Good Riddance To Non-Dom Peers

Sky News and the Evening Standard have both reported that one cross-bench and three Tory members of the House of Lords are resigning from parliament so they can keep their tax-avoiding non domicile status. They are:

Raj Kumar Bagri, former chairman of the London Metal Exchange (a post now held by his son Apruv), became a peer in 1997. Although his baronetcy is officially for Regents Park, he lives in Delhi. His family's wealth was valued in in last year's Sunday Times Rich List as £55 million. He has voted five times on four days in the Lords since the start of 2009.

Lydia Dunn became a peer in 1990 and was formerly a senior political figure in Hong Kong before the transfer of sovereignty to China. She is an Executive Director of John Swire & Sons in Hong Kong (owners of the Cathay Pacific airline) and was also deputy chairman of HBSC. Dunn has not voted in the Lords since 2007.

Irvine Laidlaw is Scot now living as a tax exile in Monaco. Last year he was the 66th richest person in the country with a personal wealth of £630m, which explains why he has a private jet, a yacht and a vintage car collection. Laidlaw donated £173,000 to the Conservatives in 2008, but has spoken in no debates over the last year and hasn't voted in the Lords since 2007.

Alistair McAlpine is a former Treasurer and Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party, who defected to to James Goldsmith's Referendum Party and in 1997 became its leader. He has since rejoined the Tories and now lives in Puglia in southern Italy. He has voted in 11% of votes in the Lords and not spoken in any debate in the last year.

Monaco, Hong Kong, Italy and India - on their own, these four collectively reinforce the case for the abolition of the Lords, but with the opportunity to either resign or relinquish non-dom status expiring tomorrow afternoon, lets see how many other tax dodging millionaires decide to spend more time with their bank balances over the next 24 hours...

UPDATE

The architect Norman Foster, the 'Gherkin' guy, has also decided to spend more time with his bank balance and his château in Switzerland, stepping down as a crossbench peer.

Crises of Capitalism

Radical sociologist David Harvey asks: is it time to look beyond capitalism towards a new social order, one that would allow us to live within a system that really could be responsible, just, and humane?

Blog Award Sponsor Linked to BP's Spin Machine

At this time of the year, a number of bloggers begin lobbying their readers to vote in an annual award poll organised by the 'Westminster bubble' magazine Total Politics, hoping for a listing in one of the 'Top 100' categories and the chance to provide the magazine with some free advertising.

But how many of them have ever wondered about the poll's sponsor, which for another year is a company called APCO Worldwide?

APCO is a US lobbying company with extensive links inside the Washington establishment: its international advisory board includes former US senators, ambassadors and insiders like Reagan's chief foreign policy advisor Richard Allen and Anita McBride, former assistant to President Bush. Its clients include a number of the usual multinational companies, particularly in pharmaceuticals, alongside government contracts, but in June one of APCO's Vice Presidents, Anne Womack-Kolton, took on a rather tougher challenge - running media relations for BP.

As Think Progress reported:

Under threat of receivership and criminal investigation for its destruction of the Gulf of Mexico, foreign oil giant BP has hired a former top aide for Vice President Dick Cheney to be their new spokeswoman. Anne Womack-Kolton has been hired to be “head of U.S. media relations.” A rising star in the Bush-Cheney White House since the 2000 campaign, Womack-Kolton served as Cheney’s press secretary during the 2004 election before running public affairs in the Bush Department of Energy:

Another story in June, this time in the Wall Street Journal, reported that another of APCO's clients is Kyrgyzstan's Asia Universal Bank (AUB), which was run by the son of former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who is accused of inciting ethnic violence against the country's Uzbeks. Maksim Bakiyev now faces charges of "abuse of office, misuse of government funds and money laundering". Earlier this year, the chairman of APCO Worldwide’s government relations team, former Democratic Senator Donald W. Riegle, joined AUB's board. On 7 April 2010, as the Bakiyev government fell, AUB officials approved international wire transfers purportedly for the bank's clients totalling about $170 million, or more than 10% of the country's banking assets. Kyrgyzstan's new leaders and its central bank believe a sizeable portion of this money is the plundered wealth of President Bakiyev and his inner circle.

None of this will matter, of course, to the right-wingers who make up the majority of Total Politics' readership and blog award voters. But I can't help wondering how many left-wing or Green bloggers will be prepared to simply overlook the blog awards sponsor, knowing about APCO's links to BP and the company's enrichment by dubious central Asian governments?

Photos from Victory Flashmob at New Scotland Yard

Photos from today's victory flashmob outside New Scotland Yard, celebrating the rejection by the European Court of Human Rights of the government's appeal against a ruling that Section 44 stop and search powers under the Terrorism Act 2000 are illegal. More are available on Flicker.

The middle two pictues in front of the New Scotland Yard sign are of Jules Mattson, who was on the receiving end of police harassment in Romford on 26 June when taking photos of an Armed Forces Day parade. Today, he was on the receiving end of a round of applause from other photographers when he arrived and it was good to finally meet.

'Your Freedom' - Cones Hotline For The 21st Century

The government's new site, Your Freedom, which asks the public for ideas on laws they would like to see repealed, is in theory an interesting initiative. One of the criticisms of the thirteen years of Labour in government was the huge number of new laws it introduced - an average of one every three-and-a-quarter hours during Tony Blair's premiership - with the vast majority created by statutory instrument rather than act of parliament, allowing little time for debate and scrutiny.

Some of the finest examples include laws making it illegal to sell grey squirrels, impersonate a traffic warden or fail to nominate a neighbour to turn off your burglar alarm while you are away from home. I'm also not sure about the pressing necessity of the Nuclear Explosions (Prohibition and Inspections) Act 1998 - can anyone have been confused about the legality of causing a nuclear explosion?

However, the problem with crowdsourcing opinions from citizens via a poorly executed website, one that crashed on the day of its launch, is not only that it has provided a platform for the type of contributor routinely mocked by Private Eye's 'From the Message Boards' column - racists, the semi-literate, those who TYPE ENTIRELY IN CAPITALS and people who want either more new laws or to repeal ones that don't even exist. The problem is also that the site makes a mockery of the idea of popular participation or proper consultation.

Despite the promise that some proposals "could end up making it into bills we bring before Parliament to change the law", there is no firm promise that this government will listen any more than the last one ever did through the far better designed No 10 e-Petitions site (which, since the election of the new government, has been wiped clean of all petitions submitted by the public).

I have to agree with the excellent Your Freedumb blog, which has collected some of the best and worst of the 2205 ideas submitted to date: it says that "in the long term these kind of half-hearted, tokenistic exercises only serve to increase people’s cynicism about politics. If someone’s taken the time to add a suggestion to Your Freedom, only for absolutely nothing to happen in response to these, they’re going to be even more disengaged next time."

Your Freedom already looks a lot like John Major's much-derided Cones Hotline. Out of 17,000 calls it received, only five resulted in any cones being removed and many were pranks, including one reputedly to request a “'99 with raspberry sauce”. And after only a couple of days, another half-hearted tokenistic exercise has already brought out some wonderful examples of instinctive cynicism and disengagement.

Although the site finally has a moderation policy that pledges to remove "nonsensical" ideas, those that are still available online include suggestions that "whoever comes third in a general election cannot be Deputy Prime Minister", the repeal of Sod's Law, the second law of thermodynamics and Andy Newman (moderator of the Socialist Unity blog), plus some great suggestions from Dave Turner. who begins: "long time voter, first time legislator..."

Let's hope for many more like this, before the government realises their pointless website has become a terrible embarrassment and closes it down.

LAZY FRIDAY - Don't Mess With The Fawn!

Today's Friday lunchtime distraction proves that dogs really have no common sense. Apparently the mutt is OK, but in a staggering over-reaction, the Mayor of Cranbrook, a city in Canada's Rocky Mountain region of Britsh Columbia, has now called for a deer cull.

Nice Work If You Can Get It

The government's decision to release information on the salaries of senior staff working in quangos is, I suspect, another subtle attempt to soften up the public for imminent cuts. It certainly fits in with the 'public sector profligacy' narrative we see in the right-wing press, for all the reasons that stories about government excess catch the public mood at the moment - many of the salaries do seem very generous at a time when most of us face a pay freeze or the threat of redundancy.

But that doesn't mean the spreadsheet [Excel | CVS] released by the Cabinet Office is any less fascinating. It must be such a comfort to the tens of thousands of students who faced delays to their grants and loans payments last autumn to discover that Ralph Seymour-Jackson, the CEO of the Student Loan Company, received a salary of £165,000 - £169,999 before he stood down in May. Equally, I'm sure that the 2,500 workers who lost their jobs at Remploy, which provides work for disabled people, will be delighted that last year's 40 percent increase in bonuses topped up a salary of £165,000 - £169,999 for Tim Matthews, the company's Chief Executive Officer.

Certainly, there's no need for dowdy raincoats in the style of George Smiley for either Jonathan Evans or Sir John Sawers (the heads of MI5 and Mi6 respectively), who both receive salaries of £165,000 - £169,999. It can no longer be a surprise that the Tate needs so much sponsorship from BP, when its Director Sir Nicholas Serota takes home a salary of £160,000 - £164,999 (but at least Stephen Bayley is happy). And at the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, after five commissioners resigned over concerns about governance and leadership and last year's damning report by the National Audit Office into an "unacceptable" use of public money, who will defend Trevor Phillips and the £110,000 - £115,000 he receives for his 3½ day week?

My interest is the criminal justice field, so I am of course intrigued to see that the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, is paid between £195,000 - £199,999. On that sort of money, sitting on a decision to prosecute over the death of Ian Tomlinson for 15 months begins to look like laziness. There are only three coppers on this list - Chief Constable of the MoD Police Stephen Love (£155,000 - £159,999), former Hertfordshire Deputy Chief Constable William Hughes, now at the Serious Organised Crime Agency (£180,000 - £184,999) and former Thames Valley Police Chief Constable Peter Neyroud, now running the National Policing Improvement Agency (£190,000 - £194,999). The size of Neyroud's salary should go down very badly within the ranks, I'd imagine, especially as the NPIA is currently looking at whether police forces around the country should follow the Met in making new recruits work for free before they can be considered for a full-time job.

Meanwhile, over at Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, the five individuals responsible for inspecting police forces take home a combined salary of somewhere between £935,000 and a fraction under £1 million (not include benefits in kind), although I see that Chief Inspector Sir Denis O'Connor took a voluntary pay cut of £25K from March. Presumably it didn't take all of O'Connor's incisive investigative powers to recognise that perhaps £220,000-£224,999 was a little excessive.

The headline figures are, of course, around the Olympics - a combined £2.3 to £2.4 million at the Olympic Delivery Authority and £700,00 - £720,000 at the Olympic Park Legacy Company. It's no wonder 2012 will end up being so expensive. I think I'd have more sympathy for the ODA's Deputy Chair Sir Roy McNulty over potential criticisms of excessive pay if he wasn't taking home close to double my salary for working just one day a week.

Section 44 Is Dead

Great news - the European Court of Human Rights has rejected an attempt by the government to appeal the court's ruling in January that Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, giving police the powers to to stop and search people without grounds for suspicion, is in breach of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

A Home Office spokesman told Amateur Photographer magazine: "The Government has already committed to reviewing counter-terrorism legislation which will include the operation of the Section 44 stop-and-search provisions... We are currently giving full consideration to the judgement and its implications." Roughly translated, this says 'we have no idea what happens now'.

With evident confusion amongst serving police officers too, Amateur Photographer is giving away a free lense cloth with its 10 July issue with the rules on photography in public places printed on it.

Meanwhile, the campaigners from 'I'm A Photographer Not A Terrorist' are gathering outside New Scotland Yard at 12 noon on Sunday 4th July to celebrate the death of section 44 with a 'victory flashmob' - I look forward to seeing a few friends there and hopefully to congratulating Jules Mattsson in person for robustly standing up for his rights.

IN OTHER NEWS

The Metro reported yesterday that the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has again issued schools with advice that makes it clear they should not to stop parents from taking pictures at sports days. In a press statement [PDF], Deputy Commissioner and Director of Data Protection, David Smith, said:

"A photo of your child at their first school production or winning the 100m race on sports day preserves precious memories. The Data Protection Act in no way stops parents from taking such photos. A common sense approach should be taken to photography at school events. Photos for personal use, such as family albums, are not covered by the Act. Schools that cite the Act to prevent parents from taking pictures are wrong."

BP - Licence to Spill

On Monday evening, as celebrations for 20 years of BP 'support' for British Art got underway with a Summer Party at Tate Britain, Liberate Tate disrupted the proceedings inside and out by pouring hundreds of litres of 'oil'(molasses) and scattering thousands of feathers in an 'art performance'. The action follows last month's disruption of Tate Modern's 10th Birthday celebrations, which involved hanging dead fish and birds from dozens of giant black helium balloons.

The Tate Summer Party had been planned to be in the museum gardens and involve speeches from BP executives. However, due to the rumours of disruption, Tate was forced to hold the entire event inside the museum and no speeches were made.

Liberate Tate is a network founded during a workshop in January 2010 on art and activism, commissioned by Tate. When Tate curators tried to censor the workshop from making interventions against Tate sponsors, the incensed participants decided to continue their work together beyond the workshop.

See also this from Harpymarx

You Couldn't Make It Up! Yes You Can Actually

I know I shouldn't bother, but he just annoys me. In his latest rant against public sector employees, the Daily Mail's Richard Littledick rattles off a number of apocryphal stories about the excuses made for sickness and absenteeism. There are a few tiny nuggets of truth in his piece - it is undoubtedly true that many local councils and NHS trusts waste staggering amounts on consultants. In Newham, for example, we know from a Freedom of Information request that one Neil Litherland has been paid £1300 a day in consultancy fees since January to act as the Interim Divisional Director of Community Safety. But Littledick just can't help adding a liberal dose of fantasy to his writing and one reason for doubting the accuracy of the vast majority of his latest article is this gem:

A whole range of exciting new non-jobs is still being created. Reader Alex Jackson has drawn my attention to an advert from Newham Council, in East London, for a Community Catalyst Co-ordinator on £28,000 a year. How ever did they manage without one?

As always, Littledick is too lazy to bother to check his facts. If he had, he would have discovered that Newham council manages without a 'Community Catalyst Co-ordinator' because it is nothing to do with advertising the post. Community Catalyst is a project run by an independent charity based in Canning Town called Your Space E16 Counselling Project. It provides the entirely laudable service of low-cost or free counselling to people with emotional, psychological and relationship problems who live in one of the most deprived parts of London. Moreover, the coordinator salary is also part-time - they can only afford to pay someone for just under 19 hours a week. So if this part of Littledick's article is a lie, why should we believe the rest of it?

By the way, if anyone is interested in applying for the job, the closing date is 9th July. You can find more details on the NVSC website.