The Language Business

Another Commercial Break

Last week we mailed out a printed newsletter, but A4 mailing (a sheet of A3 folded to make a 4 page A4 newsletter) being the cumbersome and expensive business it is we could have sent many more. The newsletter can be seen here in PDF format (nb. download 1.6MB) for anybody interested. Remember that it is designed as a print document, and there’s no html.

Here are some links relating to the newsletter:

New English in Britain site 
Students can leave comments/questions on the site against individual course provider records, example here (scroll down) 
Wilsonweb Interview with John Marshall
English in Britain - Students Talking
Blackie Report, English4Today video sites
EIB Desktop download stats
Google search result for English in Britain
Google search result for Colleges in Britain

We shall shortly be mailing a letter with news of English in Britain subs for 2008/9 - if anybody would like to get this by email, please contact the office.

The British Council can do it (if they B&Q it)

You will recognise the following characteristic overblown assertion:

“The British Council is the United Kingdom's leading cultural relations organisation”.

But who is this?

“Britain’s leading cultural communications consultancy”

and this?

“We concentrate only on the area of culture. With over twenty years of experience, we understand the field better than anyone else.”

Could there perhaps be a connection between the nation’s “leading cultural relations organisation” and its “leading cultural communications consultancy”? Well, indeed there is. The clue is that one of them is a state parasite which doesn’t understand anything very much but has plenty of money, and the other is a specialist enterprise.

It’s B&Q. Well, OK, not that B&Q; the claim actually comes from the team at Bolton & Quinn.

And, while perhaps a tad audacious, why should their assertion not be correct? 

Their client list includes The British Council. Who, when it comes to matters cultural, can perhaps only do it if they B&Q it.

Petition News

A few days ago we responded to the Prime Minister’s recent invitation for questions from the plebs on the Downing Street YouTube Channel, and we asked our question about the British Council. As I write, the video has had over 1000 viewings, including over 650 on YouTube and 350 on Liveleak, plus a handful on English4Today.

The YouTube channel is a Gordon Brown initiative, but it was his predecessor who got the ball rolling by opening the online petitions site. And today we have news of a petition to the Prime Minister concerning The British Council.

The petition comes from Christopher Chadwick who some time ago joined the massed ranks of those who have been messed about by the British Council. Despite his history, his petition is gently understated and demonstrates civic concern and sweet reason.

The basic premise is that the British Council would prove itself a more effective advocate of UK values if it were cut free from operational and financial dependence on the Foreign Office.  Unable to rely on the protection of diplomatic influence, the British Council would – the petitioner believes - adopt higher standards of corporate ethics and governance, simply to save itself from itself.  It would, he believes, display greater accountability if it were to bid to provide services to a number of government departments. Christopher’s petition therefore calls for an independent British Council, with a status similar to the BBC.

The central point that the British Council should have genuine independence, effective governance and proper accountability is surely worthy of general support. I have signed the petition, and I hope others will do the same. Here.

The Eurovision Factor

Everybody, not least Sir Tel, agrees that the Eurovision song contest has become politicised, and people vote for countries and not songs. Nothing new there of course, and even in those days of yore when Britain stood a chance of actually winning the event, there was always cosy voting between, say, Greece and Cyprus. Our Andy did a good job and in a real song contest would have done well. But as the British entry he could pick up points from only two places – from Ireland (who doubtless recognised that we British would certainly have given Dustin the Turkey a few points if not actually Irelande Douze Points as the song required) and from our political allies in, er, San Marino.

Surely I’m not going to pin this result on the British Council? Well, no. But let’s face it; Britain invests an enormous amount of public money in so-called “Public Diplomacy” (roughly speaking the point at which political propaganda meets public relations) and that includes paying for a mass of British Council offices all over Europe whose staff are supposedly there to make the natives of those countries feel good about Britain. Actually we know they tend to cock things up there too (as reported in Armenia or Azerbaijan, not to mention Russia) and we know they are frequently there primarily to make money for the British Council. But nobody in the Establishment is admitting that so we may as well use this opportunity to rub their noses in it.

We haven’t yet put our popularity as a nation to a vote in, say, India, China or Pakistan, but it’s pretty clear that people in Europe don’t like us. And that our Public Diplomacy in Europe is a complete and utter failure.

This year Britain came last in the Eurovision song contest (down one place from last year - next year we may withdraw), and Russia won. And we are told that this is because voting is political. QED. So if Europe at large had a chance to vote on, for example, the fiasco of the British Council shenanigans in Russia, it’s pretty obvious which way the vote would go.

If the subject of Eurovision were brought up at the FCO Public Diplomacy Board it would of course be between agenda items and would be accompanied by superior and dismissive chuckles by our elitist rulers. But the fact remains that the results of this contest provide the most reliable indicator of where Britain stands in terms of its popularity in Europe.

And the picture could not be worse.

My Question for Gordon

Gordon Brown has opened his own YouTube channel and is inviting questions from the general public. To judge by the videos already posted he has his hands full. Realistically he can answer very few of them, and so even if the (predictable) subject of my video was not pretty much taboo, I wouldn't be holding my breath. But since he asks... 

No video on Gordon's channel should last more than one minute, and this one doesn't, so - unlike quite a few already posted - it shouldn't be disqualified on that count at least.

The Downing Street channel is here, and the video should be found searching for "edufinder" and eventually, when properly indexed via a search for "British Council". It seems a reasonable question to me. Judge for yourself.

British Council seeks Finance Director

Not on the face of it a particularly interesting announcement. But look at how the post is introduced in the job information pack.

This new role has grown out of the necessity to enhance the understanding of financial knowledge and leadership within the Council, providing assurance on all compliance matters whilst playing a significant role in helping to drive forward the business in terms of performance.

Hold it. Hold it right there. “This new role”? Does this mean there isn’t a Finance Director? Has perhaps the British Council managed to operate for 70 plus years without a Finance Director? Hardly. The incumbent finance director is Margaret Mayne, who has certainly not been a low-profile bean counter. We have seen her giving evidence to the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, where for example she explained that the £1.4 million that the British Council paid to the Russians came from “general activities” (and not “grant-in-aid”) (Question 202). [Regulars will remember that we discovered that grant-in-aid money was in fact used to provide free places for students in their language schools, so we may feel that the FAC were being characteristically “discreet” here in simply accepting that answer at its face value.] And Ms Mayne is also, like the British Council trustee Mr Gerard Lemos, listed as a director of the British Council’s “off-record” company BC International Trading Ltd. So she was clearly very well dug in.

And her expertise was apparently deemed sharp enough by the Akram Khan Dance Company, whose directors also include Mr Gerard Lemos, for her to be appointed as a director there (this dance company being, as some of you will remember, a principal beneficiary of British Council largesse).

Is she perhaps retiring? Well, no. Ms Mayne is in fact only in her mid-40s, and in any case, as observed above, the British Council with characteristic disingenuousness describes the role of Finance Director as “new”. Why would they do such a thing? Here’s one answer: because if the role is new then Ms Mayne is not being replaced, and not being dismissed, and can be made redundant and so get a handsome pay-off for the curtailment of her services.

The post offers, we are told, “excellent benefits”. We have just described one of them: since the British Council gets all the privileges of a government department, and of a charity, and of diplomatic status abroad, while having the freedom to cock things up in Russia (and then seriously compound the cock-up later), find £1.4 million when they need to, earn money with subsidised business abroad, take outside directorships which profit from deals with the organisation, and be almost entirely unaccountable, taxpayers’ money can still be used to smooth out any wrinkles when it comes to making life comfortable for senior employees.

Nice work if you can get it.

Football Diplomacy to expunge British Council blunders?

If the forthcoming match in Moscow between Chelsea and Manchester United is to mend bridges with Russia (we hope, we hope) then perhaps the British Council will be beneficiaries. If it goes well, and the British Council gets back in to St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, the Russians are nevertheless likely to see to it that the Council pays its dues in future, which could be a big disincentive to an organisation that generally assumes that taxes are for others.

Even so, it seems that The Guardian got a little carried away yesterday when it reported:

Supporters were also reminded to retain their match ticket as it doubles as a visa in Russia from May 17 to 25, following a dispensation by the Russian authorities. Losing it will require buying a visa from the British Council.

Eh? British Council to sell visas to fans who lost their tickets? Well of course they would if only they could, but fortunately that's one gravy train they haven't cracked yet. The Guardian therefore issued a correction today. Phew!

It is of course the sort of classic muddle that surrounds the British Council. Is it a government organisation? We all know that it is, but they have to pretend that it isn’t in order to retain charitable status. But it’s also a state-subsidised “business” that avoids taxation. Trying publicly to be a sort of cross between Peter Mandelson, Alan Sugar and Mother Teresa is why it gets itself and everybody else – including the Guardian - so confused.

Yesterday the Russian Ambassador in London was doing his best to move Russo-British relations forward, while icWales.co.uk in its FA Cup build-up today slips in:

“2008 has seen more than its fair share of cracks in Anglo-Russian relations, culminating most significantly in the arrest of Stephen Kinnock, head of the British Council”.

Because of the hash Britain made of things at the time (keeping open British Council offices in defiance of the orders of the Russian government – such stupidity) it suited our propaganda machine to evoke a Gorky Park type scenario whereby the Russians wheeled out their sinister KGB graduates, and our nice man in St Pete was darkly followed at night by police in black leather raincoats looking for an excuse to seize him and put him on the rack. But really. The idea Russian police would waste their time tailing a British Council employee is absurd, and the account from the St Petersburg Times is salutary.

Traffic police stopped Kinnock’s Volvo sedan late Tuesday in central St. Petersburg after he drove past a “do not enter” sign, and detected “the strong smell of alcohol” emanating from him, police spokesman Andrei Fominykh said by telephone.
“Kinnock refused to undergo an alcohol test as required by law, so our officers called officials from the British consulate in St. Petersburg and handed over Kinnock and the car to them,” Fominykh said.

Being stopped by traffic police for going past a “do not enter” sign and suspected drink-driving is not the same thing as being arrested. Refusing to undergo a breathalyser test was something Mr Kinnock was able to do because, as a British Council man he had diplomatic immunity. “Ordinary” (non-governmental) people would not have been so lucky. Not here either.

Let’s hope the British get their diplomatic act together, and that nothing gets in the way of a good football match.

With victory going to Manchester United.

About that British Council trustees piece

Well, another week has gone by, and I would guess that most regular readers will by now have seen the piece about the British Council trustees. Even if they haven’t, they might be interested to learn that it created a great deal of interest – not just in volume but in character.

In fact I can even name some of our new “Establishment” visitors, but of course I won’t do that here. Well, not without a certain amount of encoding: anagrams include Saw Nimrod, Oak and Coma, Numeric Rolls, Only Melancholic and My Rear Magnate. They at least should be able to recognise their own names. And perhaps enjoy a frisson of paranoia.

But it was less a matter of the individuals that turned up, and more the way the visits came about that was interesting. The piece was evidently at the centre of quite a lot of correspondence, and referrals came from emails and email attachments all over the place, including a whole slew of visits referred by the internal mail system at the American University in Cairo (an institution which I have had the pleasure of visiting several times, but not for about 20 years). As usual we had plenty of British Council visits from their centres all over the world – from South Africa to North Africa to India and Nepal.

So what was it about the piece that struck a nerve? Can it be that more and more people, not least British Council staff, realise that being "guardians of our mission" is a load of tosh, and that the essential and fundamental role of the trustees is to make the British Council look good? And that the deal is that the trustees will be flattered and fawned on, and in return lend their names to the organisation in order to provide cover for its anomalous and undemocratic status, its outrageous set of privileges, its failure in respect of basic ethics, its money-grabbing culture, its lack of transparency and the absence of accountability?

Or was there perhaps something else in the piece that created a stir? Any ideas?