests an interest in flora and fauna. Truth is, this was a political appointment to an organisation the ‘Welsh Government’ wishes to use in its war on livestock farming.
In November 2021, with another woman, Thomson set up Studland Hill Ltd. This is a property management company in West Ealing, London. The other director gives as her address a house being renovated according to this Google map for January 2021.
On 23 March 2023 Thomson and three others set up Omidaze Productions Ltd in Penarth. Here’s the glossy website.
Once you read, “fairer and more equal society” you know it’s about leftist propaganda rather than theatre. More ‘Waiting for Gramsci’ than anything Beckett wrote.
Can’t help wondering where the money comes from, cos I’m damn sure Omidaze don’t pay for itself.
Monk Racing Ltd is an odd one. Formed in 2000 it’s always filed as dormant. The key to Thomson’s involvement is probably Anthony Kenneth Lewis, who was a founding director, and is the joint owner with her of a house on the Taff Embankment.
Lewis resigned from Monk Racing 9 April, 2023. Thomson joined 27 June, 2023.
There have been two stints where Leo served as a Labour councillor. The first you’ve already read about, from 1998 to 2006 in the London Borough of Ealing; and now, from May 2022 for the Riverside ward in Cardiff.
Given the Philistines in Labour’s ranks, both on Cardiff council and in the Senedd, I’m sure the comrades have deferred more than once to Thomson’s knowledge of the finer things in life.
‘How do ew spell opera, love?’
Though I’m beginning to wonder if Leonora Thomson is bad luck. Let me explain.
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HARD TIMES, FOR SOME
Towards the end of September last year, it was announced that the ‘Welsh Government’-controlled Arts Council was pulling the plug on the National Theatre of Wales (NTW).
In March we learnt that Thomson was joining as interim CEO. Having already served as Interim Joint Chief Executive from October 2019 to June 2021. And now NTW has moved to the Tramshed, a nest of Labour cronies and insiders.
Another body to lose funding recently was the WNO. Where Thomson was managing director for almost 4 years until August 2019. (Though I believe she returned in some kind of temporary capacity.)
Which means the WNO lost funding after Leonora Thomson had been involved, and while she was Chair at English Touring Opera. Seeing as the WNO performs at English venues some might see the WNO and the English company as competitors.
Though it’s difficult to explain these cuts to two such important cultural bodies as the WNO and NTW when one of their main funders, the Arts Council of Wales, saw its income increase by more than 50% in just 4 years.
Where did the extra money go? Surely it didn’t all go to Theatr Clwyd?
A third organisation to lose funding following an association with Leo Thomson is the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and Creative Lives (RWCMD). She was working there in some unspecified ‘freelance’ role.
One organisation linked to Leonora Thomson suffering a funding cut, I could dismiss; two, I might, just, accept as coincidence; but three, and in such a short space of time? Do me a favour!
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UNDERMINE, TAKE CONTROL
What we’ve just looked at is a phenomenon I’ve seen regularly in recent years. I wrote about it a year ago in Taking Control, Of Everything. I focused then on the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) and the Football Association of Wales (FAW).
It’s the ‘Welsh Government’s method for taking control of an organisation.
The first stage is to discredit and undermine the target organisation, maybe also those running it. (Sometimes with inside help.) Stage Two is the reduction or withdrawal of funding. Stage Three, the takeover; done through a combination of restored / increased funding and the appointment of politically loyal or malleable individuals to the organisation.
A bit like the CIA handbook for regime change.
What we’ve seen done to the WNO, NTW and RWCMD could only have been achieved with the assistance of the Arts Council of Wales; which had already undergone the same treatment.
I wrote about it back to August 2021.
First in Corruption Bay and a tale of Cymrophobia (23.08.2021). In which I reported that the Arts Council and the National Museum commissioned three reports in June 2020 to look into ‘widening engagement’.
To make sense of it, remember that George Floyd died the previous month and there was fierce competition as people fought to honour his memory capitalise on his death.
The three groups commissioned were:
An unregistered entity run by Labour insiders Lu Thomas and Jon Luxton.
Richie Turner Associates. Here’s the image then being used on his Linkedin page.
(Though the company of that name wasn’t formed until February 1, 2022.)
The third outfit commissioned was The Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union (WAARU). Which had no presence anywhere – yet its anonymously submitted report was accepted!
And remember! 31 other applicants were rejected in favour of these three.
The piece in which you’ll find these joys unalloyed was followed with Arts Council of Wales and Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union, an update (31.08.2021).
And then (06.09.2021) Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union unmasked, in which I identified those behind WAARU. The usual mix of chip-on-shoulder race grifters and middle class leftists trying to live out their slogans.
Woke employees of Welsh national institutions collaborating with their Woke allies outside to discredit and undermine the organisations they worked for.
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FINALE: FITTING LEO INTO THE BIGGER PICTURE
The evidence might suggest that Leonora Hope Thomson has been employed by the ‘Welsh Government’ as some kind of hatchet woman; sent in to various bodies and asked to recommend ‘economies’ and ‘restructuring’.
Part of a pattern that sees ‘Welsh Government’ / ‘Welsh’ Labour, take control of our public, artistic, and sporting life. Done at the behest of the shrieky and the unhinged to promote the Woke agenda.
Which explains how we see Leo, and National Theatre Wales, of which she’s interim CEO, joining the migration to the Tramshed. Which is of course good news for the owner, Cardiff council (Labour); and the lessee, the Count of Abbasock (also Labour).
And it contributes to the circular economy of which I wrote in the previous piece.
Welcome to socialist Wales 2024. The circular economy, benefitting those lucky enough to be in the ‘circle’. Where there’s no private investment, and everything is state funded, but only those close to the ruling party can benefit.
And having mentioned Cardiff council, it’s worth adding that even though she was only elected in May 2022, Thomson, who hardly knows Cardiff, is now Chair of the council’s Labour group.
I wonder who decided to give her such rapid promotion?
I suggest we watch Leonora Hope Thomson, and the Tramshed with which she’s now linked. Both might have roles in the political and public life of Wales.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Leo’s name isn’t already pencilled in on one of the closed lists for the 2026 Senedd elections.
Finally, what I found perhaps most disturbing when writing this was that I had difficulty telling the Labour party and the ‘Welsh Government’ apart. They should be two clearly separate entities.
That they’ve effectively merged is, for me, confirmation that Wales is a one-party state.
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© Royston Jones 2024