To turn an election that cannot change immigration policy at all into an imaginary referendum on it, is as barking as it is disrespectful to the process✍️ Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1jaZ

Llandeilo Lit Fest is just a few weeks away! We are so excited for events with Calon authors @benwildsmith.bsky.social and @carwyngraves.bsky.social 📚️

Trump’s readiness to wear the black hat in the cowboy flick, to characterise American influence as deriving from nothing more than military technology and economic advantage, has changed how the world perceives it ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1j0q

Join @benwildsmith.bsky.social in conversation with author Niall Griffiths, discussing his debut memoir 'Whose Song to Sing' 📚️ 📆 26 April 🕞️ 3:30pm-4:30pm 📍 Hengwrt, Carmarthen Street 🎟️ www.llandeilolitfest.org/programme/be...

Bydd @benwildsmith.bsky.social mewn sgwrs gyda Niall Griffths am ei hunangofiant cyntaf, 'Whose Song to Sing' 📚️ 📆 26 Ebrill 🕑️ 15:30yp-16:30yp 📍 Hengwrt, Stryd Caerfyrddin 🎟️ www.llandeilolitfest.org/programme/be... Digwyddiad Saesneg.

The extent to which our nation is diminished by the actions of madmen, over whom we have no control, depends upon the resilience we build into it ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1iNy

The annual ‘They’re cancelling Christmas!’ nonsense that we endure every winter, just after the tawdry exploitation of Remembrance Day by performative warmongers, has been extended to Easter ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1imV

As the parachutes of their candidates lie strewn across our hills, valleys, and town centres, how are we to feel about the poor saps who seem genuinely to believe that this stockholders’ junta represents their interests? ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1i8V

With every day that passes the mystique of US supremacy fades, emboldening other actors both in the region and the wider world ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1hR3

Support for Scottish independence is currently polling at 51%, as opposed to 41% in Wales. In both nations, however, support is weighted towards younger voters, with the fulcrum at around 35 years ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1hkp

The fathomless ache of mortality echoes through eternity in our stories. They lend weight and permanence to the gossamer levity of our lonely flights through existence ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1h7I

With Plaid Cymru, the SNP, and Sinn Fein predicted to run their respective governments by summer, the seams will fray yet further as this war rumbles on and we shall all be forced to reflect upon where we stand ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1gMI

The idea of Europe as a restraining force is obsolete in the face of gangsterism that is happy to co-opt fundamentalist religion as ideological muscle ✍️Ben Wildsmith

We are now being encouraged to believe that Islamic fundamentalist men were allowed by woke election officers to intrude on their wives in voting booths and command them to vote for the party led by a gay Jew ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1gbT

'All adoptions ripple out through families, changing the stories of those within them in unpredictable ways.' A beautiful and profound piece by @benwildsmith.bsky.social in @telegraph.co.uk Read here: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/02... Ben's debut memoir 'Whose Song to Sing?' is out now 📚

In his debut memoir, @benwildsmith.bsky.social offers an adoptee’s take on society as he struggles to carve out a space within it. 📚 www.uwp.co.uk/book/whose-s...

Fantastic evening in Palas Print Caernarfon with Niall Griffiths and @benwildsmith.bsky.social for Ben's new book with @calonbooks.bsky.social

The forces that seek to divide us, dull and blunt as they are, can be subverted by our wit and common feeling if we will it. What seeks to cast us asunder could yet pull us together ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1fsY

There are two types of people in the world: 1) Those who think Wes Streeting is popular with the British public. 2) The British public. Unfortunately, the former group includes most of our political class including, crucially, political journalists ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1f5G

'Whose Song to Sing?: A Memoir' by @benwildsmith.bsky.social is available now 📚

If the former Tory leader of Barnet Council recalls anyone in Welsh politics, it’s not the radical standard bearers of yesterday but parachuted-in placemen like Alex Barros-Curtis of Cardiff West and Torsten Bell of Swansea West ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1eUW

You can surmise that Farage doesn’t care at all whether his local party activists remain loyal or not. His plan is not to build support and eventually govern Wales but to use the party’s Senedd presence to generate headlines & create chaos✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1ezI

Upcoming events! Next stop on the 'Whose Song to Sing?' book tour is Mold Library! Join @benwildsmith.bsky.social in conversation about his brilliant debut memoir 📚 📆 17 February 📍 Mold Library 🕖️ 7pm 🎟️ Order your ticket here: www.ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on/mol...

Out now! In ‘Whose Song to Sing?’, @benwildsmith.bsky.social offers an adoptee’s take on society as he struggles to carve out a space within it. As family life disintegrates, he seeks refuge in culture, always returning to the songs and stories of the Valleys, the gift of his adoptive grandfather.

📚 New Events 📚 @benwildsmith.bsky.social is on tour throughout the spring discussing his debut memoir 'Whose Song to Sing?', beginning with a launch at Waterstones Cardiff! 📍 Waterstones Cardiff 📆 5 February 🕖️ 7pm 🎟️ www.waterstones.com/events/whose...

One week to go! 'Whose Song to Sing: A Memoir' by @benwildsmith.bsky.social is publishing 5 February 📚 Pre-order now from your favourite local bookshop or via the link below! 📚 www.uwp.co.uk/book/whose-s...

If, as seems likely, Labour now careens through a series of damaging defeats. Starmer will surely be shown the door this summer. Control-freakery and weaponizing party structures can only get him so far ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1dtO

Family is part of anyone’s identity, positive or negative – we get no choice – but so is culture and community, and that, we can choose. Ben chose Wales, or Wales chose Ben – who cares which way round ✍️Desmond Clifford

After weeks of bellicose threats on the sovereignty of Greenland, including a couple against Iceland for good measure – it’s all walruses and Commies, what’s the difference – the retreat has started ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1dib

Nothing Trump is doing differs from standard American practice around the world, what’s changed is that he feels no need to fabricate justifications for it and he’s happy to include Europe as a target ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1cWo

Memoirs must be based on life stories of actual interest. That’s the starting point for Ben Wildsmith, and his story is interesting. Vivid and well-written, this history is sometimes vertiginous, but you’re never far from a laugh ✍️ Desmond Clifford

Watching Robert Jenrick badmouth all his mates and fall like a shot pheasant into Nigel Farage’s bulging game bag brought plenty of cheer to a dreary January afternoon ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1cLk

One of the paradoxes baffling anyone engaged with politics in 2026 is the enthusiasm with which those who rail against ‘globalism’ import political obsessions from abroad ✍️ Ben Wildsmith

Publishing 5 February, 'Whose Song to Sing' is a heartfelt collection of essays from @benwildsmith.bsky.social. Follow Ben's path from childhood privilege to addiction and despair, before the healing power of community offers a route to happiness. 📚 www.uwp.co.uk/book/whose-s...

Trump is now governing as a cartoon villain – nodding and winking to us that he has no ideological mission at all. ‘Ha! You thought we took Maduro because of drugs? Don’t be a child, we did it for the oil.’ ✍️Ben Wildsmith

I’m kind of done with railing about politicians driving us into barbarism. This weekend’s events confirm that plenty of people want an end to civilization as we’ve understood it ✍️Ben Wildsmith

We’re in it together, and alone all at the same time, facing the sheer rock face of a new year with uncertain prospects. We smile at each other, pet the dogs, and breathe in the cold, shocking air like a restorative medicine ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1bNK

Not appointing a Welsh leader is as good as a concession that no Reform talent exists here. Rhun ap Iorweth need only to ask where ‘Welsh Dave’ is to expose Farage’s lack of faith in Reform’s Welsh operation ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1bzk

Jake Paul is the least of boxing’s problems in terms of ethics. He gives us the ick, though, and it’s because he represents a wider feeling that nothing seems to be authentic anymore ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1bes

If Reform UK supporters are disorientated by bumping their smooth heads against the glass ceiling of electoral reality, then Labour’s remaining fans must be punch drunk✍️ Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1b3o

Cheap, backward-looking nostalgia combined with aggressive hostility and ignorance aren’t, traditionally, indicators of a new dawn in any society. A last gasp seems nearer the mark ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1azt

Following a series of public spats, splits, and financial shenanigans, the headlines yesterday went to Zarah Sultana MP, who boycotted her own conference! ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-19MW wp.me/p8Mk4U-19MW

As we squirrel away whatever we have, feeling the peril of the moment, our politicians lack the imagination to face reality at all ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-19DH

Now that Reform UK has, as Nigel Farage predicted, replaced the Tory party, it remains to be seen if Zack Polanski’s Greens will do a similar number on Labour. Plaid Cymru seem sure to hoover up the non-Reform vote here in Wales ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-19eM

Everything from the royal family to the Church of England, to the Labour Party, the Conservative Party and the BBC is in existential crisis over the border ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-190y

Self-styled ‘patriots’, festooned in flags and poppies, cannot wait to euthanise a public British institution in favour of private news organisations funded from who knows where, and by God knows whom✍️ Ben Wildsmith buff.ly/XAwF35X

Archiving our experiences whilst they are ongoing is part of a new normal that sees us becoming detached from our own lives ✍️Ben Wildsmith buff.ly/WPLQ5m1

As the UK heads towards the 2026 devolved elections and a likely 2029-30 general election, Caerphilly offers a blueprint for resistance to Reform’s national surge✍️Thomas Lockwood

From here on, the monarchy dances to a new tune. Without magic blood, the performance will have to be up to scratch or new dancers will be found. That’s showbiz ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-18fr

The electorate in Caerphilly proved that 21st century politics is a sophisticated business and that people have grown past tribal loyalties to prioritise values that are under threat from populists ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1863