Dozens of Tory election placards stolen and defaced in Monmouthshire
Emily Price
Dozens of Conservative election placards have been ripped down and defaced across parts of Monmouthshire.
The posters to promote Tory candidate David TC Davies have been removed from private properties and land owned by local farmers in Usk, Trellech and Mitchell Troy.
A source close Mr Davies told Nation.Cymru dozens of the trademark blue placards were going missing “every day”.
Vandalised
In some instances, the signs – mounted on wooden sticks and fixed to fences – have been found completely vandalised.
It is not known who is targeting the Tory support placards.
Mr Davies has served as Member of Parliament for Monmouth since 2005 and served as the Secretary of State for Wales from 2022..
‘Unacceptabe’
He branded the removal of the signs “an illicit offence” and “unacceptable in a democratic society”.
In a statement Mr Davies said: “A number of plaster sites placed within private properties across Monmouthshire have been torn down and stolen. This is an illicit offence.
“This is completely unacceptable behaviour and cannot be tolerated in a democratic society. My principles and values are shared by thousands of people across the whole of Monmouthshire.
“The opposition parties won’t want to hear it, but I will continue to stand up to the Welsh Labour Government.
“Whether on their blanket 20MPH speed limit of their slashing NHS budgets to fund the creation of more politicians. Also, not forgetting their assault on Monmouthshire farmers in trying to force them to give up land for tree planting.
“I will not be silenced – and will continue to stand up for Monmouthshire.”
Welsh Conservative Senedd Member, Peter Fox has been working to replace the the signs.
He said: “Totally appalling that political activists have torn Conservative posters down on this stretch near Trellech, and similar in Usk.
“DavidTCDavies has been an outstanding MP and has a right to campaign as we always do. This pathetic vandalism is an affront to democracy.”
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Local farmers having Tory placards in their fields, supporting the Tory party that gave them the damaging Brexit they are protesting about, while blaming a Labour gov for their lost subsidies. Is this some sort of joke, are they real.
According to the NFU the majority of farmers in Cymru voted for Brexit
Yes, but it’s all the fault of the Senedd that they are in such dire straits. Presumably the Tory’s are going to reinstate their subsidies in full. They can live in hope.
We need not copy the USA or England on this activity… although we seem to have “ Welsh “ Tory MS’s whose outbursts and mis information seems to have provided a safe space for sign 🪧 daubers of road speed safety initiatives.
Welsh Tories? No such thing other than an oxymoron.
Sorry 😢. I
Meant “ Welch Tories “
The Tory leaflets shoved though my letterbox are also defaced and vandalized. I give them to my grandchildren to use as collage projects and to draw pictures on. No vote for a unionist party in this house.
Wipe your backside in it then send it back to Tory HQ.
Not only is he an absolutely awful politician, representing the most awful and disgusting party the UK has ever seen, he’s also a vile person in real life.
Any party that wants to rid a country of its own government and democracy is fully deserving of these goings on.
Strange how he’s magically silent on the subject of speed limit signs being defaced.
A very good point you make about the speed limit signs I’m sure Andrew R2D2 and David ‘Top Cat ‘ Davies would condone this as the democratic voice of the tax paying motorists
Good.
If anyone is worried that they might get caught doing this, it’s a lot quicker to slap a few Yes stickers on them.
An affront to democracy versus an affront to humanity. When using the term ‘an affront to democracy’, I suspect that making it harder for people to vote and bypassing a democratically conceived and six times voted on national Parliament was not what they had in mind. I can only think that the farmers do not own the land where Tory boards appear and may be owned by TC. Surely any farmer who suffered from Break-it, including the undercutting Australian meat import deal, would not allow their persecutors to put them up.
Tiny violin for sale. Hardly used.
Its funny how some on here turn a blind eye vandalism in some parts of Wales, but don’t dare touch a stone wall with red graffiti lettering in mid Wales!
False equivalency, “patriot” troll. Maybe get a clue before smacking your gums together next time so that we only think you’re an idiot.
Tory placards defaced or stolen of that Slimy Welsh Sec as Windsor Davies would say in It Aint Half Hot Mum OH DEAR HOW SAD NEVER MIND
They should definitely not be stolen – ‘creative alteration’ is always preferable in such cases.
With these political posters farmers and landholders can have many sited on their property whereas a householder really only has room for one. These multiple signs on one property give an impression that support for a party (any party) in an area is stronger that it actually is.
A one sign limit per abode, agreed by all parties would be an improvement. Falling that leave only one sign per abode
The theft of placards is just one symptom of the decline and fall of civilised democracy.
Violence towards candidates;
blatant lies by politicians such as in Farage’s Brexit or Trump’s insurrection;
global warming deniers (believing they know more than scientists!) voting for populist idiots;
the rise of the far left and far right;
violent protest;
MPs elected by jumping on the bandwagon of religious bigots.
We need to modify our system to stop this decline or, one day soon, we will repeat the worst mistakes of the last century.
We have had our vote Labour sign stolen from in front of our house last week as did our neighbours. We did not go to the press whining. We just contacted party members and had the sign replaced. Perhaps the stealing of Conservative signs was a more direct response to theft of Labour ones.
It really doesn’t matter what happens with these placards – Davies looks very likely to get the boot on July 4th. Brexit and dishing out Wales at every opportunity has it’s consequences.
I was still living in England – on the fringes of Greater Manchester in a place where town was just about morphing into country – when the Brexit referendum took place, and I was rather surprised to witness, in my area, the proliferation of ‘Leave’ posters erected along the hedgerows alongside local main roads. My initial reaction was to wonder if numbers of local farmers were indeed dim enough to think that ‘brexiting’ would be of actual economic benefit to them. But then I heard on the local grapevine that many of them were tenant farmers whose right-wing landlords sent… Read more »
Owner -farmers got conned by activists exploiting the farmers’ despair at the volume of form filling and duplication ( EU +UK) when applying for the available funding. Some cad told them that after leaving EU they would get same/similar funds for same level of activity but there would be much reduced admin. Of course that wonderful new scenario just never happened, did it !
So that’s part of the story?! Sounds quite plausible …