- Mind your language - 29th October 2025
- Labour pains - 28th October 2025
- Hack attack - 28th October 2025
In his long journalistic career our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, almost becomes used to the abuse he suffers when he exposes huge official mistakes or bewildering bureaucracy, and this is now highlighted by a glaring error in a Welsh Government (WG) statement…
Abuse comes in many forms, so let’s look at some of them.
There is the abuse I suffer constantly, and here are just a few examples:
A Marc Winchester said on Twitter/X, in a tweet which has since been deleted: “I’ll whack him (me)“, and the definition of the verb ‘to whack’ in the Urban Dictionary is: “to murder someone”.
He had links to the failed company No Debt Ltd and when it was wound up the liquidator said: “At the date of liquidation the Company’s draft accounts for the year ended 30 June 2015 suggested that the former director… of the Company… Mr Winchester (owed) the Company… a collective amount totalling £317,406 … Mr Winchester was declared bankrupt on 23 May 2017”.
This Mr Winchester is a family member, although it appears he is another part of the Winchester ‘club’.
But there is a connection with Mr Winchester, too, through another crashed business which also hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons – Falcon and Pointer Ltd. The BBC reported that the licence to practice was taken away after more than 40 million nuisance calls had been made. The item said: “Falcon and Pointer Ltd used automatic dialing technology to make the calls about mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI). The Claims Management Regulator (CMR)… (said)… The firm set out to ‘plague the public and rip off consumers’…”
If anything, the torrent of insults is increasing!
Attempts have been (thankfully unsuccessful!) to close down my website, The Eye, because people didn’t like what was said there.
My Wikipedia entry has been vandalised several times, and in one instance the words ‘tool’ and ‘knob head’ were inserted.
I have also been compared on Twitter/X to the comedy broadcaster Alan Partridge.
The Wikepedia entry has now been restored to its original form, after officials removed the abusive words.
The Alan Partridge comment was by a Sion Tomos Owen whose blog describes him as: “…a bilingual TV and Radio presenter, illustrator, writer and creative workshop tutor…”.
He said in Welsh (which I speak): “There’s no way this is genuine?! It’s as if a Take a Break (light magazine) story has been edited by Alan Partridge” (laughing emoji).
Another remark which concerned a television ‘reporter’ who had posted pictures of herself on FB or Twitter in skimpy clothes, is sadly typical of the insults I constantly receive: “Your article on Ellie Pitt was bordering on mysogynistic bullying, a really pathetic article written by a bitter individual who was a complete failiure as a BBC correspondent and also loved bashing the Catholic Church with your disgraceful Panorama programme”.
Indeed accusations of being ‘misogynistic’ or ‘misogynist’, are a constant refrain among those who hurl offensive comments (including from a person who has now been jailed because of his pedophilia), if factual stories are published with the targets happening to be women, yet these are potentially libellous words and the description is also provably wrong.
In the past I have also been accused online (incorrectly) of being a “bastard” (many times), an “anti-devolutionist wanker”, “pure scum”, a “liar” (also many times) a “little git”, and (correctly) a “nosey git”, “irritating”, or a “nuisance”. But these remarks come amid many others. Too many, in fact, to mention.
I rarely sue (although I do sometimes) unless the online message is particularly outrageous, and contains a libel (which most of them do).
Some can be rebutted in court using an “honest comment” defence (formerly known as “fair comment”), however most cannot, which means that any libel case is likely to be successful.
Then there is the abuse of the English language.
In a written statement the Cabinet Secretary for Education in the Welsh Government (WG) Lynne Neagle, MS, declared that there had been: “… the establishment of the independently chaired Strategic Workload Coordination Group (SWCG). Membership of the SWCG is drawn from key stakeholders and includes representatives from across the system. Their remit includes providing a strategic review of progress to the Schools Social Partnership Forum. Underpinning the Strategic Group are three working groups focussing on finance; reporting and engagement; and policy development and implementation. These working groups comprise of (my italics), and are also independently chaired by, representatives of education unions and school improvement partners”.
Apart from being COMPLETE gobbledygook, this is bad grammar and the fact that it comes from the minister in charge of EDUCATION gives it added piquancy!
Let me explain – most scholars agree that there is no ‘of’ after comprise because it is contained in the word.
You can have “contain ‘of'” or “consist ‘of'”, but you cannot have “comprise ‘of'” or “comprised ‘of'”.
Here, for example, is what ‘Usage Rules – The Case Of Comprise’ says: ‘…the construction comprised of meaning “made up of” as in The whole is comprised of the parts (e.g. The collection is comprised of thirty oil paintings), is considered incorrect English…’.
It is surprising, to say the least, that the minister in charge of schools doesn’t know this.
Far be it from me to say that Ms Neagle is a bit thick, but it may be wise to read these rules on grammar before giving out an ‘official statement’.
I always like to help…
The memories of Phil’s decades long award-winning career in journalism (when using correct English was crucial) as he was gripped by the incurable neurological condition, Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now!
Tomorrow – how news that a circuitous route has been found to debate the scandals and childish behaviour of Prince Andrew have highlighted the weakness of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) (which is used by The Eye), when requests concerning the Royal family are exempt.
