Simple Maths

Aneurin's new Platform is off to a wonderful start, while trying to mock the Deputy First Minister for knocking the banks they claim that Banks create money - here's how apparently:

Someone - let's call them Ieuan Wyn – gets £1000. He puts it in the bank. Someone else, let's call them Plaid Cymru, wants to borrow £500, the bank lends them the £500. Plaid Cymru then give Ieuan Wyn £500 to set up his office. Iuean Wyns pays £200 to his mate Elfyn, who promptly puts it in the bank, and sticks the other £300 in the bank. So the bank now has now turned that initial £1000 into a £2000 balance sheet – in other words it has created £1000. Just like that.

Does Aneurin and his friends know what a balance sheet is? The answer is not-so-subtly included in the name. The clue is in the word balance. Think that paragraph through and it makes no sense.

We start with £1,000, which Ieuan has and puts in bank
That gives the Bank £1,000 in assets and £1,000 in liabilities. Ieuan is owed £1,000 by bank
Bank loans £500 to Plaid
That gives Bank £500 in assets, £1,000 in liabilities and £500 owing to them. Plaid has £500
Plaid give their £500 to Ieuan, Ieuan gives £200 to Elfyn
That gives Bank £500 in assets, £1,000 in liabilities, £500 owed by Plaid. Ieuan has £300, Elfyn £500
Ieuan and Elfyn puts money into bank

We end up with the Bank having £1,000 in assets, they owe £1,300 to Ieuan and £200 to Elfyn (plus interest). Plaid owe £500 to the bank (plus interest).

So on the Bank's credit side they have £1,000 assets and £500 owed plus interest on the £500. On their debit side is £1,500 plus interest on Ieuan and Elfyn's savings.

So the bank's balance sheet is the difference between the interest owed by Plaid and owed to Ieuan and Elfyn (i.e. pennies)

So, um, where's this additional thousand they're supposed to have created on their balance sheet? And these people are supposed to be in charge of our economy?

A Thousand And One Reasons

So in the fortnight or so that Aneurin Glyndwr has been up it has had 10,000 hits according to their latest post.

Didn't Paul Flynn tell us they'd had 9,000 in the first day? Only a thousand more in 12 days is, well, dissapointing shall we say?

Talk Is Cheap

Aneurin has decided to open up for some comments. Of course it's not quite that simple, the comments are only allowed on a separate part of the site and will only be displayed after moderation.

So let's see how much free speech Welsh Labour will allow into their world of Spin. This is the moderation "policy" as stated by Aneurin Glyndwr:

We operate a liberal comment moderation policy and while we encourage passion and the voicing of strong opinion, if your contribution is deemed by us to be offensive, or untrue, or not fair comment, it will be removed completely.

That's a pretty fair policy, but will Labour stick to it or will they delete posts that they struggle to reply to (a la Paul Flynn MP). Let's find out shall we!

Tory Calls Plaid Too Left Wing Shocker

Apparently the fact that Iain Dale, a Tory, thinks Plaid is too left wing is a surprise - what a weird world Aneurin Glyndwr lives in!

Top Stories

Aneurin goes from deluded to certifiable today - attacking Plaid's conference for not being the top story on the BBC Wales Politics page he seems to believe that his website and labour "dominates the news agenda".

Position of top Plaid related story - 2nd
Position of top Tory related story - 5th
Position of top One Wales government related story - 6th
Position of top Labour related story - um....well.......oh no wait, I just found it, skip past the headlines and the Top Stories section and go all the way below the fold to the "More politics" section - there's two stories there about Rhodri Morgan lying to try and distance himself and the Labour party from Aneurin!

Selective Hearing

Latest Aneurin post:

Internal Plaid poll

SAYS "Labour's vote in Wales is holding up surprisingly well".

Doh!

Also says Plaid gain more than Labour - Doh!

Don't Look Back in Anger

When you design a new website, not everything makes the cut. Some things you thought were good ideas in the planning stage seem foolish by launch time. Every webpage editor has a panic moment when he realises some part or other of his website is a mistake.

Which makes it so much fun for the rest of us to find these strips of the cutting room floor and try and work out why they were dropped.

How about this for example. It seems that Aneurin Glyndwr had big plans to, wait for it, let us comment on his website! Maybe this is what they meant by "Aneurin Glyndwr is a forum designed as a platform for lively debate.". Of course, even this "Platform" wasn't really a place to discuss and comment - all it was supposed to be was a way for the website to post up some fan mail. So what happened? Did the website not get any fan mail to put up? Answers on a postcard.

But that's not the only thing cut out before the website went live - Aneurin scrapped some posts he had written in February, one with the interesting title of "Opposition's Taste For Speeding". Having looked at the old post there's nothing of value in it - something about a Tory saying that police should be less fixated on speeding. What is interesting however is what Aneurin's Blogroll looked like back then.

While his current blogroll starts with such heavyweights as Alistair Campbell and Comment is Free (oh the irony!) the original version was much shorter. While some (Labourlist) survived the pre-launch cull others weren't as fortunate.

Brother Tecwyn was there originally, even though the blog has shut down. Same goes for Luke Young (last post December) and Nick Bradley (last post September!). More interesting is "Don't trip up". This blog is still live so why was it in the original line up and then dropped? Maybe something to do with this post which asked the following questions:

Why is Labour so out of touch?
Why is Labour so defensive?
Why has Labour become so conservative?

Not quite the party line Aneurin wants to follow then!

One last note on the old bloglist, seems that the infamous Martin Eaglestone managed to grab a spot in the original but was dropped while Leighton will be delighted by the fact that, even though he was omitted from the first draft, Aneurin eventually decided to be one of the few blogs that do link to him!

Thank You

As the video says: Thank You Peter, Thank You Eluned, Thank You Alun, Thank You David for providing us all with such entertainment and for boosting the support for the Tories and Plaid.

Liar Liars

Hmm.....the more one ponders Rhodri's denunciation the more questions it raises.

Is Rhodri telling us that the website is lying in saying that he and Paul Murphy endorsed it? If so then are we to assume that Peter Hain, Eluned Morgan, Alun Davies and David Taylor will admit to this lie or is Rhodri just hoping that we won't ask that question?

On the other hand did Rhodri, as I suggested in the previous post, give his approval to this nonsense without checking what it actually was? In that case is the First Minister lying to us by saying he didn't recommend it?

I'm struggling to find a way out of this without believing that Rhodri is lying to us or the motley crew have lied to us - any suggestions?

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!

Vandalism!

I can't believe it - the Hen Ferchetan is gutted! I didn't realise on the first reading of Aneuringlyndwr's retraction of the Delilah video but when I read it again it became so obvious!

Aneurin has cut out my very favorite part of the song! Remember the beautiful sentence:

"we need to stop them making the people more poor"?

This is what I had to say about it previously:

"The highlight of the lyrics for me! Ever heard of the word "poorer" Eluned? It means "more poor" but is, well, grammatically correct! Ah but you needed something to rhyme with "more" right? And clearly "poorer" doesn't rhyme with "more", but "poor" does, doesn't it?"

The transcript of the song Aneurin has so helpfully put up on his website (no copyright issues in just putting up the transcript see!) has a different sentence though! It now reads:

"we need to stop them making the people poor"

That just takes away the fun! The original, grammatically stupid, version was much better! Of course the new version has lost a word and therefore doesn't fit the music at all (and still doesn't rhyme with "more"!), but Aneurin doesn't have to care about that because he isn't allowed to sing it out loud anymore!

Don't worry though, I've preserved the original for you - such poetic brilliance needs to be saved for the appraisal of history!

Kids in Glass Houses

Aneurin Glyndwr - 28th March 2009

BREAKING NEWS: Top Tory donor defects to UKIP


The Telegraph - 6th February 2009

Labour's financial backer defects to Tories

Bye Bye Bye Labi

So after a grand total of four days Eluned's masterpiece has been taken down. The video is no longer on YouTube - how sad!

Why Why Why I hear you ask? (OK, must stop with these Delilah lines now!). Well according to Aneuringlyndwr it's because "some Nats and Tories had complained". Makes it sound like Peter Hain and his friends had received bags of mail from Plaidis (it WILL catch on, let's do it for Eluned!) and Tories crying and begging the video to be taken down. As we all know though that's not what's happened - any tears streaming down the face of the Conservatives and Pleidwyr have been tears of laughter.

No, the video has been taken down for two reasons. Firstly Aneurin and Peter Hain did receive a lot of complaints and demands that it be taken down - not from their political opponents but from Labour members horrified at the embarrassment caused to their party. More importantly perhaps was the fact that the video used copyrighted material that Labour hadn't obtained permission for - i.e. copyright theft!

It's an interesting case because the vast majority of viral videos use copyrighted material without permission. These are the videos made by regular people which spread around the world. I remember one with Bush and Blair singing love songs to each other a few years back as a good example. But the reason this video has suffered for the crime many others commit is that, as much as Labour originally tried to deny it, this was a video made by them - i.e. an official body, a political party even. While mere bloggers and geeks can get away with the odd copyrighted image or song, official bodies should have a bit of common sense and know better - but then we are talking about Welsh Labour aren't we!

Now if Plaid Cymru and the Tories had any sense they will apply for permission to use the copyright of the song and images so that they can broadcast the video over and over! Don't worry though, where Labour fails, Welsh bloggers deliver - the video can still be seen here

Anytime the world gets you down - go have a look at the video, it will improve your mood tenfold!

Mr Defence Bores Us All Over Again

Paul Flynn has a historical habit of going to bizarre lengths to defend Peter Hain. During Peter Hain's illegal failure to register £100,000 of donations Paul Flynn was one of the only people in the country defending the then cabinet minister. And, shock horror, he's at it again.

Apparently the cringworthy embarrassment of aneuringlyndwr and the video was not a stunning gaffe by Peter and his friends but a wonderful bit of PR. The video apparently was a "loss-leader" with Labour taking the hit of embarrassment to get more people to look at their video...

Hm...really? I could just about nearly believe such nonsense if the website was of any use to Labour - but it's not, it's just as bad as the video. As I mentioned before it has no mention of Labour, no mention of Labour's policies, no mention of Labour politicians, no mention of Labour ideology. All it has is hypocritic attacks on the Tories and Plaid (more hypocricies coming soon!), and they are presented in such an immature way they pander only to the die-hard Labour voter. I doubt a single swing voter will turn Labour's way because of it.

On the other hand I can see, and have spoken to, many swing voters turning away from Labour because of it. Now as we all know the general public don't pay much (any?) attention to the world of Welsh political blogging, so even a website as laughable as this would have little effect if pretty much no-one saw it. But thankfully the press, the Tories and Plaid have had a field day highlighting it to make sure as many people as possible get a look.

So when Paul smugly tells us that

"The new Aneurin Glyndwr website is off to a triumphant start with 9,000 hits in the first day."

he is trying to convince us that it's a good thing for Labour. Firstly Paul I can assure you that about 2,000 of those hits are from me (everytime I feel a bit down I pop over for a little pick me up!), secondly the other 7,000 are now having a right old laugh, and it's at Labour's expense.

Money Money Money

But then he (Bourne) did spend over £5000 of tax payers money on 'essential work' to his bathroom.

But the Plaid spokesmen for all and sundry repaid £1,500 to the House of Commons after sending out post that broke parliamentary rules.

Aneuringlyndwr - March 2009

Good start, dodgy and improper use of expenses! Bad Bourne with his bathroom and iPod and bad Plaid MP's with their (originally approved) use of expenses to advertise during election times.

Thank God we have Labour eh, they would never waste our public money with dodgy expenses would they!

Labour's Brian Gibbons AM - didn't want to spend his own cash on a Remembrance Sunday wreath so claimed our money instead (bet he nicks the pennies from the Penny In Penny Out boxes in petrol stations too!)

Labour's Jaqui Smith, Home Secretary - claimed for two pornographic films watched by her husband

Labour's Lesley Griffiths AM- £2,000 on a sofa (didn't she know DFS had a sale on?)

Labour's Margaret Moran MP claiming nearly £90,000 in expenses while a fellow MP living on the same street in Luton has claimed less than £9,000

Labour's Lynne Neagle AM - Couldn't bare parting with £2 for a Pyrex bowl so decided to use our cash - same as she did for her £4 salt and pepper shake and her £400 curtains and her £317.57 book shelves (Never heard of Ikea love?)

Labour's Tony McNulty MP - £60k to pay for his parents' house

Labour's Huw Lewis and Lynne Neagle AM's - £22,298 including mortgage for a second home - now where exactly is their first home? I'm sure it's miles and miles from Cardiff right?

Labour's Jaqui Smith, Home Secretary - £116,000 for her "second home" in the West Midlands, claiming that her "first home" was her sister's property in London

Labour's Leighton Andrews AM - charging us to pay for his second home in the Rhondda - although he already lived in Cardiff before he even got elected

Now, what's that saying about glass houses?

The (Many) Hypocrisies of Aneurin

OK, so there's more to poor Aneurin than that video, he also has a whole host of posts to peruse and enjoy. He also has a whole pile of endorsements and defensive remarks by top Labour politicians. I was going to look at a few in this post but there's so many of them to highlight and giggle at I might as well do them one by one, so here goes...!

Aneurin Tells The Truth!

Brand new posting for us to enjoy on aneuringlyndwr:

"A mainstream political party in Wales has never made such a fool of itself with an ill-thought out video."

I think they're talking about some video the Tories showed yesterday, but the joke is so obvious I won't waste my time or your time in making it!

Love In Debate!

So according to Alun Davies, Labour AM and one of the brilliant four behind aneuringlyndwr, the website is:

"an opportunity to create a positive and constructive debate about the future of Wales"

Skipping past the fact that the website doesn't allow comments and the YouTube video moderates comments (good way to create a debate that!) I guess we'd better check out his claim. Is this an attempt to create a debate? Is it positive instead of negative and attacking?

Let's have a look..

- Mentions of "Toff Dave", pics of Cameron in a top hat or calling Tories "chums"= 10

- Words used to describe Tories: juvenile, vacuous, ugly, embarrassment, cronies, nasty, gaffe-prone, disastrous

- Words used to describe Plaidis (hey, it's catching on Eluned!): hopeless, self-serving, arrogant, navel-gazing, brittle, wrong, stalinist, unthinking

- Number of times Labour is mentioned = 3 (none of which mentioned Labour policies, initiatives or actions)

What a wonderfully positive website Alun!

Extra: A wonderful old quote from David Taylor himself, showing how committed he is to promoting positive debate in Welsh politics:

"I hate Liberal Democrats more and more every day.

I used to be slightly sympathetic towards them. I used to think they meant well and that the Tories where the real enemy.

But their recent campaign tactics, materminded by "wizz kid" Lord Rennard means I now hate them just as much as the Tories, which as almost as much as the Nationalists."

Give Us a Song!

Viral videos have been all the rage for a while now. Anyone seen those farmers and sheepdogs making a giant sheep on the Welsh hillside, brilliant wasn't it! And who else failed to see that man in a gorilla suit between the ball game?

And who doesn't like a song parody? BBC Radio 1 seems to play a new one everyday on their breakfast show!

So congratulations to Aneuringlyndwr for leading the way (or is that jumping on the bandwagon?) with their wonderful rendition of Delilah! With lyrics written by Eluned Morgan, tipped as Labour's next Welsh leader, and the best special effects this side of Waterworld it is work of art. Hopefully Eluned will see constructive criticism instead of mock when an old lady tries to give some advice on the next big video:

1. Get a singer to sing it. I can't stress this point enough - a catchy election song and viral parody needs to be, well, in tune!
2. Get permission before you use (murder?) use someone else's tune
3. You're not allowed to make up words just to get that elusive rhyme (Plaidi?)
4. Using schoolchildren to sing in songs is very risky, it can ruin a song as often as it completes it. But if you choose to use schoolchildren to make the cut and paste video to your song then aim for secondary school pupils next time instead of nursery school.

So let's go through this wonderful song bit by bit shall we?

"I saw the wastelands the Tories they shoved on the valleys" - OK, not the best start Eluned dear. That's not even a proper sentence. I know you have to make sure the sentence fits the rhythm but if the sentence you wanted doesn't fit you're not allowed to just add in a random word in a random place ("they!)

"I saw the end of the coalmines, the steel and the farm" - OK, better grammar this time - well done. Word of warning though, when you use examples to attack a government we had 15 years ago make sure the exact same attacks can't be made against your government. More coal mines closed under a Labour government than a Tory one and you'll struggle to find a farmer who believes their industry has gotten better under Labour!

"Thaaaaaaaaatcher was the woman" - Oh my god, the flatness of the singer on this line sends shivers down my back!

"Then she sent Redwood - she thought he could do no harm" - ah yes, Thatcher's most famous appointment in Wales, John Redwood, who she sent to torture Wales between 1993-1995. Amazing woman that Thatcher, being able to appoint Redwood as Welsh Minister a full three years after John Major became Prime Minister!

"Why, why, why Vote Tory" - accompanied by a picture of David Cameron looking like a toff and Nick Bourne as Dracula flanked by a huge mansion. OK, first of all Eluned, Michael Howard was the vampire not Nick Bourne, remember? Secondly haven't Labour tried this Tory Toff thing before only to see it backfire dramatically? Remember Edward Timpson and Crewe and Nantwich? Finally showing a huge house is a risky attack tactic when we all have such fresh memories of a certain Labour AM couple's second home claims!

"We cried cried cried oh Tory, I could see that Maggie was no good for me" - Maggie Thatcher was last Prime Minister in 1990. Nearly twenty years ago now. Time to move on Welsh Labour?

"Labour came in and set the Welsh people free" - Illustrated by a picture of Tony Blair walking into Downing Street - just the man to make us Welsh giddy with excitement right! And "set people free?" Aren't Labour the people who are now spying on our Facebook, listening to our phone calls, detaining us without charge, using terrorist laws to check our rubbish bins and want to force us all to carry ID cards?

"oh what a mess we needed to rebuild our nation" - so the first thing they did was spend our money on the Millennium Dome. And now the Olympics. Oh and Trident, and Iraq of course - way to go!

"lets go to Brussels and ask for a little donation" - Great idea. All that Objective One funding, let's leave it in the capable hands of Welsh Labour Leader Alun Michael...

"Jill stood there shouting" - A very brave move showing a clip of Plaid's Jill Evans saying "Wales lost a.." - notice how they've cut the video just before we get to hear exactly how much European money Wales have lost out on because of Labour.

"You won't get the money that's what she was hoping" - so Jill didn't want Wales to have European money? Really, if that's true then we need to vote her out! Vote Jill out now, vote Jill out now! Oh wait a sec, shouldn't we check that you're telling the truth first, when did Jill tell us this...?

"Why why why vote Plaidi?" - Is Plaidi a word now? I've heard of Welshie and Nashie but Plaidi? Eluned, you can't make up words just to get that rhyme right. I know Pheobe does it on Friends but the whole point of her character doing that is to show how bad she is at writing songs!

"They seem very shoddy" - unlike this song and video you mean?

"so before they break the Union up more" - Devolution, brought to you by Labour. English regional parliaments brought to you (or not since you didn't want them!) by Labour. The Government of Wales Act 2006 brought to you by Labour. Sorry I forgot - Devolution was supposed to "strengthen the Union" right? (copyright Labour 1997)

"we need to stop them making the people more poor" - The highlight of the lyrics for me! Ever heard of the word "poorer" Eluned? It means "more poor" but is, well, grammatically correct! Ah but you needed something to rhyme with "more" right? And clearly "poorer" doesn't rhyme with "more", but "poor" does, doesn't it?

"over to Brussels we went with a map and a bucket" - Would that be the map of Europe the EU statistics company uses? You know, the one they deleted Wales off?

"We got the cash and the Plaidis they said oh **** it" - great! We got the cash! Now let's mismanage it, fail to get match funding for it and send a ton of it back! Oh and Eluned, no matter how often you use the word "Plaidi" it's still a made up word that no-one has ever used!

"we stood there laughing" - glad to see you're taking our economy so seriously, some of us are crying instead of laughing but you have your giggle.

"to rebuild our land the EU gave us a hand" - cue Alun Michael

"why why why vote Tory, why why why vote Plaidi" - even your made up word doesn't rhyme with Tory Eluned!

"get out to vote in the Euros or we'll all be sore" - notice the "we'll" all be sore not "you'll" all be sore. So she wants us to vote Labour so Labour doesn't feel sore? How about what's best for Wales, or is just what's best for Labour that's important (again!)

"we all know that Labour delivers much more...comedy value"

Good luck on the Pop career love!

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!