"The arms that you wield now are not such as your forefathers wielded; but they are infinitely more effective, and infinitely more irresistable" ~ Cymru Fydd leaflet, 1890

Friday 7 October 2016

Scraping the Barrel - Jo Stevens

Jeremy Corbyn would probably be the first to admit that he didn't have a lot of choice when it came to appointing a new Shadow Secretary of State for Wales, what with all the 'moderate' knives in his 'lefty' back. But his choice of Cardiff Central's Jo Stevens is really scraping the barrel.

We know Jeremy Corbyn couldn't give a toss about Wales, his voting record proves this. But what about Jo? Off I went to They Work For You to see what her records are like on the subject of Wales.

And do you know what it says? In bold type at the top of the page it says "Jo Stevens has never voted on transferring more powers to the Welsh Assembly".

Saturday 30 July 2016

Paul Flynn thinks you're gullible

Newport West MP Paul Flynn isn't happy with a recent photo of empty Labour benches during a debate on Wales on July 11th. It's worthwhile mentioning the July 11th date again just so that people are quite aware of the date, which as you should know by now was July 11th.

Photo from Hywel William, original tweet.

Thursday 28 July 2016

Take me to your leader - 2016 edition.

Back when Labour held their leadership election last year I ran a comparison of the four horsepeople of the apocalypse that were standing. As a lot of Labour MPs clearly didn't like the results of last years contest, and because it's quite easy to do, here's the updated version featuring this years entrants.

There are no shocks contained within this image.

Tuesday 19 July 2016

Did your MP vote against new nukes?

The latest figure on renewing the UK's nuclear weapons stands at between £167 billion (MoD) and £205 billion (CnD) depending on whose figures you believe. Both eye watering amounts are calculated on the initial cost plus 30 years worth of upkeep.

New Prime Minister Theresa May opted to call a vote on renewing the nukes, presumably in order to piss off Scotland a bit more and as an easy way of causing further division amongst Labour.

But enough about that, let's get on with showing who voted to spend billions of pounds on weapons of mass destruction and who didn't.

Wouldn't you prefer a good game of chess?

Saturday 14 May 2016

Scumbag Labour - Fingers Crossed

The Red Tories down in Cardiff West apparently haven't quite gotten over Neil McEvoy giving Mark Drakeford a fright in the constituency election before getting elected on the list.

Before an AM is allowed to take up their role in the Senedd they have to bend the knee and crawl on the ground like a worm and swear fealty to the English queen, Betty Battenberg.

Like so many others before him, Neil chose to cross his fingers as a sign that he was begrudgingly repeating some words in order to represent the people who elected him. This is where Labour's faux-outrage and hypocrisy comes in.

Tweet

Friday 13 May 2016

Scumbag Labour - I'r Gad Alun!

A video started doing the rounds recently which shows a young and skinny Alun Davies speaking quite frankly on camera about the Labour party.

Alun used to be a member of Plaid Cymru until he switched allegiances to Labour. The video appears to be from the mid 2000s when I myself was young and skinny. Clearly we've both visited the same spare chin shop at some point over the passed decade but enough of that. I've decided to share the video because it's interesting how someone who had such anti-Labour convictions could become swayed into becoming a Labour AM.

AD is gangster AF

Wednesday 11 May 2016

FM Wars IV - A New Hope

Mark the date in your calendar. May 11th was the day when Welsh politics became interesting as what was meant to be the formality of reinstating Carwyn Jones as First Minister took a shock turn.

Ynys Môn AM Rhun ap Iorwerth nominated Plaid Cymru Leader Leanne Wood as their challenger. Nothing interesting there but what followed was as all the Labour AMs naturally voted for Carwyn Jones and all the Plaid Cymru, Conservative and UKIP AMs voted for Leanne Wood. The sole Lib Dem AM, Kirsty Williams gave her vote to Carwyn in order to create a dead lock.

The vote finished 29-29. As is customary the Presiding Officer and Deputy Presiding Officer do not vote. Since they are from Plaid Cymru and Labour it wouldn't have made any difference at all.

As interesting as all this is I wanted to look at the claims from Labour that they had a clear mandate to govern.

Now I've already debunked the 'largest party myth' when Labour were banging on about it before the General Election in 2015 and the same rules stand here in Wales and Rhun ap Iorwerth mention it in the EBC article. I wont repeat myself or Rhun, I'll just post some sexy charts to show Labour's mandate for what it is.

This isn't a sexy chart, It's Carwyn having a blub. Source EBC

Sunday 8 May 2016

A look at South Wales Central

I saw an interesting tweet from Leighton Andrews over the weekend. In the tweet the former Labour Minister was congratulating a Tory AM on retaining his list seat. Unless you've been living under a rock these past few days you'll be aware that Leighton Andrews lost his constituency seat due to the Rhondda putting their faith in Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood.

Having fine tuned my list seat spreadsheet I entered the results to see what would have happened had the Rhondda not woken up.

At least we now have one less Labour hypocrite.

Saturday 7 May 2016

The hypocrisy of the UKIP haters.

The Welsh elections have been and gone and people all over Wales (and beyond) are tearing their hair out that UKIP had seven Assembly Members elected thanks to the form of proportional representation that our democracy allows.

Hey Heath, Imma let you finish but Cesar Romero was the greatest joker of all time.

Friday 6 May 2016

Welsh Election Results - 2016

The 2016 Welsh elections were held on May 5th. The main shock saw Plaid Cymru's leader Leanne Wood winning the Rhondda seat ahead of former Education Minister Leighton Andrews. The collapse of Labour's vote (-27%) coupled with the increase in the Plaid vote (+21%) is something we're used to seeing with the SNP in Scotland, but not with Plaid Cymru in Wales.

Another surprise of the night was Kirsty Williams almost trebling her majority in Brecon and Radnorshire. Despite losing four seats, this woeful showing from the Lib Dems won't cause a leadership challenge as Kirsty is now the sole Liberal Democrat in the Senedd. (Edit - Kirsty has now resigned as leader of, umm, herself. You couldn't make this up).

UKIP performed as well as the polls had predicted. I have previously looked at the results for the EU Elections in 2014 and the General Election in 2015 so their performance shouldn't have shocked anyone as the Welsh elections includes proportional voting which gave UKIP seven regional seats.

With thanks to ITV I have compiled the following table. I have ignored the independent candidates and the whack jobs. The forty seats are listed alphabetically on the left with the colour of the party who won the seat. Their vote figure is colour coded to show where they placed. Despite it showing the Lib Dems and Greens finishing fifth and sixth there were some seats where independents hammered them both.

Click to make it bigger, or squint at the screen it's your choice.

Monday 4 April 2016

Guide to the Welsh Election - 2016

On the 5th May 2016 the people of Wales will once again vote for who they want to become their Assembly Members for the next term. This then helps decided who will form the next Welsh government. I thought I'd put together a guide to explain how the Welsh elections work for the benefit of the first time voters. I'll update the page up until the election.

1. You need to be on the electoral register in order to vote.
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Monday 7 March 2016

The Red Dragon - The story of the Welsh Flag

The nice people at Y Lolfa have sent me a copy of Siôn T Jobbins' new book, The Red Dragon - The story of the Welsh Flag. As with the previous book review I will be giving a copy away to one lucky reader but for those who can't wait you can grab a copy from Y Lolfa here.

The cover is simple, a black background with a picture of Gareth Bale holding our flag during the celebrations after the last match of the Euro 2016 qualifying campaign. The back cover has a few different pictures featuring the red dragon as well as the expected synopsis and a brief introduction to Siôn. At just under 100 pages it won't put many people off, neither will the £3.99 price tag.-

Ti'n croeso Gareth bach.

Friday 19 February 2016

Scumbag Labour - Jam Tomorrow 2016

In May 2016 we once again go to the polls to elect a new Welsh government. This will be the fifth set of elections since devolution began and each of the previous four saw Labour emerge as leaders of the Welsh Government.

Even before the first Welsh election in 1999 Labour had already been running Wales from London since 1997 so effectively Labour have been running Wales for 19 years.

So when I saw Labour's latest pre-election bribes pledges I had to question why they were pledges. Why can't they just do them and then let us judge them on their record.

Jam Tomorrow 2016 edition

Sunday 24 January 2016

#DespiteBeingTaughtInWelsh

They've only gone and done it again. The Western Fail, the self-titled 'national newspaper of Wales' has insulted Welsh speakers once again in a piece that made Welsh education sound like a disability.

There's no such thing as bad publicity, right? - Share via twitter | facebook
Screenshots via Rhun ap Iorwerth and Nic from Wales

Saturday 16 January 2016

Colonialism 3.0

I'm in the middle of working on a new site and was looking to buy one of these newfangled .wales or .cymru website. I have mentioned these way back in 2012 with the appropriately titled Colonialism 2.0.

Wales' domain names launched in 2015 and I made the decision to keep with my .com for this site. And don't worry about an extra site, this site will remain as infrequently updated as it has always been.

Off I went to ourhomeonline.wales and sure enough the domain I was looking for was available. It then presented you with a selection of resellers that you can purchase the domain from. The initial selection is quite limited but it does present you with an option of displaying all of the resellers.

Resellers of .wales and .cymru domains from here

Sunday 10 January 2016

Let's all laugh at the BNP

A lot of people are currently having a bit of a laugh at the BNP after it was revealed that they failed to register themselves in time as a political party. I don't know whether this means they wont be able to field candidates in the upcoming Welsh and Scottish elections and to be honest I'm not bothered enough to look, but if any readers know please feel free to answer this question.

The BNP (and those in small right wing parties like them) provide those on the left with a few services. Firstly they give them the ability to say how disgusted they are by comments or actions (which I know from experience is always good for a few retweets or shares),

Former BNP leader Nick Griffin is now a voters of the UKIPs.

Friday 1 January 2016

Dear Wylfa, see you in 2105

The Wylfa nuclear plant has finally ceased operating, it is the last Magnox station with the majority being shut down a decade ago. But one sentence from the news article really shows just how selfish nuclear power is.

"The whole area will then be left until final site clearance at the start of the next century in 2105."

In 2105 you may finally have hover boards but you'll still need to clean up the mess we left you. Share via twitter | facebook