The number of Welsh MPs has been reduced from 40 to 32 by the UK government, bringing Welsh representation in Westminster down to its lowest number since the introduction of universal suffrage in 1928, and in fact the lowest number since before the industrial revolution and the Reform Act of 1832. Therefore the 32 Welsh MPs elected on July 4th will have an even bigger responsibility than usual to defend, protect and speak for Wales. It is axiomatic and undeniable that only Plaid Cymru, the Party of Wales, can properly perform this task and therefore only increased support for Plaid stands a chance of persuading whichever British party is in power to cease treating Wales so badly*. However, in this election there is another vital issue to consider: the desperate need to end the catastrophic 14-year rule of the Conservative Party. Indeed, if opinion polls are to be believed, there is a prospect of obliterating the despicable Tories for a generation and even for all time – a fate they would so richly deserve and a fabulous prize beyond the wildest dreams of all decent, sentient people.

In Wales there is a genuine chance of delivering a complete Tory wipe-out, something that hasn’t happened since 2001, and thereby send a message loud and clear to the corrupt cabal of thieves, criminals, liars, sleazebags, sadists and blundering oafs that they must never ever darken our door again. So, combining the need to turf the Tories out of office across the UK with the need for Wales to assert itself in the face of constant hostility from the imperialist British State, here in alphabetical order are my voting recommendations in all the remaining 32 Welsh constituencies. Note that most constituency boundaries, sizes and names significantly differ from previously, having been reconfigured by the UK’s Electoral Commission.

ABERAFAN MAESTEG
This new constituency, formed from most of the abolished Aberavon seat plus 26% of Ogmore, 17% of Bridgend and 2% of Neath, would be a Labour walkover even if the Tories were riding high. In the current climate, the only question is who will come second to incumbent Aberavon MP Stephen Kinnock – son of a former Labour leader (whose name escapes me) parachuted into the safe seat by Labour HQ in London in 2015. A classic case of nepotism triumphing over talent, Kinnock is a shoo-in regardless – meaning intelligent voters here can follow values and principles and vote Plaid (Colin Deere).

ALYN AND DEESIDE
Another safe Labour fiefdom, expanded eastwards by absorbing a solidly Labour 25% of the abolished Delyn constituency. Middle-of-the-road Englishman Mark Tami, MP since 2001, held the seat even when neighbouring constituencies were falling for Boris Johnson’s brazen lies in 2019 and he is therefore guaranteed five more years in the saddle, making a vote for Plaid’s Jack Morris a harmless option.

BANGOR ABERCONWY
The priority in this very marginal new constituency, consisting of the old Aberconwy seat plus parts of the abolished Arfon (40%) and Clwyd West (14%), must be to send the far-right Tory Robin Millar packing. He just pipped Labour in Aberconwy in 2019, and having such a man as an MP amounts to an ugly stain on Wales. The complication is that Arfon was solidly Plaid and three of the five Clwyd West wards transferred are predicted to vote Plaid also – factors that render Bangor Aberconwy a rare three-way marginal. It’s a toss-up between Plaid’s Catrin Wager and Labour’s Claire Hughes, both proud Welshwomen, and on reflection I will side with Wager’s green instincts over Hughes’s robotic parroting of anodyne Starmer-speak.

BLAENAU GWENT AND RHYMNEY
Blaenau Gwent has been expanded by 20% of what was Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney plus 5% of abolished Islwyn and 9% of Caerphilly to make it a stroll in the park for Labour. The MP since 2010, Nick Smith, is an unaccountable and high-handed right-winger who has lost the support of the Blaenau Gwent constituency Labour Party. They passed a motion of no confidence in him last year and can’t summon up the enthusiasm to even canvass for him. Vote for Plaid’s Niamh Salkeld, only 26 and learning the campaigning ropes in this most unpromising territory, or how about courageous stalwart Communist Robert Griffiths to rattle chains in a desolately decultured and dumbed-down constituency?

BRECON, RADNOR AND CWM TAWE
An intriguing new constituency combining the Tory-held Brecon & Radnor with 30% of Labour-held Neath is also a realistic target for the Lib Dems with their historic strength in Powys. Plaid have no more than a foothold here so voting is all about getting shot of Tory candidate Fay Jones, MP for Brecon & Radnor since 2019. She is another political ‘nepo baby’ riding the coat-tails of daddy – in her case Gwilym Jones, deservedly forgotten Tory MP for Cardiff North from 1983-1997. The best chance of ousting her is with Lib Dem David Chadwick who only needs an 8% swing.

BRIDGEND
Constructed from 83% of the former Bridgend seat plus 32% of the abolished Ogmore seat, Bridgend’s shameful election of atrocious Tory Jamie Wallis in 2019 must now be consigned to history by the town’s resounding rejection of the poverty, inequality, austerity, collapsed public services, homelessness, food banks, destruction of the natural world and broken society that are the inevitable consequences of free-market, dog-eat-dog Conservatism. Wallis, a serial drink-driver and repeated flouter of business law who currently claims ‘trans’ identity, is not standing again and the new Tory candidate, ‘British-Ghanaian’ Anita Boateng, is even worse: a far-right ideologue in the Kemi Badenoch mould who would need satnav to find Wales. She only got the call from Tory Central Office after first choice Sam Trask was forced to stand down the day before nominations closed after the discovery of his crude and lurid sexual posts on a website. Chris Elmore, the Ogmore MP since 2016, is the rather uninspiring Labour candidate, but compared to this lot he’s wonderful. It’s so important that Bridgend purges Toryism from its politics that Elmore would get my vote.

CAERFYRDDIN
Here’s an elemental Plaid v Tory showdown in a new seat amalgamating 84% of Plaid-held Carmarthen East & Dinefwr and 40% of Tory-held Carmarthen West & South Pembrokeshire. Plaid’s candidate, replacing Jonathan Edwards who has stood down after disciplinary action against him for domestic violence, is experienced local councillor, farmer and dedicated Welshwoman Ann Davies while the Tory candidate is Carmarthen West MP Simon Hart, a militaristic, wildlife slaughtering, expenses milking, English white-settler whose CV includes a period as Boris Johnson’s Secretary of State for Wales – a damning indictment if ever there was one. Caerfyrddin voters are lucky; they have a great opportunity to once more strike a telling blow for the Welsh cause in the seat where Gwynfor Evans (1912-2005) made history in 1966.

CAERPHILLY
Labour are home and dry in the new Caerphilly (why not Caerffili?), which consists of 91% of the old Caerphilly seat plus 25% of Islwyn. The MP since 2001 Wayne David has retired, thank heavens, so Islwyn MP since 2010 Chris Evans has been selected by London – as a middle-brow, conventional, small ‘c’ conservative who can hardly bring himself to utter the word “Wales”, he fits the bill. Veteran Plaid candidate Lindsay Whittle, who has been Leader of Caerphilly Council and a Member of the Senedd in the past, is infinitely preferable.

CARDIFF EAST
This resurrection of a constituency name that existed between 1918 and 1950 has been achieved by adding 78% of abolished Cardiff Central to 32% of Cardiff South & Penarth. The hot favourite to take it is Labour’s Jo Stevens, Cardiff Central MP since 2015 and Kier Starmer’s shadow Secretary of State for Wales who will certainly become the first Labour Secretary of State for Wales for 14 years if/when Labour win on July 4th. The fact that Starmer would put such a person in the post after Wales has endured these long years of Tory abuse, contempt, insults, attacks on devolution, crippling budget cuts and outright robbery of Barnett Formula entitlements says everything you need to know about ‘Sir’ Kier Starmer. Jo Stevens is an out-and-out British Nationalist, a fanatical anti-devolution Unionist who would make Northern Ireland’s DUP blush. She has already declared that Wales will not receive recompense for Sunak’s theft of HS2 money, will not be given powers over policing, infrastructure and law recommended by countless independent experts and enquiries, will not get any financial help from the UK Exchequer that we have over-contributed to in taxes and in the natural resources ransacked since annexation by England nearly 500 years ago, and will not reverse any of Boris Johnson’s illegal devolution power-grabs that happened in the wake of Brexit. Jo Stevens is actually no better than David Davies, the current Tory Secretary of State for Wales who relishes attacking Wales at every opportunity. Starmer needs to be told loud and clear by the Cardiff East electorate, by the Senedd and by the people of Wales that she is totally unacceptable. Get her out! Vote Rodney Berman! Vote Lib Dem!

CARDIFF NORTH
More or less the same as before with the small addition of 4.7% of the Pontypridd constituency (essentially Taffs Well), Cardiff North is a long-time Labour/Tory marginal. Anna McMorrin won it for Labour in 2017 and it’s vital she holds on and obliterates the thoroughly odious Tory Joel Williams, a spectacularly uncivilized young fogey who once appeared on Big Brother. A Cardiff Councillor (Pontprennau & Old St Mellons), he likes to indulge in sickeningly offensive bigoted, bullying ‘banter’ on social media with other likeminded Trumpian Tory Boys. The fact he’s actually a candidate to become an MP, let alone already a local Councillor, sums up the modern Conservative Party. Cardiff North should vote Labour en masse and bring the political career of this piece of shit to a shuddering halt.

CARDIFF SOUTH AND PENARTH
Gaining Cathays (22% of Cardiff Central) and Dinas Powys (8% of Vale of Glamorgan) while losing Llanrumney, Rumney and Trowbridge to Cardiff East doesn’t make much difference to the demographic of the constituency where I am registered to vote. Unfortunately, it is a cast iron certainty that Labour’s Stephen Doughty will still be my MP come July the 5th. As bland, dull, conformist and vacuous as it is possible to be, Doughty describes himself as “Christian”, “LGBT”, “a Cardiff City season ticket holder” and “a cub and scout leader”, seemingly unaware that none of those things are intrinsically admirable or commendable. Never known to utter a single interesting or original sentence, his leaflet dropped through my letterbox reads like it was written for a retarded child. Plaid, disappointingly and cravenly following in the footsteps of Labour’s blinkered pro-Zionist authoritarianism, recently deselected their candidate Sharifah Rahman when it emerged that she dared to make some pro-Palestine tweets last November. She was already on the ballot paper and it was too late to select another candidate, so I have effectively been disenfranchised by Plaid Cymru. This makes no difference to me. On the contrary, this unnecessary censorship of perfectly valid criticism of a State that has been openly flouting international law for decades makes me all the more determined to vote for Sharifah Rahman. By the way, I long ago lost my youthful rose-tinted view of Plaid Cymru. Like all political parties they have plenty of bastards in their ranks, and I’ve met a few over the years. I vote loyally for Plaid, election after election, decade after decade, not because of whoever is the current leader or a card-carrying member, but simply because they’re far and away the best of a bad lot on the ballot paper.

CARDIFF WEST
A seat only slightly altered by the incorporation of 9% of Pontypridd and 1% of Ogmore provides a good example of Labour’s colonial contempt for Wales. Following the retirement of Kevin Brennan, Cardiff West MP from 2001 to 2024, Starmer and the Labour Party in London have imposed Alex Barros-Curtis as the candidate. Who? He is Starmer’s key aide with a background in ‘marketing’ and ‘finance’ who led his leadership campaign, who stitched up leftwingers on spurious ‘antisemitism’ grounds, and who organised and implemented the ‘compliance’ policies that are purging hosts of Labour members and councillors and have deselected any remotely socialist MP. Without any connection whatsoever to Cardiff or Wales he has been parachuted into the seat by Starmer riding roughshod over excellent local candidates and ignoring the wishes of constituency members. To Starmer, you see, Wales has no interests of its own and is nothing more than a useful platform to supply safe seats for his favoured rightwing English cronies. At least in Cardiff West there are a couple of voting options for the considerable percentage of voters who loathe rotten British politics. As well as Plaid’s estimable Kiera Marshall, a Senedd researcher, there is my old pal from Daily Wales days Neil McEvoy of the pro-independence Propel Party – and I would be inclined to vote for him.

CEREDIGION PRESELI
Ceredigion has been increased by 30% of the abolished Preseli Pembrokeshire to create this new constituency, thus Plaid’s Ben Lake, Ceredigion MP since 2017, must see off two main challengers: Lib Dem Mark Williams and Tory Aled Thomas. Both are ghastly in their own ways: Williams, who was Ceredigion’s crap MP between 2005 and 2017, for reneging on his pledge to never contest the seat again in what looks like an attempt to split the anti-Tory vote, and Thomas for being an archetypal Pembrokeshire little-Englander. A Plaid vote here is vital.

CLWYD EAST
A brand new seat concocted from four abolished constituencies (77% of Delyn, 36% of Vale of Clwyd, 16% of Clwyd West and 9% of Clwyd South), Clwyd East is a Labour v Tory clash where the other parties barely figure. So a vote for Labour’s Becky Gittins from Bagillt is strongly recommended – ok, she’s no Megan Lloyd George (1902-1966), but compared to the two Tories she’s up against, she’s brilliant. Yes, that’s right, two Tories. There’s official candidate James Davies, Vale of Clwyd MP since 2019, a wealthy, privately educated, privileged patrician who has nothing in common with 99% of the electorate; and then there’s ‘independent’ Rob Roberts, Delyn MP since 2019, who lost the Conservative whip for creepy, inappropriate sexual advances inflicted on young interns and parliamentary staff (female and male, Big Rob’s not fussy). One of umpteen hideous Tories who can’t contain their sordid libidos and don’t seem to possess a mirror, he has refused to go quietly. This is a no-brainer: vote Labour.

CLWYD NORTH
This new constituency joins together 70% of Clwyd West and 64% of Vale of Clwyd, both Tory-held seats that now no longer exist. With David Jones retiring and James Davies trying his luck in Clwyd East, the Tories have selected Darren Millar, Clwyd West MS since 2007. Millar has been a reliably reactionary rightwinger in the Senedd, banging on about his pet issues religious ‘faith’ and the armed forces. These are typically Tory mutually exclusive oxymorons, but such a routine perception is quite beyond Millar. In another Labour v Tory contest that could be very close, a vote for Labour’s Gill German, a left-of-centre local teacher and Denbighshire Councillor, is imperative.

DWYFOR MEIRIONNYDD
The easiest constituency to analyse is this Plaid Cymru stronghold, now further consolidated by the addition of 59% of Arfon. The MP since 2015 Liz Saville Roberts does an excellent job as Plaid group leader in the House of Commons – for instance, crushing posh thug Jacob Rees-Mogg when the ignoramus called Welsh “a foreign language” – and she is set fair to increase Plaid’s majority here once more.

GOWER
I recommend a Labour vote in Gower, a seat that has acquired 34% of Swansea West, because Llanelli born MP Tonia Antoniazzi only has a 4% majority over the Tories in what is a straight Labour-Tory contest where the other parties come nowhere. Morever, the former prop forward in the Wales women’s rugby union team is an independent minded asset to Wales rather than a Labour clone, rebelling against the party line on a range of issues such as supporting medical cannabis and a second Brexit referendum and opposing gender identity ideology.

LLANELLI
Enlarged with 16% of Carmarthen East & Dinefwr, Llanelli is a Labour v Plaid battle and very much a Plaid target. The Labour candidate Nia Griffith, the MP since 2005, has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. She’s a Starmer fan, a ‘Labour Friend of Israel’ and a ‘Dame of the British Empire’ who only had the guts to come out as Lesbian in 2016 when she was a wizened 60-year-old and it was a pointless gesture. It’s time she was put out to pasture and replaced by Plaid’s excellent candidate Rhodri Davies, a broadcaster and journalist from Trimsaran who has lived in the real world rather than an elitist bubble having previously worked as a barman, a binman and a teacher. He grasps that devolution as defined and implemented by Labour has left Wales still tied to London without the means, the laws and the finances to improve on the thoroughly discredited British model, and he knows that only the independence that people like Nia Griffith so vehemently oppose will change our pitiful status as England’s battered, belittled bit on the side.

MERTHYR TYDFIL AND ABERDARE
This new seat, comprising 80% of abolished Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney and 58% of abolished Cynon Valley, exemplifies all that is wrong with the Labour Party. Having to pick a candidate from either Merthyr’s dismally ineffective MP, Party clone Gerald Jones, or Cynon Valley’s highly effective MP, proud socialist Beth Winter, you can guess who got the nod after typical dodgy manipulations and dirty tricks orchestrated by HQ in London. Correct, it was Gerald. Since he became Merthyr MP in 2015 he’s stuffed public money down the craws of his cronies and is one of those shameless MPs who appointed a member of his own family – his gay partner Tyrone Powell – to the post of ‘senior parliamentary assistant’ on a salary of £45k. The fact that Jones can get away with this without a whimper of protest illustrates the depths to which the once proud Welsh town of Merthyr has sunk. This was the scene of the 1831 Merthyr Rising; this was where Keir Hardie (1856-1915) became the first ever Labour MP in 1900; and this was where ex-miner S.O.Davies (c1886-1972) was the hugely popular, militant, Welsh republican MP from 1934 to 1972, even winning as an independent in 1970 when deselected by Labour. Now, it’s a poverty-stricken, depopulated, depoliticised sump for the know-nothing underclass. Jones will obviously get re-elected, so it’s hardly worth me proposing a sane alternative. Of all the places in the UK, Merthyr is where Nigel Farage chose to launch the manifesto of his Reform UK mob last week. There could be no greater insult than this: the man who says the UK should have made an alliance with Hitler rather than fight fascism reckons the poor white trash of Merthyr are thick enough and brutal enough to be persuaded by his smirking extremism. I’m tempted to recommend a vote for the wheelchair-bound, ex-military Reform candidate Gareth Thomas as a suitable symbol of Merthyr’s degradation, but I’m not that counter-intuitive so instead my advice is to spoil the ballot paper.

MID AND SOUTH PEMBROKESHIRE
Chunks of two Tory-held constituencies (70% of Preseli Pembrokeshire and 60% of Pembrokeshire South) were welded together to form this new seat, classed by psephologists as a Labour/Tory marginal. That notwithstanding, I cannot in any circumstances countenance a vote for Labour candidate Henry Tufnell. He’s yet another Englishman parachuted into Wales by Labour HQ in London despite the objections of constituency activists and, worse still, he only showed an interest when he didn’t even make the long list at his preferred seat Colchester in east England. Calculating that mummy’s bijou second home near St Davids amounted to local credentials, the upper-class twit from a family of extremely wealthy landowning Gloucestershire gentry was duly snapped up by Starmer’s anti-Welsh schemers ahead of a batch of excellent local candidates. This was achieved by Labour’s tried and trusted methods of rigging a result (disappearing postal votes, missing membership data, disenfranchisement of 60% of local members, etc, etc). And so Labour has ended up with, to all intents and purposes, a talentless Tory (daddy is the President of the Country Landowners Association). Given that Starmer welcomed the likes of defecting rightwing Tory MP Natalie Elphicke into Labour’s ranks recently, this seems to be his strategy: wipe out the Conservative Party and then replace them with Labour aka Tory 2.0. The real Tory candidate Stephen Crabb, Preseli MP since 2005, is actually preferable. Therefore a vote for Plaid’s exceptional candidate, dedicated community activist and campaigner Cris Tomos, is strongly recommended.

MONMOUTHSHIRE
This reimagined seat (88% of Monmouth plus 23% of Labour-voting Newport East) cries out for citizens to flock to the polling booths, clutching their compulsory evidence of ID, and vote for Labour’s Catherine Fookes (who is actually fairly ok). When the result comes in they can then drink to the ignominious end of the political career of the worst ever Secretary of State for Wales, David T. C. Davies MP. Suggested toast: “Fook right off you Basaleg Brit barbarian!”

MONTGOMERYSHIRE AND GLYNDŴR
A rural Welsh seat, formed from Montgomeryshire and 47% of Clwyd South, which has suddenly been thrust into UK-wide consciousness by the latest in the endless litany of Tory scandals. This one vividly illustrates Tory corruption, criminality and the bone-marrow sense of entitlement that allows them to think rules and laws don’t apply to them. This time it’s personal, because I’ve had dealings with the phoney, hypocritical, pompous Tory twat Craig Williams in the past – recounted on this blog (and see the comments). As Sunak’s Parliamentary Private Secretary since 2022 it would have been very odd if he didn’t have inside knowledge of the surprise announcement of a General Election. If he did, placing a bet on it is a crime and he must pay the price. After an age of dithering, eventually the walking disaster zone called Rishi Sunak has thrown him out of the Conservative Party to face the music alone. It was too late for the Montgomeryshire MP to be removed from the ballot paper, so constituents can give their own verdict in advance of any legal action by voting for Lib Dem Glyn Preston and returning the seat to the Liberal roots it should never have abandoned. As for Williams, his creepy-crawly, forelock-tugging, bowing-and-scraping political career is surely finished. Rejoice!
UPDATE: Recommendation changed to vote Labour – see comments below.

NEATH AND SWANSEA EAST
Because this is a very safe Labour seat, an amalgamation of 68% of Neath, 37% of Swansea East, 16% of Aberavon and 9% of Gower, aware electors can afford to steer well clear of the Starmer-imposed Deputy Leader of ‘Welsh Labour’ horrible Carolyn Harris. The Swansea East MP since 2015, she was selected for this new constituency after Labour’s Neath MP Christina Rees retired from the fray following allegations of bullying. If votes were cast purely on merit Plaid’s Andrew Jenkins would win by a landslide. Neath born and bred, he has an insider’s knowledge of the Labour Party’s sickness having been a Labour member of Neath Port Talbot Council between 2012 and 2017 before he had the courage and intelligence to defect to Plaid.

NEWPORT EAST
Yet another Labour rotten borough in southern Wales, remodelled from 77% of the old Newport East and 46% of the old Newport West. Starmer supporter Jessica Morden retains the candidacy in a seat she has held since being imposed on Newport in 2005 by the ‘all-women shortlists’ farce. She had previously been General Secretary of an entirely fictional body called “Welsh Labour” invented in 1947 to trick brainless Labour supporters in Wales into believing it isn’t just a minor sub-branch of English Labour. Disgraced First Minister Vaughan Gething inadvertently revealed the truth recently when the £30,000 left over from the £250,000 donated to him by a convicted criminal to buy the post of First Minister could not be banked by Welsh Labour because such a thing does not exist and has no bank account. Instead the money could only go to UK Labour (as it turned out, Starmer was savvy enough to reject Gething’s dirty money and apparently it will now be donated to ‘diversity’ initiatives). As Morden is guaranteed five more years of juicy expenses claims regardless, the denizens of Newport East are advised to vote for competent Plaid candidate Jonathan Clark.

NEWPORT WEST AND ISLWYN
Ruth Jones, Labour MP for Newport West since the 2019 by-election that followed the death of the wonderful Paul Flynn (1935-2019) wasted no time trashing his legacy, supporting in vain the building of a motorway across the precious Gwent Levels. Innocuous enough to be Starmer-approved, she carved up the available constituencies with Islwyn MP Chris Evans (see Caerphilly) and remains the candidate in the combined seat. The Tory implosion means the seat is safe for Labour so Brandon Ham of Plaid deserves support for his seriousness about the climate crisis, the rape of Wales and the destruction of the natural world. He’s the person to continue Paul Flynn’s struggle.

PONTYPRIDD
71% of the old Ponty seat plus 42% of Cynon Valley and 16% of Ogmore make up the new Pontypridd constituency, with Labour MP Alex Davies Jones, MP since 2019, retaining the candidacy. She needs to sharpen her debating skills, stop being so deferential and start showing some Welsh passion and idealism. As the seat is safe for Labour a more effective vote would be for Plaid’s young William Rees who co-ordinates the party’s Senedd operations and will be gaining much experience in the rough and tumble of electioneering.

RHONDDA AND OGMORE
All of Rhondda, 24% of Ogmore and 15% of Pontypridd constitute this new constituency, with Rhondda MP since 2001 Chris Bryant the candidate. Don’t get me started on Chris Bryant…oh, alright, if you insist. I can’t stand him. His knighthood, his Anglicanism, his Tory instincts, his lip-service Welshness and overwhelming Britishness, his support for the invasion of Iraq, his greedy expenses claims, his incessant attention-seeking, his vanity, his complete disengagement from Wales, his increasingly inappropriate obsession with being gay, his vulgar gay marriage to his ‘husband’, his fake rictus smile, his over-sharing of private personal details, his refusal to use the Welsh language, his insistence on calling Rhondda ‘The Rhondda’, his willingness to dish out abuse but inability to take it, his spectacular self-regard and immense ego, his….I could go on for another few pages but you get the picture. Vote Owen Cutler, Plaid Cymru.

SWANSEA WEST
I will be dancing in the streets if the Tory Party lies in ruins and Kier Starmer is PM on July the 5th. But on July 6th the next momentous task begins immediately. And that is to smash the Labour Party to smithereens and dump it in the dustbin of history. It was founded to fight the capitalism that Labour’s pioneers knew would destroy lives, destroy society, destroy culture, destroy human goodness and destroy the planet if it was not overcome. And those founders were right. All those things are happening right now at an ever accelerating pace and in the UK the main culprits are the people who infiltrated and took over the Labour Party and stealthily transformed it into today’s cheerleaders for even more unregulated turbo-capitalist destruction (but with a hip veneer). Starmer’s party is actually on the far-right economically as well as philosophically. The Labour Party, once the solution, is now the problem. We see this in how the centralising, power-mad, authoritarian, Union Jack brandishing British Nationalists of UK Labour insultingly treat Wales – in the same way that, say, Putin treats Ukraine. The new Swansea West constituency, 66% of old Swansea West and 61% of old Swansea East, provides a text book example of this imperialist bullying in action. Starmer decided that Labour’s candidate should be the English super-privileged think-thank neo-liberal Torsten Bell, a master of stating the bleeding obvious in his Observer column. So Starmer made sure a disciplinary case against MP Geraint Davies was strung out long enough to ensure he couldn’t stand again, instructed his stooges on the Welsh Executive Committee to rubber-stamp his choice, and that was that. Swansea’s local politicians, ordinary Labour members and dedicated activists were just completely ignored as if Wales were just a blank canvas waiting for Starmer’s empire-building. Prior to being selected, Bell had neither set foot in nor expressed the slightest interest in Wales let alone Swansea. For him Swansea West, which he is certain to win, is merely a springboard for his insatiable ambitions. Probably he’s already hunting for a tasteful luxury second home in some beautiful secluded spot on the Gower peninsular. Vote Plaid (Gwyn Williams) and tell Bell to go to hell.

TORFAEN
Torfaen has been augmented by 12% of Monmouth (Labour areas Croesyceiliog and Llanyrafon) making the downcast Gwent seat even more of a racing certainty for Labour. Barrister Nick Thomas-Symonds, MP since 2015, is Labour’s legal eagle who now and then has been known to pop into the constituency – especially around election time. What Torfaen needs is someone like Plaid candidate Matthew Jones from Pont-y-pŵl who works in the Senedd, lives in the constituency full-time and has a good record of helping the besieged population with issues like health and housing.

VALE OF GLAMORGAN
Almost the same boundaries as before, apart from the loss of Tory-leaning Dinas Powys to Cardiff South & Penarth, the Vale of Glamorgan has had the misfortune to be represented by tiny Tory Alun Cairns since 2010. It is known for being a bellwether seat, having been won by the party that won the UK general election in every election since it was created in 1983, which means miniscule little Alun could well be looking for a job more suited to his skill set soon. Umm…let’s think…well there’s always work for dwarfs in the pantomime season. The only consideration for voters in this Tory/Labour marginal is how to unseat the petite Cairns and that definitely means voting for Labour’s strangely unimpressive candidate Kanishka Narayan.

WREXHAM
Here’s a chance for Wrexham voters to start making amends for their shameful election in 2019 of appalling English Tory Sarah Atherton – the first Tory to ever win the seat. The constituency has been inflated by 39% of abolished Clwyd South, in theory making it even more Tory-inclined, so it’s vital that Wrexhamites with a grain of honour return to the Labour fold. That means voting for Andrew Ranger. It doesn’t matter that he’s an accountant with all the charisma of a damp dish-cloth – haven’t you heard that boring is the new interesting? And remember, to vote Conservative you have to be very stupid, very wicked or very rich – or, like the current Prime Minister, all three!

YNYS MÔN
Being an island, Ynys Môn is one of the UK’s five ‘protected constituencies’, along with Orkney & Shetland, Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Western Isles), Isle of Wight East and Isle of Wight West. These constituencies have special dispensation to be exempt from the rule on average constituency size (70,000 plus or minus 5%) applied to the other 645 UK seats, meaning Ynys Môn has avoided any Electoral Commission changes and is the smallest constituency in Wales with an electorate of just over 50,000. It is an authentic three-way marginal that has returned Conservative, Labour and Plaid MPs in this century alone. Currently it suffers the ignominy of being tarnished with a Tory MP – the indescribably inadequate Virginia Crosbie from Essex, elected in 2019 thanks to the English Tory pensioners who snap up retirement homes on the island (usually erasing ancient Welsh place names in the process) and who obligingly swallowed Boris Johnson’s lies about the fabulous benefits Brexit would bring. Crosbie is surely going to lose on July the 4th, despite the fawning, uncritical support she gets from the Tory media, since there is no hiding place for any Tory as the deeply dysfunctional Sunak regime disintegrates in its dying days. Her replacement will either be Plaid’s Llinos Medi or Labour’s Ieuan Williams, and this is a very clear-cut choice for Ynys Môn residents. Williams is in favour of the Wylfa Newydd nuclear power plant project, delayed for decades but back on the agenda as the Tory government have now bought the land and Welsh Secretary David Davies is mouthing wild promises about a golden future. Urged on by his ideological accomplice Shadow Welsh Secretary Jo Stevens (see Cardiff East), who totally agrees with Davies about the bountiful benefits of nuclear power and the suitability of Ynys Môn as a nuclear site, Ieuan Williams waxes lyrical about the thousands of construction jobs, the hundreds of permanent jobs and the millions of pounds that are going to be pouring into the Ynys Môn economy. Like Davies and Stevens, he must think the local people are thick enough to believe this preposterous fantasy straight from the Nuclear Industry Association’s propaganda department. The original Wylfa nuclear power station, which after taking nearly a decade to construct opened in 1971 and shut down in 2015, left a lethal wasteland that must be carefully monitored and managed for a century and will not be demolished and cleared until deep into the 22nd century. Wylfa Newydd will likewise generate immense amounts of untreatable nuclear waste, not to mention weapons-grade plutonium, with nowhere to store it. The people of Ynys Môn will be plagued by epidemic levels of various terrible cancers and the seas around the island will become a radioactive soup as the natural world is destroyed. As for all those benefits, it costs £3million to create just one job in the nuclear sector and power stations can be operated by just 20 people, while the construction jobs (Wylfa Newydd will take 20 years to build if the scandalously expensive £50 billion Hinkley Point C on the Severn Estuary is anything to go by) will go to specialist workers shipped in from elsewhere as the island’s tourism sector is wrecked. The supposed massive enrichment of Ynys Môn will actually be nowhere near the speculative figures plucked out of mid-air and in any case any profits will go straight to the foreign-owned nuclear operators and the UK government’s exchequer, no doubt to pay for tax cuts for the rich. On top of all this, Labour is endorsing the Tory view of Wales as merely a British possession which has no control of our own land, economy, infrastructure projects and energy policies – all powers held by London while the Senedd is not even consulted. This is the same thinking that drowned our valleys to build reservoirs for England, that plundered our natural resources to enrich coal barons and power British warmongering, and that transformed our beautiful countryside into a ravaged landscape of gaping quarries, towering waste tips and barren, poisoned earth. This Wylfa project is one more confirmation that Wales must become an independent nation free from the clutches of the cruel overlords who continually abuse us. Vote for Plaid’s candidate Llinos Medi. She understands that independence is the only long term solution to our woes and genuinely cares for her Ynys Môn home, her people and her country.

*NOTE
As a deep green who thinks the environment crisis is the most important issue in Wales and across the whole world, I am sorry that I cannot recommend voting for any of the Green Party candidates standing in Wales even though many of them are first-rate. This is because the Party’s full name is Green Party of England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland both have their own completely autonomous Scottish Greens and Green Party Northern Ireland, while for no good reason Wales remains handcuffed and thus always subservient to England even though the environment issues of Wales are devolved to the Senedd. If Welsh Greens want to get the votes of natural supporters like me, they must sever this ridiculous and deeply insulting tie.