Plaid Cymru Senedd candidate works for payday loan company that charges interest of up 93.8%

Martin Shipton

A Plaid Cymru Senedd candidate has been criticised after it emerged that he works for a payday loan company charging interest of up to 93.8% that is owned by a billionaire under investigation for fraud.

Neil Roberts, who will be fourth on Plaid’s closed list in the Caerdydd Penarth “super constituency”, is also under fire for a series of historic social media posts, in one of which he called Donald Trump a “c**t” (with the word spelled out).

Mr Roberts came third in this month’s Cardiff council by-election in Grangetown, behind the Green Party and Labour, but ahead of Reform.

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'Concerning tweets'

A political source sent us material relating to Mr Roberts, stating: “It has come to my attention that … Neil Roberts shared a number of concerning tweets from a recently-deleted (November 2024) Twitter/X account.

“He then, apparently, set up a new account in January 2025 using the same handle: @neil_roberts

“Roughly 4,500 tweets from the account 's first iteration survive on the internet archive. Having looked through around 10% of these, I have found dozens of offensive/concerning tweets.

“His deleted tweets range from the highly sexual to the grossly offensive such as joking about the death of Captain Tom Moore [the ex-soldier who undertook sponsored walks in his garden to raise funds for charity in the run-up to his 100th birthday during the pandemic] and calling the USA “a nation of dimwitted charlatans”. Any person who wished to dig deeper would inevitably find many more such tweets.

“In addition to these concerns we then have Neil's choice of career and employer. He claims to work in financial services but in fact he works for a payday loan company owned by a man under investigation for fraud during Covid. This seems to be in conflict with Plaid Cymru's stated aim of lifting children out of poverty.

“Grangetown's two MSOAs [Middle Layer Super Output Areas] are ranked 4th and 8th in Wales for child poverty yet Neil works as a compliance officer for 'Loans by MAL'. This company, owned by disgraced Michelle Mone's husband Doug Barrowman, charges up to a whopping 93.8% APR on its loans.

“Over the last four years (Neil’s tenure there) the amount of money loaned by this company to society's poorest has grown from about £60,000 to over £8m.

“The voters of Cardiff would be shocked to discover that this seemingly-caring candidate is growing rich off the misery of those in poverty. There is a tweet of him celebrating the purchase of his new Audi.

“Plaid Cymru has several times criticised the vetting process of other parties, I would question theirs based on what I have learnt of Mr Roberts.” In the aftermath of the Presidential election won by Donald Trump in November 2024, Mr Roberts interacted with an American who posted a message wondering why people not living in the US were panicking more than those who lived there. He responded: “The fact that you are stupid enough to tweet this just proves our point that you’re a country of dimwitted charlatans.”

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American

Responding to another American on X who asked why the Brits are so into American politics, Mr Roberts replied: “Because we know a c**t when we see one.”

And when GB News presenter Tom Harwood published a tweet that asked: “Did MPs really vote to dump raw sewage in our rivers?”, the response came from Mr Roberts, who said: “You truly are the Queen of odious twinks, aren’t there.”

Earlier this year the chair of the UK Covid Inquiry ruled that evidence related to PPE Medpro, the firm linked to Baroness Michelle Mone and her husband Doug Barrowman, would be heard in a closed, private session. The inquiry undertook four weeks of hearings into decisions to buy Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) during the pandemic.

Prejudice

Inquiry Chair Baroness Hallett said she was imposing the restriction as she was satisfied there was a risk of prejudice to criminal proceedings if "sensitive evidence" was heard in public.

Victims' groups and media outlets, including the BBC, had argued the dangers were overstated, given the early stage of the police investigation and the material already in the public domain.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) opened an investigation into PPE Medpro in May 2021 into suspected criminal offences committed in the procurement of PPE.

The company was awarded government contracts worth more than £200m after Baroness Mone recommended the firm to ministers during the pandemic.Baroness Mone, 52, and Mr Barrowman, 59, have denied wrongdoing.

A spokesperson for Plaid Cymru said: “We won’t be commenting on this matter,”