Thursday 23 April 2015

The feathers fly - Updated

This blog has almost obsessively followed the political career of Norma Woodward, Ukip's candidate for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr ever since the party announced that she was their candidate a few months back.

Initially the party's website spelled her name wrong, and nobody knew what she looked like until comparatively recently.

Amazingly for a candidate in a general election, almost nothing else is known about her except that she lives in the constituency of Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire.

In March Ukip Wales announced that she had been deselected, and allegations were made of misconduct and irregularities involving a bank account. The party's leadership in London said that the Welsh branch had no powers to deselect her, and that she was still the candidate.

Norma began a campaign of sorts, and appeared at a hustings in Llandovery - probably her first and last public appearance. She was absent from the more recent Ammanford hustings, and the South Wales Guardian was unable to contact her when it ran a piece profiling the candidates earlier this week.

Yesterday came news that she is considering taking legal action against the party, claiming that she was "intimidated, harassed and libelled" by her colleagues in Wales.

The wheels seem to be coming off Ukip across Wales, but it is good to report that Carmarthenshire leads the way with what has to be a total collapse.

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More bizarre news has come in from Llanelli where deputy leader of the County Council, Tegwen Devichand (Lab), and Cllr Theressa Bowen had a huge bust-up ahead of a meeting of Llanelli Rural Council, with the police being called to sort things out.

Cllr Bowen was elected as a Labour councillor but crossed to the Independents (in coalition with Labour) only a couple of months after becoming a councillor.

It is understood that the two women were once friends, but fell out in spectacular fashion just after the last council elections, with the police being called in once again to deal with lurid accusations. It seems that the boys in blue decided that no further action was necessary, presumably because the allegations were not supported by evidence.

According to someone present, things could have turned very nasty had it not been for an intervention by Cllr Sharen Davies to pull her mother, Tegwen Devichand, away.

Whatever the truth of the matter, public brawling which hits the headlines comes as close as anything to bringing public office into disrepute. Will Tegwen Devichand now step down from her £31,000 a year job?


To paraphrase Ed Miliband, hell no.

Update

The members' code of conduct (6.1 (a)) states:

You must —
(a) not conduct yourself in a manner which could reasonably be regarded as bringing your office or authority into disrepute.
The code makes it clear that this provision applies at all times, whether you are on council business or not.

Update 25 April

Anon, who would seem to be very close to Labour's top brass, left a fairly long comment which contains a number of possibly defamatory statements and wondering why this blog was not calling for the resignation of Cllr Bowen.

Well, for one thing Theressa Bowen is not a member of the Executive Board and deputy leader of the council.

According to Anon, this incident happened months ago, but the Llanelli Star says it was on 8 April. Anon also appears to believe that the Star resurrected this piece of ancient history to discredit the Labour Party.

This is surely the first time that the Star has ever been accused of being a Plaid mouthpiece. 

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This is reported in the Llanelli Star, but this blog will no longer provide links to stories from that paper or its sister Carmarthen Journal because of the extremely aggressive use of online advertising on their websites. If you want your computer taken over by unwanted adverts, irritating videos and music, you know the place to go.

13 comments:

Emlyn Uwch Cych said...

UKIP's Norma did indeed attend the Llandeilo hustings last week. She didn't reveal her origins, but stated that she had been a computer coder, had worked in the nuclear industry (even standing inside Wylfa's reactor before it was commissioned), had taught in a secondary school, and was now a private tutor.

She also said that she now lived "near Ammanford". Cneifiwr claims that that's in the Carmarthen West & South Pembs constituency. I suppose I could have misheard; she could have said "near Castlemartin", but I'm sure it was "near Ammanford"!

Anyway, I digress. She didn't like the rowdy yokels response to her, poor dab, and she made sure that every answer came directly from her UKIP briefing notes.

She also has the rather disconcerting habit of rubbing her tummy as she speaks.

Emlyn Uwch Cych said...

By golly, Cneifiwr, you're right. The Notice of Poll says that Jasmine Angelina Norma Woodward lives at an address in Carm W & S Pembs, not "near Ammanford" as she stated so clearly at the hustings in Llandeilo.

But, then, I can't find out anything on the interweb about Jasmine Angelina Norma Woodward, either.

Cneifiwr said...

Thanks Emlyn. She does not give an address on her nomination paper, but she states that she lives in Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire.

The mystery continues.

Anonymous said...


Found this:

Norma Woodward
Carmarthen East and Dinefwr
My background is that I attended the local state Grammar School where I gained four A levels. At University I read a degree in Mathematics after which I worked as a computer programmer, systems analyst and lecturer to college students. My next job was at British Nuclear Design and Construction in Whetstone in the Midlands where I worked on nuclear reactor simulations.
After marrying and having my two children, I decided on a career change and became a secondary school teacher. My life experiences as a teacher along with being principal of my own tuition company have given me invaluable skills in helping others. I am currently not teaching so have plenty of time to commit fully to UKIP and the constituency as an MP. At the moment I am learning Welsh and live near Ammanford in Carmarthenshire.
I joined UKIP after I realized that the Westminster parties were themselves the main obstacles to halting Britain’s decline. I feel frustrated by the ongoing mismanagement of our finances, the endemic deception of politicians, the lowering of standards in education and lack of support for women in certain areas. As austerity bites, we see the continual widening of the gap between rich and poor, and it is about time that the 99% were offered a better deal.

LINK
http://www.myukip.com/parliamentary-candidates-c-e.html

Cneifiwr said...

She does seem to be a bit confused about where she lives, doesn't she?

Anonymous said...

Maybe the most important words in the sentence about her living in Ammanford and learning Welsh are 'at the moment'.

Emlyn Uwch Cych said...

That's verbatim what she said at the Llandeilo husting, so I was right about the Ammanford bit.

Seems like she even needs to take her biography from the UKIP site!

Doesn't say where she's from, though, does it?

Redhead said...

Which local grammar school, or is there a local one called "the"? Which University? Did she complete her course as "read a degree" is quite different to "awarded a degree". Which college(s) did she lecture at? Where and when did she teach and what subjects? What is her tuition company called?

That's not a cv Jasmine Angela Norma - go to the back of the class!

Anonymous said...

Her biopic sounds quite impressive actually wherever she lives.

Cneifiwr said...

The most disconcerting thing about this is that she will probably pick up a couple of thousand votes - even though she is apparently considering suing the party she represents.

Cneifiwr said...

To the person who left an anonyomous comment about the second part of this story. It is not possible to check the claims you make, and so what you wrote could be defamatory.

The essence of what you had to say was that the story about the row was old news and had been resurrected by the Llanelli Star.

Perhaps you ought to write to the Star to put them right.

Anonymous said...

Theressa Bowen is entitled to vote like everyone for whichever party she feels will represent her best . Independent means she can do that . She has voted labour and plaid . However she also know ukip candidate because HE LIVES IN HER AREA and is an ex ld councillor . What do you do ignore everyone you know on political grounds ?

Anonymous said...

It seems cllr devichand davies and aktar reported bowen to ombudsman along with ella simmons from trallwm hall . 3 were thrown out the 4th by devichand well the ombudsman decided to investigate her . Now there is a warning as to future conducts as a councillr . Shame that but good to see the poor ombudsman is not taken with their lies . And then devichand posts on social media stollen and cllr lindy butlers name in paragraphs . Is everyone a thief today ? Oh dear