Transparency International, the anti-corruption watchdog, defines it as:
“a situation where powerful individuals, institutions, companies or groups within or outside a country use corruption to shape a nation’s policies, legal environment and economy to benefit their own private interests”.
An online search of ex-New Labour ministers career choices after moving on from government reveals a disturbing pattern. Many have taken up positions with major weaponry manufacturers.
Former Foreign Secretary, the late Robin Cook said of his time in office that he:
“came to learn that the chairman of BAE appeared to have the key to the garden door to number 10. Certainly I never knew No 10 to come up with any decision which would be incommoding to BAE.”
As well as employing in-house lobbyists, BAE Systems also employs a lobbying agency called Portland PR.
Many of Portland PR’s staff have worked at the upper echelons of both Labour and Conservative governments.
Portland Communications Ltd is a political consultancy and public relations agency set up in 2001 by Tim Allan, a former adviser to Tony Blair and Director of Communications at BSkyB. Portland provides communications and public affairs advice to brands and high-profile individuals. Portland’s website states:
“Our team is recruited from the highest levels of the media, politics and government.”
In 2016, political blog The Canary alleged that Portland staff were behind the orchestration of a “coup” against, Jeremy Corbyn, after a wave of mass resignations from his front bench. Len McCluskey of British and Irish trade union Unite told Andrew Marr on his Sunday morning programme:
“I’m amazed that some of the MPs have fallen into a trap.”
Referring to Portland Communications as:
“a sinister force”
McCluskey said:
“This is a PR company with strong links to Tony Blair and right-wing Labour MPs who’ve been involved in this orchestrated coup, and the coup has failed”.
Gordon Brown and new Labour Embraced the Practice
During his 10 years as Chancellor of the Exchequer and then as Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury, Gordon Brown cultivated a carefully crafted reputation as a prudent politician and trustworthy custodian of the public purse. Indeed, such was his penchant for using the word ‘prudence’ that political journalists took to playing a fun game of counting the number of times it was mentioned in his budget speeches, and then comparing it with appearances in previous deliveries at the despatch box – to gauge his commitment to balancing the books. Some even jokingly suggested that Prudence was the name of his girlfriend, who had been kept out of the public eye. Either way, managing the nation’s finances is no joke and Brown’s record in office, as a fiscally prudent politician, does not tally with the evidence. In his autobiography My Life, Our Times, Brown discusses among other things the financial crises, his economic record and that fateful promise made by Tony Blair. Not surprisingly, there is no mention of one of most disgraceful actions of his government. It concerns state-sponsored protectionism, blatant favouritism and failure to install genuinely independent regulators. This shameful episode, which marred Brown’s time in office, relates to the procurement of military equipment.
New Labour Government Procurement Policy in Practice
What has been clear for many years is that, public subsidies handed out to defence equipment manufacturers over several decades, is the reason why they have failed so miserably, to deliver equipment to the Armed Forces which is fit for purpose, adequately sustained in-service and constitutes value for money through-life. In the UK, as in many western countries, the means of defence production, distribution and exchange is exclusively in the hands of private interests, that is to say, the State is entirely dependent on for-profit organisations for the design, development, manufacture and delivery of new military equipment to the Armed Forces. Consequently, the government has no choice but to rely on the Private Sector for all its military equipment needs, including its subsequent upkeep when in-service with the user. The harsh reality is that, no department of state in Whitehall is as dependent on the Private Sector, as is the Ministry of Defence – putting it at serious risk of capture by private interests (if it hasn’t already been) which allows them to bend policy to their will, as it relates to the expenditure of public funds. Equally, these private interests are entirely dependent upon a steady flow of taxpayer funds for their very survival – no least, because they have not bothered to diversify at all. It may be that senior executives seconded from the defence industry and embedded within the Ministry of Defence, who remain in the pay of their employers, may have something to do with this skewing of spending decisions, to favour their narrow commercial interests – at the expense of taxpayers and the national interest.
Secret Deals
Consider the case of the Terms of Business Agreement on naval shipbuilding, signed by the Brown government with BAE Systems during the dying days of the 2005-10 Parliament, which left the incoming administration no room for manoeuvre at all, as it set about undertaking a comprehensive Strategic Defence & Security Review – for the first time in 12 years. In fact, this agreement was signed in secret, in 2009, precisely because it locked the government into an appallingly poor 15-year contract laced with a punitive get-out clause which, if made public at the time, would have attracted criticism and negative publicity in the press and media during the run-up to the 2010 general election, potentially swinging the result in favour of the other party. The existence of the TOBA was only revealed to Parliament in 2011 by the Cameron-led coalition government, when it was confronted with the undeniable truth that MoD finances were in pretty bad shape and needed to be declared publicly, to garner public support for deep cuts in the defence budget that ensued.
Lack of Fiscal Prudence
It is an open secret that the even the most fiscally prudent people in government are prone to softening their hard-line stance just before a general election, when they are up for re-election, which makes them more likely to open-up the public purse. Equally, defence contractors are aware of this weakness in top politicians and will take full advantage, by surreptitiously intensifying their lobbying efforts in cahoots with labour trade unions, to apply political pressure spliced with threats of massive lay-offs, timed to coincide with the electoral cycle, to relieve politicians of taxpayers’ money and maximise their take – which is exactly what happened with this TOBA. So, instead of exposing defence equipment manufacturers to the full rigours of the free market, that is, not shielding them from “feeling the heat” of competitive market forces, the Brown government chose to engage in protectionism and favouritism by handing out uncontested, long-term shipbuilding contracts worth billions of pounds – with virtually no checks and controls, or even guarantees.
Summary and the Way Ahead
People at the Ministry of Defence are, without exception, favourably disposed towards the defence industry because they are completely dependent upon it for their subsequent career choices (via the revolving door), when their time in public service comes to an end, or their employment contract is terminated abruptly by political edict. Indeed, it is very hard to find anyone at MoD who will aggressively defend taxpayers’ interests once they have enjoyed a cosy relationship with contractors. It is fair to say that they certainly know which side their ‘bread is buttered’! It is precisely to overcome this disastrous state of affairs that the government should set the objective of pulling back from the defence equipment market and allow the Private Sector to take-over, so that it can make the necessary capital allocation decisions for itself, as it relates to the development of its own products – instead of continually looking to intervene in the market with public funds which, as history has shown, will always be squandered. An innovative proposal on how to go about eliciting Private Sector investment capital in defence procurement programmes was set out in a written submission to the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, which reported on its inquiry into Industrial Strategy in the last Parliament. It introduces a modern Defence Industrial Strategy that puts financial security and the national interest first, not military equipment manufacturers’ commercial interests.
And the Arms dealers have wormed their way into UK Schools and Colleges
In allowing the arms trade into schools and colleges we are teaching children that innovation for the sake of destruction is acceptable. Private arms companies and government-owned military organisations have wormed their way into the British education system. Global arms companies have links with many UK Universities; investing in research programmes, poaching recent graduates and funding new buildings.
But these links stretch further than this into our education system, as weapons manufacturers also invest their time and money into schools across the country. Raytheon, an American weapons and cyber security company with multiple UK sites, holds an annual “Quadcopter Challenge” in which children are encouraged to design the best drone they can. Billed as a means for the company to ‘invest in its future workforce’ by promoting STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects, this programme reached over 1,000 teenagers nationwide in 2018 with the full backing of the Westminster government. Pushing STEM subjects is most common amongst private arms manufacturers and government-funded military organisations; QinetiQ and BAE Systems each boast various outreach programmes. In 2017, BAE partnered up with the Royal Navy and the RAF to visit 420 schools with a workshop designed to encourage the uptake of science and maths amongst 10-13 year olds. That year, BAE Systems also joined forces with the Royal Navy, QinetiQ and the University of Portsmouth to open a college. Portsmouth’s University Technical College (UTC) allows students to complete GCSEs and further educational qualifications in STEM subjects, whilst giving them ‘regular engagement’ with ‘employers and partners’. These partners include the likes of Airbus, who build the fighter jets used by Saudi Arabia in the war on Yemen; and BAE Systems, who produced the missiles used by the UK in its bombing of Syria. In addition to encouraging young children and teenagers to take up sciences, dozens of universities from Southampton to Sheffield are making millions of pounds from arms industry investment. The University of Cambridge, for example, received £13.7m from private arms companies between 2008 and 2011. The University of Sheffield was also funded £13.7m during this period, along with Imperial College London, which was granted over £16m between 2008 and 2017. BAE Systems in particular has a vested interest in British higher education. Southampton, Strathclyde, Manchester, Cranfield and Birmingham are five “strategic partner universities”, which have all signed long-term partnership deals with BAE to be ‘mutually productive’. Recently, the company handed out awards to PhD students from each of these institutions for various research projects. The overall winner was a project from the University of Strathclyde that developed new technology for detecting far away targets. The company responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent Yemenis through the selling of arms to the Saudi-led Coalition, is being facilitated by universities and students across the country. BAE took on 700 apprentices in 2019 and boasts that it is ‘one of the biggest UK supporters of education’ that has links to ‘approximately 100 universities’ worldwide. It remains unclear if this commitment to education extends to the two million Yemeni children who can’t go to school because of the war BAE Systems is helping wage. These companies gloat that by promoting STEM subjects they are pioneering a better, safer future. The arms industry puts on a front of humanity and tells us that the good work it does in this country outweighs the destruction it unleashes overseas. This is simply not the case. By allowing the arms trade into schools, colleges and universities, we are teaching children that innovation for the sake of destruction is acceptable and desirable. There is only a small leap between teaching schoolchildren to make toy drones and getting graduates to build real ones. (Stop the War coalition)
The “Institute for Statecraft and Governance” (IfS)
In 2006, NATO Special Advisor Chris Donnelly and Daniel Lafayeedney co-founded a charity, the “Institute for Statecraft and Governance” (IfS).
The pseudo “charity”, was registered and headquartered, without his knowledge, in a derelict mill in the Fife constituency of SNP MP Stephen Gethins and adjacent to the constituency of Jenny Gilruth, partner of Kezia Dugdale, then leader of the Labour party in Scotland. The “Charity”!! produced and published copious articles on threats to NATO’s existence and expansion, from Putin’s Russia.
In 2015, the IfS established the “Integrity Initiative”, an organization in receipt of significant financial support from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the British government who had to publicly confirm its existence and purpose to be a counter-Russia-disinformation campaigning unit, which, in typically Orwellian language, meant U.S.-British disinformation campaigning.
This is what the Scottish Charity Regulator thought of the organisation:
Suspecting abuse of the charitable status the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator opened an inquiry into the Institute for Statecraft in December 2018 and after 10 months of torturous investigation identified that “one of its most significant activities, the project known as the Integrity Initiative did not provide public benefit in furtherance of the charity’s declared purposes”. It also found that trustees had “breached their trustee duties to act with care and diligence in the interest of the charity, some of them to a serious extent”.
The same two people set up a number of dubious SLPs in their time – rendered all the more suspect by Lafayeedney’s business dealings being investigated by the Inland Revenue in 2004, and landing him in the High Court in 2006. In the latter case’s ruling, the judge savagely indicted his “lack of credibility”, and stated “there were certain specific matters…where I am bound to conclude Mr. Lafayeedney was not telling me the truth”.
Parliamentary contributions by other SNP frontbenchers seem even more suspect. For example, on 3rd AprilStephen Gethins, MP for North East Fife, submitted a loaded written question to then-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Alan Duncan asking “what steps he is taking with his overseas counterparts to tackle the distribution of disinformation in Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic States?”.
In response, Duncan listed a number of programmes his department was funding, including the “new Open Information Partnership” (OIP). a report on the OIP, exposed that far from fighting disinformation, the endeavour was in fact an avowed pan-European “disinformation factory” intimately connected to Integrity Initiative – furthermore, it was noted that Duncan’s low-key response was the only official announcement of OIP’s existence, and Whitehall was bizarrely keen to sweep the new venture under the rug.
This wall of silence is rendered all the more suspicious in light of Gethins’ Commons career – for in the four years since being elected MP he’s displayed little to no interest in any of the countries mentioned, or indeed the concept of ‘disinformation the query bore clear hallmarks of a planted question, seemingly serving no purpose other than specifically providing Duncan an opportunity to quietly but formally herald the Partnership’s inauguration.
Even more peculiarly, the only other occasion Gethins mentioned ‘disinformation’ in parliament was during an emergency debate on Integrity Initiative 12th December 2018, demanded by Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry after it was publicly revealed the organisation’s Twitter account had published a number of posts hostile to Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party, potentially breaching rules relating to state funding and charity activity in the process.
It wasn’t the first time Gethins had hailed the work of FCO-funded individuals in this manner – on 21st December 2017, during a debate on ‘Russian Interference in UK Politics’, Gethins singled out Craig Oliphant – former head of the FCO’s Eastern Research Group, and a member of the Initiative’s UK cluster – as an “extraordinary person” doing “extraordinary work”.
23 Aug, 2019: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky bestowed a State honour on SNP MP Stewart McDonald
McDonald has established himself as Scotland’s most voluble and zealous advocate for the Kiev regime, by some margin and has cemented himself as prominent and pugnacious critic of the Putin’s Russia through his daily. Russophobic conspiracy theorising on social media being an almost daily staple.
The catalyst for McDonald’s damascene conversion appears to be a trip he and fellow SNP MPs Douglas Chapman and Chris Law undertook to Ukraine in May 2018, which included a visit to Avdiivka, one of the “hotspots” in the ongoing war in Donbass.
The expedition evidently stirred something in him, for prior to the visit he’d mentioned Russia in parliament four times over the course of his Commons career, and Ukraine not once – in the year since returning, he’s mentioned Russia on 13 occasions (even inexplicably crowbarring a reference to the Kremlin into a Commons debate on the murder by the Saudi regime of Jamal Khashoggi)
Puzzlingly, while widely publicised at the time, the pilgrimage doesn’t appear in any of the MPs’ registers of members’ interests. The trio could’ve bankrolled the voyage themselves of course, but Scottish media reports suggest the trip was a “parliamentary fact-finding mission” undertaken at the invitation of Ukraine’s Ambassador to the UK, lending it an official character – the Commons also wasn’t in recess at the time, suggesting it wasn’t a mere vacation either.
Requests for clarity on who or what funded the visit submitted to McDonald, Chapman and Law have been ignored – SNP frontbench adviser Neal Stewart, who accompanied the lawmakers, likewise declined to provide information and also refused to explain the nature of his relationship with Integrity Initiative, the secret UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office military intelligence operation.
OK his name name appears in just one of the organisation’s internal documents, the content suggests it could be intimate. The file in question is a report documenting the activities of organisation staffer – and potential MI5 operative – Euan Grant, 9th – 15th July 2018. Who, at some point that in the week wrote that he “attended the Neal Stewart event” at Two Temple Place, the secret London offices of the Institute for Statecraft, the Initiative’s shadowy parent organisation.
It is clear from Neal Stewart’s agitation there is still a widespread lack of interest in Russian influence among significant political groups in Scotland, with considerable sympathy for Russia. Questions about Neal Stewart to the SNP, including whether party chiefs were even aware of the event remain unanswered.
It is weirdly unsettling, when set against the Integrity Initiative’s hostility to Scottish Independence that the SNP hierarchy condone anti-Russia campaigning activities by their parliamentary representatives who purport to support the party ideal of independence.
An example of the Initiative’s scorn for Scottish independence is the March 2018 attack by the organisation who solicited an extensive briefing from David Leask, chief reporter at The Herald on the SNP’s internal dynamics and key figures and groups within the wider independence movement. A document which dubs independence movements as “separatist loons”.
The 77th Brigade and Scotland’s Independence
Black Watch soldier, Brigadier Alastair Aitken, formed the 77th (CYOPS Brigade, referred to in the media as ‘Twitter troops‘ or ‘Facebook warriors‘, which he described as the largest integrated government communications organisation [in] Europe.
In a 2018 article published in the “National” George Kerevan wrote:
“In any future Scottish independence referendum will the 77th Brigade be neutral or see the “Yes” campaign as a threat to national security and conduct a campaign to protect the constitutional status quo? SNP MSP’s and MP’s at Westminster should ask these questions now before it’s too late.” The questions have never been raised at Holyrood or Westminster
Mind blowing sources of information revealing the wide ranging scope of British intelligence activism within Scotland and worldwide.
Kate Watson pulled off a remarkable feat in being selected as the Labour candidate for Glasgow East. For the best part of the last eight years she had worked full-time for Labour MP Douglas Alexander in the House of Commons. When Watson finished working for Alexander in Westminster is not stated but presumably, it would have been in 2015, when Alexander lost his seat in that year’s general election. Omitted from her sales pitch was that during that period she had discharged the role of Director of Operations for ‘Better Together’ in 2014. Also missing was her transfer to a post supporting Douglas Alexander as Chief of Staff of his “‘Consequitur” consultancy. which developed close working relationships with similar minded political organisations in the USA. But her absence from Glasgow and Scotland for an extended period did not prevent the Scottish Labour party leadership from extending to her the nomination as candidate for Glasgow East for the 2017 election. More than a few labour hopefuls and activists were scunnered.
Given the levels of social deprivation in parts of Glasgow East, a Masters in, say, Social Work or Community work would have been useful. But the Masters which Watson obtained from St. Andrews University in 2013 was in Terrorism Studies. Hardly a pressing problem in the East End of Glasgow. But a Masters in Terrorism Studies fitted well with Watson’s role as a Specialist Reserve Officer in the army’s 77th Brigade. The absence of any employment information in her biography history was matched by an evasiveness about her political record. Asked to explain her links to the military propaganda unit” 77th Brigade she refused to comment.
CIA and British secret services agent Lord George Fowlkes
The “piss-artist” act is a well rehearsed tactic used by George to divert attention away from his work for Unionist causes and foreign affairs over 40 years in politics. It was George who tied the SNP government in knots for nearly 4 years when he was an MSP before moving south re-joining his labour colleagues at Westminster. But he left his protégé Dugdale behind.
Kezia Dugdale recruited to the Scottish Labour Party by George Fowlkes
Born in Aberdeen in 1981 Dugdalestudied Law at the University of Aberdeen for a time but gave up and completed a Masters in Policy Studies at the University of Edinburgh. She then worked for Edinburgh University Students’ Association and the National Union of Students Scotland. Before entering the Scottish Parliament as a list MSP she was employed as a SPAD working for Lord George Foulkes as his office manager and political adviser. Her political acumen was zilch but Foulkes used his influence within the Party to fast track her to the leadership of the Scottish Labour Party. And there was reason in his apparent madness.
In Jun 2016 Dugdale abandoned her post as Labour Party Scotland Leader and went off to the USA on a US State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Programme
It is the U.S. Department of State’s premier professional exchange program. Through short-term visits to the United States, current and emerging foreign leaders in a variety of fields experience this country first-hand and cultivate lasting relationships with their American counterparts. Professional meetings reflect the participants’ political interests and support the foreign policy goals of the United States mirroring the journey taken by Blair, Brown and others in New Labour before they took up the reins of government with New Labour. Blair, etc. left the UK unilateral anti-nuclear and returned pro-nuclear. Howzat!!
On return to Scotland Dugdale advised the press that her new partner was, Jenny Gilruth, SNP, MSP for Mid Fife and Glenrothes who was elected to Holyrood in May 2016, and is a parliamentary liaison officer for John Swinney. Also on the US fully funded trip were: Jenny Gilruth, Liz Lloyd and David Clegg. Patrick Grady (SNP Westminster chief whip) and Angela Crawley (SNP member of the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee) were also in the US at that time. Adds a whole new meaning to the WOKE attack on Alex Salmond under a year later.
Gordon Beattie left the Evening Times at the age of 26 to set up a news agency and made it Scotland’s largest public relations company. In its early days the stories the young Lanarkshire news agency would flog to news desks were ‘crap’, according to one tabloid editor of the Eighties. Injuries in traffic accidents jostled alongside weak business stories, but editors admired the sheer work rate of the guy.
Beattie Media moved into PR and news editors became aware that the local stories were promoting the same Lanarkshire businesses who just happened to be Beattie Media’s PR clients. The clients were paying Gordon Beattie who also charged the newspapers who ran the stories. Editors stopped running the copy.
It was a neat trick revealing Beattie’s ability to see a novel business opportunity. “He’s a very dynamic guy, into all that American business philosophy,” said one former employee. “PR is all about learning things about people they’d prefer you didn’t know and Gordon is a great exponent of trading stories,” said one of the many ex-journalists who have passed through Beattie Media’s doors
Beatie Media’s greatest fillip was to popularise the Tory policy of forcing public agencies to outsource services. Indeed all of the local enterprise companies within the Scottish Enterprise network, negotiated lucrative PFI contracts with private concerns.
Beattie Media was the first winner of a contract with the Lanarkshire Development Agency and speedily expanded its base adding the Glasgow Development Agency, Lothian and Edinburgh Enterprise Limited, and Ayrshire Enterprise. It also did the bulk of the PR work for Scottish Enterprise, including, Scotland the Brand and the Skills portfolio.
This domination of the enterprise sector led to concerns within the wider media that Beattie Media were monopolising the field and focused questions on just how a small and previously insignificant Lanarkshire based company had been so successful in winning big ticket contracts.
Losing PR companies were quick to suggest that Beattie Media owed its success to its benefactors, the aptly named and powerful Labour Party in Scotland “Monklands Mafia”
Scottish Water: Beattie Media inserted a PR team into West of Scotland Water before the contract had been advertised for tender. Losing rivals said Beattie Media had been in place for more than three months, the maximum limit for a public body to retain paid advisers without a competitive tendering process. A whistle blower source within West of Scotland Water said that Beattie Media was originally in the running against Shandwick PR, but “it didn’t matter what Shandwick did, Beattie were going to get it”. The revelations caused anger among employee’s that Gordon Beattie had been provided with privileged access to senior members of the board offering the services of Beattie Media when the in-house team was still in place.
An insider said: “Scotland is a small place, and who you know counts for a lot and the employment of Andrew Livingstone, (son of the chief executive of Lanarkshire Development Agency, Ian Livingstone) and Debbie Allison, the daughter of Beattie Media client, Clydeport’s chief executive, Tom Allison) greatly assisted the awarding of the contract to Beattie Media”
March 1996: Lanarkshire Development Agency – to put its PR out to tender
The Lanarkshire Development Agency reviewed its annual £100K PR account with Beattie Media which had been with the company since 1991. Managing Director, Gordon Beattie said: “The decision will be taken on the basis of cost and quality. As far as we’re concerned, if we retain the account it will be down to the quality of the proposal and the team we put in.’ Shandwick Scotland was one of the other companies chosen to pitch for the contract. Beattie media retained the account.
Jan 1997: Quango Blows £100K to engage a Media Company
A quango was accused of squandering almost £100K of public money by hiring Beattie Media for the run-up to the General Election. Scottish Enterprise, set up to attract inward investment, already had a 12-strong press and publicity office but it was desperate to reclaim power lost to a network of smaller Local Enterprise Companies (LECs) and it engaged the PR firm at £10K monthly in a bid to win Labour Party backing. The move ensured another lucrative contract for Lanarkshire-based Beattie Media which had already won deals worth more than £150K from LECs in Lanarkshire and Lothian.
Apr 1998: Public Affairs Europe – Beattie Media and the the Jack McConnell affair
Gordon Beattie launched Public Affairs Europe, a joint venture with commercial lawyers Maclay, Murray and Spens. Jack McConnell (later the Scottish Executive First Minister) and former general secretary of the Scottish Labour Party, was recruited and employed as a director (for around 9 months) in which time he won no clients and brought in no fees. McConnell’s links with Beattie Media later became central to the Scottish Parliament Standards Committee’s investigation of the infamous Lobbygate affair which was told that McConnell had been recruited by Beattie Media because of his political connections and prospects:
Beattie said “We appointed Jack McConnell to head up our public affairs consultancy, in the certain knowledge that Jack would get a safe seat from the Labour Party, and in the hope and expectation that he would also get a cabinet position within the new administration. So we always knew that Jack was going to leave us. Our concern centred on the probity of such an overtly political appointment given the recent history of sleaze at Westminster which had brought down the Tory government.”
Damian Killeen, Director of the Poverty Alliance in Glasgow, wrote to The Herald expressing his fears:
“The growth in the number of lobbying companies in Scotland, in advance of the election of a new Scottish Parliament, is happening with relatively little critical comment. Some of these companies are staffed by people who recently or currently have occupied prominent political positions. There is little doubt that their access to senior politicians is an important part of these companies’ sales pitch. Government in Scotland has, so far, done little to disassociate itself from these developments. What signals does this send out to those who are looking to the new Parliament to provide a level of accessibility and inclusiveness?
Apr 1998: McConnell quit Scottish Labour Party for an agency post with Beattie Media
Jack McConnell, general secretary of the Labour Party in Scotland for five years, resigned from his post to head up a new Edinburgh-based government relations consultancy to be known as Public Affairs Europe. It was a joint-venture between leading Scottish PR agency Beattie Media and commercial lawyers firm Maclay Murray and Spens.
Public Affairs Europe’s aimed to provide legal and constitutional advice alongside traditional government relations counsel, in the run-up to the establishment of the new Scottish Parliament. McConnell said: ’I look forward to helping the public and private sectors have greater involvement in the democratic process in Edinburgh, Westminster and Brussels. My company will be at the cutting edge of the quality, innovation, ethical standards and success which must be central to the new Scotland’.
Chief Executive McConnell, headed a six-strong team including George McKechnie, (head of public affairs at Beattie Media) who took up the duty of chairman of the new agency. Other board memebrs included, Gordon Beattie, managing director of Beattie Media and Magnus Swanson, Bruce Patrick and Alec Barr, all partners at Maclay Murray Spens.
Oct 1999: Scottish Parliament hit by lobbying scandal
Scottish politics was convulsed by a row over a lobbying company’s access to ministers in the newly devolved parliament. The Observer newspaper, whose investigation exposed the scandal, likened it to the row that blew up around Labour Party aide Derek Draper some months before and redolent of the “sleaze” allegations that dogged the previous Tory administration, which contributed to their 1997 electoral collapse.
Scotland’s “lobbygate” undermined the democratic illusions built up around the new parliament and exposed the sordid reality of the Blair Labour government’s Private Finance Initiative (PFI) scheme.
On August 31, in the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh, Ben Laurence from the Observer newspaper posed as a representative of principally American investors during discussions with Kevin Reid and Alex Barr of the public relations firm Beattie Media. Reid is the 24-year-old son of John Reid, Scotland’s Secretary of State.
The Observer’s investigation followed rumours that lobbying companies were increasingly targeting the Scottish executive, touting for business.
Laurence told the pair that his clients were interested in “PFI stuff over here.” PFI is a means through which private capital is invested in services, such as education and healthcare. Begun by the Tory Party in England it was dramatically expanded by Blair’s “New Labour” government, PFI was extensively promoted by Labour as the saviour of public services when in reality it was privatisation via the back door.
Under the initiative, improvements, refurbishment, or the new construction of hospitals, roads, prisons, schools, sewage and water treatment plants was only permitted if they promised a long-term profit to venture capitalists. Those unable to do so were ditched.
The bogus businessmen were looking to Scotland because it had been established under the “New Labour” executive as a major area source of PFI contracting and “calculations suggested the level of financial return on PFI projects in Scotland provided financial rewards for foreign investors well above that in England.”
His clients were aware that the initiative was “politically sensitive” and required a consultancy firm that would help them navigate Scottish politics and facilitate discussions with those political leaders whose approval would be essential for any project.
Invited to present their “USP” (unique selling point) for the role, Barr noted Reid’s parentage and boasted of his company’s relationship with Jack McConnell, ex-general secretary of the Labour Party in Scotland and current Scottish government finance minister.
Although no longer officially on their payroll, McConnell was recently appointed Chief Executive of Beattie Media’s public affairs consultancy and his personal assistant , Christina Marshall was formerly employed by Beattie.
Reid was previously head of the Labour Party’s Scottish monitoring and research department and several other leading politicians and their offspring had close relations with Beattie Media.
Their corporate clients included West of Scotland Water, Scottish Enterprise and local investment agencies and referring to this the Beattie men explained that “we work for them all full-time, so we’ve got our finger on the pulse of what’s happening in business and in construction.
Major capital projects don’t tend to happen especially within these areas without us knowing about it.” They then made it clear that the entire Scottish government was accessible to any company with money to invest, stating: “First of all, it’s been set up so there shouldn’t be a problem with meeting ministers, executive members.”
Reid then boasted: “I worked for Jack McConnell and for Wendy Alexander, Minister for Communities and for Henry McLeish, Enterprise Minister and for the First Minister, Donald Dewar on a one-to-one basis. I also daily briefed press officers of the Labour Party media monitoring team”.
Reid then played his ace: “I know the Secretary of State very, very well, because he’s my father.” The father is John Reid, Secretary of State for Scotland, one of Prime Minister, Tony Blair’s closest allies and the man widely tipped to succeed George Robertson as Defence Secretary. The son is 24-year-old Kevin Reid, a former Labour Party helper who is now a key player in a “New Labour” lobbying firm peddling claims of influence and access to Ministers.
Whilst Reid said that he couldn’t promise access to people, he went on to explain how informal contacts could be arranged. He cited a meeting with Sports Minister Sam Galbraith in the Rangers football club directors’ box over a youth centre contract, and claimed to have helped win approval for a number of recent contracts involving freight transport from Prestwick and a £60 million tourist development around Loch Lomond.
Whilst media scandals are by no means new, this one drove the Labour Party in Scotland into crisis breaking as it did soon after the Party’s near defeat in the Hamilton bye-election.
John Reid and Donald Dewar reportedly came close to blows at the Labour Party conference over their differing responses to the scandal. Dewar called for a full enquiry, while Reid dismissed the revelations as a storm in a teacup. The press speculated that the spat involved broader rivalries between the two men. Blair was forced to dispatch a team north to investigate the whole sorry business and Beattie Media was instructed to close down its public affairs wing.
The Scottish Parliament’s Standards Committee announced an “in camera” investigation but after the intervention of the press it was forced by the law courts to conduct an inquiry in public. So much for the Labour Party manifesto promise of no more sleaze and cover-ups. The scandal also contradicted and consigned to the dustbin of history the political promotion of Scottish devolution as a “rebirth of democracy”.
Corporate control of politics in Scotland was transferred wholesale to private contractors by politicians whose undeclared intent was to asset strip the nation ensuring financial reward for themselves and their political organisations at the expense of those who elected them to office. New Labour’s programme of devolved government simply enabled a wide reaching exploitation of the electorate by transnational corporations and global money markets.
Leading Scottish National Party member George Kerevan commented, “The incestuous links between politicians, lobbyists—and journalists—means phone calls are returned. Cases are put to the right people. After all, in backward Scotland, trading influence is currency. Some day a politician might need a job or pertinent information or a message passed to the right ear.”
Sep 1999: more on Beattie Media and its role in the Lobbygate scandal
Beattie Media was allied with the second largest PR firm in the United States, APCO Worldwide. A global public affairs and strategic communications consultancy who put the Beattie Media public affairs wing in place in 1998 only months before the establishment at Holyrood of the New Labour executive. The company employed the offspring of no fewer than three MPs – two of them, including Reid, Cabinet Ministers. Malcolm Robertson, son of the outgoing Defence Secretary George Robertson, moved on to work as a lobbyist for the Scottish Airports Authority.
The third was Christina Marshall, daughter of David Marshall MP, chair of the Scottish affairs select committee at Westminster who transferred her employment taking up a new post as personal assistant to Jack McConnell, the Finance Minister in the Scottish executive and former general-secretary of the Scottish Labour Party and a central figure in Beattie Media’s lobbying sales pitch, having headed its public affairs wing before the 1998 elections to the new Scottish Parliament.
At the Balmoral meeting, Reid said that, in politics ‘relationships’ mattered. before he reeled off a list of the people he had got to know while working in the Labour Party and what positions they now held in the new administration in Edinburgh.
‘Anthony James’ said his ‘American clients’ wanted reassurance before they would invest and needed face-to-face meetings with Ministers. They also needed information about public projects using private finance before they were announced.
In response, Barr indicated that Beattie Media’s status as Scotland’s largest public relations business gave it an excellent information network. Not much happened in business north of the border without the firm knowing about it. He also said that McConnell’s appointment to head the public affairs wing had been made: “in the certain knowledge that Jack would get a safe seat from the Labour Party, and in the hope and expectation that he would also get a Cabinet position within the new administration”.
At the time McConnell was employed by Beattie Media the firm, acting for the Scottish Premier League in October 1998, invited Sports Minister Sam Galbraith to a Rangers European Champions League game so that he could meet league chief executive Roger Mitchell. The league wanted to establish youth soccer academies, but needed government financial help.
Weeks after the election the Labour executive pledged £10 million to develop the academies. Barr described the outcome as, “a tangible example of our work'”
At the time McConnell was selected to stand in Motherwell and Wishaw, he announced his retirement from lobbying saying: “I have always made it clear that I would put the constituency I hope to represent first, and I would never contemplate any potential conflict of interest”. But not long after Barr told the press that: “McConnell is still in close contact with the company”. A weird statement by Barr since McConnell, questioned only a day the day previously had stated: “I have only spoken to Beattie Media twice since I was selected by my constituents to serve as an MSP in the Scottish executive”.
Barr was right in his assertion but wrong headed to expose it. Measures had been put in place so that close contact by proxy could be maintained between Beattie Media and McConnell ( now a senior government minister). The measures!!!
Beattie Media permitted Christina Marshall, who worked at the firm at the same time as McConnell, to leave to work with him after the election ad it was through her that Beattie Media were enabled to to place appointments into McConnell’s diary.
In another example Barr said that Beattie Media handled PR for the Financial Director of the Year Award and he had rung Christina and said: “I’d love it if Jack could make the keynote speech. It would generate good coverage and provide opportunity for him meet movers and shakers. Christina ‘s response: “Consider it done”!!!!!
Questioned on Barr’s assertion Marshall responded: “McConnell had not yet decided whether he would speak at the presentation which she had only pencilled into his diary. But, in any event I still talk to my former colleagues at Beattie Media and conversations are not always on business issues”.
Barr didn’t give up instead insisting that he, Kevin Reid and company boss Gordon Beattie were each able to contact the Finance Minister in person, as they wished. They had his office, home and pager numbers and, as a Labour “gofer”, Kevin Reid routinely briefed future Scottish Ministers on a daily basis and he had also become close friends with a number of Labour officials who had gone on to to become SPADS to other Ministers in First Minister Donald Dewar’s Cabinet. Reid also implied that, through its connections, the company had influenced government policy on freight shipment rights at Prestwick Airport.
The US corporation Federal Express had threatened to pull out of Prestwick because under existing protocols it could not forward goods by air to Europe. Reid said: ‘I was quite pleased with the outcome of that bit of business” adding ” Our contact in London, Lord Gus Macdonald, UK transport Minister was very, very, useful indeed”. The decision by the Westminster government to give Fed-ex trans-shipment rights out of Prestwick was a bitter blow to other British shipment carriers since an opportunity to secure reciprocal rights at US airports had been ignored.
Barr also claimed that Beattie Media scooped an environmentally sensitive but financially lucrative contract’ for a client to build the “Lomond Shores Centre”, a £60m tourist development on the banks of Loch Lomond.
Reid went on to say that the company could not promise meetings adding that its ethos was to fix face-to-face meetings rather than lobbying directly.
The potential clients ventured: “Can you actually arrange a meeting with a member of the Scottish Cabinet then”?
“What time scale are we talking about”? asked Alex Barr.
“In the next month”? the clients responded.
“That should be achievable,” replied Barr.
“Whom would Beattie approach”? asked the clients.
Barr and Reid looked at each other. “Probably Jack” ? Reid asked his senior colleague. “I would say so,” confirmed Barr.
Sadly, less that 15 months into the New Labour government Party apparatchiks who had duped the electorate and helped the party to power were now filling their boots with finance looted as lobbyists providing their services securing access to Ministers in government in Downing Street and Holyrood.
Sep 1999: The Scottish parliamentary inquiry
Scotland’s First Minister Donald Dewar asked the parliament’s standards committee to investigate reports of links between Beattie Media and Ministers of the executive. The chair of which was the ineffectual Lib/Dem, Minister Mike Rumbles. Events:
30 Sep 1999: Donald Dewar an opening statement at Holyrood at the start of a debate on the matter
1 Oct 1999: It was reported that constituency case notes requested by the committee had not been provided because, McConnell claimed “they contained confidential information which if released to the public could place the lives of his constituents at risk”.
A notebook containing details of a private invitation to McConnell from Beattie Media to attend a financial awards dinner had been destroyed. and it was also alleged that a constituency diary entry containing details of a another Beattie Media event had been blotted out by tippex. A good start!!!
6 Oct 1999: Trish Marwick, SNP list member for Mid-Scotland and Fife, the real find of the Scottish Parliament got stuck into the stuttering Lib/Dem committee chairman Mike Rumbles and under her prompting the Standards Committee showed its teeth by holding a public morning matinee of the disgraceful Lobbygate video.
8 Oct 1999: Barr and Reid, the public relations executives embroiled in the Beattie Media Lobbygate row admitted they had “over-stated” their company as part of a sales pitch.
The Observer’s Scotland Editor, Dean Nelson, said the investigation began after the newspaper had been approached by concerned politicians. He went on to say that Beattie Media was targeted because it had employed Dr Reid’s son although he had no previous experience of lobbying. Nelson repeated allegations that Barr and Reid said they could influence McConnell’s diary and had close contacts with other ministers and advisors.
8 Oct 1999: Gordon Beattie, head of Beattie Media, told the Standards Committee that ‘people are employed by the company because of their abilities and skills, full stop.’ The growth of the company had ‘not happened because of political contacts,’ he said. But biographies of Beattie staff sent out to potential clients show that the political contacts of Kevin Reid, the son of Scottish Secretary John Reid, and Gordon Beattie were highlighted as key attributes when the firm was trying to win new business.
Beattie is described as ‘one of Europe’s leading communications professionals with contacts at the highest levels of political and business life’. Reid, who was recruited from his job monitoring the media for the Scottish Labour Party to head Beattie’s political lobbying operation, is described as having ‘extensive contacts in the Tony Blair Cabinet and throughout the Scottish political party network’.
Reid met senior Scottish political figures in his Labour Party job. Former colleagues say his only contacts with the UK Cabinet were with his father and any Ministers he might have met through his father. John Reid was a Transport Minister when Kevin Reid was interviewed for the job with Beattie and later became Scottish Secretary. Giving evidence under oath to the Standards Committee, Beattie said: “I will tell you why I recruited Kevin Reid. I was extremely impressed by Kevin when he came along for an interview. I gave him the hardest interview that I have ever given anyone, because I was not going to recruit him just because his father was the Minister for Transport.” He went on to say: “I do not ask people whom I recruit who their daddy is.” Aye right and pigs fly”
10 Oct 1999: McConnell, the Scottish Executive, Finance Minister was forced to face the public embarrassment that he had been a abject flop in his short-lived business career – a career in which the lobbying company he headed attracted no clients and had no revenue. Members of the Scottish executive’s standards committee were convinced by McConnell’s business failings that the Media’s claims about access to the minister were justified but the revelations allowed the prospect of other Ministers being called before the Committee to recede. So McDonnell under the cosh!!!!
15 Oct 1999: Gordon Beattie refused to let the ’lobbygate’ scandal which engulfed his agency, bring him down but it triggered media and political interest in Beattie’s stranglehold on public sector PR contracts for agencies which compete for public money and inward investment.
24 Oct 1999: The press kept applying the pressure alleging that Beattie Media boasted openly of close ties between Kevin Reid, head of its lobbying arm, and senior members of the UK Cabinet when it bid for new business. The revelation further undermined Gordon Beattie’s insistence that he hired employees for their abilities alone, rather than their contacts through friends and family with figures in the political hierarchy.
28 Oct 1999: Finance minister McConnell and his secretary Christina Marshall appeared before the Scottish Parliament’s standards committee and flatly contradicted claims made by Beattie Media executive Alex Barr about their conduct. Speaking under oath, McConnell said there was no truth to claims that Beattie Media, his previous employers could influence which events he attended as a minister. He told the Committee “I give a categorical assurance I have never at any stage breached the Ministerial Code. There is no evidence to suggest I have ever been, or would be, improperly influenced in conducting my ministerial duties.”
Marshall, previously questioned about Barr’s claim said she had not agreed to accept an invitation from Beattie Media for McConnell to speak at a dinner. Committee convener Mike Rumbles reminded her: “Alex Barr in his evidence on several occasions made it quite clear that he understood this would be confirmed.”
But Marshall, 22, daughter of Labour MP David Marshall, said: “I cannot comment on Mr Barr’s evidence. “My version is different from Mr Barr’s. I never gave any indication that Mr McConnell would attend.” She said the shorthand notebook she was using at the time of Barr’s phone call had been destroyed. She said her only other contact with Beattie Media, other than through personal contacts with junior members of staff with whom she had worked, was an invitation to McConnell to attend a Scottish Premier League match.
McConnell backed Marshall’s version of events and claimed he had told her not to follow the matter up unless there was a formal invitation. It was the type of event he might like to attend, but had already decided to keep his diary clear in January and February because he would be responsible for piloting the first budget Bill through the Parliament. He said that since he had become an MSP, his only contact with Beattie Media had been two phone calls from owner Gordon Beattie – one to congratulate him on his election and the other about a mutual acquaintance who had taken ill And he insisted that he had had no contact whatsoever with Kevin Reid or Alex Barr.
29 Oct 1999: The real star of the Holyrood horror show was Victoria Marshall who took centre stage and gave the performance of her life. As constituency secretary to McConnell, she became the focal point of the Lobbygate scandal. The final judgement of the Committee would come down to whether they believed her or Beattie Media. If the decision went against them McConnell and the Scottish Labour Party could be forced into another election and possible elimination from the Scottish political map. The Committee chose to ignore the wide discrepancies in Beattie Media and Marshall’s version of events. But one of the Party’s lied. !!!!
1 Nov 1999: The inquiry was forced to clear McConnell of any wrongdoing but highlighted differences in evidence between Barr and Marshall.
Committee member Tricia Marwick MSP said Marshall had called it “a difference of recollection”. She added: “In my view, there was a difference of fact but, “I don’t think it is the role of this committee to decide who, between Marshall and Barr, was not telling the truth.”
Labour member Adam Ingram said: “I think a message has to be sent out loud and clear from here that if individuals do not take the oath seriously, then there are implications that follow from that.” Yesterday committee convenor Mike Rumbles said: “There are major concerns by committee members that we have conflicting evidence given under oath. “It is obvious in the view of members that one of these two people was not telling the truth.” But the Committee’s remit only extended to MSPs and its investigation can go no further.
Dewar favoured the appointment of a commissioner saying: ” I think there is a very strong feeling across the parliament that the procedure was clumsy and if there had been someone to sift the evidence and gather the facts before the Standards Committee then we would not have seen so much damaging speculation and difficulty.”
19 Nov 1999: The son of Scottish Secretary John Reid resigned from his public relations job. A spokesman for Beattie Media stressed it was Reid’s own decision to leave.
But this was not the end of the matter???? there was a lengthy epilogue!!
29 Jun 2008: It was revealed Christina Marshall’s daddy was not an honourable member MP for Glasgow East. He was a crook who struggled with the truth. He resigned his seat at Westminster rather than face questioning by the Westminster ombudsman about illegal payments to his family members. In the 3 years leading up to his resignation he claimed nearly £220,000 to pay for staff, plus £7,000 for their travel expenses.
And what of Christina? Well she found herself having to answer questions from the fraud squad about £11,000 missing from the Red Rose Dinner Account, which managed cash raised at a Labour fundraiser attended by McConnell and the then Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid. McConnell also had to explain why one of three accounts under investigation had paid £168 for a five-star room for Christina Marshall’s father at Edinburgh’s Caledonian Hotel during a Scottish Labour conference in March 2000. Local Labour bosses called in the police after unearthing the shortfall and, as one of only three signatories to the fund, Christina was closely questioned. A charity she was working for at the time asked her to leave, telling her that it did not want its reputation to be tarnished by the affair.
Well – Well – Well that’s it then!! No just a little bit more- Jack McConnell survived to Lobbygate scandal for the single reason that his Personal Assistant supported him and denied there had been open access to his diary.. Had she confirmed the allegation made by Mr Barr her boss would have been forced to resign and the future of Scotland would have been so different. The inquiry gave credence to her evidence. After all she was the daughter of an Honourable member of the Westminster Parliament. But was the inquiry willingly conned by a young lady?? I believe so. But just to confirm my thoughts are based on fact and not supposition read on;
4 Dec 2011: A convicted car fraudster is back in business selling second-hand motors to unsuspecting customers. James Doyle, 47, is the man behind the Glasgow Motor Company, based in Paisley. The father-of-two runs his new showroom with his wife Christina, 34, who is the daughter of former Labour MP David Marshall. They sell second-hand and luxury motors, including Maserati’s, Rolls-Royce’s and Audi’s. But people who flock to his forecourt will be unaware that Doyle served time in prison for duping past customers.
In February 2007 at Dumbarton Sheriff Court he admitted defrauding 57 people out of pounds £89k worth of deposits at his UK Vehicle Solutions Business in Clydebank and was jailed for eight months. The 57 victims had paid deposits in August 2005 for top-of-the-range luxury cars – but never received them. Trading standards investigators from West Dunbartonshire Council received 150 complaints about his firm the next month from furious customers. They passed the file to Strathclyde Police who launched a major fraud probe. But it took officers 18 months to bring Doyle to court because he disappeared after UK Vehicle Solutions shut down.
He was eventually traced and appeared in court on February 22, 2007, charged with 57 fraud offences equating to more than pounds £136k worth of stolen deposits. But the value of the fraud was reduced to pounds £90k after he agreed to plead guilty. It’s thought the total value of the cars ordered by customers was around £1m. But it is not known how many of the cars were Doyle’s to sell.
Company boss Stuart Green, from Birmingham, paid a £ 1176 as a deposit for a £40k Porsche Boxster in August 2005 to Doyle’s company. But when he phoned the next month to check on his delivery date, the lines to the firm’s offices were dead. He realised he had been duped and called the trading standards department, who told him of other victims. At the time Doyle was offering people the chance to acquire the luxury cars through a leaseback arrangement, paying so much a month for the first three years. After that they had the option of buying the car or trading it in.
Stuart, 39, said: “I felt very stupid being ripped off but Doyle and his firm seemed so genuine. “It is ridiculous that he can set up a car business after being sent to jail for defrauding previous customers. “There is surely a greater need for some sort of licensing or regulation. “I never saw a penny of my money but he doesn’t seem to be out of pocket.” A West Dunbartonshire Council spokeswoman said: “Officers are unaware if any consumers received a refund for deposits paid.”
1 Jul 2012: Luxury car fraudster James Doyle is at it again. He is being probed by police after his latest business went bust. Customers of the Glasgow Motor Company looking for their cars or payment last week found the doors locked and Doyle nowhere to be seen. A notice said the firm had ceased trading. Scores of luxury and second-hand cars, including Maserati’s and Rolls-Royce’s, had disappeared overnight.
Police have been inundated with complaints from angry customers. Many had been sold faulty cars and were waiting for them to be fixed. Some of the victims had given Doyle cars to sell but haven’t been paid. Others had paid for cars but couldn’t collect them. Strathclyde Police said: “We are investigating a number of complaints from the public about the Glasgow Motor Company. ” Detectives and plain clothes police searched the premises in Ralston, Paisley, on Tuesday.
Renfrewshire Council trading standards officers are also probing complaints from people whose cars were faulty. And it’s been revealed the council are owed £82k by Glasgow Motor Company for three years of business rates. A few staff had been left to handle customers. One said: “We’ve been told to refer calls to police.” Dad-of-two Doyle, 48, ran the showroom, which he took over in 2010, with wife Christina, 35, the daughter of former Labour MP David Marshall. Records at Companies House show Christina resigned as a director on June 15 – 10 days before the firm shut down.
31 March 2013: Car fraudster sets up new business just nine months after his last firm went bust
Luxury car fraudster James Doyle is back in business only nine months after his last firm went bust with debts of £19k. Doyle did a runner at his Glasgow Motor Company business in Paisley, leaving customers out of pocket and 13 staff out of work. He has now set up a business called the Maryhill Motor Company in the north west of Glasgow and advertises a range of cars, including an £18k Jaguar, a £19k BMW and a £60k Ferrari online through Auto-trader, using the name Jim Smith or Maryhill Motor Company.
A journalist posed as a customer to meet 48-year-old Doyle, who uses the name Mr Smith on his new lot in the city’s Maryhill Road, near Partick Thistle’s Firhill ground. The new premises have no signs marking out his new venture –keeping him disguised from former staff and creditors. When we confronted Doyle about his latest business, he refused to comment.
One victim of Glasgow Motor Company Andy Dunlop, the manager of Scots rock band Twin Atlantic, was stunned whenhe was told that Doyle was back in business. Andy, 31, bought a second-hand BMW from the Glasgow Motor Company in January 2012 for £2500 but the hand-brake, power steering and engine were faulty. He said: “I find it astonishing that this man is still able to sell second-hand cars.”
When Glasgow Motor Company went bust in June last year, scores of cars, including Maseratis and Rolls-Royces, disappeared from the forecourt overnight. Customers had been sold faulty cars and were waiting for them to be fixed. Some had given the firm cars to sell but haven’t been paid. Others had paid for cars but couldn’t collect them. One creditor gave a car to Glasgow Motor Company to sell, never got the money or the car back, and was then landed with the existing HP payments.
Renfrewshire Council trading standards officers also investigated complaints of faulty cars. The council were also owed £82k by Glasgow Motor Company for three years of business rates. Doyle ran the showroom, which he took over in 2010, with his wife Christina, 36.
Now do you believe Christina’s assertion that she told the truth to the Lobbygate inquiry??? The end
1997: William Cohen – Defender of the United States of America
The Cohen Group is the largest and most influential political group in the world. William Cohen and George Robertson are key movers and shakers in it and have worked hand-in-glove since 1997. https://www.cohengroup.net/
Clinton’s Secretary of Defence, Cohen was the man who built a new security order in Europe by creating a European defence structure independent of the US, through the expansion of NATO and the EU towards eastern Europe. His moves tied in with Clinton’s policy of removing American forces from foreign wars in preference for providing “proxy support”. There was tacit agreement within Europe for the “new” policy but with the proviso that American assets within NATO would be made available to be used in any conflict. The British government accepted the role of “European Pillar” within the alliance and agreed to lead any independent European peacekeeping and crisis-prevention missions. Cohen would be the final arbiter of any mission.
George Islay MacNeill Robertson, Baron Robertson of Port Ellen, KT, GCMG, PC, FRSA, FRSE: Labour Party Minister of Defence and an Alma mater of the University of Dundee-A pen picture.
1997: George Robertson was appointed, Minister of Defence and immediately established a working relationship with the American Secretary of Defence, William Cohen. In that position, he committed the armed forces to a military role in the Kosovo conflict and participation in East Timor and in the 1998 air strikes in Iraq then Afghanistan.
He also initiated a Strategic Defence Review (completed in 1998) which he confidently stated would be “a force for good”. The review created a “Joint Rapid Reaction Force” equipped and capable of rapid deployment worldwide aimed at neutralising, putting down any threat to the interests of the UK or USA.
The review also reintroduced “gunboat diplomacy” which would be achieved through an ambitious project to build two new large “Queen Elizabeth” class aircraft carriers armed with 600 super duper new aircraft and accompanying armadas of cruisers, destroyers and a myriad of other support vessels to show the world that Great Britain under the Labour Party was committed to the defence of the nation.
But there was a major drawback which scuppered Robertson’s grandeoise plans. The Labour government had campaigned under the banner “things will only get better” but neglected to tell the public that the start of the “betterment” would be deferred for at least the first two years of the New Labour government. The defence budget was reduced by £2bn. Robertson and Labour had created an unaffordable dream and sold the nation a defective puppy.
But Blair/Brown and Robertson would not be thwarted in their intent to expand Britain’s influence in the world and soon found a way betray their manifesto promises.
They set about privatising the state owned defence industry raising finance necessary to fund the Labour Party plans for world domination with the USA, starting with the balkans. Their first venture was to set up a public/private partnership called QinetiQ which made 10 senior civil servants multi-millionaires overnight, as their total personal investment of £540,000 turned into £107 million. A National Audit Office (NAO) review concluded that the taxpayer had lost “tens of millions” on the sale.
Shifting the defence industry from being a “provider” to a “decider” resulted in the Ministry of Defence (MOD) losing the ability to act as an intelligent customer able to hold suppliers to account. Providers were made kings able to charge increasingly exorbitant fees for mediocre products.
In total “New Labour” sold state owned assets to a value of nearly £60bn. Much of the money raised was used to finance illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in which many young Scottish men and women were needlessly killed, wounded and maimed. The survivors have since been abandoned and sentenced to live the rest of their their lives in pain and poverty denied the assistance of the State that condemned them to the scrap heap of society. Read on: https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/13460/Qinetiq%3A+Gordon+Browns+privatised+defence+scandal
Robertson and his Wars
Bosnia was the first test of European resolve and Britain together with some other European countries responded deploying significant numbers of armed forces to police internal conflicts within the region that had been encouraged by many dozens of Daniel Defoe type agents acting under the guise of NATO “do gooders”. The countries of the Balkans and Serbia were bombed into submission during an air campaign in which more than 31,000 bombing raids were conducted by the US and Britain supported by British troops on the ground. Rebuilding the countries of the Balkans is still far from complete over twenty years later but NATO and the EU has been expanded.
In 1999, he was invited to serve as Secretary General of NATO and Chairman of the North Atlantic Council. In the four turbulent years that followed, he presided over the creeping enlargement of the Alliance to include member states in Central and Eastern Europe and was the first ever leader of NATO to invoke the Article V mutual defense provision, responding to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. He was instrumental in getting NATO involved in Afghanistan.
In November 2003, President George W. Bush presented him with the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honour and only rarely given to foreign nationals.
In the 2004 Queens New Year Honours he received one of Britain’s highest awards, the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George.
The following year he was made one of the Knights of the Thistle, chosen personally by Her Majesty The Queen, which is the highest honour in the UK, equal to the Order of the Garter.
He has the highest national honours from Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Poland, the Netherlands and many other countries.
Since 1997, he has served as a member of Her Majesty’s Privy Council.
He was Joint President of Chatham House (the Royal Institute for International Affairs) for a decade and serves today on its Panel of Senior Advisors and its North American Committee.
He is an Elder Brother of Trinity House, on the Councils of the European Council on Foreign Affairs and the International Institute of Strategic Studies.
He is a Prime Ministerial appointee to the World War One Commemoration Advisory Board, a Trustee of the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust, and on the Board of the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo.
Robertson – The ardent Unionist
April 2014: In a speech to the Brookings Institution, in the USA, Robertson likened the honourable efforts of Unionists to keep Scotland tied to the UK with those of Abraham Lincoln’s fight against slavery when he stated:
“they might look more relevantly at the Civil War where hundreds of thousands of Americans perished in a war to keep the new Union together. To Lincoln and his compatriots the Union was so precious, so important, and its integrity so valuable that rivers of blood would be spilt to keep it together.”
April 2004: Marriage unites the Robertson-Smith Labour Party Dynasties
Strengthening the Labour Party Dynasty in Scotland the daughter of the late Labour leader John Smith married the son of party colleague Lord Robertson on a picturesque Scottish island. Malcolm Robertson, 31, tied the knot with Jane Smith, 32, on Islay. Among those who attended were First Minister Jack McConnell, Liberal Democrat, deputy leader, Sir Menzies Campbell and former Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine. The bride arrived at the church in a blue Rolls-Royce wearing a cream dress with a full-length veil along with her sister, Sarah, the Channel 4 News presenter who was the maid of honour.
2021: Malcolm Robertson-Charlotte Street Partners-Corporate Loyalists
Vulture capitalists are here in Scotland and increasingly running public services. Charlotte Street Partners headed by ex-SNP MSP Andrew Wilson, alongside Malcolm Robertson and Kevin Pringle are in “the business of government”, “strategic communications” and “message development” which sounds very much like lobbying for Vulture Capitalists.Their modus operandi is not better government and public policy but serving the interests of their clients. Charlotte Street will not reveal who their clients are or who funds them – and have consistently refused all requests, which breaks best practice in public affairs.
The reach of Charlotte Street Partners extends over large parts of public life. Angus Grossart, banker, is chair; Chris Deerin worked at Charlotte Street, then left and came back as head of the centre-right think tank Reform Scotland which also is secretive about who and what funds it (and was set up by another banker Ben Thomson).
Their clients include News Scotland (who publish “The Times” and “Sunday Times”. Pringle writes a column in The Sunday Times; and Times and Spectator commentator Alex Massie is also on the Charlotte Street payroll regularly writing a ‘Beyond the Street’ column on Charlotte Street Partners’ website.
A recurring critisim of London think-tanks such as the TaxPayers’ Alliance, Institute for Economic Affairs, and Centre for Policy Studies is their secretive funding and funders and who drives their agenda; the same has to be true about Charlotte Street. This is not a healthy state of affairs in public life in Scotland and the UK.
A company or those working for it cannot get away with declaring ” we are not corporate lobbyist’s”, while plying that trade and the potential for public scandal is ever present. Indeed what was Nicola Sturgeon thinking when she appointed Wilson to “chair” the recent “SNP Growth Commission”. The findings of which she was forced to reject.!!!! (extracted and summarised content from from open democracy) This article is an excellent read:
1999: Scotland’s lobbygate-Observer reporters expose the links between Beattie Media and the Scottish executive
The lobbyist set out to impress the client. Grinning broadly he played his ace: “I know the Secretary of State very, very well, because he’s my daddy.”
“Daddy” was John Reid, Secretary of State for Scotland, Tony Blair’s closest ally and a man strongly tipped to succeed George Robertson as Defence Secretary.
The lobbyist was 24-year-old Kevin Reid, a former Labour Party helper and now key player in a “New Labour” lobbying firm peddling claims of influence and access to Ministers.
Reid and Beattie Media director, Alex Barr had met “Anthony James”, an Observer reporter posing as a businessman. “James” said he represented US investors who hoped to land lucrative Scottish government contracts to finance new schools and hospitals. The meeting, at Edinburgh’s Balmoral hotel, was secretly taped and filmed.
At the meeting the lobbyists boasted of their privileged access to a Ministerial diary and claimed they had assisted the process of winning approval for a £60 million tourist development and a decision on shipment rights at a British airport.
Beattie Media also employed the offspring of three MPs – two of which, John Reid and George Robertson are Cabinet Ministers.
Malcolm Robertson, son of Defence Secretary George Robertson, has since transferred his employment to is now working as a lobbyist for the Scottish Airports Authority.
The third is Christina Marshall, daughter of David Marshall MP, chair of the Scottish affairs select committee at Westminster. She is now personal assistant to Jack McConnell, Finance Minister in the Scottish executive and former general-secretary of the Scottish Labour Party. He is central to Beattie’s lobbying sales pitch, having headed its public affairs wing before this year’s elections to the new Scottish Parliament.
After NATO
Robertson received numerous honours (including a total of 12 Honorary doctorates from various universities).
Took up the post of Senior Counsellor at The Cohen Group, a consulting firm in Washington D.C. that provides advice and assistance in marketing and regulatory affairs.
His Career
1968–1978, Official of the GMB Union for the Scottish whisky industry. 1978–1999, Member of the British House of Commons, member for Hamilton or Hamilton South, elected six times. 1979, Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Social Services. 1979–??, Opposition Spokesman on Scottish Affairs. 19??–82, Opposition Spokesman on Defence. 1982–93, Opposition Spokesman on Foreign Affairs. 1983–93, Chief Opposition Spokesman on Europe. 1993–97, Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland. May 1997, Appointed to the Privy Council May 1997 – October 1999, Defence Secretary of the United Kingdom October 1999–January 2004, Robertson who had never served in HM forces was appointed Secretary General of NATO after a number of more qualified politicians declined the position and former Royal Marine Paddy Ashdown was overlooked because he had been leader of a minor political party.
Other former or existing posts
Chairman of the Labour Party in Scotland Vice-chairman of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy Vice-Chairman of the British Council for nine years Vice-Chairman of the Britain-Russia Centre Member of the Council of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) seven years, now President Member of the Pilgrims Society Governor of the Ditchley Foundation Trustee of the 21st Century Trust Patron to the British-American Project Currently serves on the board of Cable & Wireless International Currently serves on the board of The Weir Group PLC Currently serves on the board of The TNK-BP Currently serves on the Global Panel Foundation|Global Panel America Advisory Board Currently a member of the Top Level Group of UK Parliamentarians for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non-proliferation, established in October 2009. Hon president of the Clan Donnachaidh Society
Honours Awards and Orders
United Kingdom 2003 Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG) Scotland Knight of the Order of the Thistle (KT) Order of St. George (KT) Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Grand Cross of the Order of the Star of Romania Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Orange-Nassau Presidential Medal of Freedom, USA Grand Order of King Petar Krešimir IV. Croatia Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana. Estonia
Organisations
Joint Parliamentarian of the Year for his role in the Maastricht Treaty ratification. European Union. Atlantic Solidarity Award bestowed by the Manfred Wörner Foundation. Bulgaria recipient of the Hanno R. Ellenbogen Citizenship Award. Czech Republic Elder Brother of Trinity House. UK
Appointments
life peer as Baron Robertson of Port Ellen 1999. UK Member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom (PC) Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) Honorary Degree of Doctor of the University (DUniv) from the University of Paisley. Honorary Doctorate from the University of Dundee Honorary Doctorate from the University of Bradford Honorary Doctorate from Cranfield University (Royal Military College of Science) Honorary Doctorate from the Baku State University. Azerbaijan Honorary Regimental Colonel of the London Scottish (Volunteers)
The security services are comprised of three branches each of which provide graduates, post graduates, linguists, IT specialists and writers a wide range of career opportunities in intelligence work.
MI5: Staff 4000: It is responsible for protecting the UK against covertly organized threats to national security encompassing terrorism, espionage and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
MI6: Staff 3500: Operates in secret overseas, recruiting and developing foreign contacts and gathering intelligence. An opportunist organization it identifies then exploits favourable circumstances avoiding risks to national security, military capability and prosperity. Its remit also includes counter terrorism, resolving international conflict and prevention of the spread of nuclear and other non-conventional weapons.
GCHQ: Staff 6000: It is the UK government’s expert in cyber security, using technical expertise to provide intelligence, protect information and inform government policy.
Note: In the case of MI5 there are probably less than fifty agents fitting the James Bond profile. The bulk of the remaining group of specialist agents operate in England and Ireland with a cadre of around 250 likely to be permanently deployed in Scotland. Contrary to popular perception many agents fulfil mundane duties, such as research, office and other administration work. Once in there is no “out” although the pursuit of other careers is encouraged, if applicable.
There is another group recruited direct from Universities and deployed to intelligence gathering duties, media manipulation and deep penetration of subversive groups. Many of this last lot are “deep throat” agents located career term within the ranks of senior people in Universities, politicians, police, charities and other institutions of power.
About Secret Services operatives
Those who sign up to employment with the services swear allegiance for life to the “Crown” and the preservation of the “Union”. They owe fealty to no political party but, if deployed to that activity they are permitted to exercise a choice of the political dogma they wish to follow and if elected to office they will serve their constituents to the very best of their political ability but always mindful of the criteria that shapes their thinking.
Are secret services persons easy to identify?
Only if information is released into the public domain, which isn’t that often. Unverifiable identification is possible, usually through the “association, utterances or actions” routes and as such assertions need to be taken on trust. The articles that follow will do just that.
1703: Daniel Defoe – The first and very special British secret agent destroyed Scotland
A close study of the activities and subterfuge of the English government and Daniel Defoe in the period before and after the 1707 Act of Union reveals a similar pattern of events occurred before and after the 2014 Scottish Referendum.
In 1704, Defoe, in jail at the time, offered his services to William Paterson, the London Scot and founder of the Bank of England and part instigator of the Darien scheme.
Dependent on his release from prison and a large fee he would, through his writings and subterfuge encourage a swithering English populace to support a union of Scotland and England and then go to Scotland, where he had extensive contacts with many highly placed sources in government to finish the job.
Paterson, who had the confidence of Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, leading minister and spymaster in the English Government consulted with his confidant. Harley accepted Defoe’s services and arranged his release in 1703.
Defoe wrote and published “The Review”, which appeared weekly, then three times a week. It soon became the main mouthpiece of the Westminster Government promoting an Act of Union with Scotland.
In an early edition “The Review” claimed an “act of union” with Scotland would end the threat from the North, gaining for the Treasury an inexhaustible treasury of men for war’s in Europe and other places” and a valuable new worldwide market greatly increasing and expanding the power of England.
In September 1706, Harley ordered Defoe, (who was conscious of the risk to himself) to Edinburgh as a secret agent to do everything possible to help secure acquiescence in the Treaty of Union. His first reports to Harley were not encouraging since they contained vivid descriptions of violent demonstrations against any prospect of a Union with Westminster. “A Scots rabble is the worst of its kind”, he reported.
Years after, John Clerk, of Penicuik, a leading Unionist, wrote about Defoe in his memoirs:: “He was a spy among us, but not known as such, otherwise the Mob of Edinburgh would have pulled him to pieces.”
But Defoe, a Presbyterian who had suffered in England for his convictions, was readily accepted as an adviser to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and a number of the more influential committees of the Parliament of Scotland.
He told Harley that he was “privy to all their folly” but “perfectly unsuspected as with corresponding with anybody in England”. He was enabled to influence any proposals that were put to Parliament and reported;
“Having had the honour to be always sent for the committee to whom these amendments were referred, I have had the good fortune to break their measures in two particulars via the bounty on Corn and proportion of the Excise.”
In Scotland, he used different arguments, even the opposite of those which he used in England, usually ignoring the English doctrine of the Sovereignty of Parliament, for example, telling the Scots that they could have complete confidence in the guarantees in the Treaty.
Some of his pamphlets were purported to be written by Scots, misleading even reputable historians into quoting them as evidence of Scottish opinion of the time.
He disposed of the main Union opponent, Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, by ignoring him.
Nor did he account for the deviousness of the Duke of Hamilton, the official leader of the various factions opposed to the Union, who seemingly betrayed his former colleagues when he switched to the Unionist/Government side in the decisive final stages of the debate.
Defoe made no attempt to explain why the same Parliament of Scotland which was so vehement for its independence from 1703–1705 became so supine in 1706.
He received very little reward from his paymasters and of course no recognition for his services by the government.
Glaschu, described by Defoe as a “Dear Green Place” became a hotbed of sustained unrest against the Union prompting clergymen to urge their congregations “to up and anent for the City of God”. Which Scots did in their thousands tearing up copies of the “Treaty of Union” at every “Mercat Cross in Scotland. The response from Westminster was a deployment of a heavily armed English army to put down the rioters.
Years later he reflected on his experience and betrayal of Scots to write his Tour thro’ the whole Island of Great Britain, published in 1726, in which he admitted that the increase of trade and population in Scotland which he had predicted as a consequence of the Union was “not the case, but rather the contrary”.
Apr 1998: Malcolm Rifkind – special agent never denied calls for political pact to block Scottish nationalists
Rikind: Tory and Foreign Secretary between 1995-2000 and in charge of Britain’s secret services accused Labour of fostering the mood of nationalism within Scotland by exploiting “nationalist language” during its spell in opposition saying; “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.” He then called for the formation of a cross-party movement to protect the Union and prevent the SNP taking power. He said: “I think there is a need for a non-party movement in Scotland to support the Union.” An agreed cross party action plan was put in place that same year and it has never been rescinded.
In 2009, Rifkind, became 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) and took overall charge of the “Better Together” disinformation campaign.
Andrew Fulton
2000: Glasgow University – A hotbed of powerful Unionist activity at the heart of Scottish education
Andrew Fulton – Former MI6 Head of Station (Washington) uncovered as a spy working for the University. Former Glasgow University, Law student Fulton, described as “more George Smiley than James Bond” served in Saigon, East Berlin, Bosnia, New York and Washington. At the peak of his career he was the sixth-most powerful official in the British Secret Service. In 1992, Fulton as head of European operations, was one of the MI6 chiefs who handled the aborted plans to kill Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. He was also an adviser to the Armor Group, Chairman, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, a secretive organization that provided security services to national governments and large corporations.
He was forced to step down as a member of the Lockerbie Trial Briefing Unit (LTBU) which provided media briefings on the trial in Holland of the two Libyans accused of the Lockerbie bombing.
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.
The title, “Visiting Professor” was authorised by Glasgow University Principal Graeme Davis, also a member of the Scottish North American Business Council (SNABC).*
The unusual thing about the Fulton 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 it he was considered to be qualified to be a “Visiting Professor of Law?” The answer is that Graham Davis, Glasgow University Principal 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 justifying claims that it was used as a front organization allowing Fulton and Lader to meet without drawing attention, to discuss Lockerbie the handling of the press corps steering them away from the Americans.
* The (SNABC) is the Scottish chapter of the secretive, well connected Atlanticist body aimed at fostering closer relations between the UK the US British-American Business Council and has interesting intelligence connections.
Its current Chairman is former MI6 Washington Station Chief Andrew Fulton. The Council retains Media House International for PR and its executive chairman Jack Irvine is also a former board member. (Powerbase)
Adam Tomkins
2. Professor Adam Tomkins appointed – Chair of Public Law (John Millar School of Law)
Tomkins, with established links to senior officers in the Foreign Affairs branch of the US State Department, is an intellectual and political genius, but perhaps only in his own mind and imagination and a leading constitutional scholar and hard line republican relocated to Scotland from England in 2003, taking up employment with Glasgow University as a lecturer in constitutional law.
His previous employment had been teaching English law in English educational establishments and his appointment to a prestigious post remitting him to inform students of Scottish law created disquiet in the minds of some and raised the question. Is this guy for real or is he a British Secret Service plant?
Adam Tomkins
Spies-R-Us
Is a recently created Glasgow University course covering Security, Intelligence & Strategic Studies – A two year post graduate course: Graduates from the programme are prepared to pursue careers in security-related posts in government offices and public administration, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, transnational business corporations and private security and risk analysis companies.
Andrew Dunlop
Graduated in economics from Glasgow University. Joined Thatcher’s inner circle as one of the seven members of her “policy unit”, specializing in defence, employment, tax reform and Scotland. Was a special adviser to former Defence Secretary George Younger. One of the architects, together with David Cameon of the hated 1989 Poll Tax. Left government, appointed managing director of top lobbying firm “Politics International.” David Cameron’s right hand man in the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum. Ennobled by Cameron in 2015 then installed as, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Scotland working with Tomkins and Mundell maintaining the subjugation of the Scots.
Glasgow University Officers’ Training Corps
The University of Glasgow’s links with the British military can be traced back to the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745, when companies of Militia were raised to defend the unionist supporting University against the Jacobites. During the First World War, Glasgow , by the summer of 1916, around 2,800 officers had been trained by the University. In the Second World War the UOTC’s role was to train officers from University students conscripted into the Army and to provide basic training for those who remained behind as a Home Guard unit. Glasgow UOTC still exists and remains based at the drill hall in University Place.
Ruth Davidson emerges from the shadows of Glasgow University
Davidson, was employed by the BBC for around eight years until 2009. In that employment she was deployed to Bosnia as a correspondent, at the time Andrew Fulton was head of the Secret Service in Bosnia. She resigned her employment with the BBC in 2009 and signed up to a one year post-graduate course in international diplomacy at Glasgow University. In that same year she joined the Tory Party, later claiming “I liked David Cameron’s looks”. A few months later, she assumed, the role of Chair of Glasgow University Young Conservatives. Only a year later she was appointed to the leadership of the Tory Party in Scotland by Andrew Fulton. Does the link to Fulton permit Davidson to be exposed as a Secret Service agent? How does that smell to you?
CSP are the mainstream media of Scotland and BBC Scotland’s news and current affairs department is simply an arm of the lobbying industry in Scotland.
Angus Grossart is the chair of “Scotland International” and CSP. In the latter role he works with managing partners and founders Andrew Wilson and Malcolm Robertson (son of former Labour Party, Scottish secretary Lord Robertson).
Adding to the list of lobbyists/journalists linked to CSP is one of Kris Deerin’s old chums Kevin Pringle a trustee of right wing ‘think tank’ “Reform Scotland”. Kevin also enjoys a cosy relationship with the BBC and Scotland’s top public relations specialists.
Many of Scotland’s political commentators engage in paid employment with lobbyists such as CSP.
Peter Duncan, Tom Harris and Andy McIver are at Message Matters and Moray Macdonald is at Weber Shandwick . Moray just needs to get the lift upstairs at Pacific Quay to do fit in a regular Saturday shift with his BBC friend.
Deerin, formerly of the Glasgow Herald is now at Reform Scotland, but with a sideline at The Spectator. There’s Alex Massie, Pringle and Andrew Wilson at The Times.
Then there’s Sir Angus, still active in the House of Lords at Westminster and at the BBC with Two Rivers Media together with with Lord McConnell’s best pals, Kirsty Wark and Alan Clemens. Then there’s Lord McConnell of Lobbygate’s pal, Malcolm Robertson back at CSP!
People must be wondering why this scandal is not getting traction in mainstream media.
Dark money to the DUP from Richard Cook and the latest lobbying shenanigans at CSP are just a couple of scandals that illustrate just how much Scotland’s democracy and it’s media has been captured by corporate interests.
Lobbying journalists are now making the media programmes for public consumption about Scotland’s modern history and appearing as independent commentators.
George Orwell said, “Who controls the past controls the future”. If nothing is done, tomorrow’s Scotland belongs to Wilson and Pringle and Lords Duncan and Grossart.
According to The Ferret. CSP are probably the most influential lobbying and PR firm in Scotland.
Lobbying is the apotheosis of the art of politics- insiders doing deals behind closed doors-while we, the electorate, well, we’re on the wrong side of the door.
Inside, Andrew Wilson, former MSP, Times journalist and member of the Scottish government’s Growth Commission is doing deals accompanied by Kevin Pringle, former SNP communications chief and Times journalist.
Both busily monetising their political contacts and their political expertise to the benefit of the clients who are paying Wilson and Pringle for the access to the power and influence they offer. Ask about their client list, that’s for Kevin and Andrew to know, not for the Scottish people to find out.” (John Cawley)
BBC Bias against Scottish Independence – Not us Guv!!!
The Scottish public are denied their right to active promotion, through broadcasting of cultural diversity with other parts of the United Kingdom and the Westminster government through its politically directed British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is in breach of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights – Article 11 – Freedom of expression and information.
Removal of BBC accountability to the Scottish Electorate
From 1946 to 1991 media affairs in Scotland was subject to the moderating influence of a BBC Scotland Controller who effectively reported to the, “Broadcasting Council for Scotland”, on which many distinguished Scot’s served over the years. But following a Westminster government reorganisation control of BBC output in Scotland was transferred to the Board of Governors of the corporation in England then onto the BBC trust in London.
What’s the problem?
The way in which BBC Scotland is run, the quality of care it provides for its staff, the standard and relevance to Scots of what it produces, the ethos of public service in Scotland are just some of the more important concerns facing the Scottish nation and it is well proven by a succession of events detrimental to Scots that they cannot be successfully addressed by the prevailing control systems.
The BBC is failing Scots due to the Unionist mindset of its political controllers and Westminster appointed politically biased managers who are indoctrinated to believe that The BBC provides the glue that holds the wobbly Union together and any weakening of the strength of the paste will bring about the end of the Union.
Bias against Scots is endemic and should be rectified
BBC Scotland needs to be removed from Westminster so that it can be truly independent of political interference and the previously successful over arching Scottish body, including members of the public, should be re-established.
Nepotism within BBC Scotland News & Current Affairs Team
A Unionist party pedigree is an unarguable requirement for employment by BBC Scotland and senior, line managers and reporters are appointed through nepotism. This unacceptable practice needs to stopped so that the BBC Scotland can be truly impartial and fully accountable to the Scottish fee-paying public. There also needs to be a cull of management and media correspondents who blatantly abandon the “Journalist’s Code” in support of their politically minded colleagues. (https://www.nuj.org.uk/about/nuj-code/)
Proof in the pudding – 2014 – BBC Scotland management refused to appear before MSP’ at Holyrood
Ken MacQuarrie, then Head of BBC Scotland and his bully boy, Labour Party supporter John Boothman, then Head of News and Current Affairs refused a number of requests to appear before the Scottish Education and Culture Committee at Holyrood stating that the BBC in Scotland was not accountable to Scots or the Scottish Government.
Public challenges by Scottish SNP MP’s at Westminster forced the intervention of the Chairman of the BBC Trust who ordered them to appear before the committee. They did so but only after an amount of distasteful wrangling but stonewalled every question put to them.
More on John Boothman
Boothman headed BBC News and Current Affairs and was the editor of Elections and Political Output.
In 1979 he was the Chairperson of Strathclyde University Labour Club, Chairperson Scottish Organisation of Labour Students in 1980 and Chairperson of the National (UK) Organisation of Labour Students 1981.
Former BBC broadcaster Derek Bateman who worked with the Scottish Independence team at the time of the referendum said Boothman continually questioned and ordered changes in the political output of radio broadcasts after meetings with Paul Sinclair SPAD to Johann Lamont.
Sinclair enjoyed a special relationship and regular contact with Boothman through their links with the Labour Party. Indeed, writing to his blog Bateman claimed Boothman was “infamous for his unrivalled network of contacts in the Labour movement”. An unhealthy master and servant relationship in which the SPAD called the shots.
Boothman is married to Susan Deacon: An MSP and former Chairman of Scottish Labour Students. She served on the Scottish Labour Party’s, National Executive and was a Scottish Labour Party government minister.
Boothman, and former Labour Party executives, Margaret Curran and Johann Lamont were, when students actively and closely involved in Labour Party politics at Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities.
At university Curran was Secretary of Glasgow University Labour Club, Secretary of the Scottish Organisation of Labour Students, Chair of that organisation, and Vice-Chair of the Labour Club (the biggest of its kind in the UK) at the time.
Former MSP and Labour Party Leader in Scotland Johann Lamont was an active member Glasgow University Labour Club.
Labour MSP Sarah Boyack also attended Glasgow University and was active in student politics. She was mentored by Margaret Curran (Chair of the National Organisation of Labour Students in 1985-86)
Boothman bully boy of BBC Scotland
Following a protracted messy struggle with staff and trade unions Boothman was exposed as a sexist workplace bully, (funny how WOKE activists didn’t get round to him!!) and transferred, at no detriment to himself, away from news and current affairs to join a newly formed team working on Scotland’s proposals for Charter Review.
But Boothman instead chose to leave the BBC and joined Charlotte Street partners as an Associate Partner, Head of Media Training and Client Films.
Not long after he took up employment with the right wing leaning British American Project BAP founder member Rupert Murdoch as the political correspondent of Sunday Times Scotland. Stranger than fiction is that he also retained his post as a lobbyist with Charlotte Street Partners and that executives of Charlotte Street Partners write articles for the Times and the Scottish Sunday Times. Work that one out if you can.
Catriona Renton: Reporter for the BBC Politics Show and BBC Presenter.
Renton was was recruited by Boothman to the BBC Scotland parliamentary unit in 2006. A former Glasgow Labour Councillor, she represented Kelvindale before losing her seat in 2003. A product of Balliol College, Oxford she was “Glasgow’s Youth Tsar”
Her Facebook account listed her friends: Jackie Baille, Labour MSP: Yousuf Hamid, Labour MP: Tom Harris, Labour MP: David Martin, Labour MEP: Frank McAvetty, Labour MSP: John Robertson, Labour MP: John Park, Labour MSP: Steven Purcell, Labour Glasgow District Council Leader: Dave Watson Vice-chair of the Scottish Labour Party.
At the centre of yet another bias storm in 2009 when attending the SNP conference in Inverness, Deacon claimed on BBC Scotland’s Politics show that Alex Neil had confirmed the SNP’s desire to see David Cameron become the Prime Minister at the next general election. Views he had not expressed. The BBC were forced to issue a personal apology to Alex Neil.
Tom Connor; BBC Head of Online News and Sport.
A personal friend and colleague of Boothman he was responsible for introducing and enforcing the censorship and blockage of social media comments on BBC Scotland news correspondent’s political blogs. Viewer feedback sterilized.
Connor, Boothman and other members of the News and current affairs team were censured for providing Labour political candidates with free media training using BBC Scotland facilities.
The labour Party Fiefdom and its total control of Scottish media
The Labour Party in Scotland’s abuse of Glasgow citizens was revealed to the public in March 2010 in a private report released to the Scottish public and brought about the very public downfall of Gordon Brown’s protégé Leader of Glasgow District Council Steven Purcell. See: htpps://romulusstudio.com/variant/37_38texts/1ed_2manifest.html
Before the publication of the report there was a dearth of mainstream media reporting and the failure of the “red tops” to provide a heads up to the public had led to online speculation that there was something seriously wrong with Purcell’s very cosy relationship with sectors of the Scottish media and its failure to fulfil its publicly declared role of holding power to account – namely, the press’s part in a regular Friday drinking date, dubbed ‘The Ritz Club’, with which, Mandy Rhodes, the editor of Holyrood Magazine toyed:
“Did a misguided loyalty to a regular Friday afternoon drinking date, dubbed ‘The Ritz Club’, which included the editors of rival red tops, the Herald’s editor-in-chief and Purcell himself…influence reporting of the unravelling scandal?”
But there is no news in the truth / no truth in the news and the complex network of local government councillors, businessmen and public sector chiefs, all with connections to the Labour Party and its ‘redevelopment’ misadventure went on untroubled. The Sunday Herald irate management driven to comment, responded to the suggestion of acquiescence towards the Labour Party
“The absurd suggestions of a network of powerful figures working behind the scenes to influence the workings of the city and that this so-called network including leading figures from the media is now threatening to undermine public confidence in the integrity of the Scottish press”
What about Bridget McConnell then?
In 2006, she spearheaded the controversial devolution of Glasgow City Council’s Cultural and Leisure Services to form the company/charity known as Culture and Sport Glasgow with a separate trading arm, Culture and Sport Glasgow (Trading) CIC. She then held the Chief Executive role of both companies.
In 2008, Culture & Sport Glasgow was awarded a long term contract to catalogue and manage the text archive and research department for Newsquest (Herald, Sunday Herald, Evening Times).
Those interested in the rudiments of democracy might wish to ask how a notionally privatised arm of Glasgow City Council could be allowed to become so tightly interconnected with Glasgow’s dominant media group.
More remarkable with the NUJ’s Vice-President-come-President also being the head of PR for spin-off Culture & Sport Glasgow at the time?
Additional reading:
I previously researched and published a comprehensive report cataloging the disgraceful abuse of the Glasgow electorate by the Scottish Labour Party aided and abetted by the BBC and Scottish Press in the first decade of the new millenium.
Careful reading will reveal conspiracy, at all levels of those involved in the financial asset stripping of the poorest people in Western Europe
Close followers of the Scottish political scene will have noted recurring links between the Labour Party and the Isle of Iona.
The late John Smith, Labour Party Leader is buried there. His widow is Baroness Smith of Gilmorehill, is a political figure of note in her own right.
One of John Smiths daughters, Sarah was married there. Another daughter married Labour Lord Robertson’s son on the Isle of Islay.
The Reverend Douglas N Alexander, a long time member of the Iona Community and lifetime friend of John Smith conducted all of the events.
Reverend George Macleod
The charismatic founder of the Iona Community was the Reverend George MacLeod, who once stood as Labour candidate in an election for rector of Glasgow University.
The Iona Community and was regarded by some in the Kirk as a Jesuitical conspiracy pushing the Kirk simultaneously towards Catholicism and Communism.
Consequently Iona Community members found the doors of many parishes in Scotland closed to them: they were seen as dangerous men. Divinity students contemplating joining the Community were warned about their career prospects. MacLeod never made excuses for his involvement in politics, citing Knox and the Covenanters as precedents. He once said:
“If churchmen are not politically involved, you soon get the spectacle of RCs and Communists dominating our trade unions – as now they do,” he wrote in reply to one critic. “As to Labour choice, it is not a bad thing to introduce the Faith into Labour policies, which, left to secularists, could indeed veer into Communism. What matters even more is the continuance of democracy as a living cause in our midst and not the Labour, or any other party in permanent ascendancy. But to achieve this Christians must be involved.”
MacLeod’s manifesto was received warmly by the Alexander family and others deemed to become dominant UK political figures over the next 60 years. MacLeod, was their “hero.”
His experiences of war persuaded him to the view that Nuclear weapons were a blight on mankind and should be banned. It followed that membership of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was a must for followers of his doctrine.
Douglas Alexander (senior) joined the labour party whilst studying at Glasgow University in the early 60’s and enjoyed a lifetime friendship with many members of the University (Labour Party) clique. The environment in which the Reverend Douglas N Alexander’s children and the children of other members of the community were nurtured was heavily politicised in favour of socialist policies. He had two children:
Wendy. Sponsored and mentored by the British American Project (BAP), enjoyed a rapid rise to fame at the start of the devolved Scottish Parliament. She was responsible for the introduction of a number of progressive policies.
She took time out to enjoy life with her newly born twins but returned to politics not long after.
The early death of Gordon Dewar resulted in some turmoil in the Party and a number of leadership campaigns culminated in Wendy making a bid for the leadership. She failed and retired once more from politics taking up a career in education.
Douglas. Sponsored and mentored by the British American Project (BAP), he was elected to Westminster and gained rapid promotion to high office in the Labour Party.
More of the Glasgow University Clique
Donald Dewar
The late Donald Dewar married Alison Mary McNair who deserted Donald and their two children to be another member of the group, one of his best friends, solicitor, Derry Irvine. Later to become the infamously influential Lord Irvine, courtesy of his protégé Tony Blair. He of the taxpayer charged expensive wallpapered offices in London).
Baron Derry Irvine, (Lord Chancellor with New Labour)
His son Alastair took up body-building during his late teens and became a professional personal trainer in a joint business with a former soft porn model, Carole Caplin. The business failed. Alistair went off to America and lived the high life for a time and became a crack cocaine addict. He was imprisoned in the US for stalking an ex girlfriend and threatening to shoot her boyfriend. It was Alistair who introduced his bisexual friends, Dwina Murphy-Gibb (wife of the Late Robin Gibb) and former topless model, Carole Caplin to Cherie Blair.
Carole Caplin
Tony and Cherie Blair (nee Booth) were given vital pupillage (practical traineeship in law) by Derry Irvine assisting them to become Lawyers. At their wedding he dubbed himself “Cupid QC”.
Not long after the unexpected death of John Smith king-maker, Derry Irvine, in conversation told Peter Mandelson, head of Labour Party strategy that Tony would need to be the next Labour Party leader. Peter Mandelson then made it happen. Much to the chagrin of Gordon Brown PhD and all the other hopefuls for the Labour Party crown.
Eldest daughter Sarah Smith attracts the ire of those who wish Scotland to be free of Westminster’s control. The Unionist supporting chief of BBC Scotland News and Current Affairs joined it in Spring 2014 in the run-up to the Scottish independence referendum on 18 September 2014.
Daughter Jane married Malcolm Robertson, (son of Labour peer, John Robertson) head of Scottish public affairs for the British Airports Authority (BAA).
Youngest daughter Catherine is an practicing advocate.
Elizabeth Margaret Smith (nee Bennett), Married the late John Smith.
She is the Lords Chair of The Labour Friends of Israel.
A fluent Russian speaker, she is also a leading member of the British Intelligence and Security Committee, which provides parliamentary oversight of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6, (GCHQ) and the Security Service (MI5).
She is an advisory council member of the foreign-policy think-tank, the Foreign Policy Centre.
Baroness Margaret Ramsey,(MI6 agent) and foreign policy advisorfor the late John Smith.
Another example of infiltration into the Labour Party, MI6 officer Margaret “Meta” Ramsay was elected President of the Scottish Union of Students. In 1962, she became associate secretary of the CIA-front the International Student Conference at Leiden, Holland.
From 1965 to 1967, she was secretary of the Fund for International Student Co-operation, which was later identified as another recipient of CIA funds. She became an active member of the Labour Party, attending conferences.
In August 1992, she was promoted to the position of foreign policy adviser for her university friend, Labour leader John Smith. As well as raising a few eyebrows, this appointment begged the question: What was the leader of the Labour Party doing employing a known high-ranking MI6 agent in such a senior position? We now know!!!
A fluent Russian speaker, she was heavily involved with the American backed and funded “Institute for Jewish Policy Research” and the “Zionist Labour Friends of Israel.”
Sir Menzies Campbell, (former leader of the UK Liberal Democrat Party
James Stuart Gordon (Baron Gordon of Strathblane). Closest friend at university and best man at John Smith’s wedding.
James was Chairman of the secretive, “Glasgow Common Purpose” organization and in a chequered career has been the holder of many influential posts in the Scottish Media, business and Public bodies. A staunch Labour Party supporter throughout his lifetime.
John Vincent (Vince) Cable, Secretary of State For Business, Innovation and Skills in the 2010 2015 Tory/Lib Dem Coalition government. Although not at university with him Vince Cable was very active in the Labour Party, and was SPAD to John Smith in 1978 when he was Industry Secretary in the Labour Government.
The Rise to Power – The Piper Decides the Price
Labour politicians, including Donald Dewar, John Smith, Gordon Brown, George Foulkes, George Robertson and the late Robin Cook were precisely the types the intelligence services longed to see take control of the Labour party and it is believed that contemporaries and acquaintances of these leading Scottish Labour figures took active roles in organisations sponsored and endorsed by MI6 and the CIA.
George Foulkes (now his lordship) was the organiser of the CIA sponsored “Funds for International Student Co-operation (FISC) of which British secret agent Meta Ramsey was a senior member. Ramsey, a specialist in the Scandinavian states joined MI6 in 1969.
Hakluyt A British Intelligence front
The firm was formed by MI6 officers and enabled (still is) to front many “deniable” operations working in close harmony with the CIA for the British state. The 2002 Iraq fiasco and the Putin/Trump scandal of recent times are example. Baroness Smith held a senior post with the company. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakluyt_%26_Company
The American CIA cultivated Blair, Mandelson and Brown in the nineteen eighties. Blair was too promising, and manipulable, for them to pass up.
When John Smith became leader of the Labour Party he was a member of the steering committee of the Bilderberg Group: the steering committee, the inner core. He got Gordon Brown invited to the 1991 meeting, incidentally…
Who was John Smith? A genial, whiskey-drinking Scots lawyer from the traditional Labour right. But also life-long chums with a senior MI6 officer, now Baroness Ramsay. Lady Smith, his widow, later to be a member of the board of management of the Mi6/CIA front company Hakluyt.
John Smith also took on a SPAD – Ed Balls, a Financial Times leader writer – an ideologist for globalisation, in effect – who learned some of his economics at Harvard . Like other Labour personnel, including Yvette Cooper MP, whom Balls later married, and David Miliband, head of Blair’s policy unit, Balls had spent a year in America as a Kennedy Scholar.
The Balls
Virtually all of Labour people have some connection to America and American money…Tony Blair took the US government’s free tour of the States in 1986 and told his hosts that while officially a member of CND he supported the nuclear deterrent. He joined the CIA front, Labour Friends of Israel in 1983.
There’s no such thing as Scottish Labour Read the sign
While Shadow Home Secretary in 1994 Tony Blair took an Israeli government freebie holiday in Israel. On his return the number two at the Israeli embassy in London introduced him to Michael Levy – now Lord Levy – one of the top fund-raisers for Jewish charities.
The secret service, Glasgow University supported John Smith Centreexists to undermine the integrity and authority and what is left of the impartiality policies of the UK civil service through the expansion and influence of political special advisors SPADS.
This article provides a look-back at the unfettered growth of the political SPAD, many of whom go on to become career politicians resulting in the austerity punished taxpayer being lumbered with an additional massive and ever expanding expense in the many £billions supporting thousands of privileged party animals who sponge off the state from the time they leave university until retirement. The monstrosity should be discontinued and the Civil Service reinstated
18 Oct 2021: Scotland Cannot Afford Sturgeon and her Tumefied Collection of Overpaid Failures
Sturgeon’s pickpocket politicians and special advisers is costing Scottish taxpayers more than £5m a year after doubling in size since she took up leadership of the SNP.
In 2007, the year the SNP first won power, the cost of ministerial salaries, office staff and advisers was around £2.5m, (not including the salaries of First Minister or Deputy First Minister) and soared to around £5m in 2021. Projections are total additional cost will be around £15m over the lifetime of this government. Costs are attributed to the number of cabinet secretaries doubling from four to eight and the number of junior ministers increasing from ten to 17. There was also a surge in special advisers, with 21 now employed by ministers – more than double the figure for Alex Salmond’s 2007 government.
Ministers salaries (excluding Sturgeon & Swinney) – now cost £1m annually, while private office salaries are £2.7m, and salaries for special advisers is £1.3m. All underestimated approximates.
Roles and responsibilities of the SPAD
SPAD’s are not civil servants but as paid employees of the State they are – subject to specified exceptions – required to conduct themselves in accordance with the Civil Service Code.” which states that the highest standards of conduct are expected of them.
i. “Specifically, the preparation or dissemination of inappropriate material or personal attacks has no part to play in the job of being a special adviser as it has no part to play in the conduct of public life.
ii. “Any special adviser ever found to be disseminating inappropriate material will automatically be dismissed by their appointing minister.
iii. “Special advisers…must observe discretion and express comment with moderation, avoiding personal attacks.”
iv “All contacts with news media should be authorized, in advance by the appointing minister.”
Afternote 1: Liz Lloyd was awarded civil servant status and received more than £6,000 in legal advice relating to her conduct. She refused to to appear at the inquiry and instead submitted written evidence which could not be challenged. The content of the £6,000 letter to the inquiry was rendered useless since it was so heavily redacted by the Scottish Government before submission.
Afternote 2: It has been established, beyond reasonable doubt that the criminal passing of confidential government information about false allegations of misconduct in office by Alex Salmond to the Daily Record and journalist David Clegg in October 2017, was the act of a senior Scottish Government SPAD. That person is still in the employ of the Minister concerned so it follows (interpreting the rule) that the leak was authorised, in advance by the Minister. That person needs to be exposed to the public and the police so that appropriate action can be taken to restore the confidence of the electorate who are disillusioned by the s***house politicking of its government ministers.
Nepotism.There is no formal recruitment process or interview so how does it work?
A minster decides he needs a SPAD and gets in touch with Sturgeon and obtains permission to appoint. Approval granted the minister contacts a colleague, family member or old friend from University who might be between jobs and awards employment to a person suited to their needs. Nice if you know the right people.
Westminster – The SPAD breeding ground
In his final months as Prime Minister, Blair accepted that his government had: “paid inordinate attention to courting, assuaging, and persuading the media” (Blair: 2007). The admission, made ten years after he had led the Labour Party to a landslide general election victory in 1997, was confirmation of one of the defining characteristics of his wasteful and corrupt government.
In July 2009: there were 74 SPADS in post at Labour controlled Westminster providing advice to government ministers at a cost to the taxpayer of £6million.
In December 2015: under the Tory coalition government the number of SPAD’s increased to 97. Costing £11million.
Spin doctors
In addition to the political SPAD’s the government employs “spin doctors” whose role is to put a positive face to anything the government might do regardless of truth or probity.
The most infamous “Spin Doctor” in recent times was Blair’s, Alistair Campbell who, less than a week on from forming the first “New Labour” Government signalled his intentions to reform the government communications system, telling a meeting of information officers that he: “wanted them to be able to predict what would be on the front page of the Sun the next day-and help write it.”
The message was clear: Campbell wanted a civil service press machine which was more assertive, more proactive, and one which was able to respond at speed. Paul Waugh, a political journalist since the 1990s, recalled that Labour spinners found the civil service: “an interference at worse, and an obstruction at best.” (http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/74743/)
Mundell -The Scottish Office and his abuse of Scottish finance
The Scotland Office was branded a “marketing campaign for the Union” after figures showed its budget for press officers had increased fivefold in little over 5 years.
In 2010/11 the Scottish Office employed 2 communications staff at a cost of £108,439. By 2015/16 staff had increased to 9 at a cost of nearly £500,000.
An analysis of Scottish Office press briefings indicated each release had cost the Scottish taxpayer nearly £7,000.
Further examination of the content of the releases revealed that all of it was aimed at marketing the benefits of the “Union”
The (late) Sir Jeremy (Cover-up) Heywood I am the law!!!
Then Cabinet Office Supremo and Head of the Civil Service, he was aptly nicknamed “Sir Cover Up” after preventing the Chilcott Iraq War inquiry from seeing letters and records of phone calls between Blair and was caught up in a row over bending the rules of the Civil Service by illegally permitting Cabinet Office, SPAD’s to campaign for the Tory Party in a bye-election.
Sir Jeremy was a powerful force at No10. Cameron once joked: “Remind me, Jeremy, do you work for me or do I work for you?” Critics alleged he was complicit in the culture of “sofa government” when Blair was PM.
The SPAD’s and Spin Doctors wield the Power in the murky sewers of Westminster
Disparagingly dubbed the: “people who live in the dark”. They are often spotted darting through the television studios of Westminster with their minister, briefing papers under arm and media tools in hand. Young, sharp and driven, they are aspiring politicians just waiting advancement by the boss. Cameron, Osborne and the Miliband brothers, were SPADS.
Employed as temporary civil servants, the do not have to be politically impartial like their civil service colleagues. They link together the minister, the party and the department. They are also the bridge between the neutral civil service and politicians. They help write speeches, some are policy wonks, while others focus on the media. If a journalist wants to know what a cabinet minister thinks or understand what a policy is about, a call to the special adviser is one of the first ones to make.
Michael Jacobs, former special adviser to Gordon Brown, told the BBC that: “while ministers needed civil servants for impartial advice, they needed SPAD’s to help them to make political judgments and consider different options: “They are the lubricant in the machine.”
Spad’s first became a permanent fixture in Whitehall in the 1970s. Their number ballooned under Labour. In 1996 there were 38 working in government, costing the taxpayer £2m. In 2004 the number peaked at 84 and in 2008/9 there were 74, at a cost of £6m.
Their ever expanding ranks caused concern within the electorate that the American, politically driven civil service was sneaking in via the special advisers and lines of accountability were being blurred.
Just after the terror attacks in the US on 11 September 2001 the Labour government SPAD Jo Moore sent an e-mail to a colleague saying it would be a good time “to bury” bad news. His behaviour triggered a number of reviews into the role and power of SPAD’s.
Another SPAD related scandal was the revelation that Gordon Brown’s Spin Doctor, Damian McBride had been guilty of smearing senior Tory’s in e-mails forcing Brown to ask the cabinet secretary to review and tighten the rules of conduct relating to SPADS.
Agreed limits to the number of SPAD’s at Westminster and beyond
The Conservative opposition committed to a reduction in the number of SPAD’s. A democracy task force, headed by Ken Clarke MP, recommended they be halved.
But under successive Westminster governments, special advisers roam the corridors of Whitehall in ever increasing numbers. Their close relationships to cabinet ministers and lobby correspondents give them influence – a power that can hatch into a political career later on.
A successful stint as a SPAD is a significant crucial political apprenticeship – as many of the current crop of professional politicians can testify – so long as they stay in the dark
SPAD’s are over protected and should be accountable.They are among the most shadowy figures in government. They sit at the right hand of Cabinet ministers and in some cases wield more influence than even the most senior civil servants. They are unelected and unaccountable to either the public or Parliament. They are the chosen few, though how they come to be chosen is cloaked in mystery. Their privileged positions are never advertised, but increasingly the posts they hold lead to the very top of politics.
Pay and Other Forms of Remuneration
Cameron and Clegg broke their promise to curb the numbers of highly-paid SPAD’s. In opposition Cameron promised to ‘cut the cost of politics’ and the coalition agreement said there would be a ‘limit’ on the number of SPADS.
In opposition Clegg said, “SPADS shouldn’t be paid for by the public”. But as soon as he got his feet under the Cabinet table, he broke his word.
Osborne froze the wages of six million public sector workers at the time the Coalition came to power, plunging many into poverty under his cruel austerity drive. Yet the heartless Chancellor handed one of the chief architects of the public sector pay freeze, fellow Old Etonian, friend and SPAD, Rupert Harrison, a 19% inflation-busting increase boosting his £80,000 salary by £15,000.
Not to be outdone, Treasury minister, Danny Alexander bumped up the pay of his own adviser, Will de Peyer by 16 per cent to £75,000 then employed an additional SPAD on a £95,000 salary.
A Tory government Cabinet Office list registered the employment of 26 special advisers in Downing Street of which six were paid £100,000 or more. Added to the list was added Cameron’s, Chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn £140,000. Director of Communications, Craig Oliver £140,000. Deputy Head of the No 10 Policy Unit, Christopher Lockwood £ 134,000. Prime Minister’s Press Secretary, Graeme Wilson £110,000. Deputy Chief of Staff, Kate Fall £100,000. Director of Communications (Mr Clegg), Steve Lotinga £105,000 Plus another 3 SPAD’s and another 16 SPAD’s to support the Lib/Dem ministers.
Is there a way out of this mess?
A (retired) civil servant commented “When I was a civil servant I was expected to keep my political opinions to myself. It was also expected, having signed the Official Secrets Act, that I would not reveal information to which I was privy because of my job. It seems to me that there is a basic conflict of interest here. Should SPAD,s be paid for out of the public purse? If so, is it compatible with public interest for them to stand for a political interest anyway? The employment of SPAD’ at the expense of the taxpayer should be discontinued and replaced with civil servants entrants with specialist expertise.”
Aug 2021: The never ending growth in the numbers of Scottish Government SPAD’s – All paid for by Scottish Voters
Data released by the SNP led Scottish Government reveals that Nationalist ministers have 15 special advisers (SPAD’s) who will provide party political guidance for the 2021/22 financial year.
Based on the 15 appointees, analysis shows collectively that the wage bill for SNP led Scottish Government staff is expected to be around £940,000 for the 2021/22 financial year.
However, an additional two special advisers are set to be appointed as a result of the cooperation deal struck between the Scottish Greens and the SNP.
Under the agreement, two special advisers will assist two new junior Green ministers and will be paid a salary of at least £41,000 per year taking the bill for 2021/22 above £1m.
Quietly included in the list is Liz Lloyd, who lost her job as Special Advisor to Sturgeon a few months ago only to taken back into the fold at the first opportunity in a specially created (for her) post as a “strategic adviser focused on long-term transformational policies for Scotland.” Indicators provide warning to the electorate that the WOKE agenda is to be pursued with a vengeance. point to the WOKE agenda. Two fingers to the electorate on that one.
Lloyd, along with permanent secretary Leslie Evans and SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, faced calls to resign earlier this year, following allegations, (which they denied to a Holyrood committee’s investigation ) that they were at the at the centre of inappropriate behaviour in the illegal handling of sexual misconduct allegations against former First Minister Alex Salmond.
Lloyd received more than £6,000 in legal advice relating to her conduct but failed to appear in front of the inquiry and instead submitted written evidence which could not be challenged.
At the time, the Sturgeon insisted she had full confidence in her Special Advisor however just a week ago she announced Lloyd (no reason given) had been dismissed from her “Chief of Staff” position.
Colin McAllister, now holds the title “Chief of Staff”.
It is imperative that social scientists, economists, planners and society are in possession of accurate data so that they are able to ensure males and females are provided with the support they need to live their daily lives.
To facilitate this the Scottish public, under the guidance of its coalition government, led by WOKE politician extraordinaire Nicola Sturgeon and the insidious Green Party is to complete a census in 2022. An event routinely held every 10 years since 1841. So no problem there. But wait!!!
Surely the census should have been completed in 2021 as it was in all other parts of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
The answer is “Yes” but Sturgeon wasn’t ready. Her new WOKE procedures were not yet on the statute. So she simply deferred the Census until she and her Green party colleagues had put in place arrangements totally foreign to Scots and to all other persons in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
What is so important to Nicola Sturgeon and her WOKE politicians that the census needed to be deferred for a year you might ask? The answer is devastating for the vast bulk of Scots.
The SNP coalition government is authorising participants taking part to nominate if they’re male or female based on how they’re feeling at the time they complete the forms and not according to their legal status.
But what is the problem. Why can’t people who feel a bit feminine that day simply state “I am a female”. Because it sets a dangerous precedence.
A data collection procedure, in place for nearly 200 years in Scotland and all other parts of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is being hijacked by WOKE politicians to serve an agenda for change that has not been agreed to by the electorate.
The census should not be tinkered with by politicians. But Sturgeon and her WOKE friends are determined on a course of action that will change Scottish society for ever and ruin the efficacy of vital data just to pander to a very significant but aggressively outspoken minority of WOKE activists who promote the denial of truth by refusing to accept biological reality.
Westminster politicians flirted with changing the rules for data collection, (with little public fanfare) before the 2020 census but a letter published in the “Times” signed off by 100 eminent accademics noted that the guidance would effectively transform the sex question into one of gender identity undermining reliability on a key demographic variable.
In layman’s terms accurately entering sex on the census form is important so that healthcare providers are able to project with accuracy the numbers of the population likely to develop prostate cancer, which is limited to biological men and conversely the number of woman who will become ill through cervical cancer which is limited to biological women. And many other instances.
There is still time for a politician with guts and determination to get the matter referred to the Supreme Court for a judgement which would mirror that reached in the courts in England Wales and Northern Ireland. Sturgeon should leave well alone!!!!
caltonjock 
