Revealed: How the world gets rich – from privatising British public services – Exclusive: ‘Scandal’ of UK citizens’ millions that go to foreign state-owned public services
Foreign governments are making hundreds of millions of pounds a year running British public services. Swathes of Britain’s energy, transport and utility networks are run by companies owned by other European governments – meaning foreign exchequers reap the dividends while UK customers struggle with increasing fares and bills.
In the past two years alone, overseas taxpayers have taken dividends totalling nearly £1bn from companies which make their profits from UK households and passengers, boosting the position of those who argue that the railways should be opened up to publicly owned UK operators, or even renationalised.
An analysis of companies’ financial filings for the last financial year shows that currently 20 national train lines are run or owned by foreign state-owned or controlled companies. Only last month, the ScotRail franchise was offloaded to the Netherlands’ state-owned Abellio.
A respected rail industry analyst, said: “It is a completely daft situation where state-run companies in foreign countries can bid for our rail services but UK ones can’t. It is specifically banned by law for the likes of Transport for London, or Directly Operated Railways to bid for UK rail contracts.”
While privatisation was meant to bring the business acumen of the corporate sector into public utilities, increasingly it has allowed foreign governments and their state-owned operators to make vast profits out of the UK. Meanwhile, British firms have almost no presence in overseas utilities markets and, since the takeover of Arriva by Germany’s state-owned Deutsche Bahn, only a small share of global public transport. As a result, vast amounts of British citizens’ bills and fares leave the country in the form of dividends to taxpayers in continental Europe, funding their schools and hospitals.
Foreign taxpayer-owned transport companies received £102m in dividends from UK train fares during the past two years. That figure is dwarfed by the £900m sent back to foreign governments from British household energy bills. These came from dividends taken out of the UK by EDF, majority-owned by the French state, and the industrial energy supplier GDF Suez, part-owned by France.
Other foreign energy players are also taking huge dividends from UK electricity bills but are remitting them to private investors. For instance, Scottish Power’s Spanish owners Iberdrola took a £600m payment. With consumers paying an average of £410 more a year for energy compared with a decade ago, The Independent’s findings shine new light on the motivations of foreign energy suppliers.
In the rail and bus industry, German and French taxpayers are the biggest players, with German state-owned Deutsche Bahn and French state-owned Keolis running large chunks of the networks. But Hong Kong also owns UK rail and bus operators, while taxpayer funds in Singapore, China and Qatar are big investors in the Heathrow Express rail route.
Critics of recent governments say they have been ideologically opposed to state ownership in a way the European firms who run British infrastructure are not. They cite how the East Coast Main Line rail route was handed back to the taxpayer in 2009 by National Express because the company could not make enough money from the contract. Since then, it has been run as a “Directly Operated Railway” and performed well and with a healthy surplus to the taxpayer. However, the Government has decided to sell it to the private sector again, with French government-controlled Keolis and Eurostar among the bidders.
Labour has pledged to overturn rules which ban state-owned British entities from competing with private firms for rail franchises. But the party is coming under pressure from unions to commit to full renationalisation. The anti-privatisation group We Own It described The findings as a “scandal”, adding: “If energy was run publicly, we could use these profits to reduce the bills we all pay and boost green investment.”
A Department of Energy and Climate Change spokesperson said: “We want an energy market that works for consumers.” EDF said: “Dividends paid by EDF Energy to our parent company should be set against the £17.5bn that has been invested in the UK, and the £1.2bn it invested last year alone in its existing nuclear and coal stations, new generation capacity, gas storage and in its customer supply business.”
Arriva pointed out that it had retained its operational independence although it was now owned by Deutsche Bahn and said it had invested €750m (£599m) in the business in the past two years. However, accounts showed its British arm, Arriva UK Transport Limited, paid a £15m dividend to its parent company.
The Independent also examined water companies but, while they are mostly owned by private equity firms with controversial tax avoidance strategies, only one, Yorkshire Water, is state-owned, being 26 per cent owned by the Singapore government’s sovereign wealth fund. Last year Yorkshire Water’s holding company Saltaire did not pay a dividend.
Going Dutch: Scotland picks Abellio
Last month the Scottish Government stripped Aberdeen-based First-Group of the contract to operate the £2.5bn ScotRail franchise – and handed it to Abellio, an offshoot of the state-owned Dutch national railways. The decision was criticised by unions, who warned it would mean Scottish taxpayers effectively subsidising rail passengers in Holland. “Scotland could have taken control of its own railways,” said Mick Cash, the general secretary of the RMT union at the time. “Instead profits will be sucked out of the system to underpin investment and fares in Holland.”
But the Scottish Government defended the plans, saying Abellio was simply offering a better deal to both passengers and the taxpayer. It highlighted the company’s plans for reduced fares for jobseekers, a commitment to a living wage for staff, as well as more trains and £5 fares between any two Scottish cities. The deal emphasised the global nature of public service provision today – while First-Group lost out to a Dutch company, it too is international and runs America’s culturally iconic Greyhound buses.
Foreign firms running our services
Transport
State-owned foreign company: Abellio Owned/controlled by: Holland Dividend withdrawn in last two years: £20m Runs: Greater Anglia, Northern, Scotrail (just granted), Merseyrail, Bus services across London and the UK
State-owned foreign company: Keolis UK Owned/controlled by: France Dividend withdrawn in last two years: £37.9m Runs (part or fully): Docklands Light Railway, Gatwick Express, London Midland, Southern, South Eastern, Thameslink Gt Northern, TransPennine
State-owned foreign company: Arriva UK Trains Owned by: Germany Dividend withdrawn in last two years: £15m Runs (part or fully): Chiltern, Cross Country, Grand Central, London Overground, Wales & Borders
State-owned foreign company: MTR Owned by: Hong Kong Dividend withdrawn in last two years: £7m (estimate) Runs part of: London Overground
State-owned foreign company: SNCF Owned/controlled by: France Dividend withdrawn in last two years: £19.8m Runs part of: Eurostar
State-owned foreign company: SNCB Owned by: Belgium Dividend withdrawn in last two years: £1.8m Runs part of: Eurostar
7 May 2013: The Jewish Contribution to the European Integration Project – Centre for the Study of European Politics and Society – Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
An annual workshop
Convened by the “Centre for the Study of European Politics and Society and the Department of Politics and Government” (CSEPS). It’s purpose is to examine and discuss the Jewish contribution to the on-going European integration project.
Attending:
Dr. Sharon Pardo, Director Centre for the Study of European Politics and Society, Jean Monnet National Centre of Excellence at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
Dr. Hubertusvon Morr, Ambassador (ret), Lecturer in International Law and Political Science, Bonn University.
Mr. Franco Burgio, Programme Coordinator European Commission, Brussels.
Mr. Michael Mertes, Director Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Israel.
Ambassador Alvaro Albacete, Envoy of the Spanish Government for Relations with the Jewish Community and Jewish Organisations.
Dr. Dov Maimon, Jewish People Policy Institute, Israel.
Mr. Andras Baneth, Co-founder European Training Academy, Belgium.
Extract from the opening address
The Jew has always been deemed to have competing loyalties and affiliations, being a member of a religion, an ethnic group, and even at one point a ‘race’. To the extent, therefore, that the European integration project is creating a similar crisis at the heart of European citizenry, today all Europeans are, in some metaphorical sense, Jews.
Interestingly enough, this metaphorical sense is not lost on EU leadership, who often speak of the need to learn from the history of European Jews and draw on European Jewry as a model for emulation within the EU.
As Romano Prodi, former President of the European Commission and former Italian Prime Minister has put it: “I believe we can learn a lot from the history of the Jews of Europe. In many ways they are the first, the oldest Europeans… We, the new Europeans, are just starting to learn the complex art of living with multiple allegiances – allegiance to our home town, to our own region, to our home country, and now to the European Union. The Jews have been forced to master this art since antiquity. They were both Jewish and Italian, or Jewish and French, Jewish and Spanish, Jewish and Polish, Jewish and German. Proud of their ties with Jewish communities throughout the continent and equally proud of their bonds with their own country.”
In fact, the EU leadership views European Jewry as somehow the constitutive minority of the Union, despite or rather precisely because the most patently historical link between the European project and European Jewry is the Second World War.
After all, the EU was born out of the atrocities of the past as an effort to reconcile the religious, cultural and linguistic differences of Europe.
Moreover, to the extent that religious tensions continue to affect the European space, the EU leaders expect the Jewish communities to take a central role in improving and promoting inter-religious and inter-community relations in the EU.
In practical terms, this means an expectation that European Jewish communities work to improve their relations with the Muslim communities in all EU Member States, and that Jews living in the EU Member States broaden their struggle against anti-Semitism to include other categories of racial and religious discrimination, including of course Islamophobia.
Another expectation that the EU has from its Jewish communities regards Israel. The EU views the Jewish communities as a broker that brings it closer to Israel, or in ther words, as a bridge between the EU and Israel. EU leadership expects the Jewish communities to assist the EU institutions in cementing the ties with Israel.
Is anyone analysing the outcome of the marginals in the 2016 Scottish election?
It is imperative the SNP learn from the strategic error of relying on a blanket, “one message fits all approach” when the electorate of a number of marginal constituencies were clearly in need of a local approach, (which was duly delivered by opportunist Unionist politicians.)
Many opinion polls published prior to the election gave indication of an SNP whitewash of all other Parties, but the under noted candidates confounded predictions by winning their seats in Holyrood.
My take on events of 5 May 2016 is detailed below. Please feel free to add comment so that I might improve the analysis before forwarding it to SNP management for consideration.
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson won Edinburgh Central from the SNP
Edinburgh Central – Ruth Davidson – Tory
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson won the Edinburgh Central seat from the SNP. Davidson, who had previously been elected to Holyrood through the list, beat SNP candidate Alison Dickie by 610 votes. She received 10,399 votes, an increase of 15% from 2011 when the Conservatives came fourth.
What happened?
* The electorate in Edinburgh Central is notorious for its illogical voting patterns. Since 1999 it has returned Labour, SNP and most recently Tory MSP’s.
* Davidson ran a very personal campaign, capitalising on her high-profile media presence, suppressing the Tory brand in her campaign leaflets.
* Davidson’s primary strategy was to attack Labour. Their campaign headline “Ruth Davidson for a strong opposition” portraying Kezia Dugdale as a weak and ineffectual leader worked a treat. Many labour voters switched their allegiance to the Tory party.
* The SNP majority was defending a wafer thin 237 majority and was a ripe target for any strategic voting and there was a lot of it in the constituency.
Aberdeenshire West was won by Alexander Burnett (Scottish Conservatives)
Aberdeenshire West – Alexander Burnett – Tory
*The SNP lost the seat to Alexander Burnett (Tory) who was elected after the Tory party’s share of the vote surged 17%. But why the surge?
Daddy’s boy Oliver Mundell with Ruth
Dumfriesshire – Oliver Mundell – Tory
The son of Scottish Secretary David Mundell, won the Dumfriesshire seat, with 13,536 votes.
Twenty-six-year-old Mr Mundell spoke of helping to deliver leaflets for his father at the age of just eight.
He claimed (lied) he had joined the the Scottish Conservatives in 2012 after being inspired by the leadership of Ruth Davidson.
The SNP candidate Joan McAlpine came second with 12,306 votes.
Mundell said that during his hard-fought campaign, the message he was getting from local people was that Dumfries and Galloway is the “forgotten part of Scotland.
That’s what I want to change. “All I want to do is make sure the people in this region get the representation I think they’ve been lacking over the last few years.”
Jackson Carlaw with friend and fellow Unionist Jackie Baillie
Eastwood – Jackson Carlaw – Tory
Deputy Party Leader Carlaw, joined the party in 1978. A car salesman he tried and failed on three occasions to win the Eastwood constituency seat, in 2003, 2007 and 2011, before finally succeeding in 2016.
A list MSP from 2007 representing the West of Scotland for the past nine years, he stood for the party’s leadership when Annabel Goldie resigned in 2011, losing out to Ruth Davidson.
He was appointed as Davidson’s deputy and went on earn a reputation as one of the Tories’ strongest performers at the Scottish Parliament.
As expected, Ken Macintosh (Labour) lost the seat. But to the Tory canadidate not SNP
East Lothian – Iain Gray – Labour
This was a seat that should have been won by the SNP.
Dumbarton – Jackie Baillie Labour
How in hell did she manage to hold onto the constituency with 109 votes?
* She played the “local” card with distinction. A local I spoke to said “she is a pain in the neck and useless as an MSP but she does a deal of good work for the community.
* She milked the threatened closure of the local hospital at every opportunity.
* She turned her back of Labour when given the choice of supporting the “No Trident” Party policy or siding with a small part of the electorate dependent on “Trident” for their living.
Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie was smiling after winning Fife North East from the SNP but his party ended the night being pushed into fifth place by the Greens
North East Fife – Willie Rennie Lib/Dem
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie took the Fife North East seat from the SNP..
The politician, who had secured his 2011 seat through the list vote, beat SNP candidate rival Roderick Campbell by 3,465 votes.
Rennie received 14,928 votes, an increase of 15% from 2011.
He said: “It feels fantastic to have won North East Fife back for the Liberal Democrats. A big majority of 3,000 against a Nationalist tide.”
He added: “It’s a tremendous result for the Liberal Democrats in North East Fife.”
In his victory speech, he said it had been a “positive, uplifting campaign” and added: “I’ve had the time of my life in this campaign.”
How did he do it?
* He wrapped himself in the glory of the retiring Ming Campbell who held the constituency for many a year.
* The constituency is very largely rural with a significant farming community. Sustained attacks by the Tory and Lib/Dem on the SNP government over the distribution of the Common Market subsidies had an effect.
* Rennie enjoyed blanket positive coverage throughout the campaign by a compliant Unionist media. Being photo-bombed by a pair of amorous pigs enhanced his image as a fun seeking but serious politician.
* He was happy to accept the role of underdog. Acting the goat whenever the situation presented itself. Clearly copying the tactics of Boris Johnson. See his facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/WillieRennieLibDem/
* St Andrews University and it’s feeder schools is a known hotbed of Unionist support. Many students are English.
* The constituency has a large, (older ) voter base and is relatively prosperous in comparison with the South of Fife.
* Rennie is a local boy, born and schooled (Cupar) in the area.
* Known for his Charity work Alex Cole-Hamilton has stood for the Lib Dems in this seat a number of times.
* His team anticipated ongoing investigation and negative publicity around sitting MP Michelle Thomson (who had resigned the SNP party whip) would assist his campaign.
* He said an “old-fashioned campaign” won Edinburgh Western for the Lib Dem.
* He went on to say that the Lib Dem had ran a massive campaign over the last year, knocking on upwards of 25,000 doors since the 2015 general election.
* He freely admitted it was an old-fashioned way of campaigning – but it had worked a treat and they noticed a shift away from the SNP over the winter.
* In his closing statement he said “We will build fortresses in these constituencies and we will defend them to the hilt.”
* The constituency had previously, (for many years) been a Lib/Dem stronghold in both Holyrood and Westminster.
* Even the 2015 SNP landslide only achieved a 6% swing from the sitting Lib Dem MP.
* The SNP candidate did not reside in the constituency and his Lib/Dem opponents made an issue of it to the detriment of Tony Giugliano
The Northern Isles
Willie Rennie always boasted the party would be safe in the Northern Isles. Even when factoring in the unwelcome adverse publicity of Orkney and Shetland MP Alistair Carmichael who badly damaged the party’s image when he denied but admitted in court that he had conduct an unfounded smear campaign against Nicola Sturgeon.
In another seemingly top EU priority, the meddling European lawmakers made it illegal for prunes to be sold as a superfood that fights bowel problems
The demography of Northern European nations, (including the UK) is changing with increasing speed due primarily to the uncontrolled inward acceptance of massive numbers of migrants and loosely termed refugee’s from Southern, Eastern Europe, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan Pakistan and other Middle Eastern nations.
Demographic change is now firmly at the forefront of political discussion and is the subject of political debate in many EU developed countries.
There is the added future difficulty that migrant families are much larger than those of the bulk of EU Northern European nations which have birth rates below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman.
What is also frustrating for the electorates of the EU are the demands (supported by threats of financial punishment for transgressors) of faceless and unelected EU bureaucrats for larger and larger pots of money to be sent to Brussels to be used to bail out Southern and Eastern Europe and the very real prospect of Turkey forcing their membership on the EU through blackmail using the migrant crisis as the weapon of successful intent.
An additional 80 million potential Turkish benefit claimants further stripping the Northern EU countries finances is not acceptable. The UK is best out of it.
Syrian Migrant misses his children
Friday May 27 2016: Too sick to work migrant’ now wants to bring 12 MORE children and 2 more wives to Europe
A Syrian migrant who arrived in Europe with his wife and eight children has now been given approval to bring over twelve more kids and another two wives.
Politicians in Denmark have condemned the asylum seeker policy which will allow Daham Al Hasan to rake in thousands in benefits once his huge family is reunited. The 47-year-old fled war-torn Syria two years ago with a wife and eight children before arriving in Denmark. The unemployed migrant, who claims to be too sick to work, has now been granted family reunification for his remaining 12 children and two wives who are still in Syria.
Outraged officials have raised concerns about the policy and suggested the Syrian man is exploiting the country’s welfare system. Integration spokesperson for the Conservatives, Naser Khader, said: “It is highly problematic that a Syrian refugee can be allowed to call himself sick to avoid working and learning Danish, so he can support… 20 children.” The politician added it should not be possible for someone who does not intend to work to be given such vast sums and called for Denmark to implement an upper limit for the number of children a person can claim contributions for. He said: “We need to save and it can’t be right that a man, who has not contributed, is granted hundreds of thousands in child support.”
Following the criticism directed towards him, the Syrian migrant insisted he is still too sick to work. Al Hasan told local media: “I don’t only have psychological problems, but also physical [problems]. I have a pain in my back and legs.” The migrant also said the pain was so overwhelming that he could not learn Danish yet. The anger comes after it was revealed five Syrian migrants are suing the Danish Government and foreign minister over a strict new asylum policy. It stated that family reunification for asylum seekers would take up-to three years, prompting the Syrians to claim it was breaching their human rights. Full story here: http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/674203/sick-work-migrant-bring-12-MORE-children-2-MORE-wives-Europe-Denmark-Syria
Where are all the female migrants?
Sunday May 29 2016: MPs demand Syrian migrant DNA tested to stop him bringing his 20 children to Europe
A Syrian migrant who claims he is too sick to work could be DNA tested in a bid to try and stop him bringing over his 20 children and three wives to Europe. Daham Al Hasan outraged the public by claiming denying his sprawling family access to Europe and its welfare system was breaching his human rights. This didn’t stop the 47-year-old making comments that he did not agree with Western culture.
Furious politicians have now demanded the Syrian migrant undergoes a DNA test to prove they are blood-related before they are able to settle in Denmark.
Liberal Eva Kjer Hansen said: “The way he talks about Danish society, and his perception of rights, is extremely provocative. “I think think DNA testing should be considered to be certain that they are his children.”
Danish People’s Party’s Marie Krarup also wants the family to be DNA tested. She said: “I want those children DNA tested. And I think that only children from one of the three mothers, the mother who is already in Denmark, should be reunited. The other children should not be here. “I basically think that the family reunification rules are wrong. It should not be have been possible for him to take the children here.” http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/674694/MPs-demand-Syrian-migrant-DNA-TESTED-stop-bringing-20-children-Europe Citizens commented:
Are you people serious! For the love of God! Polygamy is illegal in Europe…is it not?…then why allow foreigners to break the law, have 3 wives, then grant them legal entry and then add insult to injury by actually giving them a benefit to enable them to continue to break the law?! No westerners are allowed to marry more than one woman in their country (and they are forbidden to marry foreigners in their country too). Why are you granting immigrants far more leniency than your own citizens? Your government & immigration laws are ridiculously one-eyed, one sided and discriminative!
All of the reasons given for not wanting the refugees are exactly the same as anywhere else except that some of us are not given the choice.
Increased crime, Language difficulties, No jobs, special classes needed for their children, encouraging others to make the journey, sexual molestation.
500 refugees, were deposited in Middlesbrough, last week with no warning – Just turned up at a school, where mums were picking up their children. Middlesbrough is a deprived area of the UK, where unemployment is high. Teesside has been repeatedly let down by various governments over the years; the coal mining industry (Destroyed by Thatcher), the ship-building industry (Swan Hunter), the steel industry, (Tata and the Redcar blast furnaces) and now, even if the newly arrived freeloaders wanted to work, there is no work. It would be so nice if the people of Middlesbrough were asked what they wanted. I can see civil unrest on the horizon.
Monday 14 March 2016: New Bombshell for EU: Danish politicians demand referendum after voter shift on union
More EU turmoil is looming with more than 33% of Danes signalling they would vote to leave Brussels if a referendum was held tomorrow.
The figure of 33 per cent represents a major shift towards joining growing animosity towards the union when compared to only 25 per cent wanting to leave in 2013.The calls for independence from the red-tape loving bureaucrats comes as The People’s Movement Against the EU has demanded the government holds a referendum in the country.
The cross-party campaign platform argues after 40 years as members of the 28-strong block, it was time to give the next generation of Danes a vote. It has now launched a petition to force the government’s hand on the issue.
June 2016: Germany to scrap ‘cultural immunity’ and will no longer allow migrants to have multiple marriages or child brides
Some migrants arrive in Germany with more than one wife, it is reported
Officials have been urged to stop ‘turning a blind eye’ to the practice
They must also clamp down on underage marriages, justice minister said
Germany will no longer allow migrants to have multiple wives or child brides, the justice minister has said. Heiko Maas told the press that no one has the ‘right to place their cultural values or religious beliefs above our laws’.
There has been increased concern over polygamous marriages in the wake of a rise in the number of migrants arriving in Germany, many from Muslim countries. While polygamy is already banned in Germany, many officials ‘turn a blind eye’ to migrants who arrive in the country with more than one wife, the newspaper reports. This is also true of forced and underage marriages.
Mr Maas told the tabloid: ‘We need to look very carefully. Forced marriages, we can not tolerate, and certainly not when underage girls are involved. He added: ‘Everyone must abide by rules and laws, whether they grew up here or are new. The law is equal for all.’ Referring to migrants arriving with underage brides, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees told local media: ‘If the wife is underage, the youth authorities are alerted and they decide if the family stays together or not.’
It comes as a new academic study by researchers at the University of Leipzig found that nearly 34 per cent of people quizzed thought Germany is ‘dangerously overpopulated by foreigners.’ Overall 12 per cent think Germans are by nature ‘superior’ to other people – a central plank of the ideology of Adolf Hitler and the original Nazis.
Other findings included four out of every ten people thinking Muslims should be prohibited from immigrating to the country and half of respondents in a survey of 2,240 people saying they feel like ‘foreigners in their own country.’
Thirty per cent claimed Germany had been ‘infiltrated by too many foreigners in a dangerous way.’ And three out of every five Germans believe migrants who have arrived in the country seeking sanctuary from war and terror are bogus. ‘There has been no increase in extreme right attitudes, but in comparison with a study from two years ago people who have far-right attitudes are more prepared to use violence to achieve their aims,’ said Dr Oliver Decker, one of the report’s authors.
The recent furore, (without foundation) created by the right wing press in Scotland, (namely “The Herald” and “The Scottish Daily Mail”) over two SNP MP’s (both legally separated from their wives), their dalliances with an attractive actress/model and alleged inappropriate submission of overnight accommodation expense claims pales into insignificance when compared with very recent, sparsely reported scandals within the Tory Party.
In the process of the scandal, to which I refer and give notice of below, the office of David Cameron is brought into disrepute through the activities of a key Tory activist. We have: Massive expense claims, recovering the cost of overnight, “lovenest” accommodation, Blackmail, illicit sex, orgies, suicide and other unsavoury happenings
16 November 2015: Pressure mounts on Tory cabinet minister as sex and blackmail scandal deepens
The Conservative Party’s 46-year-old deputy chairman, Robert Halfon has admitted to a 6 month affair with the chair of the party’s youth wing, Conservative Future chair Alexandra Paterson, 16 years his junior. And in an astonishing twist, he claimed the affair only came to light after one of the Prime Minister’s election aides tried to blackmail them.
Halfon, who has a long-term partner, began the affair with the 29-year-old activist and member of Conservative Future in November 2014. When questioned he said “What I did was wrong, and I feel ashamed. I am not proud of myself. The most important thing to me is to repair my relationship with my partner”
Robert Halfon 46yo and 29yo Conservative Future chair Alexandra Paterson had an affair and were blackmailed by ???
22 November 2015: The scandal surrounding a Conservative aide expelled from the party deepened last night with claims he blackmailed a colleague over a sex tape.
Mark Clarke was ejected from the party earlier this week amid accusations of bullying and blackmail. The bullying allegations against him emerged following the suicide of 21-year-old Tory activist Elliott Johnson.
According to the “Mail on Sunday” Clarke made a copy of a sex film one of his Tory rivals was tricked into performing on the internet. The video was then posted to Facebook, which the rival claims was done by Mr Clarke after demanding – but being refused – a blackmail sum of £2,500. Clarke denied the allegation, along with all previous allegations. But he had previously admitted he tried to expose the film in the media to prevent such scams happening in future. Meanwhile, the Sunday Times claimed two other young Tory activists have attempted suicide since the death of Mr Johnson as a result of bullying in the party.
The paper also reported that party vice-chairman Robert Halfon claimed more than £30,000 in expenses for stays at the prestigious East India Club, where it has emerged he was conducting his affair with 29 year old, Conservative Future chair Alexandra Paterson .
Halfon confessed to the affair, with a much younger member of his staff after also accusing Mr Clarke of blackmail. It was claimed that Mr Clarke had planned to photograph Halfon and his lover leaving the East India Club, where they met.
Sex, suicide and chilling threats… the scandal engulfing the PM’s chum.
I have great admiration for the 13,413 Dumbarton voters who on 5 May 2016 supported the SNP candidate, Gail Robertson. So close to defeating Jackie Baillie who enjoyed a pyrrhic victory by 106 votes.
But her victorywasachieved at greatcost to the party she purports to support. Her stance also further confirmed the deep divisions within the Labour Party in Scotland. The shaky truce between, “New Labour” supporters and the Corbyn team is now well exposed and unfortunately the further demise of the Labour Party will continue for some time yet.
26 October 1999: Minister Jackie Baillie Backs Scrapping Trident
A Minister in the Scottish Executive has admitted publicly to being in favour of scrapping Trident, it was confirmed last night as the Opposition SNP moved to exploit Government concern at the controversial judgement of a Greenock sheriff who ruled that Trident was illegal.
In the wake of Sheriff Gimblett’s ruling that the nuclear deterrent based on the Clyde contravened the law as viewed by the International Court, the Opposition SNP last night asked if ministerial collective responsibility in Scotland applied to reserved as well as devolved areas.
Ms Jackie Baillie, Deputy Minister for Communities, replied to a CND questionnaire posted on the Internet before the Scottish Parliament elections saying she supported the scrapping of Trident. (Highbeam)
27 February 2007: The Pork-Barrel Component of Trident
I suspect there is only one job Jackie Baillie is anxious to protect at the moment. Mrs Baillie has put on a bravura performance pretending to be concerned with employment while actually defending Scotland’s place as a humble cog in the US military industrial machine and her own interest in the pork-barrel arrangements which flow there from.
Trident is about the British taxpayer subsidising the US defence industry and providing, gratis, an ICBM submarine squadron to the US Navy.
The pork-barrel part is that impoverished / Labour – dominated (same thing, really) areas like Mrs Baillie’s constituency (20% of households living in poverty) get very few relatively well- paid, ferociously subsidised defence jobs. (Highbeam)
19 October 2007: Reasons to be cynical
Jackie Baillie has tabled a question at Holyrood about the cost of the summit “Scotland Without Nuclear Weapons” convened by the Scottish Government. Her concerns, (related to the cost of the hire of a hall and some sandwiches) is in stark contrast to her support of political policies forcing the Scottish taxpayer to fork out billions of pounds being the nations share of the Trident renewal programme. This new charge being, added to the billions already paid for Trident system. Ms Baillie has become Scotland’s most vociferous supporter of nuclear weapons, no doubt in the hope of continuing to save her political skin as MSP for Faslane. (Highbeam) comment: But she said she was anti-Trident ?
Jackie is “New Labour” to the core
28 October 2012: Jackie Baillie Trident job loss claims challenged by official MoD figures
Claims by Labour MSP Jackie Baillie that the Trident nuclear weapons system sustains 11,000 Scottish jobs have been called into question following a Freedom of Information request by Scottish CND. Figures obtained from the Ministry of Defence by the nuclear disarmament group show that the total number of jobs directly linked to Trident is a mere 520. According to official figures only 159 are employed by the Ministry of Defence and 361 are employed by contractors.
Labour MSP Jackie Baillie has been a regular critic of the SNP’s policy over the siting of nuclear weapons on the Clyde. Ms Baillie has repeatedly claimed that having Trident creates 11,000 jobs, with thousands more set to be generated through plans to expand the naval base. Speaking on her official Labour party website, Ms Bailie said: “There are over 11,000 jobs dependent on the base.
The SNP would remove Trident, devastating our local economy and turning Helensburgh into a ghost town.” Ms Baillie also claimed that the renewal of the nuclear weapons system and the expansion of the base would create thousands more jobs and added: “The SNP also fail to acknowledge that almost 3,000 new jobs will be created with the impending expansion of the base. These too would be jeopardised by the SNP plans to scrap Trident.”
Dismissing his Labour opponent’s claim as nonsense, SNP MSP, Bill Kidd, said: “Trident is, in reality, a jobs-destroyer, and attempts to justify the presence of weapons of mass destruction on the Clyde in terms of jobs is the worst kind of nonsense, as Jackie Baillie knows only too well.” (http://newsnet.scot/2012/10/baillie-trident-jobs-claim-challenged-by-official-mod-figures/)
Scottish Referendum: Baillie and her Unionist Tory colleague Jackson Carlaw at Better Together fundraising event in Gartocharn, January 2014
19 November 2015: First Minister Holds Shameful Jackie Baillie to Account
You need to look no further than Labour’s Jackie Baillie to see why the people of Scotland have rejected this unionist party in their droves. Baillie shamelessly prodded Nicola Sturgeon by saying “She hopes the FM will eventually agree with Labour in restoring the cuts to tax credits”. When asked in a recent interview how Labour would pay for restoring the cuts, her answer was ridiculous gibberish that insulted the intelligence of every Scot.
The hypocrisy of Baillie is breathtaking…as the First Minister pointed out, Labour voted with the Tories against devolving tax credits and voted for spending £167 Billion on “independent” Trident nuclear missiles, that we can’t use without America’s permission, while children go hungry and homeless. Needless to say, the First Minister held her to account in no uncertain terms and exposes her shameful hypocrisy. Video and report here: :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKkX9TXYDIUhttp://atrueindependentscotland.com/first-minister-holds-shameful-jackie-baillie-to-account/
22 April 2016: Jackie Baillie Goes Rogue on Labour with support for Trident Nuclear Weapons Upgrade
The Labour politician currently MSP for the Dumbarton constituency is standing for re-election. She is also at the top of the party’s West of Scotland regional list. But questions are being raised about her suitability as a Party (list) candidate after she publicly vowed to defy the Party’s official policy on Trident.
In refusing to back her party’s manifesto commitment opposing the renewal of the nuclear weapons system she provided support to the GMB union who represent defence and shipyard workers at Faslane and also voted to retain Trident. Their representative also rebuked the conference stating that the debate was a nonsense and utter indulgence and the GMB was standing against “Alice in Wonderland politics.”
Baillie, whose Dumbarton constituency includes the naval base, said: “Faslane is the biggest single-site employer in Scotland. More than a quarter of West Dunbartonshire’s full-time workforce are employed there in good quality, well-paid jobs.” She then hit out at the SNP, who want to move the Trident submarines from the Clyde, describing their stance as “nimbyism on a national scale and “the worst kind of gesture politics”. Baillie’s husband Stephen, a high ranking officer with the GMB union did not contribute to the debate but was no doubt pleased with his wife’s contribution.
A report published last year by union umbrella group the STUC and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament stated just 520 civilian jobs at HMNB Clyde are “directly reliant on Trident”, 132 of which are held by workers from Argyll and Bute and 178 by staff from West Dunbartonshire. The STUC, which calls for the establishment of a Defence Diversification Agency, says alternative roles can be found or created.
At the STUC congress in Dundee this week, Jane Carolan of Unison said her union has a “proud record of defending quality employment”, but argued replacing Trident would be “catastrophic”. She said Government figures show no jobs would be lost for 15 years, adding: “For the cost of Trident we could have 100,000 more firefighters, 120,000 nurses, 120,000 teachers. It is a gross misallocation of taxpayers money, our money, where there are so many more vital and constructive ways in which it could be spent.”
South of Scotland region Labour MSP Claudia Beamish told delegates there was a firm commitment to protect defence workers’ jobs regardless of Trident renewal.
Speaking for the locals a councillor said: “Night and day, the Ministry of Defence is transporting nuclear material through our streets. Jackie Baillie’s view has nothing to do with local jobs, it is to do with her protecting her own job. Her argument has always been the local economy is so reliant on it, but the Helensburgh economy has almost collapsed. It has empty shops. It is a fallacy.”
24 May 2016: Turkey threatens to block EU migration deal without visa-free travel
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has warned the European Union that Turkey would block laws related to the landmark deal to stem the flow of migrants to Europe if Ankara was not granted its key demand of visa-free travel within the bloc.
At the close of the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, Turkey’s president said: “If that is not what will happen … no decision and no law in the framework of the readmission agreement will come out of the parliament of the Turkish republic.”
Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel warned after talks with Erdoğan on Monday that the target of the end of this month to agree visa-free travel for Turks was unlikely to be met.
The agreement, which is already being implemented, saw Turkey pledge to work to stop migrants cross the Aegean to Europe and also readmit migrants who crossed illegally.
EU officials have hailed the success of the deal, but Ankara has grown increasingly uneasy about the bloc’s wariness to grant it the visa-free travel to the passport-free Schengen area it was offered in return.
Erdoğan also complained about the EU’s wariness in handing over to Turkey a promise of €3bn followed by another €3bn to help Syrian refugees.
“Turkey is not asking for favours – what we want is honesty,” Erdoğan said in an angry tirade that overshadowed the end of the summit.
“Turkey is supposed to fulfil criteria? What criteria are these I ask you?”
EU leaders are insisting that Turkey abides by 72 conditions before the visa exemption takes place, with a demand to change counter-terror laws proving particularly contentious.
Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, recently agreed a EU deal with Turkey on Syrian migrants. This entailed Turkey closing it’s doors to an ever increasing flood of migrants and also accepting a return to Turkey of any such refugees or migrants deemed to be unacceptable to the EU. A forceful President Erdoğan (realising he held all the important negotiating cards) demanded (and got) visa-free travel for Turks, loadsa financial support, (measured in billions) accelerated EU accession talks and for Brussels to ignore human rights abuses in return for his cooperation. David Cameron signed up to the agreement.
The deal apparently applies within the “Schengen Area” of the EU only. This is the area including 26 European countries that abolished passport and any other type of border controls at their mutual borders. The area functions therefore as a single country for international travel purposes, with a common visa policy. The UK and Ireland are not signatories to the agreement.
But without controls Turkey will probably, at some future date, flood the EU with millions of it’s own disaffected citizens as it rapidly abandons, (in favour of an “Islamist” agenda) any remaining pretence of maintaining its “Secular” status, and other safeguards, written into the nations constitution by the founding father of modern Turkey “Mustafa Kemal Ataturk”. More info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_policy_of_the_Schengen_
14 March 2016: Turkey: a disintegrating ally and imaginary friend
The knee-jerk response of Turkey’s leaders to a suicide bombing in Ankara that killed 37 people and injured more than 100 suggests that Turkey’s Islamic strongman president, Erdoğan and his neo-Islamist party are fresh out of ideas about how to halt what looks increasingly like Turkey’s slide into chaos. Once-dependable Turkey seems in danger of implosion. Under Erdoğan, Turkey is the west’s disintegrating ally and Europe’s imaginary friend.
Erdoğan claimed the bombing provided further evidence of Turkey’s life-or-death national struggle against shadowy forces bent on victimising and destroying Turkey. But this is the message he uses to win elections, rally nationalists and de-legitimise opponents: “Our state will never give up using its right of self-defence in the face of all kinds of terror threats. All of our security forces, with its soldiers, police and village guards, have been conducting a determined struggle against terror organisations at the cost of their lives,” Erdoğan said, ignoring the fact that Sunday’s victims were civilians. Officials, without evidence pinned the blame, predictably, on the Kurdistan Workers party (PKK).
Following his usual script, Erdoğan authorised retaliatory air-strikes on PKK targets in northern Iraq, another example of how the Turkish leader lashes out under pressure. It is a dangerous reflex. Last year, Erdoğan ordered the shooting down of a Russian warplane that briefly entered Turkish airspace from Syria. Bilateral relations have been dreadful ever since.
Security forces also intensified operations in ethnic Kurdish areas of southern and south-eastern Turkey that have killed hundreds of people and displaced tens of thousands since last year. Curfews and martial law, backed up by tanks, were imposed on Monday on Yüksekova and Şırnak, near the Iraq border, and Nusaybin, close to Syria.
Turkey’s internal Kurdish problem is only one of the challenges that Erdoğan’s confrontational approach appears to exacerbate. Turkey is at war, on and off, with Syrian Kurdish militias fighting Isis in northern Syria. Ankara fears they may try to create a separate political entity linked to the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq and even Turkey itself.
Signs of societal disintegration may also be seen in Erdoğan’s manipulation of the judiciary, repeated threats to prosecute pro-Kurdish MPs and politicians, curbs on media freedom and independent journalism, unchecked corruption, and his attempt to enact a new constitution giving him Vladimir Putin-style presidential powers.
The main opposition Republican People’s party leader said Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) would stop at nothing to stay in power. “Turkey is step by step sliding towards an authoritarian regime … The AKP is currently in a position that it may do everything not to leave power, including [committing] political murder,” he said.
Erdoğan’s for-me-or-against-me stance increasingly pits Turkey against long time allies. The migrant deal, which the UN and aid agencies say is probably illegal, is just the latest flashpoint. Last autumn, when visiting Brussels, he angrily threatened to flood Europe with refugees unless the EU bowed to his cash demands. He often mocks and berates the EU, once calling it an elitist, Islamophobic Christian club. He flatly rejects European criticism of increasingly worrying media controls and human rights abuses.
Erdoğan has also fallen foul of the Obama administration over how best to fight Isis and his cross-border shelling of Syrian Kurdish militias, who Washington regards as useful allies against the jihadis and the Damascus regime.
In a recent interview, Barack Obama described Erdoğan as a failure and an authoritarian. When Turkey shot down the Russian warplane, the US was almost as alarmed as Moscow, especially when Erdoğan called for Nato backup.
2 May 2016: President Erdoğan crack down on any opposition to Islamic rule
A brawl erupted in Turkey’s parliament over proposed changes to the constitution. Lawmakers at a constitutional commission meeting were discussing a government-backed proposal to remove parliamentary immunity from MPs when the fight broke out.
The legislation is seen by some as yet another sign of growing authoritarianism in Turkey
In recent years, Erdogan’s government has cracked down hard on freedom of speech and freedom of the press, arresting journalists on charges of terrorism and espionage for criticizing the government, issuing media blackouts in the wake of terror attacks, and frequently shutting down social media platforms like Twitter during times of political crisis, raising concerns over growing authoritarianism in the country.
“In the past year and a half, government prosecutors have opened almost 2,000 cases against Turks for insulting the Turkish president,” notes Uri Friedman in the Atlantic. “One Turkish man lodged a legal complaint against his wife for cursing Erdogan in their own home. Another went on trial for comparing Erdogan to Gollum from The Lord of the Rings.” Some analysts see the government’s latest moves against the pro-Kurdish opposition politicians as further evidence of a return to the authoritarian days of Turkey’s past.
2 May 2016: A brawl erupted in Turkey’s parliament over proposed changes to the constitution
Published on 13 Sep 2015: Turkish and Kurdish activists faced off at Zentrum Kreuzberg in Kottbusser Tor, Berlin.
Published on 11 Sep 2015: Clashes erupted in Frankfurt between Turkish nationalists and pro-Kurdish protesters as riot police struggled to keep the groups apart, Thursday. Rival groups reportedly attacked each other with knives, screw-drivers and bottles. The violence resulted in multiple injuries and 50 arrests.
Published on 28 Oct 2015: 162,700 new migrants entered the Bavarian region of Germany so far this month. 170,000 new migrants entered Bavaria last month. This is the future progressive immigration policies are bringing to Europe.
Published on 4 Apr 2016: Night In Cologne: The New Year’s Eve celebrations that changed Germany’s attitude to refugees
Uploaded on 29 Apr 2011:Lara Logan was beaten and sexually assaulted by a mob in Cairo, while covering the celebrations after Hosni Mubarak stepped down as Egypt’s president. This is “Taharrush”
Published on 12 May 2016: Full version of Brexit: The Movie – the crowdfunded film making the case for Britain to LEAVE the EU on June 23rd. For more info and segments of the film visit http://www.brexitthemovie.com
Rifkind was born in Edinburgh (1946) to a Jewish family that emigrated to Britain in the 1890s from Lithuania.
Among his cousins are Leon and Samuel Brittan.
He was educated at George Watson’s College and the University of Edinburgh where he studied law before taking a postgraduate degree in political science.
He was called to the Scottish Bar in 1970 and practised full-time as an Advocate until 1974.
He was appointed a Queen’s Counsel in 1985 and a member of the Privy Council in 1986.
From 1970 to 1974 he was a member of Edinburgh City Council.
1986: Rifkind promoted into the Tory cabinet as Secretary of State for Scotland.
One of Rifkind’s most difficult challenges was the demand from the public for the abolition of the domestic rates system.
He supported the introduction of the Community Charge, or poll tax, which the Cabinet had approved shortly before his appointment.
He also agreed with the decision, that the new tax should be introduced a year earlier in Scotland than in England because of the political necessity to end the domestic rates.
Rifkind subsequently accepted that the poll tax had been a major mistake by the Government.
1992: Secretary of State for Defence
Rifkind was appointed Secretary of State for Defence after the 1992 general election.
Although he had no military background he was a firm believer in strong defence and armed forces with a global capability.
In 1994 he was faced with Treasury demands for major cuts in the Defence budget.
In order to protect the fighting capability of the armed forces he negotiated a settlement with the Treasury whereby he would deliver savings greater than they were demanding but that he would be allowed to keep the additional savings and use them for the purchase of new military equipment for each of the three Services.
Some his proposals, particularly in regard to defence medical services were, in later years, subjected to heavy criticism.(1)
With some of the additional savings that had been found Rifkind was able to secure the agreement of the United States to British purchase of cruise missiles.
The United Kingdom was, at that time, the only country to which the Americans were willing to sell cruise missiles.
Rifkind also reformed the Reserve Forces and initiated the policy review which led to the TA and other Reservists being able to be used in operations abroad without the need for full mobilization of the whole Territorial Army as had been needed in the past.(2)
(1). He decimated the Royal Army Medical Corps, Royal Dental Corps and supporting services achieving significant financial savings, (which he used to purchase Cruise Missiles from the US.)
He then transferred medical and dental care of the forces to the NHS.
This created major difficulties in the provision of effective treatment and after-care of wounded members of the forces returned to the UK from Iraq and Afgahistan.
(2). He forward plans well in advance of any future threats to the UK.
Had he not made the change the Iraq and Afghanistan wars would not have been possible.
The UK “Reservist” forces were extensively used in combat and support provision in both wars.
1996: Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs-including MI6
In the final years of the Major administration Rifkind was appointed Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.
April 1998: Rifkind calls for pact to block nationalists
Rifkind called for the formation of a cross- party movement to protect the Union and prevent the SNP taking power.
The former foreign secretary’s comments are the first clear indication that the Tory party north of the Border believes that Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats can make common cause in attempting to halt the rise of the SNP.
He said:
“I think there will be a need for a non-party movement in Scotland to support the Union.
There is a powerful Scottish benefit in staying in the Union; it’s very important that we identify common ground.”
Rifkind, the Scottish party’s president, also accused Labour of exploiting “nationalist language” during its spell in opposition:
“The genie is out of the bottle and, like all genies, once they are out of the bottle they are difficult to put back in. (highbeam)
2003: Former foreign minister Martin Rifkind cashes in on Iraq crisis
A private security company headed by former Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind is making millions from a contract to protect Foreign Office staff working in Iraq, it emerged last night.
Armor Group, the biggest ‘mercenary’ security firm working in Iraq, is one of two companies that have raked in a total of £15m between them for providing round-the-clock cover in the treacherous environment of post-war Iraq during the past year.
Rifkind, the Tory candidate in Kensington and Chelsea, sparked protests from political opponents last month when he took over the chairmanship of Armor Group, which has 700 employees in Iraq.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has admitted they are paying the company – along with Control Risks – £ 50,000 every day to protect its bureaucrats stationed in Iraq, amid mounting concerns about the safety of civilians in the war-torn country.
The huge fee was described as a “miniscule amount” by one government official last night.
But furious MPs condemned the outlay as “appalling value for money”, and claimed the government should not be ploughing money into a controversial industry that is making huge profits as part of the reconstruction effort in Iraq. (the Scotsman)
2007: Andrew Fulton (formerly MI6) became the first high-profile former spy to join a listed British company when he was appointed as an adviser to the Armor Group, a firm that provides security services to national governments and large corporations.
The Armor Group, has more than 9,000 employees in 50 locations, (including 500 Gurkha’s and other ex UK and US military) providing security services in 38 countries.
It says its work is to ” identify, reduce and resolve exceptional risks in complex, sometimes hostile, environments”.
A company spokesman said most of its British employees in Iraq were former soldiers “all of whom had seen active service”,
Its Chairman is Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former Conservative foreign and defence secretary.
December 2003: The PFI pioneer: Rifkind, the father of the Private Finance Initiative
After losing the Edinburgh Pentlands seat Rifkind became more involved in his increasingly varied business interests.
His previous work at PricewaterhouseCoopers, a giant in the corporate finance advice world, took him back to the fold of the private finance initiative, a concept that he helped create as a cabinet minister.
Rifkind has been working with PwC in its operations in Central and Eastern Europe for some time.
And his political background made him a natural choice to join the firm’s new European corporate finance board as an adviser on privatisation.
He appeared happy to be out of the political world, for now at least:
“It’s very exciting indeed, having been involved in the very start of the whole process here in the UK, to come back to it now,” he says. (High Beam)
2008: Growing support for the SNP in Scotland triggers activation of secret MI5 anti nationalist working group.
In 2008 the growth in nationalist support in Scotland alarmed the US and Westminster.
The Labour Party was in meltdown and it was entirely possible an SNP government would be in place at Holyrood in 2009.
This would bring with it calls for Scottish independence and a referendum.
There were also on-going problems within the Scottish Tory Party, which had suffered yet another bad election defeat.
Voices within the Party in Scotland had begun to raise the spectre of a split from Westminster control so that the Party in Scotland would revert to its former Unionist Party status forming its own distinctly Scottish policies whilst retaining a more hands off relationship with the Conservative Party at Westminster.
The long prepared (anti-nationalist strategy), designed to deal with these potential problems was put in place.
British (Scots) spymaster Fulton, (a close colleague of Rikind’s for many years) was identified as the most effective “agent for change” available and it was agreed he would apply himself and his extensive resources to the tasks of completing a root and branch reorganisation of the party in Scotland, removing any person, (no matter how senior) who did not fully commit to Westminster Conservative Party ideals.
He would also design a long term strategy undermining the SNP government ensuring any referendum for independence would fail.
It was believed that the SNP would fall apart in the aftermath of a failure to gain independence.
Comment:
Fulton is a major player in the military corporate nexus.
He has been placed in an overtly political position because the UK government is extremely worried about Scottish secession.
He is there to coordinate the destabilisation of the SNP government.
Golf and capuccinos are just distractions, he is a very dangerous individual.
His and the British Secret Service links with right wing elements in control of Glasgow University was exposed in the undernoted blog.
February 2008: Former spy in line for top Scottish Tory job
Former high ranking MI6 intelligence officer, Prof Andrew Fulton (1).
A spy who served behind the Iron Curtain at the height of the Cold War is in line to become chairman of the Scottish Conservative Party in a surprise move agreed by David Cameron and Annabel Goldie, the Scottish leader.
Fulton, whose last posting was “head of station” in Washington, has emerged as one of the favourites for the post that fell vacant when Peter Duncan, the former MP for Dumfries, stood down last summer.
The appointment of the Secret Service intelligence officer, will be seen as an attempt by senior Tories to inject fresh blood and new thinking into the Scottish party, which has struggled to recover from its 1997 wipe-out when it lost all its Scottish MPs.
Last year, he became the first high-profile former spy to join a listed British company when he was appointed as an adviser to the Armor Group (2), a firm that provides security services to national governments and large corporations.
Its non-executive chairman is the Tory grandee Sir Malcolm Rifkind.
He was unmasked as a former spy in 2000 when he was forced to step down as a member of the Lockerbie Trial Briefing Unit which provided media briefings on the trial in Holland of the two Libyans accused of the Lockerbie bombing.
His cover was blown soon after he was included in a list of 116 MI6 officers published on the internet by a disaffected agent in 1999.
The revelation raised concerns that he may have been in a position to influence the way the Lockerbie trial was being reported to ensure the minimum of criticism of the British and American intelligence services.
In his MI6 days, Fulton reportedly had been posted in East Berlin, Saigon, and New York.
He had served as “head of station” in Washington, D.C., and at the peak of his career he was the sixth-most powerful official in the organization.
In 1992, Fulton became the security officer who headed up European operations:
“He was one of the MI6 chiefs handed the plans to kill Serb President Slobodan Milosevic.” (The Telegraph)
(1). Spymaster, Andrew Fulton: Born in Glasgow in 1944, he grew up on the Isle of Bute and attended Rothesay Academy Rothesay.
He went on to study Law at the Glasgow University, graduating MA, LLB (1962–1967).
Career history:
Diplomat: HM Diplomatic Service: (MI6) July 1968 – January 1999 (30 years 7 months): postings in Saigon, Rome, East Berlin, Oslo, the United Nations in New York and finally Washington DC.
President, (Founding Chairman): Scottish North American Business Council, (part of the British American Business network): January 1999 – Present (17 years 4 months)
Chairman: Global Scot World Wide Network (GPW): January 2001 – Present (16 years 4 months): global leaders in business intelligence, corporate investigations, dispute resolution, support and political risk management.
Senior Non Executive Director, IndigoVision: January 2011 – Present (5 years 4 months): United Kingdom based company engaged in the design, development, manufacture and sale of networked video security systems.
The Company’s segments include Europe, the Middle East and Africa; North America, Latin America and Asia Pacific. Its cameras, encoders, network video recorders and software are designed both internally and with technology partners and manufactured in Asia and Europe.
The Company’s end to end Internet protocol (IP) video security systems allow full motion video to be transmitted around the world, in real time, with digital quality and security, over local or other area networks, wireless links or the Internet, using market compression technology to minimize the usage of network bandwidth.
Senior adviser (All-Party Parliamentary MENA* Group at Westminster): 2013 – Present:
*The term MENA is an English-language acronym referring to an extensive region, extending from Morocco to Iran, including all Middle Eastern and Maghreb countries.
Fulton is the senior intelligence person advising the most senior political group in Westminster on all matters. (Wikipedia)
June 2009: Is Andrew Fulton, Tory Chairman still an MI6 Spy or Asset?
Let’s remember the Tories, in particular MI6 Station Chief, currently Chairman of the Tories in Scotland, Andrew Fulton.
Fulton is also involved in the Scottish North American Business Council and listed as an advisor to various organisations involved in intelligence matters.
Fulton was placed in the Glasgow University Lockerbie Briefing Unit until his cover was blown.
His title of Visiting Professor was allowed to be given to him by then Glasgow University Principal Graeme Davis.
Davis was also a member of the Scottish North American Business Council (SNABC)(1).
The unusual thing about Fulton’s Professorship was that he had never worked in the legal profession in any capacity, had never taught classes and did no research at Glasgow University.
So how was he suitable to be a Visiting Professor of Law?
It is probable that Graham Davis permitted MI6 to plant Fulton in the Media unit.
The American ambassador Philip Lader was also a member of the (SNABC) at the same time.
So this may have been used as a front organisation to allow Fulton and Lader to meet without drawing attention to them and talk about Lockerbie and how to handle the press to steer them away from the Americans.
(1). The (SNABC) is a little known but well connected atlanticist body aimed at fostering closer relations between business in Scotland and the US.
It is the Scottish chapter of the British-American Business Council.
It has interesting intelligence connections.
The current Chairman is former MI6 man Andrew Fulton, who was exposed as having been a former MI6 agent whilst working inside Glasgow University based Lockerbie Commission.
The former US ambassador to the UK Philip Lader (also chair of the board of spin conglomerate WPP) is also on board.
The Council retains Media House International for PR and its executive chairman Jack Irvine is a former board member. (Powerbase)
October 2009: Fools Believe in James Bond
There is of course a very long history of ‘ex’ (but are they really ever, ‘ex’?) intelligence officers and associated assets moving into overt, democratic politics.
Apart from Paddy Ashdown, it is also commom knowledge that Andrew Fulton, Margaret (‘Meta’) Ramsey and Pauline Neville-Jones, were but three of the more prominent contemporary figures who hold or have held key positions of influence/ gatekeeping in major political parties and national institutions (eg. the BBC).
This is concerning, but hardly unexpected.
Frankly, I am surprised that anyone would be at all surprised that a similar trajectory may apply in the case of Rory Stewart; to anyone with eyes and ears, it’s been rather obvious for some time.
I’m not sure he’s a neocon, more an old-style British imeperialistic adventurer a la Richard Burton, T. E. Lawrence, etc. – though in the end the difference may be somewhat academic.
I guess these differences among the elite relate to how best to manage an empire.
He’s an excellent writer, as many know, and on a personal level, even though it’s likely that if we got down to it, we would disagree on many things, particularly as regards wealth distribution, militarism and imperialism, at the risk of sounding hopelessly naive, I have to say that he has always been very decent, generous and affable to me.
Good ‘people skills’, perhaps, but, as Marlon Brando suggested, which of us doesn’t dissemble to some extent.
I know this has nothing to do with the geo-political angle, however, and I think the matter which Craig has raised points to deeper issues in relation to the hard state, social control, imperialism and British politics.
Another, quite separate, issue, is the recrudescence of the public school elite in control-room of the Conservative Party following their relative deposition by during the Heath-Thatcher period.
This is one of the reasons, I suspect, why David Davis was edged out, resigned and made that stand over detention. (Craig Murray)
July 2010: Veteran Rifkind to Lead MPs’ Watchdog
Former foreign secretary and defence secretary, Sir Malcolm Rifkind is perhaps the best-placed MP to chair the Commons committee on intelligence and security. For five years until 24 February 2015 he was responsible for the security service MI6. He fully supported NATO military intervention in Libya and supplying arms to the Libyan rebels. (Highbeam)
July 2011: Top Scots Tories fire broadside at Ex MI6 Spy Andrew Fulton over denial of natural justice for Malcolm Macaskill
Ex MI6 Spy Andrew Fulton, isn’t the flavour of the month with senior Tory stalwarts with decades of service under their belt.
They are rightly upset regarding the disgraceful treatment of Malcolm Macaskill who was removed as a candidate to make way for publicly unelectable Ruth Davidson.
Davidson is now a Glasgow list MSP although she lives in Edinburgh. Full story here: (Glasgowhumanrights blog)
November, 2011: Scottish Tories duly elect Andrew Fulton’s protégé as new leader. Job done Andrew Fulton returned to London
Order had been restored in Scotland. The threat of a Scottish Unionist Party breakaway has been extinguished. Westminster party Conservatives placed in all key posts.
Reacting to the result, Davidson said “This is the first time that our members have been asked to elect a leader for the whole party in Scotland and I’ve met our members from Selkirk to Shetland and all points in between.
They’ve been engaged, they’ve been enthusiastic, they’ve been welcoming and they’re excited about our bright future too.”
August 2013: Rifkind advocated British military intervention in the Syrian civil war, subject to certain important caveats.
He stated that the best response to proof of the Syrian Government’s use of chemical weapons against its own people would be United Nations Security Council approval of proportionate and limited military action, but that securing unanimity in the Council would be unlikely, given the near-certainty of a Russian veto.
He believed that, in such a case, if there were to be a broad international consensus for such military action, including among the nations of the Arab League, that the international community should not be ‘paralysed’ by a failure to act, and that the action should be used to target Syrian Government military sites. (wikipedia)
The TruthNews website reported:
” Sir Malcolm Rifkind known as “Malcolm the poof” is chairman of the British parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), which oversees MI5, MI6 and GCHQ – the most important position in the UK intelligence community.
The ISC reports first to the prime minister, who retains – and uses – the right to censor material in ISC reports before parliament views them”.
February 2015: Rifkind caught up in a Conflict of interest controversy
In early 2015 Rifkind had discussions with what he thought were representatives of a Chinese company that wanted to set up an advisory council.
They turned out to be journalists for The Daily Telegraph and Channel 4 News who recorded the conversations.
As a result, the party whip was suspended while the matter was investigated.
On 24 February 2015 Rifkind stepped down from his position as Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee while remaining on the Committee.
Shortly afterwards he announced that he would not stand as a candidate for his constituency of Kensington at the 2015 General Election.
The former foreign secretary said it was “quite obvious” that allegations made following an undercover sting had “become an issue”.
Rifkind said he had stepped aside as chair of the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) because he did not want the work of the committee to be “distracted”.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting of the ISC, he said:
“I don’t think I did anything wrong. I may have made errors of judgment, but that’s a different matter.”
In September 2015 the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and the Standards Committee of Parliament concluded after a seven-month investigation that there had been no impropriety by Rifkind.
They severely criticised Channel 4 Dispatches and the Daily Telegraph for “distortion” and for “misleading the public”. (parliament)
29 April 2016: Riddle deepens over Ruth Davidson and allegations of referendum election fraud
Police Scotland have revealed for the first time that only three people gave witness statements during their year-long probe into allegations of election fraud in the Scottish independence referendum and they were all “subjects of the investigation”.
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson, who gave a statement after being interviewed by the police, has consistently insisted that she was spoken to by police merely as a ‘witness’.
A spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives would only say in response to the latest development: “Ruth was only ever interviewed as a witness.”
Police say the three people were interviewed in connection with the investigation into allegations of electoral law breaches and had a “dual role” as both subjects of the investigation and as witnesses.
Davidson was interviewed by police after the Crown Office instructed that there should be an investigation after she said on a television that postal vote “tallies” were being taken in the weeks before the referendum ballot closed at 10pm on September 18, 2014.
After a year-long probe, police announced that “no criminality has been uncovered”, but declined to explain the rationale for their assessment.
Police made initial telephone contact with Davidson before interviewing her at her parliamentary offices in October, 2014.
Party sources insisted at the time that Davidson was not the subject of the investigation.
She has since said she had not attended any postal vote opening sessions adding that there were other people who “are mandated” to do that.
Police Scotland has now confirmed for the first time that “three individuals were spoken to as witnesses and as subjects of the investigation
. Statements were only noted from the three individuals.” They confirmed that they were unable to elaborate the reasons for their conclusion at the end of the year-long probe as it could jeopardise any future legal proceedings “should further relevant information become known”.
Police Scotland has declined to confirm the identities of the three.
Police Scotland added:
“The requirement for secrecy in postal votes is set out under section 66 of the Representation of the People Act 1983.
Whilst defining the offence this section also identifies who may commit the offence and what requires to be proved to establish that the crime is complete.
Without these thresholds having been achieved a person who is investigated in relation to this offence cannot be said to have committed a crime.” (The Herald)
Additional information:
In video footage of Davidson talking about the ballot viewing sent to police, says:
“Postal votes are going to be enormously important in this campaign – about 18 per cent of the vote is going to come out of postal ballots and we have had people at every sample opening, around the country, over the last few weeks, while that’s been coming in. And we’ve been incredibly encouraged by the results.”
Later, referring to postal ballots, she said:
“Different local authorities have had openings around the country”, adding, “there’s people in the room that have been sampling those ballot boxes that have been opened and have been taking tallies and the reports have been very positive for us”.
Ms Davidson had previously hit out at criticism of her position in the police investigation in the wake of potentially defamatory assertions about her role on Twitter. (wikispooks)
The Leopard Cannot Change its Spots – Ruth Davidson’s Scottish Tories are still toxic
Ruth Davidson has been very busy in the last few months embracing the agenda of a compliant Unionist press and the BBC broadcasting images and reports always favourable to Unionist parties. So no change in the well practised anti – devolution dogma of a media funded by the very people it seeks to deny unbiased information.
But Ruth and her unionist colleagues exercise no control over the ever increasing power of information exchange on the “Social Media” scene. And truth will out, in the long run. Her agenda is to present the Tory Party and herself as a modernised entity who wish only to do good things for Scotland.
But the truth does not measure up to the rhetoric. The Party is on its last legs in Scotland. Division and strife perpetuate meetings and policy direction and the in fighting will worsen.
This article highlights a series of events confirming that the “right wing” agenda is still very much the way forward in the minds of many Tories. Hence the duplicity of the Tory Party in Scotland under the leadership of Ruth Davidson designed to present a “public face” acceptable to the Scottish electorate.
Young Tories at Play
26 November 2010: Glasgow University Conservative Association – St Andrews Night Dinner
In support of the foregoing, ponder the decision by the Glasgow University Conservative Association to extend to the Ultra right wing Tory, Roger Helmer (1) (MEP) a “Guest of Honour” invitation to attend the dinner, and as the after dinner speaker to address diners on matters of current political importance.
Sixty or so Tory’s tucked into traditional Saint Andrews fare, Scotch broth, haggis with neeps & tatties, cranachan and port. The group included (Ruth Davidson, Leader in waiting) a couple of MSPs and a host of candidates seeking public office.
The main speaker, Roger, enjoyed the reaction of an enthusiastic audience. In his speech, a reference to Dan Hannan (2.), (ultra right wing Tory MEP) was met with a burst of spontaneous applause and when he commended the Daily Express “Get Britain Out of the EU” campaign, they cheered to the echo. and his dismissal of “climate change hysteria”, brought raucous approval.
Summarising his visit to Glasgow, Roger stated that the success of the dinner proved that the Glasgow University Conservative Association, under the dynamic leadership of Ruth Davidson and President Ross MacFarlane was no mere debating society or social club. They are serious campaigners pounding the streets of Scotland on the Party’s behalf. He went on “They are the future of the Conservative Party. And like so many conservatives they’ve had enough of the EU, and they want out. They’ve also lost patience with the global warming lobby. They don’t believe it, and they won’t pay for it. They wonder just how long David Cameron can lead the Party deeper into the EU, and into the battle for “climate mitigation”, before he notices that the troops aren’t following behind. He risks becoming dangerously exposed.” Full report here:
16 January 2011: Tory MEP makes ‘turn’ homosexuals remark
Tory MEP Roger Helmer on Twitter: Why is it OK for a surgeon to perform a sex-change operation, but not OK for a psychiatrist to try to “turn” a consenting homosexual? Roger Helmer MEP has a long history of such nonsense. A couple of years ago Helmer said that the word homophobia was a “propaganda device”. He wrote on his blog: “And while we’re mentioning semantic issues, let me point out that the neologism “homophobia” is not so much a word as a political agenda. In psychiatry, a phobia is defined as an irrational fear. I have yet to meet anyone who has an irrational fear of homosexuals, or of homosexuality. So to the extent that the word has any meaning at all, it describes something which simply does not exist. “Homophobia” is merely a propaganda device designed to denigrate and stigmatise those holding conventional opinions, which have been held by most people through most of recorded history. It is frightening evidence of the way in which political correctness is threatening our freedom.
12 August 2013: UKIP MEP In Child Sex Comments Storm
Roger Helmer, MEP for the East Midlands when asked his opinion caused a storm when he claimed that 15 year old girls can consent to sex with pop stars. Helmer said “Suppose a 15-year-old girl is at a club with a pop star, and he says ‘how about it, dear’? and she says ‘yes please, I was hoping you’d ask’. In most people’s book, that constitutes consent. Legally, she cannot consent, but in real terms, she can.”
Helmer also claimed that if an underage child asked for sex then they were contributing to the problem. This isn’t the first time the former Tory MEP has caused controversy by making disgusting comments.
On May 2011 Helmer wrote on his blog that there should be two categories of rape, “stranger rape” and “date rape” and that a woman who is date raped “surely shares a part of the responsibility”.
6 May 2014: Ukip’s seal-hating, gay-baiting, victim-blaming Newark candidate, Roger Helmer
He doesn’t think homophobia exists, blames rape victims, and seems to be sexually confused about Earl Grey tea. Ukip has announced its candidate for the Newark by-election: the MEP Roger Helmer. Surely Ukip is just trolling us now?
Here are a best-of, or worst-of, his most incendiary remarks: Disliking gay people is like disliking Earl Grey tea. He told the Sun that Brits should be able to dislike homosexuals, like they don’t like certain types of tea: [some people find homosexuality] distasteful if not viscerally repugnant… Different people may have different tastes. You may tell me that you don’t like Earl Grey tea. That may be a minority view but you are entitled not to like it if you don’t like it
Helmer later told the Independent that people may prefer “heterosexuality or homosexuality”. The Sun also picked up and printed remarks he quoted in a 2000 pamphlet “Being gay is abnormal and undesirable and not to be “celebrated”. Homosexuality is “not a lifestyle worthy of valid equal respect”.
Equal marriage is like incest. Helmer raised the question: “If two men can be married, why not three men? Or two men and a woman?… Why not a commune? If two men have a right to marry, how can we deny the same right to two siblings? Are we to authorise incest?”
The distinction between “date” and “stranger” rape:
In May 2011 Helmer imagined, probably stroking his trademark moustache during his musings, a date scenario to distinguish between ‘two types’ of rape: The first is the classic “stranger-rape”, where a masked individual emerges from the bushes, hits his victim over the head with a blunt instrument, drags her into the undergrowth and rapes her, and the leaves her unconscious, careless whether she lives or dies.
The second is “date rape”. Imagine that a woman voluntarily goes to her boyfriend’s apartment, voluntarily goes into the bedroom, voluntarily undresses and gets into bed, perhaps anticipating sex, or naïvely expecting merely a cuddle. But at the last minute she gets cold feet and says “Stop!”. The young man, in the heat of the moment, is unable to restrain himself and carries on.
In both cases an offence has been committed, and the perpetrators deserve to be convicted and punished. But whereas in the first case, I’d again be quite happy to hang the guy, I think that most right-thinking people would expect a much lighter sentence in the second case.
Rape is always wrong, but not always equally culpable. My two scenarios also give the lie to one of the popular over-simplifications trotted out by the feminist tendency in these cases: “Rape is always about power and control and domination, never about sex”. In the first case, that may well be true. In the second case, it is clearly not true. While in the first case, the blame is squarely on the perpetrator and does not attach to the victim, in the second case the victim surely shares a part of the responsibility, if only for establishing reasonable expectations in her boyfriend’s mind.
5 November 2014: Climate deniers: Ukip in bed with corporate America
Three of Nigel Farage’s MEPs, including its energy spokesperson Roger Helmer, added their names to a letter signed by over 200 US state lawmakers and organised by the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec). This is not a body most political parties in Britain would be keen to associate with. It is a powerful lobbying group sponsored by corporate interests and is a favourite of Tea Party types. It bankrolls climate change
sceptics and promotes a ‘model’ climate change bill will suggests global warming is “possibly beneficial” to the planet.
Helmer labelled climate change the “Great Climate Myth”, and spent £9,000 on a poster campaign for climate change scepticism. His slogan was the inspiring: “Green climate change policies: Probably unnecessary, Certainly ineffectual, Ruinously expensive.” He responded to critics by saying ” I am speaking for the majority of British voters”. On his blog he wrote this about homophobia: ” Let me point out that the neologism “homophobia” is not so much a word as a political agenda. In psychiatry, a phobia is defined as an irrational fear. I have yet to meet anyone who has an irrational fear of homosexuals, or of homosexuality. So to the extent that the word has any meaning at all, it describes something which simply does not exist.
“Homophobia” is merely a propaganda device designed to denigrate and stigmatise those holding conventional opinions, which have been held by most people through most of recorded history. It is frightening evidence of the way in which political correctness is threatening our freedom. It is creating “thought crimes”, where merely to hold a conventional opinion is seen, in itself, to be unacceptable and reprehensible. I’m sorry, but I don’t buy it.”
When he was a Conservative MEP (he defected to Ukip in March 2012), he tweeted an astonishing response to the London riots in August 2011: “Memo to COBRA: Time to get tough. Bring in the Army. Shoot looters and arsonists on sight.” Then a gentler response… “Let’s try water cannon/plastic rounds first. But if the police lose control completely, tougher measures are called for.”
In 2006, Helmer commented that beating “dumb” seal cubs on the head was a “humane” way of killing them, and he told a 17-year-old animal rights campaigner to “save your concerns for people rather than them.” In a bizarre accusation, he also condemned seals as “guilty” of eating too much fish.
He wrote to A-level student: I think it’s mawkish, sentimental and unhelpful to adopt a Bambi attitude to animals. Your sympathy for dumb animals does you credit but save your concerns for people rather than them. And another good reason for a badger cull — it would bring down the exorbitant price of shaving brushes.
Nauseating Tory MEP Dan Hannan should be sacked says colleague. Tory rifts over the Prime Minister’s hopes of clawing back rights from Brussels have been laid bare after a Tory MEP launched a vicious broadside against a Eurosceptic colleague.
Senior Tory MEP James Elles, writing on his blog, took issue with “nauseating” comments from his parliamentary colleague Dan Hannan in which he warned that the “idea that we can renegotiate with the EU is pure fantasy”. Elles went on to call for Hannan to be sacked for his dissent.
Here is someone running for re- election for the European Parliament next year, who is also Secretary General of the Alliance of European and Conservative Parties, well ensconced in the electoral system. He should be sacked immediately in this role, otherwise it shows that anyone in the Conservative Party can contradict the leader of the Party with impunity and get away with it.”
26 November 2010: But outside the venue all was not so sweet and rosy – Impromptu Demo Against the “St. Andrew’s Dinner”
The freezing evening saw thirty or so protesters – predominantly from the Anti-Cuts Movement – gather outside the Glasgow University Union in an emergency demonstration against the annual “St.Andrews Dinner” hosted by Glasgow University Conservatives.
The protest was modest but clearly voiced their opinions against the hypocrisy of throwing a decadent dinner party in light of the fact that universities (and other institutions) across the UK are facing drastic cuts.
Students in Glasgow have seen lecturers losing their jobs courses disappearing and facilities unable to develop due to these cuts, all the name of government “austerity” promoted by a Conservative led coalition in Westminster.
The protestors wanted to know how money could be spared for events like this, but not for the preservation of education – especially on the campus of one of Glasgow’s most important education institutes.
Three police vans (later joined by at least three more) and a disproportionate amount of police officers, had been deployed, for what was clearly a legal and peaceful picket line. The police found it necessary to have a strong presence, although protestors stated that they were mostly not a threatening or obtrusive force.
The police only asked that the protestors refrain from swearing in their chants, because children may be present. But police conflict occurred when a member of the Glasgow University Conservatives found it difficult to get past protesters. In the subsequent melee, three protestors were deemed to have acted aggressively and were arrested. They were later released with ASBOs. Roger Helmer in his speech referred to the protesters as the “unwashed proletariat”.
It was at this point that the tension rose, as police refused to answer exactly why protesters had been arrested at a legal protest – and a rumour swiftly swept round that it was under the “terrorist act.”.
Questions were also raised concerning the provocative actions of some G.U Conservative members towards the protestors – but the police did not comment. The protest continued peacefully, with the protestors leaving in unison.
26 November 2010: after a Glasgow University, St Andrews dinner EU drunken Conservative students commit breaches of the peace
Young Conservative, President Ross MacFarlane, (still dressed in the robes of Glasgow University) and a number of friends ended up in Hyndland in Glasgow’s west end, at 2am after the dinner.
Three people, including McFarlane and another individual draped in a Union Flag, conspired to burn the EU flag on the pavement. Struggling to set the cloth on fire, McFarlane says “F**k sake”, before adding: “Get a lighter.” An off-camera voice is heard to say: “Douse it.” At this point it becomes clear the group is planning to burn the flag using alcohol and a lighter. McFarlane is then seen to pour liquid onto the flag, prompting an associate to say: “What a waste of vodka, by the way.” A frustrated McFarlane exclaimed: “Somebody get a lighter.” An unnamed individual is heard saying: “Some c**t has it.” McFarlane repeats his demand: “Pass down the lighter.” The failure to destroy the flag then becomes a source of merriment for a member of the group off-camera. He can be heard saying: “There’s more chance of f**king seeing the Pope confess to paedophilia.”
The group laughs. The same person then says: “There’s more chance of Hugh Dallas [ex-football referee] telling us he’s a f**king tarrier.” “Tarrier” is a derogatory term for an Irish Catholic; the jibe prompts more laughter. McFarlane finally sets the flag on fire.
The small group expresses its approval before one individual starts to sing God Save The Queen. The fire peters out and McFarlane says: “Shit disnae burn lads.” accompanied by two others, lit the flag, sectarian abuse could clearly be heard, including the derogatory term “tarrier” and claims that the pope was a paedophile.
The film also shows Stewart Green, and another individual holding the cloth as McFarlane tried to set it on fire. All in all quite a crew.
Professor Adam Tomkins (right wing Tory is on the Tory list)
September 12 2011: Davidson ordered to part company from McFarlane after the SNP described the footage as ‘Bullingdon Club behaviour’, a reference to the upper-class society notorious for its yobbishness and snobbery.
An SNP spokesman added: “Ms Davidson may style herself as a compassionate Conservative but her senior aide behaved no better than one of the so-called ‘hoodies’ David Cameron wants to hug.” As an MSP, the Tory leadship hopeful recently signed a motion on “fighting sectarianism and anti-Irish racism”.
When told of the video footage, McFarlane said: “Oh, right. I don’t really have anything to say about that.”
Davidson said: “Mr McFarlane has worked for me on a part-time basis since May. This incident happened before he was in my employment and I had no knowledge of it. It is reprehensible behaviour and I have terminated his contract.”
12 December 2011: Former Glasgow University students making a name for themselves with the Scottish Conservatives
The new leader of Scotland’s Tories, Ruth Davidson, has faced a tricky first month since taking the reins on 4th November. During her electoral campaign, she had to sack her parliamentary assistant Ross McFarlane, after the release of film footage of him setting fire to a flag of the European Union, whilst dressed in a University of Glasgow gown.
The incident took place after a dinner organised by the Glasgow University Conservative Association (GUCA). As MacFarlane, accompanied by two others, lit the flag, sectarian abuse could clearly be heard, including the derogatory term “tarrier” and claims that the pope was a paedophile.
Unfortunately for Davidson, this was not the only time her allies have taken part in sectarian behaviour. In her first week as national leader of the party, it emerged that Colin Taylor, of the Tory press and research unit, tweeted lyrics from the song “Here Lies a Soldier”, which sings the praises of the Ulster Volunteer Force, an anti-Catholic Northern Irish terrorist group.
In his tweets, under the name @Ulsterexile, Taylor also casually refers to “tims” another offensive name for Catholics. The account has since disappeared. As embarrassing as such behaviour may have been for Davidson, it was her response to Taylor’s tweets that has earned her the most criticism.
Taylor was allowed to keep his position, his punishment for his behaviour being no more than a “formal warning.” Labour MSPs have called this “insufficient” and demanded more “disciplinary proceedings.”
And when it’s not sectarianism damaging the Scottish Conservatives’ reputation, it’s been racism, particularly that of Stewart Green, site designer of the current GUCA website and editor of the “Tory Hoose” blog.
Green was one third of the drunken trio involved in the burning of the EU flag and in September it emerged that he had made several racist remarks online, including one tweet which read: “An Asian festival is taking place a few doors up, either that or several cats are being strangled. Can’t quite decide which.” Other subjects of his racist abuse include Jewish, Pakistani and black students.
This collection of sectarian and racist comments from her peers seems to go against what Davidson said to the Glasgow Guardian in November, when she told the paper: “I have said Conservatives never get enough credit for how progressive they can be.”
Those who stand against the Tories in Holyrood, however, argue that the behaviour of Davidson’s colleagues shows her party to be rooted in its old, “Bullingdon Club” ways.
The SNP referred to the exclusive Oxford University club, of which prime minister, and supporter of Davidson during her campaign, David Cameron was a member. An SNP spokesman described the behaviour of Davidson’s party members as: “Bullingdon Club behaviour which has no place in Scottish politics.”
And things don’t seem to be getting any better for the 33-year-old leader. It emerged last week that members of the St Andrews University Conservative Association burned an effigy of US president Barak Obama on a St Andrew’s beach.
As a result, the president of that association, Mathew Marshall, will apologise personally to Mr Obama by sending a letter to the White House. Marshall admits that the burning was “undoubtedly stupid.” He went on to say: “I apologise further for any damage this has done to the reputation of the University of St Andrews, or the Scottish Conservative Party.” Ruth Davidson, at least, will hope that that damage and the incidents before it have not left too big a stain on the party she is now responsible for cleaning up.
Andrew Fulton (chairman Scottish Tory Party 2008-2011)
9 February 2008: Former spy in line for top Scottish Tory job
Former high ranking MI6 intelligence officer, Prof Andrew Fulton. A spy who served behind the Iron Curtain at the height of the Cold War is in line to become chairman of the Scottish Conservative Party in a surprise move agreed by David Cameron and Annabel Goldie, the Scottish leader.
Fulton, whose last posting was “head of station” in Washington, has emerged as one of the favourites for the post that fell vacant when Peter Duncan, the former MP for Dumfries, stood down last summer.
The appointment of the former intelligence officer, will be seen as an attempt by senior Tories to inject fresh blood and new thinking into the Scottish party, which has struggled to recover from its 1997 wipe-out when it lost all its Scottish MPs.
Last year, he became the first high-profile former spy to join a listed British company when he was appointed as an adviser to the Armor Group, a firm that provides security services to national governments and large corporations. Its non-executive chairman is the Tory grandee Sir Malcolm Rifkind.
He was unmasked as a former spy in 2000 when he was forced to step down as a member of the Lockerbie Trial Briefing Unit which provided media briefings on the trial in Holland of the two Libyans accused of the Lockerbie bombing. His cover was blown soon after he was included in a list of 116 MI6 officers published on the internet by a disaffected agent in 1999. The revelation raised concerns that he may have been in a position to influence the way the Lockerbie trial was being reported to ensure the minimum of criticism of the British and American intelligence services.
In his MI6 days, Fulton reportedly had been posted in East Berlin, Saigon, and New York. He had served as “head of station” in Washington, D.C., and at the peak of his career he was the sixth-most powerful official in the organization. In 1992, Fulton became the security officer who headed up European operations: “He was one of the MI6 chiefs handed the plans to kill Serb President Slobodan Milosevic.”
After-note: In 2008 the growth in nationalist support in Scotland alarmed the US and Westminster. The Labour Party was in meltdown and it was entirely possible an SNP government would be in place in 2009.
This would bring with it calls for Scottish independence and a referendum. There were also on-going problems within the Scottish Tory Party, which had suffered yet another bad election defeat.
Voices within the Party in Scotland had begun to raise the spectre of a split from Westminster control so that the Party in Scotland would be able to decide upon policy. A strategy, designed to deal with the potential problems would need to be put in place.
Fulton was identified as the most effective “agent for change” available and it was agreed he would apply himself and his extensive resources to the tasks of completing a root and branch reorganisation of the party in Scotland, removing any person, (no matter how senior) who did not fully commit to Westminster Party ideals.
He would also design a long term strategy undermining the SNP government ensuring any referendum for independence would fail. It was believed that the SNP would fall apart in the aftermath of a failure to gain independence.
About Andrew Fulton
Born in Glasgow in 1944, Andrew Fulton grew up on the Isle of Bute and attended Rothesay Academy Rothesay. He went on to study Law at the Glasgow University, graduating MA, LLB (1962–1967).
Employment history:
Diplomat: HM Diplomatic Service: (MI6) July 1968 – January 1999 (30 years 7 months): postings in Saigon, Rome, East Berlin, Oslo, the United Nations in New York and finally Washington DC.
President, (Founding Chairman): Scottish North American Business Council, (part of the British American Business network): January 1999 – Present (17 years 4 months)
Chairman: Global Scot World Wide Network (GPW): January 2001 – Present (16 years 4 months): global leaders in business intelligence, corporate investigations, dispute resolution, support and political risk management.
Senior Non Executive Director, IndigoVision: January 2011 – Present (5 years 4 months): United Kingdom based company engaged in the design, development, manufacture and sale of networked video security systems. The Company’s segments include Europe, the Middle East and Africa; North America, Latin America and Asia Pacific. Its cameras, encoders, network video recorders and software are designed both internally and with technology partners and manufactured in Asia and Europe. The Company’s end to end Internet protocol (IP) video security systems allow full motion video to be transmitted around the world, in real time, with digital quality and security, over local or other area networks, wireless links or the Internet, using market compression technology to minimize the usage of network bandwidth.
Senior adviser (All-Party Parliamentary MENA* Group at Westminster): 2013 – Present: *The term MENA is an English-language acronym referring to an extensive region, extending from Morocco to Iran, including all Middle Eastern and Maghreb countries.
Https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MENA
Michael Forsyth (ex Scottish Secretary)
5 October 2009: Fools Believe in James Bond
There is of course a very long history of ‘ex’ (but are they really ever, ‘ex’?) intelligence officers and associated assets moving into overt, democratic politics. Apart from Paddy Ashdown, it also has been alleged that Andrew Fulton, Margaret (‘Meta’) Ramsey and Pauline Neville-Jones were SIS officers, to name but three of the more prominent contemporary figures who hold or have held key positions of influence/ gate-keeping in major political parties and national institutions (eg. the BBC).
24 June 2009: Is Andrew Fulton, Tory Chairman still an MI6 Spy or Asset?
Let’s remember the Tories, in particular MI6 Station Chief, currently Chairman of the Tories in Scotland, Andrew Fulton. Fulton is also involved in the Scottish North American Business Council and listed as an advisor to various organisations involved in intelligence matters.
Fulton was placed in the Glasgow University Lockerbie Briefing Unit until his cover was blown. His title of Visiting Professor was allowed to be given to him by then Glasgow University Principal Graeme Davis, Davis was also a member of the Scottish North American Business Council (SNABC).*
The unusual thing about Fulton’s Professorship was that he had never worked in the legal profession in any capacity, had never taught classes and did no research at Glasgow University. So how was he suitable to be a Visiting Professor of Law? It is probable that Graham Davis permitted MI6 to plant Fulton in the Media unit.
The American ambassador Philip Lader was also a member of the (SNABC) at the same time. So this may have been used as a front organisation to allow Fulton and Lader to meet without drawing attention to them and talk about Lockerbie and how to handle the press to steer them away from the Americans.
http://glasgowunihumanrights.blogspot.co.uk/2009/06/is-andrew-fulton-tory-chairman-still.html
* The (SNABC) is a little known but well connected Atlanticist body aimed at fostering closer relations between business in Scotland and the US. It is the Scottish chapter of the British-American Business Council. It has interesting intelligence connections. The current Chairman is former MI6 man Andrew Fulton, who was exposed as having been a former MI6 agent whilst working inside Glasgow University based Lockerbie Commission. The former US ambassador to the UK Philip Lader (also chair of the board of spin conglomerate WPP) is also on board. The Council retains Media House International for PR and its executive chairman Jack Irvine is a former board member.
This Involved the theft of US$ 230 million from the Russian Treasury and is one of the largest tax fraud cases in Putin’s Russia. The crime was uncovered in 2007 by Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who was working for Hermitage Capital Management, then the biggest foreign investor in Russia.
Magnitsky was arrested by the same police officers whom he accused of covering up the fraud. He was thrown into jail, where he died of mistreatment and inadequate medical care. Despite his death, the government of Russia continued to prosecute him.
2012: The United States passed legislation named for the dead tax attorney that cited the “Magnitsky List” of implicated Russian state officials.
Until the Ukraine and Syria crises, even during the so-called reset period, the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act constituted the Putin government’s single biggest grievance with Washington.
More diplomatic energy was spent by Moscow on efforts to block or penalize passage of the bill than on any other part of bilateral relations with the United States. Russia, for instance, passed its own “counter-Magnitsky” suite of sanctions on U.S. officials. But the core of the Putin strategy was to shift the blame completely. The Kremlin accused Browder of orchestrating both the tax fraud and Magnitsky’s murder.
In “The Browder Effect” film, Browder is depicted as no longer just a cynical accomplice to a crime against the Russian people, but now a shadowy agent of Cold War-style intrigue, and it would seem to be the CIA, rather than Russian authorities, that somehow denied Magnitsky life-saving medical treatment in prison.
Of course, this stands in marked contrast to what Russia’s own Presidential Council on Human Rights concluded. But the Rossiya-1 documentary is not bothered by such details. The human-rights group wrote that Magnitsky’s “requests for the routine physician’s visit were denied; medications delivered by Magnitsky’s mother were not accepted or even sent to another cell. These and many other facts discovered by the public inquiry suggest not only the negligence of medical personnel of the Butyrka prison, but criminal failure to provide aid to the detainee, i.e., violation of the right to life.”
The film also contained the accusation that, Browder, codenamed “Solomon,” had been working for MI6 since 1995.
In 2006, he supposedly recruited Navalny, codenamed “Freedom,” and proceeded to disburse upwards of $1.5 million to him.
With that slush fund, Navalny was supposed to engage in minority shareholder activism to expose graft in state-owned companies such as the energy giant Gazprom.
Navalny was also supposed to focus on Russian officials, such as General Prosecutor Yuri Chaika.
Towards this, Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation had suggested, in a “YouTube” video exposé that went viral that the General Prosecutor had accumulated a vast family fortune.
William Browder (CEO Hermitage Hedge Fund Capital)
5 January 2016: He once was a leading spymaster in MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence service. But Andrew Fulton has new clients. He Works for Team Putin and a Mobbed-Up Russian Lawyer
A Russian prime time news programme presented by the senior journalist of Russia’s informational broadcasting resources, Dmitry Kiselyov, showed excerpts from a documentary film about Alexey Navalny and his mentor, or handler, William F. Browder: The film, entitled “The Browder Effect,” was assembled by the channel’s investigative reporter and presenter in his own right, Yevgeni Popov. The full version of “The Browder Effect” will be aired on Wednesday evening, 13 April on Russia’s flagship network, Pervyi Kanal. However, from the lengthy segments shown on Sunday it is possible to draw some conclusions about the sensational material it sets out.
It claims that William Browder, (the CEO of Hermitage Hedge Fund) had been recruited by MI6 in 1995. His long term mission, to destabilize the Russian government.
Navalny came to the attention of MI6 because Browder determined he was “the most suitable candidate for future political leader” given his creativity, new media mastery and speaking skills on politics, law and economics. Navalny was subsequently recruited to MI6 in 2006.
Alexey Navalny (elected, Russian Progress Party Chairman)
That’s where Fulton comes on stage:
In the film “The Browder Effect” the key source lending ostensible credibility to the allegations is named as Andrew Fulton, a former high-ranking MI6 spy once implicated in a plot to assassinate Slobodan Milosevic.
His opinion was presented on air as that of an independent analyst who verifies the authenticity of these dubious documents. In fact, email correspondence leaked online and independently verified, shows that Fulton has been working as a private investigator for Andrey Pavlov, the lawyer for the alleged Russian mafia types accused of committing the crimes the television channel is trying to pin on U.S. and British intelligence.
“So that you understand,” Sokolov says about an hour into a panel discussion following the showing of “The Browder Effect” documentary, “We have a forensic study… that was performed for me by an agency headed by Andrew Fulton.
He is a well-known British specialist who for a long time headed the analytical department of MI6. This person, more professionally than you or me, knows how documents are written. I have a written study report signed personally by him that the documents are authentic.” Fulton currently chairs GPW & Co., a private investigations firm based in London.
Unmentioned by Sokolov or any other media outlets covering The Browder Effect is the fact that GPW & Co. also has been subcontracted by the American white-shoe law firm Debevoise & Plimpton on behalf of its client Andrey Pavlov.
Pavlov is none other than the lawyer of the Klyuev Group. He has spent a small fortune in the United Kingdom waging a PR counter offensive against accusations made by Browder against him, mainly to keep his name off any impending Magnitsky legislation in Europe.
So far, he’s had little success: a non-binding European parliamentary resolution, urging the EU’s Council of Minister—the policy-making body in Brussels—to sanction Klyuev Group members including Pavlov, was passed in April 2014.
Email correspondence between Pavlov and Debevoise, which was leaked on the Internet, contains a “letter of engagement” between GPW and the London office of the U.S. law firm.
It is dated Sept. 26, 2014, and signed by Andrew Wordsworth, a founding partner of GPW. “We will need to conduct an in-depth investigation of the schemes, the legal proceedings surrounding [the allegations made against Pavlov] and the involvement and make-up of the so-called ‘Klyuev Organised Criminal Group,’ of which your client is accused of being a part,” Wordsworth writes.
He further explains that he will oversee the Pavlov investigation while also drawing on “the experience of my Partners and Chairman Andrew Fulton.”
To date, Fulton has not publicly acknowledged any role whatsoever in vetting or confirming Sokolov’s documents, nor has Fulton made it clear whether this was in conjunction with his compensated work on behalf of Pavlov.
When reached for comment he replied “Thank you very much for your questions. It is not our policy to comment on speculation regarding the identity of our clients, or our projects. I’m sorry not to be more helpful.”
Andrew Fulton (chairman Scottish Tory Party 2008-2011)
Michael Forsyth (ex Scottish Secretary)
Andrew Fulton
caltonjock 