I’M IN SEMI-RETIREMENT AND THIS BLOG IS WINDING DOWN. I INTEND CALLING IT A DAY SOON AFTER THIS YEAR’S SENEDD ELECTIONS. POSTINGS WILL NOW BE LESS FREQUENT AND I WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANY MAJOR NEW INVESTIGATIONS. DIOLCH YN FAWR.
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For this, another of my infrequent, pre-retirement postings, I’ll explain why I would vote to abolish the Senedd in a referendum offering the straight choice of to keep or to abolish.
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BACKGROUND
In a recent post, ‘Welsh independence: Why? for whom?’, I explained why, when a teenager, I became convinced that independence was the only answer for Wales. I wrote:
I wanted independence to improve the lives of the people I cared about: my family, my neighbours, my community, and my nation. I wanted independence to protect my country from neglect or exploitation, and to defend what made us Welsh.
Devolution is obviously not independence but still, judged against those criteria devolution has been an abysmal failure. For the only beneficiaries have been cliques, claques, and the assorted parasites of a vast and burdensome stratum smothering the nation.
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LET ME GIVE SOME EXAMPLES
While the greater part of Wales, and the nation, has seen no benefits, this constitutional tinkering must have brought some benefits, to someone, somewhere, otherwise it would be universally damned and consequently unsustainable.
So let’s try and identify some beneficiaries. I’ll use examples of us losing out and others benefitting at our expense. (You’ll soon get the hang of it.)
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THIRD SECTOR
The ‘stratum’ I referred to earlier is the third sector. Bigger than ever in Wales, and bigger in Wales than in any other country.
Wales is a rich country made poor by English rule, and the Labour Party has capitalised on our deprivation both for electoral gain – by blaming ‘London’ / Tories – and also by using that deprivation to create a whole new ‘poverty sector’ for its cronies.
Wales is now smothering under the weight of duplicating and competing third sector gangs, most of which seem to be staffed by strident memsahibs from over the border. Cohort after cohort of Common Purpose’ finest, goose-stepping from conference to workshop to those regular meetings in which they dictate policy and funding priorities to politicians.
This third sector is fundamentally and irredeemably parasitical. Preying on Wales’ deprivation in order to suck money from the public purse. A vast network of self-polishing turds who would not be missed if they ceased doing tomorrow whatever they claim to be doing today.
Both Labour and the third sector exploit and capitalise on Wales’ poverty and deprivation. If the money wasted on the third sector was spent in combatting that poverty and deprivation then Wales would be a much better place.
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ENVIROSHYSTERS
Perhaps to make us feel guilty for wanting decent jobs, decent homes, an acceptable road and rail system, etc., our gaze is directed away from such crass materialism to the altruistic, the selfless, in the form of saving the planet.
This crusade – for it is nothing less! – is done without providing jobs or any other material benefits to us Welsh. This national insult takes many forms.
Here’s a recent re-working of the theme.
Is this supposed to be a consolation prize for the Circuit of Wales? Or for more false hopes raised over the TVR car plant? (Which is not coming, by the way.)
Blaenau Gwent is the poorest part of the country. What it needs is decent jobs, housing, NHS dentists, etc., not bullshit publicity stunts from Corruption Bay.
We are told that “50 residents will be selected to create the first Climate Assembly in Wales”. I hope Gwent Police have the riot gear ready for the trouble that will surely erupt in Ebbw Vale and Tredegar as people fight over those 50 places.
Here’s the latest in the ‘Save the planet’ offensive: “I think if political parties are not putting addressing the climate and nature emergencies right at the top of their manifesto agenda then they will be letting down both the current and future generations in Wales,” says Sophie Howe, Labour apparatchik being paid £100,000 a year in a non-job created specially for her.
The message from our leaders is: ‘Wales may be the poorest country in Europe and getting poorer, but fuck that, cos we – on £100,000 a year – are saving the planet’.
I want to see a healthier nation living in a greener land making its contribution to a cleaner planet. But Wales has more immediate priorities. And it’s positively insulting for overpaid Labour Party nobodies to lecture those worrying about feeding their kids and paying their rent.
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UPDATE: As if on cue, Nation.Cymru published a piece by Neil Anderson, ‘How can we make the land of our fathers the land of our futures?’ In it we read: “Incoming farmers are likely to be more adventurous and innovative . . . “.
Yet more arrogant – almost racist – envirocolonialism. It seems Kiwi Anderson has been won over to Welsh independence. A reminder that the reason Greens and others are jumping on the indy bandwagon is because they want our land.
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GRANNY FARMERS
Wales has the oldest population in Europe and it’s getting older. An unwanted accolade achieved by a number of factors combining. The lack of a decent economy being one. The other is the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ going out of its way to attract elderly people to Wales.
This is done because, due to the lack of a balanced economy in rural areas and the regular exodus of young people that results, population levels need to be maintained; for nothing says ‘area going to hell’ more clearly than a falling population. How better to maintain population levels than by attracting retirees? (Actually, I can think of many better alternatives, but bear with me.)
No only does the ‘Welsh Government’ see no problem with our ageing population, it even tries to present it as something to be celebrated, as I discovered a few years ago in a reply to a Freedom of Information request.
An influx encouraged by the ‘Welsh Government’ legislating so that people entering care homes can keep £50,000 before they start paying for their care. The figure for England is £22,500.
Yet the ‘Welsh Government’ would like to go further, doing away with care home charges altogether by introducing a tax so that we actually pay for wealthy English biddies who’ve been dumped in Welsh care homes by relatives safeguarding their inheritances.
How difficult would it be to introduce a rule insisting that a person must have lived in Wales for 20 years prior to entering a care home before they can benefit from the £50,000 allowance?
Do that and Welsh people won’t lose out and we curb the plague of granny dumping.
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HOLIDAY HOMES
I recall, back in the 1980s, during the Meibion Glyndŵr campaign, politicians getting up on their hind legs to proclaim that they would not be influenced by ‘terrorists’. God! they sounded so brave and principled. It brought a tear to my eye.
Thirty years on from the end of that campaign, and after 22 years of devolution, nothing has been done beyond the ‘Welsh Government’ allowing councils to impose a 100% surcharge on holiday home council tax. But it has refused to close the loophole that sees holiday homes classed as businesses to escape council tax entirely.
Oh, I almost forgot, there is also a tiny and insignificant increase in Land Transaction Tax of one per cent per valuation band, introduced 22 December. Which is no deterrent at all to those who can buy a second, third, or fourth home.
In fact, the so-called ‘Welsh Government’ refuses to do anything that might save Welsh communities and allow Welsh people to buy a home in areas cursed with tourism. When pressed on the matter just yesterday by the impressive Delyth Jewell the woeful Julie James could only respond with a promise to . . . kick the issue into the long grass.
With the holiday homes problem at crisis levels due to Coronavirus, with Welsh communities being destroyed before our eyes, the fact that those useless bastards down Corruption Bay refuse to act should tell you all you need to know about devolution.
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NATIONAL LIBRARY OF WALES
In the past few days we’ve seen the outcry as the ‘Welsh Government’ decided it couldn’t fund the National Library of Wales.
Wales has a ‘government’ that can find money for every lunatic outfit under the sun but cannot find money for the memory of the nation!
Eventually, those clowns did find something down the back of the settee but only after an online petition and a public outcry.
But you have to wonder who made the initial decision not to fund.
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THE WAR ON FARMERS
Part of the problem lies in the fact that devolution is controlled by civil servants who may be based in Wales but take their orders from London. Civil servants such as Gary Haggaty, beau to Lesley Griffiths, the Labour MS for Wrecsam, and Minister for the Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs.
Last week, Gary and Lesley – despite promising to consult with farmers before doing anything – introduced legislation to deal with the localised problem of spillage (NVZ) into watercourses. Instead of tackling the guilty parties the lovebirds have imposed financial burdens on all farmers to ensure that they cannot in future do what they weren’t doing anyway.
I quote, again from yesterday’s ‘Senedd Live’:
“Plaid Cymru’s Llyr Gruffydd says the minister is on the record as saying that these Nitrate Vulnerable Zone regulations would not be introduced while the pandemic was in existence – no less than ten times.”
It was eleven times, and here’s the video evidence.
And many of these spillages have nothing to do with farmers. I am reliably informed that the testing done by Natural Resources Wales (yes, them!) cannot differentiate between farm slurry and raw sewerage from other sources.
And let’s remember that the biggest spillage ever occurred last year when a train transporting oil from Milford Haven derailed near Llanelli. No doubt, in a few years time, when people start forgetting about it, it will be blamed on farmers and used to introduce legislation even more burdensome.
This is just the latest assault in a war on Welsh farmers by the ‘Welsh Government’. Done because ‘Welsh’ Labour hates farmers, and also because there are others queuing up to take over Welsh land. Friends of Jane Davidson, ‘rewilders’, Tory MPs.
Significantly, in England, the NVZ legislation targets problem areas and culprits rather than penalising all farmers.
So, we see that under devolution Welsh farming is another area of our national life being targeted and damaged. And it could not have happened without devolution. Because if London had singled out Welsh farmers for such treatment there would have been rioting, and possibly worse.
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I could give plenty more examples where devolution has failed us. Here are just a few snapshots:
- There’s colonisation, resulting in the Welsh element in the population decreasing year on year. As a prominent citizen of a border town told me a few weeks back: “Some of the attitudes retired people come here have towards the locals are shocking, their sense of superiority is unbelievable.”
- Then there’s a crass and exploitative form of tourism that is destroying Welsh communities, especially Welsh-speaking communities.
- No other country on Earth has allowed One Planet Developments. Yet here in Wales hippies and enviroshysters are encouraged to take over land, flout planning and other regulations, bring up children in unsanitary and dangerous conditions, and then this colonisation is justified as part of OUR contribution to saving the planet.
- Under devolution we have seen Cardiff grow and prosper, largely at the expense of the rest of Wales.
- Wales produces twice as much electricity as we need and the rest goes to England free of charge, the same applies to our water resources, stolen by Severn Trent.
- The ‘Welsh Government’ pays some of our brightest young people to go to English universities and then makes no attempt to bring them home after graduation. While filling our universities with mediocrities from over the border who stay on to fill third sector and public sector jobs.
- Publicly-funded housing associations build ‘affordable’ homes that most locals can’t afford while neglecting the social rented sector for which there’s a local demand.
- Let’s not forget the shysters – so many of whom have appeared on this blog – who get showered with funding after turning up with their ‘exciting’, ‘job-creating’ projects meticulously outlined on the back of a fag packet.
- Then there’s the cess-pit that is Cardiff Bay, where those we elect to represent us rub shoulders daily with unregistered lobbyists and others trying to influence them – and almost always against the best interests of the nation.
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FINALLY, A VERY TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY EXAMPLE
This pretence of devolved power is a very thin veil behind which England’s interests are served. A great example was supplied to me last week by someone involved in matters technological which went a bit over my head, but I’m sure you’ll get the gist of it.
This source wrote:
” . . . dotCYM had no hope when Plaid Cymru was useless, Labour and the civil servants were working against it, and then Nominet came in with their money and used it to destroy them. The money from .cymru and .wales domains are now going to Oxford instead of Wales.”
The source continued:
“The Welsh government is clever in creating schemes to develop Welsh language technology and software. They come out with a new scheme with millions to develop Welsh software but there’s a maximum of about 30k per project, which isn’t enough to get anywhere or develop anything of use. Also, the money they give for research into Welsh language technology comes with the proviso that the research is then open sourced. What happens then is that large companies from outside Wales can take it, add it to their software as token Welsh support that doesn’t work well, and then sell it back to the Welsh”.
My source then explained to me what’s happening in New Zealand, where those working on a similar project for the Maori language successfully fought against their work becoming open source. The Maoris defended their stance thus:
“By simply open sourcing our data and knowledge, we further allow ourselves to be colonised digitally in the modern world.”
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THE TRUTH DAWNS
More and more people grasp that devolution is an unworkable nonsense, even if they don’t understand why. This explains the growing polarisation between those wanting to do away with the Senedd and those wanting independence.
When all devolution’s defenders can muster is, ‘But it’s recognition’, or ‘free bus passes’, then you know that even they have given up.
Successive ‘Welsh’ Assembly Governments and ‘Welsh Governments’ have not only failed to remedy the problems inherited in 1999 they have introduced new measures to work against the national interest.
This is not what I voted for in the September 1997 referendum. It’s no exaggeration to say that what we’ve experienced over the past 22 years is a form of anti-Welsh devolution.
Consequently, in a referendum offering the simple choice between keeping the Senedd or abolishing it I would vote to abolish, because abolition would be the best option for the greatest number of Welsh people.
But I still want independence.
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Yet again John Ball highlights the defective thought leadership that is prevalent within Plaid – open goal for parties with a more pragmatic and insightful approach – Gwlad and WNP ?
https://nation.cymru/opinion/plaid-cymru-needs-to-forget-the-gimmicks-and-present-realistic-economic-polices/
Plaid’s promotion of wishful thinking politics dressed up as ambition is a big deception.
Where John is wrong is in saying that after May’s elections Plaid Cymru will be in opposition. It will be in coalition.
Labour could have a working majority, or team up with 1 or 2 Lib Dems and ignore Plaid’s wailing and gnashing of teeth ! That is a dark prospect but the prospect of Plaid teaming up with Labour is no better. Nightmares all round !
Labour will definitely not have a working majority and the Lib Dems could be wiped out. It will be a Labour-Plaid Cymru coalition and both parties are preparing for it.
Plaid are already cosying up for a coalition. Proof is glaring over the past weeks where in any Welsh news items involving an interview with a Plaid Cymru Politician it is blatant by their lack of criticism in any form against Welsh Labour. So it simply means a vote for Plaid is to become a vote for Welsh Labour. So why vote Plaid in the next Assembly elections? If Welsh Labour need a Coalition, Plaid will negotiate a Cabinet seat and a little bit of selected Policy on issues concerning their Tokenism and Gesturing and Green items that coincide with Lesley Griffiths’ future vision for rural Wales. It is likely their one Cabinet seat will go to a Plaid woman and Adam Price, once side stepped, will go on to do lecture tours and leave Cardiff Bay. Hopefully Plaid could negotiate one good thing – getting rid of Lord Dafydd Elis Thomas from the Welsh political scene altogether. Electors might as well vote Welsh Labour or be bold and vote for Gwlad or McEvoy’s WNP.
That is a huge piece of pessimism which outdoes even my darkest prognosis. That Plaid is a lame duck is amply evident but reducing themselves to a single seat in a dud Coalition is utterly lacking in any self respect, absolutely shameful. However I suspect you have got it just right, so a vote for Gwlad or WNP is essential to show that the nation still has a beating heart.
Unfortunately McEvoy is a one man self publicist shoutung so loud at everyone abd everything, nobody is listening anymore. He also keeps calling the race card, which is hilarious considering my granny’s family from Llanpumpsaint were blacker than him. Gwlad have no hope. Plaid are pooches obsessed with woke issues rather than the real ones.
Steelmaking without Carbon emissions is the latest policy idea from The Wales Senedd Government. This would have a devastating effect on the Port Talbot Steel works. Let’s examine a few FACTS. As we know, what we call steel is a near pure form of the metal iron with discrete small additions of other elements added in precise small quantities to determine its strength and ductility according to performance needs. It may also be thinly coated with other metals or materials according to use. What we call iron is generally an impure form of iron – don’t let this confuse you.
Steel making is overwhelmingly done worldwide and historically by using the simple chemical reduction process of heating iron ore (iron oxide) with carbon (coke / coal). Here it is simply as with atomic and molecular mass below :-
2Fe2O3 + 3C = 4Fe + 3CO2
Balances as (2 X 56 X 2 + 16 X 3 X 2) + (3 X 12) = (4 X 56) + (3X12 + 16 X 3 x 2)
So for every 224 Tonne of Iron / Steel produced a Blast Furnace also produces 132 Tonnes of Carbon Dioxide – this is a Ratio of 1.7 to 1.
Port Talbot Steel Works currently operates two huge Blast Furnaces (No.4&5) with a max capacity of 92,000 Tonnes a week – generally about 75,000 Tonnes average per week [but at the time of writing (early 2021) they are producing just over 60,000 Tonnes weekly due to a Covid induced slump in the economy].
Let’s take the normal weekly average of 75,000 Tonnes a week of Iron / Steel that by a ratio of 1.7 to 1 will produce a weekly output of 44,200 Tonnes of Carbon Dioxide or nearly 2,300,000 Tonnes a year of Carbon Dioxide. The non scientific Politicians offer a few ideas of (a) Capturing it and pumping it down into old local coal mines or (b) exporting it to pump down old Oil Wells or (c) liquidation of it from the heat of 1,500 Degrees plus Centigrade to minus 60 Degrees and pumping it out into the Bristol Channel to form freezing carbonic acid or (d) bubbling it through Caustic Soda baths to scrub and capture it as a solid Carbonate. I’ve heard all of these nonsensical ideas. The only nonsense they’ve not suggested yet is to send it up in a rocket to the moon. We are talking here of over two million tonnes a year of Carbon Dioxide gas not a capsule full! They then say ‘use Electric Arc Furnaces’ EAF not realising the vast amount of electricity needed and capacity issues and most importantly that generally EAF is used mostly to recycle scrap iron and steel not to make steel. One other mad option offered is a “Hybrit” version of mass usage of Hydrogen gas instead of Coke to reduce iron oxide at extreme high temperatures. Sourcing Hydrogen produced from Renewable Energy (Wind & Solar) via the mass electrolysis of water. The vital thing here is for Central Government and the Steel Unions and the people of the Port Talbot region to tell the Welsh Senedd Government to back off now “Do not meddle with the Steelworks!”. The trouble is the Wales Senedd wants to offer Wales as a sacrificial lamb to be the ‘top world leader’ in Carbon emissions cuts ‘saving the planet’ when we only produce a tiny 0.04% of world global emissions. Remember there could be a Senedd election in May.
Reject their Zero Jobs & One Planets & Rewilding & Alternative Green Crap.
There are linear coke ovens at Port Talbot which converts coking coal to coke which is used in the charge to the blast furnaces. In a letter dated 29th January 2021 from Lord Deben the Chairman of the Climate Change Committee at Westminster to Robert Jenrick MP the Secretary of State for planning in England we see the statement.
“The decision to award planning permission to 2049 will commit the UK to emissions from coking coal, for which there may be no domestic use after 2035.”
https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/letter-deep-coal-mining-in-the-uk/
The UK government, in its argument against the planning consent of a coal mine in Cumbria makes the assumption that Port Talbot steelworks along with its plating works at Trostre will close in the near future. The Welsh Government know this, but are hiding it.
And do they give a fuck ? As long as those City boys are given a free rein to fill their boots the Westminster government will be quite relaxed. No intention whatsoever of enabling the entire (UK) country to benefit from their so-called progress. Good reason to secede. Does anyone need any more ? Flowery rhetoric about “do good” fantasies will not deliver the goods either.
Just noticed your tweet linking to the Unherd article about the growing crisis in California. It reminds me of a time when I was spending a few weeks in Colorado back in 2000, mostly out in the Rockies and a few days spent in places like Denver, Colorado Springs, Boulder on the east facing edge of the mountains looking out over the range. I happened to chat to a man who had migrated from Colorado and even then he was emphatic that the West Coast was turning bad, that much of the East Coast held no appeal but the land running down from Montana to New Mexico was becoming the last bit of quality living space in the country. Of course much has changed in 20 odd years but I guess that it’s not that unexpected that California has soured badly. The new world of tech digital and financial engineering has polarised society not harmonized it.
The lines that hammer the message home quite starkly are worth repeating – ……..”this is all at a time when we are starting to see the unravelling of the precise policies on social justice, climate and taxes that are widely viewed among progressives as role models for the future. These policies have not brought about greater racial harmony, enhanced upward mobility and widely based economic growth. They are not even exemplars in reducing climate change, but, at best, shift the burden of saving Gaia onto the working class while their jobs and resources generate wealth elsewhere.”
I think the lessons from all this are too complex for our isolated insular set of dummies down the Bay to heed. That something that was quite elegant in theory and early practice could turn out quite so sour is best ignored when your agenda is more important than its likely outcome.
Even Adam Price seems to be waking up to the fact that all the gesturing about saving the planet has resulted in zero jobs, exploitation, higher bills, and poorer people. Only those making the gestures can afford the consequences, in California and in Wales.
That, I suppose, is a little bit of progress. He is yet to acknowledge that the obsessive affection for wind power has contributed greatly to the destruction of ecosystems across Wales. The irony that a green “solution” is impoverishing communities in the South Wales Valleys and elsewhere, rendering homes uninhabitable, is yet to be acknowledged as his target demographic still hails those turbines as the ultimate salvation of mankind. When it is decided to park massive turbines smack in the middle of high density urban zones well away from the truly green countryside I may listen to what these clowns preach.
In Sweden there are specific grants and tax relief for companies who do renewable energy as long as the firm is domiciled in Sweden. There is a scheme operated by Tillväxtverket, the body that covers economic growth, a bit like what the WDA used to do, and also Vinnova, the innovation agency, which is specific to R&D and directly funds technician apprentices through the payroll mechanism for Swedish nationals.
https://tillvaxtverket.se/
and
https://www.vinnova.se/
It is for this reason any enterprise domiciled in Wales does not stand a chance of owning and developing renewable energy projects, a competitive disadvantage and probably a reason why Vattenfall is the leading company in this sector in Wales. The UK government sees this as inward investment but for Wales that equates to extraction of returns and skills. It is not a new design of expropriation; the British with the East India Company, a colonial entity that operated in the same way, invented it.
Devolution allows this to take place.
Only independence or absorption can remove it.
I didn’t vote in the 1997 referendum on devolution because by then I was ineligible to vote in Wales.
I had long since left, both Wales and the United Kingdom. I did, however, vote YES, in the referendum on Sweden joining the European Union, having obtained a work and residency permit there, three years previously. It’s an important experience because it was an independent nation state, post colonial and as such Sweden negotiated its entry criteria according to the needs of its citizens. The entry agreement included opt-outs, which included stuff like a referendum on joining the Euro, which took place later and was rejected.
One thing that became blindingly obvious to me decades before such matters came to the fore in the UK is that the EU is a club of settled constitutional nation states. It is incomprehensible for EU entry or EU remain to be workable prior to independence of the counties that used to make up the Scandinavian club. The idea that Sweden of greater population could drag, for example, Norway into, or Denmark out of EU membership and decide by proxy governance of former colonies would be bizarre. But that was exactly the situation to be later experienced with Scotland and Wales in the UK referendum on Brexit.
Upon returning to Wales I joined Plaid Cymru and the benefit of my experience was shunned on this matter. By this time Wales had devolved capabilities in limited areas of governance, Plaid Cymru the main political party standing for independence in Wales was doing the bidding for England, whether it was on issues such as environment, agriculture, or social policy. Most stark was the issue of self-determination. The EU concept is quite clear, all treaties protect the sovereignty of member states, and in the case of Wales this would have meant the United Kingdom. It’s exactly the situation Catalonia found itself in.
The reality is that devolution in Wales has resulted in the strengthening of the United Kingdom. This is what the British national parties planned for. Nationalists who are still members of Plaid Cymru appear to think that somehow a devolved Wales can just vote it’s way out of servitude, even better if it could masquerade as a constitutional add-on in the EU. It is nonsense. When I read Jac’s blog at the time, in support of Brexit, it made perfect sense. The question arises now, is whether the devolution settlement is a route to independence. The answer is no. This is most starkly seen in the way in which Scotland is being treated by the UK government. If they don’t like the predicted result, they just won’t allow a referendum. Should a nationalist party get a majority in Wales the same situation would arise.
However, should an unofficial referendum take place and in favour, the UK government would be forced to attempt to close down the devolved parliament. That is a route to independence, so it’s important not to see devolution as a sacred cow, but meanly a convenient instrument to be used accordingly. It’s just a fettered form of expression. What is the UK government going to do? Send the troops in? It didn’t work in Ireland. Go to Brussels? That is no longer an option. In fact the EU are more likely to back democratic primacy in a non-member country on its borders., like Slovenia, Croatia, and the Baltic states.
This is what will decide my vote in May, and why it will no longer be automatically for Plaid Cymru. It could be another Welsh national party, or used as a tactical disruptive instrument. Sorry for the long comment.
No need to apologise, Brychan, your insights are always welcome.
You’re absolutely right about devolution; from London’s point of view it’s the end of the line. Which was the intention all along. It can only be a stepping-stone to independence in a situation such as we see in Scotland, where a powerful national movement, with majority support, can force the issue, organise its own referendum and then say to London – ‘What are you going to do about it?’
Certainly, the UK government allowed the referendum in 2014, but when that referendum was called everyone expected a huge majority for No. London will not allow another Scottish referendum because it knows Scotland would vote Yes. The same would apply in Wales. That’s why Plaid Cymru is so stupid to promise a referendum in its first term. Thankfully, Plaid will not win the election. But if there’s a coalition with Labour – the likely outcome – then Labour would probably agree to a referendum . . . and work for a No vote.
Turning to the EU, Plaid Cymru’s position now, and in 2016, is indefensible. And yet, Plaid’s fascination goes back a long, long way. I remember being in Machynlleth, maybe 30-odd years ago, to watch and heckle a march led by Dafydd Elis Thomas promoting ‘Europe of the Regions’. This is what Plaid Cymru was calling for back then, a sub-national level within the EU that recognised ‘submerged nations and historic regions’. Everything from Bavaria to the Basque Country and Frisia to Friulia. But it was not independence.
In 2016 Plaid wanted us to stay in the EU, pretending to believe that that was somehow a route to independence. Even though the example of Catalonia was staring them in the face!
My belief is that Plaid Cymru does not want independence. A referendum with a resounding No would suit that agenda. After Scottish independence Wales would be given more money and more powers and that would suit those Plaid Cymru represents. As I’ve always argued – the benefits of prestige and sinecures without the responsibility of having to alienate the electorate by raising your own money. (And they could still blame ‘London’.) An arrangement under which our parasite class could virtue signal to their heart’s content.
Then Plaid could return to ‘Europe of the Regions’. Another level of government in Brussels or Strasbourg offering yet more cushy numbers. And following the fright of Scottish – and possibly Catalan – independence the ‘nation states’ of the EU would be far more ready to recognise the ‘submerged nations and historic regions’.
Once again ART Davies gets his entry in early for “Dopey Twat of the week” .
This time he says – “……that Wales should follow England’s approach to Covid-19 because most people in Wales read London-based media. Writing in the Sunday Times he said …….” going on at length to churn out a column of drivel. Tories trying hard not to get elected to Y Senedd. No wonder so many of them want to rub it out as a further step to complete the assimilation process. As for media well almost all of it is London driven anyway and maybe that is 90% of the problem. People reading lies churned out by corporate rags with an agenda, one that is supported in full by majority of Welsh Tories.
Come on “OPPOSITION TO WELSH LABOUR” stop being silent and timid. Clamour and demand for this prat’s dismissal and resignation :-
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/lee-waters-llanelli-lockdown-trips-19786313
Fair play to Lesley and her servants ( and stud) we do have a slurry pollution problem here in Wales and the stink it emits along with its toxicity. However it has not been correctly identified. Most of it flows from that place known as Y Senedd where the stink of corruption and complacency is close to blowing the roof off the place. Unlike many on here I do not yet subscribe to the argument that its closure is a solution. Instead at the next opportunity kick the duplicious bastards out and replace them with well motivated representatives of the people. If that doesn’t happen then by all means close it down on the grounds of pollution.
Do any of you remember a political commentator in Swansea called Jack Harris? I am not referring to Jac Harris of Clydach, who was a very capable Plaid Cymru activist and candidate and an academic metallurgist, I am referring to Jack Harris the Consultant Electrical Engineer. Both have sadly passed away. Both were patriotic giants for Wales in their own ways. I want to refer you to Jack the Electrical Engineer. He was a native of the strongly working class Hafod area of Swansea. He went to Grammar School and left to join the Steel Company of Wales at their Apprentice School at the then new Velindre (sic) Tinplate Works. As it was a new plant it had the most modern control systems of its day with Electronics and very early Computers.
Jack completed his Trade Apprenticeship “on the tools” and then entered Swansea University and won a Bsc 1st and an MSC in Electrical Engineering and Electronics. He then embarked on a major career designing control systems of the new Power Stations that were then being built in the UK, both Nuclear and Fossil Fuelled and early Renewables and Power storage systems. He later set up his own Consultancy Business and designed some major new Power Stations systems.
He was also a “prominent freelance patriotic political commentator” and frequently wrote in newspapers and spoke on radio programmes on a whole range of topics apart from being an ardent Swans Football supporter. In my own younger days I knew both – Jac and Jack – as older wise friendly Welsh patriots. So why am I telling you this? The reason is that Jack (the elecric wizard), as a highly educated man of great intellect and business consultancy knowledge and experience, wanted to stand in the first ever Wales Assembly election. He approached the Labour Party and was rebuffed. Labour were then selecting their candidates who mostly turned out to be lowly time serving Labour Councillors with no particular skills or CV or career behind them. Jack then stood as an Independent and got crushed by the Labour Donkey vote.
This was the useless sort of root system that gave birth to the Wales Assembly – stale Labour time servers without spark or vision or patriotism. Look at Labour from 1999 up to 2021, the ruling Labour Party Group has been full of tired old non entities from former Councillors to Third Sector hangers on. They rejected exciting people like Jack Harris. A Jack Harris (and also the other Jac Harris) are the sorts of candidates the Senedd needs this year but they will not emerge from the Labour ranks.This is probably the last chance to save Wales from Welsh Labour and their little butties in the wokist Plaid Cymru of today.
Interesting account above of how the Labour machine rejected people of the intellect and great experience like Jack Harris and chose, and still choose, such a motely crew as the Welsh Labour Group in the Senedd to run down Wales. Another prominent Welsh man they publicly rebuffed, as a would be Labour Candidate for the Senedd, was no other than Tyrone O’Sullivan. He led the group of Miners’ Union members who saved Tower Colliery and ran it as a successful business for years until the coal reserves ran out. Compare Tyrone to the nonentities in the Senedd now. The next Senedd Election (this May??) is Wales’ last chance and last grasp for survival. If Welsh Labour win we will cease to exist as a nation and become an English sub region, and don’t forget – a vote for Plaid Cymru this time is a vote for a most probable Labour led coalition with the Wokists. Vote for a new Party like Gwlad or Propel!
I agree with all of your sentiments, just not your final conclusion. We have to get rid of the ‘Welsh’ Labour government together with its puppets, cronies and hangers-on. Not the Senedd itself.
I long for the day when Gordon Brown rides to our rescue wrapped in a Union Rag……Ok I am lying.
There is only one solution – independence. Nothing else will do.
Perhaps I would rather not vote to abolish, but to be consistent, and going on the record of devolution, I believe that abolishing the Senedd would bring benefits to more people, and to more areas, than devolution has. I think it would be difficult to argue against that simply because devolution has been a disaster.
Even if Labour was no longer in power, that would still leave the problem of the civil servants. And as a few have pointed out, if Plaid was the alternative then far too many in Plaid are just as cosy with the third sector, Deryn, and other denizens of the slime pit. So things would carry on much as before.
We agree that independence is the only answer.
I would have added tourism to your list of subjects to go on the naughty step, Jac. But, lo! Cyngor Gwynedd seem at last to be responding to public anger over unsustainable tourism in the county, if Nation.Cymru today is anything to go by. As I hoped, this looks like being an electoral issue in that part of the country. They’ve probably had complaints galore in their in-box, and they’ve been rattled by defections to the WNP over the issue. I reckon this is a problem that the councils could solve without waiting for the WAG to strap on a pair.
Actually, tourism is mentioned: “Then there’s a crass and exploitative form of tourism that is destroying Welsh communities, especially Welsh-speaking communities”. Though it’s not just Gwynedd finally moving, Ceredigion is also taking action. But if they’ve had these powers all along then why haven’t they used them?
Local authorities are moving on the tourism issue, allegedly. I’ll believe it when I see it. Until then stay on their cases cos these people are shit hot at wriggling out of their commitments couching them in very elastic terms so that their spirit and intention get left well behind when it comes to that nasty doing bit. .
I have some sympathies for argument laid out here. (I would only take issue on the notion that open source software would mean control and exploitation by various entities. Quite the contrary. BTW, I’m writing this comment on a open-source Linux computer with a open-source Welsh language Desktop.)
The failings of the Welsh Assembly are well laid out in this article and its hard to disagree. But I would not blame the institution itself but rather the people running it – or more specifically the political parties running it.
The problem is political parties running the show – all of them. I have written about it here: https://wethepeople.wales/why-political-parties-are-part-of-the-problem/ (It a short read, to the point).
I don’t know what a democratic Welsh State would be like, but I’d be willing to take the chance. The current choice between being run by ‘Corruption Bay’ or ‘Westmonster’ is like having to decide which poison you like to take.
My hope these days is that the destructive lockdown fiasco will expose the rot at the top and impel people to demand their sovereignty returned, not just in Wales but throughout the British Isles. One can only hope in these dark days.
Jac, regarding your section “War on Farmers”. I recently directed a FOI request to NRW to establish the location of Storm Water Overflows discharging to watercourses in Wales. I received the response copied below. The link jumps to a national database [excel spreadsheet]. The information may be helpful to some of your readers. Hope the link works.
Dear Mr *******,
Thank you for your email enquiry which has been passed to us by our Access to Information Team. The data you specifically seek, falls under the RPSI Regulations, (the re-use of Public Sector information).
Furthermore, you will be pleased to know that the Consented Discharges to Controlled Waters with Conditions dataset and is classed as ‘Open Data’ under the terms of our conditional licence and the data format is Excel Spreadsheet.
The dataset provide details of permit details as required under the Environmental Permit Regulations. Information is held for all permit holders and covers all substances that are controlled. The data comes from Natural Resources Wales public Register. The data set contains 3 tiers of information:
Tier 1 – Site and General
Information relating to the permit operator, discharge address and type. The date of permit issue, effective and revocation. Information where the effluent enters the environment (such as river, coastal, groundwater) for each permit.
Tier 2 – Outlet and release
Data on the effluent type e.g. Sewage effluent, Storm Overflow, Trade. The location is supplied for the effluent and the outlet in OS Nation Grid Reference format. Further detail is provided on the permit type and treatment type.
Tier 3 – Determinand /release detail Limits
Further detail is provided on the amount that can be discharged and in which time period in months. Release details/determinands are the substances and numerical limits that make up the effluent. This could include chemical, biological, and physical limits. The permitted limits are included for each determinand /release detail. Data is provided for each effluent and may contain one or more determinands depending on the complexity of the discharge.
You will find the data available on this link – http://lle.gov.wales/catalogue/item/ConsentedDischargesToControlledWatersWithConditions/?lang=en
Conditional licence – https://naturalresourceswales.sharefile.eu/share/view/sd24d88f87204eb88
Attribution statement – Contains Natural Resources Wales information © Natural Resources Wales and Database Right. All rights Reserved.
Of additional use may be the Welsh Government’s Lle portal http://lle.gov.wales/home?lang=en which hosts hundreds of datasets that either we or our partners hold and of which, you can access data directly, in most circumstances.
I trust this is of use to you.
The more information that comes to light the more likely it seems that farmers may be easy scapegoats for the actions of others. Especially when those pointing the finger have a history of working against farmers over recent years.
Your tweet column drew my attention to some arrogant “know all” writing in nation.cymru that farming in Wales and ownership of land could be done “so much better” if he and like minded colonists were allowed to take over. Among other bullshit try this for size :
“First, I propose the nationalisation of all non-public land in Cymru on titles covering more than 1 hectare, with an exemption of 1ha plots around any habitable dwellings on each. The status of the 1ha plots would be designed to guarantee lifelong occupation by the present owners if they wished. Existing leaseholds would be phased out.”
Well maybe we should instead nationalise all those holiday homes and dole them out to deserving cases – young and older local people brutally excluded from their local property markets by arrogant turds like the guy who wrote that article.
Annwyl Jac
I’ll be sad to see the end of your excellent work.
In almost all ways I entirely agree with your analysis of the problems not just facing us as a nation, but those many problems being foisted upon us by an incompetent and indeed increasingly irrelevant Senedd.
I worked very hard in 1997 to ensure success yet as time has gone on I have wondered more than once whether the effort was worthwhile; indeed knowing what I know now I think I might have worked for a “no..”
I started this note by saying that I agree with almost all that you have said. Let me expand. Much – no most – of the blame (for blame it is) lies with Plaid Cymru which has failed Wales at every turn both as a “nationalist” party and a parliamentary force .The Merioneth Marxist started the rot, cuddling up to any odd absurd left cause; Wigley’s infamous statement that the party had never believed in independence (which incidentally drove out the core of hard working members in Swansea); then the useless IWJ followed by Leanne Wood’s desire to drag us screaming into a nineteenth century socialist paradise and then the hapless Adam Price.
And I wonder if Price’s sudden enthusiasm for independence is as a result of growing movements elsewhere?
Price talks of a Plaid government – apart from wondering what he’s on these days, I shake with terror at the prospect – yet becomes starry eyed about list candidates without it seems realising that without constituency success this can’t lead to anything more than a few victories and a nice cosy bed with labour.
Fundamentally, Plaid Cymru is in opposition in the Senedd and the task of opposition to oppose, question, investigate and scrutinise government action: it does none of this.
There is another, deeper issue with the Senedd and not just the cosiness of the politicians. Parliamentary democracy relies on a neutral, independent civil service free of political influence.. It may well be that the Environment Minister is madly, deeply in love with her civil servant beau, but that questions both her judgement and his independence; for any civil servant to be seen scoffing with a minister and the Presiding Officer (perhaps the most important elected member) is totally unacceptable; and yet illustrates the amateurish, cosiness of our “Parliament.”
What we can both see, John, goes way beyond cosiness to outright corruption.
Labour and Plaid Cymru will do some gentle sparring in the run-up to the election but it’s all for show. They are permanently in bed together, they socialise, they go to each other’s weddings and other events. (I have photographs.) But it’s only Labour, Plaid Cymru . . . plus Deryn, and third sector harridans.
And it’s almost always women. I was given one photograph of a dozen or so Corruption Bay women at a dinner, with some prominent figures among them. In the back I could see two men. When I queried this I was told, “They’re both Gay”. Presumably ‘non-threatening’.
My prayer is that Labour and Plaid Cymru can’t total 30 seats in the next election. Another term of their incestuous incompetence could be the end of Wales. Not for the first time in our history, Wales’ best hope lies in Yr Hen Ogledd.
Does Jason Evans live in a closet wearing blinkers in a remote mountain grotto? Can someone lend him a torch so he can see the light and then give him a car ride, after lock down ends, to tour some of the large depressed areas of Wales. As for Mel Morgan – what the heck are you mumbling about? I can’t be bothered to pick up a dictionary. Are you a failed philosophy / politics student from some third rate college the English side of Offa’s Dyke? Get real and talk Welsh or English and maybe someone will under stand your dirge. Jac is raising serious issues here by brilliant expose examples. The highlight of my week has been the return of this BLOG. The low point was watching a stupid mega little prat from Bangor cheating honest real people out of money on the S4C TV show “Am Dro” which is the level of crap we are fed on inspired by the cheats in Cardiff Bay who make cheating an accepted way of life here in Wales condoned by S4C TV.
Hey Twp, I live in one of the more deprived areas of Wales, how about you pulling you head out of your arse and face reality. We have always been shafted by the union.
If you truly think abolishing the Senedd is the way to Independence and furthering the Welsh cause, one of 3 things apply, either twp by name twp by nature, you’re an english nationalist in Wales or you’re a liar hiding behind a pseudonym.
Its because of an inability to engage with the people and find out how to break the hold of the unionist Labour government the ridiculous conclusion that the best way forward is to go backwards has arisen. Do you really think that Wales will be better off under continuous english governments.
Wastemonster never has and never will represent Y Cymry. You moan about the Senedd yet think direct rule will have a positive effect, don’t be so stupid, we would beyond a shadow of doubt be worse off.
Devolution isn’t the problem and could never be, in this situation, it’s the party at the reins.
How about you getting out your cosy little world, put your daps on and walk the street, find out what Y Cymry want and find a way of doing something to change the WELSH government.
Beth bynnag mae’n cymryd
Ultimately there is one answer and one answer only
ANNIBYNIAETH I GYMRU
We agree on independence. But I wrote about devolution, so defend it.
I don’t have to defend devolution, I ultimately want Independence. I agree that huge change is needed in corruption bay, I also agree that Plaid are not an opposition party and this needs to be exposed to my fellow indy supporters but to abolish the Senedd is ridiculous, you really think that our country will be better off with direct rule from WM, the problems you highlight with the cosiness of individuals in the Senedd, the corruption and the cronyism that occurs is just magnified a hundred fold in WM. We would be worse off, no doubt in my opinion, a region of england, what a humiliation
I would much rather fight to keep the Senedd work with people of all Welsh political persuasions to reach out, engage and work for change rather than abolish.
I have concluded that rule from Westminster would be better for more Welsh people and for more areas of the country than rule from Corruption Bay. For a number of reasons. Here are some:
Westminster would be less likely to concentrate investment in Cardiff.
Westminster would have no need to support a vast third sector of Labour cronies.
Westminster would not target Welsh farmers and would certainly not have introduced OPDs.
Jac, so how do you propose we get Independence while being even further absorbed by the english state. Now withh even less MP’s from Wales, where will our voice come from, who will be able to espouse the cause for independence.
In your scenario with no Senedd, less representation, how do you propose we extract ourselves from what will be the english state ?
I am not advocating assimilation into England, but it is happening because devolution is just a smokescreen. I would rather not face the choice between keeping the Senedd and abolishing in it, but in that hypothetical situation I would, in all honesty, have to vote for what I believed would be of greater benefit to the Welsh people. Don’t blame me for that, blame those who have wasted the opportunity of devolution and the past 22 years.
And for God’s sake don’t get worked up by the number of Welsh MPs in Westminster.
You know what, it occurs to me that we haven’t mentioned Plaid Cymru. If Plaid was the party it thinks it is, the party it wants us to believe it is, the Welsh equivalent of the SNP, we wouldn’t be having this discussion, because I wouldn’t have had to write that article.
Agreed, Plaid Cymru are masquerading as a party of Independence and I do not like their jumping on the Independence wagon not only that I do worry YesCymru supporters are ostracizing those who differ politically from their left leaning views.
Anyway Jac forgetting my original comment it a great shame you’re winding this blog down, don’t get me wrong there is plenty I disagree with you on, today I actual bit, but I do find myself agreeing quite a lot and most importantly I always enjoy reading your work.
Hey Jason Evans – why not exchange names. I’m fed up with being called Mr Twp but it would fit you. I’d like to be a simple anonymous Mr Evans living in a dark grotto. Can’t you see how this present Senedd is destroying Wales especially with their blood sucking vampires and leeches in the Third Sector – all jobs for the Boys and Gals and the Inbetweeners attached to Labour and Plaid Cymru. Then we see how they really want to destroy Welsh Farming (with it the Welsh Language) – this is from Labour and the Greens.You are probably too immature to remember the phrase “The last quango in Powys” a mimic of a very false Rhodri Morgan Labour pledge washed down with “clear red water” ! Anyway let’s get back on track and campaign for the election in May if it is not postponed. Vote Gwlad and Propel . Jac is spot on with this Blog Posting!
Twp, you left out na, na, nuh, na, na. You’re losing it ain’t you. What’s the point of you voting for Gwlad or Propel/WNP you want to get rid of the Senedd, surprised you don’t cast your vote for Abolish surely that’s where your heart lies and then let’s see how our language suffers.
As for farmers and the language the vast majority of my younger family members speak Cymraeg, not a farmer in sight, I think we can thank the Senedd for that. Unfortunately I was denied this during my formative years and so have had to learn the language of my ancestors, this can be laid squarely at the feet of Westminster and nowhere else and you think our language would be safe. I’m thinking of adding emojis so you’d find it easier to understand my emotion
I Jason na,na, nuh, na, na, – Gofyn i “RHAG” (Rhieni dros Addysg Gymraeg) – pwy oedd yn gyfrifol am geisio lladd yr iaith Gymraeg? Y dihirod oedd Cynghorwyr Sir y Blaid Lafur yng Nghymru y ‘ ryn bobl nawr
sydd yn y Blaid Lafur – gyfeillion gorau Plaid Cymru – sydd yn y Senedd nawr – nid y Saeson yn “Westminster”! Get your DicSionHarry out now!
Cont twpsyn, does dim rhaid i mi gael Geiriadur fi allan, rydw i’n dysgu Cymraeg a mynd ymlaen yn eitha dda diolch. Taset ti’n gallu darllen byddet ti’n sylwi nad undebwr ydw i ond cefnogwr ymroddedig o annibyniaeth. Chi yw’r bachgen sy’n byw celwydd, siaradwr cymraeg sy’n defnyddio iaith ni fel arf yn erbyn rhywun sydd o’i blaid hi yn un o ardaloedd mwya seisigedig Cymru. Fel dwedais i, twp yw’r enw a twp yw’r natur a dim ond un Dic Sion Dafydd sydd yma a dyna ti coc oen!
Croeso yn ol Jac. The waiting for these packs of clarity and insightful comment is hard when we are surrounded by feeble compliant time servers displaying a competitive anxiety about who can grovel the lowest when addressing our colonial masters and superiors. Forelock tuggers gushing drivel about why we can’t do this, can’t do that, economy won’t balance. Well fuck me, Rishi operates without any visible constraints. He has cut loose with issuing additional currency mostly in the form of credits because the nation (UK) is in a major crisis. Well Wales has another crisis too, well summarised in Jac’s script above in a long but not exhaustive list of things that are wrong here in Wales. A crisis that has escalated over the last 20 years although its foundations date from way further back. A crisis which is being perpetuated deliberately and cynically by Labour and their collaborators as part of their perverse self preservation antics ( calling it a strategy raises it to a level which it doesn’t deserve)
If we are allowed a vote in 2021 it will be final acid test of whether there is any backbone left in this nation of ours. Surrendering to another term of Labour government, possibly aided by other shallow compliant types will be a powerful indicator that the assimilation agenda is coasting towards its end game. Important therefore to make sure that Gwlad and McEvoy’s WNP get max support to leave these perverts in no doubt that there is still a strong current of thought in Wales that sees long term solutions to our predicament based on a shift away from dependency tools.
Analogies with obscure Russian sects serve no purpose. Russia did right to turf out its ruling elites in 1917. Sadly it buggered everything up afterwards. That’s maybe where a few lessons can be learned but I think the experience of the small Baltic states since the fall of the Soviets is more relevant to our cause.
“A crisis that has escalated over the last 20 years although its foundations date from way further back”, you say. That’s the point I was making. As I said in the piece: “Successive ‘Welsh’ Assembly Governments and ‘Welsh Governments’ have not only failed to remedy the problems inherited in 1999 they have introduced new measures to work against the national interest.”
It wouldn’t have seemed possible in 1999, but devolution has actually made things worse.
Great piece Jac !
Well structured,factual ,good read.
Great aide memoire for the forthcoming elections 👍
I think this article is absolutely nuts. You say you want Welsh Independence yet your aim now is to tie us even further into the english state, you have become an english nationalist in Wales. To say that devolution isn’t working is not good enough, further integration is really going to make Wales a better place isn’t it.
Maybe the problem is the strength and fight you had in you in your younger days has totally dissipated and now you have become too weak so instead of trying to fight you have capitulated.
The problem, I also believe, is your inability along with the other of your mindset to adapt and find a new way of reaching out to the people of Wales, how to steer us away from a Unionist Labour Government which has done nothing to improve our lot, so due to your lack of an alternative you want to cut our throat make turn our COUNTRY into a region of England, and you say you want the best for us, don’t make me laugh.
Enjoy your comfortable retirement and leave the fight to those of us who still have it.
Diolch yn fawr iawn
Jason Evans
Jason, look around you, the integration is already happening. Wales is becoming a region of England – and devolution is helping the process because it’s just a shield behind which England continues exploiting and colonising us, while encouraging people to think, ‘Oh, things must be better because we’ve got a Welsh Parliament’.
It’s all superficial, nothing but show. Like signs in Welsh to villages that are entirely English, but thirty years ago were Welsh. Where has devolution been while this happened?
This is the impeccable logic of *pecca fortiter* whereby salvation is brought all the closer by striving to distance oneself from it. This was the lodestar of the Russian Khlysti sect, whose most well-known adherent was Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin.
[Memo to self: if claim to Throne of All the Russias succeeds, do *not* allow spouse to appoint Jac O’ the North as spiritual adviser.]
For a start, let’s stop being silly, for I have a superior claim to the Throne of All the Russias.
Wales is at a crossroads, and the direction we eventually take is probably being decided by events elsewhere. Perhaps especially, Scotland. There, the success the SNP has made of devolution, coupled with a few other factors, has made a majority of Scots believe that their politicians could make a success of independence.
By comparison, in Wales, we have seen a succession of deadbeats running Wales into the ground, and this has, understandably, encouraged a movement to do away with devolution entirely. The upsurge in support for independence is partly in response to this mismanagement but also owes a great deal to the fact that Plaid Cymru lost its way under Leanne Wood.
In marked contrast to Scotland, the growth in support for independence here owes nothing to admiration for those in Corruption Bay and a belief that they could do better with more power. Given their record, the thought of more power for those clowns should terrify anybody.
I believe that, post-Scottish independence, Wales will be faced with the choice of going for independence itself or accepting some absurd cat and mouse ‘partnership’. I believe that with Scotland gone, and BoJo and his gang still running Westminster, we have a good chance of winning an independence referendum. Hold it before Scotland leaves, and we’ll lose.
All I’m doing is ruling out any other option, and saving us from the jaws of the ‘cat’.
If you think devolution is worth defending, then be my guest . . .
Nothing I can – or, indeed, need to – add.
Your claim, predicated as it is on those upstart Gottorps who reinvented themselves as Romanovs, will never get past the boyars. Lucky for you I’m not a Balliol man
As I am of Scottish descent, I wouldn’t continue to put the SNP on such a high pedestal Jac, in the light of the current and developing Sturgeon/Salmond situation. It may be a commonly held comment that “the left always eats itself” but a cursory glance at Labour under Starmer and the SNP under Sturgeon comprise members of their respective parties fighting each other like rats in a sack. Of the two, the plotting of McDonnell, Burgon and the far left in Labour began the day Starmer was elected leader, and everyone is aware of it. The machinations and backstabbing within the SNP is only recently becoming apparent, with the party now riven between the Sturgeonistas and Salmondistas. Whilst Sturgeon has mostly managed to enforce a near media blackout on her factions’ dirty deeds, it evident that either she is lying (and has misled the Scottish Parliament) or Salmond is lying. Perhaps they both are. Any, it’s pretty fractious now and it’s going to get even bloodier, with two senior SNP Salmond supporting, front benchers sacked this week. The exposure of the pro Sturgeon “Vietnam Group” on WhatsApp, dedicated to employing dirty tricks to incriminate Salmond, is pure comedy gold. No, all is not rosy in the SNP garden, and the SNP may not prove to be the guiding light and inspiration for Wales’ independence ambitions.
Thanks Neil, well reported. I only started picking up on this a few months ago and my initial reaction was one of disbelief. However it is evident that there are some very devious ( and deviant) clusters of narrow sectional interests at work within Scottish politics and SNP in particular. As ever these clusters are way ahead of their equivalents here in Wales and one is prompted to wonder whether the Welsh versions are out there imitating the Scots. Alternatively my deeply suspicious nature suggests that London may be behind much of the promotion of sectional interests as a device for diverting energies and dividing opinions in both Scotland and Wales. Even the personal schism between the 2 leaders in Scotland is tainted to some extent by the transphobe hysteria.
I thought it was, ‘The Revolution always eats its children’, but I could be wrong.
Turning to Scotland, I admire the SNP because from being called ‘Tartan Tories’ a few decades ago they have almost destroyed the Labour Party in Scotland. A big step on the way was winning over the ‘Celtic vote’. By which I mean the Catholic, working class, many of Irish or Highland descent, to be found in the western part of the Central Belt. This section of the population formed Labour’s core vote because the Conservative Party in Scotland was the Unionist Party, in relation to both Scotland and Ireland. Bowlers and Orange sashes were de rigeur.
By comparison, Plaid Cymru never made the breakthrough with the working class. And now, like leftist parties across the Western world, it seems to focus its attention on ethnic and other minorities, ‘refugees’, middles class ‘activists’, Greens, etc. In fact, Plaid Cymru is more like the modern Labour Party in England than Drakeford’s gang.
The SNP was able to appeal to such a broad cross-section by keeping things simple. And by avoiding internal arguments over ideology or identity politics. It was simply, ‘Whatever’s best for Scotland’. And they focused on Scotland, without trying to save the planet or other silly kite-flying. Again, in marked contrast to Plaid Cymru.
But now, just before the most important election in Scottish history, that could well lead to a referendum and independence, we see the SNP tearing itself apart over the Salmond-Sturgeon spat and – with the sacking of Joanna Cherry – we also see the pernicious influence of those who believe that anyone who doesn’t accept a man in a dress as a woman is a transphobe and a fascist.
With the allegations against Salmond, that were all defeated in court, we saw that senior civil servants were involved. Now you know my views on senior civil servants – I don’t trust them. And that’s because they answer to London. And London would have a great incentive for sowing dissent and rancour with the SNP. I just hope that the momentum is too great now to be halted.
Turning to those who want confused teenagers to be allowed life-changing surgery I find it suspicious that they too are achieving such influence in the SNP at this time. Whose agenda are they serving?
Maybe it’s my age, but it seems to me that too many organisations, in their attempts to appear ‘inclusive’ and ‘welcoming’, attract people who are anything but inclusive and welcoming. To the point where, like some parasite, these intolerant grouplets control the host.
All any organisation needs to say is, ‘Anyone who shares our objectives is welcome to join’. Then, anyone who says I can’t work with Jews, Blacks, Gays, Muslims, Swansea Jacks, is thrown out. The point being that they have to exhibit intolerance before action is taken. Instead, we have these fanatical little groups entering the host body and then insisting that everybody must publicly agree with their narrow agenda or be thrown out. It’s happened to Plaid Cymru and Yes Cymru risks a similar fate.
Again, I ask, whose agenda are they serving? It’s certainly not Wales’ agenda.
So, to get back to your point; the SNP may not be perfect, but it’s achieved a hell of a lot more for Scotland than Plaid Cymru has for Wales. It would be a tragedy if Scottish independence was derailed by allegations that may have originated with, or at least been amplified by, civil servants taking orders from London. Or that, with the objective in sight, everything was fucked up by a gang of screeching, single-issue loonies, who may also be guided from outside of Scotland (and Wales).
Without hard evidence I remain convinced that a long term “black operation” of high intensity has been conducted by covert Unionist forces within the SNP. There is just too much circumstantial evidence that all the shit slinging and sudden surge of ishoo centred behaviours is being stage managed by agencies seeking to derail the momentum towards independence. Sowing the seeds of dissent and developing schisms around daft issues smacks of modern trade craft among people whose careers are focussed on manipulating entire populations.
Here in Wales I remain unsure whether the likes of Ms Wood and Adam Price are being manipulated or have gone over to the ranks of manipulators. In any case the intensity of activity is similar here but the risks to the Union will be regarded as much lower by those at a much higher pay grade.
The British State has always operated in this way.
Thinking these events over today reminded me of Charles Stewart Parnell and Kitty O’Shea. The liaison between them was not a ‘quickie’ in the arboretum but a long-standing affair in which she bore Parnell three children. Her husband knew about it – he was a colleague of Parnell – so why did he kick up a fuss when he did? Someone was probably pulling his strings because his boss was becoming a real threat to the Union.
To gild the lily the Times published a famous letter linking Parnell to the Phoenix Park assassinations. The letter was eventually proven to be a forgery, but the question remains, did the Times know or care that it was a forgery, or was it published deliberately to tarnish Parnell after his party’s landslide victory in 1885 and the fact that he held the balance of power in a hung House of Commons?
Just image if there was no referendum in Scotland, a snap general election, and the SNP was in that position.
Allowing my imagination to wander a bit, if not run riot, I speculate whether some of these divisive stunts are tested or trialed on the softer Welsh political ground before getting fine tuned and implemented in Scotland. I remain really amazed that such an apparently grounded and focussed leadership as that of the SNP should allow itself to be distracted and devalued by a narrow factional group of any kind. These were people who seemed to have overcome the old left-right nonsense by stampeding right over the entire spectrum only to be at risk of being undone by utter wokish claptrap.
Talking of spooks, which we were in a roundabout way, I see that Stephen “Eos” Morris refers to the “ever diligent Royston Jones” having files on the Beaufort empire. Now we may already have the core of an intelligence agency all set and raring to go when enemies of our state will have to be identified and sentenced before their final dispatch. It’s dreams like this that sustain me when all around is being eaten away by the corrupt opportunists that infest our country.