Disowned Disaster

So Rhodri Morgan has decided to "do a Bourne" and disown Peter Hain, Eluned Morgan, Alun Davies, David Taylor and the Aneuringlyndwr website and video. Anyone who dares suggest that he had recommended the website were being "naughty" apparently. He had not seen it and had not heard of it until the press got it.

You know what, for one of the first times ever, I actually believe him. It was clear from the moment he refused to comment in a radio interview that Rhodri had not seen the website pre-release. What is not so believable however is his claim that only mischievous media and bloggers would believe that he had approved of it. Clearly he had approved it - but there's a big difference between approving and actually knowing what you approve.

As the website itself says:

"This brand new political website is definitely one to watch!"
- Rt Hon Rhodri Morgan AM, First Minister for Wales

You can see how it happened now:

Peter calls Rhodri up - "Rhodri darling, I've got a new website going up. Gonna be great, it'll make a big impact. You know how I got so pissed off with Plaid's Walescan nonsense and you said we needed to copy them, well this is it! Eluned's helped me do it, she's so excited. Between you and me now, if this thing works then Eluned's gonna be huge - could solve your lack of replacement problem in a heartbeat! We're doing an Obama here, Rhoderz, gonna be huge with the kids and all! We're going to time it's release so that it's all over the news, Dragon's Eye and everything - might even get a Mule front page out of it! OK if I put up a quote from you saying how exciting it all is?"

Rhodri: "Yeah sure Peter, whatever, go for it. Got to go now, having supper with with my autobiography's ghostwriter"

So now that Rhodri has denounced this laughable own goal, will he ask Peter Hain, Eluned Morgan, Alun Davies and David Taylor to apologise to Bourne and Ieuan - just like Bourne apologised to him? A Labour politician apologising - yeah, right!

Exciting Young Team!

So as we've now worked out aneuringlyndwr is the brainchild of everyone's favorite researcher David Taylor. Apparently he was asked to do so by Mr Permatan himself. But wait a sec....

1. Who was this student Eluned Morgan credited the project to? Or the exiting young team Hain told us was behind it? Was he talking about himself and David Taylor? You may be many things Peter, but exiting and young are hardly the words I'd use!

2. The website itself says that

"Aneurin Glyndwr is published by: D. C. Phillips, Cwmllynfell SA9 2GP."

Whoa there! Who's Mr Phillips now? Is he a new part of this exiting young team of Hain and Taylor? Or just a stooge who agreed to have his name used to hide the real creators of the website (not that Peter Hain would ever use a random person's name to hide the true identity of the person behind it....oh no, wait, damn!).

3. The website also states that:

"We receive no money from the Labour party, or any political party, and are funded by advertising, sponsorship and donations from private individuals."

But isn't David Taylor a Labour employee and therefore, by very definition, paid for by Labour? Oh no they'll say, he was just doing this in his own time, the fact that he is a Labour employee and did this project at the behest of a Labour politician is mere coincidence.
But those posts on the website: Monday 15:46, Tuesday 13:06, Wednesday 15:42, Thursday 15:34 and 16:00 and Friday 11:01 - sound like office hours to me right (unless Mr Taylor was Nick Bourne's researcher of course, because as we all know thanks to Aneuringlyndwr Mr Bourne only comes out at night).
So what's up? Does David Taylor work on Aneuringlyndwr as part of his work, and therefore paid for by Labour? Or has Leighton Andrews just discovered that his top man is bunking off work to play around on the Internet? Maybe Leighton will now sack David for waisting time at work, just like those Natwatch victims were sacked (purely a comparison of course, no direct link!)

4. David Taylor is Leighton Andrews lackey. In the cabinet Leighton Andrews is Ieuan Wyn Jones' lackey. Tip to Mr Taylor, dressing up your boss' boss in a clown outfit is not a great career move!

Interesting times!

Mr Taylor I Presume?

So Eluned Morgan tells us that "a student" is behind Aneurin Glyndwr, while Mr Permatan himself calls the mysterious creators an exiting young team.

Really? Come on now! As small as the Welsh blogosphere is there's two things everyone here knows:

1. There are very few Labour bloggers around
2. There is no-one in Welsh politics able to run a proper "non-serious" website
3. Any blog with Labour's name all over it which attacks the Tories and Plaid over and over is probably ran by a Labour researcher working for some AM, let's hypothetically say Leighton Andrews!

It doesn't take a genius to confirm who the "brains" behind this project is. The site is hosted on the Typepress account of someone called "DT" - ringing a few bells?

Not quite sure yet? Have a look at the Whois database. This is the public database of who owns what Domain name (i.e. those things what start with www and end in .com or.org or whatever!)

aneurinbevan.co.uk (along with .org and .org.uk) were registered on January 26th to.............David Taylor (wow, didn't see that one coming did you!). .com and .net were also registered on the same day but no name was given for the person behind them (who could it be!). One of the domain names even gives Mr Taylor's address, just in case you thought it might be another person with the same name!

Just in case you don't know, David Taylor is employed by Labour as a researcher to Leighton Andrews AM. Although the Western Mail tells us that his Internet skills is feared in some quarters you don't need to be too concerned, as far as I know he's never done anything to scare anyone. To be honest I'm not sure where he gained this reputation - you see many many people believed that he was behind the despicable Natwatch website which got two people sacked. But Mr Taylor promises that wasn't him, and is rumoured to have even threatened to sue anyone who dares suggest it was. As a lady of honour I shall take the man at his word, after all why would he lie?

In today's Western Mail Mr Taylor admits that he is the genius behind Aneuringlyndwr. He says "Peter Hain is a huge political figure in Wales, so it was an honour to be asked to work with him on this project."

So there we go, David Taylor created the website on the request of Peter Hain - mystery solved! No students, no young exiting team, just the New Labour media machine at it again. But wait a sec, this raises quite a few new questions does it not....