Conforming with the law Common Purpose registered as a charity in the UK in 1989. But it is in reality an international political organisation masquerading as a charity, with leaders of a new order being trained and placed in key positions. A networking organisation it is dependent upon total secrecy for its success and continued existence. It maintains control over its membership through a near guarantee of employment support locating and placing them in employment in powerful and well rewarded positions. The aide extends to covering for their mistakes. Other benefits are gained from access to its secret network. In return graduates are expected to be loyal to the directives of the organisation, instead of to their own departments, which they then undermine subvert or exploit assisting the growth of the organisation. Over 120,000 leaders world wide have contributed to or participated in a Common Purpose programme a number which grows by round 3,000 people annually. The tentacles of the organisation are wide reaching.
Common Purpose – Financing
More than 20,000 people have attended training courses at a cost of around £6k each. Answering a “Freedom of Information” the “Department for Work and Pensions” confirmed it had spent £238k sending selected members of its staff on, “Common Purpose” courses. And the Tory Party, “Cabinet Office Leadership Committee” and 200 Civil Servants. also attended courses confirming that the organisation is making significant inroads within the Civil Service. It is also a key element of the Tory Party machinery enhancing the possibility of corruption, abuse of freedom of information rules and murky deals hidden from public view.
Common Purpose – A Closed Society
Common Purpose controllers do not deny trying to identify future leaders but say their agenda is merely to open up the potential for success to a more diverse range of people. In support of this the organisation’s website says: “We are always balanced and owe no historical or other allegiance to any other group.” But should public funded institutions such as the Civil Service, government ministries, the legal profession, police, Journalism, Quango’s, local authorities, The Health Service and the BBC pay money to a charity to host training courses which are essentially networking opportunities for staff? And the organisation is not the most open since all of it’s business is conducted under, “Chatham House” rules. Which means everything that is said in dialogue or meetings is unattributable.
Common Purpose – Media Control
The organisation’s control of the press and media is backed by its high level collaboration with governments of all persuasions meaning the end of free, open and accurate press and media reporting. Add to the foregoing behavioural change broadcasts to the people through programmes operated by “Applied Behavioural Psychology Units” and George Orwell’s predictions are no longer fiction. A member of the Commons media select committee, said. “Common Purpose is a very secretive organisation which parliament would do well to be wary of. “It is trying to get its tentacles into every nook and cranny of the establishment to pursue their political agenda. Common Purpose does not want a free press because a free press would expose what it is up too.”
Common Purpose – The Rotherham Scandal
The scandal concerning the industrial scale of abuse of young children in Rotherham provided an opportunity to bring into sharp public focus any networks of Common Purpose operatives found within the strategic partnerships made up of various public sector organisations in Rotherham and the wider geographical area.The “Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham 1997 – 2013” is very uncomfortable reading. Extracts from the Executive Summary:
“Our conservative estimate is that approximately 1400 children were sexually exploited over the Inquiry period, from 1997 to 2013. They were raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten, and intimidated. There were examples of children who had been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness brutally violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone. Girls as young as 11 were raped by large numbers of male perpetrators.
Over the first twelve years covered by this Inquiry, the collective failures of political and officer leadership were blatant. The Police gave no priority to child sex exploitation and regarded many child victims with contempt and failed to treat their abuse as a crime. Further stark evidence came in 2002, 2003 and 2006 with three reports known to the Police and the Council, which could not have been clearer in their description of the situation in Rotherham. For 16 years, not only did the police and social services turn a blind eye, sometimes the police even harassed those who were whistle-blowers. Is there a provable behind the scenes connection between those leading South Yorkshire Police and Rotherham MBC Officers? Read the full article which exposes the widespread presence of Common Purpose managers in positions of responsibility. (http://www.ukcolumn.org/article/rotherham-common-purpose-effect)
Keir Starmer Aided by The John Smith Foundation To Launch Their Assault on Scotland
The Leader of the Labour party, Sir Keir Starmer will launch a new devolution deal for Holyrood as part of an attempt to revive Labour’s fortunes in Scotland. The pressure has been building in within the Labour movement pushing the party towards a “devo-max” proposal that would see the Scottish Parliament take control of more powers and would also include the reform of the House of Lords to give greater representation to the UK’s nations and regions at Westminster.
In his address to the John P. Mackintosh Memorial Lecture on Friday 11 December, he will give the first indication of his constitutional offer to Scots before next May’s Holyrood election.*
*Cancelled due to covid lockdown.
He is also rumoured to be planning to displace Richard Leonard who will be forced to give up his role as leader of the Labour Party in Scotland.
So a full-on fightback is in the wind and I expect the John Smith Foundation and its supporters will muster all guns in their support. This is a do or die moment in their history and the 5th columnists and 77 Brigade will be active. Read on and get a more informed view of past events.
Judged by the Company they Keep
Effective political strategy nullifies opposition and is usually revealed after the event But the SNP under the leadership of Nicola Sturgeon and her supporters are so confident they have absolute control and that any challenges to their political agenda can be first contained then eliminated.
A number of vociferous individuals in the “Sturgeonista Group” only joined the Party within the last ten years and their pedigree and political affiliation are questionable.
Fifth Columnists and the Havoc They Generate
The Westminster, London based Zionist financial cartel loosely titled the Government of the people is well versed in the art of deception and its response to the scare of the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum was swift and decisive.
Remedial action was necessary to maintain unionist control and this required that the SNP should first be neutered then merged with the Labour Party branch in Scotland. The mission would be achieved over a period not exceeding ten years through the use of fifth Columnists who would join the SNP and operate from within bringing about fundamental changes to the pursuit of Scottish independence.
What follows is conjecture but is based on my near 60 years of political activism in Scotland. If only 20% of what I offer up is true then the SNP government will be forever dammed by its actions and betrayal of the founding principle of the Party, namely full independence for Scotland and divorce from the Westminster Zionist elite that control it.
Westminster Strategy Exposed
Glasgow University, a safe haven for Unionists for over 300 years has been selected by Westminster to be the operational control centre. Baroness Smith, the master spy and widow of Bilderberger, the Late John Smith, has set up the John Smith Centre to operate from there.
SNP members are linked to the discredited charity, a front for the Fife-based Integrity Initiative and 77 Brigade Spying organisations controlled and funded by the Foreign Office in Westminster.
The SNP spokesperson for Defence & Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Stewart McDonald MP, Douglas Chapman MP, Chris law MP and SNP frontbench adviser Neal Stewart, enjoyed a fully-funded trip to Ukraine in 2018. The funding source has never been revealed. In Westminster afterwards, they regularly took up parliamentary time criticizing Russia. But contributed not a jot about Scottish Independence.
Members of the group and its leader Alyn Smith MP also featured in the November 2020 paper from the SNP Westminster group submitted to the UK Government integrated review of foreign policy and defence. Amid the verbiage, there is a clear shift towards multilateralism, a disingenuous softening of the party’s commitment to unilaterally ratifying the UN Treaty on Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons, and a call for Lossiemouth to be the hub for combined Scottish, UK and US P-8 maritime bombers. This is causing deep concern among veteran anti-nuclear campaigners inside the SNP. See: (https://www.conter.co.uk/blog/2020/11/17/snp-the-week-the-gloves-came-off)
A number of SNP MSP’s succumbed to the temptation of the American dollar and followed trails previously trod by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in the 1990s when they left the UK as staunch supporters of Unilateral disarmament only to return two weeks later as confirmed Multilateralist inline with the policies of the USA. In Jul 2016, Labour Party Leader Kezia Dugdale MSP, Jenny Gilruth MSP, Nicola Sturgeon’s Civil Service chief of staff (the Executioner) Elizabeth Lloyd and Daily Record Journalist David Clegg enjoyed a two-week working holiday in the USA.
The invitation to attend the all-expenses-paid jaunt had been extended by the organisers of the USA Government-funded International Visitor Leadership Programme. The inclusion of a pseudo civil servant and a tabloid journalist surprised some. Clegg would go on to later exclusively reveal intimate details of charges of sexual harassment against Alex Salmond. The government official that leaked the information has never been revealed.
Gerrymandering the Membership of the NEC By the NEC
The election of the NEC in 2020 had the potential to bring about a fundamental change of the party in its present form since its NEC will decide the future direction of the party. The choice for independence tactics will be polarized between two factions. The WOKE activists who favour the “Gradualist” approach” or the “Fundamentalists” who prefer direct action.
Anticipating the election of a significant number of “fundamentalists” the NEC imposed new and restrictive rules on branch management ensuring that NEC would be enabled to veto and force changes to candidate shortlists so that a marked prevalence of WOKE activists would be listed as candidates. The process was duly adopted early in November.
This is the real reason the present NEC membership, choc-a-bloc with WOKE activists postponed the Party conference from June until late November 2020. The NEC needed to be sure the fundamentalists had been castrated.
Where were we 6 months short of the next Scottish General Election?
The issue of Scottish independence is no longer a negative factor and if the political scene remains as it is the campaign will yet again pit the SNP against the Tory Party. The Green’s will gather second choice votes sufficient to ensure the return of a similar number of list MSP’s as will the Liberal Democrats. The Labour Party will be squeezed further and might suffer more losses resulting in its relegation to fourth Party status at Holyrood. But tactical voting might yet dictate a different outcome.
A new Party pledged to the cause of Scottish Independence, without compromise might yet emerge and persuade the electorate to transfer their second vote from the SNP to it which would ensure a parity of voting providing Nationalists with a significant majority over all other party’s. This approach would add strength to the cause of independence since Unionists arguments would largely fall on deaf ears.
ALBA was formed only a few weeks before the Scottish election but failed to achieve a breakthrough due to negative campaigning against it by the WOKE motivated SNP leadership.
And What About Indy Ref 2?
The question is best answered by harking back to the 2014 referendum when only 2 days before the vote the Unionists played their final card and offered Devo max, an option just short of total independence, for a “no” vote. Scots were attracted by the ploy which was publically supported by the entire Unionist community and the Queen herself. Gordon Brown issued a solemn promise stating “There will be no backtracking on the promise, my iron fists will prevent it.”
Gentle John Sweeney, led the Nationalist team in the subsequent negotiations and was completely outflanked by the Unionists who reneged on many of their “Devo max” pledges. Nothing was heard from Gordon Brown or any of the other Unionist leaders. Scottish voters were furious at the betrayal but unable to reverse the outcome of the referendum they bided their time until the next election only 6 months on and decimated the Unionist party’s in Scotland returning a nearly full house of SNP MPs to Westminster with a clear mandate to pursue the cause of independence yet again.
A mandate commitment was undertaken by all parties to the negotiations in Edinburgh only a few months before. This is the statement:
“Reflecting the sovereign right of the people of Scotland to determine the form of government best suited to their needs, as expressed in the referendum on 18 September 2014, and in the context of Scotland remaining within the UK, an enhanced devolution settlement for Scotland will be durable, responsive and democratic. And it is agreed that nothing in this report prevents Scotland from becoming an independent country in the future should the people of Scotland so choose.”
And What About the Secret Service presence at Glasgow University?
This is a concern given the increasing number of SNP politicians who are in close association with Baroness Smith and her team. It raises the possibility that measures approved by the Bilderbergers in the USA, will be put in place providing a way forward to limited Scottish independence tied to a merger of the SNP and Labour under the leadership of Nicola Sturgeon. Impossible!!! Wait and see!!!!
Justin Forsyth and Brendan Cox were appointed to the board of Save the Children. Forsyth was the former Director of Strategic Communications for Gordon Brown. Before that, he was a Special Advisor on environmental and international development for Tony Blair. His ex-Labour government colleague Brendan Cox appointed Director of Policy was previously a special advisor in Gordon Brown’s cabinet team. In 2012 the organisation was in financial trouble. Lacking funds it was forced to conduct its first-ever public fund-raising campaign in Britain.
Forsyth left Save the Children to take up the post of Deputy Executive Director at Unicef from which he was forced to resign following media revelations about his mishandling of a former subordinate’s sexual misconduct and his own previous behaviour when it was revealed that when Chief Executive of Save the Children he faced three complaints of inappropriate behaviour towards female staff. The complaints included sending inappropriate texts and commenting on what young female staff were wearing.
He was also accused in 2015 of mishandling allegations of sexual harassment and abuse against his close ally and subordinate at Save the Children, Director of Policy, Brendan Cox. Save the Children said the complaints against Cox were investigated in accordance with its procedures and confirmed that Cox had been suspended and a disciplinary process began but he had resigned before it was completed. Cox has since quit the two charities he set up in memory of his late wife Labour MP Jo Cox. (The New Humanitarian)
2014: Ex-Labour SPADS campaigning against the government via charities
Save the Children caused quite a stir after deciding to award former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, with a “Global Legacy” award. An online campaign was started, demanding that they revoke the award, stating that it was inappropriate because of the role he played in the invasion of Iraq in 2003. It was also raised that the Chief Executive of Save the Children, Justin Forsyth, used to be a special adviser (SPAD) to both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The charity has been criticised in the past for its support of Oxfam in its highly politicised campaign against the government.
Part of the rules that govern which charities are given charitable status, which includes generous tax relief and the ability to claim extra money from the treasury via Gift Aid, is that they remain politically neutral and do not get involved with political campaigning. This raises an interesting question: Can somebody who was so involved with the previous government really put aside their own personal politics and become politically neutral for the sake of their job? Just how many former labour SPADS are now involved with charities or think tanks? The two charities covered in this article, Oxfam and Save the Children fit the bill. (save-planet-earth-world-globe-map-children-around-world-30468826)
Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (Cafod)
Cafod appointed Damian McBride former spin-doctor for Gordon Brown to the post of Head of Media after he was forced to resign his position following allegations posted to a political blog that he and another prominent Labour Party supporter, had exchanged emails discussing the possibility of disseminating rumours McBride had fabricated about the private lives of some Tory Party politicians and their spouses. McBride returned to the Labour Party in 2014 as its Head of Political Strategy for the Shadow Foreign Secretary.
Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (Aveco)
Head of the charity bosses’ trade body, the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations, Sir Stephen Bubb was a Labour Party member of Lambeth Borough Council for Clapham Town ward from 1982. He was chairman when the Labour group protested against rate capping by refusing to set a rate and was among 32 Lambeth councillors who were surcharged for causing the council a financial loss by wilful misconduct. An action that disqualified him from being a councillor for five years from the end of March 1986. He came under scrutiny in August 2013 after it was reported that his 60th birthday bash in the House of Commons had been partly financed by ACEVO. And this despite the charity paying him a salary in excess of £100,000, In his defence he stated: “it seemed just right to celebrate my 60th with a tea party in the House of Lords on Monday”.
National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC)
The Director of the NSPCC, Peter Watt was previously Labour’s General Secretary. He resigned following the revelation that he knew that a property developer David Abrahams had donated almost £600,000 to the Party through third parties over four years. Under the law, those making donations on behalf of others must give details of who is providing the money.
Royal Society of the Arts (RSA)
Matthew Taylor was the Director of the left of centre think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research between 1998 and 2003. In 2003 Tony Blair appointed him head of the Number 10 Policy Unit and gave him the task of drawing up the Labour Party’s manifesto for the May 2005 General Election. Following the re-election of the Labour government, he became Chief Adviser on Strategy and was involved in several initiatives engaging the public with the political process. He also had a key role in developing the Labour Party’s “Big Conversation” discussion forums. In 2006 he was appointed Chief Executive of the charity, the RSA, enlightenment, apolitical organisation committed to finding innovative practical solutions to social challenges.
National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA)
Formed in part thanks to the vision of Oscar-winning director David Puttnam, who recognised the UK’s failure to capitalise on its globally recognised talent for innovation and invention. The country was poor at turning inventions into marketable applications.
In an effort to reverse this, the UK’s first-ever publicly supported national endowment was created with £250 million of National Lottery funding (later supplemented, in 2006, with a further £75 million of Lottery funding drawn down over five years).
The idea was that a secure income source would enable greater risks to be taken with UK-based innovations, which could be backed over the long term without being at the behest of government funding cycles and shifts in the political wind.
Geoff Mulgan who was a special adviser to Gordon Brown from 1990 to 1992 when he was shadow Trade and Industry secretary described himself as ‘the Clinton campaign’s link to Labour, which involved lots of telephone calls with the Americans’. He was also part of a 1995 ‘secret committee’ led by Peter Mandelson ‘to examine policy changes, that were central to the modernisation of the Labour Party.
The group had been set up just before Blair flew to meet Rupert Murdoch in 1995 was officially described as outside experts ‘helping to write sections of speeches and background papers’ for the Labour leader. But some senior MPs noticed that the committee was actually an exclusive policy-making forum.
Mulgan went on to discharge a number of key roles in the Labour Government between 1997 and 2004 including director of the Government’s Strategy Unit and head of policy in Tony Blairs’s office. He was appointed Chief Executive of Nesta in 2010. Under his leadership, in April 2012 it became an independent charity and its focus shifted towards innovation for public benefit as it concentrated its policies on tackling social problems in the public and voluntary sectors. He was awarded a knighthood in the 2020 Queen’s Birthday Honours in recognition of his work to advance social innovation.
International Rescue
International Rescue based in New York is supported financially by the UK, the US and other governments and billionaire, & political manipulator, George Soros.
David Milliband, President and Chief Executive of “International Rescue” based in New York from 2010, cost the charity £1m in his first year (taking into account his £300,000 salary, relocation fees and other costs, together with the costs of importing his sidekicks, Ravi Gurumurthy and Ollie Money, his former political strategist and PR man.
Miliband has never come cheap. In one year as the MP for South Shields in South Tyneside, he grossed £288,000 in outside earnings on top of his parliamentary salary of £65,000.
In 2018 the organisation hushed up 37 sex abuse, fraud and bribery allegations leading to the Department for International Development cutting off funding based on claims of fraud, bribery and sexual misconduct among groups awarded funds.
Tony Blair and the Africa Governance Initiative (AGI)
With offices in presidential departments in Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Liberia and Guinea Blair expanded his AGI empire to include oil-rich South Sudan and appointed David Brown, who worked for five years under him to head up the South Sudan operation.
Blair and his AGI charity faced questions over his and its role as advisors to Malawi President Joyce Banda following a corruption scandal dubbed as ‘cashgate’ which forced Britain and other Western donors to withhold budgetary aid. Tory MPs and campaigners in Malawi demanded to know whether Blair and his team had been aware of the corruption allegations. They also wanted to know whether Blair had been warned about corruption and if so what he did about it. If his team was ignorant, it raised embarrassing questions about what AGI’s “governance” programme was meant to achieve. (The Telegraph)
Oxfam
Oxfam was reported by the Tory Party in 2014 to the Charity Commission, for publishing a faux film poster, headed “Lifting the lid on austerity, Britain reveals a perfect storm and it’s forcing more and more people into poverty.” Showing a broiling sea under clouds titled: The Perfect Storm. Added were the words “starring zero-hours contracts, high prices, benefit cuts, unemployment, childcare costs”. And a post on Twitter which invited readers to hear how Oxfam “investigated the reasons why so many people were turning to food banks in Britain 2014”.
The late Jo Cox, former “Head of Policy” at Oxfam, was previously an advisor to Gordon Brown’s wife Sarah and also worked for Baroness Kinnock, whose husband Neil was the leader of the Labour party between 1983 and 1992. Also worthy of note is that David Pitt-Watson, Oxfam’s honorary treasurer, was also a special advisor (SPAD) for over 20 years and was Assistant General Secretary of the Labour Party from 1997 to 1999. (Civil Society)
2014; The Office of Sarah and Gordon Brown
Piecing together some 133 declarations made in Gordon Brown’s parliamentary register of interests, a picture of the until-now private accounts of the company, the “Office of Gordon and Sarah Brown” revealed that “The Office” is not a registered charity, it is a private limited company.
Brown declared to parliament that the total amount paid to the company since 2010 was £3,605,197. According to a recent announcement on the company’s website £912,702 has so far been given to charity. This leaves over £2 million to be accounted for when according to the latest available records the company had only £160,978 in cash at the bank. You can see an itemised spreadsheet here: (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1m06erj5LpOktUV3g95ePimcArREmJWR8VZhQxxKXmOo/edit?pli=1#gid=0)
The company admits it budgets £550k-a-year for expenses to meet salaries, accommodation costs and staff expenses.
Brown can be paid as much as $100k for a single speech to investors at finance conferences in the US. And by funnelling his speaker fees through the company he avoids tax on his income, even though it covers the £10k weekly expenses for Gordon and Sarah to maintain the jet-set premier lifestyle they were accustomed to when in Downing Street, travelling first class around the world and staying in top five-star hotels attended to by flunkies. Something Gordon would not be able to do on his backbench MP’s salary (http://order-order.com/tag/wheres-gordon/page/2/)
2014: Sarah Brown and the Global Business Coalition for Education charity
In 2009 when he was Prime Minister, Gordon Brown said: “The old tax havens have no place in this new world. We now call on all countries to apply international standards,” a statement worthy of highlighting since his philanthropist wife made an odd choice of the home for her charity.
Sarah Brown is the founder and Executive Chair of the charitable organisation whose members include heavyweights such as Accenture, Chevron and Tata. The organisation admirably aims to bring “the business community together to accelerate progress in delivering quality education for all of the world’s children and youth”.
But the GBCfE is based in one of the most secretive tax jurisdictions in the world. Delaware, a state affectionately known by tax lawyers as “the Cayman Islands of North America”.
The charity’s registered office is 1209 North Orange Street, a single-storey building that is the legal address of 285,000 businesses according to the New York Times.
The New York Times profile said that 1209 North Orange Street is home to “big corporations, small-time businesses, rogues, scoundrels and worse”.
What might have drawn Sarah Brown to such an infamous site in so controversial a state? And is there enough desk space at 1209 to house more than a quarter of a million tenants? Should Sarah Brown be more patriotic and back the British tax system, which treats recognised charities very generously indeed.
(Q) Why, if it is a charity would it need to be registered in a tax haven? (A) Perhaps it is not actually registered as a charity – at least not in the UK.
Many celebs register their “charities” in Delaware because their annual filings are kept confidential and there is little or no oversight. So if saving the planet requires travel via private jet, luxury accommodations, staff of well-paid flunkies and so on, no one’s the wiser. UK Charities risk having their operations and accounts scrutinised by the Charity Commissioner and Delaware is even dodgier than the Dutch Antilles or Panama for funny money.
Trussell Trust
The high profile Trust runs a national network of food banks. Chris Mould joined the Trust in 2003 and was later appointed Chairman. He left in January 2018 to concentrate on his work with the Foundation for Social Change and Inclusion which operates in The Balkans as well as in Bulgaria.
In 2008, Gordon Brown changed the rules so charities could join political campaigns. In theory, they could support any party but as Brown knew, very few charities would use the new powers to demand smaller taxes. It was a masterstroke. Many charities are stuffed to the gunwales with Labour Party placemen an action completed by Gordon Brown before he left office aimed at preserving the political clout of the Party. Britain’s charities nurture a colourful, talented and efficient anti-Tory alliance.
Charities are hungry monsters that need ever-increasing amounts of taxpayers money to support their charitable ambitions and around 27,000 are dependent on the government for 75% or more of their funding. Without this cash, many would collapse. Claims are made that nearly 90p in every pound donated is spent on “charitable activities” but the reality is that at least 50% of donations are spent on management, strategy development, research studies, campaigning and fundraising not what reasonable people would consider good causes.
2012: Brown’s secret army could defeat the Tory/Libdem Coalition welfare and education reforms
Long after the 2010 General Election election defeat came to the realization that Brown really was a clever planner. In his last two years in office, he started preparing for a new kind of opposition. Labour might be turfed out of government, but it would carry on the fight through charities, quangos and think tanks. At one time Brown had a team in Downing Street devoted to appointments in public bodies, carefully building what would become a kind of government-in-exile. If the Tories tried anything radical like welfare reform then Labour’s new fifth columnists would strike.
Another clever move by Brown was his deal with the unions which was tumbled when government ministers observed trade union officials armed with security passes entering their departments. Investigations revealed that from the NHS to the MoD, civil servants were effectively being paid by the Government to work for the trade unions. It all added up to (revealed by the Tax Payers’ Alliance) a staggering 3,000 union officials being funded by the taxpayer. It was in effect a subsidy of around £86m to the unions, which they donated to the Labour Party. An ingenious scam. Brown took side bets that Cameron would not bother to dismantle the scheme and he was right. So the Labour Party entered a new golden era of preferment. But the Tory Party would hit back. (The Guardian)
2013: The Tories gag the charities
The Tory Party’s controversial lobbying bill, otherwise known as the “charity gagging bill” was rushed through parliament with unseemly haste. The intention was to limit the ability of non-profit charities and similar groups to campaign on issues of public interest. Specifically, the amount charities, unions and campaign groups are permitted to spend on work that might have a political impact in the 12 months prior to an election was cut by over 60%.
At the same time, the definition of electoral expenses was broadened from the cost of election-related leaflets and posters to include many other costs such as staff wages and other overheads, so a reduced budget was needed to cover a great deal more. The hugely increased bureaucratic burden is particularly onerous for small, local campaign groups, and a lack of clarity on which aspects of specific activities count as electoral led to the Electoral Commission describing the changes as unworkable.
And the restrictions do not only apply to explicit party endorsements. Campaigning for a new hospital or against one being closed, for or against a new bypass, free school or bird sanctuary, or any issue on which politicians or their parties have expressed a view, is electioneering, and the government intends that the electorate will be doing a lot less of it. And what about the new rules and corporate lobbyists? They are unaffected. Large companies are not reliant on elections and public opinion to sway politicians. They gain results from informal one-to-one chats in corporate hospitality boxes, fact-finding missions to exotic locations, and the occasional quiet country supper.
So long as there is an absence of a lobbying transparency bill the best hope the public has of discovering who is influencing their elected representatives is constant questioning and probing from charities and campaign groups. And the best hope for causes that might be opposed by big money interests is those same charities and campaign groups. And so at a stroke, the charity gagging bill removed the single biggest restriction on the power of corporate lobbyists and replaced it with a register covering less than 20% of the industry a percentage that was reduced further as companies avoided scrutiny by taking their lobbying in-house. The bill privileged undemocratic, behind the scenes influence over open, public debate. The Tory Party delivered the next great political scandal. A piece of legislation intended as a watchdog for corporate lobbyists, stopping them from hijacking legislation was hijacked by corporate lobbyists. (The Guardian)
2014: Tories condemn the revolving door
Half of Gordon Brown’s special advisors in the last Labour Government are working for charities or left of centre think tanks, many of which now spend their time lobbying the government. Figures show that 11 out of the 25 special advisers who worked directly for Gordon Brown in 2009 now work for supposedly neutral think tanks or charities many of which speak out against the Government or lobby ministers to change laws.
The media disclosed that one such organisation the Institute of Public Policy Research, once dubbed Tony Blair’s favourite think tank is being informally investigated by the charity watchdog for its close links to the Labour Party. There is also increasing concern among Tories that charities and think tanks are being used as vehicles for a pro-Labour agenda. Tory MPs said there was evidence of a “revolving door” between Labour and charities.
The Justice Secretary is concerned that supposedly neutral charities and think tanks are being misused saying: “An extraordinary number, moreover, are drawn from the ranks of the Labour Party. If you read through the CVs of its candidates a substantial proportion have worked for pressure groups and as trade union campaigners. It’s now the career route of choice. they use that platform to attack the Government and make their name, lining up alongside former special advisers, MPs and councillors to argue for more spending, or to spread scare stories that are often exaggerated or wholly untrue.” Adding: “Britain’s professional campaigners are growing in number sending emails around the country, flocking around Westminster, dominating BBC programmes, and usually articulating a Left-wing vision which is neither affordable nor deliverable and wholly at odds with the long-term economic plan this Government has worked so hard to put in place.” (The Telegraph)
2015: Labour to put charities back at the heart of society
The reality of the Tories “Big Society” is evidenced by ever-lengthening queues at food banks, run by overstretched charities dealing with the fallout from its political choices. The Lobbying Act, supposed to bring more transparency to the lobbying industry and politics instead restricted the ability of charities and campaigners to speak out. Judicial review is much restricted, employment tribunal fees have been hiked and legal aid has been slashed. Charities and other civil society groups act as a buffer between the individual and the state and consistently speak truth to power. Society needs the strong voice of charities at the heart of society. (Huffington Post)
Mar 2003; Alex Salmond’s contribution to the debate
Fundamentally, the debate is not about Iraq, Saddam Hussein, weapons of mass destruction or even oil, though oil is certainly a factor. The debate is about new world order, with an unrivalled superpower adopting a doctrine of pre-emptive strike, and how we accommodate that and come to terms with that new world order. Eighteen months ago the United States had an atrocity committed against it and it is still in trauma. The point was made a few minutes ago, and it is undoubtedly correct.
On 12 September 2001, the day after the attack on the twin towers, the United States was at its most powerful. In its moment of greatest extremity, the United States was at its zenith. In addition to its unrivalled military might, it carried total moral authority throughout the world. A hundred or more nations signed messages of sympathy, support or solidarity with the extremity that the United States had suffered.
Now, 18 months later, that enormous world coalition has been dissipated. I do not take the position that it was only a gang of four who gathered in the Azores. I accept that there are more countries—or at least countries’ Governments who are signed up, but the coalition of the willing for the campaign against Iraq is very narrowly based. Anyone who wants confirmation of that should just count the troops: 300,000 United States and British troops, and I understand that 1,000 Australians have been asked for, and 100 Poles have been offered. That is a very narrowly based coalition indeed.
The Prime Minister believes that the way to accommodate the situation is to accept that the United States will be predominant and that the rest must fall into line. They can try to restrain it, but they will have to fall into line with the views of the United States Administration. That is a wrong-headed policy, and it is taking people into ridiculous positions.
In his undoubtedly powerful speech today, the Prime Minister argued that the weapons inspection process had never worked. He came close to saying that it had all been a waste of time. I remember a speech in October last year at the Labour conference in which another powerful speaker went into enormous detail to show how successful the weapons inspection process had been in the 1990s and how it had led to the destruction of chemical weapons, the chemicals used to make weapons, the armed warheads and the biological weapons facility. He concluded that “the inspections were working even when he(Saddam Hussein) was trying to thwart them.”
I watched that speech on television as did many others. The speaker was President Bill Clinton. The television was doing cutaways to Ministers, including the Prime Minister who all nodded vigorously when President Clinton said that through the 1990s that policy worked and destroyed far more weapons of mass destruction than were destroyed, for example, in the Gulf war. The Prime Minister is now denying what he accepted only last October.
We are told that the majority of the Security Council would have voted for the second resolution if it had not been for the nasty French coming in at the last minute and scuppering the whole process. Let us get real. Have we listened to what other countries were saying? The Chileans proposed an extension of three weeks, but they were told by the United States that that was not on. In the debate in the General Assembly, country after country expressed their anxieties about not letting the weapons inspectors have a chance to do their work. They were told that the nasty French—I am not sure whether the Conservative party dislikes the French more than the Liberals, or vice versa were being extremely unreasonable, but the French position, and the Chinese position in order to become acceptable, resolution 1441 had to be amended. Everything has been consistent in the opposition of countries that are against a rush to military action.
Somebody should speak up for the French because their position has been consistent, as has that of the Russians and the Chinese. The Chinese, the French and the Russians issued a declaration on the passage of resolution 1441. It sets out exactly how the British and the United States ambassadors agreed that it was not a trigger for war. The reason that those countries did not want a second resolution was not that it would be a pathway to peace I wonder who dreamed that up in Downing Street. The reason was that they saw it as a passport to war, so obviously they opposed a resolution drawn in those terms. The majority of smaller countries in the Security Council and the General Assembly countries did not want to rush to war because they saw that there remained an alternative to taking military action at this stage of the inspection process.
We are told that the Attorney General has described the war as legal. We could go into the legalities and quote professor after professor who has said the opposite, but one thing is certain: when the Secretary-General of the United Nations doubts the authorisation of military action without a second resolution, people can say many things about that action, but they cannot say that it is being taken in the name of the United Nations. (1)
The argument is that it will be a salutary lesson, that a dictator will be taught a lesson and that that will help us in dealing with other dictators. I suspect that the cost of the action — I do not doubt the military outcome for a second will be so high in a number of ways that it will not provide a platform for an assault on North Korea or Iran, which form the rest of the “axis of evil”. I do not think that the policy of teaching one dictator a lesson and then moving on to other dictators can work. Most of us know that it will be a breeding ground for a future generation of terrorists. That is not the case because people like Saddam Hussein. The images that will be shown throughout the Muslim world will not feature him, although, without any question, he will be more attractive as a martyr when he is dead than he has ever been while alive. The images that will be shown are those of the innocents who will undoubtedly die in a conflict that will be a breeding ground for terrorism.
Will the nation-building work? The record of the United States has not been impressive. Let me say something about one of the other countries that are being reviled at present Germany, which commits far more troops as a percentage of its armed forces to helping to secure the peace in the various trouble spots of the world for the United Nations.
We are told that the Prime Minister, (this is the essence of his case) will try to restrain some elements in the United States Administration and make them take a multilateral approach, but that, if that does not happen, when push comes to shove he has to go along with their policy. I say that there is a broader United States of America than the United States Government. I believe that many sections of opinion in America would welcome a vote from this Parliament today that says “Not in our name” because the real America wants to see a stand for peace, not a rush for war.
(1) The UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan said that if the US and GB went ahead with an invasion of Iraq it would be in breach of the United Nations charter.
Extracts from other contributions to the debate
Dr. el-Baradei and his teams of inspectors reported to the UN that Iraq did not possess nuclear weapons and its biological and chemical weapons stocks and productivity was severely diminished. This being the case from where is the immediate intent to attack the United Kingdom, the United States, neighbouring states or other states to come from?
It has been suggested that Iraq might not intend to attack anyone but that it could pass them to terrorist organisations. But George Tennet, on behalf of the CIA said: “it is important when talking about what connections countries have with terrorism to distinguish between unconditional terrorist organisations, which would be liable to wish to use weapons of mass destruction, and political terrorist organisations, such as the Mujaheddin-e Khalq Organisation and Hamas, of which there is evidence that Iraq has had connections, would not have a purpose in doing so. And there is no verifiable evidence of any connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.”
Blair said the question is how Britain and the world face security threats of the 21st century which is a weird statement since in the context of the debate he was referring to weapons of mass destruction and the political belief of UK parties is that such matters should be resolved through non-proliferation and multilateral disarmament.
The Bush Administration has adopted a strategy of counter-proliferation. Saying; “It is okay if our friends develop nuclear weapons, but not if our enemies do,” and they choose who are the friends and who are the enemies. In this context, it needs to be remembered that Iraq was regarded as a friend and was supplied with weapons and munitions by the US and the UK during the 1980s.
Of more concern is that the policy of the Bush Administration says; “We can develop new nuclear weapons or try to make nuclear weapons more usable, and we can decide to breach the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and the security assurance that we gave under that treaty.” That is a serious aspect of the overall problem of weapons of mass destruction, especially when it is added to the doctrine of pre-emptive war.
Blair made the point that war on Iraq was not on his agenda when he became Prime Minister in 1997, and he said that George W. Bush had told him that two days before 11 September it was not on his agenda. It was on other people’s agenda namely, that of the hawks that George Bush appointed to his Administration.
Blair said that the UK needed to view the US as a major power and partner. But there are major misgivings if it means that the United States takes the decision and the UK is expected to follow suit. That is not a partnership.
If the House of Commons votes for a pre-emptive war against Iraq, the question of precedence needs to be first discussed and resolved because the hawks of the Bush administration have already said that there are plans for other pre-emptive divisive wars. The US plan of the world of the future identifies closely with the vision set out by Blair in Brighton in 2001, when he spoke of, “the moral power of a world acting as a community”.
President Clinton’s Powerful Speech to the labour party Conference in Blackpool October 2002, (6 months before the invasion of Iraq
His advice, readily embraced at the time by Tony Blair and all of his ministers was ignored in the rush to war. Bush and Blair ordered the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and the terrible consequences of this have been visited upon many nations of the World, (in particular Afghanistan and the Middle East).
Blair and Bush are now retired and very wealthy earning financial fortunes from speeches, advisory activities in support of many governments around the world and other businesses.
But many thousands of our armed forces were killed or returned home maimed through physical and or mental injury. The remaining years of their lives will be spent in pain and poverty as will the many thousands of families who lost their sons and daughters.
But Blair got his reward from the Queen. Now, Lord Blair is readying himself for a return to government should the Labour Party displace the Tories at the next General Election.
The late Sir Jeremy Heywood was the cabinet secretary to David Cameron and leader of the UK’s civil service. He wielded immense power and used it in defence of the UK government and in furthering his own agenda.
Edward Snowden worked for the US National Security Agency (NSA) but became disillusioned with it considering its policies counterproductive, invasive and illegal.
He gathered together sensitive information and disappeared from his office surfacing first in Hong Kong where he leaked copious amounts of information to the “Guardian” newspaper who released much of it to the UK public.
The “sh-t hit the fan” and there were many accusations, denials, warnings, threats and government pursuit mainly featuring Heywood and his actions against the Guardian which were designed to bring an end to the revelations of Snowden who subsequently took refuge in Russia.
There was considerable press coverage and some of the content is disturbing but is a true reflection of the activities of the US and UK government’s secret services.
8 Jun 2013: Authorities in the US have been mining data from companies such as Google, Apple and Facebook gaining access to emails, photos and other files allowing analysts to track peoples movements and contacts. The US president insisted the surveillance programmes struck a good balance between safety and privacy. (http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/jun/08/obama-internet-surveillance-video)
9 Jun 2013: Then foreign secretary, William Hague, said reports that GCHQ was gathering intelligence from phones and online sites should not concern people who had nothing to hide. Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, Hague claimed all intelligence gathering done by the UK to be governed by a strong legal framework. When asked directly about the UK’s links to Prism, the NSA’s secret surveillance programme, Hague declined to either confirm or deny it existed. (http://www.theguardian.com/uk/video/2013/jun/09/data-snooping-law-abiding-citizens-nothing-fear-hague-video)
6 Sep 2013: NSA and GCHQ unlocked encryption used to protect emails, banking and medical records. $250m-a-year US program worked covertly with tech companies to insert weaknesses into products. Security experts said programs ‘undermined the fabric of the internet’. (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-gchq-encryption-codes-security)
19 Dec 2013: Official response to Snowden’s revelations celebrates journalism and calls for real change. But in Britain, the picture is rather different.
Last summer the British cabinet secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, entered the Guardian’s London office and told the editor there had been enough debate and reporting on the business of intelligence agencies. But a US government report on the Guardian’s revelations about the US NSA said it was informed and thoughtful and went beyond the privacy-versus national security platitudes of the debate in the UK. It did not blame journalism for providing information to the public and the authors of the report were not hand-wringing liberals numbering a former CIA deputy director; a counter-terrorism adviser to George W Bush and his father; two former White House advisers and a former dean of the Chicago law school. (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/19/obama-nsa-review-britain-debate-possible)
24 Dec 2013: The NSA, founded in 1952, is the USA’s signals intelligence agency, and the biggest of the country’s myriad intelligence organisations. and maintains a strict focus on overseas, rather than domestic, surveillance. It is the phone and internet interception specialist of the USA and is also responsible for codebreaking. (http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/the-nsa-files)
31 Jan 2014: Footage released of Guardian editors destroying Snowden hard drives. GCHQ technicians monitored journalists at the Guardian taking angle grinders and drills to computers after the cabinet secretary, Jeremy Heywood told the editor to destroy records and equipment and to stop publishing articles based on leaked material from American’s NSA and GCHQ. Heywood told the editor: “We can do this nicely or we can go to law. A lot of people in government think you should be shut down.” (http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/jan/31/snowden-files-computer-destroyed-guardian-gchq-basement-video)
27 Feb 2014: The intelligence services commissioner repeatedly refused to address the home affairs select committee on disclosures over the US NSA mass digital surveillance programmes. The clash came not long after the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, called for a major overhaul of the oversight of Britain’s intelligence services, including reform of the commissioners’ roles as part of his campaign against, “unaccountable power”. (http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/27/mps-summon-security-services-watchdog-mark-waller-snowden)
28 Feb 2014: Secret documents revealed Britain’s surveillance agency GCHQ, aided by the NSA intercepted and stored webcam images of millions of internet users. In one six-month period in 2008 the agency collected webcam imagery including substantial quantities of sexually explicit communications from more than 1.8 million Yahoo user accounts. (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/gchq-nsa-webcam-images-internet-yahoo)
28 Feb 2014: Three US senators are to investigate any role the National Security Agency played in its British partner’s mass collection of Yahoo webcam images. The senators described the interception as a “breathtaking lack of respect for privacy and civil liberties”.
29 Oct 2014: UK government admits GCHQ routinely views data with no warrant.
Comment. The Snooper’s Charter simply legitimized what was already happening. The government pretended to believe in the rule of law but it just saw it as a means to an end. The public was never meant to know about the eavesdropping and gathering of data. Had the Guardian not broken the story the government would still be pretending that data gathering would start only when safeguarding legislation was in place. Evidently, the government has little respect for free speech. (http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/29/gchq-nsa-data-surveillance)
Devolution affords Scottish charities opportunities to forge their own relationships with MSPs providing them with access to parliament in a way they have never had before. This freedom of access does not have the support of many UK, (London) controlled charities who are unwilling to cede power to their Scottish branches.
In 200* The Scottish ******** ******** charity management team, submitted a proposal, to its UK controllers that the charity should be autonomous of England, including control of financial contributions made in Scotland. This was rejected leaving the Scottish management team and staff well and truly deflated.
A significant number of people, who had been volunteers actively supporting the charity resigned and the Scottish management team was suspended
An important patron who, in addition to providing moral and physical support, had also made many significant financial donations resigned citing distracting and demoralizing endless internal rows with the London office. Paraphrasing the statement of resignation the Patron said;
“I have not taken the decision to quit my position as patron lightly. In the last year, the Scottish team and I initiated and attended mediation sessions, in the hope of sorting out long-standing and escalating conflicts between the Scottish management team and officers in London, driven by the imposition of changes from England. Unfortunately little was achieved. With mounting frustration and disappointment, I have been witness to the resignations of immensely dedicated people within the Scottish ******** ******** and the increasing demoralization of staff whom I have come to know and admire over the ten years of our association.”
The suspended, soon after ex-Chairman of the charity in Scotland briefed staff that the patron might be persuaded to reconsider standing down if the charity cut its ties with London.
The London office warned the charity in Scotland that any breakaway would result in the loss of £550,000 research grant finance.
A postal ballot was conducted and around 75% of the membership either abstained or voted to be independent of England. So London retained control.
There was much to admire about the leadership of the Scottish charity and the strongly-worded statement of the patron, who clearly fully supported a Scottish charity separate from London.
The patron!! JK Rowling. The Charity!! The Multiple Sclerosis Society Scotland. The Source!!
Peter Snow heads a TV dynasty second only to the Dimbleby’s. His family also have a deep personal connection with the elite responsible for the disasters of the first world war.
A journalist, author and broadcaster he was ITN’s Diplomatic and Defence Correspondent from 1966 to 1979 and presented BBC’s Newsnight from 1980 to 1997.
His Great-Grandfather was David Lloyd George, British Prime Minister from 1916 until 1922.
His Grandfather was General Sir Thomas D’Oyly Snow, one of the army leaders who planned and executed the battle of the Somme in which on the first day 1 July 1916, the British army suffered over 57,000 casualties, including more than 19,000 dead.
His historian and broadcaster son Dan is married to the Duke of Westminster’s daughter, Lady Edwina.
The fabulously wealthy Westminster’s are one of the five richest families in the UK, with a combined wealth exceeding that of about 20% of the population of the UK.
Dan Snow the historian
In a fanciful documentary for the BBC about WW1, he revealed the extent of his pride in his family’s role in the war when he opened the narrative with the statement: “Many soldiers enjoyed WW1. If they were lucky they would avoid a big offensive, and much of the time, conditions might be better than at home. For the British, there was meat every day – a rare luxury back home – cigarettes, tea and rum, part of a daily diet of over 4,000 calories. Absentee rates due to sickness, an important barometer of a unit’s morale were, remarkably, hardly above peacetime rates. Many young men enjoyed the guaranteed pay, the intense comradeship, the responsibility and a much greater sexual freedom than in peacetime Britain”.
General Thomas D’Oyly Snow
He described his Great Grandfather as, “a hardened enforcer for QueenVictoria who fought Zulus in South Africa and the Mahdi in Sudan, where he carried a bottle of champagne with him to Khartoum and drank it when his troops had avenged the death of General Gordon, who was killed fighting the Mahdi’s warriors in 1885. He had command of the 4th Division at the start of WW1.
He dismissed the description critical of the British army command “lions led by donkeys” insisting that the Generals had been at the forefront of military innovation.
But his ancestor General Sir Thomas D’Oyly Snow who experienced the war first hand saw it in very different terms when he wrote: “The higher staffs had had no practice in command, and although they had been well trained in the theory of the writing and issue of orders, they failed in the practice…added to this we all suffered from the fault common to all Englishmen, a fault we did not know we suffered from till war revealed it, a total lack of imagination”.
But Snow’s opinion was that his Great Grandfather had been overly critical of himself and others, attributing failures at the Somme and after to the inexperience of the British gunners and Churchill who had refused to re-supply artillery shells to the front claiming there was no money available.
He expanded his views stating “A revolution in firepower had given the Germans the ability to bring a wall of steel and explosives down on anyone brave enough to attack. Radio was in its infancy. Telephone cables were severed. Messengers were picked off by snipers armed with rifles of undreamed-of power and accuracy. Thousands of miles of newly invented barbed wire posed an intractable problem”.
But Sir Thomas in his memoirs wrote; ‘We lost men on the first night, drowned or smothered. The men had either to stand in water, knee-deep, with every prospect of sinking in deeper still or hang on the side of the trench. Later in the war, we should have overcome the difficulty but at this time the men were overworked in keeping the front trenches in order, and we were all inexperienced. On one occasion one of my staff said to a Corporal of the Engineers, “Now you are an engineer; cannot you devise some method of draining this trench?” to which he replied, “I am afraid, Sir, that I cannot; you see before the war I was a Christmas card maker by trade.”
And the high command did nothing to help. A soldier said: ‘We were not provided with wood wherewith to make trench-boards, and no extra socks or waterproof boots were forthcoming. We were only censured for having so many sick.”
Snow said that his Great Grandfather’s memoirs ended before, “his darkest days of the war”.
But the records state that at the Somme Sir Thomas’ men, “attacked the strongest stretch of German line as a diversion for the main assault, which went into the south and even by the standards of that bloody and futile day, the attack of Snow’s VII Corps was a disaster. For the general had been located at his chateau headquarters, a long way from the carnage of the trenches.”
Adding insult to injury General Snow attempted to shift blame for the carnage away from himself when he wrote to his seniors, “I regret to have to report that the 46th Division in yesterday’s operations showed a lack of offensive spirit.”
This was after the men had fought their way into the German trench system through unbroken barbed wire. And held off numerous counter-attacks until they had run out of ammunition and were forced to use shovels and their bare hands.”
The foregoing is at odds with Snow’s claim that “Many soldiers enjoyed WW1. If they were lucky they would avoid a big offensive, and much of the time, conditions might be better than at home.”
The old imperial warrior in his recollection admitted that soldiers were poorly trained and unsupported by generals who did not know what they were doing since whilst they had the experience of colonial warfare they were totally unprepared for industrialized total war.
Why were they located at chateau’s far from the front line? Why did they try to shift the blame for failure onto the rank and file of the army? In his documentary on WW1, the Dan Snow of 2014 dismissed criticism of the conduct of the generals as unjustified but I prefer the account of his Great Grandfather.
The NHS in England is adopting USA healthcare provision.
Once contracts are in place they cannot be reversed, hedge fund private healthcare conglomerates would sue for billions and bankrupt England. The changes will be processed to a conclusion regardless of the political shade of government. The NHS in England is being flogged off.
The “No” vote in the 2014 independence referendum increased the likelihood that the Scottish NHS will suffer a similar fate since financial allocations for healthcare are first decided at Westminster.
Indicators point to a period of around 10 years, from 2018 for the cost of healthcare provision in England to mirror that of the USA. In 2007 the cost of healthcare for the average American was $7,290. In the same year, the cost of healthcare for the average UK citizen was $2,992. Assuming a fully privatized English NHS will continue to be fully funded by Westminster through existing taxes for basic healthcare needs (what this will encompass is as yet unknown) will require the balance of $4,298 to be found by each person in England.
There is no free market solution to providing funds for every person to receive health care deemed proper by the medical system without universal insurance schemes and a family of four will probably need to take out an annual healthcare policy, monthly premiums, (at today’s rates) approximately £300. Annual cost £3600. Bite on that!! many families will struggle to ensure adequate healthcare provision. It should be noted that the bulk of the cost difference, between the UK and USA, can be attributed in part to profit-taking by private Healthcare providers.
Will Primary care trusts lead to US-style health care?Extract:
“The use of private finance in primary care premises has seen the entry of commercial property developers and for-profit healthcare companies, paralleling developments in the NHS hospital sector.
As funding for capital investment in the NHS has become more complex, with the requirement that public-private partnerships generate a mixture of state and commercial revenues, the risks and costs of investment make general practitioners’ ownership of premises increasingly unlikely.
At the same time, the government’s NHS Plan expects a rapid move of general practitioners into a salaried service, the end of independent contractor status, and an increasing role for the private sector. These changes raise questions about how government policy will affect the control of clinical decision-making in managing NHS budgets and the core principles of the NHS. Full article here:
Great Britain & the USA “The Special Relationship”
During World War II Scotland suffered some 34,000 combat deaths, and approximately 6,000 civilians were killed, many in air attacks on Clydeside.
The phrase was first used by Churchill in a 1946 speech. It was his way of selling to the British electorate his belief in a high level of trust and cooperation that prevailed between the USA & Britain in economic activity, trade and commerce, military planning, execution of military operations, weapons technology and intelligence sharing.
But many politicians and a sceptical Scottish public were less enamoured of the USA, having been saddled with meeting the massive cost of the “lease lend contract” negotiated by Churchill & Roosevelt at the start of the war. The final repayment of which was not made until 1966, twenty years after the end of WW2. So much for the special relationship, more akin to stabling a Trojan Horse in the House of Commons.
There were also many in the Tory Party who questioned Britain’s decision to go to war with Germany in support of Poland, since the policy had not been debated at length in Westminster.
Such doubts were speedily squashed by the Labour government, which was determined to bask in the glory of winning a war with Germany, Japan and their allies. It is said that “the Victor writes the history” and questions such as, could war have been avoided? Were not examined and aired in the glory of triumph.
But in 1982 Robert Harris released an explosive BBC “News-night” report providing previously unknown information about events in the period 1938-45.
The report was centred on a former US intelligence officer, Tyler Kent who, up to 1940 was employed as a diplomat, (cyber decoding) in the US Embassy.
In 1940, he was arrested, tried and convicted by a secret court in London of violating the British Official Secrets Act, (which as an American citizen he was not bound to)
In an unprecedented act, again decided upon, in secret, at Presidential level, Tyler Kent’s diplomatic immunity was removed so that he could be arrested by MI5 and kept secure in a British prison until after the war.
There is no record of his trial. But he was sentenced to 7 years in prison, without appeal. He was released in 1945.
The Strange Case of Tyler Kent was subsequently written up and published – Winston Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt – Their Conspiracy to Take Britain to War
In May 1940, a 29-year-old American code clerk at the U.S. embassy in London was arrested by British authorities in his apartment. Tyler Kent was charged with having violated the British Official Secrets Act. “For a purpose prejudicial to the safety and interests of the state,” the charge stated, Kent had “obtained a document which might be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy.” He was sentenced to seven years in prison, but was released and returned to the United States after serving five.
Between June 1940 and December 1945, the Kent case was the subject of numerous American newspaper articles. Most were sensational or highly speculative, since reliable information was hard to come by. (At the time, the British press was strictly censored.) Many Americans wanted to know how a foreign government could secretly arrest and put on trial a U.S. citizen who held diplomatic immunity. Congressmen and newspapers speculated as to what the code clerk really knew about rumoured secret arrangements between President Roosevelt and British leader Winston Churchill.
Many wondered if Kent had been jailed to keep him from talking. But preoccupation with the war and official government statements satisfied the curiosity of all but a handful. When Kent returned to the United States in 1945 from British imprisonment, almost all interest in the case had evaporated in the general euphoria of Allied military victory. For many years the Kent story was virtually forgotten.
The passage of time and a more sober awareness of how American presidents operate encouraged new interest in the case. Dramatic revelations of illegal Presidential actions that emerged from the Vietnam War and the Watergate affair shocked Americans into a bitter realization that their Chief Executive could lie and break the law. In recent years, the Kent case has been the subject of several scholarly and semi-scholarly articles.
Highly acclaimed author John Toland devoted several pages to the affair in his 1982 revisionist book on Pearl Harbor, Infamy. In December 1982 the British television program “News-night” examined the Kent case. The broadcast included excerpts from an interview with Kent filmed near his Texas home. Several books about the Kent story have been published critically re-examining President Roosevelt’s path into the Second World War.
Tyler Gatewood Kent was born on March 24, 1911, in Yingkou (Newchwang), northern China, where his father, William P. Kent, was serving as the American Consul. The family had strong roots in Virginia. Kent’s English forebears settled there in 1644. President John Tyler was a distant relative. A grandfather was Speaker of the Virginia Assembly and lieutenant governor.
Tyler Kent attended St. Alban’s School in Washington, D.C., and received his higher education at Princeton (AB, 1931), George Washington University, the Paris Sorbonne, and the University of Madrid. From an early age he showed a remarkable aptitude for languages. Eventually he learned numerous ancient and modern languages. Like his father, Kent chose a career in the State Department foreign service.
His first assignment was to the American embassy in Moscow. From 1934 to 1939, Kent learned first-hand in the Soviet capital about life under Communism. His fluent command of the Russian language helped him to know the Russian people and the realities of Soviet life much more intimately than most diplomats. He developed an intense hatred for the Soviet system and for those who had foisted this monstrous tyranny on Russia.
Kent was appalled at Roosevelt’s support for Stalin’s cruel and despotic regime.
His personal experience and careful study convinced him that Communism represented a mortal danger to the world, and to the West in particular. President Roosevelt, though, considered the Soviet system a rougher but more progressive version of his own New Deal, both motivated by the same lofty humanistic ideals.
From Moscow Kent was transferred to the U.S. embassy in London. From October 1939 until that fateful 20th day of May, 1940, he served as a code clerk. This was an especially important position there because all diplomatic dispatches from American missions across Europe to Washington were routed through the London embassy’s code room.
When Kent began work, war had already broken out in Europe. U.S. law and overwhelming public sentiment seemed to insure that America would avoid entanglement in the conflict. But from his special vantage point in London, Kent quickly learned that President Roosevelt was doing everything in his power to subvert the law and deceive the people in order to get America into war.
Kent decided to make copies or summaries of diplomatic dispatches documenting Roosevelt’s secret policies and somehow bring them to the attention of sympathetic congressmen and senators. And so he took the course that led to his untimely arrest, briefly made him something of a celebrity, and cost him five years in prison. As he puts it, he got “tangled up in history.” In fact, he came very close to changing its course.
As code clerk, Kent intercepted hundreds of diplomatic dispatches between the embassies in Europe and the State Department in Washington. He made verbatim copies of most of the messages and paraphrased summaries of the rest. The most important and incriminating of these was the top secret correspondence between Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, which began with a letter from the President dated September 11, 1939.
Until May 11, 1940, Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty (or head of the British Navy). Thus, any exchange of communications between him and Roosevelt until that date was highly irregular because it took place behind the back of the head of the British government, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Officially, heads of state communicate only with their counterpart heads of state, and any communications otherwise are understood to be for the ultimate attention of the counterpart head of state.
In the case of the Roosevelt-Churchill correspondence before May 11, 1940, not only was that exchange designed to be kept secret from Prime Minister Chamberlain, it was indeed something of a conspiracy against him. Churchill wanted to supplant Chamberlain, and Roosevelt himself desired this end. For this reason, the exchange was kept especially secret. Until he became Prime Minister himself, Churchill signed his messages to Roosevelt simply, “Naval Person.”
The public revelation of the mere existence of a secret Churchill-Roosevelt exchange behind Chamberlain’s back would have been highly embarrassing to both correspondents. But if Kent had somehow succeeded in making the contents of the exchange known to the American public, there would have been loud demands for Roosevelt’s impeachment.
Kent intercepted and made a complete copy of Churchill’s message to Roosevelt of December 25, 1939 (Telegram 2720) in which Churchill informed the President that British warships would continue to violate American sovereignty to seize German ships within the U.S. three mile maritime territorial zone. However, in order to keep these violations secret, Churchill promised that the seizures would take place out of view from the American shore. “We cannot refrain from stopping enemy ships outside international three-mile limit when these may well be supply ships for U-boats or surface raiders, but instructions have been given only to arrest or fire upon them out of sight of United States shores.”
In his message to Roosevelt of February 28, 1940 (Telegram 490), which was also intercepted and copied out by Kent, Churchill wrote that the British would continue to seize and censor U.S. mail from American and other neutral ships on their way to Europe. “All our experience shows that the examination of mails is essential to efficient control,” Churchill told Roosevelt. This was, of course, a blatant violation of American neutrality and international law.
There was considerable astonishment in the United States when the full extent of Roosevelt’s connivance in the illegal British seizure and censorship of American mail to Europe became known many years after the war. If this message intercepted by Kent had been made public in 1940 or 1941, there would have been a first-rate scandal.
In the secret correspondence between Churchill and Roosevelt intercepted by Kent, the two leaders conspired to insure that the United States government would secretly tolerate British violations of American territorial sovereignty and restrictions on neutral American shipping. The two men wanted to avoid any embarrassing incidents that would provoke public indignation in America over the illegal British actions. They also worked out procedures for joint British-American naval reporting of the location of German surface raiders and submarines which violated at least the spirit if not the letter of United States neutrality.
The fact that Kent’s diplomatic immunity was waived by the U.S. government so that British authorities could throw him into prison is itself proof that the Roosevelt administration was neutral in name only. If Kent had been discovered intercepting dispatches at the American embassy in Berlin, it is inconceivable that the U.S. government would have waived his immunity so that German authorities could imprison him. To the contrary, the Roosevelt administration would have done everything it could to protect him from any possible prosecution and imprisonment by the German government.
In response to a growing clamour in the press and among the public about a possible official government cover-up in the Kent case, the State Department issued a lengthy public statement on September 2, 1944. The cleverly worded document implied, without ever actually making the charge, that Kent had been a German spy. The State Department in effect admitted, however, that it had put British interests ahead of American interests and law in the case.
Kent’s trial had been held in secret, the statement said, “because of the harmful effects to British counter-espionage efforts which were to be anticipated if certain of the evidence became public.” Even more revealing was the official admission that Kent’s extraordinary treatment was because “The interest of Great Britain in such a case, at a time when it was fighting for its existence, was therefore pre-eminent.” At a time, it must be remembered, when the United States was publicly and legally neutral in the conflict between Britain and Germany, the State Department considered British, and not American, interests in the Kent case to be “pre-eminent.”
In 1939 and 1940, the vast majority of the American people wanted to avoid involvement in the European war. They felt that U.S. participation in the First World War had been a catastrophic error and wanted to ensure that the mistake would not be repeated. The Congress was likewise committed to a policy of firm neutrality, and had passed the Johnson and Neutrality Acts to make sure that America kept out of war in Europe.
The President is constitutionally charged with the duty to execute the will of the American people as expressed through the Congress. The Constitution reserves the power to make war and peace exclusively to Congress. But with brazen contempt for the will of the people, the law and the constitution, President Roosevelt conspired with a small circle of confidants to incite war in Europe and bring the United States into the conflict. He broke his oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Over the years, numerous lies have been invented and spread about Tyler Kent. The most slanderous is that he was a traitor to the United States and a spy for Germany. In fact, Kent was a genuine patriot who put the welfare of his nation above his own personal happiness and security. He was never charged with violating any American law. Kent acted on the traditional principle that for United States government officials, American interests (and not those of Britain or any other country) come first. He was sacrificed to foreign interests by his own government.
In London Tyler Kent faced a painful dilemma: What should a government official do when he discovers that his boss, the President of the United States, is breaking the law? Kent felt a greater loyalty to his nation and its laws than to President Roosevelt. His sense of honour moved him to collect documentary evidence of Roosevelt’s treacherous crimes and try to bring it before the American people. Kent paid for his “crime” with five years in prison and a tarnished reputation for the rest of his life, while Franklin Roosevelt, who violated the Constitution and numerous laws, was re-elected President and praised as a hero.
If Tyler Kent had somehow succeeded in making public his collection of intercepted documentary evidence, he would have unleashed an enormous public outcry for President Roosevelt’s removal from office. At the very least he would have temporarily halted Roosevelt’s campaign to get America into war. Roosevelt might well have been so discredited that Wendell Wilkie would have defeated him in the 1940 presidential election.
It is difficult to say whether the Kent disclosures would have been enough to bring about Roosevelt’s impeachment. Certainly the documents provide proof of criminal activity sufficient to warrant removal from office. Congress would have been virtually compelled to begin at least preliminary impeachment proceedings. This much can be said with certainty: disclosure of the Kent documents would have dealt a powerful blow to Roosevelt’s prestige and credibility. Tyler Kent might then have significantly altered the course of American and world history.
