- Doublethink - 20th October 2025
- Football focus - 15th October 2025
- Names make news… - 14th October 2025
During 42 years in journalism, for our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, it has always been important to expose hypocrisy (especially among politicians), and this is now put centre stage by the extraordinary reaction of some states to the unprecedented Israeli bombing of Qatar.
It seems that it is important to have a selective memory in politics.
Countless times i have seen senior politicians behave in exactly opposite a manner (or say things in direct opposition), to the way they have done so before.
For example in 1989 Rhodri Morgan made public his deep hostility to the enormous Cardiff Barrage.
The then Labour MP for Cardiff West said that he did not think it right “to subject my constituents to disturbance for something of extremely doubtful value”.
This was seized on by opponents of the barrage.
Richard Evans, the Chairman of the Riverside and Pontcanna Residents’ Group Against the Barrage declared: “It is very important news that Rhodri Morgan has finally made up his mind to oppose the scheme”.
“It is the best thing that has happened in the whole year our campaign has been running”.
However the economic (although not the environmental) benefits of the barrage are everywhere to be seen now – with new flats and retail outlets springing up all the time.
Even before his death Mr Morgan will have been boosted by this politically, and of course been able to see the economic development spurred by Cardiff Bay created by the barrage from his office window!
Despite this inconsistency he has become something close to a hero for left-leaning people in Wales.
There is, for example, even an institute named after him in Swansea University (SU).
Their website proclaims proudly: “The First Minister of Wales launched the Morgan Advanced Studies Institute – MASI – on February 26th 2021”.
All of this is highlighted for me by the astonishing reaction to last month’s attack by Israel on Hamas leaders in Qatar’s capital Doha.
i do not for a minute downplay the enormity of this action – it was the first time that Israel had attacked Hamas in another sovereign country, and it may not actually have been terribly successful.
However the response was unbelievable.
On September 15 leaders of Arab and Muslim countries gathered in Doha to condemn the raid.
One of the attendees was Masoud Pezeshkian, the Iranian President, who roared: “Israel strikes wherever it wants and does whatever it wants”.
Yet, three months earlier Iran had launched its own barrage of ballistic missiles at Qatar!.
Many countries at this conference who condemned Israel may actually have been secretly pleased, because they have themselves waged war against Muslim extremists and are no friend to Hamas.
So along with exposing corruption, there is another necessary function for journalists like me.
Exposing hypocrisy…
The memories of Phil’s astonishing 42 year award-winning career in journalism (when the selective memories of politicians was often exposed) as he was gripped by the rare neurological disabling condition, Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order the book now!
