What Larry Elliott describes here is the arrival of the corporate state, 21st century version.

The neoliberal dream of the small state was always the same flim-flam as the Marxist notion that the state would wither away with people like Stalin at the helm.

Indeed, it's one of the conundrums of the age: the ease with which ex-Marxists within New Labour have made such a smooth transition to neoliberalism.

But the case of China is emblematic.

The neoliberal state was never going to function by democratic means, since it is vanishingly unlikely that, offered a manifesto on the Washington Consenus, a majority vote could be obtained.

The manner in which NAFTA was negotiated and implemented offers proof.

The problem facing us is starkly simple: a vote for David Cameron's Tories is a vote for a party that has long since-abandoned 'one nation' conservatism and an albeit hierarchical notion of society.

The older Conservatism, of Edmund Burke and Lord Shaftesbury - and David Selbourne - is now of largely nostalgic appeal.

The clever element of New Labour policy is the incorporation of a strand of libertarianism, most aptly illustrated by the removal of any limitations - social, or economic - on the consumption of alcohol.

The steadfast refusal to hear the pleas of the medics for greater controls has gone unheard, and the alco-pushers occupy a seat at the policy table that would never be offered to the producers of nicotine and cannabis.

The panoply of police-state security measures offers the final proof that neoliberalism does not, and cannot, rest on majority support.

Unlike fascism, it offers no sense of belonging, social cohesion being the very opposite of what is required.

The neoliberal citizen - oxymoron - is a private person unconcerned about the fate of others, and is, in truth the triumph of social Darwinism.

It is a dystopia against which the likes of Keir Hardie and the early trade unions made common cause. Their betrayal is a truly astounding achievement on the part of Blair, Brown, and Mandelson.

It is also an open goal for the BNP to exploit: the offer to exchange the neoliberal variety of fascism for the original marque.

Blogs to Larry Elliott

David Selbourne

Buncefield companies fined £5.35m for oil depot blaze

Peanuts!

Safety breaches by five firms including Total were responsible for blast that injured 43 and damaged homes and businesses ...

... the total bill for the five companies comes to £9.43m.

The fines are another blow to the reputation of the oil industry, hours after BP finally managed to cap its leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico.

But they are tiny in comparison to the profits made by oil companies such as Total, which had a net income of £1.94bn in the first three months of this year ...

... Mike Penning, Conservative MP for Hemel Hempstead, warned that today's fines were "loose change" to major oil companies.

"Legal justice might be done but not natural justice for a local community which is still fighting to win civil compensation claims," he said.

Guardian  16 July 2010    Corporate State Britain

Community struggles to rise from ashes of Buncefield fire

Will they be made to pay?

Release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi a mistake, government says

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was the only man to be convicted of involvement in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270 people in 1988.

He was freed on compassionate grounds after being diagnosed with terminal cancer and given three months to live.

There was outrage on both sides of the Atlantic when he was flown home to a hero's welcome in Tripoli, and the case was revived as the first anniversary of his release approaches without news of his death ...

The prisoner transfer agreement with Libya was signed by the former Labour government in 2007 – the same year BP sealed a $900m (£584m) exploration agreement with the north African state.

In a statement, BP said: "It is a matter of public record that in late 2007, BP told the UK government that we were concerned about the slow progress that was being made in concluding a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya.

"We were aware that this could have a negative impact on UK commercial interests, including the ratification by the Libyan government of BP's exploration agreement.

"The decision to release Mr al-Megrahi in August 2009 was taken by the Scottish government. BP was not involved in any discussions with the UK government or the Scottish government about the release of Mr al-Megrahi."

Guardian  16 July 2010        

Senate may investigate BP's role in release of Megrahi

Cameron braced for attack as Ashcroft sharpens his pen

Between February 2003 and December 2009, he is known to have donated £5.1m to the party.

Impressed by Ashcroft's analysis of why the Tories lost, Mr Cameron appointed him Deputy Chairman, with an office at party headquarters, and put him in charge of Tory strategy in the marginal constituencies.

But their relations nose dived in March this year, when the peer finally disclosed that he was a non-dom ...

This month, he formally gave up his non-dom status, after a law passed by the Labour government came into effect which confronted non-dom peers with the choice of resigning their seats or being taxed as UK citizens ...

He has also delayed publication of "Smell the Coffee Two", which he is co-writing with Kevin Culwick, a former party official.

The book is expected to be critical of David Cameron's handling of the election campaign and his decision to go into a coalition with the Liberal Democrats.

Interviewed on the night of the general election, Lord Ashcroft appeared to blame the failure to secure an outright win on Mr Cameron's decision to agree to participate in live television debates with Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown.

One upshot of the coalition is that he finds himself on the same side as Lord Oakeshott, the Liberal democrat peer who pursued him relentlessly over his tax status ...

Independent  15 July 2010

Watchdog probes Tory donor's firm

Lord Ashcroft: controversial Tory donor

Is Lord Ashcroft ashamed to say he lives here?

Ashcroft: new questions

Cameron pressed to reveal truth on Tory millionaire's tax

Ashcroft inquiry called off

Lib Dem peer attacks Lord Offshore Ashcroft

The darker side of Dave

The City chooses another one of its own

... what message does it send out for the [Takeover] Panel to appoint yet another director general from the small – but very well-connected – pool of bankers who have made their living from these mergers and acquisitions for decades? With the greatest of respect to Mr Gillespie, he looks to be a fully paid-up member of the City's old boy network. And signing him up for a two-and-a-half-year stint, rather than the usual two-year term, isn't going to fool anyone into thinking this is a break with the past ...

Independent  10 July 2010    

Multinationals to advise on British taxes

Senior executives from a dozen multinationals are set to advise on the competitiveness of the business tax system, the Treasury will announce on Friday as it underlines its belief that lighter taxes will encourage the private sector to spearhead the recovery.

Lowering the rate of “inefficient and growth-damaging” corporation tax will encourage investment to support the recovery according to David Gauke, exchequer secretary to the Treasury ...

FT  02 July 2010        

Why the former BP boss's new government job is beyond parody

Lord Browne was one of Britain's most-admired business leaders in his heyday, with a gift for getting on well with politicians.

He was nicknamed the "Sun King", and was so close to the former prime minister, Tony Blair, that it was suggested that an appropriate name for the company he headed would be "Blair's Petroleum".

But critics have suggested that his determination to bear down on costs at BP ... contributed to the company's patchy safety record ...

Lord Browne, who was ennobled by Tony Blair in 2001, resigned in January 2007 after it was established that he had lied in court about his relationship with a 27-year-old Canadian ...

Michael Meacher, the former Environment Minister, attacked the appointment, saying it was evidence of an "outdated" prejudice that the private sector is always better run than public services. "Lord Browne bears ultimate responsibility for the Texas oil refinery fire and you could argue that the culture of cost cutting that he introduced in BP is responsible for the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico," he said ...

Lord Browne, who is already running a Government task force looking at university funding, will carry out his latest role part-time and unpaid – unlike Ian Watmore, former chief executive of the Football Association, who is employed full-time running the government's Efficiency and Reform unit ...

Independent  02 July 2010

Peace campaigner, 85, classified by police as 'domestic extremist'

John Catt and his daughter were placed under surveillance at more than 80 lawful protests ...

When the Guardian first revealed details about a police monitoring system that keeps tabs on political activists last year, police gave assurances they were not interested in everyday campaigners.

They said surveillance was needed to monitor "domestic extremists" – a term that has no legal basis but is defined by police as activists who are determined to break the law to further their political aims.

Anton Setchell, who is national co-ordinator for domestic extremism for the Association of Chief Police Officers and is responsible for the NPOIU database, said most campaigners would never be considered domestic extremists.

However, information about the Catts has been transferred to the Police National Computer in Hendon and in July 2005, they were stopped by police under the Terrorism Act after driving into the east London to help a family member move house.

They later discovered police had placed a marker against their car registration on the database, triggering an alert – "of interest to public order unit, Sussex police" – each time they drove beneath an automatic number plate reading camera.

The Catts said they were particularly shocked to discover that they had been tracked for two days in Manchester in 2008, during the Labour party conference ...

Guardian  25 June 2010    Police State Britain

Criticism of EDO Corporation

EDO Injunction Case

smashEDO

'Request for information'

Former QinetiQ boss gets £1.1m golden goodbye

Graham Love, the former chief executive of QinetiQ, has received £1.1m in golden goodbye, performance payouts and consultancy fees despite being blamed by his successor for a financial crisis at the embattled defence technology group and presiding over an "insufficiently commercial" culture.

The cash and shares payouts came on top of salary and benefits of £430,000 Love earned in the seven months before his resignation last October, according to QinetiQ's annual report out today.

His pay has proved a constant source of controversy ever since the group's stock market flotation four years ago. He was awarded shares worth £21m when it joined the market, cashing in £6m a year later to fund a divorce. He is thought to retain about 5m shares, worth almost £6m.

Love's successor Leo Quinn, who received a golden hello of £600,000, last month suspended the dividend for 12 months, warning investors to expect two years of falling revenue and the 13,000 staff to prepare for job cuts of 10% ...

Guardian  25 June 2010    Corporate Sociopathy Log    Wealth Log

Treasury raises £257m in Qinetiq share sale

'Excessive' rewards for Qinetiq chiefs

MPs cry foul on MoD PFI

Qinetiq consortium wins bulk of £16bn MoD contract

Greed of the highest order

Inquiry launched into QinetiQ profiting

Qinetiq's £1bn flotation 'will sell taxpayer short'

Anger as £1.3bn float of Qinetiq gets away

Geeks With Guns

Report condemns swine flu experts' ties to big pharma

WHO in grip of Big Pharma

An investigation by the British Medical Journal and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the not-for-profit reporting unit, shows that WHO guidance issued in 2004 was authored by three scientists who had previously received payment for other work from Roche, which makes Tamiflu, and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), manufacturer of Relenza ...

The UK, which warned that 65,000 could die as a result of the virus, spent an estimated £1bn stockpiling drugs and vaccines; officials are now attempting to unpick expensive drug contracts.

The cabinet office has launched an inquiry into the cost to the taxpayer of the panic-buying of drugs.

Today, the Council of Europe, produces a damning report into how a lack of openness around "decision making" has bedevilled planning for pandemics.

"The tentacles of drug company influence are in all levels in the decision-making process," said Paul Flynn, the Labour MP who sits on the council's health committee. "It must be right that the WHO is transparent because there has been distortion of priorities of public health services all over Europe, waste of huge sums of public money and provocation of unjustified fear."

Although the experts consulted made no secret of industry ties in other settings, declaring them in research papers and at universities, the WHO itself did not publicly disclose any of these in its seminal 2004 guidance.

In its note, the WHO advised: "Countries that are considering the use of antivirals as part of their pandemic response will need to stockpile in advance." ...

Guardian  04 June 2010    Broken Forms of Government    Corporate Sociopathy

EDF ran secret lobbying campaign to reduce nuclear waste disposal levy

The nuclear industry is being offered what campaigners claim is a taxpayer subsidy on the disposal costs of waste from new reactors following a secret lobbying campaign, the Guardian has learned.

The revelation will put further scrutiny on the new government's promise that there will be no subsidy for nuclear power. Liberal Democrat Chris Huhne, the new energy and climate change secretary of state, admitted to the Guardian this week that the government already faces a £4bn funding black hole over existing radioactive waste ...

Documents released under a freedom of information request reveal the extent of behind-the-scenes lobbying last year in Whitehall by EDF Energy ...

A spokesman from Greenpeace said: "These documents blow EDF's claim that they won't need any subsidies for new nuclear clean out of the water. They know full well that the economics of nuclear don't stack up and that new reactors will only ever happen if the British taxpayer is forced yet again to carry the atomic can." ...

An energy department spokesman said: "The allegation that outcomes of the consultation have been pre-agreed with industry have no foundation. The coalition has committed that there will be no public subsidy for new nuclear."

Guardian  02 June 2010    Nuclear Power

Banking split essential to avoid new financial crisis, warns OECD adviser

'We need to separate capital market banking from standard commercial banking. That's the most basic lesson of the crisis,' says Adrian Blundell-Wignall ...

Blundell-Wignall, speaking in a personal capacity at the OECD's annual forum in Paris, said one of the big obstacles to better global governance was "institutional capture" of policymakers by the leading global financial institutions ...

Blundell-Wignall, the OECD's deputy director for financial and enterprise affairs and a former investment banker, was critical of the reform proposals currently being discussed.

"How big a crisis is big enough? It seems as if this crisis was not big enough ... If we can't even do that, I'm very pessimistic about the future of capitalism. I'm afraid that governance will only be sorted out by another big crisis and it will probably be bigger than this one."

He added later that reforms of banking should also include common limits on leverage for all countries, so banks would be unable to circumvent attempts to clamp down on excessive risk-taking ...

Guardian  27 May 2010    FRB

Investment banks likely to face competition review

Lazard man in Kraft spotlight is right to exit

Revolving-door culture leaves government full of clever bankers

Should Goldman Sachs be sacked as a UK Government adviser in light of the charges brought against the Wall Street giant by the US Securities and Exchange Commission? Most people will probably wonder why a vested interest like Goldman was ever employed in such a capacity in the first place.

What those people don't grasp is the symbiosis between high finance and government ...

In 2008, Gordon Brown invited Win Bischoff, a former chairman of Citigroup and now chairman of Lloyds, to co-chair a Government commission on the future of UK financial services.

It came to the conclusion last May that "the international financial services sector has been a major contributor to the wider UK economy, and we envisage this remaining the case in the future".

How they must have loved that "business as usual" approach in the Square Mile.

For more than a decade ... it was said that what was good for the City of London was axiomatically good for the UK.

And even after all we have been through – the multi-billion pound bailout for the banks, the deep recession, the bonus rows – there are still many people who believe that to be true.

Some of them are in government. All their instincts scream: don't rely on the civil servants when it comes to questions of strategic economic policy, call in those clever bankers ...

Independent  20 Apr 2010    Fractional Reserve Banking

Goldman Sachs

Alistair Darling rejects calls to bar Goldman Sachs from advising the Government

MPs call for clampdown on alcohol misuse

MPs have called for a fundamental overhaul of government policy to curb excessive drinking.

A minimum price of 50p per unit of alcohol, to curb excessive drinking in England, could save over 3,000 lives a year, the Health Select Committee said.

Its scathing report accused ministers of paying more attention to the drinks industry's views than health experts.

It is estimated alcohol abuse in England and Wales kills 40,000 people and costs the economy £55bn every year.

The report also called for a rise in duty on spirits and white cider, mandatory health warnings on labels, and stricter regulation of alcohol advertising and promotion ...

BBC NEWS  08 Jan 2010    ACN

• Hoon and Hewitt call for secret vote on PM's leadership
• Key cabinet figures throw support behind Labour leader
• After long silence Miliband offers lukewarm endorsement ...

Papos
7 Jan 2010, 1:21AM

Neither Hoon nor Hewitt will face the electorate in the next General Election.

Hewitt, who, when she was Health Secretary lobbied for and won a smoking ban in all public places after Labour's election manifesto promised only to ban smoking in places where food was served, has been forced to stand down after the expenses scandal.

She claimed over £900 in legal fees after moving out of her flat in her Leicester West constituency and after claiming for staying in Hotels bought another flat in Leicester.

She claims to want to spend more time with her family. But her 'Special Consultancy' to Alliance Boots, the worlds biggest chemist will help take up some of her time, no doubt, as well as her 'Special Advisory' roll to Cinven who bought all of Bupa's UK Hospitals. And her new role as non executive director to the BT Group board will also help towards keeping the wolves from the door.

Hoon, on the other hand did nothing wrong when he rented out his London Home (which he claimed was his main residence) and claimed expenses on his constituency house whilst living rent free in Admiralty House in London. He was also accused of being a flipper by the Torygraph. I've heard it put more strongly than that, though.

I'm sure that in the state of confusion of the whereabouts of his real home he honestly believed that the two trailers sold by Marconi to Iraq for filling hydrogen weather balloons were mobile weapons laboratories despite his own weapons inspectors reporting that they were nothing of the sort. An easy mistake, I suppose for someone who said he believed after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, that the mother of an Iraqi child killed by a left over cluster bomb might 'one day thank him'.

I find it difficult to understand how they believed anyone in the Parliamentary Labour Party would take them seriously, although I can see why journalists did.

They have a living to make.

Guardian 07 Jan 2010

Geoff Hoon savages Gordon Brown over Afghanistan war

Patricia Hewitt joins BT

Lucrative job with Boots

The existence of a previously secret injunction against the media by oil traders Trafigura can now be revealed.

Within the past hour Trafigura's legal firm, Carter-Ruck, has withdrawn its opposition to the Guardian reporting proceedings in parliament that revealed its existence.

Labour MP Paul Farrelly put down a question yesterday to the justice secretary, Jack Straw. It asked about the injunction obtained by "Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton Report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura".

The Guardian was due to appear at the High Court at 2pm to challenge Carter-Ruck's behaviour, but the firm has dropped its claim that to report parliament would be in contempt of court.

Here is the full text of Farrelly's question:

"To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura." ...

The ban on reporting parliamentary proceedings on legal grounds appeared to call into question privileges guaranteeing free speech established under the 1688 Bill of Rights ... Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian editor, welcomed the move. He said:

"I'm very pleased that common sense has prevailed and that Carter-Ruck's clients are now prepared to vary this draconian injunction to allow reporting of parliament. It is time that judges stopped granting 'super-injunctions' which are so absolute and wide-ranging that nothing about them can be reported at all." ...

Guardian  13 October 2009

Guardian claims victory on 'gag'

Carter-Ruck

The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that a top official from the Cabinet Office will be accused of misleading the police about the seriousness of the security implications resulting from the Westminster leaks that led to Mr Green’s arrest.

The disclosures will embarrass Labour — and be seized on by Opposition politicians — because the role of the Cabinet Office is to co-ordinate policy and strategy across government departments.

Scotland Yard will also be heavily criticised in the report by Ian Johnston, the chief constable of the British Transport Police, for its alleged heavy-handed and ill-timed arrest of Mr Green.

He will suggest that the nature of the raids late last year were disproportionate to the allegations of Westminster leaks ...

Sir David Normington, the Home Office Permanent Secretary who first raised concerns that leaks of sensitive material could damage national security, is believed to have asked for passages to be redacted ...

Telegraph  10 October 2009

Senior officers 'scared' to abandon inquiry

The Cabinet Minister behind a £12.5billion nuclear power deal with French-owned energy giant EDF is set to take a highly-paid job with the firm.

John Hutton’s proposed move comes just a year after the former Business Secretary gave the go-ahead for the firm to buy many of Britain’s existing and future nuclear power plants.

It is bound to raise new questions about the so-called ‘revolving door’ which allows Ministers to quit and take up lucrative jobs with firms they helped while in Government.

The energy deal saw EDF – which is controlled by the French government – take over British Energy and its eight UK nuclear power stations ... the world’s largest energy firm, wants Mr Hutton, who resigned from the Cabinet in June, to take on a role advising the firm on ‘key strategic issues’ ...

Mail on Sunday  13 September 2009

Defence Secretary John Hutton resigns

Defence Secretary John Hutton has announced that he is resigning from the Government today, Friday 5 June 2009.

Mr Hutton has issued the following statement:

"I have decided to resign from the Government. I will also be standing down as a Member of Parliament at the next general election.

"This is not the place to go into my reasons for leaving. But I can say that it has been one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to take.

"I was delighted to be appointed Secretary of State for Defence last October.

"I have always had the deepest admiration for our Armed Forces, and everything they do ... "

MoD 05 June 2009

New nuclear plants get go-ahead

Local authorities have spent £170 million on consultants in a government scheme to refurbish and rebuild schools in England, the Conservatives say.

They say the £50 billion Building Schools for the Future programme has delivered "hardly any improvements" ... Shadow Children's Secretary Michael Gove questioned whether it was value for money.

He said that since Building Schools for the Future (BSF) began in 2004 a new school had opened in just 15 local authorities ...

BBC NEWS 06 September 2009

A business group set up by Jack Straw played a central role in lobbying for the urgent release of the Lockerbie bomber to prevent damage to British trade links.

The Libyan British Business Council (LBBC), which boasts of 'strong working ties' with the Foreign Office, told Scottish ministers that the death of Megrahi in jail would cause 'grave concern' to its members' interests.

Its chairman, Tory peer Lord Trefgarne, wrote to Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill in July warning that failure to release Megrahi would cast a 'shadow' over business relations with Libya - harming the interests of firms such as BP, which has struck a £15billion oil exploration deal with Tripoli.

He wrote: 'The Libyan authorities have made it clear that should he die in prison in Scotland there will be serious implications for UK-Libyan relations.

'The prospect is of grave concern to LBBC members.'

The letter, contained in documents released by the Scottish Executive this week ...

Daily Mail  03 September 2009

Libyan British Business Council

The Department of Health has spent almost £500 million on management consultants, including deals with firms which have hired senior Labour figures and high ranking civil servants, an investigation has revealed.

The disclosure of more than 100 contracts worth a total of £470 million last night engulfed the Government in accusations of "cronyism".

Among those recruited by the favoured firms are a former health minister, an ex-adviser to the health secretary and a senior Whitehall official responsible for encouraging private sector involvement in the NHS.

Doctors' and nurses' leaders expressed concern over the use of resources which could have paid for more than 60,000 hip operations, or the annual salary of 22,000 nurses.

Critics also said the revelations indicated that the "revolving door" between the Government and its favourite consultant firms was spinning ever more quickly, with former senior politicians, officials and advisers linked to companies profiting directly from the policies they had introduced.

Lord Warner, a Labour peer, who was a health minister until December 2006, now acts as an adviser to PA Consulting group, which received £4.9 million from the Department of Health (DoH) in 2007/8.

Until last December he also advised Deloitte, which received almost £3 million in the same year.

Since resigning as a minister in 2006, the peer has also registered interests working for six other health care, technology and IT firms.

Matthew Swindells, policy adviser to then health secretary Patricia Hewitt between 2005 and 2007, who was earning £195,000 at the DoH, is now group managing director for health at Tribal, which earned more than £2 million from the department in 2007/8 ...

Other figures to have crossed from Government to private sector firms which won the management consultancy contracts include Sir Michael Barber, who was Tony Blair's chief adviser on delivery – focusing on education and health – from 2001 to 2005.

Since September 2005 Sir Michael has been a partner at McKinsey, which was paid £9 million for management consultancy services to the DoH in 2007/8 ...

A spokesman for the DoH said consultants were necessary to supplement the skills of its workforce.

Telegraph  22 August 2009

DoH is told 137,000 NHS posts must go

Steve Bell Cartoon

'Creating an NHS Fit for the Future'

Chelsea Clinton Advises NHS on Hospital Closures

Cutting through the Darzi waffle

The best explanation for the FSA's limp response is the one trotted out time and again about the importance of financial services to the UK's broader economy. The banks and affiliated institutions – hedge funds and private equity – have long been disproportionate drivers of the nation's wealth. Ministers are terrified to rein them in. The language – even now, after the crash – is fawning. Read just a flavour of the report published in May by a group jointly chaired by Alistair Darling, the chancellor, and Sir Win Bischoff, the incoming chairman of Lloyds, to appreciate how so little has changed. The UK's financial services are a "centre of excellence working in partnership with the world", it gushes ...

What is needed is a candid conversation about wealth, its levels and its social and behavioural repercussions – but this is a debate that all main political parties are too frightened to have. At what point does one become excessively rich? The top rate of tax kicks in at £37,000 – already separating the 10% of haves from the 90% of have-nots. Perhaps it is £100,000, the figure the Liberal Democrats originally decreed to require a new top rate of tax (before they fought shy of the idea). Or is it £150,000, the point at which a 50% band finally begins to operate from next April?

Britain – the Britain of New Labour – has become the world leader in indulging the super-rich and the very rich. Forget for one moment issues of natural justice and social harmony: has this culture of greed produced better performance? Excessive wealth has not produced an incentive to improve the nation's lot.

1caro
12 Aug 09, 7:16pm
I'll be candid.

Ministers will not "draw the bigger conclusions" because they, MPs, their Spinmeisters & policy wonks are either in their pay in some way or shape, or they have promises of future careers with them. Not gonna kill the golden goose, are they?

Guardian 13 August 2009

Darling vow on City bonus rules

Watchdog 'caves in' on bank bonuses

Britain's main financial watchdog was accused last night of capitulating to pressure from big banks after it watered down plans to curb City pay ...

Under its original plan, the FSA wanted to compel banks to spread two thirds of an employee's bonus over three years. This would have helped reduce reckless risk taking and ensured that bankers were not rewarded for deals that later went sour.

But following a lobbying campaign by City firms, the proposals were downgraded yesterday to mere 'guidance' for senior traders and deal-makers.

Many leading banks had complained that the overly ' prescriptive' proposals risked causing an exodus of talent, the watchdog said.

'Several banks noted that if (the original proposals) were implemented in the UK alone, they would have adverse implications for the UK as a financial centre,' the FSA said ...

Vince Cable, Lib Dem Treasury spokesman, said: 'These watered-down plans send out entirely the wrong message to an industry which is already forgetting that just a matter of months ago it had to come with its begging bowl to the taxpayer.

'The regulator had a real opportunity to assert its authority but at the first sign of dissent from the banks it has capitulated. The banks seem to think it's business as usual and today it looks as though the FSA thinks this too.' ...

The FSA also ignored calls to outlaw bonuses at loss-making banks - an issue thrown into sharp relief by the hundreds of millions in bonuses paid to Royal Bank of Scotland staff despite the lender plunging into a record £24billion loss.

'A fully flexible bonus policy should not prevent a firm from paying a bonus despite making a loss, provided the bonus is justified,' said the FSA ...

Daily Mail  13 August 2009

FSA bonus rules scaled back on fear of City exodus

Banks given new rules on bonuses

Cashing in on the MoD gravy train

Alan Johnson, the home secretary, has said Britain's security could be put at risk by a police investigation into allegations that MI5 agents colluded in torture.

Johnson said he had "nothing but admiration" for the work of the security service and believed it operated "to the highest ethical and professional standards". He suggested that Britain's interests would be at risk if the service's counter-terrorism capabilities were "diminished and diluted".

Scotland Yard said last week it was launching an investigation, at the request of Lady Scotland, the attorney general, into claims of torture made by former Guantánamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed ...

Johnson, who took on responsibility for MI5 when he became home secretary last month, told the Daily Telegraph: "I haven't sat around the last six weeks not looking into these things. I have looked very closely at them and I just say this: we have one of the best counter-terrorism capabilities in the world and we diminish and dilute it at our peril."

He added: "In my six weeks in this job I am so reassured and so amazed at the work that is going on, on our behalf, by people who do not have a voice, who are not able to express their views, who work in the most difficult and dangerous circumstances.

"I have nothing but admiration for them. As I am in effect their voice I will defend them and defend what they do, and it does worry me." ...

Guardian 18 July 2009

A compulsory identity card trial for pilots and 30,000 other airport workers due to start in September has been abandoned by the new home secretary, Alan Johnson. But he intends to accelerate other elements of the scheme, including plans to issue £30 voluntary ID cards to young adults across north-west England. Johnson is also looking at making ID cards free for over-75s.

Longer-term plans to make ID cards compulsory for critical workers at railway stations have also been dropped.

British citizens would not be forced to carry ID cards, the home secretary insisted. Johnson said: "Holding an identity card should be a personal choice for British citizens – just as it is now to obtain a passport.

"Accordingly, I want the introduction of identity cards for all British citizens to be voluntary and I have therefore decided that identity cards issued to airside workers, planned initially at Manchester and London City airports later this year, should also be voluntary." Asked if the cards would ever be made compulsory he said "No", adding: "If a future government wanted to make them compulsory it would require primary legislation."

Guardian 30 June 2009

'If you apply for a passport you automatically go on the ID database'

Johnson has his card marked by Brown

Passport details to be kept on ID register despite card U-turn

Explainer: Identity cards

Britain's private prisons are performing worse than those run by the state, according to data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

The findings, based on the overall performances of 132 prisons in England and Wales, appear to undermine claims by ministers that the greater use of private jails is raising standards for the accommodation of more than 83,000 prisoners held across both sectors.

Separate figures, also released under the right-to-know law, show that nearly twice as many prisoner complaints are upheld in private prisons as they are in state-run institutions ...

Juliet Lyon, the director of the Prison Reform Trust, said: "There are some good private prisons but there are also some very poorly performing ones. The evidence doesn't suggest that it [use of private prisons] has driven up standards by providing good models. If you look across the prison estate at the public sector there is a high degree of resentment and rivalry between the two sectors and, until recently, little sharing of good practice and information, which is really disappointing."

She added: "It's been an interesting experiment. The end result is that 11 per cent of our prison population are now held in private hands. But one of the issues it has introduced is a kind of market drive to increase the prison population, to grow that business and that's something that really does concern us." ...

A Prison Service spokesperson said: " ... The introduction of privately managed prisons has helped to generate significant overall improvements in value for money and performance, including in the public sector, which has been energised by the more competitive environment."

The Independent 29 June 2009

There's still a dearth of information about ministerial responsibilities within the new mega-Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Bis). Today it was announced that Lord Drayson, science minister at Bis, will have a joint ministerial post straddling Bis and the Ministry of Defence, prompting some comment on the motives for linking science and defence in this way.

The full list of ministers reveals there will be no fewer than 10 in Bis.

David Lammy will remain responsible for universities and copyright, and Kevin Brennan has a job – in conjuction with the Department for Children, Schools and Families – looking after diplomas. Here's the full list.

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
•Minister of State - The Rt Hon Pat McFadden MP**
•Minister of State - The Rt Hon Lord Drayson* & ** (jointly with the Ministry of Defence)
•Minister of State - The Rt Hon David Lammy MP
•Minister of State - The Rt Hon Rosie Winterton MP*** (jointly with the Department for Communities and Local Government)
•Minister of State - Lord Davies of Abersoch CBE* (jointly with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office)
•Minister of State - Kevin Brennan MP (jointly with the Department for Children, Schools and Families)
•Parliamentary Under Secretary of State - Lord Carter of Barnes (jointly with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
•Parliamentary Under Secretary of State - Ian Lucas MP
•Parliamentary Under Secretary of State - Baroness Vadera (jointly with Cabinet Office)
•Parliamentary Under Secretary of State* - Lord Young of Norwood Green (and Lord in Waiting - paid)
Number10.gov.uk

There is also widespread debate about what it means to have no department with "education" in its title, let alone "universities".

There are two schools of thought among vice-chancellors: first, that universities are being sidelined in a department dedicated to commerce; second, that they now have access to Mandelson, the most powerful secretary of state in Westminster – which could be a positive thing.

A lot depends on whether Mandelson wins them over ...

Guardian 09 June 2009

England's department for higher and further education has been scrapped, just two years after its creation.

The prime minister has created a new Department for Business, Innovation and Skills under Lord Mandelson.

Universities do not figure in the name of the new department, whose remit is "to build Britain's capabilities to compete in the global economy".

Number 10 said it would invest in a higher education system committed to widening participation.

The role would include "maintaining world class universities, expanding access to higher education, investing in the UK's science base and shaping skills policy and innovation".

"It also puts the UK's further education system and universities closer to the heart of government thinking about building now for the upturn," the statement said.

The new department will be headed by Lord Mandelson ...

In response to the latest shake-up, the further education organisation, the Association of Colleges, said that "in the middle of a recession and with less than a year to run to an election it's unhelpful to introduce this degree of change in terms of ministerial responsibility" ...

The Million+ group, representing new universities, said that the department would have to address "immediate challenges".

"In particular the tens of thousands of potential students who will be turned away because there are no places for them at university this year."

This refers to a problem facing the new department this summer if, as has been forecast by universities, there is a shortfall of places following a surge in applications.

The UCU lecturers union expressed its disappointment at the scrapping of Dius.

General secretary Sally Hunt said she was "very concerned" that the "merger seems to signal that further and higher education are no longer considered important enough to have a department of their own".

"The fact they have been lumped in with business appears to be a clear signal of how the government views colleges and universities and their main roles in this country." ...

BBC NEWS 05 June 2009

Mandelson takes charge of universities

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, said: "UCU is very concerned that this merger seems to signal that further and higher education are no longer considered important enough to have a department of their own. The fact they have been lumped in with business appears to be a clear signal of how the government views colleges and universities and their main roles in this country.

"Education has the power to change people's lives, and if we are serious about the important role it can play in helping us out of recession, then we need experts in education at the helm, not business interests. We will be seeking an urgent meeting with, and assurances from, the minister that both further and higher education have clear and defined roles in the new department."

Guardian 05 June 2009

Universities 'side-lined'

One of Lord Mandelson's first responsibilities will be leading the Government's review of tuition fees later this year. Ministers are already under pressure to lift the existing £3,100-a-year fee cap, despite claims from students that it will leave graduates heavily in debt.

Telegraph 06 June 2009

Brown scraps DIUS

As the political consensus collapses, now all dissenters face suppression

... A few weeks ago, like everyone in mid-Wales, I received a local policing summary from the Dyfed-Powys force.

It contained a section headed Terrorism and Domestic Extremism.

"Work undertaken is not solely focused on the threat from international terrorists. Attention has also been paid to the potential threat that domestic extremists and campaigners can pose."

I lodged a freedom of information request to try to discover what this meant. What threat do campaigners pose? ...

Paul Mobbs of the Free Range Network has found what appears to be an explanation.

Under the heading "Protect[ing] the country from both terrorism and domestic extremism", the Dyfed-Powys Police website repeats the line about domestic extremists and campaigners ...

Mobbs has also found a bulletin circulated among Welsh forces at the end of last year, identifying the "new challenges and changes" the police now face.

Eco-terrorism is a charge repeatedly levelled against the environment movement, mostly by fossil fuel lobbyists. But, as far as I can discover, there has not been a single recorded instance of a planned attempt to harm people in the cause of environmental protection in the UK over the past 30 years or more.

So what do the police mean by eco-terrorism? It appears to refer to any environmental action more radical than writing letters to your MP.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) now runs three units whose purpose is to tackle another phenomenon it has never defined: domestic extremism.

These are the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit (Netcu), the Welsh Extremism and Counter-Terrorism Unit and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit.

Because Acpo is not a public body but a private limited company, the three bodies are exempt from freedom of information laws and other kinds of public accountability, even though they are funded by the Home Office and deploy police officers from regional forces.

So it's hard to work out exactly what they do ...

Guardian 19 May 2009

Britain's Secretive Police Force

A-Z of legislation

Why is the Medical Research Council run by an arms manufacturer? Why is the Natural Environment Research Council run by the head of a construction company? Why is the chairman of a real estate firm in charge of higher education funding for England?

Because our universities are being turned by the government into corporate research departments. No longer may they pursue knowledge for its own sake: now the highest ambition to which they must aspire is finding better ways to make money.

At the end of last month, unremarked by the media, a quiet intellectual revolution took place. The research councils, which provide 90% of the funding for academic research in Britain, introduced a new requirement for people seeking grants: now they must describe the economic impact of the work they want to conduct. The councils define impact as the “demonstrable contribution” that research can make to society and the economy. But how do you demonstrate the impact of blue skies research before it has been conducted?

The idea, the government says, is to transfer knowledge from the universities to industry, boosting the UK’s economy and helping to lift us out of recession. There’s nothing wrong, in principle, with commercialising scientific discoveries. But imposing this condition on the pursuit of all knowledge does not enrich us; it impoverishes us, reducing the wonders of the universe to figures in an accountant’s ledger ...

The government insists that nothing fundamental has changed; that the Haldane Principle, which states that the government should not interfere in research decisions, still holds. Only the research councils, ministers say, should decide what gets funded ...

All the chairmen of the five research councils funding science, and the chairs of the three higher education funding councils (which provide core funding for universities) are or were senior corporate executives.

These men are overseen by the minister for science and innovation, Lord Drayson. Before he became a minister, Paul Drayson was the chief executive of a pharmaceutical company called PowderJect. He was involved in a controversy that to many feel symbolises the absence of effective barriers between government and commerce ...

Monbiot.com 12 May 2009

£43m windfall for PowderJect chief

Knowledge is power: that's why we're a secret society

PowderJect gets clean bill of health

Do you believe in the infallibility of governments, police forces and databases? If so, your letter welcoming the latest Home Office "consultation" on the national DNA database will no doubt be gratefully received. But if you are of a more cautious disposition, a closer examination of yesterday's proposals might be advisable.

No one disputes the considerable benefits of well-managed DNA evidence in the justice system. It is capable of clearing the innocent and contributing to the conviction of the guilty. Nor is there any objection to those arrested on suspicion of a crime having their DNA taken and applied to evidence gleaned from past or present crime scenes: this is a common, and completely uncontroversial, scenario. There is not even any argument about the wisdom of retaining a suspect's DNA until the conclusion of the investigation, and of any subsequent trial.

The crucial question – and the one on which the Government was defeated in the European Court of Human Rights last year – relates to the retention of intimate material, or the unique personal information extracted from it, in case you should offend in future.

Predictably, the Government's instinct has been in favour of a universal database. Undeterred by the spectre of every small child or senior citizen being marched to the census point for saliva swabbing, Tony Blair openly mooted this terrifying and impractical idea in 2006. But, just as predictably, the Government lacked the courage of its convictions, and instead moved towards universal retention by stealth ...

Telegraph 07 May 2009

Perhaps because of the media interest in the Convention on Modern Liberty, both The Guardian and the Press Association via the The Independent newspapers, have quoted from a discussion paper published over 2 weeks ago by the NuLabour "think tank" lobbyists at the Institute for Public Policy Research, through which several Labour party surveillance nanny police state policies have been "market tested", to see if they can be slipped through past the public and Parliament, without too much vocal opposition.

IPPR seem to have funded and have now published, "A discussion paper for the ippr Commission on National Security for the 21st Century" by Sir David Omand, an eminent retired Whitehall security and intelligence insider, on whose watch under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, many of the most repressive Labour laws and policies were trotted out ...

A significant challenge supporting the National Security Strategy will be how the intelligence community can access the full range of data relating to individuals, their movements, activities and associations in a timely, accurate, proportionate and legal way, and one acceptable in a democratic and free society, including appropriate oversight and means of independent investigation and redress in cases of alleged abuse of power.

A significant challenge supporting the National Security Strategy will be how the intelligence community can access the full range of data relating to individuals, their movements, activities and associations in a timely, accurate, proportionate and legal way, and one acceptable in a democratic and free society, including appropriate oversight and means of independent investigation and redress in cases of alleged abuse of power.

Spy Blog 25 February 2009

It is time to resist

On the day that it becomes illegal to take pictures of police engaged in counter-terrorist operations – in practice a ban on taking pictures of the police – it is worth noting events in Brighton recently where police set up outside a cafe and photographed people attending a meeting about the environment.

According to the Brighton Argus, members of the Cowley Club, which was hosting a meeting of Earth First, "were confronted with four uniformed officers outside the Somerfield store, opposite the venue, snapping visitors using a paparazzi-style lens". One of the club members, David Biset, said the police were behaving in a deliberately "intimidating manner". He said:

Avenues of dissent are being closed down and police feel able to treat politics as a police matter. There was no suggestion of anything going on outside the building. The police have no reason to be there beyond intimidating people. You shouldn't be put on a database simply for attending a meeting.

The local MP, David Lepper, agrees that the police operation was designed to scare activists rather than prevent crime, and has written to the divisional commander for Brighton and Hove demanding to know why officers were photographing people engaged in a political activity. The police have refused to comment other than to produce the usual assertion that this was a normal police operation ...

Guardian 16 February 2009

The secret police are watching you

Police chiefs body faces calls for review

CIA warns Barack Obama that British terrorists are the biggest threat to the US

Secret police unit set up to spy on British 'domestic extremists'

Taser Abuse in the United States

Launch of Automatic Number Plate Recognition

ACPO

Atomic energy

Richard Caborn
Former sports minister, trade minister and chairman of the trade and industry select committee
Adviser to Amec

Ian McCartney
Former trade minister and Labour party chairman
Adviser to Fluor, paid £110,000 to £115,000 a year

Lord O’Neill
Former chairman of the trade and industry select committee
Adviser to the Washington Group
Chairman of the Nuclear Industry Association

Brian Wilson
Former energy minister
Non-executive director, Amec Nuclear Holdings

FT 17 November 2007

Concern over Labour cash gifts from nuclear industry

The powerful business of promoting a nuclear future

This must rank as one of the great PR triumphs of all time

In examing Laurence W. Britt's "Fascism Anyone?" I have tried to examine his fourteen points and pose the question: does this characteristic of fascism apply in Britain today, or could it possibly do so in the future?

I have answered 'Yes', with confidence, to seven of his fourteen points: [14].

In the case of Point 6 - control of the media - I have suggested that self-control is a de facto
'Yes'. I have not responded to Point 5 - Rampant Sexism.

Fascism’s principles are wafting in the air today, surreptitiously masquerading as something else, challenging everything we stand for.

By Laurence W. Britt

The cliché that people and nations learn from history is not only overused, but also overestimated; often we fail to learn from history, or draw the wrong conclusions. Sadly, historical amnesia is the norm.

We are two-and-a-half generations removed from the horrors of Nazi Germany, although constant reminders jog the consciousness.

German and Italian fascism form the historical models that define this twisted political worldview. Although they no longer exist, this worldview and the characteristics of these models have been imitated by protofascist1 regimes at various times in the twentieth century.

Both the original German and Italian models and the later protofascist regimes show remarkably similar characteristics. Although many scholars question any direct connection among these regimes, few can dispute their visual similarities.

Beyond the visual, even a cursory study of these fascist and protofascist regimes reveals the absolutely striking convergence of their modus operandi.

This, of course, is not a revelation to the informed political observer, but it is sometimes useful in the interests of perspective to restate obvious facts and in so doing shed needed light on current circumstances.

For the purpose of this perspective, I will consider the following regimes:

Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal, Papadopoulos’s Greece, Pinochet’s Chile, and Suharto’s Indonesia.

To be sure, they constitute a mixed bag of national identities, cultures, developmental levels, and history. But they all followed the fascist or protofascist model in obtaining, expanding, and maintaining power. Further, all these regimes have been overthrown, so a more or less complete picture of their basic characteristics and abuses is possible.

Analysis of these seven regimes reveals fourteen common threads that link them in recognizable patterns of national behavior and abuse of power.

These basic characteristics are more prevalent and intense in some regimes than in others, but they all share at least some level of similarity.

Information Clearing House

Top

Laurence W. Britt's Fourteen Points

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.

Not applicable to the mainstream, but lurks at the margins.

2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.

Official rhetoric, and the Human Rights Act should negate this point, but ...

3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.

Yes

4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.

Not in the accepted sense of the terms

5. Rampant sexism.

Not qualified to respond

6. A controlled mass media.

Self-controlled; effectively 'yes'.

MPs seek to censor the media [IND]

Go to MediaLens for in-depth examination.

7. Obsession with national security.

Yes

8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.

No

9. Power of corporations protected.

Yes

10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.

Yes

11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.

Yes

12. Obsession with crime and punishment.

Yes

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.

Yes

14. Fraudulent elections.

Not yet

Information Clearing House

Top

A Faustian Bargain

Writing about the dangers of fascism and the corporate state in the USA, David G. Mills concludes:

For some years now we have lived with the Faustian bargain of the corporation.

Large corporations are necessary to achieve those governmental and social necessities that small enterprises are incapable of providing.

The checks on corporate power have always been fragile.

Left unchecked, the huge economic power of corporations corrupts absolutely.

Most of the checks are badly eroded.

Is there still time to get the checks back in balance?

Or will we be left with two unthinkable options?   [ICH]

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