From the moment Keir Starmer’s government assumed office it seemed to take perverse pleasure in making the Labour Senedd cohort look like fools ✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1jB1

The role of politicians has changed from explaining the complexities of governance to pandering to the pre-existing obsessions that Facebook or X has cynically nurtured in our increasingly isolated social spheres✍️Ben Wildsmith wp.me/p8Mk4U-1jrR

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

Ben Wildsmith - Whose Song to Sing: A memoir — Gŵyl Lên Llandeilo Lit Fest Whose Song to Sing: A Memoir Ben Wildsmith discusses his candid, darkly comic memoir with Niall Griffiths. Exploring adoption, identity and belonging, the book ranges from 1970s Birmingham to South…

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...

Ben Wildsmith - Whose Song to Sing: A memoir — Gŵyl Lên Llandeilo Lit Fest Whose Song to Sing: A Memoir Ben Wildsmith discusses his candid, darkly comic memoir with Niall Griffiths. Exploring adoption, identity and belonging, the book ranges from 1970s Birmingham to South…

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

Much appreciated

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

Fools & Knaves Ben Wildsmith When America is illegally attacking another country, it traditionally fabricates a pretext and sticks to it. We are, officially, still expected to believe that credible intelligence…

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

Photo of Ben Wildsmith. Text reads: My biological father saved me from my toxic adoptive dad Connecting with my past changed everything I thought I knew about what a family could be – and helped me escape my addiction Ben Wildsmith Published 22 February 2026 3:00pm GMT

'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 📚

‘This book is everything that a memoir should be: gripping, informative, moving, hilarious, a fascinating doorway into the fun and frozen wastes of being someone else, a glimpse into a life well and vividly lived. Laceratingly intelligent, fearlessly self analytical, it is, in part, a sequence of joyous, if hard-won, awakenings, into rugby, politics, literature, addiction, adoption, music, Welshness, love of several kinds. All praise.’ Niall Griffiths

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...

Diolch, Patrick.

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

Diolch yn fawr!

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

It's the details that make it. Giving the heterosexual guy a guitar is so arch.

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

5 February – Waterstones, Cardiff with Jon Gower 17 February - Mold Library with Niall Griffiths 18 February - Palas Print, Caernarfon with Niall Griffiths 20 February - Cwtsh Newport 12 March - Storyville, Pontypridd with Siôn Tomos Owen 27 April – Llandeilo festival with Niall Griffiths 6 June - St Illtud’s Church, Llantwit Major

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...

Book cover which features an industrial landscape overlaying a rural landscape with a rip down the middle

How does an adopted person construct their identity? In this collection of essays, Ben Wildsmith relates the key events of a turbulent life and considers the factors that shaped his nature. Examining notions of culture, belonging, authenticity and family, Whose Song to Sing? takes us from 1970s Birmingham to South Wales in the 2020s, via America, Australia and Thailand. Wildsmith offers an adoptee’s take on society – ironic and occasionally caustic – 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. We follow a path from childhood privilege to addiction and despair, before the healing power of community offers a route to happiness. Unflinching and frequently comic, Whose Song to Sing? shows how establishing a viable identity from uncertain materials can be a creative act, and a life’s work.

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.