Conservative Senedd member Mohammad Asghar has died

[johnofgwent]

OK. before I start, I note that almost all the news articles I have collected are no longer searchable. I wonder why

I first encountered this chap when he was a LABOUR councillor in the "islamic rich" area of newport.

He hit the news in Newport's rag for having canvassed the labour party councillors witha  meno urging them to consider appointing his wife to a council post as their gopher.

The outrage arose because the current person in the role had literally that morning died in the civic centre at his desk and Asghar had not even had the courtesy of waiting until the undertaker removed the corpse to the funeral home before seeking to fill his family coffers by having his wife appointed to the paid position.

I then found a further occurrence of his name on a planing application to have the road outside his (shia) mosque at the top end of what was then a fairly busy area of town converted to parking bays reserved all morning every friday for worshippers at his mosque. The South Wales Argus outspoken bar steward columnist highlighting this said he was keen to hear the outcome of that application , not least because Asghar had spoken out vociferously against raising the two hour limit on all parking at the top of Stow Hill where worshippers at the Anglican Cathedral parked.

It was about then that Asghar developed an interest in Welsh Nationalism. He found a way to wangle himself into the cottage burner party locally, where he got himself onto the regional Party List for South Wales East and succeeded in becoming their first ever moslem Assembly Member and was trumpeted as such and i noted still was trumpeted as such in the BBC obituary.

At the same time his dutiful daughter abandoned her labour party membership and joined the cottage burners.

Then the fun started.

In the year where I stood for the assembly seat his bum was on, his daughter stood as a Plaid Candidate for election to the assembly constituency for abertillery, the same seat for which I was election agent to the BNP candidate. I'm sure we got more votes than her.

Failing to get Natasha a cushy number as a Plaid Cymru elected offiicial, Asghar pressed Ieuan Wyn Jones to give her a party funded job in the local party or a publicly funded job in the Assembly staff.

At that time it was not against the rules for assembly members to have their family paid to assist them in their elected office, but Asghar wanted her not funded out of his office allowance but separately given a job out of separate public or party funding. Ieuan Wyn Jones being a man of principle, refused point blank to agree to such nepotism.

A month later asghar was pictured grinning like a cheshire cat sitting next to Andrew R T Davies the leader of the tory group in the assembly announcing the defection of Asghar from Plaid to the Tories. And his daughter was on the tory party assembly payroll. It seems no degree of nepotism was too much to ask to gain a tory bum on a seat.

More fun was to come. Asghar was not a constituency assembly member, he was a regional list member. His bum was on that seat not because people had voted for him in person, but because people had voted to burn cottages and his was the name on top of that list. By "right" on abandonment of the party whose votes went to him he should have been dragged out and dunked in the bay as an example, and his vacated seat given to whoever the cottage burner's national nominating officer decided was next. had he actually resigned the seat, that was what would have been the case. But the stinkingly corrupt assembly president and founding officers conspired to write up a set of rules that said ANYONE elected to a seat could not be forced out even if they got the seat from a regional list election and changed party.

So Asghar got to stay, Plaid lost a voice and the tories gained one.

PUBLICLY the BBC put out the story that his defection was due to his having lost faith in welsh nationalism since being elected.

Wales Online however carried his own frank admission that Ieuan Wyn Jones' refusal to give his daughter a job at public expense, and the Tories' agreement to do so, were the driving forces behind his change of allegiance.

At the next assembly election, exasperation at Nick Clegg's perfoemance in the coalition cost the Liberal Democrats every single constituency party seat, Labour and Plaid collectively redwashed and greenwashed the forty constituency seats with a few tories in the capitalist heartlands in Cardiff, while Asghar breezed in to a regional seat again this time off regional tory votes

His dutiful daughter switched political affiliations again and became the Tory Conservative Candidate for Newport East in 2015 and looked forward to every one of her islamic constituents to vote for her. She said so in an official party press release. She came in something like last but one place behind Lord Buckethead. No Not really, but I think she lost her deposit. I voted UKIP.

The next scandal was to come when it was revealed asghar had arrranged for the job his daughter did to be "job shared"between his daughter and his wife,  He had appareently told the assembly he would donate their salary to charity but for some strange reason this promise was overlooked.

Quoted in wales Online, a tory spokeman said it was regrettable that Asghar's family continued to benefit from public funding as the rules now prevented such appointments, but his had been agreed under prior arrangements and nothing could now be done about it.

I was surprised to see the recent general election candidate for Newport east was a white man and a farmer at that. The local activists had made much of the upcoming election on facearse book and i lost no opportunity in baiting him by asking if once again our conservative candidate was going to be the daughter of assembly member mohammed asghar who only joined the tories because you agreed to bribe him and who was currently corruptly in receipt with her mother of a salary at public expense banned by current assembly rules.

The Leader of the Constituency Tory Party had me banned for a month from facearse book for that.

So I went online to a sky news questions session and asked if they knew if our candidate was announced uyet as i was keen to know if it would once again be the daughter of the man who lah blah blah who had arranged to have his wife appointed to the candidate selection committee....

That question never got online

But half an hour later facearse book had messaged me telling me they were sorry they got it wrong, my ban was rescinded and my post was restorted.

And the tories decided to choose a white manto be their candidate. Although his manifesto made reference to his "Good Friend" Mohammed Asghar without whose help he would not have achieved this...


SO

In summary, a thoroughly corrupt piece of shit who I rejoice at the demise of.

I wonder if his daughter will get his job for the rest of the term

[GBNews]

Conservative Senedd member Mohammad Asghar has died

Tributes are paid to the politician, who had represented South Wales East for more than 13 years.

Source: Conservative Senedd member Mohammad Asghar has died