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Two hugely controversial figures in the world of Welsh sport have been selected as star attractions at a venue in the heart of Wales’ capital, that declares it offers “a night to remember”.
There is to be: “A Fireside Chat with Professor Laura McAllister, in conversation with Beth Fisher” on May17.
Publicity for the event proclaims that it will be: “Held at the intimate Central Cardiff venue at Big Moose’s original coffee shop, there will be a chance to listen to the discussion and ask questions of the pair”.
But both of these individuals have grabbed the headlines for all the wrong reasons, and featured heavily in stories by The Eye.
Professor McAllister, for example, has also had a ‘chat’ with the notorious ex-lobbyist Daran Hill about electoral reform on Senedd tv, but he was later jailed, after admitting two counts of distributing indecent images of children and three counts of making them.
She also went to Qatar to cheer on the Welsh football team at the World Cup (WC) there but fell foul of the authorities for wearing the wrong kind of hat.
To commentators, publicly announcing her attendance at the WC seemed strange, as her sexuality (she, like Ms Fisher, is gay) would be treated as a crime in the country.
Professor McAllister is constantly used as a commentator by Wales’ biggest broadcaster BBC Cymru Wales (BBC CW) which has quoted her as saying: “Currently, I’m the only female on ExCo (Executive Committee), which is ridiculous”.
It stated as well: “McAllister is the first Welsh person to serve on Uefa’s executive committee, appointed on a four-year term last April…”.
Yet here too there are difficulties.
A critic on the nationalist website Nation.Cymru, which has been accused of being a mouth-piece for Plaid, and is supported by the taxpayer through the Welsh Government (WG), unlike The Eye, was utterly scathing.
He wrote underneath an item about her: “It seems to me practically every TV programme produced by BBC Wales that requires an opinion on Wales (Welsh elections, Welsh Government policy, Welsh football) Laura McAllister is there. And now she’s off to Qatar to represent us. is there anything she can’t do?”.
Her appearance at a famous New Year’s race in Wales provoked controversy as well, but on the BBC’s website it was stated blandly: “In 2023, McAllister became the first Welsh person to secure a place on Uefa’s executive committee and is also an academic and public policy professor at Cardiff University“.
However here there are also headlines which may be unwelcome to her, along with BBC CW.
Professor McAllister received support in her UEFA bid from the disgraced former newsreader Huw Edwards, who has flouted impartiality guidelines by publicly supporting the nationalist cause in Wales, and has now resigned from the BBC altogether.
Mr Edwards stated on Twitter/X, initially ironically: “Obviously I’m impartial —- but GO LAURA” with a Welsh flag after the comment.
But perhaps she might not have wanted this kind of endorsement, because Mr Edwards was later named as the presenter who had been suspended for allegedly paying £35,000 to a teenager in exchange for sexually explicit images, and ‘mental health issues’ were raised about him by his wife.
The giant corporation also published details in a contentious report saying Welsh independence is a “viable” option, yet which failed to mention that the survey’s co-author (Professor McAllister) stood as a candidate for Plaid Cymru (Plaid), or that her sister was a key person in assembling the information, and that she wears her nationalism on her sleeve.
She stood as a candidate for Plaid in Bridgend at the 1987 General Election (GE), and in Ogmore at the one which followed in 1992, although these facts were not included in the BBC ‘story’ about a report that Professor McAllister co-authored saying independence was a “viable” option.
Her sister, Fiona, was a senior member of the research body which gave ‘evidence’ to the commission on possible independence, and accusations of a conflict of interest have been made.
Professor McAllister has, too, publicised the fact she is a “Welsh woman” and that the BBC Proms made her feel like a “foreign tourist”, yet this was distasteful to many people in Wales.
Several years ago, Professor McAllister had written in her regular Welsh newspaper column: “I do realise that my national identity (Welsh) has been shaped and expressed largely through sport, but the Proms’ Union Jack waving (albeit with a smattering of European, Welsh and Scottish flags mixed in) and Rule Britannia make me feel like a foreign tourist”.
However the woman she was having “A Fireside Chat” with (Beth Fisher) has a problematic past, too, which has been examined by us, when issues of alleged bias (of which Ms Fisher has been accused) have made UK news.
In the weeks after the Gary Lineker affair, when editorial guidelines were underlined for broadcasters, she used social media to bemoan the fact that despite severe measures being taken against one senior Labour MP, ‘nothing was done’ when former Prime Minister Boris Johnson had made controversial comments.
Ms Fisher, who works freelance for BBC CW sport and has also been employed at ‘BBC Wales Investigates (BBC WI)’ on its programme about the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU), announced a headline-grabbing political position on Twitter/X by stating: “Diane Abbott has been suspended yet Boris Johnson called gay men “bumboys”, & compared Muslim women to “letterboxes.” He labeled black Africans “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles”. NOTHING WAS DONE! This isn’t about political parties but people being held equally to account.”
A former senior executive with BBC CW was extremely critical of the planned event.
He told us: “Beth Fisher would know NOTHING. She’s never been at the ‘top table’!“.
Even so she, like Professor McAllister, is publicised as a star attraction for an event at a venue in the heart of Cardiff which is to take place in a few days…
The memories of our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry’s extraordinary 40 year award-winning career in journalism (when he has revealed facts like these that are uncomfortable to some) as he was gripped by the rare incurable disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in the book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order the book now!
Publication of another book, however, was refused, because it was to have included names.
Tomorrow – how during that career, for Phil accurate information from trusted sources was always paramount, but now comes more evidence that the opposite is the case with increasing amounts of ridiculous fake ‘news’ circulating on the internet.
