Monthly Archives: April 2023

Calls for lobbying crackdown after we expose £13m ‘backdoor’ to MPs

Spread the love

Original article by Ruby Lott-Lavigna republished from openDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Standards committee demands tighter rules after openDemocracy uncovers lobbying by firms including weapons makers

Unofficial parliamentary groups should face tighter rules, a new report has recommended after openDemocracy revealed that they are easy prey for private firms and lobbyists wanting to buy access to politicians.

On Tuesday, the Committee on Standards called for tighter rules for All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) – informal groups run by MPs and peers, which are often funded by or closely linked to external organisations.

The committee warned that there “remains a significant risk of improper access and influence by commercial entities or by hostile foreign actors”.

It comes a year after an openDemocracy transparency investigation found that weapons makers and private healthcare firms were among companies to have donated £13m to APPGs for exclusive access to politicians. The subsequent backlash led 1,500 people to contact their MPs demanding “more transparency” for the groups.

Now, in a report published this week, the Committee on Standards has demanded stronger regulations for the groups, which have been revealed by this website to lobby for big tobacco, fuel companies and arms companies.

The report called for a ban on APPG secretariats being supplied by foreign countries and a requirement that all groups produce an annual income and expenditure statement.

It also said that MPs should be allowed to join no more than six APPGs, and that when reports are published and funded by external organisations, this must be made transparent.

“When communicating with ministers, public officials, public officer holders or outside organisations,” the report says, “APPGs and their officers must declare their sources of funding.”

Sometimes one questions whether a group really is an APPG or just a personal campaign or a money-making venture

Chris Bryant MP

Last year, openDemocracy revealed that MPs who successfully lobbied the government to introduce for a controversial ‘greener’ petrol were part of an APPG funded by the fuel industry. The APPG for British Bioethanol, supported by various fuel companies, met with ministers and urged the government to roll out E10 petrol “as swiftly as possible”.

openDemocracy uncovered that the APPG for British Bioethanol’s influential report on E10, published in 2019, had been paid for by a bioethanol company, Ensus Ltd. We found that staff from Ensus provided “assistance” with researching and writing the report, which mentions Ensus numerous times and includes quotes from the firm’s commercial director, Grant Pearson.

Writing for openDemocracy in the wake of our investigation, Labour MP Chris Bryant, who chairs the Committee on Standards, said MPs should “run a mile” from APPGs that feel like “front of house for a direct commercial interest,” “a cover for free trips to exotic locations” or “the brainchild of a lobbying company”.

Bryant added: “Sometimes [APPGs’ AGMs] are so poorly attended as to make one question whether the group really is an APPG or just a personal campaign or a money-making venture masquerading as a parliamentary affair.”

Original article by Ruby Lott-Lavigna republished from openDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Whatever you’re interested in, there’s a free openDemocracy newsletter for you. HAVE A LOOK

Continue ReadingCalls for lobbying crackdown after we expose £13m ‘backdoor’ to MPs

Trade secretary Kemi Badenoch dined with anti-climate lobbyists in US

Spread the love

Original article by Adam Bychawski republished from openDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Minister had secret meeting with oil-backed think tank that warned UK government not to listen to climate scientists

Badenoch has previously said she would delay the UK’s net zero goals. 06/09/2022. London, United Kingdom. Official Cabinet Portrait; Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade – Kemi Badenoch.
 

Trade secretary Kemi Badenoch met secretly with a US think tank that has taken millions of dollars from climate denial groups and claimed it would be “irresponsible” for the UK to follow climate science, openDemocracy can reveal.

Badenoch met representatives of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), which campaigners say has a long track record of “distorting” climate science, for dinner in November while on an official visit to the US.

Scant details of the meeting were published by Badenoch’s department last week, as the minister’s Indo-Pacific trade deal faced criticism for “making a mockery” of UK pledges to tackle deforestation.

The AEI, which also met with Liz Truss in 2018 when she was trade secretary, has sown doubt over climate change science, describing a landmark 2021 report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as “alarmist” and “deeply dubious”. 

The IPCC report was produced by the world’s leading climate scientists and concluded that the world was approaching “irreversible” levels of global heating, with catastrophic impacts rapidly becoming inevitable. 

But Benjamin Zycher and Peter J Wallison, senior fellows at the AEI, played down its findings by claiming that “we don’t understand all the elements in the complex climate system – the effects of clouds alone are understood poorly”. 

The authors, neither of whom have backgrounds in science, added that it would be “beyond irresponsible” for governments to adopt policies on the basis of the report. 

The think tank also separately criticised COP 26, the annual UN climate conference hosted by the UK in 2021, with one of its authors claiming that delegates spread a “false narrative” that urgent action is required to tackle climate change.

Researchers have found that AEI has received more than $330m in donations from climate denial groups since 2008, including $4.8m from US oil giant ExxonMobil. 

A Department for Business and Trade spokesperson told openDemocracy that Badenoch meets “all sorts of stakeholders that have different views – it’s no different to what it’s like in the UK”.

“There are various think tanks in Westminster that have sceptical views about climate change and ministers meet these people all the time,” they added.

The department has refused a Freedom of Information request by openDemocracy for minutes of the meeting with the AEI on grounds that there were “closed discussions under the Chatham House rule” – meaning that their contents are secret.

Badenoch also gave a speech at another US think tank, the Cato Institute, during her official visit in November. The institute was founded by billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, one of the top funders of climate denial in the US. Cato is “focused on disputing the science behind global warming and questioning the rationale for taking action”, according to Greenpeace US. 

The minister, who was beaten by Liz Truss in the first of last year’s Conservative leadership elections, gave a speech promoting free trade at the institute’s headquarters in Washington DC in which she hinted that some policies to tackle climate change could “impoverish” the UK. 

“We all know that climate change is a challenge for us all, wherever we live in the world. But we know that we can and should solve it by using free trade and investment to accelerate the technological progress that will protect the planet,” she claimed. 

“And something that not enough politicians say: we must do this, we must protect the planet in a way that does not impoverish the UK, the US or, let’s be honest, any other country,” she said.

During her unsuccessful campaign for the Tory leadership, Badenoch came out against the UK’s net zero target, describing the policy as “unilateral economic disarmament”. She told the Telegraph she “believe[s] in climate change” but said “there is a better way of going about these things”. 

The American Enterprise Institute has been approached for comment.

A Department for Business and Trade spokesperson said: “Claiming that speaking to a particular think tank implies adopting every one of their policy positions is treating the public like fools. The Secretary of State visited Washington DC to emphasise the importance of trade as a force for security and prosperity, including green trade and investment, and to promote the UK’s high-talent, business-friendly environment and highly innovative economy.”

Original article by Adam Bychawski republished from openDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Whatever you’re interested in, there’s a free openDemocracy newsletter for you. HAVE A LOOK

Continue ReadingTrade secretary Kemi Badenoch dined with anti-climate lobbyists in US

88% of staff said Starmer was poor and 4 out of 5 said his values were at odds with CPS’s

Spread the love

Original article republished from the Skwawkbox for non-Commercial use

Starmer’s unfitness as leader didn’t just emerge when he conned his way into Labour top job, at least according to survey of staff during his tenure as DPP

Starmer CPS, image thanks to the Skwawkbox

Keir Starmer and his acolytes like to make much about the fact that he was the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) before becoming an MP and therefore ran the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

But according to a survey of staff about halfway through his five-year tenure, he ran it badly – and almost into the ground.

According to an Evening Standard article in 2011, the survey found that 88% of staff thought Starmer and his subordinates ran the service badly – and four out of five thought Starmer’s and his team’s values were not consistent with those of a proper CPS.

Instead of taking the criticism on the chin and changing how he ran the CPS, Starmer blamed the staff and forced them to undergo ‘retraining’:

The Crown Prosecution Service in London is badly managed and failing, according to a damning survey of its own staff leaked to the Standard.

Only one in 14 believes that planned reforms will improve prosecution rates, while just one in 12 feels that “change is managed well” in the organisation. When senior CPS officials were told the results, it is understood that instead of speaking to staff they ordered “retraining” for them.

The embarrassing verdict by the CPS’s own people, contained in a 12-page document passed to the Standard, threatens to heap more pressure on the Government which has ordered the closure of 100 courts and a 25 per cent reduction in the CPS budget. The cuts have led to mounting fears over the public’s reduced access to justice.

Prosecutors dropped tens of thousands of criminal cases in 2007, despite having enough evidence to bring offenders to court. The CPS halted action against more than 25,000 defendants because it was not in the “public interest” to continue. More than 2,000 cases destined for crown court were also thrown out because it failed to get files ready in time.

The sharpest criticism is reserved for CPS bosses. Just 21 per cent of staff believe the actions of Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, and his senior staff “are consistent with the CPS’s values”. Only 12 per cent believe “the organisation as a whole is managed well”.

A source in the CPS said staff were amazed by the retraining order, saying: “It was a strange reaction. It seemed like the higher-ups were trying to brainwash us into going along with all the damaging reforms.”

Today, Starmer boasted about prosecuting ‘grooming gangs’ during his time as DPP. However, he failed to prosecute either serial rapist Jimmy Savile – or the police killers of the innocent Jean-Charles de Menezes or Ian Tomlinson. Starmer as DPP was reportedly furious when Theresa May killed his plan to extradite autistic hacker Gary McKinnon to the US – and his CPS destroyed evidence in the Julian Assange case.

A typical reaction to Keir Starmer’s chest-thumping

According to an overwhelming majority of CPS staff, Starmer’s unfitness to lead did not begin when he conned his way into Labour’s top job – and his petty, vindictive response to their criticism is entirely in keeping with his track record as the ‘leader’ of a political party.

Original article republished from the Skwawkbox for non-Commercial use

Continue Reading88% of staff said Starmer was poor and 4 out of 5 said his values were at odds with CPS’s

Former ADF chief calls for release of secret report into security threat posed by climate crisis

Spread the love

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/apr/05/former-adf-chief-calls-for-release-of-secret-report-into-security-threat-posed-by-climate-crisis

Chris Barrie says global heating poses larger security threat than China, and Australians should be armed with this information

A former Australian defence force chief has called on the government to release its assessment of the security threats posed by the climate crisis, which he says they received late last year.

Guardian Australia understands the Office of National Intelligence’s “urgent climate risk assessment” looked at how global heating affected Australia’s national security, but relied in part on classified information.

This means the government would have to decide whether, and how, the assessment is released publicly.

The former ADF chief Chris Barrie said he was concerned climate security risks were “missing in action” in the public debate triggered by the Aukus nuclear-powered submarine announcement.

Barrie said it was “rather surprising” that the Albanese government was continuing the previous Morrison government’s framing of China as the predominate security threat to Australia.

“Climate change as a security threat seems to be totally overlooked,” he said.

…

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/apr/05/former-adf-chief-calls-for-release-of-secret-report-into-security-threat-posed-by-climate-crisis

Continue ReadingFormer ADF chief calls for release of secret report into security threat posed by climate crisis

Braverman accused of adopting fascist tactics in grooming gang crackdown

Spread the love

I noticed these nasty dog-whistle politics from Braverman. It struck me that the Fascists that Braverman is reaching out to – since they are often poorly educated and engage in mistaken and misleading stereotypes – would in all likelyhood recognise Braverman and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as ‘Pakis’. It’s desperate politics.

4/3/23 To clarify the term Paki will not be applied correctly according to ethnicity or heritage. It’s abuse applied to anyone not quite white who tans easily, certainly Braverman and Sunak.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/braverman-accused-of-adopting-fascist-tactics-in-grooming-gang-crackdown

SUELLA BRAVERMAN was accused of “borrowing from fascists and Nazis” today by singling out Pakistani men as being responsible for grooming girls for sexual abuse in Britain.

The Home Secretary has caused outrage after yet more inflammatory language when addressing the government’s crackdown on grooming gangs.

She said a “predominance of certain ethnic groups – and I say British Pakistani males” saw women “in a demeaned and illegitimate way and pursue an outdated and frankly heinous approach in terms of the way they behave.”

But the singling out of a specific ethnic group flies in the face of previous Home Office-commissioned research, which found most group child sex offenders are men under the age of 30, and the majority are white.

…

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/braverman-accused-of-adopting-fascist-tactics-in-grooming-gang-crackdown

Continue ReadingBraverman accused of adopting fascist tactics in grooming gang crackdown