Taking Out The Trash

Angry MPs urge Government to act now to end blacklist shame

Tribune this week carries my story on the latest debate in Parliament over the blacklisting of trade union workers - an issue reported on by  The Guardian and exposed through an ICO investigation.

LABOUR MPs angry at the construction industry blacklist designed to prevent union activists from getting work on building sites in Britain have condemned the Government response and suggested firms might end up on a blacklist of their own.

The idea is that companies which subscribed to the controversial blacklist – supplied by consultant Ian Kerr to more than 40 firms including Balfour Beatty, Costain and McAlpine – should not get public sector work.

Michael Clapham, MP for Barnsley West & Penistone, said: “The fact that the public sector was the client in just over 31 per cent of construction output in 2006, making it the industry’s largest customer, suggests that the government, as a major client, has some responsibility to use the powerful lever that exists to ensure that companies who use blacklists are not engaged on projects.”

You can read the rest here.

There is an excellent background piece on the ICO investigation in Building magazine which I've only just picked up on.

This debate in the House of Lords yesterday (Thursday April 2) touches on the issue.

Operation Atalanta

Further to my previous post; I'm sticking up a copy of the interview I did with Rear Admiral Philip Jones (left) who is in charge of the EU's Operation Atalanta.

This is the naval taskforce aimed at securing food convoys to Somalia and (the bit everyone is really interested in) deterring pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden.

As well as the EU forces, the Indian, Russian and American navies all have ships out there keeping a presence in a key sphere of influence.

After all, this is where around a fifth of all commercial sea traffic passes through.

Operation Atalanta is run out of Northwood from a room on the ground floor called the Joint Operations Centre (my picture of it right). Actually it's called the JOC because everyone speaks in three-letter acronyms at Northwood.  Half a dozen EU warships, three times that from other countries, a million square miles of sea and tens of thousands of commercial shipping movements - all being tracked from there.

You can listen to the ten minute interview here: I was told I had ten minutes with the Rear Admiral and you'll note the interview stops at 10min 2 secs. Got to love that naval efficiency.

Learning from nature

The Institution of Engineering and Technology's E&T magazine has just published a piece I wrote on how biomineralists are trying to replicate things such as squid sucker rings and gecko feet to create new products.

Invertebrate zoologist James Weaver was out on a fishing trip collecting specimens when a Humboldt squid latched on to his arm and secured itself with its powerful tentacles.

While the first thought of most of us would have been the pain, Weaver began to wonder how it was that the squid could generate such enormous power through the soft tissue of the suckers which line the tentacles.

His curiosity could lead toward a new generation of stronger and more abrasion-resistant materials. It’s also just one example of how multidisciplinary teams are looking at proteins as potentially very important structural materials. Bio engineers believe they could produce strong, light material cheaply using proteins or mimicking their structures.

The full piece is here.

Just filed copy for the IET's Flipside magazine on anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden. Those nice folk at Northwood invited me over to Djibouti to get a close view of Operation Atalanta - the EU naval task force protecting - shipping and food convoys - but I just couldn't justify the time or expense. Maybe next time....

Tribune unveils new board

Political weekly Tribune publishes a short item today on its new board now that it's confirmed Kevin McGrath as the new owner (more on McGrath here and here).

The report says:

The board also decided to set in motion plans for a ring-fenced budgeted promotions programme and a re-launch. It also agreed to set up an editorial advisory board from within the Labour Party and the trade unions.

The board is chaired by Mr McGrath and attended by the editor. Its members are: Joe Holder, lawyer; Gill Morris, head of public affairs agency Connect (see also); Ivor Gaber, freelance journalist and consultant (see also); John Braggins, former senior official with the Labour Party; and political affairs consultant (see also) and Mark McDonald, an international human rights lawyer (see also). The posts are voluntary.

The links are mine

Meanwhile the board also made Michael Foot lifetime honoury editor-in-chief.

Declaration of interest: I write for Tribune, mostly book reviews. They bought me a couple of drinks at their last Christmas bash. I'm cheap, me.

American FOI response on social scientists in the army

I probably have about a one in ten success rate with my Freedom of Information requests but my record for American FOI requests is now 1-0.

I asked the Department of Defense about where members of its Human Terrain System project went to university or lectured.

There is quite a bit about the scheme on the web but essentially it puts social scientists and anthropologists with the army on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq to help counter insurgency operations.

Closely involved in British defence company BAE which, according to its own press release:

... is the prime contractor to the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command to provide training, programmatic and staffing support to the HTS program.  This program is designed to improve brigade and division commanders' level of understanding of the highly complex local socio-cultural environment in areas where U.S. Army troops are deployed.

It's quite controversial not least because of the role of social scientists in aiding the military. I know from FOIs answered here that a couple of HTS people have been over to this country to lecture and, of course, BAE is a British company.

You can see what people they're trying to recruit in this series of job ads.

I'm sure there is more that will be of interest of here but meanwhile the response to my American FOI was:

University Central Texas

University of Alabama

Georgetown University

Webster University

Temple University

University of Pennsylvania

U.S. Military Academy NY

Old Dominion University

Wheaton College

Stanford University

Which doesn't help much but, hey, a response is a response.

The cultural corner

Two events in Bristol worth pointing out.

Firstly, Bristol's Radical History Group's spring programme continues its excellent form including a talk on the tragedy at Hillsborough.

Secondly, the quite marvellous film It Happened Here gets a showing at the Watershed and is introduced by director Kevin Brownlow in conversation with film historian Andrew Kelly. It's part of the Festival of Ideas.

It's not the weakness of your voice that concerns me

Last night's adjournment debate in the House of Commons the blacklisting scandal offered little to those MPs pressing for a change in the law.

The 1999 Employment Act contained provisions for outlawing the practice but the relevant regulations were never brought in and subsequent consultations led the government put the proposal on ice. Its reasoning was that there was no evidence of blacklisting.

The revelations, first outlined in The Guardian, that the Information Commissioner had uncovered not just a blacklist compiled by The Consulting Association but the names of some 40 consturction companies which had subscribed to the firm appeared to offer the evidence required.

Last night Pat McFadden, the minister for Employment Relations and Postal Affairs, said he shared members concerns - but wasn't going to bow to their demands. McFadden said that officials from his department had helped with the ICO investigation and spent two days reviewing the evidence subsequently seized.

Battling a sore throat he said:

"The Secretary of State and I will examine the evidence in the case and we will examine the papers. We will take the matter seriously and the Government will make a decision on how to proceed. Let me reiterate that I share the deep concern that my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Michael Clapham, who called the debate) has expressed about the revelations that have been made. We need to address the matter diligently and speedily. I assure him that we share his concern about the reports. We will examine the papers and the evidence and we will come to a conclusion in the near future."

But there was a withering comment from Labour MP Ken Purchase who said:

"It is not the weakness of your voice that concerns me, but the weakness of the response that our Government are making."

Meanwhile one MP suggested that subscriber companies might face their own blacklist.

Ian Davidson, the Labour MP for Glasgow South-West, said:

"Obviously, the Government have to take action on this matter, but in the absence of immediate action, would my hon. Friend (Michael Clapham) arrange for other Members throughout the House to be informed of the list of construction companies that have been operating the blacklist so that we can take it up with housing associations, councils and other organisations in our constituencies?"

Meanwhile the number of MPs to sign Michael Clapham's Early Day Motion on this issue has risen to 90.

Civil liberties, chalk and local journalism

So last week James Barlow links to a tweet which points out a story on Bristol Indymedia about a UWE student being arrested for criminal damage involving chalk.
Paul Saville had been arrested for writing a slogan about liberty on the pavement at Bristol's Broadmead shopping centre. It took four officers and a PCSO but resolve this incident involving a calm and compliant person armed only with some calcium carbonate. Saville was given a caution.
A couple of weeks later he's back at Broadmead and chalks another slogan on the floor. The cops pull up and he's nicked and is now due to appear before magistrates charged with criminal damage.
Sure, second time round is pushing it, but it's a bit over the top and whatever happens his fingerprints and DNA are now on file for good.
Ring up Daily Mail straight off, 'yes please well have some words on that', get hold of Paul, 'sure I can tell you what happened' and then he says 'I did speak to the Bristol Evening Post but they said they didn't want to do anything because a court case was coming up'.
Well the BEP's inability to understand contempt of court isn't my concern so do the interview and set-up some pictures and file my copy. South West News also filed on it.
And the story appears in The Guardian diary, Daily Telegraph, BBC. Henry Porter weighs in with some ponderous words about us all going to hell in a hand basket and MP Kerry McCarthy points out that a bucket of water might have been cheaper than a visit to the cop shop. Nothing in the Mail (oh well).
And puffing up in last place is the dear old Bristol Evening Post. The paper offered the story in the first place.
Quite whether the reporter just thought 'nutter' when Paul rang up and used the old 'sub judice' excuse to get him off the phone or they didn't spot a good story or they genuinely thought it couldn't be covered isn't clear.
When I approached Avon and Someset Police for a quote I was told they wouldn't because of the court case. No off-the-record chat either to check the facts. Was it an attempt to shut the story down? No, I just think they couldn't be bothered.
Just to be clear though. There were two incidents involving Paul and his chalk. The first one was dealt with, so you can't prejudice it because there is no case. I could argue about why you're unlikely to prejudice a magistrate's hearing into the second case, but my heart isn't in it.
In contrast to the police, John Hirst, the Broadmead manager got me a comment within 20 minutes after I emailed early in the morning. UWE supplied me one about four hours after I asked.
Then I got an email from one of the sergeants who works at Broadmead expressing surprise that I hadn't sought a police comment. Sigh. Not for want of trying.
I suppose you could try and turn the post's poor show into a parable about how local newspapers are doomed. The Bristol online community had it all first and freelancers, who were light on their feet, only approached the nationals because they bother to pay and the BEP is left with the scraps.
Given the fact that Northcliffe is shedding jobs at the BEP and its sister papers like its going out of fashion one wonders whether reporters have the appetite.
Meanwhile some people are pledging a sympathy chalk-in on the day Paul is due before Bristol magistrates (April 9) and The Guardian made him the civil liberty hero of the week.
Free the chalkist 1!

600 ring blacklisting hotline

According to the ICO, its hotline for workers who fear they have been on a blacklist held by a company used by the construction industry has received 600 calls in its first week of operation.

Of which about 80 people found that they were indeed on The Consulting Association's database.

Michael Clapham's adjournment debate is scheduled for tonight.

The Wire on terrestial

Watched the first series in about a week havnng been bought the DVDs for Christmas. The second series is waiting to be unwrapped and gorged upon.

Now it seems The Wire is coming to BBC2 in one marathon session.

Hat tip: Hopi Sen