Tagged: BBC

It’s business that really rules us now

The Guardian home

Monday 11 November 2013

Lobbying is the least of it: corporate interests have captured the entire democratic process. No wonder so many have given up on politics

Tony Blair interview‘Tony Blair and Gordon Brown purged the party of any residue of opposition to corporations and the people who run them. That’s what New Labour was all about.’ Photograph: Sean Dempsey/PA

It’s the reason for the collapse of democratic choice. It’s the source of our growing disillusionment with politics. It’s the great unmentionable. Corporate power. The media will scarcely whisper its name. It is howlingly absent from parliamentary debates. Until we name it and confront it, politics is a waste of time.

The political role of business corporations is generally interpreted as that of lobbyists, seeking to influence government policy. In reality they belong on the inside. They are part of the nexus of power that creates policy. They face no significant resistance, from either government or opposition, as their interests have now been woven into the fabric of all three main political parties in Britain.

Most of the scandals that leave people in despair about politics arise from this source. On Monday, for instance, the Guardian revealed that the government’s subsidy system for gas-burning power stations is being designed by an executive from the Dublin-based company ESB International, who has been seconded into the Department of Energy. What does ESB do? Oh, it builds gas-burning power stations.

On the same day we learned that a government minister, Nick Boles, has privately assured the gambling company Ladbrokes that it needn’t worry about attempts by local authorities to stop the spread of betting shops. His new law will prevent councils from taking action.

Last week we discovered that G4S’s contract to run immigration removal centres will be expanded, even though all further business with the state was supposed to be frozen while allegations of fraud were investigated.

Every week we learn that systemic failures on the part of government contractors are no barrier to obtaining further work, that the promise of efficiency, improvements and value for money delivered by outsourcing and privatisation have failed to materialise.

The monitoring which was meant to keep these companies honest is haphazard, the penalties almost nonexistent, the rewards can be stupendous, dizzying, corrupting. Yet none of this deters the government. Since 2008, the outsourcing of public services has doubled, to £20bn. It is due to rise to £100bn by 2015.

This policy becomes explicable only when you recognise where power really lies. The role of the self-hating state is to deliver itself to big business. In doing so it creates a tollbooth economy: a system of corporate turnpikes, operated by companies with effective monopolies.

It’s hardly surprising that the lobbying bill – now stalled by the House of Lords – offered almost no checks on the power of corporate lobbyists, while hog-tying the charities who criticise them. But it’s not just that ministers are not discouraged from hobnobbing with corporate executives: they are now obliged to do so.

Thanks to an initiative by Lord Green, large companies have ministerial “buddies”, who have to meet them when the companies request it. There were 698 of these meetings during the first 18 months of the scheme, called by corporations these ministers are supposed be regulating. Lord Green, by the way, is currently a government trade minister. Before that he was chairman of HSBC, presiding over the bank while it laundered vast amounts of money stashed by Mexican drugs barons. Ministers, lobbyists – can you tell them apart?

That the words corporate power seldom feature in the corporate press is not altogether surprising. It’s more disturbing to see those parts of the media that are not owned by Rupert Murdoch or Lord Rothermere acting as if they are.

For example, for five days every week the BBC’s Today programme starts with a business report in which only insiders are interviewed. They are treated with a deference otherwise reserved for God on Thought for the Day. There’s even a slot called Friday Boss, in which the programme’s usual rules of engagement are set aside and its reporters grovel before the corporate idol. Imagine the outcry if Today had a segment called Friday Trade Unionist or Friday Corporate Critic.

This, in my view, is a much graver breach of BBC guidelines than giving unchallenged airtime to one political party but not others, as the bosses are the people who possess real power – those, in other words, whom the BBC has the greatest duty to accost. Research conducted by the Cardiff school of journalism shows business representatives now receive 11% of airtime on the BBC’s 6 o’clock news (this has risen from 7% in 2007), while trade unionists receive 0.6% (which has fallen from 1.4%). Balance? Impartiality? The BBC puts a match to its principles every day.

And where, beyond the Green party, Plaid Cymru, a few ageing Labour backbenchers, is the political resistance? After the article I wrote last week, about the grave threat the transatlantic trade and investment partnership presents to parliamentary sovereignty and democratic choice, several correspondents asked me what response there has been from the Labour party. It’s easy to answer: nothing.

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown purged the party of any residue of opposition to corporations and the people who run them. That’s what New Labour was all about. Now opposition MPs stare mutely as their powers are given away to a system of offshore arbitration panels run by corporate lawyers.

Since Blair, parliament operates much as Congress in the United States does: the lefthand glove puppet argues with the righthand glove puppet, but neither side will turn around to face the corporate capital that controls almost all our politics. This is why the assertion that parliamentary democracy has been reduced to a self-important farce has resonated so widely over the past fortnight.

So I don’t blame people for giving up on politics. I haven’t given up yet, but I find it ever harder to explain why. When a state-corporate nexus of power has bypassed democracy and made a mockery of the voting process, when an unreformed political funding system ensures that parties can be bought and sold, when politicians of the three main parties stand and watch as public services are divvied up by a grubby cabal of privateers, what is left of this system that inspires us to participate?

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We Deserve More From Our Democratic System

CommonDreams.org

by  Russell Brand for The Guardian/UK

Published on Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Russell Brand doesn’t think a revolution is coming… he knows it. ‘I ain’t got a flicker of doubt. This is the end—it’s time to wake up.’ (Screenshot: BBC)I’ve had an incredible week since I spoke from the heart, some would say via my arse, on Paxman. I’ve had slaps on the back, fist bumps, cheers and hugs while out and about, cock-eyed offers of political power from well intentioned chancers and some good ol’ fashioned character assassinations in the papers.

The people who liked the interview said it was because I’d articulated what they were thinking. I recognise this. God knows I’d love to think the attention was about me but I said nothing new or original, it was the expression of the knowledge that democracy is irrelevant that resonated. As long as the priorities of those in government remain the interests of big business, rather than the people they were elected to serve, the impact of voting is negligible and it is our responsibility to be more active if we want real change.

“A system that serves the planet and the people — I’d vote for that,” says Brand.

Turns out that among the disenchanted is Paxman himself who spends most of his time at the meek heart of the political establishment and can’t summons up the self-delusion to drag his nib across the ballot box. He, more than any of us is aware that politicians are frauds. I’ve not spent too much time around them, only on the telly, it’s not pleasant; once you’ve been on Question Time and seen Boris simpering under a make-up brush it’s difficult to be enthusiastic about politics.

The only reason to vote is if the vote represents power or change. I don’t think it does. I fervently believe that we deserve more from our democratic system than the few derisory tit-bits tossed from the carousel of the mighty, when they hop a few inches left or right. The lazily duplicitous servants of The City expect us to gratefully participate in what amounts to little more than a political hokey cokey where every four years we get to choose what colour tie the liar who leads us wears.

I remember the election and Cameron didn’t even get properly voted in, he became prime minister by default when he teamed up with Clegg. Clegg who immediately reneged (Renegy-Cleggy?) on his flagship pledge to end tuition fees at the first whiff of power.

When students, perhaps students who had voted for him, rioted they were condemned. People riot when dialogue fails, when they feel unrepresented and bored by the illusion, bilious with the piped in toxic belch wafted into their homes by the media.

The reason these coalitions are so easily achieved is that the distinctions between the parties are insignificant. My friend went to a posh “do” in the country where David Cameron, a man whose face resembles a little painted egg, was in attendance. Also present were members of the opposition and former prime minister Tony Blair. Whatever party they claim to represent in the day, at night they show their true colours and all go to the same party.

Obviously there has been some criticism of my outburst, I’ve not been universally applauded as a cross between Jack Sparrow and Spartacus (which is what I’m going for) but they’ve been oddly personal and I think irrelevant to the argument. I try not to read about myself as the mean stuff is hurtful and the good stuff hard to believe, but my mates always give me the gist of what’s going on, the bastards. Some people say I’m a hypocrite because I’ve got money now. When I was poor and I complained about inequality people said I was bitter, now I’m rich and I complain about inequality they say I’m a hypocrite. I’m beginning to think they just don’t want inequality on the agenda because it is a real problem that needs to be addressed.

It’s easy to attack me, I’m a right twerp, I’m a junkie and a cheeky monkey, I accept it, but that doesn’t detract from the incontrovertible fact that we are living in a time of huge economic disparity and confronting ecological disaster. This disparity has always been, in cultures since expired, a warning sign of end of days. In Rome, Egypt and Easter Island the incubated ruling elites, who had forgotten that we are one interconnected people, destroyed their societies by not sharing. That is what’s happening now, regardless of what you think of my hair or me using long words, the facts are the facts and the problem is the problem. Don’t be distracted. I think these columnist fellas who give me aggro for not devising a solution or for using long words are just being territorial. When they say “long words” they mean “their words” like I’m a monkey who got in their Mum’s dressing up box or a hooligan in policeman’s helmet.

As I said to Paxman at the time “I can’t conjure up a global Utopia right now in this hotel room”. Obviously that’s not my job and it doesn’t need to be, we have brilliant thinkers and organisations and no one needs to cook up an egalitarian Shangri-La on their todd; we can all do it together.

I like Jeremy Paxman, incidentally. I think he’s a decent bloke but like a lot of people who work deep within the system it’s hard for him to countenance ideas from outside the narrowly prescribed trench of contemporary democracy. Most of the people who criticized me have a vested interest in the maintenance of the system. They say the system works. What they mean is “the system works for me”.

The less privileged among us are already living in the apocalypse, the thousands of street sleepers in our country, the refugees and the exploited underclass across our planet daily confront what we would regard as the end of the world. No money, no home, no friends, no support, no hand of friendship reaching out, just acculturated and inculcated condemnation.

The less privileged among us are already living in the apocalypse, the thousands of street sleepers in our country, the refugees and the exploited underclass across our planet daily confront what we would regard as the end of the world.

When I first got a few quid it was like an anaesthetic that made me forget what was important but now I’ve woken up. I can’t deny that I’ve done a lot of daft things while I was under the capitalist fugue, some silly telly, soppy scandals, movies better left unmade. I’ve also become rich. I don’t hate rich people; Che Guevara was a rich person. I don’t hate anyone, I judge no one, that’s not my job, I’m a comedian and my job is to say whatever I like to whoever I want if I’m prepared to take the consequences. Well I am.

My favourite experiences since Paxman-nacht are both examples of the dialogue it sparked. Firstly my friend’s 15-year-old son wrote an essay for his politics class after he read my New Statesman piece. He didn’t agree with everything I said, he prefers the idea of spoiling ballots to not voting “to show we do care” maybe he’s right, I don’t know. The reason not voting could be effective is that if we starve them of our consent we could force them to acknowledge that they operate on behalf of The City and Wall Street; that the financing of political parties and lobbying is where the true influence lies; not in the ballot box. However, this 15-year-old is quite smart and it’s quite possible that my opinions are a result of decades of drug abuse.

I’m on tour so I’ve been with thousands of people every night (not like in the old days, I’m a changed man) this is why I’m aware of how much impact the Newsnight interview had. Not everyone I chat to agrees with me but their beliefs are a lot closer to mine than the broadsheets, and it’s their job to be serious. One thing I’ve learned and was surprised by is that I may suffer from the ol’ sexism. I can only assume I have an unaddressed cultural hangover, like my adorable Nan who had a heart that shone like a pearl but was, let’s face it, a bit racist. I don’t want to be a sexist so I’m trying my best to check meself before I wreck meself. The problem may resolve itself as I’m in a loving relationship with a benevolent dictator and have entirely relinquished personal autonomy.

Whilst travelling between gigs I had my second notable encounter. One night late at the Watford Gap I got chatting to a couple of squaddies, one Para, one Marine, we talked a bit about family and politics, I invited them to a show. Then we were joined by three Muslim women, all hijabbed up. For a few perfect minutes in the strip lit inertia of this place, that was nowhere in particular but uniquely Britain, I felt how plausible and beautiful The Revolution could be. We just chatted.

Between three sets of different people; first generation Muslims, servicemen and the privileged elite that they serve (that would be me) effortless cooperation occurred. Here we were free from the divisive rule that tears us apart. That sends brave men and women to foreign lands to fight their capitalist wars, that intimidates and unsettles people whose faith and culture superficially distinguishes them, that tells the comfortable “hush now” you have your trinkets. It seemed ridiculous that refracted through the power prism that blinds us; the soldiers could be invading the homeland of these women’s forefathers in order to augment my luxurious stupour. Here in the gap we were together. Our differences irrelevant. With no one to impose separation we are united.

I realised then that our treasured concepts of tribe and nation are not valued by those who govern except when it is to divide us from each other. They don’t believe in Britain or America they believe in the dollar and the pound. These are deep and entrenchedsystemic wrongs that are unaddressed by party politics.

The symptoms of these wrongs are obvious, global and painful. Drone strikes on the innocent, a festering investment for future conflict.

How many combatants are created each time an innocent person in a faraway land is silently ironed out from an Arizona call centre? The reality is we have more in common with the people we’re bombing than the people we’re bombing them for.

NSA spying, how far-reaching is the issue of surveillance? Do you think we don’t have our own cute, quaint British version? Does it matter if the dominant paradigm of Western Capitalism is indifferent to our Bud Flanagan belief in nation? Can we really believe these problems can be altered within the system that created them? That depends on them? The system that we are invited to vote for? Of course not, that’s why I won’t vote. That’s why I support the growing revolution.

We can all contribute ideas as to how to change our world; schoolboys, squaddies, hippies, Muslims, Jews and if what I’m describing is naive then you can keep your education and your indoctrination because loving our planet and each other is a duty, a beautiful obligation. While chatting to people this week I heard some interesting ideas, here are a couple.

We could use the money accumulated by those who have too much, not normal people with a couple of cars, giant corporations, to fund a fairer society.

The US government gave a trillion dollars to bail out the big five banks over the past year. Banks that have grown by 30% since the crisis and are experiencing record profits and giving their execs record bonuses. How about, hang on to your hats because here comes a naïve suggestion, don’t give them that money, use it to create one million jobs at fifty grand a year for people who teach, nurse or protect.

These bailouts for elites over services for the many are institutionalised within the system, no party proposes changing it. American people that voted, voted for it. I’m not voting for that.

That’s one suggestion for the Americans; we started their country so we owe them a favour now things are getting heavy.

Here’s one for blighty; Philip Green, the bloke who owns Top Shop didn’t pay any income tax on a £1.2bn dividend in 2005. None. Unless he paid himself a salary that year, in addition to the £1.2bn dividend, the largest in corporate history, then the people who clean Top Shop paid more income tax than he did. That’s for two reasons – firstly because he said that all of his £1.2bn earnings belong to his missus, who was registered in Monaco and secondly because he’s an arsehole. The money he’s nicked through legal loopholes would pay the annual salary for 20,000 NHS nurses. It’s not illegal; it’s systemic, British people who voted, voted for it. I’m not voting for that.

Why don’t you try not paying taxes and see how quickly a lump of bird gets thrown in your face. It’s socialism for corporate elites and feudalism for the rest of us. Those suggestions did not come from me; no the mind that gave the planet Booky Wook and Ponderland didn’t just add an economically viable wealth distribution system to the laudable list of accolades, to place next to my Shagger Of The Year awards.

The first came from Dave DeGraw, the second Johann Hari got from UK Uncut. Luckily with organisations like them, Occupy, Anonymous and The People’s Assembly I don’t need to come with ideas, we can all participate. I’m happy to be a part of the conversation, if more young people are talking about fracking instead of twerking we’re heading in the right direction. The people that govern us don’t want an active population who are politically engaged, they want passive consumers distracted by the spectacle of which I accept I am a part.

If we all collude and collaborate together we can design a new system that makes the current one obsolete. The reality is there are alternatives. That is the terrifying truth that the media, government and big business work so hard to conceal. Even the outlet that printed this will tomorrow print a couple of columns saying what a naïve wanker I am, or try to find ways that I’ve fucked up. Well I am naïve and I have fucked up but I tell you something else. I believe in change. I don’t mind getting my hands dirty because my hands are dirty already. I don’t mind giving my life to this because I’m only alive because of the compassion and love of others. Men and women strong enough to defy this system and live according to higher laws. This is a journey we can all go on together, all of us. We can include everyone and fear no one. A system that serves the planet and the people. I’d vote for that.

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Russell Brand isn’t Waking People Up – He is Putting You Back to Sleep

Thomas Sheridan's Official Blog

 Thursday, 24 October 2013

It’s always amazing to me how so many people who consider themselves to be ‘awake’ – still consider their beliefs being stated on the mainstream by a celebrity as being a higher accolade/validation, than any other outlet/research, or even their own convictions.

Russell Brand is a pseudo-intellectual, overpaid, middle-class, media luvvie who is put out there by the BBC and the Guardian to make you forget all about Jimmy Savile and to quell your anger in a delusional state that he is ‘waking others up’.  Russell Brand is put on the TV screens to placate the ones already ‘awake’, and to put you back to sleep in the belief that this is some kind of victory. It’s isn’t – it is showbiz being used as a social engineering tool yet again.
You do not need the BBC or Russell Brand to validate your convictions if you genuinely feel that strongly about them. The truth is already self-evident. No mainstream media, political or celebrity validation required.  The Jimmy Savile horror show is the ultimate weapon we have in our arsenal which we can wake people up with. The BBC knows this, and so do their owners and personal friends of Jimmy Savile, the Royal Family. So they throw you a ‘truth bone’ in the form of celebrity Platitude Prosac Performance in the guise of Russell Brand talking about ‘revolution’ when in reality it’s about distraction.  Do not be bought off with this rubbish. Keep the Jimmy Savile anger raging – it is the key to bringing the whole pyramid down.
Russell Brand’s image is also very ‘Christ’-like and this is still a very powerful archetype people are wooed by. The Christ image was also utilised by CIA creation Jim Morrison to act as another pied piper for the anti-Vietnam War generation in the mid-late 1960’s. This is the same tactic being used again – forget your anger at the system – a celebrity will fight the revolution for you on the telly…  Although the segment is being marketed as Paxman versus Brand it should be really titled: THE BBC VERSUS YOU (again…).
 
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Facebook makes U-turn over decapitation video clip

By Leo KelionTechnology reporter

Facebook
A Facebook page that hosted a decapitation video now says it is unavailable

Facebook has removed a video clip showing a woman’s decapitation and issued new rules about what can be shared on its site.

The U-turn comes two days after it was revealed the firm had dropped a ban on clips showing extreme violence.

The BBC understands that Facebook did this in July after issuing new guidance to staff, but did not think the public would be interested to know.

The British prime minister has accused the firm of being “irresponsible”.

Facebook’s own safety advisers have also voiced concerns.

The US firm now says it will still allow some graphic content but will take a more comprehensive look at its context.

This time Facebook outlined its revised policy in a press release.

“First, when we review content that is reported to us, we will take a more holistic look at the context surrounding a violent image or video, and will remove content that celebrates violence,” it said.

A Facebook page that hosted a decapitation video now says it is unavailable

“Second, we will consider whether the person posting the content is sharing it responsibly, such as accompanying the video or image with a warning and sharing it with an age-appropriate audience.

“Based on these enhanced standards, we have re-examined recent reports of graphic content and have concluded that this content improperly and irresponsibly glorifies violence. For this reason, we have removed it.”

At time of writing other decapitation videos could still be found on the site without warning messages.

‘Community standard’

The announcement follows a series of flip-flops by the company.

On May 1, when questioned about death clips being shared on the site, the firm told the BBC that its users had the right to depict the “world in which we live”.

However, less than two hours after the BBC published an interview with one of the firm’s safety advisers – who raised concerns about the harm this could cause teenagers – it announced a change of tack.

“We will remove instances of these videos that are reported to us while we evaluate our policy and approach to this type of content,” it declared.

The company promised at the time to announce its decision when the review was completed.

But at the start of this week the BBC was contacted by one of the social network’s members who had complained about a clip uploaded on 16 October, which the company was refusing to take down.

“The video shows a woman having her head cut off by a man in a mask,” the user wrote.

Facebook warning
The video was still accessible on Facebook on Tuesday, but covered by a warning notice

“She is alive when this happens. Looking at the comments a load of people have reported this to Facebook and had the same reply.”

An Australian police force was among those who had complained. It said it had been told by Facebook’s moderators that the video “did not violate our community standard on graphic violence”.

When questioned on Monday, a spokeswoman for Facebook confirmed that the ban had indeed been dropped and that the company had introduced a new rule: such material could be posted and shared on the site so long as the original post did not celebrate or encourage the actions depicted.

This prompted David Cameron to tweet on Tuesday: “It’s irresponsible of Facebook to post beheading videos, especially without a warning. They must explain their actions to worried parents.”

Stephen Balkam, the chief executive of the Family Online Safety Institute (Fosi) charity – who sits on the network’s Safety Advisory Board – said he was “unhappy” at the move, which he had not been told about in advance.

Many of the site’s users also questioned why it allowed such extreme footage but banned images and videos showing a woman’s “fully exposed breast”.

Facebook subsequently added an alert to the video, replacing the banner image with the words: “Warning! This video contains extremely graphic content and may be upsetting.”

But last night it changed its policy again, and visitors to the page are now told: “This content is currently unavailable.”

In response Mr Cameron tweeted: “I’m pleased Facebook has changed its approach on beheading videos. The test is now to ensure their policy is robust in protecting children.”

Mr Balkam also welcomed the move.

“The Family Online Safety Institute is encouraged by the changes that Facebook announced today to the posting of graphic or disturbing material,” he said in a statement.

“In order to protect young people in particular, it is imperative that Facebook – and all other social media sites – have in place a review process for this type of material and provide warnings where appropriate.”

London-based Childnet International, another of Facebook’s safety advisers, said it still wanted more information.

David Cameron tweet
Prime Minister David Cameron has welcomed the fact that Facebook took the video off its site

“If they’ve taken it down I welcome that,” said the charity’s chief executive Will Gardner told the BBC.

“But I want to find out more and look into this further.”

Age limits

Google’s rival Google+ social network has more restrictive guidelines on graphic content: “Do not distribute depictions of graphic or gratuitous violence,” it states.

There are videos on its YouTube service in which people discuss beheadings and provide links to explicit footage, but the firm has removed videos showing the act of murder from its own site.

“While YouTube’s guidelines generally prohibit graphic or violent content, we make exceptions for material with documentary, or news value,” a spokesman added.

“In cases where a video is not suitable for all viewers, we’re careful to apply warnings and age-restrictions to safeguard people using our site.”

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Navy Yard: Swat team ‘stood down’ at mass shooting scene

By Debbie Siegelbaum BBC News, Washington

18 September 2013

Investigators continue to work the scene at the Navy Yard two days after a gunman killed 12 people on 16 September 2013
On Wednesday, investigators continued to process the scene

One of the first teams of heavily armed police to respond to Monday’s shooting in Washington DC was ordered to stand down by superiors, the BBC can reveal.

A tactical response team of the Capitol Police, a force that guards the US Capitol complex, was told to leave the scene by a supervisor instead of aiding municipal officers.

The Capitol Police department said senior officials were investigating.

Aaron Alexis, 34, killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday.

“I don’t think it’s a far stretch to say that some lives may have been saved if we were allowed to intervene,” a Capitol Police source familiar with the incident told the BBC.

Assault weapons ready

A former Navy reservist, Alexis was working as a technical contractor for the Navy and had a valid pass and security clearance allowing him entry to the highly secure building in south-east Washington DC.

About 8:15 local time (12:15 GMT), Alexis entered Building 197, headquarters for Naval Sea Systems Command, which builds and maintains ships and submarines for the Navy, and opened fire.

Armed with a shotgun and a pistol he took from a guard he had shot, he sprayed bullets in a hallway and fired from a balcony down on to workers in an atrium.

He fired on police officers who eventually stormed the building, and was later killed in the shootout.

Multiple sources in the Capitol Police department have told the BBC that its highly trained and heavily armed four-man Containment and Emergency Response Team (Cert) was near the Navy Yard when the initial report of an active shooter came in about 8:20 local time.

The officers, wearing full tactical gear and armed with HK-416 assault weapons, arrived outside Building 197 a few minutes later, an official with knowledge of the incident told the BBC.

‘A different outcome’

According to a Capitol Police source, an officer with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), Washington DC’s main municipal force, told the Capitol Cert officers they were the only police on the site equipped with long guns and requested their assistance in searching for the gunman.

When the Capitol Police team radioed in to their superiors, they were told by a watch commander to leave the scene, the BBC was told.

The gunman, Aaron Alexis, was reported killed after 9:00.

Several Capitol Police sources who spoke to the BBC preferred to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal.

Capitol Police Officer Jim Konczos, who leads the officers’ union, said the Cert police train for what are known as active shooter situations and are expert marksmen.

“Odds are it might have had a different outcome,” he said of Monday’s shooting and the decision to have the Cert unit stand down. “It probably could have been neutralised.”

MPD spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump said allegations the Capitol Police Cert team was on scene and later stood down were “not true”.

On Wednesday, the Capitol Police said in a statement its leadership had “opened a preliminary investigation into the allegations”.

“The [Capitol Police] offered and provided mutual support and assistance at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday,” said spokeswoman Lt Kimberly Schneider.

‘A blind eye’

Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Terry Gainer, who oversees the Capitol Police department, confirmed officials were pulling radio logs from Monday’s incident and interviewing the officers involved.

“It’s a very serious allegation and inference to indicate that we were on scene and could have helped and were told to leave,” he said. “It crushes me if that’s the case.”

Mr Gainer said the department’s primary responsibility is to protect the Capitol complex, which houses the US Congress, but that mission did not allow it to turn a “blind eye” when asked for help.

Alexis had a history of mental health problems, previous gun-related brushes with the law, and citations for insubordination.

On Wednesday, US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel acknowledged “there were a lot of red flags” in Alexis’ background that had been missed in the security clearance process which ultimately resulted in his having access to the secure building where he undertook the attack.

“Why they didn’t get picked up, why they didn’t get incorporated into the clearance process, what he was doing, those are all legitimate questions that we’re going to be dealing with,” he told reporters.

Right call?

He said he had ordered the Pentagon to conduct a wide-ranging review of the physical security at all US defence installations across the world and of the security clearance process.

“Where there are gaps, we will close them,” he said. “Where there are inadequacies, we will address them. And where there are failures, we will correct them.”

A Capitol Police officer who heard the Cert request over the radio to engage the gunman reported colleagues within the department felt frustrated they were told to stand down.

The officer described a culture in which emergency responders are instructed to not extend themselves beyond the Capitol grounds for fear of discipline.

“They were relying on our command staff to make the right call,” another Capitol Police officer said. “Unfortunately I don’t think that happened in this case.”

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Lack of leadership let Savile, Hall and Cyril Smith flourish says police chief

By The Yorkshire Post

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A LACK of leadership from responsible authorities led to child abusers Jimmy Savile, Cyril Smith and Stuart Hall getting away with their crimes for so long, a police chief said today.

Andy Rhodes, Assistant Chief Constable of Lancashire Constabulary, told delegates at a child sexual exploitation (CSE) conference that gaining knowledge of the subject and acting upon it was the key to tackling the problem.

Representatives from various police forces, the Crown Prosecution Service, a number of councils and various partner agencies in child safeguarding attended the event near Blackburn, Lancashire, as part of Lancashire Constabulary’s CSE awareness week.

Mr Rhodes told the conference: “The reason Cyril Smith, Jimmy Savile and Stuart Hall got away with what they got away with, which was serious, serious prolonged sexual exploitation of young people, was because leaders who had responsibility to do something, did not do it.

“They turned a blind eye. Buried their heads in the sand.

“There are a lot of leaders around the country (now) becoming aware and increasing their knowledge about what sexual exploitation is all about in their areas.”

He continued: “This is not something that just happens in northern towns.

“It is everywhere.

“It is not something that just happens in areas where there is high deprivation.

“It happens in celebrity circles.

“It happens in very, very affluent households.”

He said it was the job of those gathered to know about such crimes and to do something about it.

This week it emerged the number of reported sexual offences against children in Lancashire has risen by nearly a third this year.

Lancashire Constabulary received 467 such complaints from April to August this year, compared to a total of 353 in the corresponding period in 2012.

The force has adopted a multi-agency approach to tackle CSE since 2003, with front-line teams consisting of police, health care, social care and voluntary partners working in divisional locations to handle daily referrals.

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BBC pay-off row: Corporation chiefs defend £25m in pay-offs to just 150 staff as real ‘value for money’

Monday 09 September 2013

Furious Tory MP blasts ‘the most bizarre game of whack-a-mole I’ve ever seen’ as
seven senior BBC staff past and present appear before the Commons Public
Accounts Committee

 Former BBC Director General Mark Thompson, centre, arrives at Portcullis House

The BBC Trust chairman and his predecessor, a former Director-General and four other senior figures in the corporation were today accused of playing a game of “whack-a-mole” as they attempted to blame each other for years of excessive redundancy packages funded by the licence fee.

In unedifying and acrimonious scenes in front of MPs on the Public Accounts Committee, the BBC’s former boss Mark Thompson clashed with his old colleagues by insisting that the BBC Trust – the corporation’s governing body – had been fully aware of his plan to pay his former deputy Mark Byford £1m in a severance deal.

But his account was disputed by the current Trust chairman Lord Patten and the man who made way for him, Sir Michael Lyons, who both claimed they had no idea the settlement was larger than that to which Mr Byford was contractually entitled.

It also emerged that Mr Byford was informed of his settlement by the BBC’s human resources department – even before it had been signed off by the corporation’s remuneration committee.

The chair of Public Accounts Committee Margaret Hodge told the executives that the contradictory accounts they presented had been a “grossly unedifying occasion” which could “only damage the standing and reputation of BBC”.

She added that at best the evidence the committee had heard demonstrated “incompetence” at the top of the corporation – and at its worst showed “people covering their back by being less than open”.

Chris Heaton-Harris, a committee member, compared the meeting to a fairground game, saying it was “the most bizarre game of whack-a-mole” he’d ever seen, “where you hit one fact down and it throws up other questions”.

Turning to the witnesses, he added: “I just wonder if one of you would like to take responsibility for this?”

The BBC has been heavily criticised for paying £25m to outgoing executives, £2m more than its contractual obligations.

Much of the evidence session on Monday concentrated on the pay-off given to Mr Thompson’s close colleague Mr Byford, who was paid around £1m to leave the BBC in 2010.

But rather than follow the letter of his contract, Mr Byford was paid to work out part of his contractual notice period – and then given a year’s salary on top as part of his settlement.

Mrs Hodge said that under the terms of his deal, Mr Byford could have been paid off with £500,000. But Mr Thompson stressed that the extra money was to ensure that Mr Byford remained focused on his job until he left and “wasn’t worried about his future and taking calls from headhunters”.

Mr Thompson insisted the settlement represented good value for money and had been fully agreed with Marcus Agius, the former chairman of Barclays who at the time was the head of the BBC’s executive board remuneration committee.

Mr Agius, who was also before the committee, agreed he had backed the payment on value-for-money grounds, but Ms Hodge told him: “I think we’re astounded that you took that view.”

She added: “The shareholders of the BBC are the licence-fee payers and I cannot for the life of me see how you can justify these levels of redundancy payments.”

Mr Thompson also said that the payment to Mr Byford had been made with the full knowledge of the BBC Trust chairman, Sir Michael Lyons.

But Sir Michael said he “never understood” that Mr Byford would be receiving a redundancy package beyond that to which he was entitled by his employment contract.

Mr Thomson retorted: “Well how do you think we got to £950,000 then?”

In another flare-up, the BBC trustee Anthony Fry told MPs that the Trust got “pushed back time and time again” by BBC executives.

“I had the distinct impression that our views were not being taken with the seriousness they deserved,” he said.

The deputy chair of the committee Richard Bacon MP said he had come into the hearing “agnostic” about the current structure of BBC governance, but had come to the conclusion that the system was “broken” and should be abolished and replaced by regulation from Ofcom.

But the current Chairman on the BBC Trust, Lord Patten, said this would not solve the fundamental problems at hand, saying: “I can’t imagine handing the regulatory power to Ofcom and Ofcom wanting to be involved in remuneration.”

He added that the current system of governance could be made to work with different personalities at the helm. Summing up the three hour session Ms Hodge questioned whether they had learnt anything from the contradictory accounts.

“Have we got any wiser? I don’t know,” she said.

“At best what we’ve seen is incompetence, lack of central to control, a failure to communicate for a broadcaster whose job is communicating. At worst we may have seen people covering their backs by being less than open. That is not good.”

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The BBC bunker they don’t want you to know about

 

The Independent

By Matthew Bell

Sunday 31 October 2010

Who knew that, 10 storeys beneath a Worcestershire hill, the corporation is
ready for Armageddon?

It all makes sense, once you know what you’re looking at. The 200 acres of thickly wooded hillside, inaccessible by public footpath; the radio mast strategically poking out on top; the hidden entrance, just off the A44 near Evesham, in Worcestershire, surrounded by CCTV cameras and a high-security barrier. But to the passing motorist, there is nothing about Wood Norton Hall to identify it as the site of the BBC’s secret nuclear bunker.

Who knew there even was such a thing? The BBC would certainly rather we didn’t. It emerged recently that, from tomorrow, the continuity announcers at Radio 4 will decamp there for three weeks while a £1bn refurbishment is finished at Broadcasting House, London. However, a corporation source declined to confirm or deny the story. They would rather not discuss what goes on at Wood Norton, she said, and no, The Independent on Sunday was certainly not welcome to come and visit.

So, what don’t they want us to see?

According to the official line, Wood Norton is a training camp, where sound engineers are sent for residential weekends. That is certainly one function: zoom in on Google Earth and you see a compound of modern buildings nestled in the woods which, according to engineers who have visited the site, are equipped with the latest high-tech facilities. Other blocks house accommodation and a canteen. But it’s what you can’t see from above the ground that is intriguing.

Buried 10 storeys into the hillside is a fully functioning nuclear bunker, built at great expense in 1966, at the height of the Cold War. So few people knew of its existence that, even when it was being built, visiting trainees were told not to ask why all that concrete was being mixed. Those involved in its construction were obliged to sign the Official Secrets Act, and even now you won’t get a peep out of the BBC press office to acknowledge the reality.

Measuring 175ft long, the bunker – known to high command as Pawn: Protected Area Wood Norton – remains ready for service in the event of an attack on London. It is said to have beds and ping-pong tables and is connected by tunnels dug into the hillside to a mast on top of the hill which is fitted with a super high-frequency satellite dish.

According to the Government War Book, a Cold War document that was declassified only last year and which sets out what happens in the event of a nuclear strike, Wood Norton was a vital tool in keeping the country informed should chaos descend. While the Cabinet would be secreted away in another bunker in Corsham, Wiltshire, pre-recorded tapes kept at Wood Norton would be broadcast across the nation in the minutes before any bomb was dropped. It’s a chilling scenario, one that has thankfully been relegated to a distant memory. The question is why now, 20 years on from the end of the Cold War, do we still have it?

The story began in 1938, when the BBC’s defence committee set about making plans in the event of London having to be evacuated. Wood Norton Hall, a baronial country house on the edge of the Cotswolds, was bought and equipped in total secrecy four months before war broke out.

There has been a dwelling on the site since medieval times but the current house was built in a high Victorian, Cluedo school of architecture. Wood Norton was the last English home of the Duc D’Orleans, pretender to the French throne. You can still see the Duc’s fleur-de-lys motif plastered on the stone piers at the gates to the estate and embossed on to doors and windows. But it was the acres of wooded grounds and, vitally, a prominent south-facing hill, that made Wood Norton so attractive. It would double up as the perfect listening station, becoming home to the government’s monitoring service.

It soon became a kind of parallel Bletchley Park: dozens of huts were knocked up in the grounds and bright young linguists were bused in, recruited via an ambiguously worded advert in The Times. Their task was to listen in, translate and précis hours of German, Italian and Russian radio, as well as the Nazis’ internal communications . Many notable figures would spend the war here, among them the future publisher Lord Weidenfeld, the art historian Sir Ernst Gombrich and the poet Geoffrey Grigson.

Those who worked at Wood Norton have described a friendly buzz much like at Bletchley, as intelligent amateurs were thrown together to work intensely towards a shared cause. Some have called it the least bureaucratic set-up in BBC history. But, in 1943, Churchill learnt that the Germans were developing their atomic capabilities, and he wanted the place emptied and ready to use as a refuge for the government. After much protest, the monitoring service was moved to Caversham Park, near Reading, where it remains. When the war ended, the engineering training department was established, but with the arrival of the Cold War, Wood Norton soon became, once again, a vital resource. As the threat of a nuclear attack grew, a dedicated BBC bunker became a necessity.

Thankfully, the bunker was never needed, although secret documents have revealed that 100 days of broadcasting was lined up and ready to play in the event of a nuclear attack. A mix of comedy, drama and religious programmes, as well as Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, was kept at the ready until 1993.

For years, the main house provided a magnificent entertaining space and was used for BBC board meetings. It also provided the location for several episodes of Doctor Who. But once the Berlin Wall had come down, the justification for maintaining a country house at taxpayers’ expense became harder to sustain. By 2000, Greg Dyke, then the director-general of the BBC, had drawn up plans to slice up the estate and dispose of the main house, which was turned into a hotel and conference centre.

Today, as Radio 4 staff arrive for their three-week sojourn in Worcestershire, they will find the place far from buzzing or glamorous. Flaking green signs for the “Wood Norton country house hotel and conference centre” direct you to an empty, moss-cracked car park. Threatening daubed notices tell you to “keep out”. The hotel has gone bust and the hall stands empty, cutting a forlorn figure amid the falling leaves. Some say it should have been kept and turned into a museum to the corporation’s extensive wartime work. Instead, planning permission has been granted to convert it into a retirement home.

The last time Wood Norton saw active service was late in 1999, when, according to locals, extra staff were drafted in and giant generators were put on standby to cope with the threat of the Millennium bug. Months later, Dyke would draw up his plans to sell, but it must have been with the memory of the bug that it was decided to keep 200 acres of Worcestershire hillside for the nation, with its tunnels, huts, satellite dishes, and masts. And, of course, the bunker. Just in case.

Subterranean Britain

* The Corsham bunker is spread over 34 acres outside Bath, Wiltshire. Built in 1957, it would accommodate the Prime Minister, his Cabinet and 6,000 government apparatchiks. It was only decommissioned in 2004.

* An underground tunnel linking 10 Downing Street to the Ministry of Defence was used as recently as May by Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson during coalition negotiations after the election. Said to be part of a network of tunnels linking several government buildings, and even Buckingham Palace.

* The Kingsway tunnels beneath Holborn were built as an air raid shelter in 1942. Described as a “city under a city”, it can house up to 8,000, and was used by Special Operations Executive as a base for covert operations during the war.

* In 1939, the National Gallery director Kenneth Clark oversaw the evacuation of all pictures to a slate mine near Bleanau Ffestiniog at Manod in Wales. Although the collection moved out in 1945, the mine was kept available throughout the Cold War until the 1980s.