After a long run, during which I hope I’ve educated a few people, even inspired one or two, while pissing off those in need of pissing off, I am retiring. This blog is closing down.
I’ve had a good innings, but I’m an old git now, and I want to spend more time with my family (yes, honestly!), and to get out and about a bit more. I’ll catch up with my reading and my music, do more around the house, watch football, and continue my unstinting support for the winegrowers of Argentina. (God bless ’em!)
And, to be honest, this blog was getting to be a burden. I’d finish one piece, then start researching the next, all the while following up leads, answering queries, and just trying to do too much.
A great regret is closing this blog with the world more messed up than I’ve ever known it. (And I’ve been around a long time.) We live in an age of darkness, where lies prevail and truth speakers are punished.
History tells us such systems do not long survive. But those who now profit from deceiving us will not go quietly. I just hope the growing contempt for them doesn’t drive too many towards another form of darkness.
Be guided by the light of truth, avoiding cults and false prophets.
My thanks to all those who’ve supported me over the years, who’ve sent me leads and information. (And of course the odd donation.) My apologies to those I couldn’t help, and those whose information I was unable to use or to follow up.
This blog will remain accessible for a while because I know people are still reading stuff I put up years ago. And I’ll probably keep my X account open, for a while anyway.
I may return with a one-off if World War III breaks out, or if there’s a chance of the nation heading in the right direction for the first time in over 600 years.
Diolch yn fawr i chi gyd.
♦ end ♦
© Royston Jones 2025
Thank you for all your work over the years. Will miss your in depth reporting
Thank you, Paul.
Jac
I will always respect what you have done in providing such deep insights into what is happening in Wales…I was in UKIP, Brexit Party and came 2nd in Torfaen in 2024 and worked for 5 years in the Senedd for David Rowlands UKIP.
I am now 80 years old and resigned from REFORM, having lost my wife of 50 years and married again after 3 years alone I will too retire and spend more time in Spain.
Jac, thank you for opening my eyes at last…please enjoy your duty done (I was a soldier once) God bless!
That’s quite moving, Ian. It’s always nice to be appreciated, especially when it comes from the heart.
Enjoy your retirement Jac. I was a latecomer to your blog…but enjoyed it immensely. When you pop down from y ‘gogledd’ to watch the mighty Swans, call in at Pumsaint. We’ll have a pint or two from one of the Inns that happens to remain open! Diolch Jac…
Will do.
Enjoy your retirement. You’ve earned it. Sadly , I dare say it will be a cause for celebration in the Bay where you seem at times to have constituted the only opposition to the “Blob” that seeks to control us.
Thanks for those kind remarks. Though I do see others stirring on X. DOGEWales WasteWatchWales seem to be on the ball.
Done a lot of good work on your blog.
They need to expose their many faults.
Thanks Jac.
Thank you, Gail. I tried my best, but it’s an uphill struggle. Especially in Wales.
Never a good time to exit the big stage, or so it seems. Don and JD sounding off, egged on by Musk and a host of other billionaire corporate types. This looks like the predicted schism between different cliques of globalists, although Musk has a delusion about ruling the Universe. Sad but highly influential when all those around him also have their own delusions. How long this crew manage to hang together is a matter of speculation as the inner tensions must be immense. Collusion does not necessarily mean cohesion as we have seen so many times before.
Maybe they’ll get as far as splitting the world into 3 spheres of influence – USA, Russia and China – but that will breed suspicion and tensions, eventually a conflict. And how long will 2 co exist before one or both wants it all ? With globalists like Musk & Co in the picture my money is on sooner rather than later. You could write for another lifetime on this upcoming saga although I don’t think the balance of terror will last that long. So good luck while it lasts.
Fundamental error in thinking Trump, JDV, Musk and the rest of the team are Globalists. And for a number of reasons.
First, many of the Globalists don’t have fortunes of their own, their power comes from controlling other people’s money through the banks, hedge funds, asset management outfits, they control. Or else, like Soros, Bill Gates, and others, they used their own money to start an organisation that then turned to the US government (USAID) to keep them going. Then there are schemers and manipulators like Schwab, for whom influence, not money is important. Finally, there are organisations like the UN (and WHO), NATO, EU Commission, where, again, money is less important than power.
By comparison, Trump is relatively poor. Nobody’s accused Vance, Rubio, or any other member of the team of being ultra rich, except of course Elon Musk, who’s a self-made multi-billionaire who was never a Globalist. Something else worth remembering is the MAGA doctrine of cutting down on foreign interventions, wars, and regime change. In a sense this is ‘Splendid Isolation’ revived. The message is quite clear to countries around the world – ‘Don’t fuck with the US and you should be OK’.
Now consider the political agenda. The Globalists are fundamentally anti-human. They want to drastically reduce the global population and then control every aspect of the lives of those who are left. Where we go, how we live, what we spend our money on, what we must eat. To achieve this they must first bring down the West. They’re achieving this through open borders and giving Muslims preferential treatment, supporting Woke and other Cultural Marxist bullshit, Net Zero, and supporting black racists and others in the hope of undermining white self-confidence.
Reducing the population, especially in the West, is a factor in the push for abortion on demand, developing Covid (and God knows what else), telling kids they’re the wrong gender, pushing Pride everywhere. The war in Ukraine is a Globalist enterprise, and if I wanted to be utterly cynical I could say it’s achieving a Globalist objective in killing thousands of young white men who will never father children. This might be why Globalist puppets in London, Paris and elsewhere want to continue the war.
So for God’s sake don’t see what’s happening now as a struggle between two sets of Globalists. It’s not. On the one side we have evil, anti-human Globalists who want to impoverish us, restrict our freedoms, impose censorship everywhere. On the other side we have the new administration in the USA that is, fundamentally, addressing US interests, but whose influence will inevitably spread across the Atlantic due to all the many connections, from NATO to the fact that all white Americans are of European descent.
Pray that Trump and his team succeed, both over there, and over here.
Looks like you and I have to agree to differ on this one despite the fact that the outcomes however they pan out will be major determinants of the next generations futures.
All Golobalists are by nature interventionists and this group fronted by Trump and others are interventionists. They want to exploit other parts of the world without restraint, otherwise why bother with Ukraine’s mineral wealth, Greenland’s unquantified potential and other as yet undisclosed targets. They are no better than that other axis of evil – Gates, Soros et al – except that Trump’s crew at least have acknowledged the folly of the extreme green gospels and the fixation with Net Zero. Too many of their supporters are corporates with lots to gain from letting rip, much like corporates ( some of the same businesses that now back Trump) are out to gain from exploiting net zero and calling it “investment”.
But to me that is about their only point of differentiation. If they have their way they too will dictate how we go about everything. Two wrong ‘uns don’t make a right.
No, Dafis, Globalists are not interventionists. To intervene means showing your hand, and Globalists do not operate like that. They have no public face, they operate by making others – politicians, businesspeople, international bodies – follow the direction of travel dictated by the Globalists, implement the desired strategies, work towards the stated objectives.
But the Globalists themselves are usually in the shadows. We see the puppets they operate on the political stage, and the organisation they fund and direct to promote their agenda.
Which is why Trump and his team – and others, Milei, Orban, et al – are not Globalists. They are anti-Globalists. Another difference is honesty. Globalist puppet politicians don’t spell out their true programme before an election. Like Starmer, and the new Chancellor in Germany, they lie to the voters and go back on their word almost immediately. Trump and the other anti-Globalists are up front with their agendas. WYSIWYG.
No politician would ever be elected on a Globalist platform. It must all be done by stealth and deception. That’s why the West could be heading for serious problems as more people realise politics offers no way out of the Globalist trap.
In addition to puppet politicians there are the powerful but unelected bodies controlled by the Globalists. The UN would be in this category. Also NATO. The most powerful individual in the EU is Ursula von der Leyen of the Commission. She and the other Commission members are unelected. Then there’s the ECHR, which cancelled the presidential election in Romania when the anti-Globalist candidate won, and is now upholding attempts to get him banned from the rescheduled election. (The same court that blocks deporting illegal alien criminals.)
Putin or course is very, very anti-Globalist. Understand that and many things might start falling into place.
I suppose the West being the target of these machinations would be because it’s always been a beacon of individualism, from the Magna Carta, to Adam Smith, through to the establishment of the United States?
Individualism is fundamental to Western society and cannot be separated from freedom of expression. That’s why I hate any form of totalitarianism, whether it’s fascism or communism, or what we’ve seen for the past decade or more with totalitarians pretending that because they’re ‘nice’ and ‘liberal’ they can silence or imprison anyone who disagrees with them.
It’s almost an invisible line traversed when social liberalism gets what it wants as regards equal rights for ethnic and sexual orientation minorities and women (good ideas), but becomes an oppressive monster itself with its screeching witch hunts for ‘transgressions’ and calls for more and more state control. Now I think about it, it’s brought into sharp relief how stark the parallels are with Bolshevism taking the fight to the Tsars for the common worker and ending up worse than they ever were. The road to hell and all that. It’s a strange allegory I’ll admit, but I know you have grandkids so may resonate; if you’ve ever watched the Hunger Games series of films it pretty much serves as a cautionary tale about ‘revolutionaries’.
A ‘revolution’ by its very nature is reactionary and limited in both time and space. It’s an act, not a system.
When ‘revolutionaries’ have taken over, when they have to rule, to administer, to deliver, that’s when things start going wrong. And repression soon appears.
Very well explained as usual Jac
Thank you, Jules. I can but try.
So very sorry to see you go, you have been the most wonderful source of information on all matters and for me in particular the posts on climate and energy corruption have been valuable as we carry on the fight against the destruction of Wales, Wish you much peace and enjoyment and do you bet not to sneak a peak into what is going on otherwise you will be drawn right down that rabbit hole again. Many thanks and God bless x
Thank you, Yolanta. This time my retirement is definite and final. But the best of luck to you and your allies in the fight against the ‘renewables’ lunacy.
I’ve often disagreed strongly with some of your political positions, but I’m happy to acknowledge your sincerity and your commitment to doing the journalism that the ‘mainstream’ state-corporate-colonialist media either cannot or will not do. It’s been an enormous contribution to our understanding of how ‘our’ élites – political, media and commercial – operate to the detriment of our nation and its people.
Enjoy your ‘retirement’, Jac; you’ve more than earned it.
Thank you, Nigel. I really appreciate that. I know my political positions, on nationalism and independence, being on the political right, or my stance on Russia and Ukraine, piss some people off. But I’d rather be open about these things than tell lies or try to please everybody on everything all the time. Honest man can’t do that. And it helps me sleep at night.
Are you really on the economic right, though? Socially I’d say a small-c conservative, but you call out leftist wokes, meddlers and public fund trough-guzzlers as much as loadsamoney spivs, tax haven reptiles and the robber barons of unfettered Big Biz.
I believe in responsible capitalism constrained by the values that made the West great.
In other words, the ‘nice’ company owner in It’s a Beautiful Life? I’d probably say the same of my own beliefs, some might use the word Centrist if it didn’t conjure up images of slime like Blair and other such sleazy career politicians of a certain sort of cabal. Similar reason why I don’t like the term Welsh Nationalist as it comes laden with ideas of burning cottages and parochialism; I prefer Republican as it is also a more apt description generally.
‘Centrist’ is a term used in the hope of not offending anyone. Of appearing ‘reasonable’. Once that label is captured then opponents can be condemned as ‘far right’ or even ‘fascist’. But as the centre ground is invariably claimed by the left there3’s rarely a ‘far left’.
I have no problem with ‘Welsh nationalist’. My belief in independence is based on the fact that I belong to a nation called the Welsh. Otherwise, there can be no grounds for wanting independence for an awkwardly-shaped country that, without acceptance of separate nationhood, makes little sense.
As for Republicanism, I have mixed feelings. If there was a Welsh monarchy, and supporting it would gain independence, then I’d support it. But I’m not a republican in all situations.
Jac, thank you for your devotion to Cymru and the nationalist cause over the decades. It all started in your youth in Swansea, followed by your activity in the FWA and other nationalist organisations that followed. More recently, your in-depth reporting has exposed many scams, shenanigans and injustices involving our politicians and their sidekicks. Your much-deserved retirement will leave a significant breach in honest reporting on the corruption that continues to rot our nation.
Enjoy your retirement, Royston, and ‘diolch yn fawr’ for your service.
Thank you, Dennis. Hope we can meet up this year.
Thank you for all the time, energy, research and writing that you put into informing us all – enjoy your family and the music!
Here’s a song from us for you:
https://susanraven.bandcamp.com/track/charioteer
Many thanks. Lovely song.
I want to say Nooooo! But
understand where you are coming from. Somehow I think you’ll be back. That said I’ve really appreciated your stance and activity with regard to the influences on Wales, my chosen home with my Welsh husband. Thank you.
Thank you.
Hello, I have information and would like to speak to you, how can I contact yourself please
Have you read the blog?
There are only 2 forms of Generals. Those that die in battle and those that retire from the battlefield when the battle is done. I’ve not seen anything of you’re work until recently though I was made aware of yourself but I wouldn’t go on Fakebook, Twatter, etc.
It’s time for a new General or two to step up to the plate.
I’ve been aware of the 5h1t, cr4p, and 80110ck5, for the last 2 decades (even though I wasn’t good at Chemistry 🙂 ) and I know how tiring and tedious it can get.
Enjoy your retirement. You’ve earned it.
Thank you. Wales is in such a mess that it needs an army before it has a general. But we are such a fractious lot that forming an army, with agreed objectives, in almost impossible.
https://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/news/city-of-london/news/2025/february/79th-group-investment-appeal-for-potential-victims-of-investment-fraud-to-come-forward/
Jac. A hard act to follow. From my perspective, you are the best – and possibly only – investigative journalist in Wales. Very best wishes for your well-earned retirement. I am not sure if anyone can now fill the vacuum created following your decision to retire. The workload involved in researching and publishing a blog post every week over a period of years is incredible. My sincere thanks and very best wishes to you for a long and happy retirement.
Thank you, Wynne, but you’re also doing a great job of holding the buggers to account. Trouble is that even when you prove them wrong or incompetent, they just seem to shrug their shoulders and move on to the next cock-up.
Thank you Roy for bringing other dimensions of the murky world of politics to the attention of many.
Enjoy your retirement and I will pass this news on to your old mate Ted,
Best Regards,
Ron Tovey
Thanks, Ron. Give the old bugger my regards. Ask him if he’s got any hacksaws.
Thank you for your efforts, what you say is true its a very strange world and its lies and supression of the truth at every corner. I did learn a few years ago that I was up against something unsumountable and I achieved what I wanted and then realised that I needed to move on but I have and I havent …as its so difficultl to turn a blind eye when everything you believed is being trashed. So Good Luck in your retirement and I mean that sincerely. all the very best Liz
Thank you, Liz, and the best of luck with whatever confronts you.
I hope this is not the case
Sorry to hear of the demise of this excellent blog.
I hope you’re involved in this new Welsh Republican Organisation that people are on about. That would encourage me to join as well. They could do with your skill and knowledge.
To what do you allude?
I guessed youd been involved because your announcement today is same day their press release went out.
Shame, I as late finding your gems
Better late than never!
Thank you for all you have done to enlighten us. You will be sorely and sadly missed, gratitude and all good wishes for a peaceful retirement Catrin Collier
Diolch, Catrin.
Was this a sudden realisation or has it been on the cards a while? And most importantly, is this a ‘real’ retirement unlike the last one? Selfishly, I hope not 😉
You may recall I was threatening to retire a few years ago. But it came about now quite suddenly when I realised over the past few days that other things had been happening, pieces elsewhere had fallen into place, which made me think I was being told it was time to call it a day. Not a blinding flash, but a realisation that now is the time.
Not to pry but was it something of a personal or political nature?
Neither. I was going to call it a day soon, anyway. But a feeling came to me that it should be now.
When you know, you know I guess. If I ever find myself around Tywyn I will reach out if you’re not entirely incommunicado by then – stranger things have happned! All the best.
Yes, I’ll be around.
So sorry to hear this Jac. I hope someone else picks up the baton. Your work was very important. Have an enjoyable retirement. You deserve it.
Many thanks. There are encouraging signs.
I will miss your column, your sincerity and your justified impatience with the crap that goes on in Wales and it’s often disgraceful institutions and political “class”.
All the very best Jac and enjoy yourself with the people that matter to you. Ali x
Many thanks, Alison. The current class of politicians may be in for a shake-up in next year’s Senedd elections, but the corruption goes so deep. Labour has put its cronies into almost every institution in Wales, even the FAW and the WRU. And made accepting the Woke agenda a condition of funding. It’s gonna be a long-hard slog.
Lord knows you’ve done your bit for Cymru, Royston – please keep in touch and enjoy life! PS Why on Earth have very, very few others in our tiny land tried to stem the tide of stupidity, venality and nonsense spewed out from our political leaders? The land is being destroyed at an ever-increasing rate to reach an unattainable net zero – if Britain as a whole did not exist, there would be zero effect upon global climate, heat waves, Ice Ages, floods, hurricanes, landslides and the like. Soon we vote for a party not individuals – goodbye democracy – hello state control
Diolch, Terry. We can but hope that the changes taking place in the USA ripple out to us. Because the agendas being enforced cannot survive serious scrutiny and rational questioning . . . unless of course cows are destroying the planet, and men can have babies.
Da iawn Royston, enjoy your time with the family, it’s the most important thing in life, and raise a glass or two for me.
Will do!
Very sad to hear this. Wales owes you a big Diolch Yn Fawr.
Diolch, Keith. Maybe this year at Cilmeri.
28th February 2025
Dear Royston,
Now come on, you are nought but a boy!!!
Remember that once you are retired, you never get a day off.
keep safe and well,
Best wishes,
Dai.
I wish I was boy, rolling arlies in the gutter on the way to Brynhyfryd School.
Great work over the years, putting many so called journalists to shame. You just have a good retirement – rest and be merry!! Great loss but understandable..,,,,
Thank you, Sue, and thanks for your help.
“Be guided by the light of truth, avoiding cults and false prophets.”
Pity that you don’t follow your own advice.
I wish you well and hope that following your retirement from blogging you’ll find peace and realise that the real enemies are those you currently support.
If there was going to be a discordant note it was bound to come from someone like you. What the fuck is wrong with you people? Hiding behind masks and phoney identities, you don’t have the balls to identify yourselves.
Considering what some extremists do when inflamed, it is sensible to use a pseudonym when using online forums.
It puzzles me that many don’t notice that Trump and others with views that are to the right of sensible get their serious financial backing from mega rich organisations.
American millionaires financed Hitler’s military expansion. The Hoch brother’s father fuelled the Luftwaffe and he employed a card-carrying member of the Nazi Party as nanny for his sons. Koch Industries continues supporting extreme righ-wing groups in America, Britain and Europe.
The rich American investors in Nazi Germany were compensated for losses incurred by the allied bombing of German industries. In other words, the American taxpayers paid for the bombing raids and paid for money to those who financed the factories that were bombed.
The same families and organisations that financed 1930’s fascism are financing 21st century fascism.
Although modern day right-wing politicians claim to be ‘patriotic’ and ‘of-the-people’, they are chummy with some of the most vile characters on the planet.
Enjoy your retirement from blogging, Roy, and maybe you could read “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil” by Hannah Arendt. Ponder how today’s War on Woke and other invented campaigns of fake oppression have similarities with propaganda in the 1930s and ’40s. Wonder at how dull, obedient Eichmann became a monster and how a shorthand typist (Irmgard Furchner) aided and abetted the murder of 10,505 people at a Nazi concentration camp.
Oh do fuck off!
Big Money from those who care nothing about ordinary folk.
Christopher Harborne, the single largest shareholder in QinetiQ, has donated at least £13.7 million to Reform UK, a private limited company with one shareholder. Nigel Fartrage is back in Coutts & Co’s good books.
Harborne lives in Thailand and holds citizenship there under the name Chakrit Sakunkrit.
QinetiQ, formed from the privatisation of the MoD’s Defence Evaluation and Research Agency in 2001, received almost £1 billion from the UK governmentin 2023/24. Without UK taxpayers’ money, QinetiQ would fail to function.
What a tiresome little git you are!
When the truth makes you tired, then it’s the right time to quit
I’m just delighted you lasted so long. This blog has been a masterpiece for as long as I can recall since I paid it a visit way back about 2014ish. At times I even read stuff you had circulated a few years prior to my engaging with your investigations. It is truly an archive of historical relevance and value. Its catalogue of disasters, crimes committed by politicians and dodgy businessmen against communities and just plain daft decisions merit preserving at our National Library or some other reputable institution that won’t just chuck it all away at a quiet moment when no one is looking.
But time plods on as we’ve discussed on a number of occasions. Collectively we have to respect your choice no matter how much we regret it. Once again thanks for your unequalled contribution to shedding light into dark corners, some of which we didn’t even know existed !
Diolch, Dafis, people like you have helped sustain me and the blog. I shall always be in your debt.
To paraphrase the great man Connolly……never was a cause so eloquently and honestly served.
Seriously bud, you did the heavy lifting we were just carrying some refreshment from time to time.
Diolch.
Diolch yn fawr am yr holl waith caled. If we had more investigative journalists like yourself with the balls and gumption to chase and follow the endemic corruption in Wales, our country would be a far better place lo live and work in.
Thank you, Lewis I tried my best, but there’s so much corruption out there . . .
We, too, are sorry to see you go, but we get it – this is all too time-consuming.
What a very good detective you are. We’ve shared many of your blog posts, and a lot of the information you’ve found, over the years.
Wishing you all the best for a happy retirement.
Thank you WEA. Keep up your good work.
Thank you.
Sorry to see you go 😢
you opened our eyes and minds
Thank you. Keep them ope, Always question.
You will be sadly missed . Please leave the archived site available for people to read when it has all gone pearshaped
The site will remain accessible.
Enjoy everything you’re planning, thanks for all the insights and research you’ve done over the years.
Let’s hope this messed up world improves soon.
Wishing you enjoyment and good health.
Many thanks.
So sad to hear this! But completely understand. You’ve both entertained and inspired me and it was great to meet you in Barmouth. Will you still maintain your presence on X? I do hope so.
I’ll stay on X for a while. Not sure how long it’ll be.
Keep a casual eye on Penrhos. The story isn’t over
Will do.
Damn, I do understand why but, you have done so much for the common-sense people of Wales, I’ll certainly miss your writings ‘Bigly’ and the fact you were always accurate & honest (as you are on Twitter!) Like you, I wish I could turn the clock back age-wise but, age = experience and the people who know & read your blog both directly and indirectly will sorely miss you! Take care Roy, you achieved perhaps, more than you know?
I go back to the ’60s, so I have a lot of experience to draw on, and it’s made me somewhat cynical. Yet I try to approach the bullshit I see everywhere with a modicum of humour. I’m not sure someone younger, approaching it for the first time, could do that.
Don’t forget that other response which is also on the wane in modern discourse, agreeing to disagree.