Taking Out The Trash

Bristol airport: it makes money but pays no company tax

I was browsing through the latest annual report of Bristol International Airport (you browse through all sorts of stuff when you're freelance and looking for story lead) when I came across something odd.

The airport had an operating profit of £24m but paid no corporation tax. Also; it's ownership structure suggested that it was based not in this country but in the Caribbean.

So I emailed the director of finance to ask him why and I got this email back.

My colleague Andy Reid passed on your email enquiry to me.  Apologies for the delayed response – I have just returned from a week’s holiday.

Please see below details of the ownership of

Bristol

International

Airport

.

Bristol International Airport is 100% owned by South West Airports Limited (SWAL), a joint venture holding company owned by

Bristol

Airport

(Bermuda) Limited (BABL) and

Macquarie

European Infrastructure Fund (MEIF). BABL is 71% owned by Macquarie Airports, a fund listed on the Sydney Stock Exchange, and 29% owned by Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, a major infrastructure investor. Both BABL and MEIF are managed by

Macquarie

Capital Funds (Europe) Limited (MCFEL), a subsidiary of Macquarie Group Limited.

Since acquiring an initial stake in Bristol International Airport in January 2001 Macquarie has increased its portfolio of airport investments through its specialised funds and now has stakeholdings in Sydney, Copenhagen and Brussels Airports, and a long term strategic investment in Japan Airport Terminal.

MEIF is an investor in major infrastructure assets and its current holdings include Thames Water, Wales & West Utilities and the Arlanda Express rail link.

You also asked about tax paid by Bristol International.  SWAL did not pay corporation tax in 2007, but will pay in excess of £1.5 million in business rates to North Somerset Council this year.  In addition, National Insurance contributions totaled nearly £700,000 in 2007.

Bristol

International

Airport

’s activities are on their own only a small part of the bigger picture.  Fifty separate companies operate on the site, of which the airport operator is just one.  These other companies pay a range of taxes, including corporation tax.

I hope this is helpful.

Regards

James

 James Gore

Head of Communications

Bristol

International

Airport

Of course, like most stories, someone's done this already. I then came across a document from the Stop Bristol Airport Expansion group which said that the profit had been written off to pay shareholder loans.

That group has its own agenda (although it can produce some pretty robust arguments) but it reminded me of the Guardian's series of pieces about how big companies avoid paying tax. Perhaps someone should look at the airport industry in particular.

This on a day when Virgin can announce a rise in profits. Branson may play the fool but he's obviously got some sharp people working for him.

Policies are boring, it's confrontation that sells

Fascinating exchange over at the Paperhouse blog where Sarah Ditum points out the rather pathetic coverage of the BNP by the local media.
The BNP has a core group in Corsham and is standing 12 candidates in the Wiltshire unitary council elections. These are the first elections for the new council which will have a budget of more than half a billion pounds, provide services for 400,000 people, has high number of military service personnel and bases with uncertain futures, delicate and world-renowned ecological and heritage sites, towns in need of regeneration as traditional industries die out etc etc.
You know, important stuff.
Coverage so far about this election?
That one family in Corsham has mum, dad and son as BNP candidates.
Sarah takes apart the coverage in the Bath Chronicle where, to his credit, editor Sam Holliday at least the gumption to defend the story.
Sarah also points out that this is nothing more than churnalism as the piece is simply a rewrite of an even more spineless article in the Western Daily Press. A similar item appeared in the Wiltshire Gazette & Herald (proving that just because there are different newspaper companies doesn't mean you get a plethora of views).
The lead BNP candidate acknowledges in his blog that "the press probably hate reporting anything about us and wish we would just disappear but realise the BNP sells papers for them. It is a mutual hate."
He's right, but only if newspapers play the game which gives them publicity.
If this lame reporting was part of a portfolio of coverage about the election then you could say it was just about trying to find an angle. But there has been nothing in the press.
Some candidates are putting out policy proposals and suggestions which deserve scrutiny. I've put out a press release asking why just 10% of council building have been given an energy efficiency rating (if the council wants to encourage us to be greener they can start by putting their own houses in order).
I don't know, but I imagine other candidates have put out their own issues - but I've seen nothing beyond some bland general pieces.
I have been asked by the Wiltshire Times, as a candidate, for a picture, name, age, address, occupation and a 25-word election message. It looks like the extent of the coverage is that all candidates get sod all except the family of hate.
At least our press hasn't carried any BNP ads although our posties have been delivering their leaflets unlike their colleagues in Bristol.

Update: I should, of course, have linked to this piece from the invaluable Evening Post Watch which considers how the Bristol Evening Post is handling the BNP.

Mr Blacklister, meet the blacklisted

Ucatt has just announced it's going to organise a demo outside Macclesfield magistrates court where Ian Kerr is due to appear next Wednesday on data protection charges having run a blacklisting operation for construction companies.
Several workers I have spoken to over the last few months who suffered because of Mr Kerr's operation are relishing the opportunity to wish him every success when he appears before the beak.

Canvassing: making life that little bit harder

Every day this week that I have set out to go canvassing the rains have come. I was starting to feel a little jinxed until I went out today, suitably clothed in waterproofs and jumper, only to be left gasping as the sun came out and I puffed up and down the hills. Colerne is a very hilly ward.
Having pretty much covered the village now a couple of thoughts struck me about canvassing:
1) Can someone invent a device to allow me to poke my leaflets through those tough draft excluders that hide behind letter boxes and scrunch up my beautifully designed leaflets?
2) What is the point of a letter box you'd have trouble posting a Top Trump card through? All their letters must get mangled?
3) I've seen plenty of 'Beware of the Dog' signs, but today I came across several 'Dogs running free' signs which are infinitely more worrying.
4) For some houses it's really difficult finding the front door. I know it sounds silly; but perhaps we could have a little clue?
5) There must be a mathematical formula to work out if walking all the way up a long drive and back again is really going to make much difference when in the same time you might have done ten terraced houses. 6) One place I canvassed took me a good five minutes to get through their grounds before I made it to the door - which then had no letterbox.
7) If you have no letterbox that is a sign of real wealth; everything else is a bourgeois affectation.
8) Where is everyone? I've been out a dozen times and not seen a single other canvasser or poster from another party. A few people have said they been canvassed and the postman's been delivering generic literature. Other than that - you'd hardly know an election was on. Have the main parties decided it's better to keep their heads down? (update: Mike Smithson over at Politicalbetting detects a national trend of inactivity).
Tomorrow it's off in the car to canvass all those houses which are in idyllic isolation. I know it's not Green; but it's the thought that counts.

Seven lessons for FoI

A dispassionate and comprehensive analysis of lessons to be drawn for Freedom of Information from the MPs' expenses row by Martin Rosenbaum.

Lesson 7 is:

On a more journalistic note, the Telegraph has placed an enormous quantity of data and level of detail in the public domain during this period, well in excess of what is normal even for a very big, long-running story.....The relevance of this for FOI-based journalism is that information requests can often extract large amounts of data, whose full significance is not immediately apparent. In the future, we may see more examples (although presumably on a much lesser scale) of the media publishing quantities of material without telling their audience what the "story" is

We may be feasting off this information for some time to come as the significance of every cheque stub and moat receipt becomes clear. And then there is the analysis which looks at claim by party, region, job or majority. For fans of computer assisted reporting there is more gold to be found.

The numbers game

Just got my pack through from Wiltshire Council giving me candidate informaton for the unitary elections on June 4th. Some facts and figures for you:
6 candidates contesting my ward of Box & Colerne
3,835 electors
£791.75 is the amount I'm allowed to spend
4%: usual Green vote
11%: potential Green vote because of some Parliamentary difficulties you might have heard about (and I hope to get a lot more than that having knocked on hundreds of doors over the last month)
9am on June 5th: start of verification process of the ballot in Chippenham.
1pm (approx): actual start of count and of nail biting.
98: number of wards to declare and councillors to elect on that day.
10th: my wedding anniversary on the same day.
12: number of Green Party posters up in the village.
0: number of posters and canvassers from other parties I have seen out and about.

For a bit more see here.

Commentating on the blacklist

While I'm trying to find outlets interested in taking copy from next week's trial of the man accused of running a trade union blacklist; a couple of papers have published comment pieces.
Tribune has a piece from Labour NEC member Ellie Reeves while the Morning Star has a piece from Ucatt general secretary Alan Ritchie. This last inspires a combative retort from supporters of Mick Dooley who is contesting Ritchie for the top job at the builders union.

On surveillance and Sci-Fi

I'm a little late catching up with this fascinating post from author Ken MacLeod on surveillance and science fiction writing.
It follows on from a workshop on surveillance he attended which was held on Jura - the island where Orwell wrote 1984. A rather marvellous idea to hold a meeting in such a place.
MacLeod's The Night Sessions and Execution Channel both have very interesting things to say about society through their setting in a British near future.

In the line of fire

Got an article in The Guardian today on people who staff customer complaint lines.
It sounds like the kind of job most of us would think twice about taking but many of the people I spoke to got real satisfaction from it.
If you work for Kellogg's, customers send you funny-shaped cereal while those working in local government saw the chance to improve services.
And if you're Richard Branson people send you six page letters with pictures about the in flight meal.
Newspapers have been notorious for their poor complaint handling. Mobile phone firms or utility companies at least a call centre somewhere even if the staff are poorly trained and motivated. Calling a newspaper with a complaint used to be about as rewarding as watching Wigan versus Blackburn inan end of season dead rubber.
With the advent of newspaper ombudsmen, even our industry has taken some steps towards listening to the customer. I just though wonder how many over-worked news editors on local newspapers have received training on how to handle those trying complaints that come in just before deadline.
Newspapers have always been good at listening to, and reflecting, readers complain about other things. However they have a tin ear for complaints about themselves. Perhaps that has led to more of the public being turned off from traditional media and the appeal of new media with its niftier ability to handle comment and correction.
With The Evening Standard's campaign saying it's sorry we look for the ulterior motive while M&S's 'we've boobed' campaign just strikes as a clever response to a marketing failure.

Interview with a blacklisting whistleblower

Further to my post last night, here is the article by Rob Evans which provides fresh backgrond on the blacklisting scandal.

It's an interview with Alan Wainwright who has been fighting a lonely battle for several years now to expose blacklisting. What makes his story different is that he comes from the employers side. However, once he went public with his concerns, he found himself treated just like the other 'troublesome' workers and jobs were suddenly diffuclt to come by.

Alan has set up a blog which has an enormous amount of material on it detailing his story.

Both are well worth a read.

Tribune has a report on the latest developments. Both candidates for the leadership of the builders union Ucatt have found they had files held on them.