31st March 2008

Industry lobbyists are dominating parts of the European law-making process, according to a new report launched this month by Alter-EU that analysed the membership of a number of Commission Expert Groups.

The report "Secrecy and corporate dominance - a study on the composition and transparency of European Commission Expert Groups" reveals that industry representatives have a disproportionate influence on a number of the Commission's most controversial Expert Groups, including advisory groups on issues such as biotechnology, clean coal and car emissions.

Expert Groups are established by the Commission to provide advice on the development of new laws and policies, giving group members considerable power over EU legislation, the report says.

The report author Yiorgos Vassalos of Corporate Europe Observatory said: "Expert Groups are responsible for shaping policies on some of the most controversial issues being dealt with by the European Commission. Information about who has access in this crucial initial stage of decision making is not made public, but our research shows that industry representatives are playing an important role. These groups should act in the public interest, but it appears that some are being allowed to further their own commercial interests."

20 March 2008

Bingle got the opportunity to make his case during the latest inquiry session. He was called to give evidence alongside lobbyist Mike Granatt of Luther Pendragon, both as representatives of lobbying firms opposed to greater transparency and the disclosure of clients. In a separate session, MPs also heard from Eben Black, a lobbyist with law firm DLA Piper and Richard Schofield of the Law Society.

For lobbyists opposed to greater regulation, Bingle and Granatt made a good case for the introduction of transparency rules. 

18 March 2008 
"Utter nonsense" is how the Government described recent accusations that it colluded with airport operator BAA over the expansion of Heathrow. Harriet Harman responded to a call for a proper debate over the plans by saying that "all decisions on adding capacity at Heathrow will be taken independently by BAA."

Many would argue that the decision should be taken independently of BAA. But still, the idea of independence between the Government and the aviation industry, notably BAA and British Airways, becomes nonsensical when you look at the number of key people moving through the revolving door.

17 March, 2008

If the scientists are right climate change is the biggest threat facing humanity. Hardly a day goes by without a dire warning of rising temperatures, increased drought, more violent weather, and melting ice-caps.

One of the criticisms of the mainstream media is that, when it comes to ecological issues, they might preach others to change their ways, but are unable to do so themselves. Editorially they may take a progressive stance on climate change, but their paper is still filled with offers for cheap flights and planes.

Sometimes the irony is just too much: Take the front page of Sunday’s Observer . The paper ran the headline “Glaciers melt ‘at fastest rate in past 5,000 years”. To accompany the news piece there was a link to the feature article “Lost glaciers start countdown to climate chaos”. Underneath was an advert for Ryanair offering: “1 million free seats: No Taxes, fees or charges”.

The Observer warns us about climate chaos, but continues to take advertising from companies that are directly responsible for the coming chaos.

5 March 2008 

MEP Paul Van Buitenen has published an extensive summary of the audit report which a majority of MEPs in the Budget Control Committee wanted to keep secret. The findings of the audit report are serious with some MEPs apparently paying expenses meant for staff to their own bank accounts.

Paul van Buitenen was part of the parliamentary committee that reviewed the report so his summary cannot be easily dismissed by those seeking to prevent transparent oversight of the  European Parliament's spending.

Read the summary here...  

8 February 2008 

Representatives of the main trade bodies for the lobbying industry failed to inspire trust in self-regulation yesterday as they gave evidence to MPs as part of the current inquiry into lobbying.

In their opening statements to the Public Administration Select Committee, Gill Morris chair of the APPC, Rod Cartwright, head of the PRCA’s Public Affairs Committee and Lionel Zetter, immediate past president of the CIPR outlined the various systems of self-regulation operated by each group.

Questioning began in earnest with the return of Labour MP Paul Flynn. Having cited a number of cases of illegitimate or misleading behaviour by lobbyists – including paying Lords to “pimp for certain causes” and buying access to Ministers - he put a key question to the witnesses: How do we control the behviour of lobbyists that refuse to become members of your organisations and therefore opt out of self-regulation? Both Morris and Cartwright agreed that it was “unfortunate” that there are still major players that have chosen to stay outside the system.

Twice over the last month we have received emails from people who say they just happened to be surfing the web searching their name and found something that we had written that they disagree with.

 Now I don’t know if this is a new phenomenon where there are millions of people at work and home happily “googling” their name to see what happens. If this is true I hope your name is not something like “John Smith”, otherwise you are going to get repetitive strain injury. 

Anyway one of the emails was from Richard D North who, in an “idle egocentric moment,” had been trawling on line and found a letter I had written to the Evening Standard concerning one of his articles. 

Now for those of you who do not know Richard, he has become something of a bete noir of the British environmental movement, a bit like the Canadian corporate lackey, Patrick Moore. Patrick Moore still labels himself a founder of Greenpeace, as he sells his services to various polluting industries, over twenty years after he left the organisation.

North may not be able to claim such kudos on his CV, but does rake up being an ex-environmental correspondent for the Independent to beef up his credentials. But that was a long time ago too and he is now a fellow at two right-wing think tanks the Social Affairs Unit, and Institute of Economic Affairs.

Nicholas Jones, 1 February 2008 

After a cynical betrayal of the idealism which every journalist should strive for, Alastair Campbell finally tripped himself up in the mire of his own double-speak.

His utter contempt for the journalists of tomorrow and the challenges they face was underlined by his choice of title for the annual Hugh Cudlipp lecture, "The media: a case of growth in scale, alas, not in stature". (28.1.2008).

At the heart of Campbell’s reheated diatribe was his assertion that he and Tony Blair went the extra mile to improve the reporting of politics but it was rebuffed by the "relentless negativity" of political journalists who "culturally and collectively present an utterly one side view of political debate".