Political Penguin

Sometimes in politics, at least for those of us who have been around for a fair time and have long memories, you come across politicians who you can only assume must think people are stupid or inhabit worlds where recollection doesn’t stretch back more than a fortnight.

When I first started becoming involved in politics, nothing more exciting than a bit of leafletting in the 1987 General Election the attack lines of the Tories back then after having been in power for eight years was very much to concentrate on attacking Labour for events in the 1970′s.

That’s a little taster about this post. We’re going to rake up something that one would presume David Cameron should be aware of and if not then here’s a little history lesson to go with his latest publicity stunt, sorry, meant to say informed and well thought through policy initiative.

From the BBC today. Cameron announces how the development of ‘green coal’ or to be more precise systems that allow the capture of carbon emissions from the burning/gasification of coal and subsequent safe storage, yes I know, not quite as catchy as ‘green coal’ but more accurate.

Your humble Penguin takes a keen interest in energy policy, in particular energy related security issues and this announcement by Cameron brought back a few memories from a conversation I had with my father in the early 90′s.

My father and I don’t always agree on every subject but I respect him as a very intelligent man who has an uncanny ability to see things long into the future. He also has an amazing ability to recall conversations and information from decades past, something I myself seem to have inherited.

So back in 1993 when Michael Heseltine as Trade Secretary was announcing what was in effect the death of the British coal industry, my fathers reaction was this:

“The stupid f*ckers! You wait and see, in 20 years time when all the North Sea gas is running out and we’ll have to import it all from bloody Russia they’ll realise they’ve dropped a b*llock. It’s all very well saying these new gas power stations are cleaner than coal but we’ve (as in British) been developing clean coal technology for years and you mark my words if the b*stards don’t pull all the funding on that too. You watch, in 20 years time we’ll have to go back to coal and we’ll pay for it because the mines will have flooded and we’ll have to buy the technology that we started back off some other country because those b*stards (the Tories) are too f*cking stupid to see what’s coming.”

You can probably guess that my father felt quite strongly on the issue and no, he’s not an ex-miner.

OK, it’s now almost 15 years later but apart from the timescale, I think my father pretty much got it right. The Tories through what I can only deduce was a political motivation, brought about the demise of our coal industry. They didn’t foresee what, if it was obvious to my father back then, presumably some expert at the time might have told them. Put simply, policy decision made back in 1993 following on from what occurred in the 1980′s led us into a position where we as a country are in an increasingly difficult position regarding our ability to generate our own energy requirements and more specifically threatens our future energy security.

With this recollection in mind I decided to have a little look around about what happened and came up with some interesting articles well worth a read. First up comes from the archives of the New Scientist in April 1993. That June, this article also appeared in the New Scientist by Ian Fells, professor of energy conversion at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, of which I particularly like the final couple of paragraphs:

” For a country with extensive coal reserves, why isn’t Britain developing its technology by way of a demonstration plant? On the idea of building a clean-coal demonstration plant in Britain, the White Paper points out that such a venture would ‘not materially affect the number of coal mines kept in operation in the UK this decade’ and so could not justify supporting it.

So, Britain watches its initial lead in this vital area slip away to its competitors. Long-term R&D is the major casualty of the ‘short termism’ engendered by a market-led energy policy. Britain is in danger of destroying its innovative industrial base and becoming an offshore ‘banana republic’ buying licences for high technology engineering from its European partners. The government will be forced to balance the books by turning UK Ltd into a gigantic theme park with tourists visiting sanitised coal mines and gas works to see how Great Britain was in the old days.”

Couldn’t have put it better myself really.

So what did exactly happen to Britain’s leading edge technological advantage in the area of clean coal? The actual process wasn’t all that new. The original concept dates back to the 1960′s but in the days of the nationalised coal industry there was the Coal Research Establishment which formed part of the National Coal Board then British Coal Corporation. However with passing of the Coal Industry Act in 1995 it became the Coal Authority and was subsequently privatised.

Back in 1993 the research arm, the CRA found itself in difficulty because a substantial amount of its funding came from the industry which with the massive closure of pits led to less income meaning that for a short period the Government injected some funding with the usual reassurances that come before things get closed down.

Questions were asked in Parliament, notably on the 22nd March 1994 where the clearest indications of the level of importance the then Tory Government had regarding the development of coal technology can be seen in the statement by the Rt Hon Patrick McLoughlin MP after the token bit about how much money the Government is putting in:

“Precise funding needs after that will be agreed following the planned review of the programme involving the industry in 1995. We are also establishing the new Advisory Committee on Coal Research, to replace the coal task force and advise on United Kingdom coal research needs across the board.”

For those of a cynical nature you’ll probably all know what happened next. Industry wasn’t interested in the research and development after privatisation. They’d got the assets that they wanted and true to form the CRE (actual research part of it) closed in 1995, I think it still exists in name as some quango but as for actually doing any research it’s long gone, along with the clean coal technology that we had a chance to lead the world in. If you’re interested in a visual representation of what the Tories did to our research into clean coal technology you might want to have a look here. Caution, it’s depressing.

Of course it has been developed by other countries, notably Germany where they implemented the first ‘clean coal’ station but there again, the German’s didn’t have a Government that systematically went about destroying their coal industry like we did. Sad to think that Britain was in a prime position to dominate this emerging technology and now we’re reduced to buying back the fruits of that technology from the development of other countries into an area that we started. Let’s not get on to tilting trains either shall we?

Sometimes in politics you can completely miss people. Hopi Sen’s cracking bit of investigation revealing Tory photo-fiddling brought up just such a person, Karen Lumley, Conservative PPC for Redditch. Her website is here. Love the piccy with Davey boy Cameron by the way, at least that one doesn’t look like it’s been fiddled with.

While having a little look around I noticed that the black bar at the bottom where it does the published by bit looked funny. There were some white dots along the bottom of it which for anyone in the business the first thing you think about is whether there’s a load of keywords dropped in with the same background colour to boost search engine optimisation. It’s an old rather dodgy trick and despite most search engines being able to spot it and risking getting de-listed if caught it still goes on although not to the extent that it used to.

The easiest way to spot it is to try and highlight the text with the mouse. In this case, no not any dodgy SEO tricks but simply a copyright notice and a created by so-and-so web designer. Strangely though, apart from thinking the web designer must be a bit crap at, well, web design to allow such a misalignment, the name, CCS Coleshill rang a few bells in the old noggin.

So I decided to have a little look at who they are by dropping by their website which apart from being even crapper than Karen’s site suddenly brought it back to me why I’d remembered the name.

CCS Coleshill AKA Coleshill Campaigning Services which is on their contact section cropped up last year. That would be the ones hooked up with the Midlands Industrial Council that the Electoral Commission were investigating. Nice to know they’re still about and doing admittedly not so good website work for Tory PPC’s. Those in need of a refresher can look here, here, here, and here. Anyone want to tell Karen something?

Quickie for tonight. A link into an excellent bit of research by Hopi Sen who’s caught the Tories photo-fiddling.

Now will we see the synchronised jumping up and down extolling outrage with equally demanding calls for resignations that we say a couple of months back? Nah, I didn’t think so either.

While the Tories go about their constant attempt to smear the Labour Party by claiming it has used their policy I thought it might be prudent to drop this little one into the mix.

Yesterday David Cameron launched something that as a Cooperator myself appears to be something of a contradiction; the Conservative Cooperative Movement. The problem is that Conservative and Cooperative don’t go together. Putting aside the damage the Tories did to the Cooperative movement when they were in power, putting aside any kind of ideological difference between the collective and mutual perspective of the Cooperative movement and the selfish individualistic doctrine of the Tory Party, it just doesn’t seem right for the leader of the Conservative Party to be talking about Cooperatives.

Of course we’ve been in this territory before. Davey boy turns up to make some speech, tailored to say one thing to those people that day while happily saying something else the next day. We’ve come to expect this kind of duplicitous behaviour. We’ve also come to realise that David Cameron isn’t too hot, or probably more likely, his back room team aren’t too hot on doing prior research.

That is of course an exception in this case because Cameron’s speech which you can read in full here, has some really good examples of how cooperative principles can be enacted within the education sector and good on him too because he cites examples from overseas, specifically Spain and Sweden where there is a longer history of cooperative structures of school management.

There’s only one slight, or to put it more accurately, big problem with this policy that Cameron attributes to Iain Duncan Smith. It’s been nicked, pinched, pilfered, call it what you like because back in September Ed Balls launched the Cooperative Party Education Policy. (Please note, this is a rather large PDF file and may take a while to download).

It’s the Cooperative Party’s proposals for the greater involvement of Cooperative management structures in schools and gives exactly the same proposals that Davey boy is passing off as Tory ideas. Not only that, you know Dave praises how well they’ve done on this in Spain and Sweden? Well guess which countries are highlighted as the examples of this practice from an international perspective in the Cooperative Party document? Yep, that would be Spain and Sweden then. Anyone would think David Cameron, sorry Iain Duncan Smith after all it’s apparently he who is the mastermind behind this new Tory policy had been having a little butchers through the Coop Party’s policy document.

Sorry lads, we were here a long time before you lot when it comes to these policies and incidentally, if you want to be really radical, instead of just proposing that parents can take over the local LEA run school, how about extending it to all schools? If the parents of the local Grammar or private school feel their kids would be better served by cooperatising the school then surely you’d be in favour of enabling them to do so? It is parent choice after all that’s the determining factor here isn’t it? Nah, didn’t think so.

There may well be a few more posts cropping up on this issue when I get the time to put various bits of information together but I thought I’d point you in the direction of Westmonster who has picked up on the angle of the value of gifts that if they exceed £1,000 should be registered with the Electoral Commission. Incidentally I’ve been meaning to mention how good a site Westmonster is for a couple of weeks and has definitely joined my daily read list and will go on the blogroll when I get a moment.

What she does raise though is an important question. Did Flying Lion Limited actually fly various senior Tories including David Cameron in their own plane or simply pay the cost with another carrier? I feel I should point out that in my last post on Flying Lion Limited that perhaps I could have given the impression they’d used their Dassault Falcon 900EX executive jet to do the flying around for which I didn’t have any specific proof of.

On that note I’d just like to point readers in the direction of a little something that cropped up in a search this evening. Realising that it could be distinctly likely that Flying Lion Limited simply paid for flights with other carriers I decided to see if I could track down their only registered plane’s movements.

I would like to say at this juncture that I have over the last hour or so become distinctly impressed by plane spotters. They’re great people who diligently keep records of planes flying this way and that for the sheer love of it and good on them.

I say that because thanks to them, I came up with this little log from Luton Airport for November 2006. Yes, I know it’s a really big text file but the bit you’re looking for is:

2006/2201 VP-BMS F900EX LTN-KRT

Just to decode it a bit. the 2006/2201 from looking at other records appear to be time of departure, if there are two numbers then it’s the difference between expected and actual so it looks like the flight left at 22.01. VP-BMS is obviously the registration number of Con Air 1, followed by the plane model number Falcon 900EX. The LTN-KRT bit is the most important because that’s the airport codes. LTN obviously being Luton but what is KRT?

Well, quite simply, KRT is Khartoum, Sudan and looking at Davey Boys register of interests he flew to Khartoum with Flying Lion between 20-21 November 2006. Now this record is for 19 November but as Dave registered the interest in advance, things could well have altered slightly or simply because the flight was so last he could have been confused, who knows but that plane definitely flew from Luton to Khartoum and interestingly returned on 21 November 2006 which is when Davey boy says he came back although interestingly it seems to have been via Paris.

There’s also an interesting account from another plane spotter based in Blackpool who clocked Con Air 1 at Blackpool airport on 29th September 2007. Remind me again where and when the Tory conference was this year? I’ll be keeping a close eye on those register of interests in future.

Final little ditty. For anyone wishing to fly with the Tories favourite airline, here’s something sobering to think about from the Air Accidents Investigation Branch. Mind you, didn’t stop Michael Ancram being gifted flights by Flying Lion only 4 days later, not to mention rather a few others in 2003.

The other day Tom Watson posed the question who are Flying Lion Limited? Always up for a bit of an investigative challenge I decided to have a little look around to see what was about and there’s a few interesting things that cropped up.

First off, they crop up rather often in senior Conservative MP’s lists of members interests. Here’s a few of them:

Michael Ancram, 13-14 December 2006, return flight to Damascus paid for by Flying Lion Limited.

David Cameron, 22 March 2006 return flight to Prague (Czech Republic) (please no Dominic Fisher insinuations, purely coincidental) traveling with Flying Lion Limited but being a bit tardy on registering this interest, leaving it till 22 May 2006.

David Cameron, 20-21 November 2006 t Khartoum Sudan again provided by Flying Lion Limited.

William Hague, 22 March 2006 same flight as Davey boy to Prague presumably.

William Hague, 3-4 April 2006 to Sudan, obviously provided by Flying Lion Limited.

William Hague, 15-17 May 2006 to Israel and Jordan with Flying Lion Limited.

William Hague, 6-7 December 2006 to Pakistan provided by Flying Lion Limited.

William Hague, 8-10 December 2006 flying on from Pakistan to Bahrain again with Flying Lion Limited.

Andrew Mitchell, 22-25 January 2006 flights to and from Rwanda with Flying Lion Limited.

Andrew Mitchell, 3-4 April 2006 flights to the Sudan, yep you guessed it, with Flying Lion Limited.

Andrew Mitchell, 17-18 July 2006 to Bangladesh flying with the Tories favourite airline.

Andrew Mitchell, 20-21 November 2006 off to Sudan with Davey boy’s flight with Flying Lion Limited.

Andrew Mitchell, 28 February – 4 March 2007 off for a week in Burma courtesy of Flying Lion Limited.

OK, that’s the MP’s. In addition to this a number of Parliamentary Researchers/Assistants were also entertained with freebie flights by Flying Lion Limited including Edward Llewellyn who works for, wait for it, Davey boy himself and Ben Pratt who works for Michael Ancram.

So there we have it, a little shufty down the list of members interests reveals that various high level (you don’t get much higher than the leader after all) Conservative MP’s and their staff have all been given free flights by Flying Lion Limited to ferry them to various parts of the world.

However, as with all members interests, it’s important to actually know who we’re dealing with here. Who exactly are Flying Lion Limited? David, the first commentator to Tom’s post brings up an excellent suggestion in contacting Companies House to find out information. This would be a very useful method were Flying Lion Limited a UK registered company which they’re not. To be more precise, they’re registered in the well known tax haven of Bermuda at this address:

CEDAR HOUSE
41 CEDAR AVENUE
HAMILTON HM 12
BERMUDA

Incidentally, Cedar House must be an absolutely massive building because during my little dig for information I came up with so many different companies registered at that one address that I’d really hate to be their postman.

So we know who they are, where they are but what kind of a company are they? Well, surprise surprise, they’re not exactly BA with a nice open online booking system servicing hundreds of destinations around the world on a daily basis. In fact, according the the registrar of aircraft in Bermuda, they are the owners of a sole Dassault Falcon 900EX, registration VP-BMS. For those not of an aeronautical nature, that’s one of those executive type planes, not exactly a Leer jet but you get the idea, not a big high volume passenger jobbie.

I’ve never been a plane spotter, but I understand it holds a fascination for some people and for all our benefit, some of those nice people with a predisposition for snapping pictures of planes some actually put them up on the net. I’d love to drop an image here but all of the sites I came across had specific copyright notices so if you’re interested, this is Con Air 1.

Nice little plane and I’m sure a thrill for any senior Tory to be chauffeured around in, saves mixing with all the riff raff on standard air carrier’s flights although I’m not exactly sure where this leaves Dave and his Eco-Warrior comrades on the old environmental credentials. Something doesn’t quite match between proposing eco-taxes on airlines that ferry the average Joe public off on holiday while themselves jetting off on private executive jets. Perhaps companies registered in Bermuda will be exempt, who knows?

Anyway, I digress. So we know who’s been getting free flights, we can presumably know what plane they’ve been flying on as it’s the only one registered to Flying Lion Limited but why should a company registered in Bermuda seem so predisposed to ferrying senior Tories about?

Well, Unity picks up on an article from a few years back in the Times which is semi-accurate. Flying Lion Limited was at one time part of ADT. For those who don’t follow business takeovers, mergers and acquisitions, ADT used to be run by a certain Michael Ashcroft, better known as Lord Ashcroft, big rich geezer who throws lots of money at key marginals for the Tories. However, ADT itself was aquired by Tyco back in 1997 and Lord Ashcroft did indeed serve on its board of directors. However on 18 November 2002 he and another board member resigned.

So why is Flying Lion Limited ferrying around senior Tories? Does it look good for a party that’s banging on about the environment to be nipping to various destinations on a private executive jet? Does it do much for openness and transparency in politics that senior Tories, including their leader of course, are receiving gifts in the form of flights from some company registered in Bermuda who just happens to be part of the former company of their single biggest donor? I leave people to decide that for themselves.

Incidentally. Does anyone have any friends who are lawyers in the US? Flying Lion Limited were involved in a court case in Florida a few years back regarding Freedom of Information and I’d love to know what that was all about.

Lately the Express&Star newspaper has been writing articles on the basis of research undertaken by the Taxpayers Alliance. It’s curious how there are an increasing number of pseudo academic research bodies emerging, being used as valid sources of information by right-wing crap newspapers when all they amount to is front operations for the vested interests of the Tory Party.

Just a thought. Oh, and while we’re on crap journalism as the Express&Star excels at that. Did anyone else notice the article about some Tory Councillor up in Tettenhall winging about closing their local fire station. Maybe I’m just a tad cynical but this whole services are being cut, taxes are rising line being perpetuated by the Tories is a bit rich. Perhaps someone should have told him instead of making stupid statements to the press, and the press being stupid enough to print them, that if he was really concerned about cuts in fire service provision then he’d be better off talking to his fellow Tories on the West Midland Fire Authority. They do after all have the majority so presumably they’re the buggers who could actually do something about it.

I had a hard time coming up with the title for this post. So many different angles ran through my mind as to how to approach this issue however I’ve settled on a simple list of facts with additional extended explanations for the hard of reading.

Here’s how it started:

Labour Blogger, that’s me, Political Penguin to most people, Gareth Williams to others wrote this post. In it I said exactly these words (note, unlike some bloggers I do not retro-edit my posts, delete or amend them to get me out of trouble, I stand by what I say). Also note that it contains a little bit of swearing which I do on the whole tend not to do on my blog but I thought it justified.

“This is for the miserable little Prick from Prague in the Czech Republic who yesterday had a bash at trying to crack my site. Yes I do know who you are so piss off and don