PLEASE APPRECIATE THAT I GET SENT MORE INFORMATION AND LEADS THAN I CAN USE. I TRY TO RESPOND TO EVERYONE WHO CONTACTS ME BUT I CANNOT POSSIBLY USE EVERY BIT OF INFORMATION I’M SENT. DIOLCH YN FAWR
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I suppose that when I wrote the original Weep for Wales two years ago I assumed it would be a one-off; I certainly didn’t think it would grow into a saga, with an ever-lengthening cast of characters. But here we are at Weep for Wales 17. Quite incredible.
What’s more, to the untrained eye it might appear that I’ve vacated my keyboard to join the cast! Confused? Read on . . .
♦
WHERE WERE WE?
Weep for Wales 16 came out 2 January and in it I told of a dispute between Paul and Rowena Williams, who had owned Plas Glynllifon since April 2016 and the Seiont Manor Hotel since December of the same year, and Myles Andrew Cunliffe, who stepped in towards the end of 2018 when the Williams duo ran into financial problems.
The two sides are now engaged in a curious spat that seems to be about Cunliffe not submitting accounts to Companies House for Plas Glynllifon Ltd. Perhaps even changing the accounts that were given to him by Mr and Mrs Williams to file with CH. As I’ve remarked, it was an odd business because the accounts referred to the period before Cunliffe got involved. They really had nothing to do with him.
(I should add that the accounts were given to Cunliffe because he has the codes needed for online submission to Companies House. But seeing as they must have the original I can’t help wondering why Paul and Rowena Williams couldn’t submit the accounts by post.)
For whatever reason, the accounts were not submitted and the case was heard 17 January.
When I read that headline I just had to go and lie down. ‘Illegality and fraud’! Is Paul Williams suggesting that Myles Cunliffe is dishonest?
Whatever next? Will some scoundrel try to tell us that the supreme pontiff is not a Calvinistic Methodist; or that our ursine friends are guilty of sylvan defecation?
The judge seemed to lean towards Cunliffe, adding,
“There are fundamental underlying questions about the sale of the properties that cannot at this stage be resolved in these proceedings.”
He added there are “fundamental issues of fact that have to be resolved”.
Too true, boss; and the best of luck getting facts out of those involved. Facts! Did I just say facts?
Lockdown has now of course intervened to block any resumption of the case.
But let’s go back a bit, to when Myles Cunliffe first appeared in Gwynedd, and the Daily Post described him as an ‘investor’. Cunliffe himself had this to say in December 2018:
“We have the funding needed to complete the project that Paul and Rowena Williams have started.
“Work has slowed down at Glynllifon but this will change shortly, within four to six weeks, and will step up.
“I am a finance guy, I started up with car finance and have moved into property with a property investment company.
“I can bring the funds to make this project happen.”
“The short term aim is to be open within six months as a hotel and wedding venue.”
There were no weddings, no openings, nothing. Not a penny spent on Plas Glynllifon, while the going concern, the Seiont Manor Hotel, was run down with staff not paid. Seiont Manor soon closed . . . ‘temporarily’.
Despite this ‘temporary closure’ being announced in early January receivers had already been appointed before Christmas, and Cunliffe would have known they were on their way even before then, so why the crap about ‘temporary closure’?
Rural Retreats & Development Ltd, which owns Seiont Manor, has two directors, Paul Williams and Myles Cunliffe. There are seven outstanding charges against the company for various parcels of land and property, with further charges against Seiont Manor itself listed on the title document.
The mansion, Plas Glynllifon, is owned by Plas Glynllifon Ltd. Receivers were appointed 17 December (the same day as for Rural Retreats & Development/Seiont Manor). The company’s directors are Cunliffe and Rowena Williams. There are eight outstanding charges with Together Commercial Finance Ltd.
The outstanding charges would appear to give Together Commercial Finance Ltd of Cheshire a claim on just about everything at Plas Glynllifon and Seiont Manor.
◊
MYLES CUNLIFFE ET AL
You’ll recall that when he first appeared Owen Hughes at the Daily Post reported, “Now Mylo Capital Limited – run by ‘finance guy’ Myles Cunliffe – has entered into a 50/50 partnership on Glynllifon and Seiont Manor”; and later in the same piece, “Mr Cunliffe has a background in car and property finance and is currently chairman of property development firm Etaireia Investments PLC”.
So where are these companies today?
Let’s look first at Mylo Capital. Despite Owen Hughes’ encomium Mylo Capital, formed in September 2017, never really took off. It only ever filed accounts for a dormant company and now, with documents overdue, it appears to be drifting towards the rocks.
For a while, Cunliffe’s co-director was Dennis Rogers, a sometime resident on the Isle of Man, who may have been involved with the funny money funding for the EU referendum campaign. I’m referring now to the £8.4m that Arron Banks can’t account for. I wrote about Dennis in Weep for Wales 13.
One-time Brexit Party candidate Rogers has been involved with a number of companies that seem to enjoy a lifespan comparable to that of a mayfly.
The other Cunliffe company mentioned by Owen Hughes was Etaireia Investments PLC, which went into administration 1 July, 2019. Formed in March 2007 as Aquarius Media PLC (changing the name in 2011), with Cunliffe and Rogers joining in 2018.
Do you see the pattern? Companies get into trouble and along comes Myles Cunliffe offering ‘investment’ . . . but it never seems to work out for those who hope they’re being helped. That’s because Cunliffe and Jon Disley, the ‘King of Marbella‘, and the man Cunliffe fronts for, are said to use the companies for their own purposes before letting them fold.
What are those purposes? This article might explain better than I can. I have grabbed a section of it from which you might recognise Cunliffe’s modus operandi.
Yes, it’s all here; diamond geezers, Costa del Crime, dirty money, Brexit, BritNats.
◊
WHAT ELSE HAS BEEN HAPPENING?
In March it was reported that a considerable amount of scaffolding had gone missing from Plas Glynllifon. Paul Williams blamed Scousers (why does everybody pick on them?) and GogPlod is investigating.
Though things are rarely straightforward with these people. So I was not surprised to read Paul Williams suggest that the theft had actually occurred last summer. His theory being that the thieves took advantage of the scaffolding being dismantled by the equipment’s owners to grab some for themselves.
Whatever the truth, it was nice to read about a bit of honest thieving at Plas Glynllifon.
We established that the Seiont Manor Hotel is owned by Rural Retreats & Development Ltd, which has Paul Williams and Myles Cunliffe for directors. We also saw that the place is closed and that receivers were appointed 17 December. Yet there are, or have been, three other companies carrying the Seiont Manor name.
There was Gwesty Seiont Manor Ltd, set up by Paul and Rowena Williams in September 2016. Strike-off action began in February 2019 and was completed 21 May. The only accounts filed were for a dormant company. Another ‘mayfly’ company that appears to have done no business.
Then there was Seiont Manor Hotel Ltd, which enjoyed an even shorter lifespan, from 3 April 2018 to 10 September 2019. The only director was Rikki Reynolds and nothing was ever filed with Companies House. Remember Rikki, at one time the Williams duo’s right-hand man?
Where is he now?
The image above is from a Daily Post report of February 2018 in which we read that Paul and Rowena Williams had bought both Plas Tŷ Coch and Plas Brereton, near Caernarfon, with ambitious plans for these properties.
The truth was that they hadn’t bought either property, and never did. It was yet more bullshit repeated verbatim by a desperate media.
Yes, I know the problem, journalists are overworked and don’t have time to check things out. But even when the Daily Post knew the truth about Paul and Rowena Williams it still kept publishing blurb after blurb that could have been dictated by the Gruesome Twosome themselves.
An all too common problem; almost as if the Welsh media is under some political directive to publish only good news, even when it’s lies.
The third company we should look at is still in the land of the living, it is Seiont Manor Ltd. Incorporated as recently as 4 January 2019 with Myles Cunliffe as the sole director. But he pulled out in November and responsibility for this thriving concern fell on the shoulders of Thomas Jacob Hindle.
Do you remember Tom?
I originally thought that he was working for Paul and Rowena Williams and then ‘transferred’ to Cunliffe as his involvement increased. But now I suspect that Tom Hindle was already associated with Disley and Cunliffe before arriving in Wales.
My reassessment is due to the fact that Hindle hails from Cunliffe’s territory of north west England whereas the Williams’ tend to recruit their ‘associates’ from their stomping ground in the Birmingham and West Midlands area.
Hindle seems to have showed up at Seiont Manor Hotel around the time Cunliffe got involved.
Which might explain why Hindle was allowed to live in the seven-bedroom property alongside Fronoleu, near Dolgellau. Though it made getting to work in Caernarfon quite a commute. Is he still there? Maybe I’ll pop up and see.
Tom Hindle is almost certainly the ‘postman’ who delivers the threatening letters I have received from Myles Cunliffe. Here and here.
Fronoleu is owned by Rural Retreats & Development Ltd which, as we’ve seen, is in the hands of receivers. No purchase price is quoted on the title document because the word is that Paul Williams bought the property at auction for over £300,000 and paid in cash.
There are two charges against Fronoleu with Together Commercial Finance Ltd.
Myles Cunliffe seems to have withdrawn from many companies over the past year, including one he’d been involved with since 2007, Lifestyle 4u Finance Ltd. Another company he’s left, one formed only last October, is Gen 5 PLC.
Though one company he is still involved with is Get me Finance Ltd. Apart from a brief appearance by faux Manxman Dennis Rogers Myles Cunliffe has been the only director since the company was formed in January 2010.
This, presumably, is the ‘car finance’ company Cunliffe alluded to in the interview with the Daily Post in December 2018. And yet, it’s difficult to see how, or why, this company stays afloat.
The most recent (micro-entity) accounts show net current assets of £52,644, but even this is an improvement of twenty grand on the previous year.
That’s what sticks out a mile. Legitimate companies file audited accounts showing income, expenditure, creditors, debtors, turnover, tangible assets, payments to HMRC, staff wages, etc., etc. And then you look at the companies that get mentioned on this blog and they’re the commercial equivalent of Mother Hubbard’s cupboard – bare!
Yet those connected with these companies drive around in brand new Range Rovers, live in big houses, and splash the cash like inebriated seafarers.
◊
JAC JOINS THE GANG!
In Weep for Wales 16 in January I reported that Myles Cunliffe and Tom Hindle had gone into the fitted kitchen business. Well, not really, it was the old MO of sniffing out companies in trouble.
One of those companies was Waterford Interiors Ltd. Which had begun life as Glynllifon Mansion Ltd in January 2019, became Waterford Interiors in December, and then, last week, the company name was changed to my name and post code.
As is now the practice, Cunliffe ceased to be a director in November and was replaced by Thomas Jacob Hindle.
As you can imagine, once I was made aware of this I contacted Companies House and told them that this had been done without my permission and I wanted it changed immediately.
I also contacted my political representatives and North Wales Police.
(UPDATE 16.06.2020: North Wales Police Victim Support Unit phoned me last week soon after I’d made my complaint, and yesterday a police officer phoned. We discussed the case and he was as amazed as I that Companies House allows this kind of thing. I suggested harassment but he seemed to say it needs more than one incident to qualify. So let’s wait and see.)
The Companies House response said:
‘Dear Mr Jones,
Thank you for your email regarding the above named company.
Whilst I have noted your comments and appreciate your concerns, the name in question was properly accepted for registration, as it does not contravene any of the provisions of section 66(1) of the Companies Act 2006. Therefore, we do not have the power to remove the company from the register or direct it to change its name.’
And that’s it, you can give a company any name you like.
I’ve commented before that Companies House is nothing more than a filing exercise. All that matters is that companies file documents on time, even if those documents are lies from beginning to end. Or contain no information at all.
Which explains why a bunch of clowns naming a company after me is perfectly legal. Now I have to worry about what that company bearing my name may be used for. What a system!
But as I’ve said before, financial crime is ignored in the UK. Though what else can you expect from a state that maintains the fiction of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands being almost independent, and also has responsibility for most of the offshore tax havens around the world? A global dirty money economy co-ordinated from the City of London.
Financial crime is seen as ‘victimless’. And once money is in the system buying expensive cars, big houses, jewellery, 92 inch televisions, Bang and Olufsen sound systems, holiday homes, private education, etc, nobody gives a shit that it might have been made from drug trafficking, money laundering, child prostitution, or selling weapons to rogue states and terrorists.
What a system. What a state. What a reason to get out.
Before this latest brush with fame I had (metaphorically) mounted my horse, said, “My work here is done”, and was about to ride off into the sunset . . .
But once I saw what some twat had done I wheeled my nag around, interest rekindled.
♦
If anything I’ve written here is factually wrong, and can be proved to be so, then I will correct the mistake.
Threatening letters, however, will be handed to the police; and solicitors should save themselves the bother of writing, no matter how much they’re being paid. (And make sure you are paid, because those who ‘star’ on this blog are infamous for their reluctance to pay what they owe.)
♦ end ♦
Bad day for Plaid on Sunday. Its dilemma rears its ugly head in one single event – bonkers Islamist terrorist enters Reading park and executes 3 gays who were just lounging about in the sun. Does Adam speak up on behalf of his gay community, or does he turn curly and ignore the evil characteristics of his on-trend radical Islamist wing ? Any statements from Plaido Towers ?
So I popped “round the corner” for a quick look and hey ho N.C have a good one up today
https://nation.cymru/opinion/how-can-we-use-education-to-make-black-lives-matter-more-than-a-hashtag-in-wales/
Mouth piece of an allegedly nationalist party wants to give “black history” some space. All well and good but how’s about some real Welsh history for starters then we can look at our more recent arrivals and delete all the other shit about the colonisers’ history
If those three gay men had been killed by ‘right wing extremists’ then politicians would have condemned the act and LGBT campaigners would have been out on the streets. But because it was an Islamic extremist everybody stays schtum for fear of being seen as racist!
Price’s article makes fascinating reading. He devotes a paragraph to apologising for his ‘reparations’ article that drew criticism from a number of supporters of Welsh independence for its over-the-top emphasis on victimhood and raking over old coals (no pun intended). He makes no reference in this latest article to that criticism, focusing instead on his sense of shame for not knowing that the race industry have bagsied the word ‘reparations’ and are insisting that it only be used in reference to European-on-African slavery. He does, however, mention iron.
It has not occurred to him that, if the manacles really were made in Wales, then Wales should be demanding an apology on behalf of the Welsh iron-workers who were made to manufacture these items forsuch an insidious purpose with no benefit to Wales, but with profits for a few iron-masters who may or may not have been Welsh.
It is difficult to see how an internal colony, with no autonomous political infrastructure with which to ban such manufacture, could be regarded as complicit in the economic policies and activities of the (neighbouring) power that owned that internal colony.
Plaid Cymru is off the wall. An easy target for a sensible nationalist party focusing on Wales.
If McEvoy is still looking for a new name for his party, try Plaid Gall Cymru, as opposed to Plaid Wallgo Cymru which is already well established as a haven for all sorts of screwed up unbalanced peddlers of fantasies.
Welsh Welsh iron-workers never made any slave manacles.
This was mainly because the Iromasters, the new industrialists of the time were either the anti-slavery MPs in the Westminster House, or for the first time paying black people the same as white people as wage earners in the industry. There’s statues of them in Newport, Cardiff, Llandinam and Tonypandy. Please don’t let this weeks virtue signalling erase our own history.
Slave manacles were made by Ambrose Crowley and there’s a statue of him at Greenwich, London where he was the benefactor to the royal observatory.
Continuing with my long practiced habit of going off topic here’s one to suck on.
“There could never be a free Wales when others still lie in chains. This is a truth that our history teaches us, for so many of those chains were made with iron forged in Wales.”
Adam Price, in a nation.cymru article, makes it clear in his usual long winded way that he ain’t gonna lead Wales anywhere, certainly not to independence, too many external conditions to be overcome before we move across the goal line. He could have said we will strive to be free and then, when liberated, we will take up these great causes and piss into the wind with others of a similar persuasion but at least do so as a free people. Might be a bit virtue signalling but more akin to worthwhile priorities.
Jac
In case you have not found out already you can have the registered office for “”your” company moved to a default address.
I suspect it has been done to cause mischief eg bailiffs turning up at your house for debts – won’t believe if you’re called the same name as the company?
Companies house should have told you how to do it.
—-The second concerns the situation where a registered office address is being used by a company without permission. It is now possible to apply to have the registered office address removed from the register. If Companies House receives such an application it will (save where the application has no real prospect of success) give notice to the relevant company and request it to provide evidence that it can use the registered office as its address. Should the company fail to supply such evidence, Companies House will change the registered office address to a default address, which will be a PO Box at Companies House. Companies House will not be under any duty to open any documents delivered to this address and may destroy documents uncollected after 12 months.
There’s nothing I can do about it. I have no control over the company and I don’t have the CH code therefore I cannot make any changes. There’s no fear of bailiffs because I’m not a director nor am I listed as ‘person with significant control’. My address is not being used as the address for the company.
My worry is that this company bearing my name could involve itself in some unsavoury business, people would see the name and assume the worst.
Here we go !
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/19/wales-to-welcome-back-holidaymakers-from-6-july-as-lockdown-eases
Fun and games will start with a vengeance in early July probably a shade before the 6th. People whose inability to act with restraint will be buzzing all over the place. Drakeford should authorise natives to exterminate any tourist found to be breaching social distancing, not wearing a mask, pissing on a beach or path, insulting the Welsh language, etc etc
They never stopped coming during the ban; Llangollen is full of ‘East Britons’ who have been taking a circuitous route and avoiding the heddlu. The streets there are still clogged with traffic and tourists, according to a local source.
Off topic, sorry, but I see that Swansea’s sex workers are struggling with the lockdown, much like us all. Apparently they are to be seen plying their trade as early as 8.30 now as business is so slow. Don’t all rush down to the High Street after your Cornflakes. It’s 8.30 pm apparently.
Carolyn Harris, Swansea East MP, has said their predicament is tragic, adding “it’s sad they are in this situation in the first place. They need support through this pandemic as it’s been their only way of earning money, some of them for years.” I’m prepared to to do my bit but to get to the High Street involves a journey just over 5 miles so I’m a bit nervous about helping out.
There’s an easy way of putting a stop to this – just get Carolyn Harris walking up and down the High Street a few times. Instant deflation for any horny bugger. But if that don’t work, just show him this photo. (She’s the one in the middle.)
Hard to get that image out of my head now. If getting her to the High Street fails to work, could we have “Clap for Sex Workers” just to show our solidarity?
“Clap” as in ????? Ychafi ! Stan you are a wicked boy.
I’d say “incorrigible” but can’t spell it ! If that’s correct there must be an auto spell check in here somewhere.
You really know how to spoil a man’s mid morning cuppa. Gross
Swansea’s sex workers are struggling because….
(a) the ‘female homeless’ contingent of the High Street have been housed under Coronavirus legislation, (b) Joint operation by SWP and BTP have closed the county lines supply of drugs through the train station, (c) the ‘third sector’ agencies have found that there are no victims to farm, and, (d) the health board has a programme of substitutive prescription medication for addicts which run girls for cash to feed the drugs trade.
Carolyn Harris says “I’m prepared to to do my bit but to get to the High Street involves a journey just over 5 miles”.
Really?
That’s where she goes to catch her train to Westminster. Perhaps she didn’t recognise High Street station because she no long has to step over tents and rough sleepers with English accents to get to the platform.
I think this should continue after lockdown, and I suggest that those third sector parasites who wish to re-start the trade should now get on the same train and return from whence they came.
Why is the BBC re-writing history over Vera Lynn?
The version of the “We’ll Meet Again” song the BBC keep saying was ‘with the troops’ was actually recorded in 1953, eight years after the end of WW2. The original was a duet with Arthur Young. During the ‘darkest hour’ Vera Lynn was banned by the BBC and removed from the ‘light’ programme as her songs were deemed too soppy and hurting morale.
In 1940 in South Wales, the most popular singer was Paul Robeson and here is an excerpt from the film of that year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3NoOg6y9xA%5Bremovetoplay%5D
Don’t tell BLM.
Today on the One Show the BBC is now saying Vera Lynn toured Europe with frontline troops after D day!! She didn’t. That’s only in the modern film. In reality, she only visited Egypt and India to entertain the returning R&R troops returning from the Japanese front. The ‘forces sweetheart’ caption was originally coined by the Daily Express, and was only later popularised.
The real ‘concert party’ heroes in WW2, was of course Harry Secombe (from Swansea) and Spike Milligan. Both serving soldiers who met on the Italian front. Their ‘concert party’ was of a number of “variety acts” which needs to include more than just a couple of songs.
This re-write of history is just an excuse for a bit of ‘union jackery’!
A little ungenerous methinks.
Leanne gets a golden opportunity to wipe the floor with Labour at local authority and Cardiff Bay and additional scope for taking a shot at Westminster too.
It is reported that – ” The Member of the Senedd for the Rhondda has called for urgent action to help people flooded in her constituency for the second time this year. Leanne Wood has also called for an urgent inquiry into why homes flooded so quickly after a period of record-breaking sunshine. Many locals in affected communities such as Pentre say the drains were clogged up with silt that had not been cleared since the last floods earlier this year.”
Usual flabby evasive response from Labour’s local chieftain : ” County Borough Councillor Andrew Morgan, Leader of Rhondda Cynon Taf Council, said the council had deployed additional resources, to support the local authority’s highways crews and to assist the emergency services. He goes on to say – “The flash flooding caused by yesterday evening’s severe thunderstorms, has unfortunately impacted upon communities which have already experienced the devastation of flooding earlier this year,”. An obvious conclusion if your authority hasn’t bothered to do a proper job of clearing drains and flood watercourses since the last disaster. Too busy sitting on important committees to do his fuckin’ job properly.
Finally, MP Chris Bryant said he was heading back from Westminster to assess the damage. No doubt we’ll be treated to the poster boy in his hi-viz and hard hat spouting jibes at those awful Tories when it’s his own party that’s supposedly in charge down in the Bay bubble. Perhaps we should just be grateful that conditions will be so bad he won’t be tempted to strut his stuff in his awful pants again.
Your comments noted Dafis. Any wind farms located upstream of flooded area. Copied below is my request for information from NRW dated 16 June. Awaiting reply.
To: Natural Resources Wales [N R W] – Customer Communications and Information Directorate – Customer Hub Advisor – Sera Jones
Thank you for your letter dated 15 June [as attached] in response to my request for information. In reply, I offer the following additional observations.
The information provided with regard to the three sites located on N R W land is helpful, and I note the role of N R W as a statutory consultee in the Local Authority Town & Country Planning Process. It would be helpful if you could clarify whether N R W also has a broader environmental remit with regard to the construction of wind farms on land not owned / managed by N R W. A case in point would be wind farm sites located in Powys County Council area where increased surface water run-off could be contributing to increased flood risk in downstream communities on the river Severn [a designated main river].
In addition to your role as a statutory consultee in the Town & Country Planning Process, N R W also has a strategic overview on flooding from the main river network and tidal estuaries. I accept that “local flood risk” is now administered by Local Authorities following transfer of statutory powers from N R W, although N R W retains a strategic overview on all flooding matters. I remain concerned that increased surface water run-off from impermeable areas on wind farms in Wales may now be contributing to increased flood risk downstream in communities established along the main river network. A “main river” is defined as a river indicated on a statutory main river map available for inspection at N R W offices.
Given your role as the “Strategic Flood Risk Management Authority” on the main river network, it would be helpful if N R W could advise whether any process is in place to assess the flood risk to downstream communities from increased surface water run-off from impermeable areas on wind farms in Wales and whether a policy or process is in place to mitigate that risk.
I leave it to you to decide whether to process this as a request for clarification under normal correspondence, or, as a further, and separate, request for information under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004. I look forward to your further observation when you have had an opportunity to liaise with your colleagues in your Flood Risk Management Directorate. Thank you.
Regards
I think we all know what an honest truthful response to your letter would look like. However NRW may choose to construct a more “imaginative” response indicative of their capacity to duck dive and generally evade, much like most other public bodies here in Wales. Accountability and transparency are words used often by the talking heads but seldom applied in reality.
Young Rashford did a neat bit of work in shaming Bunter over free school meals. It has prompted some raised eyebrows ( and snide remarks) too. Like the free meals budget is apparently only 7% of the annual remuneration of the Premier League’s playing staff in 2020, so they, the elite of football, could pick up the tab without busting a gut.
Quite shocking, but stop a minute and switch back to Boris and his cronies. If the deviant lightweights in Westminster got their act together and collected taxes from all those “business leaders” and their “senior executives” who are actively mitigating taxation by diving through the myriad loopholes provided by HMG we’d have a tax take that dwarfs that paid by Rashford &Co, whose big earnings are crammed into a relatively short career.
Boris got humbled by Rashford but he’s getting off lightly. When the bill comes in for the Covid crisis Boris’ buddies will still be shirking their responsibilities and the bill will fall on the shoulders of Joe and Jane Public, once again.
Free school meals for poor families is not an achivement. It’s a failure. A disgrace.
You either have no child qualifying for free school meals when which means no family lives in poverty, that would be success, or alternatively every child is provided with a free school meal at point of consumption, paid for out of general taxation, as part of education provision, like in Sweden.
The Swedish model is where the National Food Agency, a branch of national agriculture department, sets the parameters of what consists of a hearty meal and the municipality then procures the menu according to season and local provision (farms and processors). Of course, in Sweden, rural science is a subject in the national curriculum.
Call me socialist (because the woke keep calling me fascist) but feeding all children has to be a natural part of a structured education system. Classes are for learning, not a measure of maintaining pre-existing social division. No need for burger vans at the school gates and all children learn what, where and how food is made.
Of course, if such a policy was implemented it would remove the need for a political parties who are made up of a sneering elite to pander charity down to the poor to justify their existence.
“Free school meals for poor families is not an achievement. It’s a failure. A disgrace.”
Too true, you are correct in your view of that provision. However, we are where we are. After 75 years of up and down “post-War” economics and politics we remain divided by a succession of governments who have fiddled around a narrow band of issues while letting the seriously rich get richer by a mix of foul and fair means, while lower income and unemployed have been treated with utter contempt. This last initiative, Universal Credit, has been rolled out because no one was willing tackle the minority of claimants who were fiddling the old system. So, instead of pursuing delinquents some clever soul thought changing the system would squeeze them out and save money. Well that’s worked really well, hasn’t it !
One thing for sure Boris and his mob will do as little as they think they can get away with especially where it might involve a bit of “levelling up”. On the other hand pissing billions down any old drain by granting huge vanity project contracts to their corporate mates is seen as a job well done. Time to secede.
Anyone heard of this bloke Deepak Nambisan? He has rocked up in Trefdraeth, gog pembs and is jumping on any bandwagon available. Obviously looking for a political career. Beware, mind, if you dare question his motives, he pulls the race card faster than Shane. Seems to be a failed lawyer from London, come to educate the peasants.
He went to Oxford AND Cambridge AND Harvard Law School. He is also a member of the New York bar. I note that his wife’s name is Lowri Glain, a TV producer. Local?
He went for that Chris Shoen bloke on arse book, with a badly written, sixth form level, point-by point argument against the idea that the Swastika may have been painted by while-flighters up the Nantlle, who knoes.. It was couched in the terms of a lazy brief’s pissed of secretary, but that, presumably, would suffice to scare Taffies. He make much play on race, while describing himself in separate comments as “British Asian” and as “English”.
Can’t be too many with that name so I assume this is him? At over £3 million for his house, I knew I should have gone into the legal profession insread of coal!
https://www.metro.news/a-stark-victorian-munitions-foundry-has-a-new-lease-of-life-as-a-welcoming-family-home/1501836/
You’re too honest to be a lawyer, Stan.
I have my principles. But just like many politicians, for that kind of money I’m prepared to change them😂
As Groucho said, “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them . . . well, I have others.” The only Marxist who ever appealed to me.
I know Chris Schoen. It was a funny business, wasn’t it. After that killing in Minneapolis it all went a bit hysterical. If you weren’t offering to publicly self-flagellate for having enjoyed Gone With The Wind then you weren’t much better than that bloke who shot Martin Luther King. And then, in that hot-bed of fascism – Penygroes! – a swastika appears.
Because the garage door upon which the swastika was sprayed belonged to a black family, it had to be the work of fascists. Rhiannon Lucy Coslett of the Grauniad weighed in wailing, ‘This narrow-minded attitude is why I left Wales’. No it’s not, you silly cow, you left Wales so people would pay you good money to confirm their prejudices about your people. And she was wrong, because the community rallied around the family involved.
And she wasn’t the only one. It was surprising that this bandwagon ever got rolling after so many people had jumped aboard almost before it had started.
Yet all I saw was a badly drawn (sprayed?) swastika that could have been put there by anybody. Of course it could have been a local racist, or just a stupid kid who knows no better. Maybe it was – as you say Chris Schoen suggested – someone who has come to live among us. The third possibility is that it’s a false flag job, which offers three possibilities.
The first being that somebody on the left did it to strengthen their case against the local Nazis ahead of their next mass rally in Dyffryn Nantlle. The second possibility is that someone did it to besmirch the Welsh, which saw Rhiannon Lucy Coslett so willing to assist. (And it’s weird using that name in that context.) The third option I won’t spell out but it’s always an outside possibility in cases like this.
All I hope now is that the police put an end to the rumours and the bad feeling by making an arrest.
Update: An arrest has been made, ‘a 35-year-old man’.
Any demented dame working for the Guardian has to be taken seriously ! Says who ?
She’s got serious form for ranting about her nation of origin. What is the female form of “Uncle Tom” ( or Dai if you are seriously Welsh) ? Whatever it is she’s got it in spades, absolute shit house of a person sold her soul or whatever passes for it for a journo’s fat salary while pouring scorn on her roots. I think she was one of the shits who wrote a snide piece or more about Blaenau Gwent post the EU Referendum.
As for Nazis in Nantlle, more likely to be a bored youth completely overlooked by the whole host of government agencies and third sector wankers who have a mandate to improve life prospects for the disadvantaged and disaffected. Not showing much by way of positive outcomes are they, although loads of officials/bureaucrats etc are drawing tidy salaries shuffling wads of forms and scrawling reports and powerpoint presentations. Maybe they should troop around to the Red Lion and explain themselves.
A man of 35 has been arrested. Also fraud charges following the crossbow murder. A busy day for GogPlod.
Haven’t met Chris, and have disagreed with his defence of Plaid. He may well be right or wrong where the bellend that sprayed the swastika. The issue transcends that. What has intrigued me is the sudden storming onto the scene of this great, self appointed, cavilier, Deepak. He is making as much noise as possible in North pembs. Royston, i am no investigive journo, but that bloke reeks of a story. Again, as mentioned above, race card fast draw is rapid. He can’t write for shite, but he can play the victim when it serves
What is he up to? What is he involving himself in? Send info to editor@jacothenorth.net.
Cardiff, John Hefin’s daughter
Hope you don’t mind Jac, but I’d like to make a comment on a tweet that’s just been bought to my attention made by “Bethan Sayed MS/AS signalling a virtue and proud”. Jun 13, and I quote.
“I walked down the alley way near my house and was told to go home you don’t belong here. My mam from Northern Ireland. Not targeted due to colour, I appreciate that, but anti Irish sentiment was alive and kicking.”
Bethan, born 1981 to a ‘socialist poet’ father and Irish (no need to define a border) mother, and was raised in Merthyr Tydfil.
It’s a town I know very well and far from “anti-Irish sentiment alive and kicking” it’s actually one of the most diverse and wonderful communities in Wales. It’s the town where you’ve always had the choice of Italian, or Polish café. A town where the local synagogue has Y Ddraig Goch carved into the masonry on the front entrance next to the Star of David. A town where, the colliers might just as well have Irish surnames as Welsh. A town where the maternity ward is named after the first registered woman doctor, who was Irish. A true melting pot of Welsh identity.
It is NOT a town where “anti Irish sentiment was alive and kicking”. Bethan might want to ingratiate herself in her new-found woke twitterati, and in doing so stoking up racial hatred, but her comment just exposes her as some Dic Sion Dafydd sticking her nose up at the people and communities of Wales.
This is Merthyr..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEEW_wqqNgo [removetoplay]
How dare you try sow the seeds of racism. We need rid our national parliament of this odious snob, a stain on Wales, and a creep.
Oh Brychan, poor girl is just confused and hurt. She’s seen recent talent imported into Plaid surging ahead of her in the “woke and radical hurdles”, acquiring new virtues and ishoos while she slaves away in the confines of her domesticated life.
Give the girl a break. Tell her there’s a lovely bit of tribal hatred waiting to be rekindled in Wales – Gogs vs Hwntws, or townies vs hillbillies, or just Cardiff vs the rest ( maybe some merit in that !). A girl with imagination can dig out all sorts of ishoos that will look good to the online wokies who don’t know shit from chocolate when it comes to what goes on in Wales.
Rather comically, it appears that spellcheck has changed my Ddraig Goch into Drag Gosh. Please don’t send HMJ round. I’ve already told her that her brand of hate is not welcome in town.
Now corrected.
She’s a one, ain’t she? Doesn’t tell us how old she was or how long she’d lived in Merthyr when this allegedly happened. When I was young if you wandered into the adjoining council estate to mine you’d likely be stopped and told you didn’t belong there. Had sod all to do with your Mam being Irish, English or Chinese. You just knew in which territory you ought to be.
That new Twitter handle of her signalling a virtue and proud is perhaps the most honest thing she’s written on there, because that’s exactly what comes across when you read it. When you want someone to stir the shit on an individual then hand out the knives for others to finish the job, she’s your girl. Just ask Neil McEvoy and more recently Martin Shipton. I won’t forget her trying to drop Shippo into it with his employer following the recent Twitter spat about the BLM marches.
Frankly, even by the standards of Welsh politics, she’s an embarrassment and that is some accolade. Guaranteed to give the Unionists a healthy boost in the polls every time she’s exposed to public scrutiny. What on earth are Plaid Cymru doing keeping her?
Stan, vast majority of “influencers” within Plaid are cut from same or similar cloth. Rank &file members must be very loyal, or hopeful for change, to hang on with this shower in charge. To us out in the electorate it will be easy to walk away from them yet again come election time especially if local candidates are the orthodox careerist types. Self destruction is a strange old instinct especially where it crops up in a crowd of people. Lemmings ?
BlackLivesMatter is so last week for the entitled middle classes.
This weeks ishoo takes a new unexpected turn.
So miss precious has just launched herself into the Baby Zooming Business.
https://twitter.com/Team_BethanS/status/1272592269611319303/photo/1
This business is a company based in Oxford, England.
The first class is free, then pay by direct debit.
https://www.babycollege.co.uk/
It has ‘regional franchises’.
This is the one for South Wales West.
https://www.babycollege.co.uk/swansea-neath-and-llanelli#Bio
Run by Emma, mother to Catrin and Eryn.
Must cause a bit of domestic strife if dad is an MP and doesn’t want his kids broadcast on the internet.
Please dont take your eye off the agricultural ball. . . We have an exercise in ‘deliberative democracy’ coming up soon, to be chaired by Elin Jones and an Extinction Rebellion leader.
Quite why XR is being given such a prominent role I can’t imagine..
https://www.tivysideadvertiser.co.uk/news/18516450.online-peoples-assembly-discus-food-farming-ceredigion/
Elin got confused. She thought that there was an extinction event coming soon and she wanted to make sure there would be plenty of food left in Ceredigion if she managed to pop home before the big rock landed in Cardiff Bay ! She’s not stupid, you know.
It’s probably ER’s idea. They put it to Plaid and Elin Jones jumped at it.
Now you are a rich man and own many hotels and venues across Wales. Don’t forget the foot soldiers of the Welsh National Party who are marching on against the Quislings of Labour and Plaid Cymru and want to see a Cymru Rydd. Free Wales.
My understanding is that just about every hotel I’ve written about in this saga is now in the hands of receivers. But I might still buy you a pint at Cilmeri.
Re Companies House allowing the use of your name as a company name by others, When back in the early seventies I attempted to register my Transport Company as “Welsh Fargo”, it was declined by CH. on the grounds that it could be confused with the American company “Wells Fargo”.
I replied to Companies House asking if it was OK for me to launch a company called Boris Johnson’s Big Boobs Escort Agency Ltd. They haven’t answered.
I think you have just been fobbed off by companies house.
A company can be guilty of harassment under Section One of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. The key wording here is “A person must not pursue a course of conduct… which amounts to harassment of another”. It was originally thought that the Act only applied to a physical person, but case law finds a ‘person’ is not restricted to a physical human being but that of a body corporate as well.
Should the police investigation find that the malicious communications you have previously received originates from the same individual as the person who presented the malicious company change of name to your home address, the full record of companies house presentation is an artefact of evidence. Police do not need a warrant to download the full record, which includes the ‘presenter’ of name change of a corporate body.
Here is a previous example of a successful prosecution.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uks-first-ever-successful-prosecution-for-false-company-information
I would assume that the same law that applies to former Business Secretary Vince Cable MP as to you. It might be wise to raise this issue with your parliamentary representative as well as North Wales Police. They already have a record of ‘course of behaviour’ as defined by the Protection from Harassment legislation, and I understand that an officer has already ‘had words of advise’ with the individual concerned.
Note – The electronic submission to companies house does record the presenter login, and is date and time stamped. This login also requires the presenter to agree the terms and obligations at point of input. The ‘XML’ data extraction available to police as an extract of evidence includes more that that displayed as the public record.
The problem might be that the two letters came from Myles Cunliffe. He (officially) ceased to be a director of the company in November, but as you say, Companies House should have a record of who changed the company name. Thanks, Brychan, I shall pass this on to NWP.
It is not just the content of the communication but also the mode of delivery that constitutes the offence. I don’t believe that Mylo was the postman.
Whilst Mylo had the poison ink, I suspect the delivery was from Fronoleu for reasons of geography. If I was investigating, a question that Hindle needs to answer was his activity of the day in question over the original course of conduct. Secondly, what joint enterprise between Mylo and Hindle occurred in procuring the ‘message’ designed to intimidate communicated via companies house. Company resolution of a single director can involve a conspiracy to act with another; this puts two in the frame, no exclude.
Further up the food chain I notice a fall out between bikers and Disley a few years ago. Disley being a type to book ‘security’ for cash. I don’t know the exact details but in my experience a ‘code of behaviour’ for bikers would definitely exclude intimidation of children or pensioners and would definitely fall out might be the lines of engagement, whoever is fronting this escapade into Wales. I suspect that the whole chibang has other off-book “debts”.
Correct. The letters were both hand delivered, after dark. Message: ‘We know where you live, pal!’
The £10 fee for name change is processed online by companies house. The unique electronic record of the ‘presenter’ is cross-referenced to this payment in the company record. This payment may have come from a company account or the personal debit or credit card of the suspect. It’s important this case is looked into as there must be many instances of harassment and stalking where an aggrieved party with a non-contact order can intimidate another. What’s stopping a company being re-named Janice Womens Aid SA1 Ltd?
Nice work. Bagged and tagged. Now find someone with the cojones to prosecute the bastard.
Excellent, Brychan. Looks as if Jac may have a good case for getting this sorted.
I find it incredible that these shysters can repackage a company after your name, and even worse, is that part of your postcode in the screenshot? However, it just goes to show you are living rent free inside their heads, a saying I’ve seen lots of wokies use, so I’m trying to get with the zeitgeist. It’s annoying to say the least, but you have the last laugh in knowing you’ve exposed this band of chancers and crooks for what they are. Well done. In the spirit of the Age of the Woke, I’m thinking of starting a petition for a statue of Jac o’ the North to be erected on one of those redundant plinths that will soon be appearing across Wales.😉
I had a bit of a rant at Companies House but the blame lies with the politicians not introducing stronger company legislation. Tories for obvious reasons, but Labour was in power from 1997 to 2010.
And yes, it is my post code.
That was Nü Labour though, with Tony “Son of Thatcher/Poodle of Dubya” Blair and Gordon “Better Together” Brown at the helm.
I reject both wokies and BritNats, and if we’re clever we can turn this to our advantage. Earlier, Brychan reminded us of Clive’s Indian loot at Powis Castle. We should be using this – riding the wave – to get the NT out of Wales.
The problem is that wokies and BritNats are involving themselves in a trans-Atlantic civil war. I’d expect no better from BritNats, but the wokies claiming to want independence should get their priorities sorted.
I share your distrust of the National Trust (geddit?), especially in its Welsh manifestations. That a Wales-only body sh-/could take over some of its role here, with a necessary nationalistic spin, would be an interesting political and identity challenge which that institution and others related to it have largely ducked thus far.
Let’s make it happen!
In December 2014, John Disley (when Mabella was missing a pack of lard) admitted conspiracy to defraud and was sentenced to two years in prison.
The charge concerning Royal Bank of Scotland was ordered to lie on the file. The MO of Cunliffe is the same. But how do you know that Myles Cunliffe is front man for Disley?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiLulRvPRs4%5Bremovetoplay%5D
Other than we know that both were known to socialise in the directors box at Blackpool football club at the invitation of the rapist Owen Oysten.
Disley was seen at the Caernarfon properties after Cunliffe got involved. I’m told he stayed at Seiont manor more than once. Also, I have information that I haven’t had clearance to use. Some harrowing stuff about Cunliffe’s ‘jackal’ business methods. Again, Disley showed up at one of these unfortunate businesses. There was another Cunliffe involved in certain linked businesses who lived in Marbella. He gets a mention somewhere in the saga.
Cunliffe fronts for Disley, and now that he’s been getting so much attention Cunliffe needs Hindle to front for him.
All your recent major works remind me of a little ditty that mutates neatly into something like :
” Wokies on the left, gangsters/fraudsters on the right, we’re stuck in the middle with you ! ”
I’m sure Gerry Rafferty or whoever penned the original won’t mind.
Sadly, Gerry Rafferty is no longer with us to exclaim over how you have mucked up the perfect rhythm of his original lyric. Thankfully Jac is still with us, though I wonder whether he willingly accepts “the middle” as being his natural political cwtsh space of choice….
I salute you for continuing on this particular ‘llwybr llithrig’ for 17 chapters and counting, as the denouement clearly still eludes you and us. You are right to make the broader point about the connection with a bigger picture of offshore tax havens, City of London connivance and light-touch financial regulation which taken together besmirch the UK’s name.
The middle ground is not my natural habitat, but when I look at the current culture war between the hard left and wokies on the one hand and the BritNats on the other then I am, by default, in between these two extremes. Yet this conflict presents opportunities for Wales, but ONLY if we can see above and beyond the strife to prioritise Wales’ interests.
Anon – with your poetic talent crack on and give us a better alternative or take someone else’s tune and reword it . Floor is yours.
Well, Gerry Rafferty’s poetic talent undoubtedly outshines mine; and one of the verse couplets of ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’ also happens to summarise this whole sorry saga rather well: “Trying to make some sense of it all, But I can see it makes no sense at all”. I suppose Jac is attempting to weave some sense out of the apparent nonsense benind this tale.
It’s not ‘nonsense’ behind this saga, it’s all about money.
Well yes and no Jac. While greed and the acquisition of even greater wealth through nefarious means are the ultimate aim. Financial regulation, or more accurately financial deregulation are the tool by which this aim will ultimately be achieved. It’s about both.
The British state is one of the most corrupt, in a financial and corporate sense, in the world. Maybe its fair to say the most corrupt, although the USA have always been right up there providing a role model for this country to emulate. But they keep it well hidden, that’s why those in power, those with vested interests did all they could to quash or discredit the Panama Papers investigation.
Which brings us to the real reason behind the EU referendum, fear of the EU Commission and its Anti- Tax Avoidance Directives, and the future direction of travel that the EU might take on clamping down on tax avoidance. The anti EU movement wasn’t driven by ordinary people from Billericay, but wealthy individuals within Parliament, so called Eurosceptics and their business associates in bodies such as the Bilderberg Group. For further confirmation look no further than the leading figures who campaigned to leave the EU, their line of ”work’, their business interests, especially those within the ERG group and / or the Brexit Party.
I don’t doubt what you say, the UK is corrupt to its core. But talk of clamping down on tax havens would be more convincing if it didn’t come from an organisation, the EU, with a tax haven member, Lichtenstein.
It’s an EFTA member, so not part of the EU proper. I guess a parallel could be drawn with the Crown Dependencies being under the “Crown” but not part of the UK, as regards the facade of being quasi-independent but still doing the bidding of their larger masters.
As I undestood it, Ellan Vannin and that are run under the ultimate form of devo max, having control over everything bar defence and international relations. Is the power the UK holds over these places you allude to a sort of uncodified ‘influence’ like London civil servants have on the Senedd, or more of a “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you” acknowledgement of the importance of tax haven status to their economies?
Thanks, David. My researcher has now been dismissed.
Great article, Jac. But fact-check from Wiki “Liechtenstein is a member of the United Nations, the European Free Trade Association, and the Council of Europe, and although not a member of the European Union, it participates in both the Schengen Area and the European Economic Area. It also has a customs union and a monetary union with Switzerland.” Not in the EU apparently. Tax havens don’t tend to be. A lot of Brit Nats seem to want to make the UK a tax haven ie outside the EU. Interesting problem. Being a tax haven works for the Isle of Man. On the same logic as IoM, being a tax haven could work for Wales. But is that what we really want?
I stand corrected. Perhaps – like the IoM and the CI with the UK – Lichtenstein enjoys the benefits without embarrassing the EU by being a full member.
Though I’m not sure that being a tax haven works for the Isle of Man. Being known as a repository or conduit for dirty money wouldn’t do much for my self-esteem or for my pride in my homeland.
Reducing corporation tax, as is Ireland, might be more acceptable, but will still mean an economy over-dependent on fly-by-night multinationals that don’t like paying taxes in the countries where they make their biggest profits. Again, not something I’d be proud of.
Building up an indigenous skill base and encouraging Welsh entrepreneurs has to be the way forward for all sorts of reasons. And this is why we need to get the monkey of socialism of our backs and purge the Welsh body politic of the poison of dependency and statism.
Disregarding debates of the palatability of operating as tax havens, these microstates serve one important purpose for our aims – their existence pisses all over the notion of Wales being too small to stand on her own. Is it the colonised mindset, culture cringe, or just long-term assimilation of propaganda that causes these people to be so self-defeatist? I think a lot of them can’t conceive of a shared identity outside the bounds of a single unitary state, but again one has to but look to the continent to see that this is bollocks.
Of course corruption comes in many forms, tax avoidance and shell companies are just two forms of money laundering.
Recently we have seen the UK Housing Secretary over rule the local planning inspectorate in east London, and when found out use a ” nothing to see here guv, honest ” approach as a defence. Not to mention property developments from Ynys Mon to County Durham seemingly flouting planning regulations.
Previously we had the Grayling ferry contracts fiasco involving a company which owned no ferries.
And now another dubious, single bidder, contract award has come to light with a pest control company in deepest Sussex being awarded a contact to distribute PPE to Public Health England.
https://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:230683-2020:TEXT:EN:HTML.
Not sure what expertise Crisp Websites Limited – Pestfix, net assets £18,047 have when it comes to delivering PPE to the health sector ?
Some could argue that my previous comment, that Britain may be the most corrupt country on the face of the earth a slight exaggeration. Except, the things that come to light often turn out to be just the tip of the iceberg.
Surely we in Cymru have higher ambitions than remaining a part of this amoral, contemptible Union ?