EDDC issues a press release on 21 July 2016 saying that on 13 July 2016 its Cabinet decided to press ahead with devolution plans:
THEN
the Overview Committee discusses it on 28 July:
Click to access 280616-overview-agenda-combined.pdf
And STILL we are not allowed our say!
Priceless.
“Owen Smith, who now faces Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour leadership battle, worked as a lobbyist in the pharmaceutical industry for five years before becoming the MP for Pontypridd in 2010.
After working for the US giant Pfizer, Smith moved to the controversial biotech firm Amgen in 2008. At the time, Amgen was battling an investigation into one of its most successful anaemia drugs, Aranesp.
Amgen was ultimately fined $762m for illegally promoting the drug to cancer patients in a way that increased the likelihood of their deaths. Amgen was hit with the fines after it emerged that the California company was “pursuing profits at the risk of patient safety” as it promoted a non-approved use of Aranesp.
Smith was in charge of corporate affairs, corporate and internal communications and public affairs at the British division of Amgen while the biotech company was being investigated.
The main whistleblower on Aranesp filed her case against Amgen in 2006, sparking a US investigation that took several years to conclude. The whistleblower also claimed that Amgen systematically overfilled vials of the drugs, when selling them in America, which enabled doctors to “pool” the excess amounts.
The doctors were then encouraged to bill Medicare and private insurers for the use of the excess drug, creating a system of “liquid kickbacks” according to one lawyer on the case.
Amgen also produces a drug called erythropoietin – better known as EPO – which it produced under its Epogen brand name. Epogen was connected to the international cycling scandal, which involved cyclists such as Lance Armstrong. …”
David Cameron was “Director of Corporate Affairs” at Carlton TV (i.e. a lobbyist):
“In July 1994, Cameron left his role as Special Adviser to work as the Director of Corporate Affairs at Carlton Communications. Carlton, which had won the ITV franchise for London weekdays in 1991, was a growing media company which also had film-distribution and video-producing arms. Cameron was suggested for the role to Carlton executive chairman Michael P. Green by his later mother-in-law Lady Astor. Cameron left Carlton to run for Parliament in 1997, returning to his job after his defeat.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cameron#Carlton
and our own dear Hugo Swire had a similar job at the National Gallery:
“He was a financial consultant, then became of Head of Development for the National Gallery, then Director of the auction house Sotheby’s directly before his election from 1996.”
“New International Trade Secretary Liam Fox celebrated his government comeback at a Commons champagne party attended by the friend and former associate linked to his previous Cabinet downfall.
Dr Fox and Adam Werritty were among a noisy group who downed eight bottles of bubbly on the Commons terrace, with at least one cork being popped into the River Thames. The event took place within an hour of Dr Fox, 54, being given a key Brexit role in Theresa May’s new Cabinet. His friends queued up to give him congratulatory slaps on the back as he drank £29-a-bottle House of Commons champagne.
The impromptu party, hosted by Commons Deputy Speaker and fellow Tory MP Eleanor Laing, a longstanding friend of Dr Fox and his wife Jesme, was attended by about 20 people. They got through eight bottles over a couple of hours. Mrs Fox was not present.
Dr Fox was forced to resign as Defence Secretary in October 2011 in a row over his dealings with Mr Werritty. The lobbyist did not have security clearance but accompanied Dr Fox on at least 18 foreign business trips.
The resignation came after a week of revelations about Dr Fox’s relationship with Werritty, including disclosures that the friend’s activities were funded by firms and individuals that potentially stood to benefit from government decisions.
At the time, Werritty falsely described himself as one of Dr Fox’s official aides and handed out business cards bearing the Commons portcullis logo. He also took a number of solo trips reportedly with the aim of fostering closer ties between Right-wing politicians in Britain and the United States.
In his resignation letter to the then Prime Minister David Cameron, Dr Fox said he had ‘mistakenly allowed the distinction between my personal interest and my Government activities to become blurred’.
Mr Werritty, 37, best man at Dr Fox’s 2005 wedding, moved into Dr Fox’s spare room in London after graduating from university. Werritty now lives in a flat in Dolphin Square, Pimlico – a mile from the Commons – where many MPs have apartments.
An inquiry cleared Dr Fox of benefiting financially from his links with Werritty.
An MP who saw Dr Fox’s champagne party said: ‘It seemed a bit over the top to celebrate so loudly in full view of members of the public on Westminster Bridge.’
Dr Fox said last night: ‘Adam and his wife were invited by Eleanor.’ He added: ‘My friends are my friends and I’m very loyal to them.’
Published in full because Owl found it impossible to decide which paragraph to cut.
“We may be told donors do not influence policy, but anywhere else our setup would be seen as corruption
Is this a democracy or is it a plutocracy? Between people and power is a filter through which decisions are made, a filter made of money. In the European referendum, remain won 46% of the money given and lent to the two sides (£20.4m) and 48% of the vote; leave won 54% of the money and 52% of the vote. This fearful symmetry should worry anyone who values democracy. Did the vote follow the money? Had the spending been the other way round, would the result have reflected that? These should not be questions you need to ask in a democracy.
If spending has no impact, no one told the people running the campaigns: both sides worked furiously at raising funds, sometimes from gruesome people. The top donor was the stockbroker Peter Hargreaves, who gave £3.2m to Leave.eu. He explained his enthusiasm for leaving the EU thus: “It would be the biggest stimulus to get our butts in gear that we have ever had … We will get out there and we will be become incredibly successful because we will be insecure again. And insecurity is fantastic.”
No one voted for such people, yet they are granted power over our lives. It is partly because the political system is widely perceived to be on sale that people have become so alienated. Paradoxically, political alienation appears to have boosted the leave vote. The leave campaign thrived on the public disgust generated by the system that helped it to win.
If politics in Britain no longer serves the people, our funding system has a lot to do with it. While in most other European nations, political parties and campaigns are largely financed by the state, in Britain they are largely funded by millionaires, corporations and trade unions. Most people are not fools, and they rightly perceive that meaningful choices are being made in private, without democratic consent. Where there is meaning, there is no choice; where there is choice, there is no meaning.
Politicians insist that donors have no influence on policy, but you would have to be daft to believe it. The fear of losing money is a constant anxiety, and consciously or subconsciously people with an instinct for self-preservation will adapt their policies to suit those most likely to fund them. Nor does it matter whether policies follow the money or money follows the policies: those whose proposals appeal to the purse-holders will find it easier to raise funds.
Sometimes the relationship appears to be immediate. Before the last general election, 27 of the 59 richest hedge fund managers in Britain sponsored the Conservatives. Perhaps these donations had nothing to do with the special exemption from stamp duty on stock market transactions the chancellor granted to hedge funds, depriving the public sector of about £145m a year. But that doesn’t seem likely.
At the Conservatives’ annual Black and White Ball, you get the access you pay for: £5,000 buys you the company of a junior minister; £15,000, a cabinet minister. Politicians insist that there’s no relationship between donations and appointments to the House of Lords, but a study at Oxford University found that the probability of this being true is “approximately equivalent to entering the national lottery and winning the jackpot five times in a row”.
We might not have had a say in the choice of the new prime minister, but I bet there was a lively conversation between Conservative MPs and their major funders.
Among the many reasons for the crisis in the Labour party is the desertion of its large private donors. One of them, the corporate lawyer Ian Rosenblatt, complains: “I don’t think Jeremy Corbyn or anyone around him is remotely interested in whether people like me support the party or not.” Why should the leader of the Labour party have to worry about the support of one person ahead of the votes of millions?
The former Labour adviser Ayesha Hazarika urged Corbyn to overcome his scruples: “Meeting rich people and asking for money is not exactly part of the brand that has been so successful among his party faithful. But … sometimes you just have to suck it up and do things you don’t like.”
Under our current system she might be right, not least because the Conservatives have cut Labour’s other sources of funding: trade union fees and public money. But what an indictment of the system that is. During the five years before the last election, 41% of the private donations made to political parties came from just 76 people. This is what plutocracy looks like.
Stand back from this system and marvel at what we have come to accept. If we saw it anywhere else, we would immediately recognise it as corruption. Why should parties have to grovel to oligarchs to win elections? Or, for that matter, trade unions?
The political system should be owned by everyone, not by a subset. But the corruption at its heart has become so normalised that we can scarcely see it.
Two-fifths of British political donations made by just 76 people
Here is one way in which we could reform our politics. Each party would be allowed to charge the same fee for membership – a modest amount, perhaps £20. The state would then match this money, at a fixed ratio. And that would be it. There would be no other funding for political parties. The system would be simple, transparent and entirely dependent on the enthusiasm politicians could generate. They would have a powerful incentive to burst their bubbles and promote people’s re-engagement with politics. The funding of referendums would be even simpler: the state would provide an equal amount for each side.
The commonest argument against such arrangements is that we can’t afford them. Really? We can’t afford, say, £50m for a general election, but we can afford the crises caused by the corruption of politics? We could afford the financial crisis, which arose from politicians’ unwillingness to regulate their paymasters. We can afford the costs of Brexit, which might have been bought by a handful of millionaires.
Those who urged us to leave the EU promised that we would take back control. Well, this is where it should begin.”
A fully linked version of this article can be found at Monbiot.com
:: Stick to the spending limits set by the [Party] headquarters
:: Not co-operate “in any way” with other political parties, their donors, members or active supporters
:: Do “everything in our power” to ensure that supporters’ campaigning on social media is “in good taste”
:: Ensure the campaign stays within “the acceptable limits of political debate”
:: Do “what is right for our party and the country as a whole”
Probably not good news for Police and Crime Commissioner Hernandez!
With all the constitutional chaos following the EU referendum result,
it’s easy to forget that up to 30 MPs are still being investigated for
breaking election spending limits by twenty police forces across the
country. But we’re still on the case!
Last week we hosted a meeting of politicians and campaigners to talk
about two things:
How can we bring MPs who have broken the rules to justice?
How can we fix the broken election expenses system?
Our friendly legal experts had some good news – there are legal options
to pursue MPs who have broken election spending limits even if the
police aren’t already investigating them! The allegations that the
police are already investigating could just be the tip of the iceberg in
this election expenses scandal.
It shouldn’t take a crack team of investigative journalists to keep our
elections fair and protect democracy. One big obstacle in the way of
holding MPs to account is that election expenses aren’t publicly
available. The only way you can access them is by going down to your
local council offices. We are working behind the scenes to change this
in time for the next general election (whenever that may be!) We will be
talking to the Electoral Commission to put pressure on local councils to
make this vital information available online.
With Brexit and Chilcot dominating the news, the election expenses
scandal could drop off the radar. We won’t let that happen.
Best wishes,
Alexandra Runswick
Director, Unlock Democracy
“Heart of the South West Formal Devolution Bid (pages 52-56)
‘This report seeks approval to sign up ‘in principle’ to the pursuit of a Devolution Deal and the creation of a Combined Authority for the Heart of the South West sub- region to administer the powers devolved through the Deal. An ‘in principle’ agreement from all of the authorities, partners and MPs involved in the Heart of the South West devolution process will open up negotiations with Treasury to work towards a deal.”
DID YOU SPOT THE ELEPHANTS IN THE ROOM?
No members of the business- and developer-heavy Local Enterprise Partnership in the video – particularly the LEP Chairman, who is Chairman of Midas house builders and the half-dozen with vested interests in nuclear power and those University chiefs who want to ensure they get all the money for skills and training! Together THEY make up the majority of the Board taking decisions, NOT councillors.
And that LOVELY bit from Diviani about other councillors getting a chance to comment AFTER this loathsome group has created its “blueprint” for devolution in its own image.
No chance for Sidford Fields then.
” … The Environment Agency no longer prosecutes even some of the most extreme pollution events. In 2013, a farmer in Somerset released what the agency called a “tsunami of slurry” into the Wellow Brook. One inspector said it was the worst pollution she had seen in 17 years. But the agency dithered for a year before striking a private agreement with the farmer, allowing him to avoid possible prosecution, criminal record, massive fine and court costs, by giving £5,000 to a local charity.
New rules imposed by the government means that such under-the-counter deals, which now have a name of their own – enforcement undertakings – are likely to become more common. They are a parody of justice: arbitrary, opaque and wide open to influence-peddling, special pleading and corruption.
I see the agency’s farcical investigation of the pollution incident I reported as strategic incompetence, designed to avoid conflict with powerful landowners. Were it to follow any other strategy, it would run into trouble with the government.
These problems are likely to become even more severe, when the new cuts the environment department has just agreed with the Treasury take effect. An analysis by the RSPB and the Wildlife Trusts reveals that, once the new reductions bite, the government’s spending on wildlife conservation, air quality and water pollution will have declined by nearly 80% in real terms since 2009-10.
It’s all up for grabs now: if you want to wreck the living world, the government is not going to stop you. Those who have power, agency, money or land can – metaphorically and literally – dump their crap on the rest of us.
Never mind that the government is now breaking European law left right and centre, spectacularly failing, for example, to ensure that all aquatic ecosystems are in good health by the end of this year, as it is supposed to do under the water framework directive. It no longer seems to care. It would rather use your tax money to pay fines to the European commission than enforce the law against polluters.
I’ve heard the same description of Liz Truss, the secretary of state for environment, who oversees the work of the Environment Agency, from several people over the past few months: “Worse than Owen Paterson”. At first, I refused to take it seriously. It’s the kind of statement that is usually employed as hyperbole, such as “somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan”, or “more deluded than Tony Blair”. But in this case, they aren’t joking. Preposterous as the notion of any environment secretary being worse than Paterson might seem, they mean it. …”
This was published by the Daily Telegraph a few days ago, and now Brexit is a reality it should be read with new eyes:
“Perhaps the most powerfully held aspiration for Brexiteers is to restore UK parliamentary sovereignty: in the words of Michael Gove, to “take back control” and, of John Redwood, for Britain to “be a democracy again .
But what would this “taking back control” mean in practice? Brexiteers imply that while EU legislation is “imposed”, Westminster parliamentarians control non-EU law-making through active debates and votes.
Except they don’t, because for voters what impacts on their lives most is not primary legislation – Bills – on which parliamentarians can vote, but the meaningful detail of the Bills, which Whitehall civil servants and ministers increasingly choose to hide in secondary legislation (sometimes called delegated legislation of Statutory Instruments – SIs).
The scale of this was estimated for the Lords by former minister Baroness Andrews:
“80 per cent of the laws as they impact on individuals are transported through statutory instruments, whether that is welfare benefits, food safety, planning requirements or competition across the NHS…”
Essentially Whitehall civil servants and ministers are defining important laws as “secondary legislation” in order to subvert the ability of parliament to choose whether to pass or not to pass laws.
Brexit is no guarantee of British control of its own destiny or of parliamentary sovereignty because our parliament is not in control.
SIs are rarely debated, and historic Westminster procedure means they cannot be amended. The idea that parliament meaningfully votes to “pass” them is no more real than the idea that the Queen gets to decide the content of the Queens Speech.
The problem is not new. An official Parliamentary report published in 2011 found that the last time the House of Commons rejected a SI was in 1979; it appears from the Hansard record that the rejection of this SI may have been a mistake.
The House of Lords, despite a 1994 resolution affirming its ‘unfettered freedom to vote on any subordinate legislation’, has voted down secondary legislation on only three occasions in the last half-century.
That one reason why the Lords’ hard line on the tax credits SIs in October 2015 caused such consternation in government and David Cameron to appoint Lord Strathclyde to review Lords powers and recommend further action.
The erosion of parliamentary sovereignty by the growing use of secondary legislation and “Henry VIII clauses” (which give ministers powers to change primary legislation through Statutory Instruments and thereby bypass the need for parliamentary votes) to reduce the parliamentary accountability of ministers and Whitehall civil servants was dubbed “The New Despotism” in a book by Lord Hewart of Bury, Lord Chief Justice of England and former Attorney General, published as long ago as 1929.
This would not change outside the EU. The problem was just as real before Britain joined the European Community.
Labour MP Willie Hamilton told parliament in the 1971 European Community accession debate:
“A great deal goes on even now under our own eyes that we do not know about… some 2,000 Statutory Instruments, which have legislative effect, go through this House every year and only a handful of them are debated. This is already government by default. In that sense this House, voluntarily and negligently, has surrendered a large part of its sovereignty to the Executive…. Much play has been made of the decision-making by the bureaucrats in Brussels. Things are not as simple as that. What about our own faceless bureaucrats in Whitehall? What part does this House play now in making policy decisions and in framing legislation? We have none at all. Everybody is consulted except us. Therefore, let us not pretend there will be any serious derogation there when we get into Europe.”
Some Brexiteers, notably Douglas Carswell, have a track-record of championing democratic accountability in Britain’s Westminster parliament. But they are the exceptions. Most are happy to indulge a Westminster parliamentary processes and rules more akin to Mornington Crescent than to cricket. Westminster “parliamentary sovereignty” would be no more certain of “returning control” to British voters, than a sovereign British space programme would be of sending a union-jack adorned rocket to Mars and getting it back in one piece.
That is nothing to do with the EU – if voters do back Brexit to “take back control” they could find themselves holding a political pudding whose democratic promise has been significantly over-egged.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/19/brexit-wont-return-power-to-mps-in-parliament-because-parliament/
Remember £15,000 for a jar of Hugo Swire’s honey in 2014:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/citydiary/10944187/City-Diary-After-dinner-auction-could-turn-into-a-honey-trap-for-the-Tories.html
and Hugo’s remarks about people on benefits at the auction he chaired in 2015:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/citydiary/10944187/City-Diary-After-dinner-auction-could-turn-into-a-honey-trap-for-the-Tories.html
Owl, having read below about how Donald Trump manages his election expenses, wonders how much of the battle bus expenses ended up back in donors pockets.
“Donald Trump loves to brag about his wealth. But as he heads into the general election in November, his campaign’s bank account is almost empty (for a presidential candidate) — he has just $1.3 million on hand, nearly 40 times less than presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
And a lot of the money the Trump campaign has spent is going directly back to Donald Trump. In May, according to Federal Election Commission filings, Trump spent about $1 million of his campaign’s funds on products and services from business he owns, including:
$423,372 to rent out Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach club
$349,540 to Tag Air, his fleet of private jets
$29,715 to rent out the Trump International Golf Club
$35,845 to rent out the Trump National Golf Club
$72,800 in rent on Trump Tower
Earlier this year, the Trump campaign spent thousands to stay at Trump hotels, eat at Trump restaurants, and serve Trump bottled water at their events. The Associated Press calculated that, in all, $6 million of Trump campaign money has gone back to the Trump Organization.
Campaigns are required to pay the fair market value for the goods and services they purchase, even if they’re paying a company owned by the candidate. (Otherwise, Trump’s companies could give him a big advantage by allowing him to use facilities for free, while Clinton, who is not a real estate magnate, has to pay for venues where she holds her events.) Trump, naturally, wants to host events at properties he owns.
Since Trump’s campaign funds still mostly come from a loan from the candidate himself, a lot of this spending is just passing Trump’s money around. But as the campaign goes on and Trump seeks out more donations, some of the money from his supporters will end up flowing right back to him.”
http://www.vox.com/2016/6/21/11988298/trump-campaign-spending-trump
Although it was published in March 2016, this is worth re-reading in the light of declining economic forecasts for which our LEP has no contingency plans.
Here is just a flavour of it with its “Executive Summary”. It is a masterpiece of spin over substance.
And who on earth thought up the “‘golden thread from the bottom up”!
“Our vision is to transform the reputation and positioning of our area nationally and globally by 2030.
We want the key strengths of the Heart of the South West to be seen as key assets of UK plc. We want our people, places and business to see the public and private sector work together for their benefit; capitalising on the opportunities on our doorstep, realising the potential for high growth in our knowledge economy, and securing more and higher value jobs.
However, addressing the vulnerability of our critical infrastructure and investing in strategic enablers are key to unleashing our growth potential.
Our Strategic Economic Plan (SEP) sets out our understanding of the challenges we have to overcome and our priorities for action. It has been developed in collaboration and consultations with partners from business, education, the public sector and the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise sectors, ensuring a golden thread runs through it from the bottom up, taking into account local plans and aspirations; and top down, taking into account national policy objectives and guidelines.
Our SEP will be the base document for our approach to investment and funding opportunities until its review in 2020 and will be delivered through a number of mechanisms over its lifetime. The Plymouth and Peninsula City Deal, the European Structural and Investment Strategy and the Growth Deal 2015, submitted alongside our SEP, are key delivery strands agreed or negotiated in 2014. Others may follow.”
https://www.lepnetwork.net/modules/downloads/download.php?file_name=19
But the consultations referred to above did not include us – the voters. The ” golden thread” doesn’t actually start at the bottom!
Pages 16 and 17 of the Midweek Herald today is a 2-page spread on the Seaton Cycling Festival on 19 June 2016, with some events described as taking place at “Thury-Harcourt/Tesco Plaza:
Is this Thury-Harcourt PLACE (Thury-Harcourt being Seaton’s twin town in France) and somewhere outside the Tesco Store (though where the Plaza is is anyone’s guess) or is there an insidious attempt to claim Thury-Harcourt Place as a Tesco advertising site?
A notable feature of the 2015 general election campaign was the degree of apparent unanimity across all parties that Britain has an overcentralized governmental structure, which is ripe for devolution.
In the wake of the Scottish independence referendum, and the desperate resort to ‘devo -max’ to save the day for Better Together, this was hardly a surprise.
But the superficial unanimity of the narrative concealed a gaping void in the intellectual underpinnings of what a devolved governmental structure might look like. From both the Tory and Labour camps, the message was a fuzzy ‘make it up for yourselves and we’ll discuss it with you’ – in effect, ducking any intellectual engagement with the tricky issue of taking fiscal and social policy responsibility out of the hands of Whitehall and Westminster and into the hands of local communities and their elected representatives.
That political and intellectual evasiveness continues to dominate both Labour and Tory thinking.
The government’s policy since the election has justifiably been described as incoherent and inconsistent by the Local Government Select Committee, and Labour-led local authorities have been ploughing their own local furrows without any coherent party policy to refer to.
In practice, the government’s approach has been a travesty of genuine devolution. Their policy is best described as an incremental extension of the City Deal/Local Growth Fund policies inherited from the Coalition period. Local authorities are encouraged to come together to propose expenditure plans (notably for transport, housing and skills infrastructure) that will promote economic growth over a medium-term period.
In return for a multi-year capital funding allocation, the local authorities are expected to create a different and more unified decision making structure across their chosen area, preferably with an elected mayor at the helm of the new structure.
Three things are notable about this policy:
it takes powers away from local communities and places them in the hands of more distant combined authorities and their elected mayors;
no fiscal devolution is being offered;
the capital allocations are timebound, while the new structures of local government are permanent. In brief, it’s a policy of local government reorganisation by stealth. Devolution is not on offer.
This conclusion is reinforced by the simultaneous stream of massively centralising government measures which have drained even more powers out of local community control, such as the Housing and Planning Act, which spells the death of social housing and dictates how local housing markets should work, the nationalising of schools through academisation, and central control of Council Tax levels.
Labour’s policy is unclear. The innovative work that was undertaken by the LGA Labour Group and the Local Government Innovation Taskforce before the 2015 Election and published in ‘People, Power and Public Services’ has been forgotten, and the centralising instincts that come from the worthy desire to ensure that all our citizens get equal treatment regardless of where they live, have revived. The party remains strong in local government and there needs to be more policy engagement with the issues of devolution, community involvement, local government structure and local democracy.
From discussions with other Labour local authority leaders, a framework for rethinking the party’s approach to devolution is emerging:
The old two tier local government structures are no longer appropriate and the basis for devolution has to be new unitary authorities. A rational approach to the creation of new unitaries which respect community loyalties and pride in ‘place’ is required. This process should be overseen by an Independent Commission and undertaken within a defined time period.
A wide measure of freedom for local authorities to set their own levels of taxation, and service charging structures, allowing them to raise and control a large proportion of their income locally.
A transfer of business rate income to local authorities with a redistribution mechanism which recognises the differential capacities and needs of different communities and is not skewed by government bias towards their own councils – whatever the colour of the government in power.
A re-establishment of local education authorities with strong links to the skills agenda and to children’s services.
A national structure merging adult social care and local health services, managed through an Expert Group that can bring about the necessary transformation of service structures within a defined period.
A revived public scrutiny system based on panels drawn from large ‘colleges’ of scrutineers, whose composition reflects the social and demographic make-up of the area.
No requirement for directly elected mayors which run directly counter to the aim of drawing local communities closer to the decision making processes which affect them.
As the new party leadership develops the agenda for the next election we should be endorsing genuine devolution of power to local communities. Place-based unitary authorities should be reflective of, and responsive to, their residents and services should be delivered by ward-based political leaders open to regular scrutiny and challenge.
“New concerns have been raised about the political influence of Google after research found at least 80 “revolving door” moves in the past decade – instances where the online giant took on government employees and European governments employed Google staff.
The research was carried out by the Google Transparency Project, an initiative run by the Campaign for Accountability (CfA), a US organisation that scrutinises corporations and politicians. The CfA has suggested that the moves are a result of Google seeking to boost its influence in Europe as the company seeks to head off antitrust action and moves to tighten up on online privacy.
In the UK, Google has hired people from Downing Street, the Home Office, the Treasury, the Department for Education and the Department for Transport. Overall, the company has hired at least 28 British public officials since 2005.
Those hired have included Sarah Hunter, a senior policy adviser to Tony Blair when prime minister, who became head of public policy for Google in the UK. Hunter is now head of policy for Google X, the arm that deals with new businesses such as drones and self-driving cars.
In 2013 Google hired Verity Harding, a special adviser to former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg. Harding is now policy manager for Google DeepMind, its artificial intelligence arm, which recently secured a contract with the NHS.
Overall, the research suggests that Google, now part of parent company Alphabet Inc, has hired at least 65 former government officials from within the European Union since 2005. These include Tomas Gulbinas, a former ambassador-at-large for the Lithuanian government, and Georgios Mavros, a former adviser to a French member of the European parliament: both became Google lobbyists.
During the same period, 15 Google employees were appointed to government positions in Europe, gaining what the CfA claims are “valuable contacts at the heart of the decision-making process”.
In the UK, appointments include that of Baroness Joanna Shields, a former managing director for Google, who was made minister for internet safety, and Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, who David Cameron appointed to his business advisory council. Dame Margaret Hodge, former head of the Commons’ public accounts committee, told the CfA that the appointments were part of a deliberate strategy by Google to gain influence in the public sphere. “I have absolutely no doubt it’s part of their strategy,” Hodge said. “Google deliberately nurtures that culture, and I have absolutely no doubt that they see it as strategically important to be as close as they can to government.”
She added that, unlike other large American companies, such as Apple, “one gets the impression that [government] ministers are in awe of Google”. …
… In the UK, Google has been moving into a raft of new areas now being heavily promoted by the government. “We need to rethink how we view Google,” said Tamasin Cave of the campaign group Spinwatch. “It’s not a search engine, it’s a political beast that has captured the attention of our policy-makers. Most worryingly in health and education, where privatisation through technology is gathering pace. Even if our politicians have bought into its thinking, we as a public should be asking how Google’s involvement in the NHS and schools will impact them, what are the consequences, and who benefits: us or Google?””
Wonder if any of our LEP members have Google associations!
David Cameron buys £1,500 used car for wife Samantha
… “[The second-hand car dealer] explained that when he turned up for the appointment, Mr Cameron asked his security detail to stand behind the car to make sure the back brake lights worked.
Mr Harris said he could not resist quipping that it was lucky the car was not red – the colour of the Labour Party.
“Fortunately, it was just the right colour,” he said.
Mr Harris added: “It was a bit surreal, but likewise he was just a normal chap buying a car for his wife, a normal conversation, normal sort of deal and that was it.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-36359921
Yeah, normal – but he just happened to have a photographer there who just happened to send the photo to all the newspapers.
Do let Owl know if you see Sam Cam in her second-hand Nissan Micra AFTER the EU referendum.
Further to our earlier posts about Sustainable Utopian Cranbrook:
“Children of St Martin’s Primary School have been creating a new poster design to encourage Cranbrook residents to clean up after their dogs.
Children at the school recently heard from Cranbrook Councillor Karen Jennings at an assembly about the dog fouling around the town. Children were asked if they could help teach adults to be responsible pet owners, to help make Cranbrook a great place to live.”
http://www.exeterandeastdevon.gov.uk/pick-up-the-poop-say-cranbrook-schoolchildren/News-Article/
Remark on Sidmouth Herald Streetlife:
“I’ve just started looking through the online plans and have already found some things that are not quite how they have been made public.
The inpression created, for me at least, was that the well-being facilities and restaurant would be open to non-residents. It is not quite as open as all that.
Visitors can use the restaurant, and I assume that means people who are visiting those living there as it clearly defines another category of people who can use the well-being facilities as Non-Residents.
Non-Residents are people living in Sidmouth and who are over 60 years of age, with priority give to those whose property borders the Knowle.
This only runs for 3 years from the time they achieve 50% occupation of the site.
Don’t be misled into thinking that they will be providing some sort of resource for the town.
Oh, and they say they expect to employ 14.5 people in total. If that covers the restaurant, well-being facilities, cleaners, gardeners and care assistant/nurses as well as management it doesn’t bode well for high standards in anything.”
Tiny, tiny piece of “In Brief” news on page 2 of Midweek Herald covering the news about the bad behaviour exhibited by some long-serving councillors at Axminster during the recent council meeting where a new mayor (Paul Hayward) was chosen. Alongside big spreads for future opportunities to paddle canoes down the River Axe and dog mess on a playing field. ….
And a slightly larger piece welcoming our new Police and Crime Commissioner with not a mention of the controversy surrounding her appointment.
Oh, and a letter from the EDA Chairman Paul Arnott about the PCC elections together with a very strangely placed photo, completely out of context of a 3 year old child meeting Star Wars Chewbacca.
Journalism?
East Devon Watch 