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casting it’s Tammany Hall spells for far too long, the pettiness of council chamber politics will no longer do, the outdated anti-English and “woe are we,” no longer cuts the mustard – or anything else for that matter.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
“Keep up the good work, if nothing else you are giving Westminster more laughs…”
If anybody’s laughing at Westminster it’ll be because a Labour website has been suckered into publishing the plagiarized blog of a Tory MP attacking a Labour government.
If you’re paying this guy, you should ask for your money back. May as well cut the middle man out and just have Tory MPs posting why Labour’s so crap directly. Might need to change the name from Labour Uncut. Call it Conservative Home maybe?
Mr Ruck- with your last two responses, you have indeed elevated yourself to the quintessential tragicomic master of the unintentionally funny comment. The irony of what you wrote is truly inspirational.
Unfortunately (for you that is) you still have questions to answer, and insulting people or trying to change the subject is not helping your cause. Neither is telling people to “go get stuffed” then complaining about the low level of debate in Wales. As it happens, there is a high level of debate here, and just because you don’t know about it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. Maybe you should look through this list: http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2010/09/01/total-politics-top-50-welsh-blogs/
As for this ‘Letter From Wales,” it is wholeheartedly plagiarized from a Conservative MP. If I want to comment on any of the issues raised then I shall show the original writer, Glyn Davies, the respect he deserves by commenting on his blog and not on this one. Shame on you for plagiarising. Shame on Labour Uncut for continuing to host this stolen content
Here at Uncut we have a pretty liberal comments policy. The pieces are intended to provoke comment and debate. Most things go. But we don’t have any truck with sockpuppets. It’s come to our attention that Kim Filling, Falmouth, Gordon Lord and Jim Parle are all coming from the same source, so, whoever you really are, you’re blocked.
I literally cannot remember the last time anyone else managed to get themselves blocked, so well done. It’s good to disagree, healthy to be passionate, even vitriolic, but not to deceive in this manner.
To the commenters getting excited about some of the sourcing of this piece, Julian was crystal clear about where he had picked up on the changes to the committee.
Whether the conduct Julian describes was initially highlighted by Plaid, the Tories or the Monster Raving Looney party, is irrelevant, that it happened and what it signifies about Labour in Wales is germane.
And one piece of friendly advice. These pieces are pretty well read, partially, I suspect because of the splenetic and voluminous nature of the comments thread. On my travels, several people mention them – from MPs to party members. Noone has yet echoed either the tone or substance of Julian’s critics in the comments thread. If the intention of commenters is to persuade and put the opposing side of the argument to Julian, you might want to calibrate your approach.
Editor
Editor, you have published a plagiarised, not sourced, nor cited piece of writing. Plagiarised, dear chap. Have you read the dictionary definition?
If sourced and cited correctly then the source material should be acknowledged, so please can you add that? References, citations, etc?
In other words labour uncut is happy to publish stolen and unacknowledged content by a twice caught plagiarist? And without telling your readers where the original material comes from. Is that what you’re saying? (Never mind giving a rejected author a soapbox from hich to smear those who turned his books down while lying about his own conflicts of interest).
If you did all this knowingly then im afraid it don’t matter how ‘well read’ Ruck’s tripe is: youre as dishonest as he is.
How depressing.
To the Editor,
May I point out that other commentators on this thread are also using multiple aliases and have been doing exactly the same thing on my own blog for quite a while now, and not to mention all the other dirty tricks, threats etc etc.
Indeed, Kim Filling etc are just a few more sockpuppets coming from the same sources, namely two to three people at most
A brief glance at the threads, will really tell you all you need to know.
I am further compelled to point out in defence of my countrymen, that these few determined but misguided individuals are by far the exception and certainly not the rule, where the decency, enduring kindness and warmth of the Welsh character are concerned.
Julian Ruck
To David Hewson,
David, is it really not time to call it a day? We have both had our fun.
Surely, you must have better things to do than constantly trying to discredit me?
You are an accomplished author in your own right, and by your own admission have no knowledge or indeed interest in matters Welsh.
We have never met, we have never spoken with one another.
God knows there is enough hell going on in the world, so good luck and I wish you every success with your new projects.
Sincerely yours,
Julian Ruck
“To the commenters getting excited about some of the sourcing of this piece, Julian was crystal clear about where he had picked up on the changes to the committee.”
Editor- Mr Ruck took it much further than just ‘sourcing’ his piece from Glyn Davies MP- in many parts he has used the same words in the same sentence structure while changing the odd phrase (which, paradoxically, makes the piece much harder to read than the blog written by Mr Davies). That is not sourcing. It is stealing. It is a huge breach of journalistic ethics. It is not Mr Ruck’s own original work. This is what people have a problem with, and not the ideas contained.
To J Morais,
You obviously enjoy a certain, if determined, naivity where journalistic endeavour is concerned.
May I respectfully suggest that you concentrate more on your PhD, titled I believe, Pink Gins, Cappuccinos and The Welsh Literati.
I am confident you will find this a far more uplifting exercise than trying to tell Uncut how to do its job?
The Pillock – to use your most recent nickname for me.
I don’t have a problem with the content of Ruck’s most recent ‘letter from Wales’, because I myself feel that the Labour party in Wales is an unchallenged hegemony. But this article was stolen, unacknowledged, by you or by Ruck, from another source. It was in effect plagiarised, and presented to us as a piece ‘by’ Mr Ruck. It was not that – it was a piece by Glyn Davies MP, a respected conservative who has cross-party admiration for the perceptiveness of his views and his principled stance on a series of matters.
What Ruck did was nick his blog post and actually make it worse with trademark Ruckisms, but without being able to hide that he plagiarised it.
So the issue remains, for Labour Uncut: do you think it’s good to host stolen content, and do you think that it’s a good reflection of a politics website to publish articles that have been lifted wholeseale and unacknowledged from other writers?
In other instances where a magazine or paper has inadvertently published plagiarised articles (as indeed the Llanelli Star did when Ruck plagiarised Hitchens), the common form is to apologise, to credit the source, and where relevant to remove the stolen content.
You lot however seem quite proud that one of you columnists is a plagiarist.
This is bizarre.
Please explain.
To Alan Jones and all your other identities,
You have neither a reasoned argument, nor any kind of credibility.
Please find something better to do.
JR
@Joao Morais
I just had a look at your link to the top Welsh blogs. Seems a little biased dont you think? Who wrote it?? The ghost of Saunders Lewis? Lets look at the top 5:
1 Blog Menai – 100% in Welsh an therefore 85% of the population cant even read it so I fail to see how this could be at number one if it was based on popularity. It seems the concept of a bilingual wales is not a double edged sword
2 Plaid Wrecsam – no comment needed
3 Syniadau – ‘thoughts for an independent wales’… in other words this represents the views of about 9% of Welsh people.
4 Hen Rech Flin – entirely in Welsh… see comments for #1
5 Vaughan Roderick – entirely in Welsh…. see comments above. Most out an out nationalist BBC employee (see his twitter page). The man is a hypocrite for taking a pay cheque off an organisation with the word ‘British’ in it’s title.
Also of note is a special shout out for a blog not in the top 5 for Bethan Jenkins Nationalist blog. A convicted drink driver who made up a self-diagnosis of depression to justify her actions and would have been sacked from her party anywhere else… not in nationalist Wales.
To you all,
The more you try to silence me, the more you try to intimidate, the more determined I become and the more I will expose.
Watch this space as they say, for some etxraordinary F of I data that has just come into my possession, concerning the abuse of tax-payer subsidy by the Welsh establishment.
And you think my sources are something to write home about?
JR
Some information for ‘Belowlansdker’ – we’ll disregard the anti-Welsh language diatribe and the personal spite from an anonymous Welsh-hater, but let me inform you that the ranking is made by Total Politics, and is based on numbers of views.
Total Politics – link here http://www.totalpolitics.com/ – is an English (yes, English – imagine that! not all English hate Welsh as much as you and Ruck do…) politics website and magazine who use viewing and reading figures for blogs as well as translations of content to make up their own minds. My guess is that they chose these blogs not necessarily because they agreed with all their content, but because they liked the way things were said, or respected the ideas, or simply thought they were original (and not plagiarised, say) pieces.
You may not like the answer to your question, but it is, indubitably, an answer.
Keep insulting people from the comfort of your anonymity, you vicious troll, but I think on this one you’re a bit stuffed.
To Belowlandsker,
At last!
Someone is presenting a reasoned argument that is devoid of abuse and insult.
Things are looking up!
Readers mihght also like to note that Mr Roderick is the son of a previous head honcho at BBC Wales, nothing new here, incest is the name of the game at BBC Wales and always has been, as observed in my previous Letters.
To Belowlandsker,
I would also point out that ex-National Poet of Wales, Gwyneth Lewis, waxed lyrical about her depression too, all at the expense of the tax-payer of course.
Not to mention the 79,000 pounds she received from NESTA to travel around the world with her husband in a private yacht .
The object of the exercise?
To look for ports with a Cardiff connection, wherein the lady poet is from.
Im not even going to start on all the other thousands of pounds she has received in bursaries, tax-payer funded Welsh literati prizes etc etc – its a hell of a lot of money.
You may also like to know that two years ago I opined that the Welsh language sounds like a turkey being throttled – to my ears anway. Not everyone likes Wagner, not everyone likes Punk Rock, but how dare I say something negative about Glendower’s Holy Grail?
Blog Mania is still banging on about it and so are all the other Welsh language Nats, desperate folk that they are.
So, if anyone is suffering from depression, learn Welsh and come and live in Wales!
JR
To James,
That’s a good one. ‘The comfort of your anonymity’! And who the hell are you?
JR
‘Readers mihght also like to note that Mr Roderick is the son of a previous head honcho at BBC Wales, nothing new here, incest is the name of the game at BBC Wales and always has been, as observed in my previous Letters.’
Julian, I do not think incest is the right word, I think nepotistic is the correct word. No one at BBC Wales is having sexual relations within the family! I do not believe in nepotism, I believe in a meritocracy.
I do not think the BBC in Wales is any worse than in England, the Dimbleby family being prime examples. If however, the best people for a job happen to be related, is there anything wrong with them getting the job if they are the best candidate?
Secondly, I cannot believe you have plagiarised your article, in its entirety, again. Why do you insist on plagiarism? It is testament to the awareness of people that you always get caught out. I cannot believe a labour blog would publish a plagiarised conservative article, but that just illustrates the absurdities of you tenure of any writing jobs you ever have!
For the record, Julian, you are not regarded as anything other than a bit of a comedy figure in Wales. It is coming to the time of year when the Kidwell-e comedy festival is supposed to be happening, is it going to happen this year, as I’ve not seen any ads for it?
To James or is it J Morais?
For all your jumping up and down about my ‘plagiarism’ and silly diversions from the truth, one cannot help but observe that the true victim of my scurrilous blog post snatching is one Glyn Davies MP.
The thing is, the gentleman hasn’t said a word – in fact, I suspect he is rather enjoying it all – you are doing all his work for him!
JR
Why is the author not responding to the claim (fully backed up by the links provided) of plagiarism?
That this article is still up is farcical.
Dear Editor,
What a response. Plagiarism’s fine! “Getting excited about the sourcing” is one thing, copying what someone else has written, at times word for word, and passing it off as your own is another.
But since you’re all good with the plagiarism, let’s discuss content. So you speak to Labour MPs and activists on your travels? Clearly not Welsh ones. Your “Letter from Wales” gives the impression that the country is salivating for the swingeing arts cuts seen in England and desperate for Michael Gove style education reforms. This doesn’t represent Welsh politics far less Welsh Labour politics.
If you want a view of Wales from a credible centre-left journalist, compare your correspondents “letters” with this http://www.mirror.co.uk/opinion/news-opinion/red-dragons-slay-tories-cuts-1957661.
So “these pieces are pretty well read”? To those who do, please read them for what they are- an ugly parody. If you honestly want to know what’s going on in this country, there are far better sites that will offer you a more balanced view covering the successes as well as the failures.
I assumed you hadn’t investigated the plagiarism allegations. It turns out you had and you’re fine with it as long as this lapdog continues to feed your sneering elitist prejudices about Wales and our inability to govern ourselves. Well, you and Mr. Ruck are welcome to each other.
And now Ruck and his troll-chums are personally attacking people with depression, and making mental health issues into tribalist point-scoring.
You must be very proud of yourselves at Labour Uncut.
nobody is attacking people with with diagnosed depression James! Depression is a very serious business…. as is using a self diagnosis of it to justify drink driving!
and while I’m here:
” but let me inform you that the ranking is made by Total Politics, and is based on numbers of views”
if you’re gullible enough to believe that Betsan Powys’ political blog on bbc.co.uk (the most viewed website in the UK), which has 70 + comments on each post, has less ‘number of views’ than the likes of “Plaid Wrecsam”, “Hen Rech Flin” and “Syniadau” (all of which have 2 or 3 comments on each entry) then there is no saving you!! You must have spent an extra long time at the nationalist indoctrination unit at Llangranog! Did they promise you an extra go on the Dry Sgi Slope if you swore never to question anything 🙂 lol
To Ben,
‘Inability to govern ourselves’.
Well now, a quick read of this comments thread makes that abundantly clear.
You lot would have trouble managing the Sherbert Lemon supplies at a public school tuck-shop!
JR
PS To Belowlandsker, don’t forget Betsan is really Druid Betsi Treganna, daughter of yet another BBC ap Wales master nationalist. I must say though that the last time she interviewed me, she was a bit of a charmer, so I can’be too hard.
To Abell,
As I have said on my own blog, the difference beween London broadcasters and their BBC ap Wales counterparts, is that none of the English boyos have screwed the tax-payer for their ego rich autobiographies, neither indeed has a London BBC journalist screwed the tax-payer for his/her self-indulgent exercises with literary fantasy.
So, I would keep quiet if I were you.
Not one of you is addressing the issues, all you have is this ridiculous farce about plagiarism.
Dear God, grow up all of you and go out and get a proper job.
You’re pathetic.
JR
Julian, I have only been replying as myself, stop accusing me of being other people!
belowlandsker: I very carefully said, you clown, that it was to do with views plus the Total Politics people themselves making judgments about content. Your claim was that it was a biased Welsh nationalist ranking. I disproved that and belied it, and referred you to Total Politics’s own website, which rather kicks your sneering into the long grass, no?
belowlandsker, all of the above you listed are a serious business, depression, drink driving, but so is plagiarism. Here is the definition;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism
‘Plagiarism is considered academic dishonesty and a breach of journalistic ethics. It is subject to sanctions like expulsion.’
Labour Uncut was a blog I used to take seriously, but now the editor is publishing plagiarism and poorly written rubbish, not only that but actively supporting plagiarism! This is embarrasing, do you, editor, not think so?
As Ben above says, you clearly have not been talking to Welsh labour MPs. I am really proud of Welsh Labours efforts in having a more socialist agenda in Wales and am glad to be in a devolved country where we do not have to endure crazy old Etonians and there crazy economic and social policies. But then so are most people in Wales.
For the record, I am not a nationalist and I am not a Welsh speaker.
Julian, as you have said you are leaving, just leave and spare us all your rubbish!
To Abell,
Allow me to point something out to you here.
Neither my wife nor I receive one solitary penny from the State. My wife works extremely hard running a nursing home in the private sector, where carers work their fingers to the bone for a paltry minimum wage.
I am self-employed.
The Kidwelly eFestival, was a modest attempt to put something into the Carmarthenshire local economy
It’s failure cost me personally 35 plus thousand pounds. Note my money, saved up over many years working in the private sector.
Not the State’s, not the tax-payers’ money.
Now, it is our hard-earned money along with millions of others that enables you to stay at home all day sitting behind a screen dishing out your vicious fantasies.
It is people like us who keep a roof over your head and food on your table. This is the Welfare State and as it happens, I do believe that the strong should always look after weak.
But you are a disgrace, and a prime example of everything that has gone so very wrong with the original and noble intentions of our great socialist thinkers.
Like I say, go out into the real world and just try and put something into society for once, instead of always taking it out.
You are not, entitled.
JR
To Abell,
PS And I wonder if you declared your tax-payer funded fees from Parthian to the DWP?
To Ben,
So, my Letters don’t represent what is going on in Wales?
So, the Estyn Report concluding that 40% of Welsh school children entering Secondary school are unable to read and write properly, the fact that private investment won’t come anywhere near Wales without being bribed with huge tax-payer subsidy (and when as soon as the subsidy runs out, said company takes a hike East),where the stacking arrangements for ambulances at Welsh hospitals make a bad day at Heathrow look thoroughly efficient……….are all ugly parodies???
You’re right about one thing Ben, Welsh Labour sure as hell isn’t Westminster Labour and that’s the problem and why you are going to lose avalanches of votes at the next election.
The Welsh have had enough of old style, worn out ancient Bevanite politics.
They want to move into the 21st Century.
I’d go back to the Dry Sgi Slopes at Llangranog if I were you – yet another subsidised Welsh effort.
JR
The problem with the Welsh-hating bigots, single-issue fanatics as they are, is that they cannot imagine that one can respect Welsh without being a nationalist, that one can support devolution without being anti-English, or that one can find plagiarism disgusting and corrupt without disagreeing with the plagiarised article (indeed Glyn Davies’s piece was pretty good – it was just that Ruck had no right to pass it off as his own).
So far Ruck and his troll chum have mocked mental illness and alleged that something improper occurred with Vaughan Roderick’s appointment as a political commentator. These personal smears are quite typical of the anti-Welsh lobby.
Contrast that with what I and other have said about Ruck: plagiarist and documented liar about book rejections, maker of bigoted comments, and a man who has hidden his very personal interest in attacking Welsh writers and publishers, and we have two very different sets of procedures.
Editor –
“To the commenters getting excited about some of the sourcing of this piece, Julian was crystal clear about where he had picked up on the changes to the committee.”
I think there is some confusion over “sourcing” here, which can have a number of meanings. Julian alleges he sent his sources along with the article, and by your response, you both seem to be referring to “the source behind the story”. That’s all well and good.
But source can also refer to the text, as in correctly referencing quotations. In that sense, Julian has not been clear. He has quoted Glyn Davies’s piece, not only without acknowledging the source, but by rearranging a few words to present himself as the author instead. This is plagiarism. He has done it at least once before, using a piece by Christopher Hitchens.
There are relatively few sins in professional writing, but passing off the work, research and articulation of another writer as your own is surely one of the more serious. I have called him a plagiarist repeatedly, and yet, despite being both a former lawyer and (apparently) a professional journalist and writer, he has neglected to sue me – or in fact do anything more than bluster (as he has done in this comment thread). You would think he would care more about his reputation. Then again, perhaps he has a realistic view of it.
But I would certainly think you would care more about yours. If you are happy publishing an obviously plagiarised article, then – with the greatest respect – you should not call yourself an editor, because you aren’t one.
Hang on a minute … compare Mr Ruck’s message at 4:41 with belowlandsker’s message at 2:16. Both mention the “Dry Sgi [sic] Slopes at Llangranog [sic].” I may be wrong, but has Mr Ruck let the cat out of the bag and has actually been posting here under a pseudonym? It wouldn’t be below him; I mean, it’s not as serious as plagiarism, but it’s not exactly condonable is it. The Editor, in his amazing and ludicrous defence of publishing a plagiarised article above, has made that crystal clear.
To James,
I do not make smears. I put fact into the public domain, facts which you are totally unable to challege it seems.
Step away from your agenda of personal insult and magnificent delusion for a moment and you might just be taken seriously.
Oh and aren’t you getting a wee bit bored with all this Glyn Davies nonsense?
I know I am.
Va jouer avec tes poupées Barbie.
JR
A tous mes fans,
Que ce soit à Londres ou à Paris,
A tous mes fans,
Que ce soit à Londres ou à Paris, baignés dans un bouillon de culture diverse, les yeux ne s’intéressent pas à la conversation profonde d’autrui, sans rancœur ou de cette perception intellectuelle étroite; ces paysages urbaines propres aux grandes agglomérations qui ne cessent d’éveiller, exciter ou même réclamer un rire ou deux.
Malheureusement, le langage gallois par rapport au français m’est trop difficile..
Au revoir.
JR
Mosby,
I wouldn’t waste my time let alone effort, drafting even one line of a libel Writ on you.
Besides, you wouldn’t have the means to pay any costs let alone damages.
JR
To the Editors,
Mosby has tried all this pressure on editor’s before. It was Bede Magowan at the Star the last time.
It didn’t get him anywhere then and I have every confidence that it will not get him anywhere now.
Plainly, a frustrated author with too much time on his hands, for whom one can only feel sympathy.
JR
This is just shambolic. How on earth this blatant plagiarism is being condoned is beyond thunderdome to me. Absolute gutter rag journalism.
Given that Mr Ruck recently pointed out on this site that he belongs to the Society of Authors, I have to wonder what view they take of plagiarism.
To Ramsey Campell,
If it will bring some joy to your gloriously fantastic life Campbell, by all means file a formal complaint with the SoA.
Thank you for taking such an interest in my Letters, I am indeed flattered by such loyal attention from one as august as your good self.
JR
One can only assume that Julian Ruck is to Labour Uncut what Samantha Brick is to the Daily Mail – a click troll, nothing more. Perhaps his next column will be, ‘Everyone in Wales Hates Me Because I’m So Beautiful’.
In the meantime I remain in awe at his sentence above which I reproduce in its original gobsmacking form…
‘You are not, entitled.’
It would, I feel, look very good on a t-shirt.
Let us leave aside for a moment the nasty whiff of minority-bashing Ruck emanates, the mockery of the Welsh language, the bigoted comments he has made about those who speak it, his wholesale attribution of views to a whole section of the population based on the language they speak, his mockery of its culture and his belief in his own superiority, all of which are from the bigot’s arsenal: first belittle them, then devalue their culture, laugh at their language and make large-scale judgments about their people. Because let’s face it, Ruck is a bigot, and the way his articles have trolled up a strain of anti-Welsh rhetoric from anonymous clones is more than a coincidence. Let’s leave aside Ruck’s ‘justification’ for his documented anti-Welsh bigotry as akin to ‘not liking Wagner’. Convenient, but a misplaced analogy: it would be like a member of the EDL saying that Islam – as Ruck said about Welsh ‘should have been consigned to the dustbin centuries ago’, and then claiming it was akin to not liking Vaughan Williams.
Let ‘s leave that aside for the moment; let’s also leave aside the nasty asides about mental illness and depression, the naming of individuals and allegations made against them that amount to a constant personal set of smears: Roderick Vaughan, Betsan Powys, Gwyneth lewis (all Welsh-speakers, note). None of these allegations are substantiated by Ruck, but Labour Uncut seems happy to host innuendo and imputations of nepotism and corruption which are not ever proved.
Let’s leave aside, also for a moment, Ruck’s failure to declare his own interest in his attacks on Welsh publishers, still not admitted on this site: he was rejected by them, and cut up very nasty afterwards. Let’s leave the sour grapes theory aside, just for a moment.
let’s leave aside the endless factual errors in Ruck’s writing, his appalling grammar and his malapropisms, and let’s just thank goodness we’re not actually reading one of his novels. Let’s leave all that aside.
What cannot be left aside is that Ruck is a now twice-caught-out plagiarist and Labour Uncut have happily published, and then defended, his plagiarism.
You bylined the article as ‘by’ Julian Ruck. Now it appears it wasn’t. I am puzzled as to why it is still up, and why you and Ruck have not apologised.
To Abell,
Firstly may I point out to readers that your last comment is extremely conspicuous for its, total lack of denial in respect of the facts stated in my last response to you.
Secondly, I feel obliged to further point out that I am on the public record ie in my own writings, on BBC Radio Cymru and Radio 2 for being in support of the preservation and promotion of Welsh writing where tax-payer subsidy is concerned – indeed my own view has been made clear a number of times ie if less subsidy was wasted on fanciful English language titles there would be more in the pot for their Welsh language competitors.
Finally, I have not made any ‘allegations’ against anyone, I have merely stated fact, which to date you have failed miserably to disprove.
As always, no doubt you will ignore all the above, so I will not waste any more of my time on you.
JR
Mr Hewson has the odd habit of replying in rather annoying individual comments detracting from the debate and is obviously on his honeymoon with his own ego.
BTW Mr Hewson, are you related to Leighton Andrews. Funny that if there’s anyone with time and talent for visual analysis, a cursory look at a photo of Leighton Andrews may reveal curious similarities.
Are you ghost writing a book – “How green were the people in Wales when they thought an Assembly could improve education in Wales”.
One can only assume that Samantha Brick is to the Daily Mail what David Hewson is to Labour Uncut – a clic troll nothing more. ( Well perhaps a childlish attention seeking distruptor )
PS…what is your definition of”crystal clear”?
PPS …..I did attempt to paraphrase as much as possible.
Let’s not leave aside that Mr John Abell is a self confessed stalker of Mr Ruck and a pathetic liar………………
I won’t do so, Mr Ruck. I should hope you yourself will seek their view so as to be able to cite it as a defence against the accusations of plagiarism. It would carry real weight.
John abell,
The effort you are going to in order to silence somebody who you have a personal vendetta against is quite astonishing…. that’s why I’m so interested in this. I’ve always been interested in behavioral science and I’m a pretty firm believer that when a small handful of people are going to extreme lengths and literally falling over each other to smear and discredit somebody else, 99 times out of a hundred it’s because they’ve got something to hide! I think the blog editor summed it up best when they said:
“And one piece of friendly advice. These pieces are pretty well read, partially, I suspect because of the splenetic and voluminous nature of the comments thread. On my travels, several people mention them – from MPs to party members. Noone has yet echoed either the tone or substance of Julian’s critics in the comments thread. If the intention of commenters is to persuade and put the opposing side of the argument to Julian, you might want to calibrate your approach.”
Now I dont have time to go through your last post piece by piece but lets take one paragraph:
” let’s also leave aside the nasty asides about mental illness and depression,”
if someone in public office is caught drink driving and then tries to excuse it afterwards by coming up with a story about depression, that is undiagnosed and has not been verified by a medical professional, then a member of the public has a right to query that. There is nothing ‘nasty’ about that! I know that’s difficult for you to accept as you are no doubt a personal friend or associate of Miss Jenkins (you will take that personally too but I have a well informed perception that Welsh nationalist politics is a small world). However, the reality is, if you dont want to be scrutinised then don’t stand for public office. I would have been fired from my job if it had been me… but not Miss Jenkins it would seem.
‘Origami-san’. I’ve no idea who Leighton Andrews is. But given you always seem to appear immediately after Julian Ruck, a mere four minutes in this case, and share the same very odd grammatical stylistic stigmata and loose grasp of fact I have to ask again… are you two by any chance related?
Labour Uncut have checked the IP addresses of commenters here to cut out duplicate anonymous critics of Ruck (and quite rightly — why can’t we all just use our real names?). I do hope they’re doing the same for his small band of supporters.
By the way… why do so many of the posts on your blog read like gibberish and contain the sentence, ‘The reporter from the Welsh Times and Farming Weekly Cymru, managed to get a brief interview with Carwyn Jones.’
How are you doing with your story about the First Minister of Wales being questioned for theft by the way? Doesn’t seem to have been followed up anywhere else for some reason…
http://mrorigamidotorg.wordpress.com/2013/06/09/carwyn-jones-is-being-questioned-about-accusations-of-theft/
Oh – and an awful lot of the impenetrable text from that story also seems to appear nonsensically here…
http://mrorigamidotorg.wordpress.com/2013/06/15/carwyn-says-balls-to-ballsian-economic-theory/
I’m probably being slow but it all looks a bit bonkers to me.