UPDATED – VIDEO NOW AVAILABLE – SEE LINK BELOW

 

As readers of UKIP Daily know, a week ago the members of UKIP Wales elected the leader of the UKIP Wales Group in the Assembly, in a secret ballot – read all about it again here – and Gareth Bennett AM was duly elected.

After the expected snide remarks in the Welsh MSM by his Assembly colleagues of the other Parties, he had of course make the tour of the studios. All business as usual, nothing to see here, one would have thought. And anyway, let him get on with his job in Wales …

We all know how our MSM are keen to smear UKIP, are keen to smear our elected representatives, and are very adept at trying to make them look incompetent at best, out-and-out racists and islamophobes at worst. Well, if they are doing it to Boris Johnson, why should that new, unknown UKIP Wales leader be exempt?

So – business as usual, then? Not quite.

As our English readers might not know: Wales has been ‘governed’ since the Devolution Referendum in 1997 – set up by Tony Blair –  by a Labour ‘government’ in the Assembly. Here’s some background information (it makes very interesting reading!) and the actual referendum result should be sufficient to stop remoaners’ wails: on a turnout of just 50.22% the Ayes had it with 50.30%, the Nays got 49.70% … now that’s what I call a close decision! Ever since, Wales has been a Labour fiefdom, with Plaid Cymru more akin to a nationalistic socialist ‘alternative’, a.k.a Labour draped with the Welsh flag.

Come the last Assembly elections in 2016 – and UKIP achieved 7 assembly members. These have now shrunk to 5 – one ‘leaver’ being Mark Reckless who tried to cross over to the Tories who didn’t really want him, one the now infamous Nathan Gill who finally accepted that his double jobbing as AM and MEP was untenable. His successor prefers to remain outside the Group. On these issues and in regard to  the background and lead-up to this last leadership election: we reported extensively in UKIP Daily.

Finally, I must mention that Cardiff is a remoaner fortress, that Labour has the city in its claws from Local Council to MPs to AMs and of course to the Welsh media – be it BBC Wales, ITV Wales or the one paper, “WalesOnline”, formerly “Western Mail”. Obviously, in Red Cardiff only the politically correct opinions are ‘allowed’, and any deviants must be called to account.

So on the 14th of August, Gareth Bennett AM was asked to give an interview to WalesOnline which was videoed. I watched it. You cannot do so now because WalesOnline have taken it down – but see the Update below!

Gareth Bennett’s spokesman informs me that not only is this common practice by WalesOnline when the comments don’t go their way, the video is also done in such format that they were unable to transfer it to their webpage.

However – the transcript has been published here (scroll down to the juicy bits before the walk-out), and even if it’s somewhat edited (that’s not strictly nefarious: speech is different from script) it’s correct as far as that goes. The tone of voice can of course not be rendered.

What happened was that the interviewer – a Cathy-Newman-wannabe if I ever saw one – was working hard to produce a ‘gotcha’ moment, so Gareth Bennett walked off.

More on this below …

Then, this morning, UKIP Daily received the following terse letter from Rob McWhirter:

“Sir:

I thought the era of senior ‘Kippers storming out of interviews passed away with Godfrey Bloom.

If this is how UKIP Wales are going to hit the headlines going forward, I wonder how long Gareth Bennett will last in office?

Respectfully,  Rob McWhirter”

Now here’s the strange thing: the headline of Gareth Bennett ‘storming out’ was used by the Daily Mirror only – and since the video has been vanished, they only show still photos, chosen to make Gareth Bennett look as intransigent as possible.

Well, as I said above: I did watch the video when it was still available, and ‘storming out’ is not what happened. Gareth didn’t even raise his voice. He calmly removed the mic, calmly picked up his briefcase and calmly walked out of the room.

To get a feel of what people thought at the time of the broadcast, read the comments on the transcript (link above), and do also check out the ‘likes’ – always keeping in mind that this is in Labour Cardiff, red in tooth and claw. These are not Kippers –  but from their reaction, Gareth has hit a nerve.

Even more instructive are the comments on the WalesOnline Facebook page, where the video also has vanished. Many are scathing about the interviewer – remember, they were actually able to watch the whole thing – and many wrote that they’d have walked off as well.

Thus my question, not just to Rob McWhirter: should Kippers meekly turn the other cheek, allowing the MSM journalists to use their platform in interviews to elicit a ‘gotcha’ answer? Haven’t we all learned by now that whatever a leading Kipper says, his or her words will be used against him, twisted to continue the “UKIP are beyond the pale” narrative peddled by the MSM ad infinitum? So: must they keep quiet and endure without answering?

Or isn’t it in fact much better to drop the mic when bias becomes so obvious that even anti-Kippers notice and are offended an just walk out?

Well – I’ve made up my mind, what about you?

 

Update: as of 10 a.m. this morning, the last part of the video, the one with the “storming off”, has suddenly re-appeared in Walesonline – do check this link now! This is, you will agree, somewhat strange … so watch it while you can

 

 

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