David Miller | ukwatch.net

Reining in the influence industry

eddie — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:40:05 +0000

It comes as no surprise that the European Commission is relaxed about Peter Mandelson’s meetings with the aluminium magnate, Oleg Deripaska, at a time when the trade commissioner was party to discussions that would affect the business of the Russian.

Brussels has long had a reputation as being unaccountable to public opinion. Despite the commission’s attempts to open up EU decision-making to greater public scrutiny – through its European Transparency Initiative – secrecy remains the modus operandi. The system governing the behaviour of officials allows for widespread conflicts of interest. Parliamentary rules for MEPs have been described by one British MEP as a “scandal waiting to happen”.

Numerous cases have been documented of apparent conflicts of interests involving MEPs. Giles Chichester hit the headlines this summer after breaking the rules on MEP’s expenses and was forced to resign as chairman of the Conservative party in Brussels. However, little has been made of his problematic ties to the nuclear industry. He is president of a pro-nuclear industry lobby group known in Brussels as “The submarine of the energy industry”. Until recently, he also held the key position of chair of the EU parliamentary committee with responsibility for nuclear issues, including nuclear safety, decommissioning and nuclear waste disposal.

Another example is Scottish Conservative MEP, John Purvis, who has a financial stake in a firm that invests in the biotechnology sector. At the same time he has been seen as a leading advocate for biotech in the European parliament. Another Brit, Caroline Jackson MEP, sits on the parliament’s environment committee and drafted a report on the EU’s waste framework directive while at the same time being a paid advisor to private waste company, Shanks.

Jackson is one of five EU officials nominated for a “Worst Lobby Award”, an initiative organised by a coalition of civil society groups pushing for greater transparency in Brussels. Among the corporate interests up for an award is the International Air Transport Association for its deceptive lobbying campaign to avoid CO2 reduction obligations in the aviation sector. Also nominated is The European Alliance for Access to Safe Medicines for hiding the involvement of the big pharmaceutical companies in their campaigns.

The awards spotlight just a few of the thousands of mainly commercial organisations that seek to influence EU policy. In Brussels, as in Britain, lobbyists operate in an almost entirely unregulated environment. In June the European Commission attempted to increase transparency in the industry by introducing a register of lobbyists. Registration, however, is voluntary and as few as 10% of the thousands of commercial lobbying firms that peddle influence and access in Brussels have so far chosen to sign on to it.

Thanks to the recent insight into the affairs of the rich and powerful, we should be under no illusion in Britain that undue influence is also being exerted on our policy-makers. Our lobbying industry, which today includes law and accountancy firms, management consultancies, think tanks, charities and others, has grown to be worth an estimated £1.9bn. It is embedded in our political system, and, as in Brussels, it operates away from the public gaze.

Under the radar of most journalists, a parliamentary inquiry has been taking place into the normally opaque world of lobbying. Throughout the last 12 months, the influential public administration select committee, chaired by Tony Wright MP, has taken evidence on whether certain interests are being afforded privileged access to, and undue influence over, our decision makers. It has also sought to find out what effect this is having on public trust in politics.

The recommendations the select committee will make in the next few weeks are key. If it finds, much as the British public suspects, that there is an enormous disparity in access and influence in our political system, it should recommend action: that the government introduce a mandatory register of lobbyists. This is the first step in opening up the opaque world of lobbying to public scrutiny. The effect will be to increase the accountability of government to the people they serve. Something that the majority of the British public has long ceased to expect but should now demand.

The Mandelson-Deripaska affair gives us a rare insight into the relationship between politics and the wealthy elite. A register of lobbyists would guarantee that information on those who seek to influence our politicians is systematically put into the public domain.

Reining in the influence industry

eddie — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:14:00 +0000

The corporate takeover of ‘reason’ and ‘science’

William Benzies — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 20:47:22 +0000

Those who say that they favour science and rationality can end up supporting the opposite. Science and rationality retain a very significant force in public debate and is thus worth exploiting by vested interests. The strategic use of science is a well used part of the armoury of the public relations industry. Indeed it is true to say that the founding of the PR and lobbying industries were based on attempts to pervert rationality and science in the interests of vested interests. The very earliest PR practitioners such as Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays, were adept at this. Bernays use of psychology was famously put to use in promoting cigarette smoking among women by styling them ‘torches of freedom’ and associating them with women’s equality and liberation.

Bernays was amongst the first to make a profession out of what he called the ‘conscious’ and intelligent manipulation’ of the beliefs and behaviour of the public. Those who ‘manipulate this unseen mechanism’ of society were, he wrote, an ‘invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.’ [1]

Today the PR industry is still based on the same philosophy. The promotion of ‘science-i-ness’ is an ever present talisman. It has two cardinal principles. The first – seen increasingly following the neoliberal turn of the late 1970s – is that where science or truth will undermine corporate interests, the science or truth must be changed. The second principle is to disguise the source of information where useful. When a message is likely to be disbelieved or treated with scepticism when said openly by a corporation or politician, the words must be put in the mouth of someone more believable and apparently disinterested. This is the famous third party technique and has led to a whole swathe of scientists taking corporate money to promote corporate friendly science.

Because science is still such a resource it is imperative for powerful interests to try and co-opt, undermine, distort, influence or buy ‘science’. This is now so widespread that the issue is openly debated in the scientific journals and there is a small but growing number of studies examining the question of the potential bias introduced by corporate funding.[2] From the 50 year battle to protect the tobacco industry to today’s strategic use of science in climate change denial, and to muddy the waters as obesity and binge drinking become crisis issues, scientists have been recruited as a resource. For example they receive research grants, are paid as consultants or have their names added to academic journal articles ghost written by PR operatives. Some scientists are even kept on retainers by corporations or lobby groups and can be wheeled out to order.

The third party technique fits nicely into the co-option strategy. Scientists whose research budgets are nicely swelled by corporate money can often be surprisingly willing recruits to speak on behalf of industry. A study of toxic industrial contaminants in farmed Salmon published in Science in 2004, was greeted with a chorus of condemnation in the press. Many of the voices were described as academic scientists. In fact almost all had financial links to the industry undisclosed in the press. The study itself was well grounded.[3] Nonetheless the industry campaign to remove the stain of poisoned Salmon from the public mind was largely successful.

In the US and UK the creation of ‘front groups’ is common. These are organisations usually including a science-like term in their title such as ‘foundation’ ‘institute’ or ‘research’. In the UK the food industry has been able to sabotage healthy eating initiatives since the 1970s by – among other things – funding the apparently independent British Nutrition Foundation which is able to place representatives on a myriad of government committees.[4] The International Life Science Institute sounds a bit scientific. In fact it is a food industry lobby group funded by hundreds of the biggest food, pharma and chemical companies and was for years more or less directed by the Coca Cola company. It was able to infiltrate the WHO process on dietary sugars by covertly funding some of the scientists involved.[5] In January 2006 the WHO decided that ILSI ‘can no longer take part in WHO activities setting microbiological or chemical standards for food and water’, as a result of complaints about its lobbying tactics.[6]

The PR industry is at the forefront of creating and managing front groups today. The Scientific Alliance turned out to be run from the offices of Foresight Communications a PR firm in central London and to be funded by Scottish quarry owner Robert Durward. The Social Issues Research Centre ‘fosters the image of an ultraconcerned public spirited group’ and of ‘a heavy-weight research body’.[7] It is also run by a PR/marketing company from the same address. That company – MCM Research – used to announce on its website its approach to open and truthful communications: ‘Do your PR initiatives sometimes look too much like PR initiatives? MCM conducts social/psychological research on the positive aspects of your business… The results do not read like PR literature’.[8]

Of course the corporations can do little else than lie and attempt to co-opt science. They require to extract maximum surplus from both labour and natural resources to be part of the global market. Their problem is that these qualities of corporate operations are not very attractive to the overwhelming majority of the population of the globe. As a result corporations and their PR agents must try to undermine or co-opt science. The only defence is transparency, enhanced ethics standards and public funding of research.

NOTES

1. Edward Bernays, Propaganda, 1928, New York: Horace Liverwright.

2. Kassirer, J.P. On the take: How medicine’s complicity with big
business can endanger your health. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press:
2005.; Lesser et al. ‘Relationship between funding source and
conclusion among nutrition-related scientific articles’. PLoS Medicine
2007.; Jorgensen AW, Hilden J, Gotzsche PC. Cochrane reviews compared
with industry supported meta-analyses and other meta-analyses of the
same drugs: systematic review. BMJ 2006;333:782-5.;Veronica Yank,
Drummond Rennie, Lisa A Bero, Financial ties and concordance between
results and conclusions in meta-analyses: retrospective cohort study
BMJ 2007;335:1202-1205 (8 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.39376.447211.BE
(published 16 November 2007); Jim Giles, Industry money skews drug
overviews Nature 437, 458-459 (22 September 2005); DeAngelis, C. Comment
on “Conflict of interest in medical research: facts and friction” in
meeting proceedings, call to action: Managing financial relationships
between academia and industry in biomedical research 2007;
15-16.;Peppercorn, J, Blood, E., Winer, E, Partridge, A. Association
between pharmaceutical involvement and outcomes in breast cancer
clinical trials. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American
Society of Clinical Oncology 2005.

3. David Miller ‘Spinning Farmed Salmon (part 2 of 3)’, Spinwatch, 28
May 2008 http://www.spinwatch.org/content/view/4953/8/

4. Geoffrey Cannon The Politics of Food Century Hutchinson, London, UK,
1987. John Yudkin, Pure, White and Deadly, Penguin, 1988.

5. Sarah Boseley ‘WHO “infiltrated by food industry”’ The Guardian
Thursday January 9, 2003
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/jan/09/foodanddrink; Sarah Boseley
‘Sugar industry threatens to scupper WHO’ The Guardian Monday April 21,
2003 http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2003/apr/21/usnews.food; Sarah
Boseley ‘WHO ‘buried’ report to please food industry’ The Guardian
Wednesday November 3, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2004/nov/03/media.advertising

6. John Heilperin, ‘WHO to Rely Less on U.S. Research’, Associated
Press, January 27, 2006.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/01/27/national/w15…

7. Annabel Ferriman ‘An end to health scares?’ BMJ 1999;319:716- ( 11
September )
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/319/7211/716

8. Ibid.

Open Stormont? Lobbying Transparency for Northern Ireland

Ellie Keen — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 08:56:42 +0000

Lobbying in Northern Ireland has not developed as rapidly as in Scotland in part because of the suspension of the assembly between 2002 and 2007. But the lobbyists are certainly picking up the scent of lucrative contracts now the Assembly is back in action. Journalists too are beginning to see that lobbying is a potential news story as the Belfast Telegraph – not renowned for its anti establishment reportage – helped to claim the first ministerial scalp in the history of the Assembly when Ian Paisley Jr was forced to resign over a lobbying scandal.

As a result, the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency (ALT) found a receptive audience at a busy debate in Belfast on the 3^rd of April. Organised as a fringe meeting at the Annual Delegate Meeting of the National Union of Journalists, the event was co-sponsored by the Northern Ireland Government Affairs Group (NIGAG) is the lobbyists lobby group formed in 1999 following the Good Friday Agreement.

David Gordon of the Belfast Telegraph addressed the meeting by telling the story of the role of investigative journalism in the downfall of Ian Paisley Jr. In effect operating as a lobbyist for key business interests Paisley was forced out from his ministerial post in February 2008. This welcome reminder of the power of the press to unearth corruption and make it pay was followed by the Telegraph launching its 'Open Stormont' campaign – another welcome sign of democratic politics in the North. The five proposals of the campaign are:

A review of the Assembly's current approach to publishing MLA pay and expenses, focusing on the much more detailed disclosures issued by the Scottish Parliament.
That MLAs should publicly declare in the register of interests details of family members on their payrolls. This reform has been favoured by the Assembly's Standards and Privileges Committee, but there are concerns that it will not take effect until 2009.

The Belfast Telegraph sees no reason why it should not be introduced immediately on a voluntary basis by the parties, pending a formal rule change.

A review of constituency office rental arrangements, with independent rental valuations for offices that have been rented from family members and political parties.

This review should also focus on phasing out the practice of allowing MLAs to claim rental expenses for premises owned by relatives – bringing Stormont into line with the House of Commons.

A pledge from all the Stormont parties that the secrecy surrounding their donations will finally end in 2010, with no further slippage on the target date.
A commitment by all the Assembly parties that there will be no dilution of the Freedom of Information Act.[1]

All of these would help to open up Stormont, and the Telegraph and its investigation editor Gordon are to be applauded for helping to bring a little light and transparency to the Northern Ireland. Given the role of lobbying in the Paisley affair, it might also be wise to add a lobbying register to the list of demands.

Back at the fringe meeting, lobbyist Will Chambre was representing the Northern Ireland Government Affairs Group, the lobbyists lobby group. Chambre was there to argue against transparency and in defence of the lobbying industry. He seemed a little nervous and somewhat hesitant making his case – subverting the traditional image of the lobbyist as smooth talking fixer. Chambre undermined his case further by his nerve wracked delivery of the view that it was the ‘quality of the message’ and not the ‘size of the back hander’ which was important in lobbying.

In the debate that followed, the ALT suggestion that lobbyists should be regulated was challenged from the floor by one of the prime movers behind NIGAG Glyn Roberts (Vice chair of NIGAG, formerly of the Federation of Small Business and now lobbyist for the NI Independent Retail Trade Association). Roberts revealed that NIGAG had investigated such an idea when it set up and it was informed by counsel that a body like NIGAG would meet too many legal challenges to have a legally binding system of penalties. Roberts in effect made the point for campaigners for transparency since, as I pointed out in my response, this is exactly why binding regulation needs to be introduced by a law making body such as the Northern Ireland Assembly. The Open Stormont campaign is a sign that Northern Ireland is currently leading the charge on transparency in these islands. The experience in Dublin. London, Cardiff and Edinburgh is that there is little appetite for transparency amongst the political class and it takes a scandal of the kind that has engulfed Ian Paisley Jr. (and latterly his father the outgoing First Minister of Northern Ireland) to move opinion in favour of effective action.[2]

Chambre learned his lobbying at the knee of one of the key fixers of the Westminster lobby scene – Doug Smith the conservative party member who runs All Party Parliamentary Groups and a string of lobby firms. Smith once famously defended lobbyist payments to MPs by saying ‘MPs can't be expected to give us the detail as a labour of love, can they?’ Chambre runs Chambre Public Affairs a lobby company that does disclose its clients in the register of the Association of Professional Political Consultants (APPC). But they don’t disclose how much they are paid by GlaxoSmithkline for example. Nor do they tell us the techniques they use. Do they for example use the third party technique in which respectable sounding organisations – such as patient groups for example – are used as a ventriloquist’s dummy to mouth the policy positions preferred by the corporation that funds them?

Or do they get involved in setting up fake front groups with names suggesting a disinterested approach such as institute of this or foundation for that? We simply don’t know the answer to either question, but it is noticeable that along with the big pharma clients Chambre also works for a number of patient groups. Chambre do not disclose which pharma companies fund their patient group clients. However, according to company disclosures, we can tell that Chambre works for

Sanofi Pasteur MSD who fund the British Heart Foundation and Jo’s Trust, both clients of Chambre PA[3]
Lilly (part of Eli Lilly) which fund Rethink also a client of Chambre.[4]
GlaxoSmithkline who fund the British Heart Foundation and Jo’s Trust both also clients.[5]
Boehringer Ingelheim who fund the British Heart Foundation also a client.[6]

We have no means of knowing what the relationship is here or whether there is a conflict of interest – another reason why transparency is necessary. There is a further point which is that Chambre also work for Northern Health & Social Services Board which is responsible for both health and social care in the north of Northern Ireland. This leads to potential conflict of interest as both the patient groups and the pharma companies which pay Chambre have a vested interest in influencing the behaviour of the Board in relation to say Autism or mental health, both areas where Chambre clients have interests.

Notes

[1] David Gordon ‘Belfast Telegraph to push for transparency in the Assembly Belfast Telegraph, Wednesday, March 19, 2008 http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/article3532658.ece

[2] See David Gordon ‘Paisley Jnr must reveal full extent of lobbying for developer: SDLP’, Belfast Telegraph , September 20, 2007; David Gordon Civil service concerns at Paisley jnr lobbying Belfast Telegraph, Friday, January 18, 2008 http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/article3348975.ece ; David Gordon Few tears as Paisley Jnr finally falls on his sword But resignation is not end of the matter, vow enemies of the fallen Junior Minister Belfast Telegraph, Tuesday, February 19, 2008 http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/article3445125.ece; ‘Role of FOI legislation in Minister’s downfall’ Investigations correspondent David Gordon argues that the Freedom of Information Act played a key role in bringing down the junior minister Belfast Telegraph, Tuesday, February 19, 2008 http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/article3445136.ece; David Gordon ‘Paisley is facing Commons inquiry: First Minister's payments to son to be investigated’ Belfast Telegraph Thursday, February 21, 2008 http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/article3452962.ece; David Gordon ‘Paisley linked to son's lobbying’ Belfast Telegraph, 17/4/2008

[3] http://www.spmsd.co.uk/doc.asp?catid=380&docid=705

[4] http://www.lilly.co.uk/Nitro/newTemplates/general/Content_IT_LBCT.jsp?page=1471

[5] http://www.gsk.com/responsibility/cr_issues/patient-groups/uk-patient-organisations.htm

[6] http://www.boehringer-ingelheim.co.uk/medicines/patient_group_support.html

Corporate Power and the SNP Government

Ellie Keen — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 18:03:03 +0000

The SNP government has played a bit of a blinder in its first ten months, consistently wrong footing Labour and the rest of the unionist opposition. It is still too early to come to a definitive judgement on the SNP record in relation to business, although some early lines of development are pretty clear. These can be divided into two main areas. First is the area of economic policy and the general orientation towards business interests. For the most part this is business as usual, little different from the policies pursued by the neo-liberal labour/Lib Dem administration. Second is the area of social policy where the SNP has almost appeared to be a social democratic government. Among the announcements was Nicola Sturgeon’s commitment that ‘We reject the very idea that markets in health care are the route to improvement’.1 Other statements include ‘positive commitments’ as the STUC’s Grahame Smith put it, on prescription charges, prison estate, more free school meals and nursery places.2 Democrats will applaud the sentiments and make sure they examine the details.

The other area to watch is the much vaunted bonfire of the quangos. There seems to be very little action here yet. This is not one of those dull media feeding frenzies on broken manifesto commitments but a serious question about re-democratising the public sector. Yes, this means resisting contracting out, shared services and all the other means for the corporations to get their hands on free money and attack terms and conditions. But the other pressing issue is the fact that legions of political appointees gum up the possibility of serious opening up and accountability. Many of these people would need to be removed in a bonfire of the quango-crats. Two examples will suffice. Sir Ken Collins at SEPA is a former Labour MEP. To be fair his long experience as chair of the Environmental committee at the European Parliament was a significant qualification for the job. But SEPA has not been able to play the role of a proper watchdog on environmental issues because it has been too close to the Executive and too willing to be influenced by big business. Collins himself is still politically active. As well as being a public servant he acts as an advisor to the European Public Affairs Consultants Association – the EU lobbyists lobby group – which is determined to resist openness and transparency. This is the kind of conflict of interest of which any public servant should beware since advocating for corporate interests by definition undermines the public interest. Such conflicts pale, however, beside the extraordinary fact of the appointment of Sir Ian Byatt and a whole crew of neo-liberal ideologues to run the Water Industry Commission for Scotland. Their ostensible role is to make sure that the Scottish Water is run efficiently within the public sector. But from the beginning they have been more interested in pushing it towards privatisation. This suits their friends and allies in the think tanks and private water companies well. In fact it suits pro market consultancies such as Frontier Economics, too. Frontier is retained as a consultant to the Byatt led WICS and – would you believe it? – Frontier in turn employs Byatt as a ‘senior associate’. The continuation of such appointments is an affront to the most basic principles of public life.

After gutting the quangos of pro market place people, the SNP might then be tempted to fill the resulting places with its own stooges. This would be an historical mistake as it would lead inexorably to the reinstatement of the institutionally corrupt layer currently in post when the government changes. For Scotland to function at anything approaching a democratic polity changing the people needs to be accompanied by changing the structures. The quango-cracy is in it self anti democratic and more or less insulated from popular pressures. So, fundamental reform and direct democratic input is required. This might mean the wholesale abolition of many of these organisations.

In fact though the whole machinery of government needs overhauled. The senior management at the old Scottish Executive ceased some time ago to be the impartial civil service of old. They have made clear statements on their own behalf indicating they are almost to a person signed up to the neo-liberal reform agenda. All the rhetoric about bringing business ideas and expertise to the public sector is itself a betrayal of their responsibility as public servants. No sign so far of any movement here. At a more visible level the direct role of business in government seems not to have abated. Scottish Financial Enterprise (a business lobby group, despite the name suggesting it is part of the public sector) is still able to shape policy on financial services by having 7 out of 12 seats on the Financial Service Strategy Group and ten of seventeen on the Financial Services Advisory Board, both of which combine to run Scottish government policy on financial services. This composition and the fact of one union rep on both organisations is the same as under Labour. The Scottish Executive Management Group has been renamed the Scottish Government Strategy Board and has lost one of its ‘non-executive directors’, the corporate lobbyist and networker Shonaig Macpherson. The other two (Bill Bound formerly of PricewaterhouseCoopers and David Fisher of HBoS) remain. No changes there.

Meanwhile in the Parliament the one area where Scotland could said to be ahead of Westminster was on openness and transparency particularly in relation to lobbying, where the Standards Committee declared for regulation of lobbyists in 2003. Since then the European commission has launched the European Transparency Initiative and even the Westminster parliament is holding an inquiry on lobbying. At the Scottish Parliament the issue appears dead. The amazing antics of the Scottish Parliament Business Exchange show how much contempt the Parliamentary bosses have for democracy and transparency. The exchange is alleged to be an educational venture to teach MSPs about business and vice versa. It claims to have ‘no connection with lobbying in any form’ and at ‘all times operates in an open and transparent manner’. Neither of these statements appears to be true. The interim director until January 2008 was Devin Scobie, himself a lobbyist who ran Caledonia Consulting, a own lobbying consultancy while at the SPBE. There is no public information about whether any of his clients are also SPBE members. However, we do know that former Pfizer lobbyist and head of the SPBE on the business side, Lynda Gauld, also works at Caledonia. As if that is not enough, other connections between the two organisations include the former member of the SPBE and former MSP, David Davidson, who now also works at Caledonia. The new ‘Chief Executive’ of the SPBE from January 2008 is Arthur McIvor. McIvor is a former marketing man from Royal Mail who recently set up his own consultancy – Art McIvor Consultants – which seems to offer high end lobbying and hospitality services. The SPBE is in other words a virtual gateway for lobbyists into the Scottish Parliament. No sign so far that this will change under the SNP or that the issue of lobbying regulation will come back on the agenda, despite the recent launch of the civil society coalition the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency.3

On economic policy the SNP are, as used to be said by the Labour Party, the Tartan Tories. Used to be said, before, that is, the former people’s party emulated the neo-liberal, pro-privatisation policies of the Thatcher government. The deeper cut in business rates made to bring the Tories on board for the budget is a key indication.

But there are some areas where SNP policy departs from manifesto commitments or their own social democratic rhetoric. In much the same way that the phrase ‘military precision’ is now widely understood as referring to mass civilian casualties, the phrase ‘Private Sector efficiency’ is now widely recognised as meaning inefficient, more expensive and unjust.

Two key areas to watch where there may be some potential for democratic outcomes are the Scottish Futures Trust and the mooted mutualisation of Scottish Water. The Futures Trust is heralded as an alternative to the widely loathed extortion that is PFI/PPP. Although the detail on this is yet to be worked out it is already clear that the Futures Trust would transfer public assets out of the public sector and insulate them from public accountability, much as has happened with the transfer of museums and leisure facilities from Glasgow City Council to ‘Culture and Sport Glasgow’

The issue of mutualisation of water was kicked into the long grass before the last election with Labour, the SNP and the Greens declaring their opposition to mutualisation – a back door means to bring in the banks and effectively privatise Scottish Water. But in February amidst a morning fanfare the issue of mutualisation was back on the agenda as the SNP announced a review of the water industry. Briefings from the First Minister spin doctors suggested a policy change.4 Yet by the afternoon it was clear that the relevant minister and the rest of the party were not signed up for this and the matter was downplayed. Not a lot of sign for social-democratic optimism there as the vultures which have been circling the Scottish water industry for some years, circle closer. These are both fudges which will allow the private sector in by the back door. They are not ‘public sector’ solutions and will end up defrauding the public and putting public services beyond direct accountability.

All in all then, there are some signs of social democratic reform, but for the most part it is business as usual with a few frills attached.

1. BBC Online Plans to end private cash for NHS Last Updated: Thursday, 21 June 2007, 15:21 GMT 16:21 UK
2. STUC Response to Scottish Government Budget 14th November 2007 http://www.stuc.org.uk/press-releases/441/stuc-response-to-scottish-gove…
3. http://www.lobbyingtransparency.org . Spinwatch.org is a founding member.
4. Steven Vass ‘Ofwat backs cross-border competition ‘, Sunday Herald, 1 March 2008

Time to Shed Light on Lobbying

Ellie Keen — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 01:30:35 +0000

When it was announced that Tony Blair was to be paid $500,000 per year to work for JP Morgan Chase it was said by the Advisory Committee on Business Interests 'he should not be personally involved in lobbying government ministers or officials on behalf of his new employer or its clients' This betrays a serious misunderstanding of lobbying. It is a misunderstanding encouraged by the lobbying industry in their current efforts to deflect MPs from introducing elementary transparency rules.

The Public Administration Select committee is currently in the early stages of an inquiry into lobbying which is the best chance for more than a decade of progress towards transparency on lobbying. The arguments for transparency are unassailable. They are founded on the widespread public mistrust of the political process and of the influence of corporations within it – as shown by the Power Inquiry in 2005. On top of this is the reluctance of many lobbying and PR firms to disclose who they work for and on what. They trade on access and are protected by secrecy. Only a mandatory system requiring disclosure of clients, fees and the issues on which they lobby can correct this. The trend on lobbying throughout western countries is all one way. Lobbying rules are being introduced –for example in Poland and Hungary and at the European Commission - or tightened – in the US, Canada and Australia.

Lobbying is much more widespread than is recognised. It is not just the 'face time' between lobbyists and decision makers. Blair will be 'personally involved' in lobbying simply by advising his new employers. Underlying the misperception is the idea that lobbyists are only found in lobbying firms. This is false. The lobbying consultancies which became a feature of public life in the 1980s are only a small fraction of the industry. Also involved are in-house practitioners, think tanks, 'front groups', charities and non government organisations. As a result groups like the Association of Professional Political Consultants can never represent more than a fraction of the field, meaning their self regulatory approach simply cannot work.

One indication of the lack of transparency in lobbying is the case of TOAST (The Obesity Awareness and Solutions Trust) which used a PR agency called The Whitehouse Consultancy to recruit parliamentary 'patrons' and to raise the issue of obesity on Parliament. TOAST admitted on its own site that it was engaged in lobbying, noting that it had been 'extremely successful'. The charity claimed to be ‘completely independent’ and to ‘derive its income from individual donations and membership fees’. However, an investigation by Spinwatch revealed that almost all of it funding came from a diet company called LighterLife . In addition two of Lighterlife’s directors were also directors of TOAST. TOAST was in other words a kind of ‘front group’. No fewer than nine of the twenty one parliamentary patrons have now gone on record stating that they were not told of the links between TOAST and Lighterlife. Dr Ian Gibson MP stated ‘I was absolutely not aware of this connection and my initial reaction is to be pretty cheesed off.’

The obvious conclusion from this affair is that lobbyists come in may guises and do not always disclose their links, clients and motives even to the MPs and others who they recruit to support them. A voluntary system of self regulation as proposed by the APPC would do nothing to solve such problems. The lobby firm involved with TOAST is an APPC member and it discloses in the APPC register that it has TOAST and Lighterlife as clients, but not the relation between them. The case of TOAST also shows why it is important not only to regulate lobbying firms but also campaigning groups and even charities.

One of the key lobbyists who encouraged big business support for Labour and was subsequently elevated to the Lords was Dennis Stevenson. One of his first acts on becoming the chair of the board at Pearson in the 1990s was to stop political donations. Instead funding was channelled to think thanks to lobby for policy outcomes. This was part of a major expansion of think tanks across the narrowed political spectrum with Demos, IPPR, the Social Market Foundation and others advocating the business friendly policies favoured by their funders. The think tanks are able to get close to ministers and key figures at party conferences and other events – to act as lobbyists in other words. Any measures to address privileged access and lobbying transparency must include these kinds of policy actors, as well as commercial consultants, in-house lobbyists and campaigning NGOs.

These problems are compounded by issues of privileged access to MPs, ministers and civil servants. We are seeing a complex nexus of relationships fostered by the revolving door in which former politicians like Blair (or Thatcher or Major before him – and last week Patricia Hewitt's consultancy with Boots and advisory work for Cinven ) or civil servants take up lucrative positions with corporations in order to secure business interests. Allied with the revolving door are other symptoms of privileged access such as secondments into and out of the civil service for business people. This can mean that organisations seeking government contracts or market advantage can have someone on the inside taking part in procurement or policy development processes.

The only way to ensure transparency, to begin to combat the revolving door and end privileged access to policy making is to introduce mandatory disclosure measures and enhanced ethics regulation. No amount of self-serving rhetoric from the lobbyists can disguise that.

David Miller is Professor of Sociology at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow and co-founder of Spinwatch.org. His Latest book (with William Dinan), A Century of Spin: How Public Relations Became the Cutting Edge of Corporate Power has just been published by Pluto. He gives evidence before the Public Administration Select Committee on Thursday 24^th January

SPBE Gains Lobbying Access to Scottish Parliament

Tim Holmes — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:44:45 +0000

The Scottish Parliament Business Exchange, which was condemned by the Standards Committee of the Scottish Parliament in 2002 as failing to ‘provide sufficient transparency or accountability’ has facilitated access to the Parliament for the Industry and Parliament Trust. The Trust is a forum based in Whitehall which facilitates contacts between corporations, lobbyists and members of the Houses of Parliament and parliamentary staff.

Writing in the IPT magazine The Bridge, Devin Scobie of the SPBE notes that facilitating the access was not easy: ‘Establishing… that an IPT led Programme was a charitable cause and thereby eligible to book meeting rooms in the Parliament took some time but is now firmly in place’ (January-March 2008, p. 16.). Amongst those attending the IPT led programme in Edinburgh was Jane McGirk, lobbyist for SELEX Sensors and Airborne Systems UK. This is an arms firm (part of the Finmeccanica Group the privatised former Italian state company which now owns Westland Helicopters) which produces ‘sensing solutions for fighters, transporters, helicopters and Unmanned Airborne Vehicles (UAVs).’ They also produce ‘high power lasers for long range designation of ground targets (selected for the Lockheed Martin Sniper pod and Joint Strike Fighter EO targeting system)’ and ‘long range target identification systems’. These weapons are currently used in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the academic research has suggested that more than half a million people have been casualties since March 2003.

The Chief Executive of the Parliament Paul Grice stated before the Parliament’s Standards committee that ‘Access through the programme could not be called “privileged” in any sense of the word.’ This is not quite how McGirk saw it. In her article for The Bridge, she writes that she had ‘two full days geared on the inner workings of the Scottish Parliement with the sole aim of getting me up to speed with how it works and how I might help my company better engage with it – I felt privileged!’(p. 16) McGirk relates that she ‘even’ got the opportunity to dine with MSps ‘providing a useful networking opportunity to begin the process of building relationships with them – all good stuff for someone in a role like mine’. In conclusion McGirk notes that she has ‘been convinced of the value of engaging with Government’. ‘So much so’ she says that ‘I have already signed up to attend forthcoming Study Programmes for the UK and European Parliaments’. The connection with the arms industry is also apparent in the account by Chris Shaw, Deputy Principal clerk in the Clerk’s Department, House of Commons. His IPT fellowship took him to BAe Systems where he saw part of the process of assembling the Eurofighter (a project of four partners including Finmeccanica) and also ‘saw their prototype Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) developed rapidly in response to a change in MoD requirements’. (p. 9) Shaw seemed impressed if not overawed with his placement, seeking to apply what he saw to fostering ‘a more corporate approach’ in the public sector. ‘If a corporate approach can overcome all manner of country and cultural barriers to deliver fast jet aricraft’, he concludes, ‘ it shouldn’t be impossible for us to combine to achive an equally good – if marginally less exciting – product for the MPs we work for.’ Leaving aside the question of whether the Eurofighter is a ‘good’ or ‘exciting’ product, there is little recognition that the actual ‘corporate’ culture of BAe Systems is one that involves routine bribery and corruption at the highest levels as part of a huge lobbying effort alongside ethically dubious employment of spies and agents provacateur in the movement against the arms industry.

The IPT has been in existence for thirty years and was the model upon which the SPBE was based. In Scotland the SPBE attempted to have a more inclusive feel by co-opting a member of the Scottish Trades Union Congress and by insisting that – despite the use of the word ‘business’ in the title it really wanted to promote understanding of the world outside Parliament and not just the corporate world. The IPT is not so bothered by such niceties, stating that ‘It exists to promote industry and commerce and the efficient and effective administration of government’ This is achieved, it says by promoting ‘mutual understanding’ between legislators and ‘wealth generators from all sectors of business’. Typically enough ‘wealth generators are conceived of as the people who own and run corporations rather than the people to work to create the wealth. The IPT is, in other words, a lobbyists dream come true.

In case the impression is given that it is only arms firms that are welcomed to this process, the Trust advertises its new members in the latest edition of its magazine as including Bayer-Schering Pharma Ltd, Britvic, Compass Group, Gallaher and T-Mobile (p. 23). All of these firms in the pharma, food, tobacco and communications businesses have lobbying objectives which will be served in part by joining the Trust.

The SPBE itself claims to have ‘no connection with lobbying in any form’ and at ‘all times operates in an open and transparent manner’. Neither of these statements appears to be true. Devin Scobie (Interim Director until the end of January 2008) is himself a lobbyist. From 1999-2004 he worked in the Edinburgh office of GPC the lobbying firm which employed disgraced lobbyist Derek Draper (and which was part of the lobbying multinational Fleishman Hillard, in turn owned by the advertsising and PR giant Omnicom). Clients there included Pfizer, also a member of the SPBE. From the beginning Pfizer’s lobbyist Lynda Gauld was involved with the Exchange, later becoming its convenor. From June 2007 Gauld joined Scobie at the new lobbying firm he created in late 2006 called Caledonia Consulting. When Scobie became the interim director of the Exchange he remained managing director of Caledonia. Documents released under the Freedom of information Act also show that Scobie was one of the very few commercial lobbyists to secure a pass for the Scottish Parliament. In effect then the SPBE is almost a front for Caledonia Consulting – not quite the same as having ‘no connection’ with lobbying.

Caledonia recently courted controversy by employing a former Labour minister who was jailed for setting fire to curtains at a central Edinburgh hotel at a Scottish political awards ceremony. Mike Watson, joins a number of former MSPs at the firm.

Scobie himself is reluctant to describe himself as a lobbyist in the press, claiming that ‘I don’t really consider myself a lobbyist, I consider myself a business consultant… The clients that I work with want to understand how parliament operates,they want to understand how the committees are set up. It’s not a case of saying, “Devin, get closer to MSP X or Y”.’ On Caledonia’s website he is a little more open saying that prior to 2004 he ‘spent most of his working life in public affairs and communication consultancy’. But in December 2003 while still working at GPC, Scobie described an alleged alternative view of him as ‘an evil lobbyist’ who:

Lunches for Scotland
Tries to persuade, cajole and otherwise influence
Stays in the shadows
Lives in the Scottish Parliament
Preys on unsuspecting MSPs
Pretends we don’t exist

And makes lots of money from poor, down-trodden clients…

Whatever the truth, the SPBE is now run in effect as a lobbying outfit. Concerns about transparency are not abated by the fact that Caledonia do not disclose their clients, so it is difficult to tell if any of them are involved in the SPBE and consequently whther there are any conflict of interest issues. The Association of Professional Political Consultants is the lobby industry body set up to resist lobbying transparency. It operates a self regulatory code which requires disclosure of clients and forbids the holding of parliamentary passes. Caledonia is not a member. The relationship between Gauld, Scobie and the SPBE/Caledonia has never been clarified. Nor has there been any information forthcoming about how conflicts of interest might be managed in the absence of the disclosure of Caledonia’s clients. The SPBE is on other words certainly not open and transparent. It appears however, to be shielded by the powerful Chief Executive of the Parliament Paul Grice. If the SNP government wants to move towards transparency and openness it is he who will have to be out-manouevred.

The Brown Deception

Tim Holmes — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 16:51:30 +0000

According to the liberal press Gordon Brown has made a good start as Prime Minister because he has started to show that he is different to Blair. According to the press this is because he has appointed Iraq ‘sceptic’ David Miliband as Foreign Secretary and Mark Malloch Brown formerly of the UN as Foreign Office minister.

The new Foreign Secretary David Miliband is apparently a well known sceptic on the Iraq war. This is strange since, with the exception of one vote at which he was not present, Miliband has, since 2001, been a staunch supporter of the attack on Afghanistan and the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. As well as being in favour of foundation hospitals and other pro market measures Miliband has consistently voted with the government on anti-terrorism measures, even on the Terrorism bill vote in late 2005 where the government was defeated Miliband voted for extending the period that terror ‘suspects’ could be locked up.(1) Miliband is no opponent of the war.

Malloch Brown on the other hand is said to be a ‘a strong critic of US policy’ (The Times, 29 June) and a ‘critic of Iraq’, making him a ‘daring’ appointment. (The Guardian, 29 June) This is true in the sense that he has criticised the United States government for allowing ‘too much unchecked UN-bashing and stereotyping’ from critics, such as conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.(2) The US representative to the United Nations John Bolton, responded, ‘I spoke to the secretary-general this morning, I said “I’ve known you since 1989 and I’m telling you this is the worst mistake by a senior U.N. official that I have seen in that entire time.”(3)

But it is a little bit of a stretch to pretend that Malloch Brown is in any way a plain speaking progressive. On the contrary Malloch Brown has had a career long involvement in pushing neo-liberal reform first in journalism with the Economist and then in a series of appointments in the spin and propaganda industry.

Malloch Brown started his career at the Economist, that leading organ of market friendly ideas. After the Economist Malloch Brown went to work at the UNHCR, briefly returned to the UK to try and fail to beome a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for the Social Democratic Party, and in 1986 was appointed to the Sawyer Miller Group an international PR firm specialising in managing elections on behalf of pro Western candidates. ‘As head of its international division’, noted the Guardian, ‘the Cambridge-educated Briton turned up in Peru with helicopters to help the presidential campaign of his old friend, the novelist Mario Vargas Llosa.’(4) In Bolivia he advised the government of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, ‘a Bolivian ruler so hated by the population for his neoliberal zeal and subservience to Washington that he had recently had to flee the presidential palace by helicopter, and make for Miami’.(5) He also advised Corazon Aquino of the Philippines when she ran against Ferdinand Marcos. In Colombia Malloch Brown advised the rulers of the country most favoured with US military aid to crush leftist guerrillas.

Doug Stokes has catalogued the campaign and its effects:

Sawyer Miller’s Opinion polls conducted in 1987 found that 76% of all Americans thought that the Colombian government was corrupt, and 80% wanted sanctions imposed upon it. In 1991, amidst the refusal of the Colombian State to hand over the notorious drug-trafficker, Pablo Escobar, the image of the Colombian State suffered further setbacks. In response to all this, the Colombian state embarked on its own Low Intensity Conflict to win the hearts and minds of the American people. It employed the services of a PR company, the Sawyer/Miller Group, which earned nearly a million dollars in fees and expenses in the first half of 1991 alone. The PR specialists job was to transform the perceptions of the Colombian state as a corrupt and brutal abuser of human rights, to a staunch ally of the US in its so-called “war on drugs”. The director of Sawyer/Miller’s Colombia account explained that “the main mission is to educate the American media about Colombia, get good coverage, and nurture contacts with journalists, columnists, and think tanks. The message is that there are ‘bad’ and ‘good’ people in Colombia and that the government is the good guy.” In fostering these perceptions the Sawyer/Miller group conducted opinion poll surveys and focus group sessions to evaluate public opinion. In 1991 alone, Colombia gave over $3.1 million to an advertising campaign. The campaign placed newspaper adds and TV commercials aimed at American policymakers in Washington. The adds all had a similar theme. They asked the American people to remember the bravery of the Colombian military in its war against drugs, and attempted to change perceptions of Colombia from being a drug supplier to the US as drug consumer.

Media requests for interviews with Colombian government officials went through Sawyer/Miller. They steered sympathetic reporters to key government ministries and made sure that critics of Colombia’s appalling human rights record were kept away. In one instance, after a meeting with Warren Hoge, the editor of the New York Times Magazine, the Times printed a long and inaccurate story glorifying the then Colombian President, Cesar Trujillo, whose campaign had been heavily funded with drug money. The Colombian government bought the reprinting rights to the article and sent thousands of copies to US Journalists and Embassies. Sawyer/Miller group regularly use the American press to distribute pro-Colombian government propaganda with the routine production of pamphlets, letters to editors signed by Colombian officials, and ads placed in The New York Times and The Washington Post. However, it is the transformation of the armed protagonists in Colombia’s conflict that has had the most effect. In recently declassified documentation, the US Ambassador to Colombia in 1996, Myle Frechette, admits that the perception of the FARC as narco-guerrillas, “was put together by the Colombian military, who considered it a way to obtain U.S. assistance in the counterinsurgency.” The PR job seems to have worked as the US has now made Colombia the third largest recipient of US military aid in the world today. This aid is allegedly for a counter-offensive against what have been constructed as the primary narco-terrorists in Colombia, the FARC.(6)

As is usual with this kind of spending the main aim is not to convince US public opinion, but rather to ensure that the ruling elite gain enough freedom of action to support the lobbyists clients. Sawyer Miller is now part of the world’s largest PR firm Weber Shandwick Worldwide.

In 1993 Malloch Brown was co-founder of the International Crisis Group, which claims to be a non governmental organisations but is mostly funded by Western governments and largely staffed by ex government officials (often from the US). Chris Patten the former Conservative minister, the last governor of Hong Kong and Chair of Crisis Group’s Board of Trustees writes that ‘What Crisis Group does is to fill the need that policy-makers in national governments have for smart, honest analysis and practical proposals for preventing disaster, or at least mitigating its consequences. We often find ourselves saying the things that governments would like to say but find too difficult.’(7) In other words the ICG is the vehicle for Western interests. A non governmental organisation in name, but in practice a covert cipher for western interests. After setting up the ICG Malloch Brown was appointed as a spin doctor for the World Bank – along with the IMF and the WTO the main vehicles of global neoliberal reform.

It is unsurprising then to find that Malloch Brown’s comments on elements of the US right do not make him a critic of US power. On the contrary as he himself has noted he is ‘very pro-United States … I’ve an American wife, kids. I love the country.’ He is also close to leading neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz the architect of the Iraq war and Elliot Abrams also of the Project for a New American Century.(8) At the ICG Malloch Brown rubs shoulders with co-Chair Thomas Pickering and his advisory board which includes figures such as Anwar Ibrahim, Morton Abramowitz, Kenneth Adelman, Leslie H. Gelb and Stephen Solarz.

Between them this small selection of the 44 strong advisory board are linked to the following elite and neoconservative think tanks and lobby groups:

Aspen Institute

Eurasia Foundation

International Institute for Strategic Studies

American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus

National Endowment for Democracy (NED)

Brookings Institution

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Council on Foreign Relations

Committee on the Present Danger

Freedom House

Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs

National Democratic Institute for International Affairs

The Committee on the Present Danger is a neocon lobby group first set up in the Reagan era which is currently active in the push to war with Iran. Note also the links with the neocon Israel lobby groups such as the far right Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs. Indeed Pickering is so close to the Israel lobby that he joined Ariel Sharon’s Kadima party in December 2005. Anwar Ibrahim is the West’s favourite former Malaysian politician, who, through his connection with the rather dubious Foundation for the Future, links to the Wolfowitz World Bank scandal. Wolfowitz’s partner Shaha Riza was seconded to the Foundation following a request from Ibrahim.(9) These links hardly support the notion of a dangerous radical in the Foreign Office.

Furthermore it has been argued that Malloch Brown’s role at the UN was actually part of US manipulations of the UN. Perry Anderson notes one of the operatives in the manipulation was Malloch Brown. Anderson writes:

During his second mandate, floundering in the Oil for Food crisis, Annan was summoned by Richard Holbrooke to his residence on the Upper West Side for a secret meeting, attended by Orr, Ruggie and Mousavizadeh, and three other Democratic insiders. There Annan was enjoined to fire unwanted colleagues, and accept a more competent minder, in the shape of Mark Malloch Brown… Without a murmur, Annan accepted him as the power in front of the throne. Holbrooke was pained that news of the arrangement leaked out. ‘The intention was to keep it confidential. No one wanted to give the impression of a group of outsiders, all of them Americans, dictating what to do to a secretary-general.’ Impressions, apparently, are everything. (10)

So much for the critic of US policy. His appointment brings us closer to the day when the cabinet and even Prime Minister will be made up of people whose professional career experience is in spin and manipulation. Malloch Brown is, in that sense very much in the mould that can be expected from Gordon Brown. People who may appear on one level to be plain speaking, even moral and mildly progressive critics of the established order, but who on closer inspection turn out to be at the forefront of pushing the global corporate agenda. The most obvious example of this is Gordon Brown himself, who has done a good job of pretending that beneath the gruff exterior of the Iron Chancellor beats the socialist heart of Red Gordon. This nonsense is swallowed by large numbers of people, most obviously in the liberal mainstream media.
Let us take as an example a long speech that Brown made in January 2005 in the run up to the G8 meeting at Gleneagles. In its own terms the speech sounded serious about Brown’s concern to make poverty history. He noted the ‘hopelessness and human loss that lies behind the numbers’ and reported that in Tanzania he ‘saw 8, 9, 10, 11 year old children begging to continue in school – but denied the chance because their parents could not pay the fees.’ He concluded with a clarion call to make the ‘arc of the moral universe… bend towards justice’(11) On the launch of the Commission for Africa Report, the centrepiece of the government’s policy for the G8, the BBC listed eight findings requiring action by the West. They included doubling or trebling aid, forgiving debt, spend more on HIV/AIDS, fund African universities, remove trade barriers to African exports in the West. (12) Not much there to disagree with. But, in the report itself, a different picture emerges. Journalists need only read the summaries of the various chapters to get a clue about the real agenda. For example goals for economic growth in Africa are said in Chapter 7 to be possible ‘only if the obstacles of… a discouraging investment climate are overcome’. This involves ‘public and private sector working together to identify the obstacles to a favourable investment climate’.(13) What this means is more liberalisation and privatisation and more opportunities for western corporations to exploit African resources and labour. ‘Investments in infrastructure and the enabling climate for the private sector are at the top of the agenda’ says the summary of the next chapter.(14) These passages are available for all to see but are commonly suppressed in the mainstream media (including the allegedly left leaning papers the Guardian (15) and the Independent(16)). They provide a clue to the real agenda of the government, which is to spearhead neoliberal reform in Africa.

Also closely involved with the work of the Commission for Africa is Business Action for Africa (BAA) a coalition of over 250 senior business representatives. BAA met with the Commission for Africa prior to finalising their report in February 2005. This followed a ‘programme of formal consultations between the CFA and the private sector in Africa, Europe and North America’.(17) This was accomplished through the ‘Business contact group’ established in July 2004 at a meeting chaired by Niall Fitzgerald of Reuters and Gordon Brown. Its programme was managed by the ‘private sector Advisor’ to the Commission for Africa, an employee of Shell, and input in the US and Canada was ensured through business lobby groups the Corporate Council on Africa and the Canadian Council on Africa, both representing trans-national capital.(18)

The corporations involved can barely contain their excitement. The ‘outlook’ of the business community is a ‘positive one’ says one of the CFA commissioners. ‘It believes Africa is the next frontier for investment’. James Smith, the UK chair of Shell, which co-hosted the meeting noted that progress ‘requires that the private sector has a bigger role’.(19) The chair of the Commonwealth Business Council, the business lobby group co-hosting the meeting, read out the concluding statement. Dr Mohan Kaul affirmed that ‘getting the conditions right for doing business in Africa is the biggest single investment for the future well-being of its citizens’. A ‘vibrant and successful private sector… is required’ he noted.(20)

Amongst their duties in this adventure corporations ‘should’ sign ‘leading codes of good social and environmental conduct’. The one apparent crumb of comfort is that ‘Corporate governance principles should clearly identify and punish malpractice’. But this is a mirage as there is no requirement to sign and the codes noted (such as the UN global compact and the Global Reporting Initiative) are all voluntary and do not have any provisions or appetite for ‘punishing’ corporate wrongdoing.(21) This is their unifying and defining characteristic. Unsurprisingly, therefore we find that the corporations sponsoring the BAA conference are amongst the worst currently engaged in the exploitation of Africa including Shell (oil), Anglo American (mining), Rio Tinto (mining), De Beers (diamonds), Diageo, SAB Miller (both Drinks industry, use vast quantities of water), GSK (pharmaceuticals), British American Tobacco, and Unilever, (food and consumer products). Also involved are the providers of capital who profiteer from exploitation such as Standard Chartered bank and the venture capital fund Capital for Development.(22)

This pro-business agenda is nowhere clearer than in the statements of the IMF. Its International Monetary and Financial Committee, met on 16 April 2005 in Washington and reiterated the neo-liberal mantra that ‘the key challenge remains to press ahead with reforms to strengthen the investment environment and foster private sector led growth’ The Committee ‘emphasizes that successful and ambitious multilateral trade liberalization is central to sustained global growth and economic development’.(23) This is as unsurprising as it is damaging to Africa and the rest of the world. The committee met in the middle of an election campaign in the UK, but the chair of the committee – Gordon Brown – managed to find time to attend.

Brown’s mention of Tanzania in his speech in January 2005 is particularly inappropriate since the problems of education fees in that country are the direct result of IMF structural adjustment which forced the Tanzanian government to introduce the market into education. ‘Education’s share in total budget percentage fell from 11.85% in 1983/84 to 6.95% in 1990/91’. ‘Government expenditures on education, health, and other social sectors had to be cut in order to meet conditions of donor countries and international lending institutions’(24). What Brown gives, with apparent sincerity, with one hand is the means for the corporations to take away with the other. He offers, in other words not fine words unmatched by practice, but the very tools for the corporations to swoop on Africa and bleed it dry.

This is nowhere more apparent than in relation to aid, where the promised increases come with strings attached – they require liberalisation. Even worse, the Department for International Development aid budget directly funds privatisation PR campaigns run by the far right Adam Smith Institute and others. (25) In such obscene circumstances cutting aid to the developing world would be a better policy.

In fact the UK government is at the forefront of the new corporate drive to open up markets throughout the developing world. The adoption of some of the rhetoric of the Make Poverty History campaign is both a sign of the success of the movement and an indication of the dangers of co-option. Sadly some of the organisations involved in MPH are less than clear about this. For example Justin Forsyth Oxfam’s campaign manager noted in 2002 that ‘When you speak to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, they really understand these issues. They are easily some of the best leaders when it comes to talking about development and dismantling subsidy, and they are making the right arguments time and again.’(26)

In 2004 Forsyth left Oxfam to work as Blair’s advisor of International Development. Meanwhile Brown’s advisor on International Development, Shriti Vadera, described by the Guardian as ‘tough-talking’ and ‘not suffering bright junior officials, let alone fools, gladly’ is a former director at the US bank UBS Warburg and ‘expert’ on, and advocate of, ‘the complex funding behind public-private partnerships’. She was influential in pushing through utilities privatisation in South Africa despite popular opposition. Amongst her other roles Vadera sits on the Oxfam Council of Trustees, Oxfam’s the governing body. (27)

When Brown became PM he appointed Vadera as a junior minister at the Department for International Development. This is a sure sign that the neo-liberal agenda will be at the forefront of British development policy. This means: more privatisation and less democracy. Meanwhile Brown will pose as a moral leader, valiantly attempting to nudge the ‘arc of history towards justice’. This is the Brown deception. How long before the closed world of debate within the media and political elite notice? Don’t hold your breath.

Notes

1. People MPs > Labour David Miliband > How they voted> Details of key votes> David Miliband,The Guardian http://politics.guardian.co.uk/person/howtheyvoted/0,,-8431,00.html
2. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/06/08/wun08.xml
3. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,198535,00.html
4. The Guardian profile: Mark Malloch Brown ‘The thing Mark did not bring to the job was a political connection with the most vociferous US critics of the UN’ Annan’s right-hand man has criticised Bush and Blair but has friends on the US right, Oliver Burkeman in New York, Friday August 4, 2006, The Guardian http://politics.guardian.co.uk/development/story/0,,1837128,00.html
5. Perry Anderson, ‘Our Man’ http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n09/print/ande01_.html, London Review of Books, 10 May 2007.; See also Gerry Sussman, ‘Our Brand is Crisis: Exporting neoliberal spin’, Spinwatch, 23 May 2007, http://www.spinwatch.org/content/view/4225/24/
6. Doug Stokes ‘Perception Management and the US Terror War in Colombia’ ZNet, June 07, 2002, http://www.zmag.org/content/Colombia/stokes_perception-management.cfm
7. Jan Oberg, The International Crisis Group: Who Pays the Piper? Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, Spinwatch, 15 April 2005 http://www.spinwatch.org/content/view/1043/9/
8. The Guardian profile: Mark Malloch Brown ‘The thing Mark did not bring to the job was a political connection with the most vociferous US critics of the UN’ Annan’s right-hand man has criticised Bush and Blair but has friends on the US right, Oliver Burkeman in New York, Friday August 4, 2006, The Guardian http://politics.guardian.co.uk/development/story/0,,1837128,00.html
9. Mickie Ojijo Wolfowitz-Riza juicy scam story for WB loanees’ Kenya Times, 8 May 2007 http://www.timesnews.co.ke/08may07/nwsstory/opinion1.html.
10. Perry Anderson, ‘Our Man’ http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n09/print/ande01_.html, London Review of Books, 10 May 2007.
11. Brown, G. ‘Speech by the Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer at a DfID/UNDP seminar – ‘Words into Action in 2005’, Lancaster House, London., 26 January 2005. http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/newsroom_and_speeches/press/2005/press_09_05.cfm
12. BBC Online ‘Africa Report at a glance’ 11 March 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4337239.stm
13. Summary Chapter 7, Commission for Africa Report. http://www.commissionforafrica.org/english/report/chapter7.html
14. Summary Chapter 8, Commission for Africa Report. http://www.commissionforafrica.org/english/report/chapter8.html
15. The Guardian‘s main report was subtitled ‘on a report aiming to put an ailing continent on the road to recovery’ hardly a balanced perspective. Ashley Seager and Charlotte Moore, the greatest tragedy of our time: how the world can help and why it must do so now’ the guardian, 11 March 2005. http://www.guardian.co.uk/hearafrica05/story/0,15756,1435198,00.html
16. The Independent‘s leader described the report as a ‘call to action – it must not go unheeded’, again not much of a critique there. The Independent, 11 March 2005. The Independent journalist Paul Vallely was seconded to the Commission for Africa for six months and was the principal author of the report. His account of the process gives no sign that he understands the role of capital, or neoliberalism in Africa. Paul Vallely ‘Africa Commission had to work out what was wrong and how to fix it’ The Independent, 11 March 2005 http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=618858
17. Commission for Africa, ‘Commission for Africa meets global business leaders’, 23 February 2004, cfapn07/05 http://www.commissionforafrica.org/english/about/pressroom/pressreleases/2005/23-02-05_pr_global_business_meeting.pdf
18. Business Action for Africa, Statement Issued by Business contact Group on Commission for Africa Report, 11 March 2005, http://www.cbcglobelink.org/cbcglobelink/events/baa05/Background.htm
19. Commission for Africa, ‘Commission for Africa meets global business leaders’, 23 February 2004, cfapn07/05 http://www.commissionforafrica.org/english/about/pressroom/pressreleases/2005/23-02-05_pr_global_business_meeting.pdf
20. Commission for Africa, Business Action for Africa Conference, Concluding Statement, Delivered by Dr Mohan Kaul, CEO, Commmonwealth Business council, 5 April 2005. http://www.commissionforafrica.org/english/about/documents/05-04-05_ev_business_concluding_statement.pdf
21. Concluding Statement, as above
22. Concluding Statement, as above
23. Communique of the International Monetary and Financial Committee of the Board of Governors of the International Monetary Fund, ‘The Global Economy and Financial Markets – Outlook, Risks and Policy Responses’, Press Release No. 05/87, April 16, 2005. http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2005/pr0587.htm
24. Joseph Figaro ‘Debt Spotlight: Kenya & Tanzania’ Economic Justice News Online, June 2002 Vol. 5, No. 2 http://www.50years.org/cms/ejn/story/94
25. George Monbiot, On the Edge of Lunacy: British foreign aid is being directed to countries willing to sell off their assets to big business, Published in the Guardian 6th January 2004 http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2004/01/06/on-the-edge-of-lunacy/
26. Cited in Johann Hari. ‘The comfortable rich are being protected from the desperate poor’ Independent Wednesday, June 4, 2003.
27. Heather Stewart, ‘Those who count in the Treasury’, The Guardian, 15 April 2002, http://www.guardian.co.uk/budget2002/story/0,11219,684809,00.html; http://www.oxfam.org.uk/about_us/trustees.htm#shriti