Well, boys and girls, it’s that time of year. Those of you who haven’t done a runner with the Christmas Club money will be relaxing at home wrapping your bottles of Old Sheepshagger with festive ribbons before immediately opening them, feigning joy and surprise, then getting quietly pissed. For now, as Christmas approaches, we tend to look back and contemplate the year past, before looking forward to 2017. Why should I break with tradition?
This year saw the revolt of the Hitherto Ignored, and 2017 will see those who’ve done the ignoring swear to change their ways. This is explained by the angst and confusion now being experienced by ‘progressives’. (I laugh every time I type that word!) For these exalted and superior beings always justified their vacuous spoutings and their laughable posturing on the grounds that they were the voice of the inarticulate Mob.
This year the Mob has found its own voices and, surprise, surprise, its spokesmen are not Leftists and liberals. Which means that those self-appointed spokespersons are now left high and dry, exposed as speaking for none but themselves. This has made them angry and bitter, to the extent that some of them now slag off as ‘fascists’ those they so very recently eulogised and patronised!
Truly is it written, ‘Hell hath no fury like a ‘progressive’ made to look an utter twat!’
Let us start this review with May’s Welsh Assembly elections. (Check the results here.) Labour’s share of the vote continued to decline, down 7.6% in the constituencies and 5.4% in the regions). The Tories did marginally better with figures of -3.9% and -3.7%. For the Lib Dems the figures were -2.9% and -1.6%. The parties to increase their share of the vote were Plaid Cymru +1.3% and +3.0% and, most spectacularly, Ukip, +12.5% and +8.5%.
Despite all the noise they make, and all the publicity they’ve had (including some from me), the Green Party of Englandandwales achieved the mighty totals of 2.5% of the constituency vote and 3.0% of the regional vote. The latter figure being less than the 4.4% won by the Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party on its first outing.
The single most noteworthy result was of course Plaid Cymru’s leader Leanne Wood taking Rhondda from Labour heavyweight Leighton Andrews. Though given the imperfect electoral system Labour today is still in control of the Assembly after getting a third of the votes cast.
For anyone interested, I told you my voting intentions in Assembly Elections 2016 and picked through the bones in Assembly Elections 2016: Hopes and Ashes.
Next came the EU referendum in June. Again, I made my position clear before the event with EU Referendum: Why I Want OUT! Even so, I was rather surprised to be on the winning side.
Then, in November, our cousins across the Pond elected Donald Trump to be their next president. I can safely say ‘our cousins’ because, as Welsh people, there is a greater likelihood of us being related to those who voted for Trump than to those who voted for Clinton. Unpalatable though that may be to many Leftists among us.
Meanwhile, our continental cousins almost elected a nationalist president in Austria, and followed that up by giving the Italian establishment a kicking in voting out Signor Renzi via a referendum.
Liberals and socialists interpreted these results as disasters, some of the more overwrought viewed them as the first steps on the road to the Fourth Reich. In truth, the Leftists should have asked themselves why so many millions of ordinary, decent people detest them, their politics, their media and their distant, out-of-touch systems so much that they were prepared to vote for a self-obsessed buffoon, a gang of saloon bar hearties, and a clown.
Next year sees elections in France, Germany, Netherlands and other countries. In France, the Left is hoping that the victor will be François Fillon, the presidential candidate who takes a hard line on Islam, hopes to do away with the 35-hour working week, wants to abolish wealth tax, is opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage, and is a great admirer of both Margaret Thatcher and Vladimir Putin. Because it’s a straight fight between him and Marine le Pen of the Front National.
This gives you some idea of how far the political pendulum has swung in the Western world, because socialists in France wrote off the chances of their candidate – whoever it might be – a long time ago.
In Germany Dr Merkel (or Frau Sauer) is under pressure for a number of reasons, not least her decision to open Germany’s borders to refugees. It went well for a while, German guilt for WWII overcoming reasonable apprehensions that most of those arriving seemed to be able-bodied young men and were not coming from Iraq and Syria, but from North Africa, the Sahel, Pakistan, the Balkans . . . mmm, were these really refugees?
The ‘Willkommenskultur’ soon began to dissipate, and disappeared almost entirely after the truth eventually leaked – despite the best efforts of politicians, police and media – about the rapes and other sexual assaults that took place on New Year’s Eve in Köln, Hamburg and other cities. The recent attack on a Christmas market in Berlin dealt it another blow.
Another factor contributing to the evaporating sympathy for the ‘refugees’ was that Angela Merkel had hoped to take them in, garner the kudos, and then, with rather less publicity, offload as many as she could onto neighbouring countries. These countries, quite rightly said, ‘You invited them, you look after them’.
Immigration is clearly a major issue in the Western world; it has influenced the votes of 2016 and it will do the same in 2017. So let us be thankful that calling someone a ‘racist’ can no longer close down debate. Equally, that wanting an honest discussion on how to deal with Islamic terrorism can no longer be dismissed as ‘Islamophobia’.
I suspect that the rise of Islamic extremism over the past couple of decades has played a big part in undermining the Left in western countries, and this of course contributed to Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. For two main reasons.
First, the Left – certainly its more extreme and vocal elements – has a default position dictating that it must always support the West’s enemies, on the grounds that these are bound to be victims of Western colonialism or ‘oppression’. Pure evil, intolerance, racism, etc., are crimes of the white man, and the white man alone.
Those promoting this nonsense tend to be celebrities, students (and others equally gullible or brainwashed), plus of course members of ethnic and other minorities. This has inevitably alienated many white people, to the point where they now view socialism and liberalism as ‘luxuries’ they cannot afford, or else as viewpoints hostile to them, attacking who and what they are.
Second, in the recent US presidential election liberals and Leftists around the world rallied to Hillary Clinton, yet her financial links with the Gulf states – countries where stoning is practised, where women aren’t allowed to drive, where immigrant labour equals slave labour – undermined her liberal credentials while exposing the gullibility of the ‘progressives’ who supported her.
Slowly but surely, more and more people are waking up to the hypocrisies of the liberal elite, and the lies of its manipulative media. You can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
‘But what has this to do with Wales?’, you mumble through a mouthful of mulled wine whilst absent-mindedly stroking the maid’s derrière. Well, it’s quite simple – do you really think that politicians and their mainstream media only tell porkies about faraway lands and our more distant cousins? Of course not.
First of all, let’s consider this island known as Britain or, when six counties of Ulster are added, the United Kingdom. Now the big political debate at the moment is what kind of Brexit we should have. Should it be hard or soft? Should it be red, white and blue? (Don’t ask me what these mean, I haven’t got a clue.) Should there be a West End musical version?
The truth is that the type and the timing of the EU exit is irrelevant, a distraction. I say that because the United Kingdom is going down the tubes no matter what. And if things are bad in the UK then they’re even worse in Wales. Let’s look at a couple of recent news items to explain what I mean.
First, education. The Pisa rankings (for 2015) released earlier this month tell us that the UK came 27th in maths, 22nd in reading, and 15th in science. Within the UK, Wales came bottom across the board.
Then last week, we learnt that our GVA figure for 2015 again confirms our position at the bottom of the UK heap. Gross value added figures measures money generated per job within an area, which explains why Cardiff has the best figure for Wales (£22,783), though much of it will have been generated by commuters living outside the city. Overall, Wales accounts for 5% of the UK population but is responsible for only 3.4% of the UK economy.
As the report I linked to (by BBC Wales’ Sarah Dickens) also tells us, “It would be wrong to say Wales has a strong economy purely because unemployment is relatively low. Only 72.9% are employed – lower than the UK figure of 74.4%”. Which tells us that Welsh politicians crowing over Wales having a lower unemployment rate than the UK as a whole are talking their usual bollocks. The truth is that more of us are economically inactive and too many of us are doing shitty, low paid jobs.
These dire figures don’t say a lot for devolution, nor for ‘Welsh’ Labour, which has run the show since 1999. Things are bad, and getting worse. There is no other interpretation unless you’re a politician or some other kind of professional liar. These figures also tell us that the EU funding given to the poorest parts of Wales since 2000 has been wasted by ‘Welsh’ Labour. So it won’t be missed.
(22.12.2016: I didn’t expect support from this quarter, or so quickly, but Victoria Winckler of the Bevan Foundation says – among other things – that too much EU money was used to replace UK government, ‘Welsh’ government and local authority funding, with the result that, because it wasn’t spent on new projects, people saw little improvement.)
But then, I’ve always argued that devolution is a chimera. Now I have been vindicated by no less than the Secretary of State for Wales, Alun Cairns. When he announced that Air Passenger Duty would not be devolved to Wales (i.e. Cardiff airport) he was quite open about the decision having been taken to protect the interests of Bristol and other English airports. This, remember, is the Secretary of State for Wales and the MP in whose constituency we find Cardiff airport!
More recently, more honesty; when his department underwent something of a face-lift and dropped the dragon which had suggested the Welsh Office exists to serve Wales. Why anyone should get worked up about this is beyond me. Would you rather be lied to? Is that more comforting?
Face it – Wales is screwed, good and proper. All that matters is that enough money comes in to keep the politicians and their cronies in jobs that no one would miss, and the rest of us in a state of resigned acceptance. A basket case country with a begging bowl ‘economy’. Nothing will improve because there is no force for real change. Plaid Cymru gave up decades ago and threw in its lot with the English Left and the colonialist system.
The party’s position was summed up recently by leader Leanne Wood, when she stated, without any hint of irony or sarcasm, that “We’ve got no problem in attracting people here to retire” (0:31) before going on to express concern about the high levels of elderly people in Wales!
Which means that Plaid Cymru has “no problem” with the inevitable burden placed on our NHS and other services. Or that Plaid Cymru has “no problem” with locals being outbid for homes in rural and coastal areas. I suppose it also means that Plaid Cymru has “no problem” with the anglicisation of Wales. But what it really means is that Plaid Cymru, more than at any time in its history, is a party that has completely lost its way. It is now an irrelevance.
For a start, Plaid Cymru has lost touch with the Welsh people. We voted to leave the EU, yet Plaid Cymru carries on as if we voted the same way as Scotland. We didn’t. And the reason we didn’t is that Plaid Cymru isn’t even a pale shadow of the SNP.
The voters that Plaid has been trying to detach from Labour for decades – in the Valleys, on Swansea Bay, the north east – voted for Brexit and they are also turning to Ukip, yet Plaid is in denial. Plaid Cymru the socialist, environmentalist, statist, EU friendly party has lost the plot. Big time.
And because Plaid Cymru has lost the plot due to its socialism and its inflexibility on certain issues, and because some within the party now regard as crypto-fascists many of those who were once viewed as potential converts, they risk driving many of our people towards Ukip and, worse, alienating them to the extent that they begin to think there is no alternative to Englandandwales.
In many respects, Plaid Cymru is now viewed as part of the out-of-touch, liberal elite that drove so many people into the arms of Farage, Trump, and others yet to arise. That is some achievement.
Which is why Wales needs a new voice that speaks for the nation and the national interest. A voice that is ideologically flexible but immovable in its defence of the Welsh people. A voice that will never say, ‘We have no objection to being colonised’.
This is the task for 2017.
Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda
JAC TO FORM AND LEAD A WELSH FREEDOM PARTY 2017.
No. I’ve made it clear elsewhere on this blog that Wales needs a new generation like that of the 60s. Which rules me out. And you.
Imagine saying “English language has nothing to do with England” I mean…..and the English language is a younger part of British history compared to Welsh!
I enjoy reading your articles, breathe of new perspective……but labelling all left as the same is naiive……my right wing mates voted to remain in the EU and the lefties voted to Leave…..cos the left historically were for leaving.
I do agree however that sadly many on the soft left like Plaid Cymru are disconnected from the poor masses out there…..also much of Wales is English nationalist in perspective so its always gonna be a tough fight for culturalists
“Welsh language hasnt got anything to do with Wales”…………..imagine saying that in England…you;d be laughed out of both tavern and library
That’s interesting, but I suggest that your circle of friends is not really representative of the Left/Right divide over Brexit. The Old Left might have been for leaving, but the non-doctrinaire Left that grew out of the 1960s, with it’s PC and -isms was most definitely for Remain. Same applies to the Right almost in reverse, where committed Tories, Gaullists and others voted Leave but more ‘flexible’ elements such as City shysters – acting purely out of self-interest – voted Remain.
Not sure why your reply mentions 3rd Sector. Not mentioned by me – or do you think all 3rd Sector is left? Must be aware of some fact that I have not seen elsewhere.
Whatever your views, try and live in the present. The ‘left’ were/are not universally in favour of the EU. Plaid is not universally left when you talk to members. Many on the ‘right’ are in favour of the EU. Many in the middle voted either way. Your obsession with the left is like something out to cold war. Wales can only move forward when it ditches the shackles of a fantasy past.
A few days ago the Pres of Nigeria, likely a puppet of one of the primary string pullers operating the ongoing global programme scamming resources, money, power + anything else not nailed to the floor, told the world that those wicked people from Boko Haram have been finished off in a remote N.E corner of the country bordering Chad.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/12/abubakar-shekau-boko-haram-crushed-161229121126690.html
“Lladdwch, cyflafanwch, cipiwch,” meddai arweinydd Boko Haram – Newyddion – Golwg360
Now the demented leader of Boko Haram, a self proclaimed prophet but not Premier League like the Big Mo, has popped up calling his followers to unleash yet another round of misery on the ordinary folks of Nigeria and that region.
What a despicable pair of cunts. The President was obviously craving a chunk of personal credit and back slapping which would also probably top up his Swiss bank balance, and now the other bandit is reminding him that the game ain’t over yet ( and it won’t be unless the CIA and others stop funding this bastard through the assortment of back channels created for such deviant policy execution).
You’ve got it in one dafis, when you say:
” . . . . now the other bandit is reminding him that the game ain’t over yet ( and it won’t be unless the CIA and others stop funding this bastard through the assortment of back channels created for such deviant policy execution).”
THAT is the key to it all. It’s an orchestrated plot to destabilize and cause chaos by the ‘hidden hand’ through it’s military henchman NATO more especially the USA’s military might and it’s main implement of subversion the CIA.
‘Ordo ab Chao’ cause the chaos then offer the order to get rid of the chaos. Problem (cause chaos) – wait for the reaction – then propose a solution.
What happens in terms of creating wars is this mind-manipulation technique called “Problem-Reaction-Solution”… and it works like this:
Let’s say you want to centralize power into fewer and fewer hands through the UN or NATO. If you did that openly and said,
“This is what we want to do“, there’d be a reaction against that. People would say,
“Hey, this is a fascist state you want to create. Were not having this.”
But through this technique of Problem-Reaction-Solution, you can actually manipulate people to demand you do what you want to do anyway.
So it works like this:
First of all you create the problem (possibly by creating, training and financing terrorist organisations like Boko Haram, the Mujahidin or ISIS or by organising ‘False Flag’ occurrences in European and US cities), but you get someone else to be blamed for it (the aforementioned terrorist groups). You then report that problem through the media in the way you want it reported – because the media is owned by the same people who own the banks, etc. You get the public to react to your problem by saying,
“Something must be done; this can’t go on; what are THEY going to do about it?“. And at that point, THEY, who have covertly created the problem and blamed someone else, who gleaned that reaction of “Do Something“, then offer the solution to the problems they have created.
So if you take the world wars for example – after the first world war, which the financial centres of London and Wall Street, etc, funded ALL sides (read up on Rothschild’s and Preston Bush), power on this planet was in fewer hands than ever before (via the League of Nations). After the second world war, it was even fewer hands on the wheels of power.
And as a result of the second world war, we had the creation of the United Nations and NATO; and we had this great centralization of global power. After they’ve manufactured a situation that triggers WW3 – guess what will be the next step?
This ‘Problem-Reaction-Solution’ technique is not just used to create and control wars, it can also be applied to any situation where you want to produce a particular outcome.
For example, this technique is currently being used to centralize power in the financial world. It can also be used to introduce new laws that restrict our civil liberties.
So, whenever you see some big news story – whether it be an alleged terrorist attack, a run on a currency, the accidental loss of people’s data, or an allegation that some poor country has developed nuclear weapons – the first question you need to ask yourself is this:
“Who benefits from me believing this information?”
WELL worth a listen from RT:
Whose propaganda should we be worried about?
The CIA don’t need to fund the President of Nigeria. Nigeria has an economy that is greater than that of South Africa. Over 17 million Nigerians work abroad and most of them send money to their families at home. Nigeria has large reserves of heavy crude oil that makes heavy diesel for large marine engines.
There are over 500 ethnic groups in Nigeria.
Find a solution, create a peaceful and prosperous country that benefits its inhabitants and you’ll go into the history books as one of the Greatest of Greats.
Are you trying to be obtuse? Or is this comment again a clumsy effort at trolling by turning what’s been said on it’s head?
It was clearly stated by both dafis & I that the CIA is funding and supporting Boko Haram – NOT the president of Nigeria. He gets his money through home grown corruption.
If I was kind I’d think you have difficulty understanding what people are posting on here.
Sorry, I thought that you were posting something sensible about the USA providing funds to combat Boko Haram.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nigeria-bokoharam-insight-idUSKBN0F636920140701
A classic example of mainstream media propaganda. It goes like this > the system to Reuters, Reuters to all mainstream media outlets, MMO repeated out to the masses with no investigation or questioning. It amazes me how gullible you are!
Hmm. Ah well, you’re so far off mainstream that it’s almost as if you are up the hill and in the local shop with Edward and Tubbs.
And I think you have a calcified pineal gland! Check it out – I’m serious!
Vitamin D bottle – check
Bottled spring water bottle – check
Tin foil hat – check
Creep around in the dark after sunset – check
Well, that’s the UKIP supporter up the road identified and accounted for.
Now me: –
Full bottle in front of me – check
Full frontal lobotomy – not required
Electric Louie Knight – in sentry box
UKIP supporter????
Proves my point – you’re totally confused and pathetically out of touch with reality. Calcified pineal gland is definitely associated with Alzheimer’s.
[Quote] “Research Reveals Link Between Calcification of the Brain and Alzheimer’s Disease
A new study looks at intracranial calcifications in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. After noticing that the brain’s primary structures were negatively affected by calcification, namely the pineal gland”
Check it out . . . .
That settles it for me, I’m wasting no more of my time playing silly games with a socialist TROLL who is evidently suffering through the effects of pineal gland calcification. Don’t expect any more responses from me to your future posts.
Ah. You think that the UKIP supporter up the road from me is you.
Given the cryptic way you try and put your points over – what other conclusion do you think I’d reach?
Another classic troll technique to bait others to reply. Forget it.
As if pointing at someone’s posts and saying that they’ve a serious medical disorder is acceptable. I took the below the belt blow and responded.
I suspect that you will find CIA is backing the Nigerian government’s efforts by various covert and visible means. I recall seeing Military advisers ( special forces ? ) from France and other NATO members traipsing around Nigeria and its near neighbours around the time BH were at their most rampant. There were units of Islamists crossing the Sahara like it was Borth beach operating in parts of Lybia and other North African nations and then heading south turning up in Mali, Niger, Chad and further on into Nigeria. Monitoring that lot involved use of CIA’s extensive network of satellites and, at the sharp end, drones.
As for Nigeria’s wealth it’s not very evenly distributed with most of the population in poverty or leading a marginal existence. The Pres is probably well heeled by now and it’s people like USA & UK that look after his interests by knocking the stuffing out of ordinary folks on the ground, all in the name of restoring order. Keeps the defence contractors busy and inflates the need for “Aid programmes”.
Oh, Hyfryd iawn, and a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda to you all !
I get the impression that Boko Haram and their financial supporters detest western involvement.
Cyfarchion Arbennig a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda i bawb !
BH began as a localised regional entity but it was linked to AQ by about 2009 and had ties to the Somali Al Shabaab and sources of funds in Saudi and Gulf states. These are the proxy channels for USA, UK and other western interference, so while BH may seldom see a white face much of its funding and hardware is sourced in the West. Surprise !
Sometimes the lack of imagination of the ‘hidden hand’ is quite remarkable, in fact, that’s it’s Achilles heel. We can see that from it’s clumsy responses to things like the alternative media backlash. It really isn’t very good at ‘clever’, devious – yes, but not clever. It seems it’s incapable of seeing when it’s pouring fuel on the fire.
Putting people like the Rothschild puppets in the form of Cameron & B-liar into these positions will just infuriate the masses further. Good, it all bodes well for those of us who are awake, when the sea of humanity is infuriated further – it will just accelerate the fight-back against the elites, who are a very tiny number controlling the many.
Gee, it gets even better ( pardon the elasticated meaning of that word ! ).
The spinmeisters have started touting the fallen Remain arch-advocate, yes himself Cameron, as a prime candidate to be next Sec General of NATO. This is a man with the attention span of a dead dog being talked up as eminently suitable material to lead a militarily sensitive organisation, simply because he spoke up for the EU cause and he likes his fellow EUropeans !.
More like the dodgy dealers manouvering behind the scenes need a highly pliable mouthpiece utterly in line and compliant with their project. This chimes neatly with the start of the programme to rehabilitate that other turd, Blair, a few weeks ago. Both Blair and Cameron have been prime players in disasterous military interventions as well as devious covert activity in support of some very suspect partners in an assortment of insurrections across the Middle East.
Frankly I don’t really care if either of them gets a role back in UK politics because we know that scene stinks worse than an Indian kerb ditch, but to let either of these polecats loose on the international community would be a deliberately irresponsible act and likely to provoke reprisal actions in a number of EU and NATO countries.
Did someone mention making your bed and lying in it ?
Better, or is the latest spin just a distraction?
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/38360-trump-in-the-white-house-an-interview-with-noam-chomsky
I said “better” in the elasticated sense, maybe “even more f***in’ stupid” would have served the purposes of communicating my disbelief at the choices some of these people make, or try to make.
I’m no fan of NATO or any other supra national organisation, especially those created by shadowy military top brass leaning on their dopey civilian political leaders, but to see a spiv like Cameron being touted for “leadership” is a multiple 2 fingered gesture at the public – it tells us “you got no vote in this so mind your own business, we rule you do as you are told ”
And that kind of post will suit Potato Features just fine and dandy. He can draw a good salary, unlimited expenses, gad about Europe and elsewhere on his special purpose jet and behave with minimal accountability. In fact the job sounds just like the sort of nonsense that he condemned when FIFA were in the news earlier in 2016.
DG (AKA socialist troll)
And the point you’re struggling to make is? . . . . .
No sweat gov.
When the media ‘leak’ the name of someone deeply unpopular as a likely candidate for a top job, it usually means that person will not get it.
Look Over There
Clickbait
Anger
Reaction
Sun / Daily Kyle bingo.
btw: Have you read ‘The War that Ended Peace: How Europe abandoned peace for the First World War’ by Professor Margaret MacMillan? Having read her earlier book, ‘Peacemakers – Six Months that Changed The World’, it was a must get and peruse.
History of 100+ or so years ago is very interesting but I recommend ( again !) Chris Davidson’s Shadow Wars to you if you are into tomes that are heavy going but well worth the slog. It does a relatively quick synopsis of 19th and early 20th century skullduggery and then opens out into a detailed diagnostic of the post 1945 acceleration of global covert ( and not so covert ) antics of USA, UK and lesser partners.
This sheds light on the continuity of deceit in the foreign policies of these countries, how they helped create a momentum in Islamist extremism right up to the situation that prevails today, and how they engaged with oddball dictators in other parts of the world to secure their political and business/commercial objectives. This book is not a fabrication of multiple guessworking exercises, and it avoids the groupthink so prevalent among many critics on both sides of the political divide that purport an interest in these myriad events and activities.
If I didn’t despise these generations of manipulative “leaders” before reading this book then I sure do now as it has helped to crystallise further my severely sceptical view of the world we live in.
By the way the book retails at £25 a shot, less on Amazon, but being a little concerned that I might find it extremely heavy I got the town library service to get me a copy which they did within a week, bless them. Probably the shock or novelty of some old guy reading heavy duty non fiction egged them on. The book is brand new, no record of previous issue. There is access to preview pages on Amazon so you can browse the opening section as a taster to find whether the writing style and content is of interest to you.
Thank you, dafis, I think I’ll wait a while for Chris Davidson’s latest to be available 2nd hand at a reasonable price.
Have you tried this resource?: http://www.learnoutloud.com/Free-Audiobooks/History
had a look at that site earlier today – could be useful sources if I can get my listening skills tuned up. I find when reading that I often go back over a piece of text just to ensure the meaning is appreciated, and with audio that’s more complex. Even on Youtube I have to flick back & forth to get into some of those longer items. No problems like that when I re-run Johnny Cash or Willie Nelson on Youtube !!
3 other tomes I’m looking at picking up on when I’m done with Davidson are John Pilger’s “New Rulers of the World” “Web of Deceit” and “Secret Affairs” both by Mark Curtis. All deal with ongoing skullduggery and the recent history leading up to our present state of affairs.
Will probably end up getting a conspiracy overdose but that looks like the reality we have to wade through. Overcoming it will have to be a mass challenge and mobilising that mass is a huge task when most of them are stuck in their settees munching tubs of calories and soaking up Anglo American pop culture. The irony of “won’t get fooled again” still echoes down through 46 years of solid deception.
Still plenty to think and talk about in 2017. Maybe even get round to doing something ! That should set GCHQ twitching over their lattes and low fat nibbles.
Yes, it’s much easier to flick back pages than use a scroll bar on an audio file.
Some books are available as free downloads in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format and Margaret MacMillan’s ‘Six Months That Changed The World’ is one of them. Not the same as a print copy, but I know some people who prefer the electronic format of pdfs and Kindle – It certainly saves space!
Ah well, time to reflect on living in interesting times. So much has happened that we’ve been given us an extra second today as a bonus. Thank you Cameron, Trump, Farage, Gove, Johnson, IDS, May, Murdoch, Dacre, Desmond and all the other shits for making 2016 the way it was – Where would we have been without them?
there’s bias in that “honours list” of yours – Tory habit according to some Labour spokesmen, shame they can’t remember, or choose not to, some of their own honours blunders. Why we still persist with all this crap is beyond me.
Thanks for the tip about some of these books coming on line free issue on pdf – that always helps !
I have used Kindle for lighter fiction reading, Gerald Seymour has written some good stuff which is streets ahead of the gung-ho airport fodder that seems to be so popular. Has a dark side to it which is probably why I like it !
I couldn’t have said it any different or better myself dafis. An excellent post.
Right at the beginning of the referendum campaigns I said clearly that the so-called ‘Brexit’ issue had absolutely nothing to do with the economy or immigration. The core or key point was whether we wanted a centralised, dictatorial behemoth, that was a stepping stone to a world government (the New World Order). The propaganda mill boiled it down to racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, workers rights and isolationism – designed to frighten people off. The frightening off didn’t work, but it has to be said that many voted on this subject material because they were influenced by these debating subjects and the arguments that surrounded them. Thankfully the vote went the right way. It has tripped up the totalitarian tip-toe for the time being. However those in the shadows will not give up that easily.
I too shudder at the thought of being labelled a ‘Brexiteer’ and everything those that are associated with it stand for. However, I don’t mind too much, the important thing was to disengage from the undemocratic and bureaucratic beast, whose sole aim is to enslave everyone on the planet under the boot of the elites.
The awakening has definitely started.
“The propaganda mill boiled it down to racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, workers rights and isolationism – designed to frighten people off. The frightening off didn’t work …”
No, the racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia did work as did getting in at the start by labelling anything the Remain group was likely to say as “Project Fear”.
I’m surprised that you, a hater of propaganda, have ignored the influence of the Popular Press and every leaflet and advert that the Vote Leave group published.
Don’t you understand? We’re OUT – live with it TROLL!
Britons pick Brexit and Trump’s election as the top two ‘worst’ events of 2016 – YouGov poll, 29 December 2016
So what exactly does that prove? If anything. Do you still believe in commissioned polls? I certainly don’t – based on the result of those two events alone!
Big Gee is a very angry person.
“The core or key point was whether we wanted a centralised, dictatorial behemoth, that was a stepping stone to a world government (the New World Order). ”
The only reference to NWO I heard before the referendum was on this blog and I talked with a good number of people. Since then I’ve talked about the result with a greater number of people none of which has made any mention of New World order. Maybe they are all in on it.
British nationalism on the other hand in various guises has come up again and again as a motive amongst Leave voters.
You say:
“none of which has made any mention of New World order. Maybe they are all in on it.”
It’s not a question of being “in on it” it’s a question of how many people know about it. I hold back from suggesting that the mass majority (including most of the people you talk to apparently) are walking around with a metaphoric brown paper bag over their heads. However more and more are taking them off.
If – in your opinion – British Nationalism was the triggering factor for many in the vote to leave the EU then that’s their business, all I’m stating is the reason why I voted to leave. If others voted for different reasons then that’s OK, because they may have inadvertently done the right thing, by blocking the totalitarian tip-toe, albeit in their ignorance.
I quote Professor Freeman Dyson “I am happy when I’m in a minority – it proves that I’m doing something right, the majority place their theories on what others say and not facts“
Freeman Dyson was speaking about science not politics.
Same horse – different jockey.
Someone wrote in a letter to Times on line : …….”It made me think of right-wing Brexiteers whom , while scornful of the SNP Government’s ” expecting the rest of the United Kingdom to play the role of the jilted but magnanimous partner ” , have exactly the same expectations of the European Union.”
While I voted Leave I do not class myself as a Brexiteer, quite simply because that vote on 23/06/2016 was for me just stage 1 of a journey that will hopefully lead to a further “Leave” decision, to depart the UK. Also the sentence above succinctly defines the nature of the Anglo Brit supremacist, a nasty smelly turd of a person with whom we should have little or no common cause in future.
in response to an article on alternative history fiction one correspondent said ……”and the lesson to be learnt is that it does not pay for those in power to ignore the masses. Like a rollercoaster as soon as the point is reached where the masses shout ‘enough – we want change’ it is too late to simply turn back the clock. We have passed that point and as a result we have witnessed the rise of the SNP, Brexit, the disintegration of the Labour party etc. Added to this we have the rise of the ‘Internet Social media which has taken control of communications and propaganda away from the established media outlets. Xi, Putin, Trump, like the phoenix2 have risen on the ashes of what has gone before and the world is in a state of chaos and unless the politicians start talking to the masses and listening to what they say then we are in trouble. Even now on programs like ‘Question Time’ when the subject of immigration is brought up the establishment figures still continue to start their comments with ‘without immigration the NHS would……..blah,blah,blah’. They never answer the questions about ‘how many, what controls, undercutting wages etc. – and yet they show surprise when their candidates fail dismally in national and local elections “.
Again, very neatly sums up the “have your cake and eat it mentality” of the self serving ruling clusters ( or clutters ?) in this rickety old U.K. These are the greedy bastards who enjoy services provided by immigrants on rock bottom conditions almost without exemption. The sort of jobs that vast numbers of immigrants do in the NHS have been contracted out to agencies/contractors thus placing the job holders outside wage agreements etc that apply to NHS staff. This results in people being paid a flat rate wage, regardless of shift pattern, unsocial/weekend working etc, removing at a stroke all the extras that used to make those jobs moderately tolerable for the unionised workforces that used to be employed. And the likes of Owen Smith ( remember old Oily ? ) still has the gall to tell workers that he and his kind will look out for them. He’s no better than the wicked witch May.
I had trouble opening the above link because it’s subscription only then I typed ‘Are Londoners leaving London’ into google and I managed to get the article.
Here’s an interesting article for many on here regarding London’s population. I hope that one of the things to come out of Brexit will be a decrease in London’s population hopefully reducing it’s property prices. So, then a Londoner might not be able to buy a small farm in west Wales after selling a terraced in Wimbledon. http://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/Wimbledon.html And there are plenty more expensive areas.
http://blogs.ft.com/ftdata/2016/06/09/are-londoners-leaving-london-internal-migration-uk/
Over £500m spent by DWP ( or whatever other names it operates its Benefits rationing systems ) in policing i.e assessments of claimant eligibilty and related issues. As expected the Guardian makes a bit of a meal of it, while much of the MSM actually ignores the whole fiasco.
Now we all know that there have always been a small percentage of sharks and small time fiddlers who saw the benefit system as a big game for them to play. The succession of governments, especially since 1979, have also known, so no big mystery. But instead of going out and tackling the fiddlers head on they dream up an expensive “remedial strategy” which punishes the genuine claimants while the fiddlers make the necessary adjustments to their games playing technique and keep on plundering the coffers. And the governments’ corporate friends engage in a nice line of profitable business with little or no downside. Lib Dem’s Tim Farron’s contribution, that these companies are in it for profit, is so fuckin’ obvious that it’s laughable. Yet no one is doing a damn thing to stop these shady deals, they just get bigger !
Repeat this pattern of behaviour across the entire mix of government services and you see the huge shift of funds away from actual service delivery across to a mix of consultants, contractors and corporates posturing as service providers who in reality are systematically destroying services. You know it’s bad when PwC have reached Ceredigion in their campaign to suck the public sector dry as described on here and on assorted news stories of late.
Big government colluding with big business is SO GOOD for us all – why aren’t we up there chanting joyful mantras thanking UK and EU bureaucracies and their international corporate partners for their care and generosity of spirit ? And we still have apologists telling us that this is the way forward – bit like those old signs above the gates of concentration camps.
Bang on dafis. What’s more I read somewhere that Atos & Capita (the PRIVATE sector companies used in this evil directive) are given monetary incentives to reject as many claimants as possible, apparently they receive a bonus for each claimant rejected! This is in keeping with the DWP’s instructions from government to cut down the number of claimants by 20%. Nothing to do with their needs or situation. It is beyond belief.
As you rightly say there is and always will be a small section that will exploit the system, but they are a gnat’s wee in the ocean, although they should quite rightly be weeded out.
In the meantime the genuine ones are poured out with the dirty bathwater. As regards why there is not a widespread condemnation and protests about this, well, how many poor buggers with serious ailments and impediments have the physical ability, strength or energy to protest? Many are too ill or weak to fight against the form filling work alone, that’s why many will just give up without even appealing against decisions by these bastards.
Secondly, do you remember the MILLIONS that turned out on the streets to oppose the Iraq war? How much of an impact did it have? Fuck all. THAT’S when I was convinced that the age of that kind of peaceful protest is dead. The government’s power has reached a point where it can from now on totally ignore public opinion. That’s why – as Jac points out – the significance of the Brexit & Trump success, where the system’s machinery has been used to defeat the establishment’s wishes. That is the way forward – not with placards & chants on the streets.
… and we have more cronyism: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/dec/27/government-accused-power-grab-new-public-appointment-rules-bbc-ofsted
Business for 2017 includes okaying Murdoch’s total control of Sky and brown-nosing Precedent Trump as corporate America uses its “‘God-given’ opportunity to steal business from Britain”.
Interesting to read that article about 1/2 hour ago and especially some of those “correspondents” in the comments :
One said – Hypocritical Labour. If they were in Government, they would be appointing incompetent lefty liberals to senior public appointments.
That’s why their beloved NHS is in such a shitty mess.
dafiswledig ( me in English ) replied – “Agree that NHS is a mess, but Lefty liberals ? Not really. Most are just self centred elitist shites who “know what’s best for the common herd ” The labels are misleading – know your enemy.”
That’s the problem with the Guardianistas – too stuck in Left/ Right dichotomy bullshit while the totalitarian governing class/elites/clusters ( call them what you like !) get on with turning us over and cornering all the levers of power !
That’s the key dafis. There is no ‘right/ left’. It’s an illusionary concept that makes a neat job of pigeon-holing people, and of course it serves as a tag to discredit, or credit groups of people.
It comes unstuck when the system comes up against those with views that do not fit the template. Nationalists are a good example (Fidel Castro being one). I found that out during past campaigns – like the Ceredigion Mayoral referendum, where so called ‘right’ wingers and ‘lefties’ worked absolutely in harmony and saw most things from the same eyes. That was when I met Felix Aubel, someone who I found was absolutely healthy from a Nationalist point of view but was burdened with the label of being a Tory, and everything that represented in many people’s eyes. You would think that Felix would be diametrically opposed to the views of Castro, but amazingly, there were many similarities when it came to basic social conscience matters.
The ironic thing is that dictatorial systems, like communism and fascism cannot be separated by a cigarette paper – although they are supposed to be at opposite ends of the spectrum.
The trick is to spot the right and fair minded in amongst all those ‘right’ and ‘left’ groups, because they are often of the same ilke but with a different lapel badge.
An interesting example would be Labour and Tories uniting on some Scottish local authorities to stop the SNP – when it’s the largest party – forming a coalition or running a minority administration. (Something similar happened in Carmarthenshire until a can-carrier was needed before May’s elections.)
Talking of Felix Aubel, he had a good letter in the Mule today quoting Teddy Roosevelt. Of course, the belief that immigrants should assimilate has a Welsh application. He must know that.
From the lengthy time I’ve spent in Felix’s company, he would apply what he’s written there to Cymru. He often praised his father Felix senior (a Yugoslav immigrant of Serb descent, who came to work in the coal mines after the second world war). His father not only learnt Welsh, but it was his workplace language, and he was proud of that (he actually spoke SEVEN languages). His son, was brought up with the Welsh language and culture, and I’m sure he doesn’t mind me pointing out that his idea of integration, when it comes to our country, is that not only the European and other immigrants that come here should immerse themselves in our language and culture, but that should be extended to ALL immigrants, including those from the other side of Clawdd Offa.
There are lots of right-wing trolls and nutters on the Guardian’s comments threads.
too right but they feed off the equally nutty pseudo left contributors who see they abuse but won’t confront those of their own alleged persuasion who are just as happy to dip into the trough of public funds.
Not just Guardian commenters, we see the same thing in the alternative media unfortunately. They are only there to fabricate stories and draw in ‘click bait’. It is they that give the rest a bad name. It is now obvious that the establishment is using those rogues to give all alternative truth seeking journalists in the alternative media a bad name. We all know of course that the mainstream media is overflowing with false news or news blackouts, but of course they are safe from the establishment, as they work for them.
Nutters are to be found everywhere (including this blog sadly). Most informed people however can pick them out and then ignore their views.
A good listen on this subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUZepnTJ4Yg
You seem to be obsessed with David Icke. Going to YouTube and linking clips from conspiracy theorists and their theories about ‘fake news’ is about as useful as going to the Daily Star to corroborate stories in the Sun.
No I’m not obsessed with David Icke. That link was for the Richie Allen show.
However unlike dedicated self abusers with narrow or closed minds I analyse what he and people like Richie Allen have to say, THEN make my mind up, and only afterwards will I make a comment.
You see, unlike you, I don’t allow myself to be brainwashed through the system, and I certainly wouldn’t make comments like you just have – because you want to be seen as a zombie sheep that copies all the other zombie sheep – without a gram of research and without asking any questions. After you do the research and ask the questions, THEN come out with pathetic comments like that.
It seems that you think you have a silver bullet against any questioners, by quipping that anything the BBC or other mainstream media doesn’t turn out is the product of “conspiracy theorists” (a term hatched a long time ago just after the JFK assassination – to discredit anyone that questioned the official line).
These people are “CONSPIRACY RESEARCHERS” not theorist you manipulated simpleton. The conspiracy is the work of the system, and before you come back with something else equally stupid, ask yourself was there a conspiracy to go to war in Iraq? Or was what Bush & Bliar said the truth? Did they conspire to fool you and others? YES they did – so it was a CONSPIRACY wasn’t it? (Cambridge Dictionary definition of ‘conspiracy = “the activity of secretly planning with other people to do something bad or illegal” also, “a general agreement to keep silent about a subject for the purpose of keeping it secret”). It took the work of conspiracy researchers to bring that knowledge about the US & UK leaders to the forefront.
Click HERE, HERE & HERE
WAKE UP – because by linking to documentaries by the likes of BBC stooges like Adam Curtis it is YOU that’s making an arse of yourself.
Stop being a malleable mutton head. Try and catch up with the curve, because you are as gullible as my great grandmother who believed that the man who told the news on the radio lived in the box on the sideboard. The rest of us have seen through the illusion and have moved on.
Adam Curtis is a stooge? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Curtis
Explain.
Well Jac, seeing as Big Gee has called Adam Curtis a stooge, the explanation should come from Big Gee. I have linked a wiki entry which includes a list of documentaries and short pieces from AC for BG to point at the examples of stooge work.
If Big Gee can provide links to US conspiracy theorists uncovering British scandals like Hillsborough, Orgreave, Blair Peach, Birmingham 6 etc., it would save a lot of time as there are matters here e.g. Brexit, leaving the ECHR, Leveson 2 and Murdoch’s takeover of Sky that are of immediate importance.
Definition of ‘stooge’: ‘a subordinate used by another to do unpleasant routine work‘.
Curtis has worked exclusively for the BBC throughout his career, it is officially recognised that he is inspired by Max Weber, a liberal sociologist. The state financed establishment propaganda machine of the UK is the BBC. ALL of it’s journalists either toe the line or they are looking for jobs elsewhere, pretty sharpish. The establishment controls what the BBC who puts out (or fails to put out) the information that those in the shadows determines. THAT is why I call Curtis a ‘stooge’ for his employers.
That statement is easily borne out with the following quick glance at the British Bullshit Corporation.
Let’s start at the top:
The current abysmal state of BBC News and Politics makes much more sense when you see who has been appointed to plot its editorial course.
The BBC Trust is responsible for granting licences to all BBC outlets and stations, managing value for money on licence fee payments and ‘the direction of BBC editorial and creative output’. The Trust consists of 12 Trustees and is headed by Rona Fairhead – who also happens to have been a longtime board member of HSBC bank (alarm bells there before you start).
As James Wright reported earlier this year:
“Fairhead has entrenched ties to the Tory government. In fact, she and Osborne are old friends. Fairhead worked for the Conservative government as a cabinet office member, until being appointed by the previous Conservative culture secretary – Sajid Javid – as the new head of the BBC Trust. She is still business ambassador for David Cameron.
Fairhead has also sat on the board of HSBC directors for a long time. And what is even more shocking than her other Conservative links are claims that she was actually appointed chairwoman of the BBC Trust to keep a lid on Cameron’s involvement in covering up a £1bn fraudulent HSBC scam on British shoppers. Whistle-blower Nicholas Wilson made various freedom of information requests that confirmed that Fairhead’s appointment did not follow proper procedure. She was rushed to the position after the application date closed, with no mention of her on any contemporary media shortlist.
Her appointment does not coincide with the normal process, and many questioned why a business tycoon was right for the job. What it did coincide with was a string of interconnected visits from the BBC, HSBC, the Houses of Parliament and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to Wilson’s website where he details the scam and the FCA and Cameron’s involvement in covering it up“.
But the conflicts of interest do not stop at Fairhead. The Director of News and Current Affairs at the BBC, James Harding, is a former employee of the Murdoch Press. While Editor of The Times newspaper, he was responsible for exposing the identity of police blogger NightJack by hacking the blogger’s email accounts – which his legal team then covered up during a court case against the action. Harding has also gone on the record as ‘pro Israel’.
This is the calibre of the figures responsible for hiring the news teams, presenters and journalists who will report on matters of hacking, privacy, and the Middle East (amongst them would be the career long Adam Curtis)
These are not trivial conflicts of interests. The two individuals primarily responsible for driving the News and Politics agenda for the BBC, are instead driving forward their personal and professional causes – and the licence fee payer is footing the bill.
These conflicts of interest affect the reporting of News and Politics at the BBC in a very real way. In 2013, researchers at Cardiff University undertook a major content analysis of BBC coverage. They studied the impartiality of BBC reporting across several areas, including the Israel-Palestine conflict, the EU, business and economics, and politics. You can research their findings yourself.
These are the reasons why I call Adam Curtis (and all others who want to keep their jobs in the BBC) a STOOGE.
Of further interest:
BBC’s Andrew Marr gets Schooled about Media Propaganda by Noam Chomsky.
Click HERE
Big Gee.
Woooo, Noam Chomsky the well known toe liner. Chomsky with his ‘Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media’ and that Klein woman and her ‘Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism’ – disgraceful pro-establishment propaganda !!!!!
Now compare the BBC with the rest of the mainstream media starting with ITV and Sky and move on to the Sun, Daily Mail etc.
You say: “Now compare the BBC with the rest of the mainstream media starting with ITV and Sky and move on to the Sun, Daily Mail etc.”
Froth. That’s like asking someone to favour a shark over a crocodile – they are ALL a part of the same system. No one is blackening the BBC over the others you mention. They are ALL in the same camp. It is a ploy to bamboozle the public into a sense of good or bad, truthful – untruthful, right politics – left politics etc. It is dust being thrown in your eyes. They are ALL equally the foot soldiers of the establishment. It is you who is being led to believe,or rather lulled into an illusionary perception that some are good whilst others are bad. The only news you can trust is that based on truth, properly tested, witnessed, evidenced and presented in an unbiased way. That is not the mainstream media in ANY form.
Learn a bit more about Noam Chomsky – you appear to be rather confused there as well:
Noam Chomsky.
Big Gee
I have books by Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein, the dirty, rotten, compliant ‘yes’ people.
What baffles me was you calling Adam Curtis a stooge for working for the BBC and linking ‘proof’ by way of Andrew Marr interviewing Noam Chomsky. The interview was first broadcast in February 1996 by the fearless BBC and really did show up the thoroughly pro-establishment BBC for what it is, didn’t it? Well done BBC for showing it; Bet that BBC would have banned it.
I really don’t know if you and I are talking about the same person. You say you have Chomsky’s books, but it seems doubtful you’ve read them, or possibly you can’t understand them. I notice you seem to have difficulty understanding a lot of quite simple statements on here – preferring instead to ignore what posters say, relying instead on your own assumptions.
Chomsky is often described as one of the best-known figures of the American left, although he doesn’t agree with the usage of the term (as I don’t – there is no such thing as right and left politics – it’s an abstract concept cooked up for digestion by the masses). He has described himself as a “fellow traveller” to the anarchist tradition, and refers to himself as a political philosopher.
He summarizes himself as challenging all forms of authority and attempting to eliminate them if they are unjustified for which the burden of proof is solely upon those who attempt to exert power.
He has taken strong stands against censorship and for freedom of speech, even for views he personally condemns. He has stated that “with regard to freedom of speech there are basically two positions: you defend it vigorously for views you hate, or you reject it and prefer Stalinist/fascist standards”.
Hardly a description of what you call “dirty, rotten, compliant ‘yes’ people”.
I don’t agree with him on everything, like man-made climate change, which is a scam and has been proved so, especially in the last five to ten years. Chomsky is convinced that we are the main culprits in climate change. I believe he is wrong. Climate change (cooler or warmer) has always been with us. The false propagation of the nonsense regarding our involvement as humans has been hatched for ulterior motives by the controllers in the shadows (Problem, Reaction, Solution – cause a problem, wait for the reaction – usually fear – then offer a solution – usually associated with less freedom in the guise of more need for security, or a war, in the case of global warming scares – see Agenda 21. See also this video of a speech by Ann Bressington) .
However his observations about the media, political ‘hidden hand’ conspiracies and the use of the media for propaganda is spot-on.
I’m fast coming to the conclusion that you are a troll, and you spout anything you think will cause a reaction. I don’t know whether I want to respond to much more of your drivel.
I’ve explained in plenty of detail why I called Adam Curtis a stooge. Now go and read it again and figure it out for yourself.
Who, me? I thought Chomsky played for Spartak Moscow.
No not you dear Jac – that other contributor that I’ve been wasting my time on THE TROLL i.e. DG.
You can quietly get back to playing your old Spartak Moscow vid tapes & stop choking on your left over mince pies – take a swig of the Argie Red to clear your throat!
Saturnalia Hapus i chi gyd, a blwyddyn newydd lewyrchus i bawb sydd a chariad tuag at wirionedd
Nadolig Llawen Mr Jones and all other Jac followers.
The basic argument of this article that 2016 has seen the dawn of some new political age is fatally flawed.
People who feel disadvantaged have always opposed the status quo. This is why countries with a first past the post electoral system regulary swap between left and right wing governments.
Unhappy with what you’ve got, then vote for the opposition, for no good reason, apart from the grass always being greener on the other side.
Single issue parties like ukip will always benefit temporarily from this childlike hissy fit attitude to politics because those prone to political tantrums seek neither logic nor comprehensive policy statements. Being different is all that matters.
Politicians therefore recognise that the so called will of the people is often no more than a protest vote against the status quo. They also recognise that to vote against something, with no idea of what is going to replace it, is just an empty gesture.
This is why the Brexit negotiations are simply going to be a damage limitation exercise. Not the brave new world as advertised in the Tory tabloids.
So what you’ll end up with will be a political fudge. The politicians will claim to have listened to the voice of the people, but in practice change very little.
A few slavering Brexiteers are going to be apoplectic. But the vast majority of the population, having made their little protest, aren’t really going to give a damn.
“People who feel disadvantaged have always opposed the status quo”, you say. True, but rarely has the disadvantaged been able to effectively beat the status quo democratically by taking options outside of the mainstream. That’s why 2016 is important, the system has been used against itself.
“A few slavering Brexiteers are going to be apoplectic. But the vast majority of the population, having made their little protest, aren’t really going to give a damn“.
That’s probably quite near the mark Vlad. But that’s the ploy isn’t it? Let the dust settle over an artificially long period, let things fade in people’s minds, and then back to business as usual.
However it won’t work this time. With the other EU countries having elections soon, and the populations there also waking up and revolting at the ballot boxes, Brexit will be kept in the forefront of people’s minds.
As Jac astutely points out “. . . . rarely has the disadvantaged been able to effectively beat the status quo democratically by taking options outside of the mainstream. That’s why 2016 is important, the system has been used against itself” – the door has been prised open and the people across Europe are going to bolt for it. Thank goodness for that I say – at least it’ll hold up the ‘totalitarian tip-toe’ for a while!
The point I was making was that the great unwashed didn’t need to resort to revolutions, or even riots, they just went and voted.
It’s all very well for the Left to attack Trump for being wealthy, but that ignores the fact that in political terms he was – and remains – an outsider. In the USA the establishment thought it had both bases covered, but then along came Trump. And even after he’d won, the Republican establishment was still trying to remove him.
I’m sorry to say, I wouldn’t totally agree with you there Jac.
Republican or Democrat presidential candidates in America are just the puppets of the ‘hidden hand’ (heads we win, tails we win). The only true ‘outsider’ seemed to have been Bernie Sanders, but he got choked off pretty quickly to be replaced by Trump from the ‘other’ side. The same applies to other countries – especially those with just a two party system. That’s the reason for voter apathy in recent years, people start to realise that it doesn’t matter who you vote for, they get the same. The only exception I would venture to say is Jeremy Corbyn in the UK. However his future is yet to be seen unfolding, he’s got mighty opposition from the establishment and nowadays the ploy seems to be to not even mention him at all, or show pictures of him in the mainstream media. Those opposed to him in his own party are just slinking away, to cause mayhem from a different source. They are isolating him by ignoring him, as attacking him head on failed – clever.
These powers behind the scene are not stupid. The plan over recent years has been to put forward an establishment candidate, and then an alternative who seems to fit the bill amongst the anti establishment public. They’re very adept at it in America, and have been successful at it with many leaders in the past. The most recent being Trump, before that the people’s darling was Barak (‘yes we can’) Obama. Did anything change? No, in fact he proved to be more closely controlled by the dark suits than anyone before him, he was their natural follow on to ‘boy’ Bush. Black voter disappointment, anti establishment white voter disappointment. So what do you do next time to fool the people? Well with an obvious sea change towards ‘outsiders’ the people who will apparently dismantle the old establishment (cue Brexit example etc. as your template) then ENTER TRUMP – the saviour who’s on the side of all those disgruntled people who fell for the Obama scam and the rest who are fed up with the establishment.
The real Trump isn’t a populist. He’s a plutocrat. Above all, he’s a con man. And the people being conned are average working Americans who are buying Trump’s ruse of being a man of the people. He is a man of the establishment, and although he may not have been recruited from the political group (having no previous political office) he IS up to his neck with those who dwell in the shadows, because of his past business dealings and the circles he moves in. You don’t become a multi billionaire without having a leg up from the shadows, then it’s pay back time. Don’t forget he’s also blood related to both the Clinton and the Bush families, and even more amazingly Obama! Now there’s a coincidence!
“Drain the swamp” he said. Now, before going any further, check his ‘u’ turns (he’s not even in office yet) and then check who he has brought into his administration. Drain the swamp? My arse! He’s digging deep ditches to divert more dirty water into the Washington swamp. It’s not rocket science.
However there IS a tidal wave sweeping through the world as the people wake up, BUT there needs to be a bit more cautiousness and astuteness. All that glistens is not gold. The hidden hand will use the phenomenon by hijacking it – as they have with Trump. In the same way that they have declared war on the alternative media. In fact some of the alternative media are VERY suspect and probably controlled by the hidden hand in order to destroy it, with the pretence that there is now evidence that they are promoting ‘false news’. That then neatly gets rid of the genuine promoters of truth news. After winning the war on alternative media, it will be back to the old pattern, all news being spoon-fed to us via the MAINSTREAM media, who of course are the propaganda mouthpieces of the hidden hand.
We need to be very wide awake to the way the establishment works, for fear of tripping over our own shoe laces. We also need to be careful, and don’t get conned into believing the perception deception – Trump being a classic example.
If you didn’t watch the Adam Curtis documentary ‘HyperNormalisation’ on BBC TV, it’s available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fny99f8amM Reference to Donald Trump is at 9 mins 30 seconds, but watch from the beginning and see what happened from 1975.
Anyone thinking that Trump and Brexit signal positive changes for the ordinary man and woman is going to be more than disappointed.
You are to have a Merry Christmas and a United New Delusional Year by Order of T May.
Against my better judgement – seeing as the reference came from you! – I watched it all the way through, but of course it doesn’t go as far as Trump beating Clinton.
I get the message, I’ve been saying it for years, it’s the global and globalising elite bent on marginalising politicians (and the populations they ‘govern’) to rule by algorithms, on the mistaken principle that human beings are rational and will always act out of self-interest. (Which also explained the limitations of social media and the internet.) Collateral with this is building up bogeymen, and even, in the case of Gaddafi, rehabilitating them when it suits. (And then, demonising the poor bugger again and throwing him to the wolves.)
Being a Leftist, I assume that your message ran summat like this, ‘Oh, look, Jac, your hero Trump is just another member of the elite you so detest’. I KNOW THAT. But you’re missing the point. Those who voted for Trump and Brexit, those who’ll vote next year for le Pen, Wilders and God knows who else, are not driven by algorithms, or manipulated by anybody, theirs is a very real and visceral anger.
So the real worry for us all should be this: What happens if Trump betrays those who voted for him? They’ll still be angry, but now they might reject politics and the democratic process, the media, the legal system, and everything else they can connect with the corruption they detest.
If that happens, and if it spreads from the US to the UK (helped by nobody knowing how to progress Brexit), and on to the continent, then we could be facing a period of anarchy, from which any monster could emerge. Perhaps even an independent Wales.
P.S. I loved the story about Trump and the Japanese gambler.
i just liked the bit about Yakusa topping the Jap before he could pay up. Shouldn’t have played around with other people’s money !!! Bit like a bankster really.
Other than that all this “disclosure” about Engineering outcomes using abstract algorithms and models has been common knowledge for ages. Fooling around with people’s lives and prospects is serious business and it’s big business all over the world. Bit surprised the BBC produced it unless they’ve decided it’s so common knowledge that they could safely fill some air time with it.
So all these proxies like EU need to get pulled down cos they won’t be reformed they just morph from one dud onto the next full of benign chatter but their actions are horrific. Revisited some aspects of recent Balkans history a few days ago and the manipulation of people and events remains a massive reminder of the part that bastard Blair played with others in wrecking S.E Europe as part of the grand plan to “integrate” that region eventually into the EU, no doubt as a source of cheap labour and valuable natural and mineral resources.
Of course the saga hasn’t ended and with each passing episode it becomes more convoluted. Every Western leader seems hell bent on pursuing “power objectives” escalating the excesses of each previous episode. Who are they trying to impress with this obscene pissing competition ? It is now increasingly evident that CIA spawned AQ > ISIS, with bags of help from MI6 and other agencies from EU, Israel and Asia. We know that they have played assorted destabilisation games since WW2 but since the 1980’s the whole conduct of their foreign policy is a pile of fabrications.
One of the consequences of the war against the Serbs was to unleash on Europe Albanian gangsters, from Albania proper, Kosovo and elsewhere in the region. Before long they had taken over the rackets in Milan from the southern Italian outfits because they were impenetrable, unpredictable and ultra violent. They have since spread worldwide, many of them first welcomed to the EU as ‘refugees’. Ah!
they’ve been in Cardiff for a good while, peddling drugs and women, and no doubt providing a service for any kind of deviant taste that comes along.
Even when Blair first started bulling up the Kosovars and whining on about the shit deal they got off the Serbs it was well known that the KLA was harbouring all sorts of jihadist extremists who were just out of the Bosnian conflict, some of them having cut their teeth on Russians 10 or more years earlier in Afghanistan. Apart from being high on Islam these bastards had a particular taste for killing Slavs so Serbs were given a bad time yet Blair kept banging on about their fuckin’ rights. No doubt most of them have moved out of Kosovo into the EU under guise of refugees and displaced persons and engaged in criminal trades while waiting for the next shot of jihad. Lovely.
It is now widely admitted that there were unforeseen consequences from arming the Taliban in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets, from backing Saddam in his war against the ayatollahs, from the invasion of Iraq to remove Saddam, from helping the rebels against Gaddafi, from believing that the ‘Arab Spring’ was going to bring democracy to the region, and most recently from backing the ‘rebels’ against Assad; yet for some reason the West still maintains the lie that the intervention in the Balkans was just and without repercussions.
I have always said that we should have let the Serbs deal the bastards.
It’s wrong to assume the activities of ‘Albanian/Kosovo/Bosnian Muslim’ gangs are religious by motive.
When the Chechen and Saudi agent provocateurs parachuted into Sarajevo they would have found women choosing the best lipstick to wear at the village dance and a mosque used more often to play dominos, smoke fags and drink coffee than recite the Koran. Those foreign interlopers were rapidly disposed of, usually by bullet and sometimes as willing human minefield reconnaissance. The ‘muslim’ gangs just saw an opportunity for trafficking and extortion when the opportunity presented, nothing to do with scripture.
Neither were the Serbian gangs motivated by Christian orthodoxy. They too saw an opportunity for trafficking and extortion, but in this case the capital used (guns and cash) was supplied via Russian sponsored mercenaries who were pissed off with EU boots on their patch.
There is a huge difference between the Balkans and Iraq. The former is where popular uprising had already evicted a stable government. The latter was a classic invasion of a county by foreigners against a functional if rather revolting nation state. The consequences are very different. In the Balkans we now have a series of independent national democracies debating the merits of joining the Euro, while in Iraq we have the rise of Islamic State and an un-elected national government dependent on a slightly different morph of religious militia.
It’s also important to note that IS is from Iraq. Not Syria. They just expanded over the border when the opportunity (when a not so well supported popular uprising) presented.
My nationalism is not motivated by Methodiad Canfanaid, however, if an English fighter jet bombs my chapel, I might throw a few words around from Beibl y teulu. Would that make me a jehadist of Welsh Calvinism?
I’m not arguing that the Albanian gangs operating in western Europe and elsewhere are motivated solely by Islam, I’m saying that there have been Albanian Jihadis in Syria and Iraq and that there is an overlap that sees Jihadis become gangsters and vice versa. Or be both, simultaneously.
There is no point in trying to differentiate here between Albanians from Kosovo or elsewhere and those from Albania proper. This report from the New York Times deals with Saudi money and propaganda going into Kosovo – with US approval? – while this report from Balkan Insight deals with Jihadis from Albania.
Beyond religion, this ‘confusion’ is observable globally as combatants in political and other struggles often dabble in crime, just look across the water where both Loyalists and Republicans are engaged in murderous criminal activities. ‘We’re only dealing drugs because if we didn’t do it then it would be left to criminals’ Or, ‘I’m killing you for the Cause, not because you’re a rival drug-dealer’.
By comparison, the Serb and other gangsters from the Balkans, and Russia, while they might be devout Orthodox Christians, are motivated solely by power and money. Their ranks are never going to be swelled by those returning from a holy war looking to make money from the ‘talents’ they’ve acquired.
The key to defeating the ‘Albanian gangsters’ in Cardiff was police dogs trained in Bridgend and intelligence from key informants on mainland Europe. It was an unsung co-operation between Italian police and the serious crime unit in South Wales. The way it worked was to ‘turn’ lynch pin traffickers in Napoli and Brindisi by offering them citizenship and sometimes payment as registered informants. This intelligence led to the arrest and closedown of almost all their operations in Western Europe, including Cardiff. Lower down the food chain it was just a matter of using ‘tips’ and a dog to smell drugs or sting the prostitutes, whether suspect taxi drivers or locate distribution houses.
A question arises as to whether Brexit will effect such operations directed by Europol in future. Conviction relies on standards of evidence (that can be presented in court) and reliability of intelligence. The reason why operations against Serb gang arms trafficking (don’t ignore this Jac), and Russian fraudsters (includes money laundering and even the exchange of radioactive isotopes) is that although international cooperation agreements exist, it is not as reliable. Different agendas and poor integrity standards can compromise operations.
In the United States, similar issues exist with Mexico. Such crime does not affect the liberal elite which has consistently ignored the issue, but it does affect the ignored dispossessed. This is why Trump got political traction over ‘the wall’. What form this metaphor will take is up to the state department. One thing is for sure, Farage is no longer a useful idiot, and certainly can play no role in transatlantic operations. There is a role for such shmoozers like Farage. In some much needed research in the boardrooms of the Russian oligarchs, but in my experience it is unlikely a posh English gobshite impressing the grey tacksuits of Thanet by holding a pint of Shepard Neme and throwing insults in Flanders will have the backbone to play ‘plucky Brit’ in the East rather than hiding behind gold plated elevators in the West. The White Cliffs of Dover provide no more a barrier to Islamic terrorism that it did to Albanian gangsters.
There may be interesting times in 2017.
You’re very well informed, Brychan.
And rest assured, I am not blind to the failings of certain Serbs. However, unlike Albanians, their activities are purely criminal, with no fear of a religious dimension. Unless of course the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople goes on a bender, starts sending offensive tweets to the Pope, who retaliates by threatening to send a plague of paedophiles into the East, at which point the outraged Patriarch retaliates with a host of Chetniki . . .
I was particularly impressed with the third paragraph. For something else that the elite – particularly Hollywood luvvies – fail to grasp is that the public at large sees them in their multi-million dollar homes in exclusive neighbourhoods with well-funded private police forces, and thinks, ‘Yeah, I could afford to be liberal and welcoming if I had what they’ve got – because the consequences of my liberalism wouldn’t really affect me‘. Which of course makes the luvvies hypocrites, and increasingly out of step with their (erstwhile) fans.
Also agree entirely with your description of Trump’s ‘border wall’ as a “metaphor”; for surely, nobody really expects a 20 foot high wall topped with razor wire running for some 1500 miles! My understanding always was that he would reduce immigration from and via Mexico.
As for M. Farage, what more need be said?
You are wrong to state that Serb gang crime is purely ‘criminal’ as opposed to Albanian gang crime.
Such crime depends upon (a) opportunity, (b) ability, and (c) motive. In both cases the motive is personal enrichment, a modus that develops and originates from a survival requirement in a war zone. Victims of trafficking willingly put themselves in the hands of these gangs, as the gangs have guns to protect them and food to survive. In a war zone trafficking, drugs, prostitution and agents of violence is the ‘credit card’ to survival. This occurs regardless of the national identifier of the gang.
It is just as applicable to those now calling themselves ‘Islamic State’ and other sectarian groups.
You are correct to say that the United States supplied weapons to Kosovo and rebel groups in Afghanistan; the manufacturers nameplate is stamped on the weapon. The same, however, applies to weapons supplied by the Russians to Serb gangs or ‘rebel Ukrainians’. The political motive then rests with the supplier(c), thus providing criminal gangs with ability(b) and opportunity(a).
I don’t follow. Where is the religious component to the criminality of the Serbs we’re discussing?
I cannot imagine you thinking that Trump is a hero, not even after six pints of cwrw da with Penderyn chasers.
If Trump embarks on massive spending projects using the Public-Private Partnership (PFI in Britain) he may be long gone from the White House before those who support him realise who the main beneficiaries from 3Ps are.
Who knows?
I note the anti-expert, anti-science and anti-establishment rhetoric coming from spivs and snake oil sellers who gain easy access to the media. All those who have studied political upheavals will have noticed that no rebellion organised by ordinary people has been successful without expert leaders who know how put in place a system that functions. The notion that Farage, Gove, Johnson, IDS and the rest of them are competent statesmen is absurd. ‘Follow the Fuckwits’ is a strange rallying cry.
We live in interesting times.
I notice that ‘Bitter Lake’, an earlier documentary by Adam Curtis, is still on BBC iPlayer and that is worth watching too.
“I note the anti-expert, anti-science and
anti-establishment rhetoric coming from spivs and snake oil sellers who gain easy access to the media.”YOU MEAN THIS MOB?
Listen & digest CLICK HERE
Daley, read what I have written about Trump, Ukip and the others. Here’s my description from this very post, “a self-obsessed buffoon, a gang of saloon bar hearties, and a clown” (the last being a reference to the Italian referendum). I have consistently said the same things.
My feelings towards Trump are complicated because I sympathise with the forces that put him in the White House, to some extent I identify with them, but Trump will almost certainly disappoint them. Which angers me, because fundamental changes could have been made had the disadvantaged and the angry found a better representative. As for Ukip, I’ve said it over and over, they’re a bunch of idiots, not even convincing snake oil salesmen. But it tells you how desperate many people are that Ukip and Trump should have known such success.
We have not seen the leader emerge who could truly speak for those that powered Trump and Brexit. But do you really want to see such a leader emerge, or would you prefer to see cosmetic changes implemented by charlatans in order to dissipate the anger? The alternative of course is that they satisfy their supporters’ expectations, but you don’t want that.
I don’t agree with you when you say, “no rebellion organised by ordinary people has been successful without expert leaders”. Obviously you’re thinking of Russia in 1917. But we might never have heard V I Lenin had it not been for Russia’s defeats in World War One turning the people against the tsarist system – with the communists waiting in the wings. Circumstances beyond their control created the situation from which the communists – with German help – could succeed.
But because of the dire situation there might have been an uprising against the tsar without any communist involvement at all. Such an uprising might have failed, but it could still have happened.
One of the clips in the video you recommended showed the grisly end of the Ceaucescus in Romania, but who led the uprising that overthrew old Nick and his missus? I can’t remember any name, can you? Then, when the Iranians got rid of the Shah in 1979, the ‘leadership’ was in Paris. In an age before the internet, and with censored media inside Iran, it was very difficult for Khomeini to communicate with the masses other than via the mosques, or those mosques that supported him.
What I’m saying is that when enough people are pissed off enough there can be a spontaneous, almost incoherent uprising. This might be crushed, or it might ‘succeed’ but achieve little; alternatively, a pre-existing organisation could step into the void and take control, or a hitherto unknown leader might emerge.
Let us see what 2017 brings.
If you keep on saying what a low opinion you have of Trump and Kippers, people* might think that you secretly admire them 🙂
I was looking closer to home regarding political upheavals but historical events in eastern Europe contain much detail.
Lenin was taken out of exile in Switzerland by the Germans, during the Great War, and transported by train to Russia. Lenin was Kaiser Bill’s secret weapon on the eastern front. The map of Europe and the Middle East might have been very different post Paris Peace Talks of 1919 if the October Revolution hadn’t taken place.
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 started as violent protest of desperate people but it took senior Communist Party members to lead it towards an overthrow of Ceaușescu’s autocracy.
Noted that you agree about the need for organised control following an uprising.
* idiots
DG – your claim that “but it took senior Communist Party members to lead it towards an overthrow of Ceausescu’s autocracy” is a myth. A myth often peddled by armchair conspirosists who’s knowledge of events is based upon old television broadcasts of the subsequent Ceausescu trail and execution. It’s where Stanculescu of the army, and Magureanu of the Secret Service were witnesses to the prosecution.
To understand the Romanian revolution you must first understand the much earlier repressed Jiu Valley miners strike. It’s when a strike for jobs and conditions in the coalmines in which hundreds of thousands participated resulted in the ‘working class’ of Romania no longer saw the ‘communist party’ as being ‘of them and in their interest’. A national consciousness developed as a need to overthrow the government in a national revolution.
From that point on, the Ceausescu regime was seen as an imposed autocracy.
The popular uprising, years later, was only viable as a result. The decision by Ceausescu’s generals (Vasile Milea) to send out the tanks to repress the uprising without the required ammunition was not sympathy for the uprising, but a realisation that the uprising had overwhelming support and to avoid a massacre.
This is how the taking of Timisoara led to the eventual taking of the rest of the country, and Stanculescu (the chief of defence) ordering the troops back to their barracks for the same reason as the earlier decision by Vasile Milea. To say that they actively supported the overthrow is just plain wrong. It was their refusal to act, however, that allowed the revolution to succeed without overwhelming casualties.
Romania has an important lesson for the United Kingdom. Westminster has lost the support of Scotland, and the rump of the Labour Party in Wales no longer commands the hearts and minds of the people of Wales. Should the Westminster government seek to impose the unity of the kingdom by military force, I expect the tanks to have no shells and the soldiers to remain in their barracks due to ‘lack of equipment’, should such a situation arise.
So what role did the National Salvation Front (NSF), led by Ion Iliescu, take?
FSN – There will always be an academic, an office clerk to the former regime, a novelist in a pullover and a television personality who will pop up during a popular uprising. Although they won over 50% of the seats in the first elections in 1990 with candidates who had no other party to represent them, by 1992 were down to around 10% of seats when the serious people had formed proper political parties.
Usually, the more impressive the name, the less significant the grouping.
It reminds me of the Welsh Socialist Republican Movement in the 1980s. Turns out they were made up of a part time lecturer in the Polytechnic, a man wearing a black beret “shouting power to the people” and a chap which would now be diagnosed as ADHD. They met in the back of the Criterion in Taff Street, Ponty, on Wednesdays after ladies darts, and could barely sing the first verse of Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau while holding clenched fists. They still hold the record for running away from a picket line even faster than the Socialist Workers Party, but had a revolution happened, they’d be first to declare a provisional government.
For obvious reasons, I wasn’t a member of the Welsh Socialist Republican Movement but I knew most of those who were. For some reason, the police – or someone – confused them with a short-lived militant group using the acronym WAWR (Workers’ Army of the Welsh Republic[?]), which was responsible for a few arson attacks; one, I recall, was at the home of someone I wrote about in a recent post, Nicholas Edwards MP, when he was Secretary of State for Wales. (Back in the days when the Welsh Office logo sported a dragon.)
It all seems so long ago now, almost a different age. Or am I getting old?
HyperNormalisation by Adam Curtis. Curtis is inspired by Max Weber, a liberal sociologist from Germany. He has been CLOSELY associated with the BBC THROUGHOUT his career. I took over two hours out of what’s left of my life to watch HyperNormalisation all the way through. Not altogether a waste, because it provided proof to buttress up what I actually knew all along about this state sponsored propaganda machine.
Cleverly put together and extremely subtle – as you’d expect from an organisation that has the money and resources to produce such a documentary – from, I would add, our pockets – the gullible public and on behalf of it’s masters the British Government and by extension, those who dictate to that government and many others – the puppet masters in the shadows.
It was REALLY clever in the way it projected a semi truth of the way things have been brewing and are still developing (and by the way, it goes much, much further back than the seventies – as the documentary suggests). That clever technique engenders into the viewer a sense that the truth is being revealed here, and that the presenters are unbiased and to be trusted. It touches on the perimeter of what is actually happening behind the scenes, but does not go further in it’s expose of that behind the scenes ‘hidden hand’.
THEN the subtleness comes to the fore. Like suggesting that the concept of suicide bombing was the brainchild of an Iranian Ayatollah, and that amazing secret weapon was disclosed to Hafez al-Assad in Syria (the father of the present ruler Bashar Hafez al-Assad, who incidentally was an eye specialist, born and raised in Damascus, he graduated from the medical school of Damascus University in 1988, four years later, he attended postgraduate studies at the Western Eye Hospital in London, specialising in ophthalmology – not exactly your moronic Arab terrorist, and not a computer obsessed individual – as the documentary suggests). Hafez al-Assad unleashed this supposed secret weapon on poor Israel and on the west, purely because of revenge he plotted towards America! THEN that ‘secret weapon’ was exported throughout the middle east! The big ogres in the documentary was Syria, followed closely by Russia and Iran. Blackening those countries and their rulers was the main objective of the documentary – the rest was eye candy to keep the attention of those who question what is going on.
The documentary was released in October 2016. Now stop & think how the British nedia have portrayed those three countries in their propaganda transmissions in this period. Pure state sponsored propaganda, directly from the establishment who in turn are being controlled by the hidden hand.
The giveaway? See the arrow in the graphic below:
More information on HENRY KISSINGER – mentioned in the BBC documentary
More information about THE TARGETING OF CONSPIRACY RESEARCH
He. or she, who shouts the loudest gets more spent on them, or so it seems ! Check this out :
http://www.insidermedia.com/insider/wales/chambers-president-calls-for-welsh-investment?utm_source=newport_gwent_newsletter&utm_campaign=newport_gwent_news_tracker&utm_medium=top_story_article
Welsh business community, mostly made up of pseudo entrepreneurs who couldn’t get up in the morning or know how to sell a widget unless well supported by a network of grant aid, handouts, freebies etc etc. These are the same lot who regard spending on benefits claimants as pandering to scroungers yet think it’s perfectly logical for business community even well stocked multinationals to tap the Cynulliad for a pile of sovs. And our Cynulliad just love pandering to them.
Interesting link, Dafis.
Liz Maher is running a scamissness.
Any business which has a complex international footprint is best advised to employ an accountant in-house who is well able to deal with domestic and international VAT reporting. Smaller businesses are best advised to just use the free service provided by HMRC. The taxman is quite friendly, offers the best advise available, is free, and is only tasked to collect what’s due. Don’t pay these scammers for any consultancy.
Scamissnesses like passport consultants, VAT returns consultants, company registration experts, income tax reclaims agencies only charge for services that can otherwise be accessed for free. With a bit of nouse and a government form all can be done without paying a commission. You just need good bookeeping to establish input and output VAT and correct tax-point date and classification of invoices.
As far as I’m concerned we don’t want the “Centurion VAT Specialists” operating in Wales. I find it a bit strange that they claim to need an M4 relief road to do trade.
I do notice, however, that most of their clients are third sector amateurs faking it as properly run concerns. These scammisness gain access to clients via law firms who specialise offering expensive advise to third sector or public sector bodies, that is, when their not sending letters to people like Jac.
Do us a favour Liz, get out of Wales.
Try Nigeria.
I also find it strange that Liz Maher on her CV (loaded to Linkin) that she ended her employment as a VAT Executive Officer at HMRC in Cardiff and took up a post as “Director of Corporate VAT Services” at Ernst & Young the same year. This is strange. EO’s for HMRC usually have a two or three-year restrictive practice covenant after a civil service contract ends. Perhaps her job title at E&Y has been somewhat exaggerated? She did set up Centurion, but only after the elapse of the standard restrictive civil service covenant.
Brychan – My point was relating to the business community at large ( or a significant slice of it ) but your exposure of Ms Maher as yet another of these superfluous intermediary types actually reinforces my point.
This is the service industry concept taken to the point where it becomes a disservice ! Parasitic entities feeding off people’s fears or ignorance of how to go about things. I traded as a self employed contractor for approx 20 years, was VAT qualified for most of those and never spent a cockle on an accountant or VAT expert to manage my relationships with HMRC VAT or income tax, and I was dealing intermittently with an assortment of overseas clients as well as the domestic UK market.
Reverting to my original point – I remain mystified that Chamber members elect this sort of operator into a key representative role. I rather suspect that she got into it by default, – others too busy, not sufficiently pushy or not at ease doing the “talking head” stuff, but it puts her in a key position and on the inside track when canvassing business from her fellow members. No doubt a lot of the Chamber meetings dwell on issues surrounding VAT and other regulatory/compliance aspects of running a business thus providing fertile ground for the shitehawks from diverse consultancy practices to peck away at those businesses that are trying to earn a crust by adding real value.
I’m not really cynical or suspicious but I see this sort of crap all the bloody time.
I think you’ll find every chamber of commerce is like that. The leading players is always the local bookkeeper firm, the ‘I used to work for Delloite, don’t you know’. It’s as evident in Tunbridge Wells as Abergavenny. A chamber of commerce is just a Captain Mainwaring type club to “network” the local market town for a bit of extra trade. More comical than sinister. The problem in Wales, however, is the amount of public money being haemorrhaged into the ‘third sector’ or ‘development initiatives’, often with EU funds, so the local vicar botherer creams off large wads of cash for services that don’t need doing.
The consequence is the destination those funds were originally intended remain unsatisfied.
It reminds me of a ‘spot of bother’ a friend of mine had where the police were called to a low loader parked on Trefforest Industrial Estate. The inside lane has always been used for such laidage. It’s called real business. The dashcam footage clearly shows a woman kicking off to the driver. She emerges from the adjacent office unit occupied by a third sector ‘regeneration’ outfit. The ensuing strife shows just about every third sector consultant in South Wales getting worked up about the road being occupied by ‘dirty machinery’. They’d put some cones out to reserve ‘their space’ for the vole-et-vent and nibbles delivery van from Cardiff. If I manage to get a download/permission I’ll send it to Jac, and we can play ‘name the third sector sponger’.
Carry on regardless the motto of the leftist Labour party in Wales.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-38067792
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-38394734
Although the situation of the rights at Westminster is no better.
http://www.totalpolitics.com/articles/news/peter-bone-breaks-house-commons-rules-wearing-daft-hat
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/philip-davies-filibuster-domestic-violence-a7479266.html
There is a strong case for suggesting we get the politicians we deserve. Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right either way we look to be well and truly screwed. Sorry Jac, ‘ not Leftists and liberals ‘ indeed, but why should we be optimistic with regard to this populist new world order ? Who knows where Trump stands in the political spectrum but the likes of he May, Farage, Nuttall and Cairns are hardly going to be our saviours either. Me thinks you let Alun Cairns off rather too lightly with regard to his stance on APD, honesty or downright contempt for the people he supposedly represents ?
I don’t think Trump has strong ideologically-driven views on anything. He couldn’t have been elected 4 years ago and he may be unelectable 4 years from now. But the mood at the moment shows that a great number of people believe they are taken for granted and lied to. This rejection of the established order opens up all sorts of possibilities for all kinds of messages. I’m arguing that there is nothing in Wales – other than Ukip – able to capitalise on this mood.
I agree Jac. The time has never been more ripe to give the people an alternative that fits into this vacuum, which has been created through a mass (albeit slow in coming) awakening of the people to the truth. Without doubt they are waking up – thanks to interconnectivity through the Internet – hence the panic amongst the propaganda mouthpieces of the establishment (The British Bullshit Corporation, CNN, Fox News, etc. etc.). The same applies to the political parties, who are clinging on to dear life in this tsunami of change. That is why the war on ‘alternative media’ has been started.
Some parties are too naive and misguided to change (e.g. Plaid Cymru) others are too steeped in the influences of the hidden hand. The winners in this will be alternative political parties who are trusted as being anti establishment. Hence the reason why Corbyn is so popular and UKIP looks so enticing to some.
Is it too late in the day to fire up a truly nationalist anti establishment and truth spreading party in Cymru is the question.
I mostly enjoy your posts, Jac, but some have made me worry about your mental health. From what I understand you are a Swansea man who relocated some years ago to a part of Meirionnydd which has been a tourist hell-hole for English midlands people for 150+ years.
Many of us worry about the future of Wales, but you simply can’t interpret Wales from the perspective of Welsh-speakers only. As a Welsh speaker, if I went around thinking like you I’d find it hard to get out of bed in the morning!
Like Ireland, Wales has never, ever been a pure nation. Not culturally, not linguistically. We’ve lived amongst Irish, Vikings, Normans, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, for over 1500 years. And even when we had the chance of unifying, we couldn’t manage it as we are simply too tribal in nature. Again, CF Ireland. A few Poles and English retirees aren’t going to kill us off.
I know you’re unapologetic about your views and I’m not trying to change them. But I am a firm believer in context. What’s happened to Wales over the centuries is deeply saddening. But no one wants to talk about how Wales has been integrated with England since the age of the princes. Most went to England for their education and/or married English nobility. London’s draw for the Welsh has been well documented for centuries and it continues to this day. The Welsh took full part in the British Empire. But we don’t hear about that. We only hear about the poor dabs who went to Patagonia to look for a better life, conveniently forgetting that we supplied the natives there with blankets covered in pox and traded acres of land for alcohol. This was conveniently not part of S4C’s embarrassing and insensitive ‘celebrations’ of ‘Y Wladfa’ (The Colony!) on TV in 2015. Did you know more people speak Welsh in Australia and New Zealand than Patagonia? But we’re never allowed to discus why, are we? We are generally far more comfortable with Britishness than many want to admit.
As for English people moving to Wales, it simply isn’t a black and white issue. Many English I know who have moved to Welsh speaking areas have ended up becoming more Welsh than the natives! Your area as well as places like Deeside do indeed have many English people there, but it really is a case of ’twas ever thus’. As I’m sure you’re aware, borders were moved to put the Welsh on the English side and vice versa. Here’s another littlestory which I found heartwarming:
A couple of years ago I drove home to find a man walking his dog which had wandered off into our drive on its extendable lead. Being in a grumpy mood, I shouted ‘Can I help you?’. He replied in a thick Brummie accent ‘I’m so sorry, mate, he just wandered off.’ He then said in perfect Welsh ‘You do know I speak Welsh don’t you? I’m from here originally but we moved to Birmingham when I was a child to find work. But I’ve come home now.’
As for the Welsh language, it simply isn’t a necessity of Welshness, and I’m saying that as a Cymro Cymraeg. As a Swansea Jack, I’m sure you’ll agree.
I feel that people who sit in front of their computers in front of census data worrying about the future of Welsh are missing the point. Yes, a higher percentage of people spoke Welsh in 1891, but do you really want to live in 1891? My great aunt was born in 1900 and died in 1999 a monoglot. She was one of ten children, and only one of five who survived. She lived in abject poverty and had a miserable life. People moan about communities losing their young Welsh speakers. But again, people look at this top-down census data as unquestionable gospel. In 1951, most people did not have a car or a telephone. Every village had to be self-sustaining because there was no choice. Then came television. People stopped going to the pub and chapels. Then came cars. Someone living in Llansaint could suddenly go to the cinema in Llanelli and be home in time for bed. Then came education. People like my parents who came from the poorest backgrounds imaginable – cockle pickers and miners – suddenly had the chance to go to a grammar school and university. Can we please start blaming modernity too?
Wales will forever be a victim of geography – its proximity to England and its poor agricultural land are huge factors in explaining why we are where we are. But we’re still here. And I do look forward to 2017 to see the NWO collapse.
Nadolig Llawen o Gaerdydd!
Well, ‘Meleri’, given the length of your comment I feel obliged to reply, but after you questioning my mental health I wonder whether I should.
You say you mostly enjoy my posts, but I wonder how well you read them, for you accuse me of insisting that the ability to speak Welsh is the sine qua non of Welsh identity. But I’ve never done that, for the very simple reason that I’m not a fluent Welsh speaker myself.
So carry on reading my blog but please pay a bit more attention to what I’m actually saying, not what you think I’m saying.
Not questioning your mental health, Jac, but there’s not much positivity. Anyway, Nadolig Llawen!
I see no other way of reading, “I mostly enjoy your posts, Jac, but some have made me worry about your mental health.”
A nice Welsh name you have there Meleri, a pity it doesn’t fit that colonial English way of looking at things that you’ve obviously picked up during your upbringing on the other side of Clawdd Offa.
I read through your post twice before I found the key to your jumbled up English imperialist way of viewing the world, more especially your ancestral homeland. Listen Petal, I’m not going to be harsh with you, it’s not actually your fault – any more than it would be my fault if I picked up malaria in a foreign country. You are a victim.
Here’s the key:
“I’m from here originally but we moved to Birmingham when I was a child to find work. But I’ve come home now.”
I have some sobering news for you, this is not your ‘home’ – Birmingham is.
The number of times I’ve heard those utterings from the mouths of ‘colonised thinking’ returnees. Usually at the top of the list they try to associate themselves with Cymru because they have a nice Welsh surname (or in your case a full house, a nice Welsh forename AND surname). Then come the other ‘qualifiers’ down to ‘moy great granddad was Welsh, he always supported the Welsh roogbye team”. At the bottom of the pile is something like “Oy loov Welsh dogs, we all have corgis in our family, even our kid ‘as one – joost loike your Prince of Wales’ muther”. Yeah yeah, so now you qualify to be a ‘Citizen of Wales’ and you’re an expert on the subject. My reaction? “I’m sorry that chip on your shoulder is so heavy pal, but PLEASE do me a favour, bear it quietly, because by justifying your existence here you are just aggravating your feelings of being out of place and a foreigner in our land – regardless of where your parents, grandparents or dog are originally from, and you piss me off to the point of exploding”.
I have a neighbour who is of London Welsh origin, who’s come ‘home’ to retire. Speaks Cymraeg (with a Cardi accent – brought up with it – in the family house in Blackfriars, London where they had their dairy for three generations), he speaks English exactly like a Cockney. He also reads the Sun or sometimes the Daily Mail, a working class Tory to the core. He’s a classic Alf Garnet character. He spews all the laughable shit you’d expect from Alf, only in a Welsh context – totally converted (radicalised is the modern word for it I believe). His knowledge of true Welsh culture, history, language and heritage is zilch. In fact he’s so ‘radicalised’ that I have made a conscious effort not to talk to him on the subject. It’s a waste of my time, and his brain is locked up after being filled with British propaganda crap about Cymru and other inferior natives in far away foreign lands. Sadly the the key to unlock that life-time’s brainwashing has been thrown away. A lost cause. He loves the Union Jack, believes we can’t manage without England, loves Churchill his hero and the British Empire, and just for good measure he hates the ‘blacks’ and Germans with a fervour that reflects the fifties. He’s 82 and a lovely character, as long as you only talk to him about boxing or football. He was Dick Richardson’s trainer, (the past British and European heavyweight boxing champion). He’s knowledge of boxing is encyclopedic, he brings the Boxing News around to me weekly and calls nearly every day. His knowledge of Cymru and the Cymry is about equal to a two month old imbecile in a lunatic asylum. Had his grandfather stayed in Cwmsymlog instead of looking for his fortune in London, old Johnny Lewis would probably be a totally different character. As it is, he’s adopted the attitudes, ignorance and bigotry of his adopted tribe in Gwlad Y Sais. He’s no more Welsh than a Mongolian goat herder, regardless of what his genetic make-up is. As for his amazing ability to speak Welsh, well I can teach a parrot to speak Welsh it doesn’t make him a Cymro does it?
Take on-board Jac’s advice Meleri. Carry on reading his blog but please pay a bit more attention to what he’s actually saying, not what you THINK he’s saying. As for me? My advice is simple, if you don’t know, or don’t understand the facts and the historic details, keep your mouth shut for fear of making a bigger fool of yourself than you already have with your regurgitated spew of nonsense as an adopted Brummie.
Incidentally, the popular anecdotal tales that you tell of the Cymry in Patagonia also needs brushing up. You’ll find that popular ‘tale’ of giving pox ridden blankets to the Indians is attributable to the Conquistadors and not our mob in Argentina. More advice for you, if unsure shut up and do your homework – there’s a good girl.
So what is my ‘home’, BG?
I too was born in Wales from Welsh parentage. Educated in Wales, worked in Wales until late 20s then, after graduating, spent time working in Ireland, England, Wales again, Sweden, Germany, England again, Wales again, France, England again, and now semi-retired, and settled back in Wales.
There is only one place I regard as home, that’s the Rhondda, it’s where I identify, but I’m retiring to Carmarthenshire (area where my mamgu a tadcu came from).
According to my tax record, I spent the biggest part of my life in England (IR35 – EU rules), and the only place outside of Wales I have ever felt indigenous, in other words not just living in a house for working away was my time in Sweden, where I settled down for a while.
Am I Welsh?
On the subject of language, I speak Welsh in a family setting (default indoors setting) with my brothers family (Ceredigion) although mainly in summer, switch to English (default outdoors setting). In Rhondda, the opposite is the case, where the indoor setting is English (too many lost loves to mention) but particularly speak Welsh with people I know as Welsh speaking outside the home. It’s a growing circle of younger talent who have mastered as a second language from the education system. They all work in Cardiff (or Swindon and Bristol).
Currently I’ve have decided to retire by the sea, nice village, good pub where it’s default English in summer, default Welsh in winter I’m still working less hours for an English based firm on contract, and have met someone we might share our retirement with, who also originates from Wales and done the ‘grand tour’ of working away. She’s got fluency in six weeks.
I am of the people that Leanne speaks about. The tens of thousands who left the valleys in the 1980s. If you passed an exam you left Wales, if you failed the exams you signed on. The situation has not changed, other than after Brexit working away will mean England only.
If you’d wanted me to spend my life on the minimum wage serving English tourists coffee and ice cream, signing on in winter, then fuck off. I’m better than that. I suspect most youngsters now in Y Fro Gymraeg are in that situation.
Most Rhondda people don’t give a fuck about Farage or Trump. The vast majority voted Leanne for AM and just over half of those voted Brexit in the refurendum. In may appear a contradiction.
But from where I’m standing in makes perfect sense. It’s as a result of the situation imposed.
I voted Remain because I can choose and have control over my life. I passed exams which means some say I became part of the European elite (see above). Most people who voted Leave don’t have that luxury. Scotland is different, people there have a degree of control and choice.
Who will provide the Welsh with control and choice in their lives?
Read my reply to ‘di-enw’ below Brychan.
A few other points to consider.
1. Meleri says that she left with her family as a CHILD. Before it’s assumed that she had developed her cultural identity which would associate and align her with her native culture – that’s probably missing. Her comments are based on what she perceives from what she’s experienced and heard from ‘yr estron’ whilst growing up in Birmingham.
2. Like you, I also moved away, for the very same reasons that you mention – to obtain education and to seek work. Like you, I was not a child. I left at around 18, you were in your 20s. THAT makes a huge difference. Your cultural make-up was established, and laid down for the rest of your life. The same applied to me. If I had been away for a thousand years my understanding and view of my ‘home’ would be the same. If you take a child away from it’s parents, it’s the adopted parents it latches on to (the same applies to animals). Take them away later in life and it’s a different story altogether.
3. ‘Home’ is where the heart is, it’s also where you’ve been programmed in your head to view as ‘home’. You can live all over the world for as long as you want, but if it’s your own language, culture, history and heritage that you’ve bonded to, then that is the place you feel is home.
So I reiterate, what I’ve already said, you cannot compare our situation with that of Meleri (and it shows in her post). I think you may have initially misunderstood what I was driving at.
“Meleri says that she left with her family as a CHILD. Before it’s assumed that she had developed her cultural identity which would associate and align her with her native culture – that’s probably missing. Her comments are based on what she perceives from what she’s experienced and heard from ‘yr estron’ whilst growing up in Birmingham.”
No, Meleri didn’t say any such thing. Read that paragraph again:
“A couple of years ago I drove home to find a man walking his dog which had wandered off into our drive on its extendable lead. Being in a grumpy mood, I shouted ‘Can I help you?’. He replied in a thick Brummie accent ‘I’m so sorry, mate, he just wandered off.’ He then said in perfect Welsh ‘You do know I speak Welsh don’t you? I’m from here originally but we moved to Birmingham when I was a child to find work. But I’ve come home now.’”
Now, whilst I would agree that Meleri’s post overall seems to suffer from a touch of the Wynford Vaughan-Thomases, I think it fair to point out that you’ve traduced her with regards to that paragraph.
“I have a neighbour ….he speaks English exactly like a Cockney. He also reads the Sun or sometimes the Daily Mail, a working class Tory to the core. He’s a classic Alf Garnet character. He spews all the laughable shit you’d expect from Alf, only in a Welsh context – totally converted (radicalised is the modern word for it I believe). His knowledge of true Welsh culture, history, language and heritage is zilch. In fact he’s so ‘radicalised’ that I have made a conscious effort not to talk to him on the subject. It’s a waste of my time, and his brain is locked up after being filled with British propaganda crap about Cymru and other inferior natives in far away foreign lands. …… He loves the Union Jack, believes we can’t manage without England, loves Churchill his hero and the British Empire, and just for good measure he hates the ‘blacks’ and Germans with a fervour that reflects the fifties. ….. His knowledge of Cymru and the Cymry is about equal to a two month old imbecile in a lunatic asylum. …… As it is, he’s adopted the attitudes, ignorance and bigotry of his adopted tribe in Gwlad Y Sais. He’s no more Welsh than a Mongolian goat herder, regardless of what his genetic make-up is. As for his amazing ability to speak Welsh, well I can teach a parrot to speak Welsh it doesn’t make him a Cymro does it?”
But then, on the other hand he voted for Brexit.
Nadolig llawen
Actually he didn’t. His wife worked for a company of stockbrokers in the city, he was a milkman, and dairy shopkeeper, and also a boxer. Then he got involved as a professional boxing trainer, and made a bit of dosh he sold his dairy business. When he retired he came ‘home’. But his political and cultural views are those of an immigrant from London – this idea of ‘home’ is a totally false and abstract one. It’s not real – it’s mostly based on sentimentality.
With that background, he voted in exactly the same way as most of the others voted in London, which further proves my point. He voted in keeping with what he had experienced on a cultural level whilst growing up as a Cockney-Welsh Londoner. He has a harder time understanding and analysing the way his ancestors thought and acted than he does being a Londoner.
It’s not about where in geographic terms you were born – it’s where you’ve been marinaded during your upbringing. It’s the exposure to the everyday culture around you that moulds you. Even if you have strong cultural guidelines at home, it’s the influence of school, workplace and social environments that will make you into the citizen of where you have made your home away from the surroundings of where you were born. That’s why the argument about genetics is a load of rubbish. You are what you’ve been fashioned – not because of your genetic patterns. All blood is red. It’s what’s been programmed into your garret that makes you part of the tribe you’ve attached yourself to.
You gave a long description of him including “He also reads the Sun or sometimes the Daily Mail, a working class Tory to the core. He’s a classic Alf Garnet character.” and you said he loves Churchill and the Union Jack.
Are you sure he wasn’t winding you up when he told you he wasn’t voting to leave the EU.
I don’t share your, what appears to be fatalistic, view. Fully formed views at age 18 or so. People learn, adapt get inspired and often it’s in a way that ends up with them becoming very different to what they experienced growing up.
You’re not talking about the same thing di-enw. Sure you change slightly throughout your life – based on maturity and experience, also self taught realisations through study. When it comes to your basic ‘tribal’ alliance THAT’S laid down very early. What is the motto of the Jesuits that is attributed to Francis Xavier, the co-founder of the Jesuit Order?
“Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man“.
The implication is that the best opportunity to indoctrinate a person in a lifetime of belief and devotion to religious dogma is when they are young. It also applies to the influence of a foreign culture – especially when it is the culture of the aggressor against your own culture. The child becomes indoctrinated at a deep level and it stays with them for the rest of their life. They then tend to see things through the eyes of the indoctrinator.
I voted out – and a description of me is certainly NOT the description of my neighbour – and it seems we both voted differently, although you expected him to vote the same way as me! It goes to show that you are on shaky ground when you try to pigeon-hole certain types. As Jac has pointed out very well, the so called ‘Brexit’ vote was based more on an anti establishment backlash than anything else, and it sweeps across all types in society. Even (amazingly) the Alf Garnet types who are a bit rebellious, or it seems, also oppositely, the Alf Garnets who go with the flow of the people where they were brought up and influenced. Johnny, being a Londoner, but of Welsh descent voted in exactly the same way as most of his fellow Londoners did – due to cultural indoctrination I guess.
PS where does ‘fatalistic’ come into this?
“PS where does ‘fatalistic’ come into this?”
–
“You are what you’ve been fashioned – not because of your genetic patterns. All blood is red. It’s what’s been programmed into your garret that makes you part of the tribe you’ve attached yourself to”
Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda, Jac
Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda i bawb. I start with a greeting because I’m personally quite happy with 2016, at least I look likely to get to the end of it without some Anglo security nut or some Islamist “visitor” shifting me on to the next dimension.
Outside the bubble of my own existence there have been disappointments, of course. Indeed the joy of grabbing a narrow but shocking win on the Leave vote was soon diluted sharply by the evident lack of enthusiasm among those with access to the levers of power to act upon that mandate. The last 6 months has seen debate after debate around the minutae of disengagement, splitting every hair, conjugating every verb to explore whether it might offer up yet another meaning that could be used to retard the process.
And our own darlings in Plaid wetting their collective drawers at the prospect of losing another route to gilded salary and benefits packages, as well as treats for the nation’s begging bowls, when they should have responded with a howl of energy and purpose – if we’re ready to get out of EU, then let’s tool up to get out of this festering UK. No fuckin’ chance ! Not bloody likely. Wedded to EU like its our Fairy Godmother/Father Christmas all rolled into one. Can’t recognise a wolf dressed up as their favourite granny. So we are no further forward.
Brexiters, as distinct from Leavers, are still nailing their hopes on St Nigel of the Falange who as we all know will promote the cause of Greater England with vigour but neither knows nor cares about Cymru. And the same goes for Tories, Labour, Lib Dems, Greens et al, and al includes our soppy Party of Wales.
Elsewhere we have the rise of President T.Rump, an ass of a man who may by an accident of posture deliver some good but anyone expecting all round beneficial performance from this man and his entourage will be severly short of good cheer very soon. About the most cheering aspect is that he put Clinton out of business and believe me that is a big plus.
Coming back to our little patch. The Cynulliad has let another year go by with not much achieved other than a budget spent, somewhat haphazardly but at least a nap hand of pet projects and friends of the Party will be happy with the outcomes. The rest of us can whistle or piss into the wind as there is no concept of investment that is beneficial to communities except where those words are used in their corrupted jargonized context to spice up the P.R on some innovative scheme launched by a favoured grant grabber. One could argue that the best Cynulliad debate was on this site just exploring its location and purpose. So 60 talking heads at roughly £70k plus overheads and expenses each not standing up to any examination rigorous or otherwise.
So thanks for that huge bundle of stimulating content in 2016 occasionally scarred by insane contributions from rabid Unionists. I sincerely hope that all sorts of decision makers out there get to read it. I think I would be daft to expect them all to switch their way of thinking at once but if they begin to take on board, to at least recognise that there is merit and logic in many of our contrary thoughts then we have started a shift in the right direction. Time is not on our side but better late than never.
Pob hwyl ichi oll.
As always, a good read. Some very salient points put eloquently across, and made me smile on more than one occasion.
I only have one minor correction, and I think this point is generally not put across in the british press, Angela Merkel has a PhD in Quantum Chemistry, so really it should be Dr Merkel, not Mrs. Alternatively, she is married to Joachim Sauer (who has 2 doctorates), so in that case she would be Mrs Sauer.
Nadolig llawen a dal at dy waith ardderchog yn 2017!
Thanks for that, I have made the change.
If that includes ending the WAG or moving it of Cardiff docks count me in
Couldn’t agree more. If we don’t solve the Cardiff problem then I will quite happily vote to abolish the Assembly in the next elections. It would be better to start again.
Why do you think that the opportunity to start again would be given to us if we voted to abolish the Assembly (essentially to be a part of England)?
“A basket case country with a begging bowl economy”. Great line that ought to be up there with the Christmas lights (if you’re lucky enough for your Council to have put them up).
I’ve been trying for ages to get donkey voters I know around here to understand the arguments you’ve set out in your excellent and really funny post. If Labour (or Welsh Labour) have the answers to Wales’ undoubted great economic and social problems then why do we clearly and consistently lag behind other countries in so many of the parameters that are published? When are enough people going to wake up and see that it’s all a fraud. Plaid Cymru should redraft the classic tale of the Emperor’s New Clothes to reflect this national con-trick and send it out to every household in the land. But they won’t because they have no direction, no clear, long-term vision I can hang on to. People I speak to here don’t know what they are offering the people of Wales right now. I don’t think they know themselves. I look at some of the local Labour councillors we have in NPT and some of the new ones on offer next year. They are a fucking disgrace. None of them would last 3 minutes in the real world. Bloody arsehole lickers, social climbers, brainless automatons, in it for what they can get and to bolster inadequate egos. No-one who actually produced added value in the real world would ever employ them. The same applies to our AMs, MPs and MEPs. And yet this is the shoddy quality of people who donkeys vote in to run their local, regional and national politics time after time. I know Victor Meldrew has the jump on me but I don’t fucking believe it. If I was a younger man and could see things as clearly as I see them now I’d bugger off to a more enlightened place faster than Usain Bolt.
But really great post to wind up 2016, Jac. Sums up how many of us feel perfectly.
For a start, Plaid Cymru has lost touch with the Welsh people. We voted to leave the EU, yet Plaid Cymru carries on as if we voted the same way as Scotland. We didn’t. And the reason we didn’t is that Plaid Cymru isn’t even a pale shadow of the SNP.
I am a member of Plaid Cymru living on Ynys Mon. For the casual readers, Ynys Mon – Constituency-wise both at Westminster and Cardiff has figures of over 80% of those who vote voting for pro-EU parties – Plaid, Labour, LibDem. It voted Leave.
To say this has knocked the wind out of both Labour and Plaid locally is an understement. Their own local straw-pollin shows in Labour’s case cracking oin for half of their support base (including some councillors at town level and an awful lot of stalwart party members and active trades unionists). In Plaid’s case it was somewhere around 20% or more of their hard-core voter base including many party members and activists. And that’s provided every tory and every Lib Dem voted Remain which is highly unlikely. Both parties locally now seem paralysed as they are only really competing against each other anyway and they have both been caught out big time.
Aah – “Môn Mam Cymru” like Ceredigion, a rather strange little block when it comes to politics, especially council politics. Very much influenced by old parochial party mentality (Independents) and highly unpredictable at times.
An interesting point you make there regarding paralysis. I think the point being made by Jac was that Plaid appear to be swimming against the tide. The majority of the voters in Cymru voted out. It’s the job of any party to yield to the will of the electorate, or win the arguments to change the mind of that electorate on the issues. Plaid also have form on cultural matters, especially when it comes to their own members and supporters. The tail wags the dog, and the tail is the property of socialists within Plaid, who should really be in ‘Welsh’ Labour (if such a thing actually exists). The consequence is that it’s shot itself in the foot, with true nationalists turning their back on the party, and the ‘Johnny come latelys’ losing interest and drifting back to their roots in the Brit Labour camp.
Out of touch, out of ideas and even worse, reverting to ‘copy-cat’ tactics by aping the SNP, who is a different animal acting under a set of different circumstances. As for Labour, well we all know what their form is, thanks in part to the revelations found here on Jac’s blog.
“The majority of the voters in Cymru voted out.”
Ah…but…
If you just counted the votes of those that identify themselves as Welsh would it still have been a majority vote for out?
A case of bedfellows of convenience perhaps.
Pure supposition. Who knows how the vote broke down – no one has those figures. We can only guess. I know amongst the native stock, especially farmers that I know, I was quite surprised at the number that were anti EU leading up to the referendum. I have to admit I was surprised – my old friend Felix Aubel whom I bumped into when he was campaigning to leave here in Aberaeron told me he had observed the same. So maybe the demographic doesn’t break down the way you’d like to imagine it.
I guess we’re both guilty of breaking it down the way we’d like to imagine it.
Farmers don’t really make up a large proportion of the stock native or otherwise. I think the average age of a farmer in Cymru is over 60 and older people tended to vote for Brexit.
Agriculturalists make up a large portion of the population in Ceredigion, and it’s that group that has the highest turnout in elections. That group also has about 90% of native Welsh speakers.
Now I don’t know what your obsession is with trying to find some magic silver bullet to explain the Brexit vote – or to try and discredit it. You seem to bring the subject up every time you contribute on this blog.
It’s a fait accompli – so get over it. If I didn’t know better I’d think you were one of those ‘heart on sleeve’ little liberalists who behave like spoilt children when things don’t go their way. Put your toys back in the pram, wipe your eyes and try some positive mental attitude. The sky will NOT fall on your head, the waters won’t evaporate, and the sea won’t drown out all the land masses, just because the majority of the UK voted to leave the totalitarian, bureaucratic and undemocratic European Union that is a stalking horse for the New World Order waiting in the shadows.
To be honest I’m sick and bloody tired of hearing this shit, from politicians, their propaganda media mouthpieces and every frigging Lib-Dem student and sixth form quasi liberalist shit-pot in the country. Grow up, wise-up and move on. Water under the bridge – gone – don’t you understand? And good bloody riddance at that!
“You seem to bring the subject up every time you contribute on this blog”
Hang on I replied to your –
.”The majority of the voters in Cymru voted out.”
“Agriculturalists make up a large portion of the population in Ceredigion,…”
Therefore they include a high proportion of over 60s. In Cymru as in England that age group tended to vote Leave regardless of whether they were involved in agriculture or if they spoke Cymraeg..
“Now I don’t know what your obsession is with trying to find some magic silver bullet to explain the Brexit vote”
I don’t think there is much doubt that nationalism played a decisive part in the referendum. You don’t seem to want to accept that it was the votes of people who strongly identify with English or English = British or British nationalism what won it for Leave.
I understand why, given your views on those nationalisms, you’re taking the – move along nothing to see here approach.
It was an UK wide vote, so given the populations of the individual countries that make up the British Isles, it’s obvious that the bulk of the ‘leave’ vote would be English.
Your argument is invalid. You are comparing melons with apples – the melons obviously being much larger than the apples!
As for “move along nothing to see here approach” – there is no link there at all. We had a referendum, the people spoke – end of. It’s a fait accompli – as I’ve already pointed out. If you had doubts about the validity of the referendum, or the way it was to be conducted beforehand, that’s different. These criers over spilt milk have only come to the fore in the wake of the result.
Stop throwing your toys out of the pram due to sour grapes. One side won, one side lost – the gracious thing to do would be to zip it for fear of making yourself look very undemocratic.
If your definition of democracy doesn’t includes the right to voice an opinion that is contrary to the view held by the majority then not only will I have to zip it over the EU referendum but both of us will have to zip it on the idea of an independent Cymru.
There’s also the 45% of Scots who voted for Scottish independence who will, if they are to abide by your principle of “democracy” now have to stop throwing their toys out of the pram and get back to board with project United Kingdom.
If as it looks, the process of disengaging from the EU and establishing new trade and other agreements takes years the Grim Reaper will have scythed out a disproportionate number of Leave voters anyway. It is more than possible that when we do finally get out a majority if they had the option would choose to stay in!
You appear to have chosen to distill “democracy” down to counting Xs, biggest score wins. I think there’s much more to it than that.
Makes living in crazy Argentina seem almost pleasant!
If you check the tables I linked to you’ll obviously find Argentina, but also, for some reason, Buenos Aires, which in the three categories – reading, maths and science – has a higher rating than Argentina. Strange. Can only think that BA is a typo, but for what country?
Ciudad Autonoma de Buenos Aires higher than Argentina on the PISA tables 2015 published by the DT? Where is Argentina in the tables?
Merry Christmas ???? from me in Llangennech
Tomorrow belongs to you!
Unsubtle allusions like that prove my point exactly. Thank you.
Only if you are a Fan of musicals
Top 3 musicals
1 West Side Story
2 Gypsy
3 Cabaret