SchNEWS

Neo-Labour's 2005 Brighton conference a sell-out

23rd September 2005, Issue 513

Get yer wallets out, the corporate party conference is coming back to town with the usual range of policies, directorships and knighthoods up for grabs to the highest bidder. "20 years ago the Labour conference was packed with social justice campaigners", says Terry, a lifelong party activist, as he contemplates ripping up his membership card. "Now you can't get around without tripping

over some suited corporate lackey."

Yep, the international law-breaking, war mongering, money-hungry machine that is the Labour Party Plc. is back at to stay in the swankiest hotels in Brighton - whilst the locals have to suffer armed police on every street corner.

 Yet again, conference is welcoming with open arms (deals) a range

of corrupt and dodgy corporations. This year organisers are even

putting on a "Labour Party Corporate Day" in honour of their rich

mates (you couldn't make this up!) Tuesday's event is being billed

as "a specially designed commercial package for business visitors

to Conference". Not only do paying attendees get a reserved seat

at Tony's keynote speech and a free lunch to boot, they are also

invited to a "series of focused policy seminars with senior Labour

figures". If company bosses find this event fully booked, Neo

Labour's exhibitors' catalogue proudly offers sponsorship of other

conference events such as 'Identity crisis: who do we think we

are?' sponsored by Siemens (up for the contracts for I.D.card

technology) or how about 'Kyoto: dead or alive? International

climate change policy beyond 2012'? sponsored by those eco-minded

types at Shell. For the smaller entrepreneur there's always

conference maps and staircases to bung a logo on. Even SchNEWS

thinks it could afford its logo on a couple of "directional floor

tiles"!

Sponsorship's a worthwhile business. Take US arms manufacturer,

Raytheon Systems for example. They chucked the Labour party five

grand in 1997, sweetening the gift by flying a load of MPs to

Paris on a jolly at the same time. A real bargain - despite former

Raytheon sales manager, John McDermott, admitting taking ?140,000

in bribes two years previously, the company still managed to pick

up a Ministry of Offence contract to build a ?800m battlefield

radar spy-plane system. And don't forget David Sainsbury. Dave

donated the Labour party ?1 million in 1997, receiving a Lordship

in return for his much needed cash injection into a party which

had bankrupted itself running its General Election campaign. In

1998, he dug deeper, doubling his donation and, in a completely

unrelated set of events, became the Science Minister in charge of

promoting Genetically Modified food on behalf of his various

business cronies. Who knows what Enron would have got from the

?36,000 they gave the Neo Labour for dinner tickets and conference

tables? Given that the company went belly up and drowned in one of

the largest financial scandal in history, SchNEWS guesses that

we'll never know.

Profits of Doom

If you get bored of wondering around the exhibitors' conference,

there are always the corporate sponsored fringe meetings. Why not

trundle along to Transport Minister Sephen Ladyman's fireside chat

about the success of the government's transport policy? That's

being sponsored by the Go-Ahead group. Go-Ahead lost the

Thameslink rail franchise due to utterly crap performance; having

the lowest customer satisfaction rating of any train operating

company - which with our railway system is pretty impressive.

Standard Life, meanwhile, is sponsoring a fringe meeting debating

whether pensions should be made compulsory. As the one of UK's

largest pension providers, Standard Life is just dying to force

people to buy its products.

Round the corner, Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, is giving

a speech to a meeting debating 'public service delivery'. They'll

be no doctor or nurse joining her on the platform though; instead

she'll be cosying up to one of the partners from accountancy firm

PriceWaterhouseCoopers, a company at the forefront of the business

of advising people how to avoid paying the kinds of taxes which

are needed to run the a health service. Much of this corporate

success has been thanks the Neo Labour peer, Lord Michael Levy. He

is reported to have raised ?12 million for the party's 'high value

fund' before the 1997 election, quickly becoming known as 'Mr

Cashpoint'. Although a multi-millionaire, he only paid ?5,000 in

tax in 1998-9 and less than ?10,000 in 1997-8 as he said he wasn't

working.

Of the 97 official high-value donors in 1998-9 more than 30 have

received some kind of Government job. And, the revolving door

works both ways: in order to maintain influence at the heart of

government, the corporations are buying up the party's special

advisers. Tim Allan, a former Downing Street adviser, went on to

become the Director of Corporate Communications for Rupert

Murdoch's BSkyB. Blair's former 'Gatekeeper' private secretary,

Anji Hunter, also left Tony's side to take over as Director of

Communications at BP on a salary of ?200,000.

If all the corporate activity wears you out, don't think that

Bono's going to save you. He's in town and headlining on Wednesday

to tell conference-goers how to solve world poverty. In case you

miss the speech, SchNEWS can reveal that lapdog Bonio will likely

be recommending business as usual. Two years ago in a similar

discussion on poverty Bono must have missed the fact that one

quarter of US children grow up in poverty, when he said he'd moved

on from U2's anti-American lyrics, adding, "now, America looks

smart and dare I say it, sexy again." Give him a biscuit!

When, back in 1998, Peter Mandelson told reporters that "the

Labour party is intensely relaxed about people getting filthy

rich", he was clearly talking in particular about elite members of

Neo Labour and its corporate cronies, because Labour MPs were

dashing around Brighton last week in a desperate attempt to find

themselves somewhere to stay. They come way down on the pecking

list for hotels, with the party elite and the exhibitors booking

some 18 months ahead. That's priorities for you! No wonder

exhibitors recently praised the party for running the

'friendliest' political conference in Europe! The party is now so

far from its roots as a political party of the working classes as

to be unrecognisable and corporate interests have effectively

privatised the political process. Fight back. Don't give money to

strange men in suits - visit the SchNEWS website and chuck us a

tenner instead!

* For more on Neo Labour's corporate links

www.red-star-research.org.uk

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Cost of policing this year:

* Neo Labour Conference in Brighton ?3.692 million. Paid for by

central government (ie taxpayer)

* DSEI Arms Fair ?4 million (paid for by central government)

* Raft Race Fundraiser organised by the RNLI ?4,000 (see briefs

back page)