tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1188574359005102802024-03-05T06:00:43.562+00:00Y CneifiwrGwleidyddiaeth, llyfrau, bywyd, iaith a'r hyn a'r llall. Dim ond ishe gwneud sens o bethe dw i.
Politics, books, life, language and this and that. Just trying to make sense of it all.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1220125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118857435900510280.post-34740965922468535172018-07-20T06:58:00.001+01:002018-07-20T06:58:38.681+01:00Saron: Karen Davies romps homeWarmest congratulations to Karen Davies who held Saron ward for Plaid Cymru with just over 65% (up 15.7%) of the vote in yesterday's by-election. Labour came second with 20.9% (down 15%). Despite throwing the kitchen sink at the campaign, the Tories trailed in third place with 12.7% (down 1.9%), while the LibDems took just 1.2%.<br />
<br />
The election was held following the death of Karen's late husband, Alun Davies.<br />
<br />
In numbers, the results were as follows:<br />
<br />
Karen Davies, Plaid 747<br />
Tom Fallows, Labour 239<br />
Aled Crow, Tory 146<br />
Caryl Tandy, LibDem 14<br />
<br />
The haemorrhaging of support for Labour in Saron follows a disastrous performance in nearby Iscennen ward and another dire result in Burry Port, all masterminded by Rob James who ousted Jeff Edmunds as leader of the Labour group in a coup in May.<br />
<br />
Readers will recall that Rob James launched a vitriolic and highly personal attack on Jonathan Edwards MP, the council leader Emlyn Dole and other senior Plaid figures immediately before the Iscennen by-election, with the publication of claims that a £145,000 regeneration grant in Ammanford "may" have been improperly awarded.<br />
<br />
The Wales Audit Office has now rejected Rob James's complaints and announced that it will be taking no further action.<br />
<br />
Instead of apologising for what looked very much like an attempt to throw an election with a smear campaign, Rob's response to finding himself in a hole is to keep digging. He is now questioning the WAO's findings and has announced that he will be contacting the Cabinet Secretary to call for a full investigation.<br />
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118857435900510280.post-56576659911147707132018-07-16T17:01:00.000+01:002018-07-17T06:01:14.384+01:00A fox, a crow and a dead duckJust a few days to go before the people of Saron, Penybanc and Hendre get to choose their next county councillor on 19 July, and the campaign is in full swing.<br />
<br />
The LibDems have produced one of their usual generic "newspapers" which involves opening up a file, deleting Truro/Auchtermuchty and/orHalifax, typing in "Saron" and pressing the print button.<br />
<br />
The Tories have pulled out all the stops and wheeled in Suzie Davies AM in support of local Tory boy Aled Crow, as they try to convince voters that they should not mistake the Conservative Party for the Conservative Party (no relation). The Maybot, Michael Gove, Andrea Loathesome, Boris, Liam Fox, Gavin "Tarantula" Williams et al are really much, much nicer people than Thatcher, John Redwood, Norman Tebbit, etc.<br />
<br />
Labour's campaign is a rather less happy affair. After his recent bruising encounter with Jonathan Edwards' mother, Rob James is understood to be muttering darkly about his candidate's ability to walk and chew gum at the same time, even, it is said, going so far as to quote Boris Johnson's description of being asked to sell <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnsons-shocking-four-letter-12878129">Theresa May's Chequers plan</a>.<br />
<br />
The Labour candidate, Tom Fallows, recently went down to a spectacular defeat when he stood for election to Ammanford Town Council where he came a very distant second, and yet despite viewers being treated to the Tories'<i> Carry On on the Titanic</i> every time they turn on the news, there is a distinct possibility that the Conservative could push Labour into third place this time round.<br />
<br />
In the Amman Valley.<br />
<br />
Things don't seem to be going much better down in the neighbouring Llanelli constituency from where Rob is directing his campaign to paint Carmarthenshire red, or to use one of the slogans Labour deployed in the recent Iscennen by-election, "to take back control", another phrase which Boris might recognise.<br />
<br />
In a by-election to Burry Port Town Council last week, Labour was super-confident that its candidate, Lee Fox, would romp home, but instead he came a distant second to an independent candidate with the Tories and LibDems barely getting off the starting blocks:<br />
<br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="yiv8503492922MsoNormalTable" id="yiv8503492922yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1531731328836_8163" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; border-collapse: collapse; color: black; font-family: HelveticaNeue,Helvetica Neue,Helvetica,Arial,Lucida Grande,Sans-Serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-left: -7.2px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><tbody id="yiv8503492922yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1531731328836_8162">
<tr style="min-height: 12.8px;"><td colspan="3" style="min-height: 12.8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 7.2px; padding-right: 7.2px; padding-top: 0px;" valign="top"><div class="yiv8503492922Default" style="color: black; font-family: &quot; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b style="color: black; font-family: &quot; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">CYFENW </span></b><span style="font-size: 12px;"></span></div>
<div class="yiv8503492922Default" style="color: black; font-family: &quot; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b style="color: black; font-family: &quot; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">SURNAME </span></b><span style="font-size: 12px;"></span></div>
</td>
<td colspan="3" style="min-height: 12.8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 7.2px; padding-right: 7.2px; padding-top: 0px;" valign="top"><div class="yiv8503492922Default" style="color: black; font-family: &quot; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b style="color: black; font-family: &quot; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">ENWAU ERAILL </span></b><span style="font-size: 12px;"></span></div>
<div class="yiv8503492922Default" style="color: black; font-family: &quot; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b style="color: black; font-family: &quot; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">OTHER NAMES </span></b><span style="font-size: 12px;"></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="min-height: 6.2px;">
<td style="min-height: 6.2px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 7.2px; padding-right: 7.2px; padding-top: 0px;" valign="top"><div class="yiv8503492922Default" style="color: black; font-family: &quot; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 13.33px;">ADLER </span></div>
</td>
<td colspan="2" style="min-height: 6.2px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 7.2px; padding-right: 7.2px; padding-top: 0px;" valign="top"><div class="yiv8503492922Default" style="color: black; font-family: &quot; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 13.33px;"> Richard Stephen </span></div>
</td><td colspan="2" style="min-height: 6.2px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 7.2px; padding-right: 7.2px; padding-top: 0px;" valign="top"><div class="yiv8503492922Default" style="color: black; font-family: &quot; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 13.33px;"> 575 </span></div>
</td>
<td style="min-height: 6.2px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 7.2px; padding-right: 7.2px; padding-top: 0px;" valign="top"><div class="yiv8503492922Default" style="color: black; font-family: &quot; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 13.33px;">Etholwyd/Elected </span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="min-height: 6.2px;">
<td colspan="2" style="min-height: 6.2px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 7.2px; padding-right: 7.2px; padding-top: 0px;" valign="top"><div class="yiv8503492922Default" style="color: black; font-family: &quot; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 13.33px;">FOX</span></div>
</td><td colspan="2" style="min-height: 6.2px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 7.2px; padding-right: 7.2px; padding-top: 0px;" valign="top"><div class="yiv8503492922Default" style="color: black; font-family: &quot; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 13.33px;">Richard Lee </span></div>
</td>
<td colspan="2" style="min-height: 6.2px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 7.2px; padding-right: 7.2px; padding-top: 0px;" valign="top"><div class="yiv8503492922Default" style="color: black; font-family: &quot; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 13.33px;">368 </span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="min-height: 6.2px;">
<td colspan="2" style="min-height: 6.2px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 7.2px; padding-right: 7.2px; padding-top: 0px;" valign="top"><div class="yiv8503492922Default" style="color: black; font-family: &quot; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 13.33px;">LLOYD-EVANS </span></div>
</td>
<td colspan="2" style="min-height: 6.2px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 7.2px; padding-right: 7.2px; padding-top: 0px;" valign="top"><div class="yiv8503492922Default" style="color: black; font-family: &quot; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 13.33px;">Tomos Arthur </span></div>
</td>
<td colspan="2" style="min-height: 6.2px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 7.2px; padding-right: 7.2px; padding-top: 0px;" valign="top"><div class="yiv8503492922Default" style="color: black; font-family: &quot; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 13.33px;">56 </span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr id="yiv8503492922yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1531731328836_8161" style="min-height: 6.2px;">
<td colspan="2" style="min-height: 6.2px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 7.2px; padding-right: 7.2px; padding-top: 0px;" valign="top"><div class="yiv8503492922Default" style="color: black; font-family: &quot; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 13.33px;">PASSMORE </span></div>
</td>
<td colspan="2" style="min-height: 6.2px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 7.2px; padding-right: 7.2px; padding-top: 0px;" valign="top"><div class="yiv8503492922Default" style="color: black; font-family: &quot; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 13.33px;">Christopher David William
</span></div>
</td>
<td colspan="2" id="yiv8503492922yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1531731328836_8160" style="min-height: 6.2px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 7.2px; padding-right: 7.2px; padding-top: 0px;" valign="top"><div class="yiv8503492922Default" id="yiv8503492922yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1531731328836_8159" style="color: black; font-family: &quot; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 13.33px;">34 </span></div>
<div class="yiv8503492922Default" id="yiv8503492922yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1531731328836_8159" style="color: black; font-family: &quot; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 13.33px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="yiv8503492922Default" id="yiv8503492922yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1531731328836_8159" style="color: black; font-family: &quot; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 13.33px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="yiv8503492922Default" id="yiv8503492922yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1531731328836_8159" style="color: black; font-family: &quot; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 13.33px;"><br /></span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Lee Fox, married to Labour county councillor Amanda Fox, made an interesting appearance on this blog once before when he was at the centre of a near-riot at a meeting of Burry Port Town Council towards the end of last year.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://cneifiwr-emlyn.blogspot.com/2017/11/toxic-tales-its-llanelli-labour-again.html">https://cneifiwr-emlyn.blogspot.com/2017/11/toxic-tales-its-llanelli-labour-again.html</a><br />
<i></i><i></i><br />
(Scroll down past Garry Poumista Jones, about whom more in a moment).<br />
<br />
Mr Fox had unwisely resigned from his post as Technical Services Officer, but later changed his mind and asked for his job back when it was too late. A large rent-a-mob subsequently turned up at a council meeting demanding justice for their boy, something which the Labour leader on the council, John James (also a county councillor) claimed showed "how strongly local people felt attached" to their former TSO, even though he had been in the job for less than a year.<br />
<br />
The election result would seem to suggest that the attachment was not all that Cllr James cracked it up to be.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile over in Llangennech, Cllr Gary 'Poumista' Jones, has been as busy as ever on Twitter. There is yet another selfie of the councillor naked from the waist up wearing a tin hat, a bizarre interest in introducing beavers to Plymouth (strangely Plymouth features as much if not more than Llangennech does on his feed), and this when asked who he was supporting in the World Cup:<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGFEiFUr-zyJ6C8BsRS9Q9jWlVcGwA2dVWFp1IATdwcz6OJWgc5i1EmI6vMbFA3hyphenhyphengDZUIBF4uPu7nnpMPTP2vPRD6CMpTDwVjFbP_37HR2Z_CxpMeIbtRcgSsxe9eRAzkYgQTApUkPKo/s1600/poumistafooty.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="163" data-original-width="594" height="108" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGFEiFUr-zyJ6C8BsRS9Q9jWlVcGwA2dVWFp1IATdwcz6OJWgc5i1EmI6vMbFA3hyphenhyphengDZUIBF4uPu7nnpMPTP2vPRD6CMpTDwVjFbP_37HR2Z_CxpMeIbtRcgSsxe9eRAzkYgQTApUkPKo/s400/poumistafooty.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
That will have gone down really well with Poumie's voters.<br />
<br />
But at least St Gareth of Southgate's team scored a few victories against the titans of Panama and Colombia. Back in the less glamorous world of Carmarthenshire politics, Rob James's boys just seem to lurch from one helluva beating to the next.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118857435900510280.post-21154507355573906262018-06-27T15:45:00.001+01:002018-06-28T12:26:59.837+01:00Tory Time in Saron<b>Update 28 June</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Last night saw another meeting of Llandybie Community Council, normally an event which resembles the Carlsberg Complaints Department in those ads of old. Having had the dubious pleasure of Rob James's company for the recent AGM, it was Aled Crow's turn this time. Like most community council meetings, watching paint dry is normally more exciting, and councillors have been left scratching their heads at their sudden popularity. Perhaps the LibDems will turn up for the next bash.<br />
<br />
Unlike Rob, Aled can at least claim a family connection with Llandybie council because his uncle, Meirion Bowen, was a member representing the BNP a few years back.<br />
<br />
While all this was going on Rob James was out canvassing, with one lady voter of mature years telling him to stuff his leaflet where the sun doesn't shine.<br />
<br />
That'll be a "don't know" then.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
_____________________</div>
<b></b><b></b><br />
Back in 2002 Theresa May famously told the Conservative Party Conference that some people thought that the Tories were the "nasty party", to the stunned disbelief of her audience whose understanding of the world is limited to whatever the<i> Daily Mail</i> or<i> Daily Torygraph</i> have to say.<br />
<i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><br />
At the time many observers made the mistake of thinking that this was Theresa criticising her party and that what she really wanted was a softer, cuddlier and altogether kinder political movement, but her long stint as Home Secretary and more recently as a strong and stable prime minister make the Tory party of old look almost pleasant.<br />
<br />
Fortunately so far Carmarthenshire has remained steadfastly resistant to the Tory message, although almost 11,000 fans of the not so strong and stable Theresa voted for Havard Hughes in last year's general election in Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, their excuse presumably being that they were just following the orders of the<i> Daily Mail</i> and were blissfully unaware of just how inept and dire Central Office's choice of candidate was. Voters who had the misfortune of seeing Havard in action in the hustings and in what was surely one of the most cringeworthy broadcasts ever aired on S4C (and that's saying something), still bear the psychological scars.<br />
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With hindsight, the reason why Havard Hughes won so many votes probably had a lot to do with his strategy of staying as far away from the punters as possible, and the same went for his party leader.<br />
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Fast forward to the sizzling summer of 2018, and it's all change. The Tories have managed to find a local candidate to stand in the forthcoming Saron by-election for Carmarthenshire County Council, and they have been out in force trying to drum up support.<br />
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Like everywhere else, the Amman Valley has moved on, but Tories remain a rare breed in the area. Finding enough people to nominate a Conservative candidate could be tricky, so it was fortunate that the Tories were able to track down five people willing to sign the nomination papers for that nice young man in a blue suit in the local Young Conservatives Club, otherwise known as the Ael y Bryn care home.<br />
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Step forward young Aled Crow who clearly has ambitions which stretch way, way beyond Saron. If his Facebook page is to be believed, Aled used to like nothing better than an evening out on the Felinfoel down at the Welfare Hall.<br />
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But as we all know, horizons and waistbands tend to expand over time, and Aled is now rubbing shoulders with some very interesting people - the sort of people most of us would run a mile to avoid.<br />
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Here's our boy with the fragrant Alun Cairns who has just killed off the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon project which would have given a massive boost to the local economy, while putting the finishing touches to a gala event to rename the second Severn crossing in honour of HRH, in accordance with the wishes of a very silent majority.<br />
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Thanks to Cairns, rather more people will now think of the bridge as "Pont y G*nt".<br />
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Scroll down Aled's Facebook page, and you will be treated to many more pictures of Aled posing with popular figures, including Michael Gove, Carmarthenshire's very own Mark James and the reptilian Gavin Williamson, Theresa May's new Defence Secretary who appears to be as deeply loathed within the Conservative Party as he is outside it.<br />
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Somewhat incongruously rubbing digital shoulders with Gavin Williamson is a smiling Mr Igor Shchegolev, an Aide (note the capital 'A') to President Putin, and Vlad's former Minister of Communications and Mass Media.<br />
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How times have moved on from the days when would-be councillors would sell their grandmothers to get a mugshot in the<i> South Wales Guardian. </i><br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118857435900510280.post-39333600791417777372018-06-23T07:00:00.000+01:002018-06-24T06:42:15.039+01:00A four horse race in Saron - updatedFollowing the death of the late Alun Davies (Plaid), a by-election has been called for Saron ward on 19 July.<br />
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Standing for Plaid is Karen Davies, Alun's widow. Karen is a well-known figure locally and works as a pharmacist. She has been a community councillor in Llandybie since 2012.<br />
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As noted in the previous post, Alun was a popular local figure who rose above tribal politics and got along with his political opponents. It was therefore shocking that both Labour and the LibDems contacted County Hall within hours of his death to demand a by-election, showing utter disregard for the feelings of Alun's family and friends.<br />
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Also throwing their hats into the ring are a LibDem, Caryl Tandy, and a Tory hopeful called Aled Crow.<br />
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The last LibDem to be elected to the County Council was Ken Rees in Llanelli who subsequently defected to UKIP.<br />
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There may be some very elderly readers who remember seeing a Tory being returned to Jail Hill, probably in about 1870, but the Amman Valley, with its memories of what Thatcher did to the local economy, is unlikely to change the party's fortunes, especially as the Conservatives, with the help of Jeremy Corbyn (a "jobs first Brexit"), are now paving the way for the destruction of what is left of Welsh industry up in the north-east.<br />
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That leaves Labour. Readers will recall that the new Labour leader, Rob James, paid a surprise visit to Llandybie Community Council a couple of days after Alun's death, presumably to familiarise himself with the territory.<br />
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Conventional wisdom had it that Labour would field Anthony Jones, the former councillor for Llandybie, but it seems that Anthony was unable to convince the Momentum cadres who now run the party from Llanelli of his ideological purity.<br />
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The red rosette has instead been pinned on Tom Fallows who recently went down to a massive defeat in the Iscennen by-election for Ammanford town council, triggered in response to "popular demand" by the Independents. Unfortunately for Tom and the Independents, popular demand did not translate into votes, in Tom's case despite or possibly because of an extraordinary last minute attempt by Rob and the editor of the SWEP, Carmarthen Journal and Llanelli Star titles to smear senior Plaid figures in the county.<br />
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Meanwhile back at Llanelli HQ, Rob is rumoured to be plotting to oust Lee Waters AM when selection time comes round.<br />
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The prospect of being asked to choose between Red Rob and Murky Waters is almost enough to make you feel sorry for rank and file Labour members in Llanelli.<br />
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Well, almost.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118857435900510280.post-55431436048224382602018-06-01T07:20:00.001+01:002018-06-01T07:20:56.700+01:00Saron and LlandybieMany people in Llandybie and much further afield will have been saddened to hear of the death of Alun Davies on Monday at the age of just 60. Alun served his community in various roles for many years. Most recently he was a popular county councillor for Saron ward, a member of Llandybie Community Council, a former chair of the Plaid Cymru Carmarthen East and Dinefwr constituency party and a tireless campaigner and fund raiser for Wales Air Ambulance.<br />
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The tributes to him describe Alun as a genuinely nice guy who was liked and respected by his political opponents, a big and gentle man who was a familiar sight at countless public meetings.<br />
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Alun's death will mean a by-election, and normally political foes could be expected to show respect by waiting a couple of weeks, at least until the funeral, before triggering an electoral contest, but Rob James, the newly installed leader of the Labour group on Carmarthenshire County Council ("elected" by tossing a coin), clearly has little time for such niceties. Constrained only by the fact that Monday was a bank holiday, he hit the ground running on Tuesday, insisting that the council kick-start the electoral process.<br />
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Polling day will be 19 July, and the nominations process will begin before the funeral.<br />
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Saron ward returns two members, and in last year's council elections Alun topped the poll with 810 votes. Carl Harris (Plaid) came second with 679 votes, while Labour trailed in third and fourth places with 588 and 439 votes respectively. The two Tory candidates came in a distant fifth and sixth.<br />
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It is worth recalling that 2017 was a good year for Labour in general, but the party went backwards in most of Carmarthenshire outside Llanelli, despite being in opposition.<br />
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We will not have to wait long to find out who Labour will field, but one possible contender will be Anthony Jones who lost his Llandybie seat to Plaid last year. Prior to that setback, Jones was one of the bigger and noisier beasts in Labour's Carmarthenshire menagerie, with ambitions to become leader of both the Labour group and the County Council itself, unsuccessfully playing Brutus to Kevin Madge's re-interpretation of Kenneth Williams' performance as Caesar.<br />
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"Infamy, infamy, they've all got it in for me!"<br />
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If Anthony Jones does throw his hat into the ring, he will be hoping that voters in the Amman Valley have forgotten his <a href="https://cneifiwr-emlyn.blogspot.com/2014/01/its-just-not-cricket.html">time on the council's planning committee</a> where he managed to incur the wrath of both Ammanford Cricket Club and the residents of Penybanc.<br />
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It remains to be seen what Labour will do in the case of the now vacant seat on Llandybie Community Council. The party could choose to stand back and allow Plaid to co-opt a new member, or it could force another by-election as it did recently in Iscennen ward in Ammanford.<br />
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Readers will recall that Labour went down to a heavy defeat in Iscennen after forcing an unnecessary election, with the unsuccessful Labour candidate arguing on this blog that his party had triggered an election in response to popular demand. Cough.<br />
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The otherwise clean Iscennen campaign was marred a day before voters went to the polls when Rob James and the editor of the Carmarthen Journal, SWEP etc. launched a ham-fisted and spectacularly unsuccessful attempt to smear his political opponents.<br />
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Despite that drubbing, the indications are that Rob James will insist on forcing a second contest in Llandybie because the Labour leader unexpectedly travelled up from Llanelli to attend the AGM of Llandybie Community Council on Wednesday.<br />
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In common with most community councils, Llandybie rarely gets to welcome members of the public or the local press to its meetings, and such was the surprise of councillors at the sight of the increasingly Gothic looking Labour leader, that he was asked in what capacity he had decided to grace them with his presence. "As an observer", came the reply.<br />
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Clearly Rob still has some way to go to becoming a household name even in his own household because when he temporarily left the room, the chair of the council AGM for the evening, Cllr Anthony "Whitey" Davies, asked his fellow councillors who the surprise visitor was, despite sitting opposite the Labour leader in the chamber of County Hall.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118857435900510280.post-37681248232290681152018-05-21T06:26:00.000+01:002018-05-21T06:26:43.341+01:00Iscennen - not taking back control<b>Iscennen Ward (Ammanford) - By-election</b><br />
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Rhys Fisher (Plaid Cymru) 237<br />
Thomas Fallows (Labour) 79<br />
Emyr John (Independent) 45<br />
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Bearing in mind that there are more than 730 community and town councils in Wales and around 8,000 town or community councillors, it would be reasonable to expect that death, insanity, bankruptcy, long-term illness and imprisonment would mean a healthy crop of community by-elections every week, but in reality by-elections at the paddling pool end of local democracy are comparatively rare events and generally do not merit more than a passing mention in what is left of the local media.<br />
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The convention is that when a serving councillor steps down or falls off his or her perch, a replacement is co-opted until the next round of elections, if elections ever take place, because on many community councils the incumbents will be returned unopposed. On councils where members are politically affiliated, the convention is that the party which held the seat at the previous election gets to nominate the successor.<br />
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Because town and community councillors, at least the good ones, are in reality little more than unpaid volunteer dogsbodies presiding over tiny budgets with very little in the way of power, this democratic fudge works, and voters tend not to look kindly on those who force unnecessary and expensive by-elections to decide who in Cwmsgwt will patrol dog poo alley.<br />
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Last week's contest in Iscennen ward for a seat on Ammanford Town Council was different for a number of reasons and merits a closer look.<br />
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The previous incumbent in Iscennen was Chris Corgi Jones, proprietor of the posh hosiery factory, who was elected on a Plaid ticket. Chris decided to step down to spend more time with his socks, and the expectation was that the party would duly nominate a successor to be co-opted, but 14 miles down the road the vipers' nest known as the Llanelli Labour Party had other ideas, and a candidate was found to front Rob James's attempt to reconquer Ammanford.<br />
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And so it came to pass that young Thomas Fallows agreed to boldly go where nobody with any sense would have ventured to tread, having seen the light in a meeting with Owen Jones, the Guardian's answer to Dave Spart. Perhaps he'd spent too much time in a darkened room on his X-box, but once he'd signed on the dotted line, it was too late, and to the disgust of the good people of Ammanford, an unnecessary and expensive by-election was triggered.<br />
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Those who met Tom during the campaign say he is pleasant enough and polite, but would probably have struggled with the complexities of town council business.<br />
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Plaid fielded Rhys Fisher, a bright young man from Ammanford who is captain of the town's football team and a sports coach who works with apprentices at Coleg Sir Gâr.<br />
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Labour and Plaid were then joined by an independent candidate as the three legged 100 to 1 outsider.<br />
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The campaign was a clean fight almost to the end, and was heavy on the shoe leather. Kevin Madge dutifully trotted round with young Tom, and the Llanelli Labour Party threw all of its big guns in.<br />
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The slogan chosen for the Labour campaign, presumably in a committee room in Llanelli, was "<b>#TakeBackControl</b>", a peculiarly inappropriate and tribalist line to take for a homely town council by-election, and something which strikes an uncannily familiar dog whistle note.<br />
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Now where have we heard that one before? Surely not a brexity echo of the campaign run by the assorted charlatans and conmen fronted by Boris Johnson?<br />
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Perhaps sensing that the wind was not blowing in the right direction, Rob James went nuclear in the final few days with a clumsily worded smear campaign directed at Plaid. Right on cue, the ever reliable editor of the South Wales Evening Post, Llanelli Star and Carmarthen Journal, Jonathan Roberts, ran Rob's "story" about a grant to redevelop the former Lloyds Bank branch as a front page splash in both the SWEP and the Journal - the day before voters went to the polls.<br />
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This ham-fisted last minute intervention probably lost readers, and clearly did not win any votes. Young Tom went down to a heavy defeat, with Plaid out-polling him by three to one.<br />
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A humble town council by-election it may have been, but this was a remarkable result in an area which not so very long ago was one of the strongest of Labour's strongholds, where Gwynfor Evans used to be subjected to abuse on the streets.<br />
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From 1966 until 2001 the constituency would swing back to Labour every time the Tories were in power. Jonathan Edwards was the first to break the mould in 2015.<br />
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With Theresa May heading up the worst government in living memory, Labour is facing an open goal and should be sweeping all before it, but Corbyn is now trailing May in the opinion polls. Rob James, who recently completed his takeover of the Labour group on the county council with the toss of a coin, apparently masterminded the campaign. He seems to have peaked before he even started.<br />
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There are many areas where Labour can still pin a red rosette on the proverbial dead donkey and win, Llanelli being one of them. What the Amman Valley shows is that hard work and good candidates can break Labour's sclerotic grip in places which it has taken for granted for decades.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118857435900510280.post-72680434167522094772018-05-10T14:40:00.002+01:002018-05-10T16:02:43.476+01:00Labour painsWith more twists and turns than the A484, more plots than Persimmon and more backstabbing and barely believable characters than Pobol y Cwm, it's been a while since this blog reported on the goings-on in the Labour Party in Carmarthenshire, and so here is a cut-out-'n-keep souvenir issue to mark the, erm, election of Rob James to serve as leader of the Labour group on the county council.<br />
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Back in May 2015 at what was described as a "very emotional" annual general meeting of the Labour group on Carmarthenshire County Council, Kevin Madge's political career finally hit the buffers when he was ousted as leader by Jeff Edmunds, the Llanelli undertaker.<br />
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Within days the coup d'etat led to the break-up of the dire Labour-Independent coalition and put the Plaid group in power.<br />
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The council elections in May 2017 saw Labour consolidate its grip on Llanelli while being driven to near extinction everywhere else in the county, including its former strongholds in the Amman Valley.<br />
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One of the new Labour intake in Llanelli was Cllr Rob James who ousted the veteran maverick Bill Thomas in Lliedi ward. Prior to that, James was a county councillor in Neath Port Talbot for five long years in which he made a name for himself by being absent for much of his time in office. His legacy to the local party was to gift his old ward to Plaid Cymru.<br />
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What young Rob may lack in the delivery department, he makes up for with ambition, and from the moment he first set foot in Llanelli it has been rumoured that he has been eyeing up the jobs of both nuclear Nia and Lee Murky Waters, recently memorably described as Welsh politics' answer to Alan Partridge.<br />
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It would not be his first attempt at breaking into the political big-time. A few short years ago, Rob set his sights on securing the nomination for the Cynon Valley Assembly seat, promising that he would make his home there.<br />
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Unfortunately for Neath, Llanelli and Carmarthenshire, the Cynon Valley Labour Party had other ideas, probably after they had been forced to watch this video, in which our unshaven hero keeps gazing up at something to his right while pretending not to be reading from a script.<br />
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Roll forward to May 2018 and what was no doubt another very emotional (i.e. bloody) Labour group AGM where new boy Rob with only a year under his belt challenged veteran Jeff Edmunds for the crown.<br />
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According to very reliable sources the vote was a tie, with the tiny Amman Valley contingent having to hold its noses and vote for lugubrious Jeff after spending most of the last three years sticking pins into a wax effigy of him.<br />
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In most bodies of this kind the decision would then hang on the casting vote of the chair, but the impasse was resolved instead by tossing a coin. Rob won.<br />
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<b>Earning a crust</b><br />
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As a result, Rob will see his council salary rise from £13,400 to a more attractive £22,100 as leader of the opposition.<br />
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The £22,100 will presumably come on top of Rob's salary as full-time office manager for MP Geraint Davies (Lab. Swansea West), where the salary range is from £30,000 up to £41,748.<br />
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Thanks to the taxpayer, Rob will therefore be bringing home somewhere between £50k and £60k a year thanks to that lucky toss of a coin, but money must be tight in the James household because Rob is also the only one of Carmarthenshire's 74 councillors known to be claiming for the cost of childcare, worth up to £403 a month, presumably because the missus is also out boosting the family budget.<br />
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This may leave some readers wondering what happens to the James brood when Rob is performing his full-time office manager job and not in County Hall.<br />
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For reasons which are not clear, Rob recently used his membership of the council's Democratic Services Committee to persuade his fellow councillors that there was no need to flaunt this additional source of income and upset the voters, and so it was agreed that Rob's childcare claims should be hidden in a general total figure.<br />
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Ker-ching!<br />
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<b>What Rob has done for you</b><br />
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In his year as county councillor for Lliedi it is fair to say that Rob's attendance figures have been a marked improvement on his five years in Neath, but it is also fair to say that he has not exactly made much of a mark.<br />
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Highlights of his career so far in Carmarthenshire include his opposition to the planned new Ysgol Dewi Sant, backed by a coalition made up of dogwalkers and the barmy twosome behind CUSC, Labour's paramilitary cyber and hairdressing group set up ostensibly to campaign for sports clubs, and the Rainbow Flag fiasco.<br />
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In addition to being a member of the Democratic Services Committee, Rob is also a member of the council's so-called Constitutional Reform Working Group (CRWG), which in a neat Mark Jamesian twist is not actually recognised by the council's constitution and so does not have to tell the public about its deliberations.<br />
<br />
One of the weighty matters considered by CRWG earlier this year was the vexed question of the council's flag flying policy. Had he turned up for the meeting Rob would have voted in favour of flying the Rainbow Flag, he told the press. Unfortunately his car let him down. Jeff Edmunds, Labour's other representative, did manage to get to County Hall and voted instead to maintain the ban on anything other than flying flags to mark various high days and holidays in celebration of the Windsor clan. No doubt urgent consideration is now being given to adding Meghan Markle to the list.<br />
<br />
Rob's campaign promise to rid Carmarthenshire of its beloved chief executive, Mark James CBE (no relation), seems to have been quietly buried.<br />
<br />
In short, Rob's contribution to local government in Carmarthenshire so far has been as effective as what is known as a "rhech mewn pot jam". Look it up.<br />
<br />
<b>You-Dinefwr-No</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
It remains to be seen whether Rob's lucky toss will now temporarily put his political ambitions on hold, and there are those in the party who fear not.<br />
<br />
Just over the Llanelli constituency border in Carmarthen East and Dinefwr the constituency Labour Party is so concerned by the prospect of being saddled with Rob James as its Westminster candidate that it has decided to volunteer to accept a women-only shortlist.<br />
<br />
Will Rob elect to undergo the knife and become Roberta to further his career? Watch this space.<br />
<br />
In another bizarre twist, a Mancunian recently settled in the rural idyll of Pentrecagal called Chris Hardy is claiming to have already bagged the Carmarthen East and Dinefwr nomination and to be Labour's official candidate for the Westminster constituency which is held by Jonathan Edwards MP (Plaid).<br />
<br />
On his website <a href="https://www.labourchris.com/">here</a>, Chris introduces himself as "the local Labour Party candidate for the Carmarthen East and Dinefwr constituency", something which has apparently taken the local party by surprise, and he is seeking donations to fund his campaign.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIdcWzOhbRWpm8UNcjnBpmK-c_ITxX-ZO5XJNPY0sx9vOyeciu8ITG-Zrs9GtK3fX0WRGqJWx68phnA5Z9SL4tkv0E7yuib6AxA_3CoP8cVHCEf18TmOPPiNzccSEmLB-JskRC23iG9K8/s1600/chrishardy.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="455" data-original-width="974" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIdcWzOhbRWpm8UNcjnBpmK-c_ITxX-ZO5XJNPY0sx9vOyeciu8ITG-Zrs9GtK3fX0WRGqJWx68phnA5Z9SL4tkv0E7yuib6AxA_3CoP8cVHCEf18TmOPPiNzccSEmLB-JskRC23iG9K8/s400/chrishardy.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click to enlarge</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Chris describes his time in Carmarthenshire as "turmoilous", and he admits to having upset a few people, but his message is one of love and Universal Politics, a creed based on luuurv, and lots of it.<br />
<br />
To bring us all together, Chris has set up a second website called Care4Carms.com which he hopes will act as a forum for ideas and discussion across the county. Neither the labourchris.com website nor Care4Carms.com contains any Welsh, but Care4Carms has attracted a number of messages from the county's Russian speaking minority.<br />
<br />
It's worth checking that your anti-virus software is up to date before visiting either site.<br />
<br />
Прощай товарищи.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><u><br /></u></b>
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118857435900510280.post-34284791033568754752018-04-29T08:19:00.000+01:002018-04-29T10:25:06.263+01:00My Diary: Lee Waters AMIn yet another shameless <i>Private Eye </i>rip-off<i>,</i> we are proud to begin another occasional series. This week it's the diaries of Lee Waters, aged 42 and a quarter, as told to Y Cneifiwr.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Monday</u></b><br />
<div>
<b><u><br /></u></b></div>
<div>
Back from an exhilarating and historic spring conference in Llandudno. Lovely though the Venice of the North may be, it is not a patch on Llanelli where I may or may not have lived ever since I left the ranks of <strike> the Young Conservatives</strike> Young Labour.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I shall never forget the tear stained faces of all those rank and file third sector lobbyists and consultants as Carwyn told us that this was to be his last conference as First Minister.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It was a privilege to see history being made, and while it is too soon to form a firm view about Carwyn's legacy to the nation, something tells me that he will not be joining Ramsay Macdonald, Gordon Brown and my old friend Aneurin Bevan in the Pantheon of the Greats.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Sadly his final term in office was marred by tragedy when he failed to appoint me to his cabinet, but he nevertheless leaves a towering legacy in the form of the Allotments Aspiration Order (Wales), the Landfill Tax (Administration) (Wales) Supplementary Order, and more recently the Wales Brexit Continuity (Abject Surrender of Powers) Bill.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Our thoughts must now turn to who will fill those very large shoes, and it is vital that we have more than two candidates and a proper debate. Mark Drakeford has left an impressive legacy in our NHS, and Vaughan Gething and Eluned Morgan would also have my support should they decide to stand. I am proud to pin my colours to their masts.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But perhaps it is time for a younger candidate from the progressive wing of the party, someone with a vision and ideas which will enable us to capitalise on the challenges of the white hot heat of the digital revolution. Do I hear the wingbeat of destiny calling on me to step forward?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Before all that, we need to address how we elect our leader. The current system and One Member One Vote both have their attractions. It is essential that the voices of our friends in the unions and AMs and MPs are given due weight. OMOV certainly has much to recommend it, but I cannot help asking why we would want to copy the Nationalists and give everyone equal voting rights.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
On balance, I suspect that a combination of the current electoral college system and OMOV would be the best way forward.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There, I've said it. And now the brickbats will rain down on me for having the courage to make a stand. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><u>Tuesday</u></b></div>
<div>
<b><u><br /></u></b></div>
<div>
As a member of the Assembly's Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee, I take my duties seriously and spend part of my evening reviewing the output of S4C. Part of their recent peak time offering was a drama series featuring a woman vicar who talks to dead people, and a reality show in which various so-called celebs try to herd some pigs.<br />
<br />
I ask you.<br />
<br />
As an ordinary working class Llanelli lad I like nothing better than to sit down with a few cans on a Saturday night to watch Ant and Dec or Cilla. But what do we get on S4C? Siân Cothi driving a JCB.<br />
<i><br /></i>
This may do it for the Nationalist elite, but I find it hard to justify supporting calls to stop more cuts to the channel's budget.<br />
<br />
Cue a deluge of online abuse from Cymdeithas trolls.</div>
<div>
<i></i><i></i><br /></div>
<div>
<b><u>Wednesday</u></b></div>
<div>
<b><u><br /></u></b></div>
<div>
The Reform Think Tank names me "Reformer of the Week" following my speech to the Assembly in which I said that the advance of digital technology and automation is a force to be understood and harnessed rather than rejected.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3P3OwbLTAHQPt3aHgRN0jY330KbqNqz0klIulozntboRHCQgr6V2wsKErwIHawlh6sXRuaQy89hGWeduDLZt5Gz75n_Kmn8f23NjiG3_emxoionYZYZ78AjdMC0A5Ppw9N43M0acibPU/s1600/leewaters3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="429" data-original-width="428" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3P3OwbLTAHQPt3aHgRN0jY330KbqNqz0klIulozntboRHCQgr6V2wsKErwIHawlh6sXRuaQy89hGWeduDLZt5Gz75n_Kmn8f23NjiG3_emxoionYZYZ78AjdMC0A5Ppw9N43M0acibPU/s320/leewaters3.png" width="319" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me looking into the future</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">This shows that you don't need a flashy Harvard degree to carry out blue sky thinking, and while the Nationalists hanker for a return to the Celtic mists of the middle ages, my vision is for a revolution in education so that we<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 15.86px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"> <span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">ensure that we’re preparing young people for roles that do not yet exist in a future we can barely conceive of five or ten short years from now.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #b00000; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 15.86px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">While I am a strong supporter of Welsh medium education, so long as it does not interfere with the rights of dog walkers, I couldn't help noticing recent damning criticism from Estyn that two thirds of Welsh primaries are not up to scratch when it comes to being at the leading edge of the digital revolution. This must change, and we must embrace what we cannot yet know.</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 15.86px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #b00000;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 15.86px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;">Ro</span><span style="color: black;">bots and virtual reality are the way forward, and will free up valuable resources. Who needs new roads around Llandeilo when we will soon be able to travel anywhere we like at the speed of light and in virtual real-time from the comfort of our own homes?</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #b00000;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 15.86px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: black;">In farming Welsh agriculture must embrace Big Data to transform how we produce food. When Mrs Trellis buys a dozen eggs in Porthmadog, a stimulating electronic buzz will prompt hen number 756342 at MegaFarm plc to begin a new supply chain cycle.</span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 15.86px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size: 15.86px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black;">Instead of condemning people to boring and repetitive jobs, robots will free up nurses and GPs in our health service. Nurses performing bed baths and rectal thermometer checks, and GPs carrying out prostate examinations will seem as old fashioned as Florence Nightingale and her lamp when RoboNurse takes over. And I'm sure that they could be programmed to be bilingual as well.</span></span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size: 15.86px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size: 15.86px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">This is how we will transform the NHS.</span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size: 15.86px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size: 15.86px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">But what will I get for setting out my bold and brave new vision? A torrent of abuse, that's what.</span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; display: inline !important; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.27px; line-height: 32px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #14171a; display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.27px; line-height: 32px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"></span><span style="color: black;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div>
<b><u>Thursday</u></b></div>
<div>
<b><u><br /></u></b></div>
<div>
Tory cuts and mismanagement of the Welsh NHS lead to an announcement by Hywel Dda that Prince Philip Hospital could be downgraded. I take to the streets with Nia who has just got back from a trip on one of our Trident subs.<br />
<br />
Close Withybush and Glangwili if you like, I tell Mrs and Mrs Evans of Dafen, but hands off Prince Philip.<br />
<br />
I make a note to tell Vaughan all about my ideas for RoboNurse, and stand by for the usual tidal wave of Nationalist attacks on my Twitter feed. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><u>Friday</u></b></div>
<div>
<b><u><br /></u></b></div>
<div>
And so ends another week in politics. These are challenging times, and never has the country been more divided, which is why I seek always to be a bridge builder. It is therefore with a heavy heart that I note once again that the nationalists are cynically trying to bring politics into the future of our hospitals in the Hywel Dda region.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile their banner waving and hysterical cyber trolls allege that Carwyn has sold Wales out to the London Tories for "a handful of magic beans", whereas I know, because he told me, that he has secured exciting and as yet unspecified new powers in return for his statesmanlike consensus building.<br />
<br />
And on that note I am sure that I have once again made myself a target for all those bitter and twisted nationalists with chips on their shoulders who have nothing better to do waste their time on Twitter.<br />
<br />
#goodnightall @Amanwy #robonurse #labourfutures #saveprincephilip #me4llanelli<u><b><br /></b></u></div>
<b></b><u></u><strike></strike><strike></strike><strike></strike><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118857435900510280.post-51995907663682414122018-02-25T20:21:00.002+00:002018-02-25T20:26:51.670+00:00Council of Despair: A crock of something at the end of the rainbow<i>After another lengthy sojourn at the Beti George Clinic, this time claiming it was 'flu, Sali Malu Cachu is back.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>______________</i></div>
<i><br /></i>
Sir Ephraim Jams gazed down at the ancient market town nestling in its historic landscape. There across the river was the Tallahassee Fried Chlorinated Chicken Shack, temporarily closed while the company said it was "re-evaluating its distribution operations". Close by was Poundstretcher, while a short distance away he could make out a building housing Kash-for-Gold and a new branch of the Rees-Mogg Brexit Bookies betting chain emblazoned with its catchy slogan "Everyone's a winner!"<br />
<br />
It had been such a pleasure to welcome the Right Honourable Andrea Loathsome to the star-studded opening ceremony the other week. The local economy was indeed booming, and it was all thanks to his vision, Sir Ephraim mused modestly.<br />
<br />
At that moment the Chief's attention was drawn to movement below the window of the Executive Suite as old Mudge, the caretaker, prepared to hoist the Union Flag to mark the birthday of Her Royal Highness Princess Trixie Tinkerbelle, the spouse of HRH the Duke of Luton who was now 37th in line to the throne.<br />
<br />
With a surge of pride, Sir Ephraim recalled his last conversation with Camilla when she had come down for an overnight stay at the royal couple's beautifully restored 26-bedroom cottage.<br />
<br />
"I've got to hand it to you, Eph," she had said between gulps of gin, "you know how to keep these local savages in order. Keep your nose clean, and I will have a quiet word with you-know-who. I can see you sitting on the red benches".<br />
<br />
A peerage! Lord Jams of Century Wharf....Just imagine! He might soon be dispensing his wisdom before the gilded throne at the beating heart of British Government. All he had to do was hold the ship steady for a little longer.<br />
<br />
Sir Ephraim's reverie was interrupted by a discreet cough. It was Mrs Hughes Jones, the housekeeper.<br />
<br />
"The staff are waiting for you in the Chippings Room", she announced.<br />
<br />
Sir Ephraim strode into the panelled room dominated by a massive portrait of Dame Muriel swathed in ermine and wearing some very impressive chains of office.<br />
<br />
Wasting no time on pleasantries, Sir Ephraim was straight down to business.<br />
<br />
"We have only one item on the agenda today, namely the symbolic but nevertheless vitally important question of municipal protocol and flag flying".<br />
<br />
"You will recall that questions were recently asked by some of our newer members less experienced in policy matters about raising a multi-coloured banner from the roofs of our offices. I am pleased to inform you that I personally approved a policy to deal with such matters a couple of years ago after we received an avalanche of requests from various pressure groups. It is with regret that I must inform you that acceding to such requests is out of the question. Unless of course you decide otherwise."<br />
<br />
"The policy itself is based on a very clear protocol issued by the Home Office at the time when the Prime Minister herself occupied that great Office of State".<br />
<br />
"The decision before you is therefore whether to disregard the firm instructions of the Home Office itself and open open the floodgates to a torrent of demands to fly the flags of extremist organisations, or to hold firm and respect the wishes of their Royal Highnesses who made their views clear to me on their last visit to Mudpie".<br />
<br />
"It's Myddfai, Sir", ventured one of the assembled worthies.<br />
<br />
"Exactly. Mudpie, just as I said", snapped Sir Ephraim testily.<br />
<br />
"May I be so bold as to ask permission to see the requests you have received", asked Mr Mole.<br />
<br />
Sir Ephraim brandished a thick file of papers. "Unfortunately that will not be possible because of commercial sensitivity, which as you will be aware is a delegated area of policy, but rest assured I do not think you would want to be seen to be allowing the Trelech Taliban Association, the Abergorlech Sex Workers Collective or the Laugharne Leather Club to promote their, cough, interests from our property. And you can bet that if we did, we'd be getting demands from Ffred Ffransis and his troublemakers next".<br />
<br />
A lugubrious voice boomed from the far end of the table. It was Boris Karloff, or possible Edmund Jeffries. Sir Ephraim was never quite sure which.<br />
<br />
"I recently had the colours of the rainbow explained to me", he began. "Red means, um, passion I think, while indigo has something to do with hope. Or it maybe it's the other way round".<br />
<br />
Sir Ephraim cut him short. "Very interesting I'm sure, but we must now move to a vote. On the one hand you may decide to ignore the wishes of their Royal Highnesses and the advice given by the Home Secretary. You are indeed free to open the floodgates to all manner of fanatics and pressure groups, accepting the very negative publicity that would go with the flying of Islamist symbols and Tafod y Ddraig. You may on the other hand decide to heed the words of Dame Muriel herself who warned that members who listened to the clamour of public opinion were weak and spineless. It is entirely up to you."<br />
<br />
The assembled worthies shifted uncomfortably in their seats.<br />
<br />
"All those in favour of standing firm, raise your hands now."<br />
<br />
Sir Ephraim looked pleased. "Unanimous! Good day to you all. Mrs Hughes Jones, kindly show them out."<br />
<br />
Before Sir Ephraim could move, the door burst open and an unshaven man sweating profusely in an ill-fitting grey suit stumbled in. The suit jacket was festooned with badges and ribbons. "Nia for Nukes!", "M4 Relief Road Now!", "Say NO! to M4 Relief Road" screamed some of the badges.<br />
<br />
It was "our Rob", as he was known to the dog walkers of Llanerch Fields.<br />
<br />
"Sorry I'm late. I over-, um I mean the um, err, ah, I had a flat tyre. Yes that was it. A flat tyre. Did I miss anything?"<br />
<br />
"Mr Karloff will fill you in", snarled the chief before sweeping from the room.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
______________________</div>
<br />
A couple of days had passed and Sir Ephraim was to be found in his office, poring over a detailed map of the new Dame Muriel Wellness Village and Spa. There was the site of the planned Robbie Savage Hotel, next to the Golding Sachs Health Investment Center. Over there was the site of the enormous new Buba Clinic, while here was the Harley Street Specialist Arena.<br />
<br />
It was all very exciting, but Sir Ephraim's pencil hovered over the words "Dame Muriel".<br />
<br />
Name recognition and branding were key, he mused, and to be brutally frank "Dame Muriel" lacked that international je-ne-sais-quoi. Sir Ephraim crossed out the name of his old friend and wrote the words "HRH Princess Camilla".<br />
<br />
That was much better, he thought. He could tell Dame Muriel that if the wellness village thing took off, the international airport she had longed for would finally be built where Trimsaran now stood, and it would of course be known as "Dame Muriel International" in her honour. That way everyone would be happy, he smiled.<br />
<br />
Sir Ephraim's train of thought was interrupted by a knock on the door. It was Mrs Hughes Jones, the loyal housekeeper.<br />
<br />
"Mr Mole wishes to see you, and he says it's very urgent", she announced.<br />
<br />
"Very well, show him in", said a visibly annoyed Sir Ephraim.<br />
<br />
Mr Mole entered, clearly distressed.<br />
<br />
"What is it man? Speak up!"<br />
<br />
"They're all up in arms over the flag business, Sir. They're spitting feathers in Cardiff Bay, there's a petition and demonstrations are planned. The BBC is sniffing around, and Shippo has been asking a lot of awkward questions. Not to mention the reptiles at the Herald. Leanne is furious."<br />
<br />
"I see. So having made this mess, what do you intend to do about it?" Sir Ephraim was clearly not pleased at the turn of events.<br />
<br />
Mr Mole did an impersonation of a goldfish before pulling himself together. "I have read the policy, Sir, and it says that I am allowed to make an executive decision. We have no choice but to fly the Rainbow Flag!"<br />
<br />
"Act in haste, repent at leisure, Mr Mole. Any hopes you may have entertained of an MBE have now been dashed, and for some of us this may represent an even graver setback. You may leave now".<br />
<br />
Mr Mole retreated rapidly, and as he did so he heard the sound of a gilt pencil being snapped.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118857435900510280.post-79569636623437945002017-12-20T15:05:00.000+00:002017-12-20T20:51:22.002+00:00Festive thoughtsChestnuts roasting by an open fire, peace on earth and goodwill to man (and woman), even Auntie Beryl and Mrs Bucket next door, or contemplating the living hell that is Tesco in Cardigan when you make a last minute dash for that "essential" jar of stem ginger. Yes, it's that time of year again when most of us will be thinking Christmas-related thoughts.<br />
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Not so if you are the chief executive of Carmarthenshire County Council, it would seem. In what is turning into something of an annual tradition, Mr James appears to be contemplating another blitzkrieg of festive litigation and threats of legal action.<br />
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This time last year he was putting the final touches to what he clearly hoped would be his final offensive against Jacqui Thompson, with a court case to have her and her family turfed out of their home, with a simultaneous battery of complaints to Dyfed Powys Police. Not content with that, he threw his toys out of the pram when two councillors dared to suggest a compromise, and launched a formal complaint of breach of the code of conduct against a third.<br />
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It was a hectic December.<br />
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The Ombudsman's wheels grind exceedingly slow, however, and it is understood that the "investigation" of alleged <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222;">lèse</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">-</span>majesté by former councillor Sian Caiach is still going on.</span><br />
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To what must have been the great man's intense frustration, the legal Armageddon that he had so carefully planned was about as successful as Theresa May's strong and stable election campaign.<br />
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As Jail Hill watchers know, the chief executive does not give in that easily, and so it came as no surprise to hear the other day that Mrs Angry, the Finchley housewife, blogging superstar and nemesis of Tory councillors in Barnet, had spotted an unusual amount of interest in some of her old back numbers dealing with the Jacqui Thompson case emanating from an IP address belonging to Carmarthenshire County Council.<br />
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It is perfectly normal to see council IP addresses, no doubt belonging to the press and PR departments, monitoring recent stuff on the blogs, although in this age of austerity and with frontline services being cut, employing people to monitor naughty bloggers and wayward journalists is one service most of us could survive without.<br />
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However, trawling through blog archives for stories relating to court cases is more likely to be a task allocated to someone in County Hall's notorious "cavalier at best, incompetent at worst" <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">legal department, to quote</span> eminent lawyer Sir David Lewis.<br />
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Whether or not Mr James is planning a new spring legal offensive is something we will no doubt find out in due course, but in the meantime we can all sleep soundly in the knowledge that, in the view of the Wales Audit Office, there is <a href="http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/teflon-mark-and-other-news.html">nothing wrong</a> with council resources being used in pursuit of a legal action which the council is adamant is an entirely private matter between Mr James and Mrs Thompson.<br />
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Meanwhile Mr James has been busy issuing threats of court action against Mrs Trisha Breckman who is seeking justice for the appalling treatment she has suffered at the hands of the council over the last 15 years.<br />
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As readers will recall, the essence of that case is that the council failed in its duty to enforce the law and planning regulations against her troublesome neighbour, Mr Andrew Thomas.<br />
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One of the many issues involved in the latest flare-up is what action was taken to ensure that an area of hardstanding illegally constructed by Mr Thomas on part of a Special Area of Conservation and SSSI was actually removed as required by the enforcement notice.<br />
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After Mr Thomas failed to comply with the notice, a court case ensued but was dropped no sooner than it had started, with council officers telling the court that the notice had since been complied with.<br />
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Given Mr Thomas's immensely long track record of contempt for the planning system, you would think the council would have sent someone round to check that the hardstanding really had been removed, but it seems not. Instead, the council's Head of Law and Monitoring Officer wrote that an "aerial photograph" from 2013 showed that it had been removed.<br />
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Readers can decide for themselves whether the photograph was taken by council officers in a municipal Cessna or was it, as we non-lawyers would call it, "Google Earth" showing the illegal hardstanding with a lot of soil and rock dumped on top?<br />
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The matter of the hardstanding is only one in a very long line of bizarre statements made by senior council officers in relation to Mr Thomas's activities at Maesybont, including a former head of planning's failure to notice that the "farm" was in fact a lorry depot, and his claim that a scrapped fire engine dumped in a field was in fact a pressure washer.<br />
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And so, dear reader, we leave 2017 pretty much as we started it.<br />
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Nadolig llawen. Merry Christmas.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118857435900510280.post-45496946046192109502017-12-17T08:15:00.000+00:002017-12-17T08:15:03.736+00:00Carmarthen West - An Update<div>
The gigantic housing development known as Carmarthen West has featured on this blog several times - <a href="https://cneifiwr-emlyn.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/red-kev-comes-to-rescue-of-their.html">here</a>, for example.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The scheme was hatched and pushed through by the previous Labour/Independent administration, but whatever qualities the Meryl-Madge dream team had, vision was not one of them. It was his visionary capabilities that landed Mark James his job as chief executive way back in 2001, and this bright shiny new city on a hill (in reality part hill, part bog) is yet another of his visionary legacy projects.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Like so many other Jamesian schemes, it has not had a smooth run and involves a complex web of commercial agreements which involve a lot of give and take - with council residents doing all the giving and fat cat "investors" doing all the taking.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Readers of the<i> <a href="http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/28-acres-land-still-needed-14043720">Carmarthen Journal</a></i><a href="http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/28-acres-land-still-needed-14043720"> </a>learned last week that the £5 million plus link road scheme is still bogged down in disputes with landowners. As most of the road and a new bridge have now been completed, it is pertinent to ask why work was begun and millions of pounds spent without checking that everyone was on board first. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But we are where we are, and it seems that the council will now have to resort to compulsory purchase orders.</div>
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<div>
The council is funding most of the cost of the new road, but is hoping to recoup our money through a roof tax on the new houses, although word has it that the new houses are not selling like hot cakes. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We can but hope.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Hardly had the ink dried on the<i> Journal's</i> story than we learned that Jeff Fairburn, the chief executive of Persimmon, the principal developer in Carmarthen West, has just landed himself a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/dec/15/persimmon-chair-resigns-chief-executive-obscene-bonus">bonus of £128 million</a> (believed to be a mere £110 million + after the deduction of fees), with a bonanza of around £400 million going to other senior executives in the company.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Persimmon has had a very good year, thanks largely it seems to the UK government subsidies. </div>
<div>
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A company which can afford to splash £500 million on its top executives could, you would think, afford to stump up £5 million to pay for the link road needed for the housing development. </div>
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Not a bit of it. Persimmon and its interlocutors in County Hall have ensured that all the risk falls on local taxpayers for a scheme which has nothing to do with meeting local housing needs and which will lead to the Anglicization of the oldest town in Wales.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118857435900510280.post-86357436999572551242017-12-06T16:12:00.000+00:002017-12-06T16:13:54.469+00:00A whiff of scandalCneifiwr has been inundated with requests from younger readers wanting to know how to distinguish between the late Christine Keeler and the late Mandy Rice Davies (he would say that, wouldn't he?).<br />
<br />
It's simple.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsNrd_w7XqdqynCu7dPenq-syBUBhce-HVY0IeNsNVp4ZKhIuBAReMJVGyCuc10_w5JEeqzZ6SUOefzgHNJEq46mIFCc1Aao1tePr5vy1ai3vsiGEEqIEh4VRh0ILkLLhqr8M4-wao7wY/s1600/calangaeaf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="237" data-original-width="203" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsNrd_w7XqdqynCu7dPenq-syBUBhce-HVY0IeNsNVp4ZKhIuBAReMJVGyCuc10_w5JEeqzZ6SUOefzgHNJEq46mIFCc1Aao1tePr5vy1ai3vsiGEEqIEh4VRh0ILkLLhqr8M4-wao7wY/s400/calangaeaf.jpg" width="342" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not Mandy Rice Davies</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWczg-592p9_Nszq3GwKMVTTLUqcK5cilPNU2CLk-OIoX7cA-97Sv3lAs5jkpvMjrTDREWOP15y3Tj-IxSlayQooVBqKHgT9JW6kGfH0DJkUgb631y6uR2bfPOmUABOHTXQpm5pqs2B4c/s1600/profumo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="407" data-original-width="630" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWczg-592p9_Nszq3GwKMVTTLUqcK5cilPNU2CLk-OIoX7cA-97Sv3lAs5jkpvMjrTDREWOP15y3Tj-IxSlayQooVBqKHgT9JW6kGfH0DJkUgb631y6uR2bfPOmUABOHTXQpm5pqs2B4c/s320/profumo.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not Christine Keeler</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118857435900510280.post-72780729326766066132017-12-03T09:16:00.000+00:002017-12-03T09:16:15.608+00:00Governance2014 was an extraordinarily turbulent year for Carmarthenshire County Council. It began with the publication by Anthony Barrett, the Wales Audit Office's appointed auditor, of two public interest accounts dealing with the pension and libel indemnity scandals. The chief executive went on gardening leave while what appears to have been a very cursory police investigation took place.<br />
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The council, no doubt under the firm guiding hand of Mr James, steadied itself after several very wobbly weeks, and rejected Mr Barrett's findings.<br />
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The pension scandal played a large part in the downfall of Mr James's over-mighty neighbour in Pembrokeshire, Bryn Parry-Jones, but what we got in Carmarthenshire was in effect a permament truce. The WAO decided that it did not have the appetite for what would have been long and very costly litigation to prove its points.<br />
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Towards the end of the year, to a great fanfare, the council invited in a WLGA panel to review its governance arrangements - not because there was anything wrong with the way things were done in Carmarthenshire, you understand, but because the council wanted to show the world that it was going to be even more transparent and even more squeakily clean than ever before.<br />
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That at least was the official narrative.<br />
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In reality the great and the good sent down by the WLGA might just as well have stayed at home.<br />
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The then leader of the council, Kevin Madge (Labour), gave the 39 modest recommendations a cautious welcome. They would have to be adapted to "fit in with the way we do things in Carmarthenshire" he told councillors.<br />
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Even before the ink had dried on the recommendations, the chief executive made his first move by putting a legal cordon around reports from scrutiny committees to prevent councillors from asking questions arising from them at monthly meetings of full council. The reports still appear on the official agenda, but no questions are allowed.<br />
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This exercise in making Carmarthenshire "the most transparent council in Wales" was never put to a vote, and even if it had been the then ruling Labour/Independent coalition would have ensured that it went through, denying opposition councillors of an important opportunity to air concerns and hold the council to account.<br />
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Labour councillors, now in opposition, may now repent at leisure.<br />
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Officially, the group set up to implement the 39 recommendations still exists, although minutes of its meetings are not published and have to be obtained through FOI.<br />
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So much for the most transparent council in Wales.<br />
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Not long after the dust settled on the pension and libel indemnity scandals, the chief executive quietly made his temporary appointment of Mrs Linda Rees Jones as Head of Legal and Monitoring Officer permanent on the basis that she had held the position in an acting capacity for so long that the role had become permanent by default.<br />
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Normally, and in any other council, the appointment of a Monitoring Officer would be entrusted to councillors, but not in Carmarthenshire.<br />
<br />
As <i>Local Government Lawyer </i><a href="http://www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14482%3Ahands-up-who-wants-to-be-a-monitoring-officer&catid=50&Itemid=10">explains</a>, council monitoring officers have three main functions:<br />
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<ul>
<li><i>to report on matters he or she believes are, or are likely to be, illegal or amount to maladministration;</i></li>
<li><i>to be responsible for matters relating to the conduct of councillors and officers; and</i></li>
<li><i>to be responsible for the operation of the council’s constitution.</i><span> </span></li>
</ul>
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You don't need to be an expert in corporate governance to realise that a Monitoring Officer must not only be independent, but be seen to be independent. Mrs Rees Jones, who played a key role in shoring up the beleaguered chief executive's position during the pension and libel indemnity scandals, is neither.<br />
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Not only does she report to the chief executive, but she owes her promotion and salary to him.<br />
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And there in a nutshell are the two most important outcomes of the WLGA governance review: shutting down what had been an important scrutiny mechanism and Mr James's quiet consolidation of his grip on the council. He is now judge, jury and defence counsel.<br />
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Almost invariably when there is a scandal in public sector bodies (or large corporations come to that), we will be told afterwards that there were serious failings in corporate governance and that all the signs were there long before the brown stuff hit the fan; in Carmarthenshire the warning signs have been there for a very long time.<br />
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_________________</div>
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What the pension and libel indemnity scandals had in common was that Mark James was the sole beneficiary of both unlawful schemes. In theory the schemes were open to other officers, and in the case of the libel indemnity, to councillors as well. In practice, only Mr James was allowed to take advantage of them, and despite Executive Board minutes which stated that he would pay any damages from his libel action to the council, we learned earlier this year that Mr James had changed his mind, with his lawyers telling a court that he could stuff the money down a drain if he so wished.<br />
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It's those words "corporate governance" again.<br />
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Corporate governance Carmarthenshire style also allowed Mr James to claim £20,000 in Returning Officer fees immediately before the end of a tax year and before nominations had closed for council elections back in 2012 under a "special arrangement", something which presumably still exists.<br />
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Much more recently questions have surfaced about Mr James's private business dealings.<br />
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If you haven't read it yet, take a look at this <a href="http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/the-mark-james-business-empire-nothing.html">post</a> by Caebrwyn and the comments section underneath on the outcome of her attempts to discover whether Mark James, the chief executive of Carmarthenshire County Council, declared an interest in respect of his private business activities. <br />
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As a reminder, James's property business in Century Wharf and the complex web of directorships, companies and business partners involved were dealt with by Jac o' the North <a href="http://jacothenorth.net/blog/baywatch/">here</a> and <a href="http://jacothenorth.net/blog/baywatch-2/">here</a>. Martin Shipton of the <i>Western Mail, </i>another of Mr James's bêtes noires, has also taken more than a passing interest in this surprisingly colourful corporate tale, including <a href="http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/politics/top-west-wales-council-official-13471672">this piece</a><span style="color: #007600;">, </span><span style="color: black;">and the paper followed that up with this <a href="http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/condoms-gardens-poo-vomit-sleeping-13786106">account</a> in October.</span><br />
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For a relatively new upmarket, gated residential development in the centre of Cardiff, Century Wharf has been responsible for some remarkably lurid news stories. Dissident leaseholders have accused Mr James and his partners of breaking planning regulations and leasehold agreements by letting flats to rowdy visitors out to enjoy the city's nightlife. Used condoms in the gardens, people defecating in the lifts and others sleeping in corridors are some of the problems they have had to put up with.<br />
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There has been a gruesome murder on the premises, and in 2010 police raided the complex in connection with an investigations into an international sex trafficking ring. In 2013 a young woman fell from a seventh floor balcony sustaining serious but not life-threatening injuries. It is understood that she is a Polish national who previously worked for University of Wales Trinity Saint Davids, of which Mr James is a director, and that she was subsequently recruited by Mr James and his partners as their office manager.<br />
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Responding to Jacqui Thompson's questions, the council said after a lot of foot dragging that Mr James had not declared any interests because his business interests lay outside the "jurisdiction" of Carmarthenshire. And anyway the council's <a href="http://www.carmarthenshire.gov.wales/media/73640/part5-4.pdf">Code of Conduct for Officers</a> states:<br />
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<i>10.2 Employees must declare in writing to their Chief Officer any financial and non-financial interests that they consider could bring about conflict with the authority's interests.</i> <br />
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Presumably if an individual does not "consider" that what they are doing could bring about a conflict of interest, there is no need to declare anything.<br />
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The Code of Conduct itself was last revised in June 2012, and there can be little doubt that Mr James himself would have played a part in the design of this particular chocolate teapot. Apart from anything else, who is Mr James's own Chief Officer?<br />
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As for whether the council had ever sanctioned these extramural activities, Mr James himself told the <i>Western Mail </i>earlier this year that it had given its consent, and that he was not in breach of his contract of employment with the council because he was merely a non-executive director of the (four) companies, and therefore not an employee.<br />
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It is not clear who gave that consent, but it would seem likely that it was the Assistant Chief Executive (People Management and Performance), who like Mrs Rees Jones reports directly to Mr James.<br />
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If the Assistant Chief Executive had any qualms about giving consent, we do not know, but if he had could either have referred the matter to the Appeals Committee, which to put it mildly meets infrequently, the last 9 scheduled meetings having been cancelled, or he could have asked his colleague, the Monitoring Officer.<br />
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Corporate governance Carmarthenshire style again.<br />
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By declaring himself to be a non-executive director of the companies in Cardiff (but registered to an address in Essex), Mr James can claim not to have breached his contract of employment, but the non-existent declaration of an interest is another matter.<br />
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Unsurprisingly, neither Mr James nor Mrs Rees Jones regard this as a matter in which he should declare an interest.<br />
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It could be argued that there is a potential conflict of interest because of the council's own housing activities, but of more immediate concern are the questions of how much time and energy Mr James is devoting to his private business interests, and the real risk that they could damage the council's own reputation.<br />
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On the first point there is a growing body of evidence to show that Mr James is taking a very hands-on approach to running the companies. There seems to be litigation (now there's a surprise) and negotiations and disputes with third parties, all of which will require Mr James's attention. Then there are lengthy open letters and newsletters to leaseholders, some signed by Mr James in person, including some typically Jamesian flourishes such as a claim in one long article in which he claims to be doing it all to help the benighted residents of Century Wharf.<br />
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We can be sure that Mr James is not keeping timesheets, but even a cursory glance at this story shows that he must be devoting considerable time and energy to his private affairs.<br />
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<b><u>"Cancer"</u></b><br />
<b></b><u><br /></u>
As some of the leaseholders have already discovered, Mr James's compassion and forgiving nature have their limits, as "Mr M", a Carmarthenshire resident could have told them. Mr M was a disabled council tenant who complained that the council had housed him in a property without a wheelchair ramp. The council was admonished by the Ombudsman in 2012, with Mr James telling councillors that if he had his way, Mr M would still be homeless.<br />
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In Century Wharf, the scene of many a wild party, a gruesome murder, the mysterious balcony accident and a resident sex trafficking ring, Mr James has taken an equally robust approach, telling the press that the incidents complained of all happened a long time ago, and that if there was any rowdy behaviour it was not down to short-term Airbnb guests, but longer term residents.<br />
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"There is a cancer in parts [of Century Wharf] he told the <i>Western Mail</i>, with some "very anti-social owner/occupiers". Criticism levelled at him was "personal, unpleasant and both unnecessary and confrontational".<br />
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But we have no concern to feel alarmed, fellow residents, because all this is taking place outside Carmarthenshire's jurisdiction, and has nothing to do with our council.<br />
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Mr James's property management business may very well be in his own interest, just as the pension, libel indemnity scandals were, but whether it is in Carmarthenshire's interest is another matter entirely.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118857435900510280.post-68202165506854271522017-11-18T06:55:00.003+00:002017-11-18T06:58:14.792+00:00Gesture politicsIt's been a very long time since Cneifiwr found time to watch a webcast of Carmarthenshire County Council's monthly meeting of full council. The Independent benches are a shadow of their former selves, and there are a lot of new faces on both the Plaid and Labour benches.<br />
<br />
Labour had submitted a motion calling for the rainbow flag to be flown over County Hall on 1st December every year to mark World Aids Day.<br />
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World Aids Day is the initiative of an organisation set up in 1988, and according to its <a href="https://www.worldaidsday.org/">website</a>, "it’s an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, to show support for people living with HIV, and to commemorate those who have died from an AIDS-related illness".<br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br />
Plaid put up an amendment pointing out that the internationally recognised symbol for Worlds Aids Day is a red ribbon, and several of its councillors argued that flying the rainbow flag, a symbol celebrating LGBT rights, would serve only to reinforce old misconceptions that HIV and AIDS affect gay men only.<br />
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Cllr Carl Harris reminded councillors that most AIDS and HIV sufferers in the UK were heterosexual, and he might have added that worldwide gay men make up only a small minority of people with AIDS or HIV. Among those affected are thousands of people in the UK given contaminated blood imported by the NHS from the US, including haemophiliacs. <br />
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Flying the rainbow flag would send out the wrong message, but he offered the Labour group an olive branch and said he was happy to consider other options, including trying to do something practical to help AIDS and HIV sufferers in Carmarthenshire.<br />
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As the camera slowly panned the chamber we were treated to the sight of a lot of councillors wearing red or white ribbons, or both. One of the new intake of Labour councillors was so festooned with symbols that he could have been mistaken for a Christmas tree.<br />
<br />
Cneifiwr mischievously found himself longing for the bad old days when Cllr Pam Palmer, Abergwili's answer to Alan Partridge, would have felt compelled to stand up and contribute, but we had to make do with poor old Jeff Edmunds instead.<br />
<br />
Jeff, sounding even more lugubrious than ever, admitted that all this rainbow, ribbon and colour stuff was something that had passed him by until he had had it explained to him the night before. He agreed with both the motion and the amendment, and wished that somehow they could be brought together.<br />
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In practical terms that would have involved Labour withdrawing its motion and taking up Cllr Harris's offer of a meeting to come up with something a bit more sensible, but it was not to be.<br />
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Having said that he supported the Plaid amendment, he then voted against it.<br />
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The Plaid amendment was then passed after Labour insisted on calling a recorded vote which involved the chief executive calling out the names of all councillors and asking Mrs Rees Jones to do her sums. That was another ten minutes of our lives we will never get back, and Labour inevitably went down to a heavy defeat.<br />
<br />
Readers with longer memories than those on the Labour benches will recall that the flying of flags over County Hall has been the subject of controversy on a number of occasions in recent years, including a <a href="http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/no-fly-zone-for-rainbow-flag.html">refusal</a> by the council, then run by Labour, to fly the rainbow flag to mark pride celebrations back in February 2015.<br />
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Mr James will not be moved, it seems, and we are instead treated to the sight of the Union Jack being hoisted on numerous feast days to celebrate various birthdays and anniversaries relating to the Windsor clan, including the birthday of somebody called the Countess of Wessex.<br />
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This bizarre chapter left a lot of people scratching their heads. Why would Labour insist on flying the wrong symbol from the rooftops of County Hall on World Aids Day and refuse Cllr Harris's offer of cross-party cooperation to discuss alternatives, including the possibility of practical measures which would probably be appreciated a great deal more by AIDS and HIV sufferers than all the flags and ribbons?<br />
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Was this just another example of what has become known as "virtue signalling"?<br />
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The first clue as to what lay behind this was Labour's insistence on calling a recorded vote, which they knew they would lose.<br />
<br />
Although the council's constitution is too polite to say so, the real purpose of recorded votes is to provide political ammunition. "Look at this, voters. They voted in favour of removing apple from apple pies/killing of the first born/a nuclear waste dump in Tyisha/rounding up fluffy kittens (delete as appropriate)".<br />
<br />
On this occasion, Labour saw an opportunity to claim that wicked, homophobic Plaid had vetoed proposals to fly the rainbow flag.<br />
<br />
If there were any lingering doubts, Cllr Gary 'Poumista' Jones weighed in on Twitter shortly afterwards:<br />
<br />
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<br />
Those familiar with Labour in Llanelli would not have expected anything else. Accusing political opponents both within the party's own ranks and on the outside of racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, anti-Semitism and any number of other -isms and phobias is deeply embedded in their culture. The only exceptions are Cymraegophobia and xenophobia, seen as vote winners.<br />
<br />
Having dealt with red ribbons, the council then turned its attention to a second Labour motion in favour of white ribbons.....<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118857435900510280.post-42140072565881718242017-11-16T07:17:00.001+00:002017-11-16T13:09:05.843+00:00Abuse, bullying and the Assembly (updated)We have heard a great deal recently about cases of sexual harassment and bullying in politics, and it was announced yesterday that the party leaders in the Assembly had agreed to crack down on any sexual harassment or other inappropriate behaviour by Members.<br />
<br />
As always, the devil is in the detail, and based on my own experiences I somehow doubt that this crackdown will be as effective as it sounds in changing the culture of secrecy and privilege which shields the bullies and abusers.<br />
<br />
Earlier this year I was made aware of comments made by a member of staff of a serving UKIP AM on Facebook. I will not name the individual, but in the course of a conversation he made some clearly threatening remarks, not against me personally, but against Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, of which I am a member.<br />
<br />
The fact that the complaint related to threats against Cymdeithas members is really incidental to this piece, which I hope shows that yesterday's declaration does not go anywhere near far enough in tackling a culture in which bullying and abuse can thrive.<br />
<br />
Cymdeithas is a legitimate campaign group which occasionally uses civil disobedience, and it has always been clear that it eschews violence and intimidation against people. It relies entirely on its members and supporters for funding.<br />
<br />
The individual concerned made remarks which showed that he knew very little about Cymdeithas yr Iaith, before going on to promise that he would "hunt down" its members.<br />
<br />
I also had evidence that this person had been involved in discussions with the Labour Party in Llangennech and Llanelli, and that he had played a part in stirring up trouble there. I was also aware that someone from the same circle had fed malicious and untrue claims of vandalism and harassment by members of Cymdeithas to the <i>Western Mail.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
It therefore seemed to me to important to try to do something to hold this person to account.<br />
<i></i><i></i><br />
I raised the matter with officers of Cymdeithas who decided that they did not wish to pursue the matter in the name of Cymdeithas yr Iaith, but they agreed that if I so wished, I could complain as an individual.<br />
<br />
My aim in taking up the complaint was not to have the individual dismissed, but to have it made clear to the individual and the AM for whom he works that his conduct was unacceptable.<br />
<br />
I therefore wrote to the office of the Llywydd (presiding officer), and a couple of weeks later received a reply saying that while the individual did indeed work for a Member, he was not employed by the Assembly Commission and I should therefore refer my complaint to the Member in person.<br />
<br />
Since correspondence to Assembly Members is dealt with not by the members themselves but by their staff, I concluded that if I did make a complaint, it would almost certainly be seen first by the person I was complaining about, and that there was a risk that I would expose myself to harassment.<br />
<br />
Not unreasonably, I also felt that even if the UKIP Assembly Member did get to see the complaint, it was unlikely that it would be acted on.<br />
<br />
It may well have been the case that the individual's remarks were just careless mouthing off with no serious intent, but I suspected that he was using Assembly resources to pursue a political vendetta and spread malicious and untrue smears, and I wondered what options would be open to a member of the public with much more serious complaints of inappropriate behaviour against a member of staff of an Assembly Member.<br />
<br />
With the honourable exception of Plaid Cymru, it is common for Assembly Members from all of the other parties to employ family members on their staff. Imagine for a moment that a member of the public was subjected to bullying or harassment by the husband or wife of an AM. Presumably they too would have to make a complaint to the AM concerned in the near certain knowledge that their correspondence would be seen first by the person they were complaining about.<br />
<br />
I decided to try a different tack and wrote back to the office of the Llywydd, pointing out that AM staff are paid for out of the public purse, i.e. the Assembly itself, and that I was aware that the Assembly's HR department was directly involved in the recruitment process.<br />
<br />
To argue that AM staffers are nothing to do with the Assembly was, I felt, a little disingenuous.<br />
<br />
The Llywydd's office stuck to its guns.<br />
<br />
As a final throw of the dice I felt sure that AM staff would be subject to a code of conduct. I therefore asked to see that document. In due course, I received the following reply:<br />
<br />
<span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510813496842_6357" style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><i>Mae holl staff Aelodau’r Cynulliad yn destun Côd Ymddygiad Staff y </i></span><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510813496842_6365" lang="CY" style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><i>maent yn llofnodi pan fyddant yn dechrau eu cyflogaeth. Fodd bynnag, nid yw'r ddogfen hon yn un gyhoeddus.</i> </span><br />
<span lang="CY" style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span lang="CY" style="font-size: 11.0pt;">(All AM staff are subject to a Code of Conduct that they sign when they begin their employment. However, this document is not public.)</span><br />
<span lang="CY" style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span>
It took nearly a month to reach this dead end.<br />
<br />
In a nutshell any complaints that you or I might have about the behaviour of someone recruited using Assembly resources and paid for out of Assembly funds has to be sent to the Assembly Member concerned, even though the complaint will almost certainly be intercepted by the person you are complaining about. There is also quite a strong likelihood that the person you are complaining about will be a member of the Member's immediate family.<br />
<br />
The fact that the Assembly still allows its members to employ family is another scandal.<br />
<br />
To cap it all, you cannot claim that the individual has breached the Assembly's Code of Conduct because the code of conduct is secret.<br />
<br />
Kafka would feel at home in 21st century Cardiff Bay.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Postscript</u></b><br />
<b><u><br /></u></b>
In common with the rest of the motley crew who were originally elected under the UKIP banner, the AM referred to in this piece was returned on a regional list. Oddly for an elected member of a democratic institution, our subject seems to be a rather shy and elusive beast.<br />
<br />
Constituents wishing to get in touch can write to the Assembly itself, but there is no telephone number listed on the Assembly profile which refers instead to the AM's own external website (which would of course have been funded by you and me).<br />
<br />
The call the website poor is to be generous. Again, there are no telephone numbers, and there is no office address, although we can be pretty sure that office rent and expenses are being claimed for. You might want to pop along to a surgery, but the web page giving details of surgeries is completely blank; and anyway, the location appears to be secret.<br />
<br />
Presumably this is acceptable to the Assembly under the doctrine that whatever AMs and their staff get up to is pretty much a matter for them, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the Assembly. If the Assembly does have minimum standards governing how its members and their staff engage with the public, the bar is set so low as to be laughable.<br />
<b><u><br /></u></b>
Although I corresponded with the office of the Llywydd, I doubt very much that the matter was brought to the attention of Elin Jones. <br />
<br />
It could be argued that this particular case reflects badly on UKIP, but that's not saying very much.<br />
<br />
In reality nepotism, corrupt practices, lack of accountability and secrecy reflect badly on the institution itself. It's time for more than just pious declarations.<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118857435900510280.post-42741940892829873192017-11-15T10:11:00.000+00:002017-11-15T12:40:21.441+00:00Carmarthenshire on the Taff<br />
In the previous post we saw how difficult it was for Mrs Trisha Breckman to negotiate an audience with Mark James CBE. When the meeting finally did take place, it began with frosty glares but ended with smiles and warm handshakes, and what Mrs Breckman understood to be a promise to help her.<br />
<br />
Apart from a very hostile letter from the council's solicitors some months later, that was the last Mrs Breckman heard from Mr James until he wrote to her last week threatening to take her to court.<br />
<br />
In Mr James's defence, he is of course a very busy man. Aside from the small matter of running Carmarthenshire County Council and trying to get the Swansea Bay City Deal off the ground, he has responsibilities elsewhere. At Century Wharf in Cardiff, for example. <br />
<br />
Let's hope residents of Century Wharf in Cardiff have better luck than Mrs B.<br />
<br />
The gated apartment complex close to the city centre is at the heart of Mr James's burgeoning business empire, which appears to consist of two strands: property investment and developing a "right to manage" business model that would be sold to other residential developments, with Mr James and his white knights riding in to save householders from the clutches of unscrupulous operators.<br />
<br />
Unlike their rapacious, money obsessed competitors, Mr James and his
business partners are, of course, motivated purely by a wish to help
ordinary people, even though they live nowhere near Century Wharf. <br />
<br />
At Century Wharf Mr James is a director of no fewer than three Right To Manage (RTM) companies which are in partnership with Warwick Estates Property Management Ltd, a company based in Harlow Essex. Managing Director of Warwick Estates is Mr Craig Stevens, who describes his occupation on Companies House as "entrepreneur". Funnily enough, the three RTM companies are all registered at the same address as Warwick.<br />
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<br />
<br />
<br />
Mr James's RTMs and Warwick Estates clearly enjoy an extremely close working relationship, and residents of Century Wharf may wonder why "their" right-to-manage companies share lodgings with Warwick in distant Essex and what would happen, God forbid, if they ever wanted to dispense with the services of Warwick Estates Property Management. But let's cast such dark thoughts aside.<br />
<br />
In the meantime residents have just received a newsletter dated 2 November 2017, which features Warwick Estates' logo alongside the three RTM companies. It is not clear who penned this update from "your RTM directors Steven Corner, Elize Ferner, Mark James CBE, Stephen Kass and Pamela Voisey", but there is much in it which will sound uncannily familiar to residents of Carmarthenshire.<br />
<br />
First up we are told that Century Wharf residents are flocking to sign up for the services of the RTMs and Warwick Estates; unlike Mrs Breckman and other disgruntled Carmarthenshire taxpayers, they are promised "direct access to the directors". No matter whether it's blocked drains, repairs or grounds maintenance, they can apparently pop in to see Mr James or any of the other directors for a chat.<br />
<br />
The newsletter goes on to describe how the RTMs and Warwick are currently locked in battle with the insurers, Zurich, before taking a swipe at a dissident former director who, it says, has been taking his gripes to the media.<br />
<br />
<u><b>High jinks </b></u><br />
<br />
That would be a reference to the sort of thing recently reported by the <i><a href="http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/condoms-gardens-poo-vomit-sleeping-13786106">Western Mail</a>, </i>which tells a distressing tale of condoms left in gardens, poo in lifts and clearly tired and emotional Airbnb visitors sleeping in hallways.<br />
<br />
It was perhaps a little unfair of the <i>Western Mail </i>to pin the
blame solely on Airbnb clients because there are plenty of other ways
visitors to Cardiff can book themselves into Century Wharf while they
enjoy a short stay in the capital, as a quick Google search which yields any number of advertisements for short-stay serviced apartments in the complex will testify.<br />
<br />
Century Wharf even has its own <a href="http://centurywharf.co.uk/">website</a>, which boasts that the complex is just a short walk from the city centre and the "Principality" Stadium. It even has its own leisure centre for residents and their visitors.<br />
<br />
The idea that apartments might be used by lads up for the rugby, hen parties or stag weekends is preposterous, and the raucous behaviour could equally be down to marauding members of Merched y Wawr, gangs of lay preachers or the Rachub Temperance Society attracted by the bright city lights. Indeed, the newsletter darkly suggests, it may be the work of people "not necessarily renting for short periods", although why long-term residents of this upmarket development would
want to defecate in lifts, perform sex acts in the gardens or sleep in
hallways it is hard to imagine.<br />
<br />
These lurid tales "do not appear to bear scrutiny" and paint a negative picture of life in Mr James's property management empire, we are told. If any of this happened, it was probably a long time ago.<br />
<br />
It's all sadly reminiscent of the sort of carping Mr James has to put up with in his day job.<br />
<br />
The dissident former director, Mr Gareth Griffiths, has therefore received a written communication, presumably of a legal nature, asking him to desist.<br />
<br />
One small problem with all of this short-stay activity is that it is a flagrant breach of leasehold agreements and planning regulations, dissident residents say.<br />
<br />
Again, the notion that Mr James CBE or any of his associates would ride roughshod over planning regulations is entirely risible, and it is unfortunate that East Hertfordshire District Council should recently have acted in a high-handed manner and served an enforcement notice on Mr Craig Stevens, MD of Warwick Estates, for building an <a href="https://publicaccess.eastherts.gov.uk/online-applications/propertyDetails.do?activeTab=relatedCases&keyVal=NHWOOV00DT01J">unauthorised extension</a> to his home in Ware. A decision which was regrettably upheld on appeal.<br />
<br />
<u><b>AGM</b></u><br />
<br />
Moving swiftly on from these scurrilous stories, the newsletter turns its attention to what form the annual general meeting of the three RTM companies might take. There will be no elections this year, it informs us, and rather than stage a boring event which might be hijacked by obsessives with axes to grind, the directors are considering holding an open day at which residents would be treated to presentations.<br />
<br />
A bit like the sort of thing Mr James has strived to bring about at meetings of Carmarthenshire County Council, in fact, where colourful Powerpoint presentations from BT and Dŵr Cymru make such a welcome change from tedious and impertinent questions from the floor.<br />
<br />
Bearing in mind that the newsletter begins by telling us that Century Wharf residents are flocking to Mr James's banner, it may appear a little odd when we read a few paragraphs further down that "many members have stressed the importance of being able to speak with Directors about concerns they have about their own apartments or to be able to make comments about the landscape around the site, parking, maintenance, and other maters that affect them personally".<br />
<br />
Perhaps all is not quite as lovely in the landscaped gardens after all, condoms or no condoms.<br />
<br />
At any rate, the newsletter promises that members will shortly be informed about how they may go about addressing their concerns to directors personally.<br />
<br />
If Mrs Breckman's experiences are anything to go by, they may want to think very carefully before complaining.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118857435900510280.post-66657496128683896672017-11-12T14:37:00.000+00:002017-11-12T19:09:39.179+00:00Natural Injustice (updated)Caebrwyn has written an excellent update and summary of the Breckman case (<a href="http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/chief-executive-threatens-pensioner.html">here</a>) which has featured on this blog so many times in the past, and an article based on that blogpost appeared in this week's <i>Carmarthenshire Herald.</i><br />
<br />
The latest twist in this saga is that the chief executive has written to Mrs Breckman to inform her that he has instructed his officers, including the Monitoring Officer and Head of Legal, Mrs Linda Rees Jones, not to reply to her questions in future, and to warn her that, <i>"</i><i><i>I now place you on notice that continuation may well invite legal action"</i>.</i><br />
<br />
The trigger for this warning was a request to Mrs Rees Jones asking her to perform her statutory duty and write a report on the case which, in the opinion of just about everyone who has any knowledge of it, contains abundant evidence of malpractice, negligence and misconduct in public office by a small number of senior council staff.<br />
<br />
<i></i>
Here is the text of Mr James's letter in full:<br />
<i></i><br />
<br />
<i>Dear Mrs Breckman,</i><br />
<br />
<i> I shall not be responding to any further correspondence of this sort.</i><br />
<br />
<i> I shall also be instructing Ms Rees Jones and other officers not to respond to your false allegations and abuse.</i><br />
<br />
<i>
You (sic) unpleasant and defamatory remarks about me and my staff have
reached the point where I now place you on notice that continuation may
well invite legal action.</i><br />
<br />
<i> Whilst I appreciate the difficult time
you have had with your neighbour, your numerous complaints about the
Council have been investigated and where the Ombudsman did uphold some
of those complaints, we have complied with his requirements in that
respect, which was some considerable time ago.</i><br />
<br />
<i> Yours sincerely</i><br />
<i> Mark James CBE</i><br />
<br />
Rather than cover the same ground as Caebryn's article, let's take a look at one particularly shocking episode from last year when, after almost a year of requests and negotiation, Mr James finally granted an audience to Mrs Breckman.<br />
<br />
The first thing to note is that Mr James has been very well acquainted with the case for most of its 15 year history; indeed there is abundant evidence to show that he has personally intervened on a number of occasions to try to silence Mrs Breckman and prevent scrutiny of the case by councillors.<br />
<br />
These include placing Mrs Breckman on a blacklist of "persistent complainers" without her knowledge, a truly byzantine operation to prevent a highly critical ombudsman's report from reaching full council and an intervention to persuade the Petitions Committee of the National Assembly not to take up the case.<br />
<br />
Much less clear is who was involved in collusion between elements within Dyfed Powys Police and senior council staff to intimidate and smear Mrs Breckman, <br />
<br />
On the one hand we have Mrs Breckman, a slightly built woman now in her seventies, and on the other her troublesome neighbour who is a large and physically imposing man with a criminal record for violent assault, but on no fewer than five occasions it was Mrs Breckman rather than Mr Thomas who ended up being arrested and taken from her home in handcuffs when the police were called, only to be released without charge.<br />
<br />
On another occasion when Mrs Breckman was involved in a road traffic accident and witnesses gave statements absolving her from responsibility, someone in Dyfed Powys Police had other ideas and decided to press charges for dangerous driving. The case was dropped after Mrs Breckman's solicitor reminded the police of the witness statements.<br />
<br />
An officer who was asked to write a report on the case as part of a complaints procedure is said unaccountably to have radically altered a draft which confirmed Mrs Breckman's side of the story, to a version which cast doubt on her honesty by suggesting that she could have fabricated CCTV footage of an intruder looking very much like her neighbour prowling around her home in the middle of the night.<br />
<br />
On another occasion two burly types appeared at Mrs Breckman's door offering to "do in" her neighbour for her. She politely declined their offer and was left wondering whether this was perhaps another attempt to compromise her. <br />
<br />
The CCTV smear was then used by the council repeatedly to deter anyone in authority from asking questions about what on earth was going on in this otherwise quiet corner of Carmarthenshire.<br />
<br />
When the previous Police and Crime Commissioner Christopher Salmon finally issued Mrs Breckman and her partner with a full apology for its handling of the case, including the CCTV claim, Mrs Breckman not unsurprisingly decided to take the matter up with Mr James.<br />
<br />
Mrs Breckman's aim was to secure an apology from the council for its actions over so many years and to secure compensation for the stress and huge financial losses she and her partner had incurred.<br />
<br />
For her part Mrs Breckman has always insisted that her quarrel is not with her neighbour, but with the council in particular for its negligence and perverse planning decisions, which have included allowing her neighbour to trash part of a Special Area of Conservation and SSSI with impunity.<br />
<br />
At first, Mr James refused to entertain the idea of a meeting with Mrs Breckman. There was nothing to discuss, he declared.<br />
<br />
Eventually, after some behind the scenes political intervention, he at last agreed to a meeting, although his busy timetable meant that it could not take place for many months, with further delays being caused by his cancellation of one appointment. When Mrs Breckman informed Mr James that she intended to bring along her then Assembly Member, Rhodri Glyn Thomas, Mr James exploded. The meeting was cancelled, and he announced that he was no longer prepared to see her.<br />
<br />
As Mr James knew, Rhodri Glyn Thomas had been closely involved with the case for years and had also been threatened by Mrs Breckman's neighbour.<br />
<br />
More behind the scenes shuttle diplomacy eventually persuaded Mr James to relent, and along went Mrs Breckman with her county councillor.<br />
<br />
The meeting was very much one of two halves, with Mr James performing a one man double act. First up was "nasty" Mr James, staring coldly and asking hostile questions. Mrs Breckman stood her ground and laid out precisely her grounds for an apology and compensation.<br />
<br />
For no apparent reason, half way through Mr James appeared to flick a virtual switch to turn on his "nice" side. He was sorry for what had happened; the council was unable to control her neighbour. He would now take charge of this personally, and all Mrs Breckman needed to do was to drop him a line outlining her case, and he would forward it to the council's insurers. Everything would be resolved "in weeks rather than months".<br />
<br />
Cneifiwr spoke to Mrs Breckman shortly afterwards, and she was elated. The meeting has lifted a huge weight from her, and she sang Mr James's praises. Justice was at last going to be served.<br />
<br />
Soon afterwards, she sent a letter outlining her case to Mr James, and it was indeed forwarded to the council's insurers. Rather unsettlingly in view of what she thought she had been promised, the insurers then entered into correspondence with Mrs Breckman. Time dragged on, and she was informed that the claims were now out of time. More correspondence followed until Mrs Breckman was informed by the insurance company that, at the council's instruction, the matter had now been handed to the council's solicitors who then wrote an extremely curt letter informing her that she had no claim and that any attempt by her to pursue the matter through the courts would result in their seeking to have her case struck out before it got anywhere near a courtroom.<br />
<br />
The upshot was no apology and no compensation.<br />
<br />
It is unlikely that Mr James will ever be asked to account for his actions. Did he "mis-speak" and give Mrs Breckman an expectation that he would ensure she received an apology and compensation without first having done his homework? Or was it a particularly cynical and cruel manoeuvre to get Mrs Breckman off his back while killing off attempts by councillors and political representatives to help her?<br />
<br />
Having endured 15 years of torment and now facing the loss of her home, Mrs Breckman is determined not to let the matter rest. Mr James may yet have to resort to the lawyers to silence her.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Burns Case</b></u><br />
<br />
Jacqui Thompson's blog has also drawn attention to another very long-running case of injustice which Mr James seems equally determined not to resolve. This time it concerns the Burns family whose daughter was taken away from them after false and malicious accusations of abuse were made by two care staff.<br />
<br />
It will be remembered that despite a police recommendation that the Burns's daughter should be returned to her parents after they had concluded that there was no evidence of abuse, the council decided to prolong the agony.<br />
<br />
<div class="Standard">
After a very long battle, the council did eventually agree to pay a limited amount of compensation, but money was not what this was all about, and the family is still, seven years on, fighting to get the council and the police to conduct a statutory Safeguarding Investigation into their handling of the case.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Update </b></u><br />
<br />
For a much fuller account of the Burns' story, read <a href="http://www.peoplefirstwales.org.uk/2017/11/the-councillors-lost-daughter-part-3.html?spref=tw">this truly harrowing account </a>by Siân Caiach, who was closely involved with the family.<br />
<br />
Part One of the story can be found <a href="http://www.peoplefirstwales.org.uk/2017/09/the-councillors-lost-daughter-part-one.html">here</a>, and part two <a href="http://www.peoplefirstwales.org.uk/2017/09/the-councillors-lost-daughter-part-two.html">here</a>.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Culture</b></u><br />
<br />
What these two cases tell us is not that Carmarthenshire County Council is uniquely bad. As with large organisations everywhere it can sometimes get things badly wrong, and the results can be catastrophic for ordinary people caught up in them.<br />
<br />
A few years ago a panel of experts was brought in to carry out a review of governance of the council in the wake of the pensions and libel indemnity scandals. That particular exercise had almost no lasting effect, but at the time the chair of the review panel told councillors (and officers) that while the council was not as bad as some of its critics claimed, it was not as good as it thought it was either.<br />
<br />
Other external agencies have remarked time and again on the council's defensiveness and unwillingness to accept criticism; Mr James was famously told on one occasion to grow a thicker skin.<br />
<br />
What the Breckman and Burns cases do tell us is that the corporate culture Mark James has developed within the council during his overly long tenure persists to this day. It is a culture based on a refusal ever to apologise or accept responsibility for mistakes.<br />
<br />
Both cases could have been settled years ago, but Mr James's intransigence and arrogance serve only to ensure that the misery and injustice continue, and the stain on the council's reputation endures.<br />
<br />
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<i> </i><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118857435900510280.post-32538921649899195202017-11-08T13:14:00.003+00:002017-11-08T13:23:33.949+00:00A Regional RevolutionAfter treading water for a couple of years, the Welsh Government is planning to unveil its latest ideas for reforming local government next year, but for those of you who cannot wait that long, the Swansea "City Deal" signed in March this year by Theresa May, Carwyn Jones, Alun Cairns, Mark Drakeford and the four council leaders involved contains some pretty big clues as to what we can expect.<br />
<br />
Quaint concepts such as accountability, devolution, democracy and local decision making will give way to corporatist, technocratic, big is beautiful constructs in which government ministers and civil servants in London and Cardiff will have rather more say in who really runs local government than voters do.<br />
<br />
In what looks set to be a beautifully crafted exercise in smoke and mirrors, voters will be left with directly elected councils and the municipal trimmings that go with them while power over just about everything except rubbish collections will be handed to new quangos.<br />
<br />
Welcome to 'Central and South West Wales', which is not a railway station, but the provisional name for this new local government mammoth.<br />
<br />
Before we peer into the crystal ball, let's consider how we got here.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
___________</div>
<br />
Hardly had the dust settled on Carwyn Jones's latest reshuffle than up popped Leighton Andrews on Twitter plugging one of his courses at Cardiff University. For a modest fee, new members of Carwyn's cabinet can pop along to learn how to be a minister between 2 and 4 every Thursday.<br />
<br />
Or perhaps that should be how not to be a minister, because in his relatively brief cabinet career, Leighton managed to get himself sacked from education in 2013 before returning a year later to reform local government, only to see his proposals shot down by a coalition of outraged local government fat cats. Voters in the Rhondda, that safest of safe Labour bets, then decided to give him the boot.<br />
<br />
For roughly 400 years Wales managed to get by with 13 counties until Edward Heath reduced the number to 8 with a tier of district councils beneath them. 20 years later John Major's unhappy government decided to shuffle the pack again giving us the 22 unitary authorities we have today. At the time the Tories claimed the new structure would remove overlap, save huge amounts of money and be much more efficient. Labour argued that the change would see a devastating loss of local government jobs.<br />
<br />
Needless to say, they were both wrong, and the Tories ended up creating a whole string of Labour fiefdoms destined to enjoy eternal one-party rule with all the opportunities for patronage and access to the gravy train that goes with it.<br />
<br />
Leighton's plan was set out in a white paper, the key points of which were: <br />
<ul class="square-list">
<li>Merging smaller councils to reduce the total from 22 to 10 or 12.</li>
<li>A reduction in full time Cabinet roles.</li>
<li>A consulation on whether there should be term limits on chief executives.</li>
<li>A legal duty on Council leaders to ensure diversity amongst elected members and senior council staff.</li>
<li>Term limits on councillors and leaders, with no-one allowed to hold posts as a councillor and AM at the same time.</li>
<li>A review of the remuneration of councillors, Leaders and Cabinet members, to bring costs down.</li>
</ul>
<div class="item__content-block item__content-block--markdown">
</div>
<br />
Tact and diplomacy were never Leighton's strongest points, and the pale and the stale choked on their Prosecco. Labour local government types, previously so strongly opposed to the John Major reforms, prepared to defend their fiefdoms, and they were joined in the trenches by the likes of Pam Palmer in Carmarthenshire, horrified by the idea that anyone should try to end her divine right to rule by limiting the amount of time that people like her and Meryl Gravell could take home a senior salary while letting Mark James get on with actually leading the show.<br />
<br />
Leighton's spectacular defeat in the Rhondda meant that the showdown never happened, and his proposals were given a quiet burial.<br />
<br />
So it was back to the drawing board for the government, which decided that regional working was the way forward.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Education and planning</b></u> <br />
<br />
The government is expected to bring forward new proposals for regional local government next year, but the process has already started, quietly and through the back door, with the establishment of regional education consortia. In Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Neath Port Talbot, Swansea, Pembrokeshire and Powys ERW (Education Through Regional Working) has taken on functions and responsibilities which previously lay with elected county councils, complete with its own chief executive and cadre of officers.<br />
<br />
It is unlikely that more than a generous one voter in every 100 will have heard of ERW, which is just as well because it is completely unaccountable to them, and ERW has its counterparts in other parts of the country, all charged with delivering an "agreed regional strategy and business plan to support school improvement."<br />
<br />
Any body which serves six masters, such as ERW, is in reality accountable to none of them, and concerns have been expressed at how a homogenizing body which covers such a hugely diverse area in which English predominates can meet the needs of Welsh medium education.<br />
<br />
In planning the legislative and legal framework is already in place which will see powers transferred away from elected councils to two new bodies over which voters have next to no control.<br />
<br />
The Swansea Bay City Region, or "City Deal" as it is now usually referred to, will be run by an Economic Strategy Board and a Joint Committee.<br />
<br />
The ESB, which will be responsible for strategy, will be made up of business and public sector types (a very wide term which extends all the way from councils to the health boards and the fat cats of academe). Only a minority of its members is likely ever to have been elected by you or me.<br />
<br />
The chair of the ESB will be "a private sector business person" appointed by the UK Government, the Welsh Government and members of the Joint Committee, which will be made up of representatives of the four participating local authorities.<br />
<br />
The UK Government, currently in the shape of Alun Cairns working alongside London-based civil servants, will have a veto and effective control over who runs the show. So much for devolution, democracy and local accountability.<br />
<br />
In planning matters, these new authorities will be responsible for drawing up a new "Strategic Development Plan" (SDP) which will somehow, nobody is entirely sure how, exist alongside the "Local Development Plans" drawn up by existing councils. And both of these elements will be subordinated to something called the "National Development Framework".<br />
<br />
In essence, then, the City Deal ESB with its unelected head will decide what is "strategic", and anything which is strategic will be removed from the LDPs. In practice, LDPs will be left with little more than dealing with Mrs Williams' new conservatory and a couple of new bungalows in Cwmsgwt.<br />
<br />
Planning approval for "strategic" matters will still have to go through a sort of quasi judicial process, but this will be carried out by an appointed panel. Appointed by whom is not yet clear, but at a rough guess we are talking about proteges of the council leaders on the Joint Committee, and it is more likely that pigs will sprout wings than that these appointees would ever be so unwise as to vote down something deemed to be strategic.<br />
<br />
What we are about to get therefore is a whole new planning ecosystem of frameworks and development plans drawn up and overseen by different bodies in different places, with control over the most important bits lying somewhere between Cardiff Bay and Whitehall.<br />
<br />
<u><b>'Central and South West Wales'</b></u> <br />
<br />
If the City Deal sounds like a labyrinth, it is, and it is a labyrinth which will be subsumed into an ever bigger labyrinth of regional quango-ization under the government's plans for regional "local" government.<br />
<br />
The City Deal agreement, signed by the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Wales, the First Minister, Mark Drakeford and the four council leaders (Swansea, Camarthenshire, Neath Port Talbot and Pembrokeshire) goes rather further than just dealing with matters relating to the Swansea Bay City Region project, and outlines what will be the fate of local democracy in Wales, where we will get three super-regions: the North, Cardiff and the South-East and The Rest.<br />
<br />
The Rest, or Central and South West Wales, will take in everything from Margam to Machynlleth and Manorbier to Meifod, including both Ceredigion and Powys, and it will be run by a "Joint Governance Committee" that will take over many of the functions currently carried out by elected councils, including, the agreement helpfully suggests, "economic development, transport, land<br />
use planning, education improvement and social services".<br />
<br />
Councillors and Assembly Members may be scratching their heads at this point, trying to recollect when they debated and agreed to any of this, but their turn will come next year when they will be asked to give their seal of approval to a fait accompli signed off by Mrs May, Carwyn and the four council leaders, who, as we have seen, have also handed a large degree control over what happens in this part of the world back to London.<br />
<br />
The most that we in the west can hope for is that Adam Price's idea for Arfor, a new integrated local authority covering the west of this country, finally starts to gain a bit more traction.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118857435900510280.post-3802902181291610082017-11-02T10:04:00.000+00:002017-11-02T10:28:11.235+00:00Faecal NewsAfter yesterday's mammoth piece, here's a mercifully shorter one.<br />
<br />
Since this blog last looked at the controversy about plans to relocate Ysgol Dewi Sant to Llanerch Fields, Alan Evans' <strike>Labour</strike>LlanelliOnline hyperlocal news service has been busy churning out stories in support of the campaign group opposed to the plan, including <a href="http://llanellionline.news/2017/10/23/experts-warn-350ft-high-fountain-llanerch/">this classic</a>.<br />
<br />
Under a picture of a stately pile (that would be Chatsworth House, Ed.) sitting in exquisitely manicured landscaped grounds with a water feature that anyone could mistake for Llanerch Fields, LlanelliOnline warns of the risk of an apocalyptic explosion of raw sewage which could engulf the school, and presumably much of the surrounding area, with a fountain of untreated waste shooting 350 feet into the air.<br />
<br />
The normally sensible former county councillor, Bill Thomas, explains that attenuation tanks under part of the site are gravity fed by a pipe coming down from Swiss Valley, that well-to-do leafy enclave which sits 350 feet above Llanerch Fields, and Mr Huw Woodford-Rock, described as an expert by LlanelliOnline, is brought in to agree with Bill's hypothesis that the result could be a gigantic fountain rising to an equidistant height.<br />
<br />
You don't need a degree in physics to realise that this is just plain daft, but look at it another way. Hands up if you have heard of, let alone seen at first hand, 350 foot high fountains of sewage rising from a gravity-fed pipe?<br />
<br />
No?<br />
<br />
Search Google for "fountain of sewage" and similar terms, and the most you will come up with are stories from places such as Cloonshanbally in County Sligo where a horrified Mrs O'Connor describes a "mini fountain" of sewage rising to a height of a few inches gurgling out of a manhole cover. Not to mention the Australian primary school where a plumber managed to link up a drinking fountain to the school's sewage system.<br />
<br />
And why is Llanerch Fields so peculiarly at risk? What about all of the other properties which lie along the route taken by the Swiss Valley pipe, not to mention everywhere else in Llanelli or any other town or city criss-crossed by sewers?<br />
<br />
And what about the risk to campaigners, Labour councillors and politicians who frequent Llanerch Fields giving interviews? The thought of Lee Waters and Rob James being shot 350 feet into the air atop a chocolate-coloured fountain does not bear thinking about.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Spoiler Alert</b></u><br />
<br />
Here is a sneak preview of some other upcoming news stories we can look forward to on LlanelliOnline:<br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Mystic Meg Warns of Likely Asteroid Strike on Llanerch Fields</b></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtGDAb_MY1-0UBMzhZzbY6kvGYzEgK60Ur2k2wvi5GdfrPrSC-T6ZHCrNeelqjQfUta8fM64Q-C3Ya7Ha32iAovthDM2NoQYptV9q44Y9eyQXnojum4mZkMGcucQ_n2aKk7Thb0w36EBg/s1600/michaela4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtGDAb_MY1-0UBMzhZzbY6kvGYzEgK60Ur2k2wvi5GdfrPrSC-T6ZHCrNeelqjQfUta8fM64Q-C3Ya7Ha32iAovthDM2NoQYptV9q44Y9eyQXnojum4mZkMGcucQ_n2aKk7Thb0w36EBg/s400/michaela4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Emlyn Assad Dole Planning Chemical Attack on Llanerch Fields warns Councillor</b></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwBjkviIV5rl4uX6sfGwAI5ke8v18U0NKbfa1v-jVx8cdUtgOkvBzRaVToX1_LbL3aDAG6y-9s_XqCG13O0pRy7BjkP4ah8zPEVgpL_fEzPCaAniPareX7rY1_U_kOP_d_MtCOI9gOxYI/s1600/garyjones.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="496" data-original-width="669" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwBjkviIV5rl4uX6sfGwAI5ke8v18U0NKbfa1v-jVx8cdUtgOkvBzRaVToX1_LbL3aDAG6y-9s_XqCG13O0pRy7BjkP4ah8zPEVgpL_fEzPCaAniPareX7rY1_U_kOP_d_MtCOI9gOxYI/s400/garyjones.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b> CUSC launches bid to stage 2026 World Cup on Llanerch Fields</b></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXkOhuiHlZd_YA1rd6s9R1ujal3XygqXRwosz80MDeUriFAQIavlFfxyWeBumm7r37NPi3LD5IMtV06GbzH46dd0yCtDSsAghRguI8iv7yEBkMzVRXJdm8f8oMxB1SiFFK4Et-mds2nug/s1600/scaryclown.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="419" data-original-width="750" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXkOhuiHlZd_YA1rd6s9R1ujal3XygqXRwosz80MDeUriFAQIavlFfxyWeBumm7r37NPi3LD5IMtV06GbzH46dd0yCtDSsAghRguI8iv7yEBkMzVRXJdm8f8oMxB1SiFFK4Et-mds2nug/s400/scaryclown.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Halloween Horror as Jeff Edmunds appears in Wickerman Re-enactment</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMhbzr8DnaRZmrqOWPF-TorNjw0UV087mgKLHLiZXwuT_zM3zG_2i2nyycnRn3R4yTZ4pkD5WDTy2dVuXQv1eQHAOUOC5rtG3fAextLHSOkVN4trydQvztjZKXatO6AXSsD4EDyCjFwiw/s1600/wickerman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMhbzr8DnaRZmrqOWPF-TorNjw0UV087mgKLHLiZXwuT_zM3zG_2i2nyycnRn3R4yTZ4pkD5WDTy2dVuXQv1eQHAOUOC5rtG3fAextLHSOkVN4trydQvztjZKXatO6AXSsD4EDyCjFwiw/s1600/wickerman.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #0000ee;"><u>CUSC stages new community event</u></span></td></tr>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118857435900510280.post-59915635932456978332017-11-01T06:34:00.001+00:002017-11-01T06:45:08.322+00:00Toxic Tales - it's Llanelli Labour againOne unexpected outcome of the previous post was that it prompted Lee Waters AM to announce that he is planning to move to his constituency after two years of merely pretending to live there. Rather more inevitably, the post produced a flurry of tweets from those twin Llanelli Labour foghorns, Rosemary Emery and Gary 'Poumista' Jones.<br />
<br />
Lee Waters was once again mightily pissed off after his latest appearance on this blog, with Rosemary and Gary Poumista Jones rushing to console their boy.<br />
<br />
"Don't worry Lee, everyone he attacks gets elected", bragged Poumista on Twitter.<br />
<br />
Cneifiwr would never be foolish enough to imagine that this blog has the power to make or break political careers. All it can hope to do is draw the attention of its readers to the activities of some of our elected representatives and their supporters.<br />
<br />
<br />
Politics has always attracted crooks, creeps, and hypocrites, as Martin Shipton's new biography of George Thomas reminds us, but the last few years have produced a bumper crop of rotten apples, extending from Trump all the way down to Boris Johnson ("you're a nasty piece of work", said Eddie Mair memorably), Nathan Gill, Neil Hamilton and, right at the bottom of the electoral muck heap, the likes of Gary 'Poumista' Jones in Llangennech.<br />
<br />
Like his more successful peers in that list, Gary Jones is a clown, or what Jungians would call a trickster whose mask conceals a divisive and manipulative personality which plays on our basest instincts in the pursuit of power.<br />
<br />
Small wonder that Jones should thrive in the Labour Party in Llanelli, which while it has many decent members, has developed a peculiarly toxic culture characterised by bullying, intimidation, lying and dog whistle tactic which set it apart from the other mainstream political parties and the independents.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Poumista</b></u><br />
<br />
Gary Jones spends a huge amount of his time on Twitter, and his phenomenal output includes gems such as this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZQRncE5yg-jZwCa0zAo41284VN5VoGMTHtozf2AIj_D1nx6rfE4Y22HbxOKZe8JsUwPAU35G_FM8Uz52ncoMvELGKp1tZGL8OhBZX3QkiDuXnaWxIh551xOWoIZs1PxmLEAhJDwIpQuI/s1600/poumistaposter1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="564" data-original-width="559" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZQRncE5yg-jZwCa0zAo41284VN5VoGMTHtozf2AIj_D1nx6rfE4Y22HbxOKZe8JsUwPAU35G_FM8Uz52ncoMvELGKp1tZGL8OhBZX3QkiDuXnaWxIh551xOWoIZs1PxmLEAhJDwIpQuI/s400/poumistaposter1.png" width="396" /></a></div>
Jones has never denied helping to plaster the village with hate-filled posters ("Don't let Plaid dictate and kick out the English speaking children"), and he campaigned alongside the likes of Michaela Beddows, Jacques Protic and Neil Hamilton against transitioning the school in Llangennech.<br />
<br />
That campaign eventually failed, despite repeated attempts to rekindle the row, and Gary Jones went on to get himself elected to Carmarthenshire County Council.<br />
<br />
It is in his capacity as county councillor that Jones has secured a seat on the board of governors of Ysgol Llangennech despite being fundamentally opposed to the school's ethos. In a recent exchange on Twitter he announced that he would like to reverse the decision on the school's status taken earlier this year, adding for good measure that he would like to make all schools dual stream: <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlnd2JnmbHdXMZLTvpQdfSupnvkeoVkLNdBdU3MWlBM9rygzRgnKHFk7Nflq9hFkAUi_XvOC6bOfGOamPd1kbaZwF7ShTewUWk5h-B_QLwztMS02E52scCsqTpeoI38HnN-Ghn9Ly4ecc/s1600/poumista2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="151" data-original-width="355" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlnd2JnmbHdXMZLTvpQdfSupnvkeoVkLNdBdU3MWlBM9rygzRgnKHFk7Nflq9hFkAUi_XvOC6bOfGOamPd1kbaZwF7ShTewUWk5h-B_QLwztMS02E52scCsqTpeoI38HnN-Ghn9Ly4ecc/s400/poumista2.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
It's worth pausing for a minute to consider what that would entail. Quite apart from the implications for the Welsh
language in Carmarthenshire and the fact that Jones's pipe dream runs directly counter to the policies of
Carwyn Jones's government, it would lead to
years of upheaval and turmoil and waste scarce resources on an almost
unimaginable scale. <br />
<br />
It would be tempting to dismiss this as the ravings of a fringe lunatic,
but the Labour Party has made Gary Jones a member of the county
council's powerful Education and Children's Services Scrutiny Committee. <br />
<br />
Those who hoped that Llangennech would finally be allowed to put the school row behind it reckoned without their new county councillor who is clearly determined to use his new position to fight on. <br />
<br />
His latest idea is to call for Welsh place names in Llangennech to be made bilingual, no doubt to cheers from Michaela.<br />
<br />
Cneifiwr put it to him that a better option might be a bilingual Gary Jones, to which he replied that he was happy as he is. Ignorance and bigotry are bliss.<br />
<br />
Describing himself as an unconventional county councillor, he recently informed his Twitter followers that he had begun learning Greek which he clearly thinks is more useful than the language of so many of the people he now represents. Not to mention the school where he is now a governor.<br />
<br />
Jones followed this brief exchange with an invitation for this blog to comment on a planning application to store dangerous chemicals at the former RN site in Llangennech, now known as Stradey Business Park.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Stradey Business Park</b></u><br />
<br />
Caebrwyn recently covered the application to store hazardous chemicals on her blog <a href="http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/hazardous-chemicals-and-history-lesson.html">here</a>, and Cneifiwr has written at length about the business park before (<a href="http://cneifiwr-emlyn.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/warthogs-and-man-with-van.html">here</a>, for example).<br />
<br />
Before we turn our attention to planning matters, it may help Gary Jones to understand a little of the history of this site.<br />
<br />
This is a strange and disturbing tale, which began back in 2007 when Labour was running the county council in coalition with Meryl's Independents. As Cneifiwr's blogpost from 2014 noted, the deal was sufficiently odd for it to attract the attention of the <i>Western Mail </i>at the time. Then as now important questions remain unanswered.<br />
<br />
What is clear is that the chief executive of Carmarthenshire County Council, Mark James, helped two private individuals "known to some of the officers" acquire a valuable piece of public real estate for a remarkably low price. After he had persuaded councillors to approve this pig in a poke arrangement, it was revealed that the investors were David Pickering, then chairman of the WRU, and a Mr Nigel Lovering.<br />
<br />
Among the mysteries are why the county council acted as a broker between the MoD and the two men, and why Mr James decided to get councillors to give it a legal seal of approval when delegated powers could have been used.<br />
<br />
Part of the deal included an undertaking to let the local football club use a small part of the very large site, a promise which was later broken.<br />
<br />
At any rate, the re-named Stradey Business Park went on to win some hefty grants from the county council, and a retrospective planning application for a massive array of solar panels was waved through.<br />
<br />
While all this was going on, the park received a steady stream of visitors from County Hall, and many of them were happy to pose for the cameras in their eagerness to be associated with a deal that would deliver "jobs, jobs, jobs".<br />
<br />
The Labour Party was especially keen to emphasise its association with Mr Pickering's park, as we can see from this family outing where just about the entire Labour group on the council, as it was at the time, turned out with Nia Griffith. For whatever reason, Keith Price Davies was not there. Perhaps he had more sense than to associate himself with a chemical compound made up of Mark, Meryl, Pickering and secretive business dealings.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqtWPtL8SqrmIdN_n-gVXMv8SePFA-Cm62fsEQSi8cuzUKaZwzudOrv_MX5N2ILucp0U4krWu_dgRLDxmy5305hoqc6MR9v4kihPE4mSrob-s1y0OyNFurIgjl3JO1vx4SJKBQaNqEDVU/s1600/stradey+business.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqtWPtL8SqrmIdN_n-gVXMv8SePFA-Cm62fsEQSi8cuzUKaZwzudOrv_MX5N2ILucp0U4krWu_dgRLDxmy5305hoqc6MR9v4kihPE4mSrob-s1y0OyNFurIgjl3JO1vx4SJKBQaNqEDVU/s400/stradey+business.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A family outing</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
That brings us to planning application <a href="http://www.carmarthenshire.gov.wales/home/residents/planning/planning-applications/search-for-an-application.aspx#.WfdLozJpFdg">S/36316</a> to store arsine and phosphine on the site owned by Messrs Pickering and Lovering through R and A Properties, which is the name of the entity making the application.<br />
<br />
Arsine and phosphine are both highly toxic, and phosphine is spontaneously flammable if exposed to air. A quick Google search using the words "arsine accident", for example, yields 120,000 results, including many reports of fatalities. A similar search on phosphine yields even more horror stories.<br />
<br />
The application form is rather thin on information, but in response to a question how many people could be affected by a major accident, the applicants coolly state "approx. 100". The real figure may be somewhat higher because there are both residential properties and a care home close by.<br />
<br />
The form does not ask for details relating to security, the conditions under which the chemicals would be stored, how long they would remain on site, transport arrangements, whether or not the applicants have been in discussion with the Fire Brigade, etc., etc.<br />
<br />
The business park covers a huge area, and is easily accessible to the public. Security is minimal.<br />
<br />
We will have to wait to see what the planning officer's recommendation is, but residents have good reason to worry because, as we have seen, R and A Properties has some influential friends and supporters, some of whom are well known to Poumista.<br />
<br />
For his part, Jones appears to be peddling the notion that all this has something to do with Plaid Cymru. Not only did he invite this blog to comment on the application, but he is hawking a letter round to residents asking them to contact their "Labour County Councillor" (Llangennech has both a Plaid and a Labour county councillor), and their Labour community councillors. Unsurprisingly, this same letter has appeared on Alan Evans' LlanelliOnline website under the heading "<a href="https://twitter.com/llanellionline/status/922774175248474112">Public Notice</a>".<br />
<br />
What is clear is that for Gary Jones this issue has less to do with the risks posed to local people than an opportunity to play politics. Four legs good, two legs bad. Or in this case, good old Labour versus wicked everybody else.<br />
<br />
<i>A fo ben bid bont</i>, runs the old Welsh proverb, but Gary Jones would not understand the words or the sentiment.<br />
<br />
<br />
<u><b>Burry Port</b></u><br />
<br />
Next stop is Burry Port, or the "Saint Tropez of South Wales" according to
Stephen James, a former Independent county councillor and serving town councillor. <br />
<br />
Well, perhaps not, but we must tear our thoughts away from those
cavorting topless sunbathers and head for the Town Council chamber where
the feathers have been flying of late, with accusations of bullying and
intimidation and complaints winging their way to the Ombudsman for
Public Services. The sort of thing normally associated with Labour in
Llangennech and the Labour group on Llanelli Rural Council, in fact.<br />
<br />
The
town council is currently comprised of 9 Independents, 8 Labour and one
Plaid Cymru member. The lone Plaid councillor votes with the
Independents, the alternative being a 9-9 deadlock.<br />
<br />
Readers may recall a mention in the previous post of a <a href="http://llanellionline.news/2017/10/14/freeman-wants-rid-labour-pembrey-burry-port/">strange article</a>
written in Alan Evans-ese on LlanelliOnline, the hyperlocal Llanelli
website which is very much hoping to persuade Lee Waters to support a
grant application so that it can continue to <strike>churn out Labour propaganda</strike> publish news stories.<br />
<br />
That
article, which attracted the attention of our old friend Michaela
Beddows (see the comments section), said the Plaid councillor, Cllr
Peter Freeman, had made allegations of "outrageous behaviour" on the
part of the Labour leader, Cllr John James.<br />
<br />
For reasons
best known to itself, LlanelliOnline insists on referring repeatedly to Cllr
Freeman as a "co-opted" councillor, even though he
was returned in the same way as all other members. <br />
<br />
Needless
to say, Cllr James was unable to shed any light on anything that he
might have done to merit those accusations, and LlanelliOnline said it
was unable to clarify matters either, leaving readers to assume that
this was all much ado about nothing, and that the Plaid councillor must
have imagined it all. The piece then went on to rubbish a journalist who
had come to report on these imaginary goings on:<br />
<br />
<i>Mr Freeman claimed to have invited an impartial journalist (note taker)
from the Carmarthen Journal, Grace Powell (not working for Carmarthen
Journal). Attendees told Llanelli Online that they saw Cllr Freeman and
the note taker hugging prior to the meeting.</i> <br />
<br />
A couple of days later, LlanelliOnline published a second article (<a href="http://llanellionline.news/2017/10/16/burry-ports-doom-gloom-despite-wales-bloom/">here</a>) setting out the views of the Labour leader on the town council. John James is also one of the town's two (Labour) county councillors.<br />
<br />
James rubbished suggestions that he had been involved in organising a rent-a-mob at a meeting held on 21st September. The 40 or so individuals who packed the meeting (an enormous turn-out for any community council) were just ordinary members of the
public wanting to see their councillors at work, he claimed. Then in the next breath
he said it showed how strongly local people felt attached to the council's former
Technical Services Officer (TSO), Lee Fox, although it turns out that Mr Fox had been TSO for less than a year.<br />
<br />
Rather than rely on LlanelliOnline, let's turn to a statement put out by the Mayor and Deputy Mayor in a press release. Not only is the statement a model of clarity, but it confirms an account of events received by Cneifiwr from a different source.<br />
<br />
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">From The Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Pembrey and
Burry Port Town Council.</span></span></span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></i><br />
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<br /></div>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></i><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As Mayor and
Deputy Mayor we have maintained a silence in the press and social media in the
belief that the responsible thing to do was to deal with confidential staff
issues within the Council. </span></span></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Unfortunately Cllr. John James’ recent comments, and
the recent Star headline, cannot go unchallenged.</span></span></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></i><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">At the heart
of the problem is the decision of a member of staff to resign after eleven
months in the post. When he informed the Mayor of his decision he was asked to
take 24 hours to reconsider his decision and to also talk to his family. The
following day he informed the Mayor that he had decided to go and asked that he
be allowed to leave straight away.</span></span></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></i><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">It must be
made perfectly clear that nobody asked him to resign, in fact the Mayor asked
him to consider his actions carefully when he wanted to resign.</span></span></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></i><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Since that
time there has been repeated insistence by the Labour Group that discussions be
held in public about his resignation despite the strong advice from the Town
Clerk, the County Council Monitoring Officer and the Ombudsman that this should
not happen. We must also point out that in the last five years when Labour were
in control and Labour Mayors chaired the Council meetings they ended almost
every meeting of the Council by excluding the public and the press so that we
could deal with staff and ex-staff issues.</span></span></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></i><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">By insisting
that we comply with the advice, and that we remain professional and responsible,
the Independent Councillors have suffered harassment, personal attacks and
verbal abuse. Some Independent Councillors have also reported to us that they
have been intimidated and bullied by people who attended the Council meeting on
21<sup>st</sup> September. It was for that reason that Police presence was felt
necessary at the following meeting on 13<sup>th</sup> October.</span></span></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></i><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Following
his resignation the Council took the opportunity to change the requirements and
the status of the job to better fit the growing demands on the Council and
advertised the job accordingly.</span></span></span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></i><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">A month
after he resigned and following some intense interventions on his behalf by
some Labour Councillors, the former member of staff informed the Council that
he had changed his mind and would like his job back. However, this was a job
that no longer existed following the changes by the Council. He was informed
that the job had been advertised, meaning that it was open to anyone to apply.</span></span></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></i><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The former
member of staff clearly did not like the Council’s answer and subsequent events
suggest that he commenced a campaign with his supporters to intimidate and
force the Council to give him what he wanted. It is sad that some Labour
Councillors are putting pressure on the rest of us and disrupting the normal
work of the Council.</span></span></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></i><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Members of
the public and the press are welcome to attend Council Meetings but as a result
of the behaviour of some at the meeting held on 21<sup>st</sup> September the
Town Clerk deemed it necessary to issue ‘’Guidance on the admission of the
public and press to Council meetings’’ to those attending the next meeting.</span></span></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></i><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">There are
however occasions when the public and press are excluded as Cllr John James, a
former Mayor, is fully aware and has himself excluded them in almost every
meeting during his tenure.</span></span></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></i><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Finally
during the meeting of the 21<sup>st</sup> September Cllr John James as the
leader of the Labour group on the Town Council attempted to intimidate the
Mayor into holding a public discussion on an ex- staff issue while the former member
of staff was present in the audience. In his unwise and unprofessional attempt
he carried out an attack on the Mayor and the Town Clerk which was
unprecedented, disrespectful and insulting. His behaviour was unacceptable and
does not represent the professional way in which the Council should conduct its
business. It was for this reason that the meeting was suspended in order to
ensure that the Council’s reputation was protected.</span></span></span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></i><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"> </span></span></span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">There is not much to add to this account </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">apart from a few further details.</span></span><i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span></i><br />
<br />
<br />
Mr Fox and his wife are, as they are
perfectly entitled to be, Labour supporters, and along with Cllr John
James, Mrs Amanda Fox is now both a sitting Labour county councillor and
town councillor.<br />
<br />
<br />
At the meeting on 21 September, Cllr James laid into the
Mayor, cheered on by the gallery. When the Mayor proposed going into
closed session to discuss what was after all a sensitive employment
matter, it is claimed that Cllr James turned up his verbal assault on
the Mayor, telling him to look him in the face.<br />
<br />
When the Mayor tried to ask the town clerk for
advice Cllr James said "Don't look at her". He even said if the Mayor wanted
advice he should call in the building caretaker.<br />
<br />
After an adjournment the Labour group returned and agreed to proceed in closed session,
but then Cllr James named one of the Independent councillors and said that he had a
complaint against Lee Fox, who it should be remembered was sitting in the public gallery. At that point the Mayor decided that he had had enough and
suspended the meeting.<br />
<br />
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1509276227382_2451">
It is alleged that the bullying and intimidating behavour continued after
the meeting, with one of the Labour supporters calling the Deputy
Mayor a "F***ing Dictator" A female Independent councillor was surrounded by 4 or 5 men angrily shouting and
verbally abusing her.</div>
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<br clear="none" />
The
lone Plaid councillor then called for an extraordinary meeting of the
council because, clearly, the issue of the Technical Services Officer
had not been properly discussed, and unsurprisingly this made him a
target at subsequent meetings.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1509276227382_2451">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1509276227382_2451">
Just
as with the meeting on 21st September, it is alleged that the Labour
Party put out a call to its supporters, urging them to turn up in force
again.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1509276227382_2451">
<br /></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1509276227382_2451">
Matters
turned nasty at a second subsequent meeting, when the Independent group
voted Cllr Freeman on to the council's various committees, much to the
evident displeasure of Cllr James, who is alleged to have said that Cllr
Freeman was not fit to be a councillor.<br />
<br /></div>
<br />
In completely unrelated news, <i>WalesOnline </i>last week <a href="http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/labour-rumbled-trying-plant-people-13811749">reported</a>
that Labour in Swansea has been caught inviting supporters along to
council meetings to ask questions which would enable the council leader
to give answers that show the Labour Party in a good light.<br />
<br />
Well, fancy that.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Radio Rosemary</b></u> <br />
<br />
Rosemary need not
detain us long; if receiving an unending stream of recycled tweets
praising Lee Waters, Tonia Antoniazzi and Nia Griffith interspersed with
stuff churned out by Labour's press office excites you, subscribe to
her Twitter feed now.<br />
<br />
Having said that, her latest
offerings include some slightly less on-message re-tweets from Labour
Against Anti-Semitism and another group called JVL Watch which has just
been blocked by another account called Jewish Voice for Labour.<br />
<br />
Prepare
to enter a Pythonesque world where the Judean People's Front is engaged
in a class struggle against the People's Front for the Liberation of
Judea which is in turn fighting the Judean Popular People's Front. This
is a world where nothing is as it seems, where unlike Ronseal's products
the label and the contents have nothing to do with each other, a world
where sinners are saints and abusers are victims - provided they are
members of the Labour Party.<br />
<br />
Labour Against
Anti-Semitism has come up with a conspiracy theory according to which
Jared O'Mara, the Labour MP for Sheffield Hallam who has been suspended
by the party pending investigation into allegations that he made a
string of homophobic and misogynist remarks, was in fact the victim of a
Zionist plot.<br />
<br />
Whatever
your views about Nick Clegg, it is fair to say that the people of
Sheffield Hallam, standards in public life and the quality of UK
political discourse in general were the losers when O'Mara took the seat
from the former LibDem leader.<br />
<br />
We will almost certainly never know if
Mossad was behind O'Mara's (temporary) fall from grace, but what is
indisputably true is that O'Mara left an extremely unpleasant trail of
comments on social media deriding women and gays, and resigned from the
House of Commons' Women and Equalities Committee only after his
hypocrisy was exposed. <br />
<br />
But O'Mara is Labour, and therefore a victim.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118857435900510280.post-47225909852777181122017-10-20T10:59:00.000+01:002017-10-21T16:09:03.677+01:00Dewi Sant and the Burry Port Soviet (Updated)It only seems like yesterday (June 2016 to be precise) that Nia Griffith belatedly joined other plotters in yet another attempt to oust Jeremy Corbyn. The coup failed, Nia rejoined the shadow cabinet, but Labour's civil war rumbled on, and the party seemed destined to go down in flames when Theresa May called her snap general election.<br />
<br />
Since the election all has been sweetness and light in the UK Labour Party, at least in public, but someone seems to have forgotten to tell Labour in Llanelli that purging the party of capitalist lackeys and traitors has been put on hold, and the comrades are still busy getting on with the real business of stabbing each other.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Rent-a-mob</b></u> <br />
<br />
Just over a week ago Alan Evans' hyperlocal <i>LlanelliOnline </i>published one of those very <a href="http://llanellionline.news/2017/10/14/freeman-wants-rid-labour-pembrey-burry-port/">strange pieces</a> it specialises in, this time purporting to report on a dust-up at Burry Port Town Council where, it was alleged, Labour had brought in a rent-a-mob to disrupt proceedings, with some of its members and supporters going on to issue "false and misleading" statements to the press.<br />
<br />
To put the icing on the cake, the piece attracted the attention of Michaela Beddows, notorious for her role in the Llangennech saga, and she left a series of rants in the comments section<br />
<br />
A journalist from the <i>Carmarthen Journal </i>was invited down to cover the next meeting to ensure that a more impartial and accurate account of proceedings was published.<br />
<br />
This invitation clearly upset <i>LlanelliOnline </i>which responded by launching an attack on the integrity of the <i>Journal's </i>representative and rubbishing the idea that a rent-a-mob had been organised.<br />
<br />
It has been claimed that the rent-a-mob was led by Llanelli Labour's bovver boys in CUSC (the "Carmarthenshire Unified Sports Committee"), who just happen to be bosom buddies with Alan Evans, although as readers will see in the comments section below, one half of the CUSC "committee", denies being present.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Walkies!</b></u><br />
<br />
We didn't have to wait long before CUSC made another <a href="http://llanellionline.news/2017/10/19/campaigners-upset-diggers-llanerch/">appearance</a> on <i>LlanelliOnline</i>, this time rallying in support of the dog walkers campaigning to keep what they see as the "brainwashed plebs" and" jumped up Welsh tossers" of Ysgol Dewi Sant away from Llanerch Fields.<br />
<br />
What triggered the latest outbursts was the appearance on Llanerch Fields of a couple of men carrying out permeability tests on the soil. Luckily a passing dog walker was on hand to photograph this outrage on a green space where we are told you can hardly move for picnickers, kiddies, kite flyers, sporty types, blackberry pickers, boy scouts and troupes of Morris Men (but definitely no doggers).<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn07LxikfcMnYpRWhRiiuWuYxnOQVDg1DUZQibLd5dPq3wogdpv1sbZUP-AA3fEcTPhxMqNwb5sD-FdqvN6G-8mDQWnu6HIH6MjFBaIkvS7jyQuHt_syNm8CKbc_NYQPK-ux3NakYpKzQ/s1600/llanerch+dogs.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="397" data-original-width="781" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn07LxikfcMnYpRWhRiiuWuYxnOQVDg1DUZQibLd5dPq3wogdpv1sbZUP-AA3fEcTPhxMqNwb5sD-FdqvN6G-8mDQWnu6HIH6MjFBaIkvS7jyQuHt_syNm8CKbc_NYQPK-ux3NakYpKzQ/s400/llanerch+dogs.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Walkies with the labs</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
The unlikely alliance between the revolutionary vanguard of CUSC and the snooty dog walkers who front the group campaigning against Ysgol Dewi Sant has, readers will not be surprised to hear, an interesting political subtext.<br />
<br />
Mrs Heather Peters, who chairs the campaign group, is a big fan of Labour's Neath carpetbagger, Cllr Rob James, or "Our Rob", as she calls him. And writing on the campaign group's Facebook page, a CUSC operative recently called for Rob James to take over the Labour group in Carmarthenshire.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Holding Back the <strike>Plebs </strike>Years</b></u> <br />
<br />
Now they are taking matters a stage further, with <i>LlanelliOnline </i>quoting an unnamed CUSC spokesperson (that would be "Red Mick" Barrett, the Simply Red tribute act, Ed.) as follows:<br />
<br />
<i>We are meeting with Cllr James and Cllr Najmi next week to discuss
this. Kev and I are meeting with Rob and Shahana next week to discuss
this and the resignation of Jeff Edmunds.</i><br />
<br />
<i>
</i><i>The CUSC have passed information onto Jeff Edmunds and it hasn’t been acted on.</i><br />
<br />
<i>
</i><i>We fought to rid Llanelli of Plaid Cymru so that Labour can fight
these issues. Jeff Edmunds has done nothing. Unpaid volunteers are doing
all the fighting, we need a voice.</i><br />
<br />
Expect not so much a stab in the back, but a full frontal assault on the lugubrious Labour leader. Poor old Jeff.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Jac Codi Baw</b></u><br />
<br />
Meanwhile Lee Waters AM is rumoured to have put even greater distance between himself and his constituents by moving from Barry to Newport. Not to be out-manoeuvred by the left-wing of his party, Lee took to social media last night to accuse Plaid Cymru of sending in its JCBs to dig up a green space, with Simon Thomas AM reminding him that the business case for building the school on Llanerch Fields had been approved, subject to planning and a consultation, by his own Labour government.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Update 21 October</b></u><br />
<br />
Lee Waters contacted Y Cneifiwr on Twitter last night to say that rumours he had moved to Newport were untrue before going on to accuse this blog of making up the rumours.<br />
<br />
<br />
When asked, he initially failed to confirm that he was still living in Barry, before eventually announcing that he would be moving to Llanelli in two weeks from now.<br />
<br />
Waters is by no means the only AM not to live in his constituency, but what marks him out as different is the lengths he has gone to in the past to give the impression that he lives in Llanelli, including this sentence taken from his blog:<br />
<br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="CY">Like
countless families across the Llanelli constituency my wife and I struggle with
juggling the needs of our children and the pressures of work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></i><br />
<br />
<span lang="CY"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">It has taken more than two years for Lee Waters to answer this simple question, and he has been asked multiple times, not just by this blog. In fact, his strange reluctance to be open about where he lives has even become something of a joke in Cardiff Bay, with nicknames including "the Member for the Vale of Glamorgan" and "Barry Lee Waters" gaining currency.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="CY"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">That's two years of unwanted attention he could have spared himself, not to mention the damage it has done his reputation by needlessly making himself look shifty and evasive over what is a truly trivial matter.</span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="CY"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></i><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="CY"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">_________________ </span></span></i> </div>
<br />
With Halloween just around the corner, is Rob James about to reveal himself as Van Helsing and drive a stake through the heart of the living dead Labour leader?<br />
<br />
Watch this space.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i></i><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118857435900510280.post-46420719899903334592017-10-18T14:49:00.003+01:002017-10-18T14:49:28.268+01:00Mark leads us to the Promised LandDespite all the regeneration schemes, the Valleys and the west of Wales remain some of the poorest, most disadvantaged parts of Western Europe with creaking infrastructure and heavy dependence on low-paid employment. Every year droves of talented young people leave for Cardiff and the big English cities to earn a living, while heading west is a steady flow made up disproportionately of pensioners, unskilled and poorly educated inner city families and younger people who bring their own problems with them.<br />
<br />
At first glance initiatives such as the Swansea Bay City Region, or "the City Deal" as it now seems to be known, and the ARCH wellness village at Delta Lakes on the outskirts of Llanelli offer the prospect of many thousands of highly paid jobs. A welcome departure from Carmarthenshire County Council's love affair with shopping centres, supermarkets and handouts to owners of holiday cottages, punctuated by grandiose development schemes built on wildly optimistic forecasts which somehow always seem to end up making pots of money for a very few, while being a drain on local government finances for decades to come.<br />
<br />
As always, however, the devil lies in the detail, and seasoned observers of the Carmarthenshire scheme could be forgiven for being more than a little sceptical when they see that we are being led into the new promised land by some old familiar faces whose track records stretch all the way back to prestige developments such as the Princess Royal Arena in Boston, the Technium fiasco(s) and other "won't cost you a penny" white elephants.<br />
<br />
In Carmarthenshire, all roads lead to the door of our teflon-coated chief executive, Mark James CBE, who when he is not doing his day job running the county council, is busy building up his own <a href="http://jacothenorth.net/blog/baywatch/">property empire</a>, setting the lawyers, the courts and police on Jacqui Thompson and now also at the epicentre of both the City Deal and the ARCH wellness village - two originally separate schemes which are coalescing into Mr James's biggest ever bid for glory.<br />
<br />
Politicians and councillors who question these schemes, currently with a price tag of around £1.5 billion and rising fast, know that they will be accused of undermining opportunities to create jobs and transform the local economy, and the likelihood is that Mr James will ensure that they sign off a huge borrowing spree in a blitz of spin and corporate PR which will leave taxpayers in Carmarthenshire and neighbouring counties exposed to huge risks, with any upside being scooped up by private sector fat cats, many of them resident in sunny tax havens.<br />
<br />
But there are signs of growing concern among some of the participants, with accusations of secrecy, lack of transparency and byzantine legalistic draft agreements, of "partners" not being kept informed, of chaotic planning, over-optimistic forecasts, spin and what amounts to a plan by Mr James's authority to fleece his friends and neighbours. Add to that a lack of accountability, an onslaught against what is left of democratic oversight and cronyism.<br />
<br />
That does not sound anything like our widely loved and admired council chief executive, does it?<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
_______________</div>
<br />
Before we take a closer look at the City Deal and the ARCH wellness village, let's take a small detour to draw attention to a lecture given the other day by Martin Shipton, chief reporter of the <i>Western Mail </i>and a self-described old-fashioned journalist.The full text of his sobering address on the state of the Welsh media can be found <a href="http://www.gorwel.co/wordpress/?p=3041">here</a>, and it is well worth reading.<br />
<br />
"I<span class="">t is a fact universally acknowledged that a democratically elected administration must be in want of some scrutiny", he begins before going on to examine how the Welsh Government and so many other of our public bodies like to claim that they are models of openness and transparency while being anything but. </span><br />
<br />
<span class="">He details Jane Hutt's shocking responses to the plight of NHS patients; the ways in which the Freedom of Information Act can be and is used to deny freedom of information; the Circuit of Wales fiasco with its strange parallels to what is now happening with the City Deal and ARCH schemes; legal bullying designed to silence the press, and the culture of fear and clientelism which prevents whistleblowers from coming forward.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="">He goes on to describe the ways in which serious news is being edged out by the revenue-driven click-bait culture of media companies, before ending with a passage from his recent book on George Thomas:</span><br />
<span class=""><br /></span>
<i><span class=""><span class="">Our society continues to have too much ‘cap-doffing’ to
our perceived ‘betters’ and a craving to ingratiate ourselves with them
for social and career advancement. There remain, to this day, too many
politicians like George Thomas, who combine a self-seeking ambition with
the readiness to pretend that Britain persists in being a great power
built on the remnants of an empire that makes it superior to all other
European countries.</span></span></i><br />
<span class=""></span>
<span class=""></span>
<br />
Martin Shipton's lecture is a cri-de-coeur for journalists to hold the powerful to account and submit them to scrutiny, and is a world away from the media's obsession with celebrity tittle-tattle, "click-bait" online articles ("10 things you never wanted to know about Katherine Jenkins") and the unquestioning cutting 'n' pasting of press releases churned out by the PR merchants employed by public bodies.<br />
<br />
The trouble is that newspaper companies, Martin Shipton's employers included, find it difficult to understand why resources should be devoted to the sort of hard-nosed political reporting he specialises in, when the punters prefer reading about Katherine Jenkins and Weatherspoon's menus.<br />
<br />
Serious journalism is, in their eyes, expensive and time consuming, and they have a point when you consider the effort needed to try to find out what is going on with schemes such as the City Deal and the ARCH wellness village.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
____________ </div>
<br />
There are countless gushing press releases, slick videos, artists' impressions and Twitter streams which verge on soft pornography as they record all of the conferences, lavish receptions, "envisioning days" and other junkets associated with these schemes. Everything is brilliant, inspired, fantastic, innovative and imbued with excellence. Take a look as the ARCH Programme's <a href="https://twitter.com/ARCHProg">Twitter feed</a>, for example.<br />
<br />
What you will not find are any meeting minutes, reports or sober assessments of the costs and risks involved. Even finding out who the movers and shakers are requires detective work.<br />
<br />
Almost the only exception to this is a report published by Neath Port Talbot Council <a href="https://democracy.npt.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=32738&ISATT=1#search=%22city%20deal%22">here</a>, which was the subject of a two-page spread in last week's <i>Carmarthenshire Herald </i>and blogposts by Jacqui Thompson (<a href="http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/swansea-city-deal-and-wellness.html">here</a>) and Siân Caiach (<a href="http://www.peoplefirstwales.org.uk/2017/10/cities-are-future-apparently-city-deal.html">here</a>). There is also an interesting piece on <i>WalesOnline </i><a href="http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/six-months-city-deal-being-13722663">here</a><i>.</i><br />
<br />
The NPT report, dated 4 October 2017, shows that all is far from well with the City Deal which is relying on four county councils - Swansea, Carmarthenshire, Neath Port Talbot and Pembrokeshire - to stump up £396 million to fund an array of projects, at least some of which should be ringing alarm bells across the region. ARCH is now also touting a very large begging bowl around the region's county halls, having discovered that the Welsh Government and the NHS are strapped for cash. Who would have thought it?<br />
<br />
<u><b>The City Deal </b></u><br />
<br />
In addition to the £396 million which is to come from "other public sector" bodies (that is the four participating councils), the UK and Welsh governments are expected to chip in £241 million, with a further £637 million predicted to come from the private sector for the 11 projects which make up the City Deal. The ARCH wellness village is not one of them.<br />
<br />
The Swansea Bay City Region has been rumbling away for years, and as far as the public is concerned has so far produced nothing more than a torrent of press releases and snazzy videos. The PR orgy came to a climax in March of this year when Theresa May met Carwyn Jones to sign off an agreement.<br />
<br />
This was just before Mrs May went for her famous walking holiday in Dolgellau and decided to call a general election. At the time the Tories had high hopes of winning seats in and around Swansea, including Carwyn's own backyard.<br />
<br />
We all know what happened next, and Mrs May's love affair with Wales seems to have cooled dramatically, with the ditching of the scheme to electrify the Great Western Mainline all the way to Swansea and a distinctly chilly response to hopes that she would back the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon project.<br />
<br />
The NPT report notes,<br />
<br />
<i>The Welsh Government wants the process led by a Joint Committee of local authority leaders (consistent with their approach to local government reform) whereas the UK Government has insisted upon a private sector led Economic Strategy Board (ESB) as part of the arrangements.</i><br />
<br />
The report then tells us that an ESB was "pretty much what we had prior to 31 March 2017 in the form of the Swansea Bay City Region Board; but the Welsh Government effectively abolished it".<br />
<br />
Hands up all those who remember Jamie Owen telling us that Carwyn had sent Sir Terry Matthews and the other board members packing, in the nicest possible way.<br />
<br />
That report was published at the beginning of this month, and for all we know the UK Government is still insisting on a private sector led board, or possibly an even more byzantine arrangement where an ESB exists alongside a public sector led body. Meanwhile, the councils are ploughing on with what they term a "provisional governance structure established in shadow form".<br />
<br />
The trouble is that after six months of wrangling and a draft Joint Working Agreement (JWA) commissioned by Mark James, the councils cannot agree on how the City Deal should be run. Mr James's draft, produced at no doubt huge expense with the aid of external lawyers, ran to 70 pages, with NPT saying that, if asked, its officers could not explain to councillors how the agreement would work.<br />
<br />
Who would have thought that a legal framework drawn up under the auspices of Mr James would be so opaque?<br />
<br />
So they have agreed to start again, although the UK Government could yet veto their efforts, especially now that the Tories' very brief love affair with Wales has ended in heartbreak.<br />
<br />
As things stand, this £1.3 - £1.5 billion scheme (and rising) has no formal governance structure, and Mr James has effectively replaced Sir Terry Matthews as the ring master of a shadow body made up of representatives of bodies with very different agendas.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Top slice</b></u> <br />
<br />
Even less welcome news for Neath Port Talbot, Swansea and Pembrokeshire councillors are reports that Mr James not only plans to siphon off a chunk of the City Deal money for the wellness village in his own backyard, but that he is also proposing to "top-slice" (i.e. pocket) a hefty chunk of the funds for projects outside Carmarthenshire, as well as charging them a stiff annual "administration fee".<br />
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It's the not the sort of stuff to inspire private sector investors to part with their cash or the sort of thing that will improve relations with the neighbours.<br />
<i></i><br />
This is just the tip of an iceberg of a catalogue of concerns and problems facing the City Deal and ARCH mega-schemes.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Chicken, and chicken and egg</b></u><br />
<br />
While the shadow governance team struggles with agreeing the rules of the game, the Welsh Government has told the councils that it will not release its share of the project funding until the business cases for all 11 projects have been approved. Which comes first? The chicken or the egg?<br />
<br />
Unless the Welsh Government drops this insistence, all 11 projects will have to move at the pace of the slowest, with NPT adding that this "could also result in the local authorities taking all the risk by funding projects up front with no absolute guarantee that the Government funding will follow immediately or at all, if one considers how they have been trying to re-write the clauses in the JWA".<br />
<br />
In other words, councils are having to contemplate what could be a very risky and expensive game of chicken. <br />
<br />
If that were not bad enough, NPT, in common with all other Welsh councils, faces huge budgetary pressure, and the report warns councillors that "the City Deal featured as a potentially significant financial pressure in that [budget, Ed.] presentation (albeit largely unquantified at this stage), so this begs the question of competing priorities for prudential borrowing and finance".<br />
<br />
The bottom line for NPT is that it has many other pressing local priorities, that it lacks the bandwidth and resources to work on this time-consuming project, that the risks are significant and that the extent of its financial commitment is unquantifiable.<br />
<br />
And there is much, much more where that came from, including the likelihood that there will need to be significant changes to accounting rules which would have to be approved by the government and<br />
new legislation.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile progress on the 11 City Deal projects is mixed. By far the most important of these is something called Internet Coast.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Internet Coast</b></u><br />
<br />
The centre piece of the City Deal and by far the most ambitious project would have as its starting point a trans-atlantic fibre optic cable between New York and Oxwich Bay. This project alone would account for £500 million of the £1.3 billion City Deal package, and Sir Terry Matthews, former chair of the city region board, told the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-35631354">BBC</a> back in February 2016 that the aim would be to create up to 33,000 hi-tech jobs in the region over the next 20 years.<br />
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Here is what the NPT report says:<br />
<br />
<i>The digital infrastructure agenda was very dependent upon the active engagement of the former City Region Board Chair and his wide senior level network; but the board was abolished and that opportunity put at risk. The simple truth is that the necessary expertise (or contacts) exists neither in the Welsh Government nor local government. As a consequence, little work has been done in recent months to progress the project, although a part-time external adviser has now been appointed.</i><br />
<br />
Unelected Sir Terry Matthews may have been, but he does at least come with an impressive business pedigree. In effect responsibility now lies with the equally unelected and apparently unsackable Mark James, whose first major project was what is now known as the Princess Royal Arena.<br />
<br />
In addition to his many and varied other duties and interests, Mr James is also heavily involved with the ARCH wellness village project, about which there are almost as many worrying questions and mysteries as there are with the City Deal.<br />
<br />
Here is what the NPT report says:<br />
<br />
<i>A major issue is the uncertainty around the so called ARCH (regional Health Collaboration) programme which is linked to the City Deal. A bid was submitted to the Welsh Government by the two health boards in the region in January of this year and we are well aware of the competing priorities for revenue and capital funding within the NHS. The ARCH programme has been asked to look at “alternative sources of funding”; but assumes more than £100 million from the City Deal. Increasingly, we do not believe that the ARCH programme will secure significant medium to long term funding from the Welsh Government. If so, there can be no question of Councils being invited to plug any gap. This uncertainty could, in turn, undermine the ability of projects to attract the even larger required private sector match funding. These matters therefore remain unresolved.</i><br />
<br />
Bearing in mind that this quotation is taken from a report published two weeks ago, it is interesting to contrast what NPT has to say with this message currently fronting Carmarthenshire County Council's website:<br />
<br />
<i>The ambitious project – which will see an investment of more than
£200million - is being led by Carmarthenshire County Council in
partnership with Hywel Dda and Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health
Boards and Swansea University.</i><br />
<br />
<i>
</i><i>It is also a key project for the Swansea Bay City Region and is
earmarked to receive £40million as part of the £1.3billion City Deal
funding.</i><br />
<br />
If, as NPT says, the Welsh Government is unlikely to help fund the wellness village and the councils will not plug the gap, who is providing that £40 million?<br />
<br />
<i></i>
<u><b>ARCH</b></u><br />
<br />
The wellness village is just one part of a much bigger collaboration between the health boards and universities, and its origins are shrouded in Delta Lake mist.<br />
<br />
According to ARCH's own website, the wellness village board is chaired by none other than Meryl Gravell, representing Carmarthenshire County Council. It may be that someone has not got around to updating the website because, as a former county councillor, Meryl no longer represents anyone and is even less accountable than she was when she sat in County Hall.<br />
<br />
The fact is that the wellness village was Meryl's baby right from the beginning, and as one half of the Mark and Meryl dream team, there is no need for a paternity test.<br />
<br />
One of the first clues as to what was being planned for the Delta Lakes site came in Carmarthenshire's vast Local Development Plan. Anyone who buried deep enough in the labyrinth of documentation would have been surprised to see that the site had been ear-marked for "private healthcare".<br />
<br />
That was unusually and almost uniquely specific. Normally you would expect to see the much less transparent "employment land".<br />
<br />
The convoluted way that LDPs are put together means that the designation for private healthcare was inserted at least 5 years ago, and it suggests that some very specific discussions had taken place with unknown third parties well before then.<br />
<br />
The wellness village, predicated on being a private healthcare development, almost certainly dates back to when Meryl was council leader.<br />
<br />
According to the minutes of a Carmarthenshire County Council executive board meeting held in 2016, however, the idea first saw the light of day when the council was approached by the health boards and the universities in mid-2015 - well after the council had adopted its LDP and the private healthcare provision.<br />
<br />
Like so much else in this story, things just don't add up.<br />
<br />
The trouble is that potential private investors would have been unwilling to stump up the money to transform a desolate brown field site. Roads, drains and other basic infrastructure don't come cheap, and so it was an immense stroke of luck that Carmarthenshire decided that the existing leisure centre in Llanelli was no longer fit for purpose, and that the ideal location for a new centre would be Delta Lakes, well away from where most Llanelli residents live.<br />
<br />
Around the same time, the council signed an exclusivity deal with a company called Kent Neurosciences Ltd "with a view to ensuring the aspirations of the Wellness and Science Village within Carmarthenshire". KNS, part of a group of companies based in the British Virgin Islands tax haven, was a remarkable choice of partner, as you can read <a href="https://westwalesnewsreview.wordpress.com/2016/06/10/loss-making-private-hospital-link-to-llanellis-planned-wellness-centre/">here</a>.<br />
<br />
It then went on to ear-mark another £7m originally allocated for a council care home to fund an "assisted living village" as part of Meryl's vision for Delta Lakes.<br />
<br />
Slowly but surely Mark and Meryl were scraping together the funding to make Meryl's vision a reality, and the raid on the City Region is a part of that.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the cost and scope of the wellness village have soared. Early in 2016 it was put at £60 million. By the middle of that year it had risen to £100 million. Now the council puts the figure at £200 million. <br />
<br />
Perhaps a little too confidently Mr James told the press a couple of years ago that he did not think he would have to put the project before councillors for their approval, presumably because he was not planning to have to get them to stump up the (borrowed) cash.<br />
<br />
Now, to soften them up, they are to be treated to a special slide show. We can expect a report asking them to sign off on a hefty loan not long thereafter.<br />
<br />
If Mr James gets his skates on, councillors can expect to be told that not only will the wellness village deliver untold thousands of new jobs, but that the cost of borrowing is at an all-time low - for now, although the Bank of England may have other plans.<br />
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Perhaps we should all suspend disbelief, but past experience and the typically Jamesian way in which the wellness village has taken shape, with all its contradictions, mysteries and evasions, do not inspire confidence.<br />
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The Swansea Bay City Region and ARCH have both featured on this blog beforeUnknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118857435900510280.post-54753618896055135582017-09-30T17:19:00.001+01:002017-10-01T06:28:05.294+01:00Ysgol Dewi Sant - Dai Spart (Wales Section) Wades InOne of the intriguing aspects of the campaign currently being waged against relocating Ysgol Dewi Sant to Llanerch Fields in Llanelli is that it has been fought almost entirely through Facebook, with the mainstream media paying scant attention to it until recently.<br />
<br />
Leaked e-mail correspondence from the small group running the campaign shows them complaining repeatedly that the local press was failing to bang the drum for them, but the flipside of that coin was that the campaigners were able to spread their one-sided message without challenge or scrutiny.<br />
<br />
Fair play to <i>Newyddion 9 </i>on S4C for shining some light on this story a couple of weeks ago, and now also to the <i>Llanelli Herald</i> which led with it this week:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-1OfpPnxVWDB3uxuo7s7NYae3CHCDcwUFwXcA9-C-8I4tx_e_SlT754pEr5XchuxYG4yhXOv6uUNFhxfpcPuZdRC5F9enLGX-GEPXH0M7ACQetsmz-LcQ2G90jOavnsrx8ybCn_gqXIo/s1600/dewi+sant1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-1OfpPnxVWDB3uxuo7s7NYae3CHCDcwUFwXcA9-C-8I4tx_e_SlT754pEr5XchuxYG4yhXOv6uUNFhxfpcPuZdRC5F9enLGX-GEPXH0M7ACQetsmz-LcQ2G90jOavnsrx8ybCn_gqXIo/s400/dewi+sant1.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
<br />
Campaigners will no doubt see this belated upsurge in interest and scrutiny as a conspiracy cooked up by Leanne Wood's black ops division.<br />
<br />
The unsurprising truth is that the self-appointed campaign group does not have the unanimous support of the local community it claims for itself, and that the campaign itself has been built on distortion, disinformation and pandering to prejudice. <br />
<br />
A key point is that the planned new school would bring significant benefits to the surrounding area, including a new village<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4228"> green, an improved football pitch, a multi-use </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">games area for school and community use, a</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269"> multi-purpose hall and studio for school and community use and a car park for school and community use. </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269">Understandably, this has been kept quiet as campaigners have set about collecting 'likes'. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269">The
alternative is the retention of a large expanse of grass no longer used
for organised sports because of its poor condition, and liberal amounts of dog mess for kiddies to roll in.</span></span> </span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269">Rather less explicable is the failure of the council's bloated news and PR operations to do the job they are so richly resourced to do and ensure that the scheme is properly presented and promoted.</span></span>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269">If Carmarthenshire County Council and Y Cneifiwr make for unlikely bedfellows, lined up on the opposite bench is an even more unholy alliance of NIMBYs, bigots, the far left, Cllr Rob James and Lee Waters AM, some of whom have very different agendas.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269"><u><b>Dai Spart</b></u></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269">A couple of days ago the Carmarthenshire branch of Unison issued a statement which takes the form of a letter addressed to the school's head, reproduced from Twitter below. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269">The first thing to say about this is that local Unison members Cneifiwr has spoken to are exasperated that their branch secretary would once again rather fight high profile political battles than looking after the interests of the union's many low-paid members.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269">What on earth has Llanerch Fields got to do with Unison?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269">Even if Mark Evans were justified in writing a letter, it should have been addressed to the school's governors and not the head teacher, who is in no position to respond to what amounts to a vicious political and personal attack. The rant about cuts to school budgets is, of course, completely irrelevant to the Llanerch Fields issue, and should have been addressed to the council.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269">But perhaps he was taking his cue from Lee Waters AM who used <a href="https://cneifiwr-emlyn.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/lee-waters-how-not-to-be-am.html">the floor of the Senedd</a> to launch an attack on the staff of Llangennech School whom he claimed had misled him and his family about plans to phase out that school's English stream - before the plan had been adopted by the council.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269">Both were grossly unfair to professionals who cannot answer back.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269">Next comes the accusation that the head is lying about the school losing the £9.1 million allocated under the 21st Century Schools programme.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269">The funding, which comes from both the county council and the Welsh government, is predicated on the school being built on part of Llanerch Fields, and comes with many strings attached, including consultations and exhaustive technical evaluations.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269">If the council were to turn around to the government at this very late stage and say that it had changed its mind, the funding would be withdrawn, as Mark Evans ought to know. You cannot just put the £9.1 million in a piggy bank and wait for a few years while an alternative site is found, tests carried out and detailed plans drawn up. Government and local government budgets do not work like that, and as he knows, schemes of this kind do not have a 'Plan B'.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269">The reality is that if the campaign succeeds, the children and staff of Ysgol Dewi Sant will face years more of cramped and unacceptable conditions.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269">As for the "targeting" of prominent individuals associated with the campaign, does Unison really want to align itself with people who describe parents of Ysgol Dewi Sant as brainwashed plebs, and the head of the board of governors as a "jumped up Welsh tosser"?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269">Next is the completely false claim that the new school would be built "over a sewage works". There is no sewage works on Llanerch Fields, but what are called attenuation tanks. This is how the council and Dŵr Cymru explained the function of the tanks to the campaign group:</span></span><br />
<br />
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<div class="yiv6680379689MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506783394757_3161" style="margin-left: 14.2pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506783394757_3160">In
terms of DCWW [Dŵr Cymru/Welsh Water, Ed.] apparatus on the site, it has been established that a
number of attenuation tanks have been constructed under the recreational
ground to the North of the site.</span></i></span></div>
<div class="yiv6680379689MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506783394757_3161" style="margin-left: 14.2pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>
</i></span></div>
<div class="yiv6680379689MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506783394757_3159" style="margin-left: 14.2pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506783394757_3158">The
tanks are used to relieve flooding in the area. During storm
conditions, for instance periods of heavy rain, the tanks store <b id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506783394757_3170">diluted wastewater</b>
to control the flow of water in the pipes. This helps to alleviate
flooding in the area and prevent wastewater spillages. Once the flooding
recedes the diluted wastewater gravitates back into the combined
system.</span></i></span></div>
<div class="yiv6680379689MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506783394757_3159" style="margin-left: 14.2pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv6680379689MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506783394757_3159" style="margin-left: 14.2pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269">Having protested that he and his branch are all in favour of a new school - just Not In My BackYard - the final paragraph gives the game away. True, the pupils of Ysgol Dewi Sant are drawn from a wide area, but Llanerch Fields is bang in the middle of the school's catchment area, and it includes children who live close to the site. </span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9GZFnEUCfRC4L4FaUNWhXFQHevQDeUfeDgjeR-Zrv43ep1hZ2st7P2qUJGDnkJjlXCvT5W7ha3WWntlzcoTj6fQLowSrfMGVMeOQeQg5wKf808iBwI9ogz5EqMpdEAq71HKXAdhiSkLk/s1600/dewisantcatchment.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="391" data-original-width="797" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9GZFnEUCfRC4L4FaUNWhXFQHevQDeUfeDgjeR-Zrv43ep1hZ2st7P2qUJGDnkJjlXCvT5W7ha3WWntlzcoTj6fQLowSrfMGVMeOQeQg5wKf808iBwI9ogz5EqMpdEAq71HKXAdhiSkLk/s400/dewisantcatchment.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Llanerch Fields is in the red zone</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269">Just like the campaign group, Mark Evans is trying to portray Ysgol Dewi Sant, and by extension Welsh medium education, as something belonging to an alien, privileged elite being imposed on the area. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269">And finally we come to the intriguing political aspects of this saga. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269">Mark Evans is a prominent member of the Socialist Party of England and Wales, formerly Militant, which has been proscribed by the Labour Party's National Executive Committee, meaning that you may not be a member of the Labour Party if you are also a member of SPEW. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269">Remember all the uproar coming from sections of the Labour Party about entryism before the general election? It's gone awfully quiet.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269">There was certainly no love lost between Evans and the Carmarthenshire Labour as it was under Kevin Madge, but times are a-changing, and Mark Evans, Cllr Rob James and "Our Rob's" Heather Peters are now all doing a pretty good impression of a happy threesome, with Lee Waters playing the part of gooseberry.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSrQNJ0kvEaIGRrWfVfyi3jhLs5w2N6NoH1SpOaRSp5Th7kkHQPRoYHOz_2j00RWQknmF2W2fKUH-bNh5EtxX8JWD0B00Sc0dGIDJw7jt8_e-48oUtL33Y3C9WBxp6rNJJ-dBk7KC-er0/s1600/unisonsocialist.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="514" data-original-width="664" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSrQNJ0kvEaIGRrWfVfyi3jhLs5w2N6NoH1SpOaRSp5Th7kkHQPRoYHOz_2j00RWQknmF2W2fKUH-bNh5EtxX8JWD0B00Sc0dGIDJw7jt8_e-48oUtL33Y3C9WBxp6rNJJ-dBk7KC-er0/s400/unisonsocialist.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spookily this pic appears on both the Carmarthenshire Unison and SPEW websites. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269"> Let's hope no one tells Carwyn.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4244"><br /></span></span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118857435900510280.post-43968631534472887952017-09-24T14:45:00.000+01:002017-09-24T18:00:37.519+01:00Ysgol Dewi Sant - Plebs and jumped up Welsh tossersBefore launching into the next piece, apologies for the lack of posts in recent months. Work and family matters have meant that blogging has had to take a backseat, and that is likely to remain the case for the foreseeable future.<br />
<br />
That said, Y Cneifiwr is not about to throw the towel in yet, although the blog will not be updated as frequently as it used to be.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
_____________ </div>
<br />
This blog chronicled the row about Llangennech School at some length. It was a particularly bitter and divisive issue, with the Llanelli Labour Party performing a 180 degree U-turn on its policies when in power, and adopting positions which were indistinguishable from UKIP as it exploited prejudice and ignorance to win votes.<br />
<br />
Just as the battle in Llangennech was entering its final stages, many of the same Labour figures began teaming up with another campaign a few miles away to halt plans to relocate Ysgol Dewi Sant.<br />
<br />
The campaign against Ysgol Dewi Sant is not ostensibly about Welsh-medium education, but as we shall see, some of the same figures have become involved and are using the same divisive tactics.<br />
<br />
Apart from a couple of leaks which revealed collaboration between Llanelli Labour, UKIP and more extreme elements in Llangennech, almost everything which appeared in the blogs and the mainstream media was a matter of public record. Nia Griffiths was entirely invisible, even though the row in her constituency was making headlines far beyond Llanelli, and we were given only brief glimpses of the manoeuvres performed by Lee Waters. <br />
<br />
<br />
The interesting thing about the Ysgol Dewi Sant row is that we now have direct evidence of what senior Labour figures have been up to behind the scenes in Llanelli, and how those divisive, dog whistle tactics stand in stark contrast to the public message.<br />
<br />
The leaked correspondence also provides a fascinating glimpse into the backstabbing and jostling going on within Labour in Llanelli. <br />
<br />
Now read on.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
____________</div>
<br />
<br />
News addicts who watch the main evening bulletins on S4C and BBC One Wales could be forgiven for thinking that Cymru and Wales are entirely different places, possibly even located in different parts of the solar system.<br />
<br />
A couple of weeks ago, BBC One Wales led with a story about an unsolved murder case in Cardiff dating back to before the Second World War. 80 years after the event, descendants of the relatives of the little girl understandably welcomed the decision by South Wales Police to re-open investigations, but for the rest of us it was hard to see why this story should receive star billing.<br />
<br />
There being no royal drivel to report, that evening's output treated us to a cursory round-up of lesser matters before telling us at some length that Sam Warburton was about to have an operation on his neck.<br />
<br />
And that was it. "The news where you are" turned out to be largely devoid of news as usual.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile <i>Newyddion 9 </i>on S4C (also produced by the BBC) led with an interesting piece on a row about the future of Ysgol Dewi Sant in Llanelli.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Ysgol Dewi Sant</b></u><br />
<br />
In a nutshell, the Welsh-medium school with over 450 pupils is desperately in need of a new home, and parents and governors have been campaigning for a new school for a quarter of a century. The current ramshackle collection of jerry-built flat-roofed buildings and portacabins is bursting at the seams, with some children having to be taught in corridors. Badly leaking roofs, chronic over-crowding and dilapidation everywhere you look, with children housed in conditions which would upset the RSPCA.<br />
<br />
The fact that this disgrace has been allowed to drag on for so long should have had Labour politicians and the unions mobilising support for the school years ago, but this is a Welsh-medium school, and Llanelli Labour has instead once again made itself some toxic new friends, and thrown its lot in with a campaign which threatens to wreck the plans for a new school.<br />
<br />
The County Council's technical experts had examined nine potential sites for a new school, and recommended a large green open space called Llanerch Fields.<br />
<br />
Finding a site large enough to accommodate a school of this size in an urban environment was never going to be easy, and there would have been objections no matter which site was chosen. In the case of Llanerch Fields, it is understandable that many local residents would oppose the loss of an open green space near their homes, but the fields are no longer used for organised sports, and these days their main function is as a gigantic doggy toilet.<br />
<br />
Sure enough, the plan has attracted what the <i>Newyddion 9 </i>report described as "fierce" opposition, with the objectors' latest tack being to have the green open space designated as a "village green" to stop any school from being built on it. Unsurprisingly, the most vociferous campaigners live right opposite the site of the proposed new school.<br />
<br />
For its part, the County Council has developed plans which would create close links between the school and the local community. These include:<br />
<br />
<div class="yiv4353975646MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4229" style="margin-left: 14.2pt; text-indent: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4228">Village green located 100metres north of proposed site.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div class="yiv4353975646MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4242" style="margin-left: 14.2pt; text-indent: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4241">Retention of U7/8’s football pitch for school and community use.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="yiv4353975646MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 14.2pt; text-indent: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Proposed Multi-use games area for school and community use.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="yiv4353975646MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4270" style="margin-left: 14.2pt; text-indent: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4269">Proposed multi-purpose hall and studio for school and community use.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="yiv4353975646MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4245" style="margin-left: 14.2pt; text-indent: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4244">Proposed off site car park (approx. 75spaces) for school and community use.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="yiv4353975646MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4248" style="margin-left: 14.2pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><u><span style="text-decoration: none;"><br /></span></u></b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4250">Meanwhile, close by, the council is proposing enhancements to Penygaer School as part of the Ysgol Dewi Sant scheme, including:</span><b id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4251"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4250"><br /></span></b></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div class="yiv4353975646MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4252" style="text-indent: 14.2pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4251"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4250"><br /></span></b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="yiv4353975646MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4256" style="margin-left: 14.2pt; text-indent: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4255">Proposed flood lit all weather recreational facility for school and community use.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="yiv4353975646MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4259" style="margin-left: 14.2pt; text-indent: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4258">Refurbishment of multi-use hall for school and community use.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="yiv4353975646MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4263" style="margin-left: 14.2pt; text-indent: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4262">Proposed dry changing rooms for school and community use.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="yiv4353975646MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4266" style="margin-left: 14.2pt; text-indent: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4265">Proposed link to and from Penygaer playing fields to enhance / facilitate community use.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="yiv4353975646MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4206" style="margin-left: 14.2pt; text-indent: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506245056143_4205">Retention and enhancement of existing car park.</span></span></div>
<br />
As Nia Griffiths, Lee Waters and Labour's county councillors know, there comes a point of no return in the development of plans for new schools. Sites have to be analysed for suitability, including transport links, road safety, flood risk and the presence of contamination and the legacies of past industrial activity (an especially relevant factor in Llanelli). Detailed technical surveys will have to be carried out, and funding put in place. All sorts of hoops will have to be jumped through before the Welsh Government will sign off and hand over millions of pounds, and needless to say all of this takes a great deal of time.<br />
<br />
Part of the process includes consultations with the schools and their governors, parents and local residents, and logically enough the consultations have to take place after all of the groundwork has been done. By this stage, consultation really means trying to incorporate sensible suggestions made during the consultation, responding to concerns and mitigating possible problems, but in essence proceeding with the scheme that has been outlined.<br />
<br />
A decision at this very late stage to scrap the plans would mean the loss of £9.1 million ear-marked for Ysgol Dewi Sant, the waste of all the resources ploughed into evaluating the site and developing detailed plans, and years and years of delay before a new school can be built on a different site - a site which would certainly also encounter opposition.<br />
<br />
To campaign against the plans for Ysgol Dewi Sant means in practical terms that around 480 children and the school staff would be forced to stay put in cramped and squalid conditions for years to come, and despite their protestations and public utterances, that would be the logical outcome of the recklessly irresponsible tactics adopted by Nia Griffiths MP, Lee Waters AM and Labour councillors, most notably Rob James.<br />
<br />
Llanerch Fields would be saved for dog lovers, and the staff and children of Ysgol Dewi Sant would have to hope that the school budget could stretch to buying a few more buckets to catch the rain water dripping from classroom ceilings.<br />
<br />
The <i>Newyddion 9 </i>report (no longer available online) interviewed the school's head and two governors, Aled Owen and Garry Nicholas. Garry Nicholas pointed out that the school had been waiting to be re-housed for many years, and he called on politicians to show their support for the school and Welsh-medium education.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately for the school, Llanelli Labour is doing precisely the opposite.<br />
<br />
Let's look at some of the key players in more detail.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Lee Waters AM </b></u><br />
<br />
We'll start with Lee Waters and Nia Griffiths because as experienced and intelligent politicians, they have no excuse for not understanding the consequences of their actions.<br />
<br />
In Llangennech, Waters' public stance was initially to sit on the fence as the firebrands went to work, before lobbing in a few incendiaries of his own and encouraging the pyromaniacs. True to form, he retired slightly singed, mounted his pulpit to blame everyone else but himself and deplored the damage that fire can do. That, in Waters' book, constitutes "leadership".<br />
<br />
When Labour Party members were actively conspiring with UKIP, Waters urged them to be careful instead of telling them to stop. Unsurprisingly, Michaela Beddows and her friends saw that as a green light.<br />
<br />
Besides UKIP, there is evidence that Jacques Protic also became involved in the Llangennech row. Protic is the author of the extremist <i>Glasnost</i> website which has this to say about the part played by Lee Waters and Nia Griffiths in Llangennech:<br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Through my contact with Lee Waters and from what I learned by reading
various statements he made on his blog and in the social media Lee and
Nia chose to use a low-key approach working behind the scenes but
generally supportive of the parents’ stance which unfortunately got them
nowhere – The Council wasn’t going to budge no matter what! </span></span></i><br />
<br />
According to Protic, then, he was in contact with Lee Waters as the row escalated.<br />
<br />
As he tells us in this tweet, he is a lifelong member of the UK Labour Party:<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjza_TT3QDVVjE14AaC4WkPt6FjedqU0MXfPNfMq1RJpRnQWEV1k1IIZp42RntEhh0WFvdRvyEDie9uI_KsaRki3BG8ffMsQKA_0uEkM7P3K8DcHKdpxAC4TsrvZEPIBBsqDd5uthMmiUo/s1600/proticlabour.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="272" data-original-width="625" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjza_TT3QDVVjE14AaC4WkPt6FjedqU0MXfPNfMq1RJpRnQWEV1k1IIZp42RntEhh0WFvdRvyEDie9uI_KsaRki3BG8ffMsQKA_0uEkM7P3K8DcHKdpxAC4TsrvZEPIBBsqDd5uthMmiUo/s400/proticlabour.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
According to Protic, "Welsh" Labour (which as he ought to know has no separate legal existence from UK Labour) is working for a Welsh-speaking republic. Here is another of his cries for help to any comrades prepared to listen:<br />
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<br />
Protic has many bees in his bonnet, but his main obsessions are the evils of the Welsh language and Islam. When he is not warning of the dangers of ethnic cleansing in Wales and compulsory cerdd dant, he is busy spreading fake news about the Muslim menace.<br />
<br />
Did you know that huge swathes of Denmark are no-go areas for the Danish police because of Islamic extremists? No? Neither do the Danes.<br />
<br />
Interestingly for a lifelong member of the Labour Party, Protic is also a keen supporter of Anne Marie Waters (probably no relation) who is hoping to become the next leader of UKIP. Even some of UKIP's most prominent loonytunes are scared by that prospect.<br />
<br />
That was Llangennech, and so far at least there is no sign of Protic on Llanerch Fields. But it's probably just a matter of time, and in the absence of Protic, Michaela Beddows and friends, Lee Waters has been busy forging new relationships.<br />
<br />
Like Jacques, Lee seems to be fond of conspiracy theories. While
everyone else seems to have known that the council was going to propose
building a new school on Llanerch Fields, Lee Waters saw a sinister
secret plot:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTUe0P-LeHMu1oTBwd5d4SX74qH0Dsp1PY_f9zfxnvOiX8f6Qdpq6GQ2i8LLJAPwE_Nhtw2u5LEFEBItgrC2JbfMIAXMnVKDW1_rZzpBtcDqA3TA9gmc2BqIGfLl-h5WEU4siMqdMzTSY/s1600/waters+llanerch.png"><img border="0" data-original-height="502" data-original-width="609" height="328" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTUe0P-LeHMu1oTBwd5d4SX74qH0Dsp1PY_f9zfxnvOiX8f6Qdpq6GQ2i8LLJAPwE_Nhtw2u5LEFEBItgrC2JbfMIAXMnVKDW1_rZzpBtcDqA3TA9gmc2BqIGfLl-h5WEU4siMqdMzTSY/s400/waters+llanerch.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
A few weeks after this shock horror revelation, Lee Waters was writing to the chair of the campaign group, one Mrs Heather Peters (pictured uncharacteristically hogging the microphone) to discuss tactics. More about Mrs Peters later, but suffice to say that she and Michaela Beddows would find that they have quite a lot in common.<br />
<br />
Lee has a great idea:<br />
<br />
<i>Perhaps we can organise a mass gathering on the field on a
Saturday morning for a photo to underline public support for keeping the
space?</i><br />
<br />
That would be a mass gathering in support
of stopping the plans for the school from going ahead on Llanerch
Fields.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Nia Griffiths MP</b></u><br />
<br />
Publicly, Nia Griffiths maintained complete radio silence on the Llangennech issue, although it is hard to believe that she was not involved behind the scenes, as Protic hints on his website.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In private, Nia
Griffiths had nothing but praise for the Llanerch objectors. Here she
is discussing tactics ahead of a consultation meeting in a leaked e-mail:</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">You
have done magnificent work on the committee in gathering information,
and I would suggest that we will get more useful information from this
if we take the same approach, and think carefully about the questions we
want to ask beforehand. </span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></i></span>
<br />
<div class="x_MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Probably
the officers who will be sent along are unlikely to be the people who
finally have the say (who will be their superiors) and we will get more
out of getting info from them this way, than if people “have a go” at
them.</span></i></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span></i></span>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span></i></span>
<br />
<div class="x_MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In public, the MP was rather more cautious. Addressing a public meeting back in <a href="http://www.llanelliherald.com/10847/packed-meetings-discuss-fields-futures/">October 2016</a>, she said:</span></span></div>
<div class="x_MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>“It is very clearly a decision which will be made by Carmarthenshire
County Council and therefore people need to speak directly to those
decision makers. There are a number of issues to be looked at but the
only people who can actually change a decision or make a decision on
this are the County Councillors in power and in particular, of course,
the Executive Board members.”</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i> </i> </span></span><br />
Slightly more decorous than Lee Waters, but while both protest publicly that they are in favour of a new school for Ysgol Dewi Sant, both have been working behind the scenes to wreck the plans. <br />
<br />
<u><b>Cllr Rob James</b></u> <br />
<br />
Nia Griffiths and Lee Waters are both on the centre right of the Labour Party, and their involvement in this campaign probably has as much to do with internal party wrangling as it does with saving Llanerch Fields for dog walkers as they contemplate future selection battles.<br />
<br />
Cue Cllr Rob James (Lab.) who until this year's council elections in May was, nominally at least, serving as a county councillor down the M4 in Neath with an address in the town.<br />
<br />
Despite his postal address in Neath, James moved to Llanelli a couple of years ago and threw himself into getting a front seat in the Llanelli Labour Party.<br />
<br />
James has previously claimed to be a centrist, but now appears to be firmly in the Momentum camp with ambitions way beyond his abilities.<br />
<br />
He became involved with the Llanerch Fields campaign group early on, while still an ordinary rank and file member of the Labour Party and nurturing plans to oust Bill Thomas as county councillor for Lliedi ward.<br />
<br />
Bill Thomas was everything that Rob James is not. He was broadly sympathetic to the campaigners' desire to keep Llanerch Fields as they are, and dutifully went about helping them gather detailed, technical information, even though he was probably aware that the people he was helping were plotting against him.<br />
<br />
One of the issues the campaign group had hoped would deal a killer
blow to the school plans was the presence on the fields of some
underground water tanks managed by Dŵr Cymru. The tanks represented a
serious health and safety hazard, the objectors claimed.<br />
<br />
Bill Thomas did his homework and wrote to the group
informing them that, "As the Councillor for the area I have never had
any complaint or
photographic evidence of spills until now, neither do I have any
evidence that these spills contain anything. If they do then it is an
issue that needs attention from Welsh Water."<br />
<br />
Cllr
Thomas, as he then was, went on to call for a full insurance and
risk assessment of the site before it was cleared for development. And
that is what the County Council did, to howls of protest from the
campaign group who were angry that money should have been spent on making
sure the site was suitable for the new school.<br />
<br />
Bill Thomas's careful regard for evidence and honesty did not go down well with the campaigners who launched a veritable onslaught of lobbying and
correspondence giving the impression that
all those poor little children would spend their days wading through
sewage. They also made something of a name for themselves with
their often very aggressive and hectoring behaviour in public meetings.<br />
<br />
To the campaigners' delight, Bill Thomas lost his selection battle against newcomer Rob James in October 2016, with Heather Peters, the chair of the campaign group, telling her troops:<br />
<br />
<div id="yiv3790599035AppleMailSignature">
<i>Guess where Our Rob was tonight? Beating Bill Thomas out of his seat on the labour Lliedi seat for LLANELLI!!!!!!!</i></div>
<i>
</i>
<br />
<div id="yiv3790599035AppleMailSignature">
<i><br clear="none" /></i></div>
<i>
WELL DONE ROB we are all behind you ! </i><br />
<br />
<i> </i>Despite his lack of local roots and inability to speak Welsh, "Our Rob" had no hesitation about giving an interview in English to <i>Newyddion 9 </i>a couple of weeks back.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTi6roLqU4JKVjat2h9renbhK3WtdwzkstafCgmdxQcW8PKcBDvr8tdE4tWufph9S5emcnrBOXyGOK4uDWWg7Zpq5vkXqlx4y1dI__KQHSEYbEaREvCMSrjMA7dJsE3cWapIzvryT7G0E/s1600/rob+james+llanerch.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="525" data-original-width="737" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTi6roLqU4JKVjat2h9renbhK3WtdwzkstafCgmdxQcW8PKcBDvr8tdE4tWufph9S5emcnrBOXyGOK4uDWWg7Zpq5vkXqlx4y1dI__KQHSEYbEaREvCMSrjMA7dJsE3cWapIzvryT7G0E/s400/rob+james+llanerch.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Would you buy a second-hand car from this man?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
He supported residents who wanted to keep the green space as it is, he said. "Even if that means scuppering the plans for the new school?" he was asked.<br />
<br />
"I don't think that is connected in any way", said Cllr James in a breathtaking display of post-factual politics, dismissing the notion that blocking plans for a new school would, um, block plans for a new school. <br />
<br />
"Our Rob's" performance duly received ecstatic reviews on the campaign group's Facebook page, with Mike Bassett, aka Red Mick, one of the CUSC trolls (no prizes for guessing that they would be involved) commenting "Next Leader of the Carmarthenshire Labour Group. Sooner the better".<br />
<br />
Lee Waters must be having nightmares.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Heather Peters</b></u><br />
<br />
The campaign against the relocation of Ysgol Dewi Sant is led by a small group of very vocal self-appointed activists calling themselves "Save Llanerch and Penygaer Recreational Fields". Most prominent among them is Mrs Heather Peters who just happens to live opposite the site of the proposed new school.<br />
<br />
Mrs P and her deputy, Sharon Burdess, can be heard taking part in a lengthy "interview" with <i>LlanelliOnline</i> <a href="http://llanellionline.news/2017/09/20/village-green-campaigners-fight-llanerch-field/">here</a>, although strangely neither of them is identified by name as they respond to Alan Evans' interesting interview technique, which boils down to delivering a monologue with brief pauses to allow his guests to agree with him.<br />
<br />
E-mail correspondence also shows that Alan was active in the campaign, dishing out advice on tactics and questions to ask of the County Council.<br />
<br />
Let's be generous and call this campaigning journalism, although Alan Evans' collaboration with Heather Peters and Co again raises awkward questions about the objectivity of <i>LlanelliOnline.</i><br />
<br />
Heather Peters is, of course, entitled to campaign to keep the large expanse of grass outside her home, although the e-mail files show that a good number of her e-mails and some of the accompanying documents emanated from the IT network belonging to Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board.<br />
<br />
She certainly does not mince her words.<br />
<br />
Responding to one of La Peters' missives, the chair of the school's board of governors, Garry Nicholas, pointed out to her that if the threat to health of developing a school on Llanerch Fields was as great as she claimed, why had nothing ever been done about it in all the years that it had allegedly been going on? Indeed, if the site was as dangerous as she suggested, why did her campaign group want to keep it for children to play on?<br />
<br />
Warming to his theme, Garry Nicholas pointedly noted, "No mention<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> has been made either of the dog foul that litters Llanerch
fields. Doesn’t this contribute to the contamination and health risks
that are referred to? Do the campaigners want to keep Llanerch fields
for the convenience of dog owners only?"</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr Nicholas's polite refusal to be bamboozled provoked howls of outrage, with Mrs P launching a new campaign to have him removed from the board of governors, or failing that, to be given a severe dressing down.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Writing to her fellow campaigners, Mrs P asks, </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Do you all agree that this arrogant jumped up Welsh tosser deserves to be pulled over the coles </i>(sic)?</span></span><br />
<br />
Mr Nicholas was not the only dissenter to cross her path.When a parent voiced his doubts about the validity of the campaign on Facebook, Mrs P was once again livid. It was time to re-double efforts on the group's Facebook page to counteract this sort of rank insolence:<br />
<br />
<i>From the comments from the pleb on
Facebook we really need to start banging the drum, these parents have
been brainwashed, well the few who were actually given a brain to start
with.</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That put the parents of Ysgol Dewi Sant in their place, but it must leave Unison wondering whether it is comfortable about lending its whole-hearted support to a campaign which dismisses working families in Llanelli as brain-washed plebs.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Taking Lee Waters' advice that "it is </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506253563731_8445">important that we take multiple lines of challenge", i.e. throw the kitchen sink at the campaign in the hope that at least something might stick, one member of the campaign group who is understood to work in the county council's social services department hit on what they agreed was another fundamental weakness of the school plan - Ysgol Dewi Sant did not have enough children receiving free school meals:</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506253563731_8445"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span>
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></b>
<br />
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506253563731_6495">
<i>I know
for a fact Dewi Sant pupils didn't meet the Communities First criteria.
The development officers have been told not to get involved in the
Llanerch fiasco as its too political but I will chase up one or two
other people today who may be able to get us this info.</i></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1506253563731_6495">
</div>
<i>
</i>
<br />
<div id="yiv1097980771AppleMailSignature">
<i>At least it could be another piece of ammunition to fire?!</i></div>
<div id="yiv1097980771AppleMailSignature">
</div>
<div id="yiv1097980771AppleMailSignature">
So it would seem that the parents and children of Ysgol Dewi Sant are both brain-washed plebs and a middle class<i> </i>plot to gentrify one of the more deprived areas of Llanelli. <br />
<i></i></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We now have to </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">wait to find out the fate of the village green application, and the fate of Ysgol Dewi Sant and its children. More updates in due course.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><u><b>Footnote</b></u></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Much of the material for this piece was taken from voluminous e-mail correspondence with a very large distribution. As is the way with e-mails, some of it fell off the back of a passing lorry as Cneifiwr was sauntering down the road.</span></span><br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118857435900510280.post-20028073215291389062017-08-20T06:48:00.000+01:002017-08-20T10:53:15.647+01:00Council of Despair - An exclusive interviewThis week our business news editor Llinos Rhacs-Jibidêrs takes a penetrating, in-depth look at the property market in an exclusive interview with Sir Ephraim Jams.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
__________________</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
After weeks of delicate negotiation, the appointed hour had finally arrived and I was ushered into the inner sanctum by veteran PR officer, Ms Rosa Klebb.<br />
<br />
"You've got ten minutes, and don't push your luck, missy", she barked, clicking her heels ominously as the door closed behind me.<br />
<br />
As I made my way across the deep lambswool shagpile to the sonorous ticking of an ornate ormulu Napoleon III carriage clock, I noted with awe the impressive array of portraits and autographed photographs hanging from the walnut panelling. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
There was Dame Muriel peering out from a huge flower-bedecked hat, with her ample frame swathed in a tasteful lilac Dalmatian jacket. HRH the Duchess of Cornwall gazed in soft focus from another frame, while alongside her portrait was another of Charles dressed casually as Commander in Chief of the Beefeaters greeting a bemedalled Sir Ephraim at the entrance to Llwynywermod.<br />
<br />
Another signed photograph of HRH Camilla was placed strategically on the vast Louis Quinze mahogany desk, behind which sat Sir Ephraim in pensive mood.<br />
<br />
"Good morning, Your Excellency", I began.<br />
<br />
"Come, come, no need to be so formal. You may call me Sir Ephraim, or Sir for short, Miss, um...", the great man replied, flicking through some papers.<br />
<br />
"Llinos Rhacs-Jibidêrs, Sir. But you may call me Llinos for short."<br />
<br />
"Very well, Lino. I understand you wish to gain some insight into the workings of the property market?"<br />
<br />
"Indeed, Sir. If I may begin by asking you for your views on the local housing market."<br />
<br />
Sir Ephraim cracked his fingers. "A very good question. Well, after a period of exceptional growth fuelled by demand in the retirement sector, it has to be said that the last eight or nine years have been very disappointing locally. To combat that, I personally oversaw the emergence of the Local Development Masterplan based on what I was assured by my economic advisers would be an unprecedented upsurge in population growth. Unfortunately, the wrinklies have been dying off as fast as we can replace them, and so growth has been static."<br />
<br />
"But it would be unwise to place all one's eggs in the geriatric basket, and so to that end the Masterplan provides for a swathe of more upmarket executive developments in what we call our Growth Zones, such as Fossils Race Course, the exciting new town springing up in the swamps to the south of Jobsworth Road or the wonderful new Kansas Fingerlickin' Fried Chicken Roundabout estate at Leekes Cross West."<br />
<br />
"It has to be said that despite determined efforts to keep out undesirable elements by minimising the provision of cheap housing stock for local riff-raff, Twinkle Wimple and Woodrot Homes are still finding it tough going, even though these wonderful new developments represent an excellent opportunity for offshore investors and those looking for a tax efficient way of writing off losses."<br />
<br />
"Overall, then, the local market is a specialised affair, and investors with only a couple of million to spare would be advised to look east to the much more exciting market in Cardiff", Sir Ephraim continued.<br />
<br />
"Unlike this backwater, Cardiff is a vibrant, young city, and a very popular destination for hen and stag parties, AirBNB minibreakers and hipsters. The abolition of bridge tolls will do even more to open up the market to those looking for value for money, and returns are set to soar."<br />
<br />
"To that end I and my fellow directors have begun developing a portfolio of residential properties in the Bay, and we have identified some exciting new opportunities in taking control of what are known as 'Right to Manage' entities away from the hopelessly inefficient and poisonous old busybodies who think they have a right to manage their blocks simply because they live there."<br />
<br />
"This is all perfectly legal, although I am not at liberty to disclose the sensitive legal advice I have given myself, and it is frankly sickening that there have been complaints from cancerous old malcontents and professional complainers about the way in which these perfectly legitimate transactions have been carried out."<br />
<br />
"But I wish to leave your readers in no doubt about my motives. I have worked tirelessly without payment in a non-executive capacity simply because I wished to help these poor, long-suffering home owners, and so successful have we been that my fellow directors and I have now set up a new company to offer advice to all those who find themselves in a similar position, whether they be in Hull, Harrogate or Harlech."<br />
<br />
"It is therefore compassion and my duty as a Christian that drive me on to help those in need, and suggestions that I am motivated by unbridled greed are vile slurs." <br />
<br />
Sir Ephraim snapped a pencil at this point, and I saw an opportunity to interrupt his monologue with a second question.<br />
<br />
"I would like to ask, if I may, Sir, about recent press and blog coverage of your investment schemes."<br />
<br />
Sir Ephraim looked very cross.<br />
<br />
"You mean Shitton of the Mail, his bosom pal Jac in the Gogs and various other toxic and scurrilous vermin on the web, I take it, Miss Rhibidirês? Fortunately nobody outside my press office reads them, and Miss Klebb and my legal team are compiling another file on their vitriolic outpourings for the local constabulary."<br />
<br />
"Thank you for clarifying that, Sir. May I ask you to clear up the controversy surrounding the appointment of a former tenant to manage your ventures?"<br />
<br />
Sir Ephraim looked very stern. "Let me make it perfectly clear that Miss Ludmilla Legova was introduced to the board by a director who had declared a personal interest in the matter, as the law and transparency require, and that it was unanimously agreed that this talented young woman was exceptionally well qualified for the role. Not only does she possess a PhD in Baroque Fiddlers, but she gained extensive administrative experience during the months she spent working alongside some of our greatest singers, including Dame Kiwi T. Canalot." <br />
<br />
"But as usual, the guttersnipes have sought to belittle her multiple achievements with smut and innuendo."<br />
<br />
"You mean, Sir, Ms Legova's modelling career and the balcony incident?"<br />
<br />
"Indeed. I have little more to say about this other than that it was typical of what passes for journalism in these parts that there should have been vile speculation about that unfortunate freak accident when she fell from a balcony while playing a pink oboe, just as the poster in which she appeared modelling swimwear while holding a peeled banana under the caption 'I am getting my five a day' was part of a healthy eating awareness campaign. To suggest otherwise is a disgrace."<br />
<br />
Before I could probe any further, the door opened and in strode Miss Klebb, announcing curtly that it was time for me to leave.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7