Why I'm not going to turn AAV into a Guido Fawkes clone

Someone left a message on the Another Angry Voice Facebook page saying that my blog is too left-wing to qualify as an independent blog and that I should be more like the right-wing blogger Paul Staines (Guido Fawkes)!

Independent vs Unbiased

The most important thing to note is that, like many other people, this advice comes from someone who has clearly confused meaning of "independent" and "unbiased".

Independence

I'm an independent blogger, because unlike Guido I don't take any money whatever from political campaign groups, political lobbyists, corporations or billionaire right-wing press barons like Rupert Murdoch. The only source of income for Another Angry Voice is small Pay as You Feel donations from people who appreciate my work.

The Guido Fawkes website generates advertising revenue from corporations and is currently running adverts from several corporate PR agencies and political lobbying companies (like MIPPR and PLMR). It is also advertising some online gambling/Brexit campaign crossover website called Sovereign Draw. The Another Angry Voice website hosts no adverts whatever.

Paul Staines was also happy to take cash from Rupert Murdoch for writing a column for The S*n, and admits that he is willing to continue working with the Murdoch press in the future. I have never taken any money from any mainstream press organisation, and I will never work for, or alongside the Murdoch press.

The only people I'm beholden to are the individuals who fund my work through their Pay as You Feel donations. I won't tailor my content to them though. As far as I'm concerned the kind of people who donate to AAV are doing so on the understanding that their donations allow me to keep complete editorial freedom over my work. However if some people take offence at anything I've written, they're absolutely free to cancel their subscriptions.

Anyone who believes that Paul Staines (a former Murdoch employee who hosts adverts for Brexiters political lobbyists on his website) is more "independent" than I am really needs to have a good think about what the word "independent" actually means.

Bias

I'm not "unbiased" and I have never claimed to be. In fact I have often explained that I have biases, and warned people that anyone who tries to claim that they are unbiased is being blatantly misleading (see image).

I am perfectly willing to admit that I am biased in favour things like social justice, openness and freedom. These biases don't stop me from criticising Labour, the SNP, the Greens etc when I feel it's warranted, however the Tories are in government now, so they tend to get the bulk of the criticism.

I'm also much more likely to criticise overtly right-wing groups like the Conservatives, UKIP, the BNP and Britain First because I strongly oppose right-wing economic ideology and the kind of divide and conquer fearmongering favoured by right-wing political parties.

If anyone thinks that Guido Fawkes is unbiased there's something severely wrong with their political perception, because he's clearly rabidly right-wing and extremely Eurosceptic. Maybe he might appear unbiased to some people because his political slant is very similar to that of the right-wing press, but that doesn't mean he's unbiased, it just means he has similar political biases to billionaire propaganda barons like Rupert Murdoch, Jonathan Harmsworth, and the Barclay Brothers.

I'm not having a go at Paul Staines, he's perfectly entitled to express his political opinions just as I'm entitled to express mine, and he's free to make money from his writing in whichever way he chooses. In fact he sometimes does a good job of exposing political corruption, so we're not absolute opposites. I just think that it's worth noting that he is biased in some ways and I'm biased in others.

Conclusion

The distinction between "independent" and "unbiased" is a very important one. I have never, and will never claim to be unbiased because I'm not. I take exception at people who claim that I'm not independent though. I'm pretty sure that AAV would be a hell of a lot more profitable if I blathered this site in adverts and the kind of appalling sponsored clickbait links that so many other websites do, but I choose not to do this because I think that accepting donations only from my readers is the best way to ensure that I keep complete editorial freedom to write about whatever subjects I choose.

I will certainly not be acting on the advice to make myself more like Paul Staines. In fact I'm absolutely determined that I will never ever write columns for the Murdoch press or generate advertising revenue from political lobbyists, right-wing anti-EU campaigners or corporate PR firms. If I ever do, feel free to call me a stinking hypocrite and cancel your subscriptions.

 Another Angry Voice  is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.

OR

The Tory Gagging Bill is passed

Despite a massive campaign of resistance, the Tories managed to pass what has become commonly known as "the gagging bill". I prefer to refer to it as "The Protection of Corporate Lobbying and Silencing of Legitimate Debate bill" because that is precisely what it is. The mainstream corporate press have played along with the government by continually referring to it as the "lobbying bill", despite the fact that the majority of the lobbying industry will remain entirely unaffected by it. Essentially the bill protects in-house corporate lobbying operations from any kind of official scrutiny, meaning that a cloak of secrecy will still shroud their influence upon our politicians.

The fact that the so-called "lobbying bill" does so little to regulate the activities of corporate lobbyists isn't even the worst of it. The truly appalling part is the extensive second section of the bill which is clearly designed to silence critics of the government such as charities, voluntary organisations, protest groups, trade unions and religions ((which despite the bile from the obnoxious anti-theist ranter brigade, have done much good work in promoting social justice).

The intention to use this new legislation in order to revoke the freedom of speech of organisations that criticise government policy was made absolutely clear by the language used by Iain Duncan Smith in his tirade against the Trussell Trust food bank group earlier in January.
 

Liz Hutchins, a campaigner for Friends of the Earth, said it was "a bad day for anyone wanting to protect the environment, save a hospital or oppose tuition fees" and Stephen Bubb, chief executive of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO) said that "We must be clear: civil society must never lose its voice. We must stand up for our beliefs and refuse self-censorship. ACEVO will work tirelessly to ensure that this Bill does not gag charities and campaigners". Others have noted that this bill will impose a massive regulatory burden on charities and voluntary organisations, which is yet another demonstration that David Cameron's "Big Society" is a hoax. If the Tories actually wanted a "Big Society" there is absolutely no way they would be nailing charities and voluntary organisations down with such burdensome and illiberal legislation.

The bill was passed on the 28th of January 2014 after government ministers carefully unpicked the amendments made to it by the House of Lords in exactly the same was as they crippled the Lords amendments to another piece of disgustingly illiberal legislation last year - the bill which led to the creation of Secret Courts in which the defendant can be found guilty in a courtroom that they are not allowed to enter, on charges that they are not allowed to know, based upon evidence that they are not allowed to see.

The Liberal Democrat complicity in this cannot be underestimated. Just as with the Secret Courts legislation in 2013, without their votes this grotesquely illiberal gagging legislation could never have been passed into law. The fact that this political party still continues to refer to itself using the word "Liberal" is as Orwellian as the decision to continually refer to this legislation as a "lobbying bill", when its primary purpose is quite clearly to silence legitimate political debate.

In my view it would be utterly foolish to rely upon the New Labour party to repeal the "The Protection of Corporate Lobbying and Silencing of Legitimate Debate bill" because should they win the next election, the meaning of the legislation changes from "mustn't criticise the Tory government" to "mustn't criticise the Labour government". 

It would clearly be in the interests of the New Labour administration to keep the bill, in order to keep some of their own critics at bay. If there are any red tribalists reading this that are disinclined to accept this interpretation, why not have a little think about how much of Thatcherism the New Labour party repealed between 1997 and 2010? That's right, they didn't just "not repeal" the right-wing neoliberalisation of the UK economy that happened under 18 years of Tory rule, they spent their 13 years in power actively continuing the neoliberalisation agenda in all kinds of ways, such as the deregulation of the financial sector (that led to the 2007-08 financial sector insolvency crisis), the privatisation of the Bank of England, blasting countless billions on botched PFI economic alchemy schemes, turning a blind eye to tax-dodging and kicking open the doors to the privatisation of the NHS, Royal Mail, the education system, the social security system and the justice system.

What now?

One possibility is that mass non-compliance with the rules will render them literally unenforceable. If charities, voluntary organisations, protest groups, trade unions and religions all refuse to comply with the regulatory burdens of the legislation, what can the Tories actually do about it? Perhaps they could set about stripping dozens of charities of their charitable status, banning voluntary organisations, attempting to shut down protest websites like 38 Degrees, outlawing trade unions and boarding up churches - but this kind of totalitarianism would surely be a PR disaster for the party.

If the Tories attempt to enforce the rules on a few specific organisations (such as the Trussell Trust - which is clearly in Iain Duncan Smith's line of fire) there is the distinct possibility that they will end up drawing far more publicity to the cause they are trying to censor than had they just left things as they were and simply accepted that some organisations will inevitably decide to criticise some government policies.

One thing is for sure: The Tory gagging legislation will not be applied to the corporate controlled mainstream press, and whilst charities and protest groups are gagged from criticising government policy, the cheerleaders of neoliberalism in the right-wing press (the Murdoch empire, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail, the Express etc) will be allowed to continue spewing their brazenly biased Tory party propaganda.

The fact that the Tories will never silence their attack dogs in the corporate mainstream press presents dissenting groups with a potential loophole. If they declare themselves media organisations, or direct their criticisms of the government through media outlets such as their own newspapers, magazines or websites, the Tories would be forced to bring in draconian press regulation in order to shut them up.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this is extremely disheartening stuff. Despite the best efforts of the charitable sector, the Tory led government have brought in legislation designed to silence their critics. The 28th of January 2014 was yet another victory for authoritarianism over libertarianism. The country is once again a little bit less free than it was before.

The only ray of hope is that this legislation is so poorly conceived that it is doomed to failure. The best way to test this is through mass non-compliance, however, it may only take the bravery of a few organisations to turn this legislation against those that conceived it by ensuring that the Tory attempts to silence their critics backfire spectacularly by drawing far more publicity to the dissenting organisation than simply letting them alone would have.
    
 Another Angry Voice is a not-for-profit page which generates absolutely no revenue from advertising and accepts no money from corporate or political interests. The only source of revenue for Another Angry Voice is the  PayPal  donations box (which can be found in the right hand column, fairly near the top of the page). If you could afford to make a donation to help keep this site going, it would be massively appreciated.

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ANOTHER ANGRY VOICE
    
The "Protection of Corporate Lobbying and Silencing of Legitimate Debate" bill
                   
A rogues gallery of dodgy Tory party donors
            
David Cameron's austerity to infinity speech

      
Why dissent is positive
          
Can the Atos administered WCA regime be considered psychological torture?
          
What is ... Neoliberalism?
             
Margaret Thatcher's toxic social and economic legacies

        

How the Lib-Dems are just as bad as the Tories when it comes to welfare

                    
Iain Duncan Smith's retroactive "I'm Above the Law" legislation
                  
The JP Morgan vision for Europe
         
Secret Courts and the very illiberal democrats
                                          
Iain Duncan Smith's tirade against the Trussell Trust

                                            

The Protection of Corporate Lobbying and Silencing of Legitimate Political Debate Bill

In September 2013 MPs will debate a new law designed to silence opposition to the government. Under the guise of an "anti-lobbying bill", the Tory led coalition plan to bring in new legislation to severely curtail the abilities of charities, religious organisations, protest groups and trade unions to voice opposition to the government.

The legislation which the Tories are trying to rush through parliament is called the "Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill". If the Tories were had a grain of honesty or integrity about their intentions it would be called the "Protection of Corporate Lobbying and Silencing of Legitimate Political Debate Bill".

The Lobbying bit

After it was first published before the summer recess, most people focused on the appalling ineffectiveness of the proposals to regulate lobbying. Many critics noted that practically all forms of lobbying, including direct donations to political parties by corporate and private interests will remain totally unaffected by the legislation and that corporations could sidestep the legislation easily, simply by bringing their lobbying operations "in house".

The bill won't even cover 80% of lobbying activity. The only lobbyists that will be effected are registered lobbying agencies, who will presumably suffer large losses as their clients flee in order to pursue the numerous less transparent methods of influencing the government that this bill utterly fails to address.

The bill will do nothing to prevent wealthy individuals and corporations from buying political influence through party political donations (direct donations to MPs who then "coincidentally vote in ways beneficial to their donors) or directly to political parties (such as David Cameron's secretive cabal of wealthy Tory party donors called "The Leaders Group").

It won't stop paid lobbyists like David Cameron's election adviser Lynton Crosby from having influential roles in politics. It won't stop people with significant lobbying interests, like George Osborne's father-in-law David Howell, being appointed as advisers and ministers in areas where they have blatant conflicts of interests with their lobbying activities.

The lobbying regulations won't increase transparency when it comes to which organisations have been lobbying which politicians on particular issues, neither will it open up the murky world of lobbyists targeting their political advisers (SPADs) as was witnessed in the Jeremy Hunt Sky TV debacle.

The lobbying bill won't do a thing to stop the revolving doors between governments and corporate interests (Wonga and the Tory party is a high profile example of this), and neither will it prevent corporate interests being invited to actually write government legislation on their behalf.

The silencing of dissent bit

After realising what a disgraceful shambles the first section was, most commentators focused their criticism there, without bothering to analyse the meaning of the second section of the bill relating to "non-party campaigning" and trade unions. Upon closer examination, this part looks even more concerning, as it clearly resembles an attempt to silence criticism of the government, under threat of fines and imprisonment.

It appears that the first section relating to lobbying is simply a fig leaf behind which the government have tried to hide a brazen assault on freedom to criticise the government.

One of the most blatant assaults on the freedom to criticise the government is the dramatic reduction in allowances for registered charities and non-political organisations, from £989,000 in an election year, down to £390,00 and the reclassification of how these figures are calculated so as to include all kinds of things such as transportation costs, market research and the hosting of public meetings.

£390,000 may seem a lot to you, but it really isn't when you consider that this limit doesn't apply to each branch of a charity or protest group, it applies to the entire organisation, and if several organisations band together, the limit will apply to all of them together. Take Cancer Research UK as an example. If this bill passes, then they will be prevented from spending anything more that 0.07% of their turnover on activities that could be deemed to have an impact on elections and they could face criminal prosecution. If Cancer Research band together with half a dozen other charities to produce a public information campaign, under the new legislation the activities of all seven charities will be capped at £390,000 between them.

Another example of how this legislation is totally unfair comes from the protest group 38 Degrees, who have calculated that £390,000 divided between their 1.7 million members would amount to just 23p each, not even enough to buy a single second class stamp.

The ambiguous way in which this bill targets anything which may impact on an election, whether or not that is the intention, seems deliberate. It is a way of intimidating charities, trade unions, religious organisations and protest groups like 38 Degrees into remaining silent on important issues (such as protecting the NHS, introducing fair taxation, fighting poverty, public health, education, financial sector reform, civil liberties, the privatisation agenda) in election years.

It seems that these limitations won't just apply in the year before general elections, it seems they will be applied before European elections and local council elections too, meaning a near continuous constraint on organisational freedom to comment on politics in any way.

The protest group 38 Degrees are at the forefront of the campaign against this blatant attempt to stifle legitimate political debate, but they are far from alone, the Electoral Commission (the guys that will supposedly police these new rules) have described them as "flawed and unworkable".

The National Council For Voluntary Organisations (a large group of charities) has asked whether this bill is rushed and badly written or whether it is deliberately intended as a "Trojan horse" in order to curtail the freedom of charities to campaign for their causes. Another 100 charities have also criticised the proposed legislation.

Trade Unions have reacted with horror as the scope of the "Trojan horse" element of the legislation becomes clear. Joint co-operation between various unions will be made more difficult to such an extent that the Trade Union Congress will effectively be banned in election years. Another absurd element to the legislation is that the arbitrary spending limit of £390,000 will mean the smaller the Trade Union (or charity, religious group or protest site) the greater their proportional influence will become.

Unsurprisingly, the heads of the four main lobbying agencies have attacked the bill too, claiming that the half-baked way the bill has been designed will mean even less transparency in the lobbying industry and a register of lobbyists with hardly any names on it.

George Kidd, chair of the UK Public Affairs Council, described the bill as both "a damp squib" and "a white elephant"  that will "end up doing more harm than good" [source]
Tamasin Cave from the pressure group SpinWatch, told the committee that the addition of charities and campaign groups into the lobbying bill was a "deliberate act of divide and rule, that has the signature of Lynton Crosby all over it." adding "this bill, as it stands, is worse than nothing. It is bogus" [source].

Ian Snowden of the Institure of Economic Affairs (a think tank) said that "The unintended consequence of such regulation will be more informal drinks in the pub and fewer official meetings, leading to less transparency and more scope for scandal" [source]

Religious groups don't seem to have cottoned on to how much of a threat this bill represents to their freedoms to raise ethical concerns over government policies. In the same way that the bill looks set to disincentivise various charities or trade unions banding together to promote a unified message (as this will limit their spending to £390,000 between the whole lot of them), this will also prevent religious groups from banding together to produce documents like this (which could easily be interpreted as being likely to have an impact on elections).

Who does this legislation benefit?

So it is pretty clear that this legislation will hinder the freedom of expression of a whole range of organisations including, but not limited to charities, protest groups, religious organisations, trade unions, political blogs (such as LabourList and Conservative Home), think tanks and legitimate lobbying organisations.

The government will obviously benefit, because if this bill passes, they will be able to instigate legal action against any of the aforementioned groups that talk about politics too much during pre-election periods. This new power to instigate legal action is clearly designed to intimidate charities, protest groups, religious organisations and trade unions into not daring to criticise the government in the lead up to elections for fear of being dragged into the courts by the state.

The other main beneficiaries will be the lobbyists that use the non-transparent means that are not covered by this legislation. They will benefit as clients flee the scrutinised arena of the lobbying register to the darker corners of the industry that the Tories clearly aren't bothered about regulating. Why on earth would these clients stick with registered lobbying agencies and face public scrutiny, when they could just avoid the legislation in one of the many ways outlined above?

One of the issues that many commentators seem to have missed is the role of the mainstream corporate media in all of this. If religious groups and protest sites like 38 Degrees are to be silenced from talking about politics in the lead-up to elections, then how on earth is it right that the corporate media are allowed to openly propagandise for the political party of their choice? Surely if charities and trade unions are going to have their freedom of speech curtailed to just £390,000 worth of influence, the mainstream press must be curtailed in a similar way. Anything more than £390,000 spent on material that may influence the general election (including payroll costs, distribution costs, research, overheads ...) and they should be hauled before the courts. This would leave Rupert Murdoch's News Corp UK and the Daily Mail Group in serious trouble because they spend far more than that amount per day on generating their total output, much of which is highly political in nature.

This scenario clearly won't happen because the Tories are quite happy to have a baying right-wing press supporting their every step towards totalitarianism. The press will be exempt, because the Tories wouldn't want to interfere with the freedom of the press (unless of course they are demanding that particular newspapers smash up their hard drives, intimidating the family of journalists by arresting them under anti-terrorism legislation or shutting down traffic to "esoteric" or "extremist" blogs like mine by introducing wide ranging Internet firewalls under the guise of child protection measures).

Conclusion

If this bill is allowed to pass it will create the absurd situation where the right-wing press are allowed to openly propagandise for the Conservative party throughout election years, whilst any charity or protest group that dares put their head above the parapet to criticise one government policy or another will face the prospect of being hauled before the courts.

When it comes to lobbying, this bill will push the corporate lobbying industry further underground and drive business away from the minority of lobbying organisations that will actually be made to sign up to the register.

Farcically it will lead to the situation where corporations and wealthy individuals will still be free to buy direct access to the Prime Minister, other politicians and their advisers (by signing up to his £50,000 a year "Leaders Group" for example) and lobbyists will still be able to walk the corridors of power (Lynton Crosby) and speak in parliamentary debates on the subject on which they work as lobbyists (David Howell), yet if a trade union or protest website dares to point this disgraceful state of affairs out to the public, the government will be able to delve into their financial affairs and have them prosecuted under this "anti-lobbying legislation".

What you can do

The two ministers behind this outrageous piece of legislation are Chloe Smith and Andrew Lansley.
Here are their email addresses:

• chloe.smith.mp@parliament.uk
• lansleya@parliament.uk

Unfortunately government ministers are under no obligation to respond to your letters and emails, unless they happen to be your constituency MP. If you would like to write to your local MP about this issue and see what they have to say about it, please use the following link.

• Fighting the UK gagging law

One other thing you can do is to share this article as much as you can in order to let other people know exactly what the Tories are planning to do under the guise of anti-lobbying law. If you think this article is a bit too long, then there are several other articles on the subject that are worth sharing.

•  This article:
• Owen Jones: Under the disguise of fixing lobbying this bill will crush democratic protest.
• Mike Siver: Free speech is under threat.
• Andrew Sparrow: New Lobbying bill will affect charities' ability to campaign on political issues.
 

 Another Angry Voice  is a not-for-profit page which generates absolutely no revenue from advertising and accepts no money from corporate or political interests. The only source of revenue for  Another Angry Voice  is the  PayPal  donations box (which can be found in the right hand column, fairly near the top of the page). If you could afford to make a donation to help keep this site going, it would be massively appreciated.

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David Howell and the fracking business

On 30 July 2013 George Osborne's father-in law David Howell stunned the House of Lords with some absurd remarks about the North East of England during a debate about fracking. His remarks were so ridiculous that they even drew gasps from the assorted unelected political stooges that occupy the anti-democratic upper house. Here's what he said:

"there are large and uninhabited and desolate areas, certainly in part of the North East where there's plenty of room for fracking, well away from anybody's residence"

Howell's remarks provoked a frenzy of criticism and some furious back peddling from Tory high command. The Tory hierarchy were remarkably quick to distance themselves from his comments and seemed ever so keen to stress that Howell hasn't been a government energy adviser since April 2013, even though there was absolutely no public announcement of his leaving at the time (we'll come back to this later).

As I come from North Yorkshire I feel inclined to criticise his clueless dismissal of the North East* as "desolate" and "uninhabited", not least because he was part of the Thatcher government of the 1980s that inflicted so much desolation on the North East with their ideological war against big industry.

* Note for pedants: North Yorkshire may be in the Yorkshire and Humber European election region, but to me, a North Yorkshireman, it is in the North East. If you are in doubt about this, look at the map of England and note the position of Manchester and York. You'll notice that York is significantly further north than Manchester, meaning that if Manchester is in the North West, North Yorkshire is quite clearly the North East.

Howell's comments reveal that he is obviously some clueless southern toff that is only capable of imagining incredibly scenic northern places like the Northumberland coast or the Yorkshire Dales purely in terms of the cash his corporate mates could extract by trashing them. Howell's remarks demonstrate that he clearly has nothing but ignorant contempt for an entire region.

Howell's ignorance of my region make me angry (especially given the socio-economic damage his party have inflicted on the North East economy) however I'm going to avoid focusing upon his casual contempt for the North East and it's people and getting bogged down in writing an impassioned defence of my region. Anyone with a grain of sense can see that the North East is not some desolate uninhabited wasteland where fracking rigs will pass unnoticed by the non-existent population, and anyone is capable of finding out for themselves how beautiful the Noth East actually is by visiting (or learning more about) places like the Yorkshire Dales, the North York Moors, Hadrian's Wall, Whitby, York, or the spectacular Northumberland coast.

The reason I'm going to skip past the impassioned defence of my region is that it has already been done by many people already since Howell's comments were made, and in my view there is actually a much more significant issue to consider, and as is usually the case with Tories, the real story can be found by following the money.

Howell has several direct interests in the fracking business. The one that has been discussed the most in the press is his role as president of the British Institute of Energy Economics, sponsored by Shell and BP amongst others (companies that must have been delighted when Howell's son-in-law George Osborne delivered them an enormous tax break on their fracking interests just two weeks ago).

As well as the BIEE lobbying interest that has been widely reported in the press, Howell is also the chairman of another energy lobbying group called Windsor Energy Group. On the Windsor Energy Linkedin profile (registration necessary) they boast about "building bridges between the public and the private sectors" and brag about their lack of openness and transparency - "discussions are kept non-attributable to allow full and frank exchanges of views". The financial backers of Howell's energy lobbying group listed on their webpage include the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Chinese government, various petrochemical companies including British Gas, British Petroleum, Shell, Marathon Oil, Kuwait Petroleum, Petrofac, PDVSA, and even NATO!

It is absolutely clear from these two declared financial interests that Howell is a professional lobbyist for the fossil fuel industry, and a small amount of further digging reveals that several of his clients have direct financial interests in the fracking business.

Shell - One of the largest players in the global fracking business
BP - Major investments in fracking.
British Gas - 40% owner of Cuadrilla (who already have dozens of fracking licenses across the UK) .
Marathon Oil - Major player in the US fracking business

The fact that Howell is an energy industry lobbyist should raise the question of how, given such brazen conflicts of interest, he is even allowed to participate in debates on fracking in the unelected upper house. Some people might say that it is fine, as long as he declares his conflicts of interest, however I disagree. If the individual in question represents clients with major investments in a particular industry, then they should have absolutely no right to interfere in the legislative process when it comes to regulations governing that industry. The fact that the unelected industry lobbyist David Howell was speaking in parliament at all, is actually far more offensive than his casually contemptuous remarks about the North East.

Another, more serious question needs to be raised about Howell's roles in government. Tory HQ were ever so keen to stress that Howell is no longer a government adviser, and that he hasn't been since April. It seems quite odd that they are now so keen to stress this fact, given that they didn't even bother to inform the public, or the press, when he left his government advisory position in April.

It is absolutely clear that whilst Howell was working as a paid energy policy adviser to the Tory government, he was also working as a lobbyist for several fossil fuel companies, with major interests in the fracking business. Perhaps it is just a "coincidence" that shortly after Howell finished advising the government, they announced that they are to slash taxes on fracking in half, cut regulation on the fracking industry and also cut subsidies on the renewable energy sector? Perhaps it is just serendipity for Howell's clients with major investments in fracking, that the government he was a paid energy adviser to, announced legislation that will be hugely beneficial to them, just a few weeks after he finished providing his energy policy advice?

Even if we assume the best, and imagine that Howell (a keen fracking enthusiast and vocal critic of renewable energy) had absolutely nothing to do with the government developing an extremely pro-fracking policy agenda, and rolling back investment in the renewable sector, the fact that he is an energy lobbyist and this is exactly what the government happened to decide whilst he was advising them looks awfully suspect. In my view, there is absolutely no way that it is justifiable for a government to take policy advice from someone with major interests in the industry they are advising on. Even if this this kind of enormous conflict of interest is not used by the lobbyist in order to influence legislation in a way that would benefit their clients, the impression that they could still leaves a revolting stink of suspicion.

In my view, industry lobbyists should have absolutely no right to interfere in the legislative process when it comes to regulation of the industry that they represent, and that they have no business at all advising the government on the very same policy area in which they work as a paid lobbyist.

As offensive as I find Howell's casual contempt for the region that I'm proud to call home, the stench of Tory conflicts of interest is far more repugnant.

 Another Angry Voice  is a not-for-profit page which generates absolutely no revenue from advertising and accepts no money from corporate or political interests. The only source of revenue for  Another Angry Voice  is the  PayPal  donations box (which can be found in the right hand column, fairly near the top of the page). If you could afford to make a donation to help keep this site going, it would be massively appreciated.

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The Lynton Crosby triple conflict of interest scandal

It may have escaped your notice (especially if you rely upon the right-wing press or the BBC for your news) that David Cameron's chief election strategist Lynton Crosby has been caught up in three separate conflicts of interest scandals in the space of little over a week. First it was the plain cigarette packaging U-turn, then it was George Osborne's huge tax break for the fracking industry, then it was his involvement with numerous private health companies that are straining at the leash to gobble up medical services as the Tory party savagely carve them off the still living corpus of the NHS.

I'll begin with a short biography of Lynton Crosby, then provide more details of the three blatant conflicts of interest that have been exposed, before concluding with some important questions.

Biography
Lynton Crosby is an Australian political strategist who is famed for his use of so-called "wedge strategies" designed to create divisions amongst opposition parties by deliberately focusing debate on a policy are in which the other party is divided. He is also a proponent of using narrative strategies aimed at instilling simplistic political idioms in the minds of the electorate and is a big fan of polling, leading to accusations from the Australian defence secretary Mike Kelly, that he uses the push-polling technique.

Crosby is also a lobbyist with his own lobbying company called Crosby Textor (which has a UK subsidiary called CTF Partners). The Crosby Textor website boasts "Our intimate understanding of the regulatory and political processes ... enables us to guide our clients discreetly through potentially high profile issues". If getting caught up in three conflicts of interest scandals in the space of a week is what they describe as "discreet" one wonders what on Earth their definition of "indiscreet" might be!

Crosby has worked for the UK Conservative party on several occasions and CTF partners is literally stuffed with Tory party wonks. He was the chief strategist for the Tories in the desperately poor 2005 General election, where the Tories were hammered for the third election in a row, despite the fact that their opponent Tony Blair was severely tarnished by his role in the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. However in his defence it is difficult to see how even the most gifted political strategist could have made a man like Michael Howard palatable to the British electorate.

Crosby had more success in 2008 when he helped Boris Johnson to become Mayor of London (at a cost to the Tory party of £140,000 for three months work). In 2012 Crosby was re-engaged by the Tory party as David Cameron's chief election strategist. 
 
The tobacco Industry
The first Lynton Crosby conflict of interest scandal broke in the wake of the Tory U-turn on their policy to introduce plain cigarette packaging. When it was revealed that Crosby's lobbying company represents Philip Morris, one of the largest tobacco companies in the world (on a contract worth something like £6 million), numerous Lib-Dem members of the government began calling for his resignation or sacking. Crosby managed to hold on for around a week, with David Cameron dodging questions and desperately trying to smokescreen the issue. Now that two more conflicts of interest have erupted, one would expect the calls for resignation and an official enquiry from the Labour opposition and the Lib-Dem coalition partners alike to reach fever pitch.

The fracking industry
Just a week or so after the cigarette packaging conflicts of interest scandal broke, Crosby was caught up in another lobbying scandal when George Osborne announced unprecedented tax breaks for the shale gas fracking industry, essentially slashing the tax rate for fracking operations in half, putting them at an enormous advantage compared to both conventional (coal, North Sea oil, natural gas) and renewable energy suppliers.

Within hours of Osborne's announcement it became clear that Crosby Textor represents Dart Energy, a firm that holds numerous shale gas extraction licences in Scotland. Another clear example of a Crosby Textor client benefiting from extremely favourable Tory party legislation.

Lynton Crosby is not the only person at the very heart of government to have massive vested interests in the shale gas fracking industry. The conflicts of interests of several top Tories, including George Osborne's father-in-law are detailed in this article.

The private health industry
Just one day after I wrote about Crosby's fracking conflict of interest, the Guardian broke the story that Crosby had yet another blatant conflict of interest. They revealed that at the same time the Tory party were working out how to carve open the NHS for mass privatisation, Textor Crosby were advising a group of private healthcare firms on how to exploit perceived failings in the NHS.

Some of the activities undertaken included the production of loaded-question surveys, seemingly in order to convince the members of the private healthcare group that privatisation of NHS services would actually be popular with the public.

Shortly after Crosby returned into the Tory fold, they launched their secretive backdoor NHS privatisation amendment to ensure that NHS services must be tendered to the lowest bidder, irrespective of concerns over quality or continuity of service. This backdoor privatisation legislation would certainly have been extremely beneficial to Crosby's private health clients had it not been spotted, campaigned against and eventually watered down.

As it stands, private health companies still stand to profit enormously from Tory reforms to the NHS.

Now I'm not a massive fan of the Labour shadow health minister Andy Burnham, however his reaction to the third Lynton Crosby conflicts of interest scandal is certainly worth repeating:

"It simply cannot be right to have people paid to lobby for private health organisations wandering round Downing Street when policies are being discussed that could benefit their clients. It is more evidence of a shocking conflict of interest that David Cameron has created at the heart of his government." - Andy Burnham

Conclusion
After three damning conflict of interest revelations in little over a week, there are many questions that need to be asked, not limited to the eight that I am about to pose.

1. How many more conflicts of interest does Lynton Crosby have?
2, How have so many brazen conflicts of interest been allowed to develop at the heart of a government, that claimed in 2010 that they would "regulate lobbying" and "ensure greater transparency" (Coalition Agreement, page 20)?
3. How is Lynton Crosby still in his job after these revelations of three egregious conflicts of interest?
4. How does the selection of two such appalling inappropriate advisers (in Andy Coulson and Lynton Crosby) reflect on David Cameron's leadership skills and judgement of character?
5. What kind of damage have these numerous conflict of interest revelations inflicted on the already desperately low public confidence in the political system?
6. What measures will be taken, if any, to force non-ministerial members of the government to fully declare their conflicts of interests and recuse themselves from participation in any area of government policy where these conflicts arise?
7. Will David Cameron's choice of replacement for Crosby be yet another individual that is appallingly unfit to be working at the heart of government?
8. Will David Cameron be taking his own advice and ensure that his party "take responsibility for their actions and show how they're going to be accountable for these actions" and ensure that this responsibility taking and accountability "goes all the way to the top of the organisation"?

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