News

Councillor falsely accused of creating AI rainbow van image to ‘create hate’

31 Jul 2026 2 minute read

An image of a rainbow van parked outside RNLI Penarth – Inset: Penarth councillor Anthony Ernest: Image: Anthony Ernest Facebook

Emily Price

A Conservative councillor has been criticised after he unwittingly shared an AI generated image of a rainbow coloured van blocking the entrance of an RNLI station.

Conservative Penarth councillor Anthony Ernest sparked an online backlash yesterday (July 30) after sharing the photo to Facebook and calling on the “thoughtless” owner of a multi-coloured vehicle to move it from the entrance to Penarth RNLI’s lifeboat station.

Commentators incorrectly claimed the councillor had used Artificial Intelligence (AI) to generate the image, with some alleging it was an attempt to “create hate”.

However, Nation.Cymru found that image of the rainbow van shared by Cllr Ernest originated from RLNI Penarth’s own Facebook page.

The image had been uploaded on Thursday (July 30) along with a post requesting that members of the public stop parking in the front spaces of the station reserved for lifeboat volunteer crew members.

The post was accompanied by a Facebook label stating it contained “AI information”, but the platform offered no explanation of what that meant.

Nation.Cymru contacted the station and asked whether the image of the rainbow coloured van blocking the entrance was real or if the station had created it using an AI tool.

The station did not respond.

Shortly after our query, RNLI Penarth removed the image of the colourful van from Facebook and replaced it with a photograph taken outside the station showing the doors open as volunteers prepared a lifeboat.

A source told Nation.Cymru that the photograph of the van was genuine, but had been partially edited using AI to replace the original business branding on its side with rainbow colours because the unedited image displayed the name of a local company.

The incident came the same day as Bridgend Restore Britain councillor Owain Clatworthy faced accusations of homophobia after sharing an image of a rainbow-coloured table online and describing it as a “political view” that was “impossible to escape”.

It is understood that RNLI Penarth was unaware of the controversy surrounding Cllr Clatworthy when it posted the AI image of the rainbow van.

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