Tory Party Sleaze and Corruption

 

‘Selflessness. Integrity. Objectivity. Accountability. Openness. Honesty. Leadership.’ These are the Seven Principles devised by Lord Nolan’s 1994 Committee on Standards in Public Life to promote a code of conduct that all public servants should follow. Following the news in the last week, it is apparent that our country has elected a government that is attempting to rip to shreds all of these rules.

 Lord Acton famously once said: ‘power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’: ambitious people who think themselves untouchable tend to bend the rules for their purposes. Nonetheless, what shocks me is the level of corruption we are seeing in our country, and how this country has become numb to it. This is unsurprising based on our incumbent primus inter pares: Boris Johnson who has paved the  way for an unprecedented level of sleaze and scandal. Whether it was the dispute over who paid the furniture for Downing Street, or his oddly timed  Marbella holiday in a villa owned by the family of environment minister Lord Goldsmith.

Johnson has already been admonished on four occasions, most recently over a £15,000 holiday to the island of Mustique between December 26, 2019, and January 5, 2020, but this was later overturned by the Committee on Standards.

Johnson has already been admonished by the commissioner on four occasions, most recently over a £15,000 holiday to the island of Mustique between December 26, 2019, and January 5, 2020, but this was later overturned by the Committee on Standards.dubiously funded holidays, or tennis matches with dodgy donors, Boris has pushed the envelope out of what it is acceptable for our political leaders to do. 

This has been apparent with the Owen Paterson lobbying scandal that has engulfed the government this week. Paterson , was found in breach of ministerial code by the independent watchdog for these type of matters. He was found to have repeatedly lobbied ministers and officials on behalf of two companies he worked for as a paid consultant. 

On top of Paterson’s £81,932 salary, he took home £8,333 a month to lobby on behalf of healthcare company Randox Laboratories. 

As Johnson announced Covid safety restrictions in March 2020, the government  handed Randoz a £133 million contract to ­manufacture Covid tests. 

The Sunday Times newspaper has revealed a phone call on 9 April last year between Paterson and the Tory peer Lord Bethell, who was the minister responsible for ­handing out contracts. 

According to documents, civil servants were trying to cover for the fact that Randox did not have the equipment it needed. 

In an email, an official wrote that Matt Hancock health secretary at the time, would send a letter to universities “asking for loans of the various things we need”. 

Campuses would have to give up testing resources and send them to Randox, they continued. 

Randox later received a £347 million contract. Paterson’s lobbying interests extended to sausage company Lynn’s Country Foods who paid him £12,000 for just 24 hours of work each year. 

Last month the ­independent Parliamentary Standards Commissioner found Paterson had breached the tame paid advocacy rules. 

Paterson had, on 16 occasions, used his House of Commons office for meetings relating to his private business interests.

 

 

He failed on a number of occasions to declare those interests. 

The Committee on Standards suggested Paterson should just be suspended from the Commons for 30 days. This was set to be voted on in parliament.  

In an effort to save him even this punishment, Johnson instructed Tory MP Andrea Leadsom to put forward an amendment and set up a committee to prevent his suspension. 

 Parliamentary votes on these reports are usually free, i.e. the party whip allows MPs to vote with their conscience, and so MPs typically endorse the recommendation of the Standards Select Committee. Yet this time the government imposed a three-line whip , and the Leadsom Amendment to the motion to suspend Paterson was backed. The amendment was half-baked and an outrageous watering down of current processes. It aimed to not only set aside Paterson’s suspension, but also to throw the Standards Commissioner on a bonfire and chop up the Standards Committee for firewood. A new committee of MPs was to be set up to decide the future of the Standards Select Committee, which interrogates the work of the Standards Commissioner,

Tory whips threatened MPs with the loss of local funding unless they fell into line. MPs duly voted for it. But the stench of corruption  was too much. The government was forced to go back on itself and announced there would be a vote on Paterson’s suspension.

The government narrowly won the vote 250 to 232, and the former MP announced he would resign and self pitying leave “the cruel world of politics”following his shameless lobbying for big businesses.

What was outrageous was that when the debate in the house happened, the cowardly PM was nowhere to be seen. Sorry but he is always available for a photoshoot or somehting like that but when he us under fire he disappears.

I've read  that Con MPs said  the vote was not about letting Paterson off the hook but rather introducing a fairer system. The flaw there is that is they weren’t planning a fairer system. They wanted to scrap a public committee & replace it with a Tory mates-led committee. Arrant corruption. 

 Amid fallout from the “sleaze” row Labour Party leader Keir Starmer  who has not previously been noted for his voice of opposition at least had the tenacity to accuse Boris Johnson of "corroded trust" in MPs. The Labour leader told the emergency debate in the Commons that the PM had given the "green light to corruption".

Also this week we have also heard about the MP and former attorney general Sir Geoffrey Cox who had been accused of pocketing hundreds of thousands of pounds to help stop ironically the exposure of corruption in a Caribbean paradise. the British Virgin Islands (BVI) during lockdown.n his second job as a lawyer advising the Caribbean tax haven..

Iain Duncan Smith is also facing questions over his £25,000-a-year second job advising a multimillion-pound hand sanitiser company after he chaired a government taskforce that recommended new rules benefiting the firm.in a brazen conflict of interest

The MP and former Conservative party leader chaired the Task Force on Innovation, Growth, and Regulatory Reform, which reported back in May after he and two other MPs were asked by Boris Johnson to recommend ways of cutting supposed EU red-tape.

However, the fresh spotlight on moonlighting by MPs has now prompted questions about the taskforce’s recommendations that alcohol-free hand sanitisers should be formally recognised as suitable for use in the UK.

The report made no reference to Duncan Smith’s relationship with Byotrol, which provides the NHS with 92% of its non-alcohol sanitiser. It retains the former Tory leader as an adviser for £25,000 a year, according to his declaration in parliament’s register of members’ interests.

In a message to investors after the recommendations of Duncan Smith and his fellow former ministers George Freeman and Theresa Villiers, Byotrol welcomed how an “influential UK government-sponsored taskforce has recommended a regulatory ‘green light’ for alcohol-free hand sanitisers”. Its directors were also quoted in a report as saying that it delivered a “powerful boost” to the firm.

The taskforce said in its report: “Current guidelines in the UK on non-alcohol based hand sanitisers are unclear. As a result, there is confusion in industry and among consumers as to what products are safe and effective to use, and we may be unnecessarily limiting the range of sanitising products available.” It called on the government to review guidance “to place alcohol- and non-alcohol-based on a level playing field”.

Duncan Smith was a director of Byotrol between June 2009 and May 2010 and has previously declared share options. Both have been approached for comment.

Byotrol, which is based in Cheshire, said in August that its revenue almost doubled and its pre-tax profits rocketed by more than 600% following “exceptional demand” for its sanitising technologies due to the pandemic. It reported a revenue of £11.2m for the 12 months to 31 March, up from £6m the previous year.

Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, said: “The prime minister needs to explain why he think it is justified for one of his MPs to be paid by a company that stands to benefit from a recommendation of a taskforce chaired by that same MP. This is exactly the kind of brazen conflict of interest that proves that the Conservatives think it is one rule for them and another for the rest of us. 

“Did this MP declare an interest when these matters were discussed and reported on by the taskforce? Why is the prime minister failing to act over these glaring conflicts of interest?”

More than a quarter of Tory MPs have second jobs with firms wbose activities range from gambling to private healthcare, making more than £4m in extra earnings in a year, Guardian analysis has found.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/09/at-least-a-quarter-of-tory-mps-have-second-jobs-earning-5m-a-year These aren't MP's 'with second jobs. They're lobbyists with second jobs as MPs. And if we don't do something to stamp it out now, it's only a matter of time before it's as corrupt here as it is in the US.

 It's been interesting to see Tory MP's saying thy can't live on £82 k a year when they thought some of the poorest people in the country could cope with £20 a week less. The party of low wages, austerity, exploitaiton and poor ambition. With a huge slice of sleaze and a massive dose of  corruption and a total lack of morals,.It’s one rule for us, and no rules for them The criminals are right here Cressida Dick, arrest them!

Boris Johnson did not cause all these mounting scandals, but it was his nature of governing and what he views as acceptable that is seriously harming our political culture. Over the centuries this land has produced some absolute rotters, but I honestly cannot think of anyone worse than this lying, arrogant, cheating dishonest, incompetent, racist thug with blood on his hands,

The Conservative Party Party is  also facing demands for a police investigation into a fresh cash for honours scandal. The SNP are demanding action from the Metropolitan Police to determine whether any criminal offence has been committed after it was reported party treasurers who meet a £3 million threshold in donations are virtually guaranteed a peerage.

The Sunday Times and Open Democracy found 15 of the last 16 Tory treasurers have been offered a seat in the Lords having each donated more than £3m.

The most controversial appointment was that of Lord Cruddas, who took his seat after Boris Johnson rejected the advice of the House of Lords Appointment Commission not to grant him a peerage.

An ex-party chairman explained: “Once you pay your £3m, you get your peerage.”

The report found that, since 2010, 22 of the party’s main financial donors have been given peerages after donating a combined £54m. Two Labpir  and five LibDem major donors have also been handed peerages.

SNP MP Pete Wishart said the latest scandal was corruption – “plain and simple”.

He commented: “The Tory corruption scandal is growing worse by the day. It’s now beyond all doubt that the honours system has been abused by the Tories. The Metropolitan Police should launch a fresh cash for honours investigation to determine whether a criminal offence has been committed. 

“It is utterly appalling that so many millionaire Tory party donors have been handed life peerages by Boris Johnson and his predecessors. But this isn’t just a scandal for the Tories – the Labour Party and Liberal Democrats have also been dishing out peerages to donors as though they were sweeties. It is corruption plain and simple – and it absolutely stinks.  

“The undemocratic House of Lords is packed with hundreds of Tory, Labour and LibDem donors and cronies, who are making laws without being elected and claiming allowances at our expense. It should have been abolished centuries ago but, whenever they’ve had the opportunity, the Tories and Labour Party have instead chosen to continue benefiting from the broken system – milking taxpayers for every penny they can get.”

 Sadly Starmer  chose last week to announce that Labour was no longer in favour of abolishing the House of Lords.

Wishart continued: “This is just the latest scandal for Boris Johnson who seems to believe he is immune to abiding by the rules everyone else does. Whether it’s cash for peerages, changing the standards system to suit him best, or soliciting dodgy donations for the refurbishment of flats and holidays, he is reigning over a system that he’s using to benefit him and his party.

“People in Scotland are looking in horror at what’s going on at Westminster. The sooner Scotland can become an independent country, and shake off this broken system, the better.”

 Regardless of Boris Johnson’s attempts to appeal to the whole country  his same tendency to serve the elite has manifested in the government’s COVID-19 pandemic response. Nearly £1 billion in government contracts ’have been awarded to 15 companies with directors, or people with controlling interests over these companies, who have donated £12 million to the Conservative Party’. That is to say, public money has been funnelled to Tory donors in vast quantities. The problematic nature of these transactions is obvious: any argument that those bodies which were awarded contracts are the best suited to the job is naturally suspect as a consequence of their relationship with the Conservative party. This suspicion is further justified when many COVID contracts have been awarded without competition and in breach of transparency rules,.

During the last year of the pandemic, the wealth of British billionaires increased by over a fifth. In a similar period, food bank use increased by about one third. This stunning inequality is unlikely to be addressed by a Conservative party whose raison d’etre is to protect the existing centres of wealth and power. Yet Labour leader Keir Starmer’s current search for rich donors to replace the subscription fees of a reduced party membership gives little reason to think that the opposition offers a viable alternative to the current plutocracy. To build a Britain that works for the many, the impetus for change will have to come from the ground up.These scandals and the furore to  which it has given rise have deep roots in our political system and highlight the structural flaws that so urgently need to be addressed. But incredibly knowing all this corruption is going on in plain sight, the public still vote for the Tories and they are still ahead in the polls.I wish people would wake up and realise that Britain is  being run by the Bullingdon State; a chummy elite who are above pesky things like parliamentary standards and so-called ‘transparency’ behaving like arrogant masters pursuing their own interests while the little people find supermarket shelves empty as prices and taxes rise.

Whoever leads them, the British Conservative party is diametrically opposed  to the good of the British public and deliberately acts against their interests. Their motives driven by authoriarianism designed to disenfranchise all, unless  you are not a millionaire, the Conservative Party is not your friend, they are enemies of the people.

The Conservatives with their feelings of self entitlement believe they are born to rule. Unconcerned by any principles except their maintenance of power, they U-turn  on positions at a drop of a hat, betray promises and even sacrifice their own in order to maintain control.The interests they serve are not yours or mine, but those of the bankers, financiers, fossil fuel magnates and the elite, look how they have voted.to pollute our waterways to keep their donors happy. I cannot believe the UK keeps  accepting this crap.

There will likely be many more scandals .As to the outcome of the investigations into these scandals, they’ll undoubtedly conclude that lessons must be learned and rules tightened, etc. In other words, business as usual, unless that is, both Scotland and Wales manage to break free from the rotting corpse of Westminster and the stench of Tory corruption,  because we can't  allow  Boris and the Tory's  to keep getting away with what they have up to now, surely we all deserve so much better.

 

 

Dark Daze

Sweeping through warzones

Brush bloody and stale

With genocidal strokes

Each bristle tells a tale

Stemming young shoots

Now forever unseen

Stamping out futures

Where hope meets the dream

Love is overshadowed

Lost in combats quagmire

Hate strides at the forefront

With fascist propelling gunfire

Under a placid sky

Lay unprincipled politicians

And unscrupulous corporations

Creating inequitable conditions

Nocturnally drifting, immune

Prisoners of circumstance

Like flies stuck in  amber

In a desensitised trance.

Remembering the Newport Chartist Rising of 1839

The People’s Charter had been launched in the spring of 1838 to demand universal male suffrage and other egalitarian electoral reforms. - See more at: http://www.internationalsocialist.org.uk/index.php/2013/11/on-this-day-4111839-the-newport-rising/#sthash.1XaXbYTG.dpuf

The People’s Charter had been launched in the spring of 1838 to demand universal male suffrage and other egalitarian electoral reforms. - See more at: http://www.internationalsocialist.org.uk/index.php/2013/11/on-this-day-4111839-the-newport-rising/#sthash.1XaXbYTG.dpuf

The political movement of Chartism developed following the 1832 Reform Act due to the widespread disappointment at the provisions in the act.  In June 1836 the London’s Workingmen’s Association was formed and in 1838, the members launched a People’s Charter and National Petition which called for radical changes to the way in which Britain was governed.  Supporters of the movement were from then on known as Chartists.  

At the time only 19 percent of the adult male population of Britain could vote. The Chartists wanted the vote for all men (though not for women) and a fairer electoral system. They also called for annual elections, the payment of MPs, and the introduction of a secret ballot.Working conditions in many coalfields and ironworks in South Wales were harsh, and there was often conflict between workers and employers. Much of the working class population were living in poverty, but without a voice in politics, and they did  not feel they could change their situation, Given these circumstances, it was no surprise that Chartism developed quickly. In the summer of 1838 a Working Men's Association was formed in Newport, Monmouthshire to publicise the People's Charter.  

Within six months, the radical leader John Frost https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2017/05/john-frost-radical-chartist-leader.html  estimated that there were between 15,000 and 20,000 Chartists in the county of Monmouthshire. Chartism fought for democratic demands, but it was not solely a democratic movement, it was a revolutionary class struggle to change society. William Price, https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/william-price-441800-2311893.html a Pontypridd Chartist leader said: "Oppression, injustice and the grinding poverty which burdens our lives must be abolished for all time."  

 The People's Charter called for six reforms to make the political system more democratic, namely:

1. A vote for every man twenty-one years of age, of sound mind, and not undergoing punishment for a crime.
2. The secret ballot to protect the elector in the exercise of his vote.
   
3. No property qualification for Members of Parliament in order to allow the constituencies to return the man of their choice.
4. Payment of Members, enabling tradesmen, working men, or other persons of modest means to leave or interrupt their livelihood to attend to the interests of the nation.
5. Equal constituencies, securing the same amount of representation for the same number of electors, instead of allowing less populous constituencies to have as much or more weight than larger ones.
6. Annual Parliamentary elections, thus presenting the most effectual check to bribery and intimidation, since no purse could buy a constituency under a system of universal manhood suffrage in each twelve-month period.

 

There was much more to Chartism than the six points. This was a manifesto, an umbrella under which different campaigns and objectives could shelter. Many Chartists made improving the living standards of working people a priority: a more democratic and representative political system would be the means to achieve such an end. Some imagined a different economic system involving workers' control of industry. Others were attracted by utopian visions of communitarian societies. There were Chartist newspapers, Chartist churches, Chartist schools and Chartists who put as much energy into campaigning for temperance as for the People's Charter. It was a very wide-ranging and amorphous movement that embraced communities the length and breadth of Britain.  

Chartism though  was not solely a democratic movement, it was a revolutionary class struggle to change society. To Frederick Engels it was "the compact form of the proletariat's opposition to the bourgeoisie". William Price, : "Oppression, injustice and the grinding poverty which burdens our lives must be abolished for all time."
Tensions rose after the government turned down the mass petition for the Charter, presented to the House of Commons with over 1.25 million signatures.Leaders like John Frost and Henry Vincent called for 'physical force' to obtain the Charter, and to add further fuel to the indignation felt in May 1839  eloquent public speaker  Henry Vincent,https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2018/05/henry-vincent-1051818-2912-1878-radical.html well known locally for his speaking tour of South Wales a year earlier, on 2 August all of 20 miles away in Monmouth was arrested for making inflammatory speeches. When he was tried on the 2nd August at Monmouth Assizes he was found guilty and sentenced to twelve months imprisonment. Vincent was denied writing materials and only allowed to read books on religion.

Chartists in Wales were furious and the decision was followed by several outbreaks of violence. John Frost called for a massive protest meeting to show the strength of feeling against the imprisonment of Henry Vincent. Frost's plan was to march on Newport where the Chartists planned to demand the release of Vincent.
7,500 armed workers with pikes, clubs and firearms eagerly began the long march from the heads of the Valleys to Newport on 3 November. They had been preparing long enough. They knew that some would not return but believed that those that did would be free. 

George Shell, a 15-year old Pontypool carpenter wrote to his parents: "I shall this night be engaged in a glorious struggle for freedom and should it please God to spare my life, I shall see you soon; but if not grieve not for me. I shall have fallen in a noble cause. Farewell!" George Shell was killed the next day.

On 4 November 1839,  these men  roused with much anger  marched into Newport ,and attempted to take control of the town. They marched to  Westgate Hotel, where they had heard that after several more arrests, local authorities were temporarily holding several chartists, began chanting "surrender our prisoners". However the authorities in Newport  had heard rumours that the Chartists were armed and planned to seize Newport. Stories also began to circulate that if the Chartists were successful in Newport, it would encourage others all over Britain to follow their example, so were waiting for them. Troops protecting the hotel were then given the order to begin firing into the crowd, killing at least 22 people, and another fifty being wounded and resulted  in  the uprising being bought to an abrupt end. Among the injured was a Chartist named John Lovell, who was shot in the thigh and badly wounded. It would be the last large scale uprising in the history of  mainland Britain.

                                                   the attack on Westgate Hotel
 
Following the Newport defeat, South Wales was placed under martial law and hundreds of Chartists arrested or forced into hiding.Within days  many of the alleged the ringleaders including Frost were arrested and in December"True Bills" for High Treason were found against 14 men and more than 40 counts for sedition, conspiracy, riot and burglary.

The 14 men committed for Trial were:

John Frost, age 54, a draper, Newport

Zephaniah Williams, age 44, an inn keeper, of Blaina

William Jones, age 30, a watchmaker & beer house keeper, of Pontypool

Charles Waters, age 26, a ship's carpenter, of Newport (formerly Chepstow)

John Lovell, age 41, a gardener, of Newport

Jenkin Morgan, age 40, a milkman, of Pillgwenlly

Richard Benfield, age 20, a miner, of Sirhowy

John Rees, age 40, a miner, of Tredegar

James Aust, age 25, a gardener, of Malpas (formerly of Caerleon)

Solomon Britton, age 23, a collier, of Garndiffaith

George Turner, age 37, a collier, of Blackwood

Edmund Edmunds, age 34, a mine agent, of Pontllanfraith

and, to be tried in their absence:

John Rees, (Jack 'the Fifer'), a stonemason, of Tredegar

David Jones, (Dai 'the Tinker'), of Tredegar

- but the two were never captured

The Trials commenced on 31st December 1839 - and all fourteen men faced the Death Penalty. 

 South Wales Chartist Song, 1839, to rally support for John Frost and other imprisoned leaders of the Newport Rising 1839. 

Uphold these bold Comrades who suffer for you,
Who nobly stand foremost, demanding your due,
Away with the timid, 'tis treason to fear—
To surrender or falter when danger is near.
For now that our leaders disdain to betray
'Tis base to desert them, or succour delay.

A Hundred years, a thousand years we're marching on the road 

The going isn't easy yet, we've got a heavy load 

The way is blind with blood and sweat & death sings in our ears 

But time is marching on our side, we will defeat the years.

We men of bone, of sunken shank, our only treasure death 

Women who carry at the breast heirs to the hungry earth 

Speak with one voice we march we rest and march again upon the years 

Sons of our sons are listening to hear the Chartist cheers 

Sons of our sons are listening to hear the Chartist cheers.

 John Frost's trial was heard first and this ended on the 8th January. Zephaniah Williams, on the 13th January and William Jones, on the 14th January. All three were found "guilty, with mercy".[This meant that although they were sentenced to death, the final decision to allow mercy was with Her Majesty and her Government] 

John Lovell, Charles Waters, Jenkin Morgan, Richard Benfield and John Rees - on the advice of their counsels, Messrs, Stone & Skinner, were urged to plead guilty in the hopes that the Crown prosecutors could prevail upon the Judges to set the death penalty aside in their cases and on the 15th January 1840, they appeared together in court and pleaded guilty. The remaining four Chartists in Monmouth gaol - James Aust, Solomon Britton, George Turner, Edmund Edmunds - were brought before the bar and to everyone's amazement, the Attorney General withdrew all charges against them and they were freed with a verbal admonishment.

On the 16th January 1840, John Frost, Zephaniah Williams and William Jones were sentenced by the Lord Chief Justice Sir Nicholas Tindal:

"After the most anxious and careful investigation of your respective cases, before juries of great intelligence and almost unexampled patience, you stand at the bar of this court to receive the last sentence of the law for the commission of a crime which, beyond all others, is the most pernicious in example, and the most injurious in its consequences, to the peace and happiness of human society - the crime of High Treason against your Sovereign. You can have no just ground of complaint that your several cases have not met with the most full consideration, both from the jury and from the court. But as the jury have, in each of those cases, pronounced you guilty of the crime with which you have been charges, I should be wanting in justice to them if I did not openly declare, that the verdicts which they have found meet with the entire concurrence of my learned brethren and myself.

In the case of all ordinary breaches of the law, the mischief of the offence does, for the most part, terminate with the immediate injury sustained by the individual against whom it is levelled. The man who plunders the property, or lifts his hand against the life of his neighbour, does by his guilty act inflict, in that particular instance, and to that extent, a loss or injury on the sufferer or his surviving friends. But they who, by armed numbers, or by violence, or terror, endeavour to put down established institutions, and to introduce in their stead a new order of things, open wide the flood-gates of rapine and bloodshed, destroy all security of property and life, and do their utmost to involve a whole nation in anarchy and ruin.

It has been proved, in your case, that you combined together to lead from the hills, at the dead hour of night, into the town of Newport many thousands of men, armed, in many instances, with weapons of a dangerous description, in order that they might take possession of the town, and supersede the lawful authority of the Queen, as a preliminary step to a more general insurrection throughout the kingdom.

It is owing to the interposition of Providence alone that your wicked designs were frustrated. Your followers arrive by day-light, and after firing upon the civil power, and upon the Queen's troops, are, by the firmness of the magistrates, and the cool and determined bravery of a small body of soldiers, defeated and dispersed. What would have been the fate of the peaceful and unoffending inhabitants of that town, if success had attended your rebellious designs, it is impossible to say. The invasion of a foreign foe would, in all probability, have been less destructive to property and life.

It is for the crime of High Treason, committed under these circumstances, that you are now called upon yourselves to answer; and by the penalty which you are about to suffer, you hold out a warning to all your fellow-subjects, that the law of your country is strong enough to repress and to punish all attempts to alter the established order of things by insurrection and armed force; and that those who are found guilty of such treasonable attempts must expiate their crime by an ignominious death.

I therefore most earnestly exhort you to employ the little time that remains to you in preparing for the great change that awaits you, by sincere penitence and by fervent prayer. For although we do not fail to forward to the proper quarter that recommendation which the jury have intrusted to us, we cannot hold out to you any hope of mercy on this side of the grave.

And now, nothing more remains than the duty imposed upon the court - to all of us a most painful duty - to declare the last sentence of the law, which is that you, John Frost, and you, Zephaniah Williams, and you, William Jones, be taken hence to the place from whence you came, and be thence drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution, and that each of you be there hanged by the neck until you be dead, and that afterwards the head of each of you shall be severed from his body, and the body of each, divided into four quarters, shall be disposed of as Her Majesty shall think fit, and may Almighty God have mercy upon your souls."

These courageous Chartists of Wales stood their ground and refused to flinch. As they left the courtroom in Monmouth following the sentencing, Williams defiantly shouted to the crowd, “Three cheers for the Charter!”

 John Frost, Zephaniah Williams, William Jones - were returned to Monmouth Gaol to await public execution.  The Government had decided that an example should be made of three members of the lower middle classes for having misled thousands of workmen into taking insurrectionary action against Queen and State.

The Newport massacre and the threat of executions, rather than leading to demoralisation and despair, served to intensify the angry mood. Astonishingly, there was increased talk of revenge and insurrection...

The government became aware of the grave situation, and although vengeful local magistrates demanded the severest of measures against the Welsh leaders, there were those who urged caution for fear of turning the men into martyrs. It became increasingly clear that executions, together with the mutilation of the condemned men, could easily inflame the situation, resulting in further social unrest.

On 1 February, the Cabinet discussed the question and cooler heads prevailed. The men were saved from the gallows, and their death sentences commuted to transportation for life. This proved a wise decision for the ruling class under the circumstances. The mood in the country was an angry one, with talk of sedition and plans to rescue the men.

 

                                         
                                          Zepaniah Williams, John Frost, William Jones
 

When they actually received a total pardon in 1856. Jones stayed in Australia as a watchmaker and Williams stayed in Tasmania, where he subsequently made his fortune discovering coal. However, John Frost, who had worked as a school teacher in Tasmania, returned to Britain, where he received a triumphant welcome in Newport.

Although the Newport Rising may have failed it was a turning point for the Chartist movement. In response to the conditions, Chartists in Sheffield, the East End of London and Bradford planned their own risings. Samuel Holberry led an aborted rising in Sheffield on January 12th 1840; police action thwarted a major disturbance in the East End of London on January 14th, and on January 26th a few hundred Bradford Chartists staged a failed rising in the hope of precipitating a domino effect across the country. After this Chartism turned to a process of internal renewal and more systematic organisation, but the transported and imprisoned Newport Chartists were regarded as heroes and martyrs amongst workers. Each year the Newport Rising Festival commemorates the fight for rights that these men from across Gwent fought for.

Although an uprising of the size seen in Newport for the time being has never happened again, it does remind us that although it failed its purpose at the time, five of the Six Points of the original Charter which the Chartists had campaigned for have since been conceded, only the demand for Annual Parliaments not so far being accepted. 

 A new Reform Bill was passed in August 1867 that gave the vote to all male heads of households over 21, and all male lodgers paying £10 a year in rent. Further reform arrived with the Ballot Act in 1872, which ensured that votes could be cast in secret – a key demand of the People’s Charter. In 1884 the Third Reform Act extended the qualification of the 1867 Act to the countryside so that almost two thirds of men had the vote. Eventually, only one of the Chartists’ demands – for annual parliamentary elections – failed to become part of British law. At the time, Chartism may have been judged unsuccessful, but there is no doubt that the movement's campaign for electoral reform played an important role in the development of democracy in the UK. All because working class people unafraid had the guts to fight for their rights.

In the 1960s a square in Newport was named John Frost Square and a beautiful  35 metres long mosaic mural was created in a pedestrian underpass, but controversially, as part of a redevelopment scheme, the mural was shamefully destroyed in 2013 to make way for a shopping center.https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/destruction-of-chartist-mural.html

Sadly another memorial commemorating the lives of some of the Chartists has been vandalised, just days before the 182nd anniversary of the historic uprising. The memorial is at the entrance of Newport Cathedral, the location where 10 of the Chartists who died after being shot outside Westgate Hotel at the culmination of the march on November 4, 1839, are buried in unmarked graves – and was vandalised on Tuesday, November 2, it has since been swiftly removed by Newport City Council.

Long may the Chartists struggle and its leaders be remembered who helped give voice to the discontent of the time in their struggle for democracy.

 

104 years since one of history’s most unjust declarations :The Balfour Declaration

 

 Lord Arthur Balfour

 

On this day, 104 years ago, one of history's most unjust declarations was made, On November 2nd, 1917, the British government issued the  Balfour Declaration, which laid the foundation for the establishment of a Jewish state at the expense of the indigenous Palestinian population. The ramifications would be seen up until the present day and is regarded as one of the most controversial and contested documents in modern history.

 It was named after Lord Arthur James Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary during the Word War 1, who  on an order by United Kingdom’s Prime Minister at that time, David Lloyd George,sent an official letter  to Baron Walter Rothschild (the 2nd Baron Rothschild), a leader of the British Zionist community, who accepted it on behalf of Great Britain and Ireland.

The document was quite short, consisting of only 67 words in three paragraphs. However, the impact was enormous: the declaration was the beginning of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which has not ended.The immortal words of the letter said the following:

" His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by jews in any other country."

The Original Letter of the Balfour Declaration

 

 

With the Balfour Declaration, London was seeking Jewish support for its war efforts, and the Zionist push for a homeland for Jews was an emerging political force. In 1917, Jews constituted 10% of the population, the rest were  Arabs. Yet Britain recognised the national rights of a tiny minority and denied it to the majority This was a classic colonial document which totally disregarded the rights and aspirations of the indigenous population. In the words of Jewish writer Arthur Koestler: “One nation solemnly promised to a second nation the country of a third.”And in the words of the late Palestinian academic Edward Said, the declaration was “made by a European power … about a non-European territory … in a flat disregard of both the presence and wishes of the native majority resident in that territory. 

 The indigenous Palestinian population’s political and national rights were ignored in the Balfour Declaration, not to mention their ethnic and national identity. Instead, Great Britain promised not to “prejudice the[ir] civil and religious rights,” and referred to Palestinians as “non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” The percentage of Jews living in Palestine in 1917 did not exceed 7%, yet the British attempted to rewrite history in order to justify their colonial policy.

It was a shock to the Arab world, which had not been consulted and had received promises of independence of its own in the post-war break up of the defeated Ottoman Empire. The Palestinians have always condemned the declaration, which they refer to as the "Balfour promise" saying Britain was giving away land it did not own.

The Balfour Declaration constituted a  dangerous historical precedent and a blatant breach of all international laws and norms, and this  act of the British Empire to “give” the land of another people  for colonial settlement created the conditions for countless atrocities against the Palestinian people. Balfour, in a 1919 confidential memo, wrote: 

 “Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age old traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far greater import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land”  

The discriminatory language used by Sir Arthur Balfour and seen in the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate reveal the prejudiced rational behind British foreign policy in Palestine. A month after the Balfour Declaration on 2 December 1917, the British army occupied Jerusalem. In 1923, the British Mandate for Palestine came into effect, and included the entire text of the Balfour Declaration. Through the Mandate, Britain would go on to rule Palestine for three decades.

The Mandate for Palestine constituted the entire legal framework for how Britain should operate during its occupation of Palestine. Despite this, the Mandate made no mention of the Palestinians by name, nor did it specify the right of Palestinians to nationhood. Instead, it was during its rule in Palestine that Britain sought to lay the foundations for the creation of a ‘national home for the Jewish people’. 

By the end of the 1920s, it became clear that this ambition would have violent repercussions.Between 1936 and 1939, thousands of Palestinians were killed and imprisoned as they revolted in protest against British policy.

The British response took a heavy toll on the livelihoods of Palestinian villagers, who were subjected to punitive measures that included the confiscation of livestock, the destruction of properties, detention and collective fines. During this time, British forces’ are said to have carried out beatings, extrajudicial killings and torture as they attempted to quell the uprising. To this day, there are still the ‘Tegart Forts’ in Palestine built and named by Sir Charles Tegart who had been stationed in India to punish those fighting against the British Raj and then later stationed in Palestine to control any Arab dissent.

For Palestinians, Britain’s three decades of occupation in Palestine was a turning point in the country’s history, laying the foundations for what would become decades of occupation, displacement and insecurity.

When the UK eventually decided to withdraw from Mandatory Palestine in 1947, it left decisions regarding the future of Palestine to the United Nations. In May 1948 the Israeli state was established.  This time is known by Palestinians as the Nakba or ‘catastrophe’, during which 750,000 and 900,000 Palestinian men, women and children were driven out of their homeland by Jewish militias, and an estimated 500 villages and towns were depopulated and demolished.

To this day, there are more than 5 million Palestinian refugees registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Jordan as a result of the Nakba in 1948 and the displacement that followed the Israeli occupation of Palestine in 1967.

Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem have now been under occupation for over 50 years, devastating the lives of millions of Palestinians.

The catastrophe of the Arab Palestinian people in 1948 continues today at the hands of Israel, using the same old policies and laws established by the British such as land confiscation laws, home demolitions, ‘administrative’ detention, deportations, violent repression, and the continuation of the expulsion of about 7.9 million Palestinians who are denied their basic national and human rights, especially their right to return and live normally in their homeland. Today, the State of Israel, backed by the military and diplomatic might of the United States, continues this century-long pattern of denying the Palestinian people their right to self-determination. In violation of international law, Israel refuses to allow Palestinian refugees their right of return to the homes from which they or their ancestors were forcibly displaced by Israel during the Nakba in 1948; denies Palestinian citizens of Israel their equal rights; and imposes upon Palestinians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip a brutal military occupation and suffocating siege.  This catastrophe of the Palestinian people could not continue without the support of Israel by the United States and Britain.

 In the June 1967 war, Israel completed the conquest of Palestine by occupying the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. By signing the Oslo Accord with Israel in 1993, the Palestine Liberation Organisation gave up its claim to 78% of Palestine. In return they hoped to achieve an independent Palestinian state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with a capital city in East Jerusalem. It was not to be.

 On May 7, The Guardian newspaper regretted its support in 1917 for the Balfour Declaration, describing it as its “worst errors of judgment”.

The Guardian of 1917 supported, celebrated, and could even be said to have helped facilitate the Balfour Declaration,” the British daily wrote, adding that the then editor, CP Scott, was “blinded” to Palestinian rights due to his support of Zionism.

Whatever else can be said, Israel today is not the country the Guardian foresaw or would have wanted,” read the report.

On this dark day in Palestinian history, Palestinian flags were flown at half mast today in Palestine and  its missions around the world as decreed by President Mahmoud Abbas to remind the world in general and the United Kingdom in particular of the suffering of the Palestinian people and their rights to achieve independence, statehood and self-determination.

In the occupied territories, schools today held special classes on the unique impact of the Balfour  Declaration on the Palestinian people and their future. 

I salute the continuing steadfastness of the Palestinian people in their long-denied quest for justice, liberation, and their eventual self-determination, and recommits itself to work towards that noble end, in the face of continued Israeli violations ,resisting  the occupation schemes  insisting on the Palestinian Right of Return home and establishing their sovereign state with Jerusalem as its capital. 

Until  measures are made by Israel to improve the standard of living, and bring economic prosperity to the Palestinians living in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Bringing some chord of social justice, and recognition of the Palestinians identity, and stolen land given back to them,and an end to their continuing use of apartheid practices., their will be no peace. That is Balfours tragic legacy.

The UK is fully accountable to the atrocities and dehumanizing of Palestinians. But even till this day, the UK has not shown any remorse for the historical sin it had made.Britain now has a unique responsibility to make amends for its past, by apologizing to the Palestinian people, and recognizing the Palestinian state on the June 4, lines with East Jerusalem as its capital in support of achieving a just, lasting and comprehensive peace in accordance with the vision of a two-state solution to ensure that future generations of Palestinians can live in dignity. Britain also has a duty to acknowledge the basic political and human rights of the Palestinian people, which have been denied for more than a century.

Nos Galan Gaeaf: The Welsh Halloween or Samhain

October is the month of falling leaves, beautiful nature and Halloween! In Wales, the 31^st October is also known as Nos Calan Gaeaf – the night before ‘the first of winter’ when it was commonly believed that supernatural influences were intensified and that the spiritual veil between the living and the dead was at its thinnest. Nos Calan Gaeaf was one of three Spirit Nights (Ysbrydnos) in the folklore calendar and many traditions grew up around the night

.Nos Galan Gaeaf is an equivalent to the pagan, Iron-age, Irish festival of Samhain. This is the most well-known Halloween tradition in Wales. Traditionally it is time to bring in the animals from their summer grazing and to stock up their winter feed supplies. A cull would be made and animals slaughtered, and the meat preserved to provide food for winter. As the animals died so the people could survive.

Samhain means “Summer’s end”, and is known by many different names: November Eve, All Hallows Eve, Hallowmas, Feast of Apples, Night of Spirits, Halloween and the Feast of the Dead. In the Gaelic languages of Ireland, Samhain is also known as “Oíche Shamhna”, in Scotland “Oidhche Shamhna” and in Wales “Nos Calan Gaeaf”. Depending on where you come from, Samhain also has many pronunciations, like in Ireland it is pronounced “sow-in”, in Scotland “sav-en” and in Wales “sow-een”.

The Welsh translation, interestingly, is ‘the first of winter’  Rooted in rural folklore and superstition, much of it died out with the onset of industrialization in the mid-18th century.

Pre-Christian folklore suggested that the first day of winter, when the dark half of the year began, was when the veil between our world and the ‘otherworld’ known as Annwn was at its thinnest. These beliefs eventually combined with Christian festivals and we have the emergence of Noson Galan Gaeafl a celebration that marked the end of harvest season and the start of winter that took place in Wales annually.

Nature makes the transition from productive Summer to fallow Winter; we enter the darkest period of the year with weakening sun light and short days as the Wheel of the Year turns towards the Winter Solstice; when the light returns to us once more.

It was also considered to be the Celtic New Year,a pivotal point when the powers of darkness and winter return to this world and an opportunity for the souls of the departed to return briefly, much like Mexico's Day of the Dead, for example. Symbolically a moment of mingling between the world of the living and that of the dead as the idea of death is in tune with the phase in which nature is extinguished, to rest during the winter.It is a time for honouring our ancestors, particularly those that have passed in the last year. 

The period was also thought to be favourable for divination and as is common in folklore on matters such as marriage, health, and death as people looked forward to the year ahead with optimism and trepidation. In a very strange challenge, it was believed that if you ran around the local church three times, and then peered through the keyhole at midnight, you would see the faces of those who would die over the next year.

When the Romans conquered the Celts in the 1st century ad, they added their own festivals of Feralia, commemorating the passing of the dead, and of Pomona, the goddess of the harvest

Traditionally here in Wales it would be a time to pay-off the seasonal workers on farms, and bid farewell to the departed, both living and dead. The night would be celebrated with a feast of stwmp naw rhyw, a mash of  different root vegetables, carrots,peas, parsnips, leeks with milk, butter, salt and pepper into which a wedding ring was hidden. Amorous young village folk were then encouraged to eat a bowlful each and the one to find the ring would be the first to get married.

Nos Galan Gaeaf was thought to be a very powerful night to use magic in order to predict who you'd end up with.

Young women would take a pip from an apple core and squeeze it between their thumb and forefinger. It would fly up in the air and after it landed the pointed end would face in the direction of their intended lover's house.

A person would also stick a number of pips to their forehead, giving each the name of a potential partner. The last pip to fall off would be the one bearing their future spouse's name.Apple peel thrown over someone's shoulder was also thought to morph into the silhouette of the person they would eventually marry.

This was also time for deciding which animals were fit enough to make it through the winter, and which were to be slaughtered or sent to market ahead of the colder months. This then gave rise to Hwch Ddu,Gwta which is one of Calan Gaeaf's darker rituals which.translates to 'tailless black sow' 

This is a fearsome omen or spirit that takes the form of a large black sow (boar. we're definitely talking boar) that roams around the land gathering up the souls of the dead and generally scaring the life out of unsuspecting welsh folk. 

On Noson Calan Gaeaf after the bonfires had died down everyone had to hightail it back home as fast as they could to avoid being caught by the Hwch. And just to make sure that the whole experience was super terrifying, remember those slaughtered animals I mentioned?  One of the slaughtered pigs from the festival would rise up, supposedly out of the flames of the fire, and chase away the children to their homes (albeit usually a man covered in a cloth or animal skin.) The ritual has its roots in beliefs bout the souls of the dead, people and animals  but it was probably just a fun and effective way of getting children to bed; and teaching them  about the dangers of straying from the group.She is remembered in this old Welsh nursery rhyme:

 

Hwch Ddu Gwta
Ar bob camfa
Yn nyddu a cardio
Bob Nos Glangaea
…
Adre, adre, am y cynta
Hwch Dddu Gwta gipio’r ola.
  
Black short-tailed sow
On every stile
Spinning and weaving
On Calan Gaeaf night
…
Get home quick, be the first
The Hwch Ddu Gwta gets the last.

 

People also set bonfires on hilltops to frighten away evil spirits and they sometimes wore masks and other disguises, such as dressing in animal skins, to avoid being recognised by the ghosts thought to be present. It was in these ways that beings such as witches, hobgoblins, fairies, and demons came to be associated with the day. Perhaps it's no coincidence that what we often consider to be a typical witches outfit is very similar to traditional Welsh dress. 

 

With the coming of Christianity, these traditions were converted to blend in more with the Christian calendar and Christian sensibilities. “In 601AD, Pope Gregory made an important directive. He announced that Christian missionaries were to take a new tack when attempting to convert pagans to the Christian religion. Christian missionaries he said, where possible, should incorporate the beliefs, festivals and sacred sites of pagan beliefs into the Christian religion. This directive meant that the important Celtic festival of Samhain had to be marked in a Christian manner.

In the year 609 AD, All Saints Day was officially designated a Church feast, which was celebrated in May and was later moved to November by Pope Gregory in 835 AD. The Christian Church may have intended that people would spend their time praying for the souls of the dead on an important holy day. However, the fact that this was a day off from work gave many people even more of an excuse to celebrate Halloween with more excitement and excess than ever.

In the eleventh century, a further festival was added to the church calendar; All Souls Day on 2 November. The three festivals of All-Hallows Eve, All Saints and All Souls were together known as Hallowmas.” 

Despite the Church’s success in establishing a Christian foundation for the autumn celebrations, many of the ancient customs and traditions associated with them were still practiced by the population. The carving of gourds and the wearing of costumes and masks to scare away malevolent spirits are typical of the superstitions carried over from these celebrations into the All Hallows Eve observance.

Other traditions particular to Calan Gaeaf, or Halloween, in Wales include :

1.Another more macabre ceremony was the Coelcerth, Every person at the festival would scratch their name onto a stone and throw it into a fire.The flames would burn fiercely, and often far into the night.  If any stone was missing when the fire went out, the person whose name it bore would supposedly die within the next year.

2. Single women would walk around the bounds of a church, chanting "here is the sheath where is the knife", to which they were said to hear the name of the person they were to marry.

3. "Y Ladi Wen','‘The White Lady’ is an apparition from Celtic mythology, dressed in all white. Some say she guards graveyards and crossroads from other darker spirits. Others say she has a more sinister purpose - luring unsuspecting travellers to their doom by asking for help or offering treasure. Other people claimed that she was headless, and would maraud around the countryside looking for victims with her partner in crime, the Hwch Ddu Gwta.

4. Some traditions rose naturally from their rural lifestyle, when villagers might gather for harvest. In some areas, corn husks would be fashioned into a horse shape, and the men would try to get this Harvest Mare into the houses. But they had to get it past the women, who would try to throw water on it to stop it from coming inside.

5. Touching ground ivy was thought to make you have nightmares about hags and witches.

6. In order to see into the future, boys would place leaves of ivy under their pillows and girls would grow a rose around a large hoop, which they would jump through three times before cutting the rose and placing it under their pillow.

7. In Pembrokeshire, if people looked into a mirror on Halloween, they would see witches and demons in their sleep.

8. The custom of “trick-or-treating” has its origins in a ritual wherein the elders of a village or town would go from house to house and receive offerings of food and gifts for the souls of dead friends and relatives that would be visiting that night. This practice evolved during the Middle Ages, when beggars would travel from village to village and beg for “soul cakes”. Villagers would offer prayers along with the cakes to those who had died in the past year for their transition to heaven. 

The name gwrachod means ‘witches’ or ‘hags’. Men would roam the villages dressed in rags and masks, or sometimes women's clothing, going from door to door for coppers, fruit and nuts. They would then drink in the local pubs. People believed dressing up like this would repel evil spirits, but it could also have been to scare people into giving them treats.

  

9.‘Twco Fale’ – Apple Bobbing was also popular. Girls would try to pull an apple out of a barrel of water using only their teeth. The first girl to pull an apple out would be the next to get married. 

 

10. One tradition that we definitely haven't given up on is the carving of a lantern. The face on the l

Lantern is supposed to act as a deterrent to spirits approaching the house. Some would even place the lanterns out along the road as a way to guide people.Except in Wales it wasn't a pumpkin, It was a turnip. 

Around the 18th century as Wales grew less and less rural the traditions of Nos Galan Gaeaf began to die away.Halloween also changed the festival a great deal,but  the themes and characteristics of Noson Galan Gaeaf still endure as we enter the dark half of the year.The date has remained the same, as has the emphasis on ghosts and ghouls, death and afterlife 

Despite the influence from across the Atlantic, the spirit of the spookiest night of the year has lingered throughout the ages. Nos Galan Gaeaf night is still not wholly forgotten and remains a night to think about strange spectres, headless wraiths, and foreboding tailless sows. On Nos Galan Gaeaf it is suggested that you avoid all places where spirits are likely to gather such as churchyards, graveyards, and crossroads.

Some of these ideas, stories and traditions are just myths and legends today but the nation of Wales has a long tradition of celebrations considered to be a forerunner to modern Halloween. Respecting, celebrating and fearing the dead, the summer, the winter, the future and animals were all part of different rituals associated with Calan Gaeaf and in many ways the turning of time from October to November today maintains those same feelings.

May you welcome the fading light as an invitation to slow your pace and rest. As we cross from the old year to the new, we can use this dark time of the year to sow new visions, ideas and directions A day to remember. those who have passed, those who are far in miles but close n heart, those who walk with us every day. A day to tell those we can that we care and hold those we cannot in love and light, trusting to their strength and ours..Whatever path you choose to follow, may you find hidden blessings within you. Keep safe. Nos Calan Gaeaf Hapus!

References 

Marie Trevelyan  Folklore and Folk Stories of Wales (1909)

T, Gwynn Jones Welsh Folklore and Folk Custom  (1909 )

Trefor M Owen Welsh Folklore and Custom (National Museum of Walesi, 1959)