The coalition of the purple

activism, election, politics 3 Responses »
May 292010

Purple People Eater Now as promised/threatened I’m afraid I’m returning to the matter of the “take back parliament” coalition. Firstly though a correction to my earlier post in that Mark Ross appears to have no connection to Ekklesia except they published a puff blog for Take Back Parliament, so sorry about that.

Anyway onto looking at how they all sort of hang together, I’ve had to be quite restrictive in this as other wise it all spins out into far too wide a web very quickly. so I’m sticking to only looking at one or two degrees of separation. I’m also having to use a rather horrid table as being fairly new to this presenting this information in a useful fashion is quite tricky.

So anyway hopefully this will make sense and shed some more light on the Take Back Parliament coalition, who doesn’t seem to be that keen on open and transparent or that bothered about foreign influence on our democratic system.

This table just tracks down those groups listed at the bottom of Take Back Parliament and pulls out odds and sods of possibly interesting information. Before we get to that though a few facts about “Take Back Parliament”.

Take Back parliament
is co-ordinated by Mark Ross, Head of Campaigns for POWER2010
the media campaign/website appears to being run by Blue State Digitial a mainly American company but with a UK subsidiary BLUE STATE DIGITAL UK LIMITED (Company No. 06873977).

Now onto that coalition:

Coaltion member Controlled by Supporters/Partners in common Client of
Power 2010 The Democratic Reform Company Ltd
Company No. 07087541
Lord David Trevor Shutt of Greetland
  • OBV (Operation Black Vote)
  • BASSAC
  • NEF (New Economic Forum)
  • Electoral Reform Society
  • Compass
  • Unlock Democracy
  • Open Democracy
  • Ekklesia
  • 38 Degrees
 Blue State Digital
Electoral Reform Society ELECTORAL REFORM SOCIETY LIMITED
Company No. 00958404		 - Blue State Digital
APC
SoapBox
Enoughs Enough Domain registered via an anonymising service - Athenaeum Limited
Ekklesia EKKLESIA LIMITED
Company No. 05831226		 - -
AVAAZ.org Domain registered by a private US individual – Ricken Patel,
organization founded by
Move On and Res Publica		 - -
Compass Neal Lawson
Jon Cruddas		 - SoapBox
Open Democracy OPENDEMOCRACY LIMITED
Company No. 03855274
previous: POWER AND DEMOCRACY LIMITED
  • Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust
    - Lord David Trevor Shutt of Greetland
  • The Tinsley Foundation
 -
OBV Charter 88
  • Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust
  • Electoral Commission
  • Home Office
 SoapBox
Vot for a change Electoral Reform Society
  • John Sauven, Greenpeace
  • Neal Lawson, Compass
  • Ken Ritchie, Electoral Reform Society
  • Pam Giddy, Power Inquiry
  • Wes Streeting, NUS
  • Peter Facey, Unlock Democracy
  • Richard Grayson, Social Liberal Forum
  • Benedict Southworth, World Development Movement
  • Dr Matthew Sowemimo, Director – Social Liberal Forum
  • Katherine Rake, Fawcett Society
 Blue State Digital
SoapBox
Unlock Democracy Unlock Democracy
Company No. 02440899
Formerly:
09/07/1991 CHARTER 88 LIMITED
02/05/2008 CHARTER 88
  • Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust
  • Enoughs Enough
  • Electoral Commission
  • European Commission
  • Poverty & Environment Trust
 SoapBox
Hang em Open Democracy Ekklesia -
BASSAC
Charity number: 1028784
Company number: 2869337		 - Novas Scarman -
Greenpeace Without knowing just which bit of Greenpeace not even attempting this
Friends of the Earth - - -
Fawcett society
Charity No: 1108769		 - - -
Democracy Matters
Charity No: 1108769		 Titus Alexander – Novas Scarman Group
  • BASSAC
  • Novas Scarman Group
  • The Democracy Trust
  • Unlock Democracy
 -
Social Liberal Forum James Graham (Secretary and website manager) is currently the Campaigns and Communications Manager for Unlock Democracy - -
National Union of Students Not attemtping this one either
Muslim Council of Britain
charity 1084651		 Not attemtping this one either
British Muslims for Secular Democracy
Company No. 05905516		 - - -
World Development Movement WORLD DEVELOPMENT MOVEMENT
Company No. 02098198
WORLD DEVELOPMENT MOVEMENT TRUST LIMITED
Company No. 03188734
charity 1064066		 - APC

So there you have it quite a cosy coalition, not quite sure about the grass roots element of it, but there you go.

Just to have a quick look at some of those names, I’ve already mentioned Blue State Digital – who also have as a client those well known “grassroots” campaigners “38 Degrees”. Soap Box are apprently “communications agency for think tanks, campaigns, politicians and NGOs” with an interesting client list, so a lot like BLue State Digital. The other interesting one which cropped up in a few of those groups DNS records was APC – The association for progressive communications who apparently help grass roots movements like say “the elctoral reform society” and have an intersting list of funders.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with any of this as such, it’s just a tad obscure and international and not that much that speaks of a ground swell of popular non-activist self-interested involvement. The grass roots bit of thier campaign appears to have gone a bit quiet , despite there still being no-sign of PR on the political agenda, just fixed term parliaments with AV.

Anyway in the interest of our new open and transparent plotics, that’s how the take back parliament campaign and its coalition roughly fit together – at just a very few degrees of seperation.

For those that are interested this data mainly came from domain registration look ups, the various groups websites and then lookups at Companies House, The Charities Commission and the FSA Mutuals Registrar.

Posted by Giolla at 18:01 Tagged with: , , ,

How they are related

Betrayal, activism, election, politics 7 Responses »
May 202010

So back to the purple brigade, and many many thanks to Woman on a Raft for supplying me with some of this information (see comments here and here). I was getting quite confused as to how all the main players were related so I put together a bit of a family tree to try to make sense of it all. All of the information is in the public domain I’m just trying to put it together – in the spirit of our new open and transparent politics.

How they are related

Just to try to explain that a bit the dotted lines from BlueStateDigitial show their clients, the solid lines indicate clear channels of control (e.g. Mark Ross registered the domain for “take back parliament”, the other solid lines to “take back parliament” indicate members of the coalition). Despite this starting from Counting Cats post I can’t find a direct link from this lot to 38 Degrees though interestingly they did used to be registered as “Progressive Majority”.

Anyway back to the main players the client lists of both BlueStateDigital and SoapBox Communications make interesting reading as there are a lot of familiar names in both places.

For instance SoapBox list “Charter 88″ Unlock Democracy, Compass and the Electoral Reform Society as clients all of whom are part of the TBP coalition. Their other clients include people such as UNITE, but then “SoapBox is the communications agency for think tanks, campaigns, politicians and NGOs” – so perhaps it’s hardly surprising to see so many names cropping up in the same place. Looking at the supporters list for SoapBox client “Vote for a change” quite a few other TBP coaltion members crop up such as:
Benedict Southworth, World Development Movement
Dr Matthew Sowemimo, Director – Social Liberal Forum
Ken Ritchie, Electoral Reform Society
Neal Lawson, Compass
amongst others.

There are more interesting cross links, which again are surely just due to shared goals:
Coalition member Democracy Matters is it self a coalition that includes TBP supporters BASSAC and Unlock Democracy. The same group of names also crop up supporting Power 2010 including our friends over at Ekklesia(though oddly they list the Muslim Council of Britain twice.)

Many of the other TBP members are politcal “think tanks” e.g. New Economics Foundation and Ekklesia or politically associated group such as Social Liberal Forum (Which formed out of the LibDem Beveridge Group)

So with just a bit of poking around this great grass roots movement collapses into a circle jerk of think tanks, think tank controlled “independent” sites all mainly leading back to the same vested interests they helping us all protest about.

But at least that lot are at least notionally British, here for the delectation of all those that complained about the “foreign” influence of lord Ashcroft are a few of TBP’s international members:
Avaaz.org – Ricken Patel – New York
enoughsenough.org – registered via a Canadian anonymous domain registrar
power2010.org – registered by BlueStateDigital – Washington

That of course is ignoring possible international influences such as Greenpeace.

If you can fill in any further gaps that’d be great but I suspect it wouldn’t actually be possible to plot all the interconnections in this popularist movement, but the involvement of so many people from the “old” politics the campaign is meant to be changing troubles me. The same old think tanks, quango’s and wonks representing the same vested interests – I find it hard to believe their interest in reform has the same goal as many of the people on the protests.

Posted by Giolla at 23:29 Tagged with: , , ,

Labours real direction

election, politicians, politics No Responses »
Mar 272010

If there has ever been any doubt about the direction Labour and Gordon Brown in particular want to take this country, I think it’s safe to say that they have now let the cat out of the bag.

“there is no rebellion against collectivism in the country

(Tip of the tifter to Guido)

So unless we want to end up with a collectivst state, which by dint of taking as much as possible from us by tax and then letting us claim back credits and benefits we’re well on the way towards, it seems that we need a bit of rebellion to get the message across. Maybe we should try the ballot box first and look at alternatives after that, but at least it’s now clear what Labour are offering.

Posted by Giolla at 15:10 Tagged with: , ,

646 All Out!

politicians, politics No Responses »
Mar 192010

Those of you that aren’t reading this via RSS may have noticed a little logo that has appeared over on the right hand side.

646 All Out!

It’s a little campaign I’m trying to launch which I think might appeal to anyone that may happen to be reading here. I shall simply repeat here what I’ve said there and hope that if the idea appeals to you, that you’ll maybe spread the word a bit and maybe lend a hand in anyway you can.


“646 All out!” is a non-affiliated independent campaign, that receives no funding from anyone. This is not an anti-politics site nor is it in favour of people disconnecting from the political process – quite the reverse in fact. “646 All out!” is in favour of everyone exercising their right to vote and believes that there is no such thing as a wasted vote. That said we’ve seen no evidence that any of the current incumbents are fit for office, and believe that the purposes of democracy would be best served if they were all removed and no candidate from any of the major parties returned.
Read more…

Posted by Giolla at 23:06 Tagged with: ,

You say Tobin they say Robin

politics, taxes No Responses »
Feb 152010

So after the G20 decided that a Tobin tax was a bad idea it has risen zombie like at the behest of varies lovies lefties and media pundits under the new name of The Robin hood tax. Which is far more fun sounding, though one has to ignore that Robin Hood was if the legends can be believed mainly against taxation, and has it’s own FaceBook page. Of course all of the problems pointed out last time about the Tobin tax still apply, it requires global enforcement else all of the transactions to be taxed will just change jurisdiction, it needs to be worded such that a minor change in the transactions won’t make them exempt and of course as observed by the Salted Slug if adding o.o5% was so painless the traders would already be charging 0.05% more. And all of that aside the banks will pass on these charges to theier customers in one form or another even if it’s just lower interest rates, and it will need to be administered and Governments don’t have a terribly good track record of move money from taxes to the “poor” very effectively. Oh and of course the banking crisis wasn’t caused by ForEx traders that a tobin tax is aimed at, but by poor credit and risk management. So the “Robin Hood” tax isn’t even going to affect the right group of “evil” bankers.

If people are so concerned about helping the poor why not ask the main parties the same question as Norman Tebbit is asking? Namely why are people that are considered to be so badly off they qualify for benefits at the same time expected to pay taxes? What sense can it make to pay one bunch of beauracrats to give them money whilst at the same time paying another lot to take it back off them? Could just not taking some taxes be a much simpler and better solution to helping the poor than trying to construct a globally agreed bureaucracy to take taxes from one group of people to give to another group of people that are also being taxed?

For those that say it would be used for the truly needy nations and not for the poor in the west, how well do you think that will work? Who’s going to decide which nations get to partake of this global bounty? Would it again not be simpler to just let these poorer nations off the debt they owe to other governments, or at least the interest? Or if that’s going to far how about removing the various trade barriers that help to stop the third world competing on a more even footing?

Of course if your goal isn’t to actually help the poor but rather to establish global control over banking and financial trading… do carry on.

Oh I should mention there is also a FaceBook page for people who think the Tobin tax is a stupid idea.

Posted by Giolla at 20:12 Tagged with: , ,

A worrying sort of sense

Must read post, politics No Responses »
Feb 052010

Just read a rather disturbing article by Mr Hitchens of the Mail on Sunday (hat tip to The Salted Slug). Disturbing because it makes an awful lot of sense in suggesting that if we want rid of Labour and a real change in politics then the best thing could be if the Tory’s lose and Labour get in. As many others comment I’m not sure I could face voting Labour but Mr Hitchens reasoning is sound. Here’s a taster but go read the whole thing.

I give myself a great deal of trouble by attacking the Tories, the party most of my readers want to support. Why do I do this, condemning myself to many angry and often personally rude messages from affronted people? I could easily make everyone happy by quietly dropping this campaign. It would save me hours spent writing letters and e-mails to Tory loyalists who absurdly accuse me, of all people, of wanting to keep Labour in power.

But I cannot, because I think we now have a unique opportunity to remake British politics and recapture Britain from the people who have messed it up and trashed it for so long. The next election cannot change the government. But it can change the opposition – from an ineffectual, useless, compromised one, into an effective one genuinely opposed to what New Labour is doing.

And such an opposition, no longer weighed down by the awful record of the Tories and their miserable reputation, could throw New Labour into the sea, perhaps within five years of coming into being.

The destruction of the Tory Party, which is now both possible and desirable, is the essential first step to this. In our two-party system, new parties arise out of the collapse and splitting of those they seek to replace. They cannot be created until that collapse, and that split, have begun. A serious, undoubted and decisive defeat for the Tory Party at the next election would make this possible and likely. Such a defeat is possible, despite the events of the past few weeks, and can be aided by voters simply refusing to waste their votes on a party that is both likely to lose, and certain to betray them if it wins.

Posted by Giolla at 00:56 Tagged with:

e-petitions what are they good for?

activism 1 Response »
Jan 262010

Yesterday I received notification that the Government had responded to an e-petition I’d signed. It happened to be the one regarding their limiting cost recovery if you’re found innocent (response here). Now other than suspecting they’ll not limit the costs they can award if you’re found guilty, and wondering why they now just send a link rather than e-mailing a response as they did back in 2007 (I suspect this is due to it being easier to change a website than an e-mail you’ve sent to people – but I’m cynical like that) – the main thing I found myself wondering is has any petition submitted via the Number 10 website ever caused any change in behaviour?

Every petition I’ve signed the response has basically boiled down to:
“Thanks for getting in touch, but you’re wrong”
now that could be due to the types of petition I sign so I checked some others and found two different types of response:
“Thanks for getting in touch, we’re already doing that”
and
“Thanks for getting in touch, that’s got nothing to do with us”
Has anyone seen a response which involves them making the slightest change in action or anything, even a bit of further thought of another fake consultation? Has any of the numerous petitions submitted resulted in even the tiniest change on the governments part?

I’m tempted to offer a prize for the first person to find a response where they actually say they’ll do something different.

Posted by Giolla at 11:39 Tagged with: , ,

UKIP a correction

Civil Liberties, errata, politics No Responses »
Jan 172010

I really must apologise, my previous article UKIP losing the plot I’d rather presumed that UKIP wanted a blanket ban on the burqa. However as Dick Puddlecote points out over at Old Holborns this isn’t actually the case. They just want to ban it in public buildings and allow for it to be banned in private buildings as well and they actually want to ban “anything which conceals a woman’s face“. Which is marginally more reasonable, except why just women’s faces? Surely experience tells us that men with covered faces are far more likely to be a problem? And what does it matter if you’ve got your face covered in a library say? Or if they word it really well in a council run community centre attending a group for Islamic women? Also surgical masks? I’m very sure that you can’t over estimate how badly a law can be worded, and how stupidly it will subsequently be enforced.

So given that they single out both women and Islamic garb, I’m going to stick by my previous conclusions even though I did misread the report and think they were after a blanket ban on just one type of garment.

If they proposed that it all face coverings could be requested to be removed when security concerns or the establishment of identity required it, that’d be far more reasonable – but one would hope that was the law already? And as for private buildings given that hoodies, crash helmets and even hats are banned from all sorts of places wouldn’t it just make more sense to allow private venues to ban whatever clothing they like? what with them being private property and all?

So my final question stands failing a LPUK candidate, as UKIP seem to be trying to join the rest of the authoritarian part who’s left to vote for?

Posted by Giolla at 13:18 Tagged with: ,

Another must read post

Must read post, politics No Responses »
Jan 072010

The leader of the UK Libertarian party has posted a rather good polemic over at The Devils Kitchen however don’t read it there, go and read the copy up at Captain Ranty as his introduction is rather fantastic.

In summary though as has been observed in many places and times before, soon we get to vote and we can either vote for more of the same be they wearing blue, red or yellow rosettes or we can vote for something different. Given how bad things are and how much worse they’re likely to get now is not the time to vote for more of the same.

Update A rather good article by Peter Hitchens on why the Tory’s will be more of the same

Posted by Giolla at 19:06 Tagged with:

Carter-fuck at it again

Civil Liberties, Sparticus, laws, libel No Responses »
Oct 162009

So like a dose of the clap Carter-fuck are back at it again ( hat tip to Anna Raccoon). They seem to have realised that trying to stop the press reporting on Parliament is a bad move from a publicity point of view, so… now they’re trying to stop Parliament discussing the report about their client Trafigura dumping toxic waste on the Ivory Coast. The plan seeming to be to make use of the convention that Parliament doesn’t discuss matters that are sub judice, so as long as they can keep spinning out proceedings Parliament won’t be able to discuss Trafigura dumping toxic waste on the Ivory Coast and there wil be nothing for the press to report from Parliament and in the meantime everyone will get bored and go away. Simples!

Go read Anna Raccoon‘s article and more at the Guardian

Oh and that report they really really don’t want people to know about that can be found here

Posted by Giolla at 09:26 Tagged with: , , ,
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