Posts Tagged ‘Literature Wales’

Letter from Wales: Blackballed by the Welsh establishment

12/07/2013, 03:50:53 PM

by Julian Ruck

We live in a democracy and a country that prides itself on freedom of speech, do we not?

Well, Wales it seems has opted out.

Literature Wales – sister quango of the Arts Council of Wales who receives nigh on 1million a year from it – has refused outright to give me a press pass for the Wales book of the year next week (and I do write a regular column for a Welsh newspaper) albeit that all the cosy taxpayer funded Welsh literature websites, Welsh literature mags and periodicals, and all the other Welsh Establishment gravy train literary junkies will all be out in force.

The PA to CEO Lleucu Siencyn (Lucy Jenkins for all you English readers) managed to discover that all press passes had been dished out within seconds of hearing my voice without any reference to seating allocations etc etc. One must further ask how the PA to Ms Siencyn would even know this data anyway, and so quickly?

Orders from on high perhaps?

Have someone there to report on Welsh literati shenanigans who hasn’t joined the gang? And won’t be bought?

Forget it, can’t have Ruck there to spoil our fun now can we? Duw mon, he just might report some inconvenient facts!

I can guarantee a few things though. The works submitted for the Wales Book of the Year will have been written by Welsh writers replete with taxpayer bursary bucks, Welsh publishers will have been paid by the taxpayer to publish them and even the Prizes will be tax-payer funded.

It will be interesting to see what a Nielsen Bookdata printout of sales will reveal in a few months time.

Hard times? Not in Wales, and to cap it all the Welsh government will only communicate with me through their Head of News, Simon Jenkins.

Please read on.

On Tuesday this week, Martin Shipton, Chief Reporter with the Western Mail did a follow up to my Letter on Uncut (28.6.13) on the Arts Council of Wales’ taxpayer funded jolly to the Venice Biennale ie 7 people from the Arts Council going on a 3-4 day promotion of a Welsh artist exhibiting the recording of a man snoring in a telescope.

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Letter from Wales: £400,000 for a man snoring in a telescope!

28/06/2013, 07:00:53 AM

by Julian Ruck

Skint UK? Ed Balls’ scrutinising of every pound? Don’t be daft this is the Arts Council of Wales!

And as if the £400,000 of tax-payers’ money for a Welsh contemporary artist to strut his stuff (no disrespect to said artist) at the Venice Biennale isn’t enough, it took the CEO of the Arts Council of Wales, one Nick Capaldi and six of his ACW cronies to tag along and hold his hand!

But what about the expenses the taxpayer has also forked up for? Following my FoI requests (12,13, 17th June 2013) it turns out we have paid  £260.00 per night for hotels and a damn your eyes to LateRooms.com and a brew of Tetley in a Venetian back alley.

Apart from Mr Capaldi’s £1,981.20 (for 4 nights), we have a real beauty: Professor Dai Smith, chair of the ACW not only claimed £1709.49 from the tax-payer for his three day Venetian jolly but his own book “Dream On” (you can say that again!) published last May, was also paid for by the tax-payer. Oh and he doesn’t like “nutters” like me scrutinising his artistic efforts either, I’m told.

Here are the expenses for the rest of ACW’s party-goers:-

David Alston (£1636.77 for his 4 nights) Arts Director ACW;  Louise Wright (£1569.85 for 4 nights) ACW Commissioner for the Biennale no less; Eluned Haf (£1638.51 for 4 nights) ACW Director of Wales Arts International; Sian James (£1,964.77 for 4 nights) ACW Press Officer and not forgetting Osi Rhys Osmond (£1687.16 for 4 nights), an Arts Council Member and Chair of Advisory Committee?

Now you may be thinking why all these people are needed for a quick few second turn on BBC Wales’ Today programme. Jobs for the boys time again perhaps? The usual old suspects again? You would also be forgiven for wondering why it needs 7 people to do the same thing and enjoy an expensive city break at tax-payers’ expense, while they are at it?

Classic devolved Welsh replication of jobs maybe?

CEO Nick Capaldi was quoted as saying about the Venetian visual art extravaganza, “It’s the Formula 1 of the visual arts world, in that a Formula 1 racing car has little in common with the family hatchback other than four wheels and a steering wheel”.

Excuse me? Sorry to disabuse you Nick, but right now many people in this country are struggling to keep a four-wheeled pram on the road and  you’re also dead right about the exhibition having little in common with the family hatchback man in the street – most of them are out there trying to hold on to a job.

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Letter from Wales: Let’s see if the Welsh gravy train survives a collision with Ed Balls’ fiscal reality

07/06/2013, 11:34:11 AM

by Julian Ruck

The other day Ed Balls said, “We need to look ruthlessly at how every pound is spent.”

He obviously has yet to travel on the Welsh express gravy train.

Devolution has allowed the ancient Labour enthusiasm for small-town political monopoly and personal fiefdom to run riot – for the impotence of democratic principle and challenge, look no further than Wales with its happy coteries, self-serving cabals and “all the usual suspects” political foxhole mentality.

Like the rest of the UK, there are three sectors in Wales. The public, the private sectors and  of course the third Sector which is not for profit and seeks to help citizens in varying and various ways eg health charities, CAB’s etc.

As alluded to in previous “Letters,” Wales is a tax-payer junky, it cannot and will not move away from the divine right of tax-payer subsidy in all things – as least Westminster subsidy that is.

Wales is small, many in Westminster may even think insignificant, its population not even  half of London’s. But should this smallness negate any scrutiny by its paymasters? Any accountability?

In Wales, criticism of the ruling party is viewed with suspicion and superior arrogance. The elite potentates of Old Labour carte blanche carry on with a 90 year mandate as if Blair never existed and the unions still rule the ghostly memories of coal and steel grandeur.

London must and always will, pay up.

Dissent is for the birds. Outspoken truth to be sneered at and discredited wherever possible. The Welsh will always vote old Labour.

So why don’t even a minority of the Welsh speak up? The answer is simple. All three sectors are in the tax-payer pocket, in some way or another. Even the private sector relies heavily on public subsidy, although it is debateable whether there is a Welsh private sector at all. To get on in Wales one has to be Old Labour, one has to toe an outdated and defunct Clause IV line and ignore what is going on in the rest of the world.

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