Just 80 Ukip candidates in Wales as Reckless quits.

Ukip really look like a busted flush on top of the news that UKIP AM Michelle Brown is to face a vote of no confidence among party members across north Wales. comes the news that UKIP AM Mark Reckless is set to quit the party and vote with the Conservative group in the Assembly.

Tory sources have said Mr Reckless, the AM for South Wales East, has held talks with Andrew RT Davies, leader of the Welsh Conservatives.

An announcement is due on Thursday which would see Mr Reckless join the Tory group in Cardiff Bay.

It is understood Mr Reckless will be an independent AM rather than re-join the Conservative Party.

The move could  give the Assembly Llywydd Elin Jones a headache  as she may have to decide if this  mean the Conservative group would become the second-largest, with 12 seats to Plaid Cymru's 11 and therefore the main opposition

Things are not much better in local government Just 80 UKIP candidates are standing in May's council elections in Wales, despite the party finishing fourth in the 2016 assembly poll.

Even in  Merthyr Tydfil where they seemed to be making a presence there are no Ukipcandidates.

BBC Wales' analysis of nominations suggests there are 944 Labour candidates, 630 Conservatives, 577 Plaid Cymru candidates, 280 Liberal Democrats, 80 UKIP and 78 Greens.

There are 160 candidates standing for other parties and 714 independents.

Supprisingly Independents seem to be the main challenger to Labour in Merthyr, Blaneau Gwent and Torfaen.

Disappointingly for me there will be no Plaid Candidate for me to vote in Beddau so as its a choice between Labour and a Tory . I will vote for the Labour candidate who seems a nice guy.

Indeed although Plaid look to be putting up a strong challenge in the Rhondda . they seem to be weak in the South of the County not fighting former seats like LLanharry and where there seems to be a concerted Tory effort.

Altogether 1,254 seats are up for grabs in Wales' 22 local authorities.

But 92 candidates have already been returned unopposed, a similar number to the 2012 elections. including Plaid rising star Mabon ap Gwynfor in Dembeigh.

One ward, Yscir in Powys, has attracted no candidates at all.

I hope this wil be the last time these elections are fought under First Past the vote and we will have STV  in the election so people can vote for which Party or Person they want and not against who they don't want.

Glyn Davies MP just another Tory Apparatchik ,

I used to be a bit of a fan of Tory MP Glyn Davies Blog A View From Rural Wales. as I think many who didn't share his politics did.

The Wikipedia entry states that

 'A View from Rural Wales' is generally regarded as one of Wales' most popular political blogs.^{[citation needed]} The British blogger Iain Dale is quoted as describing Davies as "By common consensus the best politician blogger in Wales and he's a real character"

Indeed when he first came to my attention as as Member of the National Assembly for Wales for the Welsh Conservative Party in the Mid and West Wales region from 1999 to 2007. Chair of the Agriculture and Rural Development Committee in the First Assembly; and the Environment, Planning and Countryside Committee in the Second Assembly. He looked like that he may well present a new approach for that party . a more liberal, pro devolution and sympathetic form of devolution

Indeed I was somewhat disappointed when he lost his Assembly seat in 2007 and perhaps again like others give a wry smile when he successfully  challenged Lembit Öpik, the Liberal Democrat MP for Montgomeryshire, at the 2010 UK

He beat Öpik to become the Member of Parliament for Montgomeryshire though how much this was due to Lembit somewhat controversial courting of publicity is open to question.

General election 2010: Montgomeryshire^[13][14]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Conservative	Glyn Davies	13,976	41.3	+13.8
	Liberal Democrat	Lembit Öpik	12,792	37.8	−12.5
	Plaid Cymru	Heledd Fychan	2,802	8.3	+1.3
	Labour	Nick Colbourne	2,407	7.1	−5.2
	UKIP	David W. L. Rowlands	1,128	3.3	+0.4
	National Front	Milton Ellis	384	1.1	N/A
	Independent	Bruce Lawson	324	1.0	N/A
Majority			1,184	3.5
Turnout			33,813	69.4	+3.1
	Conservative gain from Liberal Democrat		Swing	+13.2

However dispite some hope that he may peruse a more independent carrer on the Conservative Benches  and A View From Rural Wales.  has become little more than a defence  of Government policy.

This seems to have led to him receiving some critical comments. and he has not reacted to it well

He recently wrote on his Blog

To begin. If you are just reading this, looking to criticise and make some **** comment, don't bother. Comments are so miserable, (and almost always anonymous) that I'm no longer going to publish them. If you have no wish to engage in constructive debate, go read someone else's blog. I don't write it for you. I write it for me, to help me think through issues of concern.

Well to some extent  my Blogging is partly about me getting things of my chest but like Glyn Davies I publish them and am prepared for people to criticise this.


From the  "best politician blogger in Wales " Glyn Davies has become just another Tory Apparatchik  and it is with sorrow rather than anger my visits to his blog are going to be less frequent.

Ukip internal war in Wales continues.

Ukip seem to be falling apart UKIP has 20 members in the European Parliament, with representatives in eleven of the twelve European Parliament constituencies in the UK. Twenty-four UKIP representatives were elected in the 2014 election, but four have since defected.

They have lost thier  single MP Diuglass Carswell who  quit the party in March 2017 to become an independent, leaving UKIP without any MPs in the Commons.

UKIP won seven seats in the 2016 Welsh Assembly elections but, after a row, fellow north Wales AM and former UKIP Wales leader Nathan Gill left the assembly group to sit as an independent. though he is still a member 

He may well be joined by another 

UKIP AM Michelle Brown is to face a vote of no confidence among party members across north Wales.

Party activists met in Holywell, Flintshire, on Monday to discuss concerns about "serious misconduct".

In recent months, Ms Brown has denied a hotel's allegations of smoking recreational drugs, and of impropriety over changing the text of a job advert.

She declined an invitation to attend the meeting, and her spokesman described it as "petty infighting".

UKIP assembly leader Neil Hamilton said Ms Brown had his full support.

Members from six UKIP branches in north east Wales passed a vote of no confidence in Ms Brown but decided to hold a wider vote of members across north Wales in about a month's time.

Shaun Owen, vice-chair of UKIP's Delyn branch, told BBC Wales that activists in north Wales felt "deserted" by Ms Brown and by the party in general.

"We've been very active over the past 18 months to two-year period in getting her elected to a position as the AM and also, of course, promoting the Leave campaign,"
"A lot of people have put in a lot of effort, a lot of footwork, a lot of time and a lot of money into those campaigns as well, only to be rejected by Michelle Brown."

 UKIP Delyn treasurer Susan Williams added the AM was not "engaging with the population" or properly representing them in the assembly.

Neil Hamilton told BBC Wales the meeting was organised by people who were largely not members of UKIP. 

"This meeting has no constitutional significance at all," he said.
"It's a culmination of a long and bitter campaign, a personal campaign against her, and she has my full support."

 BBC Wales say it  has seen a copy of a letter from Mr Owen inviting Ms Brown to the meeting to discuss her "serious misconduct", saying there was a "deep sense of growing disquiet, disillusionment and alarm" amongst members.

The letter listed 18 concerns, including an accusation by a Cardiff hotel that the UKIP AM for north Wales smoked "recreational drugs" in her bedroom.

Ms Brown's spokesman has denied the allegation, saying the "strong smell" in her room was caused by a strong tobacco product.

Details of discussions between Ms Brown and an assembly official concerning how an advert for a job in her office could be changed to help her brother get an interview for the post are also included in the letter.

Ms Brown has said she acted with "complete propriety" in the matter.

Mr Owen's letter also cited a property leased by the North Wales AM to serve as her regional office which has never been opened.

Responding to a Freedom of Information request by BBC Wales, the Welsh Assembly said it had paid £2,027.93 for the property between October 2016 and March 2017.

The assembly said the office in Shotton, Flintshire, was not occupied "because work necessary to ensure its security was carried out incorrectly".

Responding to the letter, a spokesman for Ms Brown said: 

"This letter represents nothing more than some petty infighting that is a relic from the pre-Nuttall era."

I wonder what that means? Is there a purge of Farage supporters on the cards?


Let face it i couldn't give a dam if  Ms Brown snoked pot in her Hotel unless she was to condemn it in others.

The details over her brothers job application are bad but I wonder how many AM's have tweaked the process to employ family members?

Who leaked it anyway?

It  may well be that other Parties feel their AM of MP is not up to scratch, but Ukip seem a party where members put their individual ambition first and beleive it is or she that should be sitting in a seat and are prepared to split the party to do so.

When Ukip won the seven assembly seats last year I pondered how many would still be in the group by the next election.

The way things are going not many.

Four Days after Brexit starts we are talking about War.

Four Days just Four Days into the Official Brexit and we are already talking about gping to War with Spain

And some Tories seem to be pumped up with steroids over the prospect, former Tory leader Michael Howard compared Theresa May’s promise to stand by Gibraltar during the Brexit negotiations to the Thatcher Government’s decision to go to war over the Falklands, in an interview on Sky News.

He told Sophy Ridge on Sky News:

“There is no question whatever that our Government will stand by 
Gibraltar.“Thirty five years ago this week ­another woman prime minister sent a task force half way across the world to defend the freedom of another small group of British people against another Spanish-speaking country. I am absolutely certain our current Prime Minister will show the same resolve.”

One retired Rear Admiral told the Daily Telegraph that Britain could still "cripple" Spain but more investment in the military were required.

Rear-Admiral Chris Parry, a former director of operational capability at the Ministry of Defence, said:

"If the Government wants to talk big over Gibraltar, or indeed anywhere else, they have to invest appropriately in the military capacity to back that up."We are a lot less powerful than we were during the Falklands and we are less sustainable over time. Our capacity for actually enforcing our national will in military terms is significantly less."Our war fighting assets are weak after years of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and because of the disingenuous way in which the Government has resourced defence.

 Bur he added: 

"We could cripple Spain in the medium term and I think the Americans would probably support us too. Spain should learn from history that it is never worth taking us on and that we could still singe the King of Spain’s beard”

The Prospect of Gibraltar   becoming a spark for a US -EU war seems ludicrous but lets face with Trump in the White House and Boris Johnson in the UK Foreign Office god knows what could happen.


Gibraltar British Overseas Territory one of those parts of the British Empire that have not been granted independence or have voted to remain British territories. These territories do not form part of the United Kingdom and, with the exception of Gibraltar, are not part of the European Union,

Maybe the UK now wish they had given Gibraltar the same status of a a self-governing crown dependency

In a referendum held in 2002, Gibraltarians rejected by an overwhelming majority (98%) a proposal of shared sovereignty on which Spain and Britain were said to have reached "broad agreement".[

The Isle of Man holds neither membership nor associate membership of the European Union, and thus did not take part in the 2016 referendum on the UK's EU membership. Protocol 3 of the UK's Act of Accession to the Treaty of Rome included the Isle of Man within the EU's customs area, allowing for trade in Manx goods without tariffs throughout the EU. However, there are still limitations on the movement of capital and services.


But this wil be another problem where the status of an small Island whose wishes will not be considerd wil be affected by Brexit

In a referendum held in 2002, Gibraltarians rejected by an overwhelming majority (98%) a proposal of shared sovereignty on which Spain and Britain were said to have reached "broad agreement".[

But Gibraltar overwhelmingly voted to remain in the Union. There was a strong voter turnout of 82% resulting in 19,322 votes to remain and only 823 to leave..

The Government have had a year before signing article 50 and clearly failed to consider anything other than Brexit means Brexit.

The consequences of this failure in diplomacy with what will be our former partners, could be dire,

Labour will lose Welsh Councillors this May some may be missed.

These May elections will probably see the unusual scenarioof the major UK opposition party taking a hit and loosing seats.

This will be particular true in Scotland where Labour will not even be saved by the Proportional   Electoral System of STV and they could end up with less seats than the Tories.

But the system may well save a number of their better councillors who worked hard for their constituents and who may have been replaced due to changes in political rather than Personal support.

In Wales Labour are also going to lose seats having had a stunning win 2012 as they seemingly reestablished their hegemony here.

Party		Votes[17]	%	+/-	Councils	+/-	Seats	+/-
	Labour	304,296	36.0%	9.4%	10	8	577	237
	Plaid Cymru	133,961	15.8%	1.1%	0		158	39
	Conservative	108,365	12.8%	2.8%	0	2	105	67
	Liberal Democrat	68,619	8.1%	4.8%	0		72	92
	Independent/Others	231,026	27.3%	0.7%	2	1	329	40
	No overall control	n/a	n/a	n/a	9	5	n/a	n/a

How many they lose is open to question .Will the Lib Dems reestablish them selves in Swansea and Cardiff (Where Plaid also have hopes) and will Plaid regain ground in Rhondda Cynon Taf and Caerphilly ?

Its clear Labour are worried hence this twitter response from Rhondda MP Chris Bryant

Chris Bryant MP‏Verified account @RhonddaBryant  20h20 hours ago

Chris Bryant MP Retweeted LeanneWood

I hope you'll explain why your referendum on Welsh independence would be good for the Rhondda?

Chris Bryant MP added,

LeanneWoodVerified account @LeanneWood

Mas yn Nhonypandy y bore 'ma / some of team @RhonddaPlaid will be out in #Tonypandy with Wendy Allsop this morning. #Plaid17 @Plaid_Cymru

32 replies5 retweets15 likes

 

 

To which came the response 

LeanneWood‏Verified account @LeanneWood  9h9 hours ago9 hours agoMoreReplying to @RhonddaBryant
People know this election is about local matters & the council not constitutional questions. You worried? #desperate
#NotAGoodLook #Plaid17

In an ideal world Leanne would be right, but constitutional questions may be a big thing in Scotland and the Lib Dems will be  hoping for a Brexit backlash and Remainers. turning to them.

Lots of good Plaid,Lib Dem,  Independent and indeed a few  Tory councillors lost seats last time to be replaced by lesser Labour ones.

The reverse may happen this time if the Polls are to believed and Good Labour councillors  will lose their seats only to see useless ones of the same party cling on.

If we had PR as in Scotland,S.T.V. would allow us to vote for a Party we support on  National, local and yes constitutional  questions but also allow us if we choose to vote for those who have generally served our communities.

We have too few of such individuals and it would be a pity to lose some next May.

Leanne Wood criticised for promoting "Posh" Tea.

By Martin Shitstirrer.

 Parties in the Welsh Assembly have reacted to Leanne Wood apparently appearing in a TV advert for posh tea suppliers Twinings

In it she can be seen giving he trademark saucy wink to camera as dances through a graphic background to a sound track bt
 former sex bomb Bridget Bardot


Olaf Priol Plaid  beverage spokesman said 

" This is Fake News. What Leanne chooses to drink is her own affair"

A Labour Spokesman said

"It is typical of Plaid that their leader makes such a big thing pf her Rhondda Roots and buying local that she advertises this Posh Persons Teas  and not the "Welsh Tea" that is Glengettie"

Asked what Tea Carwyn Jones drank the spokesperson said 

"I don'y know I think his wife gets it from Tesco"s in Bridgend., 

he later ussued a statement that

 Carwyn  did his own share of the weekly shop and did not want to give the impression it was his wife  who bore the brunt of it.

We asked the other Party leaders what Beveridge they drank

A Spokesman for Andrew RT Davies said 

"Now we are approaching Brexit we will be able to come to agreements with members of the Commonwealth  opening lucrative opportunists for our choice of tea. Andrew of course is partial to a nice Earl Grey",

Neil Hamilton's spokesman said that 

"the UKip leader had prefered Camp Coffee before the PC brigade made the  makers of the chicory-flavoured essence use an image of a Scottish soldier sitting side by side drinking coffee with a turbaned Sikh.

Earlier labels showed the Indian apparently serving the kilted soldier which provoked a storm of protest from race equality groups who claimed at the time that the label delivered "an offensive and racist" message."

"Now Neil was looking forward  to the Label revering back to its original soon".

A LibDem spokesperson was contacted but said that 

"although under the coalition they had joined in the preference for Earl Grey , they now favoured the Typhoo brand,"

"Though Kirsty Wiliams now she was a Welsh Government cabinet member in in not a coalition had joined Carwyn in a cup of Glengettie"

The Green Party said they didn't have a preference . 

but favoured Free Trade 

products even when they tasted like crap.