In the past, the press has been called the fourth branch of government because its investigative reporting added to the checks and balances of the three branches of US government. But is much investigative journalism being done anymore? Let's take ten story types and divide them into two categories:

If you listen to, watch, or read the "normal" news outlets, you're surely getting a much larger dose of stories from Category A than Category B, even though the stories in Category B are much more important to our democracy and to our long-term personal health and prosperity.

It doesn't matter much whether it's national or local news you're looking at—these days, both types of news outlets are overwhelmingly controlled by corporate media conglomerates.

Grinning Planet

BBC licence fee could be cut, government says

'It's reward time, Mr Murdoch'

Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, attacks 'extraordinary and outrageous' waste and predicts tough settlement ...

Jeremy Hunt accused the corporation of "extraordinary and outrageous" waste in recent years and warned he could "absolutely" see viewers paying less than the current £145.50 a year after next year's licence fee negotiations with the government.

"The BBC should not interpret the fact that we haven't said anything about the way licence fee funds are used as an indication that we are happy about it.

We will be having very tough discussions," he told the Daily Telegraph.

Hunt said the BBC should recognise the "very constrained financial situation" the country was in and it would need to change "huge numbers" of things that it does ...

Guardian  17 July 2010    

Murdoch's malign influence demeans British politics

Tenth suspected suicide in a year throws spotlight on labour practices at China iPhone factory

When corporate ITN News and the Daily Dacre report suicides in a Chinese factory we're entitled to ask the question: what's the real agenda?

Normally these two management-friendly organs are less than sympathetic to labours' problems, and, it emerges, have shown no interest in the massive strike at Honda's Foshan factory in southeast China, with its indication that labour unrest over income inequality might one day threaten cheapo Western imports.

An employee of iPhone-maker Foxconn has jumped to his death - the tenth suspected suicide this year at the high-tech company's production base in southern China.

Three Taiwan TV stations reported that another person, a young woman, had also jumped yesterday but had survived with serious injuries.

If the reports are confirmed it would bring the total number of deaths of employees to 13, with three survivors.

Daily Mail  27 May 2010

Strike in China Highlights Gap in Workers’ Pay

Worker Suicides Have Electronics Maker Uneasy in China

Get Clegg

Since the first leaders' debate, The Dacre has been in overdrive in its war on the Lib-Dem leader, joined, predictably, by the rest of the Tory press, suddenly in panic mode at the prospect of 'Droopy' Dave coming second or third.

Clegg, to his credit, has started to announciate policy positions that attack the complex of sacred cows surrounding the fiction that Britain is still a great power, and it's still July 1914.

The support of four former senior military commanders - Times - suggests that not everyone is living in the same fantasy world as the odious Nicholas Soames.

Nick Clegg under pressure to explain private account donations

“A boy called Adrian started it,” Mr Clegg wrote. “He shouted from the back of the coach, 'We own your country, we won the war’.”

The future Lib Dem leader said this was an example of what he described as a “warped” British obsession with Germans and the Second World War.

“It is easy enough to explain the mixture of arrogance and insecurity that fuels this peculiar British obsession,” he wrote.

“Watching Germany rise from its knees after the war and become a vastly more prosperous nation has not been easy on the febrile British psyche.”

He accused politicians, including Gordon Brown, of encouraging “condescension towards Germany and the rest of the EU”.

“All nations have a cross to bear, and none more so than Germany with its memories of Nazism,” Mr Clegg wrote.

“But the British cross is more insidious still. A misplaced sense of superiority, sustained by delusions of grandeur and a tenacious obsession with the last war, is much harder to shake off.”

Nicholas Soames, a Tory MP and grandson of Sir Winston Churchill, said Mr Clegg’s comments showed he was “unfit to lead a national party, let alone the country”.

Telegraph  22 Apr 2010

Mandelson defends Nick Clegg against Tory ‘smears’

Dirty tricks of the REAL nasty party

Nick Clegg's Crazy Immigration Policy

Nick Clegg under pressure to explain private account donations

Lib Dem leader donor

Bananas*!

Might of the multinational fails to stop campaigning film-maker

Here's one film which won't be on distribution to corporate cinema chains.

When international food company Dole brought a lawsuit against a small-budget documentary featuring Nicaraguan banana plantation workers who alleged they had been left infertile by a banned pesticide, it appeared as if the film-maker would be beaten ...

The company's efforts to silence [Swedish director, Fredrik] Gertten first began when the film was selected to take part in the Los Angeles Film Festival in May last year. Dole sent out warning letters both to film-makers and sponsors of the film festival who subsequently withdrew the documentary from the competition, although it was still screened – to a full house ...

Mr Gertten has been focusing on getting the film shown around the world.

It was met by acclaim when it was screened at the Berlin Film Festival this year, and now it has reached London.

Yesterday, the director said: "It is a huge victory to screen at the ICA since there was a moment when we didn't know if the film ever would be seen. Dole was never my target. I wanted to make a film on the big back-story of 100 years of banana shipping from the South to the North. I had worked in Nicaragua for 35 years and I knew all about the banana marches." ...

Independent  17 Apr 2010    Corporate Sociopathy

Bananas! The Shocking Film Dole Doesn't Want You To See

Chiquitas Children

Corporate Death Squads Come Back to Haunt U.S. Companies

PeaceWork

PCC response to phone hacking controversy 'weakened its credibility'

Press Complaints Commission's actions also 'revealed major failings in its ways of operating', claims independent report ...

lorenzo1
1 Mar 2010, 7:06PM

it is "in need of urgent reform to enhance the reputation of British journalism"

I think that is generous in the extreme. The PCC has time and again showed that it is incapable of doing the job and is "not fit for purpose". Reform would be merely rearranging the furniture without addressing the fundamental issues as to why it and the notion of self-regulation fail.

The sheer scale of entrenched bias among those informing the body mean it is under intense pressure to sweep most complaints away as an annoyance. The papers want it as a fig-leaf for increasingly piss-poor practice, shoddy journalism and a bet that any high court costs are worth the risk against potential sales and ad revenues.

And so what if it finds against you? There are no teeth to the rulings, no financial penalty, no three-strikes rule just an annoying apology for a story that could dominate days or weeks fed only by speculation and imagination.

The papers cry foul about any attempt to regulate but in the last few years of supposed harder more critical self-regulation appear keen to inflict as much self-damage as possible, spurred by the very pointlessness of any PCC complaint, investigation or adjudication.

Let's put it and the media out of their misery. Stop the pretence of self-regulation and have a body capable of imposing serious financial penalties, suspension of printing for days or a week; referral to criminal courts; an end to stupid and piss-poor practices (including making up quotes) and a like-for-like apology in size and position.

The board should be completely independent and separate from any vested media interest but staffed by those who know so know more of that pathetic and shameful "can't remember act" favoured by Andy Coulson and crew.

A more robust independent body with actual power to penalise would strengthen journalism, make editors think twice about the poor and dodgy practices and also for a withering of the current gossip as news agenda.

In addition it might help strengthen the select committees who oversee media issues by allowing a truly independent body to advice on relevant questioning and insight into poor practice that allowed the likes of the News of the World to lie to all and sundry under their collective amnesia under the inept gaze of many who populate these committees.

Put simply. Reform is not needed, required nor desirable. Total change is what is needed.

Guardian  01 March 2010    Towards a New Politics

Andy Coulson under fresh attack

New claims of phone hacking put pressure on Andy Coulson

The IFJ: Phone hacking and the PCC

Andy Coulson

News of the World phone-hacking scandal

MPs' verdict on News of the World phone-hacking scandal: Amnesia, obfuscation and hush money

The 167-page report by a cross-party select committee is withering about the conduct of the News of the World, with one MP saying its crimes "went to the heart of the British establishment, in which police, military royals and government ministers were hacked on a near industrial scale".

MPs condemned the "collective amnesia" and "deliberate obfuscation" by NoW executives who gave evidence to them, and said it was inconceivable that only a few people at the paper knew about the practice.

The culture, media and sport select committee was also damning of the police, saying Scotland Yard should have broadened its original investigation in 2006, and not just focused on Clive Goodman, the NoW's royal reporter ...

Payoffs buried scandal at heart of the establishment

An email of 35 transcripts of phone messages sent by reporter Ross Hall to Mulcaire and marked "transcripts for Neville", implied the message was for Neville Thurlbeck, the paper's chief reporter. The report said it was unlikely that Hall did not know the source of the material "and was not acting on instruction from superiors. We cannot believe that the newspaper's newsroom was so out of control".

A contract sent to Mulcaire by a news executive, Greg Miskiw, promised him £7,000 if he delivered a story on Taylor. And the MPs' own inquiry revealed the payoffs to Goodman and Mulcaire, "and that they tapped the phones of [princes William and Harry] as well". This was not in the public domain, said the report.

Criticising the Metropolitan police, MPs said detectives had known of the "Neville" emails and the Miskiw contract while investigating Goodman, but they did not investigate further, "based on available resources" and the fact that it would be difficult to prove criminal activity – a decision endorsed by the CPS.

A Labour committee member, Paul Farrelly, said MPs were disappointed that the police seemed to be more "forthcoming" when replying to a subsequent Freedom of Information request by the Guardian, which revealed they had uncovered 91 pin numbers relating to hacking – information not offered to the committee by the Met's assistant commissioner, John Yates, when he appeared before it.

Guardian  24 Feb 2010

The MPs reject testimony by assistant commissioner John Yates that there had only been "a handful" of hacking victims of the News of the World.

Former minister Tom Watson, a member of the committee, said at the press conference at the Commons:

"Scotland Yard are sitting on a whole bank of information and data about very senior people in public life who were hacked, that the public don't know about."

He called for the information commissioner to access all the police files and see if any legal breaches had occurred.

The other body which failed in its task was the Press Complaints Commission, the committee report says.

The PCC had rushed out a report purporting to exonerate the News of the World that took the paper's claims of innocence at face value.

"We find the conclusions in the PCC's November report simplistic and surprising. It has certainly not fully, or forensically, considered all the evidence." ...

Guardian  24 Feb 2010        Media_Democracy    Third Face of Power

News of the World phone-hacking scandal: the verdicts

Overhaul British laws to stop 'libel tourism' report says

MPs' attack provokes the wrath of Murdoch

Today is a good day for free expression

Unanimous backing for real freedom of the press

James Purnell's departure from parliament will be a blow for politics

This editorial in praise of Purnell confirms the incestuous relationship between press and politicians.

James Purnell's decision to leave parliament at the next election is a blow for politics, a blow for Labour and a blow for his friend David Miliband's chances of ever leading his party.

It suggests a sagging of hope and ambition inside a political movement that, whatever happens on polling day, will need people with ideas after it.

Mr Purnell was one of those people; a popular culture secretary, a reforming welfare secretary and a clear thinker on the backbenches.

Many Labour members will have disagreed with him – the prime minister and the schools secretary certainly did – but diversity of thought matters to political parties. Labour is becoming narrower and less interesting ...

Forthestate 20 Feb 2010, 4:52AM

James Purnell's departure from parliament will be a blow for politics

No it won't. Given the condition of politics, I cannot think of a single politician, whether I admire them or not, whose departure from it would be significant enough to be described as a blow, let alone one whose voting record places him at the heart of the problem.

Those I admire are nowhere near power, and the idea that our best hope for the patient's revival comes from those at the centre of power who smothered it in the first place is, I believe, deluded; it's their prescription that's killing it.

The rhetoric of the article's title, "a blow to politics", seems old fashioned and out of touch; it's the rhetoric of the media endorsing the system, trying to convince us that it still has credibility, that politics today still has something to offer, that the departure of someone as mediocre as James Purnell can be described as a blow to it.

What a lot of us want to see is a written constitution, serious electoral reform, some real democracy, and I think I can live with the departure of a loyal member of a government that has done more to reverse its progress than any before it.

The friends of James Purnell might feel they've lost an asset, but I doubt you'll see the nation going into mourning.

Thinklikethewolf
20 Feb 2010, 8:17AM The Guardian really needs to stop grieving for someone who very clearly cares little about his primary duty - that of representing his constituants.

Not for him the monotony of listning to those boring dullards with their petty problems. No, he is a visionary made for better things.

As a previous poster has said, maybe he should have got some experience prior to entering politics rather than the seemingly usual labour route these days - fee paying school, oxbridge, media/law, islington council, safe seat.

This creation of a political class is disturbing and for a labour movement very very wrong. I appeal to those who select his replacement, don't give in to the central office stasi who will try to foist another smooth talking robot onto a constituancy which deserves better .

Go for someone with a bit of life experience, a bit of local knowledge and maybe even someone who really only wants to be an MP to represent those amongst whom he or she lives.

Guardian  20 Feb 2010

Former work and pensions secretary to train to be a community organiser

Good Riddance

TheyWorkForYou

Purnell's place in history

SpinProfiles

Purnell's progress

Living in a world of make-believe:
the mythmakers of the globalising age

Since ... (1976) ... a much more powerful, partisan and explicitly ideological account of the world has come to the fore in politics and in our mainstream analysis of the world.

It focuses on the merits of globalisation, competition, deregulation and free market economics. Despite the global crash and crisis of this paradigm, most of the mainstream media with honourable exceptions ... have become even more narrow and dogmatic in their commitment to a world economic and political order which is in profound crisis.

A telling example of the power of this dominant view of the world was provided on Newsnight on Tuesday night (05 Jan 2010) by Paul Mason with an item on his forecasts for 2010.

This six minute film cited four experts, all of whom were from the City, two from HSBC, one from CitiGroup and one from GLC Hedge Fund.

All offered partisan, deeply controversial views as if they were uncontested wisdom with no scrutiny, criticism or context offered ...

openDemocracy  07 Jan 2010

... the media act as intellectual filters, reinforcing the consensus view and ignoring or attacking challenges to it.

If it turns out that parliament is in thrall to elite interests offering a Tweedledum/Twiddledee no-choice, then the media will promote, rather than expose, this empty shell of a democracy. And this, of course, is exactly the situation we are in: politics and media work together to insulate power from rational thought and public interference.

The corporate media got away with its role in this closed-loop oppression for so long by simple virtue of its monopoly power to suppress dissent. But the world has changed. The internet allows non-corporate journalists and commentators to bypass the corporate gatekeepers and communicate to a global audience, instantly, at almost zero cost. These analysts generally do not charge for their work - almost all radical material is freely available on the internet.

And here is the rub for the mainstream: this non-corporate journalism is unconstrained by the distorting influence of wealthy owners and parent companies with busy fingers in any number of economic and political pies.

It is unconstrained by the reliance of corporate journalists on corporate advertising, with all that that implies. It is uncompromised by the insidious dependence on government and other official sources for cheap news; by thoughts of career progression in the revolving door between journalism, public relations and government.

The result is really beyond argument: dissident reporting and commentary is rational, honest and, therefore, interesting, in a way that corporate journalism can never be ...

Media Lens  23 July 2009

The Times ... thinks there should not be an inquiry at all. In a first leader last week the paper grumbled that there had already been two of them, and it doubted that a third could tell us anything we don’t already know.

I disagree. There are many aspects of this affair that remain unexamined. One of them is the attitude of some newspapers, in particular the Murdoch-owned Times and Sun, in uncritically promoting the Government’s flawed case for war, and defending, or even omitting to report, its mistakes ...

The BBC’s Andrew Gilligan was almost entirely right about the “sexed up” 2002 dossier. During the row between the Government and the BBC in July 2003, both papers took the Government’s side. After No 10 had revealed the identity of the weapons inspector Dr David Kelly, subsequently found dead near his home, they attacked the Corporation.

The Times’s Tom Baldwin, a friend of Alastair Campbell, shamelessly wrote that, “some BBC journalists seemed to have abandoned objectivity”.

The Sun was even more aerated, suggesting that, “this is the time for root-and-branch reorganisation of the news department at the BBC.” This from a newspaper which in February 2004 did not even report Tony Blair’s amazing confession that when Britain went to war he did not know that so-called WMD ( had they existed) were considered by the western military to be battlefield weapons which could only be fired a relatively short distance.

The Times complains that every aspect of the Iraq war has already been discussed. No. Rupert Murdoch’s role as chief cheerleader for the war has hardly even been considered ...

The Independent 22 June 2009

Reporting of both piracy in Somalia, and kidnappings in Nigeria, turn huge 'Category B' stories into branches of the 'war on terror': simplistic reporting of selected aspects of the stories, skewed to avoid revealing the behaviours of Western government and corporations in third world countries.

Nigeria's Kidnappings

HRW - Nigeria

M.E.N.D.

Somalia's Two Piracies

Life in the world’s largest refugee settlement

HRW - Somalia

The Somali Pirates and the European Union

Shipping and Fishing Piracy

Somalia’s Real Pirates Are Foreign Fishing Ships

On February 29 last year the BBC's website reported deputy defense minister Matan Vilnai threatening a 'holocaust' on Gaza. Headlined "Israel warns of Gaza 'holocaust'" the story would undergo nine revisions in the next twelve hours.

Before the day was over, the headline would read "Gaza militants 'risking disaster'".

(The story has since been revised again with an exculpatory note added soft-pedalling Vilnai's comments). An Israeli threatening 'holocaust' may be unpalatable to those who routinely invoke its spectre to deflect criticism from the Jewish state's criminal behaviour.

With the 'holocaust' reference redacted, the new headline shifts culpability neatly into the hands of 'Gaza militants' instead.

One could argue that the BBC's radical alteration of the story reflects its susceptibility to the kind of inordinate pressure for which the Israel Lobby's well-oiled flak machine is notorious.

But, as will be demonstrated in subsequent examples, this story is exceptional only insofar as it reported accurately in the first place something that could bear negatively on Israel's image.

The norm is reflexive self-censorship ...

Spinwatch 07 January 2009

HM Revenue and Customs should more "robustly" pursue companies that avoid paying tax on their profits, a committee of MPs has urged.

The Commons public accounts select committee found that more than 25% of Britain's 700 largest businesses paid no corporation tax to HMRC in 2005-6.

BBC NEWS 21 October 2008

The news that "25 per cent of Britain's 700 largest businesses" are tax dodgers should come as no surprise as, under the terms of "Standorkonkurrenz", any "crackdown" would see them threatening to move to Ireland or some UK controlled tax haven.

Nor should it surprise us that the MPs findings have been reported in only three mainstream media organs: The BBC, The Independent, and - a day late - The Guardian.

Here's a classic Category A story of the sort which is meat-and-drink to the mainstream media.

We are invited to be both terrified and horrified, but we are not invited to look below the surface into the Category B implications: namely that the mentally ill are off the radar, and there will no procession of celebs appearing on GMTV to argue that "they" should spend more money on care and treatment.

In fact we are invited to treat the mentally ill as criminals who should simply be under lock and key.

Some of them should, of course. Including Darren Harkin.

Of equal concern is the question of what particular theory lies behind the idea that his, er, treatment should include the very media liable to worsen his condition.

It's more likely, of course, that constraints on funding - for whatever reason - imply that this is not treatment in any sense of the term, its purpose is simply to pass the time, to contain.

England's director of mental health care today called for tougher standards for secure hospitals after it emerged that at least 116 mentally ill criminals escaped last year, more than 20 times the rate of escapes by offenders held in prison.

The information, which was only brought to light after a Freedom of Information request, has cast doubts over whether security is adequate at psychiatric units housing offenders who may pose a risk to the public.

Yesterday, mentally ill childkiller Darren Harkin was sentenced to be detained indefinitely at Broadmoor Hospital after he escaped from a secure private hospital near Bristol and raped a 14-year-old girl at knifepoint. The judge who sentenced him criticised the regime at Hayes Hospital, which had failed to pick up on the 21-year-old's increasingly disturbed behaviour. ...

Professor Louis Appleby, England's national director for mental health, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that in the wake of the Harkin case it was time for the government to consider intervening to set national standards for medium and low secure units. ...

After his escape, Harkin burgled a nearby house before crossing the Severn Bridge on foot and abducting a 14-year-old schoolgirl at knifepoint in Chepstow high street. He threatened to kill the girl before raping her twice. After his arrest it emerged that Gwent Police had not been alerted about his escape.

Leighton Hughes, for the prosecution, told the hearing at Reading Crown Court that Harkin's behaviour had got worse in the time before his escape and that he was supposed to be on 24-hour watch. ...

Mr Hughes said: “After that incident, the hospital management ordered that no one should be left alone with Harkin. On the run-up to his escape, Harkin had attacked staff members and smashed things.”

He added: “Staff observed he had a large collection of DVDs with porno films and horror movies. Some members of staff fuelled his interest in horror films by taking him to see them at a local cinema. It simply beggars belief.” ...

Sir David Ramsbotham, the former chief inspector of prisons, said that the high level of escapes were a wake-up call to the government to make sure that mentally ill offenders were more securely held.

"It is a horrifying figure of course, but not one that surprises me because the medium and low secure units in the NHS do not have same degree of security a prison does," he told Today.

The Times 09 September 2009

... last Monday, David Cameron made a surprise speech about quangos. His team asked the rightwing thinktank Reform to set up the event at just a few days' notice. It looked like the standard speech made by all oppositions promising cuts in "the quango state".

But one astonishing new commitment stuck out, even though it was barely noticed in most reports: "Ofcom as we know it will cease to exist. Its remit will be restricted to narrow technical and enforcement roles. It will no longer play a role in making policy." It would be knocked back to "regulating lightly". Had there been a great popular outcry calling for the demolition of Ofcom? Hardly, since this is obscure, techie stuff. So what was this all about?

Within hours of Cameron's speech, leading market analysts UBS Investment Research assessed the potential impact: "This bodes well for Sky … We believe that a lighter-touch approach would result in a far better and fairer outcome for Sky, the consumer and the pay market. This could result in a valuation of over 750p versus circa 650p under Ofcom's current proposals."

In plain English, if the Conservatives come to power and abolish Ofcom, expect a £1 share price rise for Sky – worth some £1.7bn ...

Cameron's office says there was "no contact with News International" about Ofcom but history should not be ignored.

The Murdoch press has a long record of winning pay-back from the political leaders it backs – and it has recently swung behind Cameron.

In fact, it is so ordinary that too few political commentators bother to keep remarking on the malign influence this man has had on our politics for the past 30 years ...

Guardian 11 July 2009

The BBC Trust today published its report into the talent costs of British television, which it ordered a year ago in the wake of public concerns about licence fee money paid to stars such as Jonathan Ross and Graham Norton.

However, the report concluded that there was no evidence that the BBC was paying more than the market price for leading talent compared with its commercial rivals.

Also, there was no evidence that the BBC was "systematically" pushing up talent prices, according to the trust.

The report, compiled by consultants Oliver and Ohlbaum at a cost of £165,000, did not name any stars or list individual salaries - a move defended by the BBC Trust, which said the information was commercially sensitive.

O&O's report did reveal that the total spend for on-screen and on-air talent across all BBC outputs had increased by around 6% a year over the past three years, with total spending on the top 50 talent growing faster than this.

The BBC spent around £242m on on-screen and on-air talent in the 12 months to the end of March 2007, representing around 5.6% of its total licence fee expenditure.

On BBC radio, the report said the corporation had until recently been increasing talent fee rates on average while commercial radio was slashing them.

"The report shows the BBC is not negatively distorting the UK's market for talent on television and that overall it is achieving deals which represent value for money," Lyons said.

"We will keep the pressure up to ensure the best deals are reached for licence fee payers and will review progress in 12 months' time."

The report pointed to increasing competition for talent among commercial television broadcasters as the main factor in pushing up talent costs, but Lyons said the BBC had a duty to develop new talent so it was not overly reliant on big established names.

"The BBC has to be prepared to walk away from deals that do not offer good value to the audience and to equip itself to do this by continually bringing on new talent and through good succession planning," he added.

The trust said the BBC could do more to achieve value for money by improving some of its processes, in particular by bringing a "more consistent and systematic approach" to gathering independent data and "subjecting deals to more rigorous challenge".

"I do understand that many people will continue to question the salaries paid to some BBC performers," Lyons said.

"These high payments can be particularly difficult to accept when wages elsewhere, including in other parts of the BBC, are under pressure.

"I hope that, because the trust has had a good look at this I can at least give licence fee payers some assurance that the BBC is working hard to meet its obligations both to deliver quality and to keep the cost of its talent under control."

Ross is on a reported £18m over three years; while Norton is said to have secured a £5m deal over two years.

BBC Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles earns £630,000 a year and Jeremy Paxman gets £1m, according to reports. ...

Guardian 02 June 2008

It's 06 May 2008 and The Independent does it again. The main leader is headed:

A competitive edge that Britain needs to preserve

Sir Martin Sorrell's ... threat to move the headquarters of WPP, the world's second-largest advertising company, out of the United Kingdom for tax reasons needs to be taken seriously.

For Sir Martin is not alone in talking about relocation.

In recent weeks, similar noises have been made by other major companies. And two of them – the pharmaceuticals giant Shire, and the publisher United Business Media – have already announced moves to Ireland. There they will pay a rate of 12.5 per cent, compared with 28 per cent in the UK, which is, by any standards, a substantial difference. Shire – which stands to cut its tax bill by more than half – is the first FTSE-100 company to be leaving the UK purely for tax reasons. ...

It is in response to the concerns of company chief executives that Gordon Brown has set up a tax review – a delaying tactic if ever there was one. But difficult decisions may lie ahead – at a time when the overall economic climate makes it particularly difficult to make them. Britain's international competitiveness has been the reason why, the Government insists, we have nothing to fear from globalisation. If, however, it turns out that big corporations are not crying wolf and Britain really is lagging behind, then our corporate tax regime may need another look. That would be far preferable to a retreat into protectionism. Then indeed that trickle of threatened departures could become a flood.

The Independent 06 May 2008

This is all impeccable neoliberal thinking - "Standortkonkurrenz" - under globalisation governments must do what it takes to make sure footloose corporations employ their workforce, and not someone else's. By this logic UK corporation tax should match that of Ireland. End of. But The Independent has a parallel agenda: climate change, and this is where the third leader enters the debate:

With the honourable exception of Norwich, where they now lead the opposition, the Greens did not cover themselves in glory in last week's elections. In London, where the contest was dominated by the Johnson-Livingstone duel, Sian Berry made a creditable showing. Across the country, though, the Greens generally fell back in those seats they also contested last year.

We offer two tentative explanations: one positive, the other less so. The positive one is that many "green" policies have gone mainstream – cutting carbon emissions, promoting reusable energy and building eco-friendly housing are now official government and opposition policy. The Greens thus have to be more imaginative if they are to make their mark.

The other is that, at a time of economic belt-tightening, some green measures might seem an expensive luxury. There is no reason why this should be so. Environmental responsibility need not cost any more, and should cost a lot less in the long term than profligate consumerism. But the Greens may have to adapt their message to the new austerity. In the meantime, they can console themselves on the way their influence has permeated the mainstream ...

the Independent 06 May 2008

To laugh or to cry?

Sian Berry's "creditable showing" amounted to 3.15% of the first choice votes, and 13.5% of second choice votes. [MR]

As AV is not available in any other electoral venue in England, we cannot know whether or not similar results would have been repeated elsewhere. Certainly, under first-part-the-post, 3.15% is not a figure that supports the Indie's optimism.

However, the suggestion that "their influence has permeated the mainstream", comes only four days after the paper published a report under the heading:

Britons 'will not foot bill to save planet'

More than seven in 10 voters insist that they would not be willing to pay higher taxes in order to fund projects to combat climate change, according to a new poll. The survey also reveals that most Britons believe "green" taxes on 4x4s, plastic bags and other consumer goods have been imposed to raise cash rather than change our behaviour, while two-thirds of Britons think the entire green agenda has been hijacked as a ploy to increase taxes. ...

Independent

I had a pretty surreal experience in TV land on Monday.

I had the privilege of appearing on the Fox Business channel, to talk about why oil prices are so high and what the future holds for oil.

In typical TV interview format, I was set up in opposition to another energy analyst who is well known for his cornucopian views. Him on one side of the "panel," me on the other, and the moderator.

You probably know what happened next: I sat there trying to stare at a barely visible camera in a small studio in San Francisco with only an ear bud and no video, thanks to the 5-second delay from New York, while the moderator gave the vast majority of our two short segments to the cornucopian, who called me a "peak freak." ... he carried on about how technology will save the day, achieving vast increases in oil extraction, and about the 12 trillion barrels of oil left to exploit worldwide, I could barely stifle myself.

Unfortunately, they afforded me no opportunity to respond to any of those points. They only seemed to want my opposing view—that oil would stay more or less permanently over $100 a barrel—to make the segment "fair and balanced."

I tried to explain the importance of flow rates, the concept of a plateau at the top of Hubbert's Peak, the limits of enhanced oil recovery, and the time it takes to bring new solutions to market, but my words seemed to fall on deaf ears.

As any student of peak oil investing knows, this stuff is complex. It's hard to talk about in TV sound bites. Especially when you have to explain the gulf between the 12 trillion barrels of original oil in place that my opponent was talking about, and the 1 trillion barrels of remaining recoverable oil that I was talking about.

Presumably, Fox Business thought it best to leave it to the viewer to figure that one out. ...

Energy and Capital 30 April 2008

The grievance of the Grangemouth workers is that the plant's owner, Ineos, intends to scrap the final salary pension scheme for new entrants and to reduce the provision for existing members.

Discussions broke up last week without agreement. It is possible to have some sympathy with the Grangemouth workers, especially given the considerable profits being generated by Ineos. But at the same time, it should be noted that these workers are hardly alone in seeing their final salary scheme dismantled. This has happened across the private sector in recent years. Less than 20 per cent of final salary schemes are still open to new members, and those that remain are demanding increasingly large contributions.

In the broader context, this crisis must be seen as part of the global energy squeeze. It has been clear for some time that global demand for oil has been outstripping supply. ...

The Independent 28 April 2008

Others have drawn attention to The Independent's ecological campaigning co-existing alongside pages of corporate-consumerist advertising, a charge also levelled at New Scientist.

The latter have pointed out that there is a "Chinese Wall" between their content and their advertising. The Independent, however, frequently extols vehicles which one might have thought clashed with their campaign against CO2 emisions, and does so in a manner which leans towards the Jeremy Clarkson school of climate change:

If a high-revving hot hatch is your thing, look no further. David Wilkins and our panel try out a rather uncivilised Civic

SPECIFICATIONS

Model: Honda Civic Type R

Price: £18,000

Engine: 2.0-litre petrol

Power: 198bhp at 7,800rpm

Torque: 142lb/ft at 5,600rpm

Performance: 146mph, 0-60mph in 6.6 seconds, 31.0mpg; CO2: 215g/km

Worth considering: Ford Focus ST, Vauxhall Astra VXR, Volkswagen Golf GTI

If you've already read anything at all about Honda's latest Type R, one thing will probably have stuck in your mind about it – while it has generally been well received, the consensus is that this, the sportiest version of the Civic, isn't quite as hard-edged a machine as its predecessor.

This view seems to have become so firmly established that I don't suppose that anything that I our any of our panel of readers say is going to change it. But it's still worth trying to put things into some sort of perspective, because by any standard other than that set by its forerunner, the latest R is still pretty zingy.

A Golf GTI, to take one rival as an example, is a bit more expensive than the Type R, but has an engine that's about the same size and delivers an almost identical power output. The two cars, though, are completely different in character; the GTI provides far more maximum torque, and this is available over a wide range, starting at just 1,800rpm compared with the 5,600rpm required in the Type R. Maximum power is delivered at 5,100rpm in the GTI, but at a giddy 7,800rpm in the Type R.

The reason for this is that the GTI uses a turbocharger to get these results, while the Type R's engine relies on clever valve-gear and, above all, revs; its red line is at 8,000rpm and it gets to about 8,300rpm before the rev limiter kicks in – numbers almost no other affordable car on sale today can match.

This means that the Type R, when you are in the right sort of mood on the right sort of road, can be exhilarating; when those conditions don't apply, the need to work it hard in order to make progress can become a little bit wearing. Still, Honda is to be warmly commended for giving us something different, a comment that applies not just to the engine, but to the car as a whole, which is packed with unusual detailing, from its brightly lit instrument panel, which wouldn't look out of place on the Starship Enterprise, to the funky triangular cut-outs in the rear for the exhaust tail-pipes.

The Independent 19 April 2008

(*) On 7th February 2007 the European Commission published its key draft proposal (COM 2007 0019) EC legislation to limit average CO2 emissions from the European fleet of cars to 120g CO2/km.

European emission standards

2020 car targets

MEPs have called for car makers to be set long-term targets for CO2 emissions now and not in a later round of consultations.

In its first debate on the Commission’s proposals to set a binding average of 130 g/km by 2012, the European Parliament’s environment committee said targets set now should run until at least 2020 – this differs from the Commission’s decision not to set a target beyond 2012.

MEPs suggested in a resolution last October that the target for 2020 should be 95 g/km and 70 g/km by 2025.

T&E believes the targets can be even stricter.

European Federation for Transport and Environment 16 April 2008

We are able to stick to our public spending plans for the next three years because Britain has lower levels of government debt than most of our competitors. The government can borrow more for the next few years without threatening our economic stability.

So our plan for how Britain deals with the global crisis is in place: Low inflation to keep interest rates down and new measures to ensure those lower interest rates are passed on to mortgage holders; sticking to our public spending plans; new support for business investment; cleaning up banks' balance sheets and boosting global trade.

For 11 years we have kept the economy growing even when there have been recessions elsewhere. And we will continue to guide Britain's economy by making the right long-term decisions.

NOTW 13 April 2008

Hours of time and acres of space have been devoted to this 10-year saga.

The evening of 07 April saw even the BBC's 'flagship' current affairs programme spend time interviewing a spokesperson for Mr Mohommed al Fayed as to whether or not the verdict would bring to an end his accusations against the Royal Family.

On the same night the Al Jazeera news channel's immediate concerns were riots in Egypt provoked by low wages and rising food prices, and the impact of rising rice prices on countries like Haiti and the Philipines.

These did not figure on Newsnight.   [Anorak]

Such concerns did not touch the Evening Standard's story last August concerning the climate protest at Heathrow Airport.

This has all the elements of propaganda, lies, smear, and innuendo, which are directed by the corporate press at anyone who actually believes what the scientific community is telling us.

In short, it exemplifies climate-denial in action, it turns an attempt to raise the biggest Category B story of the century into a Category A story about ...

... a typical bunch of students, mature students and perennially unemployed ...

... who are presented as would-be terrorists out to cause mayhem within the airport, and who, in any case, are probably benefit scroungers.

Our writer joins the climate camp outside Heathrow airport, where 2,000 protesters are expected to congregate this week.

Around the camp was a heavy police cordon. The advance party of activists, mostly in their twenties or thirties - a typical bunch of students, mature students and perennially unemployed - were joined by several veterans in their fifties and sixties. They were well organised and well supplied. New arrivals were asked to donate £30 a day towards the £40,000 cost of running the week-long camp. The money would also pay for communally cooked food. I stumped up the money, hoping I would blend in and not wishing to stand out. ...

Rashid Razaq, Evening Standard 14 August 2007

Reading the full article there is not the slightest attempt to offer any balance, or any depth: why the protesters are there, the contribution of aviation to climate change, the role played by the neoliberal addiction to growth, the problem posed by peak oil.

These issues are off the agenda with Associated Newspapers, which hardly comes as a surprise.

Their job is to turn every story into a Category A job. Read it, blow a valve about the state of the country, and move on to the sports page, avoiding at all costs the business pages on the way through!

Two of the Daily Mail's columnists - Melanie Philips, and Tom Utley - are arch climate deniers.

Mr Utley's attempt to deny that the melting of the polar ice caps would raise sea levels involved an 'experiment' with his gin and tonic and an ice cube.

Presumably Mr Utley has never had a burst pipe at the end of a big-freeze? Well, we don't get many of those, these days, Tom: it's called global warming.

Why am I sceptical about global warming?

Writing in The Guardian, George Monbiot challenges Rashid Razaq's factual reporting:

How did Razaq see protesters "checking out the security fences"? The camp was at least a kilometre from the airport fence - he could not have seen anyone from there.

When challenged by the campers, the Evening Standard claimed that "Mr Razaq had left the camp to go to a nearby petrol station to buy food when he was returning to the camp with a colleague, Sebastian Meyer.

Their route back took them close to the perimeter fence of the airport, where he saw two men whom he recognised from the camp. One was trying to climb the fence while another kept watch."

The Evening Standard contends that "it was a sufficiently light night to recognise faces".

There are several problems with this story. As photos and maps produced by the campers show, neither the petrol station nor any part of the route to the camp is close enough to the fence to recognise faces.

Meyer is a professional photographer. If, somehow, they had seen people at the fence, and managed to recognise them as protesters, why did they not take photographs?

I put this question to the Evening Standard's managing editor, Doug Wills. "He didn't take any photos of it because it was pitch black."

But the Standard had already claimed that "it was a sufficiently light night to recognise faces". I asked Wills for a map reference for the section of fence. He has not been able to provide one.

And why, if one of the protesters was trying to climb the fence - a more serious matter than merely "checking it out" - did Razaq not report this? ...

[GDN]

HERE'S a startling statistic. By the time the average US schoolchild leaves elementary school, he or she will have witnessed more than 8000 murders and 100,000 other acts of violence on television. If the child also has access to violent computer games or films, or cable TV, these figures will be far, far higher. Anyone who claims that art reflects society might want to take a good hard look at their neighbourhood.

Yet every time a study claims to have found a link between aggression, violence, educational or behavioural problems and TV programmes or computer games, there are cries of incredulity, even (ironically) anger. People seem to doubt that such a link exists, or think the evidence is generally weak.

That view is not shared by the vast majority of researchers who study the subject. They see a clear link between media consumption and aggression, and also mounting evidence for an increased risk of attentional, behavioural and educational problems with extended exposure to TV and computer games. They have been in little doubt for around half a century (see "Mind-altering media"), and over that time scientific confidence in the detrimental effects of media violence has only increased. Why, then, the disconnect with public perception?

Any criticism of a multibillion-dollar business is bound to provoke a sharp rebuttal. Scientists involved in the violence debate regularly draw parallels between the tactics of the film industry and those of tobacco companies, which continued to deny a link between smoking and lung cancer long after the scientific case was firmly established. The film industry has funded books, legal defences and interpretations of research that routinely deny any ill effects of on-screen violence. ...

Just as in the climate change debate, public confidence in a scientific conclusion backed by overwhelming evidence is being undermined by naysayers who point out minor errors and inconsistencies. ...

Here's one way to weigh up the evidence. Meta-analysis shows that the statistical correlation between exposure to media violence and aggression is not quite as strong as that linking smoking to an increased risk of lung cancer. It is, however, double the strength of the correlation between passive smoking and lung cancer, twice as strong as the link between condom use and reduction in risk of catching HIV, about three times the strength of the idea that calcium increases bone strength, and more than three times as strong as the correlation between time spent doing homework and academic achievement. ...

The film and gaming industries are not about to go away, and indeed, in a free society, why should they? But we can all make choices as individuals and parents. Each time you bawl out a stranger over the phone, or lose it with another driver from the safety of your car, consider that these too are aggressive acts which studies have shown are more likely after repeated exposure to on-screen violence; the impact is not limited to assault and murder. It seems inappropriate to keep calling this harmless entertainment.

New Scientist 21 April 2007

There can be no disguising the fact that the open skies aviation issue poses some rather uncomfortable questions for a newspaper like The Independent, which is serious about protecting the environment and yet also supports the free market.   [My italics - Tom]

Few would defend the existing restrictions on transatlantic air traffic.

There is no reason why a handful of British and American airlines should be the only carriers that can operate freely on this route.

The European Union was right to get rid of this piece of shameless protectionism. Doing so will boost competition and should result in a superior service for passengers. ...

... this reform will also, by bringing down airfares, eventually increase the volume of transatlantic air traffic ...

But before we conclude that the two principles held by this newspaper are incompatible, it is worth looking more closely at the issue of aviation.

While the monopoly on transatlantic flights is manifestly wrong, that is not to say that the feebleness of the international community in curbing the number of flights being taken is right.

In other words, handing a handful of airlines a lucrative monopoly is a very unsatisfactory way of keeping down air traffic volumes.

There is a far more effective and honest way. Measures such as a hefty tax on flights, tax on aviation fuel and restrictions on airport expansion are required ...

The Independent 23 March 2007

You can see The Independent's problem: it wants more flying, but less.