I hadn’t planned on writing this, but thinking about what’s happening to our major sporting bodies left me little alternative. It’s dressed up as reorganisation, or combatting sexism, misogyny, and other evils, but I believe these are a smokescreen for the true motivations.
Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about the promised piece on Bute Energy. That will still come out early next week.
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FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION OF WALES
Let’s start with an announcement made last Monday, June 11. You can see a clip below, and here’s a link to the article that appeared on the Football Association of Wales (FAW) website.
My first thought – betraying the parochial side to my otherwise angelic nature – was, “I don’t remember any of them playing for the Swans“. I immediately slapped myself on the wrist and went on to read the article.
So who are these Independent Non-executive Directors of the FAW?
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Chair Alys Carlton, on the left in the image above, was educated at Cheltenham Ladies College, Edinburgh University (French, Italian), and Nottingham Trent (Law).
She is clearly a ‘Welsh Government’ insider because nobody who wasn’t well-regarded in the Swamp would be ‘Vice Chair of Welsh Government’s Expert Panel on Supporting Entrepreneurial Women’. Nor would they be, ‘First Tier Judge – Mental Health Review Tribunal for Wales’.
Before branching out on her own, with Alys Carlton Consulting Ltd, in April 202o, Alys worked for Capital Law, one of the ‘Welsh Government’s favourite law firms, an outfit that sees a great deal of our money.
And I’m sure Capital Law has written to Old Jac after someone went running to them. “Tell him to stop being nasty!”
Here’s Alys Carlton’s Linkedin page. (Here in pdf format.)
Alys Siân Carlton is the daughter of the late Keith James.
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Next up is Sameer Rahman Syed, centre in the above image. Here’s his Linkedin info. (Here in pdf format.)
This guy would also appear to be well-connected with the movers and shakers in that city some 40-odd miles east of Swansea. I suggest that because he is also a non-executive director of the Millennium Stadium and Glamorgan County Cricket Club. The latter being the reason Wales has no national cricket team.
And after a career in ‘Data’ he too went solo, in April 2021, with Datamonet Ltd. Things seem to be going splendidly, with our boy as CEO and, er, sole employee.
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The third member of this troika is Dr Carol Bell. (No ding-dong jokes!) Though in her case, she was re-‘elected’.
A coalminer’s grand-daughter from Felindre, north Swansea, she made important contacts at Cambridge which may have helped her land a job with Rio Tinto on graduating.
A former investment banker in the energy field, now turned archaeologist, and another Welsh speaker. Here’s her Linkedin page (Here in pdf format.)
Dr Bell is as well connected in Corruption Bay as the other two, and perhaps well beyond the Bay. We see Millennium Stadium in her trophy cabinet too, along with a few intriguing appointments. Such as non-executive director at the Development Bank of Wales.
But what really caught my eye was Dr Bell being a director at BlackRock Commodities Income Investment Trust plc. Blackrock has been mentioned a few times on this blog; for its CEO, Larry Fink, is a leading Globalist, and big buddies with Bill Gates and Claus Schwab.
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WELSH RUGBY UNION
We begin this section with a piece from last Friday’s Llais y Sais. As you can see below, it deals with two appointments to the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU).
Richard Collier-Keywood is described as the WRU’s “first independent chair“. Which I take to mean that he was not elected by the Union’s member clubs, as has been done in the past.
The piece also tells us that these are “appointments“, but not who made them. Which is odd. And the WRU website makes it clear that Collier-Keywood is to take over from current chair, Ieuan Evans. So can we assume that the appointments have been made by the WRU Board?
Now, we all know who Ieuan Evans is, he’s one of our all-time great players, but most of you will be wondering, “Who the hell is Richard Collier-Keywood, and where by do he come from?”.
I can tell you it’s not from round by ‘ere. Though both sources are keen to tell us that his mother had some connection to Maesteg and he may have enjoyed an ice cream or two in Porthcawl.
I’ll have more for you on Richard Collier-Keywood later.
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Alison Thorne is another interesting appointment. Her Linkedin page will fill in more details. (Here in pdf format.) I draw particular attention to the most recent of her appointments, which you can see below.
Beyond any question of a doubt we are dealing with another denizen of the Swamp. A charming lady, no doubt, but as great-aunt Fastidia would say, in her characteristically earthy way: “Shit in the same latrine and you’ll share the smell“.
She even works for the ‘Welsh Government’ on public appointments!
And wearing a different hat, she’s the chair of the National Dance Company of Wales. Which – and I kid you not! – seeks “to deliver social change through dance“. Another way of saying, ‘Straight White men need not apply’.
Finally, she is the chair of trustees at housing association Barcud. This is interesting because, in theory, housing associations are now private companies. But a control-freak administration such as we see in Corruption Bay won’t give up control of anything.
A firm grip maintained by social housing bodies either having outstanding loans, or taking out fresh loans, or acquiring land from, the ‘Welsh Government’.
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WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?
If I tell you that former first minister Carwyn Jones was considered for the WRU chair job it should help you understand where we’re heading.
Maybe someone decided that giving Jones the job would have been too obviously political. Though on the plus side, he is Welsh, and knows something about rugby.
Instead, Richard Collier-Keywood was appointed. And it’s an odd appointment. As was suggested to me by someone who was in university with him.
My source told me the WRU’s new chair was a good tennis player in his younger days, with an interest in other racquet sports. But no interest in rugby; and Collier-Keywood never mentioned Wales, despite knowing that my source is 100% Welsh.
Strange that, for a man with a Welsh mam.
Let’s be clear. These are political appointments.
After creating what was reported by a loyal media as “turmoil” in our sporting bodies the ‘Welsh Government’, with the help of certain individuals ‘on the inside’, was able to engineer a situation that saw people parachuted in who are dependent on ‘Welsh Government’ patronage.
Which is quite an achievement, considering that both the Football Association of Wales and The Welsh Rugby Union are not public bodies but private companies.
In the case of the WRU influence can be exerted because there are two outstanding loans on the Millennium Stadium (October 2020 and March 2022) with “The Welsh Ministers of the Welsh Government“. So it can be claimed that the appointees are simply there to safeguard the public interest.
This is the model alluded to earlier with housing associations. “We lend you money and to safeguard our investment we’ll have a big say in the running of your organisation“. Tony Soprano would immediately understand that model.
But is it ethical to use public assets to exercise political control, and promote a political agenda lacking public support?
It’s less clear how Corruption Bay got its claws into the Welsh FA.
But the important point is that both the Football Association of Wales and The Welsh Rugby Union are very high profile organisations. Many Welsh people can be influenced by them. Controlling them therefore becomes politically desirable.
Not least because either or both might go ‘off-message’. With fans supporting the national football team singing Yma o Hyd some people were getting worried.
Talking of using our sporting associations to influence public opinion, I wonder what Billy Meredith or John Charles would have made of what you see below, from last Saturday’s Pride parade in Cardiff?
Incredible welcome from everyone @PrideCymru march for @FAWales showcasing that football is for everyone!
These outfits are incredible!!#PAWB pic.twitter.com/CAFZTWu6yJ
— Jason Webber (@WebberTJason) June 17, 2023
The tweet was put out by Jason Webber, who is – and you’d never have guessed! – ‘Senior Equality, Diversity, Inclusion & Integrity Manager at the Football Association of Wales’. If he’s the senior manager, then there must be lesser mortals doing similar work.
Yeah, that’ll help us qualify for Euros and World Cups.
My worry is that, “Football is for everyone” means that full-grown men pretending to be women will be allowed to play with and against young girls. And of course, they must also be allowed to share facilities.
Because on matters like this the ‘Welsh Government’ takes orders from Stonewall.
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What we see at the WRU and FAW are not isolated examples of political interference. For I’ve detected a growing trend of such ‘appointments’. One I wrote about earlier this year involved the then Brecon Beacons National Park Authority (BBNPA).
These appointments were justified as being done to promote inclusivity and diversity. Woman of colour, disabled man . . .
We then had a contrived and very public debate over the change of name to Bannau Brycheiniog. Which served to draw attention away from the fact that what had really changed was that Labour had now taken full control of the BBNPA.
So, on one level, these manoeuvrings increase the ‘Welsh Government’s control over public and other bodies. And then, given what I explained in my previous blog piece, it also gives easier access to pressure groups, whose diktats the clown show in the Bay will dress up as its own policies.
But there’s also a third element that becomes obvious the more we look at these appointments.
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THOSE WHO WOULD BE KINGS
The rash of appointments being made in Wales obviously extends the influence of the ‘Welsh Government’, for the Swamp is the immediate and obvious beneficiary; and then there are the pressure groups, but it doesn’t end there.
The appointments are also being made in order to implement ESG. And if those letters mean nothing to you, let me explain that they stand for Environmental and Social Governance.
Companies, charities and other bodies are expected to sign up to ESG and, by so doing, follow the Globalist agenda. Here’s how the World Economic Forum (WEF) explains it.
Who could object to such desirable ambitions? Er, me. The awkward bugger at the back.
Because as with so much else produced by the WEF, you have to poke around behind the words to see what they really mean. Read the panel below, from the WEF website I’ve just linked to, and then I’ll explain it.
” . . . social justice protests have drawn attention to gaps in diversity, equity, and inclusion; and the impacts of climate change and the importance of environmental sustainability are becoming harder, if not impossible, to ignore.”
“Social justice protests” is a euphemism for the riots that caused death and destruction in so many US cities following the death of George Floyd during a botched police arrest.
And then we get “climate change” and and “environmental sustainability“, straight out of the climate alarmists’ handbook.
Which ties in neatly with Dr Carol Bell of the FAW working for Blackrock.
And it explains Alison Thorne of the WRU delivering “social change through dance“. (Did youse ever in yer natural read such sententious bollocks!)
The terpsichoreans seeking to deliver this social change can be found – in case you’re minded to join! – at Dance House, which is in the Millennium Stadium.
Where else!
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SUMMING UP
The self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ is taking control, through appointees, and by other means, such as funding, of as many organisations as it possibly can.
Which means that a political party gaining roughly one fifth of the available votes will soon exert a stranglehold on Welsh life. With Drakeford and his sorry troupe of inadequates just puppets operated by pressure groups and Globalists lacking any mandate at all.
For betraying Wales in this way the so-called ‘Welsh Government’ will get a pat on the head from Uncle Claus in Davos. And then everybody’s happy – ‘Welsh Government’, pressure groups, and World Economic Forum.
But how do you feel about it?
♦ end ♦
Read elsewhere that “Thames Water could collapse under its debt burden”. Could lead to renationalisation. Makes me chuckle. The prospect of an incompetent bunch of Tories, soon to be succeeded by an equally incompetent bunch of Labourites, attempting to run anything after the roaring “successes” of recent years is about the best advert for privatisation. The model of extractive private capital being bailed out by big government sums up succinctly the problem we have with the toxic bond between big government and big business, blessed as the “ideal” by globalists, elites and all those other fuckers who think they know best.
New food legislation
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/health/welsh-government-ban-foods-meal-27183646
Another trial in Wales before it is then also rolled out in England.
More news today was that our ‘Welsh Government’ is to fund a reporter to cover the Senedd.
I like the quotation from Dawn Bowden. “A strong and vibrant media sector in Wales is an essential part of a modern democratic society”. !
A costly big deal. Using more of our money to write sanitised news. Anyway Swansea Council employs at least three journalists to pose as “information officers” or “press officers” or whatever they call themselves. Generally ex Western Mail writers who were trained by the hard but honest editor Mr Humpy. Nearly all Councils and big Organisations do this, particularly the Welsh Public Sector, controlled by Welsh Labour. I’m surprised WAG has not done this earlier. We don’t get “fake news” but we do get opportunistic heavily sanitised news at crucial times before elections. Just like the hyped Swansea Hydrogen powered Ferry Ship to a town called nowhere in north on the week of the last Council election. Devon. Did that go aground on the Mixen sand bank off Mumbles Lighthouse?
The ban applied to the pricing of “bargain bundles” aimed at snackers especially the lunchtime variety. I share the Wales Gov view that these bundles don’t improve the life chances of people at risk of obesity but, and it’s a big but, it highlights the absence of coherent efforts to educate the public about healthier choices and bust the myths that healthy diets are of necessity more expensive.
“Taking control of everything” may be the intent but the reality is more akin to “making a shambles of everything”. Disarray and disagreement seems to be the norm among those whose primary motives are all about virtue signaling, saving the planet and stopping us from doing much at all. The latest outbursts from local authorities in London is an indicator of what must also be going on here in Wales. Councils get told to address problems with rising homelessness by securing access to properties via buying them or renting them long term from landlords willing to take the risk. Then along comes an agent for the Home Office outbidding them in terms of purchase prices or rentals offered to secure same premises for those who rocked up on a South coast beach a few weeks earlier.
Proof that governments across the UK can’t give a shit about the pre-existing problem of homelessness when they find a new problem to showboat over and blow cash like it doesn’t matter. No point people going on about the UK needing all these new workers. We have no where to house them properly, so pinching other nations’ skills, even shelf stacking abilities, is not a good look . Of course Drakeford will blame London entirely yet be about as 2 faced as possible about that hotel in Llanelli.
Off topic a bit. A prominent article in the Western Mail this week started with the following paragraph “The Infrastructure (Wales) Bill is a major step towards delivering on net zero targets says Jack Pugsley, associate director (planning), at the Cardiff office of property advisory firm Savills”. – I presume this means that by engaging a property adviser to help legislate that the Labour Wales Government will now legislate to prevent any objections to Barrister Labour Minister Julie James bulldozing through all Renewable Energy development applications. No more so than maybe giving out “SAVILLS WILL FIX IT” badges to the little people of Wales!
‘Removing any possible restrictions’ is the only way to interpret it.
Copy below of my FOI request to Welsh Parliament sent yesterday. Awaiting reply.
Freedom of Information Team
Governance and Assurance
Senedd Cymru – Welsh Parliament
Cardiff Bay
CF99 1SN
My Ref: NCC/WJ/64
Your Ref:
Date: 23 June 2023
cc:
Dear Freedom of Information Team
Subject: Infrastructure [Wales] Bill
I refer to the above subject and, specifically, to information available on your website at the following link.
https://research.senedd.wales/research-articles/infrastructure-wales-bill-what-does-it-do-and-what-happens-next/
I would be grateful if you could arrange to provide me with the following information pursuant to FOI Act 2000 / EIR 2004.
Please provide a copy of the “Explanatory Memorandum, incorporating the Regulatory Impact Assessment [RIA]” provided by Welsh Government to Welsh Parliament in support of the Infrastructure [Wales] Bill.
I look forward to receiving the information at your convenience. Thank you.
Yours sincerely
“impact Assessment” is only two words, Wynne, but as we know from experience, it causes terrible confusion down the Bay. Just like “cost benefit analysis”. El Drako and his desperados don’t operate that way.
This Bill will have been dictated by those pursuing an agenda that has absolutely nothing to do with what’s best for Wales. It was accepted by the so-called ‘Welsh Government’ for no better reason than that it gives them another opportunity to jump up and down shouting, “Look at us everybody – we’re saving the planet!“.
And there’s no point in appealing to Westminster because this ‘infrastructure’ – turbines and pylons – is to serve England, where they don’t want wind farms. This is how devolution is being used against us.
Just imagine if we had no devolution, and the government in London said, “Now listen, you Welsh chaps . . . we’ve decided that we don’t want these ghastly wind turbine thingeys in England – so we’re going to dump them all in Wales”.
Plaid Cymru would be leading the fight against “Another Tryweryn – on every Welsh hill”. But do it under the guise of devolution and it becomes “Wales setting an example”, “Wales leading the way”.
They’re being played like a fiddle.
Jac you need to sack your web manager as the site’s all Donald Ducked. I can assist if needed. Smith.d@live.co.uk.
How do you mean?
Erthygl diddorol unwaith eto Jac . Diolch yn fawr
Diolch, Gruff.
I see Swansea’s Mr Bean launched an attack on Dr John Ball in the local Swansea POST this past few days. I hope Dr Ball will respond. I also note that not so long ago the same Bean claimed to be an experienced Heavy Industry Engineer. Was that hands on on the shop floor of the Blast Furnaces or the Hot Mill ? My understanding is it was in an air conditioned Office using a computer keyboard before he became a Teacher and a rather snide Councillor. .
Good article that you tweeted yesterday from DT about localised power generation. Of course it won’t happen cos UK regimes are wedded to the large corporate model that provides cushy jobs when they get knocked out of Parliament. Here in Wales the corporate model is favoured because the Commissars like to keep everything close within a small circle of allies and like minded eco/envirofascists.
If the target is really ‘renewable energy’, then there are countless ways to deliver it efficiently and locally. Giant wind turbines on huge wind farms only benefit big investors. It’s all about the rich getting richer at the expense of Wales.
No more than I’d expect from a socialist administration in Corruption Bay.
“Incredible welcome from everyone @PrideCymru march for @FAWales showcasing that football is for everyone!” (Jason Webber, the ‘Senior Equality, Diversity, Inclusion & Integrity Manager of FAW).
Well, in a sense that anyone can be a spectator, sure. But sport is about physical activity.
And it is pretty obvious that most sports are not for everyone.
There are some obvious examples. In basketball, it clearly helps to be taller than average. NBA players average 6 foot 6. If you are only 5 foot, then you are actually better off looking for another sport to play.
In American football, it obviously helps to be large and muscular. For a jockey, it helps to be short & stocky. And so on. It is not true that these sports are for everyone.
In fact, by their nature, sports tend not to be the best arena for EDI.
Right, off to the gulag for me for some re-education … probably less depressing in solitary confinement in the camp than watching the Wales Football Team.
What you say is true. But given the ‘packaging’ I fear that “for everyone” means that boundaries and restrictions within the game should be removed. And we know that the LGBTQP+++ fanatics believe that men identifying as women should be allowed in women’s football . . . and women’s changing rooms.
Only 3 +++ !
I was being conservative. Though the way things are going there won’t be enough space for all of them. What about those identifying as cats?
Whole new meaning for a bit of pussy ! Just sayin’
Spot-on once again. Even though policing isn’t a devolved matter, Welsh Labour have Alun Michael pulling-the-strings.
Jac
Twas ever so. Don’t you remember good old Swansea in the sixties and seventies; jobs for the boys (only in those days) dished out to the bruvvers?
Nothing changes
As it was put at the time: “Swansea has the best politicians money can buy”.
Great article. ESG is a destructive globalist tool that seems to be used by the globalist cabal to make corporations and bodies wilfully destroy themselves from within by pushing insidious woke ideologies which creates massive division within them and often leads to stock collapse and public backlash of the go woke go broke variety.
This seems to be a deliberate policy by the ESG controllers-possibly so that they can then come in and buy up or control these entities. The Welsh Football Association and WRU have to get wise to this – the cringe pushing of the inane rainbow/LGBTQ hats and ideology in Qatar by the FAW was divisive and totally needless for example – as well as coming over as disrespectful to Qatar. Perhaps this is why the Welsh team performed so awfully in Qatar – the spirit just didn’t seem to be with them in that competition. Just concentrate on the football and rugby FAW and WRU. Drop all the insidious woke stuff to do with sexuality, race, the environment etc., otherwise these will lead you to destruction as is their plan
It is all very curious. But the most curious of all is Richard Collier-Keywood (RCK).
Now, I can easily see that WRU is an organisation with a very serious image problem. Assuming what is reported in the press is correct, then remarks about “wanting to rape” female colleagues are completely unacceptable.
But, the response is to appoint RCK as chair of the WRU.
Jac is right to ask: who exactly appointed him?
I mean, RCK is a rich, white, public-school educated Englishman.
Of course, I am sure RCK know how to ‘trim his sails to the wind’, so we can expect plenty of pontificating remarks from him about the importance of equality, diversity & inclusion for the rest of us.
Though he could have increased EDI by not applying for the job … but EDI is always for others.
Strange days when a privileged posh English boy remembers he once had an ice lolly as a kid on Porthcawl promenade and so he gets to head up the WRU.
Those 2 in the FAW picture – which one is Adam’s wet dream?
“Senior Equality, Diversity, Inclusion & Integrity Manager” – a job which suggests that everybody else in the management cluster will just forget about those matters “cos we recruited a specialist to deal wiv it”. Loads of money spent for no real gain, just token gestures.
And the WRU will go the same way. All their new appointments will have superficially impressive C.V’s, one or two might even contain a reference to some success with running a top rugby side or even playing the bloody game ! But the overriding sense is that these are people now drifting towards a semi retired condition but enjoying the rewards of earning a lot for doing next to nothing.
It’s the same out there in the wider economy. We have CEO’s and others within UK’s myriad plc’s who get paid seriously big bucks but seldom earn it. Whenever they open their miserable mouths they deflect blame, evade responsibility and act with barely disguised disdain towards consumer/customer interests.
It has to be the one on the left. The one on the right is too feminine. Though I wouldn’t rule out the wavy arm weirdo behind them. What is he trying to do!
I spotted on Jason Webber’s Twitter feed that, without irony, the individuals concerned represent Cardiff’s “ballroom community”.