PLEASE APPRECIATE THAT I GET SENT MORE INFORMATION AND LEADS THAN I CAN USE. I TRY TO RESPOND TO EVERYONE WHO CONTACTS ME BUT I CANNOT POSSIBLY USE EVERY BIT OF INFORMATION I’M SENT. DIOLCH YN FAWR

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I was already late with the weekly offering, and getting bogged down with what I was working on – but then Plaid Cymru came to my rescue!

So here’s a little something to keep you going while I do a bit more digging into the labyrinthine workings of Wales & West Housing.

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PLAID CYMRU, THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING

I rose late yesterday, and after firing up the trusty old desktop I found a Twitter DM from a regular source telling of a new recruit to Plaid Cymru. Not only that, but the source also provided a tweet from Ms Leanne Wood.

I’m sure that not all new members get such a welcome from the former leader of the party . . . though then again, how many recruits is Plaid pulling in these days?

Anyway, accompanying the pic of Leanne Wood and Sonia Klein was another image, this one from the Ilford Recorder of August last year. It told us that Ms Klein was hoping to become the Labour Party candidate for Ilford South. Here’s a link to the article.

Though I found the photograph the Recorder used a little disconcerting. Here we have a family group, wholesome and clean-shaven, all dressed in light clothing with the sun shining down on them. It reminded me of an image from one of those leaflets I politely decline when they’re proffered by earnest young missionaries.

And now, it appears, the Kleins have moved from one cult to another. Or am I being cynical? Moi!

Anyway, I thought this information merited a wider audience and so I put out a tweet. I was then contacted by Brychan Davies, a regular contributor to my blog, with further information on Sonia Klein.

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THE WOMAN FROM GOD KNOWS WHERE (APOLOGIES TO FLORENCE WILSON)

A later issue of the Ilford Recorder, from September last year, tells us that Sonia Klein, “Grew up in Ilford South and also ran a business in the area. Lives in Wales.”

She wasn’t selected to be the Labour candidate in the December general election, that honour fell to the Momentum candidate, Sam Tarry, who was duly elected in this job-for-life Labour seat.

Brychan also found her Linkedin profile which tells that Sonia Klein has spent some time in the USA, where she got involved with the Democratic Party (natch). This source also suggests she’s a strategic advisor for CMS Global, but with no link provided, and a number of companies sharing that name, it’s difficult to know what this means.

With a complete absence of links on her Linkedin profile it’s impossible to verify the connections claimed. And though a link is provided for CMS Global on her Facebook page . . . it goes nowhere.

I’m not for one minute suggesting that Ms Klein should not be believed, but perhaps she sometimes gets confused.

For example, you’ll recall that we read in the Ilford Recorder that Sonia Klein grew up in Ilford South, yet I remember as if it was yesterday reading in Left Foot Forward (of February 2013) that she claimed to have been, “Born in Tower Hamlets and raised in Newham”.

No doubt, if she ever runs for office in Swansea she’ll claim to have been “born in the cowin’ Hafod, like”.

Going back to the Facebook page for a moment, we read that Sonia Klein works at Welsh Rowing. But doing what, exactly?

Just beneath that entry we learn that Sonia Klein worked at Swansea University’s ill-starred School of Management. If that rings the old ding-dongs then it’s because the School of Management has attracted a great deal of publicity in recent years. Just think of sackings at the University, Mark James’ Wellness Village in a Llanelli swamp, strange deals with Gulf states, and Plod getting involved.

If you’re having trouble remembering the case, just read this.

So I can well understand why the Swansea University School of Management gig does not appear on Sonia Klein’s Linkedin profile. But the link cannot be denied.

For I turned up this Labour CND conference document from 2018 which describes Sonia Klein as you see below. It tells us she was advising the School of Management at the very time the plans were being hatched that ended a number of careers. Fancy that!

And her presence in Swansea is corroborated with this information from Skwawkbox, of October 2018:

“Sonia Klein has been chosen by Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD) as the new candidate for its left slate in the elections for additional members of Labour’s National Constitutional Committee (NCC), the party’s senior disciplinary body.

Ms Klein, who was initially proposed by Labour CND, is a Labour member in the Welsh constituency of Gower.”

While this picture from the Mayoral Parlour in Haverfordwest describes Sonia Klein as “Advisor to the Dean of Swansea School of Management”. The Dean was of course Marc Clement.

Perhaps she was in the Mayor’s Parlour on the same trip she made to fight racism in Pembrokeshire, as reported here in Socialist Worker.

This is one of the reasons I detest socialism and socialists. To begin with, and despite that photograph being taken in Wales, I would be surprised if there are more than two or three Welsh people in that whole group.

What we see there is a crew of blinkered ideologues, obsessed with an ‘ishoo’ they have brought with them from England, and insulting us by insinuating that this problem is widespread in Wales. And in Pembrokeshire of all places!

Bastards! Any self-respecting country would direct them to the border.

Yet it would appear that these are the kind of people that Plaid Cymru’s new recruit feels comfortable with. Which makes perfect sense.

For Plaid Cymru has abandoned Wales and Welsh issues to latch on to idiocies hatched in the alternative universe of US campuses and brought into Wales by the kind of clowns we see in that picture from Haverfordwest.

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THINKS . . .

Now if I was a member of Plaid Cymru (and I was once!) I’d be asking a few questions:

• Who or what is CMS Global?
• When did Sonia Klein resign from the Labour Party?
• Why did Sonia Klein resign from the Labour Party?
• What advice did she give to Marc Clement and Swansea University’s School of Management?
• Has Sonia Klein been interviewed by the police in connection with the ongoing investigations relating to the School of Management and associated parties?
• Is she advising Mark James?
• Does Sonia Klein live in Wales?
• Why has she joined Plaid Cymru?

I know Plaid Cymru has a thing for ‘strong women’ (and is very elastic in its application of the term ‘women’) but I can’t help thinking that a mistake has been made here.

Perhaps both sides should reconsider.

But then again, Plaid Cymru has recruited a woman who just a few months ago was fighting to become a Labour Party parliamentary candidate and, what’s more, she was an advisor to Marc Clement at Swansea University’s School of Management.

What a coup! What could possibly go wrong?

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