Thursday, January 03, 2008

Britain 2008

I have requested Mr. Dales help with the following which was probably foolish ...I wonder if anyone knows anything about ESRC, thats the "Economic and Social Research Council"

At any rate,this is what I asked : "I bought the above ( Britain in 2008) today and it is consistently slanted to a centre left position, from the discsussion of devolution, to the fact that crime is actually going down and so on. It makes the Labour Party`s case in the sort of subtle way the BBC did in the 90s especially .Its the choice of subjects ands the treatment ,together with the presentation of stats .They are funded by £180 mio of public money under John Denham`s ,Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills .
In effect then, the Labour Party is distributing high class propoganda at our expense . You have probably read it and I wondered if you though it was worth asking questions about . Its like reading the Guardian say. Nothing wrong with that, I often do ,but presented as impartial observation and funded by the tax payer .... it winds me up!"

It is here: http://www.esrc.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/index.aspx

You can go straight through the the source of funding and then behind that John Denham busy fighting the Conservatives by fair means in Southampton. Is it just me or is this outrageous ? I `m really not sure , noone else seems to mind .
( charlie.jeffery@ed.ac.uk ., wrote the Devolution bit )
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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Might be worth having a look at the council or ESRC in more detail, n. I've had a quick look but am to busy to do it properly this morning.

This is the council:

Lord Adair Turner Standard Chartered
Members: Professor Ian Diamond Chief Executive, Economic and Social Research Council
Professor Alan Alexander Postwatch Scotland
Professor Charlie Jeffery University of Edinburgh
Professor Ann Buchanan University of Oxford
Professor Michael Lamb University of Cambridge
Professor Andrew Pettigrew University of Bath
Professor Carol Propper University of Bristol
Professor Judith Rees London School of Economics
Mr Martin Brookes New Philanthropy Capital
Mr David Walker The Guardian Public

WHat do we know about these people?

Auntie Flo'

10:15 am
Newmania said...

Its sort of soft Party funding Flo as far as I can see .

10:39 am
Anonymous said...

There are the usual academics who work, or once worked, for government departments (as employees, consultants or sub connected limited companies?) among this lot. That might be a useful area to look at.

Always at the back of my mind is David Lock, the lecturer and 'spatial planner' who advocates the policy - grotesque to my mind, especially since an Ark has become the mode of transport of choice in my part of Harlow - of housing densification. He is something along the lines of Harlow's new master planner - though it's a rather misty area, so I can't be sure what Lock's exact title/role is.

Lock worked for the dept of Environment and now runs a very successful business.

Lock says, if I remember correctly, that we must 'appropriate' the people's green space or green belt - for the people - make it accessible by building leisure facilities on it. In practice, of course, this results in a little leisure splodge in the midst of massive new housing developments, which are such a money spinners for nulabia, and which inevitably result in the loss of substantial amounts of the peoples' green space.

The government is alleged to have received £28 million for a small piece of access land to one Harlow development, land which (by a very convoluted process) English Partnerships (a very convoluted organisation, now apparently govt controlled) originally owned or had the Trusteeship of. Where did the £28 million go? Wouldn't I like to know.

Were such arrangements what Two Jags had in mind when he spoke of govt departments selling off 'their' spare land for development?

Anyway, modification of the status of English Partnerships seems to have given the government title to that piece of land.

Quangos are inevitably knee deep in the labyrinthine processes of such 'regeneration'. That's very much the case in Harlow where they proliferate like flies. That's to be expected in a former new town, I suppose, as the EU New Towns platform has identified new towns in general, and Harlow and a few others in particular, as having the sort of flexible legal structure which makes them ripe for continuous expansion into the, ever expanding, telematic megatropolises (post-modern Gothic Cities?) of the horrible future.

Some of these Quangos are private limited companies, of course, yet seem to be involved with public funding - PFIs or PPPs? We have a particularly interesting one in Harlow, the 2020 Vision Partnership, which a friend of mine renamed Crazy Vision of the Promised Land, though it's mostly just known as The Quango. This seems to metamorphose and proliferate into all manner of other Quangos which no one can get to the bottom of and which have a far too hazy existence as far as the people of this town are concerned.

The first Chair of the Crazy Vision was an academic, a very enterprising man who was a director of several limited companies, one of which made millions, another of which is described as being into property development.

Auntie Flo'

1:19 am
Newmania said...

especially since an Ark has become the mode of transport of choice in my part of Harlow

Brilliant

Yes I read all of that with great interest

4:19 am

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