Every donation made to Vaughan Gething and Jeremy Miles

It took some time, but I have identified every person bankrolling the Welsh Labour leadership campaign

Hello!

As promised, I have gone through all the donations made to both Jeremy Miles and Vaughan Gething and there are some really interesting nuggets.

Obviously the most startling is the monster donation from a convicted criminal but there are some other examples from both men that are well worthy of further examination.

Incidentally, if our new First Minister thought his donation had failed to cut through with public, exclusive polling for WalesOnline has suggested this isn’t the case.

When asked “To what extent, if at all, do you agree or disagree that Gething should return the money?” the responses were:

• 63% said “agree” or “strongly agree”

• 11% said “disagree or “strongly disagree”

• 10% said “don’t know”

• 17% said neither agree or disagree

Without further ado, let’s get into the donations starting with Mr Miles:

Jeremy Miles donations - Total £58,800

Lancehawk - £9,000

Lancehawk is a company in wired telecommunications activities sector. Interestingly, one of the directors is a man named Robert Lovering. This man is interesting for several reasons and seemingly has a history of bankrolling politicians for both Labour and the Tories.

From 2013 to 2019 he was a director at Hydro Industries ltd, a water technology firm. Open Democracy reported that Hydro Industries was awarded a “convertible loan” from the UK Government’s Future Fund scheme in 2020, which was meant to help businesses “facing financing difficulties” due to the pandemic. In the same month, the company donated £20,000 to the Conservative Party. In August 2021, the loan was converted into equity shares reportedly worth £3.5m.

As an aside, an analysis of the Future Fund Scheme (where the UK Government invested £1.1bn in 1,190 companies) was carried out by the FT in 2021 and found almost half of the companies that received funding are based within five miles of Whitehall.

What is also interesting about Mr Lovering is who he has shared his directorship with on the board of Hydro Industries. One of those was Welshman Guto Harri, who was an adviser and spokesman for Boris Johnson when he was Mayor of London and towards the end of his time in Downing Street.

Mr Lovering is also on the boards of multiple companies with former Wales rugby captain David Pickering. One of these is R&A Properties which made a £7,500 donation to Conservative MP for Montgomeryshire Craig Williams. I covered this in a previous newsletter.

Robert Fellows - £2,500

Mr Fellows is the COO of a PR firm called Quattro PR. They have a large range of clients including several renewable energy companies as well as the University of Manchester and Imperial College London.

Ian Morgan - £10,000

Ian Morgan, founder of Westacres, a high end residential property development company based in South Wales. They sponsored Swansea City Football Club's kit last season.

Elizabeth McAvoy - £20,000

Ms McAvoy made four £5,000 donations to Mr Miles. She is a Professor of medieval literature at Swansea University focuses on women's literature and literary cultures, "including representations of women in both female and male authored texts."

Duraseal - £14,800

Duraseal is a roofing company based in Aberdare owned by a man called Geraint Thomas Hughes.

Trosol - £2,500

This is a translation company based on Cathedral Road in Cardiff. It is run by a man named Rhodri Evans.

Vaughan Gething's donations - Total £254,600

Dauson Environmental Group Ltd - £200,000

This donation has proved by far the most controversial.

The Cardiff-based environmental firm is run by a man who was prosecuted for illegally dumping waste on a conservation site. During the campaign WalesOnline revealed that on the same day the company made a donation they also applied to build a solar farm which would require ministerial approval. This means that Mr Gething's administration will be in a position where they have to approve the application of a company that bankrolled him into his role. Mr Gething has also lobbied extensively for the company over their disagreement with Natural Resources Wales.

Veezu Holding Limited - £25,000

Mr Gething received £25k from taxi company Veezu which owned by Welsh entrepreneur Nathan Bowles. Another company Mr Bowles has been involved in, Smart Solutions, previously made a contribution of “staff costs” worth £20,000 to Mr Gething's leadership campaign in 2018. Two years later in 2020, Smart Solutions Recruitment was ‘named and shamed’ by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, for failing to pay the minimum wage.

It seems like Veezu doesn't really mind which politician or party they support as they previously employed Conservative MP and former Wales secretary Alun Cairns as a "senior advisor". They paid him £15,000 a year for 70 hours work for this.

God our political system is an embarrassment.

Jeanne Marie Davies - £21,600

Ms Davies is the wife of City grandee Mervyn Davies (Baron Davies of Abersoch) who has worked for a number of major banks and served in Gordon Brown's cabinet as a minister for trade, investment and business.

Speaking of Mr Davies....

Tramshed Tech Ltd - £3,000

The Welsh company Tramshed Tech gave Mr Gething the equivalent of £3,000 in office space where he could base his campaign.

If you look up the company you can see that one of the directors is Mervyn Davies. Tramshed is certainly not the only focus of Mr Davies who is a director in 14 other companies. The FT reported that he received a a mammoth $40m last year as the companys LetterOne’s non-executive chair.

He was made a life peer under Gordon Brown to become Baron Davies of Abersoch with the motto Trwy Fentro Mae Llwydd (by risking there is success). Profound…

Christopher Loyn - £5,000

Christopher Loyn is a well known architect based in Penarth. He runs Loyn + Co Architects which have designed a number of projects in South Wales.

When I asked Mr Loyn why he supported Vaughan Gething he said: "Quite simply, Vaughan was my preferred candidate and I was delighted to hear that he had been successfully appointed as our First Minister. I really think he will be a breath of fresh air for Wales."

Reading through these donations the thing that strikes me how cheap it is to buy influence in our democracy here in Wales. Clearly most people can’t drop £10k on a donation but for people of means or businesses, it isn’t a massive amount of money.

The fact that for about £5k you can potentially buy yourself a permanent phone line to the most powerful man in Wales is, for some people, an excellent return on your investment.

I am not sure what is worse for democracy, whether it is really cheap to bankroll our politicians or if it was really expensive.

Thanks again for reading. Please keep sharing and recommending the newsletter. It is such a big help.

Many thanks

Will