The next leg - from Gorslas to Laugharne

Gorslas

Vaughan Roderick (of TV fame) has noticed that several candidates have registered their nicknames, such as Chris Corgi Jones, Audrey Paper Shop Jones and John Y Gof Wigley. In a slightly different vein, we now arrive in Gorslas where Rupert Henry St. John Barker Moon has thrown his jockstrap into the ring as an Independent.

Rupert was, of course, a rugby star and is now employed as bursar on the Titanic Commercial Director of the Scarlets, a subsidiary of Carmarthenshire County Council plc. When he announced his decision to stand, the Carmarthen Journal carried a piece with quotes from Mr Moon and Clive Scourfield, who is stepping down from his role as Executive Member for Regeneration and Planning and his seat on the County Council.

For reasons which are not entirely clear, Mr Scourfield asked the paper to print a statement the following week to make it clear that he was not endorsing Rupert Moon. Perhaps as a shareholder of Llanelli Scarlets RFC, Mr Scourfield was dissatisfied with the club's commercial performance.

Strong ties remain between rugby officials and the council's top brass, as we saw when the Council intervened in 2009 to buy an MoD site at Llangennech for "persons known to the officers". One of those persons turned out to be Chairman of the WRU, David Pickering.

Ties between the council and the Scarlets are of course even closer, so for the club to have its own councillor would seem like a logical next step. Perhaps the two organisations could merge, so that the annual ritual of having to agree to debt write-offs, equity swaps, grants and new subsidies will become a thing of the past. In that way lots of embarrassing questions could be avoided.

Also standing in this two-member ward are veteran Labour councillor, Terry Davies, two more Independents and Darren Price for Plaid. Darren has previous experience as a councillor in Swansea, where he led the Plaid group, and he works in the finance department of the Hywel Dda Health Board.

Back now to Llanelli where the fur is certain to fly in Hengoed, another 2-member ward.

Eight candidates are slugging it out here, including Siân Caiach and one other for People First. The previous Plaid councillor is stepping down, and Plaid is contesting both seats in the ward as is Labour. In addition there is one Independent and one unlabelled candidate.

Siân Caiach has had a turbulent time as county councillor, to put it mildly. For the last year, both she and fellow People First councillor Arthur Davies were put under "special measures" by the chief executive, who banned them from asking questions of any officer, apart from himself. Several motions tabled by People First were vetoed by the chief executive, before the council's constitution was changed to require a minimum of seven names before any motion could be considered by councillors.

She next came under fire for objecting to proposals for a new primary school on the grounds of size and location. Senior officers, Independent, Labour and Plaid councillors all rounded on her in the council chamber and the press.

Siân Caiach's response to all this was neatly summed up when she described her reception at the infamous "rabble" protest in Llanelli. Ken Rees, the sole LibDem (in reality a part of Meryl's group), painted a picture of a baying, vicious mob.

Siân, on the other hand, told councillors that she had not noticed anything out of the ordinary. "When I arrived, I received a little light booing, but nothing unusual".

Laugharne Township

A straight fight between bookseller and literary show-off, Jane Tremlett, and Labour's Jean Myers, a former teacher, organic farmer and cheesemaker.

Mrs Tremlett likes to adorn her contributions to debate with quotations from Dickens, Shakespeare and other English classics, although somehow I don't think Dickens would have approved of her politics. She is most frequently heard sternly rebuking Siân Caiach from her perch on the far right of the chamber.

Recently residents of Laugharne and the surrounding area have been learning to live with massive explosions coming from the beach at Pendine where Qinetiq has been conducting experiments on explosive devices. So loud and powerful have some of the explosions been, that residents have reported cracked walls, shaking buildings and things falling off shelves. The church was reported to have shaken as though hit by an earthquake.

One or two voices have been raised in support of Qinetiq's activities on the grounds that the company is helping "our boys". Mrs T's reaction to all this is not known.

Next stop: Llandeilo