10 Spring Gardens - a licence to bribe?

 The British Council, a charity, has been awarded a licence to offer inducements to MPs by the Speaker. MPs will no longer have to declare whether the British Council has entertained them, and not even the Information Commissioner can do anything about it. The Speaker has slapped a secrecy order on MPs’ overseas trips, specifically in connection with the British Council.

Here’s the chap that heads up the “British Council Associate Parliamentary Group” beaming out of the British Council’s own pages. He got a First Class ticket to India worth 2K. I bet the hotels weren’t bad either. The Foreign Affairs Committee, the parliamentary body that supposedly scrutinises the British Council, has also been got at: the (last) list of MPs entertained includes a member of that committee, Paul Keetch. Like so many others in positions of privilege, not least in the British Council itself, Mr Keetch apparently has not got to grips with the concept of “conflict of interest”. Will he now gracefully resign from the FAC? What do you think?

Why do British Council “trustees” lend their names to all this corruption? Why does the Committee for Standards in Public Life not answer letters about the British Council? Why does the Charity Commission support the pretence that this is a charity? Why does the OFT not even consider the blatant monopoly powers the organisation enjoys courtesy of the taxpayer, thus eliminating competition? Why does the NAO not answer correspondence about the British Council? Why do the Ombudsman’s powers not extend to reviewing the organisation? Why does the FCO do nothing? Why is even the Information Commissioner barred from investigating the organisation’s parliamentary handouts? What sort of democracy is this?

Britain now has an officially sanctioned, supra-legal channel for sleaze. To its privilege of being able to use public money to undermine enterprise and secure contracts for itself, its privilege of taxpayer subsidy, its privilege of charitable status, the privileges which allow it to operate out of diplomatic premises and avoid prosecution, we can now add the privilege of being licensed to provide off-the-record jollies to those who control its purse strings. The British Council has graduated from parasite to cancer on the body politic.
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Comments

[neil robertson]

India's many friends in Scotland will have been dismayed to see this headline in the local press.

I hope it has been made very clear to The Mayor of Kolkata and to The Chief Minister of WBengal
that such discourtesies involved a British (UK) junior Minister in London who few people here in
Scotland will have even heard of, and who has no responsibility for education, culture or tourism.

All these political
responsibilities lie with The Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh and with The Scottish Government led by Mr Alex Salmond:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Home

Anne McKechin is a Westminster Labour MP who works for London's man in Scotland Jim Murphy:

http://www.scotlandoffice.gov.uk/who-we-are/parliamentary-under-secretary-of-state.html

I do wish Labour in London would stop playing politics with overseas links such as this and
a further reason for dumping British Council is
to put an end to such unnecessary UK meddling?

I wonder who paid her fare and if details of that will be released?!
>
Scottish minister keeps Mayor waiting, meets CM instead
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Express News Service
Posted: Feb 07, 2009 at 0147 hrs IST

Kolkata British Minister for Scottish Affairs Ann Mckechin, who was schedule to visit the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) to meet Mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya on Friday, chose to meet Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee instead and kept the Mayor waiting with all his elaborate arrangements to welcome the minister.

However, after meeting Bhattacharjee, Mckechin appeared to be excited about various projects that funded by UK’s Department for International Development (DFID).

“The progress of all projects funded by the DFID, including the slum development, health, malnutrition and e-governance is satisfactory. The chief minister has briefed me about them. A centre of excellence in the city is on the cards,” said Mckechin.

“I want more Indian students to opt for higher studies in Scotland. We are also working to strengthen the trade relations between the two countries. We have planned to attract more middle class tourists to Scotland by including it in the tour package for the United Kingdom,” added Mckechin.

Meanwhile, a visibly disappointed Bhattacharya, who had ordered to decorate the KMC premises with flowers, said: “We had made arrangements to welcome her as we were told that she would be coming to meet me. We kept on waiting but she did not turn up. We were not even informed about the change in her plans.”

http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/scottish-minister-keeps-mayor-waiting-meets-cm-instead/420377/

[neil robertson]

Interested to note that the Vice-Chair (sic) of British Council's
Associate Parliamentary Group (MP Nigel Griffiths) is a member of the Public Accounts Committee -
according to his recent profile
in "The News of The World" ....

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5961111.ece

[Marcus]

Lots of questions, and no answers. Just a sad fact of life that trash like this happens everywhere, it seems.