- Trumped - 25th September 2026
- Travel ban lifted - 25th September 2026
- Lookie-likies… - 24th September 2026
For our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, establishing the correct identity of individuals has always been essential – but today this is made more difficult by fake pictures and films being created using Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the waters being muddied by onlookers spotting the comic potential of high-profile figures looking like others!
You always used to be able to rely on pictures or videos, but now you CAN’T!
Obviously this is very much the case now with advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) making the provenance of photographs or films questionable, but it is also because of the confusion caused by people pointing out the comic potential of certain high-profile figures looking like other ones.
This latter point is what I want to concentrate on in this piece, because I have written extensively in the past about how AI makes things problematic for an investigative journalist like me.
Some issues in the world of politics are especially striking.
Soon after Simon Hart was appointed Secretary of State for Wales (SSfW), it was remarked on by wags that he looked just like Brian Clough.
In December 2019 the Nottingham Post reported: “Nottingham Forest and Derby County fans were left rubbing their eyes following the latest appointment to Boris Johnson’s cabinet.
“Simon Hart has been named the new Welsh Secretary and a photograph accompanying the official announcement on Twitter reminded Reds and Rams supporters alike of a certain someone.
“Many have commented on the fact that Hart bears a striking resemblance to none other than Brian Clough. The MP for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire was promoted as part of a mini-reshuffle in the wake of the Conservatives’ general election victory“.
That’s not the only coincidence of its kind either.
A seasoned political observer recently told me how the esteemed, now dead, former First Minister of Wales (FMW) Rhodri Morgan, always reminded him of convicted mass murderer and one time politician Radovan Karadžić,
This is, perhaps, an unfortunate comparison, as Karadžić is in HMP Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight, after being convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Staying with regrettable comparisons, it was posted on Facebook (FB) 10 years ago that the disgraced former leader of Reform UK Wales, Nathan Gill, bore a striking similarity to Reinhard Heydrich, the high-ranking SS and police official in Nazi Germany and a principal architect of the Holocaust.
It was posted in September 2016: “…does anybody else see the similarity between Nathan Gill MEP and Reinhard Heydrich with respect to their physical appearance or is it just me?”.
Gill is a convicted criminal, although his crimes do not compare with those of Heydrich.
In September 2025, Gill pleaded guilty to eight charges relating to the acceptance of bribes from a former pro-Russia Ukrainian politician to make pro-Russian statements in the European Parliament (EP) and to the media.
On 21 November 2025, he was sentenced to 10 and a half years in prison.
Time for a little light reading about FB posts maybe?
The memories of Phil’s decades long award-winning career in journalism (when proving someone’s identity was crucial) as he was gripped by the rare neurological condition, Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’, Order it now!
Tomorrow – during his long career, Phil has always understood ease of travel is vital, but now comes more disturbing news that as climate change increases, two autocratic regimes are turning to sea routes through polar ice caps, supposedly to make their journeys easier (China and Russia), but other countries believe it’s not about that at all.
