UNCRITICAL PUBLICITY
Over recent years, at the prompting of political friends of the homelessness industry, both BBC Wales and the print media have given television series and pages of newsprint so that the countless competing and duplicating businesses in the sector can promote themselves and their ‘mission’.
To my knowledge, nothing even vaguely critical of the homelessness racket has been allowed. It’s the sort of publicity other commercial enterprises usually have to pay for.
But this free publicity is not restricted to companies in the homelessness business, it covers all bodies operating in the third sector, to the extent that the third sector has achieved the status of royalty or dead heroes in that it’s beyond criticism.
If nothing else, this exposes yet again the problems caused to Wales and Welsh public life by the incestuous little world we know as the Cardiff Bay Bubble.
We saw it with the death of Carl Sargeant and we see it again in the crucifixion of Neil McEvoy. A politician’s political or personal enemies ask a lobbying outfit to get some friend in the third sector to make a silly claim of harassment, or bullying, or bum-touching.
The victimisation process might even be initiated by the lobbyists themselves. (‘Shame on you!’ I hear.)
Then it’s a case of all girls together and another poor man-beast is brought down.
Another part of the Bay Bubble is the ‘Welsh’ media, which cannot criticise the third sector, stuffed with Labour Party members and supporters, without offending the Labour Party itself. So the third sector gets the kind of kid-glove treatment I’ve just described.
So who loses out? You and me, my friend, and the 99.9% of Wales lying outside of the Cardiff Bay Bubble.
◊
WCVA STEPS IN WITH DIRE WARNINGS
Earlier this month the Wasting Mule ran a big publicity puff and funding appeal (masquerading as a news story) for the Wales Council for Voluntary Action, in which CEO Ruth Marks told us that the “voluntary sector” is worth £1bn but she’s worried about reducing funding. Note the use of the term “voluntary sector”.
Ms Marks quoted spurious figures which I’ve highlighted. For example, the figure she uses for ‘England’ almost certainly includes UK-wide bodies based in England and even international agencies such as Oxfam and Save the Children.
The only valid comparison would be England-only agencies with Wales-only agencies. Because I know damn well that in England a Tory Government, and Tory-controlled local authorities, do not throw money at the third sector in the manner of Welsh socialist politicians maintaining their system of patronage.
This reluctance to fund the third sector in England explains why so many third sector operatives have flocked to Wales since we’ve had devolution and Labour dishing out the loot.
Another interesting claim is that the third sector accounts for 10% of Welsh employment. Seeing as these jobs are almost entirely reliant on public funding they could be equated to paying benefit. Or, to be more generous, seeing as many third sector activities are ‘outsourced’ transferring from the public sector to the third sector just re-labels existing jobs.
Then again, the “voluntary sector” means unpaid work, so how can it account for 10% of Welsh employment? She must be confused, or perhaps hoping to confuse us.
After studying the third sector in Wales for many years I know there is a deliberate attempt to mislead or deceive in almost everything the third sector says and does. That’s because there’s a lot of money involved and many careers; the third sector is often a stepping stone to a political career, or it provides a nice retirement job after leaving politics.
But to enjoy these benefits you must be in the ‘club’. And membership is restricted to the Labour Party, with Plaid Cymru – in return for political support – allowed to feed off the scraps.
◊
WCVA GETS REALLY DIRE
Just nine days after the Ruth Marks piece in Llais y Sais, the WCVA was back with a full-page article written by Anna Nicholl, Director of Strategy and Sector Development.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing like grabbing the reader’s attention with the first few lines, just think of: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again”, or “All happy families are alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”, and of course, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”.
But when I read, “To my mind, the very fabric of Welsh life depends on the survival of the third sector”, the needle on the old hypocrisy meter went off the dial. While the bollocks detection equipment just blew up from some kind of power surge. (You should have seen the cat move!)
To believe Anna Nicholl, the third sector is all that saves our beloved homeland from the ravages of the Four Horsemen.
Whereas the truth is that many Welsh communities are being damaged by the criminals, addicts, problem families and others imported by many third sector bodies (and here I include housing associations). Because once you’ve found your racket, and got your funding, you need a steady supply of ‘clients’ to keep the funding flowing, and if Wales can’t provide enough ‘clients’ then you have to look elsewhere.
Earlier I wrote, “there is a deliberate attempt to mislead or deceive in almost everything the third sector says and does”. This article by Anna Nicholl proves my point. But for anyone in doubt, let me spell it out.
On the one hand we have the kind of third sector body represented by the WCVA, such as homelessness company Llamau, with its 266 employees, spending over 70% of its £10m+ annual income on salaries, and paying its CEO £80,000+. Llamau is obviously not a voluntary organisation – it is a business.
Worst of all, it is a publicly-funded business competing with too many other, publicly-funded businesses.
By comparison, Mrs Williams (Troedyrhiw) who you encounter on the High Street, and who puts a sticky badge on your chest for dropping a washer or two in her tin (I always carry some), is a volunteer, because she performs this work for nothing.
Which is not to say that the organisation Mrs Williams collects for doesn’t have paid officials higher up its food chain, but these are charities in that they rely on donations from the public – not government funding.
Another kind of voluntary group is that we see in the picture used to illustrate the Anna Nicholl article, a local group trying to improve its neighbourhood, and with groups such as this there is usually no money involved at all!
So why use a picture like that if it’s not an attempt to mislead or deceive those reading the article?
In fact, Ms Nicholl gives the game away with the wording of the caption accompanying her photo: ” . . . the vital third sector, such as voluntary organisations”. But ‘voluntary organisations’ are only a small part of the third sector, and here they’re being used as a fig leaf.
The good news might be that the WCVA realises that the kind of organisations I criticise are now beyond defending, the only hope being to confuse them in the public mind with ‘voluntary organisations’.
◊
AN ATTEMPT AT BALANCE
After reading Anna Nicholl’s deliberate confusion or conflation of voluntary groups with the avaricious money-grabbers the WCVA really represents I was moved to write to the Western Mail. So I sent my e-mail and got a quick response asking for my full address.
So we know they have my letter for publication, will they now have the balls to publish it, unedited? Just in case, here it is.
“It seems that in recent weeks the third sector has felt the need to defend itself. Presumably in an effort to help, the Western Mail ran a big piece on the 8th quoting Ruth Marks, Wales Council for Voluntary Action CEO; and then on the 16th we had a full-page article by Anna Nicholl, Director of Strategy and Sector Development at the WCVA.
This later article was accompanied by a big picture of a mother and child picking up litter, as an example of the ‘voluntary groups’ the WCVA claims to represent, and on which “Welsh life depends”, according to Ms Nicholl. The picture was cute, but deliberately misleading.
I have criticised the third sector over many years, principally on my blog, ‘Jac o’ the North’, but I have never criticised voluntary groups, nor charities with an obvious purpose such as the RNLI. My criticism has been reserved for what can only be described as self-serving, third sector businesses.
Many of which get millions of pounds in public funding every year, with most of the money going in salaries. And a hefty chunk of that salary funding going to the CEO, who is invariably a Labour Party member or supporter, and often from outside of Wales.
As if that isn’t bad enough, we have the duplication to consider. In a recent FoI response from the ‘Welsh’ Government I was told that there are 48 bodies in Wales dealing with homelessness. That’s forty-eight in a country of 3 million people.
Having identified an ‘issue’ to exploit it then becomes imperative for third sector bodies to have a steady supply of ‘clients’ in order to ensure the continuation of the generous funding. To meet this need often means importing undesirables from outside of Wales.
One Cardiff-based housing association is currently wreaking havoc in Lampeter with the drug dealers and others it’s housing in that hitherto peaceful town – and it has applied to Ceredigion council for permission to convert more buildings to one-bed flats in order to bring in more misfits! And remember – this is being paid for from the Welsh public purse!
How can we explain this apparent idiocy? The answer lies in the fact that the third sector is, as I’ve suggested, an extension of the Labour Party.
On one level, the third sector is pure cronyism in that it provides thousands of jobs for Labour supporters. On another level, the size of the third sector is used to indicate how poor Wales is, and of course it’s always someone else’s fault – so ‘Vote Labour!’
Which means that the third sector exploits and entrenches Wales’ poverty for the benefit of those working in it and for the electoral advantage of the Labour Party.
If the hundreds of millions of pounds poured into the third sector every year was used to encourage entrepreneurship and invite investment Wales would be much better off, but would also be less likely to vote Labour.
All of which means that the unnecessary, crony-filled and duplicating third sector bodies I’m dealing with have nothing in common whatsoever with mothers and children picking up litter in their local park.”
♦ end ♦
UPDATE 20.03.2018: Chwarae teg, the WM published the letter in full today.
Lost a leg while fighting for the Brits in Afghanistan? Born blind and need help training your dog? Suffering from MS and require help with transport? Carry an O2 cylinder from working underground? No worries!
Apply for the Independent Living Allowance here…
https://ilf.scot/
Only available in Scotland and Northern Ireland. However, if you’re Welsh, you can FUCK OFF say “Welsh” Labour. It’s all the fault of the Tories, see butt.
PS – Sophie the £63k pa cocky madam has some of the cash. Able bodied posh people from England are welcome to move to Wales and set up “disability workshops” and “inclusion seminars”.
SWANSEA is SAFER TONIGHT.
Why? The story starts in Brighton and Hove in Sussex. This is where scumbag, Leon Lukins, embarked upon his criminal career. Mugging, robbing, housebreaking and stabbing. It wasn’t log before Sussex Police caught up with this shit. The local paper is Sussex tells us he “held a teenager hostage with a knife during a 13-hour siege” and “ slashed out at two police officers with a blade when he was arrested for breaking into a hairdressers in Brighton.”
http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/6738195.Knife_siege_thug_jailed/
Fortunately, PC Ian Upperton and WPC Louise Tait or Sussex constabulary was slashed by this piece of scum, they escaped serious injury, and Leon was jailed for six years. WPC Tait was kicked and needed treatment for cuts to her hands and her wrists while arresting him.
Leon was jailed and ended up incarcerated at Wrexham in Wales.
Upon release on license from her majesties pleasure Leon then went on the rampage across North Wales. So prolific was this scumbag that community groups from Denbigh to Bethesda where alerted, and North Wales Police sent out a special appeal to find him.
https://twitter.com/NWPolice/status/988881071965122563
It wasn’t long before Leon was again set free to terrorise the people of Wales, winding up in Swansea, care of the THIRD SECTOR HOMLESSNESS RACKET. Public money was spent of putting a roof over this scumbag, and ‘treating’ his drug addictions. This, however, did not succeed and Lukins was soon back on the smack, no doubt financed by his criminal talents around Swansea.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/recovering-heroin-addict-sent-messages-14931602
The last message before his death was “the odds are stacked against people like me”. No Leon. The odds were stacked against WPC Louise Tait when you went for her with a blade. The odds were stacked against the teenager in Brighton which you held hostage for 13 hours. The odds are stacked against the good people of Wales who have to put up this shits like you because we are accepting you scumbags and diverting public money to house, feed and water you, ROT IN HELL.
I’m not sure how to read this, Brychan. One link takes us to his Welsh girl friend Meinir, who says they’ve been together for 10 years. Which suggests he was living in Swansea before he was sent down and went to Wrexham.
I’ll see if I can find a conviction in Swansea.
It is not unusual, in fact quite common, for heroin addicts, the likes of Lukins to have a ‘moll’. Makes it easier to shoplift, beg, use and exploit. Whether the female in this relationship is Welsh or not, or how long they have known each other, is not relevant. I would consider her as just another victim of Lukins. Usually it starts when a girl gets infatuated with big street-wise man, try a bit of weed, which leads to brown snorts, then onto injecting. Then develops a co-dependency situation. Of course the female ‘does love him’, sort of response you get from domestic violence victims who keep going back for more. In most cases it’s the female addict to overdoses first, but thankfully, in this instance, Meinir has survived, and gets to look forward to the rest of her life. My guess Meinir originates in the north and got mixed up with Lukins on his exploits up there. I didn’t mention her, because she’s just another victim. I wish her well, but I’m unlikely to be thanked for saying so, until sometime in the future when she’s got her life back.
Ran out of space up above but one final response to PUN. He says – “McEvoy’s ethnic background is at least 75% white. Given that Arab Yemenis are essentially the same race as Europeans then he is a white man”. Well so what ? He identifies as Welsh of certain extraction while you, PUN, show your capacity for administering racial discrimination policy by “disqualifying” him from that kind of identity. Tantamount to saying – “He’s fuckin’ white so he doesn’t count”. Probably so until the day you and your kind decide that only “pure this” or “pure that” merit fair treatment and the rest of us can line up for whatever kind of nastiness you happen to dream up at the time. More at home in UKIP or even the BNP.
The heave-ho is the one ace that Plaid hold in these matters. Hence I believe our friend Mr McEvoy and his merry followers could quite easily ALL get the heave-ho as the party’s ultimate solution to the problem they face. It seems that this simple fact is being overlooked. They’ve done it before in the past and they’re quite likely to do it again.
Lessons should be remembered from other parties as well – remember what Neil ‘gravy train’ Kinnock did with the Militant Tendency at Labour’s Bournemouth conference in 1985?
Entryism is the one thing that all political parties will not tolerate, because in the final analysis they are fighting for their life. Not even Plaid Cymru – soft bellied as it is – will not give up their party. The solution is without exception a wholesale clear out.
My advice to any well meaning group who wishes to go down the entryism route is: “Beware the ides of March” my friends!
One of the results of the witchunt launched by Kinnock in the 1980s in the Labour Party against the militant tendency was the decision by those in Scotland to ‘go independent’ and set up the ‘Scottish Socialist Party’. It resulted in the demise of the ‘core’ vote for Labour in Scotland.
SSP went on to gain a number of seats in the Scottish Parliament, depriving Labour of a majority. It was this that ‘softened up’ the Labour vote in Scotland and by 2003 they had 6 MSPs. This ‘adjustment’ in the political landscape eventually led to the SNP landslide in their Glasgow heartlands and the demise of the Labour Party in Scotland.
Political parties should beware of ripping out their hearts to make their face look good.
Keith Parry, You were one of the late Phil Henry’s young “disciples” when you were an Undergraduate at Swansea several decades ago. Then you became a Councillor in Fairwater Ward in Cardiff winning a Cardiff City / County seat for Plaid Cymru – which you later lost – and now won back with no thanks to Leanne Wood’s political associates. Why don’t you and Neil just come out full blast and denounce the current situation with all its treachery and hangers on down in the murky swamp that once was the proud Tiger Bay of Wales? As for Llanelli, Plaid has also lost its way there, despite the memories of the shootings of the railway strikers there a century ago and the nearby Hosts of Rebecca a little earlier. What an idiot Leanne Wood is on giving out her statement about the Salisbury poisoning . Leanne Wood would never fill Nicola Sturgeon’s shoes whilst Plaid is just supporting Carwyn Jones’ divided clique and indirectly supporting the divided Corbynites! Plaid Cymru needs to fight for ridding oppressions of Wales and the Welsh not to support Russia’s situation in Salisbury.
Cllr McEvoy is at the moment an independent councillor on Cardiff City Council. Lisa Ford and I are in the Plaid Cymru group. Clr McEvoy is appealing against his removal from membership of Plaid Cymru this matter should be resolved in the next month or so.
My view is Neil McEvoy is a hard working, popular and successful campaigning councillor and assembly member. He is always willing to stand up for the under dog and has bullied no one in my experience of working with him for the last eleven years.
He is speaking at a meeting in Llanelli tonight where Plaid Cymru has managed matters in a very poor manner.
Carry on like this, old pal – “Plaid Cymru has managed matters in a very poor manner” – and you’ll be the next to get the old heave-ho!
As this particular brilliant Posting of Jac has gone on so long it is starting to meander off subject with nearly eighty comments. So I thought I’d submit an off track one here:-
Do you remember Jac’s recent exposure of the incomers living in Straw / Mud huts in West Wales and the County Councils down in the wild west do nothing via Planning Enforcement or Building Regulations? Well from the following link it seems that North Devon Council does do something. to rid the countryside of this scourge:-
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/couple-allergy-modern-life-forced-leave-hobbit-style-mud-hut-didnt-get-planning-permission-104528912.html but Planning in England has its overlords in London, whereas Planning in Wales has its overlords in that cess pit swamp in Carfdiff which is more pre-occupied with its own “huts” lined with silk led by the wimin gang.
Flattery will get you nowhere. There’ll be a new post going up tonight or tomorrow.
All this debate over patriot Neil Mcevoy and the betrayers (bradwyr) in Leanne Wood’s Plaid Cymru is getting grossly tedious,. Is Mcevoy out of Plaid Cymru and / or out of its Assembly Group? If so, how is Mcevoy still in the Plaid Cymru Group on Cardiff City Council as per late today 27-3-18? See Cardiff City Council web site. Mcevoy is still in the Plaid Cymru Group there in Cardiff Councill! Neither side has the guts or courage to push or jump. Wales could do without both gutless characters!
It’s certainly puzzling me too. McEvoy’s Twitter profile tonight reading, “Plaid Cymru Independent S Wales Central Assembly Member”. WTF!! Isn’t that what they call an oxymoron? How can he be Plaid Cymru AND Independent representing SW Central? Talk about hedging your bets.
It wasn’t/isn’t McEvoy’s choice to be where he is today. That was a decision taken by various Plaid “leaders” who can’t stomach a bit of diversity of opinion within their party despite having the gall to bang on eternally about “diversity ishoos”. Time they grew up, but not likely to happen especially when you take a look at the nature of the crew at Y Cynulliad and the kind of company they keep.
What, like McEvoy and the North Wales Association for Multicultural Integration?
https://twitter.com/sushmalay/status/978709719023079425?s=20
What about it ? It’s consistent with McEvoy’s attitude – he’ll front up and talk with, or to, any group, doesn’t need complete ideological compliance from others or toeing any line on policy, acts with a degree of confidence, doesn’t go out just to prove his “thought leadership” in a subject area. Shame other A.M’s can’t or won’t learn from this.
You are suffering from confirmation bias. NWAMI is the type of third-sector organisation that this article attacks. McEvoy is virtue-signalling in the hope that he gets credibility/brownie points with/from the Plaid people you despise so much. Why do you think that he is attempting to create his own “party within a party” rather than joining Ein Gwlad, as a true patriot would do?
The answer is that he is a committed passenger on the gravy train headed for the bay bubble.
Suffering ? No butt, you are suffering from a bad dose of misguided conformity. How far up the Plaid leadership team’s arses are you able to push your tongue ? Metaphorically you probably get it to pop it right out past their gums.
As for McEvoy, in an ideal world I would happily see him jump ship and become a high profile signing for Ein Gwlad, but I am able to respect his choice to stay on and fight his corner until he makes the decision to move on. There are people left in Plaid who would be bloody good recruits but they must be left to fight on and make their personal decisions when it best suits them.
I suspect that your “interest” in Ein Gwlad is a sham and you are engaging in a silly little diversion, probably guided by some old “bird” from Deryn.
When you resort to insults you have lost the argument, You haven’t addressed any of the points I’ve raised either. I’m sure if McEvoy revealed himself to be Beelzebub you’d still be in awe of him. He plays the race card, the class card, the gender card and the victim card but you still can’t see he is playing the ”ishoo” card.
He is relatively popular in Fairwater and less so in Cardiff itself but to think that a Cardiffian will be able to achieve the same popularity throughout Wales is wishful thinking.
I know no one in Deryn and have little interest in them. Lobbying will go on whether or not they or a register exist. The idea that Wales can develop a non-corrupt political sphere is laughable and naive. I want independence yesterday regardless of the supposed economic pitfalls and wish Ein Gwlad every success. Has McEvoy sent any messages of goodwill to the new party?
What argument ? You flash one picture of McEvoy in the company of some Cultural group. Not that unusual considering his social and ethnic background. As yet that group, NWAMI, may not have any “form”, so he can spend time with them to find out how they function.
You obviously have some serious hangup about the man and wish to pursue it vigorously. Creating some false flag attachment to the national cause isn’t very original so why not come out, be honest and admit that you have big problems with his style/ethnicity/class/or whatever else that gets you so shirty.
McEvoy’s ethnic background is at least 75% white. Given that Arab Yemenis are essentially the same race as Europeans then he is a white man.
What you fail to appreciate is that McEvoy is employing the same tricks that other Cultural Marxists use. He is trading, politically speaking, on identity politics. That is fair enough if someone uses a single identity but he is using a spurious claim to be a member of an ethnic minority; he is also vocal about his supposed working-class roots and men’s rights too. This is Intersectionality, a society-destroying ethos where those who are members of the greatest number of oppressed groups are accorded the most favourable treatment.
The old Private Eye joke about Islington Council being run by and for quadriplegic, black, lesbian, single mothers is actually coming true and Neil McEvoy as a “black”, “working class” “victim of the Matriarchy” “Welshman” is using exactly the same tactics as those he attacks with such predictable regularity.
I’m not sure that Neil McEvoy has ever played up, or tried to exploit, his ethnic background, but he has certainly used it to counter the argument we hear so often from Labour and others that runs, ‘Oh, you’re a Welsh nationalist – you must be a racist’. His mixed ancestry is the best possible response, so who can blame him for using it?
Just checked DO, 06h40 on 28/03/2018, I find on the Cardiff City Council website Cllr Neil McEvoy is listed seperately with no group. Only Cllr Lisa Ford and Cllr Kieth Parry are the ones in the ‘official Plaid Cymru group. Obviously, all three represent Fairwater.
The Third Sector is nothing but an extension of the Cultural Marxists long march through the insititutions.
https://www.cpexposed.com/latest-news/battlefield-britain-understanding-subversion-within
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10625650/The-Lefts-long-march-will-be-hard-to-stop.html
It’s time for Rights long march through the institutions.
STEP 1 – oust Welsh Labour……..
NEWYDDION TORRI!!!
There has been a backlash against the WWF in their attempts to turn Wales into a utopia for hipster metropolitan vegetarian folk.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-43461651
A farmer from the heart of Wales (who wishes to remain anonymous) said:
“What about all those people farting in the cities. What use are they. Third Sector was promoted as an alternative to making things. How much foreign currency is made by this Third Sector nonsense….bugger all thats how much. Now we have got WWF coming round here and telling us to cull our sheep because we are destroying the planet! Why don’t they go to London, a right shithole it is, millions of the buggers farting all over the place. How much methane do you think those hipster metropolitan vegetarians produce? Now why don’t the WWF go and tell them lot they are a waste of space and they are just destroying the planet. If you want to save the planet put forward a plan for a cull of the London population. Third sector! A load of bollocks! The only charity I am going to give my money to in the future is………
https://www.charitywatch.org/home
I’ll tell you what will save the planet, let the WWF tell all them hipster metropolitan vegetarians to insert a butt plug. They are not very bright ….they will probably go along with it!!!”
This WWF research has also been ridiculed by Daf, a ghost of the Eurasian Auroch the wild species native to Wales prior to agriculture. He claimed ‘I used to boil the equivalent of a kettle 2000 times before I died”.
Meanwhile, a ghost of the Megaloceros giganteus, also native to Wales prior to agriculture, claimed he holds the record in producing greenhouse gasses with the equivlent to 10,000 kettle boils.
Bladd, the ghost of a wild wolf from Trelech also snarled, “Gareth Redmond-King of WWF is a complete arse. If we’d have known we could boil some kettles while munching on the native ruminants prior to those sapiens installing fences, we wouldn’t have needed to evacuate Wales for short periods during the global cooling event known as the ice ages.
Off topic, but the BBC have published a story about ‘revelations’ on the history of Ynys Dewi (Ramsey Island). It is of course nonsense, and tells us nothing new. It’s just that the RSPB have trousered an EU grant to investigate “climate change and coastal heritage”.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-43534578
Notice the phrase “It revealed sites such as Bronze Age round barrows, a prehistoric coastal promontory fort and the possible site of a lost chapel.”
May I point out..
(a) The ‘bronze age’ barrows are well known. Some having been excavated in the 19th century and found evidence of a very sophisticated sea-trading civilisation along the west coast of Europe for thousands of years. This trade continued, independently, until modern times. This would have been ‘Brythonic’ in culture.
(b) The chapel was never ‘lost’. It was the home and shrine of St Justinian, a Breton monk, who lived there in the 6th century. Events well documented in the Celtic church. He was confidant to St David and after his death was transported and buried at Llanstinan, a church built near Trecwn and bears his name.
Whilst they spent the grant on modern scanning of the topography, it has revealed nothing new, other than the complete ignorance of the RSPB. It serves only to expose a fishing trip for more EU grants to fund fleece jacketed ‘wardens’ from England to lord over the ancient lands and artefacts of Wales.
Owen ‘oily’ Smith just doesn’t know when to give up does he? Even when faced with overwhelming odds. A sure sign of a lack of intelligence. He should have been grateful that he was excused the first time round with his audacious leadership bid. It seems some people never learn.
It reminds me of someone else in another party of late who doesn’t know when to make a tactful retreat and re-group (no pun intended). Although it would be grossly unfair to compare the latter with the former. However a bit of cool logic and pragmatism is sometimes called for. Always heed the lessons of history, and live to fight another day is what advisors should be whispering in ears.
Like you, I couldn’t care a flying stuff what Labour or the other twats do in Westminster, but lessons should be noted and learnt wherever they come from. Oily Smith is providing an excellent lesson in what you shouldn’t do if you want to survive, but I suppose you can’t educate pork can you? the other equally daft cow is that one further up from Pontypridd, who has chosen a great time to open her cavernous mouth in defence of the clown in Ponty. What a pair of fuck-wits. Wrong AGAIN – they seem to make a habit of it – reading things in the wrong way. It beggars belief. But I’m glad really, they’re doing a great job of promoting what a shambles Labour is, especially the ‘New’ Labour (pink Tory) idiots
Now that Owen Smith has got more time on his hands, maybe he should pop down to the Park Inn, Cardiff this Wednesday where the Royal Pharmaceutical Society are having a networking sesh. I’m sure Oily being the former Head of Policy and Government Relations for Pfizer prior to his elevation to the Westminster House, he’d be most welcome. Although, for some reason it’s not listed on their website (might be something to do with new statutory registration requirements at the other end of the M4) the lobbying firm Deryn Consulting had the Royal Pharmaceutical Society as clients. Just phone Cathy on 02920 099066. Refreshments and Networking start at 6.30pm.
Big Gee, there are so many oily characters, with their own overriding political ambitions waiting in the wings aren’t there? They all seem far more preoccupied with their own political careers, than what actually happens to Wales. In the case case of Stephen Kinnock though, it looks like it’s his wife Helle Thorning-Schmidt who has her ambitious eye on the top prize, as that excruciating “in the thick of it” on camera moment, where Stephen was “told off” revealed. The funniest bit is when Helle realises they are actually being filmed and tones down the rebuke into a fake discussion.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4972413/neil-kinnock-mp-son-stephen-danish-pm-wife-told-off/
Thanks for that film clip Myfanwy, very enlightening.
I do not know how the noxious Kinnocks have the nerve to show their faces in public, yet alone collaborate to try and ensure that the mediocre Stephen becomes the leader of the Labour Party one day. The Windbag and Glenys spent years concealing the organised abuse of children in north Wales, although they knew that a number of witnesses were murdered. They also knew what George Thomas was up to in south Wales.
Of course it can be argued that Stephen cannot be held responsible for what his parents did, but Stephen ruthlessly used their network to get where he is…
But Stephen is just following the family tradition. The Windbag himself was massively helped in his early political career by a close friend of Glenys’s parents, Cledwyn Jones aka Lord Cledwyn. Lord Cledwyn spent a few years as a leading light in the Welsh Office – which whilst he was there concealed the organised abuse of children and associated criminality in north Wales. Cledwyn was Secretary of State for Wales. A post which was also held by George Thomas.
The Kinnocks have achieved infamy for their incompetence and freeloading on gravy trains, but they have been involved in very much worse.
What an odious femme fatale Helle Thorning- Schmidt is Myfanwy. She will be featured in the Gazette’s next post.
Stephan Kinnock is as odius as his wife but hasn’t got the intelligence, nevertheless he is as dangerous. We must inform the people Wales of the dangers of these Globalist mouthpieces at every opportunity.
The poor people of Port Talbot must have had their minds affected by the sinter dust. How else could they have voted for this rougue Stephen Kinnock?
“The poor people of Port Talbot must have had their minds affected by the sinter dust. How else could they have voted for this rougue Stephen Kinnock?”
Er – that’s the easiest question I’ve ever had to answer. He stands on a Welsh Labour ticket. Simple as that.
Stephen Kinnock is MP for Aberavon – he succeeded the seat from Hywel Francis as a result of a fix. Hywel Francis was not what he pretended to be, but before Hywel Francis the seat was held by John Morris who can best be described as a crooked barrister who did a paedophile gang many favours. Morris was elevated to the Lords after faithfully concealing the wrongdoing of many in high places for so long and served as Attorney General under Blair.
Aberavon has been a safe Labour seat for ever – it was Ramsey MacDonald’s seat. I imagine that it is one of those seats that Stephen Kinnock’s kith and kin absolutely take for granted. The Labour Party could, in the words of the old Monty Python joke, field a little pink pussy cat as the candidate in Aberavon and they would still win.
Why else did the husband of the PM of Denmark decide that’s where he belonged – after having gone to school in London, university in Cambridge and then Brussels and having spent most of his subsequent adult life outside of the UK? Its not as if anyone in Aberavon would have known him from Adam but his dad could pull strings at a high level to get him that MPs job in Westminster which is essential if Stephen is to become PM one day. And boy has Stephen made sacrifices – a profile article in one of the broadsheets stressed that Stephen is so ‘committed’ that he even spends a couple of days a week in ‘a rented flat in Aberavon’. It will be the poshest flat in Aberavon and probably belongs to his parents or one of their friends – and he’ll be claiming his rent on Parliamentary expenses. Such commitment – as genuine as his commitment to state education which resulted in his daughter going to Atlantic College.
I could tolerate Stephen living it up if his grossly incompetent father hadn’t caused so much damage to Wales by being unelectable in the face of Thatcher who destroyed the country whilst the Windbag clung onto a job which he couldn’t do. Stephen will do the same if he gets the chance – he’s dim, he’s selfish, he’s unprincipled, but hey, he fancies being PM.
It was the poshest flat in Cwmafan actually, Dr Sally, but that’s not saying much!
His entries in the MPs’ Register of Interests reveal a flat in Brent, North London and as from 15 June 2016, he now has a house in Neath Port Talbot as well. I think he’s gone from the flat in Cwmafan. It looked rather pokey to be honest. I used to drive past on the way to puppy class. You couldn’t imagine a Red Prince even spending one night there and I never saw it lit. But it did have one thing going for it in that you couldn’t see the Tata blast furnaces from there.
Iasuffeta woman give it a rest on paedophilia will you . At this rate every one in Wales will be guilty even superted and wil cwac cwac
Just to add, in Denmark Helle Thorning-Schmidt is often described as “Gucci” Helle, for her very expensive taste in clothes and lifestyle, which is regarded at odds with her so called socialist principles, bit like Tony and Cherie Blair’s pink champagne socialism. Then the Kinnocks are Blairites after all, same self serving ambitions and rapacious acquisition of wealth, under a socialist cloak. Like all people with Labour connections, Helle landed the top charity job at “Save the Children” over £300000 a year pay. In Denmark, Stephen Kinnock was under investigation by the tax authorities, over whether he had been avoiding paying the higher rate of tax, by claiming he spent sufficient time outside the country to warrant the lower tax band, but nothing could be proved, other than perhaps a desire not to want to pay into a system that has been very generous to them. Speculation was cast over the relationship of Helle and Stephen, because he spent so much time abroad working, with rumours about his sexuality, not that that would be such a big deal in Denmark anyway. What is interesting, is that these rumours were put down to a “Russian smear” campaign, it seems the Russians get the blame for everything these days, how very convenient! Brrrr it’s a bit chilly, must be the Cold War setting in again! http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2060898/Russian-spies-blamed-gay-slur-Neil-Kinnocks-son.html
EXCITING TIMES AHEAD!
Is it just me or is Owen Smith the reincarnation of Siadwel……but without the intelligence and wit of John Sparkes?
The Blairist Third Wayers in Westminter seem to be somewhat passe!
Good riddance to the twats.
Will the fuckers turn up though?….
as the NEW SOCIAL DEMOCRATS.
Who knows? – Who cares?
The Westminster crooks can kiss my arse!
Politics in Wales………. has ignited at last!!!
THERE BE GOLD IN THEM THAR HILLS!!!
http://prospectingforgold.co.uk/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5098547/Millions-spied-greedy-universities.html
https://www.thirdsector.co.uk/iof-defends-universities-accused-spying-donors/fundraising/article/1450665
THIRD SECTOR = THE OPIUM OF THE MIDDLE CLASS
The Third Sector is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the middle class.
Dr Sally Baker [& others]
Interesting regarding the police. Have to be careful when they are involved in stalking/harassment cases as their investigation is likely to be politically influenced.
For example one case I am familiar with an ex wife made allegations of stalking/harassment, however, this was a complete lie and could be shown to be so, as this was a repeat false allegation and capable of prosecution of reverse stalking the police ducked responsibility or doing anything due it appears to the ex wife being a client/former client of women’s aid & other third sectors and getting “support”. Indicates to me the police are now a political rather than impartial force, maybe even deep state/swamp.
Just shows the bleating of the police of lack of money and resources by the likes of Alun Michael PCC and others is as Jac says “Bollocks”. They seem to have resources for “political” expeditions.
Jacqui Thompson, despite no action, she is still tarred in police records as being a stalker/harasser [due to her blog?], have to read her comment for correct details.
Neil McEvoy also beaten down [but not out I hope] by what he says are false claims of harassment – not sure he actually knows what he is accused of.
If you are a blogger [whistleblower] – better research about protection from nerve gas?
Actually, I think that when Dyfed-Powys CAD room got the call regarding Jacqui Thompson filming proceedings in the CCC chamber all police officers concerned, including that of inspector rank would have been very aware of the ‘political’ issues and motivations of the shout. It is probably the reason why a female officer was dispatched from Nantycaws in response. Police officers are not stupid and would have known what was occurring and background prior to their arrival on-site. They are, however, obliged to take such reports at face value and follow process.
Example 1 – When both Jill Evans and Leanne Wood were present at a Plaid Cymru election stall outside Treorchy market a few years ago when Leighton Andrews and Chris Bryant turned up brandishing Labour Party leaflets in the company of SWP officers of various senior ranks and proceeded with a photo opportunity. It is perfectly in order for a concerned member of the public to enquire of the officers present if there was likely to be an ‘active shooter’ incident, a drugs bust, or any major civil disturbance at the railway station. Needless to say all officers concerned became very aware of the political manipulation from the Labour Party they were enrolled in, and left the scene, forthwith. If it happens again, appropriate action will be taken.
Example 2 – When a traffic division responder was parked at the then Asda car park on the Coryton interchange of the M4 gets a shout relating to information received of a female drunk in pyjamas driving erratically through Whitchurch they were very aware of the political nature of both the informant and the suspect. They will however, respond immediately and professionally to apprehend the suspect to protect the people of Cardiff from such a dangerous offender. No doubt they would have been familiar with the ‘cos i is a woman – cos I’m depressed’ sob story rattled out on the floor of the Senedd as it was the same as that spilled out through copious shedding of tears on the roadside over a breathalyser.
As regards false claims of harassment, I think all experienced police officers in Wales are very much aware of the fraught circumstances relating to ‘domestics’, in the full knowledge that some victims can also be suspects, some offenders can also be victims, and in many cases false statements are made, often motivated by coercive control by one, or more, of the parties involved. What I am confident of is that all police officers who have Ely on their patch will be fully aware of Neil McEvoy being a fine upstanding, passionate advocate for justice, well respected within his community and an honest reliable individual and asset to the social fabric of less affluent parts of Cardiff.
It is police officers that have to collate evidence from women who use tampon plugs of class A drugs. It is police officers that perform CPR on dying teenagers being used as mules. It is police officers who disarm the slashing machete of someone mixing anti-psychotic medication with strongbow. This occurring inside, outside and clients of many third sector institutions that Jac exposes on this blog. It is also police officers who are aware of the criminal record of offenders which organisations like Llamau provide ‘non-judgemental’ assistance and parade as ‘success stories’ under an assumed name on their website. It’s the police who know the children that were raped but the courts make orders on disclosure in order to protect the victims.
Something to bear in mind.
Brychan – I take your point that police officers are at the sharp end and I agree that many of them deal with a range of complex situations in a sensitive and nuanced way. I know that they seethe when they are aware of abusive and harmful behaviour which for any number of reasons – including corruption on the part of people in more senior positions to them – they have not succeeded in stopping. The police are also acutely aware that the people complaining of being ‘harassed’ or ‘stalked’ may actually be the ones doing the harassment or stalking.
The problem that I’ve got at the moment is that someone who was indeed harassing me – an NHS manager – succeeded in having me prosecuted some years ago for ‘threatening to kill’ him. The case collapsed when it became clear that numerous NHS staff – including him – had perjured themselves. There was no prosecution of any of them for perjury or perverting the course of justice. Instead I was prosecuted for the lowest category of Public Order Offence – basically for having insulted the NHS manager. I pleaded guilty – my crime was to have called him a fat idiot when he flatly refused to investigate a criminal act committed by the staff of an NHS unit that he was mismanaging. Some years later I discovered that the day after the case, someone had unlawfully amended the PNC to record an offence of harassment against my name. I then discovered that someone else had forged a certificate of indictment in my name which stated that I had pleaded guilty to ‘violent disorder’. The forged certificate of indictment was discovered in the possession of Chester Court. The matter has been with the legal division of the North Wales Police for over a year now. I have heard nothing.
I don’t know who altered the PNC and forged the certificate of indictment, but I do know that whoever did it committed a very much more serious offence that I did when I called the NHS manager a fat idiot. Since I was prosecuted for calling him a fat idiot, my lawyer gained access to letters that the NHS manager had written to his NHS colleagues explaining how he was planning to prosecute me – months before I had even committed the offence of which I had been accused…
Now I would have thought that things should be looking very grim indeed for that NHS manager. But it’s me who’s in hiding not him.
Where was the NHS manager when he made NINE telephone calls to the police insisting that I be prosecuted for threatening to kill him, knowing damn well that I had done no such thing? He was at the Welsh Assembly in a meeting about NHS strategy.
The man concerned retired from the NHS when things become so bad at the unit that he ran – in terms of patient and staff suicides and complaints of violence towards the patients from the staff – that his position became untenable. He was then given a job as the CEO of St David’s Hospice in Llandudno.
It is frankly nearly unbelievable.
The Health Minister in post when this lying criminal bastard tried to have me imprisoned by committing perjury on an industrial scale was Jane Hutt. The Health Minister in post who wrote to me stating that ‘this correspondence is closed’ when I told him that I had documentary evidence of serious criminality in the NHS in north Wales was Brian Gibbons.
I really do think that Hutt and Gibbons belong in the slammer along with him. As well as every member of NHS staff who lied on oath in an attempt to have me jailed because I had dared complain about violent staff.
From what you have written, and as far as I’m aware, a formal ‘certificate of indictment’ only exists in Scotland. Leanne Wood at Faslane springs to mind.
I think you are referring to an entry on the PNC of ‘discontinuance of prosecution with no case to answer’ under autrefois acquit. It’s a common misconception that this historical record is an entry of guilt and commonly arises from the way prosecution takes place under the Crime and Disorder Act. What is actually means is that you have pleaded guilty of a lesser (fat idiot) offence to a magistrate without sentence (caution?) and as such you cannot be sent for trial to a higher court for trail on a more serious charge (threats to kill) because the prosecution provided no evidence for this, and at the time this was also concurrent, so cannot be prosecuted for the same offence twice. The entry would have been signed by the bench, so not forged.
On PNC it would be an ‘advisory entry’ and can be removed as per your request at any time and certainly not worth paying legal council to do. No doubt many of your patients will have such entries on PNC as people with psychiatric disorders are often accused of causing alarm and distress but prosecution finds no evidence due to medical condition. Advisory entries are used by police officers to assist them in deciding how to respond to any future incident and can form no part in subsequent prosecution. In most cases it’s a record to protect vulnerable people, ie, the accused.
Perjury is the offence of lying under oath. In other words, in the courtroom. I am not aware of Jane Hutt being called in person to give evidence unless she submitted ‘expert’ testimony in her absence. She, as far as I’m aware, possesses no such expertise, other than being a Labour AM, which you will find lying to be a mode of conduct.
Thanks for the info Brychan. I used the phrase ‘certificate of indictment’ because that was the term that the official with whom I dealt in Chester Court used to describe the document that I am referring to. I wonder if in English and Welsh law it is actually called something else? I have a copy here with me, whatever its official name is, it states that I pleaded guilty to an offence with which I was never even charged yet alone pleaded guilty to.
In terms of the PNC, I was definitely referring to it being amended – on more than one occasion as well, I have a full record. Somebody accessed my record on more than one occasion and unlawfully altered it.
In terms of perjury, I didn’t mean to state that Hutt and Gibbons committed perjury, rather that they colluded with a number of other people who most definitely did and that this resulted in harm to patients…
You used the expression ‘your patients’ in your reply to me – just to clarify, I WAS the patient. My title of ‘doctor’ is a result of a PhD, not a medical degree, although I do have an MSc in clinical pharmacology/histopatholoy. Sorry for any confusion…
Dr Sally, in regard to the Welsh Labour Party, The third sector and the whole context of political compromise and corruption, I was curious about a recent post you made, “Yet More Inglorious bastards” where you mention the role of among others, Mark Drakeford, Brian Gibbons, Jane Davidson, Jane Hutt and Rhodri Morgan.
This passage from “Yet More Inglorious bastards” was very revealing:
“Peter Clarke’s Report was received by the then Minister for Education and Lifelong Learning Jane Davidson, who stated that there must be ‘robust dependable systems in place that protect children from harm and abuse’. Davidson maintained that everyone needed to involve themselves in tightening child protection procedures, including the Welsh Gov’t.
When Davidson said this, Brian Gibbons had been Deputy Minister for Health – Gibbons later became Minister for Health and Social Services and during that time wrote me a letter stating that ‘this correspondence is closed’ after I wrote to him and told him that I had evidence of serious criminal activity in the north Wales mental health services. In 2004 Jane Hutt, a former social worker, was the Minister for Health and Social Services and remained silent whilst children in care and patients were abused. Mark Drakeford was working as Rhodri Morgan’s SPAD – Drakeford had worked as a social worker in Dyfed whilst a paedophile gang operated there. Rhodri himself was married to dear old Julie – a former social worker who had been Deputy Director of Barnardo’s whilst Barnardo’s staff had been involved with child abuse.”
This suggests that Jane Davidson, who started her political career as Rhodri Morgan’s research assistant, was well aware of the protection problems regarding vulnerable children in Wales and about the need for radical changes, but when you pressed Brian Gibbons on a connected matter, there was no action and cover up. So obviously, to keep the lid on such heinous criminality involving connected and prominent people, the whole social/political system, as you discuss in great detail, is corrupted. The third sector is therefor the off spring of these corrupted politicians and as Jac enlightens us, obviously fails to benefit those with the greatest need in Welsh Society.
In the wider Political context of corruption and abuse of power in these matters, I imagine you have heard about the book “Playland” by Anthony Daly, which has just been published: https://scepticpeg.wordpress.com/tag/playland/ The blog post is very interesting for listing many of the political figures etc involved, which helps build up an understanding of the wider web of corruption and criminality involved. I was wondering if it would be possible for you to list or create a “web” diagram, which clearly shows the links and relationships between those you discuss on your own blog, making it clear, in a very accessible way, how the corruption all fits together in the context of North Wales and beyond?
Thanks for your interest Myfanwy and for the recommendation re ‘Playland’.
I didn’t realise that Jane Davidson was Rhodri Morgan’s research assistant – that lot don’t always publicise their connections!
I spent years giving everyone the benefit of the doubt in terms of ‘perhaps they didn’t know how bad the criminality was’ – I do still give people whom I know nothing about the benefit of the doubt because I really don’t want to be the sort of person who presumes anything about someone else when I do not actually know. But after all my digging and all my research, as far as the Welsh Assembly goes I can say they all knew, every one of them. And yes, they knew how serious the criminality was as well.
I know that a very small number of AMs have tried to help, but they have had to be very careful how they do that – we are talking serious organised crime here, witnesses have been found dead. So I do not class ALL AMs as people who covered everything up – but sadly most of them did and they ignored the desperate pleas for help from people who were being seriously abused. In terms of those who did ignore the pleas for help or conceal serious wrongdoing – some people were simply terrified and one should never underestimate the power of terrifying someone. I can understand people being frightened if they know that they are dealing with people who have murdered witnesses. But what I find completely unforgivable are the Janes and the Julies and the Drakefords etc who knew exactly what was going on and who even now won’t just BUTT OUT. They have made careers by standing watching vulnerable people abused, but even now after the admissions that a vicious sex abuse gang ripped through north Wales for decades whilst they remained silent, after the acceptance that people like George Thomas molested young people for years and that his actions were concealed by everyone, we still have to tolerate these compromised weak drips banging on about empowering people and log jamming every bloody committee concerned with disabled people/children/the elderly ie. the very people whom they could not have let down more.
If Darren Millar can stand up in public and demand that ‘carers’ and NHS workers who assault and abuse their patients should be prosecuted, WHAT is wrong with the rest of them? Why did Brian Gibbons believe that four NHS workers should have the right to physically assault me, leave injuries and that they should then escape all investigation and prosecution? It is absolutely outrageous. The last time that I watched the Senedd proceedings, Mark Isherwood made a speech BEGGING Gething to intervene in the NHS in north Wales. Gething’s response was to bollock on about how he met some ‘service users’ and that Mark was ‘talking down the NHS’. Does Gething know what is going on in north Wales? I’ve had to go into hiding and barely a day goes past without the Daily Post reporting some horrific disaster which has resulted in death or serious injury to a patient!
The irony of it all has left me gobsmacked – I’m a lifelong leftie but the only people who made any effort to support me after I had been targeted by a gang of paedophiles were two Tories…
All I can hope for now is that when Jane/Julie/Drakeford/Vaughan have to go into hospital that they receive the sort of treatment that I and others – or Ann Clwyd’s husband – did. Then it might sink into their think, bigoted, callous skulls that we have one hell of a problem here because people are not safe in the hands of the health and welfare services. But of course it won’t happen to them – they’ll make damn sure it doesn’t, they’ll use their networks to ensure that they avoid the shit that is happening to everyone else and if they get really worried, believe me they’ll go private…
Meanwhile they’ll put up another fucking plaque to one of their friends on the walls of the Senedd a la Val Feld. Who did of course know about the abuse of vulnerable people herself but like the rest of them she ignored it.
In terms of mapping the connections between the corrupt ones – other people have suggested that as well but first, I am very very bad at those sort of maps, I work verbally and I’ve got what people now call ‘dyspraxia’ but what I just categorise as not being very good at doing certain things. Maps and flow charts being among them. Second, the connections are so numerous and overlapping that I think it would be difficult to make a sensible map even for someone who was good at working like that. However, I am hoping to take a bit of time off soon and revamp the indexing on my blog to make it as easy to navigate as possible. I’ve ended up writing a lot more about a lot more people and topics that I expected and the indexing system that I designed originally is now hopelessly inadequate and people are complaining that my blog is very difficult to navigate. I hope that people can bear with me, I’ve supplied as much info as possible, there is nearly everything up there that people who are interested in abuses in the health and welfare system and those politicians/lawyers/judges etc who concealed it all might want…It is all there even if people have to dig around on my blog a bit to find it.
Jac – in response to those of your respondents who mentioned wimmin and men who want to be wimmin, I’m wondering if they heard the discussion on the Today programme a couple of days ago. It concerned the latest pickle that the Labour Party are in – there is a civil war concerning all women shortlists. Not the usual questions regarding the use of these, but now whether men who ‘self identify’ as women – never mind surgery/hormones, never mind living as a woman, simply men declaring themselves as women – should be eligible to appear on an all woman short list. As I understand it, the current state of play is that they can – but someone has had the temerity to point out that a man appearing on an all woman shortlist rather defeats the object…
Of course all woman shortlists were simply used by Blair to parachute in his favoured candidates above those chosen by local constituency parties (and yes, sometimes it was a local woman who was ousted by the use of an all woman shortlist), there was never anything democratic about them, but Harriet Harman wanted them introduced so she could fill up the Commons with her mates…
As I heard two members of the Labour Party argue the toss over this sheer idiocy with allegations of transphobia being bandied about and what really did sound like a man talk about his experience as a woman, I just thought ‘who on earth would ever waste their time with a career in politics if this is what one has to deal with?’ Never mind questions of capitalism, or the economy or the best way of housing and feeding a nation or major diplomatic problems on the world stage, the Labour Party have tied themselves up in knots by not foreseeing this when they embraced all wimmin shortlists at the same time as accepting that there are ‘many different experiences of being a woman’, including the experiences of those wimmin in possession of a penis and testicles. It reminds me of the way in which Spare Rib died a death back in the 80s after this ‘women’s liberation magazine’ was run by a collective of utterly mad people who ripped each others throats out over a row concerning anti-semitism and zionism. The ‘liberation magazine for working class women’ – which was so working class that the small ads were filled with folk selling handmade shoes from wimmins collectives at £50 a pair or hand made CND ear-rings as well as wimmin asking for help in building their menstrual huts – became so preoccupied with whether all Jewish people were Zionists that everybody stopped reading it and the publication collapsed. If the Labour Party isn’t careful it’ll go the same way.
I have a friend – who currently self identifies as a woman and unlike some who are now about to appear on all woman shortlists is not in possession of male genitalia – who is contemplating self-identifying as a nine year old child below the age of criminal responsibility because she thinks that would be fun.
Regarding the Third sector – parts of it are even more toxic than the anecdotes appearing on this blog would suggest. I write a blog exposing research fraud and malpractice in health/social care and related areas and I cover the statutory sector, the private sector and the voluntary sector. For a long while now I have been given horror stories by clients and employees of MIND but everybody asked me not to identify them because they feared retribution. A few weeks ago one brave former employee of North East Wales MIND e mailed me and provided an account of appalling workplace bullying, serious misconduct and the suicide of a client – she told me that she wanted to go public and asked me to name her. I wrote a blog post. Within days I was bombarded by a troll who not only littered up my comments column with crap but harassed and threatened me and the whistleblower, then threatened her husband and kids after hacking into my blog and into the whistleblowers e mail account and harvesting personal data. The troll turned out to be the former boyfriend of the daughter of a senior member of staff at MIND. The matter was reported to the police and the troll was told to leave us alone. The troll then contacted my hoster five times in an attempt to have my blog taken off line.
Throughout this, MIND took no action at all, although it was widely discussed that a whistleblower’s children had been threatened and e mail accounts hacked.
This afternoon my hoster contacted me. MIND have now sent a lawyers letter to my hoster maintaining that my blog is libellous and demanding that I delete my post about North East Wales MIND. I have always made clear on my blog that if anyone believes that I have published anything that is untrue, I will be happy to edit it. I have documentary evidence for everything that I published about North East Wales MIND. I have e mailed the lawyer this afternoon and asked him what exactly he believes is untrue. My perception is that this is simply another attempt to harass and silence me and the whistleblower. I have just spoken to the whistleblower and she has given me yet more documentary evidence of even more misconduct at North East Wales MIND.
MIND is one of the biggest UK health charities and receives millions from both the Westminster and Welsh Gov’t. Its representatives sit on Gov’t committees and influence policy. Former clients have become so angry at the abuses of MIND that in recent months its CEO Paul Farmer has been met with protests of angry disability rights activists. Farmer is paid over £100k pa.
I know of one MIND executive in north Wales who previously worked as a psychiatric nurse manager and covered up the sexual and physical abuse of patients in the hospitals in which he worked. I won’t name him here Jac lest you too are subject to the wrath of MIND and its lawyers, but I’m just trawling through documents written by this man which are in my possession and I’ll be naming him on my own blog very soon.
EUROPEAN POLICY BRIEF
ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF THE THIRD SECTOR IN
EUROPE: FROM CONCEPT TO METRICS. PROGRESS ON
INDICATORS AND METHODS
“Systematic review of the research on the impact of the third sector on individuals and on community shows that impacts are often assumed, but rarely demonstrated. Furthermore, the positive impacts are not equally accessible or spread. Individuals who already have better well-being, health and social trust are more likely to be involved in the third sector. Groups and individuals with fewer resources, or who are already less advantaged, are less likely to become involved in voluntary organizations to promote their interest, satisfy their needs, or make changes in policy favorable to them. Moreover, the effects of voluntary participation are gendered and can also vary by age, employment status, income, type of association and type of involvement.”……..
https://mrorigamidotorg.wordpress.com/2018/03/23/european-policy-brief/
In other words these people step over a homeless person as they exit the opera then call for the taxes paid by lower paid people to spent on hostels in parts of town they don’t live.
W T hell is this all about – wales a nation of poverty needing third sector support [or more for the incomers] giving help to Africa [which is a huge continent] – like an ant on an elephant for the difference it will make but plenty of jollies to exotic places for the great and good [aka teatsuckers and troughers] and guess who won the contract?
https://www.sell2wales.gov.wales/search/show/search_view.aspx?ID=MAR243610
-“The Wales for Africa small-grants scheme is a flagship initiative of the Welsh Government’s Wales for Africa programme. The scheme enables individuals, community groups and organisations in Wales to access funding for small-scale projects that contribute to Wales’ delivery of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and deliver benefits to Wales and Africa. The Welsh Government are looking for a distributive body to manage the small grant scheme from April 2018 to March 2021_””
There’s also a Sub Sahara Advisory Panel. I wrote about it all here. It’s the usual Labour-connected shysters living off the public purse.
Should we again look to the East?
https://llanddewibrefigazette.wordpress.com/2018/03/18/should-we-again-look-to-the-east/
Even better, look into ourselves, reject religion especially these highly institutionalised regimes with lots of blokes dressed up in posh frocks such as Popery, Anglican, Orthodox, Islam all full of lying cheating bastards who preach the virtues of poverty while taking all the loot they can get their hands on.
P.S Russian Orthodox Church is now heavily “involved” with F.S.B State control activities. True test of religious tolerance in Russia is how smaller denominations/sects are treated. Orthodox may be Christian but it doesn’t have much time for anything remotely Proddie/nonconformist. Faith is a means of controlling people and any state that favours one faith will be heavily into control. Not just Russia, check out Anglicans in UK, Popery in big chunks of EU, and my mates the mullahs in any country that stinks of oil (or shit) !. Biggest threat to these control freaks are people who manage well without religion although many of them are susceptible to other addictions that can be used for control, like the gun lobby in U.S.
Yes. Atheism is an option. A problem with that, is that it leaves a religious/spiritual vacuum, society, like nature, abhors a vacuum.
more irony from Ms Wood – she’s getting good at that, probably without realising it ! “Wales now facing a battle for democracy…” says she, the same dame that goes after dissenting voices within Plaid like Beria or Felix did in good old Soviet Russia. What stunning wit ! Keep them coming and you’ll have us all rocking in the aisles, some with badly damaged ribs from excessive laughter.
Bloggers/Social Media Users Beware:
https://wingsoverscotland.com/nazi-pugs-fuck-off/#more-102034
http://barristerblogger.com/2018/03/18/the-met-has-a-problem-with-hate-crime-it-cant-explain-what-it-means/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa5CNf7pMAM
Some people who taught hate crimes have yet to be prosecuted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioD50ZYOQEQ
Using Harvard professor Noel Ignatiev’s logic:
Welshness is an identity that can be plausibly argued. Welsh studies is a study of a people that has formed itself in resistance to it’s oppression.
Not to have Welsh studies in our schools and universities must be viewed as a hate crime.
Recommended reading for the disgruntled populace of Wales……..
The Bread and Circuses satire to the Fabians by The Prif Seneddwr, Twaticus Maximus, Emperor of the whole of Wales and the Province of Patagonia…….
https://crm.fabians.org.uk/winning-for-wales/
Bread and circuses…..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses
Does this clown inhabit the same country as we do? Or even the same planet! It is evident to me that he has been stepping so often into unreality he no longer knows where the line between fact and fantasy lies.
Or perhaps he’s been spinning and lying for so long that he’s been transformed into a habitual liar – one that lies even about things he can be truthful about.
But the reality is he lives in the Cardiff Bay bubble which is an artificial hologram of a perceived reality that does not actually exist.
And the poor (literally poor) peasant natives still vote for his party – unbelievable.
Is all satire supposed to be funny? … I guess not from my stress levels reading that bull.
Again and again all we get is Carwyn’s continual rhetoric that all successes in Wales are down to Welsh Labour and all the failings are down to that terrible Tory government in Westminster. How much longer will the herded populous of Wales put up with his continuous posturing as FM?
Hence this overblown statement, which contains his usual catalogue of over-substantiated claims.
“Just last month we attracted Aston Martin to set up its new factory in Wales” – The full financial terms of the deal were not disclosed by Carwyn at his time of writing. Presumably everyone was too busy organising photo opportunities to handle such requests. We now know the welsh government gave £5.8m in public financing and took 15 months to disclose the information after much stone walling.
On a personal level I have seen my children’s school’s GCSE figures and it showed a marked drop in A-C grades in all core subjects of maths, english, welsh and science but schools are cunning they introduce a broader range of (vocational) subjects, particularly at BTEC level which offsets the drop in these grades.
“15,000 extra jobs for young people through our Jobs Growth Wales programme;” A look at the data for the first phase shows that in terms of full-time employment in the Private sector strand, surely the most important in terms of future economic development in Wales, 4844 people were employed full-time either with the same or different employer with part time and apprenticeship roles helping to boost the numbers.
The Jobs Growth Wales 2 programme was announced on 13 May 2015. The number of job opportunities filled was 3,075. No data on the site as to the equivalent rates for phase 2.
“protection for our students from paying £9000 fees.” Actually students still ‘pay’ 45% of the fees through an equivalent student loan system. So his statement I’m sure is meant to imply one thing while being able to be defensible if challenged.
“In addition, we passed an ambitious range of legislation including a pioneering organ donation bill that will save lives.” – Wales’ organ donation opt-out law has not increased donors as stated in a recent study reported by the BBC. Organ donor success or failure rates I’m sure is way more complex and doubtful if can be attributed to a piece of legislation. But again he feels its a claim worth making.
This piece goes to show his total arrogance. He really isn’t concerned about being challenged on the things he says. The fact is he knows a large portion of people will believe it or want to believe it. Carwyn has always been dismissive of debate with opposition parties in Wales abusing his party’s majority position here. Again it comes down to one thing; a real lack of credible political opposition to what welsh labour is doing here in Wales.
I see the wasting mule published Jac’s letter in full yesterday. No doubt CJs advisors were up all night drafting a weasel worded response. On the front page was news that labours support in Wales had slipped some 4% since November (I don’t buy the rag so I haven’t got the detail). Perhaps Jac’s drip drip of exposes are slowly having the desired effect on a populace used to being spoon fed Welsh labour propaganda via our biased mainstream media. I wouldn’t be surprised if the decision to charge (or at least consider charging) visitors to Snowdonia is linked to calls on here and elsewhere for a tourism tax. Keep up the good work.
I’m from an engineering background, so have little to do with the third sector, however, I would like to distinguish between the term ‘homeless’. First, people who are living in temporary accommodation, who would best served in Swansea by Shelter Cymru or Housing Options, based in the High Street. Second are those who are rough sleepers, and are looked after by charity’s like the the Salvation Army and others.
As for duplication of work from the Third Sector, one of the guys that work with us often comes up against them. He lives in a neighbourhood of Swansea called Blaen y Maes and he can’t shake a small stick without hitting a graduate doing something for him whether he likes it or not.
There are a couple of Family Centre’s, the schools have early years education run by TS, also at least three Community Houses, Clothes Banks and no doubt a Food Bank. The only thing run by volunteers is the Community Cafe, probably because the graduates are so lazy, they cant make there own latte. He claims that every year they multiply with new graduates employed to bid for next years funding.
How much does this cost and what are the Labour Councillors doing? Oh yesssss, OK.
As if one big mess isn’t enough for one day – the McEvoy debacle – Plaid goes straight into another potential minefield with their attack on “obscene dividends” paid to directors of New Directions, a supplier of permanent and temporary teaching staff and similar skills. New Directions has been around for a while and has exploited the skills shortage which exists throughout education at almost all levels. They set about recruiting onto their register a diverse population of teaching skills and set about selling a service to the education authorities in Wales. Some bought, some didn’t.
In the course of its 20 year tenure the Labour government in the bay created a National Procurement Service, consistent with its mantra that big is better and beautiful. Centralise everything, it’s got to be good. Local authorities were encouraged to place procurement activity with this new agency as it would, no doubt, generate cost reductions. Did it hell !
After some cute selling and marketing of services NPS awarded some sort of preferred supplier status to New Directions. So an agency set up to provide excellence goes off and procures another business to do what it was set up to do. Classic public sector service delivery model – “I don’t do the work, I get someone else to do it”. I am not party to the fee structures that feature in this agreement but be assured they were not subject to any kind of stringent evaluation, may have contained some sort of volume discount but off a high base point it would still represent suspect value.
Yet that is not really the point. N.P.S was set up to provide excellence in procurement. The end product, subject of critical comment within recent weeks, is yet another layer of bureaucratic interface between a “user” and “supplier”. To make matters worse it has not delivered a reliable cost effective service, doesn’t even wash its own face on costs.
On the specific matter of skills shortages in the teaching profession responsibility has rested since 1999 with ……..you know who ! On that matter I need say no more.
Yet Plaid goes hammer and tongs at divis paid to stakeholders in New Directions. Now these people may be a bunch of squalid opportunists, nothing new there, but right now the evidence merely points to them being commercially astute spotting the openings in their market and exploiting to the max. If Plaid had any sense of priority they would address their criticism at Labour – sort out the education resource deficit, and get rid of yet another useless public body that delivers bugger all except a nice income package to a bunch of careerists who can’t cover their own cost base – some added value. Not that they, Plaid, haven’t had time to investigate root causes and muster a detailed criticism aimed at the appropriate party, as this subject has featured on some Plaid blogs since sometime in 2017. There again a party that seems to attach greater priority to fashionable gender alignment issues isn’t likely to be well equipped to handle such a challenge.
The start of the Orwellification process in Wales!
The Welsh Labour Government has made our children in Wales the least educated in the UK and beyond and now……..
“Children to be asked views on Brexit by Welsh Government.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-43429355
The kids can’t comprehend the complexity of this issue at this age. They will only regurgitate what the teachers in Welsh schools have indoctrinated into them.
This is child abuse on an industrial scale in Wales!
Welsh Labour are beyond disgusting and evil.
Just a thought….
The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement?
The Welsh Golden Cross ….Charity begins at home.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/charitable-purposes/charitable-purposes
The Golden Cross movement!!!
In these times of impending disaster the people of Wales now need to enter the Welsh Third Sector….. and lead it!
Why stop there?……..
We need foresight….some research by the Welsh University of life……..we need to invent a new buzz word with an original philosophy……..perhaps a non-governmental organisation to create jobs and wealth for Wales and it’s people.
“THE FOURTH SECTOR.” !!!
you tweeted yesterday that you had a problem with nation.cymru. I got into it but was unable to comment or read others’ comments. Today the search engines – google and firefox are both unable to access the site. IMJ off the air ? Hope not, didn’t agree with some of his stuff but there again I find it hard to agree much with anyone ! And he serves his purpose well in that he fetches all sorts of views out into the open, including some right miserable tossers. Good to know what our opponents/enemies think at times.
I’ve sent him a message asking what’s happened.
IMJ says he’s been told it’s down to a “major failure of the filesystem”.
Does he mean a corruption of the data base used for the site’s file system? If so he has major problems or whoever administers his site has. A ‘major failure of the file system’ is rather an obscure catch all phrase.
Or has someone done a bit of sabotage by SQL Injection. SQL injection is a code injection technique that might destroy his database. Bad news I fear – if that is the case.
You make sure to keep making automatic DB backups of this site Jac – as I keep on tediously telling you.
You’re so right Jac – re the third sector and housing associations being money making rackets making jobs for the boys/girls. Their overarching “charitable” objectives are about glossy publicity to con the public to believe all the grants and their donations are well spent. incidentally, donations given by the general public are classed as 2unrestricted” funds – i.e. the management can spend them on whatever-the-fuck they like. You can be pretty damn sure if the general public knew where their donations actually went (e.g. free champagne Xmas parties for one particularly popular animal charity – my ex was there working the gig and told me about it, conferences are training courses – always a good one – including company cars, mileage, hotels, all meals – useful for “networking” – i.e. sizing up the next opportunity for a career enhancement) – they wouldn’t give a damn penny. Mind you, it’s my observation that any body spending public money will be wasteful, and extravagant with those controlling the purse strings.
Erthygl diddorol:
http://gwallter.com/politics/wales-and-brexit-by-emyr-lewis.html
Slightly OT, but the fake patriots’ stitch-up of Neil McEvoy is complete:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-43457417
Conveniently, this will seemingly prevent him from being a candidate for Ddy Parti Of Wêls in the next election. The ‘New Party’ should reach out to him (if it hasn’t already) with a view to enabling his candidature.
He could stand for Cardiff West regardless and win it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/wales-constituencies/W09000029
more likely to win without being burdened by the limp wristed Plaid image. Cardiff West natives don’t go much for the trendy rubbish, will stick with a guy who stands up for them. This episode is a warning to any other Plaid A.M that dissent, no matter how logical or rational, is not tolerated by the leadership clique.
That must be a big worry for Plaid Cymru.
McEvoy doesn’t look like he’s curled up and despairing in a corner anyway. Local electorate like his style and way of doing things. So expect more of the same.
https://golwg360.cymru/newyddion/cymru/515587-neil-mcevoy-agwedd-sydd
Plaid should start to worry as the pseudo socialist ishoo pushers won’t cut much ice in Cardiff West.
Apparently a Plaid councillor near Ebbw Vale has left the party as he had become pissed off, treatment of McEvoy was the last straw. Another own goal, Leanne & her formation dancers are getting good at this.
I read that the Deryn Conspiracy have secured McEvoy’s exclusion from the Party of Wales for 18 months. Maybe that will trigger a membership walkout despite McEvoy stating that he wants to change the Party from within. Some hope, all the wierdos and bullshit merchants will be out there expressing their faux “concerns” about an aggressive man loose in the political arena. Time to distinguish “assertive” from “aggressive”, or is that beyond those emotionally maladjusted freaks ?
I have after much deliberation and jury out stuff come to the conclusion just from looking, listening, watchin that mcevoy is an arse. Having said that i slso believe that PC in the Senedd is also an arsehole of a party despite being a member. If it were not for the Westminster 4 i would walk. However they are deluding themselves in that they think the electorate will carry on suporting them in nxt Westminster election. We Spineless welsh willpolarise into pro brexit snd labour- when will that leanne fuck right off- i am a feminist women who is pretty pissed off with this site ‘s mysoginy Jac, atbtimes. but i can’t take anymore of PC’s total capitulation to the corrupt system of Welsh governance.
But if i hear anymore bullshit sbout #METOO, wimmin as victims or trans fflipin blokes or wimmin- i will crack up as will most Welsh women who have just had enough of this crap. I want a better Wales for all not issue related empty rhetoric meaningless as pC will NEVEr BE IN POWER. Nosda
I can imagine Walter Scott looking down from heaven and saying:……
Aye! ….Jac o’r the North, well put, ar coulndty put it better m’self.
I just come up with this wee ditty though…….”What a tangled web Welsh Labour weave when first they practise to deceive.”
All the best Jac, seems like if Welsh Labour are not ousted at yer next Assembly elections Wales is truly fucked!
kind regards
Wally
“The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) think tank agrees. ‘Our main issue is the state funding that charities receive,’ says the IEA’s Chris Snowdon, author of The Sock Doctrine. ‘Charities have become “sockpuppets”, taking money from the government to lobby the government.’ He’s talking about things like Save the Children’s lobbying against child poverty and the RSPB’s work against fracking: campaigns that led to last year’s Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act, and to the then Minister for Civil Society Brooks Newmark agreeing that charities should ‘stick to their knitting’ “……
https://www.managementtoday.co.uk/why-weve-lost-faith-charities/reputation-matters/article/1369094
I see in the above link that Cardiff University makes it into the Charity top ten. They wouldn’t haven’t anything to do with Lobbying the Welsh Labour Govenment would they?
Anna Nicholl – London School of Economics and Political Science
MSc, Development Studies
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/anna-nicholl-84263210 ……..
Nice little stint as Special Adviser to the
Welsh Government
July 2008 – May 2011 (2 years 11 months)
Anna Nicholl – London School of Economics and Political Science
MSc, Development Studies
Yes that is the same London School of Economics (officially The London School of Economics and Political Science, often referred to as LSE) is a public research university located in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidney Webb, Beatrice Webb, Graham Wallas, and George Bernard Shaw for the betterment of society.
Not that bloody George Bernard Shaw again!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQvsf2MUKRQ
Cardiff Bay is a fucking merry-go-round. Politicians retire and get a cushy number in academe or some other arm of the third sector. Or maybe they become lobbyists. And lobbyists become politicians or spads. Spads become politicians. But spads also drift into the third sector. The third sector itself is a stepping-stone into politics, either as a spad or an AM. Confused? You should be!
That’s it ! A daisy chain of prancing politicos, spads, lobbyists, 3rd sector wallies,academics and pseudo-entrepreneurs all busy connecting with each other. Factor in to that heady mix the fact that some are men wanting to be women, women wanting to be men, men wanting men, women wanting women, some not knowing what they want, some knowing what they want but can’t have it, might not even be legal yet – no wonder the Bay Bubble is such a stinking mess !
You’ve got one hell of an imagination, Dafis.
Grim reality, Jac, nothing imaginary in there.
Given the amount of evidence exposed by this episode, in Jac’s earlier efforts, and in correspondence such as that detailed above by Wynne it beggars belief that no politician in the Bay Bubble, neither Labour or Opposition parties, has seen fit to pursue this matter either from a sincere or opportunist motivation. The scale of waste is evidently ANFERTH ( fuckin’ ‘uge!).
Checking a link to their own website from an earlier round of posts this W.C.V.A handles a big slice of budgets yet accountability and traceability are treated with utter contempt. Even where there is a degree of trace there is little of no evidence of any kind of value for money tests. One has to conclude therefore that it is merely a slightly complicated conduit for passing government funds into the hands of organisations and people who are generally well disposed towards the ruling regime. Tories do the same in England by shovelling cash into the likes of Carillion for undertaking services and projects in a shoddy badly managed manner. Corruption all round ?
A rare person, a young woman who wanted to make a difference, standing up to Turkish aggression in Afrin. Too busy confronting real threats to develop a preoccupation with the complexities of gender identity and all that bollocks ( or “no-bollocks” as the case may be)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/british-woman-killed-syria-anna-campbell-lewes-east-sussex-fighting-all-female-kurdish-militia-a8262831.html
And to think, she could have taken herself down to Cardiff, joined the Bubble, become a spad or a lobbyist and had heaps of fun ruining men’s lives.
But no! she prefers to give her life protecting others. What is the world coming to!
I agree with Big Gee, excellent letter by you to Western Mail Jac. You refer to WCVA. I have copied below my response to Welsh Government following a letter I received 28 February from Jo-Anne Daniels Director, Communities and Tackling Poverty. I await their further communication and the outcome of their internal review into my complaint. The following is copied from my email software so there may be some formatting errors below.
To: Welsh Government – Director, Communities and Tackling Poverty – Jo-Anne Daniels
Thank you for your letter dated 28 February requesting clarification on the nature of my complaint and specific part of the service that I am dissatisfied with. My dissatisfaction stems from the fact that a response has been provided to one point in a seventeen-point enquiry. It suggests that public servants in your department are not prepared to enter into correspondence on matters relating to the administration of public funds but are only prepared to respond to requests for information if submitted under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The Act was introduced to encourage public bodies to be more open and transparent. It was not the intention that all general enquiries should be directed to you under the F O I Act.
The following enquiry was directed to your department 27 December 2017
Subject: Investigation 1 – W C V A – Intermediate Body Status
To: Welsh Government – Third Sector Policy Unit – Anthony Pugh
You will have previously received a copy of my note dated 21 December 2017 to “Wales Council for Voluntary Action” [W C V A]. I am surprised and disappointed with their attitude to the management of public funds. I am aware that, as a third sector organisation, they are not subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. I am also aware that they have been tasked, as an “Intermediate Body”, to manage public funds on behalf of Welsh Government and therefore on behalf of the taxpayer who provide that funding. As the funding is distributed to other third sector organisations W C V A are required [as an Intermediate Body] to comply with the funding Code of Practice. The Code requires project appraisal and evaluation to demonstrate value for money. It is not clear to me why that information is being withheld from Welsh Government as funding authority and from the general public who have provided the funding through taxation. Your further clarification would be appreciated. Any decision by Welsh Government, or W C V A [as Intermediate Body], to classify use of public funds as “commercially sensitive information” will need to be examined by the Information Commissioner as the F O I Act is under the Commissioner’s jurisdiction. The response from your Intermediate Body W C V A suggests that there may now be systemic failure to comply with the funding Code. You will be aware that any systemic breach of the Code should be reported to the “Funding and Compliance Sub-Committee” of the “Third Sector Partnership Council”.
In order that I may now establish the extent of non-compliance I would be grateful if you could respond to the following enquiries.
1. Why are project evaluation reports not provided to Welsh Government or Local Authorities. This suggests that the third sector is now in control of public funds rather than public sector funding authorities .
2. What expertise is available to your Intermediate Body W C V A to undertake project appraisal and evaluation on your behalf, as required under the funding Code of Practice.
3. Are grant award templates [designed by your “Grants Centre of Excellence Unit”] used by W C V A when allocating grant funding to other third sector organisations.
4. With regard to the interface between Local Authorities and W C V A, have local authorities specified the information required to enable them to monitor and evaluate the performance of the third sector. Do local authorities have the right processes in place to scrutinise performance, with reports presented to scrutiny committees as recommended by the Wales Audit Office. Appendix 3 of their report refers, this being a check list that should now be used. A copy is attached.
5. How is your Intermediate Body W C V A accountable to the taxpayer / ratepayer for its actions when managing public funds, given that it is not classified as the public sector. The public sector within local and national government is accountable through elected representatives [Councillors, Assembly Members] and subject to the provisions of the F O I Act.
6. Do you accept that “Intermediate Body” status confers on W C V A [in the third sector] the same obligations with regard to the management of public funds as local and national government [in the public sector].
7. With regard to “Intermediate Body” status, what formal agreement has been executed to transfer obligations from Welsh Government [in the public sector] to W C V A [in the third sector]. I would appreciate a copy of the agreement.
I look forward to your reply to inform the on-going investigation. Your reply, in point order, should avoid the need for protracted correspondence. Your observations will be carefully considered. I shall then prepare a report with recommendations for presentation to, and consideration by, the Funding and Compliance Sub-Committee of the Third Sector Partnership Council.
The following enquiry was directed to your department 9 January 2018
Subject: Investigation 2 – Cymdeithas Gofal / Care Society – Annual Accounts year ending March 2017
To: Welsh Government – Third Sector Unit
I refer to the above subject and attach copy of annual accounts year ending March 2017. During the financial year I note that grant funding in the total sum of £663,391.00 was allocated by local government, national government, your “Intermediate Body” W C V A and others. As I have concerns regarding compliance with the funding code of practice and guidance issued by Wales Audit Office I would be grateful if you could respond to the following enquiries.
1. Has any evaluation been undertaken by funding authorities to establish whether the public funds allocated have been used for the intended purpose, and in accordance with the criteria set out in the code of practice for funding the third sector.
2. The subsidiary “C G C Trading Ltd” ceased trading with effect from 30 April 2017 with an intercompany loan from the charity of £71,141.00 written off at 31 March 2017. Have public funds been transferred, in the form of loans, to the subsidiary.
3. For what purpose has the charity declined to disclose related party transactions with wholly owned subsidiaries within the group [page 28, paragraph 25 refers]. Does any charity trustee own a property that is let through the Care Society.
4. Are annual accounts, published by Companies House and Charity Commission, vetted by the “Third Sector Unit” at Welsh Government for compliance with the funding code of practice.
5. I note, from the accounts, that no member of staff received a salary in excess of £60,000 per annum. What proportion of the total annual grant sum of £663,391.00 was used to fund the salaries of the 46 staff employed and what proportion was used to benefit the homeless. Has any economic appraisal [benefit v cost analysis] been undertaken to establish whether this funding model is providing value for money.
6. Is there a conflict between the Care Society being a charity helping the homeless while simultaneously acting as a commercial lettings agency.
7. Is the Wales Audit Office checklist [copy attached] now in use by local authorities to ensure effective engagement with the third sector. Is a copy of a completed check list available for public scrutiny.
8. Given that public funds are provided to the Care Society by local government, national government and Intermediate Body [W C V A] are separate project evaluations undertaken by the three public funding bodies or are the evaluations coordinated nationally to avoid duplication of effort and funding.
9. What performance management and scrutiny arrangements are currently in place. Is the public funding provided to the Care Society reported to scrutiny committees as recommended by Wales Audit Office.
10. Has the public funding provided been used to facilitate cross-border “client” transfers to Ceredigion from other local authority areas in England and Wales.
I appreciate that you may now need to liaise with your “Intermediate Body” W C V A and local government [as joint funding authorities] before responding to my enquiry. I look forward to hearing from you. Your response will inform the on-going investigation into the administration of public funds by the Group: undertaken in the wider public interest. Welsh Government auditors and National Assembly Scrutiny Committees will be kept informed as the investigation progresses.
In reply, I received a copy of the funding agreement between Welsh Government and W C V A; this being point 7 of my enquiry dated 27 December. No effort was made to respond to the other 16 points. The failure to respond is hindering progress in an on-going investigation into the management of public funds.
If you require additional information to inform your internal review please do not hesitate to contact me. I look forward to the outcome of your review in due course.
Regards
As we have both discovered over recent years, Wynne, there are systems and safeguards in place regarding the third sector, and funding the third sector, but these mechanisms are largely inefficient or just disregarded.
Partly because the Labour Governement has far too close a relationship with the third sector, partly because those supposed to be monitoring the third sector are not doing their job, and partly because no one ever thought members of the public would ask such awkward and embarrassing questions.
If opposition politicians were doing their job they would be demanding a complete overhaul of third sector funding because it is public money and should be properly accounted. They fail us all with their negligence.
This merry-go-round of politicians, spads, third sector directors and lobbyists is a subversion of democracy. It’s created an un-elected oligarchy and when we do get to vote for a politician the candidate has been put forward by a political party dominated by those very same interest groups. This is how we find Plaid Cymru being run by ‘politics of complaint’ and such activity within the Labour Party resulting in the death of one of their own.
The ‘powers’ vested in WCVA come from the ‘Future Generations Act’ which allows them to operate as an unofficial ‘department for internal affairs’, snaffling taxpayers cash away from essential services to an unaccountable pot of financial sponsorship and self interest. This cash is consumed by the educated-affluent at the expense of the ordinary working people. This obnoxious piece of legislation has to be repealed so that Welsh resources can be retrieved from these vultures and applied to a programme of works for the benefit of Wales.
The following suggestion sent to Welsh Government 18 March may also be of interest to your readers. Awaiting reply.
To: Welsh Government – Homelessness Policy Branch – Carl Spiller
Thank you for your letter dated 15 March 2018 [as attached] responding on behalf of the First Minister. I have noted the content and request that you consider the following suggestion.
I refer to grant funding provided by National and Local Government to alleviate homelessness in Wales. Can project / programme assessments and evaluations now be placed in the public domain on National and Local Government websites to enable public scrutiny. Such scrutiny is considered necessary as third sector organisations are not answerable to local communities for their actions through elected representatives [Councillors, Assembly Members or Members of Parliament].
I would be grateful if you could discuss my request with your colleagues and respond in due course. If you consider it more appropriate for my request to be directed elsewhere please advise and I shall redirect accordingly.
Regards
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZm-9yx0uLo
A Phoenix. Oh, I like the imagery.
An excellent letter Jac, that lays bare the truth and hits the nail squarely on it’s head.
Will Trinity Mirror’s little Labour rag print it? As likely as I am of seeing a herd of cows fly over Cardigan Bay from the harbour wall in Aberaeron.
One of our first tasks after we launch Ein Gwlad is to start publishing this information far and wide across our country; to expose how our people are being fleeced and scammed by these so called ‘socialist’ parties. I say ‘parties’ because this is the deplorable action of not just Labour, but the purring cat that rubs up to it, and wraps it’s tail around it’s legs – Plaid Cymru.
It’s time to expose this horrendous situation to the unwary men and women on the street. It’s time to bin this corrupt and fraudulent establishment set-up, and rid ourselves of the old fashioned establishment parties.
It’s time for the Phoenix to rise up out of the ashes of our our country’s inferno, by holding those who set the fire to account. No one else will do it.
Approve of the name. Sounds great!
Spreading information sounds great. One of the first things I noticed when trying to produce videos for spreading such info such as the following – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw5tyCUHYmg&t=4s was the paucity of information about the matter which could be obtained from Plaid Cymru sources. They didn’t seem to want to argue in terms of immediate independence for Wales being a good thing, whether in providing evidence or argument. Now, after being involved with Yes Cymru Abertawe, such sources are easier to come by, such as this from Eifion Thomas at the Yes Cymru Fringe Fest in Swansea last Saturday (24/3) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3WF5eBbnME , and other people involved in it. Yes Cymru is of course a non-party organisation, but information can be used from any party, and anything you could put out could be very useful to people such as myself, whether a member of the party or not. So therefore looking forward with interest to it.
I hear a lot of SNP folks put a lot into Social Media being key to their success.