by Julian Ruck
If you politically aware folk across the Severn Seas, think Westminster is the political capital of greasy manipulation and ambitious malfeasance, then think again and try this on for size.
Old welsh Labour with its enforcers has now excelled itself, making sport out of the committee system of scrutiny and oversight where policy is concerned. If any member of said committee shows any sign at all of having an independent intellect (or indeed any intellect at all), or god forbid a view that may be deemed “principled”, then they are ignominiously ejected, without a safety harness.
You think I’m joking?
Well, let me appraise you of a recent Children and Young People’s committee, set up to consider the Welsh Assembly’s Social Services Bill.
By way of background, three of the Labour team were in support of a ban on physical chastisement of those objectionable urchins who fall by the parental wayside as it were, the minister overseeing all this, one Gwenda Thomas, was not.
Chance would have it, that just before the committee was due to convene, take evidence and consider an amendment to introduce the child-smacking ban into the Bill, old Labour’s chief whip-master sacked the three liberal musketeers, and without as much as a by your leave.
Christine Chapman (Chair), Julie Morgan and Jenny Rathbone were all replaced by more accommodating members with a more corporally inclined inclination than their predecessors.
When the meeting started, microphones were injudiciously turned off so that the new chair, one Ann Jones, was left to rather miserably explain that she had only just found out about her ‘calling’ to the committee – nothing like being prepared is there?
Welsh Labour has been casting it’s Tammany Hall spells for far too long, the pettiness of council chamber politics will no longer do, the outdated anti-English and “woe are we,” no longer cuts the mustard – or anything else for that matter.
Old welsh Labour must move on if it is to survive, because believe me it can longer assume a landslide welsh vote. People have had enough of the Cardiff Bay divine right, enough of ancient ramblings about the spirit of Aneurin Bevan. He died a long time ago and in a very different world.
Only a few weeks ago Carwyn Jones, patriarch of unreformed welsh Labour, refused outright to a freedom of information enquiry relating to his discussions with Sir Terry Matthews, Gwent’s richest man.
The strong suspicion was that poor old Carywn was having his ministerial reshuffle rewritten for him. Edwina Hart, business minister and favourite of Sir Terry, managed to keep her job in the subsequent reshuffle, despite strong rumours to the contrary.
Coincidentally, a certain business minister had also been party to approving £2.8m funding for Sir Terry’s graduate foundation a few months earlier.
Can you imagine the furore at Westminster if the prime minister point blank refused to respond to this type of FOI where manipulation of cabinet posts was suspected? The blizzard of comment, the political pressure, the scrutiny?
Can you imagine members of a Westminster parliamentary committee being disposed of at will and at the whim of those who seek to preserve their absolute power base?
Be in no doubt, that this is the state of Welsh democracy. And it goes on and on and on. Without censure, without any kind of serious scrutiny and without any punitive accountability.
Julian Ruck is the author of the Ragged Cliffs Trilogy and legal thriller The Bent Brief’. He is an FoI campaigner and has made contributions to programmes in both Welsh and national broadcasting
Tags: Carwyn Jones, Julian Ruck, Julie Morgan, Letter from Wales, Sir Terry Matthews
Mr Ruck, it is all well and good making accusations – quick question, assuming you are correct in what you say, what do you propose the solution is?
Can’t accuse you of joking!
Also see “A view from Rural Wales” – glyn.davies.blogspot.co.uk
Blog dated 26th April 2013, “One-Party-State – Look at Wales”.
I can imagine the furore in Westminster if senior MPs were found to be accepting money from lobbyists, or using huge taxpayer allowances to decorate their duckponds, and if said MPs kept a lid on what they spent? It would be appalling.
Oops, it’s actually happened, quite a lot, in your beloved Westminster, Mr Ruck, and if you have any evidence to back up your claims , please let’s see it.
Also, in what way is old labour in Wales ‘anti-English’? Any proof?
At least it’s better than your usual rants about getting your books rejected.
I see there remain some questions for you to answer from the previous dross you wrote last week.
Shall I repeat the questions?
It’s very disappointing that Uncut is undiscriminating enough to run *another* piece by this bitter and twisted fantasist, so soon after his last cry for help. It really doesn’t cast Wales in a good light, to have our politics so eccentrically represented.
I hope Uncut will do its own reputation, and readership, a favour and politely decline any further Rucking submissions.
I’m confused. Julian Ruck writes of ‘a recent Children and Young People’s committee’. Yet the WA committee of this name ceased to exist more than two years ago.
http://www.assemblywales.org/bus-home/bus-committees/bus-committees-third1/bus-committees-third-cyp-home.htm
Oddly enough Glynn Davies, the Tory MP for Montgomeryshire, made exactly the same apparent mistake in a blog post along much the same lines and with much the same sentiments back in April.
http://glyn-davies.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/one-party-state-look-at-wales.html
Both and he and Julian Ruck seem unaware this event actually occurred long ago, and choose to write about it in very similar terms. Is this another unfortunate coincidence like the one involving the plagiarising of Christopher Hitchens a while back?
Sorry – the committee in question does exist, though I am intrigued that Mr Davies’ and Mr Ruck’s account of this event seem so similar.
To Gez Kirby,
My apologies for writing the truth, Mr Kirby.
As for casting Wales in a bad light, is it then above the wicked inconvenience of democratic scrutiny?
JR
Dear Mr Hewson,
Do you really believe that your obsessive stalking of me, for nearly a year now, and your resilient spite, is doing your reputation any good?
Or is it just that your desperation for some parasitical publicity knows no bounds?
Either way, may I suggest that you find something more constructive to do with your time? There are I assure you, more invigorating things to do than hating Julian Ruck.
JR
The last thing a plagiarist should do, is get caught out plagiarising again! Julian…. I will write a full comparison when I have the time. Oh Julian, you crack me up!
Compare this with the above column
http://glyn-davies.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/one-party-state-look-at-wales.html
And read this account of the authors previous plagiarism
http://johnabell.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/julian-ruck-plagiarist-by-steve-mosby.html
You really must stop accusing everyone who disagrees with you of ‘stalking’ and ‘spite’.
For the last 18 months you’ve been making a quite deliberate attempt to pose as a public figure issuing some pretty controversial opinions about publishing, individual writers and now politics.
If you do that people have the right to call you to account, to question those opinions, the ‘facts’ you use to support them, and your sources. That’s what comes of being a ‘columnist’ (I know since I was one for ten years, on the Sunday Times as it happens).
If you’re not willing to back up your arguments with supporting answers you’re not a ‘columnist’. You’re just a pub blowhard.
So perhaps you would like to enlighten us. Did you read Glynn Davies’s post and base your column on it or not? If so… why are you writing columns for a website that are based upon the opinions of a Tory MP?
It’s OK – I know you won’t answer. But it’s a perfectly reasonable question to ask.
Mr Ruck: David Hewson (and perhaps rather playfully, Oliver too) have raised a good point. Here is a side-by-side comparison of Glyn Davies MP’s blogpost dated 26 April 2013 and yours, dated 14 June 2013:
——-
Glyn Davies MP wrote:
“If a committee member shows any capacity to think for themselves, or stand by a principle, just throw them off – immediately.”
Julian Ruck wrote:
“If any member of said committee shows any sign at all of having an independent intellect (or indeed any intellect at all), or god forbid a view that may be deemed “principled”, then they are ignominiously ejected, without a safety harness.”
————-
Glyn Davies MP wrote:
“Three Labour AMs are publicly in support of a legal ban on smacking children. The Minister is not.”
Julian Ruck wrote:
“…three of the Labour team were in support of a ban on physical chastisement of those objectionable urchins who fall by the parental wayside as it were, the minister overseeing all this, one Gwenda Thomas, was not.”
————-
Glyn Davies MP wrote:
“…just before the Committee was due to meet, to take evidence, and consider an amendment to introduce the smacking ban into the Bill, Labour’s Chief Whip just sacked the three principled members, Christine Chapman (Chair), Julie Morgan and Jenny Rathbone – and replaced them with three others.”
Julian Ruck wrote:
“Chance would have it, that just before the committee was due to convene, take evidence and consider an amendment to introduce the child-smacking ban into the Bill, old Labour’s chief whip-master sacked the three liberal musketeers, and without as much as a by your leave.
Christine Chapman (Chair), Julie Morgan and Jenny Rathbone were all replaced by more accommodating members with a more corporally inclined inclination than their predecessors.”
————-
Glyn Davies MP wrote:
“When the meeting started, the microphones were turned off so that new chair, Ann Jones could explain that she had only just found out she was even on the Committee.”
Julian Ruck wrote:
“When the meeting started, microphones were injudiciously turned off so that the new chair, one Ann Jones, was left to rather miserably explain that she had only just found out about her ‘calling’ to the committee…”
————-
Glyn Davies MP wrote:
“And this comes after news this week that First Minister, Carwyn Jones simply refused to answer a FOI inquiry about discussions between himself and Sir Terry Mathews.”
Julian Ruck wrote:
“Only a few weeks ago Carwyn Jones, patriarch of unreformed welsh Labour, refused outright to a freedom of information enquiry relating to his discussions with Sir Terry Matthews…”
————-
Glyn Davies MP wrote:
“Now behind the request is the suspicion (I think) that Sir Terry has influenced, or sought to influence who is in the First Minister’s Cabinet.”
Julian Ruck wrote:
“The strong suspicion was that poor old Carywn was having his ministerial reshuffle rewritten for him.”
————-
Glyn Davies MP wrote:
“I’ve never been a fan of the FOI system – but can you imagine the UK Gov’t getting away with this sort of high-handed behaviour.”
Julian Ruck wrote:
“Can you imagine the furore at Westminster if the prime minister point blank refused to respond to this type of FOI where manipulation of cabinet posts was suspected?”
————-
Mr Ruck, it all seems remarkably similar. But before I add my own thoughts, what are your thoughts on this comparison?
Looks to me like Rucky has used Glyn Davies’s blog, right down to the mistakes therein, for his own piece. Rather oddly, he also seems unaware that this happened a while back, and certainly not ‘recently’.
Curioser and curioser. Clearly Ruck trawls better people’s blogs and writings for his ‘ideas’.
Time to ask Ruck those same old questions again. Perhaps Dave can resubmit them?
I’m intrigued about the plagiarism question, as well as the ones about not telling the truth about book rejections and agents. Also the one about being in jail.
Shouldn’t this say by Glyn Davies MP?
Mr Ruck appears yet again to be bang to rights.
Labour Uncut: you appear to have posted a plagiarised article, or at the very least an article almost totally based on an existing blog post, by a ‘writer’ you were warned had form on this.
It’s time you apologised to your readers and dumped this clown – he boasts on his website of being one of your regular writers, and frankly I’d want to dissociate myself and my politics site, from people who nick other people’s words and ideas.
Right now, I am staying with my family in Paris and in the middle of enjoying a pot-au-feu with a chubby big bummed Bordeaux.
So why dont all you sad, inadequate and utterly miserable failures just go and get stuffed.
Best wishes,
Julian
I’ve not come across Mr Ruck before. Plagiarism aside, I can’t understand how an author could write in such a distractingly flamboyant prose and have such a high opinion of himself. I had to read some sentences three times before I could grasp the basic point they were making. Perhaps Mr Ruck should try a “less is more” approach to avoid adding to his (hinted at) growing number of rejection letters?
Oh dear. Ruck caught out nicking other people’s stuff again, and Labour Uncut publishing it. Id tKe this plagiarism down if I were you, and apologise to Glyn Davies and your readers.
“UNCUT: Letter from Wales: Welsh democracy is in a ruinous state”
This should read
“UNCUT: Letter from Julian Ruck: Plagiarism thrives’
PS And of course the Glyn Davies blog was one of my sources, so what? Said source went along with the column to Uncut.
You people get crazier by the day.
JR
My favourite slice of pizza can be many things (lord knows I have eaten in excess of ten million slices – literally) but the one thing it must be is honest. An honest slice of the pizza pie. But clearly, irrefutably, without doubt, this article is plagiarism. Two questions:
1) You are a serial plagiarist Ruck, a veritable sweetcorn when all I wanted was a roquito pepper. Why do you do it? Are you that ignorant that you do not expect to be caught with your knickers down?
2)Labour Uncut – will you stop employing this toad (no offence meant to toads, believe it or not the common garden toad enjoys nothing more than the unwanted crusts of last night’s Domino’s mini garlic pizza bread)?
I think what those plagiarised sections show best is Mr Ruck’s appalling over use of adjectives and adjectival phrases…. 😉
To David Hewson,
And who swiped a whole damn TV series for his last book?!
And as for your ten years with the Times, that was decades ago.
What happened?
People who live in chrystal glass towers should avoid lobbing Trimsaran bricks around.
Now go away and bore someone else, you silly fellow.
JR
Mr Ruck, since you clearly read these comments avidly, despite being in Paris, will you answer the 7 questions laid out by a previous reader of your last contribution to this site?
So far as I can tell, Glyn Davies was more than a source: you copied his point, in the order he made them, and cribbed his wording, except where you added your own inflated malapropisms and illiterarices to his sentences.
In other words you nicked his article. Since you have no shame, let’s hope Labour Uncut have some shame and cease publishing your dreadfully-written and unpleasant rants. This article, however appallingly written, looked like something at least tangentially-related to Welsh politics. Now it turns out you nicked it from a Tory MP’s blog.
Disgusting, really.
Oh dear. Is that a serious response? I didn’t ‘swipe’ a whole damn TV series for my last book. I was very happy to be hired for the job – I didn’t nick it without telling the people who wrote it in the first place.
http://wwwshotsmagcouk.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/david-hewson-and-killing.html
Did you tell Glyn Davies you were purloining his column? Was a Tory MP happy his words were about to appear on a Labour web site under your name? And of course… vice versa?
There are two Killing books now by the way, and a third coming next February. Not ‘swiped’ – commissioned.
To you all,
It seems to me, that all you people can do is follow a classic Alinskyite line.
You have no substantive facts or argument to counter the contents of my Letters, therefore you resort to the only weapons left available to you _ personal insult, bullying fantasy and virulent abuse.
Do continue to play amongst yourselves by all means but I have better things to do.
JR,
Started up the revenge reviews on Amazon again I note.
How low can you people get?
I don’t understand. All stories and columns come from different sources so what’s the big deal here? For me the question is whether what Ruck is talking about actually happened. If it is then this is a problem, surely? Noone on this comments thread seems to care about that.
Not as low as you can get, Ruck: youre a plagiarist and a liar and it has been substantively proved. Now you answer the man’s questions.
Say what you want, but you’re a two time caught plagiarist. Why is this article still even up here?
“I don’t understand. All stories and columns come from different sources so what’s the big deal here?”
The big deal here is that this man, who has plagiarised before (see passim) has just done it again, by passing off something he cribbed as his own.
He also has a record of being thoroughly dishonest on other matters too: see the last few pieces he wrote here, plus the invaluable Jewels from Julian site and John Abell’s blog in which many of Ruck’s lies are exposed.
Whether or not this happened is a good question: the problem is that when you have your political columns written by plagiarists and liars, the actual story gets lost in the fug of deceit.
Which is why Labour Uncut should drop Ruck.
Dear Mr Dedge,
Thank you so much for a reasoned and polite comment, unfortunately the people above, who are mostly Welsh it must be said, are patently incapable of positing any kind of mature or informed argument as you have clearly observed.
Regrettably, this is the low grade level of debate in Wales.
My Letter is fully sourced, as indeed are all the Letters I write _ Uncut simply wouldn,t have it any other way (please excuse the punctuation, Im using my French nephews laptop!)
You have my absolute assurance that the contents of the Letter are true.
A quick call to the Press Office of the Welsh Government in Cardiff Bay will confrm this to be so.
Again, thank you for a comment that is absent of insult and abuse, believe me, it makes an extremey pleasant change.
Regards,
Julian Ruck
Mr Ruck, with the greatest of respect, when your profession is writing for public consumption, you offer said writings up for criticism. To then throw a tantrum and repeatedly claim “you’re all picking on me!”, while refusing to answer a single question put to you is some of the most ridiculous and childish behaviour I’ve seen in my 28 years in publishing. I strongly suggest you either grow up or consider a different career path.
Anyone notice how Ruck is very carefully trying to circumnavigate directly saying that he copied the article? In other words, he is caught bang to rights and he knows it. What a drip. He’s also patently not in France.
When he’s in a tight sopt, Ruck always claims the Welsh hate him, and tries to turn it into a Welsh v English, or Welsh-language v English-language issue. Basically, he has no principles and no shame. As far as I can tell David Hewson, who first rumbled your nasty plagiarism, is English, as is Steve Mosby.
If I was English, your plagiarism would still be plagiarism, and your lies would still be lies, Mr Ruck.
This is not an issue about Wales and England, it’s about common honesty as a writer, and about the difference between truth and lies.
You keep evading the issues don’t you Mr Ruck? Yet you claim to want debate.
Why is this plagiarised article still up?
Ruck says: “PS And of course the Glyn Davies blog was one of my sources, so what? Said source went along with the column to Uncut.”
What do you mean ‘said source went along with my column to Uncut’? When you got caught plagiarising Hitchens you claimed you’d sent in a draft and acknowledged Hitchens in the piece you sent to the newspaper, but they cut it out (or something…. as if!).
Now you claim you sent a piece to Labour Uncut in which your ‘source’ ‘went along with the column’. This is obfuscation: did you or did you not tell Labour Uncut that you were using another person’s blog for the whole of your article?
Labour Uncut – we are your readers – please answer this question: did you knowingly, as Ruck implies, publish an article that was based on a Tory MP’s blog and reproduces it pretty much undigested? What does Ruck mean when he says the ‘source went along with the column to’ you?
This is surely significant – did you knowingly publish a plagiarised article?
I have checked the links supplied above in the comments and it is abundantly clear that this is an out and out case of intellectual theft. I expect the removal of this article shortly and also a statement from Labour Uncut as to why they have employed a convicted plagiarist who has gone on to repeat his crime yet again.
Mr Ruck – as stated in my earlier comment, I thought iallowing you the chance to voice your thoughts before commenting further would be the right thing to do. However, your response, in which you tell all those who have offered up any critique to “go and get stuffed” and accuse them of beig guilty of “personal insult, bullying fantasy and virulent abuse” is quite telling. You will see I have done none of these things in this thread, and I can’t help but feel that along with your answer about sources, you are using such phrases in order to deflect from the matter at hand, which is that you have been caught using content stolen from another writer for the second time in seven months. Not only that, but the writer whose work you have stolen this time happens to be a Conservative MP, and you have had this stolen content published ons a Labour-affiliated website. If Guido Fawkes or Tim Montgomery get wind of thus then they will have a field day. You need to ask Labour Uncut to take it down for the sake of both your reputations.
To Beth,
And no doubt a Welsh publisher.
Do correct me if I am wrong, together with your true identity and evidence of same.
Now, I have just left my niece’s profession de foi, a delighttful experience, albeit that the priest did did try and press gang me into the childrens, pews!
Best wishes,
Julian
http://mrorigamidotorg.wordpress.com/2013/06/15/carwyn-says-balls-to-ballsian-economic-theory/
Julian, the article is not ‘sourced’ as you put it, it was wholesale, total, plagiarism! I think it is rather patronising to think an educated, politically minded person would not realise that you have changed one or two words around and then throw in so many adverbs it becomes unreadable toss.
What really beggars belief is that after being caught out so spectacularly plagiarising Hitchens, you did it again! Maybe you should change vocation, this writing jaunt isn’t really working out?
Why did you plagiarise again?Did you really think no one would notice?
You seem to me to be a glutton for punishment because each article you’ve written on this site gets universally torn apart and mocked.
And now I suspect that perhaps all of them may be plagiarised, if you have done it twice you have revealed you have no integrity, no imagination and cannot be trusted.
Mr Ruck – answer the questions about your plagiarism. ONce again, whether Beth is a Welsh publisher or not doesn’t detract form the validity of the questions about your lies and your plagiarism.
Stop squirming and answer the questions – I thought you were some fearless FOI campaigner. So please, now, extend that freedom of information to scrutiny of your good self, sir.
What a dreadful and evasive coward this Ruck is. He has been asked to answer a series of specific questions which he will not answer. All he does is cry foul when he gets caught out. Labour uncut – did you know this article was plagiarised? Did Ruck – as he claims – alert you to his ‘source’ when he sent in his ‘column’? Since he wont answer perhaps you should…
Labour Uncut: you allow Ruck to describe himself, in the contributor’s biog to a plagiarised article, as a FOI campaigner. Funny that he himself doesn’t deal with FOI requests about his own plagiarism, lies and self-interest.
Once more Mr Ruck: admit you’re plagiarist, twice-caught, explain why you lied about never having been rejected by Welsh publishers, declare your interest in your attacks on funding for writers (namely you were rejected by the publishers you smear), and why you told porkies about about having a big agent, admit you abused the publishers you attack in post-rejection emails, and tell us whether you’ve ever been in clink.
A clear set of questions for you to answer.
It really hasn,t occurred to any you people yet, why Uncut (in agreement with me) is still publishing your deranged and vitriolic comments, has it?
Extraordinary.
And what have I been saying about the low grade level of debate in Wales??
Keep up the good work, if nothing else you are giving Westminster more laughs than Ron Davies claiming it could happen to anyone when caught with his pants down on Clapham Common!
JR
To Dave Hewson,
Killing? Well now Dave, you are certainly an adept when it comes to truculent character assassination I must say!
I note you have ignored my question re what happened to your glittering career with the Sunday Times, all those years ago? Perhaps I should spend as much pointless time trawling the internet searching, for dirt on you, as you do on me.
On second thoughts I can thinik of nothing more boring.
You really are a frightfully enthisiastic chap when it comes to dishing it out seems, but a trifle diffident when receiving it.
From the general tenet of your year long crusade of Ruck hating, one can only assume that your Fortnum and Masons hamper is somewhat short of a churnalistically caviar filled sandwich or two!
If nothing else you are sheer entertainment Dave I must say.
When are you and Mosby starting your Tribute Laurel and Hardy tour?
Please let me know.
Best wishes,
Julian
PS Have you ever thought of seeking election to the Welsh Assembly, Dave? I hear they are running short of comically self important clowns.
James now, is it Abell? You are certainly a mother of invention!
JR
Ruck writes: “PS And of course the Glyn Davies blog was one of my sources, so what? Said source went along with the column to Uncut.”
Can Labour Uncut please clarify, since Ruck evades the question, what is meant by ‘went along to’? This seems a singularly evasive and squirming way of not answering the question and trying to slide the blame onto Labour Uncut.
Once and for all Mr Ruck: what is meant by ‘went along to’?
Once and for all, Labour Uncut: please explain how you came to publish – knowingly according to Julian Ruck – an article whose content was wholly lifted from a MP’s blog, whose wording is suspiciously similar, and in which not just the points are the same but the order in which they are made – right down to the last section about Terry Matthews.
This is terrible: ethically, morally, and in terms of intellectual copyright and your own reputation as a politics site.
To Gordon Lord?
So, Im not in France?
Funny that, Ive just been talking with one of my French nephews about his French girlfriend, while scoffing croissants au jambon, camembert and salami.
,
Not the usual sort of fare or conversation that one normally enjoys at breakfast time in Wales, I think you will agree?
JR
To Jools Ruck
You mean this? ‘And as for your ten years with the Times, that was decades ago.
What happened?’
I didn’t answer because once again you have your facts around your ankles. I quit the Sunday Times nine years ago to become a full-time novelist. I’m glad you thought my time there a glittering career. I enjoyed it too. But the books started to do really well by then and I didn’t need journalism any more.
Nine years. Which in my space-time continuum is not ‘decades’.
By the way when you say this article was ‘fully sourced’ you seem to have not the faintest clue what this means. If it were sourced it would a) include the name of the original writer Glyn Davies, b) a link to the original post and c) make some attempt to be original, instead of aping the format and much of the language of the source.
All you appear to have in answer to the many genuine questions you’re asked is bluster and some rather childish insults. I’m genuinely amazed anyone runs your so-called work. Do tell us, Jools. You claim to be both a best selling novelist and a columnist. Does anyone actually pay you for this stuff?
So far, there has been only abuse and ill-written invective from Ruck, and no attempt to answer the question about his deceit and plagiarism.
Come on Mr Ruck, don’t evade the issues please.