Monday, April 12, 2021
Sunday, April 11, 2021
Saturday, April 10, 2021
Tuesday, March 30, 2021
Module 3 Opening Statements - Tuesday 30th March 2021 (1/1) #GrenfellInquiry
Mayor of London / Fire Brigades Union / London Fire Commissioner
Monday, March 29, 2021
Wednesday, March 24, 2021
Sunday, March 21, 2021
Saturday, March 20, 2021
Thursday, March 18, 2021
British Board of Agrément (#BBA) Evidence - Wednesday 17th March 2021 (1/2)#Grenfell
Brian Moore - Chris Hunt
Monday, March 15, 2021
Cyngor Gwynedd Council Fail.: CEO Retires - What Next For Cyngor Gwynedd Council ?
The Chief Executive Officer of Cyngor Gwynedd council, Dilwyn Williams, has announced he is to retire at the end of this month.
Dilwyn O Williams was appointed CEO in 2014, replacing Harry Thomas who had been in position since 2003.
Like Thomas, Mr Williams had worked for the council for many years, before the creation of the new unitary Gwynedd council and abolishment of the previous authority after the North Wales Child Abuse scandal and boundary changes.
The reign of Harry Thomas ended under a cloud with 'angry council workers will walk out of their jobs in protest after
bosses were awarded pay rises of thousands of pounds while theirs were
frozen...'
From 2013 -https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/angry-council-workers-walk-out-2503378
"Assets and customer care director Dilwyn Williams, education, skills
and regeneration director Iwan Trefor Jones and planning and public
protection director Dafydd Lewis had rises of £5,839 to £88,960.
Increases
for 11 heads of service ranged from £1,042 to £5,094. For example the
heads of social services and education saw their salaries rise by £3,311
from £72,200 to £75,511. The decision was taken by the council in June
but staff say they weren’t told."
Dilwyn started off as a clerk for the former Caernarfon Council, then became Head of Accountancy for the new authority, then Strategic Resources Director, Corporate Director and finally CEO, where he has held the position for the last seven years.
His tenure as CEO began when the Westminster government austerity cuts really began to bite.
Some
in the council have praised his work over the period, making £millions
of cuts to vital services and jobs, the closing of community schools and
youth clubs, the increasing Council Tax rises. Less services for even
more money. This in the main under the dictates of the westminster
government and the austerity measures first imposed by Cameron and
Osbourne.
Under his stewardship, serious failings with the
council have been highlighted in many reports, including five Ombudsman
for Wales investigations. These include breaches of Human Rights,
interference with the social services complaints process and so called
'independent' investigations, ignorance of Law, policy and procedures
and basically council officer's behaving very badly, indeed.
There have been data breaches, censoring of personal information, misrepresenting evidence, misinformation and fabrication.
There was the case of the social worker being suspended by Gwynedd council for two and a half years until she won her Employment Tribunal. More on that here -
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5cf61dd7e5274a0771578036/1600022.2017_Mr_S_Parry_v_Gwynedd_Council_-_CORRECTED_JUDGMENT_AND_REASONS.pdf
Then
there was the Employment Tribunal which found against the council for
their dismissal of two local teachers - “extraordinary”,
“ill-conceived”, and “emphatically wrong”.
More on that here - https://gwyneddsfailingcouncil.blogspot.com/2020/07/cyngor-gwynedd-council-extraordinary.html
Then along came the pandemic and a year of death, stress and change for all.
At
a national and a local level Wales did well with the first lockdown and
community spirit came to the fore. Some schools remained open to take
the children of 'key workers'. People and organisations all rallied
round and ensured medications were received and food parcels delivered
to those in need.
Cyngor Gwynedd council kept things very close to
their chests. Millions of pounds have been given out to local
businesses for support during the pandemic whilst Councillors have
complained of being left out of the decision making process -
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/gwynedd-councillors-say-were-shut-18705757
'One member claimed there was a 'lack of trust' in the ruling cabinet group'
Then
came the issue of hotdesking and virtual locations and the Audit office
raising concerns with travel expenses -
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/eyebrows-raised-what-schools-agency-18716183
'While the council's decision to change the rules was aimed at saving around £290,000 a year, GwE - which is funded by North Wales authorities - saw its expenditure increase between 2017 and 2019.'
'An audit also found that mileage claims were not being checked properly, leading to one instance where an 800 mile claim submitted for an 80 mile journey was processed before the mistake was found'
Then there was the issue of the council's car pool when it was reported that some officers were using the vehicles inappropriately, publicised by the very obvious banner next to Morrison's supermarket in Caernarfon, that was quickly taken down by the council.
A review of the council's social services policies for those with Autism without a learning disability has been released though not yet published. It mentions the ring fenced monies that have been allocated for such services over the years and calls for immediate actions.
Statutory annual reports from some council departments are already late, with no dates announced for completion nor opportunity to scrutinise what has been a truly tumultous period.
At the time of Dilwyn's announcement to retire the news came that a former colleague of his, Lucille Margaret Hughes, had died. Miss Hughes was once the Director of Gwynedd social services during the North Wales Child Abuse scandal and presided over the sacking of a social worker who attempted to whistleblow the care home abuses.
Miss Hughes, also worked for CAIS and had been living in the grace and favour apartments at Penhyrn Castle for many years.
Cyngor Gwynedd Council Fail.: CEO Retires - What Next For Cyngor Gwynedd Council ?:
Saturday, March 13, 2021
How China is creating the world’s largest prison | Four Corners
It’s a remote corner of the world, but what is taking place in China’s Xinjiang province is nothing short of breathtaking.
Today its #Uyghur population is being systematically rounded up and detained, with estimates of as many as a million citizens being held in re-education camps.
Even those still left in their homes are being monitored. The communist regime is using cutting edge technology, mass surveillance tools and artificial intelligence to control an entire population.
By piecing together witness accounts from #Australian citizens caught up in the Chinese Government’s campaign, along with satellite imagery analysis and official documents uncovered online, the truth about what is occurring in Xinjiang is laid bare.
We have uncovered evidence of detainees being forced to work in factories with implications for Australian companies doing business in the region.
We also reveal concerning evidence about Australia’s links to China’s dystopian surveillance state and the tools used to racially profile its own citizens. The events unfolding in China are creating heartbreak for Uyghurs in Australia. They have stayed quiet for fear of provoking the authorities into punishing their relatives. Now, in desperation they are breaking their silence to tell the world what is going on.
Friday, March 12, 2021
STOP CORRUPTION IN POLITICS TO ENABLE REAL CHANGE - Neil McEvoy
Neil McEvoy, a Member of the Welsh Parliament and Leader of Propel, Wales' brand new political party, chats about his past, present and future and how he's attempting to implement change, through leading the Propel Wales, non-aligned political grass roots movement. Working toward Direct Democracy and influencing Welsh Politics from within.
Boris Johnson on Priti Patel, Coronavirus and Changing Nappies | This Mo...
Boris Johnson: Well it’s a very, very important question, and that’s where a lot of the debate has been and one of the theories is, that perhaps you could take it on the chin, take it all in one go and allow the disease, as it were, to move through the population, without taking as many draconian measures. I think we need to strike a balance, I think it is very important, we’ve got a fantastic NHS, we will give them all the support that they need, we will make sure that they have all preparations, all the kit that they need for us to get through it. But I think it would be better if we take all the measures that we can now to stop the peak of the disease being as difficult for the NHS as it might be, I think there are things that we may be able to do.
Thursday, March 11, 2021
Tuesday, March 09, 2021
Monday, March 08, 2021
Thursday, March 04, 2021
Wednesday, March 03, 2021
Tuesday, March 02, 2021
Monday, March 01, 2021
Sunday, February 28, 2021
Thursday, February 25, 2021
Wednesday, February 24, 2021
Tuesday, February 23, 2021
Monday, February 15, 2021
Cyngor Gwynedd Council - #FOI Internal Review - 50 Working Days And Counting.
In June, 2019, the Chief Executive Officer of Cyngor Gwynedd Council, Dilwyn O Williams, wrote a letter of apology for the failings found within Gwynedd Children's Social Services department.
It was short, making no mention of the Ombudsman's findings of Gwynedd SS's interference in an 'independent' investigation, nor the behaviour by senior officers meted out to the Investigator who felt 'bullied' and 'overwhelmed' to change critical aspects of a complaint report. But he did affirm the SS department's agreement to implement the recommendations within three months that included -
The Council should (within three months) seek specialist input to develop a plan for dealing with future assessment and support requests from/for those suffering with Autism
In November, 2019, Mr Williams, declared to a Care Scrutiny Committee that all recommendations had been met, bar a nuance. Mr Williams, was then summoned to Cardiff by the Ombudsman for Wales to discuss why the recommendations had not been met.
Previous
blog articles have published excerpts of emails from the Ombudsman
for Wales that contradict the statements of Mr Williams and Mr Dafydd
Paul to the Care Scrutiny Committee and the general public - so where
are we now?
The specialist input involves a review of Autism services in Gwynedd which should have been presented to the council in March,2020.
The council then told the Ombudsman that the external expert
commissioned to undertake the report had failed to complete on time due
to the pandemic. The Ombudsman was informed that the consultant would
present the report to the council by the 30th September, 2020.
Having lost all trust in the council, a copy of this report was requested. Morwena Edwards, Director of SS, replied saying that the request had been treated as a Freedom of Information request (FOI) and the council had decided to refuse the request. So on December 3rd, 2020, an Internal Review of the FOI refusal was requested. This should by Law take 20 working days.
The 20 working days came and went with no response - then 30 days. An email was sent to the Information department asking for an update - this was ignored. A second email was sent to both the Information department and to customer care, this time asking for acknowledgment of the email - no response from either.
An email was then sent to the officer who originally dealt with the FOI request. A response was received on a Sunday explaining that the Monitoring Officer, Iwan G D Evans, was dealing with the Review and had been since December 3rd. So an email was sent to the Monitoring Officer asking for an update. This too was ignored.
As no-one had responded, the original email to Mr Evans was resent to customer care asking them to pass on the email to the Information department and the Monitoring Officer and to acknowledge receipt that the email had been received.
A response was forthcoming this time, again from the same officer who had refused the original request. He replied that he hoped
the Monitoring Officer would be in contact soon. It is now 50 working
days since Mr Evans received the request for an internal review.
The Monitoring Officer has a statutory responsibility to ensure that the
Council operates in a lawful manner and that it does not do anything
which could amount to maladministration.
How's that going ?
Something is very wrong within Gwynedd council.
Cyngor Gwynedd Council Fail.: Gwynedd Council - FOI Internal Review - 50 Working...:
Sunday, February 14, 2021
Saturday, February 13, 2021
Silence From #Unison And #Unite the Union Re #BetsiCadwaladr
With regard to the Robin #Holden report
into Institutional Abuse at #BCUHB dated 2013, snippets of the report
have appeared in the media informing of staff in tears and at the end of
their tether working in the North Wales NHS mental health units. Issues
of bullying are also said to be raised within the report.
The Information Commissioner had ordered
BCUHB to release the report but the Board have refused and are
appealing the ICO's decision. The Tribunal has a date of early 2021...
Local Trade Union branches in North Wales were recently approached for their
thoughts and reaction to the report by the North Wales Community Health Council into
Vascular services at BCUHB and in particular the worry of increased
limb loss amongst patients. The use of antibiotics was also raised as a
concern.
That report, dated 8th October, 2019, can be found here -
http://www.wales.nhs.uk/sitesplus/documents/900/Exec%20Minutes%2008102019%20%28APPROVED%29.pdf
It is a PDF document that will not open a new page but will be downloaded to your pc.
#Unison branches in the area were
reluctant to give any response, some did not even acknowledge the
question of if they were going to make a public statement on the damning
report.
The decision by the local union officers
to make no statement regarding the treatment of staff and the patients
within the health board has come as a surprise to many members,
especially after the shocking revelations now being made in the local
press.
Now I may have expected too much from Unison as I am not a member so I approached my own union, Unite.
An acknowledgment was received from the
BCU branch secretary and senior workplace rep, with regard to my
inquiry, excerpts of which are reproduced below -
...concerns come through the recent review of the
Board's Vascular Services and in particular claims of those in fear for
their careers if they speak out.
Have the Trade Unions had contact with the Board and
what has been the response from senior managers within the organisation
- if any ?
There is also the issue of the Board discharging
1700 mental health patients from their services and the LA's having to
pick up the pieces - during the lockdown.
The senior workplace rep, duly responded and on the 2nd June, said that they would be discussing with the regional officers and get back to me.
The Unite rep did eventually get back to me via Facebook -
"As you are not a member of the BCU branch and you are not an employee of BCUHB I can’t provide you with that information im afraid. If you require information you will need to address your concerns to the Regional Secretary Peter Hughes at the Cardiff Office."
Any union members that have concerns regarding work practices or whistleblowing in BCUHB may be better informing the regional organisers outside of the BCUHB region. The same goes for any Unison or Unite members within the local government organisations of North Wales.
Something is very wrong within the local government organisations of North Wales.
Cyngor Gwynedd Council Fail.: Silence From Unison And Unite Trade Unions. #BCUHB:
Friday, February 12, 2021
Thursday, February 11, 2021
Wednesday, February 10, 2021
Monday, February 08, 2021
Friday, February 05, 2021
Thursday, February 04, 2021
Wednesday, February 03, 2021
#Brithdir care home inquest - stomach feeding tube was infected with MRSA, which caused sepsis.
From the BBC - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55924695
An 85-year-old woman was sent from a care home to hospital without a member of staff, medical history or next of kin details, an inquest has heard.
Edith Evans arrived at Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr Tydfil from Brithdir care home "unclean, with hair matted and unkempt, incontinent and dirty with faeces, and had been in this condition for some time".
Her stomach feeding tube was infected with MRSA, which caused sepsis.
She died in September 2005.
The inquest in Newport is hearing evidence into the deaths of seven residents at the care home near Bargoed, Caerphilly county.
Rachel Pulman, a staff nurse at the hospital, gave details to the inquest of the condition she found Ms Evans in on her arrival.
She called the home for more information and found nurse-matron Philip McCaffrey "rude and uncooperative".
"He didn't appear to care about what was happening and wasn't interested," she said.
"His attitude was disgusting, he was uncooperative, rude and didn't seem caring at all."
Ms Evans's niece Gail Morris told the hearing that her aunt was the "life and soul of the family" but she suffered a "painful and distressing death" in September 2005.
She told the inquest that she had not been greatly concerned about her aunt's care at Brithdir until the point where she saw that the equipment being used to feed her was dirty.
She said she never saw the tube in Ms Evans's stomach and did not know she had an MRSA infection until she was taken to hospital.
Mrs Morris also told the inquiry her aunt was often not wearing her own clothes and that she could not understand how she had dirty fingernails when she was not mobile.
She said she had raised the issues with the patient's social worker and said the whole home could have done with a clean.
A social worker told the inquest a review she carried out into Ms Evans's care at Brithdir was not "robust enough".
Kerry Goodwyn said she was aware there were "overarching concerns" about the care home but there was "not enough meat on the bones".
She also admitted her own investigation into Ms Evans's care was "not to the best of my ability".
The inquest is hearing evidence into the deaths of six other former residents, including Stanley James, 89, June Hamer, 71, William Hickman, 71, Evelyn Jones, 87, and Matthew Higgins.
More - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55924695
Saturday, January 30, 2021
The #Lockerbie Case: "Independent" Lockerbie commentator "instructed an...
[What follows is excerpted from a report in today's edition of The Scotsman headlined Academic who defended Tehran against Lockerbie allegations accused of secretly working for Iranian government:]
Authorities in the US allege Kaveh Afrasiabi, a political scientist and veteran commentator on Iranian issues, of acting and conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of the Iranian state for more than a decade, during which time he made media appearances rejecting any suggestions that Iran was involved in the 1988 atrocity.
A complaint filed against Afrasiabi in a federal court in New York alleges that he was instructed over what to say to journalists by Iranian government officials assigned to the country’s permanent mission to the United Nations, before advocating positions and policies “favoured” by Iran.
The interviews included Afrasiabi’s views on a 2014 Al Jazeera documentary, entitled ‘Lockerbie: What Really Happened?’, which claimed the bombing was ordered by Iran and carried out by the Syrian-based terror group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.
The documentary, which was subsequently screened in the Scottish Parliament, included testimony from Abolghasem Mesbahi, a former high-ranking Iranian intelligence agent, who said Iran had sanctioned the attack in revenge for the destruction in July 1988 of an Iranian airbus mistakenly shot down by USS Vincennes.
Afrasiabi, a former visiting scholar at Harvard University, went on to appear on an Al Jazeera interview, refuting the documentary’s premise. However, the complaint against him alleges he was advised on what to say by a press secretary at the Iranian mission, and told to state that he was giving his views as an “independent expert.”
During a phone call with the Iranian official on 11 March 2014, the complaint goes on, Afrasiabi was instructed “in sum and substance to explain that both the US and Britain completed their investigations” into the incident.
It also alleges that the day after the interview, Afrasiabi advised the Iranian government to threaten a $500 million lawsuit against Al Jazeera,” stating that it “would act as a brake on their current plan and might put a stop.” He added: “Soft diplomacy does not answer this specific situation.”
Afrasiabi also sent Al Jazeera an article prepared by his Iranian government contacts refuting the documentary’s claims, according to the complaint.
It adds that since 2007, Afrasiabi has “surreptitiously derived a significant portion of his income from compensation for services performed at the direction and under the control of the government of the Islamic republic of Iran,” claiming he received more than $265,000 over the period, as well as health insurance benefits.
More -
The Lockerbie Case: "Independent" Lockerbie commentator "instructed an...:
Friday, January 29, 2021
Tuesday, January 26, 2021
Monday, January 25, 2021
Thursday, January 21, 2021
Wednesday, January 20, 2021
Wednesday, January 13, 2021
#UK government figures hide £800 billion hoarded by super-rich
The wealthiest in society are much richer than Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government would have everyone believe.
New research highlighted by the Resolution Foundation estimates that official government figures massively underestimate the growing wealth of the richest in the UK. A huge £800 billion, or five percent of aggregate wealth in the UK held by the wealthiest families, was missed by the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures.
The findings reveal that the level of inequality between rich and poor, which rose sharply after the 2008 banking crisis, is much wider than previously thought. The wealthiest one percent owns 23 percent or almost one quarter of the country’s aggregate wealth, rather than 18 percent (less than one fifth) reported by the ONS. During the last year of the pandemic, when so many were plunged into a health and economic catastrophe—with at least 95,000 lives lost already—the richest continued to pile up their wealth hoard.
Resolution Foundation economist Jack Leslie said, “The UK has undergone a wealth boom in recent decades, which has continued even while earnings and incomes have stagnated. But official data has struggled to capture these gains, and misses £800bn of assets held by the very wealthiest households in Britain.”
Danny Dorling, an expert on inequality, and Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford, commented, “The more closely researchers look into the wealth of the best-off 1%, the greater the slice of the cake we find they have taken.”
The Resolution Foundation is a London-based thinktank that declares as its’ aim the improvement of the living standards of those on low to middle incomes. The research it analysed was conducted by the UK Wealth Tax Commission, which compiles data to “assess the practical and conceptual arguments for net wealth taxes.” The Wealth Commission was formed in the Spring of 2020 by a team of academics from the London School of Economics and Warwick University, with close links to the Resolution Foundation.
There is a huge discrepancy between official government figures and statistics produced by the Sunday Times Rich List, which provides an estimate of the value of the wealth of the richest 1,000 families in the UK. Last year it listed 147 billionaires. The newspaper only records known assets of its listed 1,000, and last year their wealth was recorded at £742.6 billion. The problem with the ONS figure, explains Resolution Foundation, is that “capturing the very wealthiest families in a survey… is hugely challenging: families are under no legal obligation to respond and there is little incentive for them to do so.” The ONS therefore fails to include the wealth of the rich resulting from the burgeoning value of assets in property, shares and land......
More -
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/01/11/ineq-j11.html
Tuesday, January 12, 2021
Monday, January 11, 2021
‘An honorary Muslim’: The police #spycops who monitored London's mosques in plain sight
Both men were detectives with Special Branch - as the intelligence-gathering sections of British police forces are known - and both are said to have had long experience of counter-terrorism operations.
The al-Qaeda attacks had entirely dwarfed any plots that these men had encountered, however, and they must have realised that some of their previous investigations were looking somewhat trivial.
As they drank their coffees, the two men began to discuss plans to map London’s Muslim communities and organisations in a way that would enable them to gather intelligence about al-Qaeda’s influence within the city, and the risks that it posed.
At this time, Scotland Yard’s Special Branch was facing its own
threat. Having already lost the lead role in tackling Irish republican
militancy to the UK’s domestic security service, MI5, it was facing what
amounted to a hostile takeover by the Yard’s Anti-Terrorist Branch, a
unit which it had regarded as a rival for decades.
In the new, post-9/11 world of policing, Special Branch needed to find a role for itself.
More -
‘An honorary Muslim’: The police spy who monitored London's mosques in plain sight:
Friday, January 08, 2021
Wednesday, January 06, 2021
Thursday, December 17, 2020
Sunday, December 13, 2020
Saturday, December 12, 2020
Sunday, December 06, 2020
Thursday, December 03, 2020
Wednesday, December 02, 2020
Tuesday, December 01, 2020
Monday, November 30, 2020
Saturday, November 28, 2020
Thursday, November 26, 2020
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
Monday, November 23, 2020
#Grenfell #Kingspan Evidence - Monday 23rd November 2020 (1/2)
Video begins at 21.03 for some unknown reason.
Evidence of Ivor Meredith.
Sunday, November 22, 2020
Saturday, November 21, 2020
Friday, November 20, 2020
Leaked Hunting Office zoom meeting - West Midlands Hunt Saboteurs.
Online Zoom webinars run by the Hunting Office evidence a nationwide conspiracy by hunters to commit perjury and actively flout the 2005 ban on hunting with hounds. Throughout the three hours of talks, hunts are clearly and repeatedly incited to engage in mass criminality and shown how to present a smokescreen to anyone watching.
Thursday, November 19, 2020
Wednesday, November 18, 2020
Monday, November 16, 2020
Financial Regulation Matters: Lagarde Seeks to Assert the ECB’s Dominance – and ...
....Lagarde spoke recently and in emphasising her unhappiness with the development of sustainability in the marketplace, declared that ‘climate risks are not adequately priced’. The article in Bloomberg’s Quint offering suggests that she may lead the ECB in a new direction, with the decisions on which companies and industries to lend support to would be tied to compliance to EU policies on the issue of tackling climate change. The suggestion is that Lagarde could take the ECB down one of two paths; the soft path being to urge companies to better disclose climate risks that they face, and the more extreme path of judging who should benefit from the ECB’s mammoth bond-buying programme in relation to their compliance with EU regulations on non-financial informational disclosure, and the wider Action Plan that will contribute to the eventual goal contained within the European Green Deal. There are a number of arguments against this more extreme approach, mostly consisting of the lack of authority for the ECB to do this. Furthermore, the EU is seeking to become a ‘less is more’ style institution, which goes against the concept of the ECB becoming the enforcement vehicle for the Action Plan. However, analysts from Hermes have been cited as saying ‘the ECB has been very vocal about its intentions to continue to fight the climate crisis… its ambitions are very serious’. For Lagarde, she has rightly bemoaned the understanding that information that is currently being declared is ‘at best inconsistent, largely incomparable, and at times unreliable’. Whilst the ECB does have the mandate to support the EU’s economic policies, it rarely does so in such an explicit manner. Options that have been suggested range from introducing adjusted ‘haircuts’ that could be applied to securities after their climate risk has been assessed, to outright exclusion from purchasing programmes. If the ECB does decide to take a more direct approach, the credit/sustainable rating environment could be impacted.
This is because the disclosure of non-financial information is of, arguably, crucial importance for the development of the two interconnected industries...
More -
Financial Regulation Matters: Lagarde Seeks to Assert the ECB’s Dominance – and ...