The idea of Europe as a restraining force is obsolete in the face of gangsterism that is happy to co-opt fundamentalist religion as ideological muscle ✍️Ben Wildsmith
06.03.2026 21:25
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The idea of Europe as a restraining force is obsolete in the face of gangsterism that is happy to co-opt fundamentalist religion as ideological muscle ✍️Ben Wildsmith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.
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
📚 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...
Coming Soon 5 February
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.
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
Book cover which features an industrial landscape intersecting with a countryside landscape, separated by a torn page. Text reads: 5 February
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