Cadw takes the piss

 Blood Boilers, Opinion  5 Responses »
Nov 132011
 

Open Letter to Cadw:
Re: your exhibition about the cartoon Princes of Gwynedd, located in a public lavatory just off the A55

Cadw down the toiletHow is it possible for an organisation charged with the preservation of a nation’s heritage to then treat it with such disrespect? As a patriotic Welshman with a developed interest in my nation’s history and culture, I am revolted and the frankly bizarre decision to place an exhibition about the Princes of Gwynedd in …. a public lavatory! You have made our history, culture and indeed our nation itself into a laughing stock throughout the world. Browse the Internet and discover how people are reacting!
Your decision at Abergwyngregyn (to use the post-conquest name) is incomprehensible – at the least level as a waste of public money – and has made me deeply ashamed and angry. Please consider my long-standing life membership of your organisation void and terminated.
I hope one day soon that those responsible for this tasteless travesty and poorly produced vulgar farce will be made publicly accountable. Your badly produced, childish and ill-sited garbled cartoons have insulted Welsh people everywhere and devalued a proud heritage.

Cadw ToiletYours with complete disrespect, Dafydd Bullock, Gorsedd y Beirdd

Photos: Kathryn Gibson

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 Posted by admin at 11:52 am  Tagged with:

Ryder Cock Horseshit

 Blood Boilers, Opinion  2 Responses »
Sep 212010
 

Ryder Cup 2010Since I regard playing golf as probably the most boring most expensive waste of time ever invented and watching on a par (oops! a golfing term!) with watching snooker or paint drying, I can legitimately ask the question of why so much financial , media and promotional effort has gone into bringing the Ryder Cup golf-fest to the Celtic Manor Resort (which is not Wales)?

The question must be asked … who is benefiting from this huge expenditure of  £100 million (£50+ million from WAG) allegedly?

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make sure people have heard of Wales, when they visit Wales they want to come back and they see Wales as a place to invest,’’ he (Carwyn Jones) said.

Ryder Cup Infrastructure

Ryder Cup Infrastructure?

As I understand it, the justification from WAG is that most of their contribution will be pulled down from EU anyway and has been used to fix the transport infrastructure in and around Newport, the railway station and the M4 roadworks. Well yes, I guess that is justification enough and infrastructure is indeed needed and will be a sort of legacy. Moreover, it appears to chime with the direction of the WAG’s Economic Renewal Plan (ERP) which now diverts funds from business support back into ‘infrastructure’. However, what sticks in the gullet is the outright free promotional gifts given to the golfing vulgarium  Celtic Manor in the form of successive TV appearances by Rhodri Morgan (ex Labour First Minister),  Carwyn Jones (current First Minister) and Tourism chiefs citing the apparent benefits to tourism and Wales’ profile in the world (duh!).  If Denis Campbell is correct in his assessment, then the benefits to Wales will be practically nil in economic terms and ephemeral, to say the least, in tourism  or profile terms. What will remain is some better roads, a better rail station and a much much richer Terry Mathews. Is this an acceptable outcome?

I enjoy sport and am firm believer that sport is a socially cohesive and beneficial force for the good that diverts people’s attention away from actual war and conflict – but golf??? There seems to be some kind of belief in the higher echelons of the WAG ivory bunker or 18th hole (oops! More golfing terminology) that business is ‘done on the golf course’ and that making  Wales a golfing mecca or destination will somehow improve the chances of getting inward investment from the Japanese or American corporations. Well, if that is the theory and the rationale behind this, then it cuts no ice with me and, I expect, most other Welsh people who don’t play golf and even those who do. The fact is, that inward investment and business decisions are made on nitty gritty dollars and cents grounds like whether there is a skills base, a communications infrastructure, a transport/distribution base, a market and, most importantly, a grant incentive. The makers of these decisions will be nowhere near a golf course,  most probably do not play golf and may or may not helicopter in to Newport for the Ryder Cup without taking in the wonderfully green green grass of home or partaking  of a warm welcome in the hills or listening to the choruses of the Valley male voice choirs.

According to many commentators, not just Denis Campbell, hosting the Ryder Cup is not going to make a jot of difference to the outlook or performance of  the Welsh economy and apart from providing a huge corporate junket and some viewing enjoyment for the golfing devotees, will do next to nothing for the  hard-pressed tourism sector upon which the WAG is building so much hope. I think I agree. We don’t like to be constantly gain or nay saying the WAG on everything but truly this Ryder cock horse really is shitting on the wrong green.

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 Posted by BellWhether at 8:04 pm  Tagged with: , ,

Pain in the Hain… Again

 Blood Boilers, Welsh Labour, Welsh Politics  No Responses »
Jun 062009
 

Peter HainUnbelievable but we are being foisted with both Peter Hain and Glenys Kinnock yet again.

Guido Fawkes was the first political blogger to have a go at Peter Hain and here is his reaction below

Hain is we are told heading back to the Welsh Office.  Is it because of his brilliance?  When Gordon sacked him last time it was for incompetence.
Is it because he is clean when it comes to his expenses and will demonstrate the sincerity of Brown’s plans to clean up politics?  This is the man who failed to declare £100,000 laundered through a think tank / slush fund for his deputy leadership campaign.  Hain, do not forget, was the cabinet minister who argued for the change in the system that allowed ministers to designate their London home as their second home, he “employs” his 80 year-old mother at the taxpayer’s expense to look after his interests, such a shame she never actually visits his office…

Diolch i chi  Gordon Brown.


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 Posted by Syncretist at 12:01 pm  Tagged with: , ,

Big Don’s Westminster Windfall – an update

 Blood Boilers, Welsh Labour, Welsh Politics  7 Responses »
May 172009
 

It’s wey-hey-hey all the way for top-of-the-heap Don!

Article republished and updated from July 2008 in the light of ‘Profligate.’

No wonder devo-sceptic and arch-nationalistophobe Don Touhig and his Labour MP chums aren’t keen to cut the knot with Westminster. They’ve so much to lose.

Not only are they members of one of the UK’s smartest, richest and most exclusive clubs – hobnobbing with the ‘great and good’ the likes of Gordon Brown, Darling, Milliband, Straw, Balls, Blears and a whole host of other sparkling and significant characters – but it’s good for the bank balance as well.

The Daily Telegraph has revealed that the Islwyn MP and former junior Defence Minister made a windfall of almost £200,000 last year from selling a flat ‘which could possibly have been funded by his taxpayer-funded expenses.’

Robert Winnett, Deputy Political Editor of the Daily Telegraph has disclosed that the Islwyn MP ‘made the windfall profit on his Westminster flat which was bought in 1998 and sold for more than double the amount in 2007.’ Touhig sold the flat last year for £305,000. Records do not show how much he paid for the property which he is understood to have claimed as his “second home”‘, however similar flats in the same block cost less than £130,000 in 1998. This ‘second home’ status means that Touhig was eligible to claim more than £20,000 a year for the property,’ the report continued. ‘Official records show that he has received more than £120,000 since 2001 to cover the costs of a second home. It is not known if the allowances were claimed for the property although there is no evidence of Mr Touhig owning other properties in London.’

The report continued ‘It is also not known whether Mr Touhig… was liable for or paid capital-gains tax on the sale. There is no suggestion that Mr Touhig has broken any rules but if he used his allowance for the property (which he allegedly has done in a scam known as flipping) the case highlights the generosity of the system as it stands.’

Mr Touhig’s submissions to the fees office also disclose that he claimed a total of £1,325 on food at his second home when MPs were on holiday. Mr Touhig also claimed £600 for food in August/September 2005, £600 for food in August/September 2006 and £150 in September 2007.

Mr Touhig’s expenses claims under the additional costs allowance scheme show that he spent more than £2,500 on refurbishing his home in Gwent. He claimed £525 for painting and decorating the hallway, landing and stairway in November 2006 and another £715 on remedial work to the house, including waterproofing the joists.

Mr Touhig also claimed for eight leylandii bushes, with compost and bark, worth £240 in 2006. He sought another £40 for someone to plant the trees. However, the claim was turned down in the same month.

Perhaps it will come as no surprise, therefore, that the chief spokesperson for those opposing reform of the current flaky system of Parliamentary expenses – riddled with loopholes and inconsistencies – was none other than Don Touhig, who mounted ‘a vigorous defence of the current system’ in the Westminster debate on the issue. Another leading opponent of reform was fellow Labour MP (Torfaen) and Welsh Secretary (water too hot) Paul Murphy, who voted against along with a number of cabinet colleagues.

Don Touhig coining itTouhig, Neil Kinnock’s replacement as MP for Islwyn served as parliamentary private secretary to Gordon Brown and was a junior minister at the Ministry of Defence until 2006. He is a noted devo-sceptic and opponent of further law-making powers for Wales an issue which, he claimed in March this year, was not important to his constituents. Pretty standard stuff for a ‘Welsh’ Labour MP, but the latest revelations might go some way to explaining why Don and his mates are very unkeen indeed to break the links with London. It’s going to cost them dear in a number of ways, proving that there’s far more to Labour’s Unionist agenda than meets the nose.

One wonders how many of those Islwyn constituents to whom law-making powers are so unimportant, are as fortunate as Don and his butties with their reserved seats on the London gravy train.

It’s wey-hey-hey all the way for top-of-the-heap Don!

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 Posted by Cambria at 11:02 am  Tagged with: , , , , ,

Liebour’s pathetic pigeon shadow soup

 Blood Boilers, Opinion, Welsh Politics  4 Responses »
Mar 272009
  
Byline: The Rev Idwal Lloyd Price

Owain GlyndwrYou’ve got to admit it, it’s an interesting idea juxtaposing the names of Aneurin Bevan, fiery champion of the working masses and international socialist, later socialite, landowner and lusty devourer of Saxon gold, and Owain Glyndwr, undefeated guerrilla warrior and champion of Welsh independence, who fought with sinew, blood, smoke and steel to throw the English out of Wales, in one website name.

But this is what  ‘Welsh’ Liebour have done with their new Dolly Draperesque  political blog their “Obama moment” riposte to Plaid Cymru’s genuinely sleek, professional and reasoned www.walescan.com.

Perhaps the scintillating talents of Liebour’s obviously underused propaganda department would have done better with www.clutchingatstraws.com ­ a far more appropriate title for you can’t imagine two more fundamentally dissimilar, disparate or heterogeneous characters than Aneurin Bevan and Owain Glyndwr if you tried very hard indeed. Put together Attila the Hun and Mother Theresa perhaps, Sweeney Todd and Robert the Bruce, Mickey Mouse and Che Guevara and you’ll have an approximation as to how risible this is.

The lumping together of the two is also interesting in that it betrays one of Liebour’s dark secrets: the fudging of the ‘Greatest Welshman of All Time’ poll on 1st March 2004 which ensured that Bevan beat Owain Glyndwr by 127 votes in a highly dubious, and quite plainly gerrymandered, internet poll.

The site itself with its crude unprofessional titling, appalling sound quality and fifth rate graphics looks very much as though the editor of the Wasting Mule and his team had been hired as production consultants. The brains (!) behind the whole extraordinary and embarrassing exercise is none other than Eluned Morgan, once a Sandinista-championing, red-beret wearing, slogan-shrieking member of the wimmin’s club, and latterly lamentable sidekick and lackey to Glenys Kinnock, assisted by the orange-skinned lounge-lizard Peter “Vain” Hain, the supercilious and superfluous former Secretary of State for Wales. It was indeed wonderful to see this valueless virago appearing on BBC Wales’s lunchtime news claiming huge volumes of visitors to the site. Calm down dear ­ we’re only going there to laugh at you!

On Liebour’s “Obama moment” website ­ which, incidentally, would prove a severe embarrassment to the IT department of Ysgol Meithrin Cwmscwt .­ Nick Bourne is portrayed as a vampire, Ieuan Wyn Jones, Jill Evans and Adam Price are portrayed as clowns.

Well let’s look at the real vampires and clowns in Wales shall we? The English Liebour Party in Wales is facing oblivion. Their power base, built on patronage, intimidation and corruption, is melting away before their eyes. The recession will wipe it out. Desperate for a lifeline (in other words their own salaries and fiddled, inflated expenses, whether as MEPs, MPs or AMs) they are clutching at straws and lashing out in all directions. And we can expect a whole lot more of this in the coming months before Liebour’s ignominious defeat at the next Westminster election.

Liebour has sucked the political blood of Wales dry for nigh on a century. Now, with their teeth drawn after the greatest election loss since the Second World War in 2008, the vampires have become clowns, frightened of the inevitable dawning of the New Wales, terrified of the solid stake of Welsh oak aimed at their collective heart.

Let us use the words of one of the greatest American Presidents of all time to describe their attempt at aping the success of the latest one. Liebour’s pitiful endeavour trying to use slick media tricks instead of winning the hearts and minds of Welsh voters in an honest and open way is, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, “as thin as the homeopathic soup made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had been starved to death.”

Byline: The Rev Idwal Lloyd Price

Update: see Hen Ferchetan on this
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 Posted by Cynfelin at 5:04 pm  Tagged with: , , , , ,

WRU – a self-serving claque of sycophants

 Blood Boilers, Opinion  5 Responses »
Mar 232009
 

Byline: Jack of the North

Do we need this?

Do we need this?

As if the defeat by Ireland wasn’t difficult enough to stomach the presentation was even worse. While the Irish were represented by their charming president, Mary MacAleese, who did we have ‘representing’ us? – William Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, now Royal Vice Patron of the WRU. His granny being the Patron. (You must have seen her at the games with the Trimsaran boys, downing the Felinfoel.)

The WRU has even named a cup named after him. Competed for every autumn by us and the South Africans. Odd, to say the least. Because, traditionally, the majority of the players in the Springbok team have been Afrikaners, who fought a couple of wars against the English, and lost thousands of their women and children in the concentration camps that some chinless wonder thought was such a spiffing idea. An increasing number of Springbok players are black – so what did the Brit empire ever do for them? Then there’s us Welsh – we all know that Wilhelm and his loutish, carrot-topped half-brother support England! Is the WRU having a laugh?

Probably not. For the truth is that the Welsh Rugby Union has been run by a self-perpetuating and self-serving claque of sycophants ever since its formation in 1881. For proof you need look no further than the badge the founders chose to adorn the shirts of our team. While the Irish have the shamrock, the Scots the thistle, the English the rose – all national emblems – our boys sport ostrich feathers and an inscription in German! A bird that is not native to Wales and a language that has never been spoken here. Very fitting. So maybe those bewhiskered rugger-buggers were having a laugh. No. They genuinely thought that the emblem of the ‘Prince of Wales’ was perfect for the team representing the Welsh nation.

(Historical note: the ‘Prince of Wales’ in 1881 was Edward the Lecher. His mother, Victoria, wrote of him, to his sister, “I never can, or shall, look at him without a shudder”. She actually blamed him for the death of his father, her beloved Albert.)

Clearly, it’s time for change. The WRU must adopt a symbol that represents Wales, not some alien monarchy. As for patrons, they can choose from within the nation, from the ranks of our people who have achieved fame and honour. As for Willi and his cup, why not re-name it the Rorke’s Drift Cup? There’s a genuine Welsh-South African connection. Or why have any cup at all; for it’s only awarded for an autumn, warm-up friendly and in a few years time these fixtures may be dropped? If there has to be a presentation after a game then why can’t it be made by our First Minister, someone elected by Welsh people. (And someone who might even know the names of the Welsh players.)

For so many reasons the Welsh Rugby Union is an embarrassment to the nation. This is not 1881; we no longer defer unquestioningly to the extended family based on Buck House – we know too much about them. Roger Lewis, Dai Pickering and the rest must be forcefully reminded that they run the Welsh Rugby Union, and that it represents the Welsh nation. They should stop regarding it as their ticket to a knighthood.

Jack of the North

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 Posted by Editor at 11:16 pm  Tagged with: , , , ,

Are you PC enough to get finance?

 Blood Boilers, Economy  No Responses »
Mar 142009
 

It now appears that it is more important to be ‘Politically Correct’ than financially correct (viable business) when attempting to access financial support from the newly nationalised banks like LloydsTSB or RBS.

In an article by Fraser Nelson in the Spectator he discovers that RBS appears to be requiring customers to declare their political affiliation presumeably in order to score their suitability for access to funds and services.  He goes on to write:

There are Soviet-era leaders who would have killed for the power that Mr Brown now wields. He has the scope now to announce the mother of all pre-election tax cuts — knowing that the Bank of England and the undead banks are programmed to gobble up as much government debt as he can issue. How very convenient. First the taxpayer is forced to bail out the banks, then the banks duly bail out Mr Brown’s government. And they leave that nice Mr Cameron with the bill.

The terrifying fact is that Gordon Brown and his colleagues are now in charge of most of the British banking sector, and they have only just started to play with it. It is, as Mr Brown says, a ‘wholly new world’.

We are all too familiar with the ‘points’ system that banks use to determine your credit rating and whether you can get an overdraft, loan or other banking services. This is all part of the depersonalisation and automation of the banking world that has led both to increased efficiency and combating of fraud but also to the over reliance on computerised data and ‘systems’ that have led to the loss of control by regulators. If another category of points has now been added,  a category known as ‘political affiliation’,  I think it is in the public interest to understand where we stand. For example, if I were  a member of Plaid Cymru or even (God forbid) the BNP, how many points does this represent in my credit scoring? These calculations should be published if we now appear to own these banks.

Your Credit score political affiliation

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 Posted by Syncretist at 2:20 pm  Tagged with: , ,

Banking is now a political problem

 Blood Boilers, Opinion  1 Response »
Feb 012009
 

A couple of new articles  from Adam Price MP and the BBC’s Robert Peston illustrate how politicians cannot now avoid  dealing with banking issues.

First of all there is the looming thundercloud of civil unrest, riots (already happening in Europe) and disobedience caused by the scandalous behaviour of banks like HBOS (who are now owned by the public) in wrecking good businesses and foreclosing on mortgage defaulters at the slightest chance.

And secondly there is widespread disenchantment with the so-called solutions to the banking crisis put forward by politicians in New Liebour which haven’t worked and which appear to have only favoured the bankers at the expense of the citizen and business. This is a government that has lost any trust it might have had.

As Robert Peston comments:

Dimon (James Dimon of Morgan Chase) posed the question whether it would really be sensible to reduce the requirement for bankers to think long and hard about who they’re lending to and why.

After all, the mess we’re in stems from bankers placing too much faith in computer models and the opinion of third-party credit-rating agencies when deciding where to make their loans and investments.

The debt bubble that precipitated the current debt drought and global recession was caused in large part by bankers abdicating their very basic responsibility to know their borrowers properly and to assess whether these borrowers had the remotest chance of being able to repay their debts.

So if we’re going to try to prevent bankers messing up our economy again, do we want them to take greater responsibility for their actions, or less?

Adam Price MP for Plaid has gone as far as to write ;

It is now increasingly clear that a perfect storm of reckless and irresponsible bankers and spineless and unprincipled politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have driven the world economy to the edge of a precipice.  What we are seeing now is those same politicians handing out a parachute, paid for with our money, to those same bankers who are busy pushing the rest the rest of us over the cliff.

These are strong words but needed as the situation deteriorates daily. If politicians of any flavour are to come out of this with their reputations enhanced or intact they must, like Adam Price, put their heads above the parapet now. Following the party line is no longer an option.

It must be said that the ordinary men and women that work in high street banks should not be victimised in any way for any of this. Banks have changed so much over the last 5 years that the people you see on a daily basis in banks are not ‘bankers’ but essentially glorified clerks. They no longer have the power to implement any kind of decision making at the local level and this extends even to the smallest loan or overdraft decision. There are no longer any Captain Mannerings in banking (which is probably just as well).  Most of the staff of banks feel as the general populace does … they just cannot speak or act bacause they would lose their jobs. It used to be that people who worked in banks were valued and esteemed pillars of society but now they are regarded as agents of the Evil One and it really isn’t their fault.

If politicians and the political system is to survive this, we need new leaders of integrity and with fire in their bellies sufficient to fight the cause of the people.  The era of  ‘snouts in the trough’ is over.

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 Posted by Syncretist at 9:07 pm
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