Sunday, November 30, 2025
The unelected power of the ultra-rich
The report claims that unelected influence has increased over the past two decades, driven by the growing political clout of the ultra-rich and the institutions that enable it:
Priya Sahni-Nicholas, the co-executive director of the trust, said: “Our new Concentration of Power Index shows that wealth concentration aligns with power. Our index rises almost exactly in step with increases in the top 1% share of wealth. This correlation is strong and statistically significant.”
The study – Money, Media and Lords: How the ultra-rich are shaping Britain – argues that unelected power in Britain has risen sharply at the same time as an increasing amount of money is spent on political access and influence.
“These trends move in lockstep with wealth concentration at the top and are increasingly embedded within the country’s political and media systems,” said Sahni-Nicholas.
The report shows how the appointments system for the House of Lords, the scale of political donations and the concentration of media ownership each function as “conduits for unelected power”.
Unelected membership of the Lords, the report highlights, has expanded from 676 to 803 in the past 20 years – the same period that political donations above £250,000 have jumped from £7.6m to more than £47m.
Seven peers in the House of Lords last week behaved in a way critics said was “all but unconstitutional” by in effect blocking a bill passed by the House of Commons after years of public debate.
The Guardian’s own analysis has found that one in 10 peers were paid for political advice in the 2019 to 2024 parliament.
The trust’s report also shows how media ownership has become dramatically more concentrated, with the share controlled by the UK’s three biggest news conglomerates rising from 71% to about 90%.
“This is structural corruption,” Sahni-Nicholas argued. “It is a legal, slow-moving operation where institutions adapt to serve concentrated wealth.”
The UK government is drawing up media amendments allowing foreign states to own up to a 15% stake in British newspapers and magazines.
The Guardian view on the peers lobbying scandal: Lords reform is a vital step for restoring trust in democracy
This has caused anxiety among critics who are already concerned that Google commands 93% of UK search engine use, while Meta and Google together account for three-fifths of all UK advertising spend.
The trust recommends prohibiting private donations of more than £5,000, putting limits on political appointments and patronage, encouraging ownership diversity and investing in and funding independent local media to dilute the dominance of a few large actors.
There are already calls for an investigation into Russian influence on British politics. This report outlines the very conditions that allows a hostile player like Russia to use, abuse and disrupt the system. That inquiry is desperately needed.
Saturday, November 29, 2025
A cultural gem
There is an excellent website here, that goes into some detail as to how this historic and much-loved building became a major hub of culture in Swansea. It records that Frederick Mouillot and H. H. 'Mackenzie' Morell, two entrepreneur actor managers, seized an opportunity to build a Theatre in Swansea in 1897.
They purchased the former Drill Hall in Singleton Street from Colonel Pike, demolished the building, and employed architect William Hope of Newcastle to design the Grand Theatre. The Memorial Stone for the Theatre was laid by Adelina Patti on the 26th of July 1897:
The opening production for the Theatre was 'The Geisha', a Japanese Musical Comedy, on Thursday July 29th 1897, and was the Theatre owners' own production which they mounted to then tour the country.
Early artists to play the Grand were, Fred Terry and Julia Neilson in 'The Scarlet Pimpernel'. In 1914 Sarah Bernhardt appeared on Friday July 10th in 'Nana'. Bernard Shaw's 'Pygmalion', shocked Swansea audiences by the words 'Not Bloody Likely' uttered by Eliza Doolittle in January 1915. Frank Benson's Shakespearean company visited, as did Oscar Ashe with his wife Lily Brayton in 'Spanish Main', and there were visits by the Royal Carl Rosa Opera Company.
By the 1920's Forbes Robertson appeared in 'The passing of the 3rd floor back.' Bransby Williams appeared in 'David Copperfield, Matheson Lang in 'The Wandering Jew' and Tom Walls and Leslie Henson in 'Tons of Money. On February 8th 1924 Ivor Novello, Madelaine Seymour and Hannah Jones appeared in 'The Rat'. By 1926 the musical 'Rose Marie' played, and toward the end of the twenties, 'The Desert Song' played, and Gladys Cooper appeared in 'The Sacred Flame'.
The Grand Theatre's own website takes up the story:
During the theatre's early years (1897 - 1930), the Grand established itself as a venue for the best touring companies and star names of the time, with visits by the likes of Jessie Mathews, Ivor Novello, Forbes Robertson and the first knight of theatre, Sir Henry Irving - whose signature can still be found in the theatre today.
The Grand then entered a turbulent period in its history from 1933 to the early seventies with many successes and many failures including being turned into a Cinema for a fourteen year period, being sadly neglected, and having dwindling audiences mainly thanks to the popularity of television in the 1960's and 70's.
The then local authority (Swansea Corporation/City Council) came to the rescue and took out a long lease in May 1969 before buying the building outright in 1979. The City and County of Swansea continues to own, manage and fund the building today.
A multi-million-pound refurbishment programme from 1983 - 1987 turned the 1000 seat theatre into one of the most technically advanced and aesthetically pleasing venues in the UK at a cost of £6.5m. A further £1m in 1999 and the Grand became the proud 'owner' of a new Arts Wing (opened by Catherine Zeta Jones) that increased the space open to visitors by a third and created a new studio performance area, three exhibition areas, and a rooftop restaurant and terrace.
I attended the opening night of the refurbished Grand Theatre on 17th December 1986 to see the pantomime 'Mother Goose' starring Christopher Biggins and Les Denis. I had only been a councillor for a couple of years and remember that the renovation work was so fresh that some of the paint had not had time to dry.
It is now the home of Michael Sheen's revitalised Welsh National Theatre and as such has a bright future ahead of it.
Friday, November 28, 2025
Labour's tax grab to hit poorer households
The decision to abolish the two-child benefit cap was welcome, though it came much later than it should have done, but the increase in the tax burden on poorer households will almost certainly cancel out the rise in the minimum wage and the uplift for pensioners. For the first time, somebody whose only income is the state pension, will be paying tax on it. That has to be a regressive measure.
The Guardian has also concluded that Rachel Reeves will punish poorer households more than the better off through the freezing of income tax thresholds.
They say that more than 1.7 million workers will be dragged into either paying tax for the first time or pushed into a higher band by an additional three-year freeze on income tax and national insurance thresholds that will bring in an additional £12.4bn by 2030-31. Rachel Reeves may have conceded this measure will hit “working people” but she is wrong in my opinion in denying that it constitutes breaking the Labour manifesto.
And, as if to add insult to injury, buried in the budget is a plan to slash the Digital Services Tax, giving a multi-million pound tax cut to US tech giants and the likes of Elon Musk, cutting taxes for the world's richest man, while hiking them for millions of hard-working Britons.
The paper quotes Ruth Curtice, the chief executive of the Resolution Foundation who says that millions of low-to-middle earners would have been better off with a 1p tax rise than having their tax thresholds frozen, and it would have raised the same amount of money:
The Resolution Foundation said the chancellor delivered “a far more upbeat budget than many were expecting, with significant cost-of-living support and sensible, progressive measures that reduce some of the distortions in the tax system”.
But added: “It was far from pain-free, with major tax rises and cuts to public services coming down the line.”
It said claims by the chancellor that government departments would avoid a squeeze on spending were misplaced, saying tighter spending in the last years of the government would almost match the cuts imposed by the former Conservative chancellor George Osborne after the 2010 election.
“The departmental spending cuts announced in 2029-30, coupled with the government’s commitment to raise health and defence spending and protect per-pupil school funding, imply £6.4bn of cuts to other departments like the Home Office, justice and local government.
“Cuts of this nature would be equivalent to 88% of the average annual cuts made during the austerity years – 2009-10 to 2018-19,” it said.
And of course, this budget managed to avoid the elephant in the room, the biggest drag on growth in our economy, the single issue that leaves the chancellor of the exchequer barely managing to keep the nation's finances on an even keel, when she should be projecting future prosperity instead. That issue is of course, Brexit.
We were told that leaving the EU would save us £350m a week, but it has ended up costing us £250m a day in 2025. The extent to which Brexit is undermining our economic success is laid stark by the Best for Britain website, here.
They say that the total cost to the economy so far is between £180bn and £240bn, 70% of UK firms are reporting higher supply chain costs due to new tariffs and trade rules, while the UK government is losing £90bn in tax revenue each year.
The average decrease in GDP as a result of Brexit is between 6% and 8% or £3,700 per person, while the average food bill has increased by £250 per year, per household. It is estimated that 1.8 million jobs have been lost due to Brexit by 2023, while the health service, agriculture and the service sector are struggling to cope without labour from the EU.
Until Labour tackle this problem through a new trade deal with the EU that restores many of the benefits of being in the free trade area, then it won't just be the low paid who are barely managing, it will be the whole economy.
The paper quotes Ruth Curtice, the chief executive of the Resolution Foundation who says that millions of low-to-middle earners would have been better off with a 1p tax rise than having their tax thresholds frozen, and it would have raised the same amount of money:
The Resolution Foundation said the chancellor delivered “a far more upbeat budget than many were expecting, with significant cost-of-living support and sensible, progressive measures that reduce some of the distortions in the tax system”.
But added: “It was far from pain-free, with major tax rises and cuts to public services coming down the line.”
It said claims by the chancellor that government departments would avoid a squeeze on spending were misplaced, saying tighter spending in the last years of the government would almost match the cuts imposed by the former Conservative chancellor George Osborne after the 2010 election.
“The departmental spending cuts announced in 2029-30, coupled with the government’s commitment to raise health and defence spending and protect per-pupil school funding, imply £6.4bn of cuts to other departments like the Home Office, justice and local government.
“Cuts of this nature would be equivalent to 88% of the average annual cuts made during the austerity years – 2009-10 to 2018-19,” it said.
And of course, this budget managed to avoid the elephant in the room, the biggest drag on growth in our economy, the single issue that leaves the chancellor of the exchequer barely managing to keep the nation's finances on an even keel, when she should be projecting future prosperity instead. That issue is of course, Brexit.
We were told that leaving the EU would save us £350m a week, but it has ended up costing us £250m a day in 2025. The extent to which Brexit is undermining our economic success is laid stark by the Best for Britain website, here.
They say that the total cost to the economy so far is between £180bn and £240bn, 70% of UK firms are reporting higher supply chain costs due to new tariffs and trade rules, while the UK government is losing £90bn in tax revenue each year.
The average decrease in GDP as a result of Brexit is between 6% and 8% or £3,700 per person, while the average food bill has increased by £250 per year, per household. It is estimated that 1.8 million jobs have been lost due to Brexit by 2023, while the health service, agriculture and the service sector are struggling to cope without labour from the EU.
Until Labour tackle this problem through a new trade deal with the EU that restores many of the benefits of being in the free trade area, then it won't just be the low paid who are barely managing, it will be the whole economy.
Thursday, November 27, 2025
Labour press ahead with dismantling our democratic justice system
Jury trials are a fundamental part of our democratic settlement. Criminal trials without juries are a bad idea.
Now that he is in charge of Justice, he has changed his tune. As I stated in my blog on 21 November, the government has set itself on a course whereby jury trials for all except the most serious crimes such as rape, murder and manslaughter are set to be scrapped in England and Wales. It now looks like this is going ahead.
As the Guardian reports, in proposals that drew a swift backlash from senior lawyers, who said that they would not reduce court backlogs and could “destroy justice as we know it”, the justice secretary has proposed that juries will only pass judgment on public interest offences with possible prison sentences of more than five years:
Lone judges would preside over trials of other serious offences meriting sentences of up to five years, he suggested, removing the ancient right of thousands of defendants to be heard before a jury.
The Ministry of Justice said no final decision had been taken by the government, but sources confirmed the proposals had been circulated throughout Whitehall in preparation for an announcement in the new year.
Lammy’s proposals, which would create a new tier of court in which most criminal offences would be tried by judges alone, go well beyond the recommendations of Sir Brian Leveson, who was commissioned to review the criminal courts and reported in July. And they exceed the courts minister Sarah Sackman’s interview with the Guardian last week, where she set out a plan to stop criminals “gaming the system”.
The MoJ document, circulated in Whitehall earlier this month, reports that crown courts in England and Wales are facing record backlogs, with more than 78,000 cases waiting to be completed.
Leveson recommended the government should end jury trial for many serious offences that could be dealt with by a judge alone or sitting with two magistrates. The former judge suggested they would preside over a new intermediate tier of criminal court, which has been called the crown court bench division (CCBD).
The deputy prime minister’s decision, according to the leaked MoJ document, is to “go further than Sir Brian’s to achieve maximum impact”.
The principle of abolishing trial by jury is bad enough, effectively dismantling our democratic justice system and putting unprecedented power into the hands of judges, but those in the know also believe that it will not work:
The Law Society of England and Wales’s president, Mark Evans, who represents thousands of solicitors, said the proposals were an “extreme measure” that go “far beyond” Leveson’s recommendations.
“This is a fundamental change to how our criminal justice system operates and it goes too far. Our society’s concept of justice rests heavily on lay participation in determining a person’s guilt or innocence.
“We have not seen any real evidence that expanding the types of cases heard by a single judge will work to reduce the backlogs,” he said.
Riel Karmy-Jones KC, the chair of the Criminal Bar Association, which represents criminal barristers, said: “What they propose simply won’t work – it is not the magic pill that they promise.
“The consequences of their actions will be to destroy a criminal justice system that has been the pride of this country for centuries, and to destroy justice as we know it.
“Juries are not the cause of the backlog. The cause is the systematic underfunding and neglect that has been perpetrated by this government and its predecessors.”
Every politician wants a magic pill that will solve the huge problems facing them, but if such a thing exists at all then there is a cost and in this case that cost is unacceptable. This so-called reform should be strongly opposed.
Wednesday, November 26, 2025
Letting down carers
They say that the independent review of carer’s allowance benefit overpayments identified “systemic issues” at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and said carers could not be blamed for falling foul of unclear and confusing benefit rules:
The review was triggered after a Guardian investigation revealed how carers had been hit with draconian penalties of as much as £20,000 after unwittingly and unfairly running up overpayments of the carer’s allowance.
Liz Sayce, a disability rights expert and the author of the review, said problems with carer’s allowance led to injustice and poor use of public money and had affected carers’ health, finances and careers. She blamed repeated failures by top DWP officials over a decade to fix the problems.
“Overpayments over many years at this scale and impact, with missed opportunities to resolve them, are entirely unacceptable. They are an inappropriate use of taxpayers’ money, which has involved using public money for a purpose not intended, and then incurring further cost to attempt to recover it,” she wrote.
She added: “The prevalence of overpayment related to earnings has been caused not by widespread individual error by carers in reporting their earnings but by systemic issues preventing them from fulfilling their responsibility to report.”
Ministers have announced hundreds of thousands of unpaid carers who ran up overpayments as a result of unsafe decisions will have their cases reassessed and in many cases their debts cancelled or reduced. It described the scandal as a “mess inherited from the previous government”.
But there is disappointment from many carers that the review did not recommend compensation for those whose lives were turned upside down and health destroyed after being penalised for massive overpayments they were unaware they had incurred.
The review highlighted the stress, shame and humiliation experienced by carers caught up in the system, and treatment at the hands of DWP staff that “made them feel degraded, like a criminal or cheat trying to game the system”.
Sayce added: “This shame is experienced as the polar opposite of the recognition carer’s allowance aims to offer to unpaid carers who are regularly described by the government as ‘unsung heroes’.”
The review also highlighted how the flawed “cliff edge” design of carer’s allowance penalties resulted in carers rapidly and unwittingly building up big overpayments. Sayce urged “quick, imaginative and fair solutions” to the problem.
Unpaid carers who look after loved ones for at least 35 hours a week are entitled to £83.30 a week carer’s allowance, as long as their weekly earnings from part-time jobs do not exceed £196. But if they exceed this limit, even by as little as 1p, they must repay that entire week’s carer’s allowance.
Under the “cliff edge” earnings rules, this means someone who oversteps the threshold by as little as 1p a week for a year must repay not 52p but £4,331.60, plus a £50 civil penalty.
Top officials and previous government ministers were criticised in the report for a failure to “grip” the problem of overpayments. “The … DWP has failed to demonstrate the ministerial and senior focus needed to resolve these persistent injustices and reform carer’s allowance to implement its core purposes in the modern world,” it said.
Problems with changes introduced by DWP in 2020 to modify the way carers were allowed to average their earnings from part-time jobs to avoid overpayments were also highlighted. These changes, ostensibly to make the system clear for claimants, were in effect unlawful and resulted in more carers falling foul of the system.
While carers were expected by the DWP to report changes to their circumstances, such as if they earned more than earnings limits, confusing rules meant they “have no way of knowing exactly what they need to report and when”, the review found.
This is a complete mess and it is carers who are being left to suffer. The government needs to put in place a compensation process for the victims of this fiasco.
Tuesday, November 25, 2025
The past comes back to haunt Farage
The Guardian says that they have spoken to 20 of Farage's contemporaries while at Dulwich College in south London who tell them that these accusations are true, more than half of them on the record, and they outline the testimony of all twenty in some detail here.
Now, Farage is facing calls to explain why he repeatedly aired tropes and conspiracy theories associated with antisemitism during interviews.
Now, Farage is facing calls to explain why he repeatedly aired tropes and conspiracy theories associated with antisemitism during interviews.
The Guardian says that in appearances on US TV shows and podcasts earlier in his political career, Farage discussed supposed plots by bankers to create a global government, citing Goldman Sachs, the Bilderberg group and the financier George Soros as threats to democracy:
These included six guest slots on the web TV show of the disgraced far-right US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Jones was successfully sued by bereaved parents after claiming the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school massacre was faked.
During one interview with Jones in 2018, Farage argued that “globalists” were trying to engineer a war with Russia “as an argument for us all to surrender our national sovereignty and give it up to a higher global level”.
Farage also appeared six times on the web radio show of Rick Wiles, a far-right, antisemitic American pastor. Here, topics included whether central bankers would soon start to appoint leaders of the UK and US – an idea Farage did not challenge.
When the Guardian first reported these discussions in 2019, groups including the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Community Security Trust, a charity providing support to the Jewish community in the UK, called on Farage to repudiate such ideas, many of which are associated with far-right and antisemitic conspiracy theories.
However, Farage never commented. The only response came from a spokesperson for the Brexit party, which Farage led at the time, calling the criticisms “manufactured” and “pathetic”.
In the wake of testimony from 20 people who claim they either witnessed or were victims of abusive or racist behaviour by Farage at Dulwich college in the late 1970s and early 1980s, MPs and others have called on Farage to explain his subsequent statements, which date from 2009 to 2018.
School contemporaries of Farage said he used racist terms of abuse, made comments such as like “Hitler was right”, and “Gas them”, and sang racist songs.
Spokespeople for Farage and Reform rejected the claims as completely untrue, saying the passage of time made accurate recollections impossible, and questioned why people were making the allegations now.
The Liberal Democrats vice chair of the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism, Christine Jardine, is absolutely right when she says that Farage has aspirations for high office, and therefore it is simply not good enough that he fails to explain his past choice of words, especially when the allegations that have surfaced this week only serve to underline concerns about his outlook.
It is time for Farage to come clean about his past behaviour so that everybody knows what they would be supporting if they gave their vote to Reform.
These included six guest slots on the web TV show of the disgraced far-right US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Jones was successfully sued by bereaved parents after claiming the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school massacre was faked.
During one interview with Jones in 2018, Farage argued that “globalists” were trying to engineer a war with Russia “as an argument for us all to surrender our national sovereignty and give it up to a higher global level”.
Farage also appeared six times on the web radio show of Rick Wiles, a far-right, antisemitic American pastor. Here, topics included whether central bankers would soon start to appoint leaders of the UK and US – an idea Farage did not challenge.
When the Guardian first reported these discussions in 2019, groups including the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Community Security Trust, a charity providing support to the Jewish community in the UK, called on Farage to repudiate such ideas, many of which are associated with far-right and antisemitic conspiracy theories.
However, Farage never commented. The only response came from a spokesperson for the Brexit party, which Farage led at the time, calling the criticisms “manufactured” and “pathetic”.
In the wake of testimony from 20 people who claim they either witnessed or were victims of abusive or racist behaviour by Farage at Dulwich college in the late 1970s and early 1980s, MPs and others have called on Farage to explain his subsequent statements, which date from 2009 to 2018.
School contemporaries of Farage said he used racist terms of abuse, made comments such as like “Hitler was right”, and “Gas them”, and sang racist songs.
Spokespeople for Farage and Reform rejected the claims as completely untrue, saying the passage of time made accurate recollections impossible, and questioned why people were making the allegations now.
The Liberal Democrats vice chair of the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism, Christine Jardine, is absolutely right when she says that Farage has aspirations for high office, and therefore it is simply not good enough that he fails to explain his past choice of words, especially when the allegations that have surfaced this week only serve to underline concerns about his outlook.
It is time for Farage to come clean about his past behaviour so that everybody knows what they would be supporting if they gave their vote to Reform.
Monday, November 24, 2025
Is the proscription of Palestine Action undermining government anti-terrorism programmes?
The paper reports the official as saying that there is already confusion among counter-terrorism police, officials and in schools and hospitals as a result of the proscription of the direct action group, which makes being a member of, or showing support for it, a criminal offence under the Terrorism Act:
They expressed concern about people involved in Palestine advocacy but not supportive of Palestine Action being wrongly labelled as extremist and people who have expressed support for Palestine Action being referred to Prevent when they do not pose any threat.
The homeland security official, who works closely with Prevent, and requested anonymity as they are not allowed to speak to the press, said: “I’m concerned about a surge in referrals to the Prevent system that might have a link to Palestine advocacy in light of the fact that this very high profile group is now proscribed, and the confusion there might be on the frontline in schools and healthcare settings and all the other places that are expected to make Prevent referrals.
“I’ve heard senior counter-terrorism police people say that they are already seeing on the frontline concerns about this come up and I’m aware of testimonies from Prevent leads at local authorities where they are also concerned about the impact of this on their area and confusion about whether certain cases should be referred to Prevent or not.”
The Prevent duty requires specified authorities such as education, health, and local authorities to report concerns about a person being vulnerable to radicalisation.
Figures published earlier this month showed the number of referrals to the anti-terrorism programme were up by 27% in the year to March 2025 compared with the previous 12 months and was the highest since records began.
The homeland security group official said that while it was early days in the proscription of Palestine Action (the ban took effect on 5 July) they feared Prevent could be “overwhelmed” when it was already under “unprecedented” pressure after the Southport attacks and the concerns they raised about people who are obsessed with violence but without a clear terrorist ideology.
“We have already seen police officers, let alone frontline Prevent practitioners, mistakenly arrest or interfere with people for supporting Palestine, not supporting Palestine Action.
“There is a risk that what’s now the crime of support for Palestine Action might lead to the Prevent system becoming an unwitting sort of gateway for people to mistakenly be criminalised, especially young people who don’t know the law and they don’t know the consequences of expressing what might sound like – or may actually be – support for a group that, overnight, has become proscribed.”
In similar comments, in a pre-proscription debate in the House of Lords discussing the proposals to ban Palestine Action, the independent Prevent reviewer, David Anderson KC said it would mean “anyone who is young and foolish enough to say that its heart is in the right place, or that the government should listen to it, is committing a very serious offence for which they could be prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned as a terrorist”.
The official who spoke to the Guardian said he worried that the ban had harmed the credibility of vital counter-terrorism work.
“The proscription has damaged trust in the government more widely and Prevent specifically – so potentially eroding Prevent’s effectiveness to tackle the real issues even further,” they said.
This is actually very serious. The last thing that those charged with identifying threats need is for the government to create confusion amongst the public, agencies and law officers that is going to hamper their work.
Surely it is time for ministers to properly justify the proscription of Palestine Action and to clarify what exactly that involves or to rethink the decision to ban supporting the organisation altogether.
Sunday, November 23, 2025
The Russian connection
On the Nation Cymru website, Martin Shipton discusses the significance of former Welsh UKIP leader, Nathan Gill's imprisonment and its implication for Reform at the Senedd elections next year.
His view that, while those who are enraptured by what they see as Nigel Farage’s charisma are likely to remain loyal to his personality cult, more level-headed voters will pause to consider the implications of Gill’s criminality, is certainly one that is worth exploring. My concern though, is that it will be mostly be old news by the time people come to vote in six months time.
He writes that, despite Reform’s hierarchy seeking to downplay Gill's significance in their movement, it can’t be denied. He points out that the latest iteration of Farage's party is part of a continuum running from the Europhobic Tendency of the Conservative Party in the time of John Major, through to UKIP when it had success in European Parliament elections. The Brexit Party, formed in the wake of Leave’s victory in the 2016 referendum to “Get Brexit Done”, is the most extreme variant of these cults, and Gill was a member and as close to Farage as it was possible to be:
He was not just an uber-sycophant in ideological terms, happy to do Farage’s bidding without question, but also often physically adjacent to his master like the most obedient of puppies, as many photographs taken when they were MEPs together attest.
I first met Gill in 2011 when I participated in a BBC TV debate broadcast from Aberystwyth during the often overlooked referendum to grant what are now the Senedd primary lawmaking powers. My book on the first 10 years of the National Assembly had just been published and I’d been invited to go on the panel as someone in favour of letting the institution make its own laws.
Gill was on the other side, partnered – and he won’t thank me for mentioning this – by Cardiff Labour councillor Russell Goodway.
Gill’s contribution to the debate was unimpressive. He seemed more interested in re-running old arguments about whether the then National Assembly should exist at all rather than addressing the issue of now that it was in existence whether it should be able to make its own laws or not. His response to questions was robotic, as if he couldn’t or wouldn’t deviate from a script.
Three years later he was elected as a UKIP MEP for Wales – a position he could not have attained without the patronage of Farage. Farage has a notorious tendency to fall out with people he’s working with who don’t follow his line in all respects, but there was never a hint of that with Gill.
He couldn’t be described as bright, although he was good at exploiting the European Parliament’s expenses system, driving all the way from Anglesey to Strasbourg when the Parliament was sitting there to take advantage of the exceptionally generous mileage allowance available to MEPs.
Farage appreciated his puppy-like devotion and was happy to keep him in close proximity as a kind of mascot. Later, for the same reasons, he appointed Gill Reform UK’s leader in Wales.
Guilt by association is not a way of judging people that I normally subscribe to, but in the case of Gill and Farage I can understand the attraction of the concept.
I am not of course suggesting that Farage is guilty of crimes akin to those of Gill. But given the nature of Gill’s relationship with Farage and dependence on him in his role as an MEP it seems inconceivable that Oleg Voloshyn, the pro-Russian Ukrainian politician who corrupted Gill made merely a random and isolated connection with him.
As long ago as 2014, the Guardian published an article that began: “Nigel Farage’s near monthly appearances on state-owned Russia Today have come under scrutiny after his expression of admiration for Vladimir Putin this week.
“In one of his 17 appearances on the channel seen by the Guardian and transmitted since December 2010, he claims Europe is governed not by elected democracies but instead ‘by the worst people we have seen in Europe since 1945’.
“The UKIP leader has appeared so frequently that he is cited in literature for the TV station Russia Today as one of their special and ‘endlessly quotable’ British guests. ‘He has been known far longer to the RT audience than most of the British electorate,’ Russia Today claims.
“The UKIP leader did not issue a word of criticism of Russian democracy in any of the Russia Today interviews viewed by the Guardian.”
From Farage and Reform’s point of view, it is certainly an unfortunate perception that Farage’s past association with Russia Today (later RT) indicated a sympathy towards Russia that Gill took in a criminal direction.
Gill's imprisonment is significant in Wales because, as Martin Shipton says, Reform will be a major player in the 2026 Senedd election. Had Gill not been found out, prosecuted and jailed, it is more than likely that he would have been heading back to the Senedd next May. Instead, other Reform candidates will be doing so, most likely in large numbers.
However, we have no idea at the moment who those candidates are, how they will be selected or what their history is. Martin Shipton is most probably right when he says they will not be selected in Wales. That will be organised at party headquarters in London. And with all the delays that have happened, it’s looking doubtful that any candidates will be announced before Christmas.
Are these selections being left so late to prevent Reform's opponents and journalists having time to find dirt on those who do get chosen? Given the party and its predecessor's issues with vetting candidates in the past, it would be hardly surprising if they don't want too much scrutiny.
Saturday, November 22, 2025
An unlikely connection
The plaque is located on the promenade wall near the Hole in the Wall Café — a spot the philosopher is believed to have walked past many times during his visits to the area.
Born in Vienna in 1889, Wittgenstein is widely regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of the modern era.
During these years, Wittgenstein often stayed at guest houses in Langland and Uplands, spending time walking the Gower coastline and developing ideas that would shape his later work.
It’s believed these summers spent in Swansea had a profound influence on Wittgenstein’s thinking.
Wittgenstein is best-known for his work in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of the mind, and the philosophy of language.
Sometimes, we come across the most unlikely connections.
Update: Wiigenstein was of course immortalised in Monty Python's Bruces' Philosophers Song, sung by The Bruces, stereotypical "ocker" Australians of the period. The Bruces are kitted out in khakis, slouch hats and a cork hat, and are faculty members of the Philosophy Department at the fictional University of Woolamaloo (Woolloomooloo is an inner suburb of Sydney, although there is no university there):
Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table
David Hume could out-consume
Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel
There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya
'bout the raising of the wrist
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed
John Stuart Mill, of his own free will
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill
Plato, they say, could stick it away
Half a crate of whiskey every day
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle
Hobbes was fond of his dram
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart
"I drink, therefore I am."
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed
Friday, November 21, 2025
Trial by jury should remain a fundamental right
The Guardian reports that the courts minister has promised to enact radical changes to limit jury trials by the next election, because, she says that criminals are“gaming the system” by choosing trial by jury in order to increase the chances of proceedings collapsing.
According to the paper, Sarah Sackman claims that drug dealers and career criminals are “laughing in the dock” knowing cases can take years to come to trial. She believes that that inaction will be a road to “chaos and ruin”:
Ministers will legislate to remove the right to trial by jury for thousands of cases in one of the biggest and most controversial overhauls of the justice system in England and Wales in generations – promising the changes will significantly shrink the court backlog by 2029.
The Ministry of Justice is braced for a backlash from barristers and the judiciary as it presses ahead with the measures to tackle a backlog of nearly 80,000 cases, which will create a proposed new judge-only division of the crown court to hear some cases.
Sackman said the “stakes are incredibly high” as she prepared to announce early next month that vast numbers of cases will now be heard by judges and magistrates rather than juries, a response to recommendations in a review by Sir Brian Leveson.
Speaking at Wood Green crown court, Sackman said victims of severe sexual assault were routinely told it could take four years for their cases to come to court.
However, the paper adds that changes to jury trials are opposed by 90% of the Criminal Bar Association, which has warned that ending the right would be an unacceptable price to pay and undermine what is a fundamental principle for British justice. They argue that the British public have a deep faith in the jury system and that changes risk a loss of trust.
Racial equality groups have also expressed concern at the reforms, and at the unrepresentative nature of the judiciary against juries:
Judicial diversity statistics show that ethnic minorities make up 12% of judges in England and Wales, while the representation of black judges has remained unchanged at 1% for a decade. Criminal justice charities have said they expect a reduction in jury trials to lead to more convictions and potential miscarriages of justice.
The Institute for Government’s Cassia Rowland said in a recent report the government and Leveson’s report had thus far failed to make the case for the changes and that many of the issues identified by Leveson would be solved by increased court productivity – fewer trials are being scheduled, but more are being cancelled at the last minute.
Labour's authoritarian tendencies are once more in evidence in these proposals. They would rather remove fundamental rights than put in place the investment that is needed to try and fix the system.
According to the paper, Sarah Sackman claims that drug dealers and career criminals are “laughing in the dock” knowing cases can take years to come to trial. She believes that that inaction will be a road to “chaos and ruin”:
Ministers will legislate to remove the right to trial by jury for thousands of cases in one of the biggest and most controversial overhauls of the justice system in England and Wales in generations – promising the changes will significantly shrink the court backlog by 2029.
The Ministry of Justice is braced for a backlash from barristers and the judiciary as it presses ahead with the measures to tackle a backlog of nearly 80,000 cases, which will create a proposed new judge-only division of the crown court to hear some cases.
Sackman said the “stakes are incredibly high” as she prepared to announce early next month that vast numbers of cases will now be heard by judges and magistrates rather than juries, a response to recommendations in a review by Sir Brian Leveson.
Speaking at Wood Green crown court, Sackman said victims of severe sexual assault were routinely told it could take four years for their cases to come to court.
However, the paper adds that changes to jury trials are opposed by 90% of the Criminal Bar Association, which has warned that ending the right would be an unacceptable price to pay and undermine what is a fundamental principle for British justice. They argue that the British public have a deep faith in the jury system and that changes risk a loss of trust.
Racial equality groups have also expressed concern at the reforms, and at the unrepresentative nature of the judiciary against juries:
Judicial diversity statistics show that ethnic minorities make up 12% of judges in England and Wales, while the representation of black judges has remained unchanged at 1% for a decade. Criminal justice charities have said they expect a reduction in jury trials to lead to more convictions and potential miscarriages of justice.
The Institute for Government’s Cassia Rowland said in a recent report the government and Leveson’s report had thus far failed to make the case for the changes and that many of the issues identified by Leveson would be solved by increased court productivity – fewer trials are being scheduled, but more are being cancelled at the last minute.
Labour's authoritarian tendencies are once more in evidence in these proposals. They would rather remove fundamental rights than put in place the investment that is needed to try and fix the system.
Thursday, November 20, 2025
Is digital ID in trouble?
The paper says that MPs were told that the Government's the policy has been so badly botched that it is now "irrecoverable, warning that "no one really believes" the controversial roll-out is designed to tackle illegal working:
Supporters claim this will be essential in tackling small boats - and say Britain has fallen behind other nations. But Silki Carlo, director of pressure group Big Brother Watch, told the cross-party Home Affairs Select Committee: "I don't think anyone in this room genuinely believes that the mandatory digital ID is about illegal working. Which begs the question, what is it really about, and what will the other uses be?"
And she continued: "I think that, it's likely that the way that this announcement has been managed makes it irrecoverable for this government and potentially for the next five to 10 years."
A petition calling for the proposal to be scrapped has been signed by over 2.9million people. Ms Carlo told the committee: "Your constituents are up in arms about it and I think it is because of the way that it's been introduced, the fact that no one really believes it's about immigration, that it might be about something else."
Keir Starmer has vowed to plough ahead with the proposals, saying it will make the UK's borders more secure and make it easier to prove your identity. MPs were told system - which would be free for users - would "put citizens in control of their own data".
But critics warned about the possibility of abuse and data leaks. James Baker, program manager at Open Rights Group, said: "Imagine the person you disagree with most in politics...
"Imagine what they could do with this type of system if you didn't have the right safeguards in place." And he continued: "This is what worries me about introducing this in a country like the UK is we we don't have a written constitution that has privacy protections."
This policy is going to be hard to sell and it is unlikely that Starmer has the political capital to see it through.
Wednesday, November 19, 2025
Labour are seeking “to use children as a weapon”
The paper says that Dubbs, who arrived in the UK aged six in 1939 fleeing the persecution of Jews in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, described Shabana Mahmood’s proposals as “a shabby thing”:
Mahmood faced a backlash from Labour MPs and refugee charities on Monday as she set out plans for the biggest shake-up of asylum laws in 40 years.
The Home Office said it would consult on measures to allow the removal of financial support from families with children under the age of 18 if they had been refused asylum. Ministers argue that the current system incentivises asylum seekers to subject their children to dangerous crossings.
A policy document published by the department on Monday said: “Our hesitancy around returning families creates particularly perverse incentives. To some the personal benefit of placing a child on a dangerous small boat outweighs the considerable risks of doing so.
“Once in the UK, asylum seekers are able to exploit the fact that they have had children and put down roots in order to thwart removal, even if their claim has been legally refused.”
In response, Lord Dubs told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “There is a proper case for children, there is a proper case for family reunion when there are children who are on their own,” and he said that “to use children as a weapon as the home secretary is doing I think is a shabby thing”.
Mahmood’s proposals include scrapping permanent refugee status and requiring those arriving in the UK as asylum seekers to stay for 20 years – up from five – before they are eligible to settle permanently.
Dubs said he was “depressed” by the government’s “hard line” and said: “On the whole I think we’re going in the wrong direction.”
He said: “What it will do is to increase tensions in local communities and will make this country less welcome than we have traditionally been to welcome people who come here fleeing for safety. What we need is a bit of compassion in our politics.”
Dubs argued that the changes would cause bigger problems with community cohesion because there would be no incentive for communities to welcome asylum seekers who were here only temporarily. He also said it was wrong to remove children who were born and raised in the UK.
“My particular fear is integration in local communities: if people are here temporarily, and people know they’re here temporarily, then the danger is that local people say, well, you’re only here for a bit, why should we help you to integrate? Why should your kids go to local schools? And so on,” he said, adding that refugees “want to make a contribution to our country, that’s their overwhelming wish”.
The more I see of these proposals the more they appear badly thought through and unworkable.
Tuesday, November 18, 2025
The futile attempt to out-Farage Farage
The paper says that the home secretary’s flurry of proposals are designed to signal purpose, but constitute a wishlist of demands that her department can’t deliver:
Currently, those fleeing persecution are given a five-year right to stay in the country and can apply for settled status after that. Ms Mahmood wants refugees to stay in the country initially only for a 30-month period, and then review their status to see whether they will be allowed to remain in the country for another 30 months. After two decades in Britain, they could apply to stay here permanently.
Denmark is held up as the model. A decade ago a centre-left government there was under pressure, with a surging populist right and immigration dominating voters’ concerns. Danish Social Democrats claimed that getting tough on refugees helped them win the election. However, the reality was messier. Copenhagen stripped Syrians of protection, yet could not remove them, leaving people stuck in “deportation centres”, unable to work or live normally. The result was a permanently marginalised population in enforced limbo.
The British government now proposes to repeat this error, only at vastly greater scale. Ms Mahmood’s Home Office aims to reassess tens of thousands of refugees every two and a half years. With around 100,000 asylum claims annually – and many from countries that have a high grant rate – the system would soon need to conduct around 70,000 reviews each year. The Refugee Council says that the Home Office would need to review the status of 1.4 million people by 2035 at a cost of £872m. Yet this is the same state that cannot currently process the 50,000 appeals already in the queue, where waits hover around a year and tribunal judges are in short supply. Building a new bureaucracy to adjudicate applicants’ status is not bold politics, but magical thinking.
Ms Mahmood indicates that she wants to change the European convention on human rights, not abandon it. It is the Conservatives and Reform UK that talk of going it alone. But meaningful change cannot be made unilaterally. Any solo attempt would be self-defeating, risking Northern Ireland’s peace and undermining the post-Brexit deal with the EU.
Labour could achieve something substantial that voters care about and close the asylum hotels. Not by 2029, but by next year. The Refugee Council says the maths is simple: 40% of hotel residents come from five countries – Sudan, Eritrea, Iran, Afghanistan and Syria – from where between 60% and 98% are granted asylum. A one-off scheme to give permission to stay for a limited period, subject to security checks, would empty hotels rapidly. Rishi Sunak did just this 2023. There would be no need to engage with a damaging arms race with the far right, which would see Labour lose progressive support. It would, however, solve the single asylum-related issue that the public cares most about.
The Labour government is attempting to out-Farage Farage. As the paper says, copying Reform UK’s cruelty on asylum lets their leader own the issue, outbid Labour and drive the debate rightward at no cost. Worse, It gifts rightwingers the advantage, while setting itself up to look cruel and incompetent.
Monday, November 17, 2025
Labour's lazy narrative
Their rationale apparently, is that protecting animals such as dormice, badgers, hedgehogs, otters and nightingales, and rare habitats such as wetlands and ancient woodlands from developers is harming growth.
However, one House of Commons committee has carried out an inquiry that has come to a contrary conclusion.
The Guardian reports that the inquiry has conccluded that nature is not a blocker to housing growth, a view in direct conflict with claims made by ministers:
Toby Perkins, the Labour chair of the environmental audit committee, said nature was being scapegoated, and that rather than being a block to growth, it was necessary for building resilient towns and neighbourhoods.
In its report on environmental sustainability and housing growth, the cross-party committee challenged the “lazy narrative”, which has been promoted by UK government ministers, that nature was a blocker or an inconvenience to delivering housing.
The report said severe skills shortages in ecology, planning and construction would be what made it impossible for the government to deliver on its housebuilding ambitions.
Perkins said: “The government’s target to build 1.5m homes by the end of this parliament is incredibly ambitious. Achieving it alongside our existing targets on climate and sustainability – which are set in law – will require effort on a scale not seen before.
“That certainly will not be achieved by scapegoating nature, claiming that it is a ‘blocker’ to housing delivery. We are clear in our report: a healthy environment is essential to building resilient towns and cities. It must not be sidelined.”
Experts say the planning and infrastructure bill – in its final stages before being passed into law – rolls back environmental law to allow developers to sidestep the need for surveys and mitigation on the site of any environmental damage by paying into a central nature recovery fund for improvements to be made elsewhere.
The paper adds that the committee had concerns that the legislation as drafted would mean the government would miss its legally defined target to halt the decline of nature by 2030 and reverse it by 2042:
The report found that local planning authorities were severely underresourced in ecological skills. It heard evidence that staff at Natural England were “stretched to their limits”, that the skills needed to deliver the ecological aspects of planning reforms “simply do not exist at the scale, quality or capacity that is needed”.
Labour's commitment to the environment has never been weaker.
Sunday, November 16, 2025
Has Rachel Reeves budget turned into an omnishambles?
The Independent reports that Downing Street has been blamed for forcing Rachel Reeves to reverse Budget plans to raise income tax in what was described as “a panic move” to save Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership.
The paper says that Labour MPs, ministers and the markets were left stunned by a Financial Times report that the chancellor has now abandoned the measure despite two weeks of clear hints in public speeches that she was poised to break the party’s manifesto pledge:
Downing Street was blamed on Friday for forcing Rachel Reeves to reverse Budget plans to raise income tax in what was described as “a panic move” to save Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership.
Labour MPs, ministers and the markets were left stunned by a Financial Times report that the chancellor has now abandoned the measure despite two weeks of clear hints in public speeches that she was poised to break the party’s manifesto pledge.
With markets spooked by the sudden U-turn, the cost of borrowing for the government spiked, with 10-year gilts up 12 basis points at 4.56 per cent.
Treasury sources insisted the decision had been taken because of better-than-expected economic data, but others blamed interference from Downing Street in a bid to protect the prime minister from a potential leadership challenge.
One minister told The Independent that No 10 is “gripped by a state of panic”.
The drama unfolded after the chancellor laid the groundwork for tax hikes, including several hints that she would need to break Labour’s election pledge not to raise income taxes.
But the reversal came after the prime minister was under siege following a briefing to journalists – reportedly by Downing Street officials – that health secretary Wes Streeting was planning a leadership bid.
The chancellor is now expected to increase a handful of smaller taxes in an attempt to balance the books, despite warnings from economists that such a move could make the system “more complicated and inefficient”.
Possible measures include a gambling tax, a bank levy tax, various wealth taxes, or a mansion tax on properties valued at £2m and over.
Jim O’Neill, the former Treasury minister and Goldman Sachs boss who was brought in by the chancellor to be her economic adviser in opposition, described the developments as “bothersome”.
He said: “I’m surprised. If it means their defaulting to accumulated fringe, possibly growth-damaging taxes again, it will be bothersome.”
Stephen Millard, deputy director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), warned: “There are two dangers here. First, by resorting to smaller changes to lots of marginal taxes, the chancellor risks making the overall tax system ever more complicated and inefficient (in the sense of creating more distortions in the economy).
“Second, this would make it harder for the chancellor to build a large buffer against her fiscal rules. As we’ve seen over the past year, having a small buffer creates uncertainty and endless speculation about further tax rises, given it would only take a small downgrade in the UK’s growth prospects to wipe the buffer out.”
Tax expert Dan Neidle told The Independent that seeking to raise money from a “grab bag” of lots of different tax measures instead would be “very damaging”.
Isaac Delestre, senior tax analyst at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), said: “We obviously don’t know how much she’s looking to raise, but the risks of doing something unnecessarily economically damaging increase if she is going to look to raise large amounts from smaller taxes.”
He suggested: “One other obvious option that could raise a lot of money is looking at income tax thresholds (the Labour manifesto pledge on IT, NICs and VAT only talks about rates of income tax). Although worth noting that in real terms, thresholds have already come down a lot since 2021 because they’ve been frozen in real terms.”
In normal times a chancellor ruling out income tax rise would receive acclamation, but the way tax increases have been floated and then pulled back just appears shambolic. Furthermore, the prospect of income tax thresholds being frozen until 2030 means that we will all be paying more tax anyway.
This Labour government is giving the impression of being made up of headless chickens. They have no direction and no leadership. Can Rachel Reeves rescue them on budget day? It is looking increasingly unlikely.
The paper says that Labour MPs, ministers and the markets were left stunned by a Financial Times report that the chancellor has now abandoned the measure despite two weeks of clear hints in public speeches that she was poised to break the party’s manifesto pledge:
Downing Street was blamed on Friday for forcing Rachel Reeves to reverse Budget plans to raise income tax in what was described as “a panic move” to save Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership.
Labour MPs, ministers and the markets were left stunned by a Financial Times report that the chancellor has now abandoned the measure despite two weeks of clear hints in public speeches that she was poised to break the party’s manifesto pledge.
With markets spooked by the sudden U-turn, the cost of borrowing for the government spiked, with 10-year gilts up 12 basis points at 4.56 per cent.
Treasury sources insisted the decision had been taken because of better-than-expected economic data, but others blamed interference from Downing Street in a bid to protect the prime minister from a potential leadership challenge.
One minister told The Independent that No 10 is “gripped by a state of panic”.
The drama unfolded after the chancellor laid the groundwork for tax hikes, including several hints that she would need to break Labour’s election pledge not to raise income taxes.
But the reversal came after the prime minister was under siege following a briefing to journalists – reportedly by Downing Street officials – that health secretary Wes Streeting was planning a leadership bid.
The chancellor is now expected to increase a handful of smaller taxes in an attempt to balance the books, despite warnings from economists that such a move could make the system “more complicated and inefficient”.
Possible measures include a gambling tax, a bank levy tax, various wealth taxes, or a mansion tax on properties valued at £2m and over.
Jim O’Neill, the former Treasury minister and Goldman Sachs boss who was brought in by the chancellor to be her economic adviser in opposition, described the developments as “bothersome”.
He said: “I’m surprised. If it means their defaulting to accumulated fringe, possibly growth-damaging taxes again, it will be bothersome.”
Stephen Millard, deputy director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), warned: “There are two dangers here. First, by resorting to smaller changes to lots of marginal taxes, the chancellor risks making the overall tax system ever more complicated and inefficient (in the sense of creating more distortions in the economy).
“Second, this would make it harder for the chancellor to build a large buffer against her fiscal rules. As we’ve seen over the past year, having a small buffer creates uncertainty and endless speculation about further tax rises, given it would only take a small downgrade in the UK’s growth prospects to wipe the buffer out.”
Tax expert Dan Neidle told The Independent that seeking to raise money from a “grab bag” of lots of different tax measures instead would be “very damaging”.
Isaac Delestre, senior tax analyst at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), said: “We obviously don’t know how much she’s looking to raise, but the risks of doing something unnecessarily economically damaging increase if she is going to look to raise large amounts from smaller taxes.”
He suggested: “One other obvious option that could raise a lot of money is looking at income tax thresholds (the Labour manifesto pledge on IT, NICs and VAT only talks about rates of income tax). Although worth noting that in real terms, thresholds have already come down a lot since 2021 because they’ve been frozen in real terms.”
In normal times a chancellor ruling out income tax rise would receive acclamation, but the way tax increases have been floated and then pulled back just appears shambolic. Furthermore, the prospect of income tax thresholds being frozen until 2030 means that we will all be paying more tax anyway.
This Labour government is giving the impression of being made up of headless chickens. They have no direction and no leadership. Can Rachel Reeves rescue them on budget day? It is looking increasingly unlikely.
Saturday, November 15, 2025
A Tudor farm and a Roman fort
As the Llys Nini site records, the branch was established by animal-loving volunteers in the Swansea and Neath areas nearly 200 years ago, with its first animal centre being situated in Singleton Park, leased from Swansea Corporation in 1935, with the capacity to house 31 dogs and 18 cats.
When the lease of the old Swansea Dogs’ Home expired in the early 1990s, the branch raised enough money to buy its own premises and in 1994 bought the old Llys Nini farm in Penllergaer:
Llys Nini was special, as unlike other Welsh long houses which had the fire place in the end wall, Llys Nini had a large fire place in the centre of the building with stairs to the hay loft behind.
Llys Nini Farm is recorded as being ancient in the 1507 Quit Claim. Whether Llys Nini was in existence before that is unknown but at least one local person says that he remembers a Roman Fort on the site and if true that could have formed the basis of the later Llys or Court.
The Llys Nini RSPCA Administration Block is built on the foot print of the old house. It is possible that a Roman practice fort existed there and that it was used by Prince Einon ap Owain ap Hywel Dda, in the 10th Century’ He was the Penteulu (translated as head of the family but was probably the leader of his father’s war band) of Owain of Dinefwr, King of Deheubarth in the 960/70s. It is probable that he established a Llys (court) on the site and that it was called Llys Einon or Llys Enniaun in the Latinised form and that in the interim the name has become Llys Nini.
The quit claim of 1507 says the deceased owner was Gwilym Thuy ( probably Ddu) who was a direct descendent Gryffydd Gwyr, Lord of Gower in the 13th Century who was a a descendent of the House of Deheubarth.
There is more information on the farm here.
Friday, November 14, 2025
Labour to reject amendments to planning bill that protect nature
The paper says that the amendment, which was passed with a large majority in the House of Lords, restricts the most controversial part of the draft bill by removing protected animals such as dormice, badgers, hedgehogs, otters and nightingales, and rare habitats such as wetlands and ancient woodlands, from new rules which allow developers to sidestep environmental laws to speed up house building:
Under the draft legislation proposed by Labour, developers will be able to pay into a national “nature recovery fund” and go ahead with their project straight away, instead of having to carry out an environmental survey and to first avoid, then mitigate damage, before putting spades into the ground.
Experts say this is a regression on decades-old environmental law and it has been criticised as “cash to trash” by ecologists and environmental groups.
The Lords’ amendment would mean the nature recovery fund is restricted to impacts from water and air pollution, meaning developers would still have to take the usual measures to mitigate damage to wildlife and habitats.
Reed has recommended rejecting the amendment when the bill returns to the Commons on Thursday for the final stages before being passed into law.
In a letter to MPs some of the UK’s biggest nature charities, including the Wildlife Trusts and RSPB, say the government rollback of environmental law “lacks any rigorous scientific or ecological justification.
“There is no credible, published, or well established evidence that this model can simply be scaled or replicated for multiple species nationwide without risking serious ecological harm, legal uncertainty, and increased costs for both developers and land managers,” the letter reads.
The Guardian revealed this week how the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and housing minister Matthew Pennycook have met scores of developers in the past year over the planning bill. Reeves has not met a single environmental organisation or the body for professional ecologists, while Pennycook has had just four meetings with such groups, compared with 16 with leading developers.
Who would have guessed that a Labour government could out-Tory the Tories on destroying our environment?
Thursday, November 13, 2025
Labour pile one crisis onto another
The Guardian reports that there is growing pressure over the future of Morgan McSweeney after the prime minister’s chief of staff was blamed for No 10’s pushback against a possible leadership challenge.
The paper adds that a series of ministers and Labour MPs are pointing the finger at McSweeney for the pre-emptive operation that particularly targeted Wes Streeting, the health secretary, who has responded with undisguised fury:
The Guardian reported on Tuesday that Downing Street had launched an operation to protect Starmer against a leadership challenge his allies believe could come from Streeting after this month’s budget or the May local elections.
Starmer’s closest allies said he would fight any “reckless” attempt to oust him, which they warned would affect the markets and the UK’s international relationships.
On Wednesday morning, Streeting vehemently denied such plotting and said the “self-defeating” attacks on him were indicative of a toxic culture inside No 10.
Badenoch began prime minister’s questions by asking: “This morning on the BBC, the health secretary said there is a toxic culture in Downing Street that needs to change. He’s right, isn’t he?”
Starmer replied: “My focus, each and every day, is on rebuilding and renewing our country. Let me be absolutely clear: any attack on any member of my cabinet is completely unacceptable.”
He praised Streeting’s record as health secretary, adding: “He is doing a great job, as is all of my cabinet.”
Starmer went on: “Let me be clear, I have never authorised attacks on cabinet members. I appointed them to their posts because they’re the best people to carry out their jobs.”
Badenoch later lambasted Starmer over his record on unemployment and the economy more widely, before returning to the No 10 infighting. She ended her questions by saying: “Isn’t it the case that this prime minister has lost control of his government, he has lost the confidence of his party and lost the trust of the British people.”
Starmer responded: “They [the Conservatives] broke the economy and now they’ve got this unserious idea that they can find £47bn of cuts, without saying where they’re going to come from. Meanwhile, we’re rebuilding the country.”
Speaking to the BBC earlier on Wednesday, Streeting said the attacks on him showed that Lucy Powell, the newly elected Labour deputy leader, “was right about the culture of No 10”.
Powell has called for a culture change inside No 10 and said she has been a target of negative briefings from the prime minister’s team, singling out McSweeney for criticism.
Streeting said: “I can tell you without having even spoken to the prime minister what he thinks of briefing, what his reaction will be to the front pages and the broadcast bulletins overnight, and the words I’m sure he would use are not suitable for a family show.”
If anything Starmer's advisors have made things worse. The government are now not just unpopular, but also perceived as in disarray.
Wednesday, November 12, 2025
Are Labour's u-turns too little too late?
In scrapping the winter fuel allowance, making cuts to benefits, refusing to abandon the two-child allowance cap, and ignoring the very real case for compensating WASPI women, a cause they campaigned for in opposition, Labour have alienated key constituencies, while undermining their own USP amongst Labour voters. It's little wonder that the Greens, with their new socialist identity are snapping at their heels.
Having realised that these betrayals are causing them irreparable harm, Labour Ministers have started to u-turn. They have reinstated some form of winter fuel allowance, ensuring that they are better targetted, something they should have done in the first place. They are rethinking many of the benefit cuts in the light of a rebellion by Labour MPs. And now, both the prime minister and the chancellor are dropping hints that she is prepared to scrap the two child benefit cap after all.
On top of this, the Independent reports that the government is to re-open its controversial decision to not award compensation to up to 3.8 million women affected by changes to the state pension age, after new evidence came to light.
The paper says that in an extraordinary turn of events the Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden told the Commons that ministers would look again at denying compensation to the women born in the 1950s, whose state pension age was raised so it would be equal with men:
He said “evidence” which was not shown to his predecessor Liz Kendall when she made the decision last December had since emerged and had to be considered.
Labour came under fire after it refused compensation despite a recommendation by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) that the women should be paid up to £2,950 each, at a total potential cost of £10.5 bn, because poor communication meant they had lost out on the chance to properly plan for their retirement.
Ministers were accused of presiding over a “day of shame” for the government after they announced that up to 3.8 million women affected by changes to the state pension age, from 60 to 65, would not receive compensation.
The then work and pensions secretary Ms Kendall rejected calls for individuals affected to be awarded between £1,000 and £2,950 each, while claiming she understood their unhappiness.
The party had backed the Waspi women’s campaign when Jeremy Corbyn was leader.
The latest move in the saga comes after court proceedings led to the rediscovery a 2007 Department for Work and Pensions evaluation. The document led to a halt in automatic pension forecast letters being sent out.
Labour's problem is that their original decisions have already entered the public consciousness and helped to form a general opinion of Labour that has contributed to their plummeting in the polls. It may take more than half-measure u-turns to correct that impression.
Having realised that these betrayals are causing them irreparable harm, Labour Ministers have started to u-turn. They have reinstated some form of winter fuel allowance, ensuring that they are better targetted, something they should have done in the first place. They are rethinking many of the benefit cuts in the light of a rebellion by Labour MPs. And now, both the prime minister and the chancellor are dropping hints that she is prepared to scrap the two child benefit cap after all.
On top of this, the Independent reports that the government is to re-open its controversial decision to not award compensation to up to 3.8 million women affected by changes to the state pension age, after new evidence came to light.
The paper says that in an extraordinary turn of events the Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden told the Commons that ministers would look again at denying compensation to the women born in the 1950s, whose state pension age was raised so it would be equal with men:
He said “evidence” which was not shown to his predecessor Liz Kendall when she made the decision last December had since emerged and had to be considered.
Labour came under fire after it refused compensation despite a recommendation by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) that the women should be paid up to £2,950 each, at a total potential cost of £10.5 bn, because poor communication meant they had lost out on the chance to properly plan for their retirement.
Ministers were accused of presiding over a “day of shame” for the government after they announced that up to 3.8 million women affected by changes to the state pension age, from 60 to 65, would not receive compensation.
The then work and pensions secretary Ms Kendall rejected calls for individuals affected to be awarded between £1,000 and £2,950 each, while claiming she understood their unhappiness.
The party had backed the Waspi women’s campaign when Jeremy Corbyn was leader.
The latest move in the saga comes after court proceedings led to the rediscovery a 2007 Department for Work and Pensions evaluation. The document led to a halt in automatic pension forecast letters being sent out.
Labour's problem is that their original decisions have already entered the public consciousness and helped to form a general opinion of Labour that has contributed to their plummeting in the polls. It may take more than half-measure u-turns to correct that impression.
Tuesday, November 11, 2025
What exactly is the BBC biased against?
The Guardian reports that Tim Davie, the BBC’s director general, and the head of BBC News, Deborah Turness, have resigned after a former adviser to the corporation accused it of “serious and systemic” bias in its coverage of issues including Donald Trump, Gaza and trans rights.
They add that the BBC chairman, Samir Shah, is also expected to apologise for the way the speech by Donald Trump was edited for Panorama, which is fair enough, but is this affair sufficient justification to provoke a sustained witch hunt against the corporation led by the head of a foreign state and sustained by leading politicians in our own country? Is the BBC doing its job too well in provoking such a response?
Huff Post carries a useful article on why Trump's legal threats could be just hot air. They say legal experts believe that his chances of success are slim:
Media lawyer Mark Stephens told BBC Breakfast: “There are more than a few legal tripwires between President Trump and a legal victory against the BBC.
“One, a UK defamation claim is already out of time. He had one year from Monday, October 28 2024, when Panorama aired, so he’s 14 days or so out of time for a defamation claim in the UK.
“A claim in Florida would be within time, it’s a two-year limitation there, but the problem for President Trump’s lawyers is that panorama wasn’t broadcast in the USA, and BBC iPlayer isn’t available in the USA. So it’s not clear that any US court would have jurisdiction to hear the claim.
“And once you get over those procedural impediments, there are other rather ticklish problems for President Trump’s lawyers.
“Trump’s reputation has already been battered by nine judicial findings, some congressional hearings, global coverage of January 6, and he faces ongoing civil lawsuits in Washington itself, and also a special counsel report alleging a criminal scheme to make or to have civil insurrection.
“So proving that Panorama caused additional serious harm is a bit of a stretch. If it can be shown by the BBC that his reputation was already in tatters on this issue, blaming the BBC for the wreckage of that is a bit of a tough sell.”
The prospect of licence payers money being paid out to Trump to placate him is a real one, but it should not happen. The BBC should stand up to the US President and invite him to see them in court,
Meanwhile, the political response in the UK is hostile, with only one party leader prepared to stand up to Trump's bluster and defend the BBC. Sky News reports that Liberal Democrats leader, Ed Davey has argued that seeing the White House take credit for Mr Davie's downfall - and attacking the BBC - "should worry us all".
He has called on the PM and all British political leaders to stand united in "telling Trump to keep his hands off it".
Despite this leading Tory politicians and Nigel Farage (of course) have all laid into the BBC, while the response of Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy is described as 'muted'.
What are they all afraid of and why is the BBC being portrayed as some trendy, left wing monolith when the opposite is true? If the BBC is biased, it is in promoting and featuring Farage and Reform at every opportunity, in failing to be even-handed in reporting on Brexit and in failing to reflect the balance of parties in Parliament in its current affairs coverage. That is the malaise that needs to be tackled within the corporation.
It would be good if the new director-general and head of news turned out to be people with journalistic experience, who are willing and capable of moving the organisation away from these right wing positions to one of political neutrality in which genuine news stories get prominence, irrespective of who they upset, and are properly defended for that.
He has called on the PM and all British political leaders to stand united in "telling Trump to keep his hands off it".
Despite this leading Tory politicians and Nigel Farage (of course) have all laid into the BBC, while the response of Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy is described as 'muted'.
What are they all afraid of and why is the BBC being portrayed as some trendy, left wing monolith when the opposite is true? If the BBC is biased, it is in promoting and featuring Farage and Reform at every opportunity, in failing to be even-handed in reporting on Brexit and in failing to reflect the balance of parties in Parliament in its current affairs coverage. That is the malaise that needs to be tackled within the corporation.
It would be good if the new director-general and head of news turned out to be people with journalistic experience, who are willing and capable of moving the organisation away from these right wing positions to one of political neutrality in which genuine news stories get prominence, irrespective of who they upset, and are properly defended for that.
Monday, November 10, 2025
Ministers lose environmental plot on planning bill
The paper says that the government published its planning and infrastructure bill in March, but before and after the bill’s publication the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and housing minister Matthew Pennycook met dozens of developers in numerous meetings. However, the body representing professional ecologists, has not met one minister despite requests to do so:
The Guardian can reveal the scale of the lobbying by developers in face-to-face meetings with the chancellor and other ministers that has been going on for months, while professional ecologists have found it hard to gain any audience.
“Access to ministers has been difficult,” said Sally Hayns, the chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management. “We asked for a meeting early on, and were initially turned down. We asked again in July and finally had a meeting in the autumn with civil servants. We haven’t had a face-to-face meeting with a minister at all.”
In contrast, just a week into her tenure Reeves hosted high-level discussions with housebuilders Berkeley, Barratt and Taylor Wimpey and has continued to have a string of meetings with housing developers, according to the Treasury register of ministerial meetings.
Reeves has repeatedly trumpeted the virtues of slashing nature rules to make it easier for homes to be built, and maligned the bats, newts and spiders that might get in the builders’ way.
She recently boasted to a tech conference hosted by US bank JP Morgan that she had unblocked a development of 20,000 homes that were being held up by a rare snail after she was approached by a developer. These homes had initially been blocked by Natural England because the Sussex area was at risk of running out of water.
Housing minister Matthew Pennycook has also recorded many meetings with developers including Vistry, Berkeley, Barratt, and Taylor Wimpey. He has recorded 16 meetings up to May this year with property developers, on housing supply and planning reform.
In contrast, his engagement with wildlife and nature groups is less intense. Pennycook has recorded four meetings over the past year with nature groups, three with Wildlife and Countryside Link and the other with a range of groups including the Campaign to Protect Rural England and the RSPB (the Royal Society for the protection of Birds). Ministers in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) have held roundtables with environmental NGOs, but the bill’s oversight is being led by Pennycook’s department.
Vistry, which is building 1,200 homes outside Newton Abbot in Devon, sent bulldozers to within feet of a 2,000 year-old protected ancient wetland last month. They want planning conditions protecting the site lifted, and have said they are in contact with Labour housing ministers, seeking help to sort out the “current blockages” and expedite the project.
Hayns said ecologists from her group worked closely with developers, and were key contributors to helping projects go ahead but were not being properly consulted. “There is a very low level of ecological literacy being displayed by ministers,” she said.
“Nothing I have seen or heard gives me comfort that Rachel Reeves understands the importance of nature to economic and social wellbeing, nothing,”
Hayns said nature was being treated as expendable. “I believe this will come back to bite them in the local elections,” she said. “Nature and protecting it is an issue that people care about.”
It's almost as if the Tories were still in charge.
Sunday, November 09, 2025
Government in turmoil
The paper says that the plot has its origins in the despair about the party’s poll ratings and concern that the government may break Labour’s manifesto promise not to raise income tax to fill a hole in the public finances, suggesting that there is mounting discontent among Labour backbenchers:
While a challenge against the prime minister is not thought to be imminent, a number of MPs, cabinet ministers and party strategists told The i Paper that conversations around Sir Keir’s future have increased in recent weeks, before a backdrop of continued turmoil in the government.
The latest warnings come after a new poll from More in Commons put Labour in third place behind Reform and the Tories, dropping three points to just 18 per cent support.
The Conservatives leapfrogged Sir Keir’s party, moving ahead of Labour with 19 per cent backing, while Reform was out in front with 31 per cent backing.
Speaking the morning after Sir Keir addressed a meeting of the parliamentary Labour Party last week, one minister said he and colleagues were “talking about the who and the how and the when to replace him”.
Meanwhile, a Labour backbencher accused the PM of being in denial about the fragility of his position, saying: “It’s a mix of everything. It’s the botched reshuffle. It’s all the poll ratings.
“It’s having to break the manifesto commitment to raise income tax in the Budget. It’s Peter Mandelson. It’s a belief among the PLP that the prime minister and Downing Street don’t really like them or respect them. Eventually, that feeling becomes mutual.”
Is it only a matter of time before this discontent breaks out into a leadership challenge?
