UPDATE – An interesting dialogue between Bethan Jenkins AM and Alun Michael PCC relating to a loaded and miss-informed campaign on social media propagated by those paid huge salaries from Welsh Government funds (including TheWallich) that are donated to various ‘homelessness’ charities…

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You may remember in the run up to the “homelessness at Christmas please send money” campaign last year that reports were made of police officers were confiscation the sleeping bag of a rough sleeper in Cardiff, while paramedics were trying to save the life of the dying individual.

The facts were that..

(a) It was the police who called the ambulance after having found a rough sleeper collapsed through substance abuse.
(b) As is common in such circumstances, when the patient is taken to hospital, personal belongings are not conveyed in the ambulance. As in this case the police kindly conveyed the belongings to the hospital. This included the sleeping bag.
(c) The patient survived.

Interestingly, police officers were ordered to record details of all ‘begging rough sleepers’ they encountered during the run up to Christmas. Their survey found that of the sixteen individual persons encountered (same individual can be encountered on more than one occasion), that only one of these individuals was genuinely homeless.

There is no question that some of these third sector bodies and charities, especially those based in Cardiff, can use what remains of the Welsh media – also based in Cardiff – to promote themselves.

Not a lot different to how Camila Batmanghelidjh was able to use the BBC and other elements of the London media to promote herself and Kids Company. And we know how that ended!

This manipulation of the media is also another example of the damaging influence on Welsh life of concentrating everything in Cardiff, because the rest of Wales has to pay for the third sector.

RF – In the BBC documentary first broadcast last January “Cardiff-Living on the streets” they interview a chap called Alan and he claims he “grew up in Telford had joined the French Foreign Legion and fought in Iraq.” The programme included “veterans” doing the ‘homeless gig” in Cardiff.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/wales/entries/ad24328b-4144-47a2-aa23-488bf9973386

Strange really, as the French Foreign Legion was NOT DEPLOYED to the most recent Iraq war.

If his claims are true he would have been in 6th Foreign Engineer Regiment (From Feb91 to Apr91) doing EOD as part of Division Daguet during the first ‘Gulf War’. At that time he must have been 18, done the one year “indoctrination” completed EOD training, prior of combat deployment.

He would also get “Français par le sang verse” citizenship, if his story were true.
A ‘veteran’ or a ‘fantasist’?

The documentary has been recycled and to be shown again tonight on BBC1 at 2240hrs.
I wonder if they own up to it being repeat from last winter.

It coincides with the re-launch of the charity collection by the “Huggard community War against Homelessness” collection, which his promoted within the programme. They raised £52k from this last year. This charity sits on £512,000 cash in the bank, and spent £1,255,000 on salaries to staff in the last financial year. It runs a hostel, a day centre, and supported housing at a cost of £2,162,000pa. It got £198k from the Welsh Government and £25k from Cardiff Council.

Worth a watch, if you missed it last year, but always question the claims being made.

drsallybaker – What there is however in a pub in a village near Hinkley is a load of ghurkas no less staying there who are being paid an absolute bomb to work as security men at Hinkley.

I know some of the Gurkhas involved – I worked with them for a while when they were up here on Anglesey at the new Wylfa site. They work for G4S and aren’t paid ‘a bomb’ at all – quite the opposite. They are on around 8.50 an hour, working 12 hour shifts, 4 days on, 4 off, 365 days a year.

So bilidowcar is dead. So who is the spadahari playing pilipala?
The whole set-up is toxic.

When the Forestry Commission (commercial production of timber) and the Countryside Commission (habitat and nature conservation) and Environment Agency (Flood prevention and pollution control) were separate bodies, all three had an active dialectic on what was to be done. Now that Labour has merged all three into Natural Resources Wales, this ‘pros v cons’ approach disappeared. Hence we find, as in this example that suddenly trees need to be cut down for a flood risk that never previously existed, and wildlife and habitat destroyed. This instance has only reached public attention because of the proximity of the populous of Cardiff. Imagine what’s being destroyed in more rural parts of Wales? Many years ago I was part of a joint school campaign called ‘Plant a tree in ‘73’ that ran in Wales. Now we have the ‘Chop in down revenue for Crown’ campaign by Carwyns’ bully boys.

Jac Others in the Deryn vulture coop include Nerys Evans, an ex A.M ( Plaid) who enjoys close relationship with Bethan “loose cannon” Jenkins and Leanne “ishoos” Wood , and Cathy Owen ( ex SpAd to Rhodri Morgan) who turned up on TV on Sunday a.m when the groping scandal first broke spouting righteous indignation by the bucketful about the toxic environment. Some guy came on to her apparently, fuck it must have been dark, or he was pissed or blind or both. Anyway only weeks before that outburst both these manipulative dames had been pulled up for securing contracted work from Ofcom while one or both of them were also sitting on some Ofcom advisory panel, board or some other mechanism for slipping fees to “good friends of the cause”. Deryn seems worth an investigation in its own right not by you Jac but by a Serious Fraud outfit as it represents a good example of the back hander, hand in glove conduct of business within large chunks of the Welsh public sector. I reckon that once one of these parasites gets pulled a bit sharpish there would be a bit of a downturn in fees spent on bullshit and hot air manufacture by Welsh government.

Yes I noticed the Cardiff University background. Mark Drakeford was a professor at Cardiff University before he became an AM. Cardiff University acts as a receptacle for those with connections in the Bay – the hopeless Eluned Morgan has some sort of post there, as does Leighton Andrews and I think Leighton’s wife Ann Beynon does as well, she’s something to do with the Welsh Governance Centre if I remember rightly.

The School of Journalism at Cardiff has links to shitbags of the highest order. Richard Tait who’s crowning glory was ‘Nationwide’ – which starred Frank Bough of cocaine and prostitutes fame – has a Chair there and he’s friendly with the big idiot Michael Grade. Now Lord Grade of course – who began his journey up a very greasy pole indeed by doing favours for people connected to Thatcher’s Gov’t, such as Samuel Brittan, Leon Brittan’s brother.

I must confess that I didn’t know a lot about about Jo Kiernan prior to reading that piece on Guido, though I vaguely remember her as a TV journalist. So I checked her Linkedin profile where – despite leaving out dates – we are told that she’s worked for both BBC and ITV Wales. Preceded by time at Cardiff University and Cardiff Journalism School, and followed by time as Chief Special Adviser to both Rhodri Morgan and Carwyn Jones.

Then of course she sought to capitalise on her political and media contacts with Deryn.

That we had to read this in Guido Fawkes may be an example of the incestuous Bay Bubble closing ranks to protect one of its own. Because I would have preferred to read this in a Welsh media outlet, but Ms Kiernan appears to have all bases covered, and gagged.

Thanks for this Dafis. I note that Jo Kiernan, one of the partners in crime at Deryn, was employed by Rhodri Morgan as his media advisor in 2006 – she was previously ITV’s political journalist. Jo had responsibility for health – so THAT’S why all those scandals and deaths in the north Wales NHS didn’t hit the media! Of course when the Betsi was formed and three senior managers arrived who confronted the local corruption – nearly all of which was connected to the people who had concealed the paedophile ring in north Wales – suddenly a whole raft of bad news stories started hitting the media about those three managers. I knew most of those stories to be untrue. Bad news stories also appeared about Edwina Hart who had also attempted – but failed – to challenge the corruption. Edwina was removed as Health Minister and was replaced with the hopeless Lesley Griffiths – who as a Councillor in Wrexham had ignored the paedophile ring operating under her nose Griffths was succeeded by Mark Drakeford – a former social worker in west Wales, whilst a paedophile gang with connections to north Wales operated there.

Jo Kiernan comes from and grew up in west Wales! So who was paying Kiernan to plant those stories?